St. Maximilian Kolbe…. August 17, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, General Catholic.comments closed
…..had a prayer for the Internet? Not really, but the great saint was a publisher and understood using modern communications technology to spread the Good News. Crescat got it, so I’m ripping it off from her:
Heavenly Father, Your loving servant Maximilian Kolbe spent his life in service to others, using technology to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. You crowned his life with the grace to give his life for another, in imitation of Jesus who said, “There is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.” Through the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe, may we always use technology for Your glory and to draw others close to You and to your Blessed Mother, Mary.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!
St. Maximilian Kolbe is one of those great Saints I need to study much more. And I love the Franciscans of the Immaculate!
Another provocative video from Michael Voris August 17, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Ecumenism, General Catholic.comments closed
I don’t think he’s doing anything here but relating Catholic doctrine, at least that which was held up until Vatican II, but his description of rabbinical Judaism as a “man-made religion” is sure to cause a great deal of fireworks. It is important to point out, however, that prior to Vatican II, the Catholic Church held that evangelizing Jews was very important, and that there was no salvation outside the Church. St. Augustine took such a hard stand on this as to state that even unbaptized babies went to hell, although the Church never formally adopted that – limbo was where the Church stated unbaptized, sinless people went. But since Vatican II, the Church has stated that there are many potential paths to salvation, although the Catholic Church remains the best path. Msgr. Gherardini, in his thought-provoking and very well argued The Ecumenical Council Vatican II: A Much Needed Discussion, saw this as being one of the largest points of “discontinuity” between pre- and post-Vatican II Church doctrine, a subject that needed further clarification.
Thinking about Voris most controversial point, is it false to describe Judaism after the destruction of the Temple a “man-made religion?” It is radically different from Temple Judaism. But I don’t know if Jews claim some form of Divine Revelation that led to the creation of rabbinical Judaism. Anyone know?
Is it wrong to proselytize Jews, or Muslims, or Hindus? If we believe that the Catholic Faith is the One, True Faith, how can we not?
UPDATE: Subvet comments below that, actually, the doctrine regarding “no salvation outside the Church” was being modified clarified by the time of Pius IX (1860s-70s) when Blessed Pius IX stated in Quanto Conficiamur Moerere that those ignorant of the Faith but leading lives “not guilty of deliberate sin” will not suffer eternal punishments. To me, he seems to be implying limbo here, for in the next paragraph, he states that “Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom “the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior.” He appears to be saying that if you’re not Catholic, but sinless, you won’t go to Hell, but you won’t go to Heaven, either, meaning Limbo. This would be due to a lack of sanctifying Grace. If one goes back further, to the time of Boniface VIII, he states “That there is one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church we are compelled by faith to believe and hold, and we firmly believe in her and sincerely confess her, outside of whom there is neither salvation nor remission of sins…. In her there is ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’.” So, for a sinless person Boniface VIII would appear also to also be pointing towards Limbo, which is an idea that has kind of gone out of fashion.
You could read into Pius IX’s statements a view that those struggling with ‘invincible ignorance’ regarding the Faith are different from those “stubbornly resisting” the Faith, which gets down to the fact that only the Lord can read a person’s heart and know what is in it. I still think that Pius IX was pointing towards Limbo, which was a concept used a great deal at that time.
Now this is my kind of conversation! Thanks, Subvet!
UPDATE2: Steve Kellmeyer finds alot of problems with Voris’ take on Judaism, and covers ground I didn’t/couldn’t. He also addresses some of the ‘salvation outside the Church’ issues raised here. I will say I don’t think Voris was anti-Semitic, and I don’t think Voris’ assessment of salvation with respect to other religions is off base, either. On the issue of modern day Judaism as a construct, however, I think Steve takes apart that notion pretty well, and I should have too, for I had just read in Samuel about periods of time in the Jewish religion when the Ark was stolen by the Philistines.
New poll finds most Americans opposed to abortion August 17, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, awesomeness, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic.comments closed
From Lifenews.com, a new Rasmussen poll has found that a majority of Americans find abortion morally wrong and that almost half say it is too easy to obtain an abortion in the US. This continues a trend towards a growing rejection of abortion in the United States. In addition, women appear to be some of the strongest pro-life supporters, making a lie of the common claim by the abortion industry that women overwhelmingly want access to abortion.
So, what’s going to happen in 5-10 years when 60% of Americans are opposed to abortion (if present trends continue)? Will the courts continue to rule that popular will does not count? Will we have another cultural arena in which the elites lecture to us little people, and tell us how silly and backwards we are? It will be interesting to see if this trend continues long term, and whether mass popular opposition to abortion can finally end it, or at least dramatically lessen abortion’s availability, in this country.
No, I’m not holding my breath.
Feminists – “We raised our daughters to be sexually empowered, how come they’re sluts?” August 17, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, foolishness, General Catholic, sadness, Society.comments closed
Ahem. In a recent article in Maclean’s, an upscale Canadian political magazine, feminists express their shock, anxiety, and outrage that their daughters, raised with a free-wheeling view of sex as sport, are turning out to be uber-sluts. Their term, not mine. Cassy Fiano comments on the irony of this, seeing as the very programs and methodologies feminists have insisted on have created this situation they claim to despair:
It was just fine for the femisogynists to dress and act like sluts when they were growing up. It’s not OK for their daughters to do it, though. What’s the difference to them, though? And why are they so confused about how it happened?
One culprit for why girls are so hyper-sexualized these days can be traced right back to the extreme sex education being taught in our schools, with the charge being led by femisogynists to keep the sex ed coming. Girls have been taught by the adults in their lives to embrace their sexuality, have been lovingly encouraged to explore their sex lives in new and innovative ways. The feminist extremists gush about the brilliance of giving their daughters vibrators, they teach middle schoolers how to have good sex. Planned Parenthood distributes sexually explicit brochures to Girl Scouts and teach 10-year-olds about anal sex. Children are inundated about sex from extremely young ages about sex, something that the femisogynists encourage, and yet they can’t understand why teenage girls are sleeping around?
Would it be too obvious for me to comment that this is what one can expect when children are hyper-sexualized starting in kindergarten in many of our schools, and are exposed to televised and internet depictions of sex that treat it as little more relevant than a handshake? Would it be too obvious to state that wrong-headed “sex-ed” programs have, instead of arming kids with knowledge to equip them to make informed decisions on sex, turned them into immature little lotharios? How many times must we try to re-invent the wheel? Traditional morality evolved, guided by revealed Truth, precisely in order to guide and instruct many of our base instincts, to cull them and place them under the control of our reason. This is why so many stern fathers and concerned mothers in the past have tried to shield their children from exposure to sexual concepts at inappropriate ages. The feminists decried them as having hang ups. I think, once again, psychological projection abounds.
And, while trying not to fall off my high horse, it is difficult not to see this as yet another condemnation of so many of our schools, public and private. Unfortunately, most parents are insufficiently involved in their children’s education – they feel that if they get them to school on time and reasonably well-kept, they’ve done their job. Most do not take an interest in their children’s education to an extent that they can shield them from inappropriate subject matter, where that is even an option. Much of the time, this kind of early sex-ed is done surreptitiously, without the parents knowledge until after the fact. In that case, it is too late. This is not to say that a supremely well involved parent cannot guide their child through a school system, protect them from this kind of material, and receive a top-notch education. It simply means that in the vast majority of cases, most parents do not do this for a variety of reasons.
And so, we read the horror stories of oral sex being more common than candy in our middle schools, and of pre-teen girls making tidy profits providing certain services to boys in the restroom. And the radical feminists will wail and gnash their teeth and wonder where they went wrong. They will avoid the obvious answer, the one that stares them in the face every time they look in the mirror. Human nature does not change, and a whole vast system had grown up over the millenia in order to tame that nature, a system they have dedicated their lives to destroying. They have been incredibly successful.
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