Go Ye Therefore and Teach All Nations

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God:

So it is that because of the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the Devil, many Catholics do not practice their faith to the point of standing out from those who are ignorant of Christ. In approaching the vexing questions of modern society, too many Catholics take positions based on a liberal-conservative spectrum, rather than on the teachings of Jesus Christ which come to us via His church. Only genuine conversion, metanoia, the fruit of evangelization, will change this reality, allowing Catholics to experience the joy of faithful discipleship. No ideology may substitute for real personal conversion. In essence, metanoia means to question one’s own way of living, to start to see life through God’s eyes, and turn away from conformity to this world. Genuine conversion predisposes us not to see ourselves as the measure of all things, but to a humility that trusts ourselves to God’s love, which becomes the measure of all things. This was the central teaching of Vatican II: a renewed call to the faithful to strive after holiness, which means doing the Father’s will in all things, empowered by His grace.

To date, the finest Catholic evangelization organization I have witnessed is that of St. Paul. So it is with great anticipation that I intend to pray for the success of Synod 16 in the Archdiocese of Detroit:

Synod 16

“Synods are by God’s grace something powerful in the life of the Church, a way to grow together. Our community will come together in the midst of the Holy Spirit to discern where He seems to take us in order to re-evangelize ourselves and our culture. By listening to what the members say in the synod, I will be able to discern and ratify the work of the Holy Spirit, and it will be a time of great grace.”

Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit

Being Catholic is ALWAYS Fun

“ F ive years ago, I would have been afraid of saying anything like what the pope said in his [recent] interview,” the Rev. Tom Reese told Sally Quin . “I’m ecstatic. I haven’t been this hopeful about the church in decades....” “It’s fun to be a religion reporter again. For a while it felt like being on the crime beat. It’s fun to be Catholic again.” George Weigel has raised the question of whether or not Fr. Tom has been paying attention throughout the last quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. Among his findings on the legacies of Pope Francis' predecessors: Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. millions of adults have been baptized as or entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. new forms of campus ministry in the mold of JPII's "New Evangelization" have developed across the United States. Catholic-studies programs have bloomed on genuinely Catholic campuses across the U.S. the Church has produced the most c...

"The Spirit of Vatican II"

My advice to one confronted with doubt sown by those who make reference to “correct interpretations of Vatican II” is to reflect closely upon the words of John Paul II: With the Council, the Church first had an experience of faith, as she abandoned herself to God without reserve, as one who trusts and is certain of being loved. It is precisely this act of abandonment to God which stands out from an objective examination of the Acts. Anyone who wished to approach the Council without considering this interpretive key would be unable to penetrate its depths. Only from a faith perspective can we see the Council event as a gift whose still hidden wealth we must know how to mine . In short, it is this abandonment, this interpretive faith perspective that is woefully lacking in many who would offer to explain what the Council taught in “the spirit of Vatican II.” Watch here to see what abandonment looks like!

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'

From "The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God"

….At the close of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI remarked that Christianity, the religion of God-Incarnate, had encountered the religion of man-made God. He was of the opinion that much of the Council was given over to demonstrating the compatibility of Enlightenment belief with Catholicism. Several years hence, on June 29, 1972, Paul delivered another assessment of the state of the Roman Catholic Church since the close of Vatican II. As Cardinal Silvio Oddi recalled it (in an article first published on March 17, 1990, in Il Sabato magazine in Rome) the Holy Father told a congregation: We have the impression that through some cracks in the wall the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God: it is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, dissatisfaction, confrontation. And how did this come about? We will confide to you the thought that may be, we ourselves admit in free discussion, that may be unfounded, and that is that there has been a power, an adversary power. Let us call him by his name: the...

Satan makes his way to us through the libido!

Let us take a great civilization historically devoid of pornography, and examine what happens once the door is opened a crack, for smoke to enter:

My Intended Audience

I have written for those Catholics born and perhaps catechized before Vatican II or immediately thereafter who as yet are unaware of the true teaching of the Council. It should not surprise the reader that there are Catholics whose lifestyles do not differentiate them all that much from those who are not Catholic and/or Christian. Moreover, many Catholics of the “baby-boom” generation are alienated from the Church all together because their only exposure has been to a superficial, cultural Catholicism, impotent in the face of an American culture increasingly without faith. Conversely, many others have left the Church – hungrier, as they say, for a more “biblically-based church.” The book is also intended for young people of the “JP II” generation of Catholics, born long after the council but perhaps not fully aware of the turmoil spawned by dissent in the Church which, though on the wane, is still with us today. These young people, especially those in authentically Catholic college...

LIBIDO REDUX: The Pornography Affair

A s the traditional family is the building block of a healthy civilization, and as the family is now under attack by numerous secular forces in violation of the right of God, I blog occasionally on the destructive effects of one of these adverse spiritual forces, pornography, on souls as well as the family. We are blessed to have Donny Pauling , an ex-pornography producer prior to his conversion to Our Lord, who has devoted himself to making amends for the damage he openly admits his previous vocation has caused. For one who doubts that one can suffer the unfaithfulness of a spouse addicted to pornography, the following letter dispels the error: Hello Donny, I first want to say that I just found your blog yesterday and I sat and wept at my kitchen table as I began to read the entries, one at a time from start to finish. You have chosen such an amazing journey and I have NO doubt that God will co...

Do Not Be Ashamed

T he demeaning and of Pope Benedict is quickening in combination with the growing exaltation of Pope Francis in the secular world and among the "progressive" dissidents within the Church. Thus I believe a little review of his Pontificate is in order, as the signs of the times required him to shoulder a heavy cross and suffer a quiet type of crucifixion due to his exceptional faith and courageous writings and actions. Pope Benedict took strong, long overdue and very necessary actions against moral corruption within the clergy, the religious orders and within Catholic aid agencies. He appointed many bishops faithful to the true Vatican II, and removed many who were a cause of scandal to the Church. He took actions on the liturgy and other issues that were not popular, but which he saw as essential to preserving Catholicism and Christian culture much as laid down in his The Spirit of the Liturgy. The full story of his papacy remains to be told. “And blessed is he who ...

Popes are not Presidents...

John Allen of the Globe has opined today that there are two key words that capture why many church officials believe it’s so important to avoid what they regard as false expectations of swift change to the church’s ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving communion and the other sacraments: Humanae Vitae, Paul VI's 1968 document reasserting the church’s traditional ban on birth control. It rocked the world, Allen writes, "in part because the reforming energies of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had led people to suspect change was just around the corner, in part because the pope himself had created a commission to study the issue." The o utcome of the Pope’s evential reassertion of the ban “soured public opinion on Pope Paul, in some ways inflicting a blow from which his papacy never really recovered. ” On matters related to marriage and the family, the Church has always seen the fertility of the husband and wife as a gift from God and the end ( telos...

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 ...

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