Marshmallow Catholicism, Courtesy Of Youcat

This video from Sensus Fidelium warns against Youcat and other types of "gimmick catholicism".  Although the video image is odd, just click on it and it will play.

What Is Going On At The Mount?

I am referring to Mount St Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD.  It is a Catholic university, with ties to Mother Seton.  Several of the Seton family are buried next to the grotto attached to the Mount.  While the school itself has had an unfortunate reputation as a "drinking school", its seminary has been touted as being one of the most orthodox in the country.  In his book "Goodbye Good Men", Jimmy Akin (correction: author is Michael Rose) sang its praises.  I've known many faithful priests; more often than not, they have graduated from the Mount.

Over the past few days, controversy at the Mount has been made public.  It seems to revolve around its president, Simon Newman.  He apparently made a crude remark about some students whose dismissal he was planning to pursue, based purely on surveys that projected failure for the students, calling them "cuddly bunnies" who should have a "glock to their heads".  When an independent student newspaper took umbrage with that, he fired some faculty who was an advisor to the paper, along with other faculty.  After massive uproar over those dismissals, Newman reinstated them.

Newman also took potshots at the school's Catholic identity, saying there were "too many bleeding crucifixes" in an employee's office and referring to some students as "Catholic jihadis".  The Mount seems to have two web pages; one that is devoid of any reference to the Catholic faith and another that still acknowledges its heritage.  Who/what are they trying to attract with the first?  Newman also is alleged to have said "Catholic doesn't sell".  If true, that last quip may be more telling than one might think.

I googled Simon Newman to see what he might have brought to the school.  One might think that a candidate for Catholic school administrators might be experience in a Catholic institution and even perhaps some theology degrees. Nope!  None of that!  He was, however, a past president of Cornerstone Management Group and Senior Advisor at JP Capital Partners.  His education includes an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.  That's nice, I suppose, but how does all that equip him to lead a Catholic institution that has as its mission to educate its students in the Faith?  Of course it doesn't.  While Newman might be qualified to govern a business enterprise, there's no indication of credentials for suitability in leading a Catholic apostolate.  That leads to this question: What on earth was the Board of Directors of the Mount thinking when they hired this man?  What were their priorities?  It's not too difficult to imagine that Newman must have connections to substantial money.  Is it possible that the lure of easy money might have colored the board's perception of Newman?  While much ire is understandably directed at Newman, the board of directors must also come under serious scrutiny, as evidenced by this ongoing debacle.

While I've been in the process of writing this post, the Cardinal Newman Society has released its statement, and it links to an article detailing the non-binding resolution of the Mount faculty in urging Newman to resign.  From what I gather, I can only hope and pray that Newman does the decent thing and resign.  Then the Board of Directors must seriously examine their own priorities before they invite another disaster upon the Mount.

Archbishop Cordileone Stands Firm Against Modernist Onslaught

Last week I wrote of Archbishop Cordileone's directives to the teachers in his diocesan schools that they are to exemplify Catholic teaching in both word and conduct.  In that post I wrote also of the behavior of California lawmakers attempting to bully the archbishop into dropping his morality requirements.

Progressive wishful thinking to the contrary, the good archbishop is standing firm.  The progressives have hired a public-relations hit-man firm called Singer Associates Inc to go after him.  As I said before, if the educational institution were a Jewish or Muslim one, there's no doubt that they'd be left alone to hire/fire teachers according to the dictates of their creeds.  These days, only Catholics are so ill-treated.

Please extend thanks and encouragement to this bishop.  Contact info is found here.

From The Niggers Of The New Age Department: CA Lawmakers Attack Faithful Catholic Bishop

As many of you undoubtedly heard, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chief shepherd of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, has taken actions to ensure that Catholic schools within his archdiocese are correctly imparting the Catholic faith to their students.  He has revised teacher contracts and faculty handbooks so that they outline the moral conduct expected of Catholic teachers.

Naturally progressives have knotted their knickers over the fact that a bishop is acting like (wait for it!) - a true successor to the Apostles!  Call to Action, a group well known for its dissidence, has launched a petition for the removal of the "outdated and discriminatory" morality clauses from the contracts.  Of course God's laws are never outdated, but these folks don't serve the One True God anyway, so anything goes with that cabal.

What truly is chilling about this matter is that several California lawmakers have chimed in, using the weight of their offices to "ask" the archbishop to remove the clauses that they say "foment a discriminatory environment".  This pdf of the letter reveals that it was written on official letterhead, presumably produced at taxpayer expense.

Ladies and gentlemen, this action on the part of these lawmakers flies in the face of the Constitution.  The First Amendment was written to prevent such tampering by governments in the internal affairs of religious bodies.  This action, taken by state officials to intimidate a bishop from proclaiming his faith in his church and schools does the very thing that it ostensibly is trying to prevent: the "fomenting of a discriminatory environment".  Can you imagine these lawmakers writing anything similar to a Jewish or Muslim school system?  Neither can I; hence I have consigned this matter to the "niggers of the new age" department, for once again faithful Catholics are being treated as so much kudzu and trash.  Of course this is San Francisco, with a high percentage of gay residents.  The laws of Jesus Christ speak truth to practicing homosexuals, making plain that their behaviors are mortally sinful and will greatly increase their chances of eternal damnation.  They gays, of course, hate hearing that and they pull the puppet strings of the California lawmakers.  It should be pointed out that at least one of these lawmakers is an unabashed sodomite.

Posted on Speroforum is an open letter to the legislators in question, written by my friend and Catholic Media Coalition colleague Stephanie Block.  The attempt of these lawmakers to interfere with internal matters of the Catholic Church is an affront and an outrage.  Please write your own and/or call at the numbers below (provided by California Catholic Daily, another CMC colleague).

Assemblyman Phil Ting (DEM – San Francisco (415) 557-2312.

Assemblymen Richard Gordon (DEM) – (916) 319-2024 or 650) 691-2121
chaired the LGBT caucus for 3 years, his “husband” is Dr. Dennis McShane, his first partner died of AIDS;

David Chiu, (DEM) (415) 846-8108 is associated with the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance;

Marc Levine (DEM (916) 319-2010

Kevin Mullin (DEM) (916) 319-2022

Sen. Mark Leno (DEM) (916) 651-4011
is also a member of the LGBT caucus

Jerry Hill (DEM). (916) 651-4013

See here for a list of emails.

The archbishop himself has responded to his attackers via open letter, showing them the logical fallacies of their intimidation attempt.  Good for him!

Solid Truth Or Shallow Feelings? Difference Between Life And Death!

When I posted the Vortex videos last week detailing serious problems with the formation of Catholic pro-life youth, a friend bemoaned that Michael Voris "killed the buzz" of the March for Life.  Now that I think about it, I realize that he probably did "kill the buzz".  THANK THE GOOD LORD THAT HE DID!  Our young people need solid, complete, objective truth - not this giddy joy-pop "buzz"!  No one does!

Today's Vortex delves into our need to be formed in solid truth rather than trite, squishy "highs" and "feelings".

The Poisonous Filter Of Feelings

Michael Voris asked yet another question of young March for Life attendees: "Do you think the Catholic church is superior to all other religions?"  50% answered no; some of them gave an all-too-common reason for their answer; they were afraid of hurting the feelings of another.  Here is the video, but when you're finished watching it please scroll below it to see additional comments.



Towards the end, Voris challenged the Catholic youth to grow up and to be heroes.  Truth be told, I perceived a tad too much rebuke in his tone, rebuke that is out of proportion with their culpability.  Perhaps that would have been more appropriately directed at their parents and/or other mentors who should have been giving solid teaching and guidance to the kids during their formative years.  For those who have recalcitrant parents and/or teachers, "growing up" can be quite a trick.  Would that Voris had suggested some real assistance to them.  Here's where I might fill in the gap.  First, they're going to have to do some reading and studying on their own.  A few suggested reading materials are below.

• This Is The Faith: A Complete Explanation Of The Catholic Faith by Canon Francis Ripley.  This is excellent; I cannot praise it enough.  TAN Books publishes it, but it is also available on Amazon.
• Any of the audio cassette series by Servant of God Father John Hardon, available from LifeEternal.org.  They're available in MP3 format as well.  I'd suggest starting with "Profession of Roman Catholic Faith", "The Ten Commandments" and "The Sacraments"

Common Core - Infesting And Corroding ADW Schools

As this Defend Life article states (see page 6), Common Core is a project to "standardize educational expectations across state lines".  Educational expectations!  Just whose "educational expectations", we might ask?  Well, we can follow the money and there's lots of it!  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (funders of many anti-life and progressive organizations) have ponied up $150 million dollars towards molding young minds into what they consider to be "college-and-workplace ready".  In other words, they're being trained to be little robots.  I've written before on Common Core; no need to rehash, see this link for the posts.

My friend and Catholic Media Coalition colleague, Stephanie Block, has written a piece on why the brains behind Common Core are trying to insinuate this program into Catholic education.  In summary, they wish to abolish the knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ and His Church with a progressive, atheistic mindset.  One would hope that our bishops would do their utmost to keep Common Core away from the children in their charge.  Ah, but big bucks are being waved under their noses, and the aroma of dollar bills is too great a temptation for them to resist.  They (as a whole) are proving to be all too weak.  Case in point - the Archdiocese of Washington!

Here is the Sept 2013 issue of The Messenger from Archdiocese of Washington Catholic Schools.  While this statement seems to deny total acceptance of Common Core, there is admission to its benefits.  Moreover, this statement says nothing about Common Core's purpose of collecting persona data and of instilling a passive, compliant mindset in students towards government.  I for one find that troubling.  The Archdiocese does seem to be flirting with Common Core.  Again, there is Gates money to be had.

The Archdiocese is admitting that they have let the camel's nose enter under their tent.  Why, oh why, do I suspect there will be more embrace of Common Core?

Catholic Educators Warn Bishops About Common Core

Over 100 Catholic educators sent each US bishop a copy of their joint letter decrying Common Core and detailing why Common Core is a danger to authentic education.  They reiterate that Common Core is not about true education of human beings but about training future workers, or (in my own words) programming little robots to obediently take their pre-assigned places in the workings of the socialist utopian-state "people's paradise".

I link the letter now.  It is a pdf file so it is downloadable.  Remember - this letter was penned and/or signed by Catholic educators who have been exercising that apostolate for decades.  I hope this can be broached by the bishops at their Baltimore meeting in a few weeks.