How To Turn Advent Into A Social-Justice Screed

I am just now seeing the Dec 18th issue of the Catholic Standard and a piece written by Auxiliary Bishop Menjivar entitled "The Closeness of God in Advent: Longing for Salvation".  I believe this article was misnamed, for I detect in it no concern whatsoever for eternal salvation.  It merely is a shill piece for social-justice-warrior talking points.  Wouldn't we expect something better from an ostensibly Catholic publication?  Not only are Catholic priorities jumbled up in this piece, but Menjivar badly botches American history.  I hope that botching isn't intentional, but those hopes aren't high.

The history-twisting occurs with his rendition of the facts surrounding Our Lady's apparitions at Guadalupe.  To quote Menjivar:"The context was an oppressive colonial system in which the native people felt crushed and insignificant. "  If anyone was making the tribe to which St. Juan Diego belonged, and other tribes as well, feeling "crushed and insignificant", it was the Aztec nation.  The Aztecs would regularly raid those tribes and seize from them victims for the Aztec's human sacrifices.  When Hernando Cortez and the Conquisadors arrived and did take the land for Spanish control, many of the victimized tribes joined forces with Cortez to defeat the Aztecs.  By and large, Cortez et al put an end to the human sacrifices, although pockets of it lingered.

Catholic priests and religious made inroad in converting the natives to the One True Faith.  Recall that when Juan Diego had his first exchange with Our Lady, he was on his way to Mass.  That is to say that Diego was already a Catholic.  As we all (hopefully) know, when the cathedral that Our Lady requested was completed and dedicated, human sacrifice was largely halted as Aztecs converted to Catholicism and found salvation.  It is worth noting that one of the attendees at that consecration was Hernando Cortez.

Then Menjivar writes, "Our Lady of Guadalupe remains a powerful sign that God sides with those who are marginalized. Immigrants and the poor today find hope in her words  "  Actually, she sides with those proclaiming the Gospel.  "Marginalized" hasn't much to do with it, seeing as how the definition of "marginalized" seems to be open for debate.  As for immigrants, Juan Diego was certainly not an immigrant, so I cannot fathom what mental gymnastics Menjivar is using to arrive at that conclusion.

In the middle of his article he writes, "The longing awakened in Advent is not only for personal consolation but for a transformed world. The biblical promise of God’s coming always had social consequences: justice for the oppressed, peace among nations, a new community under God’s reign ".  Here his priorites are precisely ass-backwards.  The "social consequences" MUST take a back seat to personal repentance from sin, such as missing Mass, contraception usage, fornication, embrace of socialism, facilitation of sexual perversions (too numerous to name here).  The repentance must involve taking the aforementioned sins (and any other sins) to the Sacrament of Confession and frequenting the Sacraments and prayer.  Not a one of these "social consequences" will happen until the bishops believe and act like they are successors to the Apostles as opposed to CEOs of business conglomerates that only serve to divert tax dollars to anti-life and anti-God socialists. 

This isn't the first time that Menjivar has used the Catholic Standard to propagate politically correct screeds and distortions of historical facts.  Sadly it probably won't be the last.

Simple, Straightforward Homily Regarding Immigration

Father Chris Alar is Provincial Superior of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception.  He gave this homily recently.  Pray that the Deep Church doesn't cancel him, as they've done to too many priests so far.

Paul Joseph Watson On The Work Of The Devil

Paul Joseph Watson is a British commentator who has posted a number of spot-on commentaries.  In this one, he pulls no punches when it comes to elaborating on Pope Francis' complicity with the demonic one-world government, and the obvious "mark of the beast" known as the Covid vaccines.  Yes it is plural for there are more than one; they do seem to be increasing in numbers every time one turns around.

There is some colorful language in this clip, but in all honesty I think it accurately reflects today's realities.

Woe To You That Call Evil Good, And Good Evil

That passage from Isaiah 5:20 is a strong admonition to left-leaning Catholics who have joined the progressive clarion call to fight all kinds of what they consider to be "social injustices" that may not be unjust at all.  The measure of what is good or evil, just or unjust is to be found in the Church's teaching traditions of the past two centuries, as opposed to popular fads that are spewing forth from dissident Catholic quarters.

Let's look at immigration, since these left-wing quarters, from the top down (that means you, USCCB) are having hissy fits about President Trump's ongoing efforts to expel foreign invaders.  The left-wing, clergy included, refuse to acknowledge that our concerns lie not with those who immigrate in conformity with our applicable laws, but with those who flout our laws and sneak inside the US.  They are, by definition, criminals.  They are breaking US law that does comply with Catholic moral theology.  In obfuscating that important distinction, they commit serious sins against the Eighth Commandment.  I've written a bit on this topic over the years; here's a collection of it.  So in this case, what's being called "evil" is the responsible regulating of immigration and what's being called "good" is the direct disobedience of immigration laws and being accessories to these crimes.

Let's move to another darling cause of the progressives - gun control.  The left is all gung-ho on this bugaboo, not addressing the fact that criminals, by definition, disobey laws.   The only ones impacted would be law-abiding citizens who desire to own firearms for the protection of themselves and their families.  Whenever a shooting happens, immediately the left starts kveling about the need for firearm restriction - never the apprehension of criminals.  Would that impinge too greatly on the Democratic voting base?  Look at England.  They've essentially outlawed guns, so what happens? Knife attacks arise - surprise!  The "geniuses" governing England are now into (wait for it!) knife-control!  Same thing in Red China!

Again, I've written a bit about that.  See here.  Please note that the top post explains why I believe that the USCCB's stance on gun control runs counter to Catholic moral theology.  Once upon a time I believed that this was an area in which good people could disagree.  I no longer hold onto that delusion.  The right to adequate self defense is a moral good that no one may call evil, on pain of sin.  A former pro-life leader, Rob Schenck, has glommed onto the erroneous push for arms banning, and in the process has allowed his thinking on basic pro-life issues to become corrupted.  I'll have more to say on that later.

Let's move on to the death penalty or capital punishment.  If gun control is an attack on the good of self-defense, the push to eliminate the death penalty is an attack on the good of civil government protecting its citizens from violent criminals.  Again, the USCCB and their dutiful puppets are lock-step with their Soros-esque sugar-daddies in their shielding of criminals from the death penalty.  Again, I've written much on that and won't rehash everything, but will elaborate on one major point.  In the past, all the popes have upheld the legitimacy and the good of capital punishment.  The most recent catechism from Pope John Paul II does the same.  However, last year Pope Francis annnounced his intention to rewrite the catechism to say that the death penalty is inadmissable.  I said it then, I'll say it now; THIS IS HERESY.   Of course the USCCB intends to happily comply in promulgating this heresy.  So now the good of capital punishment has been called evil, and this error has reached the proportions of full-blown heresy.

The USCCB, their obedient state-wide counterparts and the rest of their lapdogs are fully engaged in calling good "evil", and evil "good".  They have jettisoned all authentic moral bearing for the favors of money, power, and worldly prestige.  In so doing they have allowed their own thinking to become clouded, as have those who unthinkingly swallow the progressive bile simply because it comes from men wearing miters.

However, there have been pro-life leaders who, themselves succumbing to the siren calls of emotion-based leftwing sentiments, have allowed their pro-life beliefs to become weak and uncertain.  In other words, by assuming progressive positions on immigration, gun control, etc, they have assumed progressive positions in pro-life matters as well.  I have already mentioned Rob Schenck a few paragraphs back.  He now supports the legalized murder of children.  Another former pro-life leader, John Cavanaugh-O'Keefe, became so enamored of progressivism that he cast his vote for the rabidly pro-abortion Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Both of these men clearly called evil "good".

Ladies and gentlemen, liberalism is harmful to the soul and can impede eternal salvation.

Seamless Garbage Contributes To Episcopal Brain Rot

In last night's State of the Union address, President Trump announced a plan to usher 1.8 million illegal-immigrant "dreamers" towards citizenship and to keep their nuclear families intact.  Obviously taking their cues from the sourpusses on the Democrat side of the chamber, the USCCB announced that they were "deeply troubled" about the plan's "impact on family unity".  What?  Trump said he'd keep nuclear families intact.  He simply said "chain migration" would end, meaning that an immigrant could not pull over his third cousin twice removed.  This is not rocket science.

Bishop Vasquez of Austin Texas made these remarks.  In his embrace of "seamless garment" no-holds-barred illegal immigration, he also revealed his abysmal ignorance regarding the nature of the Church.  He claimed that "family immigration is part of the bedrock of our country and of our church".

Family immigration, or any immigration, is part of the bedrock of the One True Church?  Excuse me!  Can anyone cite the support for that from any dogma?  Any Church fathers?  Our Lord founded the Church to save souls.  That's it!  Anything else, be it hospitals, schools, charities, etc is ancillary to that one all-encompassing mission - to save souls from damnation and to lead them to heaven. 

Those embroiled in "seamless garbage" organizations discount the Church's sole mission.  That's why they count gays among their boards of directors.   That's why they divert from truly intrinsic evils such as abortion, contraception, homosexual conduct and focus attention on matters that at most, fall into the realm of prudential judgment.  Bishop Vasquez and most of the higher-ups in the USCCB do exactly that, as they pander to governmental and Soros-related sugar daddies.

Pray for these bishops, but please never put another red penny in any USCCB-related collection.

Seamless Garbage Pollutes The March For Life

The progressives are working overtime to insinuate "seamless garment" poison into the pro-life movement.  For accuracy, I'll refer to it as "seamless garbage" for that is a more accurate descriptor.  It made its way even to the rally stage of the March for Life.  C-Span has video of the entire rally, with all the speakers.  At about the 5:40 mark, you can hear an Orthodox bishop incorrectly claim that immigration concerns and the death penalty are just as evil as is abortion.  Not to be outdone by the Orthodox, DC Cardinal Wuerl spouts essentially the same nonsense in his blog as he carries on about those without insurance, illegal aliens immigrants, etc.

One Peter Five has done research that corroborates the fact that the USCCB's motives behind their eagerness for refugees is not completely altruistic.  Nope!  The USCCB receives at least several hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billion) from the feds (ultimately from our tax dollars) to "resettle" the illegals.  We might assume that non-Catholics are receiving similar grants: hence the "seamless garbage" crowing by the Orthodox bishop at the March.  Over the years, the USCCB has shown itself to be particularly susceptible to the seductive scent of dollar bills.

The Lepanto Institute has uncovered an even more troubling lapse of morals on the part of the USCCB in favor of - you guessed it! - MONEY!  They are lobbying Congress to fund two organizations that funnel money to Planned Parenthood and other death-dealing organizations because they in turn receive money from them.  This USCCB letter sounds so lofty and noble, right?  The letter's language shows the infestation of seamless garbage as abortion is completely ignored while other issues are exalted in its place.

Yesterday LifeSiteNews published a piece by Doug Mainwaring detailing another facet of "seamless garbage" adulteration of the pro-life movement.  That is, gays are trying to align themselves with us.  While I think it laudable on one hand that they see the evil of baby-slaughter, they also attempt to justify their mortal sins of sexual perversion via their abortion opposition.  They fail - or refuse - to acknowledge that abortion and sodomy stem from the same rejection of God's plan for life, family, sexuality, marriage.  Doug made mention of Rosemary Geraghty.  I too warned about her in an earlier post.  She is on the board of the "seamless garbage" Rehumanize International.

We as Catholics must stand for God's plan for marriage, family, sexuality, life.  God has privileged us with the ability to procreate new life with His grace.  The devil hates us for that because by that privilege we help engender new people to potentially enjoy life with God in eternity.  Hence all direct attacks against that privilege must be given top priority and we must allow nothing - be that diversion ever so noble - to dilute our energies from establishing the Culture of Life.  The diabolical attacks are: contraception, abortion, euthanasia, abuse of embryos, attacks on marriage (including divorce), the furtherance of homosexual perversions.  Let's engage in a laser-like focus on these matters and leave the "seamless garbage" in the trash where it belongs.

Catholic Charities CEO Botches Corporal Works Of Mercy

In the January 14th edition of the Catholic Standard, Msgr John Enzler (CEO of Catholic Charities of of the Archdiocese of Washington) had a piece entitled "Living The Works Of Mercy"; the online version is here.  It is ostensibly a "self-evaluation" to detail how he's implementing the Corporal Works of Mercy.  Something about the recitation of the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy struck me odd.  Therefore I looked up the Corporal Works of Mercy online; see here and here.

As I compared Enzler's list with the other two, I noticed a small but significant difference.  The work known as "shelter the homeless" was swapped for "welcome the stranger".  These two are not equivalent.  The second reveals the agenda of allowing indiscriminate immigration.  When one considers the millions of dollars that Catholic Charities has received from the federal government (which in turn are derived from our tax dollars), one can see that the CEO of a Catholic Charities office might - just might - have a vested interest in insinuating the idea into Catholic minds that the facilitation of indiscriminate amnesty is a teaching of the Catholic Church.  It's not - not by a long stretch.  I link now to a commentary on the thoughts of St Thomas Aquinas on immigration.  Bear in mind that this commentary does cite the appropriate passage in Summa Theologica.

I'm having trouble believing that this tweeking of the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy on the part of Enzler was inadvertent.  He did get all the others right, and they're even listed in the traditional order.  That the CEO of Catholic Charities would dare to misstate one of the Corporal Works of Mercy reeks to high heaven.  At least once a year there is an in-pew collection for Catholic Charities.  I haven't contributed in years due to its many shenanigans - this being merely the latest.

Maryland - Good News And Bad News

With the insidious plot by the Messiah Most Miserable to import thousands of his "best-buds" jihadist terrorists masquerading as "refuges", I thought that Maryland (where I live) would have a massive influx.  The fact is that Maryland, for many years, has been a progressive loony bin, politically and morally speaking.  Therefore you can imagine my delight when I heard the news that Governor Larry Hogan is opposed to bringing more of these people into Maryland.  At the time of this writing, about thirty states have made moves to block the importation of these folks into their states - and they have the constitutional authority to do so.  Hogan made this very key statement: "As governor of Maryland, the safety and security of Marylanders remains my first priority."  I have friends who will be reading this who state that "Jesus would welcome the stranger so we must do the same".  I will unpack the errors of that statement in a future post.

Now the bad news.

About 3-5 years ago, an abortionist named Steven Chase Brigham ran into legal trouble in Maryland, when he was found to be aborting illegally; one woman died as a result.  I wrote a bit about it.  To make a long story short, his various abortuaries in Maryland (one of them in Silver Spring) had to close.

Operation Rescue has broken the news that Brigham has reopened his Maryland abortuaries.  He is limiting his practice to medical abortions since licensing for that is less strict than for surgical abortions.  Still, he now poses a threat to women as well as a mortal danger to many babies.  Operation Rescue suggests contacting the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to get these places closed again.  Perhaps they may listen, since Joshua Sharfstein has left that agency.  Pray that Maryland shuts down all these hell-holes.  There is no excuse for reprobates like Brigham and Carhart to be slaughtering babies and maiming women in Maryland.