Satan, the Father of Lies is at it again...here...    In 2 Corinthians 2:11, Paul said that he was not ignorant of Satan’s schemes. We cannot afford to be ignorant either.

In view of the reality of spiritual warfare in our world, and recent writings that nothing has ever happened at Medjugorje, I offer the following advice: 1. Read this article . 2. procure a copy of Fr. Groeschel's A Still Small Voice

Big news day in Washington today... Currently I am battling degenerative disc disease... which has limited my ability to blog. In view of today's ruling and my age, I hope I beat it before Caesar decides I may not have certain treatments..... Here is a cogent look at the Supremes' decision....

In my second chapter I recount Benedict XVI's recollections in The Ratzinger Report the origins of the journal Communio, also mentioned by Fr. Mark Barron of Catholicism fame in t his look at the role played by  Fr.Yves Congar at the Second Vatican Council. ... For more on the division discussed in Fr. Barron's piece, plan on getting my book!

….Pope Benedict XVI has seen the need to recover the inseparable connection between the Mass and evangelization, for we evangelize to bring the sheep into the fold of the living God in the Eucharist, an experience which in turn compels us to accept our mission as disciples and evangelize. Would that an awareness of our present condition would spawn a recovery of the vibrant liturgical and evangelical spirituality of the early Christian disciples, who remarked often of their dependency on the Mass for their existence! Evangelical proclamation of the Gospel invites the believer to be in relationship with God; hence, the importance of prayer — personal, popular, and above all liturgical prayer. Only in experience of God’s life does the reality of His existence dawn on the believer. Thus, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the most sublime prayer of the Church, emphasis should be placed on God and His action in the sacrifice, not on ourselves. Pope Benedict has noticed an error with...

After a bout with eye surgery, I have completed final edits for The Smoke of Satan . The goal is to publish by the end of July. The book will be available on Amazon.com, and Barnes and Noble.

The Smoke of Satan ends with my conclusion to the crisis of faith-- the ongoing need for evangelization and conversion, much as is set down in this article.

Of late I have been hearing much of the book referred to in the image above. In my third chapter I write: In psychoanalytic thought, libido (from the Latin: desire, lust ) is the psychic and emotional energy associated with man’s instinctual biological drives (sexual desire). Though theoretically held in check by the ego and super-ego, in Freudian thought libido understands man as a sexual animal whose happiness derives from the unrestrained libido . The virtue of chastity in Freudian logic could only end in illness and unhappiness. Such thinking became normative in the United States in the 1960s, and it was not long before “the greatest of natural mysteries,” the marriage act, was reduced to an openly discussable “fun activity.” Paul VI offered libido as one way Satan, the “malign, clever seducer” undermines man’s sexual morality with his “sophistry.” The Devil’s strategy here, as the Pope cautioned, is “eminently logical.” He approaches man with what amounts to a false rea...

In The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God , Timothy Wallace presents to the reader—a synthesized, truthful, and most of all—easily graspable account of the state of the Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council. It is to be lamented that many Catholics are unaware of the assault taking place against the Church in this age.  While they can look out and witness the effects, they remain in the dark regarding the symptoms. Wallace accomplishes a great service to these individuals by providing a comprehensive, yet completely accessible account of the historical and philosophical movements that influenced a generation of Catholic thought and practice in the fields of, among other things, sexual ethics, liturgical worship, religious life, catechesis, and the episcopacy.  After laying out the symptoms, Wallace also discusses the key to discovering the true teaching of the Council—which is found in documents themselves and in particular, the thoughts of two individuals who ...

Having written on Paul VI's contention that Libido was one way Satan enters the sanctuary, this event at the oldest Catholic institution in the U.S.  proves him correct....

I am one of the generational Catholics schooled in the Faith by the teaching of the Baltimore Catechism prior to Vatican II, which the postconciliar religious education establishment had branded as defective pedagogy; my quarrel with them is not over their contention concerning the style of teaching, but rather their view that the truths of the Catholic faith on the existence and nature of God, the creation and Fall, the Incarnation and Redemption, and the Church set down in the Baltimore Catechism were defective as well. 

I am grateful to Our Lord, (and a plug here for my Guardian Angel), my mother and the Sisters of Notre Dame De Namur for instilling in me a clear sense of the transcendent, “absolutely other” Triune God of revelation as I was growing up in the 1950s. I have made mention of my childhood religious formation in the preface; my gratitude stems from the Father’s gifts of the workings of baptismal grace, a mother who “knew how to mother” in a Catholic family, and devout religious sisters who taught me the fundamentals of the Deposit of the Faith. I believe all of this shielded me against the onslaught of neomodernist religious education “professionals” who led my catechist formation in the 1970s.

The Holy Father has referenced events such as this in his remarks here in Ireland....

As a long time fan of Jimmy's, I wish to share (as he requests) his recent piece in which he offers an "interview" in which he poses questions that are answered in the writings of Bl. John Paul II: Thank you, Your Holiness, for joining us for this "interview." Please allow me to begin with a very direct question: Why should anyone go to hell? Isn't God an infinitely good and merciful Father to all of us? Why would he impose such a punishment on his children? God is the infinitely good and merciful Father. But man, called to respond to him freely, can unfortunately choose to reject his love and forgiveness once and for all, thus separating himself for ever from joyful communion with him. It is precisely this tragic situation that Christian doctrine explains when it speaks of eternal damnation or hell. It is not a punishment imposed externally by God b...

In the nineteenth century, as we have seen, the Church was confronted by the forces of modernism — positivism, rationalism, liberalism, socialism, and communism among others, all condemned by Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors . In response, Pius issued the summons for Vatican Council I to settle the questions of papal primacy and some revisiting of canon law to better meet the challenges posed by modernism. Regarding the liturgy, the Council confined itself to a confirmation of the Tridentine reforms, that the Church might maintain the dignity of liturgical worship. Thus it was not until the twentieth century liturgical movement that we observe the reformist impulse which gave rise to Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium . The movement’s purpose was to draw the faithful more nearer to God through a more profound attachment to the Liturgy. Dom Alcuin Reid sees as its foundation stone the wish of Pope St. Pius X: Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spir...

It is right to continually give praise to the Father that He gave us His Son to redeem us from our prideful natures, the “original wound.” In the end we are not saved by Our Savior’s dynamic words, but by His passion, death and resurrection. But Christ’s obedient self-sacrifice must be responded to by repentance and conversion on our part. As Peter Kreeft has written, this new life in Christ “comes into us by faith, through us by hope, and out of us by the works of love…but many Catholics think we’re saved by good intentions, or being nice, … or doing a sufficient number of good deeds.” And what does true discipleship, our new life in Him, save us from? Hell. Unless we are saved from the kingdom of darkness by faith through grace working in love, this state of hell will become stronger and in time everlasting: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” In ou...

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...

….as both Vatican II and The Catechism remind us, “Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul.” It is not simply biological, as the separatist position says, for we are a unity of body and soul. John Paul II has always written of marriage as a total self-donation of our bodies and wills, wherein husband and wife can give their very selves to the other. Sexual intercourse between the whole person of the spouses brings about this self-donation in the most intimate way humanly possible. I am mystified as to why Catholics do not see this teaching as much more exciting than the separatist view of sex, except to say that for the reasons which appear in these pages, Catholics have hardened their hearts to the teachings of Jesus Christ in and through His Church, which sees the fertility of the husband and wife as a gift from God and the end ( telos ) of marriage where children are the fruit of the conjugal love, the total giving of self of husband ...