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Why do modern women hate themselves 50 different ways? August 8, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, Interior Life, North Deanery, priests, sadness, scandals, sickness, Society.
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And, modern men, 150 different ways.

What does it say about our culture, when the most popular book of the year (50 Shades of Gray) is a perverse exercise in not only pornography, but an abusive, depraved form of pornography, the ultimate diabolically twisting of the beauty of the sex act into one of animalistic desire and the power of one human over another?

Some questions it raises in my mind are:

  • Do current-day American women loath themselves?  Is their mass consumption of this tripe, which no one in polite society a bare 30-50 years ago would have condescended to read (indeed, reading it could have gotten one removed from polite society), indicative of some deep seated self-hatred?  Is this the result of the radical feminist assertion of the female as male, and the usurping of masculine roles?  The psychological aspects are certainly intriguing……does this reveal some subconscious rejection of the feminist archetype in the strongest possible sense?
  • Is this the result of the spread of the addiction of porn in women?  One constant factor of porn use and the bodily abuse that accompanies it is the constant need for new and higher thrills.  This tends to push individuals viewing porn into kinkier and more perverse sex.
  • How is it that so many Catholic women are consuming this stuff, even Catholic women who go to Mass every Sunday and are big in the local pro-life group?  Aren’t they being taught from the pulpit, regularly, about the grave evils of masturbation, porn consumption, and all forms of unchastity?

Of course, so-called romance novels have been selling briskly for years, and they are frequently pornographic, as well, but I don’t know of any other massive cultural phenomenon about sex so extreme and bizarre as this very kinky 50 Shades of Grey.  The questions above are loaded and intentionally provocative – if any women who are fans of the series come by, perhaps they will be……ah……..stimulated……to examine the reasons behind their consumption.

But to be clear, no, just because it doesn’t have pictures doesn’t mean that porn is OK.  Porn is porn, whether video, pictures, written, or whatever.  Unchastity is also always so – if  you are receiving sexual pleasure outside the confines of the marital act ordered towards procreation (or at least open to it), you are being unchaste.  This is not complex stuff, but people make it so, for satan loves to occupy shades of grey and hates black and white, right and wrong, truth and error.  Satan also loves the lack of clarity and indifferentism of how the Church now views and treats so many separated Christian sects and other religious groupings.

But that is a subject for a different day.

Too awesome……local boy really makes good August 8, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, Interior Life, Latin Mass, North Deanery, religious, Tradition, Virtue.
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Brother Francis Davoren has been a monk with the quite traditional Benedictines of Norcia for several years.   Prior to that, he spent quite a bit of time at St. William in Greenville.  His chanting some portions of the Mass and Office there were wonderful. Now, he has gotten a bottle of the beer the Benedictines are brewing and selling to support their apostolate and presented it to the Holy Father.  This is a fantastic pic, courtesy Rorate Caeli:

That is Francis on the right.  I am so angry at my self – I was praying for some time for Fr. Cassian Folsom, the prior of the Benedictines of Norcia and a major mover in the restoration of traditional religious life, who is suffering from cancer.  But then somehow he dropped off my prayer list.  As you can see in the photograph, he is obviously still undergoing treatment, likely chemotherapy.  I must make amends and pray doubly hard for Fr. Folsom.  The Benedictine community at Norcia is made up entirely of Americans.  Please pray for them!  I wish I could buy their beer (available Aug 15)!  Maybe I could, as a gift.  I have a friend in Czech who might appreciate it.

Please support these good monks with your prayers!  Deo Gratias!

More photos of Brother Francis and the beer making enterprise here.

Stay up to date on Fr. Michael Rodriguez August 8, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, General Catholic, Glory, Holy suffering, Latin Mass, persecution, priests, sadness, scandals, Tradition, Virtue.
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We haven’t heard much from good Fr. Michael Rodriguez since he has been, ah…….relocated………to a more extreme part of the El Paso Diocese.  Heck, it’s THE most extreme part of the Diocese.  I’m sure if the Diocese extended to the moon, former bishop Armand Ochoa would have sent Father there.

Anyway, if you want to stay up to date on Fr. Michael’s doings, a very nice website for his new mother parish, Santa Teresa de Jesus in Presidio, has been created here.   The site has all kinds of content, including many videos of some of the Masses offered by Fr. Rodriguez, material written by Fr. Rodriguez, and audio of sermons, including this really good one here on religious indifferentism.

Please pray for Fr. Rodriguez, and for the next bishop of El Paso to be a man of heroic virtue!  I pray Fr. Rodriguez will be restored to El Paso proper, and hopefully San Juan Bautista parish, very soon.

Deo Gratias!

How to destroy your credibility in one fell swoop August 8, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, sadness, scandals, sickness, Society.
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Bah!  Must spell check the title!  2nd day in a row!  Mea culpa!

Cardinal Dolan has done some screwy things since he has been named Archbishop of New York – persecuting the only priest ordained in the Archdiocese in 2012 for offering a TLM as his first Mass, seeming to endorse the rabidly apostate and gay parish of St. Francis Xavier, and failing to take a strong stand in support of marriage in the run-up to the New York state legislature voting on that issue.  But I had the impression – and it could only be my impression, but I have seen evidence of it in other locales – that people still by and large viewed him as a fairly orthodox bishop in spite of these “anomalies.”  People were willing to give him a break, to look the other way, and hope he would stand strong for the Faith in spite of these failings.  I think people hoped the “real” Cardinal Dolan would stand up and really fight for the Church, as he seemed to do in this ongoing persecution by Obama.

And then Cardinal Dolan personally invited President Obama to the Al Smith New York Catholic Charities fund raising dinner.  Judging by this post at Creative Minority Report (it took them a while to get on this issue, but on it they are, and some of the other “big” Catholic blogs are, as well), I’d say Dolan has just about wrecked his credibility:

Cardinal Baffling of Gotham City has staunchly right-wing Catholics foaming at the mouth after his invitation to the Devil to attend a Catholic fundraiser.

Ultra-conservative Catholic groups have criticized Cardinal Baffling for extending an invitation to Mr. Satan for the “Jesus Saves Dinner.” The annual dinner is dedicated to raising funds and awareness for those committed to saving souls from Hell.

“The invitation is an outrage and completely undermines the message and the cause of the dinner,” says Mr. Incredulous of the Catholic League of People Opposing the Devil. Mr. Incredulous continued, “How can Cardinal Baffling say on the one hand that he and the Church oppose the Devil and all his works, and then at the same time invite that very same Devil to a Catholic event? It makes no sense!”

Diocese of Gotham spokesman, Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf,[fake name, but funny] responded by saying “This is a non-Partisan event and if the Devil is willing to attend a Catholic fundraiser, the Cardinal is happy to have him. Gotham Cardinals have a history of inviting both sides in the ongoing dialogue between good and evil.”

The spokesperson for the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Sister Infedelia L.G.B.T., applauded the invitation. “We think it is wonderful that the Cardinal invited Mr. Satan to the dinner. It just goes to show what we have been saying all along. That you can embrace something at the same time you say you oppose it.”

Others disagree.

“How does it help the cause to have the Cardinal have an all-smiles photo-op with the Devil when the Cardinal is supposed to be locked in an all-hands battle against the Devil to save souls?” said ultra-right-wing conservative Catholic blogger Patrick Archbold. “Doesn’t he think the Devil will happily distribute that picture to everyone to show that the Catholic Church is not really opposed to the Devil after all? Of course he will! He’s the Devil!”

Mr. Saeed al-Sahhaf says that the dinner “is an evening to put politics aside and come together in a spirit of civility. After all, this is a light-hearted event.”

As if to confirm this statement, the Devil could be heard laughing.

Faithful Catholics are generally generous people.  People have tried to cut Cardinal Dolan some slack.  But when the failings come one after another (all the items listed above have occurred in the past year), it forces people to conclude that these events are not outliers, they are normal.  So in spite of Cardinal Dolan’s sometimes lofty rhetoric, the actions don’t match the rhetoric.  Our Blessed Lord himself says that he is not honored with the words of our lips, but with our obedience to His Divine Will.  This invitation to Obama is a catastrophically bad decision and seems to undermine everything the USCCB – under Cardinal Dolan’s leadership – is ostensibly fighting for.  It causes me, and I think a number of others, to wonder just what all the “religious freedom” rhetoric is really about, since it seems so easily compromised.

It is symptomatic of all that is wrong with the Church in this country.  It shows a Church that seems to speak out of both sides of its mouth, and an ecclesial leadership that seems more concerned with maintaining their illusory “influence” in the political world than being true shepherds of souls willing to lay down their lives for their flocks.  It’s the whole crisis of leadership in microcosm.

Questions about the radio show August 8, 2012

Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, blogfoolery, fun, General Catholic.
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RDLG asked a number of good questions about the radio show and its format, issues I should have brought up already.  I have a show, called Salve Regina Radio, on a “network” on BlogTalkRadio called Fidelis Radio.  My show is not the only one, but it is the only Catholic one show with a specifically Catholic focus. The other shows are more political in format, and one in particular has a lot of profanity, so you probably want to stay away from it (that one is called Conservative T&T and is a late night “adult format” talk show).

We’re still getting the show set up.  This is a part time gig for all of us, and Rebecca Diserio does all the segment breaks and other prep work, which takes a lot of time.  So, not all the breaks are “Catholic” or have the kind of content I’d ultimately like to have, but we’re getting there gradually.  In addition, we had one show a couple of weeks ago where there were terrible gremlins, which led to a couple of very extended breaks.  Sorry for that.  This is new for all of us, so we’re all trying to grow into our roles.

Here is the direct link to last night’s show.  I’ll try to post these from now on for easy, direct, after the fact listening.  And if you go to the Fidelis Radio page at BlogTalkRadio, and you see a whole bunch of different shows, all you need to do is look for SalveRegina radio and you will be good to go.  Rebecca’s show is also very good and doesn’t have much (if any – I can’t recall any) profanity – the others I frankly haven’t had time to listen to very much.