Happy Birthday! December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, General Catholic, Our Lady.comments closed
This blog turns 1 year old tomorrow. In that time, I’ve posted 951 times (which is a pretty good number, seeing as this is a hobby), had 1366 comments, and the blog has been viewed by about 30,000 unique individuals. I get about 250 readers a day now, up from literally 4 or 5 somedays when I first started!, which isn’t bad for a small blog with no advertisements and almost nothing done in the way of selling itself. But any good it’s done, it has been the work of the Spirit, wheras all the bad is strictly mine alone. Thank you, Lord, for everything!
And I again ask Mary to pray for me and for all work that I do here, that I may help confirm people in the Faith, bring new people to it through understanding, and never turn anyone away from the Faith through my many mistakes and misdirected efforts. I beg forgiveness for the times when I have been too scornful or not served God’s Will. I also ask for the continuing intercession for me and my family and all our intentions by St. Joseph, my guardian angel, St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Jesus, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. John of the Cross, St. Bede the Venerable, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. John Bosco, St. Phillip Neri, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Augustine, St. Maximillian Kolbe, and St. Pio of Pietrelcina!
I pray I do much better in the coming year!
JustFaith has no place in a Catholic church December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in Dallas Diocese, disaster, foolishness, General Catholic, North Deanery, scandals.comments closed
Earlier this year, I blogged on a “social justice” conference hosted at St. Elizabeth Seton parish in Plano, TX that had strong ties to an organization called “JustFaith.” At the time, I stated that JustFaith was a self-described “progressive” organization and was an organization immersed in marxist “liberation theology.” Now, the esteemable Stephanie Block has an article at Spero highlighting other ties between JustFaith and pro-abort, even anti-Christian rhetoric, as JustFaith puts their adherence to advancing progressive political causes ahead of their adherence to any particular Faith:
The bottom line, however, is how hapless Catholics, exposed to JustFaith materials, understand what they have experienced. In one Catholic Forum discussion, a participant writes:
I dropped out of JustFaith due to the curriculum opposing the basic tenets of the faith, like: Contemplation subordinate to action, sin not being emphasized as the problem but systems like corporations, systems, and even the hierarchy of the Church as opposed to ecclesial based communities as needed for improvement of the world. Jesus as a radical opposing the political powers of the day was the way they presented our Lord.
It smacked of temporal salvation by the correct “use” of divine revelation. Absolutely no Church-based books like the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church” or encyclicals, just what other people say about official Church documents. One book offered, “The Powers That Be, A Theology for a New Millennium” by “Jesus Seminar” member Walter Wink, intimated at the Church “making” Jesus divine in opposition to His actual Divinity.
The reason for a 30 week, multi-hour classes and “immersion” weekends is to re-educate Catholics in a different Christian ethic in order to fit the “humanistic” ideals of the JustFaith program. This is not a problem for Protestant groups as they have such a varied theology that this is just another view added to their personal interpretations anyway. Official Catholic Magisterial teaching is oriented to sin and to our nature based on original sin with salvation through Grace. This JustFaith program is in no way faithful to that.
Another quote, this time from Rich Leonardi of Ten Reasons and the Sonshine Morning Show on EWTN. Problems with JustFaith include:
1) The apparent total rejection of personal salvation and sin – which seriously distorts Church teaching, undermines evangelization, and could actually endanger people’s salvation. This often accompanies “Reign of God” theology in my experience.
2) Collapsing Revelation, authentic interpretation and the interpretation of an individual theologian so that average Catholics going through would not know that there was a difference and that one obliges and the other is just an opinion. The distinction between revelation and the application in a specific situation is not maintained. Much that is really prudential is dealt with as though it is obligatory.
3) Reducing everything in relationship to God, conversion, and discipleship, to a very narrow set of economic and political concerns.
There is much more at the link. This is pure Marxism, given a veneer of “Catholicism” to suck in those with perhaps a dim understanding of the Faith and politico-economics. Marxism insists, INSISTS, that everything be suborned to Marxist ideology, and creates an entire philosophy within which to interpret history, religion, politics, culture, everything. This is what Pope Benedict stated when as Cardinal Ratzinger he took apart “liberation theology” in 1985. While “liberation theology” as an open political movement has largely died, those committed to that kind of radical Marxist utopianism continue their eternal fight now, in a lower key manner, by infiltrating numerous churches with their rhetoric, or hermeneutic, if you will. I spoke about this in a post last week – Marxism by default is an all-encompassing philosophy, or hermeneutic (world-view), that dominates all other considerations, and allies itself with all other progressive causes as a matter of course. Thus, it is impossible to separate out a “Catholic” marxism that won’t be deeply entangled with pro-abort, pro-contracept, pro-fake gay marriage, pro-radical demolition of cultural mores, whatever. They are one and the same, you can’t be “progressive” without embracing these other sacred “progressive” shibboleths.
It pains me greatly that Seton and other parishes keep getting more and more involved, mired, in this kind of activity. I am sure the intentions are very good, to help the poor, but getting deeper and deeper into Marxist liberation theology is not the way to help, and it has no place in a Catholic church-run program. It is counter to the Faith, as our Pope has made clear.
Another Papal quote that got much less attention….. December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, North Deanery, sadness.comments closed
…….which is surprising, because it pulls the robes off of hundreds of thousands of “professional Catholics:”
n Pope Benedict’s latest interview with Peter Seewald, Light of the World, the Holy Father expresses his view on the current state of Church bureaucracy. . .
“The bureaucracy is spent and tired … It is sad that there are what you might call professional Catholics who make a living on their Catholicism, but in whom the spring of faith flows only faintly, in a few scattered drops.”
This is not the first time the Pope has said this. He made similar comments in The Ratzinger Report. I am amazed at the size of the bureaucracy in the Church, in this country but also in many others. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country who make their living working for a parish, diocese, or some national Catholic group. I wonder if all this effort, all these myriad employees, are not one source for many of the problems in the Church. There are two immutable laws concerning bureaucracies: they always seek to perpetuate themselves and grow ad infinitum, doing all sorts of important work we somehow survived many years noone doing, and, in light of Buckley’s Law, they invariably drift left over time, becoming bastions of left wing preferences. I will not go dig through the many posts wherein I have detailed areas where Catholic bureacracies have embraced the views of the left, but they are countless, and infect some of the most “prestigious” Catholic organizations.
But even more fundamentally, I think the Holy Father is getting at the fact that many of these folks do not view the Church as the Holy Bride of Christ, but as a social organization doing good works at best, or a place to receive a paycheck. I have to wonder if the fundamental mission of the Church – spreading the Gospel, celebrating the Sacraments, fighting a culture gone mad on its own hubris, and (the big one) saving souls by bringing them to Christ, doesn’t get lost somewhat in all this diffusion of effort. I was once in a group meeting of a bunch of people talking about what the Church meant to them, what they thought it was best at doing. This was a group of about 20 people, mostly women, and I answered towards the end. Everyone said something like “it’s a great group of people,” or “it does really good things to help the poor,” or “it a vehicle of change in the world,” or things to that effect. I finally said I love the Church because it is the best and quite possibly ONLY way to know, love and serve God and to save my immortal soul! Everyone looked kind of embarrassed after that, and the few people who answered after me basically parroted my statement. All those other things mentioned are fine, but they are not the essential, unique mission of the Church! And I think far too many people in the Church today, and especially among the professional Catholics, see the Church more as a giant not-for-profit corporation and not as the unique construction of the Holy Spirit and the Will of God!
I think the Holy Father is saying we need to get back to basics, back to the fundamental mission of the Church. And as the Church shrinks in many places where it has been comfortably, too comfortably, part of the cultural fabric for centuries, as alot of the cultural Catholics drop away, the Church is going to have to refocus on that evangelical mission again. It will happen naturally, but not without a great deal of sturm and drang in the interim. There will be suffering, which, we are called to embrace.
Do you ever pray for a huge reduction in the size of the Catholic bureaucracy, from the parish level up to the national organizations?
First Marian Shrine approved in the US! December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, General Catholic, Our Lady.comments closed
I had never even heard of this apparation before (because, as a convert, I’m not wired into the Catholic telepathic knowledge network, that makes all Catholics know the Faith cold……uhhhh), but culturewarnotes.com broke this story yesterday and it seems that Champion, WI, and the apparitions that appeared there are now the first approved Marian apparations to have taken place in the US (meaning they now have been approved as actually occuring, meeting certain criteria:
David Ricken, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, announced today his official approval of the Marian apparitions at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion.
Ricken’s decision makes the shrine the first and only site in the United States of an approved apparition of the Virgin Mary. The designation puts it in the same category as other famous Marian apparition sites such as Lourdes
, France; Guadalupe, Mexico; and Fatima, Portugal.
According to the diocese, the Virgin Mary appeared in the area to Belgian immigrant Adele Brise three times in 1859.
Brise’s account states the apparition appeared in dazzling white claiming to be the “Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners” and asking Brise to also pray for sinners and teach children about salvation. Adele’s father built a chapel at the site of the apparitions soon after.
The announcement very appropriately occurred yesterday on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The entire Americas have been consecrated to Mary for a very long time. Keep praying your Novena for Our Lady of Guadalupe – Advent is the best time of year to really focus on Mary and all she does for us. Go visit your mom and pray for her intercession! All the Graces you receive flow from Christ through Mary to you!
Praise God! Holy Mary, pray for me, that I may emulate your total love and obedience to God’s Will to the best of my ability, that I may die to self and live only to serve God and, through that love of God, others.
These guys are brilliant – population reduction will increase, not decrease poverty December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, General Catholic, scandals, Society.comments closed
Some environmental folks like to posit that, if we could just get rid of 85% of us annoying, consumptive, planet destroying homo sapiens, the world would be a great place; so great, in fact, that poverty would be eliminated, because there would be enough for everyone then!! (twinkle eyes, holding hands clutched to cheek). This just goes further to show that environmental watermelon types do not know anything about economics – humans are net producers, not consumers. A great video from Population Research Institute shows this salient fact:
Man, these guys make catchy, informative videos. Perhaps, in our charity, we could support their work. These are core truths, folks, things that people “used to know – ” you want a more productive economy, you need a growing population. Since the 1960s, much of this “ground truth” has been forgotten, or, in actuality, propagandized largely out of existence. The neo-Malthusians like Erlich and our own presidential “science czar” John Holdren have tried to tell us that people, God’s greatest creation, are the source of all the world’s problems, which is a ridiculous proposition in the first place. This hyper-affluent narcissistic self loathing by the overeducated Western elites has got to stop, or one day its going to lead to the kind of genocide we’ve never seen befo……..oh….yeah, forgot about that. And that. And that. And possibly this. And absolutely this. Uhhhh……hmmm….utopian solutions to left-identified problems seem to have a common, final solution.
‘Catholics for Equality’ is a dangerous group December 9, 2010
Posted by Tantumblogo in General Catholic, scandals, Society.comments closed
This group is going to cause problems. They seem to be fearless and have no scruples whatsoever. I wrote earlier that ‘Catholics for Equality,’ which consists of about 7-8 paid activists, were going to try to get people to spy on their pastors in order to limit free speech and prevent Catholic doctrine from being relayed from the pulpit on the issue of homosexuality. Now, these catholycs have issued claiming an endorsement from Cardinal Wuerl that never happened:
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has reaffirmed the illegitimate status of Catholics for Equality, a budding homosexualist “Catholic” group that is scheduled to be hosted at a student event at Georgetown University on Wednesday evening.
The archdiocesan statement followed a statement from the Rainbow Sash Movement (RSM), another “Catholic” homosexualist group, which had claimed in a press release that D.C. Cardinal Donald Wuerl had explicitly allowed Catholics for Equality to appear at Georgetown.
“The Rainbow Sash Movement wishes to congratulate Cardinal Wuerl of the Archidocese of Washington for siding with common sense and reason” by condoning the event, stated the Rainbow Sash press release, entitled “Gay Catholics welcome Cardinal’s (sic) Wuerl’s Change of Heart on Gay Rights.”
Susan Gibbs, communications director for the Archdiocese of Washington, called the Rainbow Sash press release a “nice piece of fiction” and asserted that Catholics for Equality was not a legitimate Catholic organization.
“Putting the label ‘Catholic’ on a group doesn’t make it Catholic,” Gibbs told LifeSiteNews.com. “It’s not a Catholic organization. It was formed in opposition to Catholic teaching.”
Wow, what an amazingly clear statement from a diocesan communications director. That’s brilliant. So, to recap: ‘Catholics for Equality’ is a fake catholyc group, formed to spread heresy, and is now issuing blatantly false statements regarding Chuch leadership. Gee, you think these guys operate with a love for the Church and the Truth Christ has revealed through it as their highest concern?
With such a seemingly reckless disregard for the truth, and the Truth, and an ideological agenda that they will pursue at all costs, this group is likely going to cause some problems, especially in a few years when they figure out that, no, Church Doctrine does not change to fit the whims of 1% of the population, or 100% – the Truth is the Truth, and is unchanging. I suspect a massive hissy fit will then ensue.
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