ISRAELI POLICE HELP COPTIC PRIEST CELEBRATE EASTER

If someone has reliable additional details on this incident we would appreciate hearing from them.  But when this kind of thing happens to a Coptic priest celebrating Orthodox Easter in Jerusalem this year we are permitted to wonder just how it can be justified.

http://youtu.be/CIy8TcPkjro

What could the man have done to provoke such brutality?  Our guess is, probably very little.

MAY WE HOPE THE POPE DIDN'T REALLY SAY THIS?

From an article in Britain's Daily Mail:

 "At a vigil on Saturday evening, Francis said Catholics must become courageous and seek out the people who need help the most rather than sitting around, dissecting theology."

I do hope that this is an unfortunate translation of what he really said.  In that statement, if it is true, the Holy Father in one fell swoop tells us that theology is not terribly important and that we should all feel guilty for not doing enough to help the poor.  I say it again:  I hope this is not what he said.

The dictionary defines theology thusly:   "the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God's relation to the world."  This is not important anymore?   Is it not true that the study of God and God's relation to the world automatically requires us, among many other things, to help the poor?  When one hears words like this, coupled with all the somewhat showy kissing and hugging and Pope-with-the-poor photo-ops, one inwardly shudders.  The entire Catholic Faith is collapsing as is evidenced by what is occurring in Churches, institutions, many seminaries and convents, universities, etc. and our Holy Father thinks we should not be too concerned over the study of God?  I trust I am permitted to mention that I am glad St Thomas Aquinas did not say such a thing.

Pope Francis has gotten a sort of reputation of late of speaking off the cuff, with little preparation, often blurting out thoughts that suddenly come into his head.  Some of those thoughts are, to be sure, heartening.  But others, like the one above, less so.  I hesitate to say it but it seems that in some of these remarks the pontiff doesn't appear to be taking his job too seriously.

As this writer has said before, we watch, and wait.  But while we are waiting a growing concern is engulfing not a few people.  Priests, nuns and Bishops run amok...and Rome answers by silence.

We must have trust in the Supreme Head of Christ's Church.  But if I may dare to say so we also require evidence.

CONTRADICTIONS

This report has been making the rounds on the internet.  It asks the question, "Why does Pope Francis not give out Communion?"  Though Sandro Magister's article attempts an answer to that question by suggesting that Francis does not want to be seen giving Our Lord to public sinners, there is a glaring question inside of that report that remains unanswered.  I would phrase it thus: why does Pope Francis not personally give out Communion, yet allow his priests, in his presence, to give out Communion to public sinners and cut-rate persecutors of the Catholic Church like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden?  Magister does not answer this question.

Speaking for myself, I would like it to be answered.

It is difficult to know what to make of such a situation.  We can hope that His Holiness is instructing his priests at his Masses to avoid giving the Sacrament to such people.  But there does not seem to be any way of knowing if he has or hasn't.  In the event that such things continue, however, how does a Catholic interpret it?

There is the amusing story of the fastidious Jew who, because it is a Friday, cannot do any kind of manual work whatsoever, and so when a light bulb goes dark in his house on that day he approaches his gentile neighbor to come and change the bulb for him.  The neighbor becomes his "shabbat goy", and our fastidious Jew does not soil his hands.  I would certainly not like to think that our Holy Father is emulating our Jewish friends here by leaving to his priests what he will not do himself.  We do need some clarification on this rather important point.

It is hardly newsworthy anymore when priests give out sacrilegious Communions to unrepentant sinners, even public sodomites.  Thus far few if any of these priests have been disciplined. for dishonoring the Body and Blood of Our Lord.  On the contrary, those courageous priests who do refrain from giving Communion to public sinners are often shamed, dishonored and disciplined by their superiors.  Or at the very least given a tiresome online lecture by the ubiquitous Dr Ed Peters (which may be a worse thing to have to endure than having your reputation demolished).

And there are Bishops, like Vincent Nichols and Timothy Dolan among others, who not only refuse to allow the feelings of public sinners to be offended by refusing them the Sacrament but go further by allowing sinners their own special "Masses" in their dioceses, a scandal that cries to Heaven (but seems to fall upon deaf ears in Rome).

Therefore, how do we interpret the Holy Father's attitude in this instance?  Magister seems to sense a contradiction in Francis' actions but will not say so directly.  But I believe we can say so directly: there would appear to be some contradictions.

The new Pope has, let us be truthful, been giving some mixed signals, some positive, some troubling.  One moment we can stand and cheer; the next, we cringe.  Who can explain it?  Even though most of us are willing to give the new Pontiff the benefit of the doubt we would be less than candid if we claimed not to have any major concerns about such issues.  The man is still getting his feet wet, and yet...

Perhaps there is in all this an element of new job jitters?  There are indeed many questions.

One always wonders if the Vatican is aware that others note these things, too.  The Orthodox see these conflicting attitudes and are puzzled by them.  Some are, very understandably, scandalized by them. 

The winds blowing off the Tiber will be either warm or deadly cold.  This writer is hardly in a position to understand the mind of the Pontiff let alone pass any kind of judgment on him.  Like many I watch and wait.

But there are still very serious questions, especially about an issue that involves the Body and Blood of Christ Himself.  The lowly Catholics and their insignificant blogs are the only ones, it seems, asking them in these very dark days.

RAY HARRYHAUSEN, 1920-2013

Harryhausen animating "Mighty Joe Young", 1949

There will be many tributes to the life and work of Ray Harryhausen, most of them peppered with the types of clichés and empty platitudes typical of modern day Hollywood, of the type that likes to glory in reflected genius, but this writer will not quote any of them.  All I can say is that I have known this man for 43 years and I am saddened by his death.

He was the cinema's one, and only, doyen of special visual effects.

He is often credited with being the father of modern-day special effects pictures.  “It’s a dubious honor,” he told me more than once, lamenting, like me, on the horrible state of the motion picture.  He had the true artist’s contempt for the degrading images that now fill our screens and this degradation is what finally made him retire at age 61, even though he could have continued working for at least another ten-fifteen years had he so wished.  But his heart was not in it any longer.  Being the gentleman he always was he was unfailingly kind in accepting tributes from his fellows but privately bewildered: he simply could not understand the new generation of movie makers.  He didn’t know what was going through their heads.  On this as in other matters we were in complete agreement.

Ray died yesterday in London at the age of 92.  Someone once described him as “the cinema’s Gepetto”, perhaps the most apt description of this charming man, who made for the most part charming films geared for whole families.  His biographical details are easily found so will not be detailed here.  But his one enduring contribution was to bring art to the fantasy film.  His great mentor, Willis O’Brien, did the same thing in his day with the creation of KING KONG, the very film that decided Ray upon his own career.  While he worked long and hard hours animating his models frame-by-frame during his productive years he was virtually ignored by the media and if he was noticed at all it was usually a snidely dismissive (and often infantile) review of a film it might have taken three years of his life to make.  Prominence came only late in life, after his retirement, when a California school teacher singlehandedly shamed the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences into awarding him an honorary Oscar in 1992.  Then he was “news”; then those who had contemptuously dismissed him or ignored him now wanted to ride on or lead his bandwagon.  That would include overstuffed “critics” like Richard Schickel who after years of relegating his films to the trash heap now wanted to be his biographer.

Ray was not a perfect man nor were all his films worthy vehicles for his art.  Once the late 1960s left their terrible stain on world cinema, a stain which has not only not been eradicated but has gotten worse, Harryhausen’s films also declined accordingly, so much so that his final three films are fairly unwatchable, as films.  His great days were 1949 through 1964 and the films he created then were and are still hallmarks in the world of fantasy.  They are miles above the rubbish that calls itself fantasy being made these days.  They had charm, they had imagination, they had style, they had stories.

Though he would disagree with me, the perfect Harryhausen film would be THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD from 1958.  If one would wish to judge the man and his work best, that would be the one to see.

This blog occasionally delves into matters other than those of moment in the Faith and the world but we do try to bring up cultural issues from time to time, recalling some of the artists in different fields who made a positive, long lasting mark on the world.  In the cinema Ray Harryhausen did leave such a mark.  And we must be grateful that he was a man of such single-minded devotion.  It was that devotion and that single-mindedness that gave us several classics of imaginative cinema. 

BLEAK TIME

"The Bishops of England, my Lord, would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount."

So said Sir Thomas More to his ecclesiastical interlocutors at his trial for high treason.  He would most certainly say that, and worse, about the bunch we have been living under for decade after decade after decade in this country and around the Catholic world.

A cursory look at the time-servers, politicians and flatterers recent Popes have been saddling the Catholic world with since at least the 1940s makes for depressing viewing.  There were a few shining stars who held high positions in the Church in this country for example but, sadly, many others were ill-fit for their honors and positions.  It was the same with the rest of the world. This is not a cheerful picture that is being painted.  But it is reality. Yet it is also a testament to the strength and truth of Catholicism that the Faith survived and even thrived at a time when its local leadership was anything but sterling.  Many Catholics become misty-eyed when they think that all was well and good under Popes like Pius XI and Pius XII forgetting the fact that the former committed some colossal blunders (re Action Francaise, for example, to name one) and that the latter gave us some fairly unappetizing Bishops during his reign while often refusing to take charge as the crisis that we are living through today was looming under his pontificate.  But as ineffectual and Americanist as the Spellmans and the Cushings have been, they have nothing on the Dolans, the Schonborns, the Wuerls and the Lehmanns - to name just a few of the current superstars - all of whom would make the venerable American Ecclesiastical hack John England look like St John Chrysostom by comparison.  Such a slew of mediocrities does seem to indicate God's supreme impatience with us.  What else would explain it?  To be sure there are exceptions to this unhappy rule and it would be an injustice not to point out that things are improving in certain dioceses in America as we write.  Some interesting men have been appointed in recent days.  This is cause for hope.  Yet we cannot run from this fact: that Catholics in the US have been saddled with some odd Episcopal characters whose familiarity with the Catholic faith is decidedly on the scant side and that we have the right to be concerned about the men whose job it is to teach ourselves, our children and our grandchildren the Truth.  To get right to the point, why would Pope Benedict, or any Pope, shower the likes of Dolan and Wuerl with honors and position?  These men might teach us how to wear baseball caps and cheese heads, or hob-nob with the scoundrels in Washington, but they are not teaching the True Faith in any clear, unambiguous and forthright manner.  Their Masses are frightful; their tolerance of pure evil is shocking.  It is incomprehensible.

It is also eerie.  Historians like Christopher Hollis and Hilaire Belloc wrote about the types of men who held high Church office in England right before the Reformation, whose worldliness and incompetence paved the way for that revolution against Christendom.  They might have been describing the seat-warmers in Episcopal robes in 2013,  the parallels are that exact.

[I suppose one could be kind and say with understanding that some of our modernist Bishops who generally dislike any ancient Catholic tradition have at least kept one ancient Episcopal tradition intact: like Our Lord's apostles, when trouble comes they all flee from Christ.]

To be even more specific and even more to the point, why is a homosexually disturbed dissident like Rembert Weakland still allowed to run around masquerading as an Archbishop when justice demands that he be either hidden away in a monastery in a remote part of the Catholic world where he can repent of his sins, or sit in prison for sexual assault and financial malfeasance?  The current Archbishop of Milwaukee, one Jerome Listecki, apparently finds nothing untoward about having this individual maintain a presence in the diocese he brought to disgrace and financial ruin, even to the point of delegating to him Sacramental duties from time to time.   Giving public scandal is apparently a topic that is a closed book to Archbishop Listecki.  And what about Rome?  Surely Benedict was aware of Weakland's transgressions.  Presumably Pope Francis is also aware of it. If so, why is Weakland still an Archbishop in good standing in the Catholic Church?  We wish to ask that again: why is Rembert Weakland not paying a price for his flagrant transgressions against the Faith and morals?  Could someone kindly explain? [And, no, I do not wish to hear those old chestnuts about the Pope being either "too busy" or somehow "a prisoner in the Vatican" to be able to use his supreme authority to rid the Church of the likes of Weakland, et al.]

In an excellent article on The Remnant website today, written by Chris Jackson, Dietrich von Hildebrand is quoted thusly:

"One of the most horrifying and widespread diseases in the Church today is the lethargy of the guardians of the Faith of the Church. I am not thinking here of those bishops who are members of the “fifth column,” who wish to destroy the Church from within, or to transform it into something com­pletely different. I am thinking of the far more numerous bishops who have no such intentions, but who make no use whatever of their authority when it comes to intervening against heretical theologians or priests, or against blasphemous performances of public worship. They either close their eyes and try, ostrich-style, to ignore the grievous abuses as well as appeals to their duty to intervene, or they fear to be attacked by the press or the mass media and defamed as reactionary, narrow-minded, or medieval. They fear men more than God. The words of St. John Bosco apply to them: “The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of the good.”

Jolly, fat Cardinal Dolan has not said much of late about the outrage, the satanic stink, that is about to come down on our heads from our own government.  Like many other prelates Cardinal Dolan says very little about sin, about final Judgment, about Hell.  In fact he says not very much at all about anything.  He does talk about gun control and poverty and global warming, about being civil and nice, about immigration and evangelization(?), but seemingly cannot be bothered overmuch with such trivialities as the One, True Faith or, Heaven forbid, mortal sin.

And then there is Donald Cardinal Wuerl.

Good God, what a ghastly knave.  Words fail me.  I am sorry.  I will content myself with quoting a highly-respected Catholic journalist in England who described this man to utter perfection.  He calls him "a posturing creep". 

It would not be right to neglect to mention a few bright spots in the episcopal desert.  There are a few good men in there.  Bishop Jenky who has spoken and acted courageously, Bishop Morlino, who tries hard under difficult circumstances to do the right thing, Bishop Devine who, at long last, put the smug, insufferable David Cameron in his place, the wonderful Bishop Athanasius Schneider who would make a great and glorious Pope I am certain.  There are others.  Most of the Bishops in the Middle East and the Holy Land know what it is like to defend the Faith.  And there are others who, coming from terrible 1960s backgrounds, are at last putting aside the guitars and tambourines and awakening to reality and seeing the wreckage around them.  I cheer them with all my heart.

And I am happy to report that Cardinal O'Brien has just been told by Rome to pack his bags and leave Scotland.  It's a sad end for him but a happy move by the Vatican.  It was needed, and it is just. [Thanks to Linen on the Hedgerow for the news.]

I cannot see, in this country at any rate, another statesman like Thomas More who would tell the Bishops to their faces that they would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount..  For one thing this is not a Catholic country and never has been and, I am afraid, is never likely to be.  The chances of another More in this land are, therefore, slim.  Not impossible but not very probable.  [Perhaps we get what we deserve.  Wisconsin has just elected an open sexual pervert to be one of its Senators, and Massachusetts continues to re-elect Barney Frank without fail.  And another political hack, also from Wisconsin, the rather laughable Paul Ryan, is signalling his presidential ambitions by now supporting homosexual unions and adoptions.   Do not look for much good to come out of that herd of swine called the U.S. Congress.]  And when the presidency, bureaucracy and judiciary is heavily stacked against right order, and now even common sense, the chances of another More surfacing is phantasmagorical.

What of the Church then?  Will it produce another John Fisher now? 

Actually, I believe the answer to be, "yes".  The fog is clearing here and there, making this a very real possibility. 

This is that great month of the year when we can implore our Mother, with renewed vigour, to ask the Father to cure the ills in His Church.

When we were children, and were afraid to ask Dad for something, we always went to Mum first (did we not?) hoping she would intervene on our behalf.  Seems like the thing to do now, no?

12,642,900 DECADES PER DAY

This being the appropriate month in which to speak often about these things, The Eye Witness would wish to encourage all of our dear and patient readers to consider looking into this most helpful and desperately needed initiative.  We are referring to The Universal Living Rosary Association, which is the present day continuation of the grand idea of Pauline Jaricot, a young girl who wanted in her own time to save France.

She was not a Joan of Arc; that was not her special mission, as it was St Joan's.  Hers was of a more contemplative nature.  She wanted to save France from itself.  Her target was initially licentiousness and her methods produced results.  Simply put, she asked fifteen friends to each say one decade of the entire fifteen-decade rosary each day, meditating upon that one mystery.  With this every day meditation on that one decade she hoped, with the help of the tiniest of donations, to continue on with the additional goal of fostering the reading and writing of good, solid books.  Though she was not ultimately successful in her great plan, her torch has been taken up by Mrs Patti Melvin of, of all places, Dickinson, Texas.  The results of this re-emergence of Pauline Jaricot's plan have been quite remarkable.

Says Mrs. Melvin:

"The Living Rosary Association was Pauline’s inspired plan to save the Church in France and encourage everyone to learn their faith through Catholic books. The association began its devotion of distributing fifteen decades of the Rosary to fifteen persons in several parishes on Dec. 8, 1826. The association was formally approved by Pope Gregory XVI and accorded canonical status on Jan. 27, 1832."

12,642,900 people are reciting one single dedicated decade of the rosary, in honor of St Philomena and the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary....in almost every part of the world.

No living enemy, no fiend from the pit, can stop anyone from saying that one decade per day.  That, frankly, is what intrigues this writer about it.  No matter what degeneracy is flung at us, no matter what the enemies of Christ have up their lily-white sleeves, this is the kind of prayer and this is the kind of action that makes even demons tremble.  Hyperbole?  Not really.  Exorcists will tell you plainly what happens when these creatures hear the Holy Name spoken to them.

Pauline Jaricot created this movement to fight licentiousness.  Since we have enough of that going around at the present time her plan would seem to be the right one just now.  She wanted to save France, too.  Certainly there are many countries now that need saving so,again, her plan is solid, and Mrs Melvin is doing yeoman duty in seeing to its worldwide revival.  To add your name and receive your decade to embark on this holy initiative will cost you nothing. 

The news today is that yet another high-ranking Church official, the rather strange Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, spokesman for the Apostolic See, has signalled that two people, other than a sacramentally married husband and wife, might be suitable parents for a child.  [One does begin to wonder what that "SJ" stands for.  I could think of a few words.]  When confronted with such monumental obtuseness on the part of Churchmen, we can pick up the weapon Pauline Jaricot reminded us that we have in our pockets, and use it.  Our little decade, said each day, is fully capable of fighting the devils in Hell and the ones on earth, and is even capable of fighting the stupidities of Vatican press spokesmen.

Write to Mrs Melvin for your decade.  It is a noble and necessary endeavor.

THE PITIFUL BLEATINGS OF AN EX-NUN

Humor Dept.

Too ridiculous to get terribly upset about.  But if you want a laugh or two you can read this:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/28/17959215-kentucky-woman-ordained-as-priest-by-dissident-roman-catholics?lite=

There's no fool like an old fool, I guess, but I wonder:  is this kind of Junior High school idiocy peculiar only to Americans?

FRANCE STICKS ITS HANDS INTO DUNG AND SMEARS IT IN THE CHURCH'S FACE

To no one's surprise, the swine faction in the French parliament has jumped headlong into the filth of queerdom and is now beginning already to smear it into the face of the Church and the good people of France.

They have "legalized" the unspeakable.  Of course an unjust law is no law at all, but judging how their goon squads and praetorian guard has been treating the demonstrators, including Catholic priests, they are going to fight to the death to uphold their lunacy.

We cannot comment on it at this time for this reason: we await the reaction of the Church, in France and in Rome.  Will it be conciliatory, cautious and nice, or will it thunder loud and clear in condemning this monstrous injustice?  When we hear anything decisive from the Church we will comment more fully.

St Joan of Arc sits quietly by herself just now, in tears we would imagine.  But her fighting spirit just might still rally the citizens of the eldest daughter of the Church who have just been shat upon.

ROME AND MOSCOW AND A HOLY ALLIANCE

The miraculous icon of Kazan

When Pope Benedict was on the throne of Peter, there did at one time seem to be some hope that one day soon Moscow and Rome might, at least in this instance, form a Holy Alliance.  The instance in question is the re-evangelisation of once Christian countries, suffering under a vicious secular onslaught.

In May of 2010 Sandro Magister wrote an article in which he was convinced that a much hoped for meeting was to become a reality, a meeting between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kirill.  That article, which is an important read, can be found here

But that was three years ago, and now Benedict has abdicated.

I know nothing of our present Pontiff's views of such an Alliance.  There are a few encouraging indications here and there but we simply don't know yet how he will confront the need of ending, even with baby steps, a schism that has gone on too long. 

But I can write neither profoundly nor knowledgeably about the delicate matter here.  It is my hope to invite an author who does have knowledge of these matters to contribute a piece to The Eye Witness, and with any luck such a piece may appear here soon.

Nevertheless Magister's article linked above is most encouraging.  And the more the forces of evil - let us use the word - have their way with the world the more it will necessary to hope and pray for such a Holy Alliance.

We need them and they need us.