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Tag Archives: Father Z

T -48: Greetings From the Coast

18 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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Alfrink, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bling, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Catholic Church, Communits, Deus Ex Machina, Father Z, Francis church, Frings, German Bishops' Conference, Germany, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Ratzinger, Karl Rahner, Kirchensteuer, Liénart, lost election, messeging, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, Social Market Economy, spirit of Vatican II, Suenens, Synod 2014, Tradition, Vatican, Vatican II

I have not posted lately since I am on vacation. I am spending time with the family, as per video above. However, that does not mean that I do not follow current events. A big Deo gratias for Pew Sitter website is in order here. But I digress…

The reason that I am breaking my radio silence a few days early is due to a post that appeared on the Fr. Z blog that I just couldn’t resist commenting on. The post is titled Coming Soon! The “Eleven Cardinals Book”! (see here) The reason that I am bringing this post to your attention is due to a certain name that appears as a contributor. In other words, one of these contributors is not like the others! 😉

For those who have been following this blog, you will notice it right off the bat. That cardinal is non other than the President of the Episcopate of the Netherlands Willem Cardinal Eijk, who we featured in our post titled The Neo-modernist “Theology of Death”! (see here)

And the reason that I am bringing this to your attention dear reader is for its historical perspective. Please recall that a predecessor of Willem Cardinal Eijk was the notorious Bernardus Johannes Alfrink the Archbishop of Utrecht from 1955 to 1975 and a major player at the Second Vatican Council. The manner in which Cardinal Alfrink figures into the destruction of the Catholic Church we described in two posts, i.e. Man Marking Marx – Dei Power Ball (see here) and Man Marking Marx – The Network (see here).

The significance of this development, as you can no doubt figure out, is that in the span of 50 years, the Dutch Catholic Church, whose representative lead the charge to institute the neo-modernist agenda at Vatican II, now finds itself in total disintegration. The FORCED realization of this OBJECTIVE FACT has led his successor to revert back a “more Catholic” agenda. Hence his contribution to the 11 Cardinal Book.

Below is the Fr. Z post that I am reproducing…  (original see here)

FOR THE RECORD

Coming Soon! The “Eleven Cardinals Book”!

Posted on 17 August 2015 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Italian site La Nuova Bussola has learned that, in advance of the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the family, yet another “Cardinals Book” is being released.

This time, however, its the “Eleven Cardinals Book™”!

This is sure to strike terror in the hearts of the Kasperites!

Eleven Cardinals, as the headline runs, are trying to stop the “Protestantization of the Church”.

In a way this is, but it also isn’t, a sequel to the Five Cardinals Book™, Remaining in the Truth of Christ: Marriage and Communion in the Catholic Church. 

The names of the Cardinals involved:

  • Carlo Caffarra, Arcivescovo di Bologna;
  • Baselios Cleemis, Arcivescovo maggiore della Chiesa cattolica siro-malankarese e Presidente della Conferenza episcopale dell’India;
  • Paul Josef Cordes, Presidente emerito del Consiglio pontificio «Cor Unum»;
  • Dominik Duka, O.P., Arcivescovo di Praga, Primate di Boemia;
  • Willem Jacobus Eijk,  Arcivescovo di Utrecht;
  • Joachim Meisner, Arcivescovo emerito di Colonia;
  • John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Arcivescovo di Abuja (Nigeria);
  • Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Arcivescovo emerito di Madrid;
  • Camillo Ruini, Vicario generale emerito di Sua Santità per la Diocesi di Roma;
  • Robert Sarah, Prefetto della Congregazione per il culto divino e la disciplina dei sacramenti;
  • Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, Arcivescovo di Caracas, Santiago de Venezuela

The editor is the German professor of Canon Law Winfried Aymans, at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich.

It seems that Cardinals and only Cardinals are the writers.  I am pleased to see Card. Sarah in the list, as well as Caffarra.

It doesn’t say anything concrete about the publisher.  It doesn’t mention the title.  It doesn’t say anything about the languages, though given that this is in an Italian site we can assume Italian is – at least – one of the languages.

The Five Cardinals Book (which everyone ought to have, especially every priest and bishop) came out simultaneously in five languages.  HERE

Also, in the same Bussola piece there is a hint that another book is coming with contributions of 11 bishops and cardinals… all Africans!

You can guess what side of the marriage and the sodomy issues they will be on!

T -157: Benchmarking Bishoprics

07 Thursday May 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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1968, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bishop Bambera, bishop Finn, Bishop Morlino, Cardinal Burke, Catholic Church, Deus Ex Machina, Diocese of Kansas City - St. Joseph, Diocese of Madison, Diocese of Scranton, Father Z, Francis church, Great Cardinal, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Ratzinger, messeging, Modernists, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, spirit of Vatican II, Summorum Pontificum, Synod 2014, Synod of Bishops 2015, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II

Bishop FinnIn today’s post, your humble blogger will continue the thread that we wrote about yesterday, namely one of how religious managers/ordinaries are dealing with a declining disintegrating state of congregations/dioceses, a state that has become the new normal after the arrival of the “new springtime of the spirit of Vatican II”.

Just to recap, in the post titled To Compare and To Contrast (see here), we examined two US dioceses, namely the Diocese in Scranton and the Diocese in Madison. We examined, from information in the public domain, how the respective ordinaries of these two dioceses were addressing the problems of the dearth (or one can say, the supposed dearth) of priestly vocations in the Universal Catholic Church.

In the case of the Diocese of Scranton, the bishop there appears to be paying lip service to the issue of the need for more priestly vocations, but as we pointed out, his actions would appear as if he is preparing the Faithful for a “wind-down” of his diocese. A “wind-down” analogous to that of an insolvent business enterprise. Our observation was based on the appearance of dissonance between the identified problem (lack of vocations) and the plan put in place to resolve this issue (appointing committees to study the future situation of a dioceses “administered” by the laity.) As to the actual number of ordinations that the Diocese of Scranton is expecting this year,  the number is ONE, with 8 more in waiting.

In the case of the Diocese of Madison, the bishop there appears to have taken a proactive role in trying to stem the decline of priestly vocations, and has been able to dramatically turn around the post “new springtime” trend. Or as our leftist friends would say, “bend the curve. As to the actual number of ordinations that the Diocese of Madison is expecting this year, the number is FIVE, with 28 more in waiting.

In today’s post, we will examine two issues, namely what accounts for the vast differences of priestly vocations and expected ordinations in these respective diocese, diocese that are only 848 miles apart and which one of these two diametrically different positions represents the norm.

The answer to the second question i.e. which one of these two situations is the norm, it could be that we are dealing with what is known in statistical terms as outliers. A statistical outlier is basically an anomaly that appears in a data set, an anomaly that is not representative of the wider data sample. Therefore, from the situation as describe above, it is pretty evident that either the diocese of Scranton (1 ordination – 8 in waiting) or the Diocese of Madison (5 ordinations – 28 in waiting) is an outlier.

In order to determine which one of these two data points is in fact the outlier, what is needed is what is known in the investment community as a “benchmark”. A benchmark is defined as follows: (see here)

A standard against which the performance of a security, mutual fund or investment manager can be measured. Generally, broad market and market-segment stock and bond indexes are used for this purpose.

Please recall that we are not dealing with economic performance per se, but rather the degree of effectiveness of a particular ordinary. Please also recall yesterday’s qualification that can be reduced to the following formula: to be saved one must be in the pew. But back to the subject at hand…

Looking through the blogosphere yesterday, it just so happens that your humble blogger stumbled upon a post that could just provide us with a “benchmark” for comparing our two previous data points.

In a post on Fr. Z blog titled “Priesthood ordinations up 24.7% this year” from the 6th of May 2015, we read the following: (see here)

595 men are expected to be ordained to the priesthood in the United States in 2015, an increase of 24.7% over last year’s figure of 477, according to data released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Using this above data point, it would appear that increasing ordinations to the priesthood in 2015 are the norm in the US Catholic Church.

Actually, ordinations have increased quite dramatically. Given that the average time needed to produce a priest is roughly 8 years, it would appear that this 25% larger group of candidates admitted to the Catholic seminaries in the US began their religious training in the 2006/2007 seminary year. And just as a point of reference, Pope Benedict XVI was coronated on 24 April 2005, so the 2006/2007 seminary year would fall in Benedict’s first FULL year of his pontificate.

Now that is what I call a very noticeable BENEDICT EFFECT!

Excuse the digression…

Therefore from the above information, let’s call this the BENEDICT BENCHMARK, it would appear that it is the Madison Diocese that is the norm. Here are some of their relevant statistics:

There are now 33 seminarians, or priests-in-training, up from six in 2003 when Bishop Robert Morlino arrived.

5 ordinations expected in 2015.

For further reference, please note the following:

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Morlino said in an interview, giving immense credit to the diocese’s 110 priests who’ve been rolling out the campaign in their parishes.

“They love the priesthood and they love the church, and this is the Holy Spirit working through them.”

Another quick digression…If we just look at the raw data, here is what we get: 33 vocations in a diocese with 110 active priests. Therefore, the total number of priests-in-training represent 27% of the presently active priest population. In other words, if all these vocations translate into ordination, the number of priests in the Madison diocese will increase by 30%.

Now let us examine some comparable statistics from the Diocese of Scranton. Here are the relevant figures:

In 1990, there were 44 men preparing for priesthood.

Today, there are nine over an eight-year span of preparation.

There will be one ordination to the priesthood in the diocese this year and five retirements.

So what one can infer from the above figures is that in the Diocese of Scranton, the “spirit of Vatican II” is running wild. The decline of vocations in the Diocese of Scranton  is proceeding unabated, which de facto would make the Diocese of Scranton our outlier.

So now that we have established that it is the Diocese of Scranton that is the outlier, let’s examine how other diocese are faring, and see if we can observe any correlation between… let’s call it the “clerical profile” of the ordinary and performance of the vocations office.

Fortunately, or rather unfortunately in this case, for our subject matter in this post, there is more unfortunate news coming out of Kansas City Missouri and the Kansas City-St. Joseph’s Diocese. The news is that the Jackson County Prosecutor who got a conviction in the Bishop Finn case, has written a “warning letter” to the Diocese regarding another letter, one that a diocesan priest had written to HIS parishioners. It turns out that the priest, Father Gregory Lockwood had the nerve to question the stitch-up conviction that could be accurately described as “a flimsy misdemeanor charge for failure to properly administer a law on reporting abuse.”(see here)

The NEW NORMAL in the land of the free and home of the brave, I recon! 

And I kid you not but please excuse the digression…

However, this strange “behavior” by the totalitarian regime “democratic organs of mercy” that has been playing itself out over the last 5 years in the KC-SJ Diocese,  “behavior” that will be the subject of a future post, has not impacted the number of vocations in the diocese. Here is the relevant figures and passage: (see here)

Still, nine new priests are scheduled for ordination on May 24, 2015 for the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph after Bishop Finn had resigned.

So from the above information, we see that Bishop Finn has been even more successful than Bishop Morlino in Madison, if for no other reason than 9 ordinations being larger than 5 ordination. In absolute terms it would make Bishop Finn twice as successful as Bishop Morlino.

So for our purpose here, it would appear that there are some diocese where ordinations are flowering, while there are other diocese where ordinations are barely existent. And since we have ventured onto this topic, let us examine it a bit further.

So what is it that could possibly be behind this drastic difference in this one area of diocesan life? And can this provide us with a “metric”, or a standard that can be devised to explain the effectiveness of a local ordinary, i.e. how he is managing the patrimony that has been entrusted to an ordinary and more importantly, how this ordinary is engaging the Faithful when fulfilling his mission to lead as many of the Faithful to heaven?

To provide an answer to the above posed questions, a look at the similarities in the respective Lord’s pastoral calls of these two very successful bishops is in order. Here are a couple of relevant quotes that may provide some further insight:

From the Diocese of Madison (see here)

Bishops who are unambiguous about church doctrine and don’t tolerate dissent tend to inspire the greatest number of vocations, said Hendershott, who references Morlino positively in her book.

and

The very traits that have made Morlino controversial may be the reason he’s successful at recruiting new priests, Hendershott’s research suggests.

So what exactly has made Bishop Morlino “controversial”? Here is how “ a Mrs. Hendershott, a sociology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, explained this assertion:

Why the local success? Morlino has made priestly vocations — the spiritual call to serve — a priority. He increased the position of director of vocations to full time, and he routinely promotes the priesthood at functions.

So that is the lowdown on Bishop Morlino. And how does the reign of Bishop Finn stack up with that of Bishop Morlino? Here are those relevant facts and the relevant passages: (see here)

Several of my extended family in St. Louis had been in parishes Fr. Finn served in Webster Groves and Florissant. They described a Fr. Finn as a “holy man” who was sought out as a confessor and spent countless hours regularly serving long lines of penitents.

and this…

When it became clear he intended to emphasize youth ministry, evangelization and vocations, my hope for Newman Centers and the end of a vocation drought in the diocese were buoyed.

So from the above text, it would appear that Bishop Finn and Bishop Morlino have what can be termed as a similar “clerical profile”. It could also be the case that the problem that Bishop Bambera of the Diocese of Scranton has with the practically non-existent vocations is that his “clerical profile” might be oriented in a different direction.

Which lead this blogger to asking the following question: If this is in fact is the case, then in which direction is Bishop Bambera’s “clerical profile” oriented?

From the evidence contained in the posts titled A Fate Worse Than Death (see here), it could be that the Bishop’s “clerical profile” could be oriented in a similar direction as that of the “highly vocal segment of the laity and clergy in the diocese” of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Here is how this orientation is described:

Many leaders in the bureaucracy also often retain their priorities and expect the new leader to accept them. It was clear that Bishop Finn was sent by the Holy Father to seek more religious vocations, a goal which was not high on the priority list of many of his predecessor’s staffers and their supporters within the Kansas City Catholic community. Still, nine new priests are scheduled for ordination on May 24, 2015 for the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph after Bishop Finn had resigned. To many in the diocese, what was needed was more “professional” theologians and religious or lay administrators who emphasized the priesthood of the faithful instead of more “practicioner” priests who were products of clericalist “seminary” education.

Why yes. The “problem” is “clericalism”. Where have we heard that before?

Please hold that thought. Back to the story…

It is pretty evident that both Bishop Bambera and the “highly vocal segment of the laity and clergy in the diocese” of Kansas City-St. Joseph are both oriented in the same direction. And that direction can be synthesised as:

To many in the diocese, what was needed was more “professional” theologians and religious or lay administrators who emphasized the priesthood of the faithful instead of more “practicioner” priests who were products of clericalist “seminary” education.

I am running long, so I will leave off here for today.

But the above should provide some food for thought over the next 24 hour.

In tomorrow’s post, I will continue this topic since there is an evident pattern that is quite easily recognizable. And this pattern reaches to the “higher ups” as well.

So don’t turn that bat dial!

T -201: Man Marking Marx – Dei Power Ball Revisited

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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Alfrink, Basic Law, Battle of Tannenburg, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bling, Bolsheviks, Card. Lehmann, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Carpe Diem, Catholic Church, Catholic Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, Communits, Deus Ex Machina, Eponymous Flower blog, Father Z, Forte, Francis church, Frings, German Bishops' Conference, Germany, heretical pope, hippies, Hitler, Jesuits, Joseph Cardinal Bernardine, Joseph Ratzinger, Joseph Stalin, Karl Rahner, Kirchensteuer, Konrad Duke of Mazovia, Liénart, lost election, messeging, Michael Davies, Motu Proprio Ecclesiae sanctae, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, ObamaCare, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Polish Lithuanian Forces, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, Social Market Economy, spirit of Vatican II, Suenens, Synod 2014, Teutonic Knights, Third Reich, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II, Wars for German Unification, Wiemar

How time flies is the old expression, and it and tides wait for no man. And speaking of time and tides, the Stealth Sex Synod is 201 days away from starting.

Today the Deus Ex Machina blog returns to Man Marking Marx, since we have identified this cleric as the “man of this season at the Vatican“. And since it has been 48 days since we published this post, it is worth our while to return to it just to refresh our memory of the historical context of what we see playing out in the Vatican and in the wider universal Church circles.

Please read at your leisure.

One for the BRICK BY BRICK File:

1) Restoration news from the Rorate Caeli blog see here.

2) Restoration news from Crisis Magazine via the UnaCum.pl website (Polish) see here. Excellent video at end of post, so don’t be scared off by the language!

The Deus Ex Machina Blog

running man I Yesterday, Father Z. took over Man Marking Marx for a day. And seeing as how I had a rather busy day, I appreciate Father Z. filling in. 😉 To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting the help, but good to know that he has my back. So today we pick up where we left off Man Marking Marx without skipping a beat. We continue to focus on just how powerful Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx really is and attempt to explain the power base (SPECIAL INTEREST for those who have been following this narrative) that Marx represents. Here I would just like to mention that one of the selection criteria used in the Deus Ex Machina blog’s Peirce/Ockham pragmatic paradigm methodology is actually borrowed from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. When the FBI analyze criminal rackateers, the initial investigation begins with an analysis of the “money trail”. In our methodology…

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T -246: Questions Start Being Asked

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bling, Card. Lehmann, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Catholic Church, Deus Ex Machina, Father Z, First Things, Francis church, George Weigel, German Bishops' Conference, Germany, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Ratzinger, Karl Rahner, Kirchensteuer, lost election, messeging, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, spirit of Vatican II, SSPX, Synod 2014, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II

Society of St. Pius X

Society of St. Pius X

FOR THE RECORD

The below is a re-blog from the Society of St. Pius X website.

Editor’s Note: The Deus Ex Machina blog posts have been exclusively focusing on the Synod of Bishops that will commence on the 4th of October 2014, beginning on the 12th of January 2015. Over the past 2+ weeks, this blogger has tried to analyze different observations, occurrences and events that are related to this upcoming Synod. Other parties are observing these same phenomena, and are beginning to put their observations and commentary into the public domain. Furthermore, their analysis is in alignment with what has been written on this blog’s pages and posts. This is a very good development since the more these “main stream” writers and bloggers “shine the light of day” on the corrupt prelates that are attempting to change the doctrine of the Catholic Church by stealth, for their own personal needs and gains, the lesser are the chances that these corrupt prelates will succeed. Below this blog reproduces a post from the SSPX website for your review.

And one final thought. When reading the below, please keep in mind the age old adage that states: “sunshine is the best disinfectant’.

From the SSPX website. (see here)

The scandal of the Family on the Synod doesn’t seem to end: is it money that is unifying the German bishops in their new “pastoral approach”?

From the just-published DICI issue #309, we offer the editorial of Fr. Lorans followed by an insightful piece on the next Synod on the Family that is currently being prepared discretely and what is a possible motive behind the unified German episcopacy.

This disturbing news comes on the heels of the report that Pope Francis approved the Synod’s scandalous Relatio prior to its publication.

Money at the root of the Synod?

Why is Cardinal Walter Kasper, who wants to change Church doctrine about the indissolubility of marriage by giving Communion to the divorced-and-remarried, supported by the German episcopate in its entirety? Whence this rock-solid Germanic unanimity? George Weigel reports in the current issue of the American monthly magazine First Things the answer given to him by someone who knows the Church in Germany very well, and the answer can be summed up in one word: money.

Indeed, the German dioceses are very rich thanks to the church tax paid by the Catholic faithful; but they are leaving the Church in droves and no longer provide that manna. Hence the very simple calculation by the bishops: let us avoid the flight of the faithful (and of the funding), let us make doctrine more flexible and broaden our pastoral outreach.

Could it be, then, that these arguments in favor of mercy, as opposed to doctrinal rigidity, are in reality nice-sounding arrangements aimed at the bottom line? If so, the bishops would be abandoning a not very interesting doctrine for the sake of a not at all disinterested pastoral approach! In order to dispel the suspicion that weighs heavily on them, it would be enough for the German bishops to declare unanimously: “We prefer the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage to church tax revenues. We serve Jesus Christ, not Mammon.” It would suffice… but would it be sufficient for them? For the answer, stay tuned for the next Synod in October.

Fr. Alain Loran | DICI 1-30-2015

The next Synod on the Family is being prepared discreetly…

After the very lively reactions provoked by the first meeting of the Synod on the Family (October 5-19, 2014) (see DICI no. 303 dated October 24, 2014), preparations for the next assembly of the bishops (October 4-25, 2015) are being made discreetly, as though calm had returned after the storm and everything was normal again. Should we rejoice blissfully or worry seriously about it? In an interview granted to Le Figaro Magazine (December 18, 2014), Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, one of the chief opponents of the scandalous proposals of Cardinal Walter Kasper concerning communion for the divorced-and-remarried (see DICI no. 301 dated September 26, 2014), admitted:

I am very concerned, and I call on Catholics—laymen, priests and bishops—to get involved between now and the next Synod assembly, in order to bring to light the truth about marriage.”

A very slanted working document

On December 9 the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops published the lineamenta (the working document) for the Synod assembly in October 2015. Besides the final report from the October 2014 Synod, the secretariat proposes 46 questions addressing the challenges of pastoral ministry to families, so as to “draw near to families in extreme situations”.

The bishops’ conferences are supposed to fill out the questionnaire “while avoiding, in their responses, a formulation of pastoral care based simply on an application of doctrine” (sic). Taking up again the topics that shook the assembly of bishops, the Roman document asks, as though about a trivial matter, how the Christian community “can assist in discerning the positive and negative elements in the life of persons united in a civil marriage”; it even asks, with regard to divorced Catholics, “How can the procedure to determine cases of nullity be made more accessible, streamlined and possibly without expense?”

The Roman questionnaire even assures the reader that “with regard to the divorced-and-remarried, pastoral practice concerning the sacraments needs to be further studied,” and it asks what advances are possible in light of the “second chance” (sic) proposed in certain cases in the Orthodox Church. This document likewise poses the question of pastoral care to homosexuals: “While avoiding any unjust discrimination, how can such persons receive pastoral care in these situations in light of the Gospel?” The answers to this questionnaire are supposed to arrive in Rome by April 15, 2015.

The uneasiness expressed by Cardinal Burke during the above-cited interview is understandable, therefore:

In an age filled with confusion, as we see with Gender Theory, we need the teaching of the Church on marriage. Yet, we are being pushed on the contrary towards admitting divorced-and-remarried persons to communion. Not to mention this obsession with streamlining the procedures of annulment of the marital bond. All this will lead de facto to a kind of ‘Catholic divorce’, and to the weakening of the indissolubility of marriage, even though the principle thereof is reaffirmed. However, the Church must defend marriage, and not weaken it. The indissolubility of marriage is not a penance, nor a suffering. It is something very beautiful for those who live it; it is a source of joy.”

Pope Francis intervened twice, along the lines of the lineamenta and of the accompanying questionnaire, on January 23 while addressing the members of the Apostolic Tribunal, and on January 24 during the conference organized by Gregorian University on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the instruction Dignitas Connubii (The Dignity of Marriage). To the first group he declared that the Church cannot ignore the suffering of many households that are disintegrating, leaving behind the debris of their emotional relationships, plans and shared expectations. The judge is called to determine whether there was a defect of form in the matrimonial consent, and so he must take into account the context in which that consent was formed. Thus the pope is saying that he wishes to see a pastoral conversion of ecclesiastical structures so as to come to the aid of those who turn to the Church to shed light on their marital situation.

During the conference at the Gregorian, Francis called for a streamlining of procedures, insisting that the appeals process should be simplified so as not to subject couples to painful, exhausting delays. And in order to avoid complicated, useless formalities, he does not rule out the possibility that new norms may be issued in the future. In his two recent interventions everything suggests that the experts are gradually moving toward an alignment (modestly presented as a “harmonization”) of the prescription of canon law with the concrete situations of contemporary society.

The forceful critique by Cardinal Velasio de Paolis

The reason for this alignment, theoretically, would be “pastoral mercy” as opposed to doctrinal intransigence and legal rigidity. But that is an artificial contrast, as Cardinal Valsio de Paolis, President Emeritus of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, explained during a conference given at the Canon Law Faculty of the University of San Damaso in Madrid (Spain) on November 26, 2014, during which he magisterially critiqued Proposition 52 of the final report of the October 2014 Synod.

Here is an important excerpt from it:

The issue of access to the sacraments, especially to the Eucharist, on the part of the divorced-and-remarried was the object of reflection at the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops last October. This is referred to in proposition no. 52 of the final Relatio, which says: ‘The Synod Fathers also considered the possibility of giving the divorced-and-remarried access to the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Various Synod Fathers insisted on maintaining the present discipline, because of the constitutive relationship between participation in the Eucharist and communion with the Church as well as her teaching on the indissoluble character of marriage. Others proposed a more individualized approach, permitting access in certain situations and with certain well-defined conditions, primarily in irreversible situations and those involving moral obligations towards children who would have to endure unjust suffering. Access to the sacraments might take place if preceded by a penitential practice, determined by the diocesan bishop. The subject needs to be thoroughly examined, bearing in mind the distinction between an objective sinful situation and extenuating circumstances, given that ‘imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors’” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1735).’”

And the high-ranking prelate asks: Is the question about communion for the divorced-and-remarriage a question of discipline, of doctrine or of Magisterial teaching?

We observe that the wording of the text of the proposition generates ambiguities. It speaks of the ‘current discipline’ and a possible modification of this, but this prompts a few doubts that require examination. In reality, the regulation in effect is not only a ‘current discipline’, as if this were a matter of a merely ecclesiastical norm and not of divine norms ratified by the Magisterium, with doctrinal and magisterial motivations that concern the very foundations of Christian life, of conjugal morality, of the meaning of and respect for the Eucharist, and of the validity of the Sacrament of Penance. We are looking at a discipline founded on divine law. It is not emphasized enough that the documents of the Church in this matter do not impose obligations originating from its authority, but rather affirm that the ecclesiastical authority cannot act otherwise, because this ‘discipline’ cannot be modified in its essential elements. The Church cannot act otherwise. It cannot modify the natural law or respect for the nature of the Eucharist, because this is a question of the divine will.

To the extent to which it provides for the possibility of admitting the divorced-and-remarried to Eucharistic communion, the proposal actually constitutes a change of doctrine. Notwithstanding the fact that its proponents say that they do not want to modify doctrine. Moreover, doctrine by its very nature is not changeable if it is the object of the authentic Magisterium of the Church. Before talking about and discussing any change in the discipline currently in force, it is necessary to reflect on the nature of this discipline. In studying this question one must, in the first place, reflect on this doctrine and on its level of certainty; there must be careful study of what can be modified and what cannot be. The doubt has been insinuated in the proposal itself when it calls for more in-depth study, which must be doctrinal and prior to any decision.

We can also ask ourselves whether it is the competency of a Synod of Bishops to deal with a question like this: the value of the doctrine and of the discipline currently in force in the Church, which have developed over the course of centuries and have been ratified by statements of the supreme Magisterium of the Church. Moreover, who is competent to modify the Magisterium of other popes? That would constitute a dangerous precedent. Furthermore, the innovations that would be introduced if the text of the proposal were approved would be of unprecedented gravity:

a) the possibility of admitting to Eucharistic communion, with the explicit approval of the Church, a person who is in a state of mortal sin, with the danger of sacrilege and profanation of the Eucharist;

b) in doing so the Church would call into question the general principle of the need to be in the state of sanctifying grace in order to be able to receive Eucharistic communion, especially now that a generalized practice has been introduced or is being introduced in the Church of receiving the Eucharist without previous sacramental confession, even if one is aware of being in a state of serious sin, with all of the harmful consequences that this practice involves;

c) the admission to Eucharistic communion of a Catholic who cohabits more uxorio (as though married) would also mean calling into question sexual morality, which is founded in particular on the sixth commandment;

d) moreover, in acting this way, the Church would also lend support to cohabitation or to other arrangements, which in fact would weaken the principle of the indissolubility of marriage.”

The very concrete motives of the German episcopate

Another enlightening commentary, less doctrinal and much more concrete, is provided by the American scholar George Weigel in an article that appeared in the January issue of First Things magazine. If you know that Cardinal Walter Kasper is supported by the German bishops as a whole, by the very admission of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, President of their Bishops’ Conference, you may wonder what drives those bishops—and them especially—to their militant advocacy of communion for the divorced-and-remarried. Here is the answer that Weigel got:

Ten months before the Synod met, I asked a knowledgeable observer of German Catholic affairs why the German Catholic leadership insisted on revisiting the issue of Holy Communion for those in civil second marriages, which most of the rest of the world Church thought had been sufficiently aired in the 1980 Synod on the Family, and which seemed to have been settled by the reaffirmation of the Church’s traditional teaching and practice in St. John Paul II’s 1981 Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (The Community of the Family) and in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. I got a one-word answer: ‘Money.’

The German Church is funded by the Kirchensteuer, the ‘church tax’ collected by the Federal Republic from every citizen who has not taken action to opt out of it. The funds involved are considerable; in 2011, the Kirchensteuer provided the Catholic Church in Germany with $6.3 billion. Recently, however, more and more German Catholics have been choosing to opt out. In a clumsy attempt to stanch the bleeding, the German bishops issued a decree in 2012, stating that anyone who opts out of the tax has ‘left the Church’ and that such de facto apostates are cut off from the Church’s sacramental life, except in danger of death. The decree was widely mocked and German canonists declared it a nonstarter, for it takes more to ‘leave the Church’ than signing a civil affidavit. In any event, payment of the Kirchensteuer has continued to drop.

Many German bishops seem to have concluded that this pattern of defection from payment of the Church tax can best be explained by the perception of the Catholic Church as a mean, narrow, and cruel exponent of propositions—such as the indissolubility of marriage—that no self-respecting 21st-century European can accept. That people have stopped paying the Kirchensteuer because they have stopped believing that Jesus is Lord and that the Catholic Church is his Body might seem the more straightforward explanation. But adopting that interpretation would require acknowledging that the meltdown of Catholic faith and practice in Germany has had something to do with the colossal failures of German theology and catechetics to transmit the Gospel effectively under the challenging conditions of late modernity and postmodernity. And that, to borrow an image from another battle, seems a bridge too far.”

[Editor’s note: The author alludes to the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far which tells the story of Operation Market Garden in September 1944, in which, after a crushing defeat, English General Browning admits: “We tried to go a bridge too far.”]

(Sources: Apic/Imedia/Figaro Magazine/Chiesa.espressonline.it/First Things—DICI #309, January 30, 2015)

T -248: Man Marking Marx – The Network

29 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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Alfrink, Basic Law, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bling, Card. Lehmann, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Catholic Church, Communits, Deus Ex Machina, Eponymous Flower blog, Father Z, Forte, Francis church, Frings, German Bishops' Conference, Germany, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Cardinal Bernardine, Joseph Ratzinger, Karl Rahner, Kirchensteuer, Konrad Duke of Mazovia, Liénart, lost election, messeging, Michael Davies, Motu Proprio Ecclesiae sanctae, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, ObamaCare, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Polish Lithuanian Forces, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, Social Market Economy, spirit of Vatican II, Suenens, Synod 2014, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II

Karl Rahner

Yesterday we left off while analyzing the question: Just how powerful is Cardinal Reinhard „ Bling” Marx. Today’s post should be viewed as a continuation of the analysis started in the Man Marking Marx – Die Power Ball.

Today we begin with an observation from the MondayVatican blog, a blog that is very friendly to Francis and the revolution. (see here) Here is how they described Card. “Bling” Marx:

It is noteworthy that Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich-Freising, a prime engineer of Vatican reforms and one of the main players in this season of the Church, has recently insisted that the Church should learn from Luther.

It needs repeating that both sides of the Great Political Divide that Francis unleashed on the Roman Catholic Church, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ITS 2000 YEAR HISTORY, see Marx as not only the most “most influential religious leader in Europe”  (see here) but also as the “prime engineer of the Vatican reforms” as per above.

With respect to the Luther quote, consider his a “straggler” that we will pick up in a future post.

Today we will try to locate and pin down the Network that is the Power behind Die Power Ball.

The Network

Given the above, and the analysis from our previous posts, we have been able to construct a profile of Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx both as a person (see here) and as prominent cleric wielding immense power and clout. Today we will try to “place him” into the structure of the group that we designate as the “Network”. It is this group that is responsible for providing Marx with this immense power and and media protection (see here), power and protection that allows the agenda of this special interest group to advance. It is this special interests group that provides the source of this immense power wielded not only by Marx and the present organization that he heads, but likewise served to promote this same agenda by the German Bishops’ Conference post VII and by the individual German Bishops after the Second World War.

Looking at various pieces of evidence (data points) that we have assembled so far, we can construct the following outline of this Network and make the following observations:

General Observations

Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx has advanced to positions both in the German Bishops’ Conference (President) and in the Vatican hierarchy (Member of Council of Cardinal- C9) which provide him with an immense amount of power in making decisions affecting not only the German Church and the universal Church, but also each and every member of the Church Militant. That’s you and me folks!

Card. Marx was chosen to be the President of the German Bishops’ Conference, backed by a Network who is a powerful lobby within the German Church and by extension the Roman Catholic Church.

Card. Marx won an election by a “wafer-thin” margin in the Plenary in April of 2014, after leading a vicious media campaign against a potential rival. (see here)

Card. Marx was appointed by the bishop of Rome to sit on the Council of Cardinals (C9), who are advising Francis on the “Curia reforms”.

Network Sightings

“Occurrences” have been observed that indicate that a “group of highly placed clerics” representing a Network with connections to EXTERNAL SPECIAL INTERESTS outside the Catholic Church, engaged in activities which directly effect the internal functioning of the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership.

Evidence of this Network is contained in the Davies interview, and the quote is as follows:

MD: Yes. He and his fellow German, Lehmann, were made Cardinals. You see there is no chance of Cardinal Ratzinger being made Pope. The job of Kasper and Lehmann is to go to the conclave and stop anyone Ratzinger supports from being made Pope. (see here)

(NB) Since “the job” of Kasper and Lehmann is to go to the conclave and stop anyone Ratzinger supports from being made Pope”, than these two must have received instructions for carrying out that “job” from an outside “source”. This could be someone from outside the German Bishops’ Conference since Lehmann is considered the “capo di tutti capi”, which would imply that there is someone above him.

Furthermore Kasper and Lehmann have not only a “source of funding” for this job, but media protection likewise. Evidence for this assertion is from the following quote:

MD: It is interesting, Pope John Paul II wouldn’t appoint Kasper and Lehmann at first and a week later he did.

JB: Yes. Their appointment came as a shock to a lot of orthodox Catholics.

MD: Well do you know where the pressure came from? The Polish hierarchy. Because they get so much money from the Germans. So Kasper and Lehmann said, ‘You scratch our backs and we’ll scratch yours.’

Original Manifestation of this Network

The first “public” manifestation of this powerful Network was observed at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which overturned the prepared schema and introduced the alternative schemas, which in turn led to the introduction of the “smoke of the spirit of the new springtime” into the Church, which in turn led to the destruction of the institution of the Church and undermined the One True Faith. The ringleaders of this cabal was the German Frigs, along with the Frenchmen Liénart, the Belgium Suenens and the Dutchman Alfrink.

On an aside, it would not be too unreasonable to suspect that these four were allowed to run roughshod over Vatican II due to a “service” that they performed at the conclave of 1958.

Ideological Agenda

It would be fair to say that this Network has consistently promoted an anti-Catholic, progressive-leftist ideology opposing the Catholic Faith since the commencement of the Second Vatican Council.

Source of Funding

The source of funding for this Network is the Kirchensteuer which was re-introduced by the German Basic Law of 1949. This Church Tax generated €5.5b in income in 2013 alone. It is estimated that the income dropped to €4.9b in 2014 based on the drop in the German Church Tax payer pool.

Due to the form of the collection of the Church Tax and enormous amounts that are collected and ultimately “administered” by the German Bishops’ Conference, the Bishops’ Conference is very dependent on the national political powers that be. The amount that the individual Church Tax payer is assessed is either 8% or 9% of their income tax. The Catholic Church uses the state to collect the Kirchensteuer. Therefore, the Church hierarchy are in essence reliant on the German state for their existence. (see here)

The amount of the Kirchensteuer collected annually has allowed the Catholic Church in Germany to become the second largest “business” employing 700,000 employees. Second largest employer in German behind Mercedes Benz. (see here)

Distribution Mechanism

The creation of the national bishops conferences by the Motu ProprioEcclesiae sanctae by Pope Paul VI in 1966, allowed for groups of mid level functionaries appointed to these national bishops’ conferences to wrest control over the Catholic churches away from the diocesan ordinaries (bishops). This confernance mechanism essentially replaced the natural communion between a bishop and the pope with collegiality, an artificial “creation” which allowed these mid level functionaries to “pool” the power of the individual bishops into a “collective”, a power that they then used to steer their own agendas.

The advent of the “collegiality” collectives allowed shadowy figures such as Joseph Bernadine in the US and Karl Rahner in Germany to usurp the power of the individual bishops and establish a dichotomy of interests between these collectivized Bishops’ Conferences and the pope.

Because of the unique manner in which the German Church is funded, i.e. through the Kirchensteuer, the German Bishops’ Conference became the ultimate “administers” of all the Church Tax collected in Germany.

The Kirchensteuer has created an environment of corruption within the leftist circles of the German Bishops’ Conference. The dramatic numbers of both practicing and lapsed Catholics who are de-registering, has caused a massive problem that is threatening to collapse the entire ponzi scheme church funding system. (see here)

Marx’s Lineage

With the advent of Vatican II and the creation of the national bishops’ conferences, many shadowy figures ascended into key positions of authorities. Once such corrupt and heretical cleric was the Jesuit Karl Rahner. An explanation of this situation is as follows:

The Episcopal Conferences were dominated in fact by their theological experts and since among them the most powerful were the Germans, the role of their principal theologian, the Jesuit, Karl Rahner, was decisive. Father Wiltgen sums it up efficaciously, describing the power of the progressive lobby united in what he calls the “European Alliance”. “Since the position of the German Bishops was adopted by the European Alliance and again, given that the position of the Alliance was generally accepted by the Council, it was enough for one theologian alone to convince the German language Bishops of his personal ideas so that the Council would make them its own. This theologian existed: Father Karl Rahner of the Society of Jesus.” (see here)

Lehmann was a protégé of Rahner. An explanation of this situation is as follows:

Everyone knows, actually, at least in Germany, that the one who is still pulling the strings of dissent against Rome is precisely Lehmann, an old disciple of Karl Rahner. Father Ralph Wiltgen, in his book The Rhine Flows Into The Tiber, highlighted Rahner’s role in the Second Vatican Council from the moment the Episcopal Conferences carried out a determining role.

And Marx is a protégé of Lehmann and by extention Rahner and the current figurehead to this EXTERNAL SPECIAL INTEREST. An explanation of this situation is as follows:

Fifty years after Vatican II, Rahner’s shadow is hovering once again over the Catholic Church, making his voice heard in the pro-homosexual positions of some of his followers, younger than Lehmann and Kasper, like Cardinal Archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx and Archbishop of Chieti, Bruno Forte.

Summa summarum

Concluding, it is this Network described above comprised of shadowy figures that trace their lineage to key figures who plotted and carried out the destruction of the Catholic Church after the Second World War, culminating in the Second Vatican Council. During VII, these individuals found themselves in key positions of authority with access to both power and financing. They created a what amounts to a criminal organization within the Catholic Church through which they expert power. At present, the figurehead of this organization is Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx. The power behind Marx is Cardinal Kurt Lehmann who exercises power from behind the curtain. To illustrate the kind of power Lehmann exercises, the following is a good indication:

The only plausible reason is that the Pope has offered the head of Cardinal Burke on a plate to Cardinal Kasper and, through him, to Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the ex-President of the German Episcopal Conference. Everyone knows, actually, at least in Germany, that the one who is still pulling the strings of dissent against Rome is precisely Lehmann, an old disciple of Karl Rahner.

To demonstrate the threat that this Network and their supporting EXTERNAL SPECIAL INTEREST pose to the church, a list of scandals that can be plausibly connected to them are as follows: Buying of Cardinal-ships for Lehmann and Kasper, Vati-Leaks – (original story appeared in Die Welt), Abdication of Benedict XVI and the present scandal whereby Kasper and Lehmann are complicit in “Team Bergoglio” allegations. These allegations were made by Dr. Austen Ivereigh, the spokesman for another of the “Team Bergoglio” cabal, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. According to the allegations, a present day “European Alliance” consisting of Cardinals Kasper (German), Lehmann (German), Danneels (Belgian) and Andre Vingt-Trois (French) whereby the plotters gained the acceptance and then canvassed for votes to elect Bergoglio. (see here)

On an aside, no Dutchman was implicated, which lead on to conclude that the Dutch Catholic Church was the first national church that fell to the spirit of Vatican II. But I digress…

It is this shadowy Network of proteges of Karl Rahner, funded by the Kirchensteuer and influenced by EXTERNAL SPECIAL INTERESTS that represents the greatest threat to the stability of the Catholic Church and to the well being of souls in its care.

But more on that in the next post.

T -249: Man Marking Marx – Dei Power Ball

28 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by S. Armaticus in Synod of Bishops'

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Alfrink, Basic Law, Battle of Tannenburg, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bling, Bolsheviks, Card. Lehmann, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Carpe Diem, Catholic Church, Catholic Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, Communits, Deus Ex Machina, Eponymous Flower blog, Father Z, Forte, Francis church, Frings, German Bishops' Conference, Germany, heretical pope, hippies, Hitler, Jesuits, Joseph Cardinal Bernardine, Joseph Ratzinger, Joseph Stalin, Karl Rahner, Kirchensteuer, Konrad Duke of Mazovia, Liénart, lost election, messeging, Michael Davies, Motu Proprio Ecclesiae sanctae, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, ObamaCare, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Polish Lithuanian Forces, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, Social Market Economy, spirit of Vatican II, Suenens, Synod 2014, Teutonic Knights, Third Reich, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II, Wars for German Unification, Wiemar

running man I Yesterday, Father Z. took over Man Marking Marx for a day. And seeing as how I had a rather busy day, I appreciate Father Z. filling in. 😉 To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t expecting the help, but good to know that he has my back. So today we pick up where we left off Man Marking Marx without skipping a beat. We continue to focus on just how powerful Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx really is and attempt to explain the power base (SPECIAL INTEREST for those who have been following this narrative) that Marx represents. Here I would just like to mention that one of the selection criteria used in the Deus Ex Machina blog’s Peirce/Ockham pragmatic paradigm methodology is actually borrowed from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. When the FBI analyze criminal rackateers, the initial investigation begins with an analysis of the “money trail”. In our methodology, we translate this as following our Golden Rule, i.e. “He who has the Gold, makes the Rules”. And that is what we will be doing today. We will be “following the money” that will hopefully lead us to the power base of this exceptionally powerful Cardinal of “Bling”. Shall we begin?

Die Power Ball

So just how powerful is Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx? Well, according to the Eponymous Flower blog, he just might be the most powerful cleric in Europe if not in all of Christendom. Here is the relevant passage: (see here)

At the meeting in Münster Spring Plenary Meeting of the German Bishops’ Conference , Cardinal Reinhard Marx was chosen as the Archbishop of Munich-Freising, as expected, to be their new President Cardinal Marx, in the power of consciousness it is said, he has actually become presently the most influential religious leader in Europe. The term of office for the DBK President shall be six years.

However, there were problems at the Plenary Meeting since it was “expected” that Marx would become President of the German Bishops’ Conference of the second richest Catholic Church in the world and richest in Europe, but the vote for Marx was rather weak. Here is that relevant passage:

Archbishop Marx was elected on the fourth ballot, with “wafer-thin majority” (FAZ)

A sign of a contribution “to the unity of the Church” in Paraguay Germany, this vote WAS NOT! Consider this issue as a “straggler” that we will pick up in a further post. But I digress…

To understand Card. Marx and more importantly the power of the German Bishops’ Conference, a history lesson is in order. A good place to start is to understand the situation in post WWII in Europe in general and Germany specifically. A good insight is provided here.

Post War Germany

When the war ended in May of 1945, what was left still standing in Germany, which wasn’t that much, was the Third Reich’s organizational structure. This organizational structure actually has its roots in the Wars of German Unification and the reforms implemented by Otto Von Bismarck in the mid 19th century. Since this is a tangential point, I do not want to get caught up in detail, but suffice it to say, when Bismarck was uniting the different German lands, and overthrowing the various ruling crown princes, he needed a “bone” that he could throw to the peasantry to pry their loyalties away from their local monarchs and transfer them across to the new German state. This “bone” was created in the form of a “social safety net”. Think Socialist Social Market Economy (see here) and ObamaCare.

The German Legacy

What Bismarck in turn did, was reform the old Royal Prussian Army funding mechanism, by which a highly developed network of Prussian bureaucrats collected taxes from whatever they could think of, including but not limited to the number of roofs that a property had (roof tax) or the amount of rain water that could fall on any given roof (rain tax). Naturally these taxes were needed to support a professional standing army, but Bismarck reforms redirected these income streams into the social sector.

This administration that Bismarck inherited was actually an heirloom of the Catholic Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, i.e. the Teutonic Knights. The Knights in turn created the administrative apparatus after the Order was invited to the then pagan Prussian lands in 1226 by the Duke of Mazovia (Poland) to help pacify the pagans across Poland’s northern border. The Knights were quite effective in pacifying not only the Prussian pagans, but also organizing them and the German settlers who were looking for the Lebensraum of that era. This effort was so successful and the Knights became so powerful, that they became an existential threat to the Polish monarchy. The dominance of the Teutonic Knights ended at the first battle of Tannenburg in 1410, where they were defeated by the joint army of Poland and Lithuania, however the organizational structure lived on, and is with us til today.

The German Church at the Second Vatican Council

Fast forward to 1945 and the aftermath of the second lost war in 25 years, the new German Republic needed to rebuild itself, but having a solid organizational foundation made this task was much easier. It made the rebuilding task that much easier in fact, that by the time the Second Vatican Council rolled around, just 17 years later, the Germans already were the dominant player in Europe.

The mechanism that funded the radicals at VII was the “re-introduction” of the Church Tax, i.e. the Kirchensteuer in the 1949 Basic Law, which was inherited from article 147 of the old Wiemar Constitution of 1919. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude to this tax, 5,500,000,000 (that’s billion) Euros was collected in 2013 alone. (see here)

But back to 1962.The  ringleaders of the radicals liberals at the Second Vatican Council were Liénart (French), Frings (German), Suenens (Belgian) and Alfrink (Dutch) as we all know by now, and they were well funded. But just to refresh our memories dear readers, as to the role that these four musketeers played in unleashing the “smoke of Satan during the advent of the “new springtime of the spirit of VII”, please see here.

As to the “organization” of the administration of the dreaded Kirchensteuer, the most damaging document that emerged from VII in terms of Church governance was Christus Dominus (38), implemented by Pope Paul VI in 1966 Motu Proprio Ecclesiae sanctae. The Ecclesiae sanctae created the national bishops conferences, which in Germany ended up as the organization that took control over administering the Kirchensteuer.

On an aside, and just to indicate what kind of individuals found themselves in positions of power in these newly created bishops conferences, I provide a small anecdote. In the US, the first secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops was a young and up and coming cleric. When his mother found out that he was entering a seminary, she quipped that “he never should any signs of being religious”. I am obviously referring to Joseph Bernardine. Bernardine’s equivalent in Germany was the notorious Jesuit Karl Rahner. For the details, please see here.

As to the long shadow of his man, and his ecclesiastical descendants, the relevant passage is here:

Fifty years after Vatican II, Rahner’s shadow is hovering once again over the Catholic Church, making his voice heard in the pro-homosexual positions of some of his followers, younger than Lehmann and Kasper, like Cardinal Archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx and Archbishop of Chieti, Bruno Forte.

As you can see dear reader, what becomes evident in the above narrative is the nature of the beast. The threat to the Barque of St. Peter comes from a small group of clerics whose career can be traced back to Rahner. This cabal possesses characteristics typical of a criminal organization. They keep together since just like with the unwritten rule of thieve, “if one cracks then they all hang”. The apparatus that is keeping them in power is through the money that flows from the German Catholics, or rather from those that participate in the Kirchensteuer payer pool. Just to give you dear reader an idea of how powerful the “power of the purse” is, I will relay an anecdote from Michael Davies, given during an interview with John Bishop. It speaks for itself: (see here)

I’ll tell you a good little story that Count Capponi told us at our general assembly of Una Voce. Cardinal Kasper went on an ecumenical mission to Athens last year.

JB: Cardinal Kasper? Oh he is the German.

MD: Yes. He and his fellow German, Lehmann, were made Cardinals. You see there is no chance of Cardinal Ratzinger being made Pope. The job of Kasper and Lehmann is to go to the conclave and stop anyone Ratzinger supports from being made Pope. It is interesting, Pope John Paul II wouldn’t appoint Kasper and Lehmann at first and a week later he did.

JB: Yes. Their appointment came as a shock to a lot of orthodox Catholics.

MD: Well do you know where the pressure came from? The Polish hierarchy. Because they get so much money from the Germans. So Kasper and Lehmann said, ‘You scratch our backs and we’ll scratch yours.’

JB: Is that genuine? An inside story?

MD: Oh yes definitely. The Polish hierarchy put the pressure on. But anyway Kasper went on this ecumenical mission to Athens, attended the Greek Orthodox liturgy in the morning and in the afternoon he was having lunch. Then the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Athens, who is a good friend of Count Capponi and Una Voce, asked his Eminence how he had enjoyed the liturgy in the morning. “Oh wonderful, wonderful,” said the Cardinal, “I thought I was in heaven.” Then the Archbishop said that he thought perhaps that they should make some changes to the Greek liturgy because, perhaps for modern people today, some of it is too mystifying. Kasper said, “No that would be a mortal sin. You mustn’t change a thing. Keep it exactly as it is.” And the Archbishop said, “Then why did you destroy your liturgy which was the equivalent of ours?”

JB: What is going on here? Saying what they think people want to hear. Now you see them now you don’t. This is perfidy.

I will leave off here for today since I already ran long.

Summa Summarum

The more one observes people like Marx and his predecessors, the more one comes away with the impression that these people act like Soviet Bolsheviks responsible for the overthrow of the Russian state in 1917. Some of the traits are unmistakeably similar. For example, “once power is obtained, it is never relinquished” is one maxim that comes to mind, off the top of my head. How else can one explain this quote: The job of Kasper and Lehmann is to go to the conclave and stop anyone Ratzinger supports from being made Pope. For Kasper and Lehmann to have this “job”, someone must have given them the directive and the financial means to carry it out. And just as a reminder, the “Team Bergoglio” affair is just the present manifestation of this mechanism. (see here)

Furthermore, it can also be observed that this cabal of ideologues have embarked on a inter-generational mission to not only transform the Catholic Church, but likewise “transform nature” itself. And just like Joseph Stalin tried to do with his two infamous “Five Year Plans for the Transformation of Nature”, these people have blindly embarked upon the next manifestation of this idiocy. It’s like…

…the medieval doctor who bleeds the patient only to find that the remedy makes the patient worse, explains that it is not the remedy that is the problem, but simply that the patient hasn’t been bled long enough.

However, where the situation of these clerical ideologues is different than that of the Communist ideologues is that with the Soviet Union, objective reality caught up with them since the Communists had to not only support their peasantry citizenry, but also an empire. The Rahnerist ideologues don’t have either a population nor an empire to support. They are in a much better position since they don’t have a care in the world and have the Kirchensteuer at their disposal. And while the Kirchensteuer remains the source of “the power”, the organization that administers it and it’s President Cardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx, will enjoy the exceptional prestige and power that obviously this “money can buy”.

But like all good things, the Kirchensteuer will eventually come to an end. The writing is on the wall.

So all one can say it: enjoy it while it last and…

Carpe Diem!

Of Interest: Of Icerbergs and Rene Richards- Who Coincidentally Has Regrets

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by S. Armaticus in Of Interest

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"Christine Daniels", Bergoglio, biological sex, Cardinal Kasper, de-transitin, Drudge Report, Father Z, Gay Lobby, homosexuality, iceberg, Main Stream Media manipulation, Mike Penner, MSM, narratives, pathological, reality, Rene Richards, Restoration, sex change, Stella Morabito, suicide, suppression, tragedy, transgender, Vatican

A bit off topic… but hey… it’s my blog now. Sorry about that.

Over at the Federalist blog appears a story titled: Trouble in Transtopia: Murmurs of Sex Change Regret. The Drudge Report picked it up as well.

Turns out that a high proportion of individuals who undergo “elective bodily mutilation” such as sex change procedures, have regrets. Could be as high as 65% according to one British poll.

However, if one of these unfortunate individuals decides to revert back to his biological state, “de-transition”, this individual will have a problem, most notably with the “un-transitioned”.

I will let the author, Stella Morabito pick up from here: [Reproduced with emphasis and comments]

But the difference between (Courtney ) Love (who had her lips enhanced) and the guy with phantom penis syndrome is that the guy isn’t allowed to talk about his regret. Not openly. The transgender lobby actively polices and suppresses discussion of sex-change regret, and claims it’s rare (no more than “5 percent.”) However, if you do decide to “de-transition” to once again identify with the sex in your DNA, talking about it will get you targeted by trans activists. So it’s a challenge to understand the scope of regret for sex change surgery. It’s out there, but…

Not only are these stories out there, but they end in tragedy. As in the case of Mike Penner (to read about Rene Richards, please go to the article):

Penner’s story is even more tragic. In April 2007, Penner, a Los Angeles Times sportswriter for 24 years, announced in a stunning column that he would come back from vacation as “Christine Daniels.” He then wrote a blog, “Woman in Progress,” as he lived as a woman and served as a spokesperson for transgender activism.

But then, with no explanation, Penner decided in 2008 to de-transition. He readopted his byline, Mike Penner, and lived again as a man. All blog posts and bylines by Christine Daniels were mysteriously scrubbed from the LA Times website. Penner discussed none of it. But according to one report, he was devastated over not being able to save his marriage. Then tragically, in November 2009, Penner killed himself. The funeral for Penner was strictly private to keep out media. The LGBT community had their own memorial service, but only for “Christine Daniels,” not Mike Penner.

The reason I posted the above article is to demonstrate how the forces of “progress”, whether in the “trans-gender” industry or in the conciliar church function. Once the “narrative” has been established, professional “watch dogs” are put in place to protect that narrative.

Which leads me to the analogous example in the conciliar church. Over at Fr. Z’s blog, he puts up a post titled: Religious News Service Smear of Card. Burke (link here)

Summing up the “smear article”, Fr.Z writes:

It is open season on Raymond Card. Burke.  The liberals have their knives out.

Remember when Card. Kasper suggested that there was going to be negative consequences in the press for those who were on the opposite side of the positions he was proposing? HERE

So what is the moral of the story, you might ask?

I will allow Mrs Morabito explain [with emphasis and comments]:

These stories [de-transitioning in the case of the article, and suppression of Catholicism in the case of Fr. Z’s post] may be the tip of the proverbial iceberg [should be “are”  not “may”]. There are many such scattered about, and you can see my blog for supplementation. No doubt they’re not widely reported because they don’t fit the “transgender-as-paragon-of-personal-courage” narrative [or the “spirit of V II” as the new springtime] so popular in the media today. But there’s also that element of active suppression by the trans activists [and by the Vatican II lobby in our case].

Yes folks. As you can see, the devastation is everywhere in our “anthropocentric” world. Repressing the reality of the “genital mutilation industry”, just like the repression of the Restoration of the Catholic Church is an ongoing process. What we see is only the tip of the iceberg.  But what we also have to be cognizant of is the part we don’t see, i.e. much larger part that is under the water. Because reality is comprised of the entire ICEBERG.

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