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Four tips for visiting large families January 30, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Domestic Church, family, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, manhood, Society, Tradition, Virtue.
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Kevin Kukla has an entertaining post up regarding what to do when visiting large families (this would be for those who don’t). Good stuff for a Friday.   I copy a bit below, go read the rest, and make your own suggestions!

1. It’s a Given at Least One Child Will Be Crying at All Times

You’re grown up now, so you probably do not remember. But as a child, you had a heightened radar detector for fairness. It was your sixth sense. Any perceived injustice earned your tears. And you sought an immediate remedy from the closest authority in charge (i.e., your parents).

This is the mindset of most little kids you may run into. And if you are visiting a large family, then there likely with several little kids there.

Inevitably, at least one of them will be crying for mom or dad. This may even interrupt your conversation.Please, extend some patience.

4. You Won’t Be Able to Deny How Much Love is in the House

After spending some time at a house with a big family, I am confident you will not be able to deny the great love being displayed. Family members talking to each other. Family members actually enjoying, not merely tolerating, each other’s company. Who knew such things were possible?

 

I’m out.  I pray you have a blessed weekend.  Sunday is Septuagesima Sunday!  Time to start getting geared up for penance!  Have you formed a plan for what penances or other acts of self-denial you might perform during both Septuagesima and Lent?  Now is a great time to start thinking about it!

Is cremation an option for Catholics? January 30, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, Domestic Church, error, Four Last Things, General Catholic, paganism, secularism, Society, Tradition.
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Lately this subject has come up around our house, due to some unfortunate comments heard at our homeschool high school co-op (yes, reliable catechesis is a problem, if a relatively slight one, even there).  I have long felt that cremation is not something I’m at all interested in for myself or any member of my family.  But as to the broader question, whether Catholics can or should be cremated, I think the video below raises a number of good points.  Ultimately, the practice of cremation is pagan in origin and denies the great work of mercy found in burying the dead, which our Lord extols several times in Sacred Scripture.

I found this video quite by accident.  I had been dimly aware that Fr. Gruner and The Fatima Center produced these videos, but hadn’t watched one until last night, when it came up in the suggestions Youtube always puts in the sidebar while I was watching something else.  It’s a pretty good and brief synopsis of the subject.  Just take it for what it is, and keep any side-issues to a minimum:

To me, the arguments against cremation weigh strongly against any perceived benefits. Having heard some arguments in favor of cremation, I tend to reject them.  Some people believe cremation to be cheaper than burial, but much of the difference is mitigated in the need to have the remains placed in a columbarium, which ain’t terribly cheap.  You’re really not supposed to put the remains of your dear Uncle Fred on the mantle (and if I recall correctly, doing so is an abuse if not sinful?).  As to whether cremation is more sanitary, I think in the modern parlance the difference is slight.  Certainly, cremation would contribute vast amounts of greenhouse gasses, and we can’t have that!  I think the main argument against is in the history of the practice, it’s origin in pagan cults and its association with the rejection of bodily resurrection.  Even if no longer forbidden, per se‘ (and this would be yet another in a very long line of recently introduced novelties that run counter to prior practice), I tend to think it is a practice that should be avoided without a very good reason.  I’m not sure the cost difference rises to that level or not, and all the other reasons in favor of cremation I’ve seen seem to be about preference and, perhaps, what is a growing revulsion to the idea of allowing one’s body to slowly decay.  This may reflect on the cult of youth and beauty in our society, with people preferring near-obliteration to slow and natural decay.  But we should be striving to be so holy we can hope for remaining incorrupt, right?!?

As to Fr. Gruner’s rather incidental comments that Pope Paul VI may have taken some of the actions he did due to be being extorted over his personal peccadilloes, I really have no comment.  Whatever the reason, the actions were taken, and can’t be dismissed based on innuendo.

Guns don’t kill people……. January 30, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, Basics, demographics, error, foolishness, General Catholic, persecution, secularism, Society.
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…….leftist policies do.  That’s the major argument of Bill Whittle below.  I only post this video because I sense a little bit of gun-leariness from some faithful Catholics, and because my hometown is featured prominently in the video.  I think Whittle is a bit over the top in his description of Plano, TX……we never had a gun in the house the entire time I grew up, and my dad had a hard time convincing my mom to let him get a .30-.30 lever action a few years ago.  Since, he’s put all of about 50 rounds through it.

To me, a gun is a tool like any other.  You can kill someone just as dead with a car as with a gun, and many people do every year, either through malice (rarely), neglect, or accident.  Many nations with strict gun control laws have murder rates far in excess of that in the United States, and as Whittle notes, most of the top-murder cities in the US also have strict gun control laws.  Social and moral factors are far more related to murder than availability of firearms.

I need my guns to go all Branch Davidian when the government comes to take my guns away.  And to give me that enlarged sense of self-worth I so desperately crave.

Flightline Friday lazy edition January 30, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, damnable blasphemy, Flightline Friday, foolishness, fun, non squitur, silliness, Society.
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Just some videos of various recent training classes in the F-16 and F-22 communities.  Luke AFB near Phoenix is the site of all F-16 training in USAF.  The F-22s are done at Tyndall in Florida.  Each training class – it appears – is now making graduation videos.  The music uniformly stinks.  There is simply no other way to describe it.  But some of the flight footage is awesome.

You will see patches saying “LPA” – that is the “Lieutenant’s Protection Association, ” a sort of mini-fraternity for lieutenants in pilot slots (especially fighter) that ensures they have  money for beer.

This has some pretty good footage:

Meh:

One of the best, and most recent.  This guy really struggles with a Marine F-18D:

This one is not from a training class but is from the “Raytheon Award” for best F-15 unit.  Good cockpit voice recordings:

So now you learned today that it is increasingly becoming a “thing” for USAF training classes to produce graduation videos. And now you know where a couple dozen-odd fighter pilots you’ve never seen before in your life are stationed.

Lucky you!

In the unlikely event you ever watched a graduation video from a primary flight training class, like the one below, you would also find that some of the class get reassigned back to a training base to serve as new instructors.  That assignment is called FAIP: First Assignment Instructor Pilot, and aside from getting stuck flying UAVs is the most dreaded option on what is called “assignment night,” when the student pilots are given their first assignments.  This video below is pretty funny, they based it on scenes from the classic movie The Right Stuff:

To understand how incredibly deflating it can be for a student pilot to learn he will be stuck in Air Education and Training Command for another 4 years, flying relatively low-performance aircraft on boring missions, you could go to this link.  It has lots of grown-up words and sentiment but if you know how bad it feels to get re-assigned to a training squadron after dreaming of flying fighters for 20 years, you might find the use of language excusable. A whole lot of student pilots have met a FAIP like this, one who wears their disappointment on their sleeve.  I won’t imbed the song on my nice clean blog, it’s pretty bad, but it also conveys a reality better than a long essay on the subject. If you have a strong interest in the subject and can appreciate dark and quite raunchy humor, you might find it worth listening to. Otherwise, skip it.  You have been warned.

The author of that song, BTW, is a 12 year product of Catholic schools.

In fact, being a USAF fighter pilot anymore is an exercise in fear and frustration, with occasional bouts of incredible exhilaration when you find out you’ve been assigned to fighters for your next tour.  Pilots have to guarantee sign on for 10 years.  USAF insists on that because training pilots is very expensive and they don’t want them leaving after 4 years to join an airline (or whatever).  But USAF has for years kept the training pipeline far larger than the reduced force can really support.  And so, a fighter pilot in a 24  year career would be very lucky indeed to spend even half his career assigned to operational fighter squadrons.  Nowadays, he could expect at least one tour in UAVs or back in training command (which happened to the author of that song, after his one tour in F-16s he was reassigned to Moody to fly T-6 basic trainers) and at least one or more staff tour.  Many pilots in a 20 year career only have two assignments to fighter squadrons – 8 years out of 20.  It’s really ridiculous to spend bazillions of dollars training people to a high level of perfection and then have them serve a tour in the Pentagon sharpening their PowerPoint skills, but that’s the way it is.  About the only way to stay in fighters all the time is to get extraordinarily lucky and get a slot in the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve, but even there, it’s not all beer and skittles.

Oh, and next week I hope to have a better post on the Northrop YA-9A aircraft which competed in the A-X contract with the mighty A-10 Thunderbolt II back in 1972.  The Soviets heavily copied the design to make their own Su-25 “Frogfoot.”

Cardinal Baldisseri confirms Pope Francis directed inclusion of heterodox statements in Synod final “Relatio” January 29, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, paganism, Papa, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society, SOD, the return.
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Via 1 Peter Five, confirmation of what we’ve already known from Pope Francis’ right hand man at the Synod.  This confirmation apparently also came out of the conclave featuring many leading family associations held at the Vatican recently, which I discussed in a post yesterday:

Cardinal Baldisseri called the 300 conference participants, representing 80 different organizations, to enter into the synod process by reflecting on the preparatory document, called the Lineamenta. The document contains the final report from last October’s preparatory assembly (the Extraordinary Synod of 2014), together with 46 questions intended to facilitate its reception and examine the themes treated in it.

The Secretary General of the Synod called participants to consider carefully how devoted Catholic families can help those who are not living the “fullness of Christian marriage.” The mission of the organizations assembled, he suggested, could be deepened by evangelization efforts to those in irregular marital situations. Caring for wounded families, he said, demands a search for courageous pastoral choices……..

…..Why did the final Relatio published in the Lineamenta include the paragraphs on homosexuality, extra-marital cohabitation and Communion for the divorced-and-remarried that failed to gain the approval of the Synod Fathers in October? (Paragraphs 52,53,55 in the Italian; the English has a slightly different numbering system.)

“It was the Pope’s decision to include the points that did not receive the two-thirds majority,” Cardinal Baldisseri responded. “The Pope said: ‘These three points received an absolute majority. They were therefore not rejected with a ‘no,’ as they received more than 50 percent approval. [Well, I guess the Pope can make up whatever rules he wants, but the 2/3 majority is a protection built in to keep popular but dangerous pastoral approaches from being approved. It was contrary to the synod’s own rules.] They are therefore issues that still need to be developed. We as a Church want a consensus. These texts can be modified, that’s clear. Once there has been further reflection, they can be modified.”

The Cardinal also informed us that the 46 questions published in the Lineamenta were the work of both the General Secretariat and the 15 members of the Council of the Secretariat. Responses are due April 15th. [Questions that were apparently challenged and rejected by many of the family organizations as leading and inappropriate.]

Asked if the Pope had reviewed the questions before they were published, the Cardinal replied: “The documents were all seen and approved by the Pope, with the approval of his presence. Even the documents during the [Extraordinary] Synod, such as the Relatio ante disceptatationem [the preliminary report], the Relatio post disceptationem [interim report], and the Relatio synodi [final report]were seen by him before they were published.”

So the Pope was  quite aware of the content of the Relatio, including, it must be surmised, its very problematic parts, before the fact.  That would tend to cast extreme doubt on the claim made by some that Archbishop Forte’ – author of the midterm report, obviously written weeks or months before the actual Synod – kind of slipped those extremely dangerous phrases in without the Pope’s knowledge or approval.

It also demonstrates that the perception many had at the time, that all this wildness at the Synod was being directed by the Pope and Cardinal Baldisseri, was, almost certainly, the case.  It also further explains many of the reports at the time at the extremely strong negative reaction some of the more orthodox Synod fathers apparently had towards the Pope himself.  I won’t go into those now, but some of them were apparently quite heated.

There is a broader point to discuss here.  Many held the view that because the Synod fathers did not approve these novel and potentially heterodox statements, a substantial victory had been achieved.  That was my initial hope, as well, but having reflected on the matter for some months and seeing the rhetoric coming from sources like Archbishop Kupich, Cardinal Marx, and others, if there was a victory, it was a very small and probably temporary one.

Cardinal Marx, leader of the German conference of, it must be said, no longer orthodox bishops, said that they never expected full approval of all the verbiage in the Relatio at the first session but will push for much more at the second one. He said it was an enormous victory for the forces of modernism (OK, I added that last bit) to even get such a subject on the table for discussion. For the first time in history, an official Church document – of the most dubious authority, it is true, but the vast majority are ignorant of that fact – says that the Church should examine opening up Communion to adulterers and that those drawn to acts of sodomy have special “gifts.”  This is utterly unprecedented language. Coupled with Cardinal Maradiaga-Rodriguez’ recent harangue in California, assuring his largely progressive audience that the revolution has only begun and that Vatican II would pale in comparison to the changes that will be implemented shortly, I think it clear that the progressive elements do not feel they suffered any great setback and believe they still have the whip-hand.  We’ll see what develops, God willing, it won’t be much, but at present most signs still indicate grave danger ahead.

 

Father Carota on the priest’s view of New Mass vs. TLM January 29, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, episcopate, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Latin Mass, Liturgy, scandals, secularism, Tradition, Virtue.
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Another interesting post from Fr. Peter Carota.  He offers more the priest’s perspective on the differences in offering the Novus Ordo and the TLM, since he offered the NO for decades and the TLM for the past 7 years.

There are some very interesting points below.  I only take a sample, there is much more at the link.  I add emphasis and comments:

From my view up on the altar, the difference between the Ancient Mass and the New Mass is like day and night.  Archbishop Sample, from Portland Oregon, put it well when he said at the Sacra Liturgia Conference in Rome, that he wants all of his priests to learn and offer the Latin Mass because of the effect it has on them understanding their role as priests.  He said that offering the Holy Latin Mass has changed him completely and now he finally  understands the sacrificial aspect of his priesthood.

I know, for the average Catholic who has had very little to no experience with the Latin Mass, the New Mass is just fine because it is all they have ever known or at which they feel comfortable and “at home with”.  All over the world, the New Mass is all any Catholic is able to go to.  That is all they know and that is all the knowledge they have to judge with………

……..The whole focus of the Holy Latin Mass is on;
7350018_orig

  • adoring God,
  •  being at Calvary at the real un-bloody Sacrifice of Jesus being re-made present on the Cross,
  • the priest asking Jesus to intercede to God His Father for the forgiveness of our sins,
  • humbly praying that at this Sacrifice we may receive His salvation and graces.

At the Sacrifice of the Holy Latin Mass, it is obvious that;

  • God the Father is acting through Jesus His Son,
  • Jesus is acting through the priest, in Persona Christi,
  • There is hierarchy in God’s Kingdom and the Catholic Church.
  • The priest has the special role in praying to God.
  • People accompany Mary and the Apostle St. John in contemplation at the foot of the cross, while Jesus is offering His life in sacrifice to the Father for our salvation.
  • The people are assisting at Jesus’ Sacrifice on the cross for them.
  • People humbly and passively receive God’s graces through interior prayer.
  • People humbly receive Jesus in Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue.
  • People pray and absorb the effects the Divine Mystery of the Holy Mass in silence…… [I left out quite a few items.  It is a pretty long post]
  • There are way more genuflections, bows and blessing to God done by the priest. [Exterior sign of the great reverence due God Incarnate]
  • No one, except the priest, can touch the Holy Chalice or Paten because they are used to hold God’s Body and Blood. [I think this one hugely significant.  When the Blessed Sacrament is handled by many people, irreverence is unavoidable.  When it is handled only by the priest, and such enormous care is taken in that handling, it conveys the incredible sanctity of the Sacrament and the reverence we must have for it]
  • Once the priest has said the words of consecration, he never separates the thumbs and index fingers so that if by any chance there are tiny fragments of the Body of Jesus, they do not fall on the Altar or floor.
  • The priest only drinks the Precious Blood of Jesus from one side of the Chalice so that when he will purify it, he can be sure he purifies where the Blood ran.
  • When receiving the Body of Christ, the priest puts the paten under his chin incase any particles may fall on the altar.
  • He scrapes the corporal with the paten to be sure if at any time a particle of the Body of Christ ended on the corporal, he can put it into the chalice and be consumed with the Blood of Christ…… [All of these reinforce the sacredness of the Sacrament.  Their elimination from almost all Novus Ordo Masses have served, in total, to dramatically de-emphasize that sacredness.  All these small things have added up into a very large decrease in belief in and reverence for the Blessed Sacrament]20130412-estampita_almas_del_purgatorio_santa_misa
  • No one ever touches God in Holy Communion, other than the priest.
  • All people are obliged to kneel and receive Jesus on the tongue.
  • After Holy Communion, the priest purifies the Chalice twice, once with wine and again with wine and water to be sure that he gets every drop of Jesus Precious Blood purified.
  • The priest purifies the thumbs and index fingers with water and wine into the chalice to get any tiny particle of host into the chalice and consumed.
  • People kneel in adoration and thanksgiving after Holy Communion.
  • People pray and do not speak inside the church.
  • Women cover their heads with veils.
  • People dress in there Sunday best, very respectfully and modestly. [Again, emphasizing the sacred, the transcendent, the holy, the mystical, the “beyond us.”  Familiarity breeds indifference, if not contempt. All too often today, the Blessed Sacrament is handled contemptuously.]

The New Mass is focused on God, but at the same time, very much focused on the people.

  • Instead of the focus of the Celebrant being in Persona Christi, his focus is on representing and presiding in the name of the congregation.
  • The Celebrant faces the people, not God. [So, SO significant. In this Diocese, offering Mass Ad Orientem is as impermissible and destructive of a priest’s future prospects as offering Mass in Latin.]
  • In all reality, the Celebrant is the center of the “show”.  Often he will make jokes.
  • Little in the words of the New Mass are there much about the Sacrificial aspect of the mass.
  • The new mass is centered much more on the “Remembering at the Last Supper”. [A concept lifted directly and deliberately from protestant heretics to make the Mass less “offensive” to them, in pursuit of the one-world global religion of indifferentism.]
  • The focus is on the people being very active by responding, hugging, standing, sitting, kneeling, singing and walking in procession to receive Holy Communion.
  • There are many people envolved in the New Mass, like the Lectors and Extraordinary Eucharistic ministers.IMG_2794
  • Everything is very external and not contemplative.
  • Very little silence.
  • Very little kneeling in adoration of God.
  • The New Roman Missal has so many “pastoral” options in how to celebrate the mass.
  • Many women come to mass dressed in sexy clothes, low necks, tight pants and shorts. [Big problem. I have noted that young women (weddings are the worst) and Hispanic women have special problems with this.  The dress at parishes in San Antonio is often shameful.  Then again, one of the worst outfits I ever saw at a Mass was worn by an anglo school teacher at St. Mark in Plano]
  • Men come dressed in shorts.
  • Lectors and Extraordinary ministers sometimes go up on the altar in sexy or inappropriate clothing.
  • Before and after mass, people and priests talk and visit loudly in church. [De-emphasizing the sacred, de-emphasizing the holy, and emphasizing strictly human aspects]
  • There is very little time allowed after Holy Communion to meditate and thank God for coming into their souls.
  • People usually sit and do not kneel after receiving Holy Communion.
  • Large host are used to show that we are all one body, and when they are broken, large particles shoot all over the corporal, altar and floor.  It has happened to me.
  • Very rarely are patens used to catch the falling Body of Christ or crumbs.
  • The floors of Catholic churches are full of particles of the Body of Christ that fall on the ground from the hands of people who receive in the hand and are being walked on by all the people. [It’s the death of a thousand cuts.  With all these changes, all these differences subtle and gross, is it surprising that belief in the Real Presence has cratered in the past 50 years?  And if the Blessed Sacrament is not what the Church claims It is, if It is just “bread and wine,” or a “remembrance,” why on earth be Catholic with lame Masses and lame music? Why not go for the real deal in a sect?  Millions of Catholics have made that calculation, and made their choice.  Especially Hispanics.]

The final question (and the answer should make everyone who reads this article want to only go to the Holy Latin Mass) is:  Do we truly believe that God/Jesus is in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar?  If so God deserves adoration, respect and protection.

———-End Quote———-

As I said, it is a long post.  Please do go stop by Fr. Carota’s and read the rest, I know I took too much, but it is very, very good. Still, I probably copied less than half. I think Father will understand.

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We are back in the days of paganism…..Wisdom Chapter 14 January 29, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Bible, catachesis, Christendom, General Catholic, mortification, sanctity, Tradition, Virtue.
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Mankind never changes.  We will always remain disfigured by Original Sin.  Thus, there have always been grave problems in all human societies. Even the very pinnacle of Christendom in the 12th and 13th centuries was not without grave problems, wars, and persecutions.

Still……we have plainly departed from that glorious historical construct known as Christendom.  It is no more, or at best, there are a few bare fragments of it remaining, slowly withering, it seems.

We have, as a culture, over the past few centuries, regressed tremendously.  Oh, with regards to technology, there have been great advances, almost all accomplished in the 19th or early 20th centuries (the pace of technological advance seems to have slowed dramatically over the past 70 or 80 years, almost all advances simply being simply developments of core breakthroughs made long ago). But socially, morally, the culture has regressed.  To many minds, we appear to be headed into a new paganism.  In fact, in many ways, it is already here.

So while I recognize that the words of Solomon from Wisdom Chapter 14 were inspired by God and have had applicability in all times, they appear to have a special resonance today.  When Solomon wrote, he was describing the evils of the Canaanites who so frequently lured the Israelites into grave acts of debauchery, into rejection of their Lord for evil demons.  We are surrounded by Canaanites today, luring our young away with their festivals of bacchanalia and tempting them to believe false gods of their own creation.

See if you can see any parallels in the below with the culture we are faced with today:

9 But to God the wicked and his wickedness are hateful alike.

10 For that which is made, together with him that made it, shall suffer torments. [An interesting commentary.  What bearing, if any, should this have on “love the sinner, hate the sin?”  What is man but the sum total of his actions?  Then again, I would not like to be judged so stringently.]

11 Therefore there shall be no respect had even to the idols of the Gentiles: because the creatures of God are turned to an abomination, and a temptation to the souls of men, and a snare to the feet of the unwise.

12 For the beginning of fornication is the devising of idols: and the invention of them is the corruption of life.

13 For neither were they from the beginning, neither shall they be for ever.

14 For by the vanity of men they came into the world: and therefore they shall be found to come shortly to an end…….

22 And it was not enough for them to err about the knowledge of God, but whereas they lived in a great war of ignorance, they call so many and so great evils peace. [Another very insightful commentary.  Very applicable to today]

23 *For either they sacrifice their own children, or use hidden sacrifices, or keep watches full of madness, [And even in times of “peace” in this country, we slaughter our innocents by the millions, as occurs every day around the world. We are awash in blood, and don’t even know it.]

24 So that now they neither keep life, nor marriage undefiled, but one killeth another through envy, or grieveth him by adultery:

25 And all things are mingled together, blood, murder, theft, and dissimulation, corruption and unfaithfulness, tumults and perjury, disquieting of the good,

26 Forgetfulness of God, defiling of souls, changing of nature, [gender identity?] disorder in marriage, and the irregularity of adultery and uncleanness.

27 For the worship of abominable idols is the cause, and the beginning and end of all evil.

28 For either they are mad when they are merry: or they prophecy lies, or they live unjustly, or easily forswear themselves.

29 For whilst they trust in idols, which are without life, though they swear amiss, they look not to be hurt.

30 But for both these things they shall be justly punished, because they have thought not well of God, giving heed to idols, and have sworn unjustly, in guile despising justice.

31 For it is not the power of them, by whom they swear, but the just vengeance of sinners always punisheth the transgression of the unjust.

————–End Quote————–

It is always critical to remember that Solomon, for all his wisdom (and it is certainly on display above), still fell into the same idolatry and evil he describes above, because he fell into lust.  So many are ruined by lust – whether it be for money, food, power, or the abuse of the marital faculty.  That is why practicing penance is so absolutely vital: penance and self-denial are the remedy for our disordered appetites, they build up in us a resistance to them.

The process of societal rejection of penance, which voluntary suffering and gift of self had created Christendom, started under protestantism. Luther, a man given to many uncontrolled appetites, twisted Scripture to his own destruction and found many people willing to join him in “finding” that the Bible actually did not recommend penance (so much for take your cross, and follow Me).  From that point today it has been more or less a straight line of decay and dissolution till we arrive at today, where the very notion of self-denial is utterly alien to almost everyone.,

Generation wretch: millenials choosing toy dogs over children? January 29, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in demographics, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, huh?, rank stupidity, silliness, Society.
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Supposedly this came from a parenting magazine, captured in a doctor’s office:

dog or child

“Recently discovered a decline in birth rates?”  You mean, the same one that’s been going on for 50 years?

I guess this is supposed to be a joke?

Eh, whatever.  Moving on.

HUGE: “Catholic” Relief Services involved in Planned Barrenhood style sex-ed program in Rwanda, pushes contraception January 29, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, Basics, contraception, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, persecution, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, Spiritual Warfare, the enemy.
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CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS POST.  THIS POST DEALS WITH MATERIAL OF AN EXPLICIT NATURE AS A MATTER OF COURSE.

They really do think we are that dumb, that this kind of thing won’t be found out.  I guess they also think they will always have apologists to help block any criticism.

According to a detailed investigation compiled by LifeSiteNews and the Lepanto Institute, the USCCB’s overseas charitable organ Catholic (ahem) Relief Services has been involved in an explicit sex-ed program in Rwanda, pushing contraception, abortifacients, and even, incredibly, Planned Parenthood.  Excerpts from the LSN article below, there is a great deal of detail at the Lepanto Institute:

Catholic Relief Services helped implement a sex education program for overseas adolescents that promotes masturbation, “gender identity,” contraceptives, condom use, and abortifacients, along with promoting Planned Parenthood, a new report by the Lepanto Institute says.

The U.S. bishops’ official international humanitarian agency partnered with Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) in developing the program, called “My Changing Body: Fertility and Puberty Awareness for Young People.”

The program was used with 10-14 year-old Rwandan children beginning in 2009-2010……..

……Planned Parenthood is prominently featured among the recommended resources in My Changing Body. In addition to Planned Parenthood’s national and international arms, the report said resources include the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, numerous other pro-abortion and contraception groups, population control groups, at least one gender politics organization, and many groups promoting sexual activity among teens.

“Planned Parenthood is an organizational sexual predator,” Hichborn said. [Great quote.  Dead on.]

“Who approved CRS’ involvement with a program based upon Planned Parenthood’s work? Who implemented this program?” he continued. “Everyone who had a hand in this project should be fired from CRS.”

My Changing Body gives intimate details on the mechanics of sexual intercourse, and it tells young people that masturbation does not affect virginity, with no mention of Church teaching that such acts are unchaste and immoral.

In fact, the term “masturbation” is used in a positive sense 48 times throughout theMy Changing Body program document, including in a group exercise for boys titledMy Body Feels Good where facilitators are told to “stress that medical professionals say it is completely normal.”

Contraceptive methods are listed for young people over multiple pages in the program, including abortifacient “emergency contraception” pills, and condom use is encouraged.

The program also promotes acceptance of homosexuality and a fluid conception of gender. “Sometimes a person’s biological gender is not the same as his/her gender identity,” the program reads. “Negative social messages and homophobia in the wider culture can mean that young adolescents who are experiencing sexual attraction to and romantic feelings for someone of their own gender need support so they can clarify their feelings and accept their sexuality.” [This reads like a document/resource written or constructed by Planned Parenthood itself. Should we be surprised, when a number of CRS employees come either from Planned Parenthood itself, or other population control bodies?]

CRS was responsible for testing, revising, and implementing the My Changing Body program, the Lepanto Institute report said, citing a 2013 IRH brief stating that CRS and Caritas Rwanda were implementing partners, and a 2011 USAID report stating CRS was involved in the revision and testing of the My Changing Bodyprogram. Both CRS and Caritas Rwanda are part of the international network of Caritas organizations overseen by Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican’s top social justice arm…….

……..The Lepanto Institute revealed how the USAID report indicated that CRS and Caritas combined My Changing Body with programs already in existence. My Changing Body was implemented outside of Church venues, he said, suggesting a pre-emptive attempt to avoid criticism that they were promoting activities against Catholic teaching among Catholics.

“Just how far is CRS willing to go for money?” asked Hichborn. “They consistently tell faithful Catholics that they have to give money to and maintain relationships with abortion and contraception pushing organizations in order to do their development work.” [The report then goes on to note that these relationships are really forced by taking USAID money.  Catholic organizations that do not use government funding do not push such immoral things and have no associations with immoral groups like Planned Parenthood]

…….American Life League’s Director of Communications Rob Gasper pointed out that with CRS’ involvement in the My Changing Body program in Rwanda, the aid agency played a partnership role identical to that of Planned Parenthood when the abortion giant instigated the My Changing Body program in Guatemala.

“Planned Parenthood in Guatemala (APROFAM) field tested this very same curriculum, and Georgetown IRH credits Planned Parenthood as a resource in its development. That in itself should have set off alarm bells for any Catholic organization involved in promoting this vile program,” Gasper told LifeSiteNews. “Georgetown IRH should be ashamed for creating it, and CRS should be ashamed for helping it spread. Youth should be protected, not mentally molested by Catholic aid organizations.”

“This sex miseducation program is indeed ‘vile,’ and it is troubling to think that CRS had a hand in revising and implementing it,” Stephen Phelan, director of mission communications for Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews. “Since CRS is proud of the fact that it hires non-Catholics to implement their programs, and it boasts that it will not evangelize due to the fact that most of their funding does not come from Catholics, one wonders how ‘Catholic’ its programs are on the ground, and this looks just terrible.”…….

“More and more the wisdom of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio ‘On the Service of Charity’ becomes clear,” Phelan continued. “Catholic aid organizations must sever ties with funders who force the organizations to compromise on the essential, beautiful and just teachings of the Church.”

Hichborn re-emphasized this need for separating Catholic charities from government funding. “The thing is, once you’ve turned helping the poor into a business model, you’ve already defeated the purpose. And taking government money in order to do it only sells out the Catholic identity that much faster.”

The supporting investigation for the LSN report is here.  A couple of the slides from that investigation below:

MCB-1 (1)

MCB-4

MCB-11

Really sick stuff in here.

Really sick stuff in here.

This program takes innocent souls, and inculcates in the gravest immoralities.  Since the instructor will often be a trusted authority in the Church, the children so malformed will essentially be lost forever, unless parents or others are able to undo the damage done.  Otherwise, it would take a moral miracle to convert these children.  Malformation from a Church authority figure at a young age results in a soul being invincibly convinced that whatever immorality they learn is just perfectly wonderful, and that lesson tends to remain for life.  And that is why so many Catholic schoolchildren and/or college students in this country fall away from the Faith.

Just another in a long line of expose’s on the beyond problematic activities of CRS.  Hitchborn and others are correct, the ultimate source of this seemingly happy participation in immorality – and efforts to cover that participation up – is government funding.  The US government is wholly committed to population control and is dominated by individuals with far left, anti-Church outlooks.  They will demand that any organizations that receive their funding will cooperate with that agenda.  CRS and Catholic Charities, among others, receive the vast majority of their funding from the federal government.  The bishops like it that way, because federal funding is stable and reliable, and a lot easier to obtain than lobbying the faithful.  As a result, and going back decades, CRS and Catholic Charities ceased to be Catholic organizations and became just another left-wing anti-Church NGO.

I have long advised that Catholics not support either organization.  In light of this and other investigations, however, I feel increasingly strongly that, at least for informed Catholics, donating to CRS, CCHD, or Catholic Charities is material cooperation in grave evil and is morally impermissible.  I wouldn’t say that definitively at this point, and it’s not like my opinion has any weight, but these problems are too deep, wide, and consistently found to be accidental. They indicate a systemic rejection of Church Doctrine that is deeply ingrained in all these organizations. I also feel that the manifest dereliction of duty so apparent with these organizations raises serious questions about financially supporting ANY USCCB organization at this time, and that concern extends down to the diocesan level, too.

We shall see what the response shall be. I would be greatly mollified if there were to be a hand-wringing mea culpa and some serious disciplinary action taken, but I judge it more likely that I will wake up tomorrow on Mars (cold, and more than a bit out of breath).

How to kill vocations in your diocese January 28, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, Dallas Diocese, disaster, episcopate, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, priests, sadness, scandals, secularism, sexual depravity, sickness, Society, the return.
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Reader Steve asked last week what I felt would be a good program for liturgical and spiritual restoration in a diocese.  I had a few suggestions, but didn’t really explore the topic. A book could be written on that subject, and many already have.

However, starting from the conclusion Anthony Esolen has apparently reached – that in many if not most dioceses, priestly vocations are being deliberately killed and valid ones blocked, to serve the modernist agenda of reducing the Church down to the level of a lay-run protestant sect with no sacramental priesthood (which was also the conclusion of Michael Rose in Goodbye, Good Men) – you could probably make a pretty fair run at a liturgical and spiritual restoration in a diocese by doing the exact opposite of what he describes below.  Esolen describes many ways to kill vocations – if you do the opposite, vocations will tend to bloom, and the priests will be overwhelmingly orthodox, or at least not hostile to the Faith.

So below is Esolen’s list.  See if you don’t find that this may not be a good basis upon which to restore the priesthood, and from there, the liturgical:

Dilute the faith. Fighters want something to fight for. Make sure there is nothing to fight for. Do not preach the full doctrine of the Church. Never speak about the terrible sins of our age. Be more sensitive about offending a couple of the people who still show up for Mass, than about offending God. Cut the sixth commandment out of the ten. While you are at it, cut out the second, the third, and the ninth too.

Equate Christian “charity” with rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s, God’s, your own, your children’s, and your community’s. Assume that everybody who is not named Hitler is going to heaven, because some middling bit of natural pleasantness is enough to please the Almighty……Never suggest that the faith is a matter of eternal life or death.

Turn the Sacrament into snack time. Get rid of any remaining altar rails. Make sure that everybody takes the Sacrament into his hands, like a fortune cookie. Tell the people to stand afterwards. Go as far as you can to prevent people from kneeling during Mass. Make it as difficult as possible for people to receive the sacrament of confession. Treat it as insignificant. If somebody does want the sacrament, roll your eyes and make sure that the penitent knows how much it annoys you. Don’t take the penitent’s sin seriously. In fact, give the penitent the impression that he can go on and commit the same sin with impunity…….

Strip the altars. Are there paintings in your church? Cover them with whitewash, or take them down. Is there an old high altar in the back of the sanctuary? Chop it up and use it for fuel. Better still, tear down two or three old churches and build a new one in the shape of a gymnasium. If you place the stations of the Cross on the side walls, make them so small and ambiguous that no one can tell what they are from more than ten feet away…….Sing twaddle…..wet, sloppy twaddle.

Shut down your schools. Give them away to the government to manage, as they have done in Canada. Hire secularists to teach there, or, better, Catholics who hate the Church……Put RCIA into the hands of laymen of dubious learning and piety. Do the same for religion classes in school. Try to make sure that your classes in history or English will be just like those taught anywhere else. Make Catholic education into public education with holy water…….

Be effeminate. Get rid of every single hymn that has anything to do with Christian soldiership. Castrate the rest of the hymns. Or, better, favor hymns that make Jesus into a kind of safe sweet Boyfriend…… Let the music be led by women, especially women who like to be seen and heard performing it. Put the hand-raising cantor up front, to upstage the priest and Christ. Let girls do silly dance routines up and down the aisles. If you can, have five or six girls do that, in the company of one boy whose mother has obviously compelled his attendance, and who stands there gritting his teeth and fuming…….Use as many altar girls as possible. Discourage the boys from joining. Give them nothing important to do. Use as many women lectors as possible. In fact, once Mass has become too bland for girls themselves, use the old ladies as acolytes……

Never suggest that the Church needs men for anything. Make “man” into an obscenity. Never suggest that fathers and mothers play complementary roles in the family. Never suggest that Jesus had something important in mind when He chose twelve men as his brothers. Suggest instead that to be a genuine Christian, a man has to stop being a man. Buy the silly feminist notion that Christian women have been “oppressed” for nearly two thousand years.

Then pray for vocations, after you have done your level best to make sure that you will never have any.

———-End Quote———

Then watch this pagan worship service, uh………Mass?:

Good commentary by Esolen (please do read the rest), who is by no means a trad.  He is a very mainstream conservative, and if he is concluding that vocations are being deliberately blocked in order to kill the Church, that’s significant.  It is incredible to have to admit that, but the evidence is also overwhelming.

One element I would emphasize even more, and it is huge: admit obviously effeminate or at least non-masculine men to the priesthood.  Or, do more than that, block vocations from normal men and encourage those from the perverse, as certainly occurred here in Dallas and around the country for decades (and, I’ve been seeing scattered little warnings, is starting to happen again). I know there are certainly masculine men drawn to sodomy through various means (though they always, always have a tell), but I am amazed at the different caliber of men in the traditional communities (and who are drawn to the traditional Mass) as opposed to most non-traditional priests.  Especially those over age 45 or so (the younger ones are definitely way better, but as not as overtly just regular dudes as the traditional priests I have known), though even there, there remain exceptions.