The Reform of the Liturgy and the Catholic Church (Part I)

Martin Mosebach is a noted writer, dramatist and commentator on religion in Germany. He writes for the European.

A Conversation with Martin Mosebach
The discussion was led by Alexander Goerlach.
From The European

The European: Personally, how do you assess the five years in which Benedict XVI has been in Office?

English Translation by: Hugh of Cluny Blog, h/t: Father Thomas ONODA

Mosebach: Benedict XVI has set for himself the most difficult mission. He wants to heal the evil consequences of the Church’s Revolution of 68 in a non-revolutionary manner. This pope is precisely not a papal dictator. He relies on the strength of the better argument and hopes that the nature of the Church will overcome that which is inappropriate to her if certain minimal assistance is provided. This plan is so subtle that it can be neither presented in official explanations nor understood by an almost unimaginably coarsened press. It is a plan that will show its effects only in the future – probably only with clarity after the death of the Pope. But already now we can recognize the courage with which the pope establishes reconciliation beyond the narrow limits of the canon law (through the integration of the Patriotic church in China; in relation to Russian and Greek Orthodoxy) or by his novel fusion of traditional and enlightened biblical theology that leads us out of the dead end of rationalistic bible criticism.

The European: Don’t we also have to prepare for cases of abuse in Catholic institutions in other countries? In your view how should Pope Benedict react to them?

Mosebach: The Church of course always has to be prepared for the fact that individual educators will sexually abuse students in her schools and boarding schools. That’s the nature of things. Wherever children are instructed, personalities with pedophile inclinations are always found. We have to ask ourselves, however, why just in the years immediately following the Second Vatican council the sexual crimes of priests occurred so frequently. There is no way of avoiding the bitter realization: the experiment of “aggiornamento”, the assimilation of the Church to the secularized world, has failed in a terrible way. After the Second Vatican Council, most priests dropped their clerical garb, ceased celebrating the mass daily and did not pray the breviary daily any more. The post-conciliar theology did everything in its power to make people forget the traditional image of the priest. All the institutions were called into question which had given the priest aid in his difficult and solitary life. Should we be astonished if many priests in these years could no longer view themselves as priests in the traditional manner? The clerical discipline that was deliberately eliminated had been largely formulated by the Council of Trent. At that time the mission was likewise to resist the corruption of the clergy and to reawaken the consciousness of the sanctity of the priesthood. It is nice that the leaders of the church ask the victims of abuse for forgiveness but it will be still more important if they tighten the reins of discipline in the sense of the Council of Trent and return to a priesthood of the Catholic Tradition.

The European: How will the Catholic Church look which Benedict will eventually leave behind him?

Mosebach: One would wish that this Pope might perceive himself the first manifestations of a healing of the Church. But this Pope is so modest and lacking in vanity that he hardly would view any such glimmerings as the result of his own actions. I believe that he wants to spare his successor thankless yet necessary labors by assuming them himself. Hopefully this successor will utilize the great opportunity that Benedict has created for him.

The European: The “Reform of the Liturgy” has fundamentally changed the Catholic Church – in what way?

Mosebach: The interventions of Paul VI in a liturgy over 1500 years old are called only “reform of the liturgy.” In reality it was a revolution that was not authorized by the instruction of the Second Vatican Council, to “gently” review the liturgical books. The “liturgical reform” centered upon man a celebration that had been orientated for the last two thousand years to the adoration of God. It undermined the priesthood and largely obscured the doctrine of the Church on the sacraments.

The European: In the late sixties there were many upheavals: the Cultural Revolution in China, the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, the student riots here at home, the Vietnam War – and the Second Vatican Council. Can we name all these upheavals in the same breath?

Mosebach: 1968 is, in my opinion, a phenomenon that is still not sufficiently understood. Here in Germany we like to occupy ourselves in this context with happy memories of communes and battles over the right interpretation of Marx. In reality, 1968 is an “axial year” in history with anti-traditionalist movements in the entire world that are only in appearance fully separate from each other. I am convinced that, when sufficient distance exists, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Roman Liturgical Reform will be understood to be closely connected.

The European: Pope Benedict XVI participated in this upheaval as a theologian of the Council. How do you experience today his commitment to revive individual liturgical elements of the pre-conciliar Church?

Mosebach: Benedict XVI views as one of his main tasks making the essence of the Church more clearly visible – for Catholics and then also for non-Catholics. The Pope knows that the Church is indissolubly bound to her Tradition. Church and revolution are irreconcilable contradictions. He attempts to intervene where the image of the Church has been distorted through a radical break with the past. Now the Church, like its Founder, has exactly two natures: historical and timeless. She cannot forget from where she came and cannot forget where she is going. Especially the Church in the West has problems with this. She has neither any sense for her historical organic evolution nor for her life in eternity.

http://hughofcluny.blogspot.com/2010/04/reform-of-liturgy-and-catholic-church.html

The European: The reintroduction of the old rite allowed again the petition for the conversion of the Jews, as it was in use prior to the Council. Was that the right step?

Mosebach: When the organic liturgy was permitted again (which had been suppressed, very often violently, under Paul VI) so also was the petition for the conversion of the Jews once again admitted into the official liturgical books of the Church. It dates from early Christianity and forms part of the Good Friday petitions. This early Christian petition, based on wording of the Apostle Paul, contains the wording that God might liberate the Jews from “their blindness” and “lift the veil from their hearts.” These expressions appeared to the Pope to permit the misunderstanding of contempt for the Jews because of recent history. Therefore he intervened when the traditional rite was authorized again and ordered a new formulation in the old rite. It also asks God to lead the Jews to Jesus Christ, but excludes the interpretation of contempt for them. The Pope has been condemned because he permits praying for the conversion of the Jews to Jesus Christ at all. But can the Church of the Jews Peter and Paul be expected to renounce such an intention?

The European: How do you assess the relationship of the Pope to the Jews and Israel?

Mosebach: Benedict XVI is probably the first pope since Peter to understand Christianity so closely from out of Judaism. His book on Jesus reveals in many passages the attempt to read the New Testament with the eyes of the Old Testament. The relationship of the Pope to Jewry is not superficial, political or a mere liking derived from a trendy philosemitism but is theological and rooted in faith. One has at times the impression that if Benedict were not a Christian he would be a Jew. To accuse this Pope of anti-Semitism betrays an ignorance and incompetence that should exclude one from public discourse.

The European: The controversy surrounding the FSSPX has yielded no visible success for the Vatican up till now. In your view what does this group bring to the Catholic Church other than its love for the old liturgy?

Mosebach: Other than the old liturgy? What is there more important for the Church than the liturgy? The liturgy is the body of the Church. It is faith made visible. If the liturgy falls ill, so does the entire Church. That is not a merely a hypothesis but a description of the current situation. One can’t present it drastically enough: the crisis of the Church has made possible that her greatest treasure, her Arcanum, was swept out of the center to the periphery. The FSSPX and especially its founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, are due the historical glory to have preserved for decades and kept alive this most important gift. Therefore the Church owes the FSSPX above all gratitude. Part of this gratitude is to work to lead the FSSPX out of all kinds of confusion and radicalization.

The European: The FSSPX don’t appear to be heading towards Rome.


Mosebach: In the discussions with the FSSPX what is important is the patient labor of persuasion, as is appropriate in spiritual questions. The discussions appear to be proceeding in a very good atmosphere. If one day it is successful in integrating once again the FSSPX in the full unity of the Church, the papacy of Benedict XVI would have obtained a success whose importance exceeds by far the number of FSSPX members.

The European: Christianity is one of the foundations of Europe. In the future will it still be relevant for the continent?


Mosebach: Christianity is the foundation of Europe – I don’t see any other. All intellectual movements of modern times, even when they opposed Christianity, owe their origins to it. We have also received ancient philosophy and art from the arms of Christianity. If European society should turn away totally from Christianity, it would mean nothing less than it would deny its very self. What one doesn’t know or want to know nevertheless exists. Repression cannot be the basis for a hopeful future.

The European: You were in Turkey for a while. Would Turkey enrich the European Union as a full member or is it difficult to integrate a land dominated by Islam into the Western community of values?

Mosebach: You surely understand that I cannot give you a political or legal answer. I can only see that Turkey – especially the anti-Islamic, modernizing Turkey - has had enormous difficulties with its Christian European minorities. Until the 1950’s there was still a Greek-dominated Constantinople. But living together with Christians was intolerable for the modern Turks so they put an end to it. Now they seem to find desirable drawing near to Europe because of economic concerns without, however, rethinking in their internal politics the battle against Christians. I believe that we are very far removed from what you call “integration into the Western community of values.”

"Österreich" is being Sued By Scandaldiocese Linz

‚Österreich’ had reported a bribery scandal back in 2009 against Bishop Ludwig Scharz of Linz and his former Press Secretary Kaineder.

Linz (kath.net) The Diocese of Linz is suing the newspaper 'Österreich’' for for legal omission. This was reported in the newspaper "Standard". Österreich had accused the Diocese of Linz in 2009 of a "Bribery Scandal", where bishop Ludwig Schwarz received 50,000 Euro from "Action Kirchentreu", so that he could give it to his then Press Secretary Ferdinand Kaineder.

You'll remember this man as being one of Father Wagner's persecutors and here.

Another Homosexual Bishop for Episcopal Church in USA?

In Utah no less?

The Episcopal Diocese of Utah has chosen four priests to stand for election as its next bishop, including an openly gay canon from the Episcopal Diocese of California.

Announced Friday, the four candidates will vie to succeed current Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish , who since 1996 has served as the tenth Episcopal bishop of Utah and the denomination's first woman bishop west of the Potomac.

Though relatively small – emcompassing some 25 congregations and representing about 5,000 Episcopalian – the diocese will likely draw the attention of Anglicans worldwide as it has paved a way for the Rev. Canon Michael Barlowe to become the denomination’s third openly gay bishop.

Link to original...

Piercing a papal shroud - The Boston Globe

Piercing a papal shroud - The Boston Globe

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Father Johnn Trigilio Critcizes 'US Catholic'

'How ironic that the same crowd which lambasted and chastised traditional Catholics for their affection for the 'old' Mass (the Traditional Latin Mass, or more accurately, the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite) these past 45 years are now themselves nostalgic for their beloved 'folk' Mass.

'Yet, it is not nostalgia to reinvent, redefine or rewrite history. Pope Benedict XVI made it clear that the extraordinary form was never invalidated nor abolished. The ordinary form (alias Novus Ordo or Vatican II vernacular Mass) has been normative since 1970 but the Tridentine rite (or Traditional Latin Mass) has been, remains and will always be valid and licit for Catholic worship. The so-called 'folk' Masses, or what the author calls 'alternative, progressive Masses,' were never normative. Many were in fact illicit as they did not conform to the rubrics of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (GIRM) of the 'new' Mass of 1970.

Link to source...

Bishop Williamson not Coming to the Show Trial in Germany

Earlier last month, a report (reproduced below) appeared in Dici describing the situation that was to take place in the court in German for the showtrial. The trial is on the 16th and the Bishop won't be there, as kreuznet says:

Pius X Bishop isn't coming

Germany. Bishop Richard Williamson isn't coming on Friday to Regensburg, in order to participate in the hearing which is according to German law, legal. This was according to German Attorney Matthias Lossman who spoke to the News Service 'ddp". Bishop Williamson's reasons will be revealed by Lossmann in the proceedings on Friday. There will "only be a pair of legal questions" - says Lossmann.

A spokesman of the court of Ratisbonne announced on 27 January that Bishop Richard Williamson will be tried on 16 April 2010 in Germany. According to France Presse, an official demand for his appearance has been sent to the British bishop’s residence in London.

The proceedings brought against Bishop Williamson are for “incitement of racial hatred”, after the words he spoke in Ratisbonne about the Holocaust and which were broadcasted on the Swedish television channel SVT on 21 January 2009. The bishop disputed the charges made against him and did not follow the simplified procedure which would have enabled the case to come to a close after paying a fine of 12,000 Euros. The spokesman also specified on 9 November 2009 that the bishop was not required to be physically present at his trial, and that he could be represented by another. (DICI n°209 du 06/02/10 – Sources: AFP/sources privées)

"New Morality" at the root of the priestly abuse crisis?

Doug Lawrence wrote:

A big step in the propagandizing of the ‘new morality’ was marked by the appearance in June, 1977, of the book Human Sexuality, published under the auspices of the Catholic Theological Society of America. This book has the form of a ‘report’ to the CTSA, but its contents are intended for maximum diffusion among Catholics, as is obvious both from the manner of publication and from the admission in the Forward to the book that it is aimed “at a wider public of interested persons.”

The revolutionary character of this report is obvious from the affirmations it embodies, such as the following:

a) that no physical expression of sexuality is in itself “morally wrong or perverse” (H.S., p. 110); consequently:
b) that even those sexual practices which people have up to now considered deviant do not clearly produce evil consequences either for the individual or for society (H.S., p. 77);
c) that the use of contraceptives is “wholesome and moral” whenever it helps couples to build “a community of love” for one another (H.S., p. 127);
d) that deliberate masturbation (even after unresisted indulgence in erotic imagery) is never a serious sin and can be an act of virtue (H.S., pp. 220, 227);
e) that fornication and adultery are in themselves morally good experiences (H.S., pp. 154-158, 178-179);
f) that ‘living together,’ ’swinging,’ and communal sex are not morally unacceptable (H.S., pp. 151-152);
g) that Jesus was indeed opposed to the exploitation of women by men, but He did not prohibit self-liberating, other-enriching forms of prostitution, fornication, or adultery, joyously performed, as long as there was genuine concern for possible third parties involved (H.S., pp. 20-22, 30-31, 96);
h) that homosexuals have a moral right to homosexual activity and to homosexual self-expression in the eyes of civil society (H.S., pp. l98, 214);
i) that it is both harmful and unprofessional to ‘moralize’ with children who have the habit of sexual intercourse with animals (H.S., pp. 229-230);
j) that fetishism and transvestism are a physiological and therefore not a moral problem (H.S., pp. 230-231);
k) that the only presently effective treatment for transsexualism is a sex-change operation coupled with hormone treatments and supportive counseling (H.S., p. 233);
1) that even hard-core pornography is not immoral for adults except to the extent that it may exploit persons by reducing them to objects to be used (H.S., pp. 235-237);
m) that obscene words formerly not used in decent conversation are now just part of the common vocabulary (H.S., p. 235).

cf Doug Lawrence Blog...

Obama's Ambassador to the Vatican Brings Modernist Pottery

A lot of these Catholic Colleges host non-Catholic "artists" who add to the wordly prestige of the institution.

Kathleen Norris is one storyteller who talks about the Modernist Monastery in Collegeville. Her husband was the "artist" in residence at St. Catherine's College in St. Paul. Unlike his wife, the aging and now deceased hippie had very little good to say about the Catholic Church, but again, it's about worldly chic.

Speaking of wordly chic, another creature of St. John's, Obama's ambassador to the Vatican, brought three pieces valued in the thousands of dollars range, for a display in the Vatican.

To paraphrase St. Augustine, you can find everything at St. John's, alleluias, interesting people, culture, up-to-date thinking, modern architecture, social justice, modern facilities, you can find everything there, except salvation.

COLLEGEVILLE — Richard Bresnahan never imagined when he was creating his pottery pieces that one day his art would be on display at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See in Vatican City.

The artist-in-residence at St. John's Pottery Studio at St. John's University lent three of his creations to the residence of Miguel Díaz, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. Díaz was a professor of theology at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University before he was sworn in as an ambassador Aug. 21.
"Historically, the artists that have been represented at exhibitions that have been organized by the State Department have been primarily East and West coasts artists," said Bresnahan, a graduate of St. John's University in Collegeville. The 56-year-old lives in Avon Township.

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Motu Proprio has Helped the SSPX to Grow

In this interview by Michael Matt at the Remnant, we learn from the American District Superior of the SSPX, Father Rostand, that there has been tremendous growth as a result of the Motu Proprio for the Society. There are many priests in the establishment who are very supportive of the SSPX but many Bishops remain hostile both to the implementation of Motu Proprio. He cites the statistic that 34% of Novus Ordo Catholics would like to go regularly to a Traditional Latin Mass and there is a similiar figure in France, yet Archbishop Vingt-Trois insists, quite deceitfully inmho, that there "is no demand".

So, “are things progressing for the Society of Saint Pius X?” Yes, absolutely. The number of faithful in the chapels is increasing, the Society now numbers 77 priests in this District, about 80 seminarians are studying for the priesthood, 13 new priests were ordained at Winona last year, and 11 should be in June 2010. To give an idea of the growth, Saint Mary's had over a hundred baptisms last year, The Immaculate Conception church in Post-Falls around seventy-five.

Read the article...

Some Jews are Still Going on about Good Friday Prayer

Some Jews are never happy. Would they like it if Catholic authorities censored their "sacred" texts? The fact of the matter is is that most Jews coulnd't care less. It's only the press who erroneously reports these "controversies" because they need to sell advertising space and appease their masters. Still, the prayer asks God for the conversion of the Jews. That's unacceptable to them. Sure beats what's in the Talmud where you can justify just about any crime committed against the perfidious Goyim.

I think Goldblog has it right, but in case they keep it up, there should be some major press releases entitled, "Cardinal Lehmen disappointed with Jews: 'We've been saddened by the Jews. The Jewish sacred books encouraged especially by extremist ultra-Orthodox Jews, need serious revision to keep pace with the advances made by Nostra Aetate and an apology for all the Christians they've killed since stoning St. Stephen and the Ukranian Holodomor, would be a welcome new vista of honesty in this dialogue of double-standards'".

But just look at the comments below the article, if you think that's whiney, the comments are screaming for the blood of Catholics. It's enough to make you believe that the blood libel wasn't just a myth concocted by anti-semites in the 20th Century to justify its various pogroms.

ROME – On Good Friday, two days before Easter, a prayer titled “Let us Pray for the Conversion of the Jews” was recited in Latin by traditionalist Catholic congregations in Italy, plus 16 sections of the Society of Saint Pius X.

The ultra-conservative society, whose excommunication was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI last year, has yet to be fully reintegrated into the Catholic Church, because of its refusal to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

In 2007, in an effort to bring the traditionalist elements of the Church back into the fold, Benedict issued a “Motu Proprio” declaration allowing wider use of the 1962, pre-Vatican II Roman Missal containing this prayer, which was previously restricted to small groups. Three years ago only 30 Italian churches were affected by that decision, as opposed to the 118 that regularly use the liturgy today.

h/t: Durandal

FOXNews.com - Karl Lagerfeld Speaks Out Against Same Sex Marriage, Gay Parents

FOXNews.com - Karl Lagerfeld Speaks Out Against Same Sex Marriage, Gay Parents

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Mental health news: Richard Dawkins 'will not arrest Benedict XVI' – but Peter Tatchell will go ballistic

Mental health news: Richard Dawkins 'will not arrest Benedict XVI' – but Peter Tatchell will go ballistic

Jeff Anderson Flailing in the Waves

Jeff Anderson, the mid-range litigator from the Land O' Lakes, has used all of his evil power to obtain the assistance of Pinch Sulzberger's scandal rag, the NYTs, to publish libelous stories about the Pope. Now he's engaging in a bit of historical wishful thinking, but he's been enriched by colluding with homosexuals in the Church who deceitully were ordained despite Its existing rules against ordaining homosexuals, and no one can take that away from him, not yet, but will he take it with him when he goes to meet his maker?

Sure the money helps Jeff Anderson's ACLU enterprise and his promotion of various Democratic causes, while he simultaneously attacks one of the last remaining bastions of tradition left in the world.

The citation from the following article taken from his website gets at one of the principle reasons behind his "crusade". He's not so much concerned about his abuse victims (well, the money's always nice), but about a forlorn political agenda to destroy the Catholic Church.

The Germans have a saying, "he who eats Pope dies". Jeff Anderson is getting old, let's see how he ends up. Interestingly, some of his foremost potential allies are disassociating themselves from him. Could it be that his inept and hubris tic attack on the Holy See is threatening to discredit the very movements he promotes.

He is certainly feeling the heat. How now, diplomatic history?

For decades the strange practice of treating the Catholic Church as a state has been bad for women's equality, gay rights and reproductive freedom. The Holy See's fictive statehood allows it to promote its retrograde views on gender and sex in diplomatic settings and during treaty negotiations.

Now, the unfolding sexual abuse scandal reveals another dark side of the Holy See's claim to statehood: the extraordinary immunities claimed by the pope in the face of conspiracy accusations that span the globe.

How about the dark side of your soul, Jeff?

Link to original...

Derschowitz Defends the Pope

Good will like this is humbling.

Having criticized particular Catholic cardinals for blaming everything–including the Church’s sex scandal–on “the Jews”, let me now come to the defense of the Pope and of the Church itself on this issue. To begin with, this is an extraordinarily complex problem, because the Church has at least five important traditions that make it difficult to move quickly and aggressively in response to complaints of abuse.

The first tradition involves confidentiality, particularly not exclusively the confidentiality of the priest with regard to the penitent. But there is also a wider spread tradition of confidentiality within the Church hierarchy itself.

Second, there is the tradition of forgiveness. Those of us outside the Church often think, perhaps, that the Church goes too far in forgiving. I was shocked when the previous Pope immediately forgave the man who tried to assassinate him. But this episode and other demonstrate that the tradition of forgiveness is all too real.

In Defense of the Pope

Even America Magazine is making some declarations on the extremely incompetent hitpiece between paid attorney, Jeff Anderson and New York Times, and giving liberals some much deserved criticism as well.

Birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI is Vandalized

From KatholiekNederland.nl

VATICAN CITY (AFP) April 13, 2010 - Once again, the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI in the Bavarian village of Marktl am Inn has been vandalized by an unknown person. A police spokesman today said that the markings were an "offensive content", in reference to the ongoing sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

Blue Paint

The remark was smeared in blue paint above the front door, and was discovered early this morning by a passer-by. The damage is estimated at 1,500 euros.

Previously Vandalized

The house was previously vandalized in September of aD 2006.

Medjugorje Commission Meets at Vatican

The New Vatican Information Service looks promising.

And a very large commission is meeting to study the very controversial phenomenon of Medjugorje, condemned by its local ordinary. There shouldn't be much doubt about the outcome. Perhaps the miraculous events surrounding this prodigee can be attributed to the piety of the pilgrims and the graces of the pre-existing site, falsely attributed to this penurious deception.

Thailand on the brink - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

The Thais have had their "Bloody Sunday". In a sickening pattern, we can expect that now bloody changes will flow from that event at the instigation of revolutionary forces.

SINCE ROYAL ABSOLUTISM WAS ABOLISHED with the revolution that changed Siam to Thailand, the Thai monarchy has, particularly under the present king, enhanced its moral standing by means of propaganda and rituals to accord to itself the power to make or break governments. Since the 1970s, coups and counter-coups have faltered or succeeded depending on the king’s ability to confer the Mandate of Heaven—legitimacy—on the generally military-led regimes that have replaced each other. It seemed for a time, that the monarchy had thrown its prestige behind the democratization of the kingdom, but with the rise of Thaksin Shinawatra, the king responded to the billionaire’s populism by supporting the prime minister’s ouster in 2008.

Since then, Thailand has teetered on the brink of instability, with governments hard-pressed to hold the line in the face of sustained opposition that has divided urban from rural, the upper and middle classes from the masses, and royalists from pseudo-republicans. The armed forces, royalist to the core, have ended up holding the balance of power—and holding the supporters of Thaksin, called the Red Shirts in contrast to the royalist Yellow Shirts, at bay.

Until, that is, the army fired on the people. The death of 21 protesters and bystanders has placed the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejavija in the position of having drawn first blood—and undermined its basis for legitimacy, the support of the monarchy. In the past, it was the army firing on protesting students that resulted in the king intervening, and supporting democratization and the end of outright rule by the generals.

Thailand on the brink - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Archbishop Burke Slams US Religious

Archbishop Burke was at a forum for religious who are studying the life and works of Father John Hardon SJ. It was well-attended. Here are some of the remarks courtesy of Thomas Peters which are so needed to be heard today. What a great Prelate who gets down to the needful explaination of the Natural Law, which so many in the Church denigrate as being a mere social construct or a non-existent convention.

[...Our joy today is] overshadowed by the public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious. Who ever could have imagined that religious congregations of pontifical right, would openly organize to resist and attempt to frustrate an apostolic visitation, that is, a visit to their congregations carried out under the authority of the vicar of Christ on earth, to whom all religious are bound by the strongest bonds of loyalty and obedience?

Who could imagine that consecrated religious would openly, and in defiance of the bishops as successors of the apostles publicly endorse legislation containing provisions which violated the natural moral law in its most fundamental tenets – the safeguarding and promoting of innocence and defenseless life, and fail to safeguard the demands of the free exercise of conscience for health care workers?

We witness a growing tendency among certain consecrated religious to view themselves outside and above the body of Christ as a parallel institution looking in upon the Church with an autonomy which contradicts their very nature. We have certainly come a long way from the total loyalty to the Roman Pontiff which was at the heart of the foundation of the Society of Jesus and of every religious congregation. Religious life lived in the heart of the Church, and for that reason religious congregations are, by their very nature, bound in strictest loyalty to the Roman Pontiff. It is of course an absurdity of the most tragic kind to have consecrated religious knowingly and obstinately acting against the moral law.

The spiritual harm done to the individual religious who are disobedient and also the grave scandal caused to the faithful and people in general are of incalculable dimensions.

[Do not doubt the influence of consecrated persons] … Was not the Speaker of the House [Nancy Pelosi] glowing to report that so many religious sisters were in support of her proposed health care plan? Was not a religious sister [Sr. Carol Keehan, President of CHA] one of the recipients of a pen used by the President of the United States to sign the health care plan into law?

Now is the time for us all, and in particular for consecrated persons to stand up for the truth and to call upon our fellow Catholics in leadership to do the same or to cease identifying themselves as Catholics.

h/t: Doc F

What the Popes Really Say About Socialism | Socialism | Politically Incorrect

A timely article, considering that many Bishops nowadays have embraced socialism out of contempt for or ignorance of the Catholic Religion.

"Hideous", "destructive", "wicked", and "perverted" are only some of the adjectives used by the Popes to describe socialism. From Pius IX to Benedict XVI, the popes have thoroughly and consistently condemned socialism. Given the advance of socialism in America, TFP Student Action is glad to offer its readers a brief selection of thought-provoking quotes from the Popes on the topic.

What the Popes Really Say About Socialism | Socialism | Politically Incorrect

h/t: Liam the Oager

Kenyan Lawmaker Says Obama Not Even American

A Kenyan lawmaker told the nation's parliament last month that Barack Obama was born in Africa and is therefore "not even a native American."

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The Pope and the press

The Pope and the press

A Jesuit Talks about "Responsibility"

We are saddened to see the heretical Father Thomas Reese quote selectively from the history of the past. He rightly points out that many Bishops were infected with liberalism in their appraisal of their homosexual priests, and "believed" them when they said they would never abuse again.

He also mischaracterizes the crisis that "exploded" as if it was an event spontaneously occurring as a result of ecclesiastical negligence, giving the impression that the case wasn't part of a three step media assisted heist to rob and discredit the Church.

Strange that Fr. Reese should write an article about responsibility. Strange that after being fired from his editor post at America Magazine that he was reassigned like a sexual predator to strike again. Who knows what doctrines he will attack next? At this point he's confined himself to selectively reporting on the gross negligence on the part of so many liberal Bishops and Prelates to deal with their homosexual priests. Perhaps these men had such a problem with this, because they themselves were also, in many cases, homosexuals?

++Weakland (paid boyfriend half million to stay quiet, sued victim for $4,000), +Hubbard (Long history of protecting clerical predators and destroying Catholicism in his Diocese, destroyed one of his priests who was reporting to Cardinal O'Connor), ++O'Brien (ran over a pedestrian and protected Dale Fushek of Lifeteen fame, here), ++Mahony (Half a Billion Dollars isn't much, is it? We can recall Father Greg, the Diocesan Communication's director making excuses for Father Liuzi), +Hunthausen of Seattle, here, was a man who protested Nuclear Weapons and won awards for his social justice work by the irrelevant Paulists, but didn't do so well when it came to protecting his flock from predatory homosexuals, here. His activities were curtailed in 1985 when then Cardinal Ratzinger had to come in and clarify things somewhat, by appointing a coadjutor here.

Hunthausen was later reassigned in 1987, after the Vatican received assurances his departures from Church teaching on matters of homosexuality, divorce, liturgy and the "education" of priests. The blatantly irresponsible article from the New York Times characterized a Catholic Diocese eager to defend their Bishop. It's most certainly a poor description of the situation. Most Catholics didn't care at all about ++Hunthausen.

The disciplining of Archbishop Hunthausen deeply angered many American Catholics, in Seattle and elsewhere, and aggravated tensions between the American church and Rome. Some American church leaders were known to be concerned that these tensions might have embarrassed Pope Paul II on his visit to the United States in September.

Archbishop Hunthausen has been a controversial figure in the church since 1982, when he began to withhold half his Federal income tax to protest the stockpiling of nuclear weapons. He also once used the phrase ''Auschwitz of Puget Sound'' in speaking out against establishment of the Trident submarine base at Bangor, Wash.

In fact, despite the NYTs avid support for ++Hunthausen, his negligence cost the Archdiocese, (and his suffragan Diocese, Spokane filed bankruptcy). By 2004, Hunthausen's negligence had cost the Archdiocese $31 Million with 250 Victims [The News Tribune, cf. Whispers in the Logias compared to the perjurious Cardinal Mahony's $600 Million and over 500 victims racked up covering a similar time period.

Additional Prelates include: Bishop Ziemann, Abbott Eidenschink, Cardinal Bernardin (Master of the Boy's Club in Chicago) or Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of Alabama.


The list isn't exhaustive, there are quite a few more who could have been deposed and weren't, and one story that remains untold is the liberal monsters that hide behind clerical masks to create the problem which has done so much to enrich litigators throughout the land.

All of the men, including Cardinal Law, are homosexual enablers of predator priests in their own right. They've created a harvest for victim's advocacy groups and lawyers, and they've been undermining, in their own way, the principles of the Church they were sworn to defend and protect.

This non-crisis, manufactured by the press collaborating with Marxist attorneys for a pre-established agenda, want to destroy the Church in the same way that the Fascists wanted to destroy it in German and the Communists wanted to destroy it in the Soviet Union. Anyhow, it's strange to see a man like Reese SJ, whose confreres are so ideologically, ecumenically and theologically and literally bankrupt, talk about responsibility.

It's your Catholic Faith that's at stake here and if you don't defend it when you have the opportunity, it will be crushed to dust in your heart.

Calgary University Threatens Pro-Life Students with Arrest

Two weeks after the University of Calgary defended a presentation by controversial American conservative Ann Coulter by touting its status as a haven for free speech, the university has threatened a group of pro-life students with arrest and sanctions for expressing their views on abortion, reports LifeSiteNews.com.

On Thursday, Campus Pro-life, the University of Calgary’s pro-life club, set up a pro-life display on campus - the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).

Last year, the university charged the pro-life students with trespassing for erecting the same display, which has been displayed on campus peacefully and without incident twice per year since 2006. The crown prosecutors withdrew the charges prior to trial, however.

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Couple Battles over Embryo

Courthouse News Service

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'God Save the Queen' will be dropped from this year's service.

[ABC]The RSL says a decision to drop 'God Save the Queen' from Melbourne's Anzac Day dawn service was made after widespread consultation.

The decision has angered monarchist groups, who say it may offend veterans and their families.

David Flint from Australians for Constitutional Monarchy says the decision is disrespectful to Australia's wartime past.

"They certainly haven't done the right thing," he says.

"You don't just trample all over your traditions. You don't say, well, that's the past, and we're going to get rid of that, otherwise you start doing other things as well, which take away the whole point."

But the RSL's Victorian president, David McLachlan, says the decision was made based on feedback from veterans and young people alike.

He says after the dawn service every year, they ask a whole range of people what they think of the service.

"The question often comes up why do you have 'God Save the Queen'? It's not relevant and nobody knows it. So we've taken that into consideration." he said.

He said the decision has the support of the Anzac Day commemoration council.

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Massachusetts Priest Needs to Go

Father Scahill is a most definitely a very liberal priest, like many of his confreres ordained in the 70s and has been a longstanding critic of the Catholic Church while he is trying to support the various libels by the media.

Without explaining his position, he's eager to hurl the rhetoric and present himself as a very heroic man for joining the media deception against the Church.

“Any who deny the truth deny Christ, and we, as people, must reclaim our church,’’ Scahill said in a phone interview last night. “Those in authority must be willing to admit to the truth, admit their horrific crime of coverup, and beg for forgiveness, and until that happens, there will be no healing.’'

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Heroic Swiss Postman Fired for Refusing to Deliver Smut

In Switzerland a 28 year old postman was fired who dared to refuse to deliver Sex-Flyers.

Switzerland (Kath.net) In Switzerland a 28 year old postman was fired who dared to refuse to deliver Sex-Flyers called "20 Minutes Online". Emmanuel N. has worked 10 years with the Post Office. At the end of March he celebrated becoming the father of a new baby. The reason is, that the very faithful man was expected to deliver an Erotic magazine that advertised pornography and other depraved things. "The transmission was actually legal, but immoral." said N, who also refused, promotional material from a sect and an pro-abortion activist. A spokesman for the Post Office defended the dismissal and said: "It is not the mission of the Post Office, to censor the mail." Even worker's rights expert Roger Rudolph found the dismissal as justified and said: "If a worker refuses his principle activity, a termination of employment is correct. Above all a postman should understand before hiring, that he has to deliver Erotic Advertisements." The 28 year old N. contradicted this explanation: "I've been delivering the mail for 10 years and never received such advertising. The moral level of society has sunk."

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Traditionalism's Proving Ground

Pretty amazing considering some of the editorial decisions we've heard of taking place at NOR in the last few years. Is this an admission that "we were wrong"? Is it an apology and a recognition of the power of Catholicism as it's always been practiced everywhere? We note the conclusion that NOR still seesm to be witholding judgement, but the fact that 20% of the Seminarians now studying in France are destined to say the Immemorial Rite, could it be that NOR might just want to realign itself in the future and put its money on the better jockey and the stronger horse?

March 2010

How bad have things gotten in the Catholic Church in France? According to a report in La Croix, they've never been worse. The French Catholic weekly has published the results of a recent survey taken by the Institut français d'opinion publique (IFOP). Among other startling statistics, IFOP found that the number of Frenchmen who identify themselves as Catholic fell from 81 percent in 1965 to 64 percent in late 2009. What's more, the number of self-identified Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week fell from 27 percent to an appalling 4.5 percent during that same time period.

To put it in perspective, those of us who observe trends in the U.S. Church have expressed concern that average weekly Mass attendance in this country hovers around the 30 percent range (which represents a slight uptick, according to the latest data from Georgetown's Center of Applied Research in the Apostolate). That's roughly the same as France's high at the close of Vatican II, when the "extraordinary form" of the Mass — the Tridentine Latin version — was still the ordinary form. The Eucharist is supposed to be the "source and summit" of Catholic life, but for French Catholics it's long been a source of ambivalence. Perhaps we have here an inkling of why Church Fathers in the mid-20th century thought a reform was necessary. Unfortunately, Vatican II made an already bad situation worse. Nowadays, if not for tourists, the great historical cathedrals of France would be like empty airplane hangars.

On the catechetical side, things aren't much brighter. A whopping 63 percent of French Catholics believe that all religions are the same — that is, they profess the heresy of indifferentism. Seventy-five percent want the Church to reconsider her teaching against artificial contraception; 68 percent want the Church to do the same regarding abortion. These are staggering figures for a country that was once referred to fondly as "the Church's eldest daughter."

These figures just scratch the surface of a severe crisis. According to official Church statistics, in France between 1996 and 2005:
· Catholic marriages fell 28.4 percent;
· baptisms fell 19.1 percent;
· confirmations fell 35.3 percent;
· the number of priests fell 26.1 percent;
· the number of religious sisters fell 23.4 percent.
Hilary White, reporting for LifeSiteNews.com (Jan. 12), notes that, at the end of 2009, only 9,000 priests were serving in France, and fewer than 750 seminarians were studying for the priesthood. This in a country that is home to over 46 million self-professed Catholics — for now. Projecting forward, this drop in vocations will result in at least one-third of French dioceses either being forced to combine or ceasing to exist entirely in the next 15 years. Yet France ranks fourth on the list of the nations of the world with the most cardinals, boasting nine. Can you say "peter principle"?

French Catholics aren't too keen on the Pope either. Only 27 percent of respondents to the IFOP survey think that Pope Benedict XVI defends "rather well" the "values of Catholicism"; 34 percent think he defends them "badly." On the bright side, these numbers reflect a thawing of the frosty French attitudes that characterized the immediate aftermath of the Pope's January 2009 lifting of the excommunications of four bishops of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX; which has roots in France). At that time, 57 percent of respondents to a Le Parisien poll had a negative opinion of the Pope. A March 2009 poll in Le Journal de Dimanche found that 43 percent of French Catholics wanted Benedict to "step down"; 33 percent of practicing Catholics did as well. And to think that these polls were conducted in the afterglow of Benedict's 2008 visit to France less than six months earlier.

The story of Catholicism in France today is one of utter and abysmal failure.

But nature hates a vacuum, so something must step into the gaping spiritual void in the heart of French culture. According to veteran Vatican observer John L. Allen Jr., the two most dynamic religious movements in France today are Islam and traditionalist Catholicism.

Among European nations, France has the largest Muslim population at five million. But before we get all up in arms over a looming Islamic "threat," we should note that the pile-driving effect of secularism in France hasn't spared that religion: According to a 2008 IFOP survey, only 39 percent of Muslims pray five times a day (as is obligatory for Muslims), and a mere 23 percent attend mosque for Friday prayers on a weekly basis. Still, from the lowly Catholic vantage point, 23 percent weekly attendance is in the stratosphere. Thirty-eight percent of French Muslims consider themselves "non-practicing believers"; 34 percent admit to drinking alcohol (alcohol consumption is forbidden in Islam). Based on these figures, it's difficult to believe that the alleged Islamic fundamentalist takeover of France is as imminent as some Western alarmists contend.

That leaves the other movement vying for France's soul: traditionalist Catholicism. "Nowhere else," Allen has written, "are traditionalists so visible, and, at times, so fractious, as in France." The poll numbers in reaction to the Pope's magnanimous gesture toward the bishops of the SSPX speak to traditionalism's polarizing effect on French Catholicism. In fact, the release of Summorum Pontificum in 2007, Pope Benedict's motu proprio that liberalized the Tridentine Latin Mass, "unleashed negative reactions among moderate-to-liberal Catholics," Allen wrote, "and complaints reached Rome that a handful of bishops were resisting implementing the decree." Summorum Pontificum was "widely interpreted here as a victory for the traditionalist camp."

To the victors go the spoils. Hilary White reports that Summorum Pontificum "is acting as a catalyst for growth in the few areas where it has been accepted by bishops." In the small pockets of French Catholic life where traditional liturgical practice has been allowed to germinate, Catholicism is "flourishing." According to Paix liturgique, a French traditionalist group in union with Rome, since the release of Summorum Pontificum, 72 new chapels and churches have been given over to use of the extraordinary form, an increase of 55 percent over the previous count of 132 approved places of worship (the SSPX reportedly commandeers 184 sites where illicit Catholic Masses are held).

Paix liturgique further notes that 14 percent of French ordinations in 2009 were for the extraordinary form of the Roman rite (the Tridentine Mass), and over 20 percent of seminarians (160 total) are currently destined to serve in the extraordinary form. The Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, host to the only seminary in the world that trains priests in both the ordinary (post-Vatican II) and extraordinary forms of worship, alone boasts 80 seminarians.

During the Pope's 2008 visit to France he told the French bishops to ameliorate their generally intransigent attitude toward the traditionalists in their care because "every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected…. Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity!"

The challenge for traditionalism will be to place itself at the service of unity rather than fraction and division, for which it has been known. (To wit, no less than seven splinter groups have broken from the SSPX, which itself broke communion with the Church in 1988.) Traditionalism will have to step away from its insular pockets and free itself of its embattled, embittered aura if it is to stand a chance of attracting the interest and imagination of highly secularized Frenchmen.

The question before us is whether traditionalist Catholicism can not only resuscitate the Body of Christ in France but restore to it enough vim and vigor to challenge the secular Goliath for the soul of the nation while holding off a latent Islam. If traditionalism proves itself unworthy of the task, what hope is there for the future of the faith in France? If it succeeds, it will have drawn up the blueprint for the renewal of the Church universal.

DOSSIER: The Latin Mass & Trad Renaissance

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Pope Benedict's Review of Pius XII Film

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, APRIL 12, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the address Benedict XVI gave Friday at the Apostolic Palace in Castel Gandolfo after viewing the film "Sotto il Cielo di Roma" (Under the Roman Sky). The film is set in 1940s Rome, and reflects the Church’s efforts to save people from the Nazis, as well as Adolph Hitler’s plot to kidnap the Pope.

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Just Asking: Where Were the Jews When Farrakhan's Priest Buddy Got the Award Last Night?

And Cardinal George is trying to silence Tom Roesser?


Pfleger Controversy.

At the heart of the controversy over the radical Fr. Michael Pfleger’s selection for a “racial justice” honor by the Chicago Catholic archdiocese was the white Pfleger surrounding himself with a black mob and threatening a legally constituted white shopkeeper with hate language and death (“we’ll snuff you out! Come out or we’ll drag you out like the rat you are!”)…but even more significant, the priest’s determinedly close support of Minister Louis Farrakhan who has taunted Jews, lauded Hitler and swims up to his neck in anti-Semitism—while a Catholic priest applauds…uncritical.

But all this we know. My question now is this:

Why have the Jews been so silent in all this…while conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants have been so aghast at the black preacher’s hated of Jews and Pfleger’s patronizing of him? . Why haven’t Jews been outraged at the white preacher’s evident tolerance of it—and at the Archdiocese for rewarding him?. Moreover, why aren’t the so-called “mainstream media” aroused by this evident transference of a bigot’s number one fan to the role of defender of social and racial justice?

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It's our Kaytn Trauma All over Again: Poland

Among the various infallible dictates of the Nurenberg trials after World War II, was the mistaken notion that the massacre of Poles in the Kaytn forest were attributable to the Germans. What other jokes that post-war Europe played on History will be revealed in eternity?

Waclaw Oszajca was struggling to come to terms with the full scale of his country's worst postwar tragedy. But as he clicked through portraits of the 96 victims of the Smolensk air crash on a news website a very personal story unfolded.

The voice of the 53-year old Jesuit priest and one of Poland's most respected theologians fell to a whisper as he pointed out the faces of friends, including a priest, a military chaplain, government aides and a historian.

"These were some of our best," said Oszajca, who yesterday took a train from his home in Lublin to Warsaw, to pay tribute to them on national radio. "They were wiped out in seconds. Young, old, women, men, leftwing, rightwing. It's our Katyn trauma all over again," he said.

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Bishop blames Jews for Sex Abuse Scandal

A furious transatlantic row has erupted over quotes that were attributed to a retired Italian bishop, which suggested that Jews were behind the current criticism of the Catholic church's record on tackling clerical sex abuse.

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism, considering how "powerful and refined" the criticism is.

The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

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Why humanists shouldn’t join in this Catholic-bashing

Monday 29 March 2010

The reaction to the paedophile priest scandal is as guilty of scaremongering, illiberalism and elitism as the Catholic Church has ever been.

by Brendan O’Neill

With all the newspaper headlines about predatory paedophiles in smocks, terrified altar boys and cover-ups by officials at the Vatican, it is hard to think of anything worse right now than a sexually abusive priest. Yet today’s reaction to those allegations of sexual abuse is also deeply problematic. For it is a reaction informed more by prejudice and illiberalism than by anything resembling a principled secularism, and one which also threatens to harm individuals, families, society and liberty.

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Vatican Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Beatle's Breakup

This must be a joke, a parody or something?

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Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI -Times Online

Richard Dawkins will be mortified some day, hopefully before his death, to find out that his lunacy was more of a help to the "obscurantism" of Catholicism than a hinderance.

Richard Dawkins calls for arrest of Pope Benedict XVI -Times Online

Institute of Christ the King Sisters in St. Louis

At present, Archbishop Carlson is supportive of this initiative begun by soon to be Cardinal Burke. Archbishop Carlson is one of the most intelligent and canny Bishops in the Church today. Some of us thought at one point that all the lights were burnt out in the Vatican and that it was full of venal and shortsighted political creatures, but we're beginning to see that things are beginning to turn around.

BY GREG JONSSON gjonsson@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8253

04/04/2010

Sister Marie of the Love of God inherited a fixer-upper.

The young nun was sent from Italy to St. Louis in September to turn an old convent building at St. Francis de Sales into the American home of her small order, the Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus Christ Sovereign Priest.

She found herself in a sprawling old building with a warren of rooms on each of three floors, most of it not fit for human habitation. The challenges it presented would be familiar to anyone who's rehabbed a historic home in the city: an outdated electrical system, ancient pipes, clanking old radiators, linoleum glued down over beautiful wood floors.

"People ask me if I need help," said Sister Marie, 31, originally from Paris. "I tell them yes, for 20 years."
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Photo:(Christian Gooden/P-D)

Let's get the Story Straight: Defrocking and Divorce

| Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

The following piece was written by Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder and editor of Ignatius Press, in response to the breaking story about a 1985 letter written by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to Bishop John S. Cummins of Oakland.

The so-called "stalled pedophile case", blame for which has been laid at the feet of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, had nothing to do with pedophilia and everything to do with strengthening marriage and the priesthood.

Here's what was happening in 1981 when Bishop Cummins of Oakland first wrote the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asking that one of the priests from his diocese of Oakland, be dispensed from his promise of celibacy.

Well first, what was not happening. The letter came a week before Cardinal Ratzinger had even assumed his duties as Prefect of that congregation. This is a very important office of the Roman curia. It handles a variety of cases worldwide, mostly having to do with defending and promoting doctrinal integrity in the Church. There's a lot of work to do, and it takes time for someone to become fully engaged in its activities.

But much more pertinently here: By 1980 the effects of the sexual revolution on marriage and the priesthood had been devastating. In 1965 there had been 59 marriage annulments granted by Rome to American couples. By 2002, there were over 50,000 annulments per year in the U.S. alone. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of priests were asking for dispensation from their promise of celibacy in order to be able to marry.

The Catholic Church holds the marriage vows to be indissoluble. Even an annulment, contrary to a widespread misconception, does not dissolve those vows. It is a declaration that because of some impediment, there never was a valid marriage in the first place.

Priestly ordination is also "indissoluble", in the sense that a validly ordained priest never ceases to be a priest.

And here's the rub. It was literally scandalous in the Church that priests, who had been prepared for eight to ten years for their ordination (which would be permanent, irreversible) and their promise of celibacy (which also has the character of a solemn promise before God), were, in the 1970s, being so easily dispensed from their promise of celibacy.

Married Catholics said to themselves: If a priest, who is so well prepared for his commitment, can so easily be dispensed from it so that he can marry, why can't we be dispensed from our commitment so that we can remarry?

When John Paul II was elevated to the papacy in the Fall of 1978, he immediately changed the policy on priestly dispensations. I don't have the exact dates and numbers at hand, but I remember at the time that many of us were amazed that the hundreds of dispensations per year (and it may have been thousands) under John Paul II's predecessor, Paul VI, suddenly were reduced to almost zero. It was almost impossible to get a dispensation in 1980.

What was John Paul's intent? To restore the integrity of the priesthood and of marriage. These commitments are permanent. A priest may be removed from ministry, but he will not be given a dispensation to marry. Priests are to be made to take their commitments with utmost seriousness. They will be an example to married couples to take theirs seriously also. When a priest makes a promise of celibacy, it's forever; when a couple make vows of marriage, it's forever.

This is the decisive context of Cardinal Ratzinger's letter to Bishop Cummins. It is not a smoking gun. It did not mean that Ratzinger was not taking the priest's sins seriously. (He called the accusations "very serious" [gravis momenti].) It meant that he, following the policy of John Paul II, was taking the priesthood and its commitments very seriously.

And again, this entire affair had nothing to do with preventing further abuse by this priest. That had already been done, or should have been done, by the local bishop.

A final, minor but significant point of translation. The translation being used by the media of an important part of Ratzinger's letter is: "your Excellency must not fail to provide the petitioner with as much paternal care as possible". This has been rightly interpreted by some to mean that Ratzinger was saying that the bishop should keep a watchful eye on the priest. The original Latin makes that even clearer: "paterna...cura sequi" which means "to follow with paternal care". We get the word "persecute" from the Latin "per-sequi". "Sequi" is much stronger then "provide".

There is a completely mistaken first premise underlying all this criticism.The premise is that "defrocking" has anything to do with protecting victims and preventing further abuse.

First, the media needs to know that according to Catholic teaching, Holy Orders is a sacrament which leaves an "indelible mark"; in layman's terms, once ordained a priest, a man is always a priest. The reason the word "dispensation" is used in the correspondence is that that is what happens technically: the priest is dispensed from his obligation of celibacy. In a sense, this works in the opposite direction from protection: a restraint is being removed.

Further, as if to prove this point, the priest in question continued to abuse children after he was "defrocked" and had married. QED.

Secondly, nothing at all prevents a bishop from: removing a priest from all ministry; removing his faculties; reporting him to civil authorities. There is no need even to inform Rome about this. The only way (until 2001 or in cases of abuse of Confession) that it need get to Rome is if the priest appeals the bishop's actions.

Thirdly, why was the CDF involved anyway? That was not the congregation that handles abuse cases, except where abuse of Confession has played a role. I believe the CDF was involved in cases of dispensation from celibacy. (Though you would think that should be under the Congregation for Priests.) But, again, dispensation has nothing to do with preventing further abuse. It may appease the sense of justice on the part of victims. But at the same time, It normally takes eight to ten years to become a priest. It's not a club one joins. It is a very serious thing to dispense a priest from celibacy, and there needs to be a careful process to protect innocent priests.

Fourthly, there are definitely cased of priests who have been falsely accused. Especially the American media ought to be sensitive to the principle that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Civil law requires that to be done in a court of law. A bishop can, and in many cases, should take action against a priest before there is any canonical trial.

Finally, let's compare this to the difference between a criminal and a civil trial. Criminal trials can be expedited, but even then in all but the most grievous cases, a criminal defendant is a free man until convicted. In the case of priests, the "punishment" of removal from ministry can be applied immediately by a bishop even before there is any canonical trial, which is like a civil trial. How long do civil trials take in this country. I know of trials that have dragged out for more than seven years.

If Ratzinger took part in "stall[ing]" a "pedophile case", the worst one can say is that he wanted care taken in a canonical trial. And, let's not forget, this wasn't "punishment" at all from the priest's point of view. He had "asked" to be dispensed.

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Thank you for your interest in the Catholic Church

It might even be interesting if they asked Whoopi Goldberg, she always says something that is useful to conservatives.

Thank you for your interest in the Catholic Church

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Everyone has an opinion about the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals and Pope Benedict XVI.

Ah, you’ve noticed.

Roseanne Barr thinks perhaps Catholic parents who take their children to church ought to lose custody of them.

A U.N. judge, Geoffrey Robertson, thinks the Pope should be detained in Britain later this year and then tried in an international court.

Rosie O’Donnell thinks the Catholic Church is almost like Jonestown.

Maureen Dowd is so apoplectic she lent her column to her “conservative” and “devout” Catholic brother Kevin who doesn’t know that laymen aren’t allowed to “perform the sacraments”.

Sally Quinn declares this to be a Watergate moment and Pope Benedict XVI is Nixon.

The Feast of St. Leo the Great: a Greek Hymn to Papal Supremacy

The Following is an excerpt from the Inimitable Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year on the Feast of Leo the Great who turned back the barbarian Huns at the gates of Rome.

Leo the First, a Tuscan by birth, governed the Church at the period when Attila, the king of the Huns, surnamed the Scourge of God, was invading Italy. Attila pillaged and burned the city of Aquieleia, which he took after a three years' siege. This done, he rushed on Rome like a wild firebrand. He had reached the place where the Mincio joins the Po, and was on the point of ordering his troops to pass the river, when he was met by Leo, who was moved with compassion at the misfortunes that were threatening Italy. Sush was his superhuman eloquence, that he induced Attila to retrace his steps. When asked by his people how it was that, contrary to his custom he had yielded such ready obedience to the demands of the Roman Pontiff, the king answered, that he beheld, whilst Leo was speaking, a personage clad in priestly robes, who stood near, with a naked sword in his hand, and threatened him with death unless he obeyed the Pontiff., Whereupon he returned to Pannonia.

The Greek Church, in her Menaea, has an office in honour of St. Leo: we take from it the following stanzas. As they were composed before the Schism, they show us that the ancient Church of Constinatinople believed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff, and that it is not the Latins that have changed the faith. The Greeks keep the Feast of St. Leo on February 18.

O happy Pontiff ! glorious Leo ! thous has been made companion of the faithful priests and martyrs: for thou wast most invincible in battle, and immovable as a tower and fortress of religion. Thou didst proclaim, with most perfect orthodoxy and wisdom, the unspeakable generation of Christ.

O ruler of orthodoxy, teacher of religion and holiness, light of the whole earth, divinely insired glory of true believers, wise Leo ! thou enlightenest all men by thy teachings, O harp of the Holy Ghost !

Heir of the See of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, thou didst prexside over the Church: thou hadst his spirit, and wast inflamed with zeal for the faith.

Beaming with most bright light, thou, O holy Leo, didst admirably preach the ineffable and divine incarnation, teaching the two natures, and the two wills of the Incarnate God.

Resplendent with the knowledge of divine truths, thou didst scatter on all sides the brightness of orthodoxy, and dispel the darkness of heresy. Departing this life, thou, O blessed one ! now dwellest in the light that knows no setting.

O inspired minister of God's mysteries thou didst admirably preach that Christ is the Only Son and Lord, begotten of the Father before all ages, born for us of the Virgin, and dwelling on earth like unto us.

Seated with glory upon the throne of the pontificate, thou didest stop the mouths of lions, and madest to shine upon thy flock the light of the knowledge of God, by proclaiming the divine dogma of the adorable Trinity. therefore has thou been glorified as a holy Pontiff initiated in the grace of God.

Thou, as a dazzling sun, didst rise in the West and wisely dispel the error of Eutyches, who mingled and confused the two natures, and that of Nestorius, who divided them as though they were two Persons. Thou taughtest us to adore one Christ in two natures, inseparably, interchangeably, unconfusedly united.

Inspired of God, thou didst appear to the people of God as another Moses, showing them the commandments of religion written, as it were, on tables. Thou didst explain in the assembly of the venerable masters: 'Praise, O ye priests ! and bless, and extol Christ for ever.'

Now, O priest of Christ ! thou art brightly decked with crown of beauty. As a faithful priest, thou has put on justice. Pray unceasingly for thy flock, now that thou has entered into the admirable joy of the Paradise of delights.

Thou, O most blessed Leo ! has worthily entered the abode where are the seats and throne and ranks of patriarch : thou hast entered as a true patriarch, all resplendent with faith and grace. Therefore do we all celebrate thy name for ever.

Vietnam and the Vatican: Realpolitik

The following document was found in the archives of the East German Stasi (Intelligence Service) after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It may be perused on pages 45-52 of the book "Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War against the Catholic Church," by John Koehler.

At the time of the conversation, North and South Vietnam had recently signed a peace treaty in Paris. However, the Vietnamese Communists continued their offensive in the South. With the full support of Pope Paul VI, Richard Nixon continued removing American troops from the threatres of combat.


Department X Berlin March 29, 1973
Log No. X/ 980/73
Translation from the Russian.
TOP SECRET!
Information from the Security Organs of the People's Republic of Poland.

Stenographic transcript of negotiations between the Paul VI and the Foreign Minister of South Vietnam, Tran Van Lam.

Vatican February 22, 1973.

Pope: I greet you Mr. Minister. May God bless you.

L: I thank Your Holiness. I have the honor to deliver a letter and greetings from our President, Mr. Van Thieu.

Pope: That is very kind of him. We are very thankful to President Thieu that he also thought of us. We must thank the merciful God that he has given us hope in these hours.

L: Your Holiness, we are very worried. WE feel ourselves as betrayed and abandoned. So many of our young people have perished for nothing.

Pope: Only God knows the value of self-sacrifice and not a single sacrifice offered to God will have been in vain.

L: Our people noe are experiencing hours of suffering. We became an object of barter in the hands of the great powers, and we believed that the United States was our friend.

Pope: This they are, Mr. Minister. When we can maintain the peace, then your sacrifices will not have been in vain. Please believe us...

L: For us this war has not yet ended.

Pope: Mr. Minister, you surely mean the struggle for a free and peaceful development of your wonderful people. Should that be so, then we share your fears and those of President Van Thieu. The important factor is to put an end to this fratricidal war, a war not only between the children of one and the same God, but of one and the same homeland as well.

L: But we are still fighting.

Pope: We know about that. We pray often to God that He spare the people who are so dear to our hearts, of further sacrifices and pain.

L: Mr. Nguyen Van Thieu instructed me to thenk Your Holiness for the help which during all these years You have provided us either direct through the Papal Throne, or through representatives of various Catholic organizations.

Pope: We thank you. We wanted to do more, but unfortunately we are also dependant on the generousity of others.

L: Our Government entertains the hope that, in these difficult hours, it will not also be abandoned by the Catholic Church.

Pope: Our heart beats for you. We will never abandon you, but as you know, Our voice does not always find resonance.

L: However, in spite of all this, the diplomacy of the Papal Throne favors the agreement between the United States and the Government of Hanoi.

Pope: Yes, that is true. Inv arious circumastances, we gave you to understand that all the firing must cease. Those on the other side were your foes, but at the same time also your brothers. We told the same thing to Mr. Xuan Thuy [of North Vietnam].

L: We felt very disappointed, and it was for us a great surprise, when we heard that Your Holiness wished to receive this Communist.

Pope: We always receive all. This house is the House of God.

L: But they are the enemy of the Church and the enemy of all religions. They are the enemy of humanity.

Pope: We have nothing in common with their ideology, but we worry over the question of peace and the discontinuation of firing.

L: In our country we have almost one million of refugees from North Vietnam. In many cases they are Catholics and clergymen, who fled to us to escape Communist persecution.

Pope: This is well known to us. God values the good that you have done. Who knows, perhaps today's happenings are the days of God's mercifulness. Please believe us, believe us, that most importantly is the ceasefire.

L: But we already no longer feel safe from new Communist attacks.

Pope: Mr. Minister, God's mercifulness is unending. I beg you not to forget that times have changed.

L: Our Catholic Bishops also are full of fear and are worried.

Pope: We know that, Mr. Minister. But, look, it is necessary that one must trust in God in whose hands one must place one's self of his own free will.

L: But I am talking about politics, not Theology.

Pope: Yes, indeed. The Will of God shows itself in all spheres.

L: But we cannot simply give in to the Communists who occupy our Catholic soil.

Pope; We have provided you with help in every possible way. And despite that, we must jointly think about God's Will and bow to it even when it seems to us that things are not going well for us.

L: Does that mean that the Papal Throne will also forsake us?

Pope: What are you saying, Mr. Minister! We have already pulled together all of our resources in order to participate in the reconstruction of your glorious country.

L: But still, the help is for those from the North.

Pope: In your case the Papal Throne does not divide people according to borders. For us they are all children of a heavenly Father.

L: We are a people fighting for freedom.

Pope: That makes us very happy, Mr. Minister. WE wish to believe that it will help in freeing the political prisoners which are in your hands.

L: When it comes to that question, we have the best of intentions. However, the opponent has no political prisoners of ours since almost all were murdered.

Pope: A fratricidal war is the most horrible of all wars. Somebody has to make the beginning.

L: In a few days in Paris, I shall see the good will of our foe.

Pope: Mr. Minister, if you do all that depends on you, you will achieve peace and God's blessings.

L: But we are threatened by Communism.

Pope: According to your opinion, you have exactly the possibility to push ahead in with the question of neutralization of Vietnam, first in a divided then in a united Vietnam.

L: By the Communists? No!

Pope: We mean that such a process will be carried out by the sons of the Vietnamese people.

L: However, Your Holiness, we are of the opinion, that the decision on this question is, at this point, not even close.

Pope: The developments of the events will be shown. God will decide.

L: Before I travel to Paris, I wish to beg Your Holiness to excercise your great authority to influence Washington not to allow any Communist agreession against my country or the neighboring States.

Pope: Our staff maintains a steady contact with the staff of Richard Nixon. We believe that we have already used these means available to us.

L: Allow me to remark that you have already used these means in favor of our opponents.

Pope: For peace, Mr. Minister. Be so kind and relay to President Van Thieu our heartfelt best wishes and assure him of our fatherly understanding for the all of the Vietnamese people and for your State in the South.

L: I thank Your Holiness.

Pope: And we wish to also add out Apostolic Blessing for all those in Vietnam who expect justice, freedom, and a free dissemination of the truth.

L: I thank Your Holiness.

Article courtesy of Brendan D. King

Consequences of the Catholic Church's claim of statehood - latimes.com

Consequences of the Catholic Church's claim of statehood - latimes.com

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NCEA Conference with Garrison Keillor is Over

And Keillor was permitted to speak and allowed to give the impression that Catholic doctrine is as mutable as Keillor's choice of spouses, religion and locale.

Given Keillor's own Episcopalian religious affiliation, we don't understand why he insists on speaking on behalf of an organization he openly and shamelessly despises? Does this mean that he, in the parlance of the character assassins at NPR and the NYTs, support the "Nazi" Pope and his secrecy and medieval ism?

Perhaps it has something to do with the money and those city-slicker ways he learned when he got booted from New York City for being too boring and came crawling back to the little pond in flyover land.

What's really strange in Lake Woebegone is how the Communications Director will spin this, despite the 200k plus salary he receives to dither in his office and offer "no-comment" to journalists covering important stories.

It may not happen too soon, but these Archdiocesan offices really need to get the Todd Tambergs (Communications Director for Los Angeles) and Dennis McGraths into retirement.

Why is it that because it's religion based, that you can be incompetent, evil and lascivious but still make a lot of money? Even if you get caught at the above, you can always cry on camera and elicit sympathy from your supporters like Jim Baker did before he went to prison.

Check out the list of speakers. It's a practical guarantee that if you looked up their writings you'd find all manner of heresy, and these are people who are running Catholic education. No wonder Catholics don't know their Faith...

The Two Campaigns are Alike: as one Egg to Another

When Joseph Goebbels plotted his abuse campaign against the church, the bishops at that time did not drop to their knees.

By Hubert Hecker.

(kreuz.net) In the years 1936/37 Reich propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels († 1945) battled -- national-socialist-morality criminal cases against the church with enormous press campaigns.

Goebbels - a lapsed catholic and a notorious adulterer - pursued several goals. Thus he presumed "thousands and thousands and thousands of church sex offenders".

With this lie he wanted to drive a wedge between the Clergy and Laity. The believers should be estranged from their hierarchy.

The numbers of those leaving the Church went up promptly in the years 1937 and 1938.

The withdrawing were however mainly Nazi Party members and marginal Catholics.

The Catholic people did not let themselves be impressed by the lies of the Anti-Catholic propaganda Minister.

The believers gathered only more closely around their priests and bishops and participated more intensively in their slandered Church.


Bishops: Truth instead of Cringing

The German bishops did not put their heads into the sand. They met the propaganda of the Goebbels media with courage and referred to the small number of misdemeanours in the church:

In the diocese Paderborn from 9.380 priests and religious and in 1937 six persons had been condemned.

From the 14,300 religious persons in the Diocese of Münster, seven persons had been punished.

Eight condemnations came from the Archdiocese of Munich's 11,250 secular priests and religious-- nearly always because of homosexuals' misdemeanours.


A Forerunner of "We are Church"

The Goebbels' press fight tried to pull in the Pope into the invented "moral swamp of the Roman church“ as well, in order to undermine the confidence of Catholics in their Roman Shepherds.

A sect around the magazine "the Rome-free Catholic" - a forerunner of the today's Anti-Church group of sects `We are Church' - grumbled on 16 June 1936:

"Thus the joint responsibility for the exposed monstrosity rests completely on Rome."

The magazine 'Rome-Free Catholic' was close to at that time the Nazi friendly Old-Catholic Church in the German Reich.

The Nazi Daily `West Deutscher Beobachter' headlined on 3 July 1936 "Vatican circles wrap themselves in silence“.

This tactical assumption is gladly repeated at present by media swarm.


The Mortally Hated Church

The German bishops did not go to its knees before the coordinated Nazi press.

The citizen of Berlin bishop Konrad von Preysing († 1950) wrote in his Pastoral Address on 7 May 1937:

"This very loud press front wants to strike the mortally despised church to destruction."

"One wants to declare the reputation of the Pope and the German bishops for Christianity and freedom of conscience in our German Fatherland."

"The Church's enemies use the morality of legal cases against priests and religious", in order to undermine the authority of the Pope and his words.

Only before - in March 1937 - Pope Pius XI had two months in the encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" frontally attacked the ideology of National Socialism.


Naturally the Nazis hated Celibacy Too

The German press coordinated by the National Socialists was made to represent the obscenities, much discussed by Goebbels, as "symptoms of the unnatural system" of the Church.

Goebbels' fight was directed - similarly as today - particularly against celibacy.

It was put together with "the Catholic bourgeois morality " as reactionary and outdated way of life.

Goebbels trumped up rare misdemeanours of individual clergyman, in order to provoke a general demoralization in the Clergy - as if he would never again be "in this frightening and infuriating extent able to determine the entire cultural history of mankind."


The Church Becomes Triumphant

The Bishops did not let Nazi propaganda sit idly. Thus Msgr von Preysing said clearly in his Pastoral Address:

„The Church's enemies use indecent assaults on Catholic clergyman in order to approach their goal: to exterminate the public believers of Christianity in Germany, unrestrainedly, without consideration for truth, justice and freedom of conscience."

In the conclusion he explained his Pastoral Letter:

"My Dear Children! Do not let yourself be confused in the faith or in the eternal mission of the Church."

"The Church of Christ will also victoriously overcome decline, error and vice in its own ranks as in the past."

"You will also triumph powerfully over the great droves and the more powerful the attacking opponent - the gates of hell will not be overcome by them. “


© used picture: Zyada,

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USCCB Urges Nuclear Disarmament

Cardinal George is fascinated by destined to fail liberal foreign and domestic policy goals. It's not so much that the Bishops are playing a political role, it's not even that they are incompetent to play such a role, for political issues are well within the competency of a Bishop. Yet when socialist-style national Bishops Conferences speak out on various issues, it's almost entirely guaranteed to illicit a suspiciously pre-masticated and slavish adherence to the liberal social agendas of the day.

It's suspicious because many of these policies can be demonstrated to be deleterious to the health of the host nation, and it's especially poisonous to the credibility of Catholic institutions ultimately, because it is very clear that the Bishops aren't really responding from their own beliefs, (although many of them by virtue of their education hold such poisonous beliefs) but from an agenda established independent of the Catholic Church.

To put it another way, the USCCB is an organ with no authority, claiming to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church in a country, and yet it consistently works against the interests of both its host country and the Catholic Church.

Whoever is pulling the strings at the USCCB does not have the best interests of the Catholic Church at heart.

WASHINGTON—"The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) welcomes the signing of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) between the United States and the Russian Federation," said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, President of the USCCB, in an April 8 letter to President Barack Obama.

“The horribly destructive capacity of nuclear arms makes them disproportionate and indiscriminate weapons that endanger human life and dignity like no other armaments. Their use as a weapon of war is rejected in Church teaching based on just war norms,” Cardinal George wrote. The cardinal cited teaching from both the U.S. bishops and Pope Benedict XVI calling for a world without nuclear weapons.

“Based on a moral imperative to rid the world of nuclear weapons,” Cardinal George said, “the Conference of Bishops will be a steadfast supporter of strong and bipartisan action on the new START Treaty as an important and essential step toward a nuclear-weapons-free future.”

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NYTs is Dying and Not even a Church Scandal Can Help

This isn't the first time the New York Times has lied about something or done poor research. Their assertions were based on a computer translation of a correspondence between +Weakland and Cardinal Bertone. Don't they have enough money to hire a translator? Their first mistake was in receiving the story from a 2nd rate Law Firm from the Midwest, but this isn't the first time they've been caught in a lie.

Will people still be willing to view NYTs as a credible news source?

Link to Father Z...

Pflegerizing Catholicism

By Michelle Malkin

So much that you need to know about the Catholic Church’s social-policy problems can be summed up in one word: Chicago. On race, abortion, guns, immigration, and “community organizing,” Catholic Church officials in the Windy City have forged unholy alliances with radical left-wingers and enablers who undermine the faith — and the faithful.

Exhibit A: the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Racial Justice and one of its most notorious priests, the Rev. Michael Pfleger. This week, Chicago cardinal Francis George — who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — presided over a gala ceremony honoring Pfleger with a “lifetime-achievement award” for his “service in pursuit of dismantling racism, injustice, and inequalities on behalf of African Americans and all people of color.”

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h/t: HA

A return of Penal Times in England?

The amusingly named Guardian has printed an article which suggests in tones of hope and glee, that the Holy Father might be arrested when he comes to England.

There hasn't been this much talk about arresting a Pontiff since the days of Joe Garibaldi and Napoleon Bonaparte who had himself arrested Pius VII and imprisoned him with the expectation that he would agree to Napoleon's subjugation of the Church. Upon refusing to submit to Napoleon's demands, occasionally, it was purported, Napoleon would threaten and physically beat the Pontiff. After failing to get Bl Pius IX in their clutches during the wars Italian Unification 1848-1870, the forces of evil have concocted another trick by creating a media frenzy throughout the world by appealing to people's natural sense of the sacredness and innocence of children, and attempting to portray the Catholic Church as responsible for the corruption of the same.

The irony of all of this shouldn't be lost on anyone familiar with such propaganda campaigns of the past, calculated to produce the destruction of an institution. French revolutionaries produced pornographic cartoon drawings of Marie Antoinette to obtain the downfall of her family and husband; strangely, the anger of the mob didn't turn against her tormentors, it turned against her.

It's taken many years to rehabilitate the memory of this woman and expose the lies which were told about her to perpetrate a political evil, and it may be that the Catholic Church will once again enjoy the same persecuted status It once enjoyed in England after Henry VIII, in France after Robespierre or in Russia after Lenin.

We fully expect that if Pope Benedict isn't arrested, the various governments will use this event as a pretext to confiscate church lands, supervise priests and bishops and even persecute individual Catholics whom they dislike for any number of arbitrary reasons.

The dictatorship of relativism is upon us, and we don't expect the forces of evil to triumph in destroying the Papacy.

Dying Left Coast Paper Lashes out at Vatican in its Death Agony: Op Ed

THE DETONATIONS occur with all the regularity of bombs going off in downtown Baghdad: the Church of Rome — the church of pomp, hierarchy, and authority — is imploding. The damage already sustained qualifies as catastrophic. There is more to come.

For Catholics, Easter this year was a joyless occasion. [For him perhaps, but for many, it certainly was. Chalk this comment up to spite] Rather than celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, anguished pastors lamented the continued disintegration of the institution to which they have devoted their lives. In the pews, their dwindling flocks listened with a combination of sadness, dismay, and disgust.

The crisis touched off in 2002 by the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston has now gone global. The Holy See’s obtuse response, combining self-denial with self-pity — it’s all the fault of a gossip-mongering media apparently — has shredded the last vestiges of Vatican credibility. [Wishful thinking. But what about media credibility, what about your credibility?] Simply put, what Rome says no longer matters. The bishops — those of this country in the vanguard — have already squandered any claim to trust. The pope himself now seems hell-bent on forfeiting what remains of his authority. If Wall Street rules applied, the Catholic Church would today be filing for Chapter 11 protection while fending off an Anglican takeover bid — depending on your point of view, a delicious or ironic prospect. Yet this moment of painful mortification holds great potential for clarification and renewal. The collapse of Christendom — the concept of a secular order based on Christian precepts — is now fully complete. So too is the triumph of modernity. No encyclical handed down from on high will reverse that verdict. We ourselves must deal with the consequences.

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Don’t look to Rome for the true Catholic voices - The Boston Globe

Don’t look to Rome for the true Catholic voices - The Boston Globe

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Extradition of Priest could Take Years: Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS — Extraditing a Roman Catholic priest from his native India to face charges of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Minnesota could take several years, the prosecutor in the case said Thursday.

Roseau County Attorney Lisa Hanson said federal officials told her the extradition of Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul could last four or five years if he's uncooperative. A formal extradition request was filed with the Department of Justice last fall, she said.

"I'm told the process is very slow and convoluted," Hanson said. "If he decides to fight it, we could be looking at a very long process."

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photo: AP