Tuesday 19th March 2024

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Interview With John Yep… Five Thousand Catholics Rally To Pray The Rosary

March 15, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Interview With John Yep… Five Thousand Catholics Rally To Pray The Rosary

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

Next Tuesday, March 19, on the Feast of St. Joseph, Catholics for Catholics (CforC) will hold a “prayer rally” in Mar a Lago, Fla. Yes, that’s Donald Trump’s home, and those gathered will be praying for Donald Trump and for the country.

In the spirit of Fr. Patrick Peyton, CforC founder John Yep of Phoenix has led prayer rallies in various U.S. cities since he founded the organization less than two

years ago. The group really hit its stride when, after the blasphemous sodomites of the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” were honored (not a misprint) by the Los

Angeles Dodgers, he put together a coalition to demonstrate outside the stadium.

This event was a success in large part because many like-minded groups came together to pull it off. Virgin Most Powerful Radio, America Needs Fatima, and others rallied with us to get five thousand Catholics out in the streets to pray. That made it clear: The Rosary was our weapon. Like Mary, the Spouse of the Holy Spirit (she probably led the apostles bursting out of that Upper Room!), we would take her, rather follow her to the public square to bear witness.

John Yep graciously granted The Wanderer an interview.

The Wanderer: On the Feast of St. Joseph next week, Catholics for Catholics is holding a “National Catholic Prayer For Trump” at Florida’s Mar a Lago Resort. That sounds pretty unprecedented — what’s that all about?

CforC: “In truth, it is unprecedented. It is a grace from Heaven that allowed us the possibility to host a prayer gathering at the home of the former President. President Trump — a sinner like the rest of us — is undoubtedly the clear choice for Catholics who have a correctly formed conscience. And the reason is simple:

President Biden and the Democrat Party represent the philosophical system of Socialist Marxism. President Trump and the Republicans hold the Constitutional banner of a Republic, one nation under God, who is the ultimate authority.

Socialism is inherently evil. Its lies have been condemned by virtually every Pontiff for two centuries. Our Founders bestowed upon the new country a form of government that protects the family and nurtures freedom — provided that it is buttressed by the faith and morals of its citizenry. Our mission is to be that faithful support for President Trump and the people he will appoint in his administration.

And that caveat is key: If we simply endorsed the GOP nominee, we’d be selling ourselves short as a Catholic group. We wanted to surround Donald Trump in prayer and teach the Catholic faithful that he is the only option to vote for in this upcoming election. He’s our only option if we want to preserve and protect our religious rights.

The Wanderer: What’s the program that evening?

CforC: When it rains it pours. That’s been the response of people from all over.

Countless Catholic leaders have asked to be a part of it. Several of them will speak — they know how vital the role of our prayers will play in the preservation of our freedoms.​

It’s a unique program — our speakers will focus on the key issues that Catholics should be concerned about in this election year — from the weaponization of the DOJ against Catholics, to abortion being on the ballot in some 10 states, to the human rights scandal of the transgender movement, and finally to the destruction of so many kids through human trafficking — we’re going to remind people just how important elections are. Elections have consequences, and, as a praying people, we have to do our part to exercise our rights and to preserve them.

At the end of the night, we will stand together and pray the Holy Rosary there at Mar-a-Lago. The event will culminate with a Prayer of Consecration over the country and President Trump: We will be pleading for the special intercession of St. Joseph, the Patron of those fighting against world Communism.

The Wanderer: A lot of Wanderer readers living in Florida may not know about this. Can they attend? How do they sign up?

CforC: “While most of the seats have been reserved, your readers still have a chance to register at our website, cforc.com. Those who can’t attend will be able to see a video of the event that we’ll post on our website after the event.

The most important thing, however, is to join us in prayer that night. When we pray together like the first apostles gathered around Mary in the Upper Room, we will win.

The Wanderer: Thanks, Mr. Yep. Clearly it’s the laity that are going to save our country and our Church. May God bless you and your work!

Alabama’s Court Decision Sparks Debate Over Ethics of IVF

March 3, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Alabama’s Court Decision Sparks Debate Over Ethics of IVF

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

— George Orwell

A few days ago, the Alabama Supreme Court surprised the country by doing something that is all too rare in today’s culture, i.e. it spoke the truth.

In a blockbuster 8-1 decision, the Court ruled that human embryos preserved cryogenically in in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics are “extrauterine children,” and are therefore protected under the state’s “wrongful death” law.

The case that elicited this decision, with such sweeping implications for the rapidly growing IVF industry, was brought forward to the courts by three couples who had human embryos preserved in an Alabama IVF clinic.

embryologist at a liquid nitrogen bank containing sperm and egg samples

Embryologist at liquid nitrogen bank containing sperm and egg samples

In 2020, a client at the clinic entered the cryogenic storage center and removed some of the embryos. The client then accidentally dropped the embryos, with the result that the embryonic children died.

The couples who had preserved the embryos subsequently sued the IVF clinic for “wrongful death.” However, the clinic argued that Alabama’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act” does not apply to preserved embryos.

A circuit court judge initially agreed with the clinic, and ruled to throw out the case, arguing that frozen embryos are property, not persons. The couples then appealed, and the case ended up before the state’s Supreme Court. In a strong ruling, the Court resoundingly affirmed that the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act does indeed apply to embryos preserved in IVF clinics.

In the majority ruling, Alabama Supreme Court Justice Jay Mitchell ruled that the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.” He added:

It applies to all children, born and unborn, without limitation. It is not the role of this Court to craft a new limitation based on our own view of what is or is not wise public policy. That is especially true where, as here, the People of this State have adopted a Constitutional amendment directly aimed at stopping courts from excluding ‘unborn life’ from legal protection.

Republicans and Democrats Denounce Ruling

Perhaps the most telling thing about the reaction to the Court’s decision, is how widespread the outrage is.

The fact is, we live in a world in which reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization have been almost completely normalized. So normalized are they, in fact, that few people even ponder whether there might be any ethical problems with such technologies.

While one would naturally expect pro-abortion activists and Democrats to denounce the rule, it is telling that among those strenuously distancing themselves from this ruling are many so-called “pro-life” Republicans.

Indeed, Republicans such as Donald Trump and Kari Lake are not only distancing themselves from the ruling, but they are also actively coming out in support of IVF, suggesting that they should be made more readily available.

Lake, for instance, promised that she would “advocate for increased access to fertility treatment for women struggling to get pregnant.” She added that “IVF is extremely important for helping countless families experience the joy of parenthood. I oppose restrictions.”

Using explicitly pro-life language, GOP Senate candidate Bernie Moreno stated that he supports IVF because his “goal is to promote a culture of life.” “We have a crisis in this country of people not having enough kids at replacement levels,” Moreno wrote on X. “I’m in favor of anything that promotes people having more babies & strong families.”

In a post reacting to the Court’s ruling, President Trump called for “an immediate solution.”

“We want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!” said the former president. “That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every State in America.” Trump added he supports IVF, like “the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, and Pro-Life Americans.”

IVF Is Not Pro-life

However, I can assure President Trump that he is wrong on one score: the large majority of pro-life leaders, i.e. those who are the most educated on the life issues, do not support IVF.

If you asked them, most would say that they oppose IVF for one simple reason: IVF is an intrinsic evil that transforms human procreation into a method of production, manufacturing our offspring — a process that dehumanizes and commodifies human life, leading to the creation and destruction of many human embryos, i.e. human persons in the earliest stages of their development.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes:

A child is not something owed to one but is a gift. The ‘supreme gift of marriage’ is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged ‘right to a child’ would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right ‘to be the fruit of a specific act of the conjugal love of parents,’ and ‘the right to be respected as a person from the moment of conception.’

In IVF, eggs harvested from a woman are combined with sperm harvested from a man, to create human embryos, i.e. genetically unique, living human beings. These are then implanted in the mother’s womb. However, because the embryos often fail to implant successfully in the mother’s womb, it is common practice to create more embryos than will be used. The “leftovers” are then frozen indefinitely in a cryogenic chamber or destroyed.

IVF is NOT Pro-Life! Let’s Take a Look

Frozen Embryos are Children Too

While the Alabama Court’s decision has horrified even many on the political right, who are clearly afraid that opposing IVF is a political loser, in reality the Court was simply acknowledging basic biological facts and applying consistent logic to the state’s pro-life laws. If the state recognizes the rights of preborn children, then it must recognize the rights of embryos frozen in the state’s IVF clinics.

As the court noted, the Alabama State Constitution is very clear that “it is the public policy of this state to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children, including the right to life,” as well as to “ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate.”

In light of this, “The central question,” wrote the Court’s chief justice, “…is whether the act contains an unwritten exception to that rule for extrauterine children – that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed. Under existing black-letter law, the answer to that question is no: the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”

Rather than running frightened from this decision, so-called “pro-life” American politicians should be asking themselves how it is they missed something so glaringly obvious, i.e. that IVF involves the industrialized commodification and destruction of human life in a way that clearly violates fundamental pro-life principles.

Related: Ethical Issues of IVF and Alternative Infertility Treatment Options

A Good End Doesn’t Justify Evil Means

It may come as a surprise to some people (though it certainly shouldn’t), but the Catholic Church has consistently maintained and taught that IVF is a grave evil, precisely because it distorts human procreation by assaulting the ends of marriage (Humanae vitae, no. 12) and ignores the right of the child to be begotten through a mother and father’s act of love (i.e., marital act), failing to see the child as equal in dignity to his or her parents.

The Church is despised by so many people not because it is imposing a religious view on the science, but rather because it is the only institution that acknowledges the science, and then consistently applies fundamental ethical principles to the science. “We all say we agree that all human beings have human rights,” states the Church. “But we alone have the courage of conviction to be consistent and to apply this in all cases.”

In the Declaration on Procured Abortion, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) states that, “from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and … modern genetic science offers clear confirmation…”

In Donum vitae, the CDF draws out the sweeping ethical implications of this scientific fact:

Thus, the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say, from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore, from the same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.

Children Born Through IVF Still Have Dignity

Unfortunately, the public debate on IVF is often extraordinarily shallow and uninformed. As we saw above, many people, including self-proclaimed “pro-life” politicians, view the Church’s position as self-contradictory. “You say you’re pro-life,” such people will say, “and yet you are opposed to infertile couples being given the gift of having children through this marvelous technology.”

Even more dishonestly, some people will suggest that by opposing IVF, the Catholic Church is somehow rejecting the children who are born through IVF.

Why IVF and Contraception are Sins: Catholic Morals

It can be infuriating dealing with such grotesque misrepresentations of the Church’s position. In many cases, these misrepresentations seem to be motivated by nothing other than a perverse desire to confuse and mislead. However, in other cases it stems simply from ignorance, and our own failure to teach clearly.

In responding to the kind of misrepresentations we saw above it is important that, in the first place, we emphasize that children who are born through artificial reproductive technologies are, in every single respect, as worthy as any other human being. After all, the children conceived through IVF had no part whatsoever in the choice of the mode of their conception. They bear no guilt, and the mode of conception clearly has no bearing whatsoever on their dignity and worth.

The Vatican clearly affirmed this principle in Donum vitae, writing, “Although the manner in which human conception is achieved with IVF … cannot be approved, every child which comes into the world must in any case be accepted as a living gift of the divine Goodness and must be brought up with love.”

Secondly, it is important that we emphasize the ethical principle that a good aim or intention does not make an evil act good. Yes, many couples who resort to IVF desperately desire children — a desire that is, in and of itself, a good thing. The children that come about through IVF are also good. However, the means that the parents have chosen to pursue the good aim of having children is evil, regardless of their intentions. As such, it must be opposed.

We Must Pray for the Protection of All Human Life

The Vatican’s teaching in documents like Donum vitae and Dignitas personae guide us concerning reverence for the dignity of the human person from the moment of conception and respect for the marital act in its unitive and procreative dimensions. They explain the various reasons why IVF is not acceptable, i.e. it destroys the unitive dimension of a couple’s love by conceiving their child in a lab through the actions of a third party, commodifies human life by turning it into a product to be bought, and results in the destruction of untold embryonic humans.

Right now, it is estimated that over one million embryonic human beings are in cryogenic suspended animation in U.S. IVF clinics. Many millions more are preserved in clinics elsewhere on the globe or are being created and experimented upon (and destroyed) in many universities. Tragically, our consciences have been dulled to this industrialized destruction of human life.

Let us pray that the Alabama Court’s decision will provide an occasion for some serious soul-searching about our society’s premature and unjustified acceptance of IVF. And in the meantime, let us educate ourselves on these complex issues by reading the Church’s rich teaching documents, so that we are better equipped to respond to the many distortions on this topic in the media and popular culture.

Related: Trusting God through Infertility

FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET

As president of Human Life International, Fr. Boquet is a leading expert on the international pro-life and family movement, having journeyed to nearly 90 countries on pro-life missions over the last decade. Father Boquet works with pro-life and family leaders in 116 counties that partner with HLI to proclaim and advance the Gospel of Life.

Shocking Sacrilege At St. Patrick’s

February 23, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Shocking Sacrilege At St. Patrick’s

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

By now most of our readers have felt the shock waves emanating from New York after news broke of the transgender desecration on February 15 of St. Patrick’s Cathedral at a funeral for a man who believed he was a woman, changed his name to Cecilia Gentili, and spent a good part of his life as a prostitute before dying as an atheist. Coordinators of the liturgy have admitted to deceiving the staff of the Cathedral.

One of the most alarming aspects of the sacrilegious abuse of St. Patrick’s is the extreme neglect it has uncovered. It’s called “Google”: “Know who’s using your church building” and “Know who’s using your church” is the basic duty of every good pastor: It takes minutes to Google and discover that the deceased for whom a funeral is requested is, first of all, an atheist. And transgender. AND an activist for evil.

Then you just say “no.”

I offered a wedding Mass at St. Pat’s as a newly ordained in the 90s. I was watched every minute by a young priest, likely a parochial vicar on the cathedral staff at the time, who was present in the upper church for the entire wedding Mass to ensure nothing untoward was done. People were free to visit the church during the wedding and the effort to prevent potential sacrilege is necessary for such a highly visible public space that represents the Catholic faith for so many people.

He was also there to make sure we “moved along” and did not overrun the time allotted for the Mass.

But it need be said that preventing sacrilege in every one of our churches is just Catholic.

Is it so hard? I didn’t resent the oversight and felt it was entirely appropriate for one of the most iconic and most highly visited churches, not just in NYC, but the world. The woman who deceived the staff of St. Pat’s in requesting the use of the church understands the church is iconic and chose it for that reason — in order to stage the outrageous and blasphemous transgender show that resulted. Does the staff of St. Pat’s understand that?

And let’s not be naive. Was this possibly an “inside job,” as they say? Heads should roll after this. Will the priest, who while seated in the sanctuary in view of the entire assembly, viewing closely the entire ugly and evil spectacle and doing absolutely nothing to stop it, be invited back?

The priest authoring the blog “Southern Orders” watched enough of the St. Patrick’s sacrilege funeral video to determine that Fr. Dougherty, the Maryknoll priest who “presided” over the event, is responsible for allowing the evil desecration to continue, whether or not he had any role beforehand.

As I suspected, the Cathedral indeed assigned a staff member, perhaps clergy, to be present who was coaching Dougherty as the event unfolded but who was also rebuffed by Dougherty when he tried to intervene to prevent further sacrilege as the out of control event unfolded. The primary intervention appears to be that, as the blogger writes, what perhaps started out as a Mass was changed midstream into a liturgy “outside of Mass,” that is, with Scripture, prayers, and remarks but without celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

This priest is the enemy inside the gates. If he is allowed to return, then not only does he have a problem, St. Patrick’s does as well. This may be a suspending offense, but I’m not an expert in canon law. Seems to me some disciplining of the priest would be in order, though. Dangerous precedent if he is not.

Remember that this follows another event in nearby Brooklyn where a half-dressed woman brought a crew inside a Catholic church and recorded a music video as a stunt to promote what clearly involves no talent on her part.

This issue is not going away. First it was publicized that the staff of the Cathedral offered a private Mass of reparation after the funeral service, which should have been public in order to make true reparation for a public act of desecration. And with the cardinal now calling Fr. Dougherty a “hero” when he largely enabled the evil event others are getting involved to correct the misrepresentation of the shocking and completely avoidable scandal, including Taylor Marshall and Maike Hickson, who reported at LifeSiteNews that the Cardinal appears to have a misunderstanding of the nature of the events.

From Southern Orders blog:

“FROM A FUNERAL MASS TO A FUNERAL LITURGY OUTSIDE OF MASS AND HOW THE DECISION TOOK PLACE:

“I watched the beginning of the Funeral Liturgy Scandal again. The priest, who Cardinal Dolan should hold responsible for the sacrilege and blasphemy in his cathedral, is dressed in a Chasuble which is used solely for a Mass, not a Liturgy outside of Mass. Outside of Mass a cope may be used, or cassock, surplice, and stole or alb and stole.

“After blessing the body of the deceased at the entrance of the Cathedral, the procession arrives at the altar. A priest wearing a cassock but with his surplice off and over his arm, speaks to the priest whose microphone is on. This priest, who may be the rector, I am not sure, says to him that this is not going to be a Mass but rather the Liturgy outside of Mass.

“Thus, the decision to change it from a Mass to a Liturgy outside of Mass was done after the Liturgy began, not before.

“I can’t watch the full liturgy as it turns my stomach, but when it is time for the eulogies to take place, the same priest, perhaps the rector, is miffed about the eulogies and tries to intervene, but the celebrant priest, who should be disciplined by the Cardinal, waves him off and more sacrilege/desecration takes place in the sanctuary publicly videoed for all to see and hear.

“God help us.

“The Church is a hospital, but the mentally and physically ill should not run the institution, they should be treated, restrained if necessary, and given bitter medicine which will help them in the long run. They should receive treatment, to include discipline and sedation if needed. They should not run the Church, I mean the hospital, or overrun it!

“The Church, which is a ‘hospital’ for the mortally sinful and spiritually dying, cannot be run by those whose sinfulness is highly contagious and corrupts the healthy if they aren’t quarantined. They can’t take over a sterile environment meant to cure their contagious and thus compromise the treatment the Church offers, which is God’s grace that convicts us of our diseased sinfulness and enables us to repent and believe God, not our own sick truth.

“God help us!”

In this age of rampant sacrilege and blasphemy we can all offer or have offered more holy Masses and more frequent prayers and acts of self-denial, particularly this Lent, to join our own efforts at reparation with those of other Catholics of goodwill everywhere.

Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.

apriestlife.blogspot.com

We’re All Africans Now

February 17, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on We’re All Africans Now

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

The fallout from Fiducia Supplicans, the Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith made public on December 18, has entered a new phase. As an increasing number of bishops’ conferences, individual prelates, and now the unified bishops of Africa have gone on the record against its implementation, the controversy has gone beyond the realm of theology to the world of culture.

On December 20, two days after the document appeared, Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo Besungu, archbishop of Kinshasa and president of SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar), requested that member conferences of SECAM offer their opinions of the document. On January 11, having received their responses, he stated the views of the bishops of Africa in a public statement.

“The ambiguity of this declaration, which lends itself to many interpretations and manipulations, raises a lot of perplexity among the faithful, and I believe that as pastors of the Church in Africa, we must speak clearly on this issue to provide clear guidance to our Christians,” he wrote.

Clearly the same could be said regarding countless other Vatican statements and actions made since 2013, but this time around, the bishops of the fastest-growing Church in the world go on the record with a historic and unanimous affirmation of the truths of the Faith.

“The Episcopal Conferences across Africa, which have strongly reaffirmed their communion with Pope Francis, believe that the extra-liturgical blessings proposed in the Declaration Fiducia supplicans cannot be carried out in Africa without exposing themselves to scandals.”

Suddenly the law of cause-and-effect emerges like rain on a parched desert, bringing relief not only to Africa but the world.

The Vatican document has caused a “shockwave” of “misconceptions and unrest in the minds of many lay faithful, consecrated persons, and even pastors, and has aroused strong reactions,” Cardinal Ambongo writes. “For this reason, we, the African Bishops, do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples because, in our context, this would cause confusion and would be in direct contradiction to the cultural ethos of African communities,” he writes. “The language of Fiducia supplicans remains too subtle for simple people to understand. Furthermore, it remains very difficult to be convincing that people of the same sex who live in a stable union do not claim the legitimacy of their own status.”

And why? Because “the constant teaching of the Church describes homosexual acts as ‘intrinsically disordered’,” he writes, with reference to Persona Humana, the Vatican’s 1975 Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics.

Catholic Culture Confronts Vatican Ideology

On January 13, AciAfrica news reported the views of Pope Francis shared at a gathering of Catholic priests from the Diocese of Rome in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. Fiducia Supplicans will not be implemented in Africa, he said, “because the culture does not accept it.”

So, it is the culture, and not the truths of the Faith, that causes the Church in Africa to reject Fides Supplicans.

Or perhaps because the culture of the African Church is a Catholic culture?

Consider the Pope’s statement in light of his comments just three days after the publication of Fides Supplicans, describing the duties of Holy See hierarchy during his annual Christmas greeting in St. John Lateran:

“It is important to keep advancing and growing in their understanding of the truth. Fearfully sticking to rules may give the appearance of avoiding problems but only ends up hurting the service that the Vatican Curia is called to give the Church,” he said.

“Let us remain vigilant against rigid ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions, separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward,” he continued. “We are called instead to set out and journey, like the Magi, following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along unexplored paths and new roads.”

That palaver bears the turpid touch of Tucho — no doubt about it.

Africa is a “special case” to our Peronist Pope. Its promise to be the world’s most thriving Church of the future clearly collides with the Pope’s gnostic vision. Once more, the Pontiff pretends to refine even the most blatant of callous contradictions with an unctuous invocation of thinly veiled epithets plainly designed to demean and ridicule the faithful who are loyal to the tradition of the Church.

Repeatedly he indulges in casual but cancerous ambiguities: “all are welcome,” “irregular,” “judgmental,” “fearful” — the list is endless, and it is tiresome.

And there is precedent. Before there was “synodality,” there were “regular” synods, and in 2015 we already saw seeds of the planned chaos that now engulfs a large swath of the Church’s discussion of morality.

The 2015 Ordinary Synod of Bishops was held to address the challenges to the family in the modern world. However, according to Matthew McCusker of Voice of the Family, many attendees spent little time and effort to protect and preserve the family, while they did everything they could to destroy it.

Issues like “abortion, IVF, embryo experimentation, euthanasia, assisted suicide, anti-life, anti-family sex education, attacks on parental rights and the increasing threat to the civil freedom of citizens of many Western nations who wish to live lives faithful to the Catholic faith and the natural law” — all of them front and center in the Culture of Death’s attack on the family — were ignored.

Instead, the attendees wanted to undermine marriage (Holy Communion for the “divorced and civilly remarried”), undermine Humanae Vitae, urge open minds on contraception, reduce the indissolubility of marriage to the level of an “ideal,” suggest that cohabitation has “positive aspects,” adopt secular notions of “gender equality” and acquiescing in the need for “a rethinking of the duties of the spouses, and, finally, to deny the full rights of parents as the primary educators of their children.”

The Meaning Of Words

“The first priority of reconstructing a society in ruins is to restore the proper meaning of words” — Confucius

But most interesting was McCusker’s description of the synod’s efforts to change language itself, the better to conform to the realities of, yes, the culture — the secular culture.
On the opening day of the synod, Fr. Thomas Rosica, spokesman for the Holy See, stated the goals of the radicals: “There must be an end to exclusionary language,” he said. “The Jubilee of Mercy also requires a new form of language, both public and private. [It] requires a language of mercy….The language of inclusion must be our language, always considering pastoral and canonical possibilities and solutions.”

Rosica’s prime targets were “intrinsically disordered,” most specifically with reference to homosexuality, and “indissolubility.”

These were terms deemed unsuitable for our current age and in need of being replaced by “pastoral” and “merciful” language without changing her underlying teachings, Rosica said.

Many bishops in attendance, especially those from Eastern Europe and Africa, opposed these efforts, of course, and the result was predictable: ambiguity, designed to shock, dismay, and discourage defenders of the Faith while emboldening its destroyers.

So now we have Tucho’s scarcely disguised outrage of Fiducia Supplicans repudiated by the most thriving Church in the world.

If it’s the culture, count me in.

We’re all Africans now.

Ashes And Fasting, It’s Here Again

February 10, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Ashes And Fasting, It’s Here Again

By DEACON MIKE MANNO

This week we begin our annual journey to Easter via Ash Wednesday. But there is an interesting story around how our practice of Lent has evolved.

                In the early Church the celebration of the Resurrection was not celebrated as an annual event, thus the Sunday liturgy was a weekly reminder of the Resurrection and the preceding Friday was the commemoration of the Crucifixion.

                The practice of fasting before the celebration of the Resurrection can be traced back almost to apostolic times. We know from a letter from Irenaeus, a disciple of John the Apostle, to Pope Victor I (189-199) that Irenaeus tells Victor about his church’s Easter celebration and the fast preceding it:

                “Some think that they ought to fast for one day, some for two, others for still more; some make their ‘day’ last 40 hours on end,” he wrote. The 40 hours referenced was in response to the early Christian belief that Christ spent 40 hours in the grave before His Resurrection.

                Many of the earliest Lenten fasts were associated with the preparation of catechumens for their Easter Baptism. While the fasts were very strict, some allowing only one meal per day, the length and severity of them varied greatly from region to region. Gradually Fridays were set aside for the abstinence from meat. After Christianity was legalized by Constantine (313), the Council of Nicaea (325) took up the issue of a 40-day Lenten season of fasting, but it is not clear whether the intent was that it was to be applied to all or just those preparing for Baptism.

                A 40-day period was ultimately chosen not only to represent Jesus’ 40 days of fasting before his public ministry, but, also the 40 days Moses stayed on Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy) and Elijah’s 40-day fast on His way to Mount Horeb (1 Kings).  But how those days were chosen was still open to dispute.

                The East only fasted on weekdays, making Lent last for eight weeks; but in the West, Lent was six weeks because it included Saturdays. Both observed a strict fast: only one meal per day in the evening, no meat, fish, or animal products. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) wrote to St. Augustine of Canterbury, stating: “We abstain from flesh, meat, and from all things that come from flesh, as milk, cheese and eggs.”

                It was Gregory who moved the start of Lent from Sunday to Wednesday — including Saturdays — to produce an exact 40-day period. Sundays were always excluded from fasting since it is considered a festive day celebrating Christ’s victory over sin and death.

                By the ninth century, Lenten fasting practices were becoming more relaxed. Eating was allowed after 3 p.m. and by the fifteenth century that became noon. Finally, some foods previously forbidden, such as fish, were allowed. Currently, fasting is required only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, with the Fridays during Lent days of abstinence — no meat.

                Ashes for Ash Wednesday are a sign of public repentance and they were mentioned in connection with Easter preparation as early as the third century by Tertullian. In the Old Testament, the custom of receiving ashes on the head was a reminder of humility and mortality and a sign of sorrow and repentance for sins. Use of the ashes was mandated throughout the Western Church by the Synod of Benevento (1091).

                The use of ashes as a symbol of repentance and humility can be traced back over 3,000 years and can be found in many cultures. Homer, in his epic The Iliad, wrote about it in 800 BC and other evidence demonstrates that it was also used by the Greeks and other cultures along the Mediterranean.

                In the Old Testament ashes were not only a sign of repentance, but a sign of mortality and sorrow and are referred to in many passages including those found in Job (4:6), Daniel (9:3), Esther (4:1), and Jonah (3:5-6). So, it was only natural that the early Church encouraged the use of ashes. Tertullian (d. 220) wrote that the penitent must live “in the squalor of ashes.”

                Later the practice of sprinkling was replaced by making a Sign of the Cross with the ashes on the foreheads of the faithful. The practice of “marking” or “sealing” the individual was also a symbolic reference to the Book of Revelation and passages from Ezekiel which spoke of sealing God’s servants for their protection. “Go through the city (Jerusalem) and mark (with an X) the foreheads of those who moan and groan over the abominations that are practiced within it” (Ezekiel 9:4).

                Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and continues until the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.  That day begins the Easter Triduum, which ends with the evening prayer of Easter day.  However, fasting continues through Holy Week, which is included in the traditional 40-day Lenten fast, even though Lent liturgically ends on Holy Thursday. 

                The word “Lent” itself was not used in the Latin speaking world. The word Lent comes from the German or Teutonic “Lenz” which means “long” and was originally meant to identify the season of spring.

                And so, we begin another Lent, a season dedicated to prayer, fasting and works of charity.  And as we do, we might remember the words of Pope Benedick XIV who in 1741, a year after assuming the papacy, wrote: 

                “The observance of Lent is the very badge of the Christian warfare.  By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of the Cross of Christ.  By it we gain strength against a prince of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help.  Should mankind grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God’s glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to the Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, or public calamity and of private woe.”

                May you find peace and comfort in this healing season.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at https://iowacatholicradio  com/faith-on-trial).

John Paul II Academy: Tucho Must Go… And Take His Blasphemy With Him

February 4, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on John Paul II Academy: Tucho Must Go… And Take His Blasphemy With Him

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

On January 17th, leaders of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family formally requested that Pope Francis dismiss Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernandez from his post as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“The sensual-mystical literature for which the cardinal has a particular propensity is one of the worst evils of our time,” wrote Dr. Thomas Ward, Academy president and founder of England’s National Association of Catholic Families. It “does nothing but justify the worst excesses of the sexual revolution that is deeply corrupting our society and leading our youth to the abyss.”

That statement speaks with authority, because the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family has a distinguished history. In fact, the work of its members represents the original intentions of Pope St. John Paul II when he founded the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1992. Its purpose was simple and clear: To pursue the interdisciplinary study and defense of human life in all its stages.

The Academy’s work continued smoothly, defending life and the family for 24 years. Then, on December 31, 2016, Pope Francis suddenly saw fit to dissolve the Academy’s membership and change its guiding statutes.

And that change wasn’t long in coming. Within a year, Maurizio Chiodi, professor of moral theology at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy and a newly appointed member of the Academy for Life, led the way.

On December 14, 2017, at a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Gregorian University, Chiodi declared that “an artificial method for the regulation of births could be recognized as an act of responsibility that is carried out, not in order to radically reject the gift of a child, but because in those situations responsibility calls the couple and the family to other forms of welcome and hospitality.”

Note the definitions: “artificial” — doesn’t that mean “unnatural”? And “regulation”: doesn’t he really mean “prevention”? And the same goes for “responsibility”: he says it twice, in case you might have seen it as a fabrication the first time; and it’s all proven beyond a doubt by a passive conditional phrase that, on inspection, admits that such a “recognition” would take a lot of arm-and-mind-twisting to embrace, because it claims to create a truth ex nihilo.

As Sandro Magister reported, the conference had been organized by the university’s faculty of moral theology, directed by none other than the Argentine Jesuit Humberto Miguel Yanez, a protege of then-Archbishop Bergoglio. And note the irony (one dare not call it perfidy): The conference was billed as a celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Humanae Vitae (promulgated by Pope St. Paul VI on July 25, 1968).

Unfortunately, Chiodi took this historic opportunity to mock the truths defended in that prophetic document.

By what authority? Chiodi cited Amoris Laetitia (“On Love In The Family”), the 2016 encyclical of Pope Francis.

And that document, Vatican sources say, was ghostwritten — by none other than Tucho Fernandez.

And Tucho now serves as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — the position held by Georg Cardinal Ratzinger from 1981until he was elected to the papacy in April 2005.

The revolt against the timeless teaching of the Church has now come full circle.

A Note On History

When Pope Francis cleansed the membership roster of St. John Paul’s original Academy, seven years ago, a number of those who were “members ad vitam” (“members for life”) were nonetheless not reappointed. They refused to allow that slight to deter them. They had made a lifelong commitment to promote the goals of the Academy and of St. John Paul.

These scholars were compelled in conscience to fulfill that obligation, and they steadfastly decided to continue their life’s work. So, in 2017, they founded the new lay Academy, dedicating it to revealing the splendor of truth about life and family as taught by Pope St. John Paul and every Supreme Pontiff before him.

They continue their work today, fully faithful to the authentic Magisterium and perennial doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Meanwhile, however, while Pope Francis’ wrecking crew proceeded recklessly to turn truth on its head, we note that he kept the Academy’s original name.

Does his decision reflect his respect for the continuity of Church teaching, however sharply that teaching collides with the sinful way of the world?

Our Peronist Pope is not a man of continuity. In fact, since his final profession as a Jesuit in 1973 he had lived in the noxious fumes of the Liberation Theology that has ravaged the Latin American Church and nearly asphyxiated it in the past half-century.

Pope Francis clearly understands ideology — both its dangers and its attractions.

In fact, he often invokes the term — usually referring to those Catholics loyal to his predecessors.

But students of leftist movements like Marxism and its Liberation Theology offshoot recognize another feature in his choice to keep the Academy’s original name: ideologues — that is, by definition, those advocating any gnostic revolt against reality — often hijack the beloved symbols of their enemies, empty them of their original content, and refill them with their noxious teaching: poisonous indeed, but often only slowly recognized, disguised as it is by the familiar and beloved label and language of old.

The most flagrant of such hijackings is Liberation Theology’s perversion of the Person of Christ that depicts Him as a political revolutionary.

Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, Vladimir Lenin’s first Minister of Education, put it succinctly: “Christ was the first Communist!”

There you go. And that statement is no merely wistful fantasy; it represents a profound and powerful call for revolutionary action.

Introducing The New Paradigm

In 2017, Pope Francis named Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as the Academy’s new Director. The scandals that followed — both in the Academy and beyond — have sadly not come as a surprise. and Tucho Fernández simply personifies them all.

Last August, in an interview with Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, Dr. Ward quoted Archbishop Paglia’s own description of the new path he has charted for the Academy:

“In his words,” said Dr. Thomas, “the role of the Academy is ‘to accept the invitation contained in paragraph 3 of the Pope’s Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium,’ where he calls for ‘a broad and generous effort at a radical paradigm shift, or rather — dare I say — at a bold cultural revolution’.”

Wait a minute. Isn’t that somewhat extreme?

Not to worry. The Holy Father is quoting here an authoritative encyclical.

“All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution” (Laudato Si’, n. 114). Promulgated in 2015.

Yes, Pope Francis is quoting himself.

Archbishop Paglia, Ward continues, believes that Veritatis Gaudium calls for “a radical paradigm shift in theological reflection…to render a service to the Magisterium by opening up a space for dialogue that makes research possible and encourages it. This is how we see the role of the Academy, which Pope Francis himself also wanted on the front line on delicate issues to be addressed through a transdisciplinary approach.”

On hearing this, Mosher, a historian whose copious works recount the horrors of Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution, asks, “who are some of the others collaborating with Francis on the ‘radical paradigm shift’ we have been talking about?”

Dr. Ward recounts how Cardinal McCarrick was so impressed in 2013 when “one influential Italian told him that Cardinal Bergoglio ‘could reform the Church.  If we gave him five years, he could put us back on target…[he] could make the Church over again.”

There you go. “On target.” The revolution marches on, to the cheers of none other than “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

The most accurate Italian translation of the “new paradigm” is “Senza Uscita.”

Dead End.

Tucho has to go.

Pagans Worship Sex

January 28, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Pagans Worship Sex

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

Pagans worship sex and the body. Christians worship God. Alone. The pornographic cult, which has seized power in Rome, and which centers around the sexual act and the body as it relates to coition, is forbidden as sinful for Christians.

Are the agents of disorder and subversion in the Vatican attempting to substitute the idolatry of a sex cult for the true faith? Worship of the body and the sexual function apart from marriage and procreation is pagan. Pagans are closed in on nature apart from Revelation. Pagan cults are deprived of the supernatural, imprisoned within the “eternal return” of the seasons, of birth and death. Christians, on the other hand, always preserve a reverent and chaste attitude and comportment surrounding the sacred marital bond. All is subject to the holiness of life without which one cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

“Tucho,” the man Francis has placed in charge of doctrine at Rome, appears now to be the author of multiple texts about sexual function and the cult of the body. First, the book on kissing. Denials and then admissions. Next orgasms. This time, admission and a statement that “Francis knew.” Now, more. Additional writings have now surfaced that go a long way toward establishing a career-long obsession with sex. By a celibate man. Let that sink in. These inverted musings upon the sexual function are isolated from, and contrary to, their ordering by the Creator toward life and procreation, toward the infusing of an immortal soul into another “imago Dei.”

Are the homosexualist men with whom Francis has surrounded himself in Rome charged with seeding the Church with an alien sex cult? The pile of evidence is mounting to an undeniable degree that these agents of evil, led by “Tucho,” may not even be Christian at all.

Bishops, priests, and faithful around the globe have rejected Tucho’s foray into blessing a gay sex cult within the Church through Fiducia Supplicans, a document dead on arrival. All the wishing and Vatican produced-documents in the world will never make mutual masturbation, which is what happens when two men or two women simulate sex, the equal of, or a substitute for the complementary and fruitful union willed by God in creation, of one man only for one woman.

Christians do not delectate upon nor discuss sex as entertainment. Christians do not use pornographic videos or pictures. Christians do not permit even discussion about these things. Chastity is constitutive of Christian faith and morals. Chastity avoids casual treatment of those matters of sexuality proper to marriage. To keep it short: what happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom. The intimacy proper to the exclusive relationship shared only by husband and wife, and all that is related to it, should be kept as a private matter between the spouses. The only exception to this would be discussions with a doctor for health or fertility reasons or, as necessary, within the seal of the confessional.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church treats the matter of chastity under the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.”

“Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman.

“The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift” (CCC, n. 2337).

In other words, chastity in marriage is part of the relationship of husband and wife which is “exclusive.” The privacy they maintain about the particulars of their relationship upholds its sanctity and bears witness to their mutual love. Matters relating to the physical union of man and wife in sexuality do not belong to relationships outside of the bond of marriage or to relationships between persons who are not married. The physical aspects of personhood, among all persons in relation, include many different aspects of corporeality but always exclude those directly related to the unity and fertility of married couples.

St. Paul treats of the Christian understanding of the meaning and telos of the body in 1 Cor. chapter 7, verses 1-7.

“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is well for a man not to touch a woman. But because of the temptation to immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise, the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does. Do not refuse one another except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control. I say this by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own special gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.”

St. Paul makes clear that a man does not “touch” a woman with whom he is not married. Chastity also recognizes that any conversation, written communication or other action “touching” upon matters related to sexuality is also to be avoided as incompatible with the holiness proper to every vocation.

In Ephesians 5, verses 1-6, he enlarges on the matter of chaste behavior as encompassing thought, word, and deed, all flowing from the imitation of Christ, and expressing love.

“Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But fornication and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

Not merely shunning fornication but also, too, any matters that fall within the near occasion of the sin of fornication or adultery, preserves the holiness proper to worship of God and living as imitators of Him.

The pagan porntificate in Rome also alarms those familiar with the contours of sexual abusers and the grooming behavior that warns of potential abuse. Rejection of chastity also enables pedophilia. Survivors of clerical sexual abuse expressed alarm at Fernández’s The Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality. They are quoted in a recent Our Sunday Visitor article.

“It was absolutely nauseating,” one female survivor said of the recently rediscovered 1998 book. “It brought a lot back from my own abuse, because some of the things I read were similar to what my rapist would say — sort of combining abuse with things of a spiritual nature.”

“Teresa Pitt Green of Spirit Fire, a Christian restorative justice network, was particularly troubled by Fernández’s account of a conversation with a 16-year-old girl.

“‘The boundary violations are staggering,’ said Pitt Green: ‘psychologically, potentially physically, certainly from an intellectual point of view, normalizing certain things for people that probably don’t even know it’.”

The OSV article recalls that in his book The Art of Kissing, which he described as a catechetical text for adolescents, the DDF Cardinal Fernandez “published four of his own erotic poems.”

The behavior of an exemplary moral Catholic leader and prelate, or more like an evil sex-obsessed fiend who wouldn’t even qualify for a pagan fertility cult in ancient Rome? I’ll let you decide.

The Next America: Getting Closer

January 21, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on The Next America: Getting Closer

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

This week, Nicholas DiMarzio, retired bishop of Brooklyn, suggested in OSV News that the U.S. legalize “as many as possible” of the millions of illegal aliens now residing in the United States.

The title of his article, “Compromise: An Essential Element of Politics,” was somewhat misleading, because the bishop wasn’t advocating compromise at all. “The best way to fix our broken immigration system,” he writes, “is to examine it holistically, and repair all parts of it…including legalization of the undocumented” (“Never call them illegal,” reads the USCCB’s Eleventh Commandment).

Bottom line: Bishop DiMarzio embraces the doctrine of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.): there aren’t enough Americans, so we need to import new ones.

Of course, Schumer applauds a major cause of America’s stagnant population growth — the sixty million abortions since Roe v. Wade. When DiMarzio, appeared with Cardinal Dolan last month to discuss immigration, they didn’t mention abortion; instead, they identified a different cause: the fact that New York’s Catholic population was declining because nobody was having babies.

They both went on to advocate more immigrants, legal and otherwise, to fill all of those empty pews.

In reaching that conclusion, both Dolan and DiMarzio agree with Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, a tireless advocate for illegal aliens. A native of Mexico, Gomez has an ardent love of his homeland and his people. He has testified frequently on Capitol Hill in favor of various amnesty-related issues, always in the name of the Catholic Church. He promotes the same theme before various groups of wealthy Catholics around the country.
In 2012, he described his vision of “The Next America” at a conference in Napa Valley.

For Archbishop Gomez, the “Next America” will be decidedly better than the current one: “Our culture is changing,” he said.  “We have a legal structure that allows, and even pays for, the killing of babies in the womb…. Our courts and legislatures are redefining the natural institutions of marriage and the family. We have an elite culture…that is openly hostile to religious faith.”

All too true. So, what is to blame for this travesty? Pope Benedict XVI identifies the “Dictatorship of Relativism.” In Gomez’s view, however, the culprit is Old America, specifically “the idea that Americans are descended from only white Europeans and that our culture is based only on the individualism, work ethic and rule of law that we inherited from our Anglo-Protestant forebears.”

For Gomez, our national heritage somehow encourages “a wrong-headed notion that ‘real Americans’ are of some particular race, class, religion or ethnic background”; it smacks of “nativism” and “bigotry.”

Such prejudice, he continues, primarily harms not Catholics, but Mexicans — the majority of whom are illegal aliens. “America is in need of renewal,” says Gomez.

The solution? Amnesty, and more Mexican immigration. Mexican immigrants “will bring a new, youthful, entrepreneurial spirit of hard work to our economy.” They “are not afraid of hard work or sacrifice [and] the vast majority of them believe in Jesus Christ and love our Catholic Church.  They share traditional American values of faith, family and community.”

Two Prelates, Two Centuries, Two Views

The approach of Archbishop Gomez strikes a stark contrast to that of James Cardinal Gibbons, the Catholic Primate of America 130 years ago.

In the nineteenth century, German Catholics came to America by the millions, in waves following the revolutionary unrest of 1848 and the unification of Germany in 1871 that brought on Bismarck’s persecution of Catholics during the Kulturkampf.

With them came heroic religious orders and devout laymen like those who founded Der Wanderer, which was published in German into the 1950s (and was banned by Hitler, who stopped its distribution to thousands of Germans in the 1930s).

For decades, those newly arrived German-American Catholics refused to give up their language. In his massive study of American identity, Who Are We, the late Harvard historian Samuel P. Huntington writes that for years, “[a]mong the original British settlers antagonism existed towards [the newly-arrived] German-Americans, focused largely on the efforts of the latter to continue to use their language in churches and schools and other public institutions and events.”

Cardinal Gibbons strongly opposed the millions of German-speaking American Catholics who wanted to preserve their language, their culture, and their clergy. He believed that their position would invite the charge that “the Catholic Church…exists in America as a foreign institution, and that she is, consequently, a menace to the existence of the nation.”

Naturally, like Gomez’s Mexicans, Gibbons’ Germans were “shining examples of industry, energy, love of home, conservatism, and attachment to their religion,” but Gibbons insisted that they assimilate nonetheless. President Benjamin Harrison warmly commended the Cardinal’s patriotism.

“Of all men, the Bishops of the Church should be in full harmony with the political institutions and sentiments of the country,” he told the cardinal.

How times have changed. Has any American bishop ever banned Spanish Masses? Today, most dioceses can’t provide enough of them. Cardinal Gibbons demanded assimilation; Archbishop Gomez rejects it. Gibbons, fearing the allegation of anti-Americanism, seeks the approval of President Harrison, who approves of Catholics as an integral part of the religious culture of the country that would inform and guide the government.

Does Archbishop Gomez seek the approval of Joe Biden? Hardly. But curiously, our shepherds were harsh critics of President Trump during his term, on immigration (he enforced the Rule of Law) and much more.

In short, Gibbons loved America; Gomez says it’s over.

What Comes Next?

Archbishop Gomez invokes history: Catholic missionaries arrived on the continent over 150 years before the Pilgrims. Catholics are as much a part of our history as Protestants, he insists. He envisions a Catholic renaissance, led by Hispanics, inspiring a “new kind of American patriotism.” He denounces racism, but not the racists found in La Raza and the other hate groups who support a reconquista of the American Southwest, a message which USCCB Immigration Chairman Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso often seems to resonate.

Gomez praises “the glorious legacy of Hispanic literature and art,” deftly averting his gaze from the violent crime that engulfs Mexico and the politically connected drug gangs that have murdered thousands, hundreds of priests, and even the Cardinal Archbishop of Guadalajara.

And yet, as Dr. Thomas Sowell observes, those family-loving Mexicans bring their culture with them, and in Mexico the corruption of the political and business elites trickles down to the lowest campesino.

When I translate for the police in the Shenandoah Valley, the sheriff says, “Get their hands out of their pockets.” He thinks they’re reaching for a weapon. In fact, they are reaching for bribe money. All their lives they have had to pay off every man in uniform that they have ever encountered.

So, when the illegals arrive stateside, having broken one law already, no one tells them “Thou Shalt Not Steal” when it comes to Social Security numbers, or “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness” when applying for free welfare, education, and medical benefits.

For Catholic leaders Dolan, Gómez, and Seitz, this is the flock that is poised to be the future of the American Catholic Church: While 30 million Americans are ex-Catholics, Hispanics constitute a majority of American Catholics under 30. Whether or not the Next America is Hispanic, it appears that the Next American Catholic Church will be. And if Archbishop Gomez has his way, the Next America will be Greater Mexico.

Cardinal Muller: Fiducia Supplicans “Blasphemous”

January 12, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on Cardinal Muller: Fiducia Supplicans “Blasphemous”

By Father Kevin M  Cusick

Let’s talk about blessings.

With Fiducia supplicans, the bizarre intervention of Tucho Fernandez and rubber-stamped by Francis, the whole subject of blessings is in the air again. The fork-tongued double-speak of the document employs weaponized ambiguity to get the outcome desired of approving same-sex (read sodomitic) mutual sexual gratification. This while genuflecting to marriage and sacramental teaching just enough to placate those weak bishops who want just enough wiggle room to avoid the discomfort of outright opposition.

Although it has ever been an unauthorized innovation, which has multiplied into seeming ubiquity since the new Mass was promulgated with rubrics such as “in this or similar words”, the custom of welcoming people to the communion rail at Mass for a blessing who have no intention of receiving Communion has spread widely in the Church.

At first glance it appears pastoral. We don’t want anyone to feel excluded at a social event. A wedding is a happy occasion and we wouldn’t want to cast a pall over the proceedings.

A bridesmaid at a wedding could be baptized Catholic, a Catholic-educated public apostate, working for a diabolic organization such as Teen Vogue, and with no intention of going to Confession or ever returning to the Catholic Faith, but up she will come, together with the other bridesmaids of the wedding, for a blessing at the Communion time of the wedding Mass. A mockery of the idea of blessings and of the Faith itself.

This scene is repeated numerous times all over Catholic America, with many avoiding Confession or indefinitely delaying the practice of the Catholic Faith as a result. An officially sanctioned, as it were, placebo to stand in place of the Faith and the Sacraments which are the reason the Church and the priesthood exists in the first place. A pastoral disaster.

What should happen rarely does. Opportunity for Confession should be offered prior to every holy Mass, and in particular on Sundays. And the need for such pastoral solicitude is even greater at weddings and funerals, when so many non-practicing Catholics actually darken the door of the Church once again after an extended period of being a “Catholic on leave”.

The Catholic world does not yet groan to find itself Bergoglian. The bishops of Malawi, Cameroon, Zambia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Poland, Hungary and others have spoken out against the impossibility of blessing sin which Fiducia supplicans invites.

Bishop Robert Mutsaerts, the auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, has issued a statement on what he calls the “diabolical ambiguity” of the document arising from “… the confusing passages in the statement. Why does one ask for a blessing? To remove the brokenness in one’s life. After all, it is God’s blessing that is being asked for. The first question to ask is: Would God want to give His blessing on this? God who loves nothing more than for people to come to repentance to share in God’s love. Can God give his blessing to a sinner? As mentioned, yes, of course. Repentant sinners who come to repentance are heartily pardoned. An entirely different question is: Can God give his blessing on sin? Of course not! We love the sinner, but hate the sin. In all three forms of blessing (sacramental, formal, informal) exactly the same principle applies. And this is where it goes wrong in Fiducia Supplicans. A gay Christian can be blessed individually. But one cannot bless a gay relationship, because the Church characterizes it as disordered, or sinful. God giving His blessing on a sin, it is a travesty!”

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller stands on the side of clear teaching in full fidelity to Catholic truth as well.

In “The Only Blessing of Mother Church is the Truth That Will Set Us Free. Note on the Declaration Fiducia supplicans” he says the document “has made an affirmation that has no precedent in the teaching of the Catholic Church. In fact, this document affirms that it is possible for a priest to bless (not liturgically, but privately) couples who live in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, including same-sex couples.”

“The difficulty of blessing a union or couple is especially evident in the case of homosexuality. For in the Bible, a blessing has to do with the order that God has created and that he has declared to be good. This order is based on the sexual difference of male and female, called to be one flesh. Blessing a reality that is contrary to creation is not only impossible, it is blasphemy. Once again, it is not a question of blessing persons who ‘live in a union that cannot be compared in any way to marriage’ (FS, n. 30), but of blessing the very union that cannot be compared to marriage. It is precisely for this purpose that a new kind of blessing is created (FS 7, 12).’”

So, what would result if a priest follows the urging of FS? Muller explains:

“According to FS, he (the priest) could do so with a non-liturgical, non-official ‘pastoral’ blessing. This would mean that the priest would have to give these blessings without acting in the name of Christ and the Church. But this would mean that he would not be acting as a priest. In fact, he would have to give these blessings not as a priest of Christ, but as one who has rejected Christ. In fact, by his actions, the priest who blesses these unions presents them as a path to the Creator. Therefore, he commits a sacrilegious and blasphemous act against the Creator’s plan and against Christ’s death for us, which meant to fulfill the Creator’s plan.”

And so, the Pope has promulgated a document calling for priests to participate in and to accommodate a “blasphemy”. This serves only to cause division in the Church, when the priest himself commits a sin by simulating a “blessing”: division between those who reject the Catholic Faith, that is, the truth, and those who do not. The devil is the author of division, therefore the document is in fact diabolic.

The first and greatest blessing Catholic sinners need is, in fact, the grace of Confession.

At a recent funeral offered for his mother by a priest-son he arranged for priests to be present prior to the Mass in the confessional and informed his family. Family members readily took advantage of the opportunity. A number of confessions were heard that day. Priests could immediately begin to bridge the Confession gap in the practice of the Faith on the part of a large percentage of Catholics by immediately beginning once again to offer Confessions prior to Sunday Mass, as was the long-standing practice in years past.

Doesn’t a Eucharistic revival, a project of the US Bishops for 2024, presume a wider, graced and, therefore, effective reception of the Holy Eucharist? That always begins with correct and regular reception of the sacrament of Penance. There is no revival of faith and practice of Eucharistic life without the sacrament of Penance. Perhaps a Confession Revival would have been a good first step to prepare for a revival also of Eucharistic faith and piety?

A Merry Christmas Season and a Blessed New Year to all of our readers. Thank you.

apriestlife.blogspot.com

As Biden Luxuriates… U.S. Torn Apart By Border Plan To Transform It For Democrats

January 10, 2024 Frontpage Comments Off on As Biden Luxuriates… U.S. Torn Apart By Border Plan To Transform It For Democrats

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — Senile Democrat Joe Biden lawlessly has thrown open U.S. borders to unauthorized entry potentially by everyone in the entire world, and millions are streaming in, as Marxist-tainted Biden plans to crush U.S. citizens and change the very nature of this nation in order to benefit far-left Democrats electorally.

     This probably is the most dictatorial, sweeping illegal action ever taken by a U.S. president in history.

      Meanwhile, vacationing in luxury in St. Croix, bad Catholic Biden bragged of feasting on all the foods placed before him — even while some unauthorized entrants arrived in the U.S. hungry and ill-clothed but hoping to dip into Americans’ pockets.

     During a rare interview from St. Croix for New Year’s Eve, even while the U.S. was falling apart due to his orders, Biden was asked by unctuous interviewer Ryan Seacrest for ABC-TV “what sorts of holiday foods have you been enjoying over the last few days?”

     “Well, I’ve been eating everything that’s put in front of me,” Biden said. “But I’ve eaten pasta, which I love. I’ve eaten a lot of chicken, chicken parmesan, I’ve been eating all Italian foods, basically.” When Jill Biden reminded him of his beloved ice cream, too, the radically pro-abortion president specified, “Chocolate chip ice cream.”

     Cognitively impaired Biden stuffs it into his decaying frame amid riches reserved for the few but makes Americans gag as they see their own grocery bills and other expenses jump due to his callous, self-serving policies.

     The New York Post reported on December 31 that Biden spent 138 days relaxing away from the luxurious White House in 2023 — meaning 37 percent of the time — at his Delaware mansions, the presidential retreat at Camp David, or the luxury locations of St. Croix, Lake Tahoe or Nantucket.

     Could there be a worse image of decadence, defiance and crime at the highest levels of government?

     Meanwhile, mayors of cities hard hit by the invaders, including New York City and Eagle Pass, Texas, complained of Biden or his government’s failure to address the crisis with them. Eagle Pass Mayor Rolando Salinas said he received “No response whatsoever” from the federal government.

     A New Jersey former Democratic congressman who switched to the Republican Party told Fox News Business that he was concerned about the Biden administration intentionally trying “to change the substance and structure of the United States of America” with the open borders.

     New Jersey Cong. Jeff Van Drew attacked the administration’s “desire, their fever and desire to change this country forever” with unlimited unauthorized immigration.

     Three sources told The Wanderer how destructive the Biden government is.

     National conservative commentator Quin Hillyer told The Wanderer on December 31: “Joe Biden has deliberately created a mammoth crisis on our southern border and encouraged a massive invasion of our country by illegal aliens. His deliberate policies are unconscionable and unforgivable.”

     A longtime southern Arizona Catholic woman who asked not to be identified because of her safety concerns told The Wanderer on January 1: “The current invasion of incredible numbers of people from every place in the world walking across America’s southern border will go down in history as one of the most lawless, most destructive  and most dangerous” occurrences.

     More of the Arizona woman’s comments appear at the end of this article.

     Blogger Mary Ann Kreitzer, who runs the Virginia-based, Catholic Les Femmes — The Truth site, told The Wanderer on January 1: “The same things that destroyed the Roman empire are destroying our nation: corrupt leaders, invasion (barbarian tribes like the Huns and Visigoths infiltrated her borders), economic devastation due to numerous wars and government overspending, dependence on cheap labor by aliens (Rome had slaves; we have wage slaves), etc.

     “But worst of all,” Kreitzer said, “Rome sank into a moral decadence that filtered from the murderous tyrants to her citizens. Two English ministers travelling in America in the early 1800s (Andrew Reed and James Matheson) wrote, ‘America will be great if America is good. If not, her greatness will vanish away like a morning cloud.’ Joe Biden and his cronies mirror the corruption of many in America.

     “Without a serious conversion, we’re finished,” she said. “Sin is the cause of all unhappiness. John Bosco’s dream is our only hope: to chain the ship of state to the pillars of the Eucharist and devotion to the Queen of Heaven. The answer is always the same. Love God and embrace His will.”

      St. John Bosco was a 19th century Italian priest who worked with street children, other needy youth and juvenile delinquents.

     Biden’s government sends countless ill-prepared border-jumpers around the U.S., some even clad only in towels or blankets, for overstressed state and local governments to assume the massive financial burdens of housing, feeding, clothing, medicating, schooling — whatever the unlimited numbers of mere advantage-seekers or even destitute people want.

    Why would they try to improve their own nations when Biden has made U.S. taxpayers their provisioners endlessly?

     The invasion creates demands that mean U.S. citizens with needs are shoved to the back of the line.

     On January 2 national radio host Buck Sexton said the U.S. is on pace to receive four million unauthorized entrants for the year, with more than 300,000 having entered just in December, the most in history for a single month.

     Sexton asserted that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t finish her thought when she referred to how much Biden had done. She should have added, Sexton commented, how much more he’d done “to undermine and destroy America” than any other president.

     Meanwhile, some foes of Republican Donald Trump asserted ironically that if he were to return to the White House, he’d become a “dictator.”

      If illegal dictatorship is what they fear, they’ve already got it in historic dimensions, in spades, due to lawbreaking Biden.

      Some Democrat officials around the nation hurried to make illegal invasion even more attractive, such as left-wing Democrat-governed California declaring tax-paid health insurance an expensive new right for unauthorized lawbreakers.

     The New York Post reported on December 29: “Cash-strapped California will ring in the new year by offering free health care to all undocumented immigrants who qualify for the state’s government-run health insurance program…

     “‘Now that California is struggling to make ends meet, using taxpayer money to cover non-citizens is simply irresponsible,’ Sally Pipes, a health-care policy expert and the president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank, told the Post.”

     It reportedly was estimated that more than 700,000 illegal aliens would put further stress on the Golden State’s overburdened system at a cost of around $3 billion or greater.

     Former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey posted at the New York Post on January 2: “New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Illinois, Oregon and Washington already cover migrants in specific age categories, and left-wing lawmakers are pushing to expand the coverage to all ages.”

     Chicago, one of various Democrat-run “sanctuary cities,” stuffed in illegal immigrants wherever it could, including parks and police stations, but squealed under the financial burden.

     An opinion column in the New York Post that was posted January 2 said: “The Biden administration has effectively eliminated the border, transformed American customs and immigration-enforcement personnel into the federal equivalent of Walmart door-greeters and flooded the nation with an estimated eight million unvetted arrivals.”

     National security, sex slavery and the spread of infectious disease were among serious concerns submerged by Biden’s rushing in the millions of arrivals.

     The numbers of military-age men coming from Communist China were among the worries, as well as possible improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

     The Daily Caller News Foundation posted on January 2: “The Biden administration drastically simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants in April 2023, according to an internal U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation

     “This scaling back of the interview process fast-tracked the releasing of Chinese illegal immigrants into the U.S. while making it more difficult for CBP agents to identify national-security threats, J.J. Carrell, a retired CBP deputy patrol agent in charge, told the DCNF after reviewing the email.”

     The London-based Daily Mail posted on January 2 that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and 60 of his Republican House colleagues headed to one of the heavy crossing areas, Eagle Pass, Texas, to gather information.

     “The group, hosted by GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents the area, will hear from Border Patrol, Texas Department of Public Safety, and other stakeholders and tour the region,” the Daily Mail said. “It’s the first large-scale congressional delegation to the border led by the new speaker…

      “In Eagle Pass,” the Daily Mail added, “the local fire department is underwater financially as it is forced to spend a jaw-dropping $21,000 per day on migrant-related emergencies, according to Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello.”

      On December 30 reporter Ben Bergquam, of Real America’s Voice, posted a video from southern Arizona’s Tohono O’odham Nation showing about 600 Mexicans abandoned by cartel smugglers at a moonscape while, Bergquam said, the U.S. government turned its attention to processing illegal African arrivals.

     “This is insane, guys. They do not want you to see this,” Bergquam told viewers after easily speaking Spanish to gather first-hand information from the entrants simply dumped on the Indian reservation. “This is Joe Biden’s America, guys, right here.”

     Even though it’s protected forest, he said, it’s all cut own for firewood in freezing temperatures. “Like a bomb went off. All the trees are levelled… They said they’ve been out here for two days, no food, no water…

     “So the cartels making millions. Joe Biden’s selling out our country,” he added. “…And America, you’ve gotta take control back from these, these traitors in Washington.”

     Bergquam walked around what looked like a moonscape stripped of its desert growth so it could be burned in fires for wintertime warmth.

     The desert doesn’t hold heat, so even a winter day with a high of about 70 degrees might decline to 40 or 45 degrees at night.

     On January 1 Bergquam posted a different video, about 900 miles east of the Arizona location, at a parking lot in San Antonio, Texas, where illegal aliens simply were being dropped in a parking lot as they continued their journey.

     “it just shows the disorder of this invasion. They’re, you know, they’re getting so many people, they can’t even control the process,” Bergquam said, adding that these were to be sent all around the U.S.

     “This is non-stop, it’s continuous, the number of buses, and this is like this all across our country,” Bergquam said. “It’s not gonna stop until you demand it to stop, and especially in Democrat cities. You guys invited this. If you’ve been voting for Democrats, this is what you’re inviting. You’re inviting your resources to be used on people that don’t have a right to  be here. They’ve just been coached on what to say.”

     The New York Post reported that illegal entrants also were being recruited in the west African nation of Senegal. The Post reported on December 26: “Migrants are being offered ‘complete packages’ to the U.S. border with Mexico by ‘pseudo-legitimate’ travel agencies sprouting up in Senegal, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official.

     “The travel agencies are run out of Senegal’s capital city of Dakar and tout visa-free travel to Europe, and then to Mexico,” the Post said. “Once in North America, customers are connected to a smuggling organization that will help them cross the southern U.S. border illegally, according to the U.S. official.”

     Fox News reported on December 27 that an Arizona rancher warned that drug cartels had scouts on Grand Canyon State mountains.

     This was nothing new. More than a decade ago The Wanderer reported on cartel drug scouts on mountains in the Vekol Valley, an area southeast of the metropolitan Phoenix area, well north of the border line. The scouts would alert smugglers where to avoid law enforcement.

     Further comments by the southern Arizona woman mentioned earlier in this story, about the invasion being “one of the most lawless, most destructive and most dangerous in history,” follow below. She didn’t want to be identified because of worries about her safety.

     “Currently the unvetted crossers are mostly unhealthy and unvaccinated. No Ellis Island protection for Americans this time. Tuberculosis is common, as are many other diseases,” she said.

     “Nogales Ariz., is a small city on the border. I have head that Nogalians, born, bred and vaccinated like most Americans, are currently suffering from Whooping Cough, which is disease previously well controlled In the States.”

    (Just south of Arizona’s Nogales, on the other side of the international line, is the much larger Nogales, Sonora.)

     “Because Nogales has few shelters and Border Patrol is overwhelmed by the numbers crossing, the crossers are let loose on the streets of Nogales” in Arizona, the woman said. “This dereliction of duty by our federal government is causing a breakdown of our entire social structures.

     “Down the line from Nogales, at smaller border cities, the populations on both sides of the border are leaving. They find themselves caught in a shootout between cartels, with each other and cartels with Mexican military,” she said. “Even Border Patrol agents have to leave their work at the border because of the same dangers.

      “Of course , this scenario is fed with the support of Catholic bishops who fail to realize that they have duties as shepherds to both Americans and migrants,” she said. “Americans need safety and preservation of their culture. Migrants have a right to safety, but duties to follow the law, to assimilate into host countries and to leave here if their home country becomes, or is, safe.

     “At this time both migrants and Americans, their countries and their extended and nuclear families are being weakened and even destroyed,” she said. “Americans must demand justice and protection from our government. To leave these current policies in place is certain destruction.”

   — 30 —

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