It's Official: Germantown Abortuary Closed AND Carhart Sues His Former Hosts

From the site prayforgermantown.com we have the official press release announcing the official closure as of Wednesday.  We also have another piece of news.  Apparently there is acrimony between Carhart and the two former owners of the Germantown mill, Todd Stave and his sister Nancy Samuels.  Carhart is suing the two siblings for custody of medical records pertaining to the women whose children were murdered at GRHS.

We believe that Carhart isn't giving up a lucrative baby-slaughter business so easily.  He probably intends to set up shop in another Maryland location, most likely Montgomery County.  Given his abysmal record at Germantown (10 ambulances, 1 maternal death) a reasonable person can surmise that those records might contain information that could be prejudicial to any attempts to get licenses and permits for a new practice.  If you read the "defendants' answer" on the OR page, the siblings seem willing to release the records, provided that they are held harmless from any liability that might otherwise result from them.

We'll have to see how that suit pans out.  Of course if Carhart resumes baby-slaughter in Maryland, we will be there as well.

Evangelism: Out With The New, In With The Old

Since Vatican II, Mass attendance has been on the decline.  In fact, Catholic life in general has deteriorated, as those who claim a Catholic ancestry believe and live as, well, heathen.  Their level of immorality is identical to the culture of death at large as they divorce, fornicate and abort their babies at the same rates.

There was a respite in the downturn, albeit brief.  It was right after the 9/11 attacks.  All of the sudden, people remembered that God existed.  For a few weeks, the churches were quite crowded.  However, by and large, our bishops didn't know how to respond - or maybe they didn't want to see real repentance and conversions for then they'd actually have to be attentive to their duties.  I remember reading in the Catholic Standard about this return to churches when it was still in play.  Cardinal McCarrick waxed absolutely giddy and silly about the full churches.  Why?  Well, because that meant the local church would have to buy more real estate and build more buildings.  That was his focus.  Meanwhile the church hierarchy was doing absolutely zilch about meeting the spiritual needs of those who were darkening church doors after being away for so long.  I was quite exasperated at McCarrick's inane prattling, wondering why he didn't propose increased times for confession and remedial catechism for the returnees.  Not encountering real Catholicism, the returnees soon stopped returning.

So having blown what was literally a God-given field for true evangelism, the hierarchy returned to its tried-and-failed tactics.  They completely ignored the traditional means of evangelism, for those means would have entailed both fidelity to Sacred Tradition and incurring the displeasure of the world at large.  If anything, we witnessed even greater banality from the hierarchy as they tried so desperately to earn the approval of the world, particularly young people.  We witnessed priests and religious break-dancing, rap-singing, etc - all to imitate worldly fashions to trick young people into "liking us".  There have been a few who have come to the Church, but by and large the world regards these pathetic farces with derision.  Who can blame them?

There is hope, though.  A growing number of Catholics who are concerned with the Church's problems are assessing honestly the Church's failures with the "new evangelism".  They understand that the world will only respect Catholics (not necessarily like, but respect) who are in fact praying, believing and acting like Catholics in accordance with Tradition.

I recommend to your reading an article by Eric Sammons called "The Old Evangelization: Five Steps To Renew A Parish".  In a nutshell, he hits the nail on the head.  When Catholics pray and worship as Catholics in accord with Tradition stemming from the One True Faith, the world will take notice.  Conversions will happen - but more importantly, God will be worshiped as He ordered.

What Eric said about the primacy of proper worship echoes the words of both Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Burke.  Only through authentic, proper worship will we and the world be receptive to the grace needed for evangelism and conversion.

Here is a blog piece written by Msgr Charles Pope called "Recovering The Gospel From The Notion Of Merely Happy Or Good News".  In this piece he points out that both Jesus and John the Baptist preached the entire truth.  They didn't cater to any "snowflake" wishes for "happy positive warm fuzzies".  They preached the need for repentance from sin as being crucial to the process of conversion.  Recall that in the Gospel of Mark, the first recorded word of Jesus is "repent".  Jesus and the early preachers proclaimed the joy of the Gospel, but they also proclaimed the consequences of refusal of the Gospel and preference for sin.  Some priests would do well to recall that when they are tempted to adopt some silly fad as a means of "evangelism".

Let's stop the cutesy gimmicks and return to the Traditions of Our Church.  Converts will come then, as they did earlier.

Paglia's Institute To Push Amoralis Lamentia And Seamless Garbage

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia (yes, this Paglia) has praised the pope's mutilation of the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, saying that its new focus on Amoralis Lamentia is a "revamping of pro-life efforts".  Well, at least he's being honest.  Oh by the way, Paglia is the chancellor of the new JP II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.

But the honesty did not continue.  He let loose with this whopper: "The real revolution there happened under John Paul II, not Francis, which hasn’t really yet been understood. You have to remember that before Familiaris Consortio, it wasn’t that the divorced and remarried just couldn’t get Communion, it was they were practically excommunicated and expelled."  That's simply not true.  The divorced and remarried, although engaged in the mortal sin of adultery, were not excommunicated and/or expelled.  To assert that they were is simply a lie.

He also asserted that he won't "let anyone be more pro-life than me".  Oh, dear!  That will only allow those who are at best tepid on matters of intrinsic evils against life to join his strange little organization.

He indicates that this newly-bastardized organization will dwell on immigration, death penalty, etc etc.  Doesn't that sound like "seamless garment" garbage to you?  It does to me!  Now wait a minute!  From where else have we heard that the pro-life movement must assume "seamless garment" trappings?  Yes!  It has reared its ugly head in the U.S.!  See here and here.  How "coincidental" that we'd be hearing about "revamping the pro-life movement" from these two seemingly disparate sources.  Maybe it is a coincidence - and then again, maybe not!  I'd put nothing past these progressives.

PS: I used the phrase "seamless garment garbage" in the last paragraph.  Moving forward, I believe I'll shorten it to "seamless garbage".

In Face of Correctio Filialis, Vatican Circles Wagons

Remember when Pope Francis welcomed criticism?  He in fact called it "healthy".

My!  How times do change!

Both LifeSiteNews and One Peter Five have launched sites whereby faithful Catholics can sign petitions in support of the Filial Correction (Correctio Filialis) that was publicized this weekend.  Any faithful Catholic with internet access can sign if they choose.  Well, almost  any faithful Catholic!

Those Catholics within the Vatican will not be able to see those sites.  The Secretariat for Communications for the Holy See has blocked any computer within the Vatican from accessing these sites.   We might have expected this kind of conduct from Red China behind its Great Wall, but the Vatican?  Gee willickers!  Isn't criticism supposed to be healthy?  That's what Pope Francis said - a few years ago.  How strange!  To add to the strangeness, consider who was appointed a consultor for that office by the pope.  Yes!  Father James Martin!  I suppose, though, we shouldn't be too surprised, given Martin's propensity to block anyone who contradicts his posts and tweets.  The progressives are revealing their tyrannical colors!

Filial Correction To Pope Francis Publicized Today

On the first anniversary of the submission of the dubia to Pope Francis, the pope has abolished the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family and put in place another: the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences.  Some things to note:

• The first was established to promulgate Humanae Vitae and related teachings.  The second is tasked with implementation of Amoralis Lamentia.
• The founding president of the first was Cardinal Caffarra, one of the dubia cardinals who is just recently deceased.

We all know of the no-longer secret committee that has been established to "study" Humanae Vitae.  This teaching of the Church is crystal-clear.  We know this "studying" is simply a pretext so that it can be undermined and declared irrelevant.

However, we have now received word that 62 scholars, both clergy and laypeople, have issued a "Filial Correction of Pope Francis for the Propagation of Heresies".  This is not the correction mentioned by Cardinal Burke; that would be a fraternal correction, issued by bishop to bishop.  It is an important step in the process.  Rorate Caeli has the full text of the document.  It was actually sent to the pope last month.  However, because he treated this in the same manner as he treated the dubia, it is now public.  Additional commentary and analysis can be found here, here, and here.

We pray that this matter is resolved by the pope's issuance of corrections to Amoralis Lamentia, or even better, by rescinding the whole thing altogether.

Pricking Some Consciences At Rehumanize International

The evidence for that is right here.  This seems to be the week for us being called all sorts of names: "Catholic Cyber-Militia", "Cancerous Catholics", and now "Right Wing Nut".  Not to worry!  Rather than carry on like some little progressive snow-flake, I wear these monikers like badges of honor, but I digress.

They are referring to this post from a few weeks ago, in which I exposed Rehumanize International for being less than a stellar organization.  It appears that Sarah Terzo's alleges that I "attacked" Rosemary Geraghty "on a personal level" because she is LGBT whereas I took issues with others over "opinions".  I submit that Terzo's reading comprehension skills leave something to be desired.  My remarks in the previous post state that her picture indicates "where she stands on the mortal sin of homosexual conduct".  Now doesn't "where she stands" seem to smack of opinion?  However, it's also clear in the comments on Terzo's post that yes indeed, Geraghty does engage in that mortally sinful conduct.  "Conduct" and "opnion" are fair topics for discussion.

Notice though, how Terzo is trying to frame the matter as though I'm attacking Geraghty as a person.  This speaks of a tendency of gays to derive their identities from their perversions.  Why else do we see all these "gay pride" parades?  Terzo does admit that reminders such as mine might "hurt a little".  That's called the pricking of the conscience.  They know deep down, whether or not they admit it to themselves, that their actions are wrong.  On the other hand, I've no problem being called "right wing nut" for I know that I'm speaking the truth.

I also found this thing, again kvetching about my coverage of RI.  Check out the comments on both posts.  Aimee Murphy posted a few; bear in mind that she is the director of RI and a "contributor" to the New Pro-Life Movement.  I ask my fellow pro-lifers if they really want to entangle themselves with this bunch.

Reach Out To Poor Bishop McElroy!

Last week we saw how faithful Catholic activists were instrumental in keeping Father James Martin from polluting several Catholic locations with his heretical bile.  Martin has taken to social media pages bemoaning the fact that some of us truly care about our faith and have the backbones to stand up to him.  Others have joined Martin in bashing us.  One publication went so far as to call us "Catholic Cyber Militia".  I'm sure they thought of that as an insult, but I think I'll wear that one with just a smidgen of pride!  :-)

Another who has waxed hysterical about us is Bishop Robert McElroy of the Diocese of San Diego.  We've heard of him before now, haven't we?  Anyway, he's decided that our concerns are "verbal violence" and "cancer"; see here and here.

The Church Militant link, at the bottom, gives the phone number to the bishop's office.  Please call and let them know what you think.  To the readers who have the misfortune to call him their bishop, you can assist him in a special way.  Since he seems to think that anything that proceeds from us is "cancer", why, he must have the same misgivings about your donation dollars, right?  Now you can assure him that no longer will you be foisting upon him your diseased lucre.  Heavens!  We wouldn't want him to catch conservative cooties from your contaminated contributions!  Assure him that no longer will have have to worry about any monetary contagions from you.  I'm sure he'll be most grateful.  On a serious note, the language of money does seem to be one of the few to which they actually pay some attention.  Let's not be afraid to speak it.  Onward, Catholic Cyber Militia!!

Warped Treatment Of Priests

My blogging colleague at Les Femmes has written of the treatment meted out to a good priest that she knows.  Her post is here.  Father Aitcheson, prior to his conversion to the Faith, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  He repented of his sin of racism well before he entered seminary.  Maria Santos Bier, a writer for the Washington Post, got wind of this and wrote a hit piece for the Post on Father.  Of course the "compost" would lap it up in a heartbeat, for they got to tar a hated Catholic priest as a racist.  Mary Ann correctly points out that Bier committed a mortal sin of detraction.  For those confused about detraction, it is defined in Catholic moral theology as "the unjust damaging of another's good name by the revelation of some fault or crime of which that other is really guilty or at any rate is seriously believed to be guilty by the defamer".

So while good priests see their vocations seriously compromised owing to long-repented faults, flaming dissident priests are celebrated precisely because of their poisonous heresies.

Father James Martin has been in the news in Catholic media circles.  Rightly ejected from Catholic speaking venues because of his promotion of sodomy, he has taken to whining and pouting all over social media.  In the course of so doing, he continues to spew forth heresy.  Consider this facebook post of his.  It's a long screed, and the heresy appears in the very last sentence: "And the Holy Spirit knows what She is doing".  Yes, you read that correctly.  He refers to the Third Person in the Trinity in the feminine.  In both Scripture and Tradition, all Three Persons of the Trinity have always been referred to in the masculine.  Given Martin's sordid history of promoting sexual perversion, we know he was taking another jab at Christ's teachings, blaspheming the Holy Spirit in the process.

Father Martin is the sort of priest who is celebrated by the Washington Compost and other rags - because both Martin and the progressives hate Catholic morality.  Mary Ann's piece suggests that Bier might be carrying on in the tradition of the traitorous Brutus; so is Father Martin.

New Pro Life Movement = Seamless Garment Regurgitation

Michael Hichborn, formerly of American Life League, runs a site called Lepantoinstitute.org.  It is a well-run site that is quite informative and faithful to Catholic teaching.  Recently he ran an article regarding the attempts by John Carr to insinuate himself into the pro-life movement.  Recall that while he was at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Carr oversaw the office that was in charge of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.  He did absolutely nothing to address the scandals regarding that collection.

The main focus of this article is not John Carr.  We are looking at the attempts of others to couple the pro-life movement with the now-discredited “seamless garment” theory that was championed by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.  In his article, Hichborn made mention of a series of articles found in the summer edition of Human Life Review.  Here is the site for your perusal   Many of the authors understand the perils of the seamless garment theory under its many disguises.  Among them, Ann Hendershott, Kevin Williamson and Kristin Hawkins see the danger of diluting our focus on ending baby-killing.  On the other hand, there are people like Aimee Murphy, director of Rehumanize International.  I previously did some research on this group and found them to be at serious variance with Catholic moral teaching.   Their “new media coordinator” supports homosexual conduct and may herself be embroiled in that sin.  Murphy herself evinced racism as she supported the violent “Black Lives Matter” on her facebook page.

But the seamless garment poses an even greater threat to the authentic pro-life cause than mere dilution.  In many, if not most, cases, its adherents ascribe to “seamless garment” tenets moral authority that belongs only to those matters to which the Church has placed special emphasis: abortion, contraception, euthanasia, homosexual conduct, abuse of embryos.  Even worse, some “seamless garment” adherents will go so far as to transgress against the Church’s teachings on the aforementioned intrinsic evils in order to promote the progressive positions on lesser matters (such as immigration or capital punishment).  We’ll now expound on these threats.

Some of the articles made mention of a group that dubs itself the “The New Pro-life Movement” – rather pretentious, that!  Its site is thenewprolifemovement.com .   Right on its homepage we see a problem.   John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe was a highly-respected pro-life leader approximately 25 years ago.  He helped spearhead the clinic rescue aspect of the movement.  Recently, some seamless garment pet causes – in his case, amnesty for illegal immigrants – clouded his perspective to the extent that he supported the unapologetically pro-abortion Hillary Clinton during the last presidential election.  I won’t go into the evils of that or this article would take up the entire magazine.  Look at the “contributors” page.  One of the other contributors is Rebecca Bratten Weiss.  Rather than go into another lengthy explanation, I refer you to this piece by LifeSiteNews. 

Let’s look at its “organizations we support” page.  We see listed “Obria Medical Clinics”.  Going to that site, we see their page on abortion.  While they don’t speak glowingly of abortion, they think that it could be “the right choice” for someone.  What???   They seem to be fine with contraception.  Another supported organization is “All Our Lives”.  Not only is it “informed” by the “consistent life ethic”, but also “the reproductive justice movement”.  They advocate for gay rights.

This “new pro-life movement” organization is not unique in having serious moral problems.  We’ve always known that those enamored with the “seamless garment” have flirted either with mortal sins themselves or have allied themselves with others embroiled in those sins.  An example of that was brought to my attention during the controversies over DACA.  A friend of mine, perhaps in an attempt to justify amnesty for Illegal aliens, posted an article about a priest in Georgia, Fr. Rey Pineda, who is himself an illegal alien.  To bring his “plight” to national attention, he relayed his story to Senator Dick Durbin, who then took it to the Senate floor last November.  Of course Durbin did this while advocating for illegal amnesty.  Dick Durbin’s name recently came up during Senate judicial hearings, when he and Senator Dianne Feinstein grilled judicial nominee Amy Coney Barrett regarding her Catholic faith, mocking her in the process.  So on the one hand, Dick Durbin (a “Catholic” who has always been pro-abortion) takes up Fr. Pineda’s case for his own end, but on the other hand he openly takes aim at a judicial nominee for living out her Catholic faith.  Pineda, a priest, lent moral credibility to a politician who displays anti-Catholic bigotry in order to facilitate his own sinful disregard for his host nation’s laws.  This is just another instance of moral compromise when Catholics get entangled in the seamless garment embrace of progressive causes.

The gains that the pro-life movement has made in recent years have been due in large measure to the movement’s laser-like focus on defending innocent life and the sanctity of marriage.  We are soon coming up on the centennial anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun that culminated Our Lady of Fatima’s appearances to the three children.  During these apparitions, she warned the children that the leading cause of souls going to hell was sins of the flesh.  Let us focus on eradicating these sins and not allow other matters disguising themselves as “social justice issues” to distract us and even seduce us to sin.

Catholic Activists Save Theological College From Father Martin

Two months ago I posted that Jesuit heretic Father James Martin was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a symposium being conducted by Washington Theological College.  In that post, you'll see that commenter "kiwiinamerica" lamented that Martin would probably never be disinvited.  At the time, his/her doubts were well-founded.  He/she can now rejoice for now Martin is disinvited, thanks be to God.

Left-wing rags are wailing and bemoaning Martin's well-deserved comeuppance.  Take a look at this whiny pout from the Not-At-All-Catholic Reporter.  They interviewed Martin, who puts the blame on "far-right church websites such as Church Militant, LifeSiteNews and the blog run by Father Zuhlsdorf".  Of course those sites also include many other blogs run by faithful Catholics - such as this one.  I'll have more to say on this point later in the post.

Church Militant has some more details.  Not only was Martin dumped from the Theological College event, but he was also axed as a speaker for a gala to be held by the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre.  In that situation, their leadership faced backlash from outraged knights.  Martin himself snivels and pouts about the cancellations on his facebook and twitter pages.

Despite the "poor widdle me" tripe that Martin exudes on his pages, the record tells the story of his attempt to normalize the mortal sin of sodomy.  In this clip he actually calls for "reverence" of sinful situations.  Note that his gay friend, who thinks he's "married" to his accomplice in sin, is the chair of the theology department at Fordham University.  Both he and Martin, unless they repent and confess their sins, will be accountable for leading many young souls down a path to perdition.  For clarification on that point, I now link to a piece by Msgr Charles Pope that summarizes Christ's teachings on homosexual conduct.

When I wrote my piece two months ago, I too didn't think there was much chance that Martin would be disinvited from the symposium, seeing how he enjoys the favor of both Pope Francis and Cardinal Wuerl.  In retrospect I believe there were several factors, and some lessons we can learn in combating similar threats to Church integrity that will present themselves in the future.  I'll list them in "bullet" format.

• Prayer for God's protection  Nothing of this sort can happen without God's grace.  We must continue to pray.  Frequent the sacraments and pray the Rosary daily.  Mention these threats by name when you pray.
• Social media  Martin himself alluded to that as he blamed "far right sites" for stopping his appearances.  Please watch not only the sites he mentioned but smaller sites as well.  Often it is the smaller sites that will carry news pertaining to their localities; these also deserve the attention of faithful Catholics local to those areas.  The mainstream media (including diocesan publications and faux-katholic liberal rags) are not reliable sources of information.  Of course when you see topics such as these, pass them along your own social sites and email lists.
• Action It is critical that when we are notified of these situations, that we not only pray but we must act as well.  Such action will include:
• Phone calls  Martin specifically blamed phone calls to Theological College as a primary cause for his ejection from the symposium.  If you called to protest his planned appearance, you share the credit just as much as any one of us bloggers.
• Boycotts I'd suspect that many callers to CU made plain that if Martin did appear, that they'd never contribute anymore to them.  Sometimes money talks louder than Catholic duty, so let's not be reticent about using that language.
• Protests/pickets One of my facebook friends, when she learned of the cancellation, remarked that she now "had the day off".  She was planning to protest the appearance.  Even the possibility of a protest is a strong deterrent to misbehavior.

Make no mistake about this.  The Theological College did not cancel Martin because they suddenly remembered that they were Catholics.  Far from it.  Take a look at their announcement below; they make plain why they earned the nickname "theological closet".  They cancelled because we behaved like the Church Militant (not the site) that we are.  Let's take heart from this and remember, for these situations will crop up again - although they might crop up with less frequency now.