Vatican officials encouraging push to stop pro-aborts from receiving Communion August 8, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, episcopate, General Catholic, scandals.comments closed
Via Lifesitenews, and Sancte Pater:
Top officials at the Vatican are throwing their support behind pro-life Catholic leaders campaigning against dioceses allowing pro-abortion politicians receive Holy Communion, says one such leader.
American Life League President Judie Brown spoke with LifeSiteNews yesterday about her recent trip to Rome, where she spoke with Vatican officials about Communion for pro-abortion politicians and the changing pro-life landscape in America.
Cardinal Raymond Burke told Brown to be “persistent” in her campaign to have Canon 915 enforced, she said.
Canon 915 states: “Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
Brown also noted that Burke encouraged her to make use of the numerous articles he himself has written on the subject.
“He encouraged us to be persistent, to use his articles and not to back down from our position which is the same as his,” she said. “It’s not arbitrary it’s a matter of the law of the church which needs to be enforced.”
Cardinal Burke, she noted, spoke of applying the sanction called for in canon 915 as “therapeutic” in terms of helping people come back in line with the church.
The fact that many bishops are “not comfortable” about it, said Brown, doesn’t matter.
Brown also addressed at the meeting how intentional distortions of official Church statements have confused Catholics on the abortion issue.
“In America, conception is defined as implantation, so when the Church makes a statement – Dignitas Personae is the most recent example – our enemies turn around and say even the Church doesn’t believe there’s life before implantation,” Brown explained to Zenit news.
“Church officials must be clear that when the word conception is used, it means the ‘biological beginning of a person.’”
OK, so maybe ‘Vatican officials’ means ‘Cardinal Burke,’ but I’m OK with that! I will continue praying that it be God’s Will that Raymond Cardinal Burke will be the next Pope.
I love this photo of him. It has tremendous snark value:
But I will agree – the failure to enforce Canon 915 has been a huge source of scandal for years.
Much awesomeness from Fr. Michael Rodriguez August 8, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, episcopate, foolishness, General Catholic, Interior Life, Latin Mass, scandals, sickness, Society.comments closed
My friend Steve B. told me that many of Fr. Michael Rodriguez’ sermons and interviews are online. Unfortunately, I cannot embed them in this very limited WordPress blog format, but there are many good sermons and interviews, too many to list! Go check them out!
To whet your appetite, here is a short interview on the sanctity of marriage that I can imbed:
Please consider supporting Fr. Rodriguez. You could send him a short, kindly worded note here:
San Juan Bautista Catholic Church
5649 Dailey Ave.
El Paso, TX 79905
LCWRs plan for rejuvenation – more new age! August 8, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, religious, sadness, scandals, silliness.comments closed
So the LCWR, the Leadership Conference of Worldly Wacked-out Women Religious, the group representing about 80% of US women’s orders but dominated by heterodox leadership, is holding their annual meeting in California this week. As they survey the wreckage their shunning of traditional habits of religious life have caused, they are seeking to find their way forward (which is odd, given the age of the participants). In the past, this has always involved numerous meetings and harangues on the feminist dialectic and discussions of their developing ‘post-Christian spirituality.’ But not this time! No, they plan on spending the next four days deep in contemplation! You might think “alright, these sisters are going to get back to basics!” But you’d be wrong:
The contemplative process developed by the conference appears simple at first — reflect silently on global events of the past two years and how these events shape the mission of U.S. women religious, consider what new realities might be emerging and what responses to these realities are being called forth, then share those insights in a word or phrase with one another. [uhhhh………yeah]
The depth of the experience, however, belies the apparent simplicity. It’s a suspension of rational Western thinking as the participants drop into what Zinn calls “a contemplative way of seeing what God sees.” [‘rational western thinking’….is this codespeak for rejecting the Truth Christ has revealed through His Church. While rationalism as a philosophy is dangerous and generally opposed to traditional Catholic philosophy, ‘rational thinking’ could be taken to mean the entire ‘logic informed by Grace’ mentality of scholarship and, yes, thinking, that the entire Church has followed and inculcated into Western society, in spite of the efforts of ‘way-outs’ like the good sisters to shuck off that thinking in favor of disjointed ‘eastern’ philosophies. In essence, IMO, the sisters are speaking of new age and eastern transcendentalism]
[…]
This contemplative process, the sisters assert, has potential far beyond religious communities. It can offer individuals, institutions and political entities a new way of resolving differences through collaboration and peace instead of competition and conflict. [remember – competition is a sympton of the dread PATRIARCHY and inherently bad, as is all western patriarchal thought. I think we’re seeing a picture emerge] And it can help people stay in dialogue with one another in the midst of such differences so they can forge a new vision together. [What about dialogue with the visitation Cardinal Loverde ordered? What happened with that, when many women religious said they would refuse to cooperate?]“We have learned a great deal over the years about managing diversity and living together with polarities,” [what?] (Sr. Pat )Farrell said. That wisdom, coupled with a deepening access to the Divine, might very well be the unique gift women religious are about to offer the church and the world, she said. [I have never heard the Saints discuss the ‘unique gift they are about to offer to the world.’ That is sadly just so much hubris]
(Sr. Marie) McCarthy points out the growing interest in meditation across all sectors of American society and believes it’s a sign of the times, one that garners great hope for the future of the entire planet. “This is not just a New Age fad, but a real experience of opening up to a new place,” she said.
I think that about clinches it – the sisters plan to engage in new age eastern, inwardly focused and necessarily God-excluding transcendental mediation. Which is essentially how they have gotten in the mess they’re in in the first place. As Larry D relates, this article mentions Jesus Christ precisely zero times. Read the entire article at the Distorter, if you can take it – it is entirely focused on these ‘brave, transgressive’ women religious, the bold path they are following, and how they can ‘transform the world.’ It’s the radical feminist ethos, filtered through a new age lens, with a slight coat of ‘God’ on top to make it sound ‘Christian.’
I will make a bold prediction – as the fruit of this ‘contemplation,’ the women religious will move even further afield from Catholicism. I wonder if they will even openly break with the Church?
Why a bishop missed Confession August 8, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, Eucharist, foolishness, General Catholic, Interior Life, Latin Mass, North Deanery, sadness, scandals, sickness, Society.comments closed
Via my friend Terry C., wow! This is a very, very telling post by the auxiliary bishop of Indianapolis, Bishop Christopher Coyne:
I left around 7:15 AM and got there in plenty of time to spend some time preparing for Mass and, hopefully, the Sacrament of Reconciliation. When Mass began, the priest, a guy about my age, came out and said, “Hello,” and then proceeded with the Mass. The only problem was he had forgotten the Sign of the Cross. Well, maybe he was just a little distracted. I think we did the penetential rite but I’m not sure. There was no “Gloria” so I was beginning to think we weren’t going to be celebrating the Feast of the Transfiguration since it hadn’t been mentioned yet but eventually we got there when he “prayed” a spontaneous opening prayer that did mention the Transfiguration.
Things kind of went downhill from there. I’ll spare you the details. I will say I’m pretty sure it was still a valid Mass even though he changed the words of the Eucharistic institution – a lot, not just a few……Even though the priest went way over the the line in terms of his ‘creativity’ this morning, I think the intention of those us who came to Mass was to celebrate the Eucharist as the Church intends and so it was.
As “Mass” progressed I was both disappointed and annoyed. I wasn’t angry. I learned the trick long ago of moving into emotional “cruise control” when this stuff starts to happen. [I wish I could learn that trick! Well, maybe I have, to a very <small> degree] I also began to wonder if I should say something to the priest afterwards. I mean, I was just there as a visitor not as his bishop or vicar general. I was also on vacation so … Nevertheless, I didn’t let it go. What I did or did not do, I will leave between me and the priest. I hope it was helpful.
I do know one thing. I certainly wasn’t going to ask him to hear my Confession. If he changed the words of the Institution Narrative, there’s no telling what he might do with the words of Absolution. I suppose I could have asked him before we began the sacrament if he would be so kind as to use the Church’s rite and not his own but then that opens a whole can of worms. So I didn’t go to Confession. I’ll try and make an appointment with a priest and go Monday. But isn’t it a shame that I couldn’t go to Confession? [It’s more than a shame – what if this bishop got hit by a bus on his way home from Mass? But that gets back also to the dirth of Confession time at many parishes]
Every time people ask my why some in the Church have a desire for the “extraordinary rite,” the traditional Latin Mass, I guess I can give them at least one good reason. Masses like this. [D’oh!]
I have no desire to celebrate the Tridentine Rite but any time I hear people criticize those who want the “traditional” Mass, I am more inclined to understand why they want this form of the Mass. Perhaps if each priest were committed to the correct celebration of the present Mass of Paul VI – the Church’s rites and not the rite of Fr. X – then maybe there would be less clamor for the “traditional” rite. [Many people I know who favor the Traditional form of the Mass felt ‘driven’ there – driven by irreverent Mass, a lack of focus on the Sacrificial nature of the Mass and the four ends of the Mass, lack of focus on the penitential Sacrament, bad catechesis, etc. There are many things one begins to appreciate once one begins to assist at TLMs, but the driving force is usually dissatisfaction with what is available at other parishes. Particular scandals over issues like having dissenting or heretical speakers at conferences on parish grounds can also prompt a decision to move on]
The simple fact that Bishop Coyne is discussing this issue so frankly is amazing. Such frank discussions of liturgical abuses and the problems (and reactions) they cause are rare. In general in this Diocese, I don’t think we have too many priests who make up their own form of the Mass, but there are a few (please feel free to correct me on this!) A certain lack of reverence and other problems (diocesan policy on EMHCs, tired guitar folk music, etc) are more quite widespread, and also need urgent attention. With more such shepherds as this, correctly diagnosing problems and moving to address them, will things (probably painfully slowly) improve? Or will it take the ‘biological solution?’
It is interesting to read the comments.
Sublime
You should see this movie August 8, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, sadness, scandals, sickness.comments closed
A bit explicitly political for this blog, perhaps, but if you haven’t heard of the documentary movie Agenda, you must check it out:
I watched most of this movie last night. It is chilling. I already knew much of what was presented, and while I might quibble with a few details, it was terrifying to see how the leftist/progressivist/communist effort to undermine this country in the view of leading it to eventually embrace communism has been so remarkably successful. We all thought communism was dead, but it just re-branded itself as progressivism, environmentalism, a hundred different -isms that are working in concert to destroy this nation as it was founded and intended to be and to turn it into either a radically socialist or actual ‘dictatorship of the not-so-proletariat (meaning, the self-annointed elites like to see themselves as those eventually wielding dictatorial power). Their success has been stunning, has been the lack of co-ordinated response. We’re actually very close to the end stage, where “America as we knew it” will no longer exist.
I cannot recommend watching this movie strongly enough. The one factor that was most interesting, is how a very small cabal of outright communists have, through their heavy influence of academia and the media, managed to wreack enormous havoc on this nation. It is incredible how inter-related all these communist front groups and individuals are. And our current president is one of them.
Divorce, gay marriage, abortion, horrible public schools that don’t teach knowledge to politicize students, out of control government spending, the growth of government worker’s unions – all have been part of a concerted plan to destroy this country. How close are we to being unable to turn this thing around?
I’d say we may already be terminal. This kind of thing can only be overcome with prayer, and fasting, and a committed effort to follow the universal call to holiness.
May God have mercy on us. I don’t think it even needs to be said that leftism in general and communism in particular can bear the existence of no other God – they are always and everywhere hostile to the Faith, and as numerous folks say in the movie – as socialism increases, the Faith collapses. Ecce: Europe, modern.
A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics 