Is Traditional Piety Being Belittled In Your Diocese?

As a background to what I am about to relate, as well as a general reminder to all Catholics who take seriously our responsibilities to secure our own salvation, I present to you some writings about the advisability of frequent confession.

From the Baltimore Catechism:

294. Why should we go to confession frequently?
We should go to confession frequently because frequent confession greatly helps us to overcome temptation, to keep in the state of grace, and to grow in virtue.

Note that one of the Precepts of the Church is to confess our sins once a year, if we have mortal sin on our souls.  One who does this and no more is depriving him/herself of much spiritual grace to effect their eternal salvation.  I strongly suspect that there are few people who would eat only the bare minimum needed to survive.  Rather, they would nourish themselves as frequently as possible (as far as they are able).  How much more should we receive the Sacraments as frequently as possible?

One benefit that question 294 did not mention is that one of the requirements for a plenary indulgence is to go to confession within a week of performing an indulgenced act.  Bi-weekly confession suffices to fulfill that requirement for plenary indulgences.  Therefore, I strive for bi-weekly confessions for the plenary indulgences for my deceased parents and other relatives and friends who have died.

Not too long ago, I was making one of my bi-weekly confessions in a parish in the Archdiocese of Washington.  I was there quite early so there were only two of us in line.  I went first.  I began my confession by telling the priest that it was two weeks since my last confession, when he interrupts me to say that I needn't confess so frequently unless there was serious sin.  As I confessed my sins, he tried to chalk them off as mere weaknesses.  I had to contradict him to tell him that there was indeed sin involved and proceeded to confess.  He wouldn't let me pray an Act of Contrition.  Instead he asked two or three questions regarding contrition then gave absolution.  He ended by advising me not to confess unless there were serious sins.  As I didn't think it appropriate to broach that Baltimore Catechism statement, I just left the confessional.  All in all, he was quite terse and dismissive towards me. 

Obviously I found this quite odd.  In light of the lackluster signals emanating from the Vatican, many of which seem to have the goal of deemphasizing consideration of eternity and thus care for securing eternal salvation, I wonder if similar incidents are happening in the Archdiocese of Washington and other locales?  If my readers have any similar situations to relay, please let us know in the comments.  If you would, please let us know the dioceses in which this occurs.

USCCB And Catholic Charities And Pope Francis - Part And Parcel Of Human And Drug Trafficking

See for yourselves.  Pope Francis is using Peter's Pence funds to facilitate this abomination.  HT to Complicit Clergy.

Blasphemy And Sacrilege At St Patrick's Cathedral - How Much Did The Archdiocese Know Beforehand?

On Thursday, February 15, a funeral liturgy was held for Cecilia Gentili, a "transgender" activist who did his dirty work in New York.  The liturgy was held at St Patrick's Cathedral.  All manners of flamers and perverts were in attendance.  Some did readings, strutting and sashaying to the pulpit in full drag-queen regalia.  A complete video of the blasphemy is below, with more commentary beneath that.  Be warned.  The blasphemies and sacrileges are frequent and blatant.  More distressing than that, though, is the complete acquiescence of the priest and other cathedral personne. 

To be clear, Gentili was a male pretending to be a woman.  He died at the age of 52, but no cause of death was disclosed to the public.  He was also an atheist.  Knowing that, we can ask why Gentili's network wanted a funeral service at a prominent Catholic cathedral.  The answer is obvious - to poke a finger in the eyes of faithful Catholics.  They did so, with the apparent connivance of the local hierarchy.  Allegedly, Father Dougherty, the celebrant at the blasphemy, did not know Gentili was male.  However, he could not have been oblivious to the antics of the perverts throughout the debacle.  Yet he allowed it to continue.  According to LifeSiteNews, he even laughed at their various chants of "sancta Cecilia" and such.  Originally, a funeral Mass was planned, but a clergyman told Dougherty it could not be a Mass, just a service.  At least someone had the good sense not to allow Holy Communion to be administered to those many people in mortal sin.

While the personnel of St Patrick's cathedral put forth a public statement (of sorts), the Archdiocese of New York (particularly Cardinal Dolan) seems to be washing their hands of the mess.  I understand a Mass of Reparation was subsequently offered, but it was done privately and quietly.  That is just plain wrong.  The blasphemies and sacrileges were public in nature.  Thus, remedial actions need to be public.  The LifeSiteNews piece has a petition to have the Cathedral exorcized. 

Dolan himself has let his pro-gay sympathies be manifest on more than one occasion.  This past post of mine gives quite a litany of those events.  Why else is he "running interference" for the perverts?  Can anyone imagine the late John Cardinal O'Conner sitting still for this insult to the Faith?

In the LifeSiteNews piece, you'll see a tweet from Maike that Fidicia Supplicans be halted in light of this travesty.  Additionally, Rorate Caeli makes the case for halting Traditionis Custodes.

Pray your Rosaries each day for our Church.  Also pray for the soul of Cecilia Gentili, that he found the grace of final repentance.  He too was ill-served this past Thursday.

Maryland Citizens! Action Needed TOMORROW, Wednesday Feb 14

An assisted suicide measure is meandering its way through the Maryland legislature and we must stop it now.  Please see the alert below from Maryland Right to Life.

ASSISTED SUICIDE ACTION ALERT

Cassilly: Md. ‘End-of-life Option Act’ about money, not compassion By READER COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun February 8, 2024 at 6:38 a.m. The General Assembly is about to vote on whether we should encourage suicide by the aged and poor to reduce our medical costs. Advocates for Senate Bill 443 misleadingly proclaim the bill is all about allowing the terminally ill to die without pain. But the truth behind this misguided effort is clearly exposed by the provisions of the bill and the current law. Read the article in full HERE

Harford County Executive Robert Cassilly. (Matt Button / The Aegis/Baltimore Sun Media)

This Friday, February 16th, the House HGO and Judiciary Committees will hold a joint virtual legislative hearing on HB403, the House version of proposed Assisted Suicide legislation. Written testimony must be submitted TOMORROW 2/14 from 8AM - 6PM. PLEASE TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS TO OPPOSE ASSISTED SUICIDE IN MARYLAND 1) Please go to the TAKE ACTION tab at MDRTL.org to learn more and to send a pre-written, editable, message to hearing committee members as well as your state Representatives and Senator. We need to send thousands of emails and phone calls, and YOUR VOICE MATTERS. REMEMBER - Your voice is strongest when you CALL legislator offices and inform the legislative aid that you OPPOSE Assisted Suicide and urge a "NO" vote. You will not be required to debate. Phone numbers for your legislators office will display when you click the phone icon after sending the email message. 2) To submit written testimony, you must create a MyMGA account and then sign up online TOMORROW, Wednesday 2/14 from 8AM-6PM using the following user friendly tutorial links and sign up page: Tutorials: MyMGA New Account & Witness Signup Sign In to MGA Tracking for Written Testimony OR CONTACT Julie@mdrtl.org, 410 269-6397 for assistance. We are here to help you!

TAKE ACTION

Please take the time to create that MyMGA account, as it will be useful in future legislative actions.

The Cheese-Slap Abuse Of Babies Tik-Tok Fad

Last week I saw a post on Facebook that quite obviously displayed the lack of regard that many people, including parents, have for babies and their inherent dignity as human beings.  It involves a Tik-Tok challenge, whereby a parent or other adult (aside - I regret calling them "parent" and "adult" for they don't deserve those titles) will throw a slice of cheese into their babies' faces and record them for their 5 minutes of internet fame.

In this abortion culture of death, this really should come as no shock.  If parents can disregard their children enough to pay for their murders at the hands of abortionists, why wouldn't they display the same lack of respect for them when they reduce the babies to mere clowns, playthings for their amusement?

Apparently this Tik Tok challenge has been around for a year or so, but I only got wind of it when it showed up in my Facebook feed from more than one of my facebook friends.  Quite troubling is that one facebook friend, a Catholic, seems to see no problem with throwing things into babies' faces.  She doesn't seem to understand the connection that it has with the anti-life mentality that permeates so much of this post-modern world.

First let's take a look at the nature of these Tik-Tok challenges.  I have heard of such things whereby some thug, mindlessly obeying one of these, will beat up some unsuspecting person on the sidewalk, leaving them injured.  Many thefts have also occurred, committed by those of little thought and even lesser conscience, again slavishly following along one of these "challenges".

So why do people just passively comply with these suggestions?  Do they really crave the attention that badly?  Why are they so ready to suspend their critical thinking abilities and even their sense of common decency to obey someone whom they don't even know?  Maybe they simply don't have a firm set of beliefs nor the ability to think beyond their emotions.  Maybe they simply haven't grasped what it is to be a rational adult.  Of course the anti-life anti-God mindset is all over this.

Some people claim that cheese calms a crying baby, as if that is a justification.  However, the aim is stated quite clearly in this video - "throw a piece of cheese at your (crying) baby and see what happens".  Right there we see the child is turned into a guinea pig for the sake of amusement.  In many of these clips, the baby isn't crying until the cheese is tossed at him/her.  Some cry afterwards.  At least one parental nitwit slaps the cheese onto his baby as his child is eating, lacking the common sense to understand that the startlement might have cause the baby to choke on his/her food.  In a few of the clips, the child is playing on the floor while the parent sneaks up on them, cheese slice in hand, then slaps the kid with the cheese.  If the parent were to do that to another adult, we'd have no problem calling that an assault.  That is exactly what this is.

A pediatrician posted her own thoughts and objections on tik-tok, and I think her words are worth a respectful audience.  Here is the link to her clip.

With a few intelligent exceptions, the comments on her clip (and the other) show many people to be absolute boors and oafs.  Ladies and gentlemen, this is some of the rotten fruit of a society that has rejected God and thus any idea of their own humanity. 

What I find somewhat troubling is that I saw this on Facebook, and some of my facebook friends seem to have no issue with throwing things at babies, violating the trust that they should be able to place in their parents.  One doesn't have to repeatedly beat a child in order to be guilty of child abuse, and that is what this is.

The Texas Border Situation And The US Catholic Hierarchy - More Than Meets The Eye

We all know by now that Governor Greg Abbott is taking action, as per his rights and duties as Governor of Texas, to secure the southern border, of which Texas forms a large part.  The Biden administration has been dismantling the wall that President Trump took great strides in building.  Biden et al took great umbrage at Abbott, insisting that federal employees be allowed in Texas to continue the demolition of the wall.  Abbott is refusing, correctly chiding the federal government in its dereliction of its constitutional duty to protect from invasion while citing his own to protect Texans.  So far, 25 governors from other states have stood in solidarity with Texas, issuing statements of their own. 

The Catholic hierarchy, from the pope on down, have been waxing indignant over Abbott's measures.  They snivel on how Jesus and the Holy Family were refugees (they weren't!) in a foreign land, how the razor wires are cruel (only if attempts are made to cross at non-checkpoint locations) etc, etc.  Would that their angst was merely misguided.  Alas, there may be some ulterior motives.  Over the years, various Catholic Charities offices in Texas have been receiving federal grants, to the tune of millions of our tax dollars, to facilitate the "processing" of illegal immigrants.  Now please read the first article in that last anthology of posts.  Read how immigrant children were hurried out of a local Catholic Charities office and stuffed into a luggage compartment of a vehicle.  Only when a reporter blocked the car and called the police did that truth come out.  So now we seem to have prima facie evidence that Catholic Charities, and by extension, the US Catholic hierarchy, are actively involved in child trafficking.

Thanks to Canon 212, I saw today a post from Complicit Clergy, detailing why so many US bishops support Biden and despise Trump.  Oh, by the way, count Francis in with that bunch.  They published financial statements from the USCCB showing the drop in Federal funding while Trump was in office and the dramatic climb once Biden stepped in.  As you examine the various charts, you will notice that many of these Catholic agencies deal with immigration.  We know that among these immigrants are many children with a high percentage of them either alone or accompanied by unrelated adults.  It is reasonable to suspect that many of these children are being trafficked for sale into sexual slavery.

The Catholic hierarchy, as we saw in the April 2021 blog post, is involved in that trafficking.  Are they deriving profit from such trafficking?  Are any of those defenseless children being used by their colleagues who may be sexual perverts?  We have seen too many accounts of perverted clergy raping young children.

As I examine the charts, I do take issue with Trump on one thing.  It would have been far better if he had ceased funding the USCCB and these other left-wing cartels completely, not giving to them so much as one red penny.

Below is last week's episode of the Anchor team, where Michael Hichborn discusses the situation in Texas and how it relates to the Church.  Please watch it.

Resume

https://www.dailywire.com/news/25-republican-governors-band-together-to-support-texas-in-its-fight-to-secure-the-border

Professor Janet Smith On The Crisis In The Church Today

Several weeks ago, Dr. Janet Smith, long-time defender of the Church's teachings on contraception, gave a talk in Springfield Virginia on the topic cited above.  It is important for each and every one of us to have an understanding of the depths to which the Church has sunk, if we are to pray and act intelligently and effectively to rectify matters.  Please watch the entire presentation.