Impurity is a punishment for pride May 10, 2013
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Dallas Diocese, Ecumenism, error, foolishness, General Catholic, scandals, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society.comments closed
I heard some great lines in a sermon today. I don’t think this sermon will make it on Audio Sancto. But I jotted down just a few of the more memorable statements, because I think they help diagnose the enormous collapse of morality in our society. The lines were:
- Impurity is a punishment for pride
- Chastity is a reward for humility
- Pride makes us turn inward, and the more we turn inward, the more prideful we become
In our present culture, there is probably no more rampant grave sin than unchastity. Whether it’s porn use, self-abuse, actual infidelity, serial divorce and remarriage, fornication, or just plain ogling members of the opposite sex (which seems rampant even among females these days), the number of people lost in sins of unchastity are enormous, and still growing. The statistics are damning: a majority of American women now look at porn regularly, whether married or not. For men, the number who use porn weekly is well over 80%, and that is likely under-reported. Actual physical infidelity (as opposed to infidelity involving only self-abuse) is skyrocketing, with almost half of all married women now reporting they have made a lie of their wedding vows at least once in their married lives. I don’t think I even need to go into the others: suffice it to say, almost half the babies born in this country are now born out of wedlock.
I don’t think I need to write much about the statements above. I think my good readers can figure out how impurity stems from pride, and how pride and selfishness tend to feed on themselves, until one becomes, by almost imperceptible steps, a moral monster. It used to be that things like adultery could get one totally barred from “polite” society, but if such rules were reimposed suddenly today, the number of the polite would be quite small, I’m afraid. Porn used to be something one only found in seedy parts of town (and before that, it was very, very difficult to find), but now its available anytime in virtually any home. And people literally raised by TV and narcissism-feeding advertising messages don’t have the moral framework to overcome the now multiplicitous temptations. There is little question in my mind, that rampant porn use tends to lead to adultery and/or fornication, those lead to divorce or babies out of wedlock, which tend to breed more little unhappy narcissists, etc., etc. Societal suicide, by small steps. Someone should write all this down, to preserve the knowledge so that a future society won’t fall into the same traps we have.
But it all starts with the ultimate narcissism: that we may be as gods. That is the chief conceit of this age, that God either does not exist, or that if He does, he certainly wouldn’t be so mean and judgy as to condemn someone as wonderful as I am. Sadly, you can find reinforcement for such beliefs in almost every Catholic Church in this country today. Disbelief in hell is just another form of pride, a way of telling each other how wondeful we are.
Which reminds me of what I thought the instant the priest said “impurity is a punishment for pride.” My mind immediately jumped to Martin Luther, his titanic pride (which existed long before his fall into apostasy and schism), and his serial unchastity. Father Luther loved the table, he loved the bar, and he really loved the bar wench. But he was wracked with guilt, but primarily over the latter. So what does a prideful man do when he’s confronted by a sin his pride prevents him from overcoming? He invents a proud new religion! A religion which conveniently eliminated moral behavior as a necessity for salvation!
It would be funny, if so many souls weren’t at stake.
IRS targeted conservative, tea party groups during ’12 election May 10, 2013
Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery, Dallas Diocese, disaster, error, General Catholic, persecution, scandals, self-serving, sickness, Society.comments closed
Big surprise! A little jaunt into political matters, but I have no doubt that within my lifetime, much if not all conservative speech and even thought will be illegal in this country. If you had told me that 20 years ago, I would not have believed you. But now these things are treated just as a matter of fact. “Why, of course we unfairly targeted and persecuted tea party groups, why would we not?”
The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for subjecting Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election, but denied any political motive.
Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews. Her remarks, which came at an American Bar Association gathering, were first reported by the Associated Press.
Lerner said the practice, initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati, was wrong.
“It was an error in judgment, and it was not appropriate, But that’s what they did,” Lerner told reporters afterward. She declined to talk about how many employees were involved and whether there would disciplinary action. “I think they were insensitive, or less sensitive than they should have been.”
The error, she said, was in assuming that any group with “tea party” or “patriot” in its name necessarily needed more scrutiny for political activity just because of its name. About 300 groups that had applied for tax-exempt status were put into a “bucket” of cases needing further scrutiny, and of those, about a quarter had tea party affiliations.
That problem was compounded when examiners asked more intrusive questions in what’s known as a “development” process. “Some of the development letters that were send were far to broad and include things like asking for the organization’s donor list, which is not generally what we do,” Lerner said.
Since the problem was discovered sometime last year, the IRS has approved about 130 of the original 300 applications, and about 25 have been withdrawn.
Approved, a year after it would have done any good?! Gee, THANKS! Over half have still been denied their applications. Why are they still being persecuted, if this was all a “mistake?”
And you can see how the media’s constant villification of all the opponents of their dark lord and savior pays off. No, I’m not talking about his skin color. Have the media turn conservatives into some kind of radical terrorist organization, then use the organizations to persecute, prosecute, or just abolish those organizations so declared. Remember how Janet Napolitano declared that Catholics, pro-lifers, gun-rights advocates, etc, etc., the whole panoply of conservative causes, were dangerous, and placed them on a sort of terrorism watch list? This is just one, of many, results.
As I said the other day, America, I’m ashamed of you. You’d rather watch honey boo boo and all the other trash (Good Lord, I was exposed to some morning talk/titillation show on a UHF channel the other day…..uff da, just garbage) than spend 5 minutes figuring what this Obama creature is. So long as the checks keep rolling in, I suppose.
If any of you think Benghazi is going to hurt this president in the slightest, you’re sorely mistaken.