tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-265553262024-02-07T04:39:37.915+10:00The Mass Never EndsA collection of writings, mostly about the Catholic Faith, by Tim RohrUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger409125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-61330872759021284072023-12-29T19:40:00.003+10:002023-12-29T19:40:29.423+10:00THE LITURGICAL MISHMASH OF JANUARY 1<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">By Tim Rohr</span></i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">For anyone still sweating over having to go to Mass this past Sunday Dec. 24 and Christmas Dec. 25 (two days in a row!) you can breath easy now that the Archdiocese of Agana has issued a statement "abrogating" Jan. 1 as a Holy Day of Obligation. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">The following was shared on the Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Umatuna/posts/pfbid02o8bhDAuzKmwks5MictoE5uZRuBzwnsTE1NEkbXtYWFz2CT9Lvb49mPcJXEtLRUYbl?__cft__[0]=AZVtjThsHz0QAZ8Wus8kub5KFyYwRxG-OPtk4KOWzg9Pi8eULJMUwLO1Q8jPpd8-hB0IJg1Yv9IZYq1z0p-PfsdTiuve7Db5VxTLrXAmaaV9Qgn4wXI-ths39zMvWmrUsEypHAuccCfPuqesO1pv3aIDaAmZ1v1MWofP6qIWOPKZlrGCJAmRkoQY1bNaqtz3YWkpGvzMCT5m4_N5o8e1smAf&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R" target="_blank">Page</a> of the Umatuna:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Dec. 29, 2023</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Message clarifying Holy Days</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">of Obligation and Solemnity</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">of Mary, the Holy Mother</span></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">of God on January 1, 2024</span></div></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">---</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The joy of Jesus Christ, our Savior be with you all! The beautiful celebration of Jesus Christ and Christmas continue in our churches throughout the island. Many have asked if the upcoming commemoration of the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God on Monday, January 1, 2024 is a Holy Day of Obligation.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To alleviate any confusion, our Apostolic Administrator, Father Romeo Convocar has asked the Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission (ALC) to issue this clarification derived in part from Archdiocese of Agaña AVISO, Protocol No. 2023-53 issued on March 23 of 2023:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Per AOA Protocol No. 2023-053, because the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God falls on a Monday on this January 1, 2024, the Holy Day of Obligation is removed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This is not to say that this beautiful Solemnity of Our Blessed Mother is not important. In fact, the Solemnity is still celebrated as we honor our dearest Mary, the Holy Mother of God. The Church always encourages the faithful to attend Mass whenever they can and to give honor to Mother Mary.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">For those who prefer the more formal, precise language, here are the exact words of the March 23, 2023 AVISO, Protocol No. 2023-53:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">NOTE: Whenever January 1, the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God; or August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption; or November 1, the Solemnity of All Saints; or March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation falls on a Saturday or a Monday, the precept of the Holy Day of Obligation is abrogated. However, the proper of the Solemnity/Feast is still celebrated. In this context, “abrogated” means removed.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Joy to the World, Our Savior is Born,</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">/s/Father Paul Gofigan</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chairman, Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">=====</p><p style="text-align: justify;">For context there is this at The Catholic Thing:</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: justify;">The Next Three January 1’s</h2><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">January 1, 2022 was a Saturday. January 1, 2023 is a Sunday. January 1, 2024 is a Monday.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Only one of those January 1’s will be a holy day of obligation – 2023 – and that’s only because it falls on Sunday.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The mishmash is a result of the “Complementary Norm” adopted by the United States Catholic Conference back in 1991 which abrogated the obligation for the holy days of January 1, August 15, and November 1 if they fell on a Saturday or a Monday.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/01/02/the-next-three-january-1s/#:~:text=January%201%2C%202023%20is%20a,because%20it%20falls%20on%20Sunday." target="_blank">CONTINUED</a></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-39800749895657157642023-12-26T14:11:00.005+10:002023-12-26T14:26:08.193+10:00CLING TO JESUS<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>By Tim Rohr</i></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjic01inp9P-mRwUpMOwPmQLVoieaiULcyYB4tlx2nHWM_IxQlQrOxN2gZnOQcL7TRRn4w8auPiYct2f7B1iGrNTCDbAUBzymzG5Wj0zeK-gaarHwfF01Mbdz5yNqm4E2QFPyaor1JFb8BWvR19ziYMa8JlI6F9W4Ubr-xJeTGC8tYFcjEb7eDJQ/s256/cling-to-god.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="256" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjic01inp9P-mRwUpMOwPmQLVoieaiULcyYB4tlx2nHWM_IxQlQrOxN2gZnOQcL7TRRn4w8auPiYct2f7B1iGrNTCDbAUBzymzG5Wj0zeK-gaarHwfF01Mbdz5yNqm4E2QFPyaor1JFb8BWvR19ziYMa8JlI6F9W4Ubr-xJeTGC8tYFcjEb7eDJQ/s1600/cling-to-god.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Okay. In the spirit of Pope Francis, I am going to "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0PM0QB/" target="_blank">make a mess</a>," and address this crazy stuff in a way I have not seen anyone else do. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">By "crazy stuff," I mean the pope's recent full frontal shot between the eyes of traditional Catholic orthodoxy, aka <i><a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20231218_fiducia-supplicans_en.html" target="_blank">Fiducia supplicans</a>:</i> the pope's declaration authorizing public blessings of same-sex unions and so-called "irregular situations" of every kind.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It's easy to point fingers at what many call "the lavender lobby in the Vatican" and other homosexual stuff going on in the highest halls of power in the Catholic Church that many of us have been aware of for years, nay, decades. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, the real culprit is not the usual suspects: homosexuals and their supporters. The real culprit is sacramentally married men and women whose marriage is not "open to life." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And beyond that, the "really real" culprit is the teachers and preachers within the Catholic Church who not only authorize, but also promote sexual sterility within a sacramental marriage. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">You may want to stop reading at this point, but I'll go on anyway.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I ain't making this up, so I'll quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church at this point.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil..." (CCC 2370)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is important to note that while the Catholic Church condemns every form of contraception as "intrinsically evil," it stops short of doing so when it comes to homosexual acts and instead labels said acts as only "intrinsically disordered:"</p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">"homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" (CCC 2357)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">There's a big difference between <u>intrinsically evil</u> and <u>intrinsically disordered</u>, and the Church's choice to distinguish the two is critical to anyone who cares, not just about the current controversy, but about the eternal destination of his or her soul.</p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Contraceptive acts between sacramentally married couples is EVIL (not just disordered) because the Sacrament of Matrimony confers on the man and woman the grace to conform to God's will which is to "accept children willingly and lovingly from God," which are the words each spouse is required to say "I do" to before God and men at the marriage ceremony. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Homosexuals, specifically persons in a homosexual relationship, take no such vow and receive no such grace. Their sexual unions are naturally sterile which is why the Church labels them "disordered." </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, sacramental marital unions between a man and a woman are not only <u>not</u> naturally sterile, but are ordered to procreation. Thus, the deliberate, intentional frustration of the natural consequence of the "marital act" is to spit in God's face because not only do we say "NO" to God, we say "I am God...We are God...We will decide when and where our act shall bear fruit."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is why the Church labels contraceptive marital acts between sacramentally married persons "intrinsically evil" while pronouncing the much lighter sentence of "disordered" on homosexual acts. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In His Mercy, God sees that persons who engage in homosexual acts do not have the same sacramental grace to resist such acts as do sacramentally married persons.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In short, persons who engage in homosexual acts are less mortally culpable than sacramentally married persons who engage in contraceptive sex.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As terrible as this all is, it is not really even the fault of sacramentally married couples. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It is the fault of pastors who 1) sanction, promote, or otherwise turn a blind eye to contraception, or 2) sanction, promote, support, and teach a contraceptive mentality in their so-called "pre-Cana" classes, aka "marriage prep."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here's what I mean.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Most Catholic "pre-Cana" classes include at least a module or two of how to "chart" fertility, <i>aka</i> Natural Family Planning. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The short course is this: a sexually mature female is usually fertile for only about seven days of a 28 day "cycle." The idea is to identify the bodily markers before and after those 7 days and refrain from sexual intercourse to avoid pregnancy. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is taught to all Catholic couples preparing for marriage within usual diocesan prescriptions. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Promoters of "NFP" like to counter that NFP can be used to "get pregnant" as well. And that is true. But no one is fooled. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The real import of the NFP module is to teach couples how to avoid pregnancy "naturally." However, teaching couples about to be married flies in the face of the vow they will publicly pronounce at their wedding: "to accept children willingly and lovingly from God."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">If a couple is not ready to "accept children willingly and lovingly from God" then they have no business getting married, at least not in a Catholic marriage.</p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Tying this back to the point of this post. </h3><p style="text-align: justify;">If sexual intercourse is not ordered to procreation, whether it be frustrated by homosexual sex or contraceptive sex, then both acts are "disordered," with contraceptive sex between sacramentally married persons being "intrinsically evil," aka "mortal sin," i.e. you are eternally damned unless you repent and swear to "sin no more." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is much debate as to how many Catholic couples contracept. The accepted number is 90%. But we don't need a census to figure this out. We only need to look at the empty pews and the empty schools. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, I am not going to end here. I am going to lay the blame on a pope. No, not Francis, but the already sainted Paul VI, and specifically his encyclical <i><a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html" target="_blank">Humane Vitae</a></i> (HV).</p><p style="text-align: justify;">HV upheld traditional Church teaching regarding the evil of contraception, however, and this is a big HOWEVER, no defender of HV or Paul VI that I know of has ever pointed out that Paul VI, via HV, left contraception up to a vote. Here is what HV says in its opening:</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">...within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement concerning the moral norms to be proposed (HV, Par. 6)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The "commission" is the Birth Control Commission, initially established by Pope John 23 and later expanded by Paul 6. John's commission consisted of 7 prelates, Paul's expansion jumped the number to 72 inclusive of a wide array of "lay experts."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And here's what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control" target="_blank">happened</a>:</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The commission produced a report in 1966, proposing that artificial birth control was not intrinsically evil and that Catholic couples should be allowed to decide for themselves about the methods to be employed. This report was approved by 64 of the 69 members voting.</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In other words, the vote was a staggering majority in favor of birth control. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Paul 6 had few options. In fact, he only had one. He already knew he could never overturn God's plan for marriage, so he blamed it on the vote, saying that, umm, well, the vote was not unanimous ("complete agreement"). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This is where the real mess started. So apparently all that's really needed to upend immutable moral doctrine is "complete agreement" (a unanimous vote) by some "commission" established on a papal whim. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">NOT.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">To conclude. Paul VI, like it or not, opened the door via HV for FS. If a pope, via a commission or a letter can upend God, then what?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The short answer is cling to Jesus. </p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-1299057239593654002023-12-07T22:18:00.012+10:002023-12-08T08:45:24.336+10:00CRUSHING SATAN'S HEAD<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-nULSD6B-aL4-p7MMwkm5I4RcCD7aZpH9n47ZGnWbcLyFdwcDKqtwKnqkTU1a9UmSfiBATPIrPoOQzPMtgCmWy58V3fQQXyPetpR44jGg1aO1qxYAOVG1DGZxR2_Ngm2v_7p/s320/MaryonSerpent3.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="320" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix-nULSD6B-aL4-p7MMwkm5I4RcCD7aZpH9n47ZGnWbcLyFdwcDKqtwKnqkTU1a9UmSfiBATPIrPoOQzPMtgCmWy58V3fQQXyPetpR44jGg1aO1qxYAOVG1DGZxR2_Ngm2v_7p/w320-h224/MaryonSerpent3.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have written about this several times before. (Just type "Immaculate Conception" in the above search bar.) </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, the issue, the same issue, a modern error, can - in my mind - never be stressed too much, since the error (I believe) is at the root of so much of what has lately gone wrong with our Church. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, December 8 (or December 7 if you attended the Vigil Mass as I did) is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And, in the first reading, you are supposed to hear the words from Scripture which are the very foundation of this Dogma. But you won't. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Instead you heard, or will <a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120823.cfm" target="_blank">hear</a>:</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Then the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; on your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."</span></blockquote><p>Prior <span style="text-align: justify;">to the Novus Ordo revolution (1969), you would have heard (in Latin):</span></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">et ait Dominus Deus ad serpentem quia fecisti hoc maledictus es inter omnia animantia et bestias terrae super pectus tuum gradieris et terram comedes cunctis diebus vitae tuae inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius ipsa conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius</span></i></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">[In English]</p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed among all cattle, and the beasts of the earth: upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I will set out the difference here:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">After 1969:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-family: arial;">...he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.</span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Before 1969:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01; font-family: arial;">...she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.</span></p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: justify;">In these few words there are some major differences</h3><p style="text-align: justify;"><u>First</u>, there is the obvious change from "she" to "he." And as this is the main point, I will come back to it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><u>Next</u> there is the difference between <i>striking</i> and <i>crushing</i>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Post 1969, Satan is "<i>striking</i>," thus apparently alive and well and obviously not "crushed." Pre-1969, Satan is "crushed," which of course is exactly the object of Christ's salvific mission.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><u>Lastly</u> there is the difference between "<i>while you strike at his heel</i>" and "<i>thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.</i>" Ignoring the "<i>he</i>" and "<i>she</i>" for the moment, Satan, post-1969, is still powerful, and pre-1969 is already defeated and can do nothing but "<i>lie in wait for her heel.</i>"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Before I get to the "<i>he</i>" vs "<i>she</i>" thing, it's important to understand what was going on in post-Vatican II 1969 and thereafter. </p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Post-Vatican II - 1969</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">If Vatican II did anything, (and forgive the dumbed down version) it sort of said "<i>can't we all get along?</i>" to the rest of the world's non-Catholic religions, with the primary culprit being the 16th and last document of Vatican II, <i><a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html" target="_blank">Dignitas Humanae</a></i>, which, in effect, leveled all the world's religions to "<i>I'm Okay, You're Okay</i>" (the title of a book many of us were made to read in Catholic high school religion classes in the 70's). </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">The idea was "let's celebrate our similarities and ignore our differences." </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Nice, but one of the BIGGEST Catholic differences with most non-Catholic Christian religions ("Protestants") was MARY, and just about everything the Church holds true about her. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In short, what the Church holds true about Mary is too much to summarize here, so it's easier to summarize what Protestants believe: the Mother of Jesus was functionally a vaginal conduit for the Christ, and who may be acknowledged via quaint Christmas stable scenes (since that's hard to avoid), but who matters little before or thereafter. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>NOTE</u></b>: For anyone who cares to read, and all determined Catholics should, the very best summary of what the Church holds true about Mary is the very promulgation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception as set forth by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854, otherwise known as<a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm" target="_blank"> INEFFABILIS DEUS</a>. </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">As I was "around" the pre and post-Vatican II era, I very much remember the eradication of everything MARY from our parish church. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As a young boy, I not only attended Sunday Mass with my parents, but, as an altar boy, served at least one weekday Mass per week.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As most Catholics my age will recall, in those days, there was a very prominent Crucifix with the Suffering Christ placed directly over the Tabernacle which was cemented at the center of the Altar upon which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was Offered...facing the Suffering Christ. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">To both sides of the main altar there were side altars. To the left there was an altar with St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus, and to the right, there was the Blessed Virgin Mary. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Mary altar was always very prominent because it was at this altar that Catholic brides knelt, prayed, and offered flowers at the end of their wedding Mass. But it was also a place where we spent at least a few minutes after every Mass thanking Mary for the gift of Her Son. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It's just what we were taught to do...before 1969.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At the risk of sounding "old fashioned" and repetitive, I, everyday - as I grow older, grow ever more thankful to have been born when I was and where I was...even if it was at the bitter end of pre-V2 Catholicism.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And though my beautiful Catholic childhood was cut short by the aftershocks of Vatican II (some of which I detail <a href="https://1timothy315.blogspot.com/2013/02/catholic-school-alternative-memory.html" target="_blank">here</a>), I had enough "inculcation" of true Catholicity by then to last me a lifetime. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thank you Jesus and Mary...and the Benedictine nuns of that day - before they joined the revolution.</p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">On to the "he" vs. "she" thing</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">It should be obvious by now - which is why I shared the foregoing, that the real impetus to convert centuries of that first reading where "<i>she</i>" crushed Satan's head to "<i>he</i>" was motivated by the post-V2-ecumenical drive to rid the Church of MARY. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><u>BTW</u></b>. I should add, that even though my parish church rid the main sanctuary of every image of Mary, the then-pastor (mid 1970's) spent many thousands of dollars to build a side chapel for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Apparently, the pastor - an old white guy - was fearful that the Mexican ladies would turn on him. LOL. </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">That Mary crushes the head of Satan is the very center of the DOGMA of the IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. And how sad that on this day our modern "Catholic" Mass translation does not use the critical words from Scripture as affirmed in the Dogmatic Declaration of the Immaculate Conception.</p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's the whole paragraph. (See <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm" target="_blank">"Interpreters of Sacred Scripture</a>")</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Fathers and writers of the Church, well versed in the heavenly Scriptures, had nothing more at heart than to vie with one another in preaching and teaching in many wonderful ways the Virgin’s supreme sanctity, dignity, and immunity from all stain of sin, and her renowned victory over the most foul enemy of the human race. This they did in the books they wrote to explain the Scriptures, to vindicate the dogmas, and to instruct the faithful. These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced his merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind — words by which he crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, “I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed”[13] — taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That his most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot</span>.</span></blockquote><p></p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">So what's the problem?</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">Why, on this day, can we not give Mary the praise and gratefulness that is her due? As the Woman of Genesis 3:15 who's heel CRUSHES the head of the SERPENT!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">According to a local Friar, to whom I once pressed this question, the issue supposedly has to do with the translation of the Latin word "<i>ipsa:</i>" </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></p><blockquote><i><span style="font-family: arial;">...et ait Dominus Deus ad serpentem quia fecisti hoc maledictus es inter omnia animantia et bestias terrae super pectus tuum gradieris et terram comedes cunctis diebus vitae tuae inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">ipsa</span> conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius</span></i></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">"<i>Ipsa</i>" is a Latin pronoun which can <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=latin+word+ipsa&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGU889GU890&oq=latin+word+ipsa&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIMCAEQABgKGA8YFhgeMggIAhAAGBYYHjIKCAMQABgKGBYYHjINCAQQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAUQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAYQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAcQABiGAxiABBiKBdIBCDQyNzJqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" target="_blank">mean</a> "himself," "herself" or "itself." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Modernists, anxious to rid our Church of Mary, pounced upon the supposedly uncertain meaning of "<i>ipsa</i>" and happily re-translated Genesis 3:15 to say "<i>his</i>" vs "<i>her</i>." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, modernists have a problem: history. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For nearly 2000 years, just about every depiction of the Blessed Virgin Mary, be it on canvas, stone, mosaic, or whatever conceivable medium, the Mary of Genesis 3:15 is not only standing on a serpent...but CRUSHING its head. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Of course it is Christ Jesus who ultimately crushes Satan's head and opens Heaven for us. But ultimately it is "through Mary to Jesus." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">God so ordained it. </p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-64413024228163418432023-11-09T15:04:00.007+10:002023-11-09T15:04:58.451+10:00TAMMY PETERSON - WIFE OF JORDAN PETERSON - BECOMING CATHOLIC<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://publisher-ncreg.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pb-ncregister/swp/hv9hms/media/20231106061144_30600bee47bc69dfc4481a467d7d9a2c5a86731f79845cedef226c882a52c7bb.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" height="213" src="https://publisher-ncreg.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pb-ncregister/swp/hv9hms/media/20231106061144_30600bee47bc69dfc4481a467d7d9a2c5a86731f79845cedef226c882a52c7bb.webp" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><blockquote>"When I became sick, I was told that I only had a few months to live. I came home to see my son and I told him. When I saw the grief on his face, the grief in his eyes, I realized that, for him, to lose his mother was a profound loss, much more than I would have imagined. I didn’t hold my own life as precious as he held it. And in that moment of realization, of seeing that in him, I could physically feel all kind of cynicism and self-doubt lifted off my shoulders. I felt filled with God’s love for the first time in my life. And I felt completely at peace. I wouldn’t say that I’ve felt completely at peace ever since; life is not always easy, but I have strived to keep this inner peace through prayer. I’ve practiced self-reflections and examination in order to try to recognize when self-will is getting the best of me again. And I pray to be able to get on my knees, and it works. And then I move forward that way, just doing the next great thing. And that is a so much better way to live, that I’m now completely convinced of the faith. I’m convinced of the Bible; I’m convinced of God’s love which fills me up, right from my boots to the top of my head."</blockquote></span></div><p></p><p><a href="https://www.ncregister.com/interview/tammy-peterson-conversion-story?fbclid=IwAR3WLDPOcdjid_t2EOsL_vSJWflK6ImN-kLNiDiC9_sFXVGCrfenzmejkME" target="_blank">FULL STORY </a></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-74908540265141586982023-11-01T12:38:00.002+10:002023-11-01T12:50:53.942+10:00LES CHIENS ABOIENT, LA CARAVANE PASSE!<p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">By Tim Rohr</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://publisher-ncreg.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pb-ncregister/swp/hv9hms/media/20231030211012_84b18f167624032edaa702464a4edfde96097bc86f62947345d5563a531ce141.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" height="267" src="https://publisher-ncreg.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pb-ncregister/swp/hv9hms/media/20231030211012_84b18f167624032edaa702464a4edfde96097bc86f62947345d5563a531ce141.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.ncregister.com/interview/cameroon-archbishop-on-synod-on-synodality-views-from-africa-were-taken-very-seriously" target="_blank">Here</a> is an interview with an African bishop after the end of the Synod on Synodality.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I personally found the report of the interview, as presented by Vatican correspondent, Edward Pentin, very interesting given that Pentin chose to end his report with the African bishop relating a reportedly African maxim in French:</p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe.</span></i></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Translation: "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.</span>"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It struck a personal note with me because the same phrase was used by a motivational speaker (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Paul_Conn" target="_blank">Charles Paul Conn</a>) back in the day (more than 30 years ago) when I was a struggling entrepreneur and unaccustomed to rejection and the normal hardships of making a sale. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For whatever reason, the phrase stuck with me; and while my entrepreneurial success is not the stuff of books, the image of dogs barking while the caravan moved on helped me overcome enough personal stuff to provide for a family of thirteen for the better part of thirty years. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For readers needing a bit more explanation, the bishop himself sort of provides it:</p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><b>Nobody is bothered about those things </b>(challenges to defined doctrine)<b>. Christians understand their doctrine, the teaching of the Church, and they’re going on...We will get worried if the caravan stops. As long as the caravan does not stop, then the dogs bark.</b></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">This should be easy for us in Guam to understand. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dogs barking at our cars and nipping at our tires (if not our heels) is a common thing. But do we stop and try to educate the dog? Of course not. Even runners or walkers know not to pay attention to the dog, and if the dog insists on being a pest, to turn on it and it will usually go away. And we move on. We don't chase the dog or lecture its owner. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">LOL. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Well, anyway, here's a few other things the African bishop said:</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><b>As a synod council member, … I understood, listening to the arguments, that this synod is not about change of doctrine. This synod is about journeying together, whatever journeying together means.</b></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><u>My Note</u></i>: The bishop's quip: "whatever journeying together means" is significant because this "journeying" appears to be the object of the Synod...but journeying where? </p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Whether we’re talking to 'LGBT' people or we’re talking to polygamists or we’re talking about ourselves, there must always be the call to conversion, conversion to the Gospel.</b></p></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>John Paul said “Enough,” Francis says “Talk,” but the important thing is that we are teaching what the Church says and we’re moving on. The Church remains. For me, this is a consolation.</b></p></blockquote><p><b></b></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><b>In Africa, we understand marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and anything short of that is witchcraft. This is something we said very strongly. We cannot be talking about sensitivities and orientations within the Church setting when this is what the Gospel says. This is what the teaching of the Church has said all along and this is what various cultures believe.</b></blockquote><p></p><p><b style="text-align: justify;">...spiritual poverty is what is leading us a lot into material poverty. </b> </p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-61120053907518029452023-10-29T15:52:00.014+10:002023-10-30T09:06:17.662+10:00THE SYNOD AND THE FLOOR OF HELL<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent.fgum1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/39295054_2289125131104862_258935147255037952_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=7f8c78&_nc_ohc=zcYbSwxaM0QAX_JR-YL&_nc_ht=scontent.fgum1-1.fna&oh=00_AfA3aBgnhDV3pLZ43CZTjpGADajluqQipyxZCD3vcv6Vtw&oe=65656025" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="200" src="https://scontent.fgum1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/39295054_2289125131104862_258935147255037952_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=7f8c78&_nc_ohc=zcYbSwxaM0QAX_JR-YL&_nc_ht=scontent.fgum1-1.fna&oh=00_AfA3aBgnhDV3pLZ43CZTjpGADajluqQipyxZCD3vcv6Vtw&oe=65656025" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, it appears the <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2023-10/the-synod-report-a-church-that-involves-everyone.html" target="_blank">Synod on Synodality</a> is over. And while the final session was a monthlong meeting (this month), the whole process took three years and caused a serious ruckus in the Catholic Church (the Church) from all sides. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, in the end, at least as the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/28/world/europe/pope-vatican-synod-women-lgbtq.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare" target="_blank">reports</a>, Francis has "kicked the can down the road."</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>...progressives who had high hopes that the meeting would create real momentum for change said the final document had failed to move the institution at all. Before the meeting, a variety of sensitive topics were on the table, including the blessing of same-sex unions, reaching out to L.G.B.T.Q.+ Catholics and the possibility of allowing married men to become priests. Those basically vanished.</b></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">The only major issue which seemed to remain alive in the final document was the increased role of women in the workings of the Church, but even this is far short of what progressives were shouting for: a female diaconate. </p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Instead, the document said that it was urgent for women to have more responsibilities and more say in the workings of the church. When it came to female deacons, though, it said more “theological and pastoral” study was necessary. It suggested that the work of two commissions created by Francis to study the female diaconate be re-examined and the results be presented when the assembly reconvenes next year — “if possible.”</b></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">After all the huffing and puffing over the last three years wherein it very much appeared that Pope Francis intended to radically change the very structure of the Church from a monarchal hierarchy (the Kingdom of God) to a "can't we all get along" democracy, Francis pulled the ultimate head-fake.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fr. James Martin, S.J., the hero of the LGBTQ's who played a major role at the Synod, said it best in saying (in the NY Times article): “I am disappointed, but I’m not surprised.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Martin is a very smart man. And I suspect he is not surprised for the same reason I am not surprised: Pope Francis, in fact no pope, has the authority to change even the dot on an "i" on matters of defined faith and morals. </p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">The Synod and the 1960's Birth Control Commission</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">The whole thing reminds me of a similar scenario played out by Popes John 23 and Paul 6 in the 1960's with their Birth Control Commission. (See <a href="https://1timothy315.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-i-oppose-canonization-of-paul-vi.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a more thorough account.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">On Birth Control, the Church's teaching is ancient and clear: NO! </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, in the 1960's John 23 instituted a commission to look into the matter to see whether or not Catholics might be permitted to contracept with this new thing called "The Pill." John died about a year later and then Paul really did the damage. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here's what I mean.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">John's original commission consisted of seven clerics - who could pretty much be counted on to say "yah, we looked at it, but no."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">When Paul inherited the commission upon John's death, Paul expanded the commission to 72 members and included many lay persons. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The expansion of the commission, both in numbers and the inclusion of lay persons, was enough to incite all who heard of this to believe that Paul was gearing up to permit chemical contraception (The Pill). </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, what really got the clergy going in that direction was what Paul said upon his expansion of the commission:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>"<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">We</span> say frankly that so far we do not have sufficient reason to consider the norms given by Pope Pius XII on this matter [of contraception] as out of date and therefore as not binding. They must be considered as valid, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">at least until We feel obliged in conscience to change them</span>."</b> - <i>Paul VI Acta apostolicae sedis (AAS) 56 (1964) 588-59, 1964 address to the special papal commission on the use of contraceptives.</i></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">As the foregoing is pope-speak, I highlighted the key words. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">First whenever a pope uses "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">We</span>," he is speaking magisterially for the whole Church. Had he said "I..," things might have been quite different. But he didn't. He said "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">We</span>." He then uses "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">We</span>" again when his says "<b>until <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">We</span> feel obliged...to change them</b>." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In short, Paul 6 was stating very clearly that he had the authority to change the Church's ancient teaching on contraception, and that he only needed to "<u>feel obliged</u>" to change it. </p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">An electrifying thrill</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">As every other major Christian denomination had already permitted contraception (beginning with the Anglican Church in 1930), Paul's announcement sent an electrifying thrill through the Catholic population already caught in the throws of the sexual revolution of the 1960's; and Catholic prelates and clerics everywhere - but especially in the U.S and Europe - began (quietly) counseling Catholic couples that it was okay to contracept because the Church was going to change its teaching soon. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">If anything could cause Paul to "feel obliged" to change Church teaching on contraception, it would be the final vote of the Birth Control Commission he expanded and shepherded; and in 1966, two years after Paul took the reins, his commission voted 65-7...<u>IN FAVOR</u> of lifting the Church's ban on contraception. </p><h3 style="text-align: justify;">Back to Francis and his Synod</h3><p style="text-align: justify;">And this brings us back to Francis and what will become his infamous "Synod." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Paul knew he had no authority to change the Church's teaching on birth control the same as Francis knew he had no authority to bless same-sex unions, ordain women, or many of the other things his Synod proposed to do. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In the end, Paul took the only way out when he penned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanae_vitae" target="_blank">Humanae Vitae</a> - which upheld constant Church teaching against contraception. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">HOWEVER, and this is a big HOWEVER, Paul manufactured a reason for doing so that was never part of the equation. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of simply reaffirming perennial Church teaching on the matter, Paul claimed that he could not change the teaching because the vote of the commission wasn't unanimous:</p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>However, the conclusions arrived at by the commission could not be considered by Us as definitive and absolutely certain, dispensing Us from the duty of examining personally this serious question. This was all the more necessary because, within the commission itself, there was not complete agreement...</b></span> (<a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html" target="_blank">Humanae Vitae, Par. 6</a>)</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Thus Paul left the door open to change Church teaching on contraception to a vote - a unanimous vote - when in fact no vote, and no pope, can ever change it.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One might say that the whole idea of a vote on something as deeply doctrinal as the Church's perennial teaching on contraception was the first precursor to the whole idea of "synodality" wherein everything, from the definition of the Trinity to the Real Presence, would come down to a vote. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Many Catholics lionize Paul 6 for his stance against contraception in Humane Vitae - and indeed Francis canonized him - but the fact is that it was Paul's own words - demonstrated above - which lie at the root of why most Catholic couples still contracept today. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So if Paul knew that he could NEVER change Church teaching on contraception and Francis knew that he could never ordain women and bless same-sex unions (etc.), why did these guys go through these years-long exercises only to - as the New York Times says - "kick the can down the road" - which is what they both did?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Well, because. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Because, both men are "children" of their age. And that age began in the 1960's when "caring," or appearing to care, became more important than truth. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Paul 6 probably was really not expecting his commission to vote as it did, so he probably felt safe in saying what he said. But when the commission did not vote per his expectation, Paul probably had one helluva night with the Holy Spirit beating him about his room. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In other words, Paul, the very Vicar of Christ on Earth, KNEW he was in serious trouble - so he dashed off Humane Vitae, never wrote another Encyclical, and essentially went into hiding until he died about a decade later, lamenting to the end "<a href="https://aleteia.org/2018/07/06/what-did-paul-vi-mean-by-saying-the-smoke-of-satan-has-entered-the-church/" target="_blank">the smoke of Satan</a>" that he had let into the Church - though he never blamed himself.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Francis, probably the last pope who is a child of the 60's, seems to have wanted to do the same - in the sense of showing that he "cared" aka "I feel your pain." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But Francis isn't stupid. He knows he is not far from death's door and that eternity is a very long time. And, like Paul, he also knows that not only does he not have any authority to change Church moral teaching, he also knows that "<i>the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops</i>." (Attributed to both St. Athanasius and St. John Crysostom)</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-58543345928505206382023-10-29T15:48:00.002+10:002023-10-29T15:48:30.907+10:00ANOTHER NORWEGIAN CATHOLIC CONVERT NOVELIST WINS THE NOBEL<p>The 2023 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to the Norwegian author and playwright, Jon Fosse. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/standard_compressed_Fosse_skalert-1.jpg?w=640&crop=1" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="640" height="190" src="https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/10/standard_compressed_Fosse_skalert-1.jpg?w=640&crop=1" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>I had never heard of him until I came across a story about his conversion from atheism to Catholicism and how he was converted by his own writing.</p><p>CONTINUED at <a href="http://www.junglewatch.info/2023/10/why-i-dont-fear-francisor-his-wolves.html" target="_blank">WHY I DON'T FEAR FRANCIS AND HIS WOLVES</a></p><p><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-31703289965664221182023-09-27T17:57:00.003+10:002023-09-27T18:00:08.473+10:00THE VIRTUES OF CIGAR SMOKING<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR52jWKj4ba4mspAvSwWApbmdPQpmImGosLpBp8tzhC1TLj2bNyJoEPDarHdSpxDrNOShPvBgxW8mic8kahLGAwQHqy8C8As36qFiEjSA1qLzUGy0eWOPxMQ8b4HqI1-hNuhcxXFk9p972aYe8y4_5jmHkkvOkEA1sCyI5VstFIoKEvBXLUZs9eA/s1123/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-27%20at%205.43.13%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="1123" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR52jWKj4ba4mspAvSwWApbmdPQpmImGosLpBp8tzhC1TLj2bNyJoEPDarHdSpxDrNOShPvBgxW8mic8kahLGAwQHqy8C8As36qFiEjSA1qLzUGy0eWOPxMQ8b4HqI1-hNuhcxXFk9p972aYe8y4_5jmHkkvOkEA1sCyI5VstFIoKEvBXLUZs9eA/w400-h329/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-27%20at%205.43.13%20PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /> <a href="http://www.junglewatch.info/2023/09/the-virtues-of-cigar-smoking.html" target="_blank">LINK</a><p></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-80352987513676697512023-05-24T05:02:00.014+10:002023-06-01T07:08:16.870+10:00AN ARCHBISHOP "CANONIZES" A FELLOW BISHOP - MORE CONFUSION IN THE NAME OF CHARITY<h4 style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">"We believe that Bishop Dave has received his recompense for his life and his ministry...We know that he is in heaven. Let us ask for his intercession..."</span> </blockquote></h4><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;">- Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, at a novena for the recently murdered Bishop David O'Connell, quoted in <u>Angelus</u>, the official publication for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mar. 10, 2023, Vol. 8 No. 5 (and also <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253792/we-know-that-he-s-in-heaven-thousands-gather-for-funeral-of-bishop-david-o-connell-in-los-angeles" target="_blank">here</a> on CNA). </p></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgQCu40Do4PWFCT7LPJEZwDcgks5S7TOeG0gU-_CAI3DMrMb58Qaoos2XdBA8zNS1MK3yJ7EzFdM3rGJOxj0wPNfKqaetOJpl88iAS_SorYycf1AFLPCbRTnmLLvwF-0jLvs0R_Q96KFovSjuoznGRuBvmiJH3YKsnPGphKZ6ZFiJyMPWJzs0/s1421/Screen%20Shot%202023-05-23%20at%204.06.12%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1164" data-original-width="1421" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgQCu40Do4PWFCT7LPJEZwDcgks5S7TOeG0gU-_CAI3DMrMb58Qaoos2XdBA8zNS1MK3yJ7EzFdM3rGJOxj0wPNfKqaetOJpl88iAS_SorYycf1AFLPCbRTnmLLvwF-0jLvs0R_Q96KFovSjuoznGRuBvmiJH3YKsnPGphKZ6ZFiJyMPWJzs0/w320-h262/Screen%20Shot%202023-05-23%20at%204.06.12%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/253792/we-know-that-he-s-in-heaven-thousands-gather-for-funeral-of-bishop-david-o-connell-in-los-angeles" target="_blank">SOURCE</a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">I didn't know that an individual bishop could canonize another one, all by himself. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">He can't of course. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It appears that Archbishop Gomez has fallen victim to the mostly post-Vatican II penchant to place loved ones in heaven...and immediately. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">While that may make us feel better - which is what Archbishop Gomez may have been trying to do - it is probably the most uncharitable thing one (a Catholic) can do. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As Catholics we believe the following:</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Those who die in God's grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they "see him as he is," face to face. - <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm" target="_blank">Catechism of the Catholic Church, Par. 1023</a></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The key words are "perfectly purified," and only God can know that. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact the command to "judge not" (Mt. 7:1) goes both ways. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">While we "use" the command to "judge not" mostly (and often wrongly) [1] to admonish others not to judge the sinfulness of others, we are also not to use it to judge the rightfulness of others - such as placing the dearly departed in heaven because he or she was a really good person, or we because we really liked him or her, or because we just really want to feel better. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Other than canonized saints - which is an act of authority to "bind and loose" possessed only and ultimately by the Successor of Peter - no one can say what Archbishop Gomez said...about anybody. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, given what we Catholics <a href="http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm" target="_blank">believe</a> about the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell), by believing or "placing" a departed soul in heaven, we may be uncharitably condemning that soul to a much longer term in Purgatory. [2]</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Curiously, the Angelus article titled "<u>Mourning a peacemaker,</u>" featured a picture of a crowd gathered in the parking lot of a local church on the second night of a novena organized by members of the Knights of Columbus "to pray for the repose of O'Connell's soul..." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The picture includes Archbishop Gomez, rosary in hand. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkqAq16CgG5SGD8WSypPglfGY5ymnIYLdWkCqygxKr-dFPY5VvQJZdbpodDZ--zkPjpvARkeNPoTWqkEXMBnKN7W6QQbfqZEfnG21ebYzy33TMUmCsBmjTT_NYjSJZaeclknLyp4JHhWoHqxARQkHVRvyx1h6hFolo1H3jfNWRmxoIFiSZMU/s1488/Scan.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="877" data-original-width="1488" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlkqAq16CgG5SGD8WSypPglfGY5ymnIYLdWkCqygxKr-dFPY5VvQJZdbpodDZ--zkPjpvARkeNPoTWqkEXMBnKN7W6QQbfqZEfnG21ebYzy33TMUmCsBmjTT_NYjSJZaeclknLyp4JHhWoHqxARQkHVRvyx1h6hFolo1H3jfNWRmxoIFiSZMU/w400-h236/Scan.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">There is no point in praying for the <b><u>repose</u></b> of O'Connell's soul if, as Archbishop Gomez declares, O'Connell is already in heaven and we are to pray to him for his intercession. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Just more confusion in the name of "charity." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">What a shame. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><u>Notes</u>:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">[1] While we can, and must, judge acts as to their sinfulness or rightfulness, we are not to judge "hearts" as "the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7 ) </p><p style="text-align: justify;">[2] See: "Greater than Any Pain of this Life: The Hard Truth About Purgatory" at <a href="https://aleteia.org/2013/11/01/greater-than-any-pain-of-this-life-the-hard-truth-about-purgatory/" target="_blank">Aletia.org</a></p><br />Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-75898314837717730782023-02-23T15:30:00.005+10:002023-04-12T13:04:59.820+10:00AN ASH WEDNESDAY STORY<p style="text-align: justify;">I believe it was Ash Wednesday, 1983. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I was living and teaching in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and was living through a particularly challenging time. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So Ash Wednesday, that year, had a more than normal personal meaning to me. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In those days I used to ride my bike to and from my job at a local Catholic high school, about a 7 mile ride each way. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">That afternoon, which was particularly hot, and which was in what we call the "dry season" in the tropics, I saw smoke rising in the direction towards which I was pedaling home. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As I came down the hill which sloped toward the beach near my home, I saw that the entire area around the place where I and a friend lived had been burnt black. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There was about a hundred yards between the paved road and my home that was a dirt road. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I slowly pedaled down the dirt road while the smoke rose from the burnt black tangan-tangan "fields" on both sides. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It was hot, smoky, and dead. As close to a reminder of Hell as I wanted to get. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Today, my former home is still pretty much surrounded by Tangan-Tangan fields. And every time I visit I remember that Ash Wednesday, when, like my life at that point, everything around me had been burned to a smoking ruin. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFs0FhQCf9_zR4011bCwrHp5GtUYsCNpiwVlECdbvvf63cXrAo_x0iQv0pDMBaCOEQLEfg61cGTlmJ-YPVB-lGzgs8nUFC9A-_O_cxTOlCWS7dA-WdKwrGUu3vpkgs0NFfEN6VYILYBDHaornnp2XrfplaJFQGyayFe-vTa25tQD5qgTLVgo8/s1814/STX-My%20Home_Ash%20Wednesday.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1171" data-original-width="1814" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFs0FhQCf9_zR4011bCwrHp5GtUYsCNpiwVlECdbvvf63cXrAo_x0iQv0pDMBaCOEQLEfg61cGTlmJ-YPVB-lGzgs8nUFC9A-_O_cxTOlCWS7dA-WdKwrGUu3vpkgs0NFfEN6VYILYBDHaornnp2XrfplaJFQGyayFe-vTa25tQD5qgTLVgo8/w320-h207/STX-My%20Home_Ash%20Wednesday.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">However, thank you Jesus, He raised me from both the ashes on my forehead and the ashes surrounding my life and home. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It was a good lesson as there would be more fields of ashes to navigate as I grew older...as we all do. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Keep the faith.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-24515267303706173082023-02-12T13:31:00.002+10:002023-02-12T14:25:51.926+10:00STUFF THAT BOTHERS ME (AT MASS) - PART 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://catholicgentleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/3818.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="560" height="320" src="https://catholicgentleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/3818.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was struggling to title this post - which might become a series. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I think I'll call it "stuff that bothers me," though at this point in my life, I am willing to just put up with it and keep my head down. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest thing to jump out at me is the way lay "readers" read at the Mass. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm not sure if they're told to do this or they just like to do it, but they portend to be public speakers instead of readers. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I say this because these "readers" feel they must look up from the reading and directly look at the congregation at the end of each sentence - or close to it. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is not the reader who is "proclaiming" - but the Word of God that is being proclaimed. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact, the reader who looks up from the reading and attempts to directly engage the congregation by looking at us distracts from the Word of God and makes him or herself the focus. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Just read the Word of God and sit down. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact, it would do all of us well to revisit the venerable Catholic practice of <a href="https://catholicgentleman.com/2014/06/custody-of-the-eyes-what-it-is-and-how-to-practice-it/#:~:text=At%20its%20most%20basic%20level,look%20anyone%20in%20the%20face." target="_blank">CUSTODY OF THE EYES</a>.</div>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-18682255601371487452022-12-11T07:58:00.003+10:002022-12-11T08:19:35.952+10:00LIFE LESSONS FROM BAKER'S 98 YARD GAME-WINNING DRIVE<p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.cleveland.com/resizer/bHmvgKy7qmjIDasHQAPobZxsGdI=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/MNO3KXMJKBHTJAHK4DARV5SLHU.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="267" src="https://www.cleveland.com/resizer/bHmvgKy7qmjIDasHQAPobZxsGdI=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/MNO3KXMJKBHTJAHK4DARV5SLHU.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;">SOME THOUGHTS on the Baker Mayfield 98 yard drive with two minutes to go and no time outs after joining the Rams less than 2 days earlier. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/r1Edus8WDYE" target="_blank">WATCH IT HERE</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Much is being made about this. And much should be made about this. It was a great lesson on many levels - and for me, a great reminder of great lessons that I have repeatedly learned the hard way. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The first is “it isn’t over until it’s over.” For the Raiders, the game ended when their punt miraculously stayed in bounds as it rolled to the Rams 2 yard line. They were jumping around and hugging each other as if they had just won the game. And apparently in their minds, they did. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The second is “never give up.” And the Rams didn’t. And I would speculate that the real reason they didn’t give up was not because of any great ideal or pep talk from the coach. The Rams, last year’s Super Bowl champions, had lost 6 straight games and had lost most of their star players to injuries. I think at this point they were thinking “well, we tried.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But that night they had a new guy on their team who couldn’t afford to lose, who couldn’t afford to say “well, I tried.” And that was Baker Mayfield. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mayfield had been a highly touted #1 draft pick in 2018. But by Thursday night, he was on his third team in 4 years, and like a lot of #1’s before him, appeared to be headed towards early retirement, lost promise, and obscurity. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, after being placed on waivers by the Panthers, his second team, only the Rams showed interest, and they only showed interest because their whole roster of QB’s had been injured or otherwise proved ineffective, and they basically had no one. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This brings us to the third lesson, which is rooted in the second (never give up) and that is “sometimes the stars align.” It’s sort of the opposite of “when it rains it pours,” or “when it’s bad it’s really bad, and when it’s good, it’s really good.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I learned this especially in business. There are days (weeks and months) when no matter what you do everything goes wrong. And there are days (weeks and months) when you do nothing different or special and everything goes right. I could write a book about this, but for now, the real lesson is “just stay in the game,” and stay long enough to “catch the wave.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I think the Rams, as a team, had given up when that punt rolled down to the 2. One could see it on the coach’s face. He wasn’t rallying his troops. His facial attitude was “we just got to get through this season.” And you could see it again on his face a few minutes later when the impossible happened: total shock and surprise. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile, there was one man on the team who couldn’t afford to “just get through this season.” Baker Mayfield knew he had one chance, one chance to live up to his previous promise, and this was it. Talk about a guy falling from grace. From a 2018 #1 pick to a washed up quarterback 4 years later who was placed on waivers and the only team that picked him up was a team that had lost all its quarterbacks and was just trying to limp home. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In fact, I think they let Baker play that night, even though he hadn’t had time to hardly open up the Ram’s playbook, let alone know it, because the Rams, at that point, had nothing to lose. Their season was over. So it was a sort of “why not.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It’s not that Mayfield did anything spectacular in that final 98 yard drive with no time outs to win the game. He was even intercepted on his second play of the final drive - but saved by a penalty on the other team. And then saved again when an impetuous Raider did something stupid which gave the Rams 15 yards they very much needed. But Mayfield needed to win, and needed to win much more than rest of his team. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And that’s why “the stars aligned.” When you are down and out with nowhere to go and the only direction you can look is up because you are flat on your back, that’s when you choose to get up or get lost. Baker chose to get up. And in so choosing, “the stars aligned.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Lots of success books are full of this stuff. They speak of this “law of success” or “law of attraction,” or stuff like that. But there is no magic formula. Someone still has to make a decision, and beyond that, “stay in the game” long enough for “the stars to align.” i.e. go through the valley of death, this “vale of tears” (as the Salve Regina puts it), in other words “be willing to suffer.” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The real lesson though is to know that your good fortune, when you win - as Baker and the Rams did Thursday night, is to know that you won, not because the stars magically aligned, but because you stayed in the game long enough for them to do so. And that you will do it the next time when everything is dark and going wrong…again. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As Winston Churchill once said: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” </p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-77825524197330926762022-12-08T11:18:00.004+10:002022-12-08T11:21:02.310+10:00PIUS IX: "AND THUS CRUSHED HIS HEAD WITH HER IMMACULATE FOOT"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMPya59R1jVYn4LYqPNt1s4r8Bzr1nqu44kVHopq8MjlsS_-cAByElC1ZLG-TJK5joflu5726ake18xX-uMkyNokg3_rI__zkiPYtiUd3cIxgs-lDTejvbw2u6jx_vIfQbhIapXLCGO1gOlgUpTr8ELuRVweHtWKCXIHFHaNU35Fhq-zx-fU/s1200/WEB3-MARY-STEPS-SNAKE-Wiki.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHMPya59R1jVYn4LYqPNt1s4r8Bzr1nqu44kVHopq8MjlsS_-cAByElC1ZLG-TJK5joflu5726ake18xX-uMkyNokg3_rI__zkiPYtiUd3cIxgs-lDTejvbw2u6jx_vIfQbhIapXLCGO1gOlgUpTr8ELuRVweHtWKCXIHFHaNU35Fhq-zx-fU/w400-h200/WEB3-MARY-STEPS-SNAKE-Wiki.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">Today is December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and time for my sometimes annual mini-rant about translations, and in this case, a particularly terrible translation in that it kicks Mary out of the plan of salvation. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For years, probably since about 1970, the Gospel reading for Mass on this day (Lk 1: 26-38) did not use the words "full of grace" - which is the very basis of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception - but used "favored one," or "highly favored," or something like that. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The New American Bible, the translation in standard use in the United States, and the translation that every Catholic school kid is stuck with, still uses that <a href="https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PWK.HTM" target="_blank">language</a>: </p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>And coming to her, he said, "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you."</b></i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Sometime in the mid-1990's, Pope John Paul II issued an instruction to fix that language, at least in the Lectionary, and so now we hear "Hail, full of grace" on the Holy Day set aside to specifically recognize and honor She who was and is "full of grace" from the moment of her conception. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, the language of the First Mass Reading on this day was never fixed and Genesis 3:15 still reads: </p><p></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”</i></b></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Again, this was a circa 1970 invention and prior to this "updating" - made possible by the elimination of Latin and the vagaries of new vernacular translations - the faithful at Mass, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, heard:</p><p></p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem et semen tuum et semen illius ipsa conteret caput tuum et tu insidiaberis calcaneo eius</i></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><i>I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.</span></i></b></p></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">There are two significant differences between the translation we heard today and the ancient one: First, there is "she" not "he." And second, the modern translation has Jesus and Satan striking at each other in what appears to be a battle of equals whereas the ancient text, in Latin (the <a href="https://vulgate.org/ot/genesis_3.htm" target="_blank">Vulgate</a>) has Mary CRUSHING a powerless Satan, <i>i.e.</i> Satan can only "<i>lie in wait for her heel.</i>" </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Mary of the Vulgate, and the translation we heard for nearly 2000 years, is a much more powerful Mary, and said power underlies the reason for so many of her titles, including "Co-Redemptrix." Perhaps this is why - in the then-spirit of post-Vatican II ecumenism and wanting to get along with non-Catholics - our own Catholic leadership got rid of the "she" in Genesis 3:15. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Scholars debate whether the "ipsa" in the Vulgate can be translated as "he" or "she," however, there is no debating the language Pope Pius IX chose to employ and define in <i><a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius09/p9ineff.htm" target="_blank">Ineffabilis Deus</a></i>: </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></p><blockquote><i><b>Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot</span>.</b></i></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It's curious, but since about 1970 when our Church leadership functionally dumped Mary as "Satan's head crusher," Satan has found his happy way back into the highest halls of power in our Church. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, as if to "fight back" against the MODERNISM which has eviscerated Mary in our modern translations - and even on the very day we honor her in a special way - Mary, a few days later in the liturgical calendar (Dec. 12) appears in Mexico and gives us her real name: </p><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">"<b><i>Te Coatlaxopeuh</i></b>” ("she who crushes the stone serpent").</p></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjDSHa7Piwdas9kDULaX1AdCPU8NtPThcjVuimzSNB6tv9wfk-o4cOY-8XPt2hdQxwoc_QF8vA2ovt54_pHjPmdtqG7fOOS9PPyHRgKnWCuDZMpwtmXOB4QAXSszOXQ12Q_FcAg/s320/Quetzalcoatl_Image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="230" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJjDSHa7Piwdas9kDULaX1AdCPU8NtPThcjVuimzSNB6tv9wfk-o4cOY-8XPt2hdQxwoc_QF8vA2ovt54_pHjPmdtqG7fOOS9PPyHRgKnWCuDZMpwtmXOB4QAXSszOXQ12Q_FcAg/w288-h400/Quetzalcoatl_Image.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><br /><p>Read more at <a href="http://1timothy315.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-return-of-devourer.html" target="_blank">THE RETURN OF THE DEVOURER</a> </p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-15352289748771055632022-06-26T17:01:00.003+10:002022-06-26T17:42:33.241+10:00THE END OF ROE: HOW THE LEFT BROUGHT THIS THEMSELVES<p style="text-align: justify;"><i> (Copied from my Facebook post on Jun. 26, 2022)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYWlOelXoI2ORPzke7uyjyEI9n-F0_pMEn4yE2SUnReuwbtmmaPnXquyrley8B0B76m1YS0Lm7XTdbok2RpK8H73aDX-lAcIV4BCImP3UEbr9j-ppQMerSPjSj632Mi_vgi6dOkKYRPuZvlXWYA6Uvl5NE24WBQT7GjsSQZViyfiWcZPeRxs/s1442/michelangelo_giudizio_universale_02.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1442" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHYWlOelXoI2ORPzke7uyjyEI9n-F0_pMEn4yE2SUnReuwbtmmaPnXquyrley8B0B76m1YS0Lm7XTdbok2RpK8H73aDX-lAcIV4BCImP3UEbr9j-ppQMerSPjSj632Mi_vgi6dOkKYRPuZvlXWYA6Uvl5NE24WBQT7GjsSQZViyfiWcZPeRxs/w532-h640/michelangelo_giudizio_universale_02.jpeg" width="532" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruggieri_degli_Ubaldini" target="_blank">Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini</a></div><br /><i><br /></i><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Been sort of trying to avoid the war in social media right now re "the decision." But came across an article the title of which reminded me of the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the news: "The Left has Done This to Themselves." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The gist of the article is that Clinton had it right when he maintained abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." Most Americans agreed with him and Roe stayed out of trouble. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, "Catholics" Pelosi, Biden, Andrew Cuomo, and the late Ted Kennedy (aka "the lion of the senate) among other "Catholics" in Congress pushed for legal abortion procedures that included "ready to be born" children to be drug out of their mother's wombs, stabbed in the back of the head, and have their brains sucked out (aka "partial birth abortion"). NOTE: Our own "Catholic" governor testified at a public hearing in favor of killing children, already born, who survived abortions. </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Footnote: "Catholics" is in quotes because the real bad actors are their pastors and bishops who in most cases let them do what they did, and in some cases, even taught them how to do it. <i><u>See</u></i>: <a href="http://1timothy315.blogspot.com/2012/02/hyannisport-prescription.html" target="_blank">The Hyannisport Prescription</a></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And Americans were not willing to stomach that. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, more to the point, and to my thought on this was that if the pro-aborts would have just let Mississippi have its way in the Dobbs thing, the matter would have never gone to SCOTUS and Roe would have remained safe. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The case in Dobbs in Mississippi was clearly a "walk into this" taunt. The pro-lifers were just looking for a legal challenge that would go to SCOTUS, and the pro-aborts gave it to them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It very much reminded me of the Apuron thing here in Guam. Had it not been for "the Diana" and the rogues in the chancery who threatened to sue everybody, the whole thing would have died quietly and Apuron would have lived happily ever after. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">It's a case of choose your battles. Well that's all folks. Love your families. You never know how long you will have them. Peace and Courage.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-30702957352370804372022-05-03T06:11:00.003+10:002022-05-03T06:11:20.831+10:00QUESTIONS (AND AN ANSWER) ABOUT FRANCIS<p> Frontpage Magazine published "Is Francis Really the Pope?" (<a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/francis-really-pope-william-kilpatrick/?fbclid=IwAR0Et8PrPLnJmpeX1nxAGXbBJzCXmmmlqfqkkzaE23H-QeHMQ-neaUd6Vp8" target="_blank">May 2, 2022</a>). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.frontpagemag.com/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcms.frontpagemag.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_full%2Fpublic%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F09%2Fpope.jpg%3Fitok%3DLznIxSCh&w=750&q=75" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="180" src="https://www.frontpagemag.com/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcms.frontpagemag.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Farticle_full%2Fpublic%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F09%2Fpope.jpg%3Fitok%3DLznIxSCh&w=750&q=75" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It appears that the question is more motivated by Francis' "teaching" since taking the Chair of Peter rather than the still questionable events that brought him there. In other words: "Is Francis a bad pope?"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The history of the papacy is fraught with “bad popes.” Most famous were the Borgia and Medici popes, but several hundred years before them, around the turn of the First Millennium, there was what came to be known as “The Iron Age of the Papacy,” during which there were about 24 popes in 94 years because they kept assassinating each other. I’ll post a link to an article I wrote about it in the comments.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The good news about previous “bad popes” is they were too busy stealing, killing, and fornicating to teach anything. Not so Francis who oft appears to be rewriting the Catechism during off-the cuff rants on airplanes; which, other than a formal proclamation “ex cathedra,” would be official heresy and which would probably bring about the end of time since Jesus promised that “the gates of hell would not prevail,” which from one angle means that Jesus would show up before Satan prevailed over the Chair of Peter. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, “who am I to judge?” </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As a Christian, I am required to believe that nothing, good or evil, happens without God’s permission (see Book of Job). And if Francis is causing confusion and other not-so-good stuff, then his papacy has lots of biblical precedent where, in dealing with the waywardness of the “chosen people,” God gave said “chosen” the leaders they deserved...and usually asked for. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">In other words, at best Francis is simply a Latin American Jesuit come to the big city, and at worst, he is God’s justice for the millions and millions of Catholics who for decades have long since turned back to the fleshpots of Egypt.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-87024671329687994712022-03-09T02:49:00.002+10:002022-04-21T11:03:55.573+10:00MARK 6:27-56 - "AND HE WOULD HAVE PASSED BY THEM"<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKByv5oSXZ_qcRMhS2e4HpfJ97IV-hmUMx1iuPwo0XIQ-x0xruBGTYbWu-PVbv0FJ9_FwqaoLyWrNy8jgSpetIGL_gLqxrSVFTrhCkAyjNa7fQ-QTjcBVV4ZIxZp_km-_N89Cufo2KISpCUCvaVpiPgiDTPVX4hCr50UyPfXkCmJ4izTFD7b8=s1260" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKByv5oSXZ_qcRMhS2e4HpfJ97IV-hmUMx1iuPwo0XIQ-x0xruBGTYbWu-PVbv0FJ9_FwqaoLyWrNy8jgSpetIGL_gLqxrSVFTrhCkAyjNa7fQ-QTjcBVV4ZIxZp_km-_N89Cufo2KISpCUCvaVpiPgiDTPVX4hCr50UyPfXkCmJ4izTFD7b8=w640-h320" width="640" /></a></div><br />The Gospel for Saturday, March 5, 2022, in the Ancient Rite (TLM) was the account from Mark of Jesus walking on the water (Mark 6:47-56). The same story appears in Matt 14.22-33 and John 6.16-21.<p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As usual, there are differences in the Gospel accounts, and some "anti-primacy of Peter types" like to stress that Mark and John do not mention Peter walking on the water to Jesus, as does Matthew. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, as is well-known, John's Gospel is not considered one of the "synoptics" because John had an entirely different aim in writing his gospel. So no surprise that John's Gospel leaves out details that the synoptics do not. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And as for Mark, it is well-known that Mark was Peter's "secretary" and it can be easily understood that Peter, in dictating to Mark, did not want to highlight himself in any way.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p style="text-align: justify;">But that controversy aside, Mark notes something that the other two Gospel's do not: "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">...and He would have passed by them.</span>" </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This was something I had not seen before: "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">and he would have passed by them</span>." The other accounts have Jesus walking directly to the boat and the distressed apostles. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Why Jesus "would have passed by them" is answered in the next part of Mark's Gospel: "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">But they, seeing Him walking upon the sea, thought it was a ghost, and cried out</span>."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">"Crying out" to God is consonant with David, with Job, with Moses, with the blind man ("Son of David have pity on me") with the woman with the hemorrhage (who touched the hem of his garment) and just about everyone of any consequence in every corner of Scripture. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Praying is one thing. Crying out is another. At least I think so. But apparently that's what it takes to get Jesus to not "pass by them"...or me...or you.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">There's more in Mark's account that I've missed, particularly: "<span style="background-color: #fcff01;">And seeing His disciples straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, about the fourth watch of the night He came to them...</span>"</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I resent having to share non-Catholic commentaries, but unfortunately, compared to "protestant" biblical commentaries there is a dearth of good Catholic commentaries - at least available for free online. (If anyone knows different, please direct me to the links. I am aware of the Haydock commentary.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Fortunately, the best "protestant" bible commentaries often quote "the Fathers," who were Catholic (since that's all there was then). So, insofar as the writers of commentaries quote the fathers, I think we can rely on them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">One such commentary is the "Pulpit Commentary" and rather than tell you what it says about this part of Mark's Gospel, I will copy it below and link it. But the main thing to note is that Jesus waits until Evil has its hour...and then God shall have His Day. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">By the way, this is a great series of teachings about how God does exactly what is described here in Mark: <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaidjgw1FjSpzHeXSKODqlG1xbPviSHT8" target="_blank">God's Astonishing Reversals</a>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/pulpit/mark/6.htm" target="_blank">PULPIT COMMENTARY</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Verses 48-50. - And he saw them toiling in rowing. The Greek is, according to the best readings καὶ ἰδὼν (not εϊδεν) αὐτοὺς βασανιξομένους ἐν τῷ ἐλαύνειν. The word βασανιξομένους means more than "toiling;" it means literally, tormented. It is well rendered in the Revised Version by distressed. It was only by painful effort that they could make head against the driving storm blowing upon them from the west, that is, from the Mediterranean Sea. About the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking on the sea. The Jews formerly divided the night into three watches; but when Judaea became a Roman province they adopted the Roman division. The Romans changed the watches every three hours, lest through too long watches the guards might slumber at their posts. These periods were called "watches." If the night was short, they divided it into three watches; if long, into four. Therefore the fourth watch began at the tenth hour of the night, that is, at three o'clock in the morning, and continued to the twelfth, that is, to six o'clock. It would seem, therefore, that this storm lasted for nine hours. During that time the disciples had rowed about twenty-five or thirty furlongs, that is about three Roman miles - eight furlongs - making a mile. The Sea of Galilee is not more than six miles broad at its widest part. They were therefore now (ἐν μέσῳ τῆς θαλάσσης) "in the midst of the sea," as St. Mark expresses it; so that, after rowing for nine hours, they had hardly crossed more than half over the sea. The Sea of Galilee is, speaking roughly, about twelve miles from north to south and six from east to west. It may be asked why our Lord suffered them to be tempest-tossed so long; and the answer is:</p><p style="text-align: justify;">1. It was a trial of their faith, so as to urge them to seek more earnestly the help of God.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">2. It was a lesson to accustom them to endure bard-ness.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">3. It made the stilling of so tedious and dangerous a storm all the more grateful and welcome to them at last. The Fathers find a fine spiritual meaning in this. Jerome says, "The fourth watch is the last." So, too, St. Augustine, who adds that "he who has watched the ship of his Church will come at length at the fourth watch, at the end of the world, when the night of sin and evil is ended, to judge the quick and the dead." Theophylact says, "He allows his disciples to be tried by dangers, that they may be taught patience, and does not come to them till morning, that they may learn perseverance and faith." Hilary says, "The first watch was the age of the Law, the second of the prophets, the third of the gospel, the fourth of his glorious advent, when he will find her buffeted by the spirit of antichrist and by the storms of the world. And by his reception into the ship and the consequent calm is prefigured the eternal peace of the Church after his second coming" (see Wordsworth's 'New Testament:'St. Matthew 14). He walked on the sea. This he did by his Divine power, which he possessed as God, and which, when he pleased, he could assume as man. Infidelity is at fault here. Paulus the rationalist, revived the ridiculous idea that Christ walking on the sea merely meant Christ walking on the shore, elevated above the sea; but the interpretation was rightly denounced by Lavater as "a laughable insult on logic, hermeneutics, good sense, and honesty." Was it because our Lord simply walked on the shore that the disciples "cried out and were troubled"? Was it merely for this that they were "sore amazed at themselves beyond measure and wondered"? Yet such are the shifts to which unbelief is reduced when it ventures to measure itself against the acts of Omnipotence. He would have passed by them. An expression something like that in St. Luke (Luke 24:28), "He made as though he would go further," although there the Greek in St. Luke is different (προσεποιεῖτο πορρωτέρω πορεύεσθαι). Here it is ἤθελε παρελθεῖν: literally, he wished to pass by them; so at least it appeared to the disciples. It has been suggested that our Lord did this that the disciples might more clearly see how the wind was stilled in his presence. They supposed that it was an apparition (ἔδοξαν ὄτι φάντασμα εϊναι); literally, a phantom. Why did they suppose this? Partly from the idea that spectres appear in the night and in the darkness to terrify men, and partly because in the darkness they could not so readily recognize that it was Jesus. Then the fact that our Lord" would bare passed by them," flitting past them as though he eared nothing for them and had nothing to do with them, but was going elsewhere; this must have increased their terror. But now came the moment for him to calm their fears. Straightway he talked with them soothingly. Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. Now, Christ did this that he might teach his disciples to conquer fear and temptation, even when they are very great, and that so the deliverance and the consolation might impress them all the more powerfully and sweetly in proportion to their former terror. "'It is I' - I, your Lord and Master, whom you know so well, and of whose goodness and omnipotence you have already had so much experience; I, your Master, who do not come to mock you as a phantom, but to deliver you both from fear and from storm." It will be observed that St. Mark omits all mention of Peter's act of faith "in going down from the boat, and walking upon the waters to come to Jesus," as recorded by St. Matthew (Matthew 14:28). Throughout this Gospel, as already noticed, St. Peter is kept in the background.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">*****</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Mark 6:47-56</p><p style="text-align: justify;">At that time, when it was late, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and Jesus alone on the land. And seeing His disciples straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking upon the sea, and He would have passed by them. But they, seeing Him walking upon the sea, thought it was a ghost, and cried out. For they all saw Him, and were troubled. Then He immediately spoke to them, and said to them, Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid. And He got into the boat with them, and the wind fell. And they were utterly beside themselves with astonishment, for they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was blinded. And crossing over, they came to the land of Genesareth and moored the boat. And when they had gotten out of the boat, the people at once recognized Him; and they hurried through the whole country, and began to bring the sick on their pallets, wherever they heard He was. And wherever He went, into village or hamlet or town, they laid the sick in the market places, and entreated Him to let them touch but the tassel of His cloak; and as many as touched Him were saved.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-70867268321989288242022-03-04T00:57:00.005+10:002022-04-21T11:05:01.960+10:00UKRAINE: THE LEGACY OF INTER OECUMENICI ?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/web3-latin-mass-leonine-prayers-andrewgardner1-cc-by-4-0.jpg?w=640&crop=1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://wp.en.aleteia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/web3-latin-mass-leonine-prayers-andrewgardner1-cc-by-4-0.jpg?w=640&crop=1" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Catholic websites and sermons are overflowing with "prayers for Ukraine"...but no "prayers for the conversion of Russia."</p><p>I am old enough to remember when prayers for the conversion of Russia were said at the end of every Low Mass after the St. Michael Prayer. Collectively known as the Leonine prayers or "prayers after Mass." </p><p>I also remember every family rosary, in my youth, including "for the conversion of Russia" in the intentions. </p><p>In 1965, hot on the heels of Vatican II, the Church officially suppressed the "prayers after the Mass" and the prayers for the conversion of Russia. Some thought it was because we didn't want to make the communists mad at us.</p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>Meanwhile, 55 years later the same Church leadership which suppressed the prayers for the conversion of Russia are demanding prayers for Ukraine, but still not the conversion of Russia. </p><p>In fact, apparently to pray for the conversion of anyone went out with V2. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">The 26 September 1964 Instruction <i><a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/inter-oecumenici--instruction-on-implementing-the-constitution-on-sacred-liturgy-2182" target="_blank">Inter Oecumenici</a></i> on implementing the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council decreed: "The Leonine Prayers are suppressed".</p></blockquote><p><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-47416849430098109562022-02-26T02:07:00.013+10:002022-04-21T11:05:21.028+10:00RUSSIA V UKRAINE - A FATIMA PERSPECTIVE<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-mDzOg_dLjXADCkFimxXgRHiMBgfABytTuHTY4JxW56hj8dMYNfYK3A3zc2l-YA21Zf3jzfxSXw0oaAaDsiQP2Uxfg0jqHmwpehjPMJXrbyx6syOrTHawZ0LZNmgjaez2pGPLUTGq0NWGViilN2bKSe8a046qpEO4w9F6CIPiqaZKIxrZVPs=s2048" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-mDzOg_dLjXADCkFimxXgRHiMBgfABytTuHTY4JxW56hj8dMYNfYK3A3zc2l-YA21Zf3jzfxSXw0oaAaDsiQP2Uxfg0jqHmwpehjPMJXrbyx6syOrTHawZ0LZNmgjaez2pGPLUTGq0NWGViilN2bKSe8a046qpEO4w9F6CIPiqaZKIxrZVPs=w240-h320" title="The statue of Our Lady of Fatima outside the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was vandalized Sunday night. The statues nose and hands were cut off and the cross on top was broken off" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">The statue of Our Lady of Fatima outside the National<br />Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Nose and hands broken<br />off. Dec. 7, 2021.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="text-align: justify;">It is quite clear that Russia is the aggressor and is waging an unjust war as defined by the Catholic Church. However, as Catholics, we are bound to believe that nothing happens, even evil, without God's permission. And sometimes God permits evil for His higher purpose.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;">For example: permitting an impenitent man steeped in a life of mortal sin to become ill or severely hurt in order to occasion the opportunity for the man to amend his ways, or at least perhaps to cripple him to the point that he is no longer able to persist in the mortally sinful acts that are dragging his soul into Hell.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Throughout the history of God's Chosen People, God permitted his "chosen" to be captured, enslaved, and sometimes killed off to within a breath of a remnant, and all by unjust, unbelieving, and brutal, worldly aggressors. (Think of what the Romans did to the Jews in Jerusalem in 70AD. And all prophesied by Jesus, Himself.)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our Lady at Fatima <a href="http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/fatima6a.htm" target="_blank">warned</a>: "War is punishment for sin." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">World War I was, up to then, history's most brutal, costly, and non-sensical war. And Our Lady, appearing at Fatima in 1917, warned that if we did not cease sinning and do penance that a worse war would come. The world ignored her and so came World War II.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>Our Lady also admonished the pope in communion with the world's bishops to publicly consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart or "Russia would spread its errors." No pope has ever done that and so here we are...again. But we'll get to that later.<p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Thinking that Putin's attacking the Ukraine is just a legacy bid to restore the old Soviet Union is to misunderstand Putin. Putin is waging war against "the West." His impetus comes from Ukraine's increasing closeness to NATO, which Putin sees as a threat to Russia. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But beyond Putin's paranoia or his expansionist Soviet dreams, there is the reality that "the West" has been murdering its unborn children by the millions each year for decades. True, Russia at one time had the most liberal abortion polices in the world, which has led to Russia still having the highest abortion rate in the world, but Putin, since coming to power, has endeavored to stop abortion. (Certainly China has murdered more, but China does not possess a 2000 year Christian history as does "the West.")</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Putin's motives are probably not related to any regard for the sanctity of life and are more likely rooted in his quest to restore Russia to the world power it once was, which he cannot do without a population. But regardless of Putin's motives, his policies are definitely anti-abortion. <i><u>See</u></i>: <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-plan-reduce-abortions/31473124.html" target="_blank">Russia Announces Plan To Halve Abortion Rates To Spur Population Growth</a></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine, on the other hand, is aggressively pro-abortion, which is not surprising given Ukraine's race to the West. <i><u>See</u></i>: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_Ukraine#cite_note-8" target="_blank">President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken in favor of expansion of abortion rights</a>. <i><b>Note</b></i>: Exact references to Zelensky's support of abortion are difficult to get right now due to his name bringing up almost all stories re the current Russian invasion. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Also, the current president of the Ukraine, apparently after pressure from Joe Biden, is now a champion of LBGTQ rights. See: <a href="https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/02/ukraine-volodymyr-zelenskyy-joe-biden-lgbt/" target="_blank">The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has promised to fight for LGBT+ equality following a meeting with US president Joe Biden</a>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Meanwhile Putin is sounding like a "trad" Catholic bishop: <a href="https://www.washingtonblade.com/2021/04/06/putin-formally-bans-same-sex-marriages-in-russia/" target="_blank">Putin formally bans same-sex marriages in Russia</a>.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So here we have the Ukrainian president pro-abortion and pro same-sex marriage (and "in bed" with Joe Biden on both counts), and the Russian president anti-abortion and anti same-sex marriage. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Turning to Our Lady's urging at Fatima for the pope and the world's bishops to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart in 1917 lest Russia "spread its errors," it's ironic to find the current pope, another in a long line of popes who refused to do it, now decrying Russia's "errors."</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our Lady's apparition at Fatima is approved by the Church, so what is the reason our popes have refused to do what Our Lady asked them to do? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">That's a long debated subject but the one that makes the most sense is that church leaders at the time (1917) and since, were afraid of ticking off the communists and provoking Uncle Joe (Stalin, not Biden), to take out his vengeance on Catholics under communist control. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So our popes kept quiet and resorted to urging diplomacy instead of conversion. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">As the Church goes, so goes the world. This is no surprise. And neither should Putin's actions be a surprise. Nor would it be a surprise if the country most blessed by God but which recently elected the most radical pro-abortion administration in history, be the next target. Be it Heaven's or Hell's. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">"War is punishment for sin." - Our Lady at Fatima, 1917. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-36707459711816772522021-11-30T15:28:00.004+10:002021-11-30T15:28:39.559+10:00RESPONDING TO THE USUAL MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT "PRAYING TO MARY"<p>Christianity.com posted the following article:</p><p>There were the usual responses. </p><p style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="499" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D4543169525752300%26id%3D212409175495045&show_text=true&width=500" style="border: none; overflow: hidden;" width="500"></iframe> </p><p style="text-align: left;"> I left the following comment. </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b>The words of the Hail Mary don’t “pray to Mary,” the words ask her to pray for us. “Pray for us now and at the hour if our death.” They are the same words we use to ask others to pray for us.</b></p></blockquote>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-81750822470863329062021-11-30T14:45:00.002+10:002021-11-30T15:40:04.609+10:00THE SECRET TO TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN TO BE QUIET AT MASS<p>I was moved to share the following thoughts after I read this article: <a href="https://catholicsay.com/a-letter-to-the-parents-who-keep-bringing-their-disruptive-kids-to-mass-week-after-week/?fbclid=IwAR1HQLdujGXmYs_XYNZD1u4Eo9kEtJPwD3O6js8jpFtzvoOdaEBPg8yGxXs" target="_blank">A letter to the parents who keep bringing their disruptive kids to Mass, week after week.</a></p><p>+++++</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As one of the parents of 11 children, and who, for the most of our child-rearing years, attended Mass in a small chapel of maybe 20 people max, (where any noise was easily a distraction) we had a strategy. It was my job to take the disruptive child (usually the youngest) outside. Sometimes I'd miss the whole Mass. But not for long. The child usually settled down about year 2. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But here's the deal. The Mass we went to did not have constant sound, external stimulation, guitars, lectors, amplified singers, drums, moving around, etc. It was 90% absolutely silent. If you've guessed this was the Latin Mass, you are correct. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The lack of all that external stimulation had a quieting effect on my children, even as infants. Somehow they intuited that something special was going on and they learned to be quiet...because QUIET is what surrounded them. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">We had and still have 2 special needs children. One of them, Number 10, was extremely rambunctious. He was always on the move. But about age 2, he became absolutely quiet and even "contemplative." </p><p style="text-align: justify;">(As a P.S. William had been born with a nasal defect which caused him to snore loudly. Since William knew he could not make noise "in church," he would "deal with it" by just going to sleep. His snoring was so loud that I often had to pick him up off the floor and take him outside. This became a bit difficult because I was the "organist." LOL.)</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FBDNelLIyjpWYhY75OxTKfwTTxIqlIS8dE3pOumLb7yi2KL2vVQ6psx1b7-nyEZ9S4IcHLlUWPS_onyGRAGO1P_7DJI3tfkh8LF-kSkAvneQLsUMYXlKo1AJUaIwXzNb6Toh/s604/IMG_0021.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="604" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FBDNelLIyjpWYhY75OxTKfwTTxIqlIS8dE3pOumLb7yi2KL2vVQ6psx1b7-nyEZ9S4IcHLlUWPS_onyGRAGO1P_7DJI3tfkh8LF-kSkAvneQLsUMYXlKo1AJUaIwXzNb6Toh/s320/IMG_0021.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">William with his Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary <br />at Latin Mass. ca 2012. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">I gave William an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary and he would hold it against his chest at every Mass and was absolutely still for the more than hour long Latin Mass liturgy. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As soon as Mass was over, he was up and running out of the church and it would take most of his brothers and sisters to catch him as he ran around the church yard. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">For nearly 30 years we went to Mass with up to 11 children. But for a few instances when we had to take the little ones out of Mass, they all learned to "respect" the Mass because they were surrounded by "respect," which was absorbed by them as silence. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Let's stop blaming children and families. And families, let's stop making excuses for our noisy children. If you take them to a noisy place, they're going to be noisy. Sorry if you are unable to find a Mass where silence reigns. I understand how hard it is today. Every available second seems to be drowned in sound.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-76568906901935777472021-11-09T14:05:00.000+10:002021-11-09T14:05:01.258+10:00EARL NIGHTINGALE: THE TWO SONS<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://img.discogs.com/364nHZSZLyySapr_Vd6WTPjFAEQ=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/A-1624743-1351974614-7323.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="236" height="214" src="https://img.discogs.com/364nHZSZLyySapr_Vd6WTPjFAEQ=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/A-1624743-1351974614-7323.jpeg.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>Most who know Earl Nightingale point to his award winning talk "The Greatest Secret." It is indeed one of the greatest talks ever. <p></p><p>However, the following is my favorite story of his:</p><p>+++++</p><p>A man had two sons.</p><p>The man was a terrible, abusive, alcoholic, and beat both sons equally in alcohol-fuled fits of rage. </p><p>One son grew up to be a terrible abusive alcoholic.</p><p>The other grew up to be the opposite (i.e. never touched a drop).</p><p>Given that both were sons of the same abusive, alcoholic, father; and given that both turned out quite different, an enterprising sociologist once asked both sons the same question: </p><p><b>"How did you become the person that you are?"</b></p><p>Both sons had the same answer:</p><p><b>"What would you expect with a father like mine." </b></p><p>It's probably a parable and not a true story. But it's a story that has been played out millions of times. </p><p>We decide our destiny. NOT our parents...or our circumstances.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-17993798503842789742021-07-30T08:48:00.003+10:002022-04-21T11:06:16.467+10:00SIMONE BILES v AMERICA'S CULTURE OF DEATH<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0BoWpCJRJTU9WQe6dk5uUAeVDNn4JpVmAmmXCB1oaDz4b92G3bF6S1k2Btc8KgJisZtGT1IwVo-3exFUzz-vubRd8hfTIQfhNS2Fn-R4rhI2FeDLSOcZCPapg3fgN1lPCmObP/s1320/simone.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="1320" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0BoWpCJRJTU9WQe6dk5uUAeVDNn4JpVmAmmXCB1oaDz4b92G3bF6S1k2Btc8KgJisZtGT1IwVo-3exFUzz-vubRd8hfTIQfhNS2Fn-R4rhI2FeDLSOcZCPapg3fgN1lPCmObP/s320/simone.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have been following with some interest (and a certain sadness) the news about Simone Biles. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I love that girl for many reasons. Her story - the child of a drug addict mother - foster homes - adopted by her grandparents… </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Even her “tiny-ness” may have been due to her birth mother’s drug addiction. Also, she is a Catholic, as I am. But we’ll leave that out for now. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">There is no question that Simone is the greatest gymnast of all time. Simone had nothing to prove at the Tokyo Olympics. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Long ago (1968) the Olympics ceased to be a contest between individuals and their hard-earned prowess, and became another sham forum for evil politics - managed and ruled by “fat-ass” losers who puppeteer-ed magnificent persons like Simone, Comaneci, Phelps, Spitz, Keino, Ryun… </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>However, perhaps there is nothing new here. If memory serves, the Olympics were born not of a contest between individuals, but of a contest between Athens and Sparta - wherein magnificent persons were similarly puppeteer-ed by the same “fat asses” splatting upon their seats of honor, sucking on grapes, watching the games, and rotting in place. <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Leaving history and fast forwarding to now, I am amazed (but perhaps not really) that none of the “great commentators,” have zeroed in on the real problem - and for whatever reason, dare not touch it: I.e. Simone’s opportunists. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Simone, essentially a child prodigy, appears to have been following the same tragic track of other young prodigies who were pushed, used, functionally prostituted, monetized, and ultimately discarded by the likes of those who did the same to Michael Jackson, Judy Garland, Macauley Culkin, Wolgang Amadeus Mozart…</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Without getting too deep into all that (and not discounting their own adult choices), the tragedy of Simone is not Simone, but her managers, sponsors, and ultimately her coaches. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately, what is going on is a failure of Simone’s coaches - who - hitching their career wagons to Simone’s God-given and hard-earned abilities - were probably more than willing to overlook Simone’s health - physical or mental - to get her through one more Olympics so that their names and careers could last long after Simone Biles - who - given her age - was already at the tail-end of her abilities. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I believe it was Vince Lombardi who once said “there are no bad teams, there are only bad coaches.” Whether Lombardi actually said this or not isn’t important. What is important is that Lombardi proved this to be true. In the early 1960’s Lombardi took a team which was the laughing stock of the NFL and transformed the Green Bay Packers into the NFL’s winningest team by the end of that decade - with pretty much the same guys who hardly knew what a football was only a few years earlier.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Great coaches don’t coach athletes’ physical abilities. Great coaches coach athletes’ minds. It appears Simone’s coaches failed to do that. Perhaps they thought they could ride her to the top…one more time.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Simone, you don’t owe your “masters” anything - be they your coaches, your sponsors, even your “nation” - which sadly is a nation which has laws which would have had you slaughtered and sold for your body parts before you were born because of choices your mother made. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">How often I have heard politicians - even right here in Guam - support the killing of unborn children because of situations just like your mother’s…and yours. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">No. You don’t owe “America” anything. Today’s America would have had you killed and thrown in the trash before you ever took a breath.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The Olympics isn’t over. There is still time to do this just for you.</p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-78735513422790359652020-12-24T16:32:00.005+10:002022-04-21T11:06:35.307+10:00COVID-19: THE VATICAN VS "ONTIC EVIL" - AND SICKNESS & DEATH ARE PREMORAL EVILS<p style="text-align: justify;">Catholic moral teaching has become a fast moving target.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje7XOJ7RxMrYJgC_girryvLX2dV7YuXvfhxir81uD5POoOSD6uYf8PiOsEgyJ5I5jx-dn3BsVEtxP4OccWAhh-EzKGgzVzYA9qHhD-CXbLLz9yBB4BhQE8aza7ngDEcsj2Nlus/s1920/moral+teaching.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje7XOJ7RxMrYJgC_girryvLX2dV7YuXvfhxir81uD5POoOSD6uYf8PiOsEgyJ5I5jx-dn3BsVEtxP4OccWAhh-EzKGgzVzYA9qHhD-CXbLLz9yBB4BhQE8aza7ngDEcsj2Nlus/w400-h225/moral+teaching.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">This is mostly due to ever changing medical technologies which enable us to progressively address those things which normally shortened human life, i.e. diseases, bacteria, viruses, injuries, etc.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The 2019-2020 Covid thing has thrust medical technology to the fore as few things have in human - and Church - history. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The <span style="text-align: left;">Vatican is now telling us it is okay to get vaccinated with something that may or may not have been associated in one way or another with a cell line of which the origin is child aborted a half a century ago. (See </span><a href="https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/which-covid-19-vaccines-are-connected-to-abortion" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="text-align: left;"> for more.)</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">With the "Vatican" seemingly all over the place on everything these days from the death penalty to same-sex unions, no one can blame <i>us</i> Catholics in the Pews if wonder WHAT'S UP?</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><a name='more'></a>There is little help on this issue from our usually trusted sources: from pastors to the pope. <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And to confuse matters, we cannot be certain if there really is a pandemic or if there is a conspiracy to get rid of Trump via mail-in voting. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Following is an article co-authored by a trusted Catholic Moral Theologian, William May. I have broken it down into numbered sentences so it will be easier to read. I believe the article will help us better understand Catholic moral teaching especially during this confusing time. </p><p style="text-align: center;">*****</p><h2 style="text-align: center;">Making Good Moral Choices</h2><p><i><a href="https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/making-good-moral-choices-10375" target="_blank">Authored By: Lawler, Boyle & May</a></i></p><p>MAKING GOOD MORAL CHOICES: TWO APPROACHES by Rev. Ronald Lawler, Joseph Boyle and William May </p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><li>The problem facing us in this section concerns the standards and procedures for arriving at the judgment that a certain choice is morally good or bad. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The problem arises because it is not clear how the commandments of love are to be applied to actual human choices. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We have already seen that the love commandments require a concern and respect for human goods, but we have yet to see how that concern is translated into practical norms and procedures of moral thinking. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This difficulty is a real one in the present situation because Catholic theologians hold strongly opposed views on this matter. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>With some oversimplification it is possible to classify the opposing views into two broad approaches to moral thinking. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>They can be called, respectively, "proportionalism" and "the morality of principles." </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Both of these approaches are attempts to carry out the renewal called for by Vatican II; both seek to escape every kind of legalism and extrinsicism to show that morality is not a set of arbitrary rules imposed without concern for what the human person is and longs to be. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Both explain the moral teachings of Christianity in terms of love of persons, and of the great human goods that animate all moral striving-goods like those discussed in the preceding section. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Both seek to be faithful to the larger vision of Scripture and Christian tradition, understanding that man was made not simply to keep rules but to serve God creatively as his image, intelligently striving to do what is really good, what love requires. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalism is so called because of its emphasis on the proportion of good and evil in actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>According to proportionalism, an act which would otherwise be immoral can be justified morally if the overall good or evil involved in doing the action compares favorably with the overall good or evil which the available alternatives would bring about. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, its basic principle can be called the principle of the greater good, or more commonly, the principle of the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles is so called because of its concern for unfailing faithfulness to the first principles of morality, that is, for faithfulness to every person and every human good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, there is no necessary opposition between these approaches concerning the primacy of love or the nature of the human good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>They disagree about how love and the human good should shape our choices. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Each of these approaches to moral thinking is, of course, concerned with principles, and each shows real concern about the overall good and evil brought about by actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But proportionalism emphasizes the overall outcomes of acts, evaluating them in terms of the principle of the lesser evil; and the morality of principles emphasizes loyalty to principles in a way that precludes overriding this fidelity because of the overall good or evil the action brings about. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, the designations of the positions are descriptive of their central features. . Proportionalism, as already noted, is a method of moral thinking according to which a person ought to choose that alternative course of action which promises the greater proportion of good over evil.[24] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In other words, proportionalists believe that intelligent concern for the human goods requires an assessment of all the good and evil involved in alternative possibilities for action. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">The purpose of this assessment is to determine, prior to choice, which of the alternatives promises the greater good or the lesser evil. </span></li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This determination tells us which of the alternatives we morally ought to choose. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The proportionalist method is considered applicable to any moral problem, but the Catholic theologians who make use of it tend to limit its application in various ways. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li> This method is, however, used in an unrestricted form by many secular moralists. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>These thinkers are usually called "consequentialists," and they tend to treat the principle of the lesser evil as the single basic moral principle. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The most widely known form of consequentialism is utilitarianism. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In its classical versions this secular form of ethics held that there is really only one good that human action pursues, <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">pleasure</span>; and it taught that men ought always pursue that which leads to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."</li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Catholic proportionalists are far from being pure utilitarians. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The whole context of their thinking is Christian, not secular. Generally they acknowledge the objective goodness and distinctive reality of each of the kinds of basic goods that we have noted above. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, they reject the oversimplified identification of the human good with pleasurable experience.[25] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>They also rightly reject any suggestion that individual rights can be subordinated to the interests of society. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Most importantly, proportionalists acknowledge that there are some moral absolutes -for example, that one should never seek to lead another into sin. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, they admit significant limitations on the applicability of the proportionality principle.[26] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But proportionalists distinctively hold that the most common moral absolutes traditionally taught by the Catholic Church-and, even now, insistently taught by the magisterium -are not valid. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Ordinarily these moralists hold, against the received teaching of the Church, that not every act of contraception is immoral, that not every act of homosexuality or fornication is objectively wrong, that not every intentional taking of innocent human life is absolutely prohibited. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalists typically hold that no kinds of acts, when defined in purely descriptive language, that is, language that includes no morally evaluative terms, are wrong, or, if one were to mean by murder an unjust slaying of an innocent person, then they would agree that every murder is indeed wrong, for the characterization of the killing as unjust is sufficient to settle its immorality. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But the direct slaying of an innocent person is not held to be absolutely and in every possible circumstance wrong. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Such an act does not include evaluative terms in its description, and it is conceivable that in some extreme circumstances such an act would be determined to be the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In those circumstances killing would be a morally good act. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalists recognize, of course, that there are some alternatives for action that, although not excluded because they are by definition morally bad, are likely to cause greater harm in almost all circumstances. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To use one of their examples, it would be wrong to force a retarded child to have sexual relations. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Such a norm is a "practical absolute" which is "virtually exceptionless." </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But, as these phrases suggest, the norm here is not absolute in principle. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This, or any other act characterized in purely descriptive terms, might under some circumstances we cannot now think of be thought to be the lesser evil, and thus the correct thing to do.[27] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The proportionalist supposes that there is a radical difference between actions characterized evaluatively and actions characterized only in descriptive terms. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This difference depends upon one of the most fundamental distinctions in the proportionalist approach-that is, the difference between moral evil and premoral, physical, or <span style="background-color: #fcff01;">ontic evil</span>.</li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Moral evils are essentially morally bad choices and acts. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>By definition such acts may not morally be done. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, proportionalists would not allow the use of their method to justify an action already determined to be morally evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One important implication is that we should never act deliberately to cause another to commit sin. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Premoral evil refers to the depravation of some good that is due a person or a thing; premoral evils are really bad, but they are not as such immoral. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">Sickness and death are premoral evils</span>. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>They are obviously bad, but not as such immoral. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The question is whether choices deliberately to cause premoral evils are morally bad choices. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The proportionalist answer is that a choice of what is premorally evil can be morally justified if there is a proportionate reason-if choosing or intending that evil is the way to realize the lesser evil in the situation. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>As a leading proportionalist has put it: Where a higher good is at stake and the only to protect it is to choose a non- moral evil, then the will remains properly disposed to the values constitutive of the human good.... </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This is to say that the intentionality is good even when the person, reluctantly and regretfully to be sure, intends the non-moral evil if a truly proportionate reason for such a choice is present.[28] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, we have in the basic logic of the proportionalist method a ground for rejecting much of the Church's received teaching on sexual matters, for much of this teaching is about acts that can appear to affect only premoral goods, and it is possible to think of many situations in which the lesser evil will seem to require that one deliberately harm or fail to respect these goods. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Since recent popes, synods, and episcopal conferences have very frequently reaffirmed the validity and importance of moral absolutes in the Church's traditional sense,[29] it has become characteristic of proportionalists to hold that one need not assent to these teachings of the magisterium in specific moral matters. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">They hold this, even though the Church has taught these things with such force and in such insistent ways that many theologians believe they have been taught infallibly by the ordinary magisterium.[30] Proportionalists argue that these teachings are proposed only by a fallible magisterium, and that it is licit to dissent from the most insistent teaching of the ordinary teaching authority of the Church, if one has sufficient reasons. </span></li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Of the many arguments adduced in favor of proportionalism, two seem especially important. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The first is a philosophical argument that the fundamental principle of proportionalism is: Proportionalists argue that if one were not required to choose the greater good, or the lesser evil, the alternative would be that one would be obliged to choose the lesser good or greater evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This alternative is patently absurd.[31] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The self- evidence of the proportionalist principle is said to be confirmed by the fact that it is the natural, obvious way to determine the right course of action, as the actual moral thinking of good people reveals. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The good person will certainly concede that he ought not do what leads to a greater balance of evil over good; that is to say, he instinctively judges as a proportionalist. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The reason for this conviction is that morally serious persons care about what is really good, and this concern, if it is to be thoroughly reasonable, must justify the principle of the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The second major argument for proportionalism is that just as serious individuals make use of the proportionalist principle in their moral thinking so also does the Church. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, the adoption of proportionalism by Catholic thinkers, they claim, is a modest and legitimate development of moral themes already used by the Church, even if only implicitly. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This argument is often supported by examples of the role of proportionality in the just-war theory and as one of the conditions of the principle of double effect.[32] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This development of moral teaching is especially appropriate today, so the argument goes, for a variety of reasons. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>As noted already, Vatican Council II called for a renewal in moral theology. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In particular, the Council seems to have called for a more humanistic and less legalistic approach to morality. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalism seems to many to be the proper response to this need in the life of the Church. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It seems to be the worst sort of rule worship, the most uncaring legalism for a person to refuse to do an act necessary for avoiding great harms simply because it is prohibited by a moral absolute taught by the Church. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Pastoral reasons are also cited in support of the legitimacy of this development. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>People today will not and cannot accept the moral absolutes that so burden people in the new circumstances of a greatly changed world. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The claim that the proportionalist principle of the lesser evil is self-evidently true cannot be sustained. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This principle supposes that it is possible to determine which alternative has the better or the less bad effects overall. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To make this determination it must be possible to "commensurate" in an unambiguous way goods and evils at stake in human actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It must be possible, in other words, to rank, measure, or compare the goods and evils at stake. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One must be able to tell how much harm to one good is offset by the realization of some other good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Unless one can do this, the proportionalist method simply cannot work as a rational procedure of moral decision-making. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This commensurating of goods cannot be rationally carried out. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thinkers within the broad tradition of consequentialism have tried for centuries to show how human goods are commensurable but have never provided an account which is both analytically satisfactory and consonant with the common experiences of deliberation and choice. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>On the contrary, common experience shows that the goods at stake when a person must make a choice-the very situation in which moral guidance is needed-are not commensurable. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is because the goods between which we must choose are incommensurable that we must in the end settle what we shall do by choosing. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Powerful philosophical and theological arguments have been developed which show that the common experience of the incommensurability of goods must of necessity reflect the reality of human motivation and choice.[33] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Moreover, there are other problems with this method, problems about how to determine the consequences, how many consequences to consider, and so on, which have led many non-Catholic moralists to abandon consequentialism altogether.[34] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is somewhat ironic that Catholic thinkers have adopted a method of moral thinking that has been for over a century the centerpiece of secular humanist thinking at the very time when many secular moralists were despairing of its ability to withstand the objections raised against it.[35] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Those who deny the self-evidence of<span style="background-color: #fcff01;"> the basic proportionalist principle are in no way proposing that we are ever expected to choose the greater rather than the lesser evil</span>. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The claim is that proportionalists have selected an incoherent way to distinguish the greater and the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, what a proportionalist might claim to be the lesser evil really is not shown by proportionalist procedures to be the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">An example can clarify this. If a woman is considering having a direct abortion, she would, if following the proportionalist approach, list the central good and bad effects of deciding to have the abortion and of deciding to forgo it. </span></li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: white;"><u>Among the bad effects is that she would be choosing to kill directly and deliberately her own unborn child.</u> </span></li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Among expected good effects might be that she preserves her own mental and physical health, or that she saves the peace, unity, or financial integrity of her family. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li><span style="background-color: #fcff01;">But how could she objectively add and subtract among goods and evils so diverse?</span> </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Is the acknowledged evil of having the abortion such that it can be outweighed by the goods one anticipates by having it? </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>How could she determine this? </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Her feelings might lean one way rather than the other, but the need is for a norm that will give rational, objective guidance in such situations. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>A leading proportionalist tries to deal with this difficulty as follows: "In fear and trembling we commensurate"; "we a hierarchy."[36] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This approach seems to concede that there is no rational way to determine the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It proposes that one adopt, that one choose for oneself, a hierarchy of goods, as a way of rating the worth of the various goods. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One cannot do it objectively; but one how one will weigh alternatives; then one chooses in the light of the subjective evaluation that one has given. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>What this means is that one does not discover what is morally good; one decides what one shall call good by an arbitrary assessment. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One can indeed arbitrarily select ways of assigning values to the various incommensurable goods: of holding, for example, that the direct slaying of one's unborn child is an evil, nonetheless is less an evil than the sum of the evils which would follow if one did not have the abortion. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>However, this is evidently not a serious moral argument; it is a patent act of rationalization. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One does not learn or discover that one's moral evaluation is the right one; rather one arbitrarily decides to adopt a standard of evaluation that will make one's preference turn out to be the right course. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This objection to proportionalism does not imply that the phrase "lesser evil" has no use in the moral thinking of decent people, for it surely does play such a role. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But "lesser evil" does not have only the one meaning given to it by proportionalists. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Some people, for example, think that the morally right course of action is always good, even when it has very sad and tragic consequences. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Such persons might express this conviction by saying that the right course of action is the lesser evil, while never for a moment supposing that doing what violated a moral absolute could be the greater good or the lesser evil.[37] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>What the preceding argument precludes is only the specific use of the notion of lesser evil within the proportionalist method. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is by no means clear that morally decent people make use of this conception of lesser evil in their moral decision- making. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The second argument for proportionalism is also unsatisfactory. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalism is a far more radical position than its defenders acknowledge it to be. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li> It encourages rejections of moral norms that seem to be infallibly taught in the Church, and of positions that certainly cannot be legitimately rejected by Catholics, even if they are not infallibly proposed. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, proportionalism cannot be a legitimate development of Catholic moral teaching. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The basic problem is that proportionalism leads to the denial that many of the moral absolutes taught by the Church are in fact true moral absolutes. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Its history suggests that this is essential to its whole program, for it developed within the Church during the early 1960s as a rationale for justifying some use of contraceptives. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This denial of moral absolutes taught insistently by the Church involves a denial of a basic moral principle-namely, that one must not do evil that good might come of it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This principle, as enunciated by St. Paul (Romans 3.8) and taught by the Church over the centuries, excludes the possibility of overturning moral absolutes by appeal to consequences, and this is exactly what proportionalism enjoins us to do. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, it is implausible to maintain that a principle so opposed to what is fundamental in Church teaching can really be a development of that teaching. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The precedents cited in favor of this claim are unimpressive. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The fact that Christian tradition made use of some considerations about proportionality in some sense does not provide evidence for the claim that Christian tradition implicitly used or endorsed proportionalism, for it is not clear that proportionality was understood as a weighing of values, and even more importantly, such considerations were never used to overturn moral absolutes but only to settle issues in which it was clear that no moral absolute was at stake.[38] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Proportionalism therefore is not authentic development of received Catholic morality but a radical rejection of its central positions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Its claims to be the reasonable way to avoid legalism and to deal with pastoral problems are therefore suspect. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Unless one supposes that any approach to morality that holds for moral absolutes must be legalistic, then it is by no means clear that proportionalism is the only way to avoid it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Caring deeply for persons and their goods does not mean attempting impossible ways or calculating and weighing the consequences of acts. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Utter fidelity to persons and their goods seems to imply an absolute refusal to do kinds of acts that will harm them by attacking directly basic goods in them. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>And this refusal implies a rejection of the basic principle of proportionalism. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Similarly, pastoral love for the faithful is not shown by encouraging them to reject authentic (and perhaps infallible) Church teaching, and to live in ways that the Fathers and saints have always said would separate one from the love of Christ. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Even today it is an "eminent form of charity" to present Catholic teaching fully and persuasively, and to give every assistance to live in accord with its excellent norms. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>A final difficulty with proportionalism should also be noted. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is the development of a criticism of consequentialism highlighted by secular moralists-namely, that consequentialist forms of thinking tend to be demoralizing in a number of ways.[39] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Pastoral experience confirms the reality of this criticism. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>When the faithful are told that acts like those of adultery or fornication are not absolutely and always wrong but could be upright acts when proportionate reasons are really present, the faithful are deprived of bracing supports ordinarily necessary to strengthen them in the emotional and intellectual turmoil they experience at the time of temptation. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>If people are convinced that their own selves, their own moral identities, depend upon unswerving fidelity to moral principles, they have a defense lacking to those who are convinced that there is some way to rationally justify taking a course of action toward which they are inclined, although they know them to be unworthy. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The experience of our time shows how much human rights are threatened when small exceptions to necessary defenses of rights are allowed. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>For instance, few people wished the massive abortions now overwhelming the world. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>At first it was urged that some abortions be permitted "for very good reasons." </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But if abortions are permissible when the calculation of goods and harms permits it (a calculation that cannot be objectively valid; a calculation that will be mightily affected by hopes and fears), then the nonobjective nature of the calculation called for almost certainly leads to the terrible consequences brought about by abortion. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Clearly, there can be no inalienable rights when there are no exceptionless duties. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li> Proportionalism therefore is inadequate as an approach to moral thinking for Catholics. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Instead of providing guidance for the care and love of persons and their goods, proportionalism demands that human beings achieve a kind of knowledge only God could have, and undertake a responsibility for the consequences of actions that only God's providence can have. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Instead of fidelity to the limited but real commitments we all have and to the moral absolutes which mark the boundaries for proper human participation in God's providence, proportionalism tells us to look farther-to consider all the effects, to put on a scale things that reflect in irreducible ways God's infinite goodness. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This may seem noble to some, but it overreaches, taking as our own what we must trust to God's loving concern. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Our moral thinking must not suppose that we can extricate ourselves from the tragedies and evils of human life; only God's healing recreation can do that. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But we can be faithful, can have hearts and wills completely faithful to the goodness which God so loves and, in the end, will restore. Proportionalism, sadly, corrupts that fidelity. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>As noted earlier, we give the name "Morality of Principles" to the broad approach within Catholic moral theology which, on the one hand, seeks to meet the challenge of Vatican II for renewal in moral theology and, on the other hand, seeks to maintain continuity with the received teaching of the Church on moral matters and with the best of the moral thinking in the theological tradition. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The primary way in which the morality of principles maintains continuity with the tradition of Catholic moral teaching is by insisting on the truth and centrality of moral absolutes. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This approach holds that the specific moral norms taught by Christian tradition as holding in every instance do indeed have such universal applicability. Such norms as "never directly kill the innocent" and "never commit adultery" are held to be true, always binding, and nontrivial. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>There can never be any objectively good reasons for violating specific principles such as these. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This, of course, is not taken to imply that no moral norms have exceptions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Most norms do have exceptions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>"Keep your promises" and "obey all just civil laws" are true general norms, but there are certainly circumstances in which the good person recognizes that they do not apply. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>What is new in the morality of principles is its effort to show that the renewal of moral theology called for by Vatican II does not lead to an abandonment of the norms always taught in the Church but rather to a fuller understanding of why these norms are essential to the fabric of authentic Christian living. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To reject moral absolutes and the rich tradition of moral thinking developed for applying and refining them would not be to renew Catholic morality but to discard it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li> The renewal of moral theology is therefore understood within the morality of principles as an effort of deeper understanding and fuller appreciation of the significance of moral life within the economy of salvation. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is an effort to see how moral activity relates to the saving work of Christ, to the eternal destiny of Christians, and to the true humanism which faith has always held and Vatican II explicitly proclaimed. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus understood, renewal in moral theology looks deeper into the sources of faith and into Catholic tradition to overcome a presentation of morality either as merely legalistic rules and regulations imposed by God or the Church, or as a set of directives which rationalistic arguments might establish. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles therefore does not defend Christian moral teaching, including the teaching on moral absolutes, in a legalistic way. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One must not avoid blasphemy or homosexual acts regardless of the consequences of one's faithfulness to the rule simply because one superstitiously venerates rules. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Nor is the universality of the rule grounded merely in some command of God, who perhaps inexplicably demands faithfulness, even when more harm than good would appear to follow from faithfulness to the precept in a given situation. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Faith confirms that there are moral absolutes but also insists that moral absolutes are the requirements of love. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles recognizes that the implications of love are not simply rules but guidelines for authentic Christian life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Hence, proponents of the morality of principles point out that it is always wrong to do such deeds as faith has proscribed absolutely because acts such as these are incompatible with the goods of persons which God calls us to love and absolutely respect. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To do such acts is always to act in ways contrary to the full perfection of human persons and communities, and so it is to act in ways unworthy of persons created in God's image and called to act as he does-never willing evil, never harming love, and always respecting the dignity of persons. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Human goods are not ideals that dwell apart; they are the fulfillment of human persons, and flourish only in persons. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Hence, to act so as deliberately to harm a basic human good is to act against the fulfillment of a human person. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>And that is incompatible with loving the person. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The preceding argument in defense of moral absolutes is characteristic of the approach taken by those who hold for the morality of principles. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But since this is a broad approach and not a single theory, not all who take this approach would develop the argument in exactly this way. Some would emphasize the dignity of persons, and how this dignity cannot be respected unless certain absolute rights and obligations are honored. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Others would perhaps focus more on the precious human relationships and meanings that will be distorted unless these absolutes are accepted. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But all versions of the morality of principles hold that moral absolutes protect what is most precious, lasting, and valuable in human life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In this sense they are all profoundly humanistic; all are variations on the theme that genuine love requires a care and respect for persons which absolutely excludes certain kinds of actions, namely those that harm persons, manipulate them, or disregard their true dignity. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The contrast between proportionalism and the morality of principles is perhaps sharpest at this point, for while both are concerned for human persons and their goods, this concern is understood very differently by each. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Unlike proportionalism, the morality of principles does not suppose that the demands of love can be captured by a single simple moral principle, like the principle of the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>More important, the morality of principles does not require the mistaken assumption that the goods of human persons can be calculated and measured on a single scale. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li> The tradition's concern with a hierarchy of values was never construed as a scale on which one could calculate the lesser evil as a ground for moral judgment. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The recognition that human goods are not calculable in the way proportionalism supposes does not mean that there can be no rational way to honor and respect them. Quite the contrary. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We do not truly honor the precious goods of human persons when we are willing to harm them because doing so would, as we think, bring about the lesser evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles is serious about not harming human goods, and demands that in our acts we respect and honor each of them. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Of course, we cannot in a given act immediately promote and pursue all that is humanly good; but we can always do acts in such a way that all the goods of human nature are respected and honored. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Our fidelity to the whole good of human persons is often revealed not so much by the goods we seek but how we respect the goods that are not our immediate concern. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The basic principle of the morality of principles can be formulated therefore as a principle of respect for the entire human good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We must always act in such a way as to be open to integral human fulfillment.[40] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Concern for the goods of persons is not therefore realized by trying, as it were, to create a world in which the maximum possible amount of good is realized but in making ourselves persons who humbly cherish and respect all that is good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This is not an attitude of contempt for the harms and tragedies which befall human beings, nor is it an attitude of self-righteousness that cares only for moral rectitude and not at all for human problems. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is, rather, realism about the multifarious character of the human good and our limited ability to make the world good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is humility which recognizes that the solution to the problem of evil is not human action but God's healing re- creation. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is confidence that God will restore all that is really good and that we shall be part of the re-creation if only we cooperate by maintaining the steadfast loyalty revealed by Jesus and his saints, even in the face of failure and tragedy. \ </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles therefore is a form of humanism; but it is one in which the true good of man is seen in its full and proper perspective-the perspective of the kingdom of God made possible by Jesus' human acts and God's loving response to them. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, it is an approach to moral thinking which is fully open to the larger and deeper meaning of human existence made possible by the revelation of Jesus. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>In this respect, it compares favorably with the rather narrow, secular, and this-worldly emphasis of proportionalism. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Moral absolutes are only one ingredient in a morality of principles; but they have always had a distinctive place in Catholic moral thought. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Even the most corrupt societies have known that adultery is generally harmful, and that divorce is destructive of the basic human community. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But Christian thought has been distinctive in teaching that one should not commit adultery, slay the innocent, or seek divorce and remarry even for the most splendid reasons, even to avoid the most bitter consequences. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Christian faith has seen that there are in fact evil kinds of deeds, deeds that always involve assaults upon the love of persons. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Such deeds must never be done; there can be no "proportionate reason" for doing them. We must not do evil that good may come of it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We must not do even a small evil because a great good seems destined to come of it, or because a great harm can be avoided by doing it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>(St. Thomas More was right in judging that he should not affirm by oath false statements already so affirmed by virtually all the religious leaders of England, even though it seemed that little harm and slight additional scandal would come of it, and even though his own life, his family's hopes, and the possibility of influencing the king for the better might be salvaged by doing the evil.) </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The morality of principles respects the rich complexity of serious moral thinking. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It realizes that a good moral act involves more than doing a good kind of deed, or avoiding a perverse kind. It involves more than having good intentions in what we do, and more than seeking to avoid harmful consequences. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>St. Thomas Aquinas articulated what might be called a "principle of completeness" for evaluating human actions which required that good actions (like good persons and good realities of every kind) must be complete in their goodness.[41] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>According to this principle, every aspect of the act must be morally good: a single moral flaw, whether in the kind of action one does, or in the intentions with which it is done, or in the consequences of other circumstances with which it is done, is sufficient to render the act morally bad. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This principle does not prohibit actions because they have a tragic or unfortunate aspect to them; that would make most actions in this fallen world impossible. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The integrity required is the integrity of a wholly upright will, of one who is unwilling to do whatever is contrary to a complete and intelligent respect for what is really good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Acts and other realities are morally bad to the extent that they lack any essential trait needed for their integrity and fulfillment. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, for example, if an act promises so much harm, and to do little good, in its outcomes, one who respects the Golden Rule will not do the act even if it be of a good kind and done with a good intention. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>One cannot merge these factors together and judge that one may do a bad kind of act, or approve an act done for a perverse intention, if one perceives that the act, considered in all its features, will have a greater balance of good consequences or aspects over bad ones. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Each of the moral determinants must be good, or the act will not be a good one; it will not otherwise be faithful enough to what love requires. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Christian faith has always been more concerned that the faithful do excellent actions and so live morally excellent lives than that they produce many good effects in the world, or have wonderful things occur in their lives. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Our lives are constituted far more by what we do than by what happens to us. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Many people in today's world find this aspect of Christian faith to be very puzzling. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Modern secular humanists and, in particular, secular consequentialists reject it altogether, for consequentialists believe that it is not actions but the overall effects of actions that are morally most important. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Christian ethics, of course, does not deny that we have some responsibility for the predictable effects of our actions but maintains that our actions themselves are the center of moral life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Classical Catholic thought stresses the centrality of action because our free actions are the existential center of our lives. In our freely chosen acts we not only affect the world and other persons but also shape our own personalities and character. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>By choosing to do certain actions we determine ourselves to be one kind of person rather than another; we make ourselves to be friends of God by responding to his grace and freely loving all that is good, or we choose actions incompatible with love of God and fellowman. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Of course, we do not choose only actions in the narrow sense. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We also make large-scale choices that tend to establish the broader outlines of our lives: our vocations, our professional identities, and our basic relationships with other persons. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>And the measure of the responsibility we have for the wide range of consequences of our actions varies with the ways we relate ourselves to those consequences. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>What we deliberately choose to do and the ends we deliberately make our own have an especially great importance. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Clearly we do not, in every free choice and action, deliberately choose all that flows from such choices and acts: all the side effects, all the other things left undone, and so on. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>What is foreseen to come about as a result of our choices-but is not itself chosen-is voluntary in a way; but it is not itself freely chosen. It is accepted or permitted but not positively willed. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The voluntary acceptance of side effects is not self-determining in the way free choices of the objects and ends of our acts are.[42] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This difference is the basis for the crucial distinction in Catholic morality between what is directly willed or intended and what is indirectly willed or outside the person's intention. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To deny the moral significance of this distinction, as proportionalists often do, is to deny something fundamental to Catholic morality.[43] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>For if one rejects this distinction, and holds that there is no major difference between directly willing or doing evil and indirectly causing it, one would have to concede that it is permissible at times to do evil, and that there really are no moral absolutes. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>For it is scarcely deniable that even good people do, and cannot escape doing, acts from which bad effects flow. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>A parent who saves his or her child from the violent assault of an attacker may be able to do this only by a protective act that causes great harm or death to the assailant, however unintended that harm may be. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But if every act that causes harm is morally indistinguishable from an act in which the harm is directly done or intended by the agent, then the absolute moral prohibition of directly doing evil would be meaningless. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>To deny the moral significance of the distinction between directly doing and indirectly causing (or permitting) evil is unreasonable. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Anyone can see how different is the personal attitude toward evil in two cases: one in which the agent chooses only good, and allows evil to happen as the unintended effect of his or her actions when there are weighty reasons for doing so; and the very different case in which one fixes the heart upon doing or achieving the evil as a means toward some end. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Even God, in creating this good world, which is filled with adventures of freedom and responsibility, permitted the free evil deeds of his creatures (which he in no way directly willed to bring about). </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>If there is no difference between permitting evil and setting one's heart on it, God must set his heart on evil. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>But such a conclusion is not only absurd, it is blasphemous. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is possible for persons to set their hearts only on good. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Permitting evil is not choosing it. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Choosing evil can never be justified; permitting evil, while obviously not always justified, can sometimes be justified. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, it is not necessarily a violation of the Thomistic principle of completeness to accept bad consequences of actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This should not be done lightly, and must be avoided whenever possible. But if the alternative to accepting bad consequences is to choose to do an immoral act, one must endure the bad consequences, for to choose to do evil is to set one's heart against what is good, and to determine oneself as a person who rejects what the love of God and neighbor requires. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Catholic teaching has always held that it is a terrible flaw in an action-and a horrible tragedy for the one who does it-to do evil directly for any reason. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Even if the most precious and necessary goods could not be achieved except by doing a deed that directly does even a small evil, the good man should not do that deed. He must care to make the world good; but the most important good he is to do, the most pressing service he has, in making the world good, is to make his own heart good, by doing only good actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>If he cannot achieve goods he loves by good actions, he has no morally good way to achieve them. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Yet he can rightly hope in God, if, living rightly, he does what good he can do well, and trusts God to realize the goods that he himself cannot achieve in acting well. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Some protest against the traditional emphasis on freely chosen actions. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>They argue that actions alone are not the center of moral life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Character, or the basic and enduring moral orientation of the person, has a more profound significance. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This has led some moral theologians to locate the basic self- determination of persons not in free choices but in a fundamental or transcendental freedom which cannot be found in any discrete choice but rather in the fundamental orientation of a person's entire life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This fundamental option, and not our free choices, is said to be what determines our basic response to God, our very moral identities, and thus our eternal destiny.[44] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This theory is correct in emphasizing that our lives can and should be organized by a fundamental commitment which shapes and orders all our life in response to God's call. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is mistaken, however, in holding that this basic commitment does not flow from the free, deliberate choices of our ordinary moral life but is rather the fruit of an allegedly profound, somewhat mysterious act at a deeper and ineffable level of freedom. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Choices are spiritual realities and not physical events like the performances that carry them out. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>As Pope John Paul II has made clear, our free actions have not only a transitive aspect in which an event in the world is caused but also a nontransitive aspect which remains in the human self and determines the kind of person the agent is.[45] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Free choices therefore have enduring effects and in this enduring aspect are the basis for the virtues which form the fabric of a good life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The virtuous person is fundamentally one who has made the right free choices, and has made them in such a way that his or her entire personality, desires, reactions, and beliefs are integrated around these good choices.[46] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>So Christian morality is not too "act-oriented" but recognizes the importance of a life of integrated and stable commitment to the Lord's work. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Still, the Church also emphasizes that the discrete choices of a person's life are the root of personal self-determination and responsibility. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Human action is trivialized if we fancy that a single choice moved by grace cannot be important enough to merit salvation or tragic enough to lose it.[47] </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>Thus, a single free choice can change the fundamental orientation of a person's life, as the Good Thief changed his fundamental option on Good Friday. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>The freedom of our choices is that whereby we determine ourselves; it is the locus of the "soul making" which is the center of the moral life. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>It is the part of our natures which perhaps most fully images the supremely free Creator of all; it is the part of us which allows us to be friends of God, not because we were in any way constrained or forced to be such but because we ourselves choose to be his friends. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>This freedom, however, has its burdens that make us want to hide from its full reality. </li></blockquote><blockquote><li>We must, as the Church has always taught, use that freedom well; we must make hard choices but only good ones-choices to do actions that intelligently show that we love and cherish all that is good.</li></blockquote></ol><p></p><p><br /></p><p>ENDNOTES </p><p>24. See Garth Hallett, (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 46; Timothy E. O'Connell, (New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 153; Richard A. McCormick, (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981), pp. 354-355; Louis Janssens, "Norms and Priorities in a Love Ethic," , 6 (1977), 214; for a handy collection of proportionalist thought, see , ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (New York: Paulist Press, 1978). </p><p>25. See Richard A. McCormick, (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 5; here, McCormick makes clear that he accepts a nuanced account of the human good like the one set out in Part II of this chapter. </p><p>26. See Lisa Sowle Cahill, "Contemporary Challenges to Exceptionless Moral Norms," in (St. Louis: The Pope John Center, 1984), pp. 121-135, for a clear, recent statement of the restrictions on the use of the proportionalist method by one who is sympathetic to it.</p><p> 27. On practical absolutes, see Daniel Maguire, (New York: Doubleday, 1974), p. 99; on virtually exceptionless norms, see Richard A. McCormick, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1973), p. 73. </p><p>28. McCormick, , pp. 78-79. </p><p>29. For a recent magisterial statement on moral absolutes, see Sacred Congregation for the Clergy, (April 11, 1971), no. 63. The importance of moral absolutes for Christian morality is apparent to its opponents; see, for example, the influential article of Jonathan Bennett, "Whatever the Consequences," , 26 (1966), 83- 102. </p><p>30. Arguments for dissent from authoritative Church teaching are characteristic of the proportionalist movement. These arguments-involving more than appeals to the method of proportionalism-also involve views on conscience, authority, and ecclesiology. These matters will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5 of this book. </p><p>31. See McCormick, , pp. 78-79. </p><p>32. The most serious attempts by proportionalists to find this mode of moral reasoning in St. Thomas are those of John Milhaven, John Dedek, and Louis Janssens. See Milhaven's "Moral Absolutes in Thomas Aquinas," in , ed. Charles E. Curran (Washington: Corpus, 1968), 154-185, reprinted in Milhaven's (New York: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 135-167, 228- 236; Dedek's "Intrinsically Evil Acts: An Historical Study of the Mind of St. Thomas," , 43 (1979), 385-413; Janssens' "Ontic Evil and Moral Evil," , 4 (1972), 115-156, reprinted in , ed. Charles E. Curran and Richard A. McCormick (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 40-93, as well as Janssens' "Norms and Priorities in a Love Ethic," , 6 (1977), 207-238, and "St. Thomas Aquinas and the Question of Proportionality," , 9 (1982), 26-46. For a critique of the interpretation of Aquinas given by Dedek and Milhaven, see Patrick Lee, "Permanence of the Ten Commandments: St. Thomas and His Commentators," , 42 (1981), 422-4</p><p>33. For a critique of Janssens' interpretation of Aquinas, see William E. May, "Aquinas and Janssens on the Moral Meaning of Human Acts," , 48 (1984), 566-606. For attempts to find proportionalism in past Catholic thought, particularly in the just-war theory, see O'Connell, , p. 153. 33. This argument has been developed extensively by Germain Grisez in a number of his works; for a recent summary of the argument along with relevant references to earlier analyses, see his , ch. 6, q. F; see also Finnis, , p. 115. </p><p>34. See Alan Donagan, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 199-209. </p><p>35. See Dan W. Brock, "Recent Work on Utilitarianism," , 10 (1973), 241-276; Bernard Williams, (New York: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 89-107; and Bernard Williams and J.J.C. Smart, in "A Critique of Utilitarianism," (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 172-209. </p><p>36. Richard A. McCormick, "A Commentary on the Commentaries," in , ed. Richard McCormick and Paul Ramsey (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1978), p. 277. This volume contains McCormick's , already referred to above, along with responses by several moralists, including an important, critical essay by Paul Ramsey and McCormick's responses to the essays.</p><p>37. See Grisez, , ch. 6, q. E, for an account of various meanings of "greater good" compatible with common sense and the Catholic moral tradition. . See ibid., ch. 6, q. D, for a development of this rejoinder. </p><p>39. See Williams, , pp. 104- 105: ".... A utilitarian is always justified in doing the least bad thing which is necessary to prevent the worst thing that would otherwise happen in the circumstances (including of course, the worst thing that someone else may do)-and what he is thus justified in doing may often be something which, taken in itself, is fairly nasty. The preemptive act is built into utilitarian conceptions, and certain notions of negative responsibility (that you are as responsible for what you fail to prevent, as much as for what you do) are by the same token characteristic of it. This being so, it is empirically probable that an escalation of preemptive activity may be expected: and the total consequences of this, by utilitarian standards themselves, will be worse than if it had never started."</p><p>40. This statement of the first moral principle is adapted from Grisez, , ch. 7, q. F; for a different formulation, compatible with the one stated here, see Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), , tr. H.T. Willetts (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1981), p. 41; Wojtyla calls the basic principle "the personalistic norm" and explicates its meaning by contrasting it with utilitarianism and relating it to the love commandments. "The norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good that does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end. In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms this: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love. The positive content of the personalistic norm is precisely what the commandment to love teaches." </p><p>41. See , I-II, q. 18, a. 4, ad 2; this principle was adopted by later moral theologians and stated in the following pithy formula, which is almost impossible to render meaningfully in a literal translation: "Bonum ex integra causa; malum ex quocumque defectu." </p><p>42. See Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., "Toward Understanding the Principle of Double Effect," , 90 (1980), 527-538; and "The Principle of Double Effect: Good Actions Entangled in Evil," in , pp. 243-260. </p><p>43. For a discussion of this denial, see McCormick, , pp. 72-83. </p><p>44. See, for example, Josef Fuchs, S.J., "Basic Freedom and Morality," in his (Dublin: Gill, 1970), pp. 92-111. For references to other statements of fundamental-option theory along with a critical analysis, see Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., "Freedom, the Human Person, and Human Action," in , ed. William E. May (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1981), pp. 237-266. The articles by Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., and John R. Connery, S.J., in this volume provide further discussion and references on this matter. See also the remarks on this matter by John Paul II in (December 2, 1984), no. 17. </p><p>45. The self-determining character of a person's choices has been emphasized in the philosophical writings of John Paul II; see Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: D. Reidel, 1979), pp. 105-186, especially pp. 149-151. </p><p>46. See Grisez, ch. 2, q. l. 47. See Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Catholic Conference, 1976), pp. 10-12. Pages 78-97 of "Catholic Sexual Ethics" by Rev. Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., Joseph Boyle, Jr. & William E. May. Available from Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 200 Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750, also available in the Our Sunday Visitor Marketplace on the Catholic Resource Network.</p><p><br /></p>Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-44470708430078502632019-02-02T03:39:00.000+10:002019-02-02T05:39:32.083+10:00WHEN 9 MEN TOOK AWAY A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The belief that Roe gave women the “right to choose” is almost a metaphor for how much the 1973 U.S.Supreme Court decision is misunderstood, and why, after 45 years, Roe is still so hotly debated.</div>
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The fact is that Roe v Wade did not give women the right to choose. In fact, Roe left the right of women out of its ruling all together. </div>
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In Roe, the U.S. Supreme Court, first, gave the “right to chose” to the medical professionals (for the first trimester) and thereafter, to the government (for the second and third):</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician (Roe v Wade, Pp. 163, 164). </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the state, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health (Roe v Wade, Pp. 163, 164). </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>For the stage subsequent to viability the state, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother (Roe v Wade, Pp. 163, 164, 165). </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/113.html">https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/410/113.html</a></blockquote>
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As can be seen, nowhere does Roe give women the right to choose anything. </div>
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Ironically, while the abortion rights mantra has remained “keep the government out of our wombs,” the very ruling relied upon for that mantra is exactly what put government there in the first place.</div>
Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01305960063884511003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26555326.post-78109822623815342352018-07-23T16:06:00.004+10:002020-11-03T11:33:04.621+10:00THE END OF LIBERATION DAY, JULY 21, 2017. GUAM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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