Why We Write

My blogging colleague at Tenth Crusade touched upon this topic and I'd like to add my two cents.  Some have chided me in the past, saying my "negativity" will chase away the impressionable from the One True Faith.  I believe that is incorrect and daresay that some who say this to me may be struggling with denial at the mess that is emanating from this papacy.

What will scandalize in the face of the heresy from the Vatican is a lack of truthful speaking from those of us who are striving to adhere to the Teachings of Jesus Christ as found in His Church.  We simply must provide the antidote for the modernist, progressive bile coming from the papacy and from heretical parishes.

Case in point.  We know that there are good young people striving to be faithful to the Church and her teachings.  What would you think would hurt them more?  This blog (and others like it) or this thing that came from the pope?



These poor kids get mocked by their peers, teachers, culture at large.  Now we see that the pope is hurling the same crap at them.  We are needed to tell these kids that they should stay the course.  If they seem "rigid" to the world, it's because the Teachings of Christ, like Christ Himself, are immutable.  God does not "change His mind".  Faithful Catholics need encouragement and affirmation to counter the poison and spite that is shot at them from progressives, even if these progressives occupy high places in the Church hierachy.

Shining The Light Through Rose-Colored Glasses

Today's Vortex addresses why Catholic bloggers will continue to shine the light on clerical misbehaviors - despite the whining and pouting of those who insist upon wearing rose-colored glasses in the face of clerical mischief.  It is their evil, more than that of laity, that has so much potential to damage the church simply because of the authority they do wield.  Indeed, untold numbers of souls have been led astray by nonsense from clerics.  Witness the gays who now have reason to believe that their mortal sins are affirmed by Cardinal Dolan as a result of the St Patrick's day parade fiasco.  And yes, witness the millions who now believe adulterers will be allowed to commit the sin of sacrilege with Holy Communion thanks to the grotesque relatio released by Pope Francis.  Yes, I will continue to shine the light - despite the stubborn resistance of some to seeing the truth.  One such individual is Jeff Mirus - more on that below the video.



Mirus penned a piece recently, to which I link now.  I'll unpack a few salient points - but not all for I don't have time for that.

Let's look at the second paragraph.  Since you'll have it open in a separate browser window, I'll interject my comments in red throughout this copy.  "Every few weeks (or perhaps every few days), Pope Francis says something that annoys or even appalls those who like their Catholicism neat and tidy.  His "neat and tidy" quip is really quite condescending.  That's a cheap shot, Mr. Mirus - for shame!  At any rate, we prefer the faith being portrayed clearly and unambiguously, for the sake of poor souls who really do need the truth with no gimmicks for the sake of their eternal salvation.  Pope Francis seems to enjoy not only shaking things up (which he has admitted) but speaking colloquially, and therefore with less theological and pastoral precision than might otherwise be the case. My readers know that I don’t think this is nearly as dangerous as many do,  for those who are not oh-so-sophisticated to wade through sloppy presentations, the lack of theological precision can well damn them nor do I think Francis is attempting to push the Church in an unacceptable direction I cannot divine whether or not he's attempting to push the Church in a bad direction; regardless of his motives that is in fact what he's doing."

Let's look at this one.  "I don’t think Francis thinks in the categories of left and right, liberal and conservative, that so many Western Catholics use as a kind of ecclesiastical shorthand to categorize conflicts over doctrine, liturgy and moral principles. Rather, I think Francis takes Catholic faith and morals for granted, And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a BIG problem on its own, when so many don't know the basics of faith and morals.  Even bishops, as evinced by the nonsense from the Sin-Nod last October display ignorance of their faith.  In their case I hope it's ignorance, lest they be culpable of serious sins but is really fed up with clericalism and formalism (call it systemic rigidity or riskless ministry) which prevents the Church (in her members) from being profoundly evangelical and constantly engaged in sacrificial service to those who are materially, morally and spiritually poor. This does lead to misunderstandings, but those misunderstandings are  half due to our own inadequate categories of reflection  So what does Mirus call it when so many, of diverse perspectives and levels of Catholic knowledge, glean the same messages from the Pope?  When anyone attempts to communicate, he/she accepts the responsibility of communicating their message clearly.  It just isn't acceptable to blame the recipients of the message for repeated failures to communicate clearly."

Here Mirus shows evidence of swallowing the "god of surprises" kool-aid.  "In the challenge of love, God shows up with surprises…. So let yourselves be surprised by God: Don’t be afraid of surprises, afraid that they will shake you up.  Don't you think that depends on the nature of the particular surprise in question?  They make us insecure  Really?  Why should they?  but they change the direction we are going in. True love makes you “burn life”, even at the risk of coming up empty-handed."  Why this fetish regarding "surprises"?  Are we aware that God is immutable?  That His word doesn't change?  When we come across anomalies and are surprised by the same, maybe - just maybe!- that sense of "surprise" is really a warning from our good sense to stay away from the source of alarm.

As I said earlier, I don't have time to unpack this entire mess from Mirus (at least not in this post).  I will look at one last thing.  "We have a standing joke in my household. When I express an opinion about Pope Francis, my wife asks: 'How long are you going to keep your head in the sand?'"  I echo Mrs. Mirus' question, not only to Mr. Mirus but to all who refuse to take off their happy-clappy rose-colored glasses.

More On Father Rosica Spouting Dissident Quackery

There's a reason why Father Rosica has the long knives out for Vox Cantoris.  It can be summed up in a saying: cockroaches flee the light.  We Catholic bloggers are shining the light on those who dissent from the Teachings of Jesus Christ.  I am proud to consider Vox Cantoris as a colleague in the fight for timeless truth.  So why is Vox Cantoris targeted?  I believe it's because both Rosica and the Vox blogger are Canadians.  If you read the linked lawyer letter closely, you'll notice that the lawyers are also Canadians, and Canadian law is invoked therein.  Mind you, the Vatican, through Rosica, are making their proverbial "shot across the bow" at all of us, but they perceive legal vulnerability with Vox Cantoris.

Lots of us Catholic bloggers have weighed in on the matter; the Tenth Crusade published an anthology of our posts.  I refer you to Michael Hichborn's post in Lepanto.  Hichborn makes a number of interesting points.  I won't comment on them all but will take minor exception to one.  He notes the priest's role to be a victim (read the article for context on that), and Rosica's refusal to follow that precept in this situation.  I hold it would be logically impossible for Rosica to try to adopt a victim's stance in that manner, for to truly be a victim, one must be innocent.  As Hichborn and others so aptly demonstrate, Rosica is guilty of objective wrongs, both in the wrongs that Vox and others pointed out and in the conduct of the lawsuit itself.

Besides yesterday's post, I've a number of them that mention the problematic statements of Rosica, including him calling the Holy Family "irregular".  Today Michael Voris released a Vortex regarding Rosica, including an encounter he had with Rosica while he was in Rome covering the sin-nod last October.  With this encounter, Rosica made plain that his status as "dissenter" is well-earned.  See for yourselves now.  After you watch the video, you may wish to contact the Vatican as suggested by Les Femmes.  You may also wish to pop over to the Salt and Light site (of which Rosica is CEO) and voice your displeasure there; at the bottom of that page is his Twitter address.  Since he's obviously been on Twitter a lot, he'll certainly get your message there.

Vatican Spokesman Suing Faithful Catholic Blogger

My blogging colleague Vox Cantoris has been targeted by Father Thomas Rosica, Vatican spokesman.  Within the linked post you can see another link that is a pdf of the letter he received from Rosica's attorneys.  Take a look at it and you can see that Rosica doesn't like it when his public statements draw comments that aren't favorable to him.  The whole list of grievances reads like a big temper tantrum.

Here's a post from Vox that probably knotted his knickers.  Notice the picture of a tweet that Rosica sent.  A reasonable person might conclude that Rosica agreed with the depiction of Cardinal Burke as a "dissenter" (the word "dissenter" being redefined by Cardinal Wuerl).   Yoo, hoo!  Father Rosica!  Here's a fact that you'll do well to learn: when you make a public statement, you invite public comment!  If those comments are going to hurt your poor widdle feel-bads, you'd do best not to put them out there until you grow up a bit!

I'm also a bit bemused by what appears to be a double-standard being exercised by Rosica.  His lawyers are carrying on about "defamatory statements" and "damage to reputation".  Father Rosica (and lawyers), what about these statements that Rosica lodged against LifeSiteNews several years ago, voicing publicly his opinions that LifeSiteNews is:

• "not ethical"
• "not honest"
• "bombastic"
• "not credible"
• "doing the work of Satan"

So Rosica can voice his opinions against a faithful Catholic outlet, but let another Catholic outlet voice their opinions about his public conduct - and he tries to break out the long knives?  I fail to see how this is proper conduct for a person involved in the media, let alone a Catholic priest.

In that incident with LifeSiteNews, Rosica trash-talked LSN in the same breath that he used to call for "civility, charity, kindness and humanity".  I now believe that was a tactic to try to stifle LSN.  That didn't work so now he's going the legal route.  That won't work, either.  We will speak the truth.

Today's Vortex deals with this matter.  Here it is.

Why New Catholic Media Does What It Does

The Mic'd Up below explains why we do what we do.  This blog, for example, started in large part because the Catholic Standard - being the archdiocesan mouthpiece that it is - refused to tell the truth about the chicanery occurring in the DC chancery and some of the parishes.

Rose-Colored Glasses Often Lead To Complicity In Sin

Yesterday was Thanksgiving.  Being busy with Mass, food prep and the dinner I was unable to post some thoughts.  For what it's worth, I'll do so now.

With some regularity I'll receive some very irate comments to my posts urging - even demanding - that I "cease negativity and be grateful for the a) pope's cuteness, b) happy-clappy crap, c) you name it".  For the record I'll state that I am very grateful for what Jesus did 2000+ years ago, and that He founded His Church to mediate His graces and to save souls, including mine.  But thanksgiving is more than just happy, "positive" thoughts about real blessings received.  It also involved dogged, relentless efforts to preserve these blessings AND to recover those that we squandered by apathy and even disdain.  Those efforts require speaking the truth, sometimes in direct and blunt terms.  It is for these reasons that I - and other bloggers - speak out against evils emanating from within the Church and even those originating from the Holy Father (when not speaking infallibly).

I now have a word of warning to those who insist on looking at the hierarchy - and particularly the pope - through rose-colored glasses.  While in the past you have lambasted others and me for "being negative", I could not help but notice your abysmal silence when that debacle that I call the SinNod was going down last month.  Why, oh why, was that?  I could hypothesize a number of reasons, but in reality those reasons are quite irrelevant.  Rather I beg you to consider that you are silent in the face of numerous gaffes and even de facto heresies that have spewed from the Vatican and even the Holy Father's mouth.  Time and time again you ignore the glaring evidence before your eyes.  Not only that, you chastise those of us who have the clarity to understand that there is an elephant in the living room - all to perpetuate your own denial of the truth that all is not peaches and cream at the Vatican.

Church teaching has always taught that there are nine ways that one can share in the guilt of a particular sin without being the primary one to commit that sin.  I refer to this, this and this (paragraph 1868).

For ease of reference, I'll list the nine below.

1. Counsel: Giving advice or direction to the evil-doer;

2. Command: Ordering or inducing another to commit sin;

3. Consent: approving of the sin, before or after its act;

4. Provocation: Inciting or urging one to commit sin;

5. Praise or flattery: Inciting or urging one to commit sin by praise;

6. Concealment: helping one to commit sin by offering to conceal the crime;

7. Partnership: Sharing the fruits of another’s sin;

8. Silence: Not speaking out when we should, or not acting to prevent sin when obliged;

9. Defending evil: Attempting to justify the evil actions of others.

Many detractors, I believe, are acting in accord with numbers 8 and 9.  This goes for some bloggers and other social media wielders who do not speak out when the Pope utters rank heresy (as I believe he did here).  To those bloggers, I believe our platforms and audiences present to us an obligation to speak out.  If that is not your persuasion, I'd welcome comments as to why you would not believe that to be the case.

Be advised that I will not risk being an accessory to the corrosion of Holy Mother Church by my silence.  I'd encourage others to do the same so that the Church can be about her true mission to save souls.

I'll present this link to show how many sainted Catholics - many of them popes - regarded silence in the face of evil with utter disdain.  I'll close with this from St Catherine of Siena: "We've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence!"