Horrifying Big Business Abortion Ad

Posted on 12 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From The DailyWire:

WALSH: Here Is The Most Barbaric And Deranged Pro-Abortion Ad You Will Ever See

“She deserves to be a choice.”

A far-left advocacy group called the Agenda Project just put out a truly horrific ad in support of Planned Parenthood. Of course, any ad supporting Planned Parenthood must be horrific by definition, but this one surpasses expectations.

Titled “The Chosen,” the 40 second video opens with the image of a beautiful, smiling baby girl. Lullaby music plays in the background as the words “she deserves to be loved” appear on screen. On that point, most viewers will concur. Next, we are told that “she deserves to be wanted.” The viewer concurs again. Then comes the kicker: “She deserves to be a choice.” We are urged to “Stand with Planned Parenthood” as the picture fades.

[…]

Ghastly.

There’s more, but that’s enough.

I am reminded of the position of one of the only respectable feminists I know of: Camille Paglia. She admits that abortion is murder, but she also admits that we (they) don’t care.

Let’s also be honest and call Planned Parenthood for what it is:

Big Business Abortion

It is a death industry.

No Catholic can support a political party which supports and gives money to Big Business Abortion.

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US Bishop begin 2018 November meeting: PRAY & FAST!

Posted on 12 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It think it may be up to us – up to you and me.

The US Bishops begin their annual November meeting today in Baltimore.

There will be protesters around the meeting, as there should be.   Some, seemingly within the USCCB itself, have tried to paint these protesters in advance as violent.  I don’t think they will be and shame on those who painted them that way without sufficient evidence.

Anyway, their collective Excellencies will meet and talk, sometimes with cameras on, sometimes off.

Do we really believe they will do something about The Present Crisis?

It think it may be up to us – up to you and me.

Fast and pray.

The FSSP parish in Baltimore have the right idea.  They have scheduled special Masses and Adoraton during the bishops’ meeting.  THAT’s how it is done.  This will help those who go there to protest and it will help the bishops. I hope the bishops took note that this is a TRADITIONAL parish.   I wonder if any other parish did anything even remotely like what the Baltimore FSSP parish did.

Watch the stream live: HERE

UPDATE:

I tuned in to the live stream only to hear the Nuncio denouncing “clericalism” and praising the new ratio for formation of seminarians.

*sigh*

UPDATE:

So, there were a couple of speeches this morning. Now the bishops have a day of prayer, with opportunities for confession. There is a Blessed Sacrament Chapel and reliquary chapel.

Card. DiNardo said that they were instructed by Rome not to take any votes concerning accountability of bishops! Instead they are to wait until after the February conflab.

So… why are they there again?

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, ACTION ITEM! | Tagged ,
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Another really bad idea: Communion Pills

Posted on 12 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Even though there is no danger of true true sacrilege (these Protestants have no valid Eucharist or anything like), there is danger of idolatry… and of being kinda dumb.

Perhaps it’s a matter of lack of oxygen at higher altitudes?

I bring this grizzly thing up because the woman tries to drag Catholics into her charade.

Colorado Woman Sells Communion In Pill Form

DENVER (CBS4)– One Colorado businesswoman is taking a symbol of her faith to those on the go.

Theresa Lay came up with God’s Pill after going through a personal tragedy.

“I had gone through loss in my life and I was taking daily communion. [I wonder what Protestant groups do that.] And I thought about a portable way, a quick and easy way to do it,” she told CBS4’s Dominic Garcia.  [Without all that inconvenient business of going to church, etc.  Maybe she should team up with those Pez dispenser people?]

One pill is made of matzo bread powder, the other red wine extract. She says it could be used by the military or people who are traveling. One person who reviewed the product said it has allowed them to worship in the jungles of Gambia.  [Worship….what, exactly?]

“Large groups or just people on the go who want to worship and give thanks to God. That’s pretty much how I invented the communion pill.”

Theresa says the pill isn’t associated with any denomination, it doesn’t matter if you’re Protestant or Catholic. [“It doesn’t matter” (so long as you buy!] She says 2,000 years ago communion was with fresh bread and wine. These days it’s wine or juice and processed wafers. The next step can now be prayer in pill form. [In PILL form!   I can see The Tablet getting on board with this.  This is right at the level of their faith/worship experience.]

“I believe communion brings hope and healing to the world. It’s been 2,000 years since the last supper and it’s new every time someone celebrates”.  [It’s new every time!]

Which will it be, Neo?

Okay… I might have to admit that this is no more sophisticated in its concept than the knowledge and faith in the Eucharist of many, if not most communicants these days.

Posted in Pò sì jiù, You must be joking! |
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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – UPDATED

Posted on 11 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during your Mass to fulfill your Sunday Obligation?

Let us know.

You were paying attention, weren’t you?

UPDATE:

At The Catholic Thing, Dr. Howard Kainz laments that, since Vatican II he has not heard sermons on our Sunday Mass Obligation.

I just found that a little ironic.  Not only do I mention our obligation often in sermons, I also post – virtually every week – this post about what you heard during the Mass to fulfill your obligation.  Hence, you are reminded of the obligation constantly.

Surprisingly enough, I occasionally get a email complaining that I am talking about an “obligation” instead of “luuuuhv”.  They are always from a priest.

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Another group of women destroyed by the Vatican Congregation for Religious

Posted on 11 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Once upon a time we took care of our own and didn’t rely on the nanny state to do everything. Catholics of every level of economic potential and walk of life were concerned with works of mercy, even in organized confraternities and religious orders.

Another group of women engaged in works of mercy has been destroyed by the Congregation for Religious.

Some time back we learned that a group of contemplative women called the Little Sisters of Mary, the Mother of the Redemer, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Roe, France, were being attacked by the local bishop Thierry Scherrer of Laval.

The sisters run four old-peoples homes. They have the Novus Ordo in Latin and in 2012 adopted traditional habits. The bishop thought they were too traditional.

Apparently now so does the Congregation for Religious under Braz Card de Aviz, who destroyed the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

Visitation in 2016 and 2018 were imposed on the sisters by ultra-liberals (one of the visitors Sister Geneviève Médeviellem, who teaches at the Catholic Institute in Paris, claims that fornication can be justified).

Result:

The mother superior and the novice mistress where exiled to distant monasteries and replaced with three modernist commissioners. All the canonical appeals and pleas for mercy were ignored.

On September 17, Cardinal Braz de Aviz, head of the Congregation for Religious, ordered the sisters to accept the commissioner “without reserve” lest they would be dismissed.

34 of 37 sisters announced on November 7 that they had decided in conscience to ask their vows to be dissolved.

They were founded in 1949, and ran four nursing homes in the dioceses of Laval and Toulouse.

Life as a religious in the time of Francis and Braz de Aviz.

Maybe if they had more crystals and mantras, more macrame and Georgia O’Keefe on their walls?

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100th Armistice Day, Veterans Day, Remembrance Day ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 11 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is Armistice Day 2018, which makes it the 100th anniversary of cessation of fire on the Western Front, effectively leading to the formal end of the hideous WWI.

11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, St. Martin’s Day, Martin Mass, which for centuries can be considered the beginning of winter because of our customs and patters of harvest and so forth.

In Paris, leaders of countries involved in WWI have gathered for special ceremonies.

There are some good videos of the Remembrance Day ceremony in London. Here is one of them. I am sure you can find others.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

Today is, in these USA, Veteran’s Day, which honors those who served and are serving in the military.

Today would be a good day to make a donation to the Archdiocese of Military Services.

I did so today, in memory of a priest, Army Chaplain, who was gravely injured in Iraq and who died of those wounds in 2009.   He was, as a seminarian, one year behind me at the St. Paul Seminary and, ordained in 1992, was a priest of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Maj. Henry Timothy “Tim” Vakoc.  May he rest in peace.

DONATE to the Archdiocese for Military Services!

 

CLICK TO DONATE

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@JamesMartinSJ shovels scandalous rubbish to justify sin

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE:

I wonder if this changes the issue somewhat.  HERE  Bolger apparently wrote to someone about his regrets.     Private letter, not a public statement.

No… it doesn’t change much.

Originally Published on: Nov 10, 2018
_____

Here is yet another example of scandalous Jesuit homosexualist activist James Martin, LGBTSJ committing scandal and undermining the morals of Catholics.

Whitey Bugler, mobster and murderer, died and, for some inexcusable reason the Archdiocese of Boston permitted a funeral Mass for him, though that is explicitly contrary to Canon Law.

What Boston did caused scandal. That is, their action brought on other sin, especially in the case of homosexualist Martin’s arguement below. This is how scandal works: one person sins and another uses that sin to justify his own sin.

Look at that #sodojesuital argument.   If Bulger gets a funeral, and he was a sinner, then all sinners get funerals.  And since all of us are sinners, we all should get funerals, including homosexual couples.

Not so fast.   The Church’s law, can. 1184 § 1 n. 1, says “manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without scandal”. If the sin is manifest (as it surely was in the case of Whitey Bulger), then funerals must be denied lest scandal result. There was, apparently, no sign of repentance on Bulger’s part that was made public. Hence, he was and remained a manifest public sinner.

Homosexuals who civilly marry are manifest public sinners. Unless they give public signs of repentance they remain manifest public sinners and they must be denied ecclesiastical funerals lest scandal result.

Prof. Peters has a great piece about this whole pile of rubbish and Martin’s shoveling of it. HERE

Peters says that the fact that the Archd. of Boston violated the law that doesn’t mean that everyone else can (that’s the point about “scandal”). Martin the Jesuit, who knows better – he’s not stupid, even though his intellect and will seem to be darkened with the fascination of sodomy in its various forms – comes right out and says, “if mobsters, then homosexuals”. Never mind that the law was violated in the first instance and in the second instance. Who cares?

See how devious Martin’s message is?

The Archdiocese violated the law.  Martin sees that violation and then tells you to violate the law.

The serpent deceived Eve.  Eve offered the apple to Adam.

“Did the Church’ssssss law really sssssay that you can’t do that?  Really?  Never mind the law.  Go ahead.  Do as you pleassssssssse.”

Peters makes the point that so long is the law, then the law must be obeyed.  If the Legislator wants to change the law, the Legislator is free to do so.  However, until then, we must follow it, particularly in important points such as these.

UPDATE:

BTW… perhaps Martin didn’t notice that he drew a straight line between a mobster murderer and homosexuals.  Perhaps he had in mind the Latin word ferox or perhaps even  the fact that the infamous Stonewall Inn was run by the mafia precisely for that sort of sinner.

Posted in Canon Law, Sin That Cries To Heaven | Tagged , ,
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GERMANY: Catastrophic! USA next? @USCCB bishops meeting and YOU. ACTION ITEM!

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

An image to consider.

Two rays extending from the same point get farther and father apart the longer they extend.   If the one ray is the trajectory of Christ’s true Church, then the other ray, that departs from it, get’s farther and father away with every moment of its “progress”.

This comes from Focus.de:

According to a media report, the Evangelical and Catholic Church in Germany will be missing around 14,000 pastors by 2030.
The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) expects that by then about 7,000 of the current 13,500 clerical posts can no longer be filled, writes the “Focus”. This development is “catastrophic,” said ZDK President Thomas Sternberg the news magazine. “We will not be able to keep the usual structures. Lay people have to be able to take on much more tasks in the future. ”

The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) have similar problems, writes the “Focus” on. The pastor’s association assumes that the number of currently about 21,000 pastors will reduce by about one third. According to this, around 7,000 jobs could not be filled by 2030. “This leads each pastor to its limit – and beyond,” said the chairman of the pastor’s association, Andreas Kahnt.

Catastrophe.  Catastrophic.  That’s the situation in Germany.

To paraphrase Card. “Accompany” Kasper to the world about African bishops, I don’t think Germans should be telling us what to do.  Everything they do is wrong, it seems.  German bishops and theologians seem to be the caput malorum omnium.

“But Vater! But Vater!”, some of you libs are hooting, “You don’t understand anything about what’s going on.  This is the time of change and innovation.  Surely it is clear even to someone as backward as you that you have to break eggs to make omelets.  So the Church in Germany is broken.  So the Churches in Europe are demographically diminishing.  It’s quality we want, not quantity!  We are living the dream of the new Vatican II springtime!  We are forward looking visionaries blue-skying and singing a new church into being!   But you…. YOUUUUU…. don’t get that because YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

What I get is this.

According to one smart German speaking, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

It is at least stupid, if not insane.

We have serious choices to make.  How conscious I am of the poignancy of reading that piece and writing these words I am, since we are on the brink of another plenary meeting of the USCCB.   One meeting of bishops can’t solve The Present Crisis.  However, one meeting can suggest to us who watch from the outside just what our bishops are made of.

Will they stand upright and set their jaw and take their hands out of their pockets?  (Perhaps I should say “take their hands out of our pockets”?)

Or will they produce the same old same old.

On the other hand, perhaps the “same old same old”… the real “same old same old” is exactly what we need.  We need a recovery of Tradition in order to produce a revitalization of our Catholic identity.

Folks, before the bishops meet, may I make a couple suggestions about what YOU can do?

  1. Go to confession.
  2. Make a good Holy Communion and offer it to God with your petition that the Holy Spirit prompt the bishops to true pastoral care, the kind that shepherds summon when the wolves are circling.
  3. Pray to your Guardian Angel and the Guardian Angels of your own local bishop to protect him, during the meeting, from the influence of The Enemy, the attacks of the demonic through their attachments to the place they are in, the food they may eat, even the oppressors of their brother bishops if they are in that sorry state.
  4. Find out the times that the bishops are meeting next week and prayer a Rosary for them during that time or stop at church and pray before the Blessed Sacrament for them.
  5. Take on some penance, some mortification during their meeting and offer it that the Holy Spirit increase in them, through the sacrament of confirmation and through orders, their strengthened sense of vocation and of the Four Last Things.

Tolkien wrote about the eucatastrophe, the catastrophe that has to happen so that greater good can result.

Posted in "But Father! But Father!", "How To..." - Practical Notes, ACTION ITEM!, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
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To US Bishops before their @USCCB meeting: Do not be afraid!

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At First Things more good advice has been offered to their collective Excellencies before their upcoming plenary meeting, which begins next Monday.  Just the other day, another piece of advice was extended by a writer at The Catholic Thing.  HERE

However, at First Things, the director of the Augustine Institute, Jayd Henricks, has pointed words. He is also a former senior staffer at the USCCB, so he knows what he is talking about.

Let’s see a sample with my usual treatment:

[…]

There is, however, something wrong with how the body of bishops functions as an assembly and how bishops relate to and interact with one another. Far too often, fear appears to govern what is done or not done by you as a body. There is the fear of disunity, fear of conflict, fear of disrupting a superficial collegiality, and today, more than ever, fear of Rome. Though the pressure you face—each in your dioceses and together as an assembly—is intense, the bottom line is that it sometimes appears that many of you are governed by fear of each other and of the institutional order more than by the fear of God.

It has also been my observation that your work as an association of bishops leads many of you to value the appearance of unity over adherence to principle. This habit, in turn, leads to patterns of conflict avoidance. In some instances, this is the path of charity. Conflict and division are not good things. Far too often, however, I watched good men back away from conflict when what was needed was confrontation and forthright debate. This culture of fear enabled the likes of Theodore McCarrick to attain power and to scheme and maneuver at the highest ecclesial and political levels.

All serious observers of the Church see that the current ecclesiastical situation stands on the edge of a cliff. It seems to me that there are two dominant camps among the bishops in the United States, and perhaps worldwide. One regards the Church as a platform for political interests. My professional experience taught me that this group includes key authorities in Rome. The other regards the Church as a pastoral reality. This second group, while genuinely desiring to serve, is reluctant to address critical issues if doing so would entail conflict with Rome.

The curial advisors of the Holy Father have failed to understand the nature of the present crisis. They have chosen a path that only exacerbates it. [It could be that they do understand it and they chose that path with that understanding in mind.] They have failed to undertake a swift and full investigation of the McCarrick case. The Vatican’s failure to act is now aggravating the real harm done to the Church. In the end, however, the faithful in the United States will hold you—and not the curial officials—responsible for what does or does not happen in the wake of the most recent scandals.

I urge you to petition forcefully for an open investigation led by the laity. Do not allow a false notion of unity to prevail, a false unity in which your integrity as bishops is sacrificed to expediency.

[…]

There is quite a bit more, which you should read over there.

As far as that point about curial advisors is concerned, …

… I am more and more of the mind that, beyond the usual and always valid explanation of sheer incompetence, real malice has been revealed.

I say “malice” because those involved seem to hate what the Church has been and, by their directives and their urgings around Francis, they want to transform the Church into something it has never been and which Christ never intended.

You can get more of what I mean by going back to what I wrote in June 2017 about the vision of one of the key players in Francis’ dugout, the creeps-inducing and plagiarist Víctor Manuel Fernández.  Call to mind the “governing principles” – or Four Guiding Postulates – Fernández included as ghostwriter of Evangelii gaudium.   One of them concerns constant conflict of positions which will, over time, produce lasting change.

If you want to understand what Francis and Co. are doing, you have to review those things that I linked.

Posted in The Drill | Tagged
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Happy 243rd Birthday USMC!

Posted on 10 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This note I received seems a fitting way to salute the Marines who read this blog.

Marines: Happy 243rd Birthday! To commemorate not only the Birthday, but also all veterans’ service and the Centennial of Armistice Day tomorrow, please enjoy this excerpt from John W. Thomason’s Fix Bayonets, from the story “Battle Sight.” I think it’s an appropriate and succinct summary of the Corps’s essential role in bringing about victory in the Great War.

The Americans of the 2nd Division* were new troops, untried in war, regarded with uneasy hopefulness by the Allies. Their successes came when the allies very greatly needed a success; for not since 1914 had the Boche appeared so terrible as in this, the spring of 1918. For a space the world watched the Bois de Belleau uneasily, and then with pride and an awakened hope. Men saw in it, foreshadowed, Soissons, and the 8th of August, that Ludendorf was to call “the black day of the war,” and an event in a car on a railroad siding, in the misty November forest of Senlis.

* notably commanded by Brigadier General Charles A. Doyen, USMC, and Major General John A. Lejeune, USMC – the only time an army division was commanded by Marines

Charge your glasses and Toast Those Who Have Gone Before.

Semper Fidelis,

The Battle of Belleau Wood is just one of the Corps great moments.  Also, this was the battle during which a couple of legendary phrases were uttered.

The French, who were in retreat (go figure) repeated told the Marines to withdraw from their position. The Marines commander responded, “Retreat? Hell, we just got here”.

Also, Sgt Dan Daly, who had already won two Medals of Honor, had to get his men across a wheat field and into the woods. That’s when he shouted, “Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?” The casualties were bad but they took their position in the forest.

After this Battle General Pershing said, “The deadliest weapon in the world is a United States Marine and his rifle.”

It was after this Belleau Wood that the Germans simply called the Marines “Teufel Hunden… Devil Dogs”.  (Teufelshunde)

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