While GOP Sees Hope… In Fevered Political Times Biden Exposes Dems’ Structural Weakness

By DEXTER DUGGAN

The Democrats as the party of “sustainability” might have thought that atrocious gaffe machine Dementia Joe Biden, a notorious bad Catholic, looked increasingly unsustainable to be their 2020 presidential nominee by late May. However, the problem wasn’t just with him but the donkeys’ fundamental electoral strategy.
As much as Dem-friendly dominant media hoped to rush past this incident, the structural problem remains.
Biden reflexively demeaned blacks during a May 22 interview with The Breakfast Club, a national program popular with African-Americans, when he, an elderly, wealthy white man, asserted that blacks who couldn’t decide whether to vote for him weren’t actually black.
Many blacks, whether they were conservative Republicans or not, quickly voiced justified criticism of blundering Biden’s racial judgmentalism.
One could almost envision Biden wielding a whip as a nineteenth-century plantation boss telling the slaves to get back in their rickety cabins and quiet down.
But Biden’s was simply the ingrained Democratic leadership strategy of warning blacks before every election, and in between, that they’re hopeless, incapable victims doomed to inferiority and poverty unless they vote for power for status-quo Democrat elitists.
Many ordinary Democrats of whatever race long ago were left behind by their party bosses. So some responded by leaving that party. Others continued tolerating it for one reason or another. But their choice of Biden in various 2020 primaries showed they regarded him as preferable to newer Dem presidential hopefuls who appeared closer to socialism.
However, even if they hadn’t noticed, strongly pro-abortion Biden himself had moved in that direction while trying to cement his reputation as a left-wing “culture warrior.” But, oh, so sotto voce from his Delaware basement.
Meanwhile, President Trump got himself into more trouble over his undisciplined tweeting — except perhaps not so much damaged among his strong supporters who figure his standing up for them is more important than any media war. … Continue Reading

40 Million Unemployed, But Governments Are Hiring!

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” — attributed to Josef Stalin.

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The facts are hiding out of sight. Many Americans are so quarantined that we haven’t fully experienced the massive damage wrought on the economy by governments reacting to the Wuhan Virus. Socialist Democrat governors like Virginia’s Ralph Northam ignore the wreckage, choosing instead to extend what was once a two-week lockdown designed to “flatten the curve” to four months and counting, all “to keep us safe.”
A few brave Catholic bishops defy governors and invite the faithful back to the sacraments, but many more fear such a confrontation.
Almost half of America’s private sector employees work for small businesses. Over 100,000 of those have closed for good. One was Nana’s Irish Pub in Middletown, Va., a popular Irish restaurant that featured Irish owners, food, and music. Nana’s was a popular stop for folks traveling on two nearby interstates. And hard work led to success: Last time I was there, Nana’s had been named among the Top Ten of America’s Irish pubs.
Not anymore. Nana’s closed for good last week, putting dozens of employees out of work. Multiply that by 100,000 and the picture slowly comes into focus. It is a tragedy, not a statistic.
However, looking on the bright side (or the dark side, depending on your inclination), this trail of tragedy has not yet infected the federal government. While some local governments have been forced to lay off some employees here and there, The Wanderer’s U.S. Government employee expert is “unaware of any pandemic-driven Federal RIFs (Reductions in Force). Nearly all employees have been instructed to stay home; whether they work or not, all employees were instructed to stay home ‘for the convenience of the Government’.”
We are puzzled. We ask, “Wait, there are federal employees who are staying at home, but have no work to do?”
“Correct.” … Continue Reading

How One Man’s Conversion Renewed The Faith Of An Entire City

By JAMES MONTI

The beauty of the house of God, often enough, has a story behind it, the story of a people’s love for God, a story of real men and women who have sought as best they could to give tangible expression to what thrives in the depths of their hearts, devoting to this endeavor sometimes a widow’s mite, sometimes untold riches.
There is a special intensity to the beauty of the house of God to be seen in many an “Old World” church of Spain, churches where the iconoclastic frenzy of modernism has not yet succeeded in destroying centuries of devotional religious art and architecture. What is particularly gratifying in reading about these artistic manifestations of “Golden Age” Spain is that in many cases a very personal story of religious fervor lies behind them and has been preserved for posterity. And it is sometimes a soul’s very private encounter with the judgment of God that has set in motion great projects of faith, hope, and love.
It was Corpus Christi Day of 1600. As the people of Seville gathered for the city’s spectacular Eucharistic procession, genuine piety mingled with mundane frivolity, the latter, however, tempered by the travails of a plague that had been besetting Andalucía.
A 27-year-old cleric named Mateo Vazquez de Leca, an archdeacon of the cathedral, had arrayed himself in extravagant splendor for the festivities, not with fittingly magnificent sacred vestments for the greater glory of God, but rather with ostentatious finery for his own glory as the privileged heir of a family fortune fit for a king. Whatever had motivated him to enter the clerical state, it certainly did not appear that the pursuit of holiness and the salvation of souls ranked high on his list of priorities.
Having watched the procession from the “reviewing stand” of the cathedral’s front steps, Mateo was still at the church as dusk was descending upon the city when a woman approached him and motioned that she wanted to see him. The woman had so totally veiled her face that Mateo could see only one of her eyes. … Continue Reading

As Public Mass Reopens . . . People Get To Bring Their Personal Presence Before Divine Presence

By DEXTER DUGGAN

PHOENIX — Catholics able to return to attending limited public Masses as dioceses start to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic will feel the sensation of three-dimensionality again, being surrounded by the atmosphere of the worship hall instead of watching a flat-screen livestream.
The celebrant’s face in the sanctuary may be 70 or more feet distant, rather than the close-up image they recently may have become used to thanks to cameras. To compare with a secular activity, a fan in football-stadium seating isn’t right down in the huddle.
Even while many Americans were under lockdown orders or somewhat less restricted during pandemic uncertainties, they still could watch the celebration of the Mass even miles away. But now in some areas they were emerging from home, to head for church.
Some distance from the altar was always the way it had been before. Anyone who thought he’d get a front-row pew for Christmas or Easter by walking in the door five minutes before Mass was to start must have been from a very small parish.
People may have wondered if some Catholics had become so accustomed to watching Mass from their couches since mid-March that they’d be reluctant to get in their car or hit the sidewalk to renew their personal presence before the Divine Presence.
A ceremonies coordinator at a Phoenix church told The Wanderer on May 11 that even before limited public Mass began that day, people were coming to the church property to receive the Eucharist when distribution of that sacrament was renewed.
“People want the Mass, that was evident when they lined up outside of a closed church waiting to receive the Blessed Sacrament after a livestreamed Mass,” said Chris Quintenz, the liturgical and funeral coordinator at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish. … Continue Reading

Mary, The Saints, And Sacred Images

By JOE SIXPACK

Two things we Catholics are often criticized about are our honoring of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, and our use of images. Non-Catholic Christians say that what we do is a pagan violation of the First Commandment. They say that honoring Mary and the saints is tantamount to divination because we’re praying to people who are dead.
The First Commandment most certainly permits us to honor Mary and the saints, and Sacred Scripture even encourages us to do so. In speaking of the just who have passed from this mortal life, Sirach writes: “Their bodies were buried in peace, and their names live to all generations. Peoples will declare their wisdom, and the congregation proclaims their praise” (Sirach 44:14-15). In her Magnificat, Mary makes this prophetic statement: “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48).
What Protestants fail to understand is that there are three types of honor that can be given: latria, dulia, and hyperdulia. Latria is adoration and must be given to God alone. Dulia is the honor we give to the saints on all three planes: in the Church Suffering, in the Church Victorious, and in the Church Militant. In other words, this is the honor due to all Christians in this life and the next, but it’s commonly thought of as the honor (also called veneration) given to the saints in Heaven.
Finally there is hyperdulia, that veneration reserved to the Blessed Virgin Mary alone. Hyperdulia is reserved to Mary because she is the most special saint of human history. The Catholic Church has always paid special honor to the Blessed Virgin Mary, because God honored her above all creatures by granting her the highest dignity He could confer: the divine maternity.
The Church honors the Mother of God in the liturgy and various devotions. She encourages the faithful to know, imitate, love, and pray to the Blessed Virgin in a special way. After all, from the beginning of her Son’s public ministry until today she’s been His chief evangelist, as she proved when she first spoke the words, “Do whatever He tells you” (John 2:5). … Continue Reading

A Beacon Of Light… Every Journey Has A Beginning

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.

(Editor’s Note: The Wanderer on page 1A of its April 23, 2020 issue featured an article by Fr. Richard Breton on his experience of administering the Anointing of the Sick and bestowing the Apostolic Pardon on a dying 94-year-old woman with COVID-19.
(Fr. Richard D. Breton Jr. is a priest of the Diocese of Norwich, Conn. He is currently the parochial vicar of St. Andrew Parish in Colchester and St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Lebanon. He received his BA in religious studies and his MA in dogmatic theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Conn.
(This is the first one of his weekly columns for The Wanderer.)

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A few weeks ago, The Wanderer published an article entitled, “In the Midst of a Pandemic . . . The Priesthood Is a Beacon of Light.” In that article I shared how the priesthood becomes for us a beacon of light in the midst of the darkness we often find ourselves in life.
Not long after its publication, I was approached and asked if I would consider writing a column. After prayerful consideration I decided to continue the theme of my previous article: The Priesthood — A Beacon of Light.” I am honored to have been asked to continue our journey together as we focus on the importance of the priesthood through whom we receive the Beacon of Light who is Jesus Christ, Our Lord.
Every journey has a beginning from where we receive the instructions that will lead us to our final destination. If we are going on a journey, we prepare by deciding which route we will take. In years past we would have taken out the map and plotted our way.
In more recent years, through the advancement of technology, we have Global Positioning Satellites, or GPS, to assist us in reaching our destination. For us as Catholics, we find our map or GPS in Sacred Scripture. Through God’s Holy Word we enter into this column considering the origin of light, in particular, how this light becomes for us the beacon that will lead us in our quest.
Today we begin this quest by returning to the Old Testament in particular to the Book of Genesis and the story of creation. … Continue Reading

What More Can They Do To Our Kids?

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD

I’m beginning to wonder what the legal/political system and the transgender community is doing to our children. There seems to be a never-ending string of stories about parents and students seeking justice in our courts only to have judges immediately adopt the “trans” view of the world.
The latest is Connecticut Federal District Judge Robert N. Chatigny, a Clinton appointee. He was later an Obama nominee to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals whose nomination died in the Senate after his fitness to serve was questioned over several matters that he handled in his district courtroom.
Judge Chatigny is presiding over the case of three high school girls who are suing to prevent boys, claiming to be transgendered girls, from participating in girls’ athletic programs. All of the three teenagers were sidelined in girls’ track meets by two boys, claiming to be girls, who ran (literally) away with all the top medals and awards.
Lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, who represent the real girls, were told by the Honorable Judge Chatigny, that in court they must refer to the boys not as male but as transgender girls. Thus, the good judge has apparently decided the case already since the boys’ masculinity is the essence of the case which, apparently now cannot be argued due to some Orwellian judicial concept.
The lawyers, by the way, have asked that the judge be removed from the case. He should be, but whether or not he will is still — at this writing — up in the air.
In another “trans” case, a federal judge ruled that high school girls had no right to “visual bodily privacy” in school locker rooms and showers that were open to boys claiming they were trans-female. And in a Colorado case several years ago, a judge told the girls their privacy rights were subordinate to the right of a biological male to use the girls’ showers.
But that’s not the whole story. In both the United States and Canada, judges and school officials are becoming complicit in encouraging students to transgender even in spite of parents who are objecting to the procedure. School officials are taking it upon themselves to covertly suggest that students who are having episodes of depression or other emotional problems are in that position because they are in the wrong body. … Continue Reading

Red Straws In The Wind In California Politics?. . . Has Dem-Media Hammering Of Conservatives Caused Blowback?

By DEXTER DUGGAN

After the leftist Democrat-media corruption corporation did all it could to destroy Donald Trump and conservatives even before he was elected president in 2016, what are the portents for the national election this fall?
Events are sifted for bold and mild significance. Three recent elections in California give Democrats little to celebrate. These are no guarantee of November outcomes, but they did occur in the blue paradise of California, which takes its color even more from pro-Dem voting results than from the Pacific Ocean.
Following year after year of media hammering against them, Trump and his Republicans still scooped up some victories in no less than the Golden State. Is this a sign that some voters have become thoroughly sickened by the frenzies of the fake-news media’s unfairness?
Even these days the Golden State had retained corners of Republican conservatism, although some of that was erased in the 2018 midterms. So the liberal American Prospect site was more than worried at the result of the May 12 special election in California’s 25th Congressional District, comfortably won by Republican Mike Garcia over Democrat Christy Smith.
Headlining the “shocking loss” for Democrats, the American Prospect article snarled: “In the first special election of the pandemic era, where Trump’s brazen mishandling has led to the deaths of tens of thousands while being openly combative with California officials over the state’s response, Democrats were thumped by one of Trump’s gold-star flunkies.
“It marks the first time the GOP has flipped a Democratic-held California congressional district since 1998, over two decades ago,” the article said.
The pro-life Garcia and pro-abortion Smith are expected to face each other again to fill the regular two-year term decided in November.
The special election was held because incumbent Democrat Katie Hill resigned over a sex scandal after she had rolled into office with the 2018 “blue wave.”
The UK Guardian posted on May 13: “After a bitter political battle complicated and constrained by the pandemic, Garcia’s win was a blow for Democrats who in 2018 had secured the suburban Los Angeles district for the first time . . . since 1990. . . .
“Although California is checkered with some red districts, it had been nearly 20 years since a Republican picked up a congressional seat in the state,” the Guardian added. … Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . St. Augustine Press Hits Another Home Run

By CHRISTOPHER MANION

Gerard V. Bradley: Unquiet Americans: U.S. Catholics, Moral Truth, and the Preservation Of Civil Liberties [South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press; $22.00 on Amazon].

The speaker was Clarence Manion, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame. The occasion was on August 1938, when he delivered a challenge to a convocation of Catholic educators:
“ ‘We need a political philosophy that is more Catholic and more humane . . . which treats man as a free moral personality, the creature of God in the maker of his own destiny,’ writes British historian Christopher Dawson.
“Well, my friends, we do have such a political philosophy in America . . . our governmental principle is most Catholic and most humane. It is just such a political philosophy that Mr. Dawson says we need. The Declaration of Independence places our nation’s freedom firmly on God. This philosophy is the root and the life of our political system.
“Here is a political philosophy,” Dean Manion continued, “that is thoroughly and completely theological, a political philosophy that makes society a part of the Mystical Body of Christ, a philosophy that the atheistic materialists in every corner…are driving out of our textbooks, out of our patriotic recollections, and to all practical purposes, out of existence, period. This bright beacon of American theological politics has gone into deliberate eclipse.
“Do the great Catholic teachers and teaching institutions have the courage to bring it out and lift it up to light the way of weary legions who now look in vain for the order of God and the disorder of the world? Are you ashamed of the fact that this government is in partnership with God, and an agent of His divine purposes?
“Tear off the mask that secular political science has painted across the face of Christ in the structure of the American state. Unless all of us act quickly, not only will God lose His government but likewise and by the same token, this government will lose God.” … Continue Reading

Luther’s Last Chance To Recant . . . Five Hundred Years Have Passed Since Exsurge Domine

By RAY CAVANAUGH

It was the Church’s first formal pronouncement on Martin Luther and the fulfillment of a two-year investigation. On June 15, 1520, Pope Leo X issued the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which condemned 41 of Luther’s written propositions as “either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.”
Earlier in 1520, a papal consistory had assembled to formally assess Luther’s possible infidelity to Church doctrine. In the wake of this assessment, however, Church officials decided that a more comprehensive analysis was needed.
At this juncture, a Catholic prelate by the name of John Eck (Johann Maier von Eck) began to take an assertive role in the proceedings against Luther. Eck, a counter-reformer and one of Luther’s main theological adversaries, was the most strident voice of a 40-member committee deliberating over whether or not to officially condemn Luther and his writing.
Roland Bainton’s book Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther describes how the theologians wanted to condemn Luther immediately. The canon lawyers, however, were less ardent and contended that Luther deserved a hearing so that he could try to defend his arguments. Between these two positions, the committee reached a compromise of sorts: Luther would get sixty days to present himself and renounce his rebellious statements, or face excommunication.
Having identified Luther’s 41 problematic propositions, the committee submitted a written draft to Pope Leo X. The Pontiff added a preface and conclusion before issuing the work as a papal bull.
The committee then disseminated printed copies bearing the title Bulla contra errores Martini Lutheri et sequacium (Bull against the errors of Martin Luther and his followers). This bull, however, would eventually receive the more congenial title of Exsurge Domine (Arise, O Lord).
The bull’s opening paragraph sets a strong tone: “Arise, O Lord, and judge thy cause. A wild boar has invaded thy vineyard.” Aside from describing Luther in such a striking way, this mention of a “wild boar” is interesting in that Pope Leo X himself was an avid hunter of wild boars. … Continue Reading