Several people sent me a video of Glen Beck talking about “The Vatican”.
He is a bit out of his depth in how he speaks about the workings of the Church and higher levels of leadership, but he gets around to the kulturkampf (my word, not his) going on and the Obama Administration.
The video is worth 10 minutes of your time.
He talks about the Obama Administration’s attacks on the Catholic Church and brings in another wrinkle about the State Department that was not on my radar.
A few quotes from the video:
“I believe the Vatican is actively engage in a very different kind of battle…They are in a spiritual battle…They are gearing up for a spiritual battle unlike anything we have ever seen.”
“Catholics. You have to be… you have to understand. Read Ephesians 6. You have to put on your spiritual armor. You are not battling man. You are not. You are battling evil. This is Obama’s way of saying back off and play ball our way.”
He ends with the phrase that I believe several Evangelical ministers have now said,
“We are all Catholics now. Tie yourself to something. Strengthen your pastor, priest, rabbi. Strengthen your those in the Catholic Church. Strengthen your priest. If your priest is not telling you these things, ask him why. If he doesn’t have a good answer, ask the bishop. If he doesn’t have a good answer, go to another parish until you find a priest that will. There is a split in our churches. And you will see it in the Catholics. You must not remain neutral.”
Given the demographics of Beck’s audience, this was pretty interesting.
Something is brewing, for sure.
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not bad for a former Catholic who now belongs to a group that believes that the Catholic Church is a great abomination, a whore, who will be destroyed with fire. It was, I think, Mr Beck who came up with the phrase “We are all Catholics now”. Let us pray for him!
Fascinating. Beck has some great advisors, at least one of whom is known to me and is solidly, authentically Catholic.
I’ve heard similar sentiments expressed by some of the non-Catholics we know through homeschooling. Some elements in the post-Reformation Ecclesial Communities have been talking for a while about a “storm brewing”.
Time to redouble the prayers…and thank the LORD that we aren’t wholly dependent on our bishops in the coming battle.
Beck himself is an ex-Catholic, isn’t he?
The government has frozen assets for suspected terrorist organizations, and stopped them from transferring funds out of the country. Why not use this power for ill also? The VA attorney general has this Administration as breaking the law in 21 different ways already; what’s one more? Forbid money transfers to the Vatican, then freeze the Bishop’s assets. We are trying to stop them from funding PP; this is just an eye for an eye.
Does anyone here still think O has “miscalculated” in taking this on?
Glen Beck understands all too well about having death threats against him, and his family, for speaking the truth. May God be with him; may Our Lady keep him.
I don’t much care for Glenn Beck. That being said, I’m happy to see more and more sentiments along these lines from mainstream cultural personalities. I personally believe that this sort of political collaboration is becoming more and more necessary in a religiously polarized society. While not “ecumenism” as such, there’s no reason the Catholic Church should not form political and cultural alliances to protect its own freedom and the common good of society. Think of the Manhattan Declaration, and similar views expressed by Patriarchs and Bishops of the Orthodox churches who believe a tactical alliance with the Roman Church could be necessary.
I personally have no problems “teaming up” with Jewish organizations, Orthodox churches, Protestant groups, or any men of good will. We’re not risking anything or compromising anything. There’s no risk of “religious indifferentism” since the whole point is that we’re trying to preserve our creeds!
I’m far from a Glen Beck fan. However, the statement of “You must not remain neutral” is finally something we both can agree on.
Not only must we not… we CANNOT. The Church Militant is beginning to emerge as the spiritual battle heightens. We’ve only just begun. Don your rosaries, hold fast to the Sacraments, and reach out to one another through prayer and good deeds. We’ve not even begun to see the battlefield, but are as yet marching towards it.
God help us… without Your Grace, we are lost!
Well, my mother won’t listen to me about the Church…maybe she’ll get the message from GB. She is a BIG fan of his. I can only pray.
Divide and conquer is HERE. And Catholics will not be the only targets.
Here in St. Louis, the ‘Rome of the West’ a shocking legal verdict giving a Catholic church, (St. Stanislaus Kostka) to an excommunicated priest. You have never seen such a preening self-centered ’emotionally needy’ horror as the “Reverend” Marek Bozek. Our beloved Raymond Burke, as gentle a man as I ever met, excommunicated him and all the members of his renegade board and charitably warned those participating in his ‘masses’ that their souls were in mortal danger.
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/court-sides-with-st-stanislaus-in-dispute-with-archdiocese/article_a29b9b29-ef5f-5167-ba42-ca017ba8f366.html
I am not a fan of his, but in this case I believe he is right. Too many people, including Catholics, do not seem to understand that evil does exist.
Right up front I am a GB fan. When he left Fox to create his own network, we subscribed so we could get his show on tv. Glenn is right on the spiritual battle. He has urged all faiths to lock arms for the battle. Who knows? Maybe this will lead him home to the Catholic Church someday.
@digdigby – I had never heard of this; how revolting! To see that schismatic in those beautiful vestments, laying claim to one of our churches and to its many souls, makes me physically ill. That he has been enabled by the State is just diabolical. Sweet Mother of God, defend us!!
I deeply appreciate Beck’s efforts to save our country from the secular rot which is destroying it. I do not always agree with him, but I respect his commitment, and I find he is right more often than wrong. Increasingly, we must keep in mind the poem from Rev. Niemoller:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
I believe this to be one of the inspirations for his “we are all Catholics now” phrase, though given his wide explorations in history, he may have been adapting the “we are all socialists now” of William Vernon Harcourt.
Whatever his inspiration, he is right in this: We must all stand together in the fight against tyranny.
Actually, the ONLY people in this world who KNOW there is evil in it, are Catholics!
I’ll be the first to tell you, that there is a split in the Church; many higher-ups with their adoring ‘base’, who wish to bring down the Church as she now exists. And then there are people like me, who know what needs to be done, and if most “catholics” fall away from what emerges as the real faith, then let it be done. Can’t happen soon enough for me.
The Holy Father lived through evil. I think he knows something of its apotheosis.
Interesting to learn about details about a plot against Benedict XVI’s life…
“And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it’ a Bishop dressed in White ‘we had the impression that it was the Holy Father’. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.”
– Revealed portion of the 3rd Secret of Fatima.
I’ve no doubt this is going to happen someday… The more the Church tries to strengthen itself, the more the enemy will seek to destroy its efforts. The Vatican becoming a country of ‘monetary concern’ aginst U.S. Interests could eventually lead to a U.N. led invasion of the Vatican. Rather than just occcupy it, some manufactured situation will be made to bomb St. Peters and kill everyone within as defined terrorists.
I pray for the Church, for Pope Benedict and that the strengthening of the Church with conservative men will soon lead him and the world’s bishops to consecrate Russia. I’m truly afraid. It is encouraging however to see how the designs of the globalists and Obama and the U.N. and their anti-Catholic campaigns will do more to reunite Christians with the Catholic Church within a shorter span of time than years of Vatican II ecumenism ever accomplished…
Don’t have GBTV or cable, so I have never watched his show, but I listen to him a couple of times a week an find him entertaining. I also think he is trying to become a major media player and is doing so pretty much under the radar — no one is noticing! As I like the guy, I am not so concerned, but what he’s doing IS rather concerning. Is the future of mass media going to be various networks baed on one person’s view of everything? Could be. That’s a lot of power for someone to have. Anyway, he has been saying this for some time and is still trying to start another Great Awakening. I dont’ know if those can be started on demand, or if they come by themselves, or if there are a couple of unsuccessful similar things and the, bang, something takes off. But if you don’t know what he’s trying to do, that’s it — unite people of faith against aggressive secularism and government expansion. Also, to get very, very rich.
The mention of kulturkampf made me think of a good article over at The Distributist Review, which examines Bismarck’s efforts and how they relate to the issue at hand:
http://distributistreview.com/mag/2012/02/obamas-contraception-coverage/
I don’t think I have ever heard Cardinal Dolan use the word “evil” in public.
Glenn Beck is passionate and believable. I take him seriously.
A quote from Chesterton when I think of our dear Holy Father:
People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy.It was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad.
It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic.
The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. . . .
It is easy to be a madman: it is easy to be a heretic.
It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own.
It is always easy to be a modernist; as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom—that would indeed have been simple.
It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame.
But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.
Glen Beck gets it. (Thanks to whomever posted the Chesterton quotes.) I don’t listen to his show but I’m grateful for these comments.
This is as interesting as seeing a drawing of St Michael and the Prayer to Saint Michael showing up on the IOwnTheWorld.com blog this morning.
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I do pray that Glen finds his way back to the Church. Each of us has a journey–I certainly have had mine and it continues. That is one of the reasons I am so glad that I found Father Z’s blog.
Obama – Democrats and their far left satellite groups are financed by a very wealthy athiest/socialist who also does not like the Catholic Church nor the US Constitution. He likes the idea of a one world government so it is important to achieve a weak US and destroy the Church and the rest of Christianity that does not accomidate his idiology.
Interestingly, on his show a year before “the Arab spring”, Glen had a large map showing the middle east. He predicted there would be uprisings spreading from country to country and of course the smart people made fun of what he was saying at the time.
He also said that it was supposed to appear to be “spontaneous” but that it actually was part of a plan to spread chaos world wide. It is was also supposed to spread to the US.
I think OWS will be busy again this summer–and I do think they will try to disrupt and cause chaos at the Republican Convention. One of their objectives is to take the conversation off of Obama’s abysmal record and demonize his opponents. OWS was never “spontaneous”. Interviews with some of the participants showed that they did not really know why they were there and that they were paid to be there.
Will they “occupy” churches this summer? They do not seem to respect very much and their hate speech seems to be just fine with this administration.
The US State dept is pushing the Philippines to okay a “Reproductive health” bill that would mandate our docs and nurses push birth control on anyone going to a government clinic, and will fine anyone speaking against it 200 dollars.
This is in addition to divorce bills and sex education based on the US model, and it is suspected the next step is to legalize abortion.
We get sermons and prayers about this every week…
The pope warned our bishops to caution our priests to be pure: we suspect the pedophile crimes meme will be the next shoe to drop, although here priests with girlfriends is a more common problem.
The gov’t already tried to accuse the bishops for taking bribes when they accepted “fancy SUVs” from the charity sweepstakes…the SUV’s turned out to be mainly used pickups used for charity work, but for a week it was all the headline, until the bishops drove the cars in front of Congress and said here take them back.
Just a foretaste of what is to come…
And it’s not just in the Philipppines:
In Africa, there has been a backlash against Obama pushing “gay rights” on countries there.
None of this gets in the US news, of course.
I sometimes listen to Glen Beck on the Chicago radio station and am usually annoyed by him. However, this video was quite stirring. And I also believe that we Christians absolutely must lock arms in this battle. I’m going to pass this on to my Catholic friends. And hey, Disturbed Mary, thanks so much for the Chesterton. I LOVE that man.
@tioedong.. oh my goodness… I had no idea.
Pray. Pray. Pray.
I think Glenn Beck is right on this. Very scary.. but we all know evil will not win.
Living in Australia, I don’t know terribly much about Glenn Beck, but like many others, I was sent a copy of this address as well. Full marks to him, and the fact that he visited Rome, and had a few interviews with clerics like Cardinal Dolan.
What I was fascnated to learn is that he is not actually a Catholic, but a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, although apparently he has a Catholic background!
Why is he so interested in the fact that the cardinals Benedict is appointing are more of a conservative bent, thus making his successor more likely to be someobody in this mould?
He deserves a lot of respect for siding with Catholics in the Obama/HHS matter. Perhaps we will eventually get him back.
This culture we’re in is so bankrupt that I’m not surprised that most people don’t see what’s going on. Americans, in general, function 1/2 inch deep and a mile wide, and they have no idea about most of the “big” ideas in history or life, preferring to concentrate on who can’t sing on tv, how things look 24 hours a day, and how many times they can get laid without producing a child. These are the pre-occupations of farm animals, no offense to farm animals. These are not the preoccupations of human beings. This is a failed culture.
So what next? Failed cultures, well….they fail. They are displaced sooner or later by something more compelling. This one will try to take everything it can get its hands on with it, but it won’t be able to do so. No culture can do that, no matter how hard it tries or no matter how omnipotent it thinks it is. Reality is more powerful. God is more powerful.
I don’t think that most Americans have any inkling of what is ahead of us. They have not yet imagined, let alone lived out, what happens when we really get into free-fall mode. I don’t know when that will be, but it’s been coming for a long, long time.
I’m praying and doing everything I can, writing letters to congressmen and so on trying to put the present troubles off, but I’m not losing any sleep over this. It’s in God’s hands at this point.
People who voted for Obama are getting exactly what they deserve, and that includes all the Catholics that voted for him in 2008. It will only get worse if he is re-elected, and the Catholics who participate in that deserve what they get double for their stupidity.
I have new found respect for this man. While I had basicly agreed with him in the past, I’ve alway found him to be abit of a loon. This was a great address, but also abit lacking only because Mr. Beck lacks any formal training in theology.
I will also join those who pray for him to come back home to become a Catholic.
I didn’t know about the State Dept. report, but including the Vatican in a list of countries that still need to do something about money laundering does not seem to me to be baseless and sinister. The so-called Vatican Bank (properly, the Institute for Works of Religion, and not technically a bank) formerly did not have all the reporting and oversight considered necessary to prevent money laundering. New regulations promulgated in Dec 2010 should have changed that, but the Vatican Bank is still waiting for its new procedures to be declared sufficient by the EU. Hopefully that will happen in June.
I’m not sure how likely it is that drug lords would coerce missionaries into using their Vatican bank account to launder money. Frankly, I think they must have easier ways of going about their business. But it was at least a theoretical possibility.
“Oh,” said Syme with a beaming smile, “we are all Catholics now.”
-G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, 1907.
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Glen Beck has a great audience, and that is only good for the Catholics. Any reference to the Church can only be a positive thing in the media.
How do I rise up and fight against a government who is fighting against my religious freedoms! [The first step is, I believe, not to rise up at all, but rather to kneel down, examine one’s conscience with brutal clarity, and make a good confession of one’s own sins. That must be the foundation for whatever else we do.]
In a very short period of time the government has challenged people of faith concerning their views on marriage, their views on abortion, their conservative stand on moral issues, their conservative stand on fiscal responsibility, etc…
This world is looking more and more like The Topsy-Turvy Kingdom that Dottie and Josh McDowell wrote about. We need more people to shout from the house tops and get to the voting booth who will say,
“My Father made laws to protect every one; every cat, every girl, every boy. And while we obeyed him and lived by his rules, our kingdom abounded in joy. The laws were quite simple, and everyone learned to be honest and do what is right – even at moments like this one right now, when doing so fills you with fright.”
I take my stand. I will not comply to my religious freedoms being trampled. I will stand with Catholics. I will defend my families right to hold conservative values, just as the founders of this country…, with my very life!
For the fearful: the Good Guys win in the end.
We are put here at this time because God put us here now, we have the grace. We are MADE for this time. Man up. Be prepared, pray and do penance, hang on to Mary. Ya, I get scared and depressed too. We must remind each other of this and pray for each other. We are living in exciting times.
“you are not battling man, you are battling evil.” “I’m surprised everything is not in Latin yet”, “there is a split in our churches”, “please pray…”-GB. What an interesting video. wow. thanks for posting, Fr Z.
I am fascinated by the phenomenon of those originally baptized as Catholics by Catholic priests, who are attracted to the Truth, and recognize It.
I don’t subscribe to GBTV, but I really miss his outrageous rants on Fox. The way Glen would map out on a blackboard all the relationships of the bad guys with each other [this guy was on the same board of this company as this guy, this one is married to this one, these went to college together…] never ends to fascinate me. Glenn Beck gets it, and if nothing else, I really admire his courage. His directness really encourages me. Lets pray for Glen – time to see polytheism for what it is, and that there’s a Church founded by Jesus Christ which will help you a lot more.