Word Among Us Touts Experience-Based Alpha Program

Below is a video that dissects the spiritual booby-trap known as known as Alpha.  It is a program devised by protestants, ostensibly to facilitate evangelism (such as protestants understand the word "evangelism").  Alpha seems to emphasize protestant priorities such as "relationship" and "experiences".  Actual errors seem to include (at least implicitly) the "sola scriptura" heresy and disregard for the Sacraments and Magisterium.

At 9:17 we hear the question, "why are you promoting error to Catholics?"  That is a question that should be addressed to the Word Among Us magazine, for their Easter 2019 issue features an article that sings forth the dubious praises of Alpha.  Indeed, as I read this article, it makes evangelism sound like one big, slick marketing campaign.  Its title is most telling: "Relationship First".  That is flat-out not Christianity.  Since they are "sola scriptura", let's look at Scripture, namely the Gospel of Mark.  What's the first recorded word of Jesus from that Gospel?  Is it "relationship"?  Is it "experience"?  No, it's "Repent".

14:30 "It allows you to become a Christian without change...".  Therein lies a big danger to souls.  Let's look at what today's gospel would have been if we were in "B" cycle.  It's when Jesus sent the 72 disciples on a preaching tour to preach the gospel of repentance.  It wasn't a gospel of "experience" or "personal fulfillment", but of repentance.

Time does not allow me to recite all the ills of Alpha, but I will touch on a few.  This link states that Alpha has been linked with the dangerous practice known as the "Toronto Blessing".  I don't know the precise nature of this linkage but I'd suspect that might be found in this anthology.  About thirty years ago I was affiliated with the Mother of God Community, from whence sprang the Word Among Us.  Towards the end of its heyday, it started dabbling in the "Toronto Blessing".  I knew enough to avoid participation in it like the plague.  Such are the dangers of overemphasis on "experience" and disregard for the Sacraments and the Magisterium.  If you take a look at the bottom of that "anthology" link, you will see that Cardinal Burke condemned Alpha.

Two years ago, the Word Among Us advocated the new age practice of centering prayer. Now they've linked up with Alpha bile.  This is the kind of nonsense that will happen when one stokes lusts for spiritual "experience" instead of preaching the truths of the Catholic faith.  I'd advocate the avoidance of WAU.

When Catholics Eschew Adulthood, All Hell Breaks Loose

Consider these phenomena that we have been witnessing with varying degrees of regularity over these past 10 years:

• Priests singing secular songs from the altar during Mass
• Priests and/or religious performing line dances in public venues, in clerics and habits
• Priests and religious giving rock music concerts
• The attire of Mass attendees becoming ever more sloppy and even obscene
• Poor deportment while before the Blessed Sacrament:
• Chatting in the nave of the Church
• Failure to genuflect
• Consuming food/drink, chewing gum - not babies, but adults
• Stand-up-comedy jokes being told from the pulpit and even the altar
• A once-prominent Catholic blogger, in his heyday, published pictures of Pope Benedict experiencing problems with his vestments and then asking his readers to provide captions for his pictures
• The popularity of Matthew Kelly and his ilk peddling "be a better you" seminars instead of the the need to turn from sin.
• The vaunting of the World Youth Day spectacles, despite the rife abuses conducted therein

I've written before about these matters but have not been able to put my finger on a common denominator.  But maybe I'm homing in on it.  Many adults today are eschewing the responsibilities and even identities associate with being adults.  Those of a liberal bent are particularly afflicted with it.  Wanting government to assume control of their lives while they embrace hedonism, they find the progressive programs particularly appealing.  Many recoil at the thought of having to assume responsibility for their lives, to commit to spouses and children, to think and live for something beyond themselves and their own entertainments and creature comforts.

Regrettably, Catholics have demonstrated that they are not always immune to this psychological and societal sickness.  The degrees of impairment vary widely.  The list at the top of the post is particularly at play in more liberal enclaves - particularly the deportment and dress at Mass (assuming they attend Mass).  Conversely, when I've attended Traditional Latin Masses, both dress and deportment are vastly improved.  Maybe that is why the pope railed upon the traditionally-minded so viciously; perhaps in his attempt to shame them from their "rigidity" he wants them more amenable to the wiles of the progressives.

But more conservative parishes (that aren't Latin Mass) aren't totally immune.  Moreover, when I've voiced concerns to some of my fellow faithful Catholics about it, I often receive responses that can only be described as rancorous.  Invariably the "lighten up" mantra is snarled into my face.

Concurrent with the rejection of adulthood is the overemphasis on emotions and sentiments, a feature of postnodernism.  We see that in their defense of the childish clergy dancing as "expressing joy in the Lord".  Well, I can remember when clergy upheld the dignity of their sacerdotal orders.  Dignity and modesty would never have allowed them to follow foolish worldly fads.  Are we to believe that those priests of yesteryear were utterly bereft of true Godly joy?

Related to the above is some notion that in order to evangelize young people, we must engage them on what we perceive to be "their own terms".  That's the excuse some offer for the "rock concerts" and the public dancing displays.  Such an attitude is wrong in several ways:

• It betrays an incredible condescension towards young people.  Those holding such beliefs seem to contend that if we wave "entertainment doggy bones" in front of them, then they will slavishly follow after them in the fashion of Pavlov's dogs.  The young people see through that.  I think many of them not only don't fall for such cheap ploys, but actually resent those who employ them.  Who can blame them?  They don't want to be treated as mice who will mindlessly follow a rock-star pied piper.  They seek real, serious answers to the challenges that they face in their lives.  They need us to address them as rational adults.
• I now link to a post that contains a Vortex video.  Please watch that, particularly the last half.  Voris explains well the utter futility of emotion-based evangelism.
• If we're really looking for an effective way to evangelize, forget this "new evangelism" tripe.  Go back to the way the Apostles evangelized.  They preached the gospel that commanded people to repent from their sins and to believe Christ and His teachings.  They taught the truth, not some "positive" pabulum.  For an example of that, go to today's first reading from Mass: Acts 2:14,36-41.

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, Paul says, "when I was a child, I spoke like a child, talked like a child.  When I became a man I put aside the ways of the child."  It's high time we did the same thing.  Let's dispense with the silly and trite.  Let's dispense with the postmodern obsession with "feelings" and "positivity" and focus on the objective truths of Jesus and His Church in their entirety.  Let's grow up; stop indulging our "inner child" complexes and be the adults that are needed so desperately by our silly, stupified, sin-sick world.

When Emotions Trump Intellect, Sin And Death Are The Results

When I went to Catholic schools, before the "spirit of Vatican II" stupefied religious instruction, we learned that mankind was made in the image and likeness of God.  Along with a body, we have the faculties of intellect and will.  These two are the highest faculties that we possess and they (among other things) differentiate us from animals that do not possess these.

Note that emotions are not among the faculties that differentiate us from animals.  We all know that animals have emotions (especially pet owners).  Before original sin, man's faculties were perfectly ordered, with intellect and will controlling the others.  Today, though, because we are marred by original sin and its effects, we often find our intellects darkened and our wills weakened as our passions and appetites overrule those higher faculties.

Anybody who has even the slightest knowledge of current affairs not only sees the effects of emotions run amok, but they even see that usurpation celebrated.  How often have we been told that we must tolerate the invasions of perversion out of so-called "compassion"?  Witness the ridiculous behaviors of those opposed to Trump after his victory; when they weren't rioting in the streets and committing vandalism, they were sucking their thumbs in their "safe spaces" doodling with crayons and coloring books - because their feelings were hurt!  I could go on and on with that, but you get the picture.

Now who remembers several years ago when a Cracker Barrel employee (who happened to be an elderly war veteran) was fired for giving food away to indigents?  Does it sound heartless of Cracker Barrel?  Well, consider these details: the employee never bought the food himself, he was giving away food that belonged to his employer.  He had already received four or five warnings about the matter but still he persisted.  When he was discharged for blatant theft, all hell broke loose on social media.  Many people, most likely liberals who don't appreciate the Seventh Commandment, berated Cracker Barrel.  Clearly they were letting sinful sentimentality cloud their thinking.  I'm not going to rehash my points now.

Today in facebook we saw another such case and I'll now post the link.  Let's leave aside the consideration that this is probably a fabricated story for the ensuing discussion is indicative of the clouded thinking of so many of those mis-educated in public schools.  If those excusing the kids are parents, we can see how so many kids today are morally adrift.

So we see two examples of goodly numbers of people obviously letting their emotions run roughshod all over their brains.  I'm sure many readers have their own myriads of examples.  Unfortunately we see this among Catholics as they consider matters of faith and morals.  This sin of letting emotions rule over intellect (sin against prudence) permeates Amoris Laetitia and other pronouncements coming from Pope Francis and the Vatican.  How often have we heard the pope carry on about "mercy", "compassion", "accompaniment", "pastoral", etc?  Let's not forget his railing against "rigid", "neo-palagians", "rosary counters", etc.  All this is code talk for the pope's new notions that we must jettison Christ's timeless and immutable teachings out the window and be carried away with every emotional whim and fancy of the moment - and carried away to sin and perhaps damnation.

Father Marcel Guarnizo On Economic Thought And Postmodernism - And Other Implications That I See

The Dignitatis Huamae Institute recently held a conference.  One of the speakers at that conference was Father Marcel Guarnizo - the priest who was ousted from the Archdiocese of Washington because he withheld Holy Communion from a flagrant lesbian at my parish two years ago. I wrote copiously about that travesty; you may read some of these links to refresh your memories.

I post below the video of Father's talk at that conference.  He touches upon many topics, although the main theme is the underlying philosophies (many of them contradicting) of economic thought in today's situations.  Between 2:46 and 4:20 he speaks of the destructive influences of postmodernism.  I hold that postmodernism has corroded the thinking of many people - including faithful Catholics - not only on specific matters, but their very ability to think rationally.

I won't go into a whole treatise of the problem, but I think we can see that today people would rather emote than think.  We hear homilies at Mass that could well be auditions for a stand-up comedy show rather than the solemn proclamation of truths that the Mass-goers need to attain their eternal salvation.  Too often these clerics defend their routines as "new evangelism".

Case in point - Recently Father Dwight Longenecker posted a piece called "The Laughing Evangelist".  It's both pathetic and erroneous.  He opines that "humor is one of the signs of a saint".  Well, that might be his opinion but I'd hardly call that infallible dogma.

Now look at this paragraph: "When Jesse and Dr Ray made people laugh their defenses went down. They did feel good about their religion and their God and they did feel uplifted and that means they went away charged up in their faith and wanting to serve and love God more."  The problems are obvious.  Father Longnecker is opining that people are "wanting to serve and love God more", but why?  Because they "feel uplifted and charged up"?  Ladies and gentlemen, we know human nature just by observing ourselves.  That "charged up" feeling will eventually wane.  What will stand in its stead?  Father Longenecker doesn't seem to elaborate on that.  Where is the teaching of the Truths of the Church, the formation of the intellect and the will, the two faculties that distinguish us as being in the image and likeness of God?  Is such teaching "too serious and boring"?  Well guess what?  It is that formation of intellect and will that fortified the martyrs of whom Longnecker spoke.

I also take exception with Longenecker's de facto equating of "hilarity" with the Fruit of the Spirit known as joy (toward the end of his article).  While the two are not diametrically opposed, neither can we hold them to be equivalent.

I certainly am no expert on postmodernism, but I do believe that mental paradigm has impacted Longenecker's criteria for evaluating evangelism.  Sadly. Longnecker is not alone.

I'll now post Father Guarnizo's video.  I think there's much to learn from it.

When Emotions Trump Intellect And Will - The Father Ray Kelly Fiasco

Several days ago, at a nuptial Mass in Ireland, the priest decided it was time for a "lovely moment" so he broke out in song.  However he did so during Mass - constituting liturgical abuse.  The video went viral, with people everywhere gushing over the priest's voice, how touching it was, and on and on.

A few of us tried to talk some sense (you know, as in logic and reason and fidelity to rubrics), but apparently we're resented as a bunch of mean ole party-poopers.  Even many Catholics are swallowing the nonsense "hook, line and sinker".  I am not sure what troubles me more: the liturgical abuse itself, or, what passes for reason and discourse in Catholic circles.  For the moment I'll not consider the reactions of non-Catholics for they would not have had opportunity for proper education regarding such matters.

I brought up the fact that Mass is not about the people as much as it is about the Unbloody Sacrifice of Our Lord.  I pointed out that the priest is "alter Christi" and is not about the business of attracting attention to himself (don't you think all the gushing over his "talent" should have been a clue?).  For those who tried to trot out the "legalist" schtick, I pointed out that Jesus Christ, through His Magisterium, had His Hand on the creation of the rubrics.  But nope!  None of that mattered one iota?  Wanna know what the supreme consideration was when opining about this performance?  And several said this, so I'll put it in quotes!  Wait for it!!  Here it is!

"It was so bee-yoo-tee-fulll, it just moved me to tears!  Sigh!  Sob!"

Got that?  It's all about emotions!  Forget the fact that Our Lord informs our intellect and strengthens our wills.  Intellect and will just don't amount to a hill of beans when emotions are being tugged and manipulated.

See the big problem there?  Men and women are created in the image and likeness of God, particularly through our faculties of intellect and will.  Of all God's creatures, only men and angels possess these faculties.  Emotions are on a lower level.  Animals have emotions, but they don't have intellect and will to render them made in the image and likeness of God.  This over-exaltation of emotions is nothing more than a degradation of man, impelling him to live in a lower, animal-like plane of existence.  And let's face it.  It's more palatable to our fallen natures to lower ourselves to that plane; it requires less effort to indulge our emotions rather than discipline them to be ordered by intellect and will.

The Culture of Death is prevailing largely because more and more people are living solely in their emotions and are not exercising intellect and will.  The Voris video I just posted shows how homofacism is progressing largely because they are manipulating the emotions of those who are largely undisciplined intellectually and who are most likely not pursuing Christ through His Church.

Below I post the video.  I think if you look at the beginning and end of it you'll see the damage being done without having to subject yourself to the entire bilious debacle.