Still Running Off at the Keyboard

FOCA VOTE MAY MEAN EXCOMMUNICATION

Catholic News Service reports

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Catholic members of Congress who vote for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) could face “automatic excommunication” if the act is determined to be “formal cooperation” in the evil of abortion....

At a press conference at the fall meeting of the USCCB held in Baltimore last week, CNSNews.com asked Cardinal George if the language in the Catholic Catechism that says “formal cooperation” in abortion incurs the penalty of excommunication would apply to a Catholic member of Congress voting for FOCA.

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense and the church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life,” CNSNews.com asked.

“If openly Catholic politicians vote for this Freedom of Choice Act, which would pretty much allow unfettered access to abortion in the United States, would it be an automatic grounds for excommunication? But even if it’s not automatic … could you just explain the process of the excommunication?” CNSNews.com added.

“The excommunication is automatic if that act is in fact formal cooperation, and that is precisely what would have to be discussed once you would see the terms of the act itself,” responded George.

“Could you expand on that, Cardinal,” a reporter asked.

“The categories in moral theology about cooperating in evil, which make you complicit in the evil even though you don’t do it yourself, are material cooperation, which is usually remote and therefore doesn’t involve you in the moral action except in a very auxiliary and minor way, and formal cooperation, which would involve you even though you are not doing it, in the way that makes you culpable,” said George.

“So we would have to take a look at each case, and at each law, to determine whether or not the cooperation is material or formal. We’ve never done that,” he added.

Thanks to a reader for the link.

FOCA BECOMING A HOT POTATO

Thanks to a reader for the heads up on this story at the Family Reasearch Council's website from which the following is taken:

FRC was relieved to learn from our sources on the Hill that the leadership will not pursue the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) next year. Thanks to FRC Action's ads, more Americans are aware of FOCA's devastating impact on the life movement. Now that our friends are rallying against FOCA, Democrats have decided the issue carries too much political risk. They plan to postpone the legislation until they can chip away at smaller pockets of the values movement.

Hang onto your values for dear life. They are under attack and the Dems are not going away any time soon. In any case, pro-choice may not have scored the unfettered victory they assumed on November 5. Will they still love their candidate when FOCA gets tabled?

PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY COMMENTS ON CCHD

Barak Obama, and ACORN at St. Louis Catholic. From the website:

Barack Obama knows the political value of ACORN. He gave $800,000 in campaign payments disguised as payments for "advance work" to an Alinsky front group called Citizen Services Inc.

Obama admits he got his start as a community organizer in Chicago, saying it was "the best education I ever had, better than anything I got at Harvard Law School." He tries to downplay his connection with ACORN, claiming he worked for churches, but he was trained by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation and then spent years in the 1980s teaching the Alinsky method to others through several Alinsky offshoots such as Project Vote and Developing Communities Project in Chicago.

Saul Alinsky's son Lee David Alinsky felt compelled to remedy Obama's failure to give proper credit. In a letter to the Boston Globe in August after Obama's open-stadium rally in Denver, the younger Alinsky wrote: "Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday."

Saul Alinsky explained his community organizing tactics in his book "Rules for Radicals." His game plan was to divide the community into the Haves and the Have Nots, make the Have Nots believe they are unjustly treated by the Haves, build resentment against the American social and economic system, use church congregations to mobilize street agitators, and lobby government for higher taxes and big-spending welfare programs in order to confiscate the wealth and power of the Haves and turn it over to the Have Nots.

Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer, "the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom."

Another Alinsky quote seems remarkably prophetic: "Ego must be so all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego."

YIKES! We're going to call this man "Mr. President".

Meanwhile it seems that the Vatican likes Obama except for the life issues according to TIME's Jeff Israely:

Beyond bioethics, Vatican officials generally view the incoming Administration's economic and foreign policies as a marked improvement over the past eight years, which included vocal criticism from Rome over the war in Iraq and skepticism toward the unfettered capitalism preached by Republicans. The possibility of an open clash over abortion could squander the potential for the Vatican to work side-by-side with Washington on issues such as Middle East peace, human rights and environmental protection. It might also tighten the smiles when it's time for that first photo op.

That leaves this Catholic in confusion about the papal opinion of us Middle Class Americans who have already formed serious doubts over the Levada appointment.

Politics is a dirty game. When the Church becoms involved, the results are checkered, as Church history shows. Just look at Medjugorje! On the subject of political candidates we have no promise of infallibility. Ditto on the subject of economics. What game is the Vatican playing--and is the Vatican playing only one game, or are factions doing their own thing on the world stage? The faith rock feels more like sandstone about now. What surprises does the Vatican have in store for us next?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

NEW JERUSALEM UPDATE

Dr. Miguel Leatham of Texas A & M made a presentation at an October (year ?) convention of The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in St. Louis, on New Jerusalem, Mexico. Some of the material he presented is online here. Scroll down to the subheading "Mary in Modern Mexico."

Here we are told Gabina Romero had a vision of the "Virgin of the Rosary" in 1973 and chose a local priest, Fr. Nabor Cardenas, as her prophet. Fr. Cardenas gathered together the words of the Virgin into what he called "the latter-day 'Gospel of the Virgin'" in which he condemned the changes of Vatican II.

Gabina died in 1981. Her replacement died in 1989.

Since then, Fr. Nabor has taken center stage, receiving messages from various souls in Heaven and Purgatory. The group believes before the year 2,000 the world will come to a cataclysmic end. The group believes that they will be protected by being taken into the air (a "Marian Rapture") and that they then will live on in an earthly paradise.

A few American members of the community have come there from Bayside, New York (the condemned prophecy of Veronica Leuken). The report also claims that members of the New Jerusalem community "were not conventionally religious before their association with the group." In Mexico "conventionally religious" would be Catholic, so apparently the members of the group were not convetionally Catholic before joining the community. What would that mean?

Another article in Spanish can be found in Google translation here. Three bits of information can be gleaned from this article:

1. The town is guided by "voices beyond the grave".

2. The seer Don Agapito was seen in February 1998 "acting as a conduit of a spirit named Oscar"

3. The Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein was inspired by New Jerusalem to make the film "The Gospel of Wonders" in 1998.

Since these peasants were not members of a conventional religion prior to forming the town, could they have been followers of Rodney Collin, the devotee of Gurdjieff apologist P. D. Ouspensky, who went to Mexico following Ouspensky's death and founded a community? Collin converted to Catholicism a year before his death. Among Collin's followers was a woman named Mema Dickins. The closest thing to a biography of Collin currently in print is the book by Joyce Collin-Smith CALL NO MAN MASTER. She says of Memma Dickins:

Mema had taken complete charge of Rodney's few people now, and Janet [Collin's wife who followed Mema after his death in 1956] was her obedient disciple. The Chamber of the Sun and the Chamber of the Moon had been converted, at Mema's command, into two chapels, the one to the Christ, the other to the Madonna. (p. 107)

Mema allowed Collin's library at his compound outside Mexico City to fall into ruin.

Mema had vetoed much of the collection as being unsuitable reading for Roman Catholics. The first editions, and the priceless volumes on magic, alchemy and so on had been deliberately destroyed. The other works would just disappear quietly. Nothing could apparently be done about it. Janet who had inherited everything, had a perfect right to destroy them if she wished.

Mema now had a group of young trainee Catholic priests from an ecclesiastical college around her. Her 'voices' were conveying Christian messages to them. In addition, she had developed the stigmata. Her bleeding palms were shown every Friday. I never saw them, of course. I know many people were deeply impressed by the manifestation. But someone who had seen it had said to me: "I saw how it was induced"... (p. 107)

Is it only coincidental that Don Agapito channeled a spirit named "Oscar" which is the first name of Oscar Ichazo, the man who put the Enneagram on the Catholic map with the help of dissident priest Fr. Richard Rohr?

Moving on...

Arturo Ripstein has not only made a movie inspired by New Jerusalem. He has also made a movie about Mexican Jewish artist Jacqueline Ripstein, who has been involved with the circle surrounding Barbara Marx Hubbard, and also with the circle surrounding the disobedient Franciscan Fr. Jozo Zovko from Medjugorje. Ripstein works with ex-Franciscan James Twyman, whose community uses the Enneagram, and who saw a vision of a woman on apparitions hill at Medjugorje and took a picture which was subsequently the inspiration for Jacqueline Ripstein's painting of Our Lady of the Universe.

Arturo's film of Ripstein's artwork can be found on his website. It's titled "The Mirror of Your Soul". If you watch it, you will discover how much Masonic symbolism it contains.

DECLARING WAR

LifeSite News reports:

WASHINGTON, November 19, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The possible signing of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) by President-Elect Barack Obama would be "the equivalent of a war" an unnamed senior Vatican official recently told TIME magazine.

The startling comments make the second time this week that a Vatican official has forthrightly and in the strongest language condemned Obama's extreme policies on abortion. Speaking at the Catholic University of America a few days ago, Vatican Cardinal James Stafford labeled Obama's anti-life policies as "aggressive, disruptive, and apocalyptic," also noting that, "On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake" (see coverage: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111703.html ).

With Catholic, but outspokenly pro-abortion individuals occupying two prominent positions (Joseph Biden as vice president and Tom Daschle as Health and Human Services Secretary) the specter of public excommunication or denial of communion for prominent members of the Obama Administration has arisen.

HERESY ON THE RIGHT

When the right goes over the top, things become rather bizarre through the tendency to seek out visionaries. A village in Mexico is no exception. It's considered one of the largest "Catholic" enclaves in the world, but it gets little publicity. New Jerusalem, Mexico is not even on the map.

The town was founded in reaction to Vatican II, according to Chris Hawley, reporter for the Arizona Republic, Mexico City Bureau. The reporter's article on New Jerusalem can be found here. It's quite a story encompassing visionaries, violence, and regimentation, daily Mass attendance, perpetual adoration, and schisms. Hawley writes:

The town was founded in 1973 as a reaction to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65....

Nabor Cardenas, a parish priest in the town of Puruaran, opposed those changes. He began urging his followers to settle on the site after a local woman, Gabina Sanchez Romero, claimed she saw a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, warning that the Catholic Church had gone astray and the world would be destroyed before 2000.

Mass is celebrated in the traditional Latin. Cardenas was stripped of his ordination. But the tourist busses started rolling in, bringing a lively tourist trade. Americans came and some stayed. A traditionalist sect in New York City provided residents as did one in Fort Collins, Colorado. By the 1980's there were 8,000 residents.

Cardenas declared himself archbishop--"Papa Nabor"--and used a papal hat to say Mass. Seminaries and monasteries and convents formed.

Anthropologist Miguel Leatham compares it to the Little Pebble colony in Australia and the Society of St. Pius X in St. Marys, Kansas. He claims the town is the biggest apocalyptic colony in the world.

In 1981 the seer Sanchez died and a new seer took her place, a 16-year-old girl, Maria Parteaga. Many in the town refused to acknowledge her and formed their own chapel; but she had the ear of Papa Nabor, and so the dissident chapel was burned in 1982 and the dissidents chased from their homes, using rocks, machetes and boiling water. 680 people were expelled.

In 1991 a new seer, Agapito Gomez, took town doctrine in a new direction. According to Hawley:

"Don Agapito" would mimic different voices into a tape recorder, and nuns would then transcribe those supposed messages from the afterlife. Gomex claimed to channel Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's president from 1934 to 1940; Kennedy [JFK]; and other figures.

Hundreds more were expelled in 1997 for not believing in these new revelations.

"The Virgin doesn't want there to be children because the way the world is now, she doesn't want them to suffer,' said Richard Garcia, a priest who goes by the name Bertholo Abad.

When each deadline for the apocalypse passed, church leaders claimed that the world had been spared because the Virgin Mary had taken pity on it.

Then came the orders to build new public works, such as the hilltop-chapel complex and the 11-story cylindrical tower near the main gate. Meanwhile, most of the town's streets are still unpaved.

"The tower took two years to build, and we haven't been able to finish it because there have been so many projects that Papa Nabor wanted done," said Geronimo Diaz, the town's assistant administrator. "We still don't know what it's for."

Whoever questioned such orders was labeled a "turbado," or disturbed person, and expelled from the town.

Beginning in 2004, the purges came faster. The seminary was closed, with students expelled. A group of priests who weighed possible "errors" in Gomez's visions was thrown out.

The state government intervened, sending riot police to keep order. Scuffles continue between the warring parties. The state built an elementary school in which girl students are allowed to expose their hair, a practice forbidden in the town, and students are permitted to play ball games, another forbidden practice. Satellite New Jerusalem churches across Mexico tend to side with the dissidents. Pilgrims have disappeared, and young people are seeking jobs elsewhere. Papa Nabor died on February 19 at the age of 98. The seer, Gomez, died in September, and no new seer has emerged. The population is aging, though they still share a weekly meal at the church on Wednesdays.

New Jerusalem is located outside of Mexico City as a map at the website indicates. There is also a link to further information, which takes you to a series of 24 pictures of the town. One of them is of particular interest. You can view it here. Notice the eye in the triangle?

New World Order eye?

Dissident priest Fr. Richard Rohr founded a New Jerusalem community in Cincinnati before founding the Center for Action and Contemplation that makes use of the Gurdjieffian Enneagram.

While researching the works of P. D. Ouspensky, Gurdjieff's primary apologist, I discovered that he lived in Mexico and founded a community outside of Mexico City. Could this be the same community? So far I can't determine whether it is. There is not a lot of material available about New Jerusalem, Mexico.

In any case, there is another group that is attempting to found the New Jerusalem. The followers of Emmanual Swedenborg name their churches "New Jerusalem." Swedenborgians also seek visionary experiences. Curiously, there seems to be a connection--the book OBSERVING SPIRIT: EVALUATING YOUR DAILY PROGRESS ON THE PATH TO HEAVEN WITH GURDJIEFF AND SWEDENBORG, which is sold on the Swedenborg website.

OK, maybe it means nothing. Maybe it's just a lot of coincidences. But it sure is interesting, don't you think?

KEYES QUESTIONS OBAMA CITIZENSHIP

From a link provided by New Oxford Review:

SACRAMENTO, Calif.- A former opponent of Barack Obama's has come back to haunt him over questions regarding Obama's citizenship.

According to a press release from the American Independent Party, former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and other members of the party have filed suit in California Superior Court in Sacramento to stop the state from giving its electoral votes to President-elect Barack Obama until documentary evidence is provided to prove Obama is indeed a natural born citizen of the United States.

LITURGICAL CONFUSION OVER POSTURE

My husband and I were watching the news this morning. I don't remember what triggered it, but suddenly my husband said, "There is so much confusion no one knows what one is supposed to believe about Catholicism anymore. The problem is too many changes."

I agreed. Case in point--the orans position.

Some years ago we had mini-chaos at the Our Father as everyone scrambled to find a hand to hold. It was worse in some places than others. Some congregations made an effort to be sure that no hand should go unheld. It made for a lot of movement in the pews. Then Bishop Pilla did away with this scramble in the Cleveland Diocese, offering other postures that did not involve seeking companionship with anyone but the Lord. Among those suggested as options was the orans position. It has been taken up by a majority at the Masses I attend and always seems stilted and affected to me, so I don't use it.

I was poking around the Catholic web yesterday and stumbled upon this little bit of information at the EWTN website:

In the rubrics the Orans gesture is asked principally of the Main Celebrant, but on those occasions where either a priestly action is done (Eucharistic Prayer) or prayer in common (Our Father) all the concelebrants do it.

It is never done by the Deacon, who does not represent the People before God but assists him who does....

As the Holy See has recently pointed out, confusion has entered the Church about the hierarchical nature of her worship, and this gesture [orans] certainly contributes to that confusion when it conflicts with the ordered sign language of the Mass.

Nice. Pope says "no", bishop says "yes". Shall we flip a coin?

The USCCB website doesn't help. It tells us:

No position is prescribed in the present Sacramentary for an assembly gesture during the Lord’s Prayer.

So we are left with opinions--like Bishop Pilla's opinion.

He had some other opinions as well. I quoted them in an ancient blog for which the coding has become undone. Scroll down to near the bottom of the website where a blog on Sunday, September 21, 2003 is titled "GIRM". Ironically, while orans caught on, bowing during the Creed, also suggested, did not. Neither did standing for communion, though there frequently appears in any given congregation, one or two people who determinedly stand in the pew during communion. I always have to suppress a little chuckle over that.

Saint Louis Catholic recently took up the question. The following is taken from the answer by Msgr. Matthew Mitas:

In the 1990s, many of our American bishops were disturbed that a great number of our people had adopted the practice of holding hands at the praying of the Lord’s Prayer, another practice not mandated. Unsure of how best to bring this abuse to a halt, they proposed making the orans posture mandatory for all the faithful at Mass, and petitioned the pope to ratify the change. The Holy Father, however, rejected their petition, because the orans posture is recognized as a priestly posture and inappropriate for the laity to assume at Mass. (Anyone, of course, can assume whatever posture he chooses in his private, non-liturgical prayer.) By that time, however, some parishes and priests had already jumped the gun and started the practice and, obviously, have failed to curtail it despite the instruction from authority in Rome.

Over at Adam's Ale, where Fr. V blogs from Cleveland, the subject of the "Pilla Rite" has turned up in a comments box:

Anonymous said...

Father V,

Do you think the Diocese of Cleveland will be doing away with the "Pilla Rite" Masses anytime soon? The Orans position and the standing when we should be kneeling are drving me crazy!
Tuesday, May 08, 2007

uncle jim said...

last anon-

for the sake of comparison and comment, can you tell me when in your diocese you stand when you should be kneeling, etc.
just so i can compare to what is happening where i live
and when the orans [is it your contention that it should never be used?]
Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Fr. V said...

Section 43, paragraph 3 of the GIRM states in part that in the Unites States the people should kneel from after the Sanctus until after the Great Amen. Then again after the Agnus Dei unless the diocesan bishop determines otherwise (as is according to the universal rite.) Bishop Pilla has determined that we should not. I'd rather especially in the doubful Eucharistic climate in which we live that we kneel - but it is a matter of obedience. That is what we are called to and it is a matter over which he has (had) jurisdiction.

The orans position however is not. Confronted about this innovation the person who introduced it to the diocese backed off stating that it was a suggestion (a forceful one, but one none-the-less) I must say that although I personally find it a bit trite in this situation it is a far, far improvement of some of the absolute silliness that we've witnessed with holding hands at the Our Father - you'd think in some parishes that that was the most important part of the rite.

It is true that standing after communion is preferred, but JPII stated emphatically that if one chooses to kneel after returning from communion even if for purely personal pius reasons, he shall not be refused the right to do so (those aren't the exact words, but I am too tired to look it up tonight.) So at my last parish I would not give an instruction. I said it was preferable to stand but they had a right to do as they pleased. Interestingly some people were quite angry. (Somebody is always angry) Some wanted me to force everyone to stand, some wanted me to force everyone to kneel, some wanted me to tell them one or the other so that they didn't have to decide. I felt I didn't have the right other than to inform them of the above. In the end it worked out rather well - or at least I think.

He seems to have a nice sense of humor about it, which beats getting angry every time, though even as I strive for humor instead of anger, I wonder if that's a Christ-approved response to the goings on at Mass.

It's also nice to discover that Fr. V. gets angry when he attends a Mass filled with innovations:

Sunday morning, because of the situation, I attended mass in the pew at the church where I was as opposed to my usual role as celebrant. The mass was so poorly celebrated, there were so many invented rites and additions to the mass that I found myself angry. It was a struggle to remember that I was there to pray and not to critique but all I could think of was grabbing the priest afterwards and asking what the get out he thought he was doing. (I didn’t.)

In any case, we seem to be a congregation of reprobates at the parishes where I attend Mass, since we kneel after the Our Father, whether retired Bishop Pilla likes it or not!

On a positive note, I attended a Baptism last Sunday, conducted by a newly ordained deacon on his way to the priesthood. It was gratifying to listen to him talk about original sin and the grace from the sacrament wiping it out. None of the nonsense about joining the Church was brought into the rite. Instead it was beautifully Catholic. We were told this was the deacon's first baptism ceremony and that it was going to be a baptism of fire because five babies were being baptised. The "fire" did not even come close to consuming him. He "burned" like incense with the fragrance of heaven. I'm already wondering whether this future priest's first assignment will be within driving distance.

CATHOLIC NEWS IS BORING

this morning. The sites I checked are still highlighting mostly yesterday's stories, and the news search engine I use is doing a lot of the same.

There is one story. It's been around for some time, but the Los Angeles Times has an opinion piece posted yesterday that may be of interest:

The Vatican recently issued a statement re-emphasizing that even chaste gay men are to be barred from the priesthood. Never mind that large numbers of gay priests -- estimates range from 25% to 50% -- already serve the faithful, with most adhering to their vow of celibacy.

"Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood," released Oct. 30 by the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education, not only reiterates the teaching that men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies are unworthy of ordination, it also urges seminaries to enlist the aid of psychologists in screening candidates for homosexuality and other "psychic disturbances."

The Vatican's hard line against chaste gay priests seems to be inspired by the condemnation the church justly received for its passive response to the sexual abuse of minors -- most of them male -- by some priests.

Won't this put some homosexual priests in the bizarre position of telling seminarians they cannot be admitted to the priesthood because they are homosexual? How can the seminaries be purged while homosexual priests and bishops remain in place? Is it reasonable to assume that homosexual seminary rectors are going to abide by these guidelines? That homosexual bishops are going to enforce them? If a homosexual seminarian is to be barred from the priesthood, why is a homosexual priest not also barred?

Somehow I tend to see this decree as largely cosmetic and not substantive given the likelihood of nonenforcement.

Then there are the statements from Randy Engel's book THE RITE OF SODOMY:

Pope Paul VI is identified as a homosexual in numerous homosexual publications and his name appears on virtually all lists of prominent homosexuals found on various Homosexual Collective websites. (p. 1152)

During the mid-1930s, Hugh Montgomery was assigned a diplomatic post at the Vatican as the Charge d'Affairs under Sir Alec Randall, the British representative to the Holy See. It was here that Hugh met an equally up and coming Italian junior diplomat, Msgr. Battista Montini, who allegedly shared Hugh's sexual proclivities and the two men allegedly engaged in an affair. (p. 1153)

Roger Peyrefitte, Franch novelist and former ambassador was born in 1907. He is an avowed homosexual and known for his outspoken views in defense of "gay rights".

In 1976, Pyrefitte gave an interview to D. W. Gunn and J. Murat representing the Gay Sunshine Press on the subject of Pope Paul VI's alleged homosexuality.

Peyrefitte said that in January 1976, the pope gave a public speech in which he condemned homosexuality, masturbation and premarital sex. Peyrefitte said he was incensed by the pope's hypocrisy since it was known in certain circles that while Montini was Archbishop of Milan he had a homosexual affair with a young movie actor, whose name Peyrefitte knew. The French writer said that he did not get this information from "communists or doormen" but from members of the Italian nobility with whom he was well acquainted. His Milanese sources indicated that it was a political secret in certain circles that Montini went to a "discreet house" to meet boys and that he had a particular favorite whose first name was Paul. (p. 1154)

One of the statements made by Bellegrandi that attracted my attention was that Montini no sooner took office than he was subject to blackmail by Italian Freemasons. In exchange for their silence regarding Archbishop Montini's furtive sojourns to Switzerland to rendezvous with his actor lover, who appears to have been quite open about his relationship with the prelate, the Masons demanded that the pope eliminate the Church's traditional ban on cremation after death. The pope complied. (p. 1156)

There can be no question that Pope Paul VI's homosexuality was instrumental in the paradigm shift that saw the rise of the Homosexual Collective in the Catholic Church in the United States, at the Vatican and around the world in the mid-20th century. (p. 1157)

If homosexuals are determined to be unfit for the priesthood in 2008, what made them fit for the priesthood when Montini was ordained? If Montini was unfit for the priesthood when he was ordained, was he fit for the papacy? If he was unfit for the papacy, what does that say about the validity of that earthquake encyclical which has brought us untold grief, Humane Vitae? Might blackmail have somehow been a factor in the passage of the encyclical?

SATANIC CULT BELIEVED BEHIND ATTEMPTED THEFT OF HOSTS

From a link at New Oxford Review comes this story. WPBF.com Jensen Beach, Florida reports:

John Samuel Ricci was arrested Saturday after Father Marco de Leon said he tried to grab a handful of wafers, called hosts in Catholic vernacular, from him during communion services. Several parishioners held Ricci down until authorities arrived.

Two days earlier, another man was caught on a surveillance camera stealing the church's new book of prayers.

"There are satanic cults in the local area, and in order for a black mass to be properly conducted ritually, they need consecrated hosts," or religious items blessed by a priest, Moligano said.

Additionally, snakes were found outside of the church doors and appeared to be trying to obtain entrance. A live snake was also found curled around the handlebars of Ricci's bike that had been placed in storage.

MATT ABBOTT ASKS "ARE GAY ACTIVISTS DECLARING WAR ON CHRISTIANS, MORMONS ?"

In his column at Renew America. He writes:

Not surprisingly, one hears homosexual activists spout the usual mantra of "separation of church and state." Of course, the mantra is directed only at those who defend authentic marriage and the sanctity of human life; the pro-abortion, pro-sodomy "Christians" can talk about Jesus as much as they wish. Also, we really don't have separation of church and state; we have, as the late Father John A. Hardon, S.J., asserted, subordination of church to state....

I reserve the right to print in this column any nasty and/or threatening e-mails, along with the offending individual's e-mail address, for all to see.

There is a link in the article leading to a statement by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.'s assertion. There is also a link to an article detailing what's wrong with homosexual "marriage", and one providing arguments against claims that homosexuals are more peaceful than right to life demonstrators.

CUYAHOGA COUNTY CORRUPTION PROBE

Among the names being mentioned in the probe is Jamie Pilla, an auto dealer and nephew to retired Bishop Anthony Pilla.

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Spirit & Life®
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Human Life International e-Newsletter
Volume 03, Number 41 | Friday, November 14, 2008
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Election Part I: "We Have No King But Caesar"

The following is the first of a three-part series on the 2008 Elections. In the next two weeks we will deal with issues of Culture and Conscience.

Now that the election is over, we can separate the real Catholics from those who just act the part. Those still reeling from the results of the election can rest assured that they are in good company with the saints. Those who have drawn a line in blood and made a decision to stand with the culture of death need a serious examination of conscience. Now look at what we've done to ourselves. America has made her "choice" for maximum leader and it is not pretty. In fact, it is one of the most devastating blows to American civilization that we have ever undergone, and I do not speak in hyperbole. Even such a saintly figure as Mother Theresa said that "a nation that kills its children has no future;" likewise, an authority like Fr. Benedict Groeschel recently commented that we have entered into "the beginning of the twilight" of our country - dire words that touch on the reality of electing the most extreme, pro-abortion candidate America has ever had the misfortune of occupying the highest office of our land.

This has happened before though. When the prophet Samuel complained to God that the people of Israel were asking for a king, the Lord God replied that they were not rejecting Samuel but were in actual fact rejecting God Himself, His sovereignty and His authority over them (cf. 1 Sam, ch. 8). He also told Samuel that the people would have to accept the consequences of their wicked desire, and as we know, the craven need to be like the surrounding pagan nations was a bitter pill for them to swallow. The people of Israel echoed that rejection of their God more than a thousand years later when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords stood before them in Herod's derisive purple robe and the people shouted, this time with vehemence: "We have no king but Caesar!" In essence, we have chosen a Barabbas over Christ - again.

And choices have consequences they say. The consequences of this election will be imprinted upon our national conscience for years to come, one of which is that, by electing abortion extremists to rule over us, both in the Presidency and in the Congress, we have now lost the blessing promised in Psalm 41:1-4 - "Happy those concerned for the lowly and the poor; when misfortune strikes, the Lord delivers them. The Lord keeps and preserves them, makes them happy in the land, and does not betray them to their enemies. The Lord sustains them on their sickbed." It is hard for Americans to imagine that a land so consecrated could be shriven of that blessing. Yet, we have made our sickbed and we must lie in it.

This did not happen, though, without dire and prolonged warnings about the institutionalization of evil. We can't say we were not warned. When moral persuasion about the killing of innocents did not work, rational science was our witness. When science was ignored and then co-opted for the works of death, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases came to awaken people's consciences, but these did little better. God then had to allow such an onslaught of terrorism, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes and tsunamis in the past decade that He surely thought we would wake up to the deadly reality of the culture of death and repent. When that didn't happen, He hit us in the most sensitive spot on the human body: our wallets. The gas price hikes and the recent financial meltdown surely would do the trick, He thought, but apparently that did not work either because our people adamantly refused to be deterred at any price from our lust for abortion and put into office all those who would serve the interests of this unholy agenda for decades to come. Alas, we all need to get on our knees and repent from the very depths of our hearts for the plague that we have just invited onto our beloved nation.

At the same time, my friends, despite the dismal picture, this is a time to thank Almighty God for the gifts of life, love and family that we have been given. It is also the time to seriously engage in efforts to take the culture back so that eventually our politics will follow the growth of a new pro-life culture from the seeds we are planting today.

Stay tuned for next week's segment on winning the culture wars.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International