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Prelates for 2nd session of Synod on Family to be more orthodox? February 5, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, episcopate, General Catholic, Papa, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society, SOD, the return.
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That’s the impression Hilary White of Life Site News gives in her recent article.  She also informs us that while the first, “extraordinary” session of the Synod featured a list of bishops compiled by the Vatican, this year’s “ordinary” session contains Synod members chosen by the national conferences themselves.  I was not clear on that point before.

Three prominent Americans chosen – Archbishop Chaput, Cardinal Gomez, and Cardinal DiNardo of Houston:

The Vatican has published its first list of bishops who will attend the next Synod of bishops in October 2015. For those who were closely following the controversies surrounding the October 2014 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, at least some of the names on the list will look heartening.

The US list includes some of the more notable American defenders of Catholic orthodoxy, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and Los Angeles Archbishop José Horacio Gómez and the strongly pro-life Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

Chaput was among the bishops in October who expressed concern over public perception of the Synod. Chaput, who has long been one of the stronger defenders of Catholic doctrine in the US hierarchy, called the confusion that resulted a work “of the devil.”……..

…….Archbishop Gomez, who took over one of the most pro-homosexual archdioceses in the western world upon the retirement of the disgraced Cardinal Roger Mahoney, is known for having suspended the priestly faculties of a cleric who had started an advocacy organization for “gay marriage.”

Another on the US list is Cardinal DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and the vice president of the US bishops’ conference, who has been a major voice in the various conflicts between the Church and the US government, particularly over conscience rights, the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate, and efforts to bring the legalization of abortion back to the legislative table. A regular at the Washington March for Life, DiNardo was appointed to head the US bishops’ pro-life office in 2009, and is known for having chastised the US judiciary to their faces for their support for continued legalization of abortion.

Notably, despite having been recently appointed as the head of one of the three largest archdioceses in the US, Archbishop Blase J. Cupich of Chicago – a prominent liberal voice – is listed only as a “substitute” and not a member. Oddly, the Vatican’s published document gives Cupich’s former position and rank of Bishop of Spokane, Washington. [Which argues rather strongly that this list was compiled well before Cupich’s appointment to Chicago, and no one bothered to update it. Of course, while the national conferences will name attendees, is it possible that the Synod’s members may be augmented by a separate list compiled by the Vatican?  And even with these relatively orthodox attendees, with a vote that was precariously close to approval at the first round, what will occur in the second session?  Still unanswered in my mind is just what authority a Synod of a small subset of bishops meeting under the authority of the Pope has.  It certainly does not rise to the level of an ecumenical council, so then what is it?]

The make-up of the Ordinary Synod will likely be more reflective of the beliefs of the wider Catholic Church. At an Extraordinary Synod, the Vatican’s Synod committee chooses who will be invited to attend, and accusations flew before last year’s meeting of the Vatican deliberately “stacking” the list with prelates who are or could be convinced to be sympathetic to the aims of the progressivists. At this year’s meeting, the national conferences themselves choose who will attend. [But will those choices make up the entirety of attendees?  I’m not so certain]

The most stand-out name in the African contingent is that of Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle, the archbishop of Accra, Ghana. In 2009, Archbishop Palmer-Buckle attended the African Synod in Rome, and told US Vaticanist John Allen that he agreed with his brother bishops in their condemnation of the co-coordinated efforts by Western organizations to normalize homosexuality in African countries.

He named the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN as among those organizations that “sees African values on the family to be a danger to what’s called the ‘new global ethic.’” Such groups, he said, are “corrupting the young.”

I know of NGOs that are not only supplying condoms, they’re also supplying lubricants for boys who want to engage in homosexual relations. I know it. They’re handing them out, for free. I know workers for NGOs who hang around with boys in order to introduce them to homosexual relationships.” [That’s disturbing beyond mention.  It would be helpful if the Archbishop could provide more concrete evidence.  Something else to investigate CRS over?  They are still “investigating” the latest allegations against them.]

…..Another surprise was the listing of Bishop Charles Edward Drennan of Palmerston, New Zealand as member and Cardinal John Dew as a substitute. Not only is Cardinal Dew the president of the New Zealand bishops’ conference, but was vocal in his support of the proposal to drop the Church’s traditional language describing sexual sin.

From Ireland one of the members listed is Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, the president of the Irish bishops’ conference as well as one of the strongest voices in that country against the ongoing efforts to legalize abortion in Northern Ireland.

Interesting.  We’ll see what happens.  Was the first session “stacked?”  And if so, will the proposals still on the table regarding Communion for adulterers and the “gifts” of the perverse receive an even colder reception this time? Are the petitions, public letters, and, most especially, the prayers having an effect? Are they helping to steer the course in a more faithful direction?

I pray so.  We shall see as we get closer to the event.

BTW, some commenters had claimed that there is surely to be a “Vatican III.”  I am skeptical of that. I think the progressives are reticent to attempt a full Council for several reasons. I think they may be trying to do a council on the cheap with this Synod.  The goal appears to be to muddy the waters enough for the German bishops to be able to grant Communion to the disaffected sinful in hopes of keeping that precious billions in Church tax money rolling in.  I pray a future Pope – as in the next one, or better yet, by some miracle, this one – somehow changes Canon Law or something else to prevent the kind of abuse and naked self-interest that is stemming from the Church tax from continuing.  Including the vote buying among third world prelates with German Euros.  Shameful.

Good report from Life Site News, though. Go read the rest.

The sanctity of marriage: the duty of motherhood versus the abuse of NFP February 5, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Latin Mass, priests, Sacraments, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society, Tradition, true leadership.
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Few posts generate more discussion – even controversy – than those regarding NFP.  Sometimes that discussion is illuminating, other times, less so.  While many may already have strongly formed opinions on the matter, I do believe the sermon below does provide a number of good points for consideration, especially regarding some of the more exuberant popular presentations on the use of Natural Family Planning.  But on a broader level, I like this sermon (which, for some reason, I feel like I’ve posted before, but I sure couldn’t find it), especially for the formal definitions of marriage and the act that is so intimately associated with it.  It’s worth a listen just for that first portion, which is so clear and concise I think it may help many people understand the Sacrament of Marriage better.

It is a bit controversial in these times to lay out the primary and secondary purposes of marriage so clearly.  Yet it was always the clear teaching of the Church, up until at least the 1960s, that the procreative end of the marital act was superior to the unitive aspect.

Nevertheless, most of the sermon deals with Venerable Pope Pius XII’s detailed examination of the marital act, its purpose, ends, and extraordinary circumstances. Extraordinary circumstances involve things like periodic continence for serious reasons. A lot of the sermon goes to fleshing out both the ends of marriage (according to Pius XII and others) and then examining how or when NFP can be used.  The default position, if you will, that the priest expresses, is that couples should always be as accepting of new life as they possibly can.  New life is an unalloyed good and is not a hassle, something to be tolerated, or even a take it or leave it phenomenon.  It is a great end to be pursued in its own right as much as possible.

The major error of popular promoters of NFP/periodic continence is that they flip the primary and secondary purposes of the marital act, placing unitive/mutual pleasure aspect above the procreation aspect.  Father is quite right when he says this view is very widespread among the major NFP promoters like Chris West, Greg Popcak, and even Dr. Janet Smith.  But there are of course serious reasons to engage in NFP.  I like Father’s corollary, that the reasons are similar to the reasons for which one might miss on Sunday.  The thinking should be the same: of course everyone should want to go to Mass, should see Mass attendance as a good in its own right, and desire that others fulfill their Sunday obligation, as well.  But there are times when in justice and charity to self and/or others we must stay home from Mass, either when we are sick or when travel conditions make it too dangerous to travel.  Similarly, we should all desire new life as God wills it for us, and welcome all the new life that comes into our lives and that of others, but there are some times when due to sickness or other factors that openness has to be forestalled.  And that is perfectly acceptable.

The problem with the popular presentations is that they often forget the “serious” aspect of the reasons and, as I have seen and read, make it more about the couple’s preference.  That is why it’s very important to review such decisions with a good, orthodox confessor and/or spiritual director.

I won’t summarize Father’s content any more – I do hope you’ll give it a watch – but I do want to say that his point about the cowardly failure of bishops and priests to preach the truth regarding marriage, procreation, divorce, contraception, and all the rest, is the reason why we’re seeing the incredible things coming out of the Vatican and the lips of high cardinals more and more these days.  They have basically said: “we haven’t even tried to fight the culture or teach the truth, but we’re ready to give up even the pretense of doing so.”  Or, “we’ve tried nothing, man, and we’re all out of ideas.”

The culture is to at least some degree in the shape it is in due to that cowardly failure.  It started in the sects but that same cowardice found its way into the Church in a few short years.  And it is the souls being lost to sin and atheism that really pay the price for this cowardice, though we are all wounded by it.

 

Are LGBT types taking advantage of downtrodden people to get access to children? February 5, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in Basics, catachesis, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, horror, paganism, sadness, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sexual depravity, sickness, Society.
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The title of the post is a bit misleading…….in an article at The American Thinker, a woman raised by lesbian parents makes an interesting argument that children have become pawns to the sodomite community in their quest for social and cultural verification through their dreamed-up right to “marry.”  There are some dark hints in the below that these people are acquiring access to children by pressuring people (like single mothers) in difficult circumstances to adopt children, and then use the fact that they are raising them to provide a powerful argument in favor of state recognition of fake, perverse marriages.

Also noted below is the careful choreography at play in how the matter of “gay marriage” is presented to the public.  Very photogenic, apparently “normal” couples are screened and selected to be the public face of this movement, but the reality, according to the author, is often quite different.

I must say, the author takes a very dim view of the motives behind adoption by perverse couples (or groups of loosely related people, as they often really are).  There are parts of the argument I disagree with profoundly, such as her stating that cultural prohibitions  (do any even remain?) against single motherhood are somehow misogynistic.  That’s beyond dumb.  In order to oppose adoption by sodomites or gomorrists, she attempts to excuse and normalize badly disordered situations.  A better argument would have been to note that both phenomenon, single motherhood AND same-sex couples adopting children tend to attack the very basis of the family while often treating as commodities.

However, I link to the post because it does make a number of very good points. I left out most of the bad stuff. See what you make of the below (I add emphasis and comments):

The “marriage equality” arguments leverage children, often claiming that if gay adults can marry the children they are raising will benefit from broader “protections.” This is doublespeak. The “protections” consist of the gay adults’ access to and control of children as commodities. Activists have enough savvy to realize it is better that people did not see this hidden inconsistency. Most people are still fixated on the initial claims: “between two consenting adults who are not hurting anyone else.” [That’s wrong off the top, they are hurting everyone, themselves most of all. Just because an activity occurs in nominal privacy does not mean it is not moral poison for the entire culture.  That is why St. Paul said that when one sins, that sin impacts the entire Body of Christ.]

Not a single same-sex couple can reproduce together. It behooves us to analyze the ways that same-sex marriage demands other people’s children as a “civil right” and in so doing invariably denies both women their own children and children their right to a mother and a father……

……People use their children in all kinds of ways. Except these are often other people’s children and they did not have to be conscripted to a life of distortion and play-acting. These children are never the result of same-sex couples’ accidental pregnancy. In this case, nobody forced them to “adopt” children, so it seems a tad manipulative to use these children to back an argument for marriage. Juxtaposed alongside the description of bad mothers stands the worthiness of the plaintiffs.….. [What has this author so exercised, is the fact that the court case that will go before the Supreme Court shortly to decide whether states must allow sodomite marriage was based on the claims of a gomorrist couple that had adopted children from mothers in difficult circumstances. A judge based a dissent in the case on the fact that the prospects for the children were better in the gomorrist couple than with their birth parents. But precious little was said about how the couple managed to obtain the children, nor what kind of counsel or aid was given to the mothers when they were possibly pressured to give up their children.  As the author notes, this is a race to the bottom, drug-addicted mothers giving up their children to these incredibly disordered situations.]

……I suspect that a culture that needs to traffic in distortions is inherently abusive. The gay marriage narrative needs to be defended at all costs and requires enforced compliance from others. This can be seen in the parenting as well as the political strategies. The only difference is the scale and the target of the coercion. On a broad political level, consider the Log Cabin Republicans and the fact that this movement only stands to benefit from society withholding services and support that would enable vulnerable poor women to keep their children (when they are actually the mother). This becomes predatory in practice and anti-equality in intent. [Interesting point. I would rather the Republican party formally repudiate the Log Cabin Republicans, but I shan’t hold my breath. Those guys have deep pockets, and politicians love their money]

……..Maybe people need to demand that they stay out of women’s wombs and stop trying to enforce their parental will on children. They ought to respect the fact that all children have the right to a mother and a father. [I agree.  As the author noted above, if you want to choose this lifestyle, you are saying goodbye to ever being a parent.  This to me seems like foundational logic.  Same-sex couples are inherently sterile, which is a prime reason why they are so disordered.  They are trying to ape healthy married relationships by acquiring children through various means.  In a sane society, even the very concept would be utterly abhorrent.]

The truth is that most people, including those on the bench, have not fully considered how these new gay families are going to be formed. They did not attend one of the slick “surrogacy expos” like the tenth annual one that took place in New York last November. The title is telling: “Men Having Babies.” Not “gay people getting married” or “children dealing with blended families,” or anything like that. Men are possessors and babies are their property. “What do we want—wombs. When do we want ‘em? Now.”

Why shouldn’t they be able to use the eggs from the college coed and the womb of the woman who has proven herself as breeder material—in other words, a poor heterosexual woman? A detour for social justice has brought us to the commercial for-profit uterus.

All of this will destabilize the family by turning women into breeding stock and infants into commodities. How dare we question the billion-dollar industry? We are not supposed to think about the long-term effects of untested hyper-ovulation drugs or the women that have died as a result. We are not supposed to think of the effect that mommy giving away the baby in her tummy has on the other children in that family, especially the female children (you too, little Janie, can grow up and be a breeder) We are not supposed to think about her marriage, because she needs the money. So let’s not think.

All gay families are created by or because of someone else’s family being destabilized. This can only work in a callous society hobbled by indifference to women and poverty. This is a social regression dressed up as progress.

Recently gay activist Dan Savage called publically for the criminal prosecution of the parents of a teenager who had just committed suicide (Joshua/Leelah Alcorn). Let’s examine this too. He has demanded that LGBT activists serve as state-sanctioned overlords who will enforce their control and worldview on heterosexual parents and their children. This is the next wave: Co-parenting with GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign. Maybe Terry Bean will babysit after he resolves his legal issues[This is the next thing. They don’t just seek constant verification for their perversion, they seek control. They will try to control society to not just permit, but extol and dang near (if not outright) make their perversion mandatory.  I know people probably read this and think I’m nuts, but top activists like Savage have said, though not in so many words, just that.  They want access to children to form them in their lifestyle and insure that it is as widespread and accepted as possible, up to and including performance of those horrid acts that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.  That is the ultimate goal – a society where sodomy is not just accepted, but lionized as the ideal, and all but required, behavior.]

The new social justice dictum is that society owes LBGT people the flesh and blood of other people’s children because they are “married” now. Let’s be honest. Love does not make a family in this case. Human trafficking does.

———End Quote———

That’s a pretty damning indictment, but is it incorrect?  These couples (or groups) cannot have children without obtaining either one half of the seed of life from the opposite sex, and possibly also borrowing a womb.  This process turns human beings and God’s gift of procreation into a manufacturing process.  It is grotesque.  But it is one of the main means by which the sodomite activists project normality.  As the author noted, carefully chosen “gold star” types are always the protagonists in the legal cases that seek to advance the false, illusory “rights” of these people. We rarely see the devastation their need for acceptance and normality causes.

Your muslim president equates ISIS with Christianity February 5, 2015

Posted by Tantumblogo in asshatery, disaster, error, foolishness, General Catholic, paganism, scandals, secularism, sickness, Society.
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Well, he did say, the future would not belong to those who blaspheme the prophet.  And now the defensive reaction of the Crusades is just the same as beheading innocents, burning co-religionists, and using power tools to torture children and infants:

Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place.Remember that during the Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.  And our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

Please.  Slavery hasn’t existed in this country for 150 years, while it is still practiced all over the ummah.  In fact, tens of thousands of Christians in the Mideast and Africa have been lost to the slave markets – likely forever – in just the past year.  What a crock.

And it’s been how many centuries since there was a Crusade or an Inquisition, both of which are completely misrepresented in the popular culture?  Deaths related to the Inquisition were exceedingly rare.  One major attack by Boko Haram exceeds the deaths incurred by the entire history of the Inquisition.

As for the Crusades, the Holy Land was Christian for nearly 700 years before being overrun by islam.  After centuries of depredations, including constant attacks on unarmed Christian pilgrims (many of which wound up being – guess what! – slaves in some muslim hellhole), the Christians finally responded and engaged in a campaign lands that were historically Christian.  Many later Crusades were direct responses to further muslim aggression.

And this comes at the NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST!  This is a Christian gathering, traditionally.  So this was really rubbing Christian’s nose in it.

This is not to say that there has been tragic violence in the name of religion, even Christianity.  But many occurrences of such were often much more justifiable than Obama would dare credit, and the examples he chose were exceedingly poor ones.

As his presidency draws to a pathetic close, is fantasy candidate Obama drawing closer and closer to revealing his true religious affiliation?  It would certainly explain a very great deal.