Non Tasarmi, Fratello!

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Hillaire Belloc

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Audition Call

Pope Francis auditions liturgical dancers for the Easter Vigil Mass this spring.


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This Explains the "Sign of Peace"


In a drastic move to secure traditionalist Catholics from liturgical hackers, the Burke administration on Thursday slapped a number of Protestant communities and individuals with sanctions over their alleged Vatican II hacks of the Mass.
“These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to Protestants, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm the sanctity of the Mass in violation of established universal norms of behavior,” Cardinal Raymond Burke said in a statement.
The move puts an end to decades of speculation over how liturgical traditionalists would respond to what it said was a widespread digital campaign orchestrated by liberal Vatican officials in an attempt to disrupt the holiness of the Mass. More recently, intelligence officials from the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter have concluded that a number of high-ranking Vatican officials in the 1960’s were actually hoping to tilt the Mass in favor of Protestantism with its liturgical hacking.

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Is It Hot In Here, Or Is This Purgatory?

.- Nestled in Rome just outside the Vatican, a small unassuming museum dedicated to the souls in Purgatory displays simple items such as prayer books and clothing.
Nothing too unusual, until you realize that each allegedly show the marks of the deceased – such as inexplicably burned fingerprints – when they appeared to loved ones asking for prayers from Purgatory.
The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory is located inside of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati, near Castel Sant’Angelo, and contains around 15 of these testimonies and artifacts, collected from around Europe by a French priest Victor Jouët.

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Monday, December 26, 2016

The Blessing of the Booze


QUAERITUR:
You usually give your readership an annual reminder for the blessing of wine on St. John’s Day.
The Rituale says “Benedicere… hunc calicem vini et CUJUSLIBET POTUS”- so presumably any hard beverage could be blessed with that blessing? Whiskey would be acceptable right?
Right! Whiskey is “another beverage”.
I hope that you will get organized for this great day and wonderful blessing.  First, contact your priest and make sure he is one board.   To get him on board, it might be a good idea to to assure him that you will be leaving behind a goodly portion of the large quantity of the “other beverage” you want blessed:
“Hey Father!  I have a little too much Laguvulin 16 right now.  Could I leave some for you after you bless it?  I’d be much obliged.”
That sort of thing.
How did this blessing develop?   There was an attempt on the life of St. John the Evangelist by poisoning.  He blessed the cup and the poison crawled out in the form of a serpent.  You often see St. John depicted this way in art.
You can read the blessings at the link.

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Sunday, December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas! Rejoice!

Like these Columbian nuns!



The Eucharistic Communicators of the Heavenly Father are a community of nuns from Colombia who have a great passion for music and an intense desire to announce God through the gifts he has given them.
Sister María Victoria de Jesús told CNA the mission of their apostolate “is to evangelize through as many means of communication as possible,” and added that the charism of the sisters “is to communicate the love of God the Father.”
They have released a Spanish-language album Yo le Canto, or “I Sing”, as well as numerous music videos online.

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Saturday, December 24, 2016

Islamic Outreach, Part XCIV

From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam.",

Meanwhile...


The Islamic State published the names and addresses of thousands of churches in the United States and called on its adherents to attack them during the holiday season, according to a message posted late-night Wednesday in the group’s “Secrets of Jihadis” social media group.

A user going by the name of “Abu Marya al-Iraqi” posted an Arabic-language message calling “for bloody celebrations in the Christian New Year” and announced the group’s plans to utilize its network of lone wolf attackers to “turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie.”

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Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Not To Put Too Fine A Point on It But ...We Are Doomed


La Stampa reports that the dried blood of San Gennaro (Saint Januarius) failed to liquefy in a ceremony in Naples, and that failure is being taken by some as a harbinger of bad news.
While Catholics are always urged to have faith and pray, and not dwell on “disasters and calamities”, the failure of the relic to liquefy on December 16 (the first failure on any devotional occasion since 1980) will cause consternation for some.
On that date in 1631, the lava from an eruption on Mount Vesuvius stopped just outside of the city of Naples, a circumstance that was credited to San Gennaro, that patron saint of Napoli. Since that event, the blood — contained in reliquary ampules — has liquified every year, with the exception of a few notable years where a failure to do so seems to have forecasted difficult times ahead.
  • In 1939 and 1940, dates coinciding with the beginning of World War II and Italy’s entry into it, and in 1943, when the Nazi occupation began.
  • In 1973, there was also no liquification, and Naples was hit with an epidemic of cholera. In 1980, Irpinia earthquake occurred.

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Now And At The Hour of Our Death....Which I get to Decide

  

 From an article in June of 2015:

The Holy Year of Mercy announced by Pope Francis, which begins Dec. 8, comes at a time when the meaning of “mercy” in America is being twisted to mean something profoundly to the contrary. Specifically, there are some who are working hard to apply the concept of mercy to a growing movement to make assisted suicide legal.

There is a very interesting article in the NYT by Ross Douthat about Amoris Laetitia and how it afting the Church. Four Cardinals have issued a Dubai questioning some of the statements made by Pope Francis - specifically regarding receiving Communion and re-marriage. It's all about defining mercy, I guess. Here's where the controversy has led:


Indeed, the exact same post-“Amoris” pattern that we’ve seen on second marriages and the sacraments is playing out presently in Canada with assisted suicide. The bishops in the western provinces are taking the traditional line that Catholics who are planning their own suicides can’t be given last rites, because you can’t grant absolution to someone who intends to commit the gravest of sins shortly afterward … while the Catholic bishops of the Maritime provinces, citing Pope Francis’s innovations as a model, suggest that actually pastoral accompaniment could include giving last rites to people who are about to receive “medical assistance in dying,” because every case of assisted suicide is different and who are we to judge?


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Thursday, December 15, 2016

Now and at the Hour of Our Death. Amen. Go Army.

.- You might have seen an Army chaplain devoutly praying the rosary on the sideline during Saturday's Army-Navy football game. Who was he and what was he praying for? 
“I always pray for both our teams, for no serious injury on either team. And I pray for the kids on both teams, and just for their holiness and their salvation,” Fr. Matthew Pawlikowski, chaplain of the United States Military Academy at West Point, told CNA. 
“And then I ask for Army's victory,” he added. 
While he has been the senior chaplain at West Point for two years – the first Catholic to hold the position – Fr. Pawlikowski has actually been serving as an active-duty Army chaplain since 2000.
“I love being a priest. And I love being a priest for soldiers. It is a great life. It's a manly life. It's satisfying,” he told CNA. 

Interestingly, the stock photo of the rosary in the article looks like a combat rosary. Not so much  crucifix, but the beads.

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Cardinal Mañoso

.- Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City commended to Our Lady of Guadalupe the millions of migrants who have left behind their country for a better future in the U.S., asking her to help Americans welcome them – especially President-Elect Donald Trump.

Here are some exerpts from the "prayer":

We call upon you as the comforter of the afflicted, O Holy Mother of God, on this day of your blessed feast day, we have brought to you, as if it were an offering, the affliction of millions of your children who emigrated to the United States of America in search of bread for their families, of education to face the future, of the hospitality of those who also were one day strangers, and who knew how to form a great nation, diverse in its cultures.

Your children who emigrated, Merciful Mother, took with them the memory of their families and towns, but they also took you. And so, now there is no Catholic church in the United States that does not provide an inn as it were for your blessed image, because you are the patroness and empress of Mexico and of the entire continent.


Not to put too fine a point on it, I am pretty sure that our immigrant friends are not here due to an Emperor decreed census. But the Church does provide solice and a safe place...whiich explains the huge turnout at the Spanish language Mass.


Then the Cardinal veers into a personal attack on the President --elect:


O Merciful Mother! Move the hearts of Americans so they make room for those who, with their hard work have given prosperity to their country, and touch the hardened heart of the new President-Elect who being a Christian – as he has declared – so he cannot see the poor and the immigrants as enemies but rather as brothers with whom he must be tolerant, generous and just.


I like the "as he has declared"part. Who does that remind you of?



Noted Theologian Nancy Pelosi
 Anyway, he wraps it up with:

But our supplication, O Mother, comes full of affliction for our Mexico, your beloved Mexico, which is sinking in the swamp of corruption and poverty, is sick with violence and wounded by injustices. Move the hearts of the violent and sinners, protect families, preserve our Catholic faith, give those who govern us the vocation of service, satisfy our hunger and thirst for justice, because we are under your protection, Holy Mother of God, despise not the supplications that we make in our necessities, but rather deliver us from all danger, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin!


Well, Cardinal...Cura te ipsum. 

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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Today in Catholic History, December 14

From the Catholic Almanac:
James Blaine, James Blaine...The Continental Liar From the State of Maine

On the surface, nothing about the Blaine Amendment seemed patently anti-Catholic. Introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on December 14, 1875, by Republican Congressman James G. Blaine, the proposed constitutional amendment prohibited public funds from going to schools affiliated with religious organizations.

The law passed the House, but failed in the Senate. However:

Nevertheless, after the amendment’s initial defeat, dozens of states succeeded in putting similarly worded amendments into their state constitutions. The U.S. Congress likewise mandated that all states admitted to the Union after 1876 needed to do the same. More than two-thirds of the states eventually passed laws implementing some version of the Blaine Amendment. Nearly all remain in force.



Baptism and Baptismal Records

I am in the process of digitizing the baptismal records for St. Joseph, and it led me to ponder a few things. For instance, what happens if the records are inaccurate? Not so much if a name is spelled incorrectly or a sponsor's name is inaccurate but rather, a record for a legitimate baptism does not exist?



Let's go the Rule Book!

Can. 845 §1 Because they imprint a character, the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and order cannot be repeated.
§2 If after diligent enquiry a prudent doubt remains as to whether the sacraments mentioned in §1 have been conferred at all, or conferred validly, they are to be conferred conditionally. 

Can the priest charge for his services?

Can. 848 For the administration of the sacraments the minister may not ask for anything beyond the offerings which are determined by the competent authority, and he must always ensure that the needy are not deprived of the help of the sacraments by reason of poverty. 

Does a baptismal name HAVE to be that of a saint in the Catholic Church?



Can. 855 Parents, sponsors and parish priests are to take care that a name is not given which is foreign to Christian sentiment. 

So it seems it's OK to name a child "Truth" or "Beauty", but not OK to name him "Lusty" or "Satan". I wonder if "Martin Luther" is alright? I think not.


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Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12

For the Monday evening Mass, a shrine was constructed in the sanctuary at St. Joseph Catholic Church.


"It's INDESCRIBABLY BEAUTIFUL!"


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The Value of a Jesuit Educashun



Pope Francis has compared the media's interest in scandal to an unhealthy obsession with feces.

"The media should be very clear, very transparent, and not fall prey ... to the sickness of coprophilia, which is always wanting to communicate scandal, to communicate ugly things, even though they may be true," the pope said in an interview with Belgian magazine Tertio published Wednesday.

Coprophilia is a medical term used to describe arousal from excrement or feces.



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Thursday, December 01, 2016

It's the LAW

Canon Law Made Easy is a great site, but the author of the site does not allow copying her stuff. But this is interesting... especially in light of the recent addition the bulletin regarding cremations. The question is this: Can a non-practicing Catholic have a Catholic funeral and burial in a Catholic cemetery?

The answers is a resounding "YES". He has a RIGHT to it! UNLESS he had been doing really bad things while alive. Read the whole thing.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Today in History

The Cathedral of St. Andrew, Little Rock
From the American Catholic Almanac:
In 1844, Bishop Andrew Byrne arrived in Arkansas via horseback. Waiting for him, he found one Catholic church, one Catholic school, a few Sisters of Loretto, and maybe 700 Catholics. Most of those families were remnants of the days when France and Spain governed the Arkansas territory and Catholics dominated the region. Not until after the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, did Protestants from the American North come to Arkansas. But by November 28, 1843, when Little Rock became a diocese, the number of Arkansas’ Protestants dwarfed the number of Catholics. Little Rock’s first bishop wanted to change that. As Byrne saw it, Arkansas started off as Catholic country, and, with a little work, it could become Catholic once more. After deciding that immigration offered him the best prospects for increasing his flock, Byrne purchased 640 acres near Fort Smith, Arkansas. He then persuaded 300 men and women to leave Ireland and build a Catholic colony on the newly acquired land.
Before the Irish sailed, Byrne built the diocese’s first cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Andrew, completing it in 1845, and established St. Andrew’s College at Fort Smith in 1849. Later that same year, the colonists arrived. Unfortunately, their numbers didn’t approach 300. Some had died aboard ship and others decided to settle in St. Louis instead. Byrne recognized it as a setback, but he didn’t despair. His prospects even seemed to brighten in 1851, when the Sisters of Mercy arrived to start a school.

Bishop Byrne
It didn't end well for the bishop:

Then, the Know-Nothings got to work. In 1854, they burned down the parish Byrne built in Helena, Arkansas. Later, they tried to invalidate his land purchases in Fort Smith. After that, Byrne couldn’t convince any more Irish immigrants to join him, even though he traveled to Ireland twice to personally make the case. As the American Civil War approached and troops took over St. Andrew’s College, Byrne recognized he wouldn’t live to see his dream realized. Byrne died in 1862, leaving the work of building the Church in Arkansas to future generations.

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Sunday, November 27, 2016

From One Jesuit to One Trained by Jesuits



Mass murderer and dictator Fidel Castro is dead (at last). Since he was trained as a child by Jesuits, the Pope sends his "sadness":

Pope Francis sent a telegram to Raul Castro as well, writing, "Upon receiving the sad news of the passing of your beloved brother, the honorable Fidel Castro Ruz, former president of the state council and the government of the Republic of Cuba, I express my sadness to your excellency and all family members of the deceased dignitary, as well as the government and the people in that beloved nation. At the same time, I offer my prayers for his eternal rest, and I entrust the Cuban people to the maternal intercession of Our Lady of La Caqqaridad del Cobre, patroness of that country."

I am not educated by Jesuits, but I am guessing that there will not be a lot of "rest" in Fidel's future.



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Saturday, November 12, 2016

Sounds Familiar


Do you have any advice on catechizing children who have an apathy for the faith, and whose family come to Mass, but that’s it there is no teaching going on in the home. The kids I teach at the church are in 5th-7th grade and don’t even know how to make the sign of the cross. I am some what demoralized by this.




Father Tim Ferguson responds:

I’m hearing this constantly – people are reluctant to get involved in teaching catechism at the parish because the kids are so uninterested/unprepared, or the parents undermine ever lesson the teacher tries to get across. I think what’s needed in many places is a shift in focus – CCD teachers need to think of themselves as evangelists – almost imagine that they’re introducing kids to the faith for the first time, and that they’re the only one’s from whom these kids will learn the faith. I think of the opening scenes of the movie “The Mission” where Fr. Gabriel goes up into the mountains to the pagans who’ve just crucified the last missionary sent to them. Yet, he doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t run away – he draws on the strength of the Holy Spirit and dives right in. We truly are in a culture that has largely shrugged off it’s Christian identity. We can no longer think of handing on the faith the way our grandparents and great grandparents did. We have to think like missionaries.

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Sunday, November 06, 2016

Yes. The Spirit.


Thursday, November 03, 2016

I Don' t Care Who You Are ...That's Funny Right There

Make sure you wait for Pope Francis' cameo at the end....





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Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Persecutors, Quisling, Avenger, or Soldier?

Which are you? Read this article by Anthony Esolen, entitled "What Will You Do When The Persecution Comes?".
Does this remind you of anyone?

If he is a bishop, he is secretly happy to close churches and sell off their property, comforting himself with the thought that he is doing what is only necessary in hard times, and blaming the parishioners themselves for failing to bring up their children in the faith—when in point of fact he and the chancery have given them no help at all in doing so, and have usually checked them at every pass.

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The 2,016 Year Losing Streak Continues

Sorry, GIRLZ

Aboard the papal plane, Nov 1, 2016 / 10:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During a press conference Tuesday aboard the papal plane from Sweden to Rome, Pope Francis said the issue of women priests has been clearly decided, while also clarifying the essential role of women in the Catholic Church.

“On the ordination of women in the Catholic Church, the final word is clear, it was said by St. John Paul II and this remains,” Pope Francis told journalists Nov. 1.


Since the Pope can't bring himself to say it, the word is "NO".

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Monday, October 31, 2016

The Monks Of Norcia



The Basilica over the birthplace of St. Benedict was destroyed in the recent earthquake in mid-Italy. I have written about the Benedicine monks there before -their singing, their beer. There is hope for the Church as long as there are men like this in it.  Please read this article by Rod Dreher.



There is a man driven to his knees, on the piazza, surrounded by nuns, the elderly, and someone in a wheelchair. The weak, the frightened, those without a roof over their heads. What did the priest-monk Basil do? He went to his knees to pray. This is the fruit of the spiritual training, day and night, that Brother Augustine talks about — the training that simply
 is the Benedictine life. This is the core of the Benedict Option: building up the daily habits of prayer, asceticism, and charity that allow the Holy Spirit to make us resilient. If you think losing their basilica and monastery is going to stop the Monks of Norcia, you badly underestimate them. All the prayer, worship, fasting and brotherhood they’ve been living these last 16 years, this ordering their lives around the service of Christ, has rooted them deeply in the faith. This terrible calamity shows their human weakness, but it also will reveal their inner strength, for as God said to St. Paul, “My power is made perfect in weakness.”

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St. Joseph Catholic Church

In Macon, Georgia. I went to Mass here on my birthday at the end of September - the feast of the martyr, St. Wenceslaus. The priest wore the red chasuble and his sermon was about Wenceslaus and martyrdom. A great birthday gift!


Happy Halloween!

Don't forget that tomorrow is a HOLY DAY OF OBLIGATION! I hope to attend Mass tomorrow at All Souls Catholic Church. I learned two things about the Church today - they hold a 5:30PM Mass in their cemetery on All Souls Day (November 2) AND they have a 2PM Mass in Latin every Sunday - and  5PM on holy days!


I love the little kid on the right's tonsure. I'm guessing he is Thomas Aquinas.


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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

October 25 - St. Crispin's Day

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us on Saint Crispin's day.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)  (King Henry V, Act 4, Sc. 3) 

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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Archbishop Chaput Speaks

The Archbishop of Philadelphia spoke to the Bishops Symposim at the formerly Catholic Notre Dame this week, and hit it out of the park. From Maggie Gallagher's article in the National Review:



To put it another way, quite a few of us American Catholics have worked our way into a leadership class that the rest of the country both envies and resents. And the price of our entry has been the transfer of our real loyalties and convictions from the old Church of our baptism to the new “Church” of our ambitions and appetites. People like Nancy Pelosi, Anthony Kennedy, Joe Biden and Tim Kaine are not anomalies. They’re part of a very large crowd that cuts across all professions and both major political parties.


You can read the whole speech here.

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Thursday, October 20, 2016

He Wore His Collar

I wish more would in public. And cassocks.


How fun is this? Fr. Bill Matheny from Bridgeport, West Virginia, just won it big on the TV game show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire! And better than that, he’s giving away every penny of his prize money.



Talk about persistence. The 61-year-old priest from All Saints Church had been trying to be a contestant on Millionaire for 17 years. It was a personal goal of his to be on the show, knowing his love of trivia could pay off. He’d been watching the show ever since it debuted. This year he wasn’t going to bother trying out again, but a friend convinced him to give it another try.
Not only did he win $250,000, but he announced he’s giving it all to his alma mater, St. Francis of Assisi near Charleston, West Virginia.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2016

We Are All Radicals. Ergo, There Are No Radicals.

Vegan Buddhist Russell Simmons, who apparently is famous, explains:


Russell Simmons joined Trevor Noah on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" on Monday to talk about "Muslims Speak Out," a project he formed to deal with Islamophobia, which he called "the worst scourge we have."
He told Noah that people misunderstand the Muslim community and that "99.99-tenths of them are not radicalized, right?" And then he added the kicker: "Probably more Christians are radicalized."


The rebuttal:

Of course, nothing of the sort is true, unless you accept the left's definition of radicalization, which says that religious objections to sex outside of the biblical definition of marriage—and perhaps refusing to bake a wedding cake or having the expectation of privacy in the bathroom—is exactly the same thing as throwing homosexuals off buildings and stoning them to death. Simmons apparently thinks saying words that people find objectionable is the same as blowing people up. It's hard to reason with individuals whose minds have been turned to mush by years of moral relativism.

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Father Sirico Says"A Pox on Both Houses"

Father Sirico is the head of the Acton Institute...

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Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Only the Middle Ages?

A newly leaked email shows Hillary Clinton’s current campaign chairman John Podesta and a Left-wing activist casually discussing fomenting “revolution” in the Catholic Church.
“There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church,” Sandy Newman, president and founder of the progressive nonprofit Voices for Progress, writes to Podesta in an email titled “opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing.”

In response, Podesta assures Newman to rest easy for he and his progressive pals have already created organizations explicitly designed to infiltrate the Catholic Church with progressive ideology, though he cautions that the time may not be right for full revolution — just yet.
We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up,” Podesta writes.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

In the Big Inning...

Baseball fans across the country were saddened at the end of an era on Oct. 3, when Vin Scully, the voice of Dodgers’ baseball for the past 67 seasons, signed off for the last time, calling the San Francisco Giants’ 7-1 victory over Los Angeles in the city by the bay.
But the man known as the voice of baseball is back, this time lending his voice to an audio recording, “The Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” produced by the group Catholic Athletes for Christ in collaboration with Immaculate Heart Radio.
For Catholics who are baseball fans, it’s basically the answer to a prayer.




(The audio recording of “The Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary” narrated by Vin Scully is available for purchase at www.catholicathletesforchrist.org/rosary or can be downloaded from most major digital distribution sites, including Apple iTunes, Amazon Music and Google Play.)

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Monday, October 10, 2016

Today in History - a Need For More Dialogue!

The Battles of Tours was not a war of nations, but rather a battle of civilizations between Islam and Christian Europe. The Muslims had been conquering the remains of the Roman and Persian empires and were heading toward modern day France to continue their expansion. The Frankish King Charles (“The Hammer”) Martel wasn’t about to let that happen, so he gathered his forces at Tours as Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, Governor-General of Moorish Spain, led his Army northward.

Most modern historians believe that Martel’s victory at Tours shaped the course of Western Europe. Had the Franks fallen to the Moors, there was no other power in existence at the time capable of containing Islam’s spread, meaning there would have been no Charlemagne (Martel’s grandson) or Holy Roman Empire. Christianity and Europe as we know it today may have hinged on that one battle.
In addition to changing the course of Western civilization, Martel’s brilliant strategic military mind and his ability to coordinate cavalry and infantry enabled him to beat the much larger Islamic army. The Battle of Tours marked the first time a European force of heavy infantry defeated a Moorish cavalry army, and established the Franks as the premier military power in Europe for years to come.

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Friday, October 07, 2016

North Carolina...Hotbed of Catholicism

Lots going on in North Carolina! First, a minor seminary has opened:



St. Joseph College Seminary (opened) in September in temporary facilities near St. Ann Catholic Church in Charlotte. Nine men will live there together in community and prayer while they attend classes at Belmont Abbey College.
A college seminary, also called a “minor” seminary, is for men who are considering the priesthood but who are only 18 to 22 years old. After graduating with a philosophy degree from Belmont Abbey, they will then need to go on to what’s called a “major” seminary to study theology and receive more specific priestly formation. Only when they complete this four years of post-graduate work can they be ordained.

And this:


 — Bishop Michael Burbidge spoke publicly on Thursday for the first time since it was announced earlier this week that he would leaving the Diocese of Raleigh after a decade at the helm.
Burbidge, who has headed the Catholic Church in eastern North Carolina for the last 10 years, will take over in Arlington, Va. on Dec. 6, following the retirement of the bishop there. Until then, Burbidge will serve as the diocesan administrator in Raleigh. His moves comes at the request of Pope Francis. 
On Thursday, Burbidge said the news came in the form of a phone call about a week ago.
"In the Catholic Church you do not volunteer to be a Bishop, or volunteer for a new post. You don’t interview for it and in fact, you are not consulted," he said. "When you get the phone call it starts with 'The Holy Father has appointed you...The only thing to say at that point is 'Yes.'

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