Still Running Off at the Keyboard

CARRIE'S LAST POST

It is with heavy hearts that my father, Aunt Carol and I write this. Over the last several days, Carrie's health had been declining. Yesterday (Sunday), Carrie's family surrounded her; she was aware of their presence and they were able to say goodbye and to her tell her it was OK to let go. Today (Monday), Carrie was resting peacefully and at about 2:20 pm, God called her home. She took her last breaths in the presence of my father and Aunt Carol.

The expressions of sincere and heartfelt encouragment and prayers from everyone, including those she had strenous differences of opinion with, have provided great comfort and strength to Carrie and her family. Her blog gave her a great sense of purpose and fulfillment; she enjoyed corresponding with the people she encountered here.

Thank you for your readership and she appreciated your support over the years. We are sure Carrie is looking down on all of us now and smiling. She might even be asking The All Knowing about some of "the non-sense" in the church. Please remember her in your prayers on Easter Sunday. Tennatively, the funeral is planned for Tues, April 14.

The next week will most likely be hectic for all of us. If there is a desire to communicate, you can do it through my father at paul1204@sbcglobal.net.

Carrie continues to rest at home with the help of hospice, a home health aid, her sister-inlaw (Carol) and her husband (me). She continues to slide toward a final resting and will be deeply missed. She has received the sacraments of Holy Communion and Anointing of the Sick on multiple occasions over the last few weeks.
We wish to thank you for your prayers and support and request that these continue. She gets an uplift when I read her your comments from my email (paul1204@sbcglobal.net).
Thank you,
Paul

Labels: Carrie's condition

CANCER JOURNAL UPDATE

Carrie is coming home from the hospital late tomorrow morning. My dad has been reading your posts to her in the hospital and says she really perks up when he does so. Someone asked about how to send well wishes/cards. If possible, I think electronic cards are best. Several sites will do it for free such as Smilebox (but that requires a download). You can send cards/well wishes/emails to paul1204@sbcglobal.net and dad will make sure she gets them.

CANCER JOURNAL UPDATE

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers, I know it will brighten her day to hear how much you care for her!

Carrie is to be released from the hospital on Thursday or Friday. They are trying to get her pain back under control first.

CANCER JOURNAL UPDATE

This is Carrie's daughter. She is no longer able to put up posts herself but wanted to update everyone on her situation.

Since my mom's last post everyday tasks have become more and more challenging. On the 9th, she was walking while hanging onto her bed when she blacked out and fell. Thankfully she didn't break anything! Shortly afterwards, she decided to enroll in a palliative care program and hospice. It seems there are no more drugs to use to fight her type of cancer. Now the goal is to make her quality of life as good as possible. Unfortunately, since the fall she has become bed ridden and her prognosis has changed. Before she was given 2-7 months to live; however, in the last 2 weeks that changed, the new prognosis is weeks to months. I am sorry to say that in the last several weeks there is a very visible decline in her physical abilities. She also says she's dizzy and sees 2 of things. Thankfully she doesn't feel any pain, hospice is doing an excellent job of making sure she is comfortable.

She is currently in the hospital for a minor complication from a cathedar. Hopefully she will be back home soon.

Thank you for your loyalty and concern in checking this message board. I am sorry it has been so long since you have gotten an update, I check the board often and let her know what you say. Unfortunately she can't remember how to log in to things anymore so it's taken me a while to figure this out. I will put updates on this board as they come and will read your posts to her.

God bless you all, you've done more for her than you'll ever know!

CANCER JOURNAL - Update

I was in the hospital four days and am now at home and going for radiation treatments on my brain every day...a brain that does not function normally yet, making blogging nearly impossible. My feet still will not go where I try to put them, so I can't do much. Hopefully by the end of the treatments that will change. I'm halfway through them.

Hubby's aunt was supposed to be getting better and returning to the nursing home yesterday. We haven't tried to call her yet today. It's not clear whether her problem was pneumonia or heart problems. At 96 it could certainly have been either, and we are reluctant to put her through too many tests, as she is herself.

Thank you for all the prayers. I'm grateful and I pray God's blessings on all who pray for me.

THINGS GET A LITTLE MORE COMPLICATED

We learned that my husband's 96-year-old aunt was taken by ambulence to the hospital around 10:30 p.m. last night. She has pneumonia and doesn't sound good on the phone.

CANCER JOURNAL - The Caregiver's Role

A couple of years ago my husband underwent back surgery which included spinal fusion, and rods and screws in his back in order to treat spinal stenosis and keep him on his feet. During that time I was his chief caregiver and had continued to be up until the present crisis. He needed help with anything that required bending over. He no longer has my help and is trying to help me instead.

During this time his mother has turned 90 and developed dementia. He is also trying to be a caregiver to her, though she is in a senior independent living facility which helps. She is not happy there. In addition an aunt who is 96 and has no children is in a nursing home and looks to us to be the children she doesn't have. His sister is her primary caregiver, though hubby helps when he can. His sister's health is not good though she, a widow, still has to work. He has to work as well in order to keep up health insurance benefits for me, though he qualifies for medicare.

Having lived both roles, I've come to believe that the caregiver's role is by far the most difficult and that they get neither adequate recognition nor appreciation. All attention falls on the sick person who merely has to lay around and be sick. The caregiver must attempt to keep the house going, pay the bills, assume all the duties for care of the sick. Provide he transportation and keep up with the paperwork. It is a monumental task. I watch my husband rush around trying to do it all with grace and without rancor and my heart breaks for him. I feel so bad that I can no longer help but must be the source of even greater burdens.

He is trying to learn how to do laundry and cook and clean. Soon the outside work will begin, though I hope he will hire that done. He has used the vacation that would have been a break for him to nurse me since I've been in the hospital.

It isn't fair, though when is life ever fair? Where is the retirement that he had planned for? The fishing trips that won't be taken? The travel that the world had promised? It's been a house of cards.

CANCER JOURNAL - The Communion of Saints

Every time we recite the creed, we say that we believe in the "Communion of Saints", but what is that?

Since I suspect that most of us haven't thought much about it, I thought I'd write some of the insights I've learned recently in the midst of this battle.

Cancer inevitably makes one address death directly. I am surrounded by people I love who love me, and faced with the prospect of losing every one of them. Then the question arises, how could one be happy even in Heaven without those we love? I think the answer to that question is the Communion of Saints.

The nuns like to talk about "energy" and "empowerment" as though this were something we can reach out and grasp. We can, but it doesn't come without a price. God is the "energy", the power source, if you will. He is the transmission line. In Him, and in love, we don't lose the people we love. Love is the one thing that can survive bodily death. We first love God. Through that love of Him, we can forge eternal bonds with others, but only if we are willing to sacrifice our own will in any given situation, and seek God's will instead. The power is grace which is the same thing as love, and it is a mighty power indeed, if used for the proper purposes.

It can also be a destructive force as the occultists discover when they try to grasp it and use it for their own purposes. We can't control it, and if we try, we end up making ourselves miserable. Grasp this power in opposition to the will of God and find out there is hell to pay. Literally.

But what a power it is if we use it in conjunction with God's will. If we seek His will first in our lives, and then go on to seek His will in the lives of those we love, our sufferings can be beneficial. We can offer our disappointments, our pain, our fears of loss for the salvation of the souls we love; and not lose our eternal connection with them. We will never be in Heaven without them. Rather we will be doing what we do on earth, seeking their good in every way that presents itself. What's more, we will truly know what is for their own good and not be blinded by the seduction of the world.

What I don't yet know, and may never know until I am fortunate enough to experience it for myself, is what is our state in Purgatory. Are we bottled up inside ourselves and unable to seek the good of those we love? Or does the Communion of Saints extend there, too? Part of it does. We on earth can pray for those in Purgatory. But can they pray for us as well? That I don't know.

There is little worse for me than being bottled up inside myself. Being so overwhelmed with pain--be it emotional or physical--that I can't escape my own self-pity is awful. I want what I want when I want it, and like a two-year-old I can descend into a tantrum that has the capacity to destroy relationships. It makes me miserable in so many subtle ways. It is a darkness that I can't fully describe. In the midst of it I can't pray. I can't seek God. I think it is a small taste of hell. The only doorway out that I've seen so far is offering it up, and there have been a couple of small miracles when I've done this. The power of suffering may actually be greater than the power of prayer, though I wouldn't invite this power because for me it would be tempting fate. Despair lurks in the shadows of suffering for me. Wrong thoughts, destructive thoughts, are right there tempting me at every moment when I'm in pain. It is a constant battle with spiritual forces. One for which the outcome is ever in doubt. If this is the nature of hell or purgatory, it is something to fear.

CANCER JOURNAL - Home from the Hospital

It seems I've gotten one more reprieve. I came home around noon. When I left for the hospital last Friday, I took a look around the house and didn't expect to see it again.

This latest episode began when I went in for a radiation treatment on my right hip. I walked into a wall in the long hallway from the waiting room back to the treatment room with a technician beside me. She decided that I'd complained of dizziness enough and was showing other symptoms and must see the radiation oncologist before I left the facility.

He ordered a CAT scan of my brain for the next morning and then called with the news that the cancer has invaded my brain in several places and there was really nothing they could do except use radiation and steroids to get the swelling in my brain to go down so that I wouldn't be so dizzy. Thankfully it is working, and although I'm weak, I can still move around on my own. I did pass out in the hospital at one point.

Ironically this came at the time when we were packing for a cruise that we had been anticipating to celebrate our 39th anniversary. A trip that alas will never be taken since the night before we were supposed to leave I knew that I wasn't capable of making it. Thank goodness we had the good sense to cancel it because this would not have been a good experience in a foreign country with rapidly progressing cancer in my brain.

The method of doing the radiation is interesting. A mask is made of the face by placing a wet substance on it and letting that dry. It fits tight around my nose, eyes and mouth and made me feel claustrophobic even though there are plenty of air holes. The lines demarcating where the radiation will penetrate can then be drawn on the mask instead of my face. Much better for going out in public.

Radiation will make my hair fall out once again. It had just grown back to the point that I looked like me in the mirror. I am simply going to have to form a new attitude toward this because I am going to die without my hair on after all.

My radiation oncologist has given me two to seven months. My oncologist said she had one patient who was still alive a year after such a diagnosis. She says it will depend upon where the cancer goes next. There is only one drug that can penetrate the brain barrier and I will be taking it.

Wish I had better news. It looks like only a miracle will keep me alive now.

CANCER JOURNAL-unexpected developments

Carrie's in the hospital, please say a prayer for her. The cancer situation has worsened.

PUTTING THE BLOG TO SLEEP TEMPORARILY

What with daily trips to the hospital for radiation and some other activities in the real world, I'm getting too far behind, so it's time to take a break. I'm going to stop blogging until the end of the month.

TIMELINE OF THE AUTHENTIC TRADITION

by Jonathan Sellers

Vienna. 1782

Moses Dobruschka (now Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld) moved to Vienna. He was one of the founders of the "Asiatische Brüeder," a masonic lodge with predominantly Jewish members, and formulated its doctrines. -- Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 6, cols. 143-4. This is the same person who was appointed by Jacob Frank as his successor. This would be the same Asiatic Brothers we have been tracking in our research, and given a year or so on either end of 1782, it would appear that this is perhaps one of the most important historical links to the Authentic Tradition we can find. For not only is he said to have been one of its founders, but that he formulated its doctrines. These doctrines eventually found their way, not really to the SRIA, but to later neo-Gnostic groups, such as the French Gnostic succession, to the Adamites described by Theodore Reuss, to the pre-OTO of Kellner, to the OTO of Reuss, to the Golden Dawn itself. The Frankists, be it remembered, were the lineal descendants of the Shabbeteans, who, in turn, were the lineal descendants of the Lurianic School of Kabbalists at Safed in Palestine. And the Lurianic school can be traced back directly to the Spanish Kabbalists, whose origins are to be found in the Iyyun circle in Gerona, which was directly inspired by the Sages of Lunel and Narbonne, typified by Isaac the Blind of Posquiéres, who, in turn, received the Gnosis from his Fathers, who received it directly from an apparition of Elijah on the Day of Atonement, and from the German Hasidim, who got their teachings from (ultimately) Rabbi Abu Aharon ben Samuel ha-Nasi of Baghdad, where the teachings of the Ophites, the Borborites, the Mandaeans, the Batinis of Abdullah ibn Maymun were common currency among the Illuminati (Maskilim) of their day. This is definitely how the Gnosis was perpetuated through the Dark Ages. It only surfaced by accident in the Christian world in those days, and when it did, it was usually inspired by our Jewish and Isma'ili ancestors in the Tradition.

November, London, 1786

November. London. Cagliostro arrives in London, as the "Count Sutkowski," a Polish Nobleman, and and asserts that he hails from a Swedenborgian Secret Society at Avignon which had been formed in Courland in 1779. Cagliostro visited the Swedenborgians at their Theosophical Society meeting in rooms in the Middle Temple and displayed minute acquaintance with their doctrines, whilst claiming a superior knowledge." -- Notes on the Rainsford Papers, in Ars Quatuor Coronati, Vol. XXVI, p. 111.

December 1789:

In l789 another Jewish Swedenborgian named Samuel acted as a liaison between the London society and the illuminist lodge at Avignon, which was accused of "frivolous erotic practices." Nordenskjöld fully supported the efforts of charismatic Masonic emissaries from France—Count Cagliostro, Count Grabianka, and Louis Claude de St. Martin—to radicalize the London Swedenborgians and to promote Kabbalistic theories of spirit communication and conjugal love.

July 4, 1790:

In l790, when Blake asserted in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "now is the dominion of Edom," he seemed to draw on Frankist tradition, which was assimilated into certain Jewish-Christian rites of Freemasonry. Scholem notes that among the disciples of Jacob Frank, ...Edom symbolizes the unbridled flow of life which liberates man because its force and power are not subject to any law... It was necessary to abolish and destroy the laws, teachings, and practices which constrict the power of life, but this must be done in secret; ...it was essential outwardly to assume the garb of the corporeal Edom, i.e., Christianity...[but] Jesus of Nazareth was no more than the husk preceding and concealing the fruit, who was Frank himself [the reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi]....

At the same time, Swedenborg became suspicious of the sincerity of Dr. Falk, whose apparent Christian sympathies clothed his private Shabbetean beliefs. Some initiates of Frank's and Falk's inner circles encouraged antinomian sexual practices in the name of holy sinning, while forbidden magical practices were undertaken to hasten the messianic reversal of reality. In his journals, Swedenborg described the sexual rituals and magical practices of certain Jews in London, which both inspired and frightened him....

Initiated Brothers of Asia supposedly dies out. We say it went under cover from this date on, until the O.T.O. But see later on, in the National Mexican Rite -- seeds of the original RC, seeds of the original Illuminati, seeds of the Initiates of Asia, and a potential influence upon the Rites which were responsible for the development of the OTO. Those sceptical of this admission would do well to consult the record. See also F. G. Irwin's Order of X

In 1791

10 December. Offenbach:

With the death of Frank, and the gradual withering away of the families that made up his groups of believers, so died a Tradition which had been preserved for nearly 2,000 years.

In 1794:

5 April. Paris. Scholem: "The man of whom it appears to have been thought for some time, that after Frank's death in 1791 he would become his successor as the leader of the sect [of Frankists] in Offenbach, was sent to the guillotine in 1794, together with Danton, under the name of Junius Frey." -- Major Trends, Lecture 8,7, p. 320, and note 72. Scholem: "Moses, the son of Schoendel Dobruschka, Frank's cousin, who was known in many circles as his nephew, was the outstanding figure in the last generation of the Frankists, being known as Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld (a German writer and organizer of a mystical order of a Jewish Christian kabbalistic character, the "Asiatic Brethren"), and later as Junius Frey (a Jacobin revolutionary in France). Apparently he was offered the leadership of the sect after Frank's death, and, when he refused, Eva, together with her two younger brothers, Josef and Rochus, assumed responsibility for the direction of the court. Many people continued to go up to Offenbach, to 'Gottes Haus' as the 'believers called it" -- Kabbalah, Part II, 3, "Jacob Frank and the Frankists," pp. 304 - 305.

This is an interesting admission. We never find this name anywhere else, in all the works we have gathered for this research. Shabbetai Zevi was inspired, to some extent, by the school of Isaac Luria, which was one of the legitimate descendants of the original Kabbalah, which evolved over many centuries, from the time it reached the Languedoc around 1130 c.e. Jacob Frank, too, was inspired by the Shabbetean movement, and was in fact a successor to it, in Poland. Moses Dobruschka, then, being not only a relative of Frank, but a successor to him, was in an important position in the history of Kabbalah. Not only that, being one of the organizers of the Asiatic Brethren, he is placed into an important position within the Western Esoteric Tradition, for the Asiatic Brethren is what can be considered one of the ancestral traditions behind the Occult Revival in Europe in the 19th Century which brought us the Golden Dawn and the revived Illuminati of Reuss, and the various other Orders and Associations in Europe which existed in the 19th Century and had influences on politics, Left and Right at the same time... If we are to believe that Danton was one of the Illuminati, then probably too was Dobruschka. The name Junius Frey may have been his Order Name, for all we know. It is perhaps a coincidence that this individual dies the same year that Sigismund Bacstrom is initiated by the Comte de Chazal on the island of Mauritius. It is also worth noting that Casanova was in contact with Eva Frank on occult matters.

In the year 1796:

Another self-styled 'guru' of the day -- who had risen meteorically from peasant to king's adviser -- was supported by the Johannites, and they appear to have stage managed certain visions of the Virgin -- such as that of La Salette in the foothills of the Western Alps in 1846. The objects of this group of Johannites were 1.) An attempt to regenerate Catholicism from within. This involved replacing mainstream dogma -- based on the authority of Peter -- with a mystical and esoteric Christianity in the belief that an age was drawing in which the Holy Spirit would be in the ascendant. A feature of this was the elevation of the feminine, in the outward form of the Virgin Mary, but this soon took on a more overtly sexual character and began to seem actively hostile to the Church. The vision of La Salette -- which was condemned by the Church -- was central to this plan. Somehow, John the Baptist's role in these developments was crucial. 2.) The movement was also allied with the attempt to have Naundorff recognized as the legitimate king of France, probably because, it it had succeeded, he would have been favorable to this new form of religion (having already endorsed Vintras). Significantly, Melanie Calvet, the girl who had the vision at La Salette, had herself come out in favor of Naundorff. It is interesting that the Church reacted by shipping her off to a convent in Darlington, in the north-east of England, where she could do no more harm. The combined forces of Church and State prevented the movement's grand plan from being fulfilled, and whatever really happened is now buried under an avalance of scandal and innuendo. But no doubt it is significant that the Church's reaction to this threat was to make the Immaculate Conception of Mary an article of faith in 1854. (This doctrine was to be conveniently endorsed by the Virgin Mary herself when she appeared to the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes some four years later, although tjhe latter at first simply described her vision as 'that thing'.) Prophets such as Martin and Vintras appear to have been 'managed' by the Johannites, rather than actually being part of the sect themselves. Vintras' link with them was his mentor, a certain Madame Bouche, who lived in the Place St. Sulpice in Paris, and went under the name of Sister Salome.

This is a good example of why the Church must bear the responsibility for determining which visionary experiences are authentic.

There is much more in Seller's Timeline. These are just some of the high points for the eighteenth century that show how it is possible for the Shabbatean heresy to have descended through the secret societies and irregular Freemasonry even down to the present day given that the O.T.O. is still in existence.

There is no doubt that spiritualism plays a major role in this belief system, and there is no doubt that it is contrary to the teachings of the Church. This is the best explanation I've seen for the various rites and rituals of irregular Freemasonry and even of the higher degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry.

Sellers admits there may be mistakes in his timeline and that it is an ongoing research project. Yet the sheer wealth of details lends it credibility that I don't think can be ignored.

MAKING OUR KIDS PAY FOR OUR MISTAKES

The idea has reached a new low. LifeSite reports:

January 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Hundreds of millions of the nearly $1 trillion price tag on President Obama's economic stimulus bill is expected to go to contraception and the abortion industry.

Last week, during consideration of the congressional Democrats’ spending bill by the House Energy & Commerce Committee, the panel made universal a Clinton-era Medicaid waiver that allowed states to seek federal funding for contraception and abortion. Under the new program, the federal government would match state funding for "family planning" services with $9 for every $1.

House Republicans immediately criticized the move, questioning whether such funding actually helped stimulate the economy or create more jobs.

"How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives – how does that stimulate the economy?" questioned House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH). "You can go through a whole host of issues that have nothing to do with growing jobs in America and helping people keep their jobs.”

House Democrats defended the measure, however, as an indirect means of reducing the burden on state budgets allotted to children's health and education.

Read the rest... in a link provided by NOR, including the role played to the infamous Catholic Nancy Pelosi.

POLISH NATIONAL CHURCH MAY BUY TWO CLOSED CATHOLIC CHURCHES

More than a century ago, Catholic communities of Polish-Americans around the country, including Buffalo, broke with the Roman Catholic Church in disputes over property and lay governance.

Now, two recently closed Roman Catholic churches are being considered for use as worship sites by the Polish National Catholic Church, a denomination established in 1897 as a result of the split.

Some of the vacant churches’ former parishioners — many of whom objected to the closings — are expected to be among those in the pews again.

Read the rest...

TIMELINE OF THE AUTHENTIC TRADITION

by Jonathan Sellers

From the year 1769:

In Conjugial Love, Swedenborg's experience seemed to merge Yogic with Kabbalistic practice.

Also in Conjugial Love, Swedenborg described a secret mystical society, in which "spirits from Asia" teach inititiates how to meditate on emblems of love"works of art and some small images as though cast in silver" that represent "the many qualities, attributes, and delights which belong to conjugial love."

Under the year 1771:

(At this time, we are still dealing with the history of the Frankists, and survivors of the Shabbeteans)... The schools of this area not only taught traditional sacred texts such as the Torah, Talmud and Zohar, but also more esoteric themes of the Kabbalah. This means the Frankist Kabbalah....

In the year 1772:

August. Czestochowa. When Czestochowa was captured by the Russians in August 1772, after the first partition of Poland, Frank was freed by the commander in chief and left the town early the next year, going with his daughter to Warsaw.

In the year 1773:

March. Warsaw. From Warsaw, Frank and 18 of his associates disguised as the servants of a wealthy merchant to Bruenn (Brno) in Moravia, to the home of his cousin Schoendel Dobruschka, the wife of a rich and influential Jew. Frank remained in Bruenn until 1786, obtaining the protection of the authorities, both as a respected man of means with many connections, and also as a man pledged to work for the propagation of Christianity among his numerous associates in the communities of Moravia. He established a semi-military regime in his retinue, where the men wore military uniform and went through a set training. Frank's court attracted many Shabbeteans in Moravia, whose families preserved for generations the swords that they wore while arriving at his court.

In the year 1775:

March. Vienna. Frank went with his daughter to Vienna and was received in audience by the Empress and her son, later Joseph II. Some say that Frank promised the empress the assistance of his followers in a campaign to conquer parts of Turkey, and over a period of time several Frankist emissaries were sent to Turkey, working with the Doenmeh, and perhaps as political agents or spies in the service of the Austrian government. During this period Frank spoke a great deal about a general revolution which would overthrow kingdoms, and the Catholic Church, in particular, and he also dreamed of the conquest of some territory in the wars at the end of time which would be the Frankist dominion. For this, military training would be a deliberate preparation. Where Frank obtained the money for the upkeep of his court was a constant source of wonder and speculation and the matter was never resolved. Stories circulated about barrels of gold sent, some said, by his followers, while others claimed it was from his foreign employers. At one period there were in Bruenn, several hundred sectarians who followed no profession or trade and whose sole and absolute master was Frank, who ruled with a rod of iron..

Martinist Order created, by St. Martin. He reformed the Elus Cohens. Mackey says that Lodges opened in Paris, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Toulouse. The Devotees of Martinez Paschalis, the founder, were called Martinistes. Partly Hermetic, partly Sweden-borgian; based partly on Qabalah and Hermetica. Nine Degree System. St Martin's first published work also appears this year. Des Erreurs et de la verité which is used by the Philalethes and recommended by the Initiated Knights and Brothers of Asia.

Under 1780:

...the leaders of the Rit Primitif would appear to have been law-abiding and loyal gentlemen devoted to the Catholic religion, yet in their passion for new forms of Masonry and thirst for occult lore ready to associate themselves with every kind of adventurer and charlatan who might be able to initiate them into further mysteries.

STUDY OF WOMEN RELIGIOUS ANNOUNCED

The Vatican has begun a first-ever comprehensive study of women's religious orders in the United States, four decades into a steep decline in the number of Roman Catholic sisters and nuns in the country.

The study, ordered by a Vatican congregation in December and announced Friday in Washington, will examine "the quality of the life" of 59,000 members in more than 400 Catholic women's religious institutes, said Sister Eva-Maria Ackerman, a spokeswoman for the study, which is called an apostolic visitation.

"The study is really to encourage the communities, to strengthen them, to help them grow in their vitality," she said, adding that "women's religious communities have played such a significant part in building up the church and society in this country."...

In recent years, newly formed traditional orders — whose members dress in habits, show fidelity to Rome and focus on education, health care and social work — have reported growth. More established orders that tend to take more progressive social stances have seen their members' ages and numbers of vocations dwindle.

"The Vatican may be asking the question, 'Why is this happening, and is there something these more traditional orders offer that the more progressive orders can learn from?'" said the Rev. Jim Martin, editor of the Jesuit magazine America.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the nation's largest association of Catholic women religious communities, said it was informed of the study in a bulletin Friday.

The study is expected to be completed in 2011.

Read the whole story...

THE HOLOCAUSE DENIAL HOT POTATO IS GETTING HOTTER

From the Washington Post:

Fifty Catholic members of Congress have written Pope Benedict XVI, asking him to directly reject the views of British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied the scale of the Holocaust. Benedict last week reinstated Williamson and three other bishops who have rejected the church's teachings from the second Vatican Council.

Read the rest...

TIMELINE OF THE AUTHENTIC TRADITION

by Jonathan Sellers

Under the year 1766 there is an interesting passage that might explain how Catharism came to the Languedoc:

It is worth mentioning here, that the story concerning the Qadosh Fathers, or the Thebaid Solitaries, or the Knights of the Morning Star, came from Tschoudy's L'Etoile Flamboyante. -- that in the time of Solomon's Temple, the Qadosh Fathers assembled in Jerusalem; then at the time of the Essene Community, they were established there; then after the Destruction of the Second Temple, they dispersed, into two groups: 1) One into Syria; 2) the other into the Thebaid; these two groups dispersed once more, each into two groups -- Syria and Sicily, Libya and the Thebaid; that at the time of the Crusades they returned to Jerusalem...and regained possession of their Temple when Godefroi de Bouillon conquered Jerusalem. Eventually, they became Masons, and Knights of the East and Knights of Palestine, etc. There is much more than a faint rumor of truth in all this. It is clear to us that indeed a group of Essenes or Gnostics established themselves in the Transjordan region in the late 1st Century c.e.,; that Syria has long been home to Gnostic sects; that there were Thebaid solitaries, one of which was Anthony the Hermit. That the Syrian group, when it split into two, one group went to Sicily -- this is how the Kabbalah came to Europe, in the 8th to 9th Centuries c.e., when Abu Aharon ben Samuel ha Nasi of Baghdad came to Calabria, and later when he moved to Lucca, where he taught the Practical Kabbalah to the head of the Kalonymide family. This is what is known as the origins of the Hasidim in France and Germany, for the Kalonymides travelled to southern Germany and established themselves. They had a strong influence on the Languedocian Kabbalists.

There is another interesting asside to the Sabbatean question in the year 1768. Martinism is an occult teaching founded by Willermoz, Pasqually, and Saint Martin who was Catholic. It appears that Swedenborg was impressed by this teaching:

Under the aegis of Pasqually the Rite of the Elect Priesthood was one of occult instruction as well as occult practice, and the pageant (in Waite's manner of opinion) of cumulative grades. The teaching was under pledges, and that part of it which Saint Martin felt permitted to unfold was put forward in his first book. La Chose may refer to Pasqually's Guide in the unseen, howsoever communication was established... But the pledges may have covered also instruction from other sources, the "Predecessors" about whom Pasqually wrote to Willermoz on 13 April 1768.

In l768 Swedenborg was so inspired by his revelations that he broke his anonymity to publish, under his own name, The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love. The question of whether to translate the Latin original into English would later provoke bitter controversy in the Swedenborg society that the Blakes attended.

The book is still available. Google has posted parts of it online.

Returning to the Timeline:

In 1768 - 1769 there were two Frankist agents in Prague and Prossnitz, the Shabbetean centre in Moravia, and there they were even allowed to preach in the synagogue.

CONSTANCE CUMBEY'S RADIO PROGRAM IS SLATED TO PRESENT AN INTERESTING GUEST ON TUESDAY

Check out her summary and then click the link to read what Tom Fife has to say on the subject of Barak Obama. Then, before you dismiss everything he tells as alarmist, remember Saul Alinsky.