A Couple of Twits on the Election October 4, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in Abortion, asshatery, contraception, disaster, error, General Catholic, horror, It's all about the $$$, Revolution, scandals, secularism, sexual depravity, Society, unadulterated evil.comments closed
Sorry, I mispoke, I meant to say tweets. Freudian slip, I guess.
First off, it appears the UN has now arrogated to itself the power to cheer for certain outcomes in national elections of member states. Is anyone of consequence seriously advocating getting out of this transnational gabfest of one worlders living high on the hog off the backs of principally American taxpayers while spitting in our eyes every chance they get?
And just to make sure we all know what the UN is advocating, NARAL is there to tell us:
.@HillaryClinton knows that abortion can’t be a right in name only. #ImWithHer #BeBoldEndHyde #United4Coverage
Gee, you think Hillary feels the same about the Second Amendment and access to firearms? No, she only cares about things that she thinks are “rights,” not things actually included in the document that is supposed to be the foundation of all governmental policy in this country, but things that had to be found through BS like “emanations from the penumbras.”
We already knew, of course, that the UN was a locus of evil in the world, and has been since at least the mid-60s when it was invaded by leftists and turned into little else but a vehicle for leftwing agitprop and mass rape. It is an unapologetic, wholehearted endorser of child-murder the world-round, and is so evil as to have developed a collective reprobate sense, literally inverting good and evil, and/or no longer being able to tell what good is.
Once again, if you judge a man by his enemies, Trump has most if not all of the right ones. Not that I will ever be an enthusiastic supporter of his, at least until he’s governed a few years and proven himself.
Of course, we’re a very far way from that. He’s going to need some help, like some more Hillary medical issues or more evidence of scandal (as if we needed any!) in order to win.
Guatemalan Franciscans Face Opposition in Embrace of Tradition – UPDATED October 4, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, different religion, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, Latin Mass, mortification, persecution, religious, Restoration, sanctity, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
UPDATE: Address for the St. Vincent Ferrer Foundation updated below.
A friend of this blog wrote an article for the Remnant describing the transformation that has occurred among members of the Franciscans of the Assumption who began to embrace the traditional practice of the Faith several years ago. These Franciscan nuns were associated with a “Hogar,” or home, for severely disabled children in the city of Quetzaltenango. They were the principle care-givers to these children for many years. But because of their embrace of Tradition, which occurred under the guidance of a Franciscan priest who experienced a similar spiritual journey, some of the nuns have been forced, in a heart-rending process, to depart the Hogar and were scattered around the country to try to break their “pernicious” attachment to the traditional practice of the Faith. Now, these nuns are trying to establish a new convent on traditional grounds elsewhere and have taken up temporary abode in an SSPX priory. Land has been offered, but there are many obstacles remaining, the principle ones being related to distance from the Sacraments and lack of funds.
Some of the background from the article, telling the kind of tale we have all heard and experienced for ourselves so many times before: souls become discontented with the state of the Church, they learn about and embrace the traditional practice of the Faith, and then they are persecuted for having done so.
………It seems that Father Lazarro’s Ignatian Retreat was not a one-time thing. This retreat appears to have borne great fruit, and Father Lazarro, a zealous man by nature, returned to Quetzaltenango and his life’s work, and was soon offering a daily Latin Mass in the beautiful chapel of the Hogar. Over the previous years he had developed a following within the city of Quetzaltenango given his conservatism, and for most of those faithful who habitually attended his Masses at the Hogar it was an easy transition to the authentic liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. Those residents of the Hogar who are physically able to be in attendance at Mass are also to be seen there on a daily basis, as are those employees who choose to do so. Three of the aforementioned Sisters made their first Ignatian retreat in November of 2010 and for the three of them there has been no turning back. Sor Emilia quietly and somewhat abashedly related some of their experiences in the types of retreats they had previously attended. There is no reason to repeat any of that here, for they are experiences that would surprise few readers. Suffice to say that these Sisters were edified by, and underwent a conversion as a result of, these Ignatian retreats.
As is consistently the case in these situations, love for authentic Catholicism flourished. A number of the religious sisters experienced a whole new and different understanding of and love for their vocations as a result. Soon they, too, were attending Ignatian retreats and Father Lazarro continued to make retreats as his busy schedule would permit. He also invited the Society priests to visit the Hogar on numerous occasions and they would naturally offer their own Masses there, to the delight and edification of the faithful. At one point Father Lazarro ceased to offer the Novus Ordo Missae and exclusively offered the perennial Mass of the Roman Church.
And, as unfortunately is also consistently the case in these situations, not everyone regarded this turn of events as something positive, including a portion of the religious sisters assigned to the Hogar as well as the local Ordinary, who prevailed upon Father Lazarro to offer at the least one novus ordo liturgy weekly and forbade the priests of the Society from offering Mass in his archdiocese. This seems to have had less effect on the priests of the Society, the three of whom are stretched across six countries, than it has upon the local faithful who are not at all disposed to returning to the novus ordo.
The most visible effect, however, has been and is upon those Franciscan sisters who have grown to love authentic Catholicism and have discovered a whole new dimension to their vocations and their Catholicism. Predictably, a rift developed at the Hogar between the sisters drawn to authentic Catholicism and those that had been steeped in the new religion and preferred it. And, as is also predictable, it became not a matter of respecting legitimate choice, but a matter of doing what was necessary to squelch this wildfire that threatened the “unity” of the community. The entire story contains numerous episodes and examples of organized overt persecution and nothing is to be gained by recounting any of that here, nor would such things come as any surprise to anyone who has tried over the years to cleave to a Catholicism dating back to a time prior to 1970. It is simply one more example of the ferocity of liberals who sense that their house of cards may be threatened.
In early 2012, Sor Emilia was removed from her position as Superior of the religious at the Hogar by her own superiors at the Mother House in San Marcos. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, this group of sisters made their first contact with Msgr. de Galaretta on 12 May of 2012 in order to begin to explore their options as a community under the protection of the Society. Finally, on October 24 of 2012, those sisters drawn to the traditional practice of the faith, including Sor Emilia, were separated from each other and reassigned by the Mother House to other apostolates in the country as a means of quelling the Catholic “uprising”. On that same date they contacted the former Prior of the Society of St. Pius X in Guatemala City, Father Gardet, to apprise him of their situation.
This detail is worth emphasizing. Having made a choice for Tradition, these particular nuns’ service at the Hogar was over, and not by their own choice. This is not a case of Franciscan religious abandoning their community in order to initiate a new community in a “traditional” venue. It is a case of these religious being expelled from their lives’ work and further separated from each other by being assigned to different and distant apostolates. Moreover, outside of the work at the Hogar, these religious’ apostolates consist largely in parish work, and now that they had come to the realization that things like Hell and Purgatory exist, that Our Lord indeed founded the One True Church, that receiving Communion in the hand is a questionable if not blasphemous practice, and a whole list of other simple truths not commonly conveyed within the novus ordo structure, they could not conscientiously deny any of these truths – something that would inevitably lead to conflict in any novus ordo parish to which they might be assigned. These nuns made the choice for authentic Catholicism and, having done so, their path was made clear, if not easy.
This group of religious briefly reported to their new assignments, but by November had moved as a group onto the grounds of Our Lady of Fatima Priory in Guatemala City. On December 12 of that year they were clothed in the traditional Franciscan habit for women. The novices who had opted for Catholic Tradition left the Hogar in May of 2012 and by November had already reported to the priory in anticipation of the arrival of the professed religious. By January of the following year, new postulants were in place at the priory and their current number was complete. [Making five professed, and four novices and postulants, I think]
So the nuns are now living in an SSPX priory in Guatemala City, the capital, and are seeking to somehow, by a miracle, raise sufficient funds to create a new Hogar for disabled children in the much more populous part of the country near the capital. This would also allow them access to priests who offer the Traditional Mass. The SSPX priory in Guatemala City is the only traditional parish in all of Central America, whether Ecclesia Dei/SSPX/religious or diocesan.
There are videos on the nun’s situation, experiences, and work below. The first discusses their process of transformation to the practice of more authentic Catholicism. The second shows the Hogar and the work that goes on there:
Contributions to these nuns can be made through the St. Vincent Ferrer Foundation of Texas. Upon making a donation for this purpose please specify that the donation is for these nuns.
The website is http://svfonline.org/
The St. Vincent Ferrer Society of Texas can be contacted by:
E-mail: stvincentferreroftexas@gmail.com
Telephone: (915) 500-3025
Mail: 5628 Rosa Ave.
El Paso, TX 79905
The author of this article does not give endorsements lightly. He visits and gets to know a group before he gives his endorsement. That he has given such a ringing endorsement says a great deal to me. If my recommendations carry any weight, this has to be a really spectacular group of women to receive such glowing praise from Dr. Tim Brady.
I have been looking for an additional group of traditional women religious to support. I plan on supporting this group.
The Glories of Saint Anne, Patroness of Christian Mothers October 4, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, family, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, reading, Saints, sanctity, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.comments closed
From a booklet on Saint Anne, mother of the Immaculate Conception, regarding the manifest benefits devotion to this Saint provides to Christian families generally and mothers specifically. Just in typing this, I was awestruck on being the mother of a being who could make such a declaration: “I am the Immaculate
Conception.” Have mercy. To the text:
Saint Anne is the great model of all in the married state and of those otherwise charged with the education 
of children. Great was her honor in being the mother of the Mother of God and in giving to a lost world the Advocate of Mercy. Sublime was her office in instructing this blessed child in virtue and holiness. Sublime was her office in instructing this blessed child in virtue and holiness.
St. Anne herself was a “vessel of grace,” not in name only, but in the possession of those gifts which God had endowed her to be the worthy mother of the Virgin Mary. Her motherly care for the Blessed Virgin was the means of St. Anne’s mortification. Because of this she receives and will receive a special glory in the Church to the end of ages.
How encouraging this is to all parents who make the holy education of their children their principle duty. By this they glorify their Creator, perpetuate His honor on earth and sanctify their own souls. From the hands of the parents God will one day require the souls of their children. Happy will those parents be who can say to the Divine Judge: “Not one of those 
whom Thou hast given me has been lost through my fault.”
Realizing, therefore, the great duty she has in rearing her children well, the Catholic mother will daily recommend her children to God and pray especially to St. Anne for the gift of imparting to them a good training, the highest and most difficult of all arts.
St. Anne obtains many graces, priceless graces, for all who venerate her, but she grants her maternal assistance in particular to Christian mothers who choose her for their patroness and model. Numberless examples prove that St. Anne obtains great favors for Christian mothers. She preserves peace in married life, restores harmony in discord and often wonderfully changes the bad disposition of a husband, wife, or child. She protects the birth of children in an extraordinary manner: bestows blessings that lighten the task of rearing children properly; brings wayward children back upon the right path; obtains 
restoration to health for the mother when sick; preserves her precious life for her family, for her helpless children; and prevents the loss of husband and father. She revealed to St. Bridget that she would protect all who live chastely and peacefully in the married state.
St. Anne is glorious among the Saints, not only because she is the mother of Mary, but also because she gave Mary to God. She did not hesitate to sacrifice this child, her greatest joy, to the call of God, dedicating her at the age of three to His service in the Temple. In this she is a beautiful example to parents to foster and encourage vocations to the religious life among their children, rather than running the dread risk of hindering them. Through the intercession of St. Anne, parents come to know and acknowledge divine guidance and learn that children are born to them not for earthly ends, but for God.
———End Quote———
I think that pretty much says all that needs to be said. May God be praised for giving us such powerful intercessors in Saints such as Saint Anne, and my we always endeavor to emulate them in every respect through His Grace.
There is much more gold in this book. I hope to return to it another time or two, God willing.
Love ≠ Moral Acceptance of People Doing Whatever They Want October 4, 2016
Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Admin, Bible, Domestic Church, episcopate, error, family, General Catholic, sadness, scandals, self-serving, sexual depravity, Society, Spiritual Warfare, Tradition, Virtue.comments closed
In all things I have tried to accord the conduct of my life and especially my belief to the Doctrine of the Faith as it is has been exculpated and practiced for centuries, especially the centuries prior to the modernist/leftist infiltration of the Church beginning in the early 20th century. I am more successful, probably, at the latter – the believing – than the practicing.
As I have mentioned numerous times in the past, I have radically altered many previously deeply held beliefs to be more in accord with the Doctrine of the Faith. A few examples of these:
- Contraception is always and everywhere wrong and gravely immoral – I used to not believe this
- Porn use/self-abuse are always and everywhere wrong and gravely immoral – ditto
- Usury, commonly found in capitalist systems, is always and everywhere wrong and gravely immoral – again, I changed
- The form of government established in the USA is fraught with moral problems and compromises that made our present inevitable. So I’ve gone from “USA is the greatest country that ever could be” to………..this thing is a very serious problem and is probably not fixable.
- Abortion is wanton murder of innocent life. There is never any justifiable reason for it – I used to be a bit squishy
- Jesus Christ exists whole and entire in the Real Presence of the Blessed Sacrament of the altar – I always thought it a “symbol”
- Homeschooling is by far the best, and quite possibly the only moral, option for educating children in this day and age – I definitely found this weird
- Sacramental Confession is morally vital for salvation and must be frequently availed of
And the list goes on. I cannot stress how much of a rah-rah USA is the best typical Republican I used to be. That was a core part of my personality, my belief set (even while I had strangely contrary things going on in private). But having learned the Doctrine of the Faith and the myriad ways in which the USA, at its founding, was deliberately contrived to be very contrary to that Doctrine, I now see things very differently.
I was as attached to sins against the 6th and 9th Commandments as anyone could be. Those were, so to speak, my “original sins.” That kind of thing was my first addiction. And I went very, very far down a path of personal immorality and horrific abuses to which I was constantly wedded. I mean, this was a daily, almost constant occurrence. And this later manifested in other, worse things I won’t go into. You could even say that these sins were who I was, so profound a part of my identity they had become.
Obviously, they took many years of enormous pain and effort and sacrifice to overcome. I am by no means perfect in this regard, but I have completely altered my beliefs and almost totally successfully modified my behaviors, and have come to see, with grim realism, the evil that was involved in them, and the harm they did to myself and many others. I am leaving out scads and scads of details, which would shock and dismay most if not all readers. I have a very, very dark past.
But I am hardly unique. Most everyone in this fallen age, having to swim in the moral sewer we occupy, have had similar experiences. Some were more fortunate than others. Some were able to (largely) overcome their sins through much prayer and sacrifice by themselves and often others but basically kept their lives intact. Others have not been so fortunate, and have experienced divorce, collapse of business, etc., as a result of their attachment to sin.
We swim in a sea of lies. The primary one is that the culture, under the influence of leftist thought which has penetrated very deeply into the Church, purports that love = endorsing/approving of everything someone really really wants to do especially if it is of a sexual nature or somehow serves the agencies of the political-cultural Left. This is a total corruption of the proper understanding of love. Love, true love, must always, everywhere, be ordered to the eternal good of souls.
What we see described as “love” even by high-placed Church leaders is really a degraded form of sentimentality that is as pernicious as it is destructive. We absolutely must practice love/charity universally, but the modern world has twisted love from its roots in the salvation of souls to being something very perverse, requiring an endorsement or at least tacit acceptance of things that we know with absolute certainty will lead souls to eternal ruin.
This is not some made up belief I am proclaiming. These are not just my opinions. We have the divine words of Jesus Christ Himself to make this clear to us, as recorded inerrantly – without error – in Sacred Scripture.
Romans i:24-28, 32
24 Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, *to uncleanness: to dishonour their own bodies among themselves.
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie: and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26 For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.
27 And, in like manner the men also, leaving the natural use of the woman, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.
28 And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge; God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient………
32 Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they, who do such things, are worthy of death: and not only they who do them, but they also who consent to them that do them
Matthew xviii:15-17
But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.
And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.
And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.
Matthew x:14:
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words: going forth out of that house or city shake off the dust from your feet.
Matthew x:34-35
Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. ForI came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
To sum up all the above, Saint Paul makes clear the continuation of the constant revelation in the Old Law against those sins which have always been judged by the Church to be particularly noxious for souls and offensive to God. Our Lord tells us very plainly that those who refuse the Doctrine of the Faith are to be excluded from the community of believers, and those who do so obstinately must even at some point be, in a manner of speaking, left apart. And of course Our Blessed Lord told us that His beliefs, which are so contrary to our fallen natures and the evil rulers of this world, would cause strife and division even within families.
ALL OF THIS IS BASED COMPLETELY ON LOVE. True love, that is, love ordered for the best eternal end of souls. That love may seem shockingly contrary to this fallen world and its lying “wisdom,” but it remains all the same.
The early Church was rife with confirmations of all these beliefs. The particular sins decried by Saint Paul were regarded with a particular revulsion by the early Church and were viewed as being particularly egregious. As I noted in another recent post, the martyrs wouldn’t even do something so small as burn a pinch of incense to the emperor. Do you think they turned a blind eye to sins that were so obviously and plainly denounced in the Bible?
What is outlined above is a very brief but also very holistic explanation of the nature of true love ordered for the salvation of souls. It is not sentimental. It is, from the eyes of a world that has become a past master at twisting Scripture to its own ends and finding souls eager to listen, “hard,” unfair, even.
There are many more aspects at play. Much of what we hear within and outside the Church is riven with overtones of moral blackmail. If you “judge,” you don’t love. This is so wrong as to be evil. What we see described as “love” even by high-placed Church leaders is really a degraded form of sentimentality that is as pernicious as it is destructive. We absolutely must practice love/charity universally, but the modern world has twisted love from its roots in the salvation of souls to being something very perverse, requiring an endorsement or at least tacit acceptance of things that we know with absolute certainty will lead souls to eternal ruin. “Love the sinner” has become “never question or correct the sin.” Especially with the particular sin we are discussing now, we are presented with a particularly reprehensible form of blackmail: either you endorse my lifestyle choices, or you do not love me. But in fact the highest act of love is to always work towards the eternal good of souls, which may, at times, require very painful choices.
The one great danger I have seen in these types of situations is that simple, tacit acceptance is rarely enough. There is always heavy pressure to transform that acceptance into full-throated endorsement. That is what has happened to the “Always Our Children” groups here in the Diocese. Whatever they might have been in the beginning, today, these are nothing but vehicles for the proclamation of the glories of perverse lifestyles and the squashing of all opposition.
There’s much more, but I’m running quite long as it is. One additional thing I’d like to bring up is that this blog takes a very strong stand on these matters, especially those related to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, for several reasons. For one, this blog has always been ordered primarily towards the confirmation of the faithful, and much less for those outside the Faith or wavering.
Secondly, I take a very strong stand and use sometimes harsh terms because manipulation of the language is probably the prime means by which the political-cultural Left and the perverse agenda has gained its many “victories.” Yes I decry these sins in terms many find harsh, shocking, and maddening, but it is done to provide a sort of counterweight to the many, many voices out there in the culture declaring 2+2=5, perversion of grace-filled faculties = love, and all the rest.
Finally, I believe God commands it. Many have deeply imbibed a very feminized, or probably better, demasculinized, understanding of the Faith, where the Christian must always been meek and surrendering. That’s not the way most Saints conducted themselves, especially prior to the protestant revolt. What some may believe is harsh uncharitability, others find to be badly needed clarity.
Anyway, perhaps this helps some folks understand a little better where I come from and why I do what I do. I have the zeal of the converted in more ways than most folk can probably imagine.
Language warning:
A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics 