Just When You Think He Can't Get Worse

The recently unveiled cross carrying the life jacket of an unknown migrant, now hanging in the Vatican, raises serious questions and concerns, as the Crucifix for Christians knows only one occupant: Jesus Christ.

On December 19, 2019, Pope Francis met with 33 asylum-seekers from the Greek island of Lesbos, who were brought to Rome by Cardinal Konrad Krajewski. To mark the occasion, a cross was unveiled in the Belvedere Courtyard in the Vatican to pay tribute to the migrants who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean Sea. The cross is quite unusual, to put it mildly: the body of the cross is transparent, like water, and is encircled by an orange life jacket exactly at the place where Christ would be placed on the cross. The orange life jacket belonged to an unknown migrant who lost his or her life at sea in July 2019.

That nameless migrant, emphasized Pope Francis, was a victim of injustice. “It is injustice that rejects them and causes them to die at sea,” the pontiff said. 

It might appears as if the cross is “wearing” a migrant’s life jacket. In fact, the migrant’s life jacket occupies the place of Christ Crucified; the jacket is the substitute for Christ on the cross. The unusual cross is controversial, with some Italians wondering if this is Francis’s message for Christmas—making them feel guilty for not helping and caring enough for migrants. Is the unusual cross a tool to guilt the faithful, especially at Christmas?

It certainly raises serious questions and concerns, as the Crucifix for Christians knows only one occupant: Jesus Christ, who is the center and the summit of the Christian faith. “The cross is the unique sacrifice of Christ,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 618), and the Modern Catholic Encyclopedia (The Liturgical Press, 1994) explains that the cross is the “most solemn and significant symbol of the Christian faith…” In 2,000 years of Christian history, Christians have never had any Crucifix other than the Redemptive cross carrying the lifeless body of Christ crucified for humanity’s sins. Christ’s cross is indeed not replaceable or substitutable with any other image, because only one death on the cross is a Redemptive and Salvific Death—a death that cannot be compared to any other death or any other suffering, neither by metonymy (life jacket substituting for Christ) nor by a metaphor.

From Father Longenecker

My attention was drawn to a tweet by a priest in Kentucky called Fr Jim Sichko.

 I tried to verify the tweet, but when I looked him up it seems he has blocked me from his account. I can’t understand why because to the best of my memory I can’t remember ever crossing swords with him.

But anyway, the tweet was a load of sentimental nonsense along the lines of, “Let us all remember during this time of the Holy Family that all families are holy. Some are heterosexual and some are homosexual. Some are single mothers and some are poor, divorced or widowed.”

I certainly don’t want to judge anyone on the basis of one tweet, and tweeting is a fun and dangerous business because of its brevity it is so easy to misunderstand what someone means. However, it was pretty hard not to see this tweet for what it was.

It pretended to be a message to raise our awareness and compassion for those who live in irregular and difficult family situations. However, anybody can see that it was really a lame attempt to to normalize homosexual unions by putting gay couples into a victim category.
The tactic works like this:

1. paint someone or some group as a victim of discrimination
2. push some guilt buttons to raise “compassion” for that group. Note that this is not true compassion. It’s just guilt wearing a compassion mask so the person doesn’t feel so guilty anymore
3. Raise the compassion to the level of advocacy
4. Advocacy must mean acceptance
5. Acceptance must mean condoning
6. Condoning must lead to celebrating.

Let’s analyze this a bit.  A person or a family is not automatically “holy” simply because they are unusual. This error is similar to the one so prevalent within Catholicism in which people assume that the poor are holy simply and only because they are poor. Being poor in and of itself does not make a person holy. Being a member of a persecuted group in and of itself does not make a person holy.

I bet he's Facebook friends with James Martin

Oh, Those Wacky Germans!

Once again, the German archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, responded positively to the question, “What do you do when a homosexual couple asks you for an episcopal blessing.”  He claims not to be promoting a general ecclesial solution and, hence, a general public liturgical blessing for same-sex relations. And he even rejects calling such a relationship marriage. Nevertheless, he says, “the decision should be made ‘on the ground, and [considering] the individual under pastoral care’.”

Another German, this time Johannes zu Eltz, the Catholic Dean of the city of Frankfurt am Main, is engaged in the pastoral care of homosexuals. He says, “the question is whether the church is able to learn that good things happen in those relationships; that homosexual couples . . . by their companionship give birth to moral goods for themselves and for others: love, loyalty, commitment, fecundity, chastity. If this is true, then there is the possibility to confirm these goods and to ask for God’s providence and guidance for this couple. That is what we call a blessing.”
Similar reasoning comes from Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück, the deputy chairman of the German Episcopacy.
Well, let's see what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about it...
 Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC §2357).

From The "Paper of Record"

U.S.—Biblical scholars from the nation's top divinity schools now believe Jesus ignored the gold, frankincense, and myrrh brought by the Magi and simply played with the boxes that the gifts came in. 
The toddler Jesus reportedly tossed aside the valuable gifts and started playing with the containers. He turned the box the gold came in into a pretend spaceship, making "pew pew pew" noises for hours. Later on, he tired of that and grabbed the myrrh box, wearing it on his head all afternoon and running around the house cackling like a madman.

The frankincense was "the best gift of all," according to the little Savior, as it came in a "huge" box he used to build a giant pretend robot. 
"Man, we spent a lot of time picking those gifts out," one Magi wrote in his personal journal. "And he immediately threw them to the side and just played with the boxes. Oh well. At least they were nice boxes."
Mary reportedly used a dab of the frankincense to calm herself down as Jesus attempted to stack the boxes up and perform dangerous parkour stunts on them.

Can Tattoos Be Sacramentals?

The Catholic News Agency writes and entire article about it. Allow me to summarize....

NO.

Islamic Outreach, Part CXV

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...

BLOODTHIRSTY ISIS terrorists have reportedly beheaded 11 Christian hostages on Christmas Day in Nigeria.

The militants said in a sickening video that the mass killing was in revenge for the deaths “of our leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”.


Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which includes supporters from Boko Haram, released a shocking 56-second video.

Claiming to show their captives’ execution, the clip was produced by ISIS's media arm, Amaq, reports the BBC.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was deeply concerned about reports that civilians have been executed, and others abducted, by an armed group in northern Borno State, northeastern Nigeria.

To show their concern, the U.N. passed a resolution condemning Israel.

Cardinal Dolan Sets the Record Straight

"The Son of God was homeless; his earthly parents were immigrants and refugees."

I knew I was too smart to be a Bishop, but a Cardinal?

I'm Going To Carbondale Today. I am a Refugee.

Pete Buttigieg has tried to carve out a niche among Democratic presidential hopefuls as the candidate who is comfortable talking about religion. Unfortunately, he’s only comfortable trying to use religion as a means of beating conservatives, especially religious ones, over the head.
This annoying penchant was on display again in Buttigieg’s Christmas message. He tweeted:

Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas.

Buttigieg’s message struck me as fake history. To my understanding, Jesus (the name Buttigieg conspicuously omitted from his tweet) came into the world neither as a refugee nor in poverty.
I’m not an expert on these matters, so tonight on our Power Line VIP program, I checked with John, a devout Christian and student of religion. John confirmed that Joseph, a carpenter, was a working man and not impoverished.

Joseph was also not a refugee, whatever that might mean in the context of the Roman Empire. Joseph and his family were traveling back to Joseph’s native town because the Romans were requiring people to do so for purposes of a census. They weren’t fleeing anyone, nor were they homeless. They were travelers, not refugees.

Hey! Pelosi Says She's Catholic...Maybe It's Time to Impeach!

Pope Francis has certainly said a lot of controversial things over the years, but what he just told a group of Christian high school students is the most controversial of all.  I know that may be hard to believe, because some of the statements that Pope Francis has made in recent years have definitely been extremely bizarre.  For example, he has said that “Muslim terrorism does not exist”, he told a gay man that “God made you that way”, and he has referred to Christian fundamentalists as “a scourge”.  But what he has just said tops all of those previous statements.  According to Breitbart, Pope Francis told a group of high school students that he was visiting with that they should never try to convert others to Christianity…

Pope Francis told Christian high school students this weekend they should respect people of other faiths and not attempt to convert them to Christianity, insisting “we are not living in the times of the crusades.”
Asked by one of the students Friday how a Christian should treat people of other faiths or no faith, the pope said that “we are all the same, all children of God” and that true disciples of Jesus do not proselytize.

Football teams proselytize, this can be done. Political parties, can be done there. But with faith there is no proselytism

Father Longenecker Dismantles the Jesuit, James Martin

 Read it all.


Fr James Martin has taken to Twitter again to whine and distort the truth in his usual subtle way. This time he is lamenting the request made by Fr Scott Nolan in Grand Rapids that Judge Smolenski refrain from presenting herself for communion.

Below are Fr Martin’s tweets with my replies.

James Martin: As with all these sad cases, the question is: Why are only married LGBT people being singled out? Is Communion denied to all parishioners who are not following church teachings? That is, married couples using birth control or IVF? Or young people engaging in pre-marital sex?

DL: LGBT people are not being “singled out” for not following church teachings.  Ms Smolenski was not denied communion because she is a lesbian. She is not even being denied communion for being in a lesbian relationship. She is being denied communion because she “married” another woman. This is not simply a matter of “not following church teachings.” By attempting a marriage with a woman Ms Smolenski publicly, formally and irremediably denied the Catholic teaching about marriage.

Marriage is a Catholic sacrament. It is one of the means of grace. For it to be a valid sacrament it requires proper form, minister and matter. The proper matter is the conjugal act. The proper ministers are the man and woman marrying one another. Therefore to attempt a same sex marriage is not simply “not following church teachings” it is rejecting church teachings and doing so formally and publicly. When a Catholic attempts a same sex marriage they are rejecting the Catholic teaching about the sacraments.

That Fr Martin does not admit this or teach this indicates either that he is very poorly educated (but he is a Jesuit so that can’t be the case) or he is deliberately misleading God’s people.
Attempting to marry a person of the same sex is not at the same level of commitment as a couple using birth control or IVF or someone committing fornication. All these sins are private sins and can be repented of. In a same sex marriage the person is not just “not following church teaching.” They are rejecting church teaching.  They are saying by their words and actions, “Gay sex is not a sin. It is something to be celebrated. It is something God blesses. The Catholic Church is wrong and I am publicly, formally declaring that I reject the Catholic Church’s teaching.”
In other words it is not breaking the rules it is rejecting the rules and in rejecting the rules rejecting the authority that sets those rules.

This distinction is something any eighth grade confirmation student could understand.

I'm Begging. Please Stop.

Vatican City, Dec 2, 2019 / 10:59 am (CNA).- Catholic business owners have both a grave responsibility and an opportunity to promote the Church’s social teaching in a difficult atmosphere, Pope Francis told young entrepreneurs Monday.

“I am well aware that it is not easy, in everyday life, to reconcile the needs of the faith and the social teaching of the Church with the needs and constraints imposed by the laws of the market and of globalization,” he said in the Vatican’s apostolic palace Dec. 2.

The pope noted some of the challenges that come with working in the business world, or with owning a business, such as the decisions which impact the survival of one’s company and the support of employees and their families with the payment of a just wage.

“I am thinking of working conditions, wages, job offers and their stability, as well as environmental protection. How can we live these conflicts in serenity and hope, while the Christian entrepreneur is sometimes led to silence his own convictions and ideals?” he asked.

The Love That Won't Shut Up

Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov 27, 2019 / 06:55 pm (CNA).- A Michigan diocese said it supports a priest who told a parishioner that because of her same-sex civil marriage she should not receive the Eucharist.

“Inclusion and acceptance have been a hallmark of Catholic Churches in the Diocese of Grand Rapids throughout the diocese’s history. They remain so. They presume, however, a respect on the part of individuals for the teachings and practice of the wider Catholic community,” the Diocese of Grand Rapids said in a statement Thursday.

“No community of faith can sustain the public contradiction of its beliefs by its own members. This is especially so on matters as central to Catholic life as marriage, which the Church has always held, and continues to hold, as a sacred covenant between one man and one woman.” the diocese added.

The diocesan statement came after a Nov. 26 report from local news channel WOOD TV 8, which claimed that Fr. Scott Nolan of St. Stephen Parish in East Grand Rapid had “denied Communion,” to Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court.

Notice that it doesn't use the Bishop's name? Here he is:

Father David J. Walkowiak

 

 

  This made me laugh:

Smolenski and Nolan have had previous run-ins. The judge is one of several parishioners who has criticized some of Nolan’s actions as pastor of the parish; which have included requiring that lectors at parish Masses be Catholics.

And this:


“I try to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is a huge part of who I am, but it is the church that made that faith, the very church where he is taking a stance and saying ho-ho, not you,” she added, also telling the local news station that she had devoted her life to the Church and recently given a $7,000 gift to the parish.

There's the Real World, Then There's...

 Read the whole thing:

The indefatigable apologist for Islam Pope Francis on Monday issued yet another mea culpa to Muslims, saying: “A scene from The Song of Roland comes to me as a symbol, when the Christians defeat the Muslims and line them up in front of the baptismal font, with one holding a sword. And the Muslims had to choose between baptism or the sword. That is what we Christians did.”

Was it really? The Song of Roland is actually a work of fiction, a French epic poem loosely based on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass between Muslim invaders and Christian defenders in the year 778. As The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS shows, in the eleventh century, three hundred years after the battle, The Song of Roland appeared, describing the heroism of Charlemagne’s nephew Roland, who is leading the rear guard of Charlemagne’s forces and is caught up in the Muslim ambush.

Roland has an oliphant, a horn made of an elephant’s tusk, which he can use to call for help, but he initially declines to do so, thinking it would be cowardly. Finally, Roland does blow his horn. Charlemagne, way ahead of the rear guard, nonetheless hears Roland’s horn and hurries back, but it is too late: Roland and his men are dead, and the Muslims victorious. Charlemagne, however, pursues and vanquishes the Muslims, and captures Saragossa.

Thus the legend. The Song of Roland was enormously popular and inculcated in the Christians who sang and celebrated it what came to be known (in the European Middle Ages) as knightly virtues: loyalty, courage, and perseverance, even in the face of overwhelming odds. These were virtues that would be needed if Europe was to hold out against the ever-advancing jihad.

But those days are long gone, and Europe is no longer holding out against the jihad. Now the pope is much more interested in defending Islam than Christianity. In September 2017, Pope Francis met in the Vatican with Dr. Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League (MWL), a group that has been linked to the financing of jihad terror. During the meeting, al-Issa thanked the pope for his “fair positions” on what he called the “false claims that link extremism and violence to Islam.”

Whatever You Do, Don't Drop a Nuke on a Prostitute!

Bangkok (AFP) - Pope Francis led an impassioned mass for tens of thousands of emotional worshippers at a packed Bangkok stadium Thursday, urging respect for prostitutes and trafficking victims in a part of the world where sex work is rampant.

The remarks came at the end of a whirlwind day of meetings for Pope Francis, who is on his first trip to Buddhist-majority Thailand where he is carrying a message of religious harmony and peace.

He heads to Japan next, visiting the twin atomic bombs sites of Nagasaki and Hiroshima where he will seek a ban on "immoral" nuclear weapons.

The 82-year-old arrived at the stadium in a golden robe woven for him from Thai silk, greeting crowds of flag-waving faithful, some wiping tears from their faces at the sight of the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics.

"Drawing Bright Lines"

READ THE WHOLE THING.

I’m an old man, and though I hope, and on certain days even go so far as to expect, that the Catholic Church in America will eventually recover from the very bad slump it has been in for the past few decades, I fear that I won’t live long enough to see this recovery.

When I’m on my deathbed (a piece of furniture I hope to avoid for at least a few more years), in order that I may die with a smile on my face, I will ask my grandchildren to bring me news of any signs of Catholic recovery.  “Report to me,” I’ll ask them, “any bishop who has been brave enough to excommunicate a Catholic pro-abortion politician.  And tell me about any diocese in which it has been discovered that there is not a single example of a homosexual priest.”

Just to make sure they understand the nature of this latter request, I will make it clear that I’m not interested in learning about a diocese in which all priests have abstained from the crime of sexually molesting underage boys.  I’m always happy, of course, to learn that priests are not committing sexual crimes, just as I’m happy to learn that they are not committing crimes of embezzlement and bank robbery.  But abstention from sexual crimes, while in itself a good thing, is hardly proof that we have a generally chaste priesthood.  Perhaps the opposite.

When Church authorities focus on the prevention of sexual abuse, I suspect they are doing this, at least in part, to draw attention away from the homosexual rot that is ruining the Church.  It’s as if they are saying, “We are absolutely determined that our priests will never again be guilty of sexual abuse – but we’re not really troubled if they happen to have consensual relationships with adult men.”

 THERE'S A LOT MORE AT THE LINK TO "THE CATHOLIC THING".

This Just In...Japan Has Bombed Pearl Harbor!

Vatican City, Nov 18, 2019 / 05:01 am (CNA).- In a video message to the country of Japan Nov. 18, Pope Francis said he prays that the power of nuclear weapons will never again be used in the world.

Japan “is very aware of the suffering caused by war,” the pope said in his native Spanish. “Together with you, I pray that the destructive power of nuclear weapons will never be unleashed again in human history. Using nuclear weapons is immoral.”
Pope Francis will be in Japan Nov. 23-26, part of a six-day trip which will begin in Bangkok, Thailand. 

In addition to Tokyo, the pope will travel to the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where he is expected to speak about peace and against the use of nuclear weapons at memorials to the victims of the 1946 atomic bombings.

I'm Not Catholic Enough to be A Bishop

Baltimore, Md., Nov 14, 2019 / 05:45 pm (CNA).- On Tuesday, 69 U.S. bishops voted against the inclusion of a paragraph in a letter they plan to soon publish. Within hours, a conservative social media figure said those bishops “are not Catholic,” and ignited an online firestorm. Here’s how that happened:

The bishops were at the fall meeting of their episcopal conference, discussing proposed amendments to a short letter they intend to issue, as a supplement to “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” their 2015 document on voting and public life.

On Monday Nov. 11, the bishops had been given the opportunity to review a draft text of the letter and propose changes. They had several hours to submit written amendments, which would be debated Nov. 12, before a vote on the entire letter.

Cardinal Blase Cupich proposed an amendment.

 Cupich proposed to add into the letter paragraph 101 of Pope Francis’ 2018 Gaudete ex esultate. The paragraph cautions against those who would relativize “the social engagement of others,” or act as if “the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend.”


As the debate began, Bishop Robert McElroy rose to speak first. He said he supported Cardinal Cupich’s amendment for the reasons already stated, and because of his objection to a line in the bishops’ letter which said “the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself.”

McElroy called that line “at least discordant” with the pope’s teachings, though he did not explain himself directly, or address repeated condemnations of abortion from Pope Francis.
The “preeminent quote,” McElroy did say, would be used to undermine what he understood the pope’s point to be in the paragraph suggested by Cupich.

 
“So either we should get rid of ‘preeminent,’ or, if we’re going to keep ‘preeminent’ in there, let’s at least give the pope a fighting chance with his view, to keep that whole paragraph in there, because that’s where he articulates his vision of this very controversial question.”

“It is not Catholic that abortion is the preeminent issue that we face as a world in Catholic social teaching. It is not. For us to say that, particularly when we omit the pope’s articulation of this question, I think is a grave disservice of our people...so either we shouldn’t have preeminent in there, or we should have the pope’s full paragraph where he lays out his vision of this same question, delicately balancing all of it in the words he does,” McElroy said.

The leader of San Diego’s Catholic Diocese announced he is in support of ordaining women as deacons, a controversial opinion that if realized would reverse thousands of years of religious doctrine.

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy’s comments come after the Pan-Amazon Synod, an international meeting of bishops. McElroy was among only three American bishops in attendance.

Pope Francis - Putting the MENTAL in Environmental

Speaking to a group of lawyers on Friday, Pope Francis said that the Catholic Church is contemplating the introduction of “ecological sin” to the compendium of Church teaching.
“We have to introduce, we are thinking about it, in the catechism of the Catholic Church, the sin against ecology, the sin against our common home, because it’s a duty,” he said.

The pope’s words came just weeks after the conclusion of a bishops’ summit on the Amazon focused on the environmental threat to the region.

Francis was speaking to the 20^th world congress of the International Association of Penal Law, held in Rome Nov. 13-16, under the scope of “Criminal Justice and Corporate Business.”

He also said that the culture of waste, combined with other widespread phenomena in welfare societies, is showing the “serious tendency to degenerate into a culture of hatred.”

“It is no coincidence that in these times, emblems and actions typical of Nazism reappear, which, with its persecutions against Jews, gypsies and people of homosexual orientation, represents the negative model par excellence of a culture of waste and hatred,” Francis said.

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 80... Another James Martin Edition

James Martin, SJ‏Verified account @JamesMartinSJ

 

 Denying Communion to politicians, Democrat or Republican, is a bad idea. If you deny the sacrament to those who support abortion, then you must also deny it to those who support the death penalty. How about those who don't help the poor? How about "Laudato Si"? Where does it end?

Besides, a priest has no idea what the state of a person's soul is when the person presents himself or herself in the Communion line. As we were taught in theology studies, the person may have repented of any sins and gone to confession immediately before Mass. You have no idea.

Over to you, Father Z.


Leaving aside the dopey string of moral equivalences the Jesuit draws in the first part, and focusing on the second part, we have to conclude that either a) his formation was so bad that he doesn’t understand the simplest distinctions to be made about this Communion scenario, or b) he is purposely trying to deceive people.

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll go with option a).   Therefore, let’s explain the situation to him in basic terms.

Denial of Communion to a person under can. 915 is NOT based on a Communion minister’s estimation of the state of a person’s soul!

As I wrote to a commentator here the other day, a priest cannot know with certainty the state of the soul of another.  I suppose one might make a really good guess if the person is in the act of committing a grave sin while he is standing there waiting for Communion. Even then it might be hard to say what the person’s state is.

However,…

… can. 915 does not pertain to the state of soul of the person.

Can. 915 has to do with what is manifest and it has to do with scandal.

If a person has manifestly been committing grave sins, obstinately, in public (such as a politician who actively promotes abortion even though he has been instructed not to) then there is an open, public, manifest problem that must be openly and manifestly corrected before he can receive Communion.  He publicly committed scandal and that scandal must be redressed.

A priest doesn’t have to know the state of soul of the public person in front of him. If he knows that that public person, well known, has been doing very bad things without any move to correct the harm he caused, the priest, by can. 915, must deny him Communion.

On the other hand, there is can. 916 which pertains not to the priest but to the communicant.
Any person who knows himself to be in the state of sin is admonished by the Church not to present himself for Communion in the first place.

In short, can. 915 pertains to the minister of Communion and can. 916 pertains to the communicant. The priest judges open, public actions people know about at the time of Communion. The communicant judges his own state of soul, which is invisible to others.
The keys to reading the canon are the elements of obstinacy, perseverance, manifest character, gravity, and sinfulness.  Biden checked all those boxes.

I hope that clears it up for the Jesuit.

The God of Surprises

The Intellectual and Scientific Wattage to Be Bishops

Baltimore, Md., Nov 6, 2019 / 12:03 am (CNA).- Catholic Relief Services, the official charitable arm of the U.S. bishops, is expressing strong opposition to the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Accord.

“With the planet warming at an alarming rate and the poorest of the poor left to withstand the consequences, there will undoubtedly be more global instability, forced migration and conflict,” said Bill O’Keefe, CRS’ executive vice president of Mission, Mobilization and Advocacy.

“It is not too late to take meaningful steps to care for creation and mitigate some of the worst impacts of climate change, which is why we hope our government reconsiders this misguided decision.”

Bill O'Keefe must know his science, huh?

Mr. O'Keefe holds a B.S. from Yale and a master's in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

You think it's hot here, consider this...

 

Too Catholic to be a Bishop

 From "The Catholic Thing". Read the whole thing.

The political season, alas, we always have with us now, but last week it took a turn in earnest.
Father Robert E. Morey, a courageous priest in South Carolina, denied former Vice-President Joe Biden Holy Communion owing to the longstanding public scandal of his support for unlimited abortion. To my mind when Biden, as vice-president, performed the wedding ceremony for two gay White House staffers, it was a cynical move for LGBT support, but far more importantly another brazen scandal demanding a response from the Church. He has been essentially defying the American bishops for decades, knowing that it’s highly likely they won’t dare put him on the spot.
Reactions to that priest’s act fell, as always happens, along the usual political lines. But this is not a political matter. It’s a question of whether the Church, as it claims, takes seriously the most serious things, namely the nature of the Eucharist and what it means for someone to receive the Body and Blood of Christ.

There have been various dodges from the Church hierarchy on this matter. New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, for example, remarked that he would never judge the state of someone else’s soul. But that’s not what is involved in the Biden case and many others like it. The question is whether to allow someone who has publicly adopted positions – and acted on them – that are directly contrary to the teachings of the Church and constitute grave scandal – to go along just like any other Catholic.

Scandal does not mean, as it does in the tabloids, that you’ve done something spectacularly wrong. In Catholicism, it means a public stumbling block that confuses people, Catholic and not, about grave matters like abortion and God’s intentions in creating the two sexes.

God's Plan

One Believes in Something, One Does Not

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York has responded to questions about the denial of Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden last Sunday.

During an Oct. 31 interview with Fox News, Cardinal Dolan said that he thought the incident was a good teaching moment about the Eucharist and the seriousness of denying Church teaching, but that he would not himself deny anyone reception of the Eucharist.

“So whether that prudential judgment was wise, I don’t want to judge him either,” Cardinal Dolan said of Father Robert Morey, who denied Holy Communion to Biden. “I wouldn’t do it.”

“Sometimes a public figure will come and talk to me about it. And I would advise them, and I think that priest [Morey] had a good point: You are publicly at odds with an issue of substance, critical substance, we’re talking about life and death and the Church,” Cardinal Dolan said.

Receiving the Eucharist “implies that you’re in union with all the Church believes and stands for. If, you know, you’re not, well, integrity would say, ‘Uh oh, I better not approach Holy Communion.’ That’s always preferable than to make a split-second decision and denying somebody,” Cardinal Dolan added.

Mustn't be judgemental, right Cardinal?

Sounds Easy Enough

Father Z posted this photo of a coffee mug:

Are Jesuits Really Catholic? Hard to say...

Former Vice President Joe Biden was not allowed to participate in communion at the Saint Anthony Catholic Church in Florence, South Carolina on Sunday. Father Robert Morey told the Florence Morning News he denied Biden, a lifelong Catholic, from participating in the Holy Communion because of his stance on abortion.

“Sadly, this past Sunday, I had to refuse Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden,” Morey told the Florence Morning News. “Holy Communion signifies we are one with God, each other and the Church. Our actions should reflect that. Any public figure who advocates for abortion places himself or herself outside of Church teaching.”

Didn't receive Communion, but got a swell ice cream cone instead. It's all the same to me!

 Let's see what the Jesuits have to say...


What remains unclear is whether other priests might take a cue from Morey when it comes to Biden’s stance on abortion, which the Catholic Church counts as a sin. Pope Francis has asserted church opposition against abortion, equating it to “hiring a hit man” to resolve a problem, but also suggested that communion should not be withheld from practicing Catholics based on a specific belief.

“The Eucharist … is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak,” Francis wrote in 2013.

John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, said that “it’s a big loss for our faith and for our church, either way, when the Eucharist becomes a source of division instead of unity.”

“In my view, denying communion to people for their public stances is bad theology, bad pastoral practice and bad politics,” added Carr, who spent two decades as an adviser to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"Evil Spirits Who Prowl The World Seeking the Ruin of Souls"

Quebec City, Canada, Oct 25, 2019 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The Cathedral Basilica of Notre Dame de Quebec in Quebec City is working to replace relics of Canadian saints that were stolen after a break-in last month.

Monsignor Denis Bélanger told CNA that on the night of Sept. 11, someone broke into the cathedral by breaking a window. 

The money had already been collected for the day from the church’s donation boxes, so the still-unknown person stole a large reliquary containing relics of Canadian saints as well as some items from the church’s gift shop.

 Some of the native Canadian saints whose relics were contained in the stolen reliquary include St. François de Laval, Saint André of Montreal, St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The reliquary also contained relics from three of the eight North American martyrs - Fr.  Jean de Brébeuf, Fr. Charles Garnier, and Fr. Gabriel Lalemant - French Jesuit missionaries killed by tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy.

“We have relics only from three of them because the bodies of the five others were never recovered,” Bélanger said.

Remember this as you read about how hard it is to be a missionary in the Amazon:


John de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were finally captured, tortured and martyred in the most appalling manner. Both priests were tied to stakes. Mocking baptism, the Iroquois poured boiling water over their heads to scald them. They then cut off the nose, ears, lips, and other body parts of de Brebeuf, smashed his teeth with a club, put red hot hatchet blades on his shoulders, put hot coals on top of his head, and then smashed his skull with a tomahawk. They pulled out the eyes of Lalemant and forced hot coals into the sockets, they sliced open his thighs in the form of a cross and then burned him at the stake. Both priests prayed as long as they could and proclaimed their love and forgiveness for their torturers. (The account of their martyrdom was made public by some of the Indians who had witnessed it and later were converted to the Catholic Faith.) Because de Brebeuf died so stoically without crying out, something the Indians greatly admired, they cut out his heart and liver after his death and ate them raw, and drank his blood so they could, in their belief, obtain his kind of courage and ability to endure pain.
St John deBrebeuf and St Gabriel Lalemant, ora pro nobis.

I'd Make a Crappy Bishop....Too Catholic

 

You tell he's a Bishop by his attire. Looks like a homeless guy.

 

Bishop Evaristo Pascoal Spengle

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2019 / 10:20 am (CNA).- A Brazilian bishop has called for the ordination of women to the diaconate for service in the Amazon region. The bishop said that 2009 revisions to canon law could allow for the ordination of women deacons, but a leading canon lawyer in the Vatican has disputed that idea.

Bishop Evaristo Pascoal Spengler, OFM leads the territorial prelature of Marajó in Brazil and is participating as a member of the Synod on the Pan-Amazonian region in Rome.

During a press conference on Oct. 25, Spengler said that “there is a path that is open for the ordination of women,” citing a 2009 document from Pope Benedict XVI.

While referencing the role of women leaders, saints, and teachers in the history of the Church in making, Spengler did not account for the theological and sacramental impediments to such a development.

Pope Francis Comes Down on the Side of Idolatry

 Cardinal Burke for Pope.

Vatican City, Oct 25, 2019 / 10:43 am (CNA).- After controversial statues were thrown into Rome’s Tiber River, Pope Francis has issued an apology during Friday’s afternoon session of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.

“As bishop of this diocese,” Pope Francis, who is Bishop of Rome, said, “I ask forgiveness from those who have been offended by this gesture.”

Pope Francis also reported that the statues had been recovered from the river, are not damaged, and are being kept in the offices of the head of Italy's national police.

The statues, which were identical carved images of a naked pregnant Amazonian woman, had been displayed in the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, close to the Vatican, and used in several events, rituals, and expression of spirituality taking place during the Oct. 6-27 Amazonian synod.

The pope said they had been displayed in the church “without idolatrous intentions,” according to a transcript provided by the Vatican press office. (He's lying).

The statues were thrown into the river Oct. 21; a video released on YouTube showed two men entering the Church, leaving with the statues, and then throwing them off a nearby bridge.
The figures have become symbols of controversy during the synod of bishops, which is a meeting held to discuss the Church’s life and pastoral ministry in the Amazonian region of South America. They first appeared at an Oct. 4 tree-planting ceremony in the Vatican gardens, attended by Pope Francis, at which they were in the center of a collection of figurines around which attendees processed.

According to the transcript provided by the Vatican, the pope referred to the statues as "Pachamama," the name traditionally given to an Andean fertility goddess, which can be roughly translated as "Mother Earth."

October 25th Tradition

St. Crispin's Day!

The Blessing of the Bats

 You'd think he would be a Cardinal fan....

Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2019 / 11:53 am (CNA).- A professional baseball clubhouse might not be considered a particularly religious place today, but one chaplain says the Catholic priesthood is needed—and desired—as much as ever there.

“When I walk in the [clubhouse], they kind of light up a little bit,” Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a chaplain to the Washington Nationals professional baseball team, told CNA. “It’s not me,” he clarified, “it’s that they see a Catholic priest.”

“I think that the priesthood continues to be a sign that God is with us,” he said. “You see ‘okay, despite how secular this world is, there is a need in all of us to have God as part of our lives’.”
Monsignor Rossetti, who is also a research associate professor at The Catholic University of America’s School of Theology and Religious Studies and former president of the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, said he has been a chaplain to the Washington Nationals for 10 years.

Somebody Tell the Pope

In Honor of Illinois' New Policy Posted Previously, A Training Film

Only the Positive Contributions? That Seems Unbalanced.

Beginning next year, Illinois schools will be required to include the positive contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in their history curriculum. 

Under a bill signed last week by Governor J.B. Pritzker, public schools in the state must include LGBT individuals in history lessons, and use textbooks that include the roles of people protected under the state’s Human Rights Act. The new law takes effect July 1, 2020. 

Illinois is the fifth state to pass such a measure, according to advocates for the legislation.

State Rep. Heather Steans, a Chicago Democrat, said she worked for two years to pass the legislation. Steans said she believes the legislation will help LGBT youth feel safe and supported in school.
“My oldest child is trans herself. And it’s definitely a challenge,” Steans said. “And feeling accepted and seeing yourself in the history books just makes a difference to your own self esteem. I’m very pleased we were able to get this done.”

By "herself", what does Rep. Steans mean? Is it a guy who thinks he's a girl or the other way around?

The Mad Hatter

 

At Least She Wore Her Second Best Pair of Blue Jeans

From Father Z:


During his address to the Synod, Francis actually said this.   He said that he heard a light remark about someone bringing gifts to the altar with feathers on his head (never mind that it’s in St Peter’s, not a jungle) and that made him “sad”.

NOW Francis is “sad” if some makes fun of a headdress when HE did exactly that on more than one occasion.

Then he went on.

“[W]hat is the difference between this headdress, and the biretta used by officials of this dicastery?”

And those sycophantic bishops applauded.

I am NOT making this up.  Video with audio translation,  HERE.   Ooops, wrong video… HERE!
Those members were chosen for a reason.  It’s like the Supreme Pueblo’s Assembly.
If they don’t know the difference between a pagan headdress and a biretta, then there is little hope for them.

There are “issues” here, my friends.  “Issues” underlying this obsession to ridicule our heritage.

Pope Francis is a confused man.

Wishing Don't Make It So

October 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The Vatican’s former head of the congregation tasked with preserving the Catholic Church’s doctrine from error has stated that it’s an infallible teaching of the Church that must be held by all the faithful that women cannot receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of its three degrees – deacon, priest, bishop.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated that it’s an “error” for anyone who claims to be Catholic to “demand” from the upcoming Amazon Synod (beginning in Rome on Sunday, Oct. 6) that it “must rule that the Sacrament of Holy Orders – in its first degree, the diaconate – may also be validly administered to women.”

The Cardinal, in a statement to LifeSiteNews (published in full below), said that it is “certainly without doubt” that Saint John Paul II’s 1994 teaching on the impossibility of women receiving the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of the three degrees is a “dogma” of the Faith of the Catholic Church.

John Paul II declared in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis that the Church has “no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful.”

Stated Cardinal Müller: “It is certainly without doubt, however, that this definitive decision from Pope John Paul II is indeed a dogma of the Faith of the Catholic Church and that this was of course the case already before this Pope defined this truth as contained in Revelation in the year 1994.”
“The impossibility that a woman validly receives the Sacrament of Holy Orders in each of the three degrees is a truth contained in Revelation and it is thus infallibly confirmed by the Church's Magisterium and presented as to be believed,” he added. 

Cardinal Müller made this comment in reaction to a recent claim made by Bishop Erwin Kräutler, one of the key organizers of the Amazon Synod, that John Paul II's teaching about the impossibility of female priests was “not a dogma.”

Nothing To See Here...Move Along

 

Stella Creaasy

 London, England, Oct 7, 2019 / 05:00 pm (CNA)- An advertising company has apologized for displaying a pro-life billboard in the United Kingdom, saying it is removing the ad and will make a donation to a pro-abortion charity.

The billboard was erected in Walthamstow, East London, as part of the #StopStella campaign. The campaign is in reference to local Labour MP Stella Creasy, the leader of a movement to force legal abortion on Northern Ireland later this month. Creasy is now pushing to fully legalize abortion throughout the United Kingdom via amendments to the Domestic Abuse Bill. 

The organization the Centre for Bioethical Reform UK paid for the 20-foot billboard, which featured a picture of Creasy next to an image of a baby who was aborted at 24-weeks gestation. The billboard read “Your MP is working hard…. To make this a human right.”  

Clear Channel, the company that produced the billboard, issued an apology and pledged to donate the money they were paid for the advertisement to Abortion Support Network. The apology followed a series of tweets by Creasy about a seperate billboard from the same campaign which appeared overnight Sept. 30. 

From Webster's Dictionary, the definition of CHUTZPAH:

 In addition to calling out the company, the MP asked to Metropoliitan police to investigate the ads as "harassment."
 

Things in Motion Tend to Stay in Motion

Macau, China, Oct 4, 2019 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- A diocese in southern China expressed disappointment Wednesday regarding a patriotic light-show that had been projected on the remains of a famous Catholic church.

For three consecutive nights beginning Sept. 29, the Macau Government Tourism Office projected government principles and symbols onto the Ruins of St. Paul’s, located at Freguesia de Santo António on the western side of the Macau peninsula.

The event was named the “Glorious Splendor in Celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China.” It projected pro-government statements, including Macau’s integration into China 20 years ago, and Chinese symbols, such as the country’s flag. 

Boy, I bet the Pope is angry about this! Oh...wait...