Below is the episode of the Anchor Team that aired a few hours ago. I urge all to watch it. Truth be told, I've seem several people who were staunchly pro-life who embraced some of the liberal tenets of the Democrats. They have wavered quite a bit in their commitment to the babies. In their support of Biden, Clinton and other pro-abortion Democrats, they may have endangered their immortal souls.
Hichborn and Maughan draw some distinctions between the Democrats and the Republicans. I'm rather surprised they didn't touch on the news from Texas. The US Supreme Court let stand Texas' "heartbeat bill" that took effect today. It was a 5-4 decision. During his time in office, President Trump named 3 of those 5 to the Supreme Court. There are babies alive today because of those nominations. Would they have escaped abortionists' clutches had Hillary been in the White House? I think we all know the answer to that.
They do a reasonably good job in explaining Americanism. I wish they had spent more time in dispelling erroneous notions of Americanism that are found among some traditional Catholics. I might delve into that another time. Here is the video.
As part of my efforts to glean and report on events vital to the Church, I peruse Facebook. On it I encounter all sorts of people from the truly concerned fathful Catholic to clueless and obstinate people. Those people are what we call the "far left" and "far right". For the purpose of this post, I'll focus on the latter, for I think their spewings can cause the most confusion among other faithful Catholics who are trying to sort through the mess made by progressives throughout the years.
Every once in a while these "rad trads" will spew nonsense that hearkens to Catholic-sounding stuff that isn't really Catholic. For instance, they often will rail against free speech, claiming that "error has no rights". From then they will segue into the evils of the United States Constitution, particularly the First Amendment. They claim that the First Amendment is how the United States government gives approval for pornography and religious errors.
Let's look at the First Amendment. I'll quote it here, as it isn't too long.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So where, oh where, is all this express allowance for pornography and the such? I don't see it. The Founding Fathers never insinuated that all speech is moral. They simply stated that it is not the role of Federal Government to decide those matters. The first 10 amendments are collectively known asa the Bill of Rights. Their primary function is to place limits on the powers of the Federal Government. That's it.
This same First Amendment means that these "rad trads" can spew such nonsense against their government, and not fear any reprisal. I'm sure that they take their free speech rights for granted. I'm also sure that this irony escapes them.
Then they'll whine on about the Constitution not being founded on Catholic principles. Well, of course it wasn't because Catholics have always been a minority in this country. Admittedly I would like to see more Catholicism in the Constitution. However, there is a way to fix that, and that is by amendment to the Constitution - a process put in place by those "evil" founding fathers. But that entails getting involved in US political processes, and here again is where "rad trads" engage in massive mental disconnects.
There are a few of them who actually hold to something called the "divine right of kings". Believing that ordinary citizens should have no say, they will rail against the heresy of Americanism. Yes, that actually is a heresy, but not what they think it is. They will cite Pope Leo XIII's letter to Cardinal Gibbons in 1899 titled Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae as their authority. Ok. I linked to it. Let's take a look at it. Leo is cautioning the US bishops against several specific matters:
The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith.
the confounding of license with liberty, the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a greater need of the Church’s teaching office than ever before, lest people become unmindful both of conscience and of duty
From this disregard of the – angelical virtues, erroneously styled passive, the step was a short one to a contempt of the religious life which has in some degree taken hold of minds. That such a value is generally held by the upholders of new views, we infer from certain statements concerning the vows which religious orders take. They say vows are alien to the spirit of our times, in that they limit the bounds of human liberty; that they are more suitable to weak than ›o strong minds; that so far from making for human perfection and the good of human organization
Read the letter for yourselves. I see no indication that the pope was condemning our system of government outright (by the way, it is a constitutional republic, not a democracy). In fact he remained totally neutral on it as a system of civil government. He did NOT yap and yammer about the "divine right of kings".
One favorite bone of contention is about elections, and the fact that often very flawed men are running for the same office. In a given election, both candidates may support intrinsic evils, but to widely varying extents. Regardless of these facts, they simply refuse to vote, to participate in that election whatsoever. They claim that they cannot support evil, no matter how much "evil" is involved. They fail - or refuse to - acknowledge that a vote is not always about advocacy but can be simply damage control. I thought that such obstinacy was simply being simplistic, but the ferocity and bombastic stances that they take cause me to suspect that a good deal of virtue-signalling may be occuring. The most recent "case in point" was the 2016 presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. I've written much in the past to illustrate that it was a moral evil to deny Trump one's vote; I needn't rehash it all now as you can go to this collection of my previous posts.
I will now post a video done by Michael Matt of the Remnant TV. He points out that after this Amazon Synod, the masks are coming off the progressives in the Vatican - and that includes the pope. They are attempting to implement the Sustainable Develop goals of the United Nations, a dream of theirs for quite a while. They knew that they had some formidable obstacles that stood in the way of their "one world rule" goal. One of them was the Catholic Church so they worked for years to subvert it. This synod is a clear sign that they have the pope on their side. Another obstacle to them is the United States under the leadership of Donald Trump. They are now working to undermine him, as he is succeeding in his goals of strengthening the USA against its outside adversaries, making it less likely that the USA will swallow the "one world rule" mantra. That is why the progressive USCCB recently lamented Trump's decision to pull the US out of that insidious Paris Agreement. They aim to derail Trump's work.
Obviously they will want to defeat Trump in the 2020 elections. The progresives will pull no stops to do so. The real question is, will these #nevertrump "rad-trads" be able to see past their egotistic virtue-signaling, or will they be willing dupes of the progressives as they seek to remove one of their few obstacles to global dominance? Now the video follows..
Think on this Vortex for a while. And yes, a Jesuit was a key player in the Vatican II document that was key in the spread of false ecumenism - or ecumenicide as it is more aptly called. Our Church leaders did sell us out bigtime, substituting "social justice" for the Church's true mission of saving souls.
Today's Vortex talks of nothing new. This wrongly-placed emphasis in too many parishes and chanceries is a problem foreseen (and probably budding) during the pontificates of Leo XIII and Pius X. Both popes wrote extensively about Americanism and Modernism (and progressivism). A blogger names Brother Andre Marie delves into a bit about the relationships and contrasts of these problems. On the sidebar I link to the Vatican site that contains the writings of the modern popes; the writings cited by Brother Andre can be found therein.
St Rose of Lima Church in Gaithersburg has a well-deserved reputation for harboring and promoting dissent. However, this is beginning to take on more ominous undertones, as my colleague at An Archdiocese of Washington Catholic pointed out a few days ago.
This parish has been harboring a Voice of the Faithful group for several years now, going so far as to announce VOTF meetings in its bulletin that occur on parish property. The most recent bulletin announces such a meeting, but with an insiduous little advertisement. Look on the second page, under the "community" column, second item from the bottom. You are invited to "share and dialog with fellow Catholics on your hopes and recommendations for the Church. Your voiced thoughts and hopes will help shape recommendations of an American Catholic meeting in Detroit MI next June."
What meeting? Quite frankly, the St Rose VOTF seems rather cagey about the nature of this "meeing in Detroit". That's because the Archbishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, has denounced the American Catholic Council in general, and the planned meeting in Detroit in particular. He made quite plain that this "council" does not at all speak for the Catholic Church and has asked them to cancel any plans for a meeting in Detroit. Thank you, Archbishop Vigneron!
Let's take a look at the American Catholic Council's website. They are quite unabashed about their goals. As you read its various sub-pages, you'll notice the none-too-subtle influence of the heresy of americanism - that is, the heretical opinion that the Roman Catholic Church must let itself be influenced by the secular American culture, rather than lending its truth to the culture. Click on the links subpage and see an entire list of the "usual suspects", openly dissenting organizations: New Ways, Women's Ordination Conference, Take Back Our Church, etc. The "declaration signatories" reveals more: Pax Christi, Dignity.. You get the picture!
I suggest you keep an eye out for this sort of thing going on in your parishes.
