“What The Hell Is Going On In The Catholic Church?”

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

In the fall of 2004, the local news here in Northern Virginia, reported that the pastor of St. John the Apostle in Leesburg had been arrested for the possession of child pornography.
To obtain the details of the charges, I made a routine call to the Commonwealth Attorney’s office in Loudoun County, where Leesburg serves as the county seat. I mentioned that I wrote for a Catholic newspaper, nothing more, a typical over-the-transom request, and left my callback number.
I expected that I’d eventually hear from the county’s press office in a couple of days.
But that didn’t happen. Instead, late that same afternoon, I got a call from the Commonwealth Attorney himself. He was irate. In fact, he was so mad that he had literally pulled over to the side of the road on his way home to call me.
“I’m a Catholic,” he said. “Would you please tell me what the Hell is going on in the Catholic Church?
We talked for 45 minutes. Not about the arrested pastor, but about the scandals, the Faith, and the mess that we were in.
And sure enough, St. John the Apostle was in a mess of its own.
Parishioners told me that the pastor routinely had his “boyfriends” as guests in the rectory on weekends. He would often allow those who were priests to preach the homily at Sunday Mass. He was apparently rather brazen about his loose liturgies, and the people in the pews was profoundly demoralized.
Just like the rest of us.

Pride? Yes. Progress?
Not So Much

This all came to mind as I read the recent letter of USCCB President José Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the USCCB’s June 2002 meeting in Dallas.
In his letter, Archbishop Gomez gushes with pride at the progress that engendered by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that the bishops adopted at that meeting.
“Today, millions of children and adults have been trained to spot the signs of abusive behavior, allegations of sexual abuse are reported to local law enforcement, background checks are the norm, review boards comprised of lay experts meet to assess allegations, and victim assistance coordinators are in place to assist survivors in finding help,” he writes.
That was it. That single slogging sentence says it all.
The Charter has worked, the archbishop beams — although in 2002 the Dallas bishops had immediately voted to exempt themselves from every single one of its stringent requirements.
But hey, so what? The Charter’s processes, procedures, policies, and protocols have been a tremendous success!
Every year, thousands of parish and chancery employees and volunteers across the country spend millions of man-hours checking the boxes on the reams of paper and data forms to prove their compliance.
Has everybody taken Virtus? Gee, I hope so — I’m sure it works really well, although the program’s boss in another state told me that even a practicing homosexual would be welcome to teach the class in my parish.
Has everybody had a background check? Yep, sure have — even though Gov. Frank Keating, head of the USCCB’s first Lay Review Board, pointed out that the checks are meaningless because the abusers had never been reported to the police.
When Keating, a former FBI agent, got too close to Los Angeles Cardinal Mahony’s criminal abuse coverups, Mahony had him vaporized.
He then went on to spend a cool billion of the faithful’s money dodging the law, and the rest of America’s bishops spent a few billion more.
When the facts caught up with Mahony, he moaned that he had merely followed the advice of “experts.”
And he’s still a cardinal, defying his successor’s order to cease public ministry in the archdiocese.

So It’s An “Ongoing
Struggle,” Is It?

When the bishops arrived in Dallas twenty years ago, the Dallas Morning News met them with an explosive exposé revealing that over half of them had covered up for, or even enabled, abusers of minors in their sees.
With the hindsight of twenty years, it’s safe to say that, if the guilty bishops had quietly gone home from Dallas that day and retired, with the criminals among them turning themselves in to law enforcement, the scandals would have ended long ago.
But Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, known today as “Uncle Ted the child abuser,” was in charge. In fact, many of the bishops attending that Dallas meeting owed their jobs to him.
One of them, Bishop Wilton Gregory, was president of the USCCB at the time. In April 2002 he had visited Rome to have a “conversation” with Pope John Paul II about the scandals (years after The Wanderer broke the abuse story, the secular media had finally caught up with it earlier that year, and Gregory was on the hot seat).
“It is an ongoing struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men,” Gregory told the media during that visit.
Well, there was no way that was going to change in Dallas.
So, instead of retiring in silence or disgrace, the guilty prelates stayed on — not one of them quit.
But wait — the USCCB’s own legal research firm determined that over 80 percent of the sexual abuse of minors by clerics was “homosexual in nature”!
Didn’t the bishops do anything to remedy the domination of the priesthood by homosexual men?
No, they did not. They didn’t then, they haven’t since, and they won’t now.
Instead, President Wilton Gregory and his brother bishops conjured up a massive stonewall while their lawyers paid off their victims with billions of the faithful’s donations.

Unhappy Anniversaries

“So here I am, in the middle way,
having had twenty years —
twenty years largely wasted….”
T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets: East Coker

For American Catholics, June is indeed the cruelest month.
Four years ago this week, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick was removed from public ministry. He had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor.
After the Dallas debacle, McCarrick had continued to rule with an iron rod in Washington until 2006. By then, he had played a key role in naming dozens of American prelates.
Among them were his successor, Donald Cardinal Wuerl, now retired, and McCarrick’s housemate, Kevin Cardinal Farrell.
In 2019 Pope Francis named Farrell as “Camerlengo” — the office responsible for running the conclave that elects a new Pope.
Both Wuerl and Farrell continued McCarrick’s policy of naming homosexual-friendly prelates throughout the U.S. If we consider them to be the “second generation” of the McCarrick Cardinal Cabal, it becomes clear who constitutes the third: Newark’s Tobin, Chicago’s Cupich, and now San Diego’s McElroy. And, of course, McCarrick’s front man twenty years ago in Dallas and now his successor in D.C.: Wilton Cardinal Gregory.
“Pray for me. The snake strikes at the head,” Cardinal Burke begged me years ago.

But The Snake Doesn’t
Like Us Either . . .

When the indicted pastor of St. John the Apostle Parish disappeared in 2005, his parochial vicar didn’t waste any time. He declared a parish-wide Penitential Service with several confessors.
The line of parishioners went all the way around the block.
He tore up the old pastor’s plans for a “church in the round” and proposed a beautiful monument to the Faith instead.
Pledges paid for it in a month.
We are under siege. And tougher times are coming.
The grass-roots of the Church will be watered by the blood of martyrs. The current crisis calls on us to gird our loins, strengthening our resolve with prayers for the virtues of hope and fortitude.
While the faithful are assailed by the rot at the top, the true Church will be saved by the folks on the ground.
Even if we’re underground.

US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in historic ruling

“On this Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus let us be prayerful and grateful for the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe vs Wade. May the pro life community keep our nation in prayer as many react negatively to this important step toward protecting the life of the unborn.”

___ Bishop Strickland __ Twitter account

Proofs of the Real Presence

By JOE SIXPACK

Part 2

Theology and Scripture put aside, some of the most compelling pieces of evidence are when the Eucharist has quite literally changed into Jesus’ Body and Blood. This article will focus on only a few of those events from both modern times and in history.
During a Mass at a parish retreat in 2006, a Host that was about to be distributed was seen effusing a reddish substance. The diocese decided to conduct extensive scientific study of the Host to discern its cause and origin and to ensure there was no hoax being played. The study took several years but its results were eventually published in 2013. The reddish substance analyzed in the Host was indeed blood, in which there were DNA and hemoglobin of human origin.
Two studies conducted by eminent forensic experts using different methods both showed that blood came from inside the Host; this showed that it wasn’t possible that the blood was placed on the Host from an outside source. The blood type was AB positive, the same type as found in other Eucharistic miracles and the Holy Shroud of Turin. A microscopic analysis of the blood in 2010 showed that since 2006 much of the blood visible had coagulated (as expected) but that underlying internal layers contained the presence of fresh blood which showed that the Eucharist was still bleeding.
The human tissue found in the host was living, evidenced by intact white and red blood cells and active macrophages. The immuno-histochemical studies revealed that the tissue found corresponds to the myocardium. All in all, the study proved beyond a doubt that the occurrence was not of natural origin and went further by linking this miracle to the others that happen around the world.
On April 28 2001, the parish church of St. Mary in a town of India began a Novena to St. Jude Thaddeus as they did every year. At 8:49 a.m., the priest exposed the Most Holy Sacrament in the monstrance for public adoration. After a few moments they saw what appeared to be three dots in the Holy Eucharist. They prayed to the Host for a while and then it was placed secure in the tabernacle.
The priest then went to the archbishop of the diocese to inform him of the change but when he returned to the parish and opened the tabernacle it had in fact developed further, because now clearly in the Host were not only the three red dots but a face crowned with a crown of thorns. This Eucharistic miracle is still ongoing.
The oldest and perhaps the most famous of these miraculous events is the miracle of Lanciano. Around the year 700 in the Monastery of St. Longinus, a priest-monk of the Order of St. Basil was celebrating the Mass. Having suffered recurring doubts about transubstantiation, he had just spoken the solemn words of consecration when the Host was suddenly changed into a circle of Flesh, and the wine transformed into visible Blood. Weeping joyously, he hastened to call the other monks to witness this stupendous miracle. The miracle remains to this day.
Over the subsequent 13 centuries, that which remained bread in the Host decayed away, but the flesh remained…despite that it should have turned to dust centuries ago. Likewise, the blood coagulated into five separate globules, which remain today…despite that they, too, should have turned to dust centuries ago.
In 1970, then again in 1981, there took place a scientific investigation by the scientist Dr. Linoli, eminent professor in anatomy and pathological histology and in chemistry and clinical microscopy. He was assisted by Dr. Bertelli of the University of Siena.
The scientific investigation found: the Flesh is real Flesh and the Blood is real Blood; the Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species; the Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart; in the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve, and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium; the Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (Blood-type identical to that which Professor Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin); the preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon; in 1999, further DNA testing determined the same human DNA exists here as in other Eucharistic miracles and the Shroud of Turin; when each globule of blood was weighed, each of the five were found to be of the same identical weight, but weighed all together, the five globules only weighed as much as one.
So the reality of the truths about the Holy Eucharist demonstrate that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh!”
These proofs of the Eucharist are indeed extraordinary, just as I said they would be. In next week’s article I’ll tie all of this together so you can see how amazing the Mass is.
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Pro-Abort Radicals Attack MCCL’s Offices

By STEVEN ERTELT

MINNEAPOLIS — Just one day after promising more violence against pro-life groups and pregnancy centers that help women, pro-abortion radicals attacked a pro-life organization’s office in Minnesota.
Last night, pro-abortion extremists vandalized the Minneapolis-based office of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, a pro-life group that has been fighting for women and unborn children since the late 1960s.
“Last night the MCCL office was vandalized for the second time in recent weeks,” the pro-life group wrote on Twitter. “But we are grateful that we are all safe.”
“As #SCOTUS prepares to rule in #DobbsVsJackson, please pray for the safety of the justices and of MCCL and other pro-life groups,” it continued.
Paul Stark, the communications director for MCCL, provided more info to LifeNews about what happened.
“On the morning of June 15, we discovered that our office building had been vandalized with graffiti saying ‘abortion is liberation’ and several broken windows. We alerted the police and are responding to the situation. This was the second time we had been targeted in recent weeks. On May 9, we were also vandalized with graffiti and pro-abortion messages on the outside of our building. Despite this targeting, we are grateful that all of us here are safe. We are taking precautions going forward, and are undeterred in our pro-life work. We appreciate prayers and support for MCCL and other pro-life groups during this time,” he said.
The leaked decision of Dobbs v. Jackson has sent pro-abortion militants into full force, doing everything they can to defend their cherished sacrament. After months of attacking pro-life centers nationwide, a militant group promises violence against these centers.
The threat comes from an open letter by the pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge. Now more pro-life centers will be the targets of their vicious attacks reported by The Post Millennial.
Jane’s Revenge declared its “30 days of patience and mercy” is now over, and it will begin targeting pro-life groups. “Your thirty days expired yesterday,” the letter read on June 15. “We offered an honorable way out. You could have walked away. Now the leash is off. And we will make it as hard as possible for your campaign of oppression to continue.”
Five pro-life offices have been targets of arson since May, and dozens of pro-life organizations and churches have been vandalized. Last week, as reported elsewhere, an assassin with a gun was arrested outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after the man said he planned to kill the justice, according to police. A grand jury has issued an indictment in the case.
Kavanaugh is expected to be one of the justices who agrees to overturn Roe, but the court has not released its ruling on the abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, yet.
Meanwhile, several pro-abortion groups have called for churches to be the target of abortion activists’ outrage. One group also posted the addresses of the Supreme Court justices’ homes and a photo of Kavanaugh’s daughters’ school online publicly.
Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, warned that abortion activists will be “ungovernable” until the government legalizes abortion on demand.

Islamic Terrorists Are Slaughtering Catholics In Nigeria

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

On Pentecost Sunday, at least fifty worshippers were killed, and some seventy injured, in an attack on St. Francis Catholic Church in Nigeria.
Attacks on Christians in Nigeria have become so common that they aren’t deemed “newsworthy” anymore. And to date the government of Nigeria has done little to respond.
Apologists for the killers insist that the attackers, Islamist terrorists, are merely “nomadic herdsmen” whose grazing areas are being destroyed by “global warming.”
It’s amazing, isn’t it, how all the myths of the Left seem to swarm like buzzards on a roadside carcass, each providing another excuse for oppressing Christians, the family, unborn children, and, ultimately, freedom itself?
But behind the banal barrage, the fact remains: Christians are being slaughtered by the thousands every year in Africa.
What is to be done?
Fight Global Warming!
That’s the Left’s narrative.
This time around, however, the truth broke through.
Arakunrin Akeredolu, the governor of Ondo State where the attack occurred, immediately responded. “I am deeply saddened by the unprovoked attack and killing of innocent people of Owo, worshiping at the St. Francis Catholic Church today. The vile and satanic attack is a calculated assault on the peace-loving people of Owo Kingdom who have enjoyed relative peace over the years,” he wrote.
The Islamic terrorist war against the Catholic Church is old news in northern Nigeria, but, as Governor Akeredolu observes, it has seldom penetrated the country’s south. Nonetheless, many fear to call it by its proper name.
The result? Silence. The slaughter of Christians worldwide is forbidden among international elites, and it is a disgrace.

A Pathetic Pattern Of Denial

A common ingredient of the Left’s worldwide truth boycott is a desperate attempt to avoid the facts.
We recall how a black racist terrorist intentionally drove into a Christmas procession in Waukesha last November, killing eight and maiming dozens more.
What was the national reaction?
There wasn’t any. An errant “SUV” had killed the hapless victims, that’s all. And the guilty vehicle was probably white.
With few exceptions, even America’s Catholic bishops — normally obsessed with “America’s Second Original Sin of Racism” — were silent about the killing of those Christian innocents.
It’s not that our shepherds aren’t capable of outrage at racist killings. When George Floyd was killed in 2020, over eighty bishops wrote pastoral letters or public statements condemning the incident. On cue, they cheered the anti-family, pro-abortion Marxist grifters at Black Lives Matter — and, of course, flaunting their customary insouciance, they condemned the “violence” of thousands of rioters and regretted the dozens of deaths and billions of dollars of damage they caused.
So the international blackout of news of murdered Christians is both intentional and a key ingredient of the Left’s narrative: disobey at your own risk!
This time around, Nigeria’s Federal Government disobeyed. According to Reuters, that government has publicly identified the Owo attack as the work of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terror group.

Corruption And Killing:
Peas In A Pod

Not everyone has been silent. Nina Shea, of Washington’s Hudson Institute, has been sounding the alarm for years.
Shea, one of America’s most intrepid observers of human rights worldwide, told Catholic News Agency last Sunday that “attacks against Catholics and other Christians are escalating in Nigeria. Yet most of this violence, until now, has centered in northern Nigeria, while the southwestern part of the country where Sunday’s attack took place has remained relatively peaceful.”
In other words, the Islamic terrorist campaign against Nigerian Catholics is expanding to new ground.
“This massacre in a church while filled with Sunday worshippers is an atrocity that we’ve repeatedly seen in northern Nigeria over the years,” Shea said, and she dares to mention the Forbidden Word: “Those were the work of Islamist extremists.”
And who’s protecting the Catholics from the Jihadis? Not the Nigerian government.
“While the facts are still emerging about today’s massacre, it is clear that large scale, war-like attacks on Catholics and other Christians are spreading in a system of impunity,” she continued.
Will Nigeria’s Buhari government now sustain its interest and protect Nigerian Christians over the long term? Bishop David Oyedepo, Founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, isn’t very sanguine.
Bishop Oyedepo puts the matter in its proper context: Christians are incessantly kidnapped and harassed, he said last week, and the current government of Nigeria does nothing because it is “the most corrupt regime in the country’s history.”
Nina Shea describes the result.
“The Buhari government has allowed this to continue unabated and fails to protect Nigeria’s churches. This governmental passivity is being seen as a green light for extremists to target Christians.”

Target Africa

It’s no surprise that the Biden administration, in the person of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is complicit in that “passivity” regarding the increasing attacks that Shea reports are targeting Christian villages in the north.
“Kidnappings and murders of priests and pastors, enslavement of Christian girls, and mob lynchings for alleged blasphemy against Islam” have intensified since the Biden administration removed Nigeria from the United States’ “Country of Concern” (CPC) list, identifying countries where egregious religious persecution is taking place, Shea told CNA.
“[Blinken] needs to address this crisis, stop making excuses for it based on a climate change narrative and designate Nigeria as a CPC. Anything less is unconscionable,” she said.
Well, maybe Blinken’s too busy promoting “Perverts’ Pride Month” to do his job.
But there’s more to this story: the U.S. State Department and its foreign aid arm, the Agency for International Development (AID), have for decades sought to reduce the population of Sub-Saharan Africa. As the U.S. government’s most staunch and strident advocate of population control for decades, they recognize that, if current birthrates continue, in another generation the population of Nigeria might well equal that of the United States.
So AID has for years attempted to foist on African women the rancid “family planning” programs that are a required component of every U.S. government program ostensibly designed to help Third-World communities with health care, clean water, and other basic amenities.
Ronald Reagan’s Mexico City Policy, first established in 1984, prohibited U.S. taxpayer funding of abortion abroad, and that provision has guided every Republican administration since.
Under Democrat administrations, however, and especially under Joe Biden, the most pro-abortion president in history, those programs include mandatory funding for abortion.
Unfortunately, America’s Catholic bishops routinely advocate full federal funding of those programs anyway, even when they fund contraception and abortion.
In 2010, afraid that the newly elected Republican Congress would reduce the billions of taxpayer funding that their NGOs receive every year, the USCCB, Catholic Charities USA, and Catholic Relief services joined dozens of secular organizations, among them abortion advocates, to form the “Circle of Protection.”
Arm in arm, the “Circle’s” members form a united front to lobby at the federal trough for full taxpayer funding of each other’s government grant applications, abortion funding included.
Why did the bishops’ conference and its NGOs join this pro-abortion scam?
Jim Wallis, the “Circle’s” leftist founder, recognized that the Catholic imprimatur was indispensable to the success of his lobbying campaign. So Wallis sealed the deal by recruiting the director of the USCCB’s Social Justice bureaucracy and naming him a co-founder.
And who was that USCCB director?
His name was John Carr.
Yes, the same John Carr who headed Jimmy Carter’s “White House Conference on Families.”
The same John Carr whom The Washington Post recognized as the most influential Catholic in Washington for a quarter of a century.
Please pray for the Catholics of Nigeria.
They’re on their own.

A Beacon Of Light… Mary’s Message: God Is Always With Us

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.)

• + + Let’s take a look at some of the key appearances of Mary around the world, some popularly known, and some, not so known. In each of them she’s been calling us to conversion and has been warning us of consequences of not doing so.
  The First Apparition focuses on what happened in Lourdes, France in 1858. St. Bernadette encounters a mysterious Lady, of pure white. Our Lady’s first appearance was on Thursday, February 11, 1858, when Bernadette was 14 years old. (You can read for yourselves the whole story of the 18 apparitions of Mary to Bernadette.)
  For our purposes, we are going to focus on Mary’s messages to Bernadette. This message is as important to us today, as it was in 1858. The message of Lourdes is God’s desire to meet us where we are. This is always happening in our lives. God is always with us, exactly where we are, by our side. God meets us in the dirtiness of life, just like where Mary met St. Bernadette, in the dirtiness of the pig shelter in Massabielle. It was dirty, damp, and cold, but Mary was at St. Bernadette’s side as she spoke the message needed to be heard at that time. God is not afraid, embarrassed, or uncomfortable to join us where we are: in the midst of our poverty and failures.
  He sent Mary to the “pig shelter” to tell us that He loves us. This is the heart of the Message of Lourdes. We serve a God who wishes to relate to us as a person. We see this in some of Mary’s words to Bernadette: “What I have to say to you does not have to be written down.” Mary speaks to us at the level of the heart, the center of the person. This is an invitation to open the depths of our hearts to God’s continual message of love.

Complete, Spontaneous, Immediate

As an important aside about Lourdes, Catholic News Agency reported the following in 2018:
While there have been more than 7,000 miraculous recoveries attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes at the French shrine, only 70 cases have been officially recognized by the Catholic Church. A miraculous recovery must generally be a complete, spontaneous, and immediate healing from a documented medical condition.
The last official miracle attributed to the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes was declared in 2013.
The 2013 miraculous event CNA noted in 2018 involved a French nun, Sr. Bernadette Moriau, who went on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in 2008. She had been suffering from spinal complications which had rendered her wheelchair-bound and disabled since 1980. She said she had been taking morphine to control the pain.
When Sr. Moriau visited the Lourdes Shrine in 2008, she said she “never asked for a miracle.” After attending a blessing for the sick at the shrine, however, something began to change.
“I felt a [surge of] well-being throughout my body, a relaxation, warmth…I returned to my room and there, a voice told me to ‘take off your braces’,” the nun recalled. “Surprise. I could move,” Moriau said.

Their Hour Of Need

The Blessed Mother also appeared in Knock, Ireland in 1879. The apparition of Knock can be best explained in the context of a Scripture passage: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).
On the evening of August 21, 1879, two women from the village of Knock were walking back to their home. In the rain, they passed by the back of the village church and it was there they saw the apparition. This apparition was in conjunction with the great famine and terrible misery the Irish people were enduring. It wasn’t uncommon for the priest to offer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick to as many as forty parishioners a day. The Irish people were facing astronomical deaths daily.
In order to offer spiritual comfort to his parishioners, the pastor of Knock had begun a series of 100 consecutive Masses for the repose of the souls of those who had died.
On August 21, 1879, in the evening when the 100th Mass was celebrated, the apparition took place. Our Lady, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist appeared at the south gable of the church. Interestingly, Mary said nothing during these apparitions. These apparitions were meant to be a consolation to the people. She came to be with the people in their hour of need.
(My first pastor gave me some good advice: “‘Richard, at the end of the day, people may not remember the things you said…but they will remember that you were there. The priest came to the house…the hospital…the funeral home’.”)
For the people of Ireland, Mary comes to be with them, to comfort and to strengthen them in their times of trial.

Penance And Sacrifice

The apparitions continue, but this time in Portugal. The story begins in the village of Fatima, on May 13, 1917. Mary appeared to three young children, Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucia, ages 9, 7, and 10. Mary promised that God would grant peace to the entire world if her three requests were heard and obeyed. The first is prayer. Prayer, specifically to pray the rosary daily and for the Holy Father, “the Bishop clothed in white.” It was here Mary introduced herself as Our Lady of the Rosary.
The second request was for reparation. This is where the children saw a frightening vision of Hell. Mary requested acts of penance and sacrifice to save souls. Here, we see the power of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the devotion that is required of us for poor souls, and with particular emphasis on devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The third request at Fatima was consecration, particularly of Russia. Our Lady asked that Russia be consecrated to her Immaculate Heart so its errors and evils would not spread throughout the world.
Mary visited the children for the last time on October 13, 1917. She promised a sign that would convince the world she had appeared. We know this as the “Miracle of the Sun.”
The apparition at Fatima promised that the world would be at peace, and many souls would go to Heaven, if her requests were listened to and obeyed. At Lourdes Mary reminds us that we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. At Fatima we hear the anguished appeal of our Heavenly Mother.

A Special Prayer

We turn our attention to Akita, Japan. In 1973, this apparition of Mary involves Sr. Agnes Sasagawa of the Handmaids of the Eucharist. Sr. Agnes had a great love for Jesus in the Eucharist. When she went to visit Jesus in the Tabernacle, it was just Him and her. She could hear Him, not with her ears, but with her heart. Sr. Agnes was deaf, and she told Him all that was in her heart. She then remained silent, while He spoke to her. On Tuesday, June 26, 1973, the Lord had a special plan for her. He was to bestow upon her a blessing which would remain with her for the rest of her life. Sr. Agnes experienced a bright illumination of light from the Tabernacle and received the stigmata. This was to prepare her for the greatest gift. But first, Sr. Agnes was given three messages: pray for the reparation of sins, pray for the souls, and pray the rosary frequently. On the last Sunday of May 1982, during the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, Sr. Agnes was completely cured from her deafness.
At Akita, Mary stressed the importance of: praying the rosary, accepting from God whatever He may send in the course of each day, offer it up in reparation for so many sins committed throughout the world at this time. Our Lady begged especially for prayers for bishops, priests, and religious, and for reparation before the Blessed Sacrament that they be strong and not “sifted like wheat.”
In conclusion, Our Lady’s purpose for coming to Earth is to guide each one of us back to her Son, Jesus. Our Lady’s main message throughout the world is one of peace and love. She comes to Earth to re-educate us and to help us convert and center our lives back to God. Our Lady’s role has always been one of guiding people to her Son, Jesus.
What an amazing opportunity we have before us! It is important we understand both the magnitude and the urgency of Our Lady’s call to conversion, and that we respond with all our hearts. The time for decision is NOW! Our Lady’s call is URGENT!

The Presence Of God And The Latin Mass

By DEACON MIKE MANNO

Those of you who have followed this column know that about seven months ago I had a stroke. Fortunately, through the mercy of God, I quickly recovered with little or no problems. However, it has affected my sight; I can no longer read well, struggling to make out each word like a first grader following his fingers across the page, and my peripheral vision has been compromised to the point that I still cannot drive.
Thus when I am at the altar assisting at Mass, I can no longer proclaim the Gospel, nor can I read the Prayers of the Faithful. The priest will read the Gospel for me and the lector will read the prayers. I still cannot preach since I write out all my homilies and, not being a gifted speaker, would simply read them.
So one of my drawbacks from the stroke was that I was no longer able to assist at a cross-town Latin Mass that I would attend every Sunday evening. I had been doing so for several years at the invitation of that parish’s pastor, an old friend, and his associate with whom I had gotten to know very well.
Not being a Latin scholar, I could do little more than sit in choir, read the Epistle and Gospel in English, preach occasionally, and help with the distribution of Communion — the Latin Mass protocols only allow for an ordained minister, deacon or priest, to do so. Unfortunately, the partial loss of my vision was enough to keep me from driving to the Latin Mass and I was unable to participate.
With the pastor and assistant there were only about three other priests in our geographic area who could say the Latin Mass, so when the pastor retired due to health issues, and the associate was sent for additional schooling out of state, it sounded trouble for the Latin Mass.
However, our bishop, William Joensen, asked my pastor if he and our parish could continue the Latin Mass, and he agreed. Last night was our first Latin Mass and I was there, in choir, for the first time since October 24, and I couldn’t have been happier! It brought a newness and a fresh perspective and appreciation for the Latin Mass that was renewed yesterday.
My first observation is one I have really taken to heart, because it is now something I use. When we distribute Communion at the Novus Ordo Mass we say to them, “The Body of Christ,” as most receive standing and in the hand. That always seemed to me to show a lack of reverence, almost as if I was handing out cookies to children as an after lunch treat.
I was always more impressed by the Latin formula. As communicants are kneeling at an altar rail, they receive on the tongue as they say, “Corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen.” Translated, “May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting. Amen.”
In my mind, that is more reverent and expresses an important theological truth. Thus I use the English translation when taking Communion to the homebound and hospitalized, then I say “the Body of Christ.”
But there is something that I apparently am not the only one to notice. It is the growing number of young people who attend.
I noticed that when I first started assisting at the Latin Mass. I saw the volume of young families with small children who were present, and many of them were the parents of the many youngsters who were taking part as servers and acolytes, and they showed up last night.
Just to give you an example, we had two deacons — one on the cusp of priestly Ordination, and a seminarian sitting in choir, two MCs, two altar servers and six acolytes, most under nine. And the reaction of our regular parishioners was amazement.
Several mentioned to me how they were surprised to see so many young girls dressed as if it were First Communion, and the number of men who wore ties, not to mention the veils on so many of the women and girls. They commented on the beauty of the Traditional Latin chants and hymns as well as the use of incense during certain parts of the Mass.
It all underscored what I saw from a friend of mine, an ex-con who started RCIA with me a few years ago. I had taken him to my parish church and later to the Latin Mass. Now here was a man of no faith background who was actively looking forward to his Baptism and reception into the Church.
When I asked him why he was making such a transition, he said it was very simple: In the church, especially at the Latin Mass, he could feel the presence of God and that is where he wanted to be. Unfortunately for my friend, one stupid mistake caused him to be arrested and sent back to prison on a probation violation. What is worse is the correctional system was largely closed by COVID and he was confined for several years.
I continued to keep in touch with him, answering his questions about Catholicism, and sending him copies of lessons from our RCIA syllabus. I found out later he began to share those lessons with fellow inmates. After several indicated that they were Catholic, they formed a group of Catholic inmates who would meet regularly to discuss religion.
I was a bit surprised to note that his prison counselor, when writing about him to the state parole board, noted that he was the leader of the Catholic inmates group. His parole was granted and by the time this is published he should be released and his first priority is to attend the Latin Mass at his “home” parish and to finally become a baptized Catholic, a ceremony I intend to perform myself.
So why was an agnostic so attracted to the Latin Mass that his deepest desire is to become Catholic? I think it is for the same reason men showed up with ties, little girls in dresses, and the little boys are clamoring to serve as acolytes, and young families making the Latin parish its parish of choice.
It is that for 2,000 years the Church has brought people to God by using all their senses. Everything that is done is clearly done for the glory of the Almighty, from the architecture to the music, stained glass, Gregorian chant, and incense. It is not that a lot of folks understand Latin, it is that the whole package combines to bring, as my friend noted, the presence of God to any with an open heart.
I know there are those who pooh-pooh the “old” Mass, and many consider it divisive. It is not. It is a unifying point that has been bringing the presence of God to the people for two centuries. I’m very proud of the part my parish is now playing in carrying out that mission, and proud of my very small part in it.
(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)

Caravan… They’re On The Way!

By BARBARA SIMPSON

While the Southwest of the United States sweltered in plus-100 degree heat the weekend of June 10 and Americans did all they could to get out of the heat, thousands of people from south of the border are marching north to us – the U.S. — with plans to cross the border and melt into the population of our country.
It’s said to be one of — if not “the” — largest such movement of people hoping for illegal entry/amnesty into our country — estimates are from 6,000 to 10,000 people!
Officials know about it, but from what I’ve seen in the news, virtually nothing is being done about it. Slow it down? Turn it back? Stop it? Strengthen our border? Call out the military?
It seems that officials are “just looking” at what is taking place and the Border Patrol and local police will be left to their own devices when those people approach the border.
They work for us — all of us — and I don’t envy their situation.
The migrants are from many countries — Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, and other South American countries as well as Haiti, Cuba, and countries from Europe and the Middle East. It is a veritable United Nations of migrants, all hoping to find refuge in this country.
But many first try for refuge in Mexico and, according to Human Rights Watch, last year that country apprehended more than 300,000 migrants wanting asylum. The system was overwhelmed, and most were turned away.
According to Panama’s National Migration Service, that country has been inundated with refugees from Venezuela seeking a better life. It’s reported that in just the first five months of this year, more than 32,000 migrants have crossed.
The people who are making these treks for freedom face much more than desert heat. They are targets for fraudulent schemes by human traffickers who promise them passage, for a price of course — to outright bandits who steal all they have, and often rape the women and leave them to the elements, with nothing for survival.
A Venezuelan migrant who was traveling with his son and pregnant wife told authorities that bandits had stolen all of their belongings. “They left us without money, without food, without clothes. With nothing.”
To call it a Hell on Earth, is putting it mildly.
Yet they keep coming, because conditions in their home country are so bad and because they know that the United States has weak border enforcement and, once they get in, the chances of them being deported are slim to almost none!
What most Americans don’t know is that the feds are transporting busloads and planeloads of illegal border crossers to cities and towns in the United States. They don’t tell or ask the local municipalities if it’s OK with them — they just do it, usually at night. In essence, they are dumping illegals (yes — that is what they are) onto the responsibility of smaller governments. Like it or not. They have no say about it.
Thank you, President Biden and our government.
The locals then have to deal with the growing population in their jurisdiction, the need for social welfare for these people and not the least of which is having to face the language and educational disparities.
No one has put a price on these activities that I have seen, but it must be monumental across the country.
An interesting angle on this movement of people is the fact that many Americans are moving too — from one state to another and, in fact, from our country to another. The reason for most of the moves is the cost of living in their home state. The one state seeing a huge movement of people — an exodus — is California. It is incredibly expensive to live in that state — from the basic cost of living to taxation. It hurts average budgets. Many Californians say they’ve had enough and so they’re out.
Official estimates are that more than 360,000 people left the state last year. The trends show that they primarily go to Texas, Arizona, and Washington. They prefer the current economic situation there but it should be noted that the residents of those states aren’t too happy about the influx of Californians. They claim they bring the loose philosophy of Golden State with them and end up trying to change the new state to a California philosophy.
It isn’t a happy situation; just ask the people of Oregon what happened to them after the influx of Californians who started voting there to change things.
An interesting aspect of the movement of California residents is that a huge number of them are choosing to move to — Mexico! The claim is that they prefer the relaxed lifestyle of that country as well as the fact that it is more affordable for them to live there. Certainly, it is more affordable than the cost of living in California, which is one of the country’s most expensive states to live in.
The trend is catching the attention of real estate personnel, to say nothing of state officials who see it as a way of reducing state income from taxes on residents.
That hasn’t stopped elected officials who continue to propose new taxes and in fact, that has resulted in the situation that California has the highest tax surplus in history. It’s nearly $100 billion!
The biggest problem facing Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom is not how to get money for his pet projects, but to come up with enough projects to use up the surplus! It’s a politicians’ dream! But a taxpayers’ nightmare for, after all, that’s where that money came from.
At this point, no one knows the solution to the “problem” — the governor and elected officials are looking at all possibilities. In the interim, residents are continuing to pay the existing taxes. Those payments hurt and for those for whom it hurts too much, a move southward may be in the cards.
Whether that’s a smart move or not, remains to be seen. Do they really want to be “Mexican”? Time will tell.

Democrats Want Civil War — But They’ll Blame Republicans

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

Last Saturday, Democratic Cong. Jamaal Bowman of New York predicted trouble if Republicans take over the majority on Capitol Hill in the November midterm elections.
“Far-right extremists and white nationalists” have advocated “civil war,” he told MSNBC, and a GOP victory would “embolden” them.
Bowman, an ally of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), warned that they would “impeach President Biden as quickly as possible and they will continue to find ways to impeach him going forward.”
In other words, Bowman feared that Republicans would act like Democrats.
But the salient — and dangerous — ingredient of his prediction comes in his branding “far-right extremists and white nationalists” as the belligerents in this war.
Those very terms — “extremist,” “supremacist” — are central to the lexicon of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s war on Joe Biden’s critics, known as American families and Deplorables in general.
Bowman’s message was clear: Garland should begin now to prepare for investigations of Republicans as soon as they take the House majority. Yes, they might dissolve the January 6th Committee, but the sole purpose of that squalid Kangaroo Court was to prepare the groundwork for prosecution of the entire GOP leadership on and beyond Capital Hil anyway.
And who prosecutes those cases?
Not Congress, but the U.S. Department of Justice.
Bowman might be a screaming Marxist whacko, but Marxist’s plan, and Nancy Pelosi’s diktat rule:
“Forget history. We’re talking future.”
And both Bowman and Pelosi are planning for the future. They know full well where the violence is going to come from — and it isn’t going to wait for next January.
Remember “Ruth Sent Us”? The radical and pro-violence pro-abortion group that has fomented violence, firebombs, demonstrations, and threats to Supreme Court justices?
The group has successfully inspired a broad community of abortion supporters to cross the line from protest to violence.

It Starts Getting Real

This past Wednesday, a Federal Grand Jury formally accused 26-year-old Nicholas Roske, of Simi Valley, Calif., of attempting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
ABC News reports that “according to the indictment, prosecutors will also seek to have Roske forfeit various property if convicted, including the firearms and other equipment that authorities said he carried on him at the time of his arrest on June 8.”
Roske took a cab to Kavanaugh’s home after midnight with the intention of killing all the Kavanaughs. Perhaps his guardian angel nudged him just enough, who knows, but he walked a couple of blocks away and called his sister.
When she heard his grisly plans, she convinced him to call 911. He told police of his location, they picked him up, and he was arrested.
It was that close.
The criminal complaint’s details are stunning. “An inventory search of the seized suitcase and backpack revealed a black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crow bar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.”
By the way, Roske had flown to Washington from California. Did the TSA see none of that equipment in his baggage? Did he buy it all after he landed?
We don’t know. But we do know that there were only two Federal Marshals guarding the Kavanaugh home at 1:00 a.m. that morning. Had Roske had three accomplices, those Marshals would have been outgunned.
I’ve had protection from Federal Marshals in the days that I was targeted by the Cali drug cartels. They are terrific and devoted public servants. But they’re human. A terrorist cell of five hardened killers would well have overpowered them.
That prospect is designed by the Left to discourage any sane admirer of Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett to ever dare to consider serving on the Federal Bench.
Let’s face it. In Mexico, judges are second only to Catholic priests as targets of the killer Cartels.
And those Cartels extend throughout the United States. And they work for hire.
The Left dismisses the serious character of the threat. Nancy Pelosi sat for days on a Senate bill authorizing more serious protection of members of the Court. When she finally allowed a vote, 27 House Democrats opposed it.
Which raises a question for Mr. Bowman: Who really wants a “civil war”?

Origin Of The Court Wars

The contemporary battles over Supreme Court nominations can be traced back to the 1980s. They reached their peak when Robert Bork’s last name entered Webster’s Dictionary as a verb identifying the destruction of a good man’s name.
Indeed, for the past 35 years, commencing with the Bork hearings in 1987, the Left has done everything it can, not only to defeat good candidates to the federal judiciary, but to dissuade good lawyers from even entertaining the idea of becoming a federal judge.
The Bork hearings — and those of Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh — illustrate the ferocity of those efforts. At the time, the Federalist Society, the brainchild of Steve Calabresi and Dave McIntosh, was beginning to get traction and offer solidarity to law students and young lawyers who embraced a sensible approach to the Constitution.
Those budding lawyers scared not only their professors in law school, but the Democrat members of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
So Democrats sent a message to the new generation of lawyers and law students: “Don’t even think of being a federal judge. This is what we’ll do to you.”
In the early days of that effort, Senate Democrats treaded softly. They condemned Judge Bork’s New Haven parking ticket when he taught law at Yale. At his confirmation hearing, Ted Kennedy even complained that, years before, Bork had done legal consulting on the side to pay for his wife’s cancer treatments.
Such harassment was nothing new. A year before, in February 1986, Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden were advised by Ralph Neas, a brilliant pro-abortion lawyer who had graduated from Notre Dame with me in 1968.
Neas was the most effective leader of the pro-abortion movement of his generation. He recognized the national prominence of Fr. Ted Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, and suggested that Kennedy, who had directed considerable federal funding to the university over the years, should recruit Hesburgh in their first serious effort to stop a Reagan judge.
So Kennedy called Fr. Hesburgh for help in stopping the nomination of Notre Dame grad Daniel Manion, a South Bend, Ind., lawyer, to the Federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Father Ted, you’ve gotta help us get Dan Manion,” Kennedy said, as Fr. Hesburgh recounted to me in 1988.
“Sorry Ted, he’s family,” Fr. Hesburgh replied.
In July 1986, Manion went on to be confirmed by one vote in the Senate, but that body was Republican at the time. When Bork was defeated in 1987, again with Ralph Neas at Ted Kennedy’s side, Democrats controlled the Senate, and the Bork nomination failed.
Since the Senate confirmation of California Gov. Earl Warren in 1954, the legal Left has dominated constitutional law. Virtually every lawyer in the country today has grown up in that culture, either putting up with it or simply embracing it with the passing years.
With the advent of the current membership of the Supreme Court, the ground has shifted radically.
We don’t know where it will go from here — it is uncharted territory. But one thing is certain:
All bets — and gloves — are off.

Proofs Of The Real Presence

By JOE SIXPACK

Part 1

As you’ll recall from last week, the people were amazed to find Jesus waiting for them on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They said, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” But Jesus cut right to the chase.
He said, “You seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you; for on Him has God the Father set His seal.”
Then they said to Him, “What must we do to be doing the works of God?”
Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
Indignantly they replied, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see, and believe you? What work do you perform? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’.”
Incredible! After all they’d seen Jesus do, they still wanted yet more signs!
As incredible as it was, though, this is exactly what Jesus was waiting for. So Jesus responded, “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven; my father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world.”
The people then said, “Lord, give us this bread always.”
Jesus responded, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life; and I will raise Him up at the last day.”
The Jews then murmured at Him, because He had said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
But Jesus doubled down. He said, “I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
The Jews disputed among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” That’s when Jesus became very forceful.
“Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you….For my flesh is food indeed, and my Blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my Blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me.”
Many of His disciples said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
Jesus’ followers rightly believed He was speaking literally, and after this many of His disciples drew back and no longer went about with Him. If they misunderstood what He meant, Jesus was under a moral obligation to explain things more clearly. But He didn’t do that. He let them forever walk away.
Then Jesus asked His apostles, “Will you also go away?” Speaking for the others, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
In other words, Peter was saying they didn’t understand and how Jesus would give them His flesh, but they believed He would do as He said. Now you know why Jesus earnestly desired His final meal (Luke 22:15).
At the Last Supper He said, “This is my Body” not “This symbolizes my Body” or “This represents my Body.” He said, “This is my Body.” Imperative. Literal. So we now understand why the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
We’ve shown from Sacred Scripture the main body of theological/scriptural evidence for the Holy Eucharist being the actual Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Next week, we’re going to look at some very extraordinary proofs for this reality, then the week after that I’m going to tie all this together for you. I assure you, you’ll never again see the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the same way!
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