October 31 2017 - A Day Of Great Evil

No, I do not refer to Halloween or the satanic/occultic evils that attend this day.  I'm referring to some thing that is actually far more insidious and inimical to the One True Faith.  I'm referring to ecumenicide assuming new depths of depravity.

Today the Pope was scheduled to be in Sweden to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's mortal sins of heresy and schism.  One would think that the Chief Shepherd of the Church would in fact call to repentance these wayward individuals.  Alas, that is not so.  He cooperated with their sin by praising it and celebrating it.

Many, including Catholics, have a false image of Martin Luther as being a courageous visionary who dared to swim against the tide in loyalty to Jesus Christ.  History - real history - tells a different tale.  I won't have time to delve into every detail, but will point out some highlights from the sources to which I'll link below.

• In The Catholic Thing we read "Lamenting Luther's Reformation".  We get a glimpse of a rather aimless but self-centered young man who found himself in religious life.  He preached the error of sola scriptura while mutilating the Bible, ripping out seven books in the process.  He had quite a foul mouth and was quite anti-Semitic.
• St. Dominic's Media published "The 38 Most Ridiculous Things Martin Luther Ever Wrote".  Each quote is followed by its source.  He openly approved of adultery (probably deemed most convenient by Henry VIII).   He said that Jews deserve to be hanged.  He accused Jesus Christ of committing adultery - a most serious blasphemy.
• National Catholic Register published "Who Was The Real Martin Luther?"  This work details how Luther's machinations were responsible for 130,000 deaths immediately following his rebellion.  Of course millions more died over the centuries between then and now.

Now in addition to the statue of Martin Luther that pollutes the Vatican, the Vatican announced today that it will issue a commemorative stamp featuring Luther and one of his collaborators at the foot of the Crucifix.  It might have been more appropriate to show those malefactors as being among the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the Cross.

Not all Catholics are swallowing this ecumenicide poison.  Cardinal Muller, in response to the ludicrous blasphemy by the secretary of the Italian Episcopal Conference that "the reformation..was an event of the Holy Spirit", contradicted him directly.  The Eponymous Flower gave a report of Catholics protesting outside an ecumenicide debacle put on by the Grand Rapids (MI) Diocese.  That sacrilege was no doubt inspired by the scandal promulgated by the Vatican.

In Brussels, Belgium a similar sacrilege occurred in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St Gudula.  Several young Catholics linked arms and prayed the Rosary (in French, of course), to offer reparation for the sins being committed therein.  I submit to you that sooner or later (maybe sooner than we think) we may be called upon to emulate their actions.  Their actions are very similar to the actions of some Argentine Catholics who linked arms and prayed the Rosary as their Cathedral was threatened with vandalism (pay special attention to the second video).  In both cases courageous Catholics stood firm against sacrilege.  Let's study and learn from them, and pray the Rosary daily and call out error for what it is.

Christian Versus Atheist

I believe this thing is four years old.  However, it still demonstrates the spiritual and intellectual vacuity of atheism quite well.  This is four years ago - before all this talk of "triggering".  I believe nowadays the police would be inclined to kick the Christian off campus for his "triggering".

Faithful Catholics Form The John Paul II Academy For Human Life And The Family

Recall what I said in the last paragraph of Thursday's post - that I had to exercise my pro-life apostolate outside the context and confines of the parish and archdiocesan structure in order to elude progressive attempts to muzzle and hogtie my efforts.  I am not alone in coming to this realization.

At the Humanae Vitae Conference sponsored by the Voice for the Family last week, several faithful scholars announced the formation of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family - JAHLF for short.  Its first president is Dr. Josef Seifert.  It will serve the same goals as the original Pontifical Council for Life and will remain independent of official Church organizations.  Many of its founding members were members of the original Academy who were given the heave-ho by Pope Francis.  In addition to Seifert, other such members include Judie Brown of American Life League, Professor Roberto de Mattei, Mercedes Wilson of Family of the Americas and others.  I commend these Catholics and look forward to their output.

The late Archbishop (now Venerable) Fulton Sheen once said that it would be up to the laity to save the Church.  More and more I am seeing the truth of his prediction.  It will be up to us to intercede and to actively resist the rot that infests the structures of Our Church.

Muller And Sarah Raining On Progressives' Parades

A few days ago I highlighted some articles regarding the escalating animosity towards Cardinal Sarah, starting with the pope.  Others were just released within the past few days - see here and here.  Those promoting the evil rot within the Vatican lash out in anger against those prelates - like Sarah - who stand firm for the teachings of Christ.  Their ire is even more inflamed because apparently Cardinal Sarah stands a decent chance of being the next pope.  In the midst of all the attempts to bring him down, he remains unflappable because he serves Jesus Christ, not some worldly fads.

As mentioned before, Cardinal Muller preceded Cardinal Sarah in being fodder for progressive vultures within the Church.  Now that Muller is outside the Vatican, he does seem to be speaking more freely in defense of the Church.  Yesterday he openly rebuked the secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference for stating that the protestant rebellion was a "work of the Holy Spirit".  Of course that statement by Bishop Galantino is bald-faced blasphemy, for in making that statement, he claimed that the Third Person of the Trinity committed mortal sin.  Recall that Cardinal Muller was basically ejected from his position by the pope.  The silver lining in that cloud is that the pope no longer has any threat to hold over Muller's head so the latter probably senses little reason to tip-toe on eggshells.  He has found his voice again.

Please pray for our prelates, especially that the faithful ones hold firm.

Putting Catholic Pro-Lifers On A Seamless Garbage Leash

We've all seen some very disturbing things these past few weeks, in relation to the pro-life movement.

• The USCCB announced that Cardinal Cupich is running to head the Pro-Life Office of the USCCB.  Archbishop Naumann of Kansas City, KS is also running.  Naumann has taken some very strong stands for life as opposed to Cupich.  The latter, while Bishop of Spokane, forbade his priests and seminarians to participate in the 40 Days For Life campaign.  Moreover, he is clearly a "seamless garbage" devotee.  Cupich is a papal favorite.  If he wins that election, the USCCB Pro-Life office will be worthless, at best.
• Archbishop Paglia announced that his newly-bastardized Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family will "revamp its pro-life efforts" to elevate "seamless garbage" crap to the level of importance due to abortion and other intrinsic evils.
• "Seamless garbage" groups such as Rehumanize International and "New Pro-Life Movement" are aggressively pushing the same stuff, diluting the true pro-life message and giving legitimacy to those promoting mortal sins against life and family.

All of these indicate to me that there is a renewed, coordinated campaign - orchestrated from on high - to bring Catholics in the pro-life movement under the thumbs of the progressives in Church hierarchy.  I say "renewed" because I believe there has always been an effort to "bring us to heel" as it were.  How many times have parish pro-life groups attempted to proclaim to their parishes the solemn obligation to defend life, only to be muzzled?  We in the parishes have perceived little (if any) real leadership from the archdiocesan pro-life office.  I don't know what they do, outside of the Mass and "youth rally" before the March for Life.  They never joined in any of the efforts against Carhart in Germantown if pictures of abortion victims were displayed.

Decades ago, I learned that if I was to work effectively in the movement, I had to do so outside the parish structure and under no auspices of any archdiocesan organization.  At the time, I was merely trying to circumvent archdiocesan inertia.  Now we need to work around something far more insidious.

First Day At Stem Express Inside Planned Parenthood

That is the name of the video released today by David Daleiden's Center For Medical Progress.  Is there any other "job" where the trainee literally passes out from being so close to horrible death?  Apparently this is rather common in abortuaries.

If any of you have been following Daleiden's plight and the way the pro-aborts are trying to ruin him and silence him, you'll understand that these videos are likewise vulnerable to action.  I'd suggest that you download them, in case they are forcibly taken offline.

Long Knives Aimed At Cardinal Sarah's Back

First Cardinal Burke - then Cardinal Muller.  Then all the faithful members of the Pontifical Academy for Life are unceremoniously sacked. 

Most recently he has attracted papal ire as he merely asserted that authority for liturgical translations still resided in Rome.  We are One Church, are we not?  See here and here.  Pope Francis isn't bothering to disguise his tactics of isolating and then humiliating the few faithful prelates that remain in Rome.  Cardinal Sarah is just the latest.  Please pray your Rosaries, that these good prelates will hold firm.

Hymn To Socialism

That describes the offeratory hymn at today's 9:30 Mass at St John Neumann in Gaithersburg, MD.  It's called "Render to Caesar" by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.  I was singing right along but stopped at this line: "may our taxes, all together, fund our working hand in hand".  It's a sweet, clever paraphrase of this statement: "from each according to his ability to each according to his need".  For the history-deprived, that last piece of mental poison comes to us courtesy of Karl Marx, the long-recognized father of modern socialism.  Socialism has been condemned by many popes.

Seeing this slop coming from this woman, I knew that "when there's smoke, there's fire".  And quite a destructive fire there is, as a simple google search revealed.  She has quite a write-up in wikipedia.  She and her husband are "co-pastors" at Overbrook Presbyterian Church.  Right there we have two problems: 1) the works of a non-Catholic were proffered to our congregation for singing as though they were valid spiritual input; 2) she obviously doesn't understand the concept of only men being permitted to preach.

Going down the wikipedia page, we see that she's written hymns for all sorts of occasions: peace, racial justice, environmentalism, illegal immigrants, natural disasters, etc.  We even see one for superbowl Sunday.  So that pretty much covers all areas of "concern" for Christians, right?  Well, not quite!  But maybe I just overlooked the hymns lamenting abortion, euthanasia, homosexual sin, assaults on marriage and family.  If they exist, please point them out to me in the comment boxes.  If not (and I truly think that's the case), why not?  Sometimes silence and omissions sound the loudest sounds.

Speaking of assaults on life, marriage, and family, our pastor made the point that these are matters that belong to God as opposed to the state.  It was a solid, truthful point.  I regret that the offertory hymn undermined that message.

McElroy To DC?

My!  How time flies!  Not until I saw Father Zuhlsdorf's post did I realize that Cardinal Wuerl is 76 years old, one year past retirement age.  Father Z, however, related a rather unpleasant rumor - that Bishop McElroy might be selected to replace the Cardinal.

In this anthology of posts, I addressed some comments "to the readers who have the misfortune to call him their bishop".  Well, will that misfortune be foisted upon us?  I'm not sure it really matters.  On the one hand, should Wuerl retire, we can be certain that anyone whom the pope might pick will be very similar to Wuerl.  McElroy would meet that requirement.  Any differences between Wuerl and McElroy are at most, matters of style.

Frankly, I'm not sure Cardinal Wuerl is retiring any too soon.  He's been too helpful to Pope Francis as the latter pours progressive poison both in and on the Church.

First Prayer Vigil Outside Carhart's Bethesda Facility

As promised yesterday, I post below the video of the prayer vigil that was announced in several venues as part and parcel of the efforts to have Carhart et al ejected from his new location.  I'll point out a few things.

• First, I regret the poor sound quality of the video.  Old Georgetown Road is a major highway, and we were on the side taking traffic from Washington DC to points north.
• Ms. Handy stated that Leroy Carhart was unlicensed.  This is not correct.  It is the facility itself that doesn't have the required licensure.  He seemed to be prepared to conduct his killings without it and probably would have done so had we not shined the light on this particular negligence.  He canceled appointments for yesterday and apparently isn't scheduling anymore for the foreseeable future.
• By and large we were ignored - except for one man who saw fit to "flip the bird" at us as he walked by (at 8:06), and to try to erase some chalk messages.  That part of Montgomery County MD is ultra-liberal and some resistance is to be expected.  It's also quite possible that there is an abortion in this man's past.  We pray for repentance and healing for him and all those impacted by abortion.
• These vigils will occur on a weekly basis.  That is, they will happen every Tuesday evening beginning at 6:30 pm.  Please try to make as many as possible.
• Visit www.prayforbethesda.com to obtain updates