Today’s Leftist Extremism and ‘Cancel Culture’ Was Baked Into ‘Liberal Democracy’ From the Outset November 15, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, cultural marxism, different religion, disaster, error, General Catholic, history, Revolution, scandals, secularism, sickness, Society, the struggle for the Church.comments closed
One of the most disturbing trends in American, and broader Western, culture today, is the fact that any deviation from leftist orthodoxy, from ‘woke politics,’ can get one’s life destroyed in a matter of minutes. An offhand joke made waiting on the tarmac for a flight can lead to a reaction that means no job, no friends, and no home by the time one lands at their destination. Holding to beliefs that were completely unremarkable and widespread a mere 5 or 8 years ago can do the same. Merely standing in a public space waiting for a bus and minding your own business can, with the right kind of propaganda, lead to a nearly life-destroying episode before one’s life has even begun.
Most people wonder what in the heck has happened. How have we gone from the free speech extremism of the 1960s to the totalitarian speech policing of today? I might argue that all have been part of the same overarching movement, a movement intended to destroy Christendom, that uses different tools at different points of its long march through the institutions, and which has no problem at all in contradicting itself, or spouting literal double-think almost constantly.
Still, most would conclude that there was a sunny, happy time in liberal democracy, a golden age we’ve somehow lost. Many people believe the closer one gets to the roots of today’s liberal free market state’s founding, the closer one is to an ostensible ideal.
But this may not be the case. In fact, many of the intellectual framers of today’s liberal state, from back in the time of the endarkenment, realized some of the tragic implications of the godless, at-war-with-the-Church system they were proposing. In fact, several of the most key “enlightenment” thinkers realized that what they were doing was proposing a contrary religious-cultural system to the then-existent Christendom, and that they looked forward to war with Christendom, and that to the hilt. Some of these thinkers were very explicit about this, as you will see below.
From Rousseau’s The Social Contract, an exegesis on how those who rebuffed the new order would have to be treated, and that quite savagely:
While the civil profession of faith (in the civil authority) can compel no one to believe them, it can banish him, nor for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing at need his life to his duty. If anyone, after publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does nto believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law. [These same liberals supposedly hated blasphemy laws, and yet here is one of their leading lights publicly calling for death for blasphemy against the “sacred” state’s “sacred” laws!]
The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary……..Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected……Now that there can be no longer an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothign contrary to the duties of citizenship. But wheover dares to say: “Outside the Church there is no slavation,” ought to be driven from the State, uless the State is teh Church, and the prince the pontiff.
So much for the tolerance of the new religion! Let no one think to be joined to Christ who is not prepared to be crucified under Pontius Pilate, for the godless state is ever satan’s arm.
And the revolution made clear from the beginning that any deviation from it’s orthodoxy, no matter how slight, would eventually be brutally punished, even with death. It was politic for the revolution, for a time, to pretend otherwise, to pretend open-mindedness and magnanimity, but no longer. As it nears its Omega point, the revolution drops the mask, and even schoolchildren can be crushed and destroyed – and that, for doing nothing at all wrong – solely for the ease of the revolution.
It was the same, of course, in the Soviet Union, and Maoist China, and Ortega’s Nicaraugua, Venezuela, etc., etc.
The only force capable of resisting this always advancing secularist onslaught is Catholicism – traditional Catholicism, since there are so many fake varieties today.
The Episcopate of the United States Catholic Church Has Always Been Americanist, Indifferentist, and even Heretical November 15, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, error, General Catholic, history, Immigration, priests, Revolution, scandals, secularism, sickness, Society, the struggle for the Church.comments closed
I mentioned recently I have been reading books by Solange Hertz. They are very valuable and enlightening reading, providing great insight into how the almost universally rock-solid Church of the 18th century became the structurally modernist, indifferentist, and leftist body that it is today.
Reading Hertz has been part of a broader study I’ve been blessed to make over the course of much of 2019, reading histories of the Church over the period 1800-1950, principally in the United States but also Europe. This is history that is almost entirely forgotten, and deliberately so, as it reveals the means and methods by which the Church was first penetrated, and then overtaken, by revolutionary forces. While many faithful Catholics today point to AA-1025 and communist penetration of the Church in the first half of the 20th century, to be frank, that analysis misses the mark. In point of fact, most of the damage was done in the 19th century, and came not from European revolutionaries (they more or less took advantage of an already existing situation), but from American ones.
American, ahem, Catholics, were responsible for much of the most destructive beliefs that burst into open view, with apparent approbation of the institutional hierarchy, at Vatican II. Indifferentism (rejection of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus), almost a maniacal focus on both materialism and ecumenism, the exaltation, if not practical worship of, democratic forms of government and the free market, tacit endorsement of blasphemy and sacrilege under the guise of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression”………..all these ideas came primarily from the United States and, it must be said, mostly Irish-lineage bishops and priests, though they did find fertile ground for these ideas throughout much of Europe.
A few datapoints to illustrate. The first American bishop, John Carroll, was a thoroughgoing Americanist, practically seeking to create an Americanist Gallist Church (a national church free from Rome’s influence). He practically worshipped the US Constitution and the American state and was influenced, to an almost unbelievable degree for a man who called himself Catholic, by the liberal wing of the protestant sects in the United States. He was also extremely close with the freemasons who dominated the American elite. He insisted, for instance, on the election of bishops, and even wanted election of priests, to go along with a vernacular liturgy and many other items protestants/masons would like to see changed regarding Church Doctrine. He was only just prevented from doing this by intervention from Rome, and his death.
Carroll also did all he could to upset and frustrate attempts by the constant waves of immigrants to maintain their traditional Church structures and parish lives within their own communities. Carroll and his disciples waged constant war against German, Polish, Italian, and other priests and lay people who sought to maintain the traditions of the Faith from Europe. They insisted all immigrants should be swiftly and thoroughly “Americanized,” bowing to the unique genius of the Constitution and the American(ist) way of life.
Thus, the tragic situation we see today, where the US episcopate demands unconstrained immigration in order to make up for the falling away of tens of millions of Catholics, has persisted throughout the Church’s history in this country. In the latter half of the 19th century, 25-30% of recent Catholic immigrants fell away from the Faith within 25 years of arriving in the US. Most became some flavor of protestant. This has been the regular reality of Catholic life in these United States, save perhaps for the brief period of the 1920s to the 1950s when the Catholic Church appeared much more orthodox, reliable, and robust compared to its rapidly collapsing mainline protestant counterparts. This was about the only period in US history when, subtracting immigration, there was a net inflow of converts into the Church, as against Catholics falling away.
The following quote sums up the situation in Amchurch circa 1900 rather nicely, from The Star-Spangled Heresy: Americanism, pp. 186-188 (I add comments):
…[D]efenders of the Faith had little difficulty linking Americanism to communism, not to mention Semitism, Protestantism, Masonry, and outright Satanism. A Catholic paper in Paris accused Cardinal Gibbons [I haven’t even touched on Gibbons, but he is perhaps the principal villain in the Americanist story] of partiality to masonry on the basis of his persistent defense of such organizations as the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias……….all condemned by Rome, and of secret societies generally in the States. The French Canadian Jules Tardivel dubbed America “the eldest daughter of the sect,” and Leo XIII’s Belgian biographer stated its true center was located here.
In 1899 Leo XIII was finally forced to write Testem Benevolentiae condemning Americanism specifically as a heresy. In the face of the threatened withdrawal of American support for Peter’s Pence, however, [the American Church, like the German Church today, routinely used its massive financial resources to threaten Rome with denial of funds – and this, at a particularly critical time when the Papal States had been stolen by Garibaldi and the Church was in desperate financial straits] none of the heretics was designated by name, although everyone knew who they were and had expected them to be formally excommunicated. Robert Cross relates that one Roman periodical, referring to the “satanic spirit” of America, exclaimed: “Put the mask aside, O Monsignor Ireland: bow down before the Vicar of Jesus Christ, Cardinal Gibbons, and deny the blasphemous theories of the heretical sect which are embodied in you!” Civilta Cattolica dubbed the heresy:
…….purely American…….employed at first to indicate in general the ‘new idea’ which was to rejuvenate the Church, and in particular the ‘new crusade’ against the uncompromising position of Catholics of the ‘old creed.’
All the heresiarchs loudly disclaimed being tainted by what they termed a ‘phantom heresy’ existing largely in the minds of the Curia or at best in a few French dioceses, and they continued on as before. [Indeed – an encyclical sent to the lead American cardinal, talking only about the United States, only applied to a few foreign dioceses, and those strangely French. But do we not see the exact same kinds of dissembling tactics today, especially in the US episcopate?] The American flag was displayed ever more prominently at altar-side, as if also intended for worship, despite the frowns of Rome, which steadfastly refused approval for the tricolor within the sanctuary. Episcopal progress in socialism was steady. At the close of the First World War the American bishops under the leadership of Msgr. John Ryan became so convinced that “so-called ’socialistic’ measures were practically synonymous with Catholic moral principles” – to quote a popular Catholic history textbook – that they boldly embarked on their own social program. Advocated were minimum wage legislation, unemployment and old age insurance, prohibition of child labor, legal protection of unions, national employment service, public housing for workers, control of monopolies, curtailment of ‘excess’ profits, participation of labor in management and wider distribution of stock ownership. Christ was now harnessed to the Revolution as to His Cross. [These efforts were through the “National Catholic War Council,” supposedly set up to help fight WWI, but then extended after the war as the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The first permanent episcopal conference in Church history, it was banned by Pius XI but later, of course, was given approval at Vatican II, where the Church awoke and groaned to find itself Americanist. Of course, episcopal conferences have turned into charnal houses of sex abuse, graft, larceny, and radicalization political agendas, along with constantly reducing the Faith to the lowest possible common denominator, in concert with ‘right democratic principles.’]
……[I]n 1928 indulgent America permitted a Catholic, Al Smith, to run for the Presidency for the first time in the nation’s history. Ten years later in Madrid the anti-Catholic writer George Seldes was able to say in The Catholic Crisis:
‘The future of Catholicism may lie in America because of the growing Catholic population, the large increase of bishoprics, the financial support of the Church which is said to be larger than that contributed by the rest of the world. But it may lie in America because America is the stronghold of democracy. American Catholicism is the Catholicism of the famous credo of Al Smith……which states that the Syllabus of Pius IX which is anti-liberal, anti-democratic, and in a way anti-American, has ‘no dogmatic force’ as Cardinal Newman said long ago……..[I hope Cardinal Newman did not say that. I don’t know]
By the Smithian system of dialectics no Catholic need fight Socialism, or Communism, or pay any attention to Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Casti Connubii, Lux Veritatis, or the late Pope’s utterances in favor of Franco’s Spain, if he individually disagrees. The American Catholic, according to its most important spokesman, can take it or leave it. [The primacy of the individual conscience, circa 1930!] However, no Catholic outside the United States has ever expressed the same views and remained in the Church.
Thus, the Americanist heresy is at the root of the crisis in the Church, and contrary to the relatively conservative body most Americans are propagandized to believe it is, has been one of the key driving forces behind the revolution against the Church conducted principally by those given sacred trust to promote and defend the authentic Faith. Unfortunately, Americanism is deeply rooted in the basic patriotism of the United States, and so constantly finds new adherents. It’s a difficult and tragic thing to find one at odds with one’s country, but that is exactly the position thinking, informed, believing Catholics find themselves in. That this nation has produced so precious few of that group only demonstrates how insidiously effective that propaganda is.
They have now. Apparently, As Bishop O’Gorman once wrote his friends from Rome, “Americanism, which was supposed to be our defeat, has been turned into a glorious victory. We are surely on top.” The lucrative waters of the Potomac were now flowing freely into the Tiber. Only a faithful few in the US today recall that their Lord “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” after Pilate and the “religious” Herod became friends. “If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you…….The servant is not greater than his master.” And “no man can serve two masters” (Jn xvi:20).
Mindful of this difficulty, Hilaire Belloc predicted the “necessary” conflict between the civil state and the Catholic Church in America. He said in so many words, of course, “the Catholic Church in America.” He was not referring to the star-spangled “American Catholic Church” which is after all only a modernist sect of long standing, with a large growing membership. No conflict with Pilate should arise there. [Since, after all, for Cardinal Gibbons and most current and historical American bishops, their greatest fear was and is that they might ever give offense to the protestant majority, and especially the formerly protestant but now thoroughly secularized and leftist political-cultural elite.]
————End Quote————-
This post is already very long, and I hope to get out one much shorter post today, but I’ll conclude with this: it is a profoundly unsettling realization to make, that one’s Faith, and one’s country and culture, are totally at odds. It is even more discomfiting to realize that, in many ways, only one can ultimately survive. It was, of course, fear of this realization that drove the thoroughly American bishops and priests (again, most all of them, strangely enough, Irish) to attempt to posit a typically American ‘new and improved’ church, one that fit in fine with the surrounding culture and political landscape, one that wouldn’t make any waves, and one that would rarely, if ever, expose its practitioners to persecution.
But Our Blessed Lord told us that if we love Him, the world will hate us, and that if we are faithful, it will persecute us like it persecuted Him. This is the narrow path of salvation. The Church in the US, by and large (there were numerous countervailing elements, especially German), chose the wide, soft, easy road.
We all know how those two stories end.
Saint Alphonsus on the Proper Hearing of Mass November 11, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, General Catholic, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, priests, reading, Saints, sanctity, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
From Volume XV of Saint Alphonsus Ligouri’s Ascetical Works, Preaching (only get the translations by Father Eugene Grimm, CSsR, the others are markedly deficient and full of modern errors and radical changes to Saint Alphonsus crystal-clear theology), an exhortation on the proper hearing of Mass, including what constitutes, in the Saint’s mind, irreligious and even sinful hearing of Mass:
Before I begin the excerpt, I should note that the section below regarding not going to Confession during Mass does not mean Sacramental Confession, which is of course not only permitted but encouraged during Mass or any other time, but the “implicit Confession” of the Confiteor. Alphonsus is saying that if you have some grievous sin on your conscience, Mass does not remove the guilt of that sin, and explicit sacramental Confession must first be sought before assisting at Mass (this could of course be ongoing during Mass, but certainly before receiving Communion).
How should one hear Mass?
To satisfy the obligation of hearing Mass, two things are necessary: an intention and attention.
It is necessary to have an intention of hearing Mass, so that a man who is force into church against his will, or who enters only to look about him and see the place (NB: as many tourists do during Mass at famous churches throughout Europe), or to wait there for a friend, or for any other purpose except hearing Mass, does not fulfil the obligation. But, should a person hear Mass through devotion, believing that the day is not a holiday, he is bound, when he finds that it is a holiday, to hear another Mass? No; it is enough to have done the work commanded without having adverted to the intention of fulfilling the precept of hearing Mass.
It is necessary to hear Mass with attention – that is, to attend to the Sacrifice that is celebrated. This attention may be external and internal. It is certain that a person who hears Mass without external attention does not fulfil his obligation; for example, if during the Mass you are asleep, or are drunk, or are employed in writing, talking, or other external operations, you do not fulfil the precept of hearing Mass.
It is disputed among theologians whether a person who attends Mass without internal intention satisfies his obligation’ that is, if he sees what is going on, but is at the same time distracted, and employed in thinking not on God, but on other things. Many theologians say that he is guilty of a venial, but not a grievous, sin, as often as he is voluntarily distracted, and that he fulfils the substance of the precept because he hears Mass with a moral presence. But the greater number of theologians, following St. Thomas, teach that such a person does not fulfil the obligation of hearing Mass, namely, when he is conscious that he is distracted, and not attending to the Mass, and positively wishes to continue in his distractions.
Hence I exhort you, in hearing Mass, to reflect on the great Sacrifice which is being offered. Meditate on the Passion of Jesus Christ; for the Mass is a renewal of the Sacrifice that Jesus Christ offered on the cross. Or meditate on some eternal truth – on death, judgment, or hell. Let him who knows how to read make use of some little book, or let him recite the office of the Blessed Virgin……..say the Rosary, or some other vocal prayers: let them, at least, attend to what the priest is doing.
Does a person who makes his confession during Mass satisfy the obligation of hearing Mass? No; for then he would attend it as a criminal accusing himself of his sins, and not as a person offering sacrifice; and it is certain that all who hear Mass offer sacrifice along with the priest.
Hence it would be advisable during Mass to offer the Holy Sacrifice for the ends for which it was instituted: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication.
During the Mass, then, we ought, first, to offer to God the Sacrifice of His Son in honor of His Divine Majesty; secondly, in thanksgiving for all the benefits we have received from him; thirdly, in satisfaction for our sins; and fourthly, to implore of God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, the graces necessary for our salvation. At the elevation of the Host, let us ask God to pardon our sins, for the sake of Jesus Christ, and at the elevation of the chalice, let us beg of God, through the merits of that Divine Blood, the gift of His love and holy perseverance. And during the Communion of the priest, let us make a spiritual Communion, saying: My Jesus, I desire to receive Thee; I embrace Thee: do not permit me to ever be separated from Thee.
———————-End Quote———————
No special message in this post, just some hopefully helpful reminders and exhortation to even better devotion and practice at the source and summit of our Faith, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Ligouri: The Ruin of Souls Who Through Shame Omit to Confess Their Sins October 3, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, General Catholic, Interior Life, priests, reading, Sacraments, sadness, scandals, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
In light of this post from last week, I recently read the following excerpt from one of Alphonsus Maria de Ligouri’s great Ascetical Works and it was a perfect treatise on the matter of invalid confessions, and reasons for them. Of course, Saint Alphonsus is the great Moral Doctor of the Church. He is widely considered to be the single greatest authority on moral theology in the Church’s 2000 year history.
One hugely important post I failed to make in last week’s post – for a confession to be valid, EVERY mortal sin, in kind and number, committed since the last VALID confession, MUST be conveyed to the priest, or the confession is invalid, and every subsequent reception of the Blessed Sacrament in this foul state is sacrilegious and, in itself, a mortal sin, as was the original invalid confession. Thus, if someone were to string out a long history of mortal sins over, say, 10 confessions, he would subsequently have to confess those 10 invalid confessions, and the 10 or 50 or 70 sacrilegious communions in the interim. In fact, the longer a sin remains unconfessed for reasons of shame, the less likely it is that it will ever be confessed. Thus, it is always best to confess all sins as soon as possible, both to alleviate the threat of damnation, but also to strike while the positive effects of shame are motivating the soul to seek forgiveness of its greivous offenses against God.
Saint Alphonsus repeatedly declared that more souls are lost through shame and subsequent invalid confessions than virtually any other reason. Many Saints personally related mystical experiences of souls of the damned who lamented their sacrilegious, invalid confessions.
Now, the great moral Doctor, Ligouri (excerpts from pp. 316-317):
In the missions we should moreover strongly and often inculcate the necessity of overcomign the shame that one feels in confessions one’s sins. Those who are experienced missionaries know that this cursed shame has been the cause of the loss of innumerable souls………
It is a pity to see how many souls the devil gains by this means, especially in matters concerning impure sins; for he makes th em lose shame at the moment of committing them, and gives this shame back to them when there is qustion of mention ing them in the confessional. Saint Antoine, speakign of this matter, relates that a holy hermit, seseing one day the devil in the church going among those that wished to confess, asked him what he was doing there: the evil spirit answered: “To induce thse people to commit sin, I have taken shame from them; now I return it to them in order that they may not confess well and properly.” Saint John Chrysostom also sayhs: “God has given shame to the commission of sin, and confidence to the confession of it. The devil inverts this: he inspires him who sins with confidence before the sin, and with shame afterwards, so that the sin may not be confessed and the soul lost forever.”
Alas! Christian soul, you have sinned; if you do not confess your sins you will certainly be damned. Why then do you not confess your sin? You answer: “I am ashamed.” Hence, rather than overcome this shame you wish to be condemned for all eternity to the fire of hell? It is a shame to offend so good a God Who has created us; it is not a shame to confess to have offended Him. But since you do not wish to manifest your sin, refrain at least from going to confession. To the sin that you have committed do you wish to add the sacrilege of a bad confession? Do yo know what you are doing when you commit sacrilege? For the sins on accou nt which you have deserved hel there is no other remedy than the Blood of Jesus Christ, who will purify you if you confess it well; but by concealing your sin, you even tread under foot the Blood of Jesus Christ……….
……….What do you fear? Ah!, here are no doubt the pretexts that the devil suggests to you, to keep you from confessing:
- What wil my confessor say when he hears that I have fallen in such a way? Well, he will say that you have been weak, as happens to so many others who live in this world; he will say that you did wrong to sin, but that you afterwards performed and admirable deed in overcoming shame to confess your sins.
- At least he will not fail to give me a scolding! – oh no, why should he scold you? Know that confessors cannot have greater consolation than when they hear a person accusing himself of a sin that he has committed; for then he can securely absolve him and deliver him from hell.
- I have not enough confidence to manifest this sin to my spiritual Father – Well! Go to confession to another priest of the place or to a stranger.
————-End Excerpt————–
Really, folks, your not that special, nor half as “bad” as you think. The priests have heard it all. If you go to Confession on Sunday at a busy parish, the priest might hear 80 or 100 confessions that day. They all run together. God gives priests special graces to forget what they hear in the confessional. Most priests, most all the time, literally forget what they heard just moments ago in the confessional. So don’t worry so much, trust God, and just spill it all. Kind/type, and number.
The absolutely vital point to remember, is that, no matter what a foolish priest may tell you, you cannot receive the Blessed Sacrament with one unconfessed mortal sin on your soul! If you do you commit another and worse mortal sin, the sin of profaning the Blessed Sacrament, and, many moral theologians maintain, literally re-crucifying Christ.
Catholic Video Channels You Should be Perusing September 10, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, episcopate, fightback, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Restoration, sanctity, Spiritual Warfare, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
This post may contain old news for many readers, but I thought it should be mentioned that the quality of Catholic commentary in video form continues to increase. While Youtube may be a wholly owned subsidiary of a parent company staffed by many of the most despicable people on earth – Google – it does host some very good Catholic content, at least until Google decides these good people are gaining too much traction, and ban-hammers them off their platform (Bitchute is a good alternative, but it does contain quite a bit of wacky and even dangerously immoral content, but so does most everything else these days). Right now, for this particular blogger, probably the best traditional/tradition-leaning Catholic channel on Youtube (overall) is that of Dr. Taylor Marshall. I’m a bit surprised at coming to this conclusion, for while I have known Taylor and his family for years in passing through our local TLM parish, for many years I wasn’t a huge fan. His content seemed to tend towards the conservative/neo-Catholic for quite some time. So while he did do some great works like being a or the founder of the Troops of St. George, I found him a bit squishy on a number of topics, especially those closest to the core elements of the traditional critique of the post-conciliar Church.
But that was then. Starting about 12-18 months ago, and especially in the wake of the Vigano expose and the Church’s “summer of shame” (hint: there will be worse to come, much worse), Taylor really got red-pilled and became quite a hard-hitting critic of the crisis in the Church. His views generally align quite closely with my own, which of course means he is absolutely right about purt’ near everything. Seriously, I don’t want to overplay my criticism of the Taylor of 5 years ago, he was generally solid all along, but over the past year he’s really been clobbering the evil forces acting within and against Holy Mother Church. I now make a point of catching all of his videos as early as I can, and agree with most everything both Dr. Marshall and his co-host Dr. Tim Gordon have to say (but not quite – sadly, noone is quite so perfect as me). They are addressing most all the major crisis issues in the Church today and doing so from a steadfastly traditional viewpoint, and not pulling any punches over sacred cows like the current occupant of the papacy, the heresies emanating from Rome in these dark days, and the root of the crisis beginning far before Vatican II. I still hope to put together a real magnum opus (hah) podcast on that subject, but baby steps.
Another great source which I have highlighted before is the inestimable Charles Coulombe. I love his weekly uploads at Tumblar House and find his talks, if possible, even more edifying than those of Taylor Marshall. Charles is both a rock with regard to the Faith, and is especially strong on the absolutely vital issue of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (I cannot recommend his book on the subject enough, it is eye-opening, even for one well-versed in Trad literature), and is also a veritable fount of knowledge on matters related to Church history and Catholic culture (rather unlike the website of the same name). It is well worth your time to dedicating an hour or so a week listening to his Youtube videos. While Taylor’s viewership has exploded, Coulombe’s remains relatively static, which is a real shame, because his commentary is equally deserving of a far wider audience.
Next, there is another source I’ve recommended many times, but it bears repeating: The Fatima Center. Even with the untimely deaths of Fr. Nicholas Gruner and Mr. Charles Vennari, they regularly upload, almost weekly, very good catechetical materials from extremely traditional sources. I find especially the videos from Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea edifying and entertaining.
Then, there is Return to Tradition by Anthony Stine. A bit like Taylor Marshall’s content, it is both contemporary and topical. In fact, one might liken it sort of a pocket version of Taylor’s much longer broadcasts, covering many of the same topics from a generally similar view (though, of course, they differ in a number of details) but in a much shorter format. It’s a worthy site, especially his excerpts from Church doctrinal documents in his weekend uploads, but in terms of preference is probably properly listed in terms of order in this post. HIs production values are of a bit lower standard than the other three.
And, of course, there remains the grand-daddy of all Catholic Youtube channels of which I am aware, that of Sensus Fidelium and the daily uploads of sermons from very solidly orthodox and traditional priests. I’m certain most all readers will be aware of this channel already.
And now, good listeners, I turn the floor over to you, to solicit other “channels” you may find worthwhile on Youtube or other, similar platforms. One problem today is the veritable embarrassment of riches, it is difficult at times to keep up with more than a few channels, especially when they produce prodigious amounts of content like Dr. Marshall and Sensus Fidelium. I of course also enjoy the weekly commentaries from Michael Matt at The Remnant, and some other less explicitly Catholic but more historical efforts that still tie in with the Church’s proud history. Nevertheless, I would appreciate any recommendations you have, especially for solid but lesser known channels.
I have another, far more obscure channel to bring to your attention at a later date, God willing, but that is such a different topic and requires an extensive introduction, and so it must wait for another time.
Excellent Priest on the Fruits of Feminism – UPDATED July 7, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Domestic Church, family, fightback, General Catholic, Grace, Interior Life, priests, Restoration, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
Not sure if I am allowed to ID this priest or not, but I can say he’s one of my two favorite, most rock-solid FSSP priests a priest who gave a great sermon but not the one I was thinking of! He sure sounds like an FSSP priest I know. Oh well, humans gonna err.
He has an excellent sermon on the evils of feminism. The key point is that the radical, man-hating, Christ-despising feminism we see today is the inevitable end-point of this erroneous and frankly diabolical movement. There was never a “good feminism.” It was always ordered towards subverting the role of men and women and essentially having the two sexes flip those roles. You could say that feminism has always been much more a female supremacy movement than one interested in any kind of true equality – as if the God-given and traditional Christian roles of the sexes were somehow unequal. They were only “unequal” in a totally materialistic and power-dynamic obsessed sense, the kind marxists would tend to grab onto.
There are those who argue that while “some” feminists take the movement too far, feminism at its roots is a good thing, and something it is perfectly acceptable to subscribe to. I believe Father demonstrates the falsity of this claim. At any rate, even if there are still some who consider themselves “moderate feminists,” only interested in some self-defined notion of equality and not at all like the radical fringe, the point is immaterial from a practical standpoint. For 50 years or more feminism as a movement has constantly been dominated by its most radical fringe, and those who pretend to subscribe to only its more moderate aspects are giving valuable aid and comfort to this radical fringe. Thus, feminism is something that no well-ordered and virtuous Catholic woman or man can subscribe to.
And why would you want to? How does feminism help you or anyone you love get to Heaven? The traditional Christ-inspired roles for men and women are completely focused on just that end, men and women helping each other, in constant practice of virtue, to attain Heaven, especially within the confines of marriage but also without. All the evidence I have seen indicates feminism can do nothing but frustrate the good and holy purpose of rightly-ordered male-female relationships.
Please pray for Father that he may not be persecuted for preaching the truth of Jesus Christ and His Church in this most diabolical time, and that many will not just hear, but listen, to his words:
Feminism’s fruits are not just widows and orphans, but also hundreds of millions of murdered babies worldwide, and God knows how many broken marriages and devastated homes.
Father Michael Rodriguez – Is It Acceptable for Catholics to Assist at the Novus Ordo……..? April 8, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Father Rodriguez, fightback, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, Liturgy, manhood, Restoration, Spiritual Warfare, SSPX, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
………and is it acceptable to assist at the SSPX if that is their only alternative? Interestingly,, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College, among many others, agrees with the latter conclusion regarding the SSPX, that yes it is acceptable/licit (the question of validity having long ago been settled) to assist at the SSPX, particularly when one is faced with a liturgical desert in a particular locale.. I agree with both good men, and I’m very grateful that the SSPX is around in this current climate.
Now, I personally feel increasingly strongly that one should assist at the TLM if one is reasonably available. Of course, the definition of reasonable availability will vary from person to person. But I would also add that not all Novus Ordo Masses are the same. While they are exceedingly rare, rarer, in many cases, than the TLM, very reverently offered Novus Ordo Masses with priests who are solidly catechized and who promote the solemn Doctrine of the Faith to the utmost of their ability are to me an exception to this general guideline. I do have a personal bias, however, in that just such a Mass and priest played a pivotal role in my family finding its way to the TLM. That priest continues to serve and do very much good. Other viable options are reverent Eastern Rite Masses and the like. There is a quite worthy option in the Irving area in St. Basil’s.
Finally, I’m sure SSPX partisans may take exception to framing of Kwasniewski’s post, making an argument that the SSPX is okay in certain conditions. I know many folks fully believe that the situation is quite the opposite, with the SSPX being entirely justified and association with it being really the default option. I get where you’re coming from. But rather than taking exception for Kwasniewski failing to evaluate the SSPX’s status as you might prefer, consider how far the situation has come in just the past few years, where now mainstream conservative Catholic sites are proclaiming it just fine to assist at an SSPX Mass for the Sacraments in the vast majority of cases (because a liturgical and doctrinal wasteland full of abuse and outright evil is exactly what most people face in this tragic time in Church history).
Anyway, Father Michael Rodriguez below, along with Father Isaac Mary Relyea, answering a number of questions at a recent Catholic conference. You’ll take this short post, and you’ll like it!
Extraordinary Talk on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus by Fr. Isaac Mary Relyea April 2, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Christendom, fightback, Four Last Things, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, manhood, priests, religious, sanctity, Society, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
I really like Father Isaac Mary Relyea, and here he delivers an exceedingly entertaining and watchable 80 minute talk on perhaps the most neglected, misunderstood, and deliberately ignored doctrine in modern Church life, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus (EENS), or there is no salvation outside the Church. Father approaches the topic from its innumerable and unprecedentedly strong supports in the history of dogmatic theology, but also from a profoundly practical and pastoral -in the true sense of the word – standpoint.
Many faithful Catholics today have family members who are outside visible communion with Holy Mother Church. The doctrine of EENS causes those of us with most or all of our family outside the Church grave concern. But there are reasons to hope, and Father elucidates those. However, this is not the false hope of the modernists and indifferentists, who pretend that it makes no difference to God whether one exists inside the sole ark of salvation He instituted for men’s salvation. It is hope in the goodness and love of God, which is infinite, and in the power of prayer and pen ance, which exist and work outside of our narrow conceptions of time.
I pray you find this sermon as enjoyable and edifying as I did. Please pray for Father Isaac Mary Relyea and all good, faithful priests, they are under the most extreme attack and need our prayers and support.
There were other talks from The Fatima Center conference held in Houston last month that I hope to post later, including some from Father Michael Rodriguez. My esteem for The Fatima Center only continues to grow as I see the excellent work they are doing for the good of souls and the restoration of our Holy Mother the Church.
Interesting theological seminar at the University of Dallas March 27 March 26, 2019
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, Dallas Diocese, fightback, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Restoration, secularism, Society, the struggle for the Church, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
I know the timing is late but Dr. Chris Malloy of the University of Dallas brought my attention to a talk being given tomorrow night, March 27 2019, at the University of Dallas Gorman A hall at 5:30pm. It is entitled “An Integralist Reading of Augustine’s City of God Against the Secularists.” It sounds right up my alley. For those who do not know, “integralist” is a term that I believe originated in France in the late 19th and early 20th century to besmirch those souls who held to the traditional belief and practice of the Faith – that held, in particular, that it was impossible to separate the public and private practice of religion, that they were an integrated whole, and thus the term. It has become a widespread libel used by leftists/modernists/secularists within and without the Church against Catholics.
Integralism as appropriate Catholic belief has also been almost entirely shunned by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church since Vatican II, and was a point of great contention in the Church in the United States from at least the late 19th century onward, when Americanist bishops such as John Ireland and Cardinal Gibbons exalted the false, condemned liberal orientation of this nation’s Founding document – the Constitution – in extolling “freedom of religion” and especially the no-establishment clause as being perfectly acceptable for Catholics to believe, not only as a temporary modus vivendi in largely protestant country, but also as an ideal to be upheld and exported abroad (and yes I am reading that extremely long book on John Courtney Murray and the American influence on Vatican II and the world at large). In many ways, the Americanism condemned by Leo XIII metastasized into modernism and eventually the pathetic, fallen secularist Church of the post-Vatican II era.
The presenter for this seminar is a Fr. Edmund Walstein, OCist, who has a website dedicated to informing Catholics of right belief with regard to politics and, more importantly, political systems in the ideal from the Catholic standpoint. A little bit about the site:
The Josias was founded as the mouthpiece of a small community of men and women seeking to articulate an authentically Catholic political stance from which to approach the present order of society. We are clerics and laymen, academics and professionals, secular and religious. Our goal, broadly speaking, is to make this site a working manual for those who wish to bring their faith into the public square and resist the tides of liberalism, modernism, and ignorance of tradition which have, in the past century, so harmed the Church and tied her hands in the struggle to advance the social reign of Christ.
So, I anticipate this talk by Father Edmund Walstein, OCist, will be of great interest to many readers. I hope some can make late plans to attend. I would dearly love to be there, but not only do I have a wife and daughter both with broken right ankles due to soccer injuries right now, but we had already committed to attend a screening of the abortion-reality movie Unplanned in Arlington. The screening was arranged by someone who rented out the theater for the night, is apparently sold out, and since tickets were in such demand do not feel I can skip it even for a talk of this caliber, much as I’d like to be there. But, if i can find someone to take my place, maybe I’ll be able to sneak away for this conference.
If you are able to attend, please leave a comment or comments describing the event and its impact. I am very heartened that UD is hosting a seminar of this kind and pray there may be more of this type in the future.
Kwasniewski and White on the True Nature of the Crisis in the Church August 22, 2018
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, asshatery, Basics, catachesis, cultural marxism, disaster, episcopate, error, Francis, horror, paganism, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sickness, Spiritual Warfare, the struggle for the Church, Tradition.comments closed
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski of Wyoming Catholic College normally writes in measured, scholarly tones, always providing insightful commentary but not usually with a lot of polemic. But he let fly with both barrels in a recent post at One Peter Five, from which I excerpt extensively below (admittedly, he claims to be quoting another, but approvingly). Hilary White has been waging a vitriolic war of words against the tyranny of the Bergoglian papacy, and rightly so, for years. She continues her excellent work with another strong piece also at One Peter Five. I tie the two together and try to add a few contributions of my own, paltry though they are.
First up, Dr. K – no matter how bad you think the corruption/rot/heresy/perversion in the Church is, it’s almost certainly much, much worse, and will get still more so:
Most commentators do not begin to understand the true nature of the problem.
The ring of criminal Nancy Boys is the same ring that has been sedulously working for decades to undermine the integrity of the doctrinal, moral, sacramental, liturgical Church. These men – McCarrick, McElroy, Wuerl, O’Malley, Mahony, Cupich, Tobin, Farrell, Lynch, Weakland, Paglia, Maradiaga, their lovable mouthpiece James Martin, Thomas Rosica, and far too many others, including ones who have passed on to their eternal fate, such as Lyons, Boland, Brom – are the same ones who have destabilized and adulterated catechesis, theology, liturgy, and most obviously the Church’s commitment to the unchanging moral law, as we saw in the Amoris Laetitia debacle and all that surrounded and succeeded it. We must connect the dots and not pretend to be shocked when we see, for example, attempts under way to “re-interpret” Humanae Vitae through a false teaching on conscience, or to do away with clerical celibacy, or to introduce female deacons.
To treat the sins of this ring of conspirators as nothing more than a recrudescence of the sex scandals of the past would be to lose sight of their real enormity. These are not just men of bad moral character; they are apostates, and they are trying to remake the Church in the image of their own apostasy. The Church has been smashed up in front of our eyes in slow motion for decades and few can even begin to admit that we are now faced with a Church in actual smithereens. The Nancy Boys have conducted their campaign of demolition with a kind of imperial sway. It is not this or that aspect of the Church that is corrupt; the rot is now everywhere. It is a rot on which the McCarrick Ring still sups, like maggots feasting on a corpse. For this reason, to hear well meaning people say Bergoglio must impanel some investigative body to set things right is Alice in Wonderland lunacy. It’s like putting Himmler in charge of Nuremberg.
We do not need bishops engaging in public penance (although it’s a good idea for their souls and long overdue); we do not need episcopal investigations; we do not need new procedures and new policies. These are all cries for exculpation. Bishops beating their breasts and then going back to doing nothing about the manifest apostasy at the very heart of the Church will not solve matters. We need the apostates [and those who have enabled and covered for them, and also all the sodomites] identified, denounced, and removed. [And so the Church in the US would probably lose 90+% of its clergy at a shot, if all the moral perverts and manifest heretics were, by some miracle, removed from office. Are we prepared for that? I can really only speak to the Church in the US, but I understand that in many Western countries, and Latin America, the problem is even worse. There might not even be 1% of the active priests who are not heretical, addicted to horrifically immoral sin, or both]We need a reaffirmation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith. To clean up this mess, we have to clean up more than the scandal of homosexuality, with all of its attendant horrors. We have to denounce and reject the apostasy that powerful and influential homosexuals and their friends have insinuated into the Church over decades………
……….It is a package deal. This, above all, is what people need to see. The moral depravity, the doctrinal heresy, the liturgical devastation – all of it goes together. If you have the courage to follow each thread, you will find that any attack on one part of the Church, one aspect of her life, one component of her tradition, already is or will soon be bound up with an attack on the other parts, too. The real “seamless garment” is Catholicism taken in its totality. Either you have the whole or you can’t have any…….
……..The difference with the clerical sodomites is that they become professional apostates. It is not enough for them not to believe in the sacraments; they must make others not believe in them as well. They will not stop twisting and mutilating the Church until she blesses their sin, along with many other sins. To achieve their goals, they must wreak havoc on every last aspect of the Church. This is what the faithful must stop – forget about the contemptible bureaucracy of the USCCB with its well heeled lawyers and slick marketeers. We begin to stop the havoc by calling its source by its real name. McCarrick was not just a predatory sodomite, but an apostate, and all of his “brother bishops” who knew about the double life and still got their pictures taken with him [or concelebrated with him, because there is a school of theological thought that says that concelebration is a tacit admission of doctrinal conformity with the celebrant, which is one of many reasons why traditional priests abhor the practice and refuse to condone it], laughing away at the latest wool pulled over the people’s eyes – you know, the ones who are putting out videos about how unfortunate this is, what a mess, and, you know, it isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be – these are all apostates, too. They’re company men with company cars, driving in a long line to their own burials at the ecumenical cemetery…………
………The Catholic Church is being rocked to its foundations by a scandal of Modernist apostasy of staggering proportions. We are in “2+2 = 5” territory, and the “conservative” apologists have no real response to that, which is why they insist on treating the McCarrick business as a sex scandal. They are more concerned about a mendacious, ramshackle, unaccountable episcopate than they are about the deposit of the faith under daily assault, as it has been ever since the progressive European bishops maneuvered into control of the Second Vatican Council, strewing ambiguities and half-truths in its documents and dominating its implementation, particularly in the liturgical sphere – all of which has led us straight into the cesspool of iniquity and heresy in which we are stewing.
But where does this go? What do they ultimately want? That is what Miss White tells us, and very clearly, almost prophetically, to extend her analogy:
What is the Bergoglian Paradigm about? It is about a new religion, and specifically a religion that falsifies, negates, contradicts, denies, and abominates the old religion. It is about the complete reversal of all that God has taught mankind, not only since the dawn of the Christian era, but from the beginning. If the Bergoglian Negation is true, then everything we have believed, not for 2,000 years, but since the time of Abraham, indeed since the time of the promise to Eve, is false. Every miracle, every promise, every covenant, every expression of love of God for us was all a lie……….
…….Why? Because the Bergoglians tell us not to repent, not to turn away from sin. They tell us that God will not save, will not lend you strength. They tell us even that sin is good. It is a counsel of despair; it tells you that you are helpless in your sins, that no God is coming to save you, that His grace is insufficient for you, that you are ensnared in depravity and can never escape, never hope for holiness, never hope for salvation.
And that only humanity, only their leftism, only the communist utopia, can “save” you, and that you may as well have as much “pleasure” in this life as possible, as this is the only one there is. That is what these men have been telling themselves, every day and practically every minute, for decades now. Misery loves company. They want to drag everyone down to their level, ESPECIALLY those who have, by some miracle, managed to maintain true Faith over the past several insanely painful decades.
But these kinds of men have come before, and God has defeated them. The Catholic Church has appeared broken and defeated, only to experience miraculous turnarounds. In the mid-11th century, the popes had been under the thumb – to the point of being named/appointed and even in some sense “consecrated” by them – of the Roman “nobility” and “Holy” Roman Emperor for 250 years. This is the period when a 16 yo boy was appointed pope and proceeded to live a most scandalous and profligate life, dying of acute cirrhosis when he was only 24 or so. Most priests and bishops were 2nd, 3rd, or 5th sons of petty lords who only used their positions as clergy to enrich themselves while they married, fornicated, drank, engaged in piracy and brigandage, and left the people to starve, spiritually. Only here and there were there isolated locations where the Faith was actually maintained and practiced, and those very few. But it was enough. God managed to get a man, Hildebrand, appointed as St. Gregory VII and the entire enterprise, the whole edifice, was turned around in just 2-3 decades. Problems remained, but the Church of the 12th and 13th centuries – admitted by all as the most Catholic in history – was created immediately after these periods of near total collapse and disaster.
I say that so people do not become hopeless, but at the same time, I feel, for a variety of reasons, that the current crisis/mass apostasy is the most dangerous, yet, because it is the most efficient, systematic, and organized the Church has yet faced. I think it is far more organized than anyone knows. And it is not done, yet. Even should we, by some small stroke of God’s will, be freed of Bergoglio, his replacement may well be worse. This may go on for many decades to come, until they believe they have sucked the Church dry of all benefit it could provide them, or some great saintly reformer comes along to start the process of setting things right.
I know these are not exactly huge revelations to this crowd. Heretics took over the human aspect of the Church, including the clergy, perhaps as divine retribution for the Church’s institutional embrace of usury via the IOR/Vatican Bank*. But keep the Faith. Find the best Mass/priest you can and cling to them with all your might. As Bear says, nail your foot to the floor if you have to. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus still applies, even though the institutional Church has not only lost its mind but appears demonically possessed. It is still Christ’s Church and that is still His Body in the Blessed Sacrament. Plus, as they say, living good is the best revenge, well, staying holy and keeping faith is the best way to deny this evil cohort the victory they desire.
*-has anyone else seen/heard this claim, that Vatican Bank/IOR activities have constituted sin of usury since the concordat with Mussolini in 1929, which transformed the Holy See from debtor mini-state to extremely wealthy and influential state? Didn’t Malachi Martin argue this, that the Vatican had prior to Pius XI always held aloof from global financial markets due to refusal to charge interest for money or accept interest on money (as these constituted grave sins of usury, even worse than murder) and was thus impoverished from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, but that the concordat and subsequent creation of the Vatican Bank rendered the Vatican spectacularly wealthy but required they engage in usurious practices? And this is where all the trouble really started, as it instantly caused rapidly spreading corruption? Thoughts? I read the theory in this book, which seems to rely quite a bit on Malachi Martin.
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