Having just completed True Devotion to Mary, I ran across this on the Fr. Aiudan Nichol's Christendom Awake webpage, which has elucidated certain points from Montfort's handbook on spirituality

How might the Devil seduce one  into viewing divorce, abortion, euthanasia, adultery, gay marriage) as included within the scope of Christian love. In Novak's penetrating analysis , "it would be positively un-Christian to think ill of that "abomination." Bigotry??

Father John Parsons serves a parish in Dickson, Australia, and writes regularly for both religious and secular publications in that country. He penned this piece back in 2002-it is a fruitful read, as we are only beginning to see the Council implemented as it was intended...

Having written a chapter entitled  Libido , exerpts of which are searchable on my blog, one of my sources has just written extensively on the impact of the sexual revolution on souls.

I have noted Ross Douthat's recent work on religion in the United States , much of which is corroborated by my own research. Catholic World Report has just reviewed it! I have it on summer reading list.

Indeed. I have much to say on this in my forthcoming book, but for now this is sad but true commentary....

A turning away from the teaching of Catholic doctrine in favor of experimental liturgical activity and social protest prepared the way for the application to catechesis of the malevolent concept of “ongoing revelation” under the leadership of Gabriel Moran. For disciples of Moran, God was to be sought in the modern world, from which it follows that catechesis should be centered on finding meaning in one’s lived experience, an approach which was said to be authoritative following Vatican II. The following characteristics give indication of neomodernist inspiration in catechesis after the Council: ·        The prioritization of inquiry over the handing on of the Deposit of the Faith, wherein students under the catechists’ direction explore the meaning of their own experience; the net result of this method was to downgrade the bishop from the role traditionally assigned him as chief catechist in his diocese in deference to the “professional” expert more ...

I am rapidly becoming a Douthat fan and  here's why !

Libido , Paul VI believed was one crack through which the Devil could enter the Body of Christ . We live in a sexually-befuddled culture. Here is another example..

In The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God , the thought and writings of NEOMODERNIST theologians who style themselves as an "alternate magisterium" are a recurrent phenomenon. Though they are dying of, a few remain active, as seen here :

In our attempt to get a clear understanding of how we arrived at the present crisis of faith, it is instructive to examine the experience of another council peritus , Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, theologian, Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, gloriously elevated by the Holy Spirit to the Chair of St. Peter as Pope Benedict XVI in April, 2005. By way of background, from 1930-1950 in response to the pervasive secularism of these years in Europe , a broad intellectual and theological movement emerged among prominent European theologians, among them Frs. Romano Guardini, Karl Adam, Henri de Lubac, Jean Danielou, Yves Congar, Louis Boyer, and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The inspiration for this movement was a belief that the Catholic Faith had to speak more effectively to the modern world, and that to do this a rediscovery of all of the riches of the two-thousand year tradition of the Church was a crucial step. These reform-minded theologians saw that the precursor t...

The urgency of the issue of gay marriage at this time and the compelling arguments raised against it here, make this paper an important resource: Answering Advocates of Gay Marriage KATHERINE YOUNG AND PAUL NATHANSON Claim 1 : Marriage is an institution designed to foster the love between two people. Gay people can love each other just as straight people can. Ergo, marriage should be open to gay people. Claim 2 : Not all straight couples have children, but no one argues that their marriages are unacceptable Claim 3 : Some gay couples do have children and therefore need marriage to provide the appropriate context. Claim 4 : Marriage and the family are always changing anyway, so why not allow this change? Claim 5 : Marriage and the family have already changed, so why not acknowledge the reality? Claim 6 : Children would be no worse off with happily married gay parents than they are with unhappily married straight ones. Claim 7 : Given global overpopulation, why w...

Washington D.C., May 9, 2012 / 04:07 am ( CNA/EWTN News ) .- Polling analysts believe that the vote of Catholics in the U.S. remains important and could play a crucial role in the upcoming presidential election. Research associate Dr. Mark M. Gray told CNA on May 7 that Catholics remain “an important subgroup” in the U.S. electorate. Gray, who works as director of Catholic polls for Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, believes it is likely that the Catholic vote will be even more important in this election year than it has been in the past. Historically, the “Catholic vote” has been considered important because the candidate who receives the majority of the votes cast by Catholics generally wins the election, he explained. A Gallup survey conducted in April 2012 found Catholic registered voters split between presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Both candidates received 46 percent of the Catholic vote, with 8 percent responding ...

With the help of God, if it be His will, my work, The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God , excerpts of which have been posted on this blog, will be published and available on Amazon.com Be sure to check back often!

Mr. Geeorge Weigel is one of the most prolific and relevant commentators on the Catholic scene in the New Millenium. He has a prescient piece here

When conciliar teaching precluded such deviant “reforms,” an appeal to “the spirit of Vatican II” was made by the defectors. Religious themselves were sent to seminars, conferences, and think-tanks which pressured them to abandon hierarchical structures in favor of the “democratic,” to question traditional doctrinal certainties, and to demand reasons for those things formerly regarded as sacred, the most important of which was the basis for their vocation to the religious life. They became exposed to new anthropologies under the influence of psychology, sociology, and other social sciences, acceptance of which many sisters were naturally compliant under obedience — all this in spite of the obviousness that such changes were not approved by Rome and threatened the existence of their communities. In other words, the desired ressourcement of the council Fathers , rather than providing the guiding atmosphere in which aggiornamento was to occur, was ignored in favor of “updating.” ...

S.M. Miranda,  Catholic layman who has dedicated a website to the evangelization of the Catholic faith in defense against modern skepticism, heresy and unbelief, has presciently written: The Church has always been beset by evil and false teachings for as long as she has existed.  There are three main reasons why division and discord have always threatened (but never sapped) the foundation of the Church.  The first and primary reason is that the Church stands as a lamp set on a hill for all to see and hear.   She proclaims the message of her master, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and condemns the evils of the world while offering healing and forgiveness to all evildoers.  The visible Church’s mission of healing and teaching does not go unnoticed by the Prince of this world: the devil.  The Catholic Church stands as the ark of salvation and a very real threat to his domain.  Hence the devil attempts every kind of attack on the Church by use of exter...

Vatican City, May 6, 2012 / 04:06 pm ( CNA/EWTN News ) .- Bishop James D. Conley of Denver said the news of rising seminarian numbers across the United States has delighted Pope Benedict XVI. “He was very happy to receive that information,” Bishop Conley told CNA on May 4 after meeting the Pope at the Vatican. “He said he had heard that vocations were going up in the United States and he said this is very positive news and, in fact, he had a big smile on his face when he heard the news.” Bishop Conley was one of ten bishops from Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming who had an audience with Pope Benedict as part of their five-day “ad limina” pilgrimage to Rome which concludes tomorrow. He explained to the Pope that there is now a year-on-year increase in the numbers of young men opting for the priesthood across many US dioceses. “I told him that in the Archdiocese of Denver both of our seminaries, St John Vianney Theological Seminary and Redeptoris Mater Neo...

Lumen Gentium instructed that religious are to live out the counsels in community to a greater degree in service to the Church (living for God alone), and in doing so model for the laity what grace can accomplish. Reflecting upon why God made us, which is to share in His life forever, religious are only too happy to be a road sign for the rest of humanity pointing the best way to love of neighbor. Paul VI, expanding on Lumen Gentium , alluded to this in Evangelica Testificatio , his Apostolic Exhortation of June, 1971: It is precisely for the sake of the kingdom of heaven that you have vowed to Christ, generously and without reservation, that capacity to love, that need to possess and that freedom to regulate one's own life, which are so precious to man. Such is your consecration, made within the Church and through her ministry—both that of her representatives who receive your profession and that of the Christian community itself, whose love recognizes, welcomes, sustains ...