Another stab in the back from a national bishops conference April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Basics, disaster, episcopate, error, Eucharist, foolishness, General Catholic, sadness, scandals, secularism, shocking, Society.comments closed
Over in England, Bishop of Portsmouth Philip Egan gave a strong discourse against the reception of the Blessed Sacrament by pro-abort and otherwise unfaithful politicians. The reaction was typical, progressive katholycs were angry and stirred up like a nest of vipers, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the press. Faithful Catholics were strengthened and gladdened to finally see at least some opposition to this ongoing and horrific scandal. Some hoped Communion might finally be withheld from these unfaithful politicians, ending or at least reducing the great scandal and sacrilege.
But lo and behold, the bishop’s conference of England and Wales swiftly came to the defense of the aggrieved politicians, assuring them that of course they wouldn’t be denied Communion for assisting in the murder of millions, or essentially destroying marriage by “redefining” it into meaninglessness:
he Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales assured Catholic Members of Parliament this week that there are “no plans” to refuse them Holy Communion after they voted to support the “gay marriage” legislation that came into effect yesterday.
Greg Pope, head of parliamentary relations at the conference and a former Labour Party MP, wrote to MPs assuring them that comments by the bishop of Portsmouth, Philip Egan, on the Church’s Code of Canon Law forbidding Communion to “manifest grave sinners,” would not be applied to them. [oh? But maybe they’ll be applied to less powerful or rich people?]
Today the media office of the bishops’ conference confirmed with LifeSiteNews that the letter was addressed to the Catholic MPs with the bishops’ full authorization. “Many thanks for your mail. Mr. Greg Pope was speaking as a spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales,” a spokesman with the bishops’ Catholic Communications Network said.
Greg Pope was chosen as the liaison between the English Catholic bishops and Parliament despite his consistent voting record in opposition to traditional moral teachings. Pope has supported abortion, adoption by homosexual partners, and artificial contraception. [I think that tells us all we need to know. Of course, the same occurs in the USCCB and subsidiary agencies on a constant basis, with a regular revolving door between Catholic Charities and population control zealouts, for instance]
National bishops conferences are a novelty that came into existence in the 20th century. The Vatican prior to Vatican II was rather hostile towards them, especially the American variety, which pioneered the concept of the bishop’s conference as a worldly, milquetoast, liberally-minded and socially active institution.
The idea sold regarding conferences is that they would strengthen catechesis by lightening bishop’s loads, allowing prelates to focus on the really critical work of being shepherds of souls. In practice, the conferences have been loci of bureaucratic malaise that, instead of lightening the load of individual bishops, have added to it massively, especially for ambitious prelates. You don’t get promoted without playing ball with the national conference. Even worse, the conferences have, at least in developed countries, have become a “lowest common denominator” phenomenon, continually limiting what can be taught, how it can be taught, and what actions bishops can take in defense of the Faith, individually (today, not much). There are essentially unwritten rules in place within the USCCB that prohibit bishops from performing such essential actions as excommunications.
In short, the bishops conferences have become expensive albatrosses that are not supporting and helping the Faith grow, but are stifling it and greatly inhibiting the effective proclamation of the Gospel. The bureaucratic malaise that has overcome so many individual bishops can be attributed directly to the conference and its stultifying effects. The above is just one example of a reasonable defense of the Faith being totally undermined by worldly bureaucrats at the national conference, but such examples are legion. That is why I have hoped and prayed for some time that somehow, by some miracle, the entire conference system can be dismantled.
And that is why I also loathe and fear any ideas of extending some kind of doctrinal “authority” to regional conferences. If such occurs, it won’t be 6 months before you have, in effect, numerous schisms with the “Church of the USA” being at odds with the “Church of Germany,” or the “Church of Uganda,” or whatever. That way lies madness. No…….that way lies protestantism. And liberal protestantism at that.
Which, after all, was the goal of many of the progressives at Vatican II, anyways.
“New” home school resource: Queen of Heaven Academy April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Christendom, Dallas Diocese, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
Queen of Heaven Academy is a new name for an online home schooling/Catholic education curriculum that has been around since 1995. Formerly known as Regina Coeli Academy, Queen of Heaven Academy (QHA) offers an online curriculum that is faithful to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual traditions of the Church. QHA maintains a proven classical curriculum and has very strong faculty. It offers numerous online courses from the elementary to the senior high level (grades 4-12), as well as parent-led courses and others by e-mail correspondence. The curriculum is rich and varied, but contains all the minimum prerequisites for college acceptance.
Many people have an interest in homeschooling, but some may feel overwhelmed by the task. Others may simply not have the time, or have part-time jobs or other activities that make the task of homeschooling daunting. Queen of Heaven Academy, through its online courses and mail-in coursework, eliminates most of that burden and provides families with a teacher-led homeschool resource.
You can search the course catalog here. Many classes are taught online by teachers with years of Catholic education experience. You can attend a webinar that shows the classroom experience. Textbooks for all courses are listed here (being updated).
If you’re wondering if this QHA’s courses are very expensive, they are not. In fact, they are a fraction of what one might pay for a Catholic or other private school (let alone what we pay in property taxes here in Texas for the public schools). Elementary and middle school courses are very reasonable, while high school courses are a bit more. There is a substantial discount available for family enrollment of multiple children.
I have met the Pierce’s, the couple that has run Regina Coeli Academy/Fisher More Academy/Queen of Heaven Academy, and I can say they are a very committed, affable, well-informed and of course educated couple. They have a passion for Catholic education that is readily apparent, and they care greatly about improving the state of Catholic education. I can say that there are many, many Catholic families that will attest to how strong QHA’s courses are and how well the Pierce’s administer the academies they have run.
Summer and Fall semester enrollment are open now! If you have an interest in online homeschool courses for your children, or a more formal and guided approach to the homeschooling your family is already engaged in, I think you would be well advised to check out Queen of Heaven Academy.
Rosary of iron forged by decades of suffering April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, episcopate, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Holy suffering, Interior Life, martyrdom, persecution, Victory, Virtue.comments closed
I try to mix the good with the bad on this blog. I don’t want myself or others to get beat down by all the bad news. Here, via Eponymous Flower, is an uplifting story on faith forged in persecution in Vietnam. A man, Nguyen Huu Cau, spent over three decades in communist prisons after the North successfully invaded and subjugated South Vietnam. A former ARVN officer, he converted to the Faith in prison. I pray for such faith and mercy! With the way the culture is going, some of us may have to experience such great trials for our faith:
Persecuted by the communist regime, he used the chains that robbed him of freedom to pray the rosary. Nguyen Huu Cau converted to Christ in prison. A few days ago he was released after more than 37 years in prison and a prison camp. “In 1986, I was baptized at the Easter Vigil by the Jesuit Joseph Nguyen”. Cau described in an interview with Catholic News the hard fate of Vietnamese Catholics. The Jesuit priest was the one who told him about Christ in custody and taught him the catechism. Since then, “I have prayed the Rosary every day seven times and Stations of the Cross five times,” said Nguyen Huu Cau-. [That’s awesome]
After futile attempts at reeducation, Cau was released last 22 March. 32 years spent as the “enemy of the people” in prison and more than five years in a concentration camp. After his release, he said: “I thank God that He has forgiven my jailers.”
Due to severe torture during his detention, Nguyen Huu Cau-is now deaf and almost blind. “In prison, I’ve gotten to know Christ and found to faith.”
Cau was born in 1947. He served in the South Vietnamese army and became a captain. As such, he fought against the Communists of North Vietnam and the South Vietnamese Communists. When the Communists won in 1975, he was arrested and disappeared for several years in a concentration camp. In 1980 he was released from the camp, but in 1982 re-arrested because he had made hints on manuscripts of his poetry, that could have been criticism of the Communist regime.
In 1983 he was convicted of “sabotage” and damage to the reputation of the party and sentenced by the government as “an enemy of the people” to death. Later the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. For 32 years Cau had been in the prison camp Z30A K2 in the middle of the jungle. He wrote more than 500 letters to the Communist regime and called for the resumption of his trial. He never received a response. On 22 March 2014 he was released from prison 39 years after his first arrest. The release was due to an amnesty granted by Vietnam’s State President Truong Tan Sang because of the precarious health of Nguyen Huu Cau.
Cau prayed the Rosary “on the chain to which I was chained. It had 90 rings. I have made from the chain that took my freedom, my own personal Rosary…. [that is beautiful, and how martyrs have for centuries turned the tools of their oppression into victories for the Church]
….Before his conversion, Nguyen-Huu Cau kept his hatred against the Communist regime and against his tormentors alive. He hoped someday to be able to take revenge for what they did to him. Several times he thought at the time of suicide to escape captivity. “But the love of God and the Blessed Mother have changed me. I feel no hatred more for my tormentors. The Holy Trinity and Mary helped me to overcome my strife with my fate. Have prevented me from being killed while in custody all these years. “
As difficult as it is – and it is very difficult, at least for me – this is the kind of attitude we must have for those who attack and persecute the Church, even from within. Now in the twilight of his life, this faithful soul can give beautiful witness to the Glory of God and the peace and charity that come only through His Church. I pray that if I am ever called to such witness I may be as faithful and virtuous.
Mr. Nguyen Huu Cau with family and friends after release
When you pray for the Church in China, you might add the Church in Vietnam as well. The communist government in Vietnam is heavily dominated by its northern neighbor, and implements much similar anti-Church policies at Chinese behest. As such, the Church in Vietnam has been heavily persecuted, and there has been interference in the assigning of bishops, attempts to set up an independent episcopal line, etc. There is frequent violence against the Church in Vietnam, but the Church there is much larger as a percentage of the population and has been much harder to subvert. It is an ongoing struggle between faithful priests, bishops and laity trying to preserve the rights of the Church, and the government constantly seeking to suborn those rights.
There is an epidemic of teacher sex abuse of minors….. April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Basics, catachesis, Christendom, disaster, General Catholic, horror, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society.comments closed
……and quite incredibly, it is, for the first time (that is known), involving nearly as many women abusers as men. In fact, it could be more women than men. Such is the state of the culture today.
Robert Stacy McCain has done yeoman’s work over the past several months identifying and cataloging this epidemic of abuse in the public school system. The rate at which students are being abused by teachers – nationwide, there are typically multiple allegations every week – far eclipses anything that has ever been claimed against the Catholic Church. At present, it seems hundreds of students, and quite possibly thousands, are being abused by teachers – every year. Where is the scandal? Where is the nonstop media coverage? Where are the calls for investigations? Where the calls for reform?
Most of all, where are the lawsuits? Oh, I forgot……most states, if not all of them, have passed laws exempting their public schools from just the kind of lawsuits that have been directed against the Church. Even more, these same legislatures that have made their schools invulnerable to sex abuse lawsuits have repeatedly, and, I might add, after the fact, extended the statutes of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits against churches going back many decades now, the better to make the trial lawyers – always big givers to politicians, but most especially, democrats – more wealthy. This whole situation stinks to high heaven and is just one more example of the ongoing cultural double-standards and persecution.
As I said, Mr. McCain (whose blog I cannot freely recommend, as there is quite a bit of language and content that is less than pure, and some of it is outright offensive) has done great work cataloging the scope of the ongoing abuse. Just a few recent examples:
- An unstable, mentally ill lesbian (is there any other kind?) seduced a 15 year old girl on a hockey team she was helping coach (the girl was actually the head coach’s daughter). The girl suffered such trauma from this abuse she became severely depressed and attempted suicide.
- This post lists 10 different cases involving recent sexual assaults by women on female students. Ages of the victims range from 12 to 16, but 5 were 14 or younger.
- I won’t link a post from the same day that describes the multiple statutory rapes committed by a female teacher on male students. The teacher was 24, the students were 16-17. I cannot link the post because McCain gave vent to really inappropriate language and imagery. The post goes on to list another half-dozen recent instances of very recent cases (some as recent as last week) involving female teachers having relations with boys, some as young as 13.
- This post discusses the “emerging menace of female predators,” which McCain pins on drives for “sexual equality” and general moral decadence. This post lists further cases involving female teachers assaulting both male and female students – another twelve such instances.
All of these posts were made in the past 10 days. There are many more if you want to dig back further (I don’t recommend it). The point has been made. Can you imagine the constant, unmitigated uproar that would have resulted if even a fraction as many convictions were made against Catholic priests? And yet there seems precious little interest in the media in tying these numerous events together and reporting on what certainly appears to be a growing epidemic of teachers sexually assaulting their students. Mind you, these are only the recent cases involving females. There are about as many cases involving males in the same timeframe. And many of these assaults or instances of abuse likely go unreported. From the data, it would appear that several students are sexually assaulted by teachers, male or female, in this country every single day.
How long will public schools be protected from litigation by parents and former students who suffer from the predations that are allowed to occur on a constant basis? And this does not even mention sexual assaults committed by students against fellow students, another very significant matter. Why should public schools get a pass when other institutions are not so protected? And doesn’t this protection provide a powerful incentive to allow the status quo to continue?
Absent Grace, all these children can now look forward to a lifetime of degrading, very difficult to control desires and sexual dysfunction. I guess one may wonder, if things like this have always gone on in schools. I certainly never heard of such, even if there was a certain English teacher when I was a senior in high school, a divorcee with an alleged rose tattoo on her rear end (rumor? true? I have no idea) that did like to flirt with the boys. I tend to think that especially among women teachers, this is a pretty new phenomenon, and a product of the hyper-sexualized culture, where so many feel compelled to pursue a twisted sexual “ideal.” The worship of youth, and all that – by bedding a youth, one somehow reclaims fading youth?
Anyway, you can mark this post as reason number #10,897 to homeschool your kids.
Prayer Request April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Dallas Diocese, Holy suffering, Latin Mass, sadness.comments closed
Bill DeVille has been a good friend of this blog online and off. He suffered a stroke over the weekend. Could you please, in your charity, say a prayer for his healing and that he and his wife may offer up this suffering for their own sanctification and the good of the Church? Bill and Beverly are pretty well known in these parts, I pray for Bill’s quick healing and growth in holiness and virtue in this trial.
Thank you for your kind consideration.
A Prayer on the Crucifixion of Jesus April 8, 2014
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Holy suffering, Interior Life, martyrdom, persecution, sadness, scandals, secularism, Virtue.comments closed
We belong to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, helping support the orthodox, non-communist (or anti-communist) Church in China, which stands in opposition to the government-dominated “patriotic Catholic church,” which is 
heretical and openly schismatic (the kid glove treatment the schismatic acts of the so-called patriotic church have received stand in marked contrast to the treatment some traditional groups have suffered. There are reasons for this, some valid, some craven).
Since we belong to this foundation, we get regular mailings from them. The most recent one included a beautiful prayer card with a prayer penned by Ignatius Cardinal Kung Pin-Mei, who was imprisoned by communist authorities for over 30 years for his defense of the Faith. I thought I might share it with you, seeing how appropriate it is for Passion Week and upcoming Holy Week:
Our Lord Jesus is on the Cross. His whole body is covered with wounds, His hands and feet are nailed to the Cross, 
His head is crowned with thorns, and for His drink, only vinegar and bitter gall. Although He suffered so much, He knows that many will remain indifferent. The mental anguish is even more painful than His physical torment.
God suffered so much for me. Why am I not willing to give up some worldly pleasure and accept some suffering in this life? I know well that Jesus suffered in reparation for my sins and yet I still go against His Will and commit sin. How can I reject His Grace and increase His sorrow?
Jesus accepted suffering inflicted by every kind of person. The Apostles betrayed Him, the Jews made accusations 
against Him, the Gentiles cursed Him, high priests, officials, soldiers and people all determined to kill Him. Because Jesus suffered in order to save all classes of people, so He accepted sufferings caused by all kinds of people, including all of us. Are we not increasing His suffering by our lack of faith, committing sin and not loving His Sacred Heart?
Where was our Blessed Mother at that time? She was weeping beside the Cross, watching Her Son suffer. This was not just the human love between mother and son. She united Her love of Jesus with Her love for all mankind, offering it in sacrifice to God the Father for the salvation of the whole world. Our Lady is indeed the Mother of our Salvation.
Each and every one of us should imitate Our Blessed Lady, contemplating Jesus on the Cross. We should offer our sufferings in reparation for our sins and those of others, asking for mercy and forgiveness and not fail to respond to the graces Jesus obtained for us through His Passion.
———–End Quote———–
Pray for the Church in China. It is sorely persecuted. Pray for those who have fallen into this “patriotic church” as a result of the persecution (or for other, baser motives). I personally have prayed for a long time that the Holy Father will take a firm stand and formally identify the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church as schismatic, due to the huge scandal that persists in the communist government naming bishops, rejecting Church Doctrine (abortion, contraception, a number of other matters), and participating in the persecution of the underground, faithful Church. Doing so would surely cause even more persecution, but I think it’s better to be clear on the Truth and let the chips fall as they may, rather than letting the schism continue to ossify and become more intractable.
Or just pray for the zeal of souls and their perseverance in the Faith, in spite of all persecution and suffering. It is the blood of martyrs that has led to the Church overcoming any and all obstacles in the past, so I pray these faithful souls, who do suffer greatly for their faith, may remain strong in it.
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