Eventually, liberalism leads to total apostasy May 22, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in asshatery, Basics, Bible, disaster, Ecumenism, error, foolishness, General Catholic, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, shocking.2 comments
Although I am no longer an episcopal, I still see the continuing demise of that sect as something of a tragic, if inevitable, event. Certainly, there are souls who
were brought up in that particular protestant ideology who have never known anything else, and are terribly pained, scandalized, and bewildered by episcopalianism’s transformation into just another group of radical leftist ideologues. The transformation into neo-unitarianism is not quite complete, but is certainly very well advanced. And the process appears to be accelerating. Witness the recent comments by the current head of the Episcopal Church USA, “Bishop” Katherine Jefferts Schori, regarding the Apostle St. Paul, bashing him for having the audacity to make plain what all of Judeo-Christian Tradition has constantly believed, that homosexual acts are profoundly depraved, and the lifestyle itself highly disordered (I add comments and emphasis):
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34 .
In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit.
The presiding bishop opened her remarks with an observation on the Dutch slave past. “The history of this place tells some tragic stories about the inability of some to see the beauty in other skin colors or the treasure of cultures they didn’t value or understand,” she said.[And here begins the error, conflating an endemic characteristic like race with a behavior like homosexuality. In spite of decades of attempts to prove some genetic cause for homosexuality, the data does anything but confirm such a causality, and in fact argues in favor of environment and behavioral causes. But Schori is doing little but spouting talking points from the homosexual lobby machine]
She continued stating: “Human beings have a long history of discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even evil. That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and often, war. Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept apart or on the margins of human communities.” [Do I even have to address this? She just jettisoned 2000 years of constant belief, in favor of the revolutionary "rights of man" claptrap that has afflicted mankind since the French Revolution]
We live with the continuing tension between holier impulses that encourage us to see the image of God in all human beings and the reality that some of us choose not to see that glimpse of the divine, and instead use other people as means to an end. We’re seeing something similar right now in the changing attitudes and laws about same-sex relationships, as many people come to recognize that different is not the same thing as wrong. For many people, it can be difficult to see God at work in the world around us, particularly if God is doing something unexpected. [So, it's "god" behind the drive to encourage hedonistic depravity? Well, that's very interesting......]
As you can see, rhetorically, Schori has walked herself into a corner. She’s now proclaimed that it is the very Will of God that what has always been viewed as 
the gravest of sins, is now holy and enlightened and so very wonderful we all must stand up and publicly acknowledge its holy wonderfulness. Her problem is that Sacred Scripture completely repudiates her modernist views. So, what to do? Change your thinking and submit to the Truth Christ has revealed through His Church? None of that for the most reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori! No, attack Scripture, and especially that misanthropic homophobe, St. Paul!
There begins a truly execrable and even laughable exegesis on the errors of St. Paul, relating how he brutally persecuted those who opposed him and made many mistakes, ending with a tearful confession and begging of forgiveness in a jail cell. The only problem is, as Carl Olsen at Catholic World Report points out, none of it is true, and she has to butcher Scripture, completely changing its meaning, in order to try to make her point. At which she fails, and massively. Any first year theology student (assuming they are not formed in modernism, which, umm……..yeah…..) should be able to brutalize her “argument,” which is nothing more than the usual protestant exercise in manipulating Scripture to serve a worldly end, with a heaping dose of special pleading thrown on top. If this was a serious effort, it is truly remarkable at how pathetic it is.
I don’t think there is any question that the current leadership of the Episcopal Church USA is radically opposed to orthodox Christianity, has made itself beholden to modernist revisionism and left wing ideologies, and is falling all over itself to prostrate itself before the god of hedonist sexular paganism. It is a troubling spectacle, to be sure, but one that reaffirms for me, at least, that in spite of the many failings of Her members, the Catholic Church is the only Church Christ established and which He protects and guides through the Holy Spirit. All else are doomed to the same fate as the episcopals, unless they repent and convert.
But such is reserved for the work of the Holy Spirit. We must pray and evangelize and do all we can to convert those in errant sects, but in the end, it all comes down to Grace, and cooperating with it.
Look at me, I’m a pretend bishop!
Nietzche and cultural nihilism May 21, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in abdication of duty, catachesis, disaster, Ecumenism, error, family, horror, persecution, sadness, scandals, secularism, sickness, Society.add a comment
Michael Voris has a very good Vortex episode out describing how Europe fell for sexular pagan theologies promising uninhibited hedonism and an earthly socialist “paradise” before the eternal night of death. One of most influential disciples of this lifestyle was Friedrich Nietzche, as Voris notes below:
“The Faith does not revel in suffering, it provides a reason for it. It does not take pain away, but rather baptizes it, and sees in it our redemption.” Great quote.
Voris does well to bring up Nietzche, but in his need to be brief (and specific to the impact Nietzche’s beliefs had on the practice of the Faith), he leaves out some extremely relevant points. There was no country in which Nietzche’s sick and twisted nihilism were more influential than in Germany. And it was under this influence that Nietzche’s disciples in Germany brought us two world wars. Anyone even moderately familiar with Adolf Hitler and Nazism know how enthralled this modern socialist pagan cult was of Nietzche’s and his view of a transcendent Aryan “superman.” Almost all of Hitler’s racialist insanity was driven by Nietzche’s so-called philosophy.
But Hitler was hardly the only one. Such nihilist views were very predominant in the German Empire in the years leading up to WWI, and it was Prussian visions of their own possession of the “superman” ethos that powered much of their conduct of political brinksmanship and military aggression. If you read Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower, she spends quite a bit of ink painting a portrait of a very demented culture in fin de siecle Germany. And that demented culture was directly responsible for tens of millions of deaths over a 30 year period.
And that’s not even the half of it. Read about how debased and perverse was the culture of Germany’s first “democratic” government, the Wiemar Republic of 1919-1933. Abortion, fornication, gotterdammerung spending habits at the public and private level, rampant homosexuality (including among most early Nazi leaders)….it was a real sick culture. Rather like the United States today.
The point of this addition is that this nihilism had not only spiritual consequences, but profoundly ugly real-world consequences, as well. But of course, they would. For in spite of the sexular pagan conceit that it is Christianity that has enveloped Western culture in darkness, the reality is exactly the opposite. It is Christianity that freed Europe from the darkness and ignorance of pagan sex cults, and it is the world’s rejection of Christianity that is bringing on the new darkness.
Because we are a stubborn, stupid, fallen people, and we cannot even learn from our own mistakes, but have to make the same ones over and over and over again. We are well advanced in the process of a civilization-destroying mistake right now. Enjoy the ride……
Domine, miserere nobis!
Since I so short on time today and likely will be all week, another great video by Voris that obliterates Calvin’s “predestinationist” insanity. I think it important for mainline protestants to note that all their sects were started by apostate Catholic clergy.
No, Cardinal Dolan is not being patiently prudent in failing to publicly condemn NY Gov. Cuomo May 21, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in abdication of duty, Abortion, Basics, contraception, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, scandals, secularism, self-serving, the return.10 comments
I posted on NYC Cardinal Dolan’s latest failure to defend the Faith last week. This story, wherein Cardinal Dolan stated he would “talk turkey” with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo over the governor’s repeated heresy, even apostasy, and then quickly walked back even this – it wasn’t even criticism, was it? - implication of concern with the governor, stating through a proxy that Cuomo remained “a Catholic in good standing?” Good Lord, who is not, then, a Catholic in good standing? Judging from this, I am virtually certain Cardinal Dolan subscribes to the papally condemned theory of universal or near-universal salvation, the so-called “fundamental option.” There is no other way to explain his behavior, unless he is just a radically indifferent modernist, which is just 
another way of saying the same thing.
Over at Acts of the Apostasy, I saw a soul who, I think, with very misplaced charity and sense of obedience, defended Cardinal Dolan’s actions as being patient and prudent. I profoundly disagree, and replied with the following:
There is patience, and then there is scandalous indifference. Let us see what Andrew Cuomo has done just in the past few years: helped ram through a radical redefinition of marriage, essentially destroying marriage as it has been known for thousands of years, with the aid of a New York Catholic Church that effectively neutered itself in the debate. He’s been a stalwart champion of baby murder, to the extent that whereas abortion is being rolled back by small efforts around the country, his state is planning the largest expansion of abortion access in the nation. And, he continues to live with a concubine who is not his wife, and his former marriage was never annuled. He also routinely undermines moral behavior in scads of other areas, all the while receiving the Blessed Sacrament, even from the very hands of bishops.
Failing to discipline this man, publicly, is not prudent patience. It is a massive failure of leadership which actually encourages Cuomo (and so many like him) to remain in his sins (which, if he were to die, his chances of salvation, objectively speaking, would be grim at best), causes scandal and confusion to millions of souls trying to be faithful, and endangers the shepherd’s own soul due to his disastrous failure to defend the Faith and use all the tools the Church has available to bring souls back to the right practice of the Faith. There is a word for this disastrous situation: scandal. Dolan’s action and inaction are the very definition of scandal.
This is not even debateable. Private “dialogue” while public sin continues, causing untold damage to souls, is a totally insufficient response. It is so insufficient as to be damnable, in the sense that lay Catholics have the right and duty to point out the Cardinal Archbishop’s failure. It is profoundly imprudent and uncharitable to leave souls mired in sin, and use only very small, politically safe means to try to redress the situation – if he even does that. We have only the Cardinal’s word that he actually engages with Cuomo on his manifestly sinful behavior – and we have the continuing scandal of the Cardinal dispensing the Blessed Sacrament to those objectively persisting in the state of grave sin.
When I think about how great Saints of the past behaved, the risks they took, the sufferings they endured, and then compare them to the current crop of 
shepherds……it’s a very bleak comparison. St. Anthony Marie Claret did not fear to publicly rebuke scandalous sinners in Cuba, he did not fear to use all the tools the Church has to bring souls back into the life of Grace, including interdict and excommunication. He got his face slashed for his trouble (the fact that he did not get his throat – the intended target – slit, was a minor miracle). He was violently persecuted by the sinners in government there. There were constant threats on his life. But he persevered, because God makes the Grace available to all of us to be Saints. It is our duty to cooperate with that Grace. For those who hold exalted offices in the Church, much more Grace is available, which is why the office of bishop has produced so many great Saints. But for decades, there have been very, very few men willing to cooperate with that Grace, it seems. It is exceedingly difficult not to see in this failure a profound tendency to have greater concern for the opinions of men and worldly affairs than for Jesus Christ and the good of His Church.
I pray for the conversion and sanctification of our shepherds every day.
Thus ends my comment at Acts of the Apostasy. But I will add a bit more. I don’t like saying this, it’s a very ugly thing, but I think it needs to be said. We’ve 
had a couple years to know Cardinal Dolan now, and I think the conclusion is inescapable: he is a politician in roman collar. His main or even secondary concern is not with the eternal destinies of souls, but his, and occasionally the Church’s, political position with all the “right” people. The USCCB is a primarily political entity, and Cardinal Dolan strategizes and conducts his affairs with that in mind. In most of the Western world, that is the case: the national episcopal conferences are primarily political entities, and that construct drives them to behave in ways that are very difficult to reconcile with the good of souls. Which is why I have argued for years that all these conferences – national, regional, international, whatever – need to be closed. It’s all about souls, and these conferences have not proven good for them. And they have proven disastrous for the cohesion of the Doctrine of the Faith and the administation of discipline.
Shut them down.
UPDATE: I should have added that LarryD’s post at AoA was a re-post of Terry Nelson’s comments here regarding the hypocrisy of many in the “Church-approved” Catholic punditocracy, who won’t breathe a word of criticism regarding Dolan, because such could be death for their careers, but they have no problem calling out Lila Rose as a public sinner for the undercover anti-abortion stings LiveAction conducts. Big surprise – those folks know who butters their bread, and they aren’t about to make them mad. It’s much safer to pick on a lay woman.
The heresy of the ecumenists May 20, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in abdication of duty, Basics, disaster, Ecumenism, episcopate, error, General Catholic, pr stunts, sadness, scandals, secularism, self-serving, the return.1 comment so far
Louie Verrecchio has a very revealing post on Cardinal Kurt Koch, Prefect of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews – thus, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist. Cardinal Koch routinely makes statements that would have unquestionably been viewed as heresy just a few short years ago. And since Church Doctrine can never change………..(I add emphasis and comments):
If the most recent Holy Roman Pontiff to have been canonized, Pope St. Pius X, could suddenly be placed in the Holy See of today, like a frog dropped in a pot of boiling water, he would leap into action, the anathemas and condemnations flying from his mighty pen so fast it would make even Cardinal Burke’s head spin. [As much as I love Cardinal Burke, I think Pope St. Pius X might have more than a bit of concern about him. And yet he is as good a Cardinal as the Church has at present. That shows where we are at.]
As it is, the majority of Catholic prelates are doing backstrokes as the souls in their care perish from lack of a shepherd.
Enter Cardinal Kurt Koch.
According to a report in the Tablet, Cardinal Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews, on a recent visit to Jerusalem, stressed “no conversion for the Jews,” saying:
“We Christians must not bear witness in relation to the Jews to a path of salvation which is completely foreign to them, as we do with other religions. This is because the New Testament is built up totally on the basis of the Old Testament. The Catholic Church therefore does not have an organized Jewish mission, as certain Evangelical groups do.”
In light of Aquinas’ definition of heresy as “a species of infidelity in men who, having professed the faith of Christ, corrupt its dogmas,” this would make Cardinal Koch a material heretic.
In speaking of “a path of salvation which is completely foreign” to the Jews, clearly His Eminence is referring to none other than Jesus Christ, who alone is the Way to everlasting life. [Both of these preceding statements are objectively true. Cardinal Koch is one of the most troubling prelates in the Church. Little surprise, then, that he is German (well,, German Swiss).]
How is it even remotely possible for anyone who holds the Catholic faith, much less a Prince of the Church (a title that means less with every passing day) [Ouch, but so true. That hits them where they hurt] to refer to Jesus Christ, Son of David and long-awaited Messiah, as “completely foreign” to the Jews? If a candidate for Confirmation said this, the bishop would be duty bound to deny him the sacrament!
And while it is true from the standpoint of formal structure that the Church does not have “an organized Jewish mission,” it is to the everlasting shame of all of her members that this is the case, especially those in the hierarchy who, like Cardinal Koch, place diplomacy and warm sentiments above the mission that Jesus Christ gave to His Church…….. [And that is exactly, precisely right. Koch, Dolan, Mahony, Ravasi, O'Brien,Tagle, Daneels, the list goes on and on, almost every single prince of the Church has either publicly declared heresy at 
some recent point, engaged in hideous scandal, failed to defend the Faith, or all three. It's a triple crown of massive fails!]
………in suggesting that the Jews stand in no need of conversion, Cardinal Koch is guilty of precisely the indifferentism condemned by Pope Pius VII, wherein “truth is confused with error, and the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Christ is placed on the same level as heretical sects and even as Jewish faithlessness” (Post Tam Diurturnas)
[We must remind......] our fellow Catholics that the Church has been praying for the conversion of the Jews for many centuries, and for one simple reason. In the words of the Council of Florence:
The Catholic Church firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within Her, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics, cannot become participants in eternal life but will depart ‘into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Mt. 25:41), unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock… (Council of Florence, Dz 714).
Given the fact that Cardinal Koch no longer believes as much, I would suggest in all charity that we must pray for his conversion, that he might one day return to the Catholic faith. [I agree.]
——————–End Quote———————
There is a little hook at the end of Verrecchio’s post that I won’t paste, because he definitely deserves the hit. Go to his site and scroll down to the end, and see
if you get the joke. It’s delicious irony. Brilliant.
Can anyone dispute what Mr. Verrecchio says? I can’t even begin to, and must admit I agree with all he says.
And Mr. Verrechio’s prescriptive advice for the faithful is spot on: we must pray for all our shepherds, from our parish priest to the highest princes, for their sanctification, conversion, and humble submission to God’s Will and acceptance of ALL the Truth He has revealed through His Church. More than that, we must also condition our bodies, will, and minds to accept mortification, and offer that mortification up for the conversion of all prelates or perhaps one particular cardinal or bishop. Such would be a tremendous work of spiritual mercy, and very edifying for your soul, irrespective if that Grace moves the soul of a particular prelate. I think a very large part of the reason we are in our current crisis is because lay Catholics (myself certainly included) haven’t been offering enough prayers and sacrifices on behalf of our spiritual leadership. I will try to do more.
One final note, I just thought to add after I hit the publish button! The reason I entitled this post the heresy of the ecumenists is that Cardinal Koch’s views are extremely common among those engaged in the modern, post-Vatican II “ecumenical” effort in the Church. Those involved, from priests to cardinals to lay people, routinely make statements revealing at least a marked indifferentist attitude, if not outright heresy. This statement from Koch is just the latest example. And, incredibly, such statements can even be found at the very highest levels of authority, at times. But it is critical to keep in mind that none of these statements is doctrinal, none of them are binding on a Catholic’s conscience, so we can and must remain free to disagree, even stridently. That’s all.
A late revelation on Chief Justice Roberts enshrining Obamacare in law May 20, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in Abortion, asshatery, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, General Catholic, horror, persecution, sadness, secularism, sexual depravity, shocking, Society.1 comment so far
I was doing some reading last night on the onset of the cultural collapse in the United States during the 1960s last night, and I had a bit of a minor epiphany. It may not be an epiphany to you at all, but it was to me, because I was ignorant of how these things I will describe below went down. But the crux of the matter is that history shows that Chief Justice John Roberts’ desire – which he made very public at the time – not to be seen “legislating against the democratic will” because such would be unprecedented in the history of the Supreme Court is absolute, total bunk. Now, I think we all know it was bunk, but certainly Obama and his shills in the media tried very hard to create the impression that never in the history of the republic had the Supreme Court subborned the “will of the people” as expressed in midnight deals and toothless executive orders, etc., etc., so that we wound up with this life-altering and likely country-destroying monstrosithy of legislation we call Obamacare. And it seemed that Roberts – at least publicly, who knows his true, private motivations for this miscarriage of jurisprudence – bought the argument without question.
But it’s a lie. It’s such a huge lie, it’s not even funny. For throughout the 1960s and well into the 1970s, and even carrying on to this day with courts declaring popularly approved constitutional amendments “unconstitional,” the left relied on the courts to overturn the plainly and often repeatedly-expressed will of the people to achieve their sexular pagan, anti-Church agenda. America was such a different country in the early 60s it is almost impossible for those of us who did not live in that time to imagine it. For instance, most states had laws declaring artificial contraception illegal. Even left-leaning states like Connecticutt had twice voted in state-wide referenda to keep contraception illegal. The left knew they could not get the keystone of their plan for societal destruction and radical, libido-powered moral decay enacted without the bedrock of contraception to make it all possible. So, they turned to the courts, and in several decisions throughout the 1960s, state laws keeping contraception illegal were struck down. The same process was applied to make “no-fault divorce” a reality. And, as we all know, the capstone of this effort was Roe v. Wade, which made murder of fellow human beings legal throughout the land, essentially without restriction. At that time, 1973, abortion was illegal in many states, even though more and more were legalizing it. But the political process wasn’t moving fast enough for the Church-hating cultural marxists, so they foisted this moral catastrophe on the nation through the courts.
And, so you know, the sexular pagans who drove this agenda were definitely Church-haters. Many of them, including one of the least known but most effectual, Leo Pfeffer, made plain their antipathy for the Church and their desire to see it driven from society. Leo Pfeffer is long dead, and has no Wikipedia page. But if you search his name, it comes up in all the landmark legal cases and other elements of societal upheaval that turned the culture upside down in the 60s. And Leo Pfeffer, and a few hundred or thousand other radical leftists like him, universally reviled the Church as the standard-bearer of morality, respect for authority, and adherence to a Truth that transcended the left’s limited human vision of will-to-power. But I digress.
For Roberts to claim, even as weakly as he did, that he had to find some justification to keep Obamacare “legal” because it is fundamentally wrong, unprecedentedly wrong, for the Supreme Court to overturn the result of a “democratic process,” is just asinine. The Supreme Court and many others have been doing so for years. In fact, I think a fair case could be made that the main purpose of the Supreme Court over the past 100 years or so has been to attack and undermine the very “democratic process” Roberts hung his hat on. I know there are probably many other, far more banal or even sinister reasons for why Roberts ruled as he did, but his public one is utter garbage. All I can say is, as I was reading this history of the destruction of the still fairly strong Christian elements of American culture in the 1960s, I was amazed by how utterly it was driven by courts and how contrary to the popular will.
Thus, our present oligarchy.
Too bad they failed.
Massive protests terminate homosexual rally in Georgia May 17, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in Basics, Ecumenism, error, General Catholic, horror, scandals, secularism, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Dang………wrong Georgia. I was getting ready to move! I add emphasis and comments:
Priests [priests!] and thousands of other Georgians broke through police barricades and forced gay rights activists to flee on Friday, cutting short their rally to mark the international day against homophobia. [I say, good for them, as long as they were non-violent]
Holding banners saying “Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia!” and “Not in our city!”, the demonstrators swarmed into a square in central Tbilisi where about 50 Georgians [50 whole people!] were rallying in support of gay rights. Police escorted the gay rights supporters onto buses and drove them away to avoid violence.Several people, including some journalists, received minor injuries, Georgian media said.“We won’t allow these sick people to hold gay parades in our country,” said Zhuzhuna Tavadze, brandishing a bunch of nettles and adding that she was ready to fight.
Why aren’t liberals more critical of islam? May 17, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in Basics, demographics, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, Holy suffering, horror, persecution, sadness, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society.comments closed
I found this post on a blog I don’t read very often, bookwormroom, discussing the very strange and really nonsensical phenomenon of why liberals constantly attack Christianity, but bend over backwards, upside down, and inside out, to give islam a pass. I think it has some merit, but also misses some rather significant reasons:
The article I read on this subject is Benjamin Wiker’s “Why aren’t liberals more critical of Islam?” In it, he posits that, because secularism arose within and in opposition to a Christian Europe and America, Christianity was its original enemy. Giving proof, however, to my repeated claim that “Progressives” are actually profoundly “regressive,” secularists (i.e., Leftists) continue their battle with Christianity despite that particular war having ended long ago. Judaism and Christianity absorbed the better parts of secularism while holding on to their core religious principles. [Well, the author is probably quite right regarding the absorption of secularism, but I would argue that doing so has badly disfigured Christianity and left the Church - and Christianity in general - in a profound crisis. Because secularism and Christianity are not complimentary ideologies, but implacably hostile ones. To the extent the Church and various sects have embraced secularism, they have been wounded by the experience. The Catholic Church fought mightily against doing so for three or more centuries, then suddenly tore down the bastions of resistance in the latter half of the 20th century. The result has been catastrophe, the biggest, most universal collapse in the practice of the Faith the Church has seen in its 2000 year history]
Because they are locked forever in an ideological time warp, says Wiker, liberals (or Progressives or Leftists or whatever else they call themselves to avoid the taint their ideas leave behind) cannot contemplate the possibility that there is another enemy, greater than their old foe Christianity.
And here I think the author makes a critical mistake. Yes, it is ludicrous that progressives ignore the truly monstrous ideology of islam, which poses at present a far more direct threat to progressives interests than does Christianity, but perhaps the progressives aren’t so blind and dumb as we think. Secular pagan progressivism is locked in a death struggle with Christianity. Secularism knows that a culture can either embrace secular values, or Christian ones, but not both. So, even though secularism is at present highly ascendent, and the Church and Christianity in general quite moribund, secularism still knows that the most existential threat to its existence resides in Christiainity. I think secularists are highly confident that they can pervert and corrupt islam much more easily than they have Christianity. They may be wrong about that, but there are many signs they are not. For one thing, as islam has become exposed to the modern world, their birth rate has collapsed at a rate faster than any seen in recorded history (true for most countries, not all, but most). Islamic embrace of the worst of western immorality, like rampant porn use, is another sign that islam may not stand up to secularism. But, at the same time, islam possesses such a perverse moral code, many muslims see no problem in brutally subjugating their wives and daughters while getting off to western porn at night. Such isn’t even seen as immoral.
I think there is something to the idea that pagan sexularism cannot recognize the threat of islam for many reasons, one of the most prime of which is the inherent hostility towards Christianity creating an attitude of sophist admiration for any non-Christian religion, a willingness to turn a blind eye to the deformed immoralities of islam or voodoo or whatever, and seeing in these groups a falsely benign alternative to “evil” Christianity. Sort of along the lines of the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
In fact, the author Wiker noted above gets it, whereas I don’t think bookworm did. Secularists are not only blind to the fact that all other religions are highly deficient in comparison to Christianity, and most of them are much more violently hostile to secularism, but secularism needs these other religions to be “good” in order to continue painting Christianity in a bad light. Secularism needs to be able to say that “islam is the religion of peace,” in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, so they can claim that Christianity is the religion of death and war. Even though that is completely inside out and upside down. As pretty much all secularist thinking is.
But while the radical pagan sexularists of the modern West may have huge blind-spots, they are not dumb. Or not as dumb as they act. While we Catholics may look around and say “what else could the secularists do to destroy our culture?,” the secularists look around and see a very unfinished job. They are not nearly done driving Christianity, and especially the embodiment of it, the Church, from the public square. Sexular paganism with a strong socialist bent has as its highest imperative the destruction of Christianity. I fear things will get much, much worse, before they get better.
But, we know how the story will end. So, never fear. It can actually be a very good thing to live in a time of persecution. Both white and red martyrdom atone for many sins, and may speed one’s way to Heaven. All we need to worry about is our own personal practice of virtue and adhering to the Truth Christ has revealed through His Church. Nothing else really matters.
Dear Lord: Another Gosnell, this time in Texas May 16, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in abdication of duty, Abortion, contraception, disaster, error, General Catholic, Holy suffering, horror, scandals, self-serving, sexual depravity, shocking, Society, unadulterated evil.comments closed
Operation Rescue, Life News, and Jill Stanek are all covering a huge story that broke yesterday while I was in pointless training, about abortionist Doug Karpen and his Houston mill, where several former mill workers have stepped forward – and provided copious evidence – of the same atrocious conditions, illegal very late-term abortions, and killing of babies after being born that we saw with Dr. Joseph Mengele Kermit Gosnell. I am certain this will be far from the last such revelations of illegal child-murder at abortion mills. I must warn you, this story is horribly graphic. From Jill Stanek:
Operation Rescue and Life Dynamics have released photos, video, and witness testimony about a late-term abortionist in Houston, Texas, who routinely murders babies in horrendous ways after he aborts them alive.
Three former employees of abortionist Douglas Karpen (pictured below left) have come forward with shocking testimony, which they have corroborated with video and photos.
In the video below Gigi Aguliar, Deborah Edge, and Krystal Rodriguez say Karpen aborts babies beyond the legal limit in Texas of 24 weeks.
The informants also say they witnessed Karpen routinely kill babies after they were born by puncturing the soft spot or impaling the stomach with a sharp instrument, twisting the head off, or puncturing the throat with his finger.
They maintain babies Karpen aborted babies alive and then murdered them “daily.”
There are also horribly graphic photos at Life News and Jill Stanek’s blogs linked above. I really don’t feel like having them on my blog, they are beyond horrific. Two little babies so hideously mangled……..ours is a sick, fallen world. How can we “aggiornamento” such a world, that is so utterly sick and fallen. Our Lord Himself said he prayed not for the world, but for His Own………
……The abortion lobby and media have been claiming Kermit Gosnell was an anomaly, while pro-life activists know there are many more just like him. How can it not be that late-term abortionists blur the line between preborn and postborn?
I urge the TMB and AG Abbott to reopen their investigation of Karpen, particularly in light of the fact that the U.S. Congress has now launched a probe into shoddy abortion clinics, late-term abortions, and live birth abortions.
By now Abbott, pictured right, has received a letter from the House Judiciary Committee inquiring how he is enforcing the federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act and how limits on late-term abortions are enforced.
Operation Rescue has many more details on this developing story, including video shot within the clinic.
It is true, they do. And while conditions at Karpen’s mill in Houston are not as bad as those in Kermit Gosnell’s baby assasination factory, they are still highly 
unsanitary and septic. Looking at the picture of Karpen’s abortuary, I was reminded of the nasty-looking Routh St. mill on Central Expy in Dallas. Same dingy exterior, covering up, I am told, a rather nasty, dirty interior.
Unbelievably, Operation Rescue had submitted the evidence to the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbot, and the Texas Medical Board for review, in 2012. They were told by the TMB, in an unsigned letter, that the case was dismissed due to “insufficient evidence.” I bet their scrambling to re-examine that evidence right now. And Attorney General Greg Abbot had better be on the ball on this one, as should Harris County DAs.
There is no question many state and other medical boards are supportive of, and have close connections to, the abortion industry. So, getting medical boards to condemn mills generally takes heavy political pressure. We’ve seen around the country that state boards or other supervisory agencies have historically been ridiculously lax, callously lax, in investigating complaints regarding mills, and in conducting thorough-going inspections, reviews of records, etc. But given how much money NARAL, Planned Barrenhood, the Hershey fund, etc., throw around, this probably shouldn’t surprise us. Abortion is a multi-billion dollar nexus of evil, and the prime selling point to induce doctors to perform them has always been money.
If you want to help insure this case isn’t buried by abortion-industry bought influence, please, in yoru charity, consider contacting the following responsible officials:
Mike Anderson, District Attorney Harris County, Texas
1201 Franklin Street, Suite 600, Houston, Texas 77002-1923
Voice: (713)-755-5800
E-Mail: Armand_Stephanie@dao.hctx.net
Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas
Office of the Attorney General
PO Box 12548
Austin, TX 78711-2548
Voice: (512) 463-2050
E-Mail: robert.allen@texasattorneygeneral.gov
Texas Medical Board
333 Guadalupe
Tower 3, Suite 610
Austin, TX 78701
Voice: (512) 305-7010
E-Mail: verifcic@tmb.state.tx.us
How our cardinals do sin…. May 16, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in abdication of duty, Abortion, Basics, contraception, disaster, episcopate, error, horror, scandals, self-serving, shocking, Society, the return.comments closed
Cardinals are the very princes of the Church. They are men given great Grace to elect the Pope, in addition to the torrents of Grace available through their ordination and then consecration as bishops. But it seems so very few Cardinals cooperate with that Grace. There has been the stomach-turning scandal of Cardinal O’Brien of Scotland, who resigned from his see in disgrace after numerous reports of depraved homosexual activity surfaced involving him, and men under his care, typically seminarians. After this resignation, Cardinal O’Brien had esconced himself in the parish of his “lifelong friend,” a fellow priest. When the Vatican began to intimate it would force Cardinal O’Brien to live a more retired and prayerful life than one of likely continued debauchery with his special “friend,” that priest-friend threatened to cause further scandal if his Cardinal-buddy were removed from his loving care. Well, the Vatican wasn’t bullied by this threat, the Holy See just announced that Cardinal O’Brien is leaving Scotland.
Michael Voris has much more here, including additional details on the O’Brien scandal:
This homosexual crisis in the priesthood is, to my mind, the single greatest threat to the priesthood in its 2000 year history. Can men engaged in lives founded on lies and engaging in the most debauched of activities really have a valid vocation? Do they really intend to confect the Blessed Sacrament, to change bread and wine+water into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? The implications of this scandal are soul-rocking, to say the least.
And as if the scandal of Cardinal O’Brien was not enough (and we know he is far from the only homosexual cardinal the Church has been afflicted with in the past few decades), today we get word that Cardinal Dolan once again failed to speak Truth to power, once again caved when it came to standing up for what the Church believed when it might threaten his ego-boosting playing at politics with the governor of New York:
New York’s Timothy Cardinal Dolan warned Gov. Cuomo to be ready for a holy battle if he tries to strengthen state abortion-rights laws.
In an interview on an Albany radio station Tuesday, Dolan said Catholic bishops would be “as vociferous and rigorous as possible in our opposition” to the governor’s efforts.
Although Cuomo has yet to release an abortion bill, he’s announced plans to write into New York law protections now provided by federal court decisions like Roe vs. Wade…….………..Archbishop Dolan said the conviction Monday of Philadelphia abortion provider Dr. Kermit Gosnell on murder charges calls for laws that go the other way instead.“I am in a bit of consternation as to why in a time when there seems to be kind of a sobering up about these horrors of the unfettered access to abortion, why in New York we are talking about even expanding it further,” Dolan said. [Because there is nothing more sacred to a leftist than a woman's right to kill her child, you dolt! They will sacrifice ANY other policy position to protect that one! When will you guys in the American hierarchy figure this out? THE DEMOCRATS ARE THE PARTY OF ABORTION, AND WILL BE FOR AS FAR AS WE CAN SEE IN THE FUTURE. NOTHING - NOTHING (short of an act of God, which you are deliberately frustrating with your cowardice) - WILL MAKE THEM CHANGE THAT!]When asked how Cuomo could still consider himself a Catholic in good standing while also promoting abortion legislation, Dolan responded: “That’s something that I talk turkey with him about.”Dolan spokesman Joseph Zwilling later said the cardinal did not mean to suggest that Cuomo would not be a Catholic in good standing if he went forward with the bill.
Oh, Cardinal Dolan, you pathetic worldling.
How can we otherwise think, Cardinal Dolan, that you care so very much more about the opinions of men, and especially powerful men, than you do about either serving Christ OR even protecting the unborn on a natural level, that you immediately take the most powerful weapon you have against these apostate Catholics off the table? Cuomo is pursuing the most radical expansion of abortion in this nation at present. All around the country, abortion is being rolled back by drips and drabs, but not in New Yack! Oh, no, there, it’s a brave new world of baby slaughter for all, with the great Cardinal of New Yack talking turkey as the sewer drains overflow with blood! And so you have to clarify “oh……I didn’t mean to imply still-living-in-sin-with-his-concubine Andrew Cuomo wouldn’t be a Catholic in good standing if he is directly responsible for dramatically increasing what is already by far the country’s highest rate of abortion!” It wouldn’t be politic to do so, right?!
National Right to Life Conference to be held in Dallas June 27-29 May 14, 2013
Posted by tantamergo in Abortion, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, Ecumenism, error, General Catholic, Society.comments closed
Get your pro-life on at the annual National Right to Life conference at the Hyatt Regency DFW June 27-29. Registration is (yikes!) $95. Couples get a $5 break. There is childcare available. You an register here.
There are many, many speakers, mostly a bevy of evangelical protestants. But, Fr. Frank Pavone will apparently get out of his cell in Amarillo and be there, along with Brother Paul O’Donnell, FBP from Minneapolis.
Headliners include O. Carter Snead, Wesley J. Smith, Chet McDoniel, David Barton, and Reggie Littlejohn. I know!
I will bet money they don’t talk about contraception very much. But we’ll never be rid of abortion in this country, until all the churches oppose contraception and most of the people stop using it. And it will take the Catholic Church getting serious about her opposition to contraception, again, in order to make both happen. But we’re not even there, yet.
