SENATOR MARKEY: STOCK MANIPULATOR AND CHIEF CENSOR

I am surprised it took them this long.

Senator Ed Markey, the stock swindler from Massachusetts, the land of Barney Frank, has introduced a bill to "monitor" "hate speech" on the internet.  We all know what that means.

http://www.examiner.com/article/goodbye-free-speech-mass-dem-wants-government-to-monitor-speech-for-hate

Will it pass?  I have not the slightest doubt that it could.  Since the internet is the only place where one can find the truth these days (admittedly by swimming through mountains of rubbish to find it) and since truth is the avowed deadly enemy of the political class it was only a matter of time before the ward-heelers and pimps in Washington would look for ways to censor it.  After all, the government wants to start prosecuting reporters who use unidentified sources to report on government malfeasance so why should they merely stop at that in their efforts to control speech? 

Edward Snowden did warn us of these things.

Politicians really are the lowest form of plant life on the earth.  Maybe we can get Monsanto in to spray some Roundup on them.

Markey and friend: "Sieg heil!"

UNCHECKED PASSIONS: WHEN THE BISHOPS IGNORE THEIR DUTY TO TEACH

When at some future time the history of the Roman Catholic Church is written historians will be scratching their heads in wonder as they review the 20th-21st century suicide march of the Church. Some Catholics are shaking their heads even now.

These historians will be dumbfounded by the silence of the clerics while a veritable stampede of perversion swept over much of the world and the Church Herself.  They will stand in awe at the power of God who made certain His Church would survive and flourish after such a catastrophe. After all the treachery, cowardice, heresy and apostasy that overwhelmed the Faith in those two centuries the writers of history will kneel down and thank God that, despite an army of Judases within, He contrived to refresh and replenish the Church.

They will note that in the early years of the 21st century the situation in the Church had deteriorated so rapidly that a priest or nun who dared speak the truth about simple moralities would be shouted down not only by the world, which is to be expected, but Catholics themselves.

That is what future Catholics will read about in their history books.

For the present Catholics can remind their leaders that we arrived at this state due in large part to their utter silence in the face of this growing malignancy.  They allowed the passions of the Faithful to proceed without restraints, without preaching against what happens to people when they become slaves to those passions.  Here is an example of those passions when they go unchecked:

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/what-really-happened-at-charlotte-catholic-hs?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrisisMagazine+%28Crisis+Magazine%29

To Your Lordships: This is the here and now.  This is what you and the faithful you have been entrusted to teach are going to have to face with increasing regularity and viciousness.  The entire mechanism is now aligned against you: a federal government, drunk with blood and perversion, is in the camp of your enemies, as well as the media, the elites; all the centers of power are flying in the same orbit, the one encircling the Church.  They are not necessarily going to suddenly pounce upon her; they seem to prefer a slow encirclement, feeding the passions of the people so that they will naturally oppose the one force on earth God put there to teach them to stop their spiritual self-destruction.

All smiles....after stabbing Fr Guarnizo in the back?

No comment

You, Your Lordships, are greatly responsible for this.  You and the priests you lord it over have refused to tell them the hard truths about faith and morals..You have ceased reminding the faithful that there is but one true Church, one guardian of the truth, one gate of Heaven.  True, the chaos unleashed in Rome in the 1960s has been demoralising to those who want to see the Church once again act like the true Church of Christ and not some minor sect of no importance.  But where are your voices now, dear Bishops?  Silence in the face of the enemy is not a policy.  And silence, as we all know, denotes agreement.  Ask yourself: are the faithful to construe by your silence that you condone this demolition of Catholicism?

Humor in red

Your Lordships inherited a world that stank, it is true.  But what have you done to teach the world the truths of the one, true Faith and remove some of that stench?

In Milwaukee a few days ago the County Board passed a new ruling giving special protections to sex perverts which means, in effect, that any opposition to their juggernaut, be it a baker who refuses to bake cakes for their faux "weddings" or a photographer who cannot stomach the sight of two men kissing each other, will face legal trouble.  And where was the Milwaukee Ordinary, Jerome Listecki, during all this?  Just the usual silence from his Chancery.  Where were you, Bishop Listecki, when all this was playing out?  People all over Milwaukee County were protesting this outrage but from you we heard nothing.

Archbishop Listecki passing along the Faith at a baseball game

Every time one of these manifestations of malignant hatred against the Church and Her teachings arises we wonder if the Bishops - any of the Bishops - are taking note.  Some do, with glee.  Let God judge them.  Some cower in fear.  Again, let God judge them.  A few will rise up again, and God will protect them.

While I wont live to see the restoration of the Faith I do note that there are small green shoots sprouting from the scorched earth.  When the despotism that is now oppressing Americans implodes and the Church recovers from its stupor Churchmen will again discover who they are, and what their duties are, and then the flowering will begin.

ORA PRO NOBIS

"There was a voice heard in Ramah; there was weeping and great mourning.  

It was Rachel....weeping for her children....because they were no more."


I find that I can do nothing tomorrow, April 27th, but get on the knees and pray the Rosary.

There is nothing else I can do.

EASTER GREETINGS FROM AMERICA

The USA celebrated Easter last Sunday in the usual way: murder. arson and terror:

http://rt.com/usa/drone-yemen-dozens-dead-880/

And the Catholic Bishops thundered their outrage:

http://youtu.be/Re72di5phM0

Of course, these are all militants, sayeth the US government and its media.  Right, and ducks fly backwards, too.

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice can not sleep forever."

- Thomas Jefferson

THE VATICAN'S TAR BABY

In the back-and-forth history of the Church's recent pontificates, where one day the Pope says or does something marvellous and the next day destroys all the good he has done by some ill-advised word or action, nothing is more disheartening and dangerous than Rome's fatal embrace of what must honestly be termed the zionist dream.  That the Vatican even treats the Israeli occupation force as a legitimate government is bad enough; that they are about to enrage the Muslim world with another agreement with that regime which basically legitimizes their occupation is the summit of lunacy and in no way can be considered a Catholic action.  This Vatican agreement, if it happens, will unleash forces against Christians too terrible to contemplate.  While this doesn't bother Mr Netanyahu in the least, it should bother the leaders of the Church.

I would suggest that the Vatican Secretary of State read the stories of American author Joel Chandler Harris, particularly the one about Brer Rabbit and the tar baby.

The Vatican-Tel Aviv Agreement (which was the rejection of the Church's wise and just stance on Palestine, a stance confirmed by the wisdom of Pope St Pius X) tragic as it originally was, is about to be amended by the Holy See and Israel to the greater detriment of the Christians in the Holy Land and the other innocents caught in the crossfire.  King Mohammed VI has sent a pleading message to the Vatican not to go through with this, as it will bring even new hatreds to the region and will create a feeling of despair among the peoples of the Arab world:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201312051422.html        

Surely Rome is not blind to what is going on in the Holy Land?  Why then are they so willing to throw away cordial relationships with the majority of the Muslim world just so that they can placate what one French politician notably called "this shitty little country" namely, Israel?  Is Rome so terrified of the world's media which is, shall we say delicately, "influenced" by Jewish opinion?  Have our leaders in Rome, who have seemed to have stopped trying to bring the saving grace of the Faith to the Jews, become mere water-carriers for their hated regime?  What drives the fear at the Holy See, a fear so all-pervasive that they are willing to re-ignite a Mohammedan siege against the Church not to mention the spectacle of the Middle East in flames?  One wonders if the Vatican realizes that both Zionism and Naziism are ideologies based on racial superiority, or rather opposite sides of the same coin.

Cardinal Bechara Rai has remarked on the respect given to the Papacy by the generality of the Muslim world.  If this Roman move goes ahead that respect will suffer a serious, and potentially mortal blow.  It could destroy the trust that many Muslims have and have had for the Popes, a situation that would obviously delight the Israelis who are keen to get the moral leader of the world on their side and pour holy water on their nazi-istic control of Palestine.

I've always viewed the action of throwing gasoline on a roaring fire a poor judgment call.  Would that the current leaders in Rome had a similar view.

SAINT VATICAN, THE SECOND

Pity Joan of Arc.  She had to wait 400 years before the Church would canonize her.

The proposed canonization this coming Sunday of two problematic Popes, John XXIII and John Paul II, must be viewed as a canonization not of these particular men but of the Council called Vatican 2.  I cannot imagine how else one would view this given the fact that both of these pontificates were extremely troubled for so many diverse reasons and given the fact that chicanery had to be employed to fast-track the canonization process.  In the case of Pope John no miracle was required suddenly; in John Paul II's case a rather ordinary medical misdiagnosis had to be claimed to be a miracle.

Humanly speaking I do not see how these canonizations could be stopped.  The politics as well as the mechanisms are firmly in place for it to happen.  It is like the steamroller effect.  The long period of discernment, reflection, prayer and investigation required should, in the interests of the Church's credibility, have been observed.  But it was not.  Given the turmoil of these past five decades a prudent Church should have put this whole idea aside for a century or more.  We know that there are diligent Churchmen in Rome who have been against this move for many years but for reasons either of obedience or of not wanting to bring even more scandal upon their beloved Church will now remain silent.  I have pity for these men.  Do they want to make a stink about a move that is going to drive an even larger wedge between those Catholics hanging on to the unchangeable teachings of Christ and those Catholics who for whatever reason have made the decision to simply accept?  Yes, these Churchmen who remain silent are in anguish and do deserve our pity.

It is not difficult to find good things to say about John Paul II personally, particularly his sterling defense of the unborn.  One wants to find good things to say.  But always there is the nagging in Catholic hearts about the negative things, of which there were too many.  We can hope he made his peace with God before death.  Of John XXIII, he who was the front man so to speak of this catastrophe, I have little to say.

The confusion among the faithful that will occur if these canonizations go through will be on a scale such as the Church has never seen before.  These acts cannot fail to throw even more Catholics off-balance, create more division among an already much too divided Church and God only knows what else.  In past epochs the leaders of the Faith have acted imprudently and brought down upon the world the ill-effects of those decisions.  The Church survived them, yes.  But at what a cost.

On Sunday, April 27th, 2014 the Church will die a little more.

FRANCIS: DON'T SMELL THE SHEEP. FEED THEM....

.....and don't let them fall of the cliff.

We have taken into account your recommendation to your Bishops to get close to the sheep and discover their odor. 

But you see, Your Holiness, sheep have to be fed not sniffed at.

Sheep also have to be led by a shepherd.  Leading means two things: keeping the lambs from falling off a cliff into the abyss and also giving them nourishing food so they can live.  It is terrible to point this out but the Church in recent decades doesn't seem to be overly troubled about its sheep falling into the abyss, nor does it seem to care whether or not the sheep are fed.  Do not call this statement exaggerated: we have the evidence of our own eyes.

Rome has let heresy abound all over the world, and the sheep who absorb it fall over the cliff.  Rome rarely if ever mentions the word "sin" and it never, not ever, mentions the words "mortal sin".  This, too, leads her sheep to fall over that cliff.

Rome has starved the sheep by withholding from them the life-giving food of doctrine and dogma.  The silence of the Church on these matters is starving the sheep to death, to eternal death.  And while they starve we are encouraged to smell them, a smell that will gradually become the putrescence of a rotting corpse.

The Church has been governed by Vicars of Christ for 2,000 years.  Some of these Popes have been great Saints.  Others have been average.  Some have been disastrous.  Some have brought souls to salvation by their words and actions; others have seen Catholics leave in disgust.  Some have governed the Church with a fair and firm hand; others have governed little or not at all.

Your Holiness has now the opportunity to be either a great and heroic Pope, an average or mediocre Pope or a disastrous Pope.

All the world is watching to see which one Your Holiness chooses.

KRISTOS VOSKRES! VOISTINU VOSKRES!

Christ is risen; indeed He has risen, as is written in Ukrainian/Russian at the headline (These two countries have been on my mind of late)..

To an old man of the cinema like the present writer, religious holy days bring my heart and mind back to that special class of music which once adorned films, and it brings me back to thoughts of the one or two composers who were masters at it.

And the great Alfred Newman always comes to mind; and he has also been on my mind recently as regular readers have already guessed.  An ethnic, non-practicing Jew, Newman yet had an affinity for Christian themes and Christian music.  His music for films dealing with these things came not from his heart or mind exclusively; they came, I am convinced, from the very depths of his soul.  He had that gift, like the ancient composers who put music to liturgy, of expressing in his music about Jesus Christ at one and the same time a sense of both profound sadness and yet inner exaltation.

When he was approached to score his biggest and as it turned out his last religious film he produced perhaps his finest film score.  But soon troubles came that would eventually disfigure a part of that beautiful score. We are speaking, of course, of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

When this film was in its final editing stage a very sad thing happened.  Director George Stevens decided to eliminate the gorgeous Resurrection and Ascension music composed by Alfred Newman and to replace it with Handel's "Halleluiah Chorus" from his Messiah.  The mistake was not in including music by one of the world's great masters; the mistake was not taking into account its over-familiarity, which suddenly jarred audiences, and which brought on criticism.  To place a very recognizable 18th century piece of music and mix it with a a modern romantic-style composition instantly took the viewer out of the film which, admittedly, had an adverse effect on the viewer.  He replaced Newman's Raising of Lazarus music in the same way with the same Handel piece.  (For those interested in how these things happened an entire book was written about the trials and tribulations of that film score: "Hollywood Holy Land" by Ken Darby, who served as Newman's choral master on this and many other films.)

Thankfully the original Newman "Hallelujah Chorus" from The Greatest Story Ever Told was preserved and can be heard at the following link:.

http://youtu.be/BZRylP6Ads0

Other writers will offer more meaningful short essays on this blessed Feast Day.  For my part I will only attempt to acquaint my readers with the work of a master as he illustrates the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ as only he, one of the screen's great originals, could.

A very Blessed Easter to you and yours.

THE HOUR HAS COME: MAUNDY THURSDAY

Bouveret: The Last Supper

More musical beauty from Alfred Newman, the music for the Last Supper sequence from the 1965 film, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

http://youtu.be/HwwslEdvG5E