Merry Christmas! December 21, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Dallas Diocese, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, North Deanery, Our Lady, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Merry Christmas to everyone who reads my blog. I pray that God bless each and everyone of you so very abundantly this Christmas season. Please partake of our great Catholic Culture and do some self-denial in these last days leading up to this great Feast, then really enjoy yourself during one of the two greatest Feasts of the year! Remember, today (Fri, Dec. 21) and tomorrow are Ember Days! Offer up some fasting and other mortification for the good of your soul, our Church, your neighbor, and more! It is so spiritual beneficial to do so!
I got the photo below from the Transalpine Redemptorists. I don’t know where this photo of Our Lady of the Expectation comes from, but I believe it is the most beautiful, regal, and holy image of Our Lady I have ever seen. How appropriate for the Queen of Heaven, and our Heavenly Mother, who does us so much good through Her constant intercession with Her Son, our One and Only Savior. These last few days of Advent are a time of great, almost breathless expectation, as we await the Nativity of Our Lord, Our Savior, God Incarnate and the Source of all true peace, happiness, and Grace.
May Our Lady reign in all our hearts, especially this Christmas. All Glory and Honor to God!
I thank all of you for your support this year. There may be a few posts between now and next January 8, but not much. Have a Blessed Christmas! And remember to pray the Te Deum on Dec. 31! Oh, we will have Latin Mass at St. Mark on Dec. 31 at 7pm!
I love my readers! May God bless all of you so very much! Pray for me! I really need many, many prayers right now, especially on December 26 for a very personal intention. If anyone would offer some mortification for my intention, my effort, which will begin December 26, I promise to do the same in return – MORE – starting in Epiphany! I really need YOUR help! Please pray for me!
Sexual depravity=more support for gay marriage December 21, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, General Catholic, horror, sadness, sexual depravity, sickness, Society.comments closed
Shocking, I know! But UT Professor and Catholic convert Mark Regnerus – whom I have corresponded with (he’s a nice man, but hardly what one would consider a traditionalist, or even a conservative, but he may be something like a faithful, left-wing type Catholic, which does exist, but rarely) – has produced another study that shows that male support for gay marriage strongly correlates to porn use. That is, most young men who support gay marriage use porn regularly, whereas men who don’t use porn are overwhelmingly against state recognition of gays simulating marriage (I add emphasis):
Data from the New Family Structures Study reveal that when young adult Americans (ages 23-39) are asked about their level of agreement with the statement “It should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry in America,” the gender difference emerges, just as expected: 42 percent of men agreed or strongly agreed, compared with 47 percent of women of the same age. More men than women disagreed or strongly disagreed (37 versus 30 percent), while comparable levels (21-23 percent) said they were “unsure.”
But of the men who view pornographic material “every day or almost every day,” 54 percent “strongly agreed” that gay and lesbian marriage should be legal, compared with around 13 percent of those whose porn-use patterns were either monthly or less often than that. Statistical tests confirmed that porn use is a (very) significant predictor of men’s support for same-sex marriage, even after controlling for other obvious factors that might influence one’s perspective, such as political affiliation, religiosity, marital status, age, education, and sexual orientation.
The same pattern emerges for the statement, “Gay and lesbian couples do just as good a job raising children as heterosexual couples.” Only 26 percent of the lightest porn users concurred, compared to 63 percent of the heaviest consumers. It’s a linear association for men: the more porn they consume, the more they affirm this statement. More rigorous statistical tests confirmed that this association too is a very robust one.
Theoretically, the same pattern should hold when considering support for marriage in general. And it does, though not quite as distinctively. The less time spent viewing porn, the less critical men are of the institution of marriage. Forty-nine (49) percent of the lightest porn users “strongly disagreed” with a statement suggesting that “marriage is an outdated institution” (and an additional 26 percent simply “disagreed” with it), compared with 14 percent of the heaviest porn users.
All of which is entirely intuitive from the perspective of traditional Christian morality, and perfectly in line with Catholic moral Doctrine. Porn teaches men to 1) objectify women, and 2) creates in men both an appetite and expectation for sex divorced from marriage, and as porn addiction accelerates (for most users are addicted to it to one degree or another), also an appetite for more and more extreme forms of sex. Thus, the man so depraved by exposure to the most diabolical, wanton displays of the sex act, up to and including repeated viewing of deviant sex including bi-and homo-sexuality, will be deadened to the hideousness of it and will develop a laissez faire attitude towards others demands to have their depravity publicly recognized.
Unfortunately, the feminist movement has been perfectly timed to maneuver women into this trap, so that they play the porn-addicted man’s game, giving themselves up at the drop of a hat, further reinforcing the man’s view that marriage is mostly useless, as far as he is concerned, as he can get all the sex he wants (either real, or virtual), without having to bother with even a friendly relationship, let alone marriage. Further, the “no-fault” divorce feminists have forced into law in every state causes many men to be afraid of marriage, fearful that the woman they marry will leave them broken-hearted, with only occasional access to their children and financially broke. So, the entire societal construct encourages men to trivialize marriage, to the extent that those who should be most defending women’s honor and virtue, and most motivated to see the Sacrament of Marriage extolled and upheld, are those who are now its greatest enemies. Or, at least, almost completely ambivalent.
It all gets back to contraception, however. Contraception is the wall that has grown up between married couples, leading to incredible marital problems on a vast scale, which leads to adultery, which leads to divorce, which leads to kids who don’t have fathers, which leads to early sex, and sex outside marriage, which leads to young women who don’t value themselves and are willing to sell themselves in porn (even going so far as seeing it as “empowering”), which leads to accidental pregnancy and abortion, etc, etc. Contraception is at the root of the collaspe of sexual mores in our culture, just as Popes Pius XI and Paul VI said it would be.
With a prolem this vast, we should be hearing sermons denouncing the evils of porn at least once a year. At one or two parishes in the Diocese, we do, but for the most part, porn is never mentioned. Good Lord, is even PORN too “controversial” for priests to speak against?!?!
It gets worse? December 21, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, error, General Catholic, horror, sexual depravity, sickness, Society.comments closed
I might oughtn’t do this, given what I’ve seen from comments in other places, but if you’re familiar with the gay marketing campaign “it gets better,” trying to convince children with gender identity or possible nascent same sex attractiont to continue on the path, “selling” the gay lifestyle as all glamour, intoxication, fun, and unlimited, depraved sex, here comes a contrary view from a self-identified gay male who says it doesn’t get better. In fact, he notes many pathologies in the gay community that make the homosexual lifestyle extremely toxic for many within it. I think this guy is very far from alone (big time content warning, not for those with kids around):
A further note, something not even mentioned in the above. A woman raised by a very promiscuous gay father noted the health risks of raising a child in that environment, for, as she said “gay sex is very messy.” And it must be noted, as this man notes above, few gay males are even remotely monogamous, even those in “committed” relationships, even those who are “married.”
Look, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this out. Females have a civilizing, sanitizing (as in, making sane) effect on male behavior. Many of the male excesses are curbed by being in a relationship with a woman, especially a wife. In an all male environment, where there is no feminine modesty and chastity to curb masculine desires, what you get is a whole bunch of sex and a whole bunch of drunkeness/drug use. I’ve been out there folks, not in the gay community, but close enough to see a great deal of it, and I can tell you the drug searcher sites have a lot of gay males looking for poppers (amyl nitrate), meth, oxy, cocaine, etc. There is a disproportionate number of gay males who place ads looking to get high and party, or willing to trade sex for drugs. It ain’t pretty. And that’s just one small side of the lifestyle. There are many more, even uglier, sides, as noted above.
And to think the extent to which this lifestyle has penetrated into God’s holy priesthood…….it is to weep. St. Peter Damian, pray for us.
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Baby steps for Archbishop Cordileone December 20, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, episcopate, General Catholic, Glory, Liturgical Year, sanctity, secularism, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
Archbishop has taken a baby-step to improve the practice of the Faith and general Catholic culture in his Archdiocese of San Francisco – after years of ignoring Jan. 1 as a Holy Day of Obligation, it will be again this coming year (2013):
The Archdiocese of San Francisco, which regularly had dispensed Catholics from the obligation of attending Mass on January 1 when it occurred on any day besides Sunday, has announced that the day is once again a holy day of obligation in the archdiocese.
“In this country, as decided by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Jan. 1 is a holy day of obligation,” explained Laura Bertone, the archdiocese’s interim director of worship, except when January 1 falls on a Saturday or Monday. “Often, in the past, if Jan. 1 was on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, the San Francisco archbishop dispensed the obligation to attend Mass although the solemnity was still celebrated at Mass.”
“This year, we are keeping the day as obligatory for all the faithful to attend Mass, and in particular to pray for peace,” she continued.
Pray for peace, yes, but also pray for a return to a true practice of the Faith, because there can be no peace without love of God.
Is the “church of nice” on the way out? December 20, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, episcopate, General Catholic, Latin Mass, Liturgy, scandals, secularism, Society, Tradition.comments closed
Much thought provoking content here from Michael Voris. I don’t think I’m as sanguine on the future prospects of the Church as he is.
“The decade of the evil 1960s……” I love it. Actually, I think the 60s were great……up until about summer 1966. Then the wheels came off, but you could see much of the nuttiness beginning as early as’63-’64. The early 60s were more or less a continuation of the 50s. People forget that JFK was not elected on a radical left wing agenda, but on an agenda of tax cuts and vastly increased military spending. Basically, what would pass for a Republican platform today. He was in favor of a much more interventionist foreign policy. In fact, it was JFK’s wanton embrace of the military-industrial complex that caused Eisenhower to lament “All I have worked for, all I have accomplished, is gone.” For Eisenhower was the last real paragon of small government we had in the Oval Office.
Wow, Michael really hits hard on a lot of points, all good. Is the post-Conciliar Church manufactured? The liturgy certainly was – even Pope Benedict refers to the Novus Ordo as “fabricated,” as in, not organically developed from the bottom up by minute developments here and there.
Keeping that in mind, I’d like to propose a list of the greatest fabrications in the new Mass, that is, practices pulled out of nowhere that have never been widespread in the history of the Church, and that represent a huge breach in the right theological and liturgical understanding of the Mass. I had a whole bunch of justification for these items, but I decided to delete most of it. You can figure it out:
- Mass facing the people.
- The practical abolition of the Roman Canon.
- Communion in the Hand. .
- Abrogation of Latin.
- New Readings/3 year cycle – totally blew away the flow of Scripture through the liturgical year and results in most Feast Days for Saints having nonsensical Scripture readings. Plus, it made people less familiar with Scripture, not more, because instead of hearing the same readings year after year, people only hear them once every 3 years, allowing time to forget. Plus, more readings just means more to store and people only have so much capacity. The net effect has been less retention and understanding of Scripture, not more.
I wouldn’t count the “church of nice” out just yet. I wouldn’t look for it to go away anytime soon. Even as numbers continue to fall – of clergy, religious, laity assisting at Mass, pick just about any category – the church of nice has constructed an almost invulnerable system of self-perpetuation. Most people I know don’t look for the “church of nice” to lose its dominance short of a major persecution that makes being a casual catholyc untenable. But we’ll see.
Not your everyday occurrence December 20, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, fun, General Catholic, religious, secularism, Society, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
I know a commenter expressed reservations about singing Christmas carols during Advent, but I think given the state of the culture, where many people completely forget that Christmas even occurred by Dec. 27, I think some of this done publicly might be OK. Certainly it shouldn’t be the focal point of public demonstrations of Christmas – those should come during the actual Christmas season – but I think some caroling as a sort of pointer towards the Big Day is OK.
Some Dominican Friars in Washington, DC thought so, and were singing carols on a street corner while doing some evangelization (just the sort of thing I have in mind), when a very strange thing occurred. Look and see how things develop:
What’s with the bananas? Anybody get that?
Post-Christian people can still be reached, at least on a surface level, maybe? idunno
It’s interesting!
Obama may run Little Sisters of the Poor out of business in the US December 20, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, asshatery, Basics, contraception, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, error, General Catholic, horror, persecution, religious, secularism, sickness, Society.comments closed
Well, it’s not really a business, but you know what I mean. And while the Little Sisters of the Poor may not be one of the more orthodox female religious orders, they are orthodox enough to know that they cannot and will not provide contraception to their chaste, celibate members!, nor can they afford to pay the fines. So, there choice is either to radically change how they serve people, by only aiding Catholics, or being run out of business:
A religious order of nuns is concerned about its future presence in the United States because of Obamacare’s impact on its charitable operations. The Little Sisters of the Poor told The Daily Caller that it may not qualify for a long-term exemption from Obamacare’s healthcare mandate. The law requires the order to provide government-approved health insurance to its 300 sisters who tend to the elderly in 30 U.S. cities.
The exception is needed, said Sister Constance Carolyn Veit, the Little Sisters’ communications director, because Catholic teaching opposes contraception and medical treatments
that cause sterility or can cause abortions.
President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul law requires employers to include those services in qualifying health care plans they provide for their employees. Failure to comply will bring hefty fines — even for religious orders whose members have taken vows of poverty.
“[I]t could be a serious threat to our mission in the U.S.,” Constance told TheDC, “because we would never be able to afford to pay the fines involved. We have difficulty making ends meet just on a regular basis; we have no extra funding
The crux of the matter is a religious exemption that the federal government is expected to make available to Catholic churches, but not to other Catholic institutions.
That’s because unlike Catholic parishes and dioceses, the church’s many affiliated schools, charities, religious orders and hospitals
“We are not exempt from the [Obamacare] mandate because we neither serve nor employ a predominantly Catholic population,” Constance added. ”We hire employees and serve/house the elderly regardless of race and religion, so that makes us ineligible for the exemption being granted churches.”
Those employees, she said, number in the thousands.
……The Little Sisters of the Poor take care of elderly patients in 31 countries, but on Dec. 16 a representative told the congregation of Saint Raymond of Peñafort Church in Springfield, Va., that her order could conceivably be forced to pull out of the United States if paying fines and penalties is the only alternative to compromising on the doctrines of their religion……
Well, good for them for being faithful to what the Church believes regarding contraception, sterilization, etc. Unfortunately, many female religious orders are almost giddy about Obamacare AND the HHS mandate. But I suspect if there is no compromise reached – and I see no reason to suspect that there will be, given Obama’s hatred for the Church and demand that all acquiesce to his socialist health insurance scheme – we could see many religious orders that serve the poor and infirm in various ways run out of the country, or forced to radically reduce their service. Which would create much more demand for government services, expanding the government further – it’s win-win all the way around for Obama!
The only way I see this diabolical mandate being undone is if the bishops can find the wherewithal to take a really strong stand against the evil of contraception as such, and absolutely and vocally refuse to comply in any way – no contraception, no paying of fines, nothing. And let Obama deal with the PR of arresting dozens of Catholic bishops. But who am I kidding! The likelihood of that happening is about 1 in a million.
But who knows, the Holy Spirit has worked far greater transformations.
Or, who knows, maybe the courts will come in and save the day. I think that is the prime means the USCCB is counting on to get out of this situation.
Christmas Gift – support the Transalpine Redemptorists December 20, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, Liturgy, persecution, religious, sanctity, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
It is interesting to me, perhaps Providential, that at the same time I have developed such an appreciation of the writings of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, I have also developed a great appreciation for one of the very few – and perhaps only – traditional monasteries of the Redemptorist Order the Great Moral Doctor founded. I have developed this appreciation through perusal of the Transalpine Redemptorist blog, as well as through their wonderful publication Catholic, which aims to “re-seed” Catholic Tradition.
For those who are not aware, the Transalpine Redemptorists were a traditional order founded in 1982, somewhat in association with the Society of St. Pius X. They have wandered a rather circuitous path, canonically, since that time, being considered irregular or illicit for much of that time, but they have now been regularized as a Religious Institute of Diocesan Right. Geographically, took, the Transalpine Redemptorists have wandered around quite a bit, from France, to England back to France, before finally settling on an island in the Orkney’s entirely their own, Papa Stronsay, where they have been engaged in building up a traditional Catholic monastery for the past 10 years.
When they arrived, there were many old stone buildings in various states of disrepair. For instance, the building which now houses the chapel looked like this when they arrived:
The chapel now looks like this:
They’ve made improvements all around the property, and the work is constantly ongoing, judging by their blog.
I realize I’ve posted twice in a row on these Redemptorists! Oh, well, I must be being moved!
This is a really very good religious order, very worthy of your support, if you feel so moved. They have had to struggle quite a bit against many odds to arrive at the place they are at today, with a very solid groups of brothers and priest-brothers. And they are constantly reaching out to the secularized culture that surrounds them! If you think the US is secularized, Britain in far, far worse. But they are winning over hearts, converting Catholics back to Tradition, and bringing new souls into the Faith.
Oh, before I forget, if you are a mother in distress, or a couple who has struggled to have a child, you can obtain a blessed St. Gerard medal from the Redemptorists. These medals, and the intercession of St. Gerard, have been very powerful in helping married couples overcome problems of infertility, miscarriages, etc. You can request a medal here.
There are several ways to support the Redemptorists. You can subscribe to their excellent, quarterly newspaper Catholic here. I really enjoy this publication, and I always get a very warm, peaceful sensation reading it – strangely enough, even when reading controversial items. This is obviously a publication with much love put into it.
You can also buy a calendar here, with many uplifting scenes from the Papa Stronsay monastery over the course of the year.
Finally, you can make a direct donation via Paypal on from their blog. Donations of more than 10 GBP will have the initials of the donor listed in the Catholic newspaper.
Here are some scenes from an evening Rorate Mass offered in the teeth of a terrific North Sea storm that partially flooded the island. I would so love to assist at a Rorate Mass!
I’m not much of a world traveller, but I think I shall have to try to make it to Papa Stronsay one day.
A Brazilian bishop hates him some Tradition December 19, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery, Basics, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, scandals, secularism, self-serving, Tradition.comments closed
This actually is from last spring, but I just saw this in the fall Catholic newspaper, a wonderful publication from the Transalpine Redemptorists. They quote Bishop Sergio of Sao Carlos, Brazil, as stating the following:
I cannot understand how, in the 21st century, there are people who want the return of the Latin Mass with the priest celebrating Mass with “his back turned to the people,” wearing heavy Roman chasubles. This year we will celebrate the 50th annivesary of Vatican II, and while we already sense the need to hold a third Vatican Council, [I think this statement alone qualifies him as a progressive. If you think the Church in the US has lost people, check out Brazil. Tens of millions have fallen away and the rate is increasing. And this bishop thinks we need more of the same progressive policies that have borne such wonderful fruit?] we see peoople who want a return ot the past. And what is more worrisome, these are people who attend a college, peopole who have entered the univesity, but the university has not entered their minds……these people…….are in the wrong century. [Ergo, you are not educated or intelligent if you don’t share the bishop’s views. Who says progressives aren’t open minded!] They want, at all costs, to return to the past. [No, we want the Church and God to be glorified.] They live through miracles and apparitions, devotions and ‘rose-colored’ sentiments, which unfortunately, are out of date. [Good to know that timeless Catholic spirituality is “out of date.” You think he sees in Vatican II a radical break with Tradition?]
They need only to advocate the return of the famous mantillas, covering women’s heads. I wonder: why not men’s heads? It would be nice to see men wearing lace mantillas. [Apparently, Bishop Sergio has never read St. Paul] But it would be difficult to find anyone who would want to wear them, except for ‘crazy heads’…[Wow, he’s got some issues, hasn’t he? There’s a bit of hatred here, no?]
For these puritans, hell is full, when in fact it is Heaven that is full, because God wants everyone to be saved. [There is a difference between what God “wants,” and what occurs. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, not false, worldly overconfidence] And not just a minority of moralists who see sin everywhere and for whom the devil is more powerful than God. [Ummm…who said anything about that? I will note that Bishop Sergio is calling many great Saints “puritans” who don’t know or trust God. I think that sentiment says all that needs to be said]
Bishop Sergio is, of course, a bishop “in good standing” with the Church.
D’oh, I see Rorate already covered this.
Non Sequitur – the last Apollo moon mission ended 40 years ago today December 19, 2012
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, fun, non squitur, self-serving, silliness, Society.comments closed
Good Lord, it’s been 40 years, and we’re no closer to going back than we were 40 years ago. That Space Shuttle was sure worth trashing all the Apollo infrastructure that had been built so you could have your shiny new toy, NASA! “Cheap” and “reliable” my @#$!! Hopefully Elon Musk and company will get us back on track. In truth, government funded space exploration was always a trap doomed to go nowhere. We’ll never be in space for realz until the private sector finds reasons to be there. We’ll see.
Since I’m lazy, here are some videos covering the pre-launch, launch, flight, and landing activities:
It was probably merciful that Von Braun did not live to see the downfall of American space exploration in the 70s and 80s. He, more than anyone, was the indispensable man for the Apollo program. He died in 1977. None of the ludicrous expectations for the shuttle proved remotely accurate.
Launch:
The only nighttime launch of a Saturn V. Still nothing like it. Upgraded models with F-1A engines kicking out 2 millions lbst each and strap on boosters could have lofted half a million pounds into orbit. We should still be using all that investment in those fabulous rockets today. This video is especially good as it has the air-ground loop on audio after launch. Ron Evans was a bit nervous, I think. There is a bit of adult language.
An overview of the mission:
A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics 