A real hot opinion from Rorate Caeli December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, sadness, scandals, sickness.comments closed
Rorate Caeli is a tradition-supporting blog that is known (to me!) to have some pretty hot opinions. Here’s one – the “Dutch Church,” that is, the Church in the Netherlands, which was very influential before, during, and for a short while after the Council, was also incredibly corrupt, steeped in the abuse of thousands and a massive cover-up. So says a recent report released in Holland:
Now we know in great detail just what much of the hierarchy of the Dutch Church – the national Church that led the Universal Church in the run-up to Vatican II and in the implementation of the Conciliar reforms – was up to in the decades following World War II, before the Council, and after it: systematic abuse, tens of thousands of victims, cover-up in an almost unbelievable scale, spiritual death.This was the Church of “The Dutch Catechism”, the “Church of the future”, the Church that introduced Communion in the hand, wild liturgies, additional “Eucharistic prayers” in the vernacular that were not the Canon that the Roman Rite had always known: it was the avant-garde Church that led the Council Fathers to the glorious springtime that would follow.
Fr. George David Byers on the National Defense Authorization Act December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, foolishness, General Catholic, North Deanery, persecution, scandals, sickness, Society, Virtue.comments closed
Fr. George David Byers comments on the National Defense Authorization Act that now makes it legal for the US military to place US citizens in detention in offshore facilities for unlimited time and with no charge and no court date. Is the threat of terrorism really that dire, to sacrifce such a huge part of our civil liberties?
So, both the House and the Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act, giving the military the go ahead to imprison people in offshore facilities without trial or any civil rights. Obama said he will not veto the legislation. It seems that imprisonment of Americans without trial was written by the White House. So, people will just disappear. No more constitution. No more United States. Obama-nation. No one is going to push to impeach Obama. The bill was almost unanimously supported in both the House and the Senate. This is how things happened in Germany before the Holocaust.
All faithful Catholics are now declared traitors of the United States, for all faithful Catholics respect life from natural conception to natural death. This makes someone subject to military imprisonment without representation and this indefinitely. There is no more religious freedom in the United States. [there is a fair amount of hyperbole here, for the present. For the future, who knows?]
We thank our Lord for sending a persecution which is likely to have many martyrs. This will prepare for many others to wake up and die right. And eternity is what it is all about, right? Thank you Jesus.
Many fear a persecution. But as Fr. Byers says, martyrs make up some of the most glorious stars of Heaven. But so few have sufficient Grace…….
Something good from Texas Catholic? December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, Glory, Interior Life, Latin Mass, religious, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
I saw a tantalizing site associated, apparently, with Texas Catholic just a moment ago. It seems like they are going to run a photo feature on the Dallas Carmelites in the near future? Something good from Texas Catholic? Really?
I have had the privilege of meeting some of the Carmelite nuns. They have been blessed with several vocations of late. DEO GRATIAS! But some of the nuns are also getting on in years and are sick. Would you, in your charity, pray for Mother Juanita Marie and Mother Mary Regina? Both could use your prayers – they pray for us constantly!. I love nuns, especially Carmelites – I have a profound attraction to Carmelite spirituality and especially St. Teresa of Jesus and St. Therese of Lisieux (and Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, and St. Teresa Bendicta of the Cross, and………..)
This could be something really exciting! And if the nuns need a handy man or any woodwork done, furniture built, etc……….I am about to have almost 3 weeks off!
Start your Christmas Novena today! December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, Glory, Good St. Joseph, Interior Life, North Deanery, Our Lady, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
I think our Blessed Lord, who was Incarnated for our salvation, is worth a few extra prayers! How about a Novena?! Some
sources say this should have been started yesterday, but if you start today, you finish on eve of Christ’s High Mass! I like it!
Two versions – you can get the Novena from EWTN:
Day One
God’s Love Revealed In His Becoming Man.
Thought:
Because our first parent Adam had rebelled against God, he was driven out of paradise and brought on himself and all his descendants the punishment of eternal death. But the son of God, seeing man thus lost and wishing to save him from death, offered to take upon Himself our human nature and to suffer death Himself, condemned as a criminal on a cross. “But, My Son,” we may imagine the eternal Father saying to Him, “think of what a life of humiliations and sufferings Thou wilt have to lead on earth. Thou wilt have to be born in a cold stable and laid in a manger, the feeding trough of beasts.
While still an infant, Thou wilt have to flee into Egypt, to escape the hands of Herod. After Thy return from Egypt, Thou wilt have to live and work in a shop as a lowly servant, poor and despised. And finally, worn out with sufferings, Thou wilt have to give up Thy life on a cross, put to shame and abandoned by everyone.” “Father,” replies the Son, “all this matters not. I will gladly bear it all, if only I can save man.”
What should we say if a prince, out of compassion for a dead worm, were to choose to become a worm himself and give his own life blood in order to restore the worm to life? But the eternal Word has done infinitely more than this for us. Though He is the sovereign Lord of the world, He chose to become like us, who are immeasurably more beneath Him than a worm is beneath a prince, and He was willing to die for us, in order to win back for us the life of divine grace that we had lost by sin.
When He saw that all the other gifts which He had bestowed on us were not sufficient to induce us to pray His love with love, He became man Himself and gave Himself all to us. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us;” “He loved us anddelivered Himself up for us.”
Prayer:
O Great Son of God, Thou hast become man in order to make Thyself loved by men. But where is the love that men give Thee in return?
Thou hast given Thy life blood to save our souls. Why then are we so unappreciative that, instead of repaying Thee with love, we spurn
Thee with ingratitude? And I, Lord, I myself more than others have thus ill treated Thee.
But Thy Passion is my hope. For the sake of that love which led Thee to take upon Thyself human nature and to die for me on the cross, forgive me all the offenses I have committed against Thee.
I love Thee, O Word Incarnate; I love Thee, O infinite goodness. Out of love for Thee, that I could die of grief for these offenses. Give me, O Jesus, Thy love. Let me no longer live in ungrateful forgetfulness of the love Thou bearest me. I
wish to love Thee always. Grant that I may always preserve in this holy desire.
O Mary, Mother of God and my Mother, pray for me that thy Son may give me the grace to love Him always, unto death.
Amen.
Here is another Christmas Novena that incorporates the Awesome! “O” Antiphons! It’s meant to be read as a family, led by the father (dads, you really need to be the spiritual head of your families! You have the same role in your family as a priest does in a parish!). This one is pretty long, I’m only going to quote the “O” Antiphons:
O WISDOM, who came from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: Come, and
teach us the way of prudence.
Sirach 24:2; Wisdom 8:1. Symbols: oil lamp, open book.
O LORD AND RULERof the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come, and redeem us with outstretched arm.
Exodus 3:2, 20:1. Symbols: burning bush, stone tablets .
O ROOT OF JESSE, who stands for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall keep silence and unto whom the Gentiles shall make supplication: Come to deliver us, and tarry not.
Isaiah 11:1-3., 10 Symbol: vine or plant in flower, especially a rose.
O KEY OF DAVID, and Scepter of the House of Israel, who opens and no man shuts, who shuts and no man opens: Come, and bring forth the captive from his prison, he who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Isaiah 22:22. Symbols: key; broken chains.
O DAWN OF THE EAST, brightness of the light eternal, and Sun of Justice: Come, and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Psalm 19:6-7. Symbol: rising sun.
O KING OF THE GENTILESand their desired One, the Cornerstone that makes both one: Come, and deliver man, whom You formed out of the dust of the earth.
Psalm 2:7-8, Ephesians 2:14-20. Symbols, Crown, scepter .
O EMMANUEL, God with us, our King and Lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Savior: Come to save us, O Lord our God.
I saiah 7:14; 33:22. Symbols: tablets of stone, Chalice and Host.
I pray you are still praying (I pray you pray?) your St. Andrew Christmas Novena that runs from Nov. 29-Christmas Day!
DEO GRATIAS!!!!!
Friday Non Sequitir, Mk. II December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, foolishness, General Catholic, silliness.comments closed
Here’s the second non sequitir post of the day…….low level flying! Lex had a link to a site with numerous photos of primarily military pilots engaging in insane low leel flying:
Friday Non Sequitir, Mk. I December 16, 2011
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, Society.comments closed
I have two quick (for me) non sequitir posts for today. Many have perhaps heard of boom towns and oil production in, of all places, North Dakota. This is the Bakken play, a tight shale formation producing oil in relatively high volumes through the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wherein high pressure steam or CO2 is used to drive the oil or gas out of the shale so it can be collected. I got a hyperventilating e-mail about how great the Bakken play was, and how it was going to solve all our energy problems. These shale fields (for there are many of them in the US) have been known for a long time, as has the technique of hydraulic fracturing. I replied to the e-mail thus:
Well, there is alot of excitement about fracking right now. But fracking as a process has been around a long time. [My dad, who is a fraidy-cat who won’t post a comment, says the first time he heard of it was 1948 in Okliehoma] It’s only been recently that the price of oil and NG has been high enough to make wide application of fracking profitable.[And my dad pointed out that it’s wide scale horizontal drilling in combination with fracking that is the new “trick.”]
Some points – first of all, I don’t know what the estimated reserves of the Bakken formation are, but 10% of 503 billion barrels would be 50 billion barrels. But whether that much is recoverable is open to speculation
Secondly – there are many formations like this in the US. Some have more recoverable gas than oil, like the Marcellus and Barnett in Texas, while others have more oil than gas, like the Bakken and the Eagleford shale in S. Texas. There are many of these fields, the Bakken is one of the larger ones and also has advantages of being fairly easy to recover. But many these fields are being developed on a large scale.
Down sides:
As I said, fracking has been around for a long time. Why is it suddenly the “wonder process?” Well, because of the high price of POL products in general right now. But those prices are forecast to stay high due to increasing world demand, so they may be viable for some time to come, but they won’t lead to a great decrease in gas or oil prices on the domestic front.
There is great question as to how “recoverable” these wells really are. There is alot of evidence that these very high cost wells (to drill), with large scale fracking consuming huge amounts of water/CO2 along with horizontal drilling, have a very quick fall off in production. On a normal oil well, one expects production to start at a certain level, and then fall off gradually over time. Most ‘normal’ wells lose maybe 5-10% of production in the first year. Some evidence shows that fracking wells are losing 50-80% of production after a year. The formations in which this oil and gas is trapped are very tight. That’s why they have to use high pressure steam or CO2 huge quantities of a water/sand mixture [thanks, Dad!] to force the oil or gas to the well. So it could be that these very expensive wells are producing nicely for a year or two but then the tightness of the formation leads to production falling off terribly.
Many of these drilling operations are operating in a “rob Peter to pay Paul” manner. They are drilling wells to pay for the one’s they’ve already drilled – like a home remodeler who always has to have another job to pay for the current one (I have personal experience of this, sadly). They have to have a constant supply of new wells to meet production and bring in income, especially if, as I related above, the production of older wells falls off dramatically.
The environmental issue could be a killer. With this president, we’re already seeing the EPA try to move to stop fracking over groundwater contamination concerns. They are doing so right now in Wyoming in a sort of test case – they’ve ordered a temporary cessation of production in a small field. Now, most of these places that are built on top of these fields have always had gas in the groundwater – it’s because the water is in the same shale as the gas, and the two get mixed. [My dad points out that the groundwater and the gas/oil are normally separated by many thousands of feet of rock. That sometimes groundwater gets natural gas in it is because the gas can seep up into the ground water. He also says that a properly cemented hole should never have any problem, but there could be poor cement jobs, like the BP spill in the Gulf] But with this crazed president in office giving free rein to the ideologues at the EPA and other regulatory agencies, who knows what impact they may have. I’d see the environmental threat as the biggest one of all to all these fields, except maybe in Texas, where we are less inclined to put up with that crap the sincere but misguided efforts of environmental zealouts gaia worshipers lobbies. But the exuberance regarding these fields may be irrational.
I hope my dad will chime in, or Jim Middleton. There’s about 90 years of oil industry experience in those two, with my dad from painting tanks at a refinery all the way to the position of the mighty god emperor of royalty administration. That was the actual title of his job.
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