Skip to main content

From: The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God

In the United States, the 1960s marked the beginning of a breakdown in sexual mores and a rise in family disruption, joined with a culture of dissent as many tried to rationalize deviations from traditional morality. We witnessed a massive social experiment linked to genuine progress for which the Church was not prepared — discrimination against African-Americans and women was coming to an end, and Catholics were ever-increasingly undergoing assimilation into contemporary culture. As a result, Catholics began placing their spiritual lives in one compartment and their daily activities in the secular arena in another, commencing to treat their Catholic faith as an entirely private matter, open to a “pick-and-choose” approach to doctrine. Many theologians, religious educators and clergy succumbed to the same inducement. So it was hard for the doctrinal teaching of Vatican II to be heard; what did get through was often not the true council, but a “spirit” of Vatican II.
The Devil’s goal is to seduce, to lead people away from faithful obedience to God. All that he does with regard to human beings is willfully evil, in order that he might bring them spiritual, supernatural, eternal death.  I remind the reader of Paul VI’s insight (quoted in Chapter 1): “This matter of the Devil and of the influence he can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should be studied again, although it is given little attention today….” I hope to explain here that it was the sophistry of neomodernists theologians coupled with bishops sympathetic to their rebellion against the magisterium which influenced most Catholics’ views and practices regarding marriage and family in the face of the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s. In reading several of the more notable examples of this deceptive reasoning, remember that in Catholic teaching the Tempter is a “consummate deceiver” whose real designs are concealed behind what may seem to be divinely inspired, but are in reality instigated by him.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Neomodernism vs. Religious Life (conclusion)

That’s a credit to him, that he at least had pangs of conscience; whereas these other orders, like the Jesuits, even when they saw that the IHMs were almost extinct, neverthe­less they invited the same team in. Oh, yes. Well, actually we started with the Jesuits before we started with the nuns. We did our first Jesuit work­shop in ‘65. Rogers got two honorary doctorates from Jesuit universities…. A good book to read on this whole question is Fr. Jo­seph Becker’s The Re-FormedJesu­its. It reviews the collapse of Jesuit training between 1965 and 1975. Je­suit formation virtually fell apart; and Father Becker knows the influence of the Rogerians pretty well. He cites a number of Jesuit novice masters who claimed that the authority for what they did—and didn’t do—was Carl Rogers. Later on when the Jesuits gave Rogers those honorary doctorates, I think that they wanted to credit him with his influence on the Jesuit way of life. But do you think there were any short-term beneficial...

Bishops Bishoping!

As the nation’s courts increasingly strike down popularly-supported state bans on marriage between men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, bishops increasingly are “bishoping”, to coin a term I use often in my book; i.e., they are at long last defending the faith against the onslaught always sure to come from the secular culture. Diocesan Catholic schools in Cincinnati and Oakland, Calif., are weathering criticism for contracts that require teachers not only to witness to the faith in the classroom, but also in how they live their lives in the public square. Condemnation of Catholic-school contracts that ask teachers to not controvert the Church in public have received dramatized coverage from the secular media in California and Ohio, where a slight number of teachers are opposing the contractual language. A a teacher in a Catholic school it is heartening to see the dioceses in question standing their ground, emphasizing the dynamic role teachers ...

Libido V

I think it helpful that, as I discuss in chapter 3 of my book that recent events corroborate Pope Paul VI's prophecy in Humanae Vitae as evidenced by this story...

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D:   This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Rolling Stone gathers Ross

Halfway through reading Ross Douthat's Bad Religion , I wish to warn Catholic "progressives" that liberal Protestantism gives us a for-taste of what the Holy Spirit will always guard Christ's Church against- read it in the Times here.  See also Ross' blog at right.

Post-Obergefell: Dutch woman to marry dog after cat-husband dies

Years go, when support for "same-sex marriage was 12% nationally, I would argue to my classes that it would never catch hold with a majority of the American people, as such a redefinition of marriage would not preclude one from marrying anyone one wanted- I used the example of marrying my pet turtles. No one took me seriously, though I wasnot far off the mark in this prediction, as evidenced in  Dutch woman to marry dog after cat-husband dies - NY Daily News : 'via Blog this'

Recent contest win for Missions Category!

The conversion of my revised Book Cover is complete! It is now orderable and appears on the following: Amazon.com-Kindle Barnes & Noble - Nook Apple iBooks

Because Rope Sales are up...

In light (or dark?) of the Fifty Shades of Grey bewilderment, I think it time catechesis on the dignity of women be emphasized every chance one gets.  Alexandra Richards reminds us that women are a threat to his mission of the destruction of souls. But not if they are his property. The following  warrants  prayerful  thought : To Women: Be What God Made You You don’t need to read Genesis to see that God created men and He created women, but have you ever asked yourself why he created you a woman and not a man? We live in a time where gender is as interchangeable as ketchup and mustard, where men dress up as women and women dress up as men. We are having an identity crisis, and it’s time to find out why God created you the way He did. God created your feminine heart to give and to receive true love. Yet, why is your heart is daily torn apart by a culture that is blinded to your indispensable dignity? We need only look at how the contraceptive industry n...

Libido Redux: Who is to Blame for the Evil of Pornography?

Donny Pauling has rightly  observed: "....our enemy in the fight against porn is  not  the pornographers who produce it, or the people who participate in creating it. As St. Paul states in his letter to the Ephesians, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, powers, forces of darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the spiritual realm.  Trying to fight porn by going after pornographers is like trying to treat one symptom of a disease rather than finding its cure.  Pornography has a cause, rooted in the condition of our own hearts.  To fight it, we must start with ourselves, being willing to face the part we play. We must let our hearts be changed."