Libido Redux: Told Ya

In 2015 I wrote of

....a direct correlation between a failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching and the present phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors by homosexual Catholic priests and inattentive bishops running interference for them. I will never understand how one could fail to see this as anything other than the fruits of a protracted failure to uphold and live the Church’s sexual moral teaching in the United States since Vatican II.

-The Smoke of Satan In the Temple of God

The former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has written a letter alleging systematic coverup of the disordered and abusive behavior of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, who has resigned from the College of Cardinals and awaits canonical trial on charges he molested at least one minor. Since that charge became public on June 20^th, other accusers have come forward, some of them alleging they suffered abuse in seminary or as priests, while at least one other accuser — the first person McCarrick baptized as a priest — alleges his abuse began when he was aged 11 years.

The Holy Father has told the media he’s ‘not going to say a word’ about McCarrick cover-up...

The Vigano Letter has ignited a media firestorm, and naturally one wishes to know of one's own bishop's response to the alleged scandal.

If one needs to familiarize oneself with the news, and is short on time, here is the National Catholic Register:

My take on all of this? I set it down in my book:

That our world needs to turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, and receive forgiveness of sins is evident by “the abyss of ever-new atrocities:” worldwide racial and ethnic hate which increases wars of unthinkable, often genocidal violent cruelty; children who, if they are allowed to be born live in danger of abuse and violence, at times even in their homes; large urban streets serving as dormitories for the homeless; human insecurities and depression leading to escapism in drug use and even suicide; global poverty and pollution, over-consumption, and crime; popular loss of faith in global leaders; and scandals in business, government, and the Church. I am sure the reader could add his or her own to this list, and the age-old question is: what is the solution? Who may one trust to provide the solution that may be believed? Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

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Novus Motus Liturgicus

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: In 1959, Pope John XXIII saw a true need for liturgical renewal within the Roman Rite in accordance with the metaphorical principle of organic development, the aim of the Liturgical Movement endorsed by Pope St. Pius X. In authentic organic development, the Church listens to what liturgical scholars deem necessary for the gradual improvement of liturgical tradition, and evaluate the need for such development, always with a careful eye on the preservation of the received liturgical tradition handed down from century to century. In this way, continuity of belief and liturgical practice is ensured. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time, the principle of organic development ensures that in the Mass, “only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture , but receive as a gift. Organic de...

Blogging Disciples!

To promote a book I spent years in writing , I began this blog. I am a baby boomer who knows all too little about blogging and the latest techie stuff. As I was perusing various Catholic blog sites, I noticed a post by Fr. Longenecker entitled, "The Smoke of Satan." If one troubles oneself to read Fr.'s quite accurate assessment, and becomes interested in just exactly how, according to the Pope who coined the phrase "Smoke of Satan" the Devil made his entrance into the post-Vatican II Church in the U.S., then my book is just what the Savior may have ordered, so why don't you!?

Are We in a War?

Power Line POSTED ON NOVEMBER 22, 2020 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DEMOCRATS , LIBERALS , SOCIALISM FIGHTING WORDS, BY DAVID HOROWITZ Our friend David Horowitz wrote this essay, which he titled “Fighting Words.” It is a call for freedom-loving Americans to fight back against the totalitarian Left. By now it should be obvious – even to conservatives – that we are in a war. It is a conflict that began nearly fifty years ago when the street revolutionaries of the Sixties joined the Democrat Party. Their immediate goal was to help the Communist enemy win the war in Vietnam, but they stayed to expand their influence in the Democrat Party and create the radical force that confronts us today. The war that today’s Democrats are engaged in reflects the values and methods of those radicals. It is a war against us – against individual freedom, against America’s constitutional order, and against the capitalist engine of our prosperity. Democrat radi...

From Columbine to Christ: "Not only did God lead me out of Columbine, he was leading me to himself." - Denver Catholic

From Columbine to Christ: "Not only did God lead me out of Columbine, he was leading me to himself." - Denver Catholic : Every school day for almost two years, Jenica Thornby would spend her lunch hour in the library at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Every day, except April 20, 1999. …

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

One World Religion (Part II)

J esus' exclusive status was proven by the Incarnation and the Resurrection. Our salvation is God's gift, not the result of human effort. The Church's role is to proclaim this Good News and to challenge the world to respond. Neomodernist theologians see this claim to a definitive role in salvation as "scandalous." Saying that to give such a prominent position to Jesus an obstacle to dialogue with other faiths. It prejudges the outcome of ecumenical talks by demoting other spiritualties to a lesser position. Similarly, Leonard Swidler, whom I discuss in Smoke , opines: "there is a deeper reality which goes beyond the empirical surface experiences of our lives, and for us Jesus is the bond-bursting means of becoming aware of that deeper reality (as for Buddhists it is Gautama)." This suggests that, while for Christians the way to the transcendent is through Jesus, for others it is through their own revered figures. Undoubtedly, from an empirical ...

On Marriage and Family

Today should one attend a wedding, it is quite possible that the parents of either the bride or groom in attendance will be married, either in the Catholic Church or outside it, to someone other than the one they were first married to. In such a case, one would find oneself praying that the offspring of said marriage will not meet with the same fate. The state of marriage today is what it is in part due to poor sacramental preparation in the years immediately following Vatican II for reasons I take up in my book, another fruit of the “sexual revolution” . Sad, but as is well-known, many young Catholics these days are delaying marriage, hooking up, practicing birth control, and cohabiting before getting married. Traditional marriage is under assault, and many baptized Catholics are joining in the attack, especially in favoring “same-sex marriage.” Thus it is inspiring to see the shepherds of the flocks gathering in synod to discuss “the pastoral challenges o...

Libido Redux

PRAYER BEFORE THE MARITAL ACT (aka, SEX) Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes. Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will. Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in our true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, for ever and ever. Mary, our Mother, intercede for us. Amen.

Who is Behind the Church That Never was?

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. 4 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 n...

Libido Redux: Germain Grisez on Vatican II

Germain Grisez For 30 years, until 2009, Germain Grisez was professor of Christian Ethics at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md. He is one of America’s most respected Catholic philosophers. He began his career teaching ethics at Georgetown in 1959. His 1965 book Contraception and the Natural Law was an important part of the debate over contraception, and he assisted Jesuit Father John Ford when Pope Paul VI called on him to serve on the Pontifical Commission for Population, Family and Birthrate prior to the drafting of the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae . Both men's writings provided a counterpoint to those who suggested that birth control was not an intrinsic evil and the choice to use it should left to couples, and were instrumental in research for my chapter on Catholic sexual moral teaching. His magnum opus , The Way of the Lord Jesus Christ , can be found both online and in print . He recently discussed the Second Va...

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