FOR PRESIDENTS DAY

The Eye Witness, as a public service, will begin honoring our various Presidents past and present by publishing from time to time short quotes that succinctly sum up the man.  Here is our first, on "presidents day", the man whose visage graces our $50 bill:

"Intelligence has been commoner among American presidents than high character, but [Ulysses S.] Grant ran against the stream by having a sort of character without any visible intelligence whatever.  He was almost the perfect military man -- dogged, devoted and dumb.  In the White House he displayed an almost inconceivable stupidity.  Whatever was palpably untrue convinced him instantly, and whatever was crooked seemed to him to be noble.  If the American people could have kept him out of the presidency by prolonging the Civil War until 1877, it would have been an excellent investment.  A more honest man never lived, but West Point and bad whiskey had transformed his cortex into a sort of soup."
--H.L. Mencken, A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (Edited by Terry Teachout, 1995), p. 33.

[With thanks to Thomas Dilorenzo at LewRockwell.com]

USING THE TOOLS WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN

We have now arrived at the perfect time of the Liturgical Year when the demons who plague the Church from both the outside and the inside can best be fought.  Lent is here, the time of fasting, penance and spending time on the knees.  It is the perfect time to use these tools, for there is much treachery that is even now being planned which would be inordinately foolish for us to ignore.  Prayer and fasting can overcome those forces which, like vultures, are circling the Vatican to try their best to get one of their own into the Chair of Peter.  If that sounds overly dramatic, it is not meant to be: these people are serious, they are extremely well organized and well connected and they are calm about what they are trying to do.  They are not in a panic.  And they are quite determined.

But not even hellishness as that can withstand the tools we have now, at this very time of Lent, at our disposal...if only we would use them.  My poor efforts this Lent will be directed toward begging Heaven to send us not the Pope we deserve, but the Pope we need.

Many on the Catholic blogosphere, at least in their public writings, are conveying a rather giddy attitude to the historic events of the past week.  To some of these folks it assumes the aura of a presidential election.  There is excitement and hope, coupled with laudatory comments directed at the Holy Father.  There are smiles of excitement on their faces; one can sense that from the tone of their writing.  But on many other faces smiles are not to be found.  Though not giving in to despair these smile-less faces are facing the tragic realities, one of which is that the Vatican is now and has been for a very long time in disarray. 

We at The Eye-Witness must, alas, splash the cold water of reality into the faces of our dear complacent fellow-bloggers.  We have no inside scoops that are unknown to others.  We offer no "official" interpretations of events as some of the more popular blogs are wont to do, nor do we pretend to be an infallible oracle that professes to give the Authentic Catholic Viewpoint on these matters.  But we do reflect on the wisdom of others, and with that in mind we offer a link to that excellent publication Christian Order, edited by the very perceptive Rod Pead.  Mr Pead pulls no punches because Mr Pead is a realist.  While I urge everyone to subscribe to the print edition of this invaluable publication Mr Pead does put on his website from time to time a sampling of what is found in his magazine.

While we all await with hope (and with shudders) the coming Conclave, let us take a cold, hard look at an issue in the Church that - unless the Holy Ghost overcomes it - will, horribly, play a part in the election of the next Pope.  In Part Three of Christian Order's masterful "Chronic Convergence" series, Mr Pead exposes this deadly Achille's Heel.  A sample:

"Last March, during an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York made the following candid observations about the state of the Church and the hierarchy:

     'We have gotten gun-shy, in speaking wit any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual
     morality.'

     'Catholics in general got the impression that what the Second Vatican Council taught, first and
     foremost, is that we should be chums with the world, and that the best thing the Church can do
     is become more and more like everybody else.'

     '[Humanae Vitae] brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the Church, that
     I think most of us - and I'm using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself - kind of
     substantially said, "Whoa.  We'd better never talk about that, because its just too hot to
     handle".'

Having effectively summarised and confirmed our damning analysis of the ecclesiastical status quo, the Cardinal then evoked the very cowardice and worldly convergence he had just bemoaned.  Addressing the episcopate's protest over Obamacare, he insisted: 'We've grown hoarse saying this is not about contraception, this is about religious freedom.'  He might just as well have said:  Look, we're gun-shy on this difficult issue because it's simply too hot to handle.  And we're uncomfortable being seen as out of step and on the fringe.  So we prefer to talk about 'religious freedom' instead.

Only a team of New York psychiatrists could untie that Gordian knot of duplicity and delusion!  On the one hand, His Eminence clearly sees and laments the problems besetting the Church, even admitting personal culpability.  On the other, he is paralysed:  unable to stop the self-contradiction and inversion of Catholic priorities."

Here you can read the rest of this essential article (and can find the links to Parts One and Two):  http://www.christianorder.com/editorials/editorials_2012/editorials_nov12.html

Even more damning in Mr Pead's assessment is the extent of the influence of the Homoseuxal Mafia within the Church herself as exemplified by such men as Rembert Weakland.  This "mafia" can no longer be said not to exist; the evidence is there and it is terrible.  There is no question they have had an enormous influence thus far and there is little reason to believe they wont have influence in the coming Conclave.  Hence the need for fasting and prayer (especially those precious beads), the stuff of which can cast out demons.

There is nothing amusing in the dramatic events of this past week or of the events to immediately follow.  There is also little to be gained by merely parroting the "party line" that Benedict's shocking move was "humble", "saintly" or "the right thing to do".  Those who don't get caught up in the avalanche of speculations as to who will be the next Pope and instead keep their heads bowed in heartfelt and honest prayer will be the ones who will be doing the most good.

I do not know for sure what happened on February 11th last, but I do know that excitement is about the last reaction I would have about it.  I have seen the famous photo of the lightning strike.  I will not interpret it because I cannot.  But if nothing else it gives one pause.  Or goosebumps.

Our Lenten mortifications have just been deemed by God to be of the first moment.  Wasting the opportunity thus given would be a very big mistake.

BARBARISM UPDATE

It had to happen.

The Pentagon is now going to award metals to drone operators.  From RT Today: http://rt.com/usa/news/pentagon-medal-drone-pilots-151/

We are now, officially, worse than the Communists and the Nazis.

THE ABDICATION

 I was the last to know, apparently.  I only heard the shocking news this morning.

My dear friends, the time to say the beads in now, and unceasingly until the white smoke emerges from the Vatican chimneys.  The time is dark and the situation is very grave.

I will not bore my readers with my uninformed speculations.  We all have our opinions.  Mine are not any more informed than most other Catholic bloggers.  I have no knowledge as to what prompted this.  I have often criticized Benedict for his lack of governance, for not taking a firm hand at the wheel.  Even while admiring the good he has done I have always had to face that cold shower of disappointment over a Papacy that has seemed mired, or stuck, in a groove of ambiguity and contradictions.  It is all very strange.

But now it is time for the beads. 

St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.

UPDATE 13 February 2013:

We're hearing more Gregorian Chant in the abdication news reports background music in one day than the average Catholic has heard in thirty-five years. 

FURTHER UPDATE: 

The US president says that his "prayers are with the Pope".  Isn't that special?  My mind's eye can see Barack and Michelle, after a hard day of murdering innocents with drones and shoving sodomy and abortion down our throats, getting ready to turn in for sleep after brushing their teeth and cleaning the lint out from between their toes, kneeling at their bedside and saying their nightly prayers for Pope Benedict. 

ARCHBISHOP MULLER: A VERY REASONABLE MAN

So sayeth Mr Weldon (quoting +Vincent Nichols), head homosexualist behind the Soho homo masses.

Here is the reference, from William Oddie's column in the Catholic Herald:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/01/09/have-the-soho-masses-really-been-stopped-their-organisers-are-delighted-they-have-been-put-in-charge-of-the-new-regime-and-are-bent-on-growth/ 

It is comforting to know that the Archbishop wishes to be reasonable on this matter.  After all, the Church must find common ground with pederasts - not, Heaven knows, to try to wean them away from a sin that will bring them possible physical death and certain spiritual death, but to engage in sweet sounding dialog with them, to hear their needs and their wants, to make certain their feelings are never hurt, that their rights are protected by the jackboots of government, to, dare I say it, be allowed to live in married peace.

Tolerance.  Tolerance above all. 

I believe it is reasonable to assume that if Archbishop Nichols reassures his homosexual acquaintance that Archbishop Muller at the CDF is "a reasonable man" that he has spoken at length with him and has concluded that there will be no trouble coming from Rome over the continuing scandal of the homosexual "Masses" in London.  He may have also consulted with his fellow Churchman Timothy Dolan in New York who has shown no inclination to end the homosexual "Masses" in his own diocese.  Timothy Dolan, too, is a reasonable man.

Rome, I fear, has no idea how exasperated and disheartened the faithful are over the spectacle of a Church showing nothing but a rather excessive tolerance towards homosexually-disturbed people.  As a case in point the Church cannot seem even to bring itself to mention the words "mortal sin" when it discusses them.  Indeed it can hardly choke out the word "sodomy" when speaking on this subject.  It can on the other hand muster up the courage to speak in cliches easily enough, or speak of dubious ideas as "sexual orientation", a concept utterly foreign to the greatest minds in the Church for over 2,000 years, and a concept strangely absent from the words and ideas of Christ.  I have heard priests say that we must not be hard on those with a homosexual "orientation", insinuating, one supposes, that such souls were born that way.  [Oddly enough we never hear from these priests any admonitions against those with murderous orientations, or felonious orientations, or  wife-beating orientations.]  They will speak of something called "same sex attraction" in a clinical, antiseptic manner as if it were something akin to the mumps: serious but not deadly.  Some good and holy priests will speak of those who live with this SSA (it even has an acronym now) and how valiantly they struggle against it.  They do not say, rather, that they are struggling with mortal sin but some sort of medical or mental condition.  Some good priests will, perhaps understandably, castigate those who point out that one can sin in thought, word and/or deed, even though there are different degrees of culpability in that formula.  But in being annoyed with those who point out these three degrees of sin, or who quote Christ's famous line about those who"have already committed adultery in their hearts", are not these same good priests falling into a rather dangerous fallacy?  We all struggle with various sins, and mortal sins, and we need the help and graces of holy Church to get us out of these sinful states.  But we don't go around saying, "I have a car theft attraction and I am struggling to live good Catholic life despite that attraction".  Car thievery is not a mental disorder, at least the last time I checked; it is sinning against the 7th Commandment.  We do not need special Masses for car thieves any more than we need them for those who bugger adolescent boys.

Perhaps our dearly beloved Reverend Fathers might start thinking more in terms of sin and less in terms of medical terms.  One cannot elevate that most unspeakable of vices, sodomy, to some kind of unique status requiring a whole new way of Church thinking.

A perfect illustration of what happens in the Church if our priests and Bishops start accepting the veracity of concepts like "same sex attraction" is that it leads in very short order to homosexual "Masses", acceptance of sodomy (or at least tolerating it, as if it were some sort of complaint our poor, old Uncle Fred might have), actions like those of Cardinal Wuerl last March (and sundry other persecutions of Catholic priests who try to act like priests should), a homosexual underworld, or mafia, in the very bosom of the Catholic Church.  The poster boy for this entire mess might be the ubiquitous Rembert Weakland.  

And more strange words from prelates keep coming.  This latest one from a Roman discastery has the whole world abuzz.  The Vatican has no idea, apparently, of the despair of her people who read, as they read the other day, of this Bishop in Rome suggesting that the Church needs to fight to see that those countries which still outlaw sodomy will need to change such laws!  I wonder which one of us has entered Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Bishop or me.

From the Washington Post:

   "Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, also said the church should do more to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in countries where homosexuality is illegal."

What are we to make of this?  Will Paglia clarify?  Will Benedict say something - anything - that will put a lid on such a stupid utterance?  Can someone explain to me why it is wrong to keep sodomy criminalized, to keep its contagion away from people?  Is the Vatican responding, by Paglia's statement, to the courageous moves being taken by Russia to try to slow down the homosexual madness?  Is this the kind of statement that will endear Catholics to those nations and cultures that still believe sodomy to be the heinous crime that it is?  Finally, who in Rome is pushing such ideas?

Archbishop Muller, if we take Vincent Nichols' statement as truthful, has basically told his London brother not to worry, that there will be no thundering from Rome if he allows the homosexual liturgical jamborees to continue.  And why?  The answer, you see, is that Archbishop Muller is a very reasonable man.

CANDELMAS, AND A LAST GOOD BYE

My beloved Christmas officially ended a few days ago, on Candelmas.  As my final joyful farewell until December 25th next, I offer this, from Apollo's Fire:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/95moNkxIgkU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

God bless us...everyone.

CHIVALRY, THY NAME IS FATHER

I must admire Brother Andre Marie of Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire, for getting right down to the heart of the matter.  In this excellent essay Patriarchy and the Defenseless this good man points to one of the great weaknesses of the pro-life movement, the sort of weakness that infects nearly all efforts at doing the right thing, that of accepting the enemy's terms of reference.  In the abortion debate, as Brother Andre so admirably demonstrates, it is the mistaken notion that abortion is only a "woman's issue", and that the forgotten one in all this is the chivalrous Father.

Quote:

Much of the rhetoric of the pro-life movement is directed at deflating feminist propaganda. Some measure of this is wise and necessary. However, it is often the sad fact that those who are on the right side of an issue allow their enemies to dictate the terms of engagement. In so doing, they can fall into various traps, the most significant being the neglect of truths that need to be professed. I witnessed a pro-life man being interviewed recently. He went out of his way to point out that the pro-life movement is not just a bunch of old men, but it is mostly young and female.

Presumably, this was his response to the feminist quip, “if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament,” and other specimens of their gaseous rhetoric.
But several questions need to be asked: Is it not a man’s place, like the knights of old, to “protect the weak, defenseless, and helpless, and fight for the general welfare of all” — to the degree to which his circumstances and station allows? If abortion hurts women — and it does — should not men defend the fairer sex from that pain? And if abortion murders a defenseless little baby — which it does — is it not virtuous to “man up” and protect them from being slaughtered?

This essay cannot be recommended too highly.  The Saint Benedict Center in Richmond had for many years as its leader one of the most brilliant minds in contemporary Christendom, the late Brother Francis MICM, a man whose Catholic sense and erudition was staggering.  Clearly those who spent much of their lives in his presence learned well.  And this article by Brother Andre demonstrates that.

The website of this monastery is www.catholicism.org.

NEWS FROM THE EAST

http://rt.com/business/news/russia-us-meat-ban-134/

http://rt.com/politics/russia-strike-attack-sovereign-140/

http://rt.com/politics/russian-first-ban-gay-722/

After glancing over these links one cannot help but ask, why is Russia getting smarter and the United States getting dumber?  Russia is at least in some areas acting fearlessly in defense of religion, culture and agricultural common sense.  It is an encouraging sign.

When one reads the writings of brilliant Russian minds like Soloviev, or Dostoevsky, it makes one believe that despite all the errors Russia has made in past epochs there is still much hope for a glorious resurgence of these good people.  This is not wishful thinking though one must admit this renaissance is not going to occur in an instant.  There is the demographic implosion to consider, from which Russia, like all other nations, suffers terribly.  Yet in even in the face of that dire situation Russia is taking a few positive steps to reverse the awful trend.  I continue to watch with great interest events coming from that sad land.

Pope Benedict XIV

Then, too, there is the much hoped for reunion of the East and the West, the Orthodox with Rome. That potential reunion should be based on the words of Pope Benedict XIV (+3 May 1758) who said:

          "Eastern Christians should be Catholics; they have no need to become Latins."

To which the noted author Fr Adrian Fortescue adds, "We have no more right to think less of them than they have to despise us.  This has always been most clearly the attitude of the Holy See, best summed up in the words of Benedict XIV [see above].  For our Lord gave his followers most explicit commands that they should belong to the one Catholic Church he founded;  He never commanded them all to say their prayers in Latin or to use the Roman rite."  (The Uniate Churches by Father Adrian Fortescue, page 44)

It is well known that the Mother of God has an especial love for Russia.  When She speaks of "the conversion of Russia" perhaps it is safe to assume that She means a return to Catholic unity as embodied in Benedict XIV's words quoted above.  It is the schism She wants to see ended once and for all.  Please God that this terrible schism will end soon.  They need us, and we need them.

[Editor's Note: Many thanks to The Holy Unia Blogsite for the quotations.] 

DEAR BULLET MANUFACTURERS,

Don't you think it might be a good idea to stop selling bullets to the Federal Government?

You do understand why, gentleman, right?  When you sell billions of ammunition rounds to the Department of Homeland Security, the IRS, et al, you do understand whom those bullets are intended for, right?  Have you ever asked yourselves exactly why the government needs all this ammunition?  Have you noticed that the government is busily exploiting every gun tragedy that occurs in an attempt to disarm your fellow citizens?  Are you watching the openly tyrannical moves being made by Washington?  Do you even care?

Again, do you wonder why they are buying bullets, which you are happily selling them, and why they are so desperate to take guns away from their own citizens?

Do we really have to explain this to you?  Are you so terribly busy raking in millions of bucks that you cannot see beyond your bank books?
  
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope which we will use to hang them," sayeth Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

 Now...will you kindly stop selling them the rope?