SSPX Excommunication Removed

The Holy Father Removes Excommunication of SSPX Bishops

Dear friends:

This may appear as a blip on many Catholic websites… but it is really HUGE positive news even if you think it does not affect you.

Please check out Rorate Caeli Blog.

This simple act of charity & bravery by the Holy Father (the lifting of the excommunications) corrects the false assumption that SSPX is a schismatic group. The process of regularization will continue… and the effects on the local Church will be positive. There will be many who will try to derail this process of reconciliation on both ends of the ecclesial spectrum.

Let us pray that the valid doctrinal concerns that members of the SSPX have with the present modernist interpretation of the Council documents is addressed in honest and frank discussion and continued reform.

The demographic decline of Catholic culture is evidence itself of the vacuous theology that seminaries have been pushing for the last 40 years). And yet the SSPX communities are filled with young & growing families and numerous vocations! Why is that? John Paul II himself stated that the loss of faith among Catholics today amounted to a "silent apostasy". Any of us who are paying attention know that false ecumenism, defective historical criticism,tacit acceptance of contraception and sodomy and even rejection of certain parts of scripture by the many bishops & priests have essentially created a "hermeneutic of rupture".

The SSPX has much to teach the Universal Church. Their priests maybe suspended (ironically), but they know more about Catholic doctrine than most bishops do… and yet for them to help reform and reorient the faithful, these priests must become regularized.

Pictured above a young and older Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of Saint Pius X.

In an age where your average bishop is likely to go out of his way to meet & pray with Hindus, Seikhs, Moslems, Jews & Protestants… and yet where he will predictably shrink away from meeting regularly with any serious lovers of Catholic tradition , this olive branch by the HolyFather sends a signal of paternal love and authentic ecumenism (if there is such a thing).

The Holy Father seems interested in engaging in a real two way discussion which will help both parties. This is indicative of the `papacy of reason' which he has now become famous for.

We as individuals should also engage in that discussion. An honest appraisal of the loss of sacred tradition is not just within the purview of a bishop… it is also essential for the individual Catholic layman and lay woman if we intend to deepen our own understanding of the life, death and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ in imitation of His Most Holy Mother (who pondered these mysteries in her Immaculate Heart).

Enough is Enough

Palin/McCain Conservatism

Well ladies, gents: I have been watching this discussion (McCain/Palin) for the last week... and I have to say that it has helped me make up my mind. After 35 years of waiting... I have decided to wait no more for the Republican party.

Basically what we are saying here is that we have a choice between a guy who intends to destroy the family (Obama) and if elected he will do so. On the other hand, we have a guy who has redefined conservatism and continually moved the goalposts to the left each time (McCain). One guy will destroy the family explicitly... and the other will destroy it implicitly (and cause it to be called "conservatism" in the process). I really can not decide WHICH is worse!

Yes, Ron Paul is known by Alex Jones, Obama had is reverend Wright, and Sara Palin has her wacky Church!

I am going to do the right thing for the right reason because it's the right thing to do! I'm going to find out how the three members of my family can WRITE IN on election day for Ron Paul.

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/mission/

I held my nose and voted for Bush the second time... and almost got a Harriet Meyers for heavens sake. President Bush derided us "fringe conservatives" when we opposed the Dubai security deal! BOTH sides of the aisle REFUSE to seriously discuss the needed enforcement of our current immigration laws. I might as well elect the USCC since their Marxist ideals square very nicely with the present Republican definition of conservatism. (Sarcasm intended).

Socialism is just as pernicious a destroyer of families as abortion is... and the Republicans don't really oppose either of these evils. But they have continually worked to influence the discussion and change the definition of basic conservative principles... and they have done so to the detriment of sacred marriage and family.

I may be risking an Obama win… but I can not in good conscience vote for McCain. While Sara Palin was enchanting to watch for the first 10 minutes of the discussion, watching The 2 part Sara Palin Church video from last weekend also helped turn me off to McCain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG1vPYbRB7k

A McCain regime will also expand interventionism to a level which will trigger things that will bring untold destruction upon the family. In a day and age where China has been doing joint military excercises with Russia… we are on EXTREMELY shaky ground. What we need to do for our own national security is stop the phony financial smoke & mirrors and get our own house in order. The enemy will be at our door soon… but he won’t be wearing a turbin and speaking Arab!

Obama is certainly not an option… but I can not sit by and let the meaning of constitutional subsidiarity and conservatism be redefined on a morning when the third of our largest financial institutions has failed due to republicans embracing socialist doctrines. What socialist doctrines am I referring to:
Read THIS as a salient example:
http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm

The following Ron Paul quote sums it up for me:
“This destructive bipartisan consensus has suffocated American political life for many years. Anyone who tries to ask fundamental questions instead of cosmetic ones is ridiculed or ignored.”

While I think it is not a sin to vote for McCain… I do believe it is more prudent and important for people to do the right thing and allow the chips to fall where they may. Better to be an “old maid” then to get in bed with someone who does not believe in the indissolubility of the rights of the family.

Just as contraception is the third rail of ecclesial politics… so the subject of embracing socialist ideology is the third rail of American politics. And socialist policies feed the contraceptive mentality… which feed the abortive culture of death. A quick read of Marx will show the connection between modern day ‘Republicanism’ and the destruction of the family. To risk yet another Tolken parallel: Bush was our fallback to Helms Deep. But ALAS there is no way out and we will STARVE if we stay there! We HAVE to FIGHT now as if God’s rights mattered.

The first question many “good conservative Catholics” ask me when I mention Church teaching on marital fecundity and right order in the home is “how can you live that out with the high taxation and incredible cost of Catholic education… unless you use NFP as a means of contraception?”

What this tells me is that even good Catholics no longer believe in conservative values because they no longer KNOW what conservative values are. There is a connection between conservatism, individual liberty when lived as if Christ were King, the family, fecundity and economics. So we’re going to reconcile all of that by letting Sara Palin live in the US Naval Observatory until the neocon’s decide SHE should be put in the Oval office.

JUST SAY NO dear friends. Let’s stop drinking the Cool Aid!

Viva Cristo Rey !

PALIN NOMINATION

Friends: I posted this as a comment on a friend's blog... but I'm reposting it here for what it's worth.

Sara Palin’s acceptance speech was fabulous! She truly WOW’ed them.

BUT…

Not to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm over Palin… but I observe that the working mom has slowly become the icon of the “so called ‘Conservative woman’”.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m happy that McCain picked someone pro life (though I think I might still “write in” for Ron Paul). I think that the “wascally wepubwican ” neocons are slowly moving the goal posts to the left each and every news cycle, however.

I guess it’s just in my nature to be pining for “roll-back” and not mere “containment”. It seems to me that over the years, due to the ever dangling ‘pro-life’ carrot… many orthodox Catholics have slowly morphed into what we now call ‘conservative Catholics’. In this sense, ‘conservatism’ has replaced ‘orthodoxy’.

The Palin choice baptizes the working mom concept which necessitates (in most cases) offering your kids conscience up on the altar of public education… that monastery of pedagogic naturalism and breeding ground of freemasonic ideals.

Naturally I'm delighted to see such an eloquent and tough stance against the 'throw away' society which has come to look at children with disabilities as simply a burden to be disposed of. And I suppose that the only way to fight off the moronic idol worship of BHO is to fight fire with fire… in this case using a radical (and I mean that in a good sense) female to fight radical feminism/Marxism. The strategy might actually work too.

While this may seem like news to be elated over… I don’t really think it’s necessarily all great news.

I think that ‘conservative Catholics’ need to begin studying just what it IS that they wish to CONSERVE? The abortion issue is an EFFECT of something… not the root cause of something. The root cause is how we look at man and woman and marriage and family through the light of all eternity. We will not win this battle of culture wars until we are willing to rebuild the culture… and we are not going to do that with the working mom. Why? Because the bedrock of any culture is the family… and the heart of every family is a woman. If the heart is divided then the bedrock is weakened.

There are some strong and courageous Catholic women who I know who must work due to economic reasons. For we have built a culture on Long Island where in many cases, a single income is not enough. What we need to be working toward is promoting ideals which make it easier for mom to stay home when the children are young. Some of these working mom’s that I know could be a mighty force for change in the local Church if they did not have to hold down a job too.

We men must work to somehow re build a civilization which permits mom to be a full time mom.

Sara Palin’s nomination will certainly help McCain win the election. It will not help us win the so called ‘culture wars’… which begin in the home.

SAVE OUR LADY OF LOURDES

A recent blog has appeared which chronicles the sudden and unwarranted changes at a parish in Massapequa Park, Long Island, NY. This is the parish of the newly assigned Msgr. James Lisante. The changes were permitted by Msgr. Lisante and carried out by some priests in the parish that evidently do not care about the sense of the faithful in that parish.


A close look at this blog is worthy of your time. For, not only does the blog delineate the criteria for true evangelical beauty, it provides examples and contrasts between the "hermeneutics of rupture" and "the hermeneutics of continuity" which our Holy Father has referred to as cardinal prefect and also in his 2005 Christmas Address. I would draw your attention to the 35th paragraph and following in the Christmas Address.


Please check this blog out. It is called Save Our Lady of Lourdes Massapequa Park.

One parting note: A recent blog commenter (I can not remember who), once stated that the folks that fight the most about the meaning of the Council (they refer to VC-II), are usually either liberals or sedevacantists who have usually never actually read the council documents. I find this assertion to be terribly true. Those who think they know it all and need not study scripture or the Church teachings often will quote both with high emotion, double speak and do so with an ideological "Exacto-Knife". This goes for layman, priest, pastor, bishop... and yes... even sometimes a cardinal. I would like to do a post at some other time later in order to inform the layman about what one can do to remedy these things in his/her own parish. For the remedy is simple but requires a little work, some serious prayer... and a little sacrifice. More on that later.

I will publish comments on this post only if they are civilized, kind, intelligent, and provide a verifiable point of view. Sweeping assertions which are not rooted in present day reality or the teachings of the popes or sensus fidei will not be considered. So save your breath if you intend to rant.

The Next FI Encampment in CT

Just a short post to let folks know that the next Knights of Lepanto Encampment at the Friars Immaculate in CT will be ON COLUMBUS DAY WEEKEND. Dads... this is FRIDAY evening, Saturday...and it breaks up and ends after Sunday morning Mass (usually TLM).

Ave Maria!

BATTLE SCARS

I was listening to EWTN on the short wave radio as I was falling asleep last night and I heard Bishop Bruskewitz quote something from an unknown source about ‘battle scars’.
He said “when we die, one of the things our Lord will look for in us are the signs of battle scars. If he does not find any… he will ask us ‘was there nothing worth fighting for?’”.

I’m hoping to become as perfect as I can be here… but I realize that I will probably have to do some time in Purgatory. But in any case, I am already aware of what few scars I have.

Nevertheless, this comment (though only allegorical) made me stop and think of the old saying 'If I were arrested today and held in prison on suspicion of being a Christian... would there be enough evidence to convict me'?

PATRIOTISM IS NOT ENOUGH

More than at any other time since the 1960's, American Catholics are faced with a “see change” in the defining criteria of their own cause. I assert that this is rooted in three things:

1. A reluctance on the part of the Catholic layman who identifies with modern 'Conservatism' to invest the time to become familiar with Catholic social teaching,
2. A reliance upon so called 'conservative media' which is anything but Catholic, and
3. A lack of understanding the causes of 'cultural political trends' within contemporary American politics.

Catholic Social Teaching:
The Church pretty clearly states that while she favors no particular economic system, any system must be controlled by the people at the most local level as is possible. This is known as the principle of subsidiarity. Contrast this with a Federal education budget which is larger than any that even the most rabid liberal could legislate, but which was given to us by a Republican majority and a Republican administration. Golly, I don't remember voting for that when I voted for the present crop of 'conservatives'. Say, would anyone like some free prescription drugs while we are on the subject of spending? How about a North American Free Trade zone so that our employment dollars can be threatened by some third rate dictatorship south of the border? You didn't vote for that one either? Huh! Strange!

Catholic dogma on just war theology prescribes the principal of proportionalism. Clearly both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have gone on record as opposing the war in Iraq on the grounds of a lack of proportinalism. Yet how many 'conservative' Catholics stake out their own position on the war without checking out these statements by those two great Catholic shepherds and squaring it against the New Catechism? I was fooled myself for the longest time by my lack of diligence in this matter until I went back and read what these Catholic leaders wrote and said to our president before, during, and after the bombing of Iraq.

Patriotism without informed Catholic social and moral theology is as fluid a thing as Protestantism. In fact it is a hallmark of Protestantism. But if we have suffered the protestantization of the Mass for the last 40 years, can it be unreasonable to assume that we have suffered the protestantization of conservative political philosophy in the last 10?

The great Catholic apologist and thinker G.K. Chesterton states of the truly Catholic man that “He is loyal to his own country; indeed he is generally ardently loyal to it, such loyal affections being in other ways very natural to his religious life, with its shrines and relics. But just as the relic follows upon the religion, so the local loyalty follows on the universal brotherhood of all men. The Catholic says ' Of course we must love all men; but what do all men love?' They love their lands, their lawful boundaries, the memories of their fathers. That is the justification of being national, that it is normal'. But the Protestant patriot really never thought of any patriotism except his own. In that sense Protestantism is patriotism. It starts with it and never gets beyond it. (underline mine) We (Catholics) start with mankind and go beyond it to all the varied loves and traditions of mankind”. In like manner, Chesterton goes on to point out that many a convert to Catholicism has been called a traitor by his conservative brethren for seeing beyond mere patriotism.

Reliance Upon So Called 'Conservative Media'
Long before Catholics were picking and choosing, one Catholic columnist stands out as the standard bearer for dissident teaching. In many ways he is way ahead (chronologically) of the heretic John Kerry. For he assured Catholics that they had no moral obligation to obey MATER ET MAGISTRA

Thus we see a contradiction between the informed man in the pew who sees the Church as magisterium and Mother and for example, a pundit like William F. Buckley and his famous essay “Mater si, Magistra no!”. While I do not directly accuse Buckley of being a Freemason, indeed any Catholic who studies the many papal documents on Freemasonry can see the underlying philosophical continuity between the Ivy League Skull & Bonesman and modern day Conservatism as defined by Buckley and men like him. For those of you who are Buckley readers, I encourage you to read both his article of that title and the encyclical he was advocating disobedience toward! Liberals and neocons agree that he paved the way for the grand dissent against Paul VI's condemnation of contraception in Humanae Vitae. I have often heard Buckleys name mentioned so as to excuse away 'The Gospel of Life'.

The bottom line here is that the modern Catholic conservative is intellectually lazy. He would rather listen to Mark Levin or Michael Savage or read National Review and be entertained or feel smart than invest the time and energy on learning magisterial teaching. Perhaps that laxity was excusable before the internet... it is not excusable today.

The Causes of Social and Political Trends:
Any of us conservatives who have wisened up to the antics of the Marxist/Leftist 'I hate America' media elite crowd... remember a time when we began watching news stories and seeing them in a newer and clearer way. I remember the first time I watched the evening news as anchored by some leftist of renown while asking myself 'why are they (the media) choosing to frame the story in such and such a way'.

And yet, as conservatives we seldom are critical like that if we are reading what we personally consider to be a reputable conservative columnist. We go even further with this absurdity and will silently squirm when we see Hannity lie and insult Fr. Euteneuer and the Church over Humane Vitae, while we simultaneously become vocal and indignant as we catch Hillary in a lie or manipulation (which is not a difficult task to witness). Many well intentioned conservative Catholics will explain this dichotomy away by saying that while they may disagree with a Buckly or a Hannity on this or that, that we conservatives must hang together if we are ever going to end abortion. Yet few of us ever notice that the 'pro life carrot' gets even further away with each passing Neocon year. Why is that? It is because if the issue ever came down to winning what Ronald Reagan hoped for in a Paramount Human Life Amendment, then there really would be no single issue to distinguish modern day Republicans from Democrats. This reality is the fruit of Unitarian theology which is the offspring of three hundred years of the great secret society. And this philosophy has indeed infiltrated modern day Republicanism.

Bishop Bernard Fellay stated that this modern Freemasonry affects even the Holy Church of Rome. Yet the good Catholic conservative would deny that the same forces successfully subverting the Church hierarchy would attempt to subvert modern conservative opinion makers... or represent their ideas in a society like Skull and Bones. Strange dichotomy of thought, no? They trust that Rome is subverted at high levels, but not that their own party is!

We now have Catholic conservative commentators joining the ranks of the leftist media in denouncing Gov. Mike Huckabee's Christmas message. Never mind that Huckabee is Americas best chance at ending abortion... “how DARE he use a Christian symbol in a political message.”

Many of us will nod and agree with the talking heads and don an air of 'false impartiality' just to show what a fair minded bunch of folks we conservatives are. Yet will we wonder as we march on some January 22nd of the future why we appear to be ineffective in our own cause.