T -23: The Polish Breakfast

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UPDATE

This post was originally titled The Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary, whose feast day is today. I have changed its title however, to give it a historical perspective. Even though the title is “lighter”, it does not distract from the intended context, triumphalist by its very nature.

Here is the original post:

Today, the 12th of September is the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary. It has been a universal Roman Rite feast since 1684, when Pope Innocent XI included it in the General Roman Calendar to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

As to what is at stake, I link to a Fr. Z post that lays it out quite neatly in his post titled The final target of the Third Hijra: Rome and the Catholic Church. (see here)

Today more than ever, we need to go to Church, pray and do penance. Please also keep the Hungarians, the Poles and the Czech in your prayers. They are on the front lines and heroically resisting against much larger and better funded forces, both internal and external, of heretics, heathens and infidels.

Background of the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary from Wikipedia: (see here)

History

The feast day began in 1513 as a local celebration in Cuenca, Spain, celebrated on 15 September. In 1587 Pope Sixtus V moved the celebration to 17 September. Pope Gregory XV extended the celebration to the Archdiocese of Toledo in 1622.^[3] In 1666 the Discalced Carmelites received permission to recite the Divine Office of the Name of Mary four times a year. In 1671 the feast was extended to the whole Kingdom of Spain.

Before the Battle of Vienna in 1683, John III Sobieski had placed his troops under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the following year, to celebrate the victory, Pope Innocent XI added the feast to the General Roman Calendar, assigning to it the Sunday within the octave of the Nativity of Mary.

The reform of Pope Pius X in 1911 restored to prominence the celebration of Sundays in their own right, after they had been often replaced by celebrations of the saints. The celebration of the Holy Name of Mary was therefore moved to 12 September.^[7] Later in the same century, the feast was removed from the General Roman Calendar in 1969 in the reform of the Calendar by Pope Paul VI, as something of a duplication of the 8 September feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,^[8] but it did not cease to be a recognized feast of the Roman Rite, being mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on 12 September. In 2002 Pope John Paul II restored the celebration to the General Roman Calendar.^[

On a lighter side:

The Croissant:

The day was commemorated in Vienna by creating a new kind of pastry, known now as the croissant, shaping it in the form of a half-moon from the crest on the Turkish flag. It was eaten along with coffee which was part of the booty from the Turks.

Coffee in Europe: (see here)

Legend has it that soldiers of the Polish-Habsburg army, while liberating Vienna from the second Turkish siege in 1683, found a number of sacks with strange beans that they initially thought were camel feed and wanted to burn. The Polish king Jan III Sobieski granted the sacks to one of his officers named Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who started the first coffee house. This story was published by the Catholic Priest Gottfried Uhlich in 1783 in his History of the second Turkish Siege, and he took some liberties. In reality, Kolschitzky’s coffee house missed being the first by more than a year. A more factual account has been reported by Karl Teply.^[5]

After some experimentation, the legend goes on, Kolschitzky added some sugar and milk, and the Viennese coffee tradition was born. This achievement has been recognized in many modern Viennese coffeehouses by hanging a picture of Kulczycki in the window.^[6] Another account is that Kulczycki, having spent two years in Ottoman captivity, knew perfectly well what coffee really is and tricked his superiors into granting him the beans that were considered worthless.^[7]

So the next time anyone tries to convince you that a Polish breakfast has to do with cold cuts, please…please by all means correct them!

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T -137: Everyone Has A Plan…

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1968, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, card. Marx, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Catholic Church, Council of Cardinals (C9), Francis church, German Bishops' Conference, Great Cardinal, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Ratzinger, Kirchensteuer, messeging, MSM, narratives, Neo-Pagan, new springtime, Objective reality, optics, Pagan Christians, pathological, Pope Francis, Raymond Burke, Roman Curia, Rorate Caeli blog, spirit of Vatican II, Synod 2014, Theology of Lust, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II

In yesterday’s post titled Moving The Goal Posts, we left off our analysis of the Bergoglian/Kasperian “theology done on the knees” by identifying and defining its respective parts, in line with definitions as understood and used in the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. As we demonstrated in that post, this new “animal” with which we are dealing since that fateful speech of FrancisCardinal Walter Kasper at the Consistory of Cardinal of 2014, can best be classified as a The Theology of Lust™.(see here)

We concluded our post by explaining that this Theology of Lust™ is in fact nothing new. In essence it is no different than the protestant version of the theology of lust that the German Lutheran Church has instituted and has been systematically “developing” since at least the end of the Second World War. We used the Markus Günther article from the FAZ, translated on the Radical Catholic blog (see here) to support our contention.

On an aside, and as confirmation of the above, entering the “marks” of this protestant theology of lust into any internet search engine, such as DuckDuckGo for example, will yield numerous results from other protestant denominations. Here are just a couple of sightings. The protestant version of the theology of lust has an Anglican “strain” as described here, and an Episcopal strain as described here.

And since we are using the term “strain”, we can easily draw the conclusion that the appearance and spread of these various “strains” of The Theology of Lust™ would likewise be recognizable to the average epidemiologist. The symptoms and effects would be analogous to those which he would find dealing with viruses such as Ebola. With equally devastating results. But I digress…

Back to the subject at hand. We left off our post titled Moving the Goal Post making the observation that:

A Theology of Lust therefore, will not help the Catholic Church any more than it helped the Lutherans.

But for some reason, TEAMFRANCIS just doesn’t get it.

So today we pick up trying to answer  the question as to what exactly is the Theology of Lust™ and uncover another HIDDEN AGENDA. The natural place to start is by examining the motivation of the participants of this strategy Lord’s pastoral call behind the attempted introduction of the Theology of Lust™ into Catholic moral theology.

One clue as to the participants and motivation that we have at our disposal, comes by way of an analysis that your humble blogger did on the individual that is labeled as the driving force behind this Theology of Lust™ process, namely the FrancisCardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx. In an interview that the Cardinal Archbishop of “Swank” gave to the Jesuit magazine America, which we analyzed in the post- Data Mining With Marx (see here) the following is written:

In the lecture, titled “The Contribution of Christian Values to the Common Good,” Cardinal Marx referred to his early formation into the “left position” of social justice—“how to work with those who are poor,” he said—through conversations with his father.

In that post we are introduced to the FrancisCardinals “values” and provided with a definition of what a “left position” could possibly mean. Of note is that this term has NO counterpart in Catholic moral theology or social teaching. This term “left position” is strictly a secular term that identifies a political view that can be better described as a leftist ideological persuasion.

Just for reference purposes,  “theology” is defined as: the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially: the study of God and of God’s relation to the world. A theological theory or system.

As for the former, here is how the term ideology is defined: (see here and emphasis added)

Ideology, in the Althusserian sense, is “the imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence.” It can be described as a set of conscious and unconscious ideas which make up one’s goals, expectations, and motivations. An ideology is a comprehensive normative vision, meaning that it is a set of standards that are followed by people, government, and/or other groups that is considered the “norm”. [1][further explanation needed], a way of looking at things, as argued in several philosophical tendencies (see political ideologies). It can also be a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of society to all members of society (a “received consciousness” or product of socialization [further explanation needed], as suggested in some Marxist and Critical theory accounts. While the concept of “ideology” describes a set of ideas broad in its normative reach, an ideology is less encompassing than as expressed in concepts such as worldview, imaginary and ontology.

What I would like to draw your attention to dear reader is two aspects of the above definition that hold the key to understanding not only FrancisCardinal Marx but the entire TEAMFRANCIS effort which is the driving force behind the Theology of Lust™.

The first aspect of the definition is the part that states “imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence”. This phrase in and of itself is benign since it is nothing more than the restatement of a deductive or inductive scientific process or method. It can also be easily assimilated with the works of St. Thomas Aquinas or William of Ockham. Furthermore, it is nothing more than a restatement of one of the founding principles of the Roman Catholic faith, i.e. that part of the faith that comes to be “known through natural light of human reason from the things that are made”. Therefore, this above identified phrase, i.e. “imaginary relation to the real conditions of existence”, does not define an ideology in and of itself.

What is needed to complete the definition of “ideology” is the “normative” part. The definition of a “normative process” is as follows: (see here)

Normative means relating to an ideal standard of or model, or being based on what is considered to be the normal or correct way of doing something.

To be more precise and since we are in essence speaking about a philosophical or rather a pseudo-philosophical construction, the following passage is the key to understanding the nature of what constitutes an ideology:

In philosophy, normative statements make claims about how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong. Normative claims are usually contrasted with positive (i.e. descriptive, explanatory, or constative) claims when describing types of theories, beliefs, or propositions. Positive statements are (purportedly-) factual statements that attempt to describe reality.

So from the definition of the term “normative” we can see the contradictory nature between a “normative process” or a “normative statement” and a “theological statement”, i.e. a statement whose essence is purely “positive”.

In other words, the Catholic faith is in part derived “through natural light of human reason from the things that are made”, i.e. a purely positive process. The other part of our Faith comes from divine Revelation, likewise a purely positive process arising from a completely rational and logical source, i.e. Our Lord. Combined, these two sources represent that which is by definition a “theology”.

In turn, the Theology of Lust™ of FrancisCardinal Marx is derived from “statements making claims about how things should or ought to be”. He calls them a “left position”. In other words, it’s a purely “normative” process, hence fitting the definition of an “ideology”.

And naturally, since the FrancisCardinal Reinhard “Bling” Marx is not God, he has no definitive underlying basis for this ideology, i.e. the Theology of Lust™.

And by analogy, one can easily infer that the protestant denominations, with their particular versions of their very own theologies of lust, likewise have this same inherent problem. They are likewise doomed to fail, since their “theology” is likewise, in essence an “ideology in disguise”.

So just to summarize, the Theology of Lust™ is nothing more than a “left position” ideology that is based on a “normative process making claims about how things ought to be”. Since it is a normative process, it has no underlying grounding in OBJECTIVE REALITY.

Although it could be quite appealing on a superficial level, the inherent contradictory nature of a normative process makes the Theology of Lust™ unsustainable in the long term. Empirical evidence from other protestant denominations that have instituted their own versions of this “ideology disguised as theology” demonstrates the disastrous effects and consequences.

Summa summarum, what we are dealing with here, with TEAMFRANCIS and their promotion of their “ Ideology of Lust™”, is what can be described as a lost cause.

To draw a colorful analogy, this lost cause is similar to that faced by a boxer  when stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson in his prime. The Ideology of Lust™ is like that boxer’s plan for defeating Tyson. When Mike Tyson was once asked about a challenger who claimed that he had a plan for defeating the champion, Tyson answered as follows: Everyone has a plan ‘til they get punched in the mouth.

And from looking at the experience that the protestant denominations have had with their versions of the Ideology of Lust™, it is pretty evident that OBJECTIVE REALITY has treated these denominations just as mercilessly as Mike Tyson treated his challengers.

Which leaves us to make the obvious observation: the Ideology of Lust™ is driven at least in part by a HIDDEN AGENDA of the FrancisCardinal Marx, a HIDDEN AGENDA that is in part ideological at its foundation. And being fully aware of the disastrous results of the Cardinal’s German protestant counterparts, one has to wonder what else, aside of ideology is lurking behind Marx’s HIDDEN AGENDA.

T -139: HIDDEN AGENDA Comes Out of the Closet w/Update

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What a weekend? Have been MIA from the keyboard spending some quality time with the family. Because if you don’t spend time with your family, you are not a real man. Anyways, this morning I came back to my screen and lo and behold, stuff has been happening.

Where should we begin today? Seeing as how we have returned to pursuing the HIDDEN AGENDA thread in the last couple of post, and since the HIDDEN AGENDA has recently stopped being HIDDEN, maybe we should start with the CORRUPTION angle.

Now I am not referring here to the small “c”- corruption of the President of the Pontifical Council on the Family, the Curial FrancisArchbishop Vincenzo Paglia who left his dioceses bankrupt (see here), yet still managed to advance to a high Curial office. I am also not referring here to the tad larger “c” corruption of the “priest” who threatened to sue another blogger (see here).

Folks, you can’t make this stuff up!

But back to the big “C”-CORRUPTION. The reason I even mention the above is that with all the scandals and “emotionally charged happenings” going on in FrancisChurch, you dear reader would be excused to have overlooked the following piece of information provided to the public domain by none other than FrancisCardinal Kasper, commenting on and linking the aberro-marriage with Catholic moral doctrine, i.e. the HIDDEN AGENDA. Here is what FrancisCardianal Kasper is cited as having said: (emphasis added)

None other than the leading cardinal who has promoted the liberal agenda for the two-part Synod of Bishops on the Family, Cardinal Walter Kasper, has now come out publicly and with force, telling the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the Church needs to address more fully the question of same-sex couples. This topic was at the last Synod “only a marginal topic, but now it becomes central,” Kasper said on Wednesday.

So I guess the three paragraphs dedicated to the aberro-sexual agenda, based on only three interventions from out of 200 at the Secret Synod, that appeared in the mid-term Relatio was only considered “a marginal topic” to date. (see here) But at least now, what we termed the HIDDEN AGENDA, has COME OUT OF THE CLOSET and has claimed its RIGHTFUL PRIDE OF PLACE as the CENTRAL TOPIC of the Stealth Sex Synod of 2015. ™

Who would have thunk?

Now if you dear readers have been following the analysis on this blog, you will recall that we came to just this same conclusion on the 18 of December 2014. In the post titled Synod of the Three Paragraphs (see here), we laid out our case for just this HYPOTHESIS THAT HAS NOW BECOME A FACT, that it was the “question of same-sex couples” that was the central issue at the Secret Synod of 2014, we wrote the following:

For those who have been following this thread, it is very apparent by now that the Secret Synod was called not to discuss issues concerning “The Family”, but rather had a hidden agenda to try and change the teaching on the “objectively intrinsically disordered” human condition of homosexuality.

And just to put the final nail in this coffin, we find the following supporting evidence for the correctness of our analysis. It comes from the Life Site News post, where we read the following (see here):

Many observers have long expected Cardinal Kasper’s more explicit public support for the homosexual agenda, saying that the “opening” toward “remarried” couples was only the first step toward the widening of the revolutionary agenda, to include approval of same-sex relationships.

Occupying “time not space” is the operative phrase here!

Furthermore, we read that the “expectation” by “many observers” were confirmed by the following:

The other reason for this expectation is that Cardinal Walter Kasper had recently published his own book about Pope Francis, entitled Pope Francis’ Revolution of Tenderness and Love, and it was produced by Paulist Press. Father Mark-David Janus, president and publisher of Paulist Press, was present when Cardinal Kasper gave Pope Francis himself a copy of this new book on March 17. At a private audience later on the same day, Father Janus presented the pope with a promotional film on “LGBT Catholics,” called “Owning Our Faith,” which he himself had helped to bring about. These facts – which may be seen on the website of the St. Philip Neri Catholic Church – administered by the same Paulist Fathers – speak for themselves.

At this moment, you dear reader should take comfort by the rather public and numerous declarations of Francis that he is a “loyal son of the Church” and is just being misunderstood. (see here) But if that does not do the trick, please take comfort that the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has the “theological structuring” veto at his disposal. (see here) But I digress…

So there you have it. Not only has FrancisCardinal Kasper, quite conveniently written a book on just this subject matter, i.e. aberro-sexuality and tied it in to the novel concept of FrancisMercy, but he and his Paulinist collaborator have produced an “aberro-sexual” promotional video for Francis to boot. Not only have they produced this “aberro-sexual” promotional film, but this new Kasper book and “promotional film” were presented to Francis in a private audience. So that is the circumstantial evidence.

And definitively closing this thread, it is once again important to stress just exactly what is the reason behind the book writing, “promotional film” producing, closed-door meetings masterminded by the German bishops’ conference under the leadership of Cardinal Marx, and gift giving at private papal meetings, and it just exactly this that we described in the Synod of the Three Paragraphs post from the 18th of December 2014, namely:

The Synod was controlled and manipulated by a group of clerics who were taking their directives from Francis himself. The way in which the Manipulators wanted to change church teaching was first by discarding the Church’s existing Magisterium and the foundations for the Church teaching on homosexuality, replace this body of teaching with something new, only grounded inthe speeches, newspaper interviews, musings at the Domus Sanctae Marthae and off-the cuff remarksthe magisterium of Francis. They tried to find the magic formula, i.e. Modernist Magic Words that would allow for this change in teaching to slip past the Synod bishops.

So there you have it!

Regardless of what has been written and what has been said, the TRUE AGENDA behind the Secret Synod of Bishops of 2014 and the much larger Stealth Sex Synod of Bishops™ of 2015 is to change the Catholic moral teaching with respect to aberro-sexuality, i.e. all the areas with respect of human sexuality that deviates from that Catholic moral teaching and the Magisterium. Furthermore, the EVIL TRIUMVIRATE of Francis, the Synod Manipulators working under the direct instructions of Francis and Marx & Co., the promoters of the HIDDEN AGENDA at the Secret Synod of Bishops and promoted by Francis, collectively termed TEAMFRANCIS, has been identified. The identifying party is none other than the FrancisCardinal himself, Walter Kasper, the author of the Bergoglian/Kasperian “theology done on the knees”.

A final thought before I leave the theme of the formerly HIDDEN, now EXPLICIT AGENDA of Francis, is the following. If there is one event that created the crisis at the Secret Synod of Bishops and has created multiple problems for TEAMFRANCIS to subvert the Magisterium of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, this event must be the publication of the FIVE CARDINALS Book that laid out the Catholic moral teaching on the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony. Without this background material that this book provided as a handy reference source, the participants of the Secret Synod of Bishops would not have had a DEFINATIVE reference point on which they could DEBUNK the TEAMFRANCIS narrative and subsequent manipulations. And even though the FIVE CARDINALS Book did not reach the hands of all the Synod participants, enough of the participants did have access to it to make the subversion of the Catholic Magisterium impossible. (see here)

Since the EXPLICIT AGENDA of TEAMFRANCIS has now been revealed, i.e. has come out of the closet so to speak, we will turn our analysis to the core issue that will be the determining factor of whether the Stealth Sex Synod of Bishops of 2015 will give TEAMFRANCIS a result, or whether we will soon be hearing of a Synod of Bishops Part III.

On a final aside, what I think would be helpful would be if a parallel reference source such as the Five Cardinals Book appeared, but this time on the subject matter of LUST.

But more about this in the following posts.

UPDATE: 17:09 Monday 1 June 2015

In the earlier version of this post, I linked to another post that had information pertaining to a priest in the United Kingdom, information that appears not to be correct. Therefore, I have edited the above post and will offer a Mea Maxima Culpa for any unwitting offense on my part.

T -140: The Long And Winding Road – Part I

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Today is the 136th day from the start of what this blog has designated as the Stealth Sex Synod of 2015™. There has been a lot of new information coming out into the public domain recently, directly related to the afore-mentioned synod, so today we take one step back and incorporate this new material into our analysis. Therefore I will try to incorporate this new information into a series of posts, so as not to run long on any one particular sub-topic and to keep the analysis focused.

Just to demonstrate how drastically the EXPLICIT AGENDA of Francis, his hand-picked team of clerics in charge of the Synod, i.e. TeamFrancis and the German Bishops’ Conference leadership who are promoting this AGENDA has changed since Francis called for the Synod on the Family, we go to the very beginning. It needs to be pointed out that at the outset of this process, the “advertized” end result of this bi-synodal process was to be an apostolic exhortation along the lines of an “updated” Familiaris Consortio.

The first that was heard about this Extraordinary Synod of Bishops was in early October 2013, or 6 months after Francis was enthroned. The purpose of convening this Synod was as follows: (see here)

Today, Pope Francis called for an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops that will be held from October 5-18th, 2014 at the Vatican. The synod will reflect on the theme “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of the Evangelization.”

The original problem identified for which the Synod was convened was described as follows:

It is important that the Church move forward together as a community, in reflection and prayer, and decide on common pastoral orientations dealing with the most important aspects of our life together – particularly on the family – under the guidance of the Pope and the bishops. The convening of this Extraordinary Synod is a clear indication of this direction.

The stated goal of the Synod was as follows:

During that meeting, Pope Francis stated that the matter would be discussed with the Council of Cardinals, which took place last week in the Vatican, as well as in the next Synod of Bishop. “A synodal approach should be taken to study this problem.

Just so we are clear, the “study” of this “problem” related to “important aspects of our life together – particularly on the family”. The result of this bi-synodal PROCESS would be a papal document along the lines of an postsynodal apostolic exhortation along the lines of “updated Familiaris Consortio”.

So this is how the process was billed.

Just to demonstrate how “off the radar” was any issue related to changing Catholic doctrine with respect to “objective intrinsic disorders” collectively knows as aberro-sexuality was at this time, here is how Sandro Magister described the interventions at the Secret Synod of 2014: (see here)

Homosexuality was one of the most controversial questions at the recent extraordinary synod on the family, as proven by the vast difference between the paragraph dedicated to it in the final “Relatio” and the three paragraphs of the previous “Relatio” halfway through the discussion.

And what was the basis for this “vast difference”? It was as follows:

But the prehistory of these paragraphs is also indicative. Two of the three synod fathers who had raised this issue during discussions in the assembly – the only ones out of the almost two hundred present – in fact supported their arguments with statements of pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Archbishop of Kuching John Ha Tiong Hock, president of the episcopal conference of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, referred to the passage of the interview with Francis in “La Civiltà Cattolica” in which the pope urges the Church to mature and reformulate its judgments on the understanding that the man of today has of himself – including on the matter of homosexuality, the archbishop specified – with the same willingness for change that it demonstrated in the past in radically changing its judgments on slavery:

And just to demonstrate the impact that these three individuals had on the mid-term Relatio, here is how Magister described it:

The “Relatio post disceptationem,” in the three paragraphs dedicated to homosexuality, revisited and further developed the things said in the assembly by the Malaysian archbishop, by Fr. Spadaro, and by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the third to speak on the issue.

The inferences that one should extract from the above are as follows:

– Since only 3 of the more than 200 participants even raised the issue, the Synod bishops were not prepared to discuss issues relating to changing Catholic teaching regarding aberro-sexuality,

– Francis had to lay the groundwork for these three interventions since there is NO MAGISTERIAL TEACHING in existence that would support the types of changes that TeamFrancis wanted to institute,

– The Synod bishops recognized that the only supporting “theology” that the three interventions had for their position on aberro-sexuality was from interviews given by Francis to the Jesuit magazine La Civiltà Cattolica,

– This issue was such a “non-issue” that one of the interventions was by the editor of the above mentioned offending magazine, Fr. Antonio Spadaro. It can be assumed that this issue was not even discussed before the Synod since Fr. Spadaro raised it so that it would at least get raised,

– In the case of the Malaysian archbishop, his intervention was made on the basis of a cognizant belief that it was Francis who wanted this change in Catholic moral teaching and the issue only arose after the La Civiltà Cattolica article.

So this was the state of play in October 2014.

And what is the state of play at present?

For this we go to the Edward Pentin article in the National Catholic Register that was reproduced in the previous post titled So It Was The Homo Agenda All Along. (see here) Here are the salient data points from the “one-day study meeting — open only to a select group of individuals — took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.”:

The closed-door meeting, masterminded by the German bishops’ conference under the leadership of Cardinal Marx. ( It) took place just days after the people of Ireland voted in a referendum in support of same-sex “marriage” and on the same day as the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops met in Rome. Some observers did not see the timing as a coincidence. So secret was the meeting that even prominent Jesuits at the Gregorian were completely unaware of it. Cardinal Marx insisted the study day wasn’t secret. But he became irritated when pressed about why it wasn’t advertised, saying he had simply come to Rome in a “private capacity”.

The cardinal is known to be especially eager to reform the Church’s approach to homosexuals. During his Pentecost homily last Sunday, Cardinal Marx called for a “welcoming culture” in the Church for homosexuals, saying it’s “not the differences that count, but what unites us.”

The key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly “no one” opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church.

Among the featured participants was “included Jesuit Father Hans Langendörfer, general secretary of the German bishops’ conference and the leading figure behind the recent reform of German Church labor laws to controversially allow remarried divorcees and homosexual couples to work in Church institutions. A prominent critic of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth), as well as a strong supporter of homosexual clergy and those pushing for reform in the area of sexual ethics, Father Schockenhoff. In 2010, he gave an interview in which he praised the permanence and solidarity shown in some same-sex relationships as “ethically valuable.” He urged that any assessment of homosexual acts “must take a back seat” on the grounds that the faithful are becoming “increasingly distant from the Church’s sexual morality,” which appears “unrealistic and hostile to them.”
Father Schockenhoff has also gone on record saying that moral theology must be “liberated from the natural law”. Another suggestion was that “official Church” should be done away with because of a growing gap between the institutional Church and the Church of the faithful. This is widely seen as code words for understanding the Bible differently from Tradition — and the need for a “reflection on a theology of love.”

By replacing the theology of the body with a “theology of love,” it creates an abstract interpretation that separates sex from procreation, thereby allowing forms of extramarital unions and same-sex attractions based simply on emotions rather than biological reality.

At the meeting, conspicuously failed to mention sin, ended by saying that “further discussion on the future of marriage and family is necessary.

And yet…

(At the meeting, among others was discussed the) “importance of the human sex drive,” and the “develop” the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and called not for a theology of the body, as famously taught by St. John Paul II, but the development of a “theology of love.”

“Imagine if the Church accepted homosexual relationships,” said one source speaking on condition of anonymity. “Ultimately, that is what these people want.”

Summa summarum, it should become quite obvious reading the above, how the “advertised” purpose for calling the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops was described in early October 2013 and how it mutated into the present state of affairs.

Initially, the Secret Synod of Bishops were caught off guard by a HIDDEN AGENDA that only emerged after the release of the mid-term Relatio. Since this moment however, the Synod bishops have been so effective in blocking this revolutionary HIDDEN AGENDA of TeamFrancis that the Bishops have forced the TeamFrancis subversives to declare what it is that they are after.

And now that the Catholic bishops are aware what it is that TeamFrancis and the promoters of this HIDDEN AGENDA want to force through the Stealth Sex Synod of 2015, they should be in a much better position to not only resist, but to thwart the entire subversion of Catholic moral teaching by Team Francis and its promoters.

But more on this tomorrow.

T -141: So It Was The Homo Agenda All Along.

Tags

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FOR THE RECORD:

Below is an article from the National Catholic Register. (see here) The reason that I am reproducing this article in its entirety is that it adds more data points that strongly confirm two themes that this blog has been pursuing.

The first theme is that the two Synod’s were called due to a HIDDEN AGENDA, a HIDDEN AGENDA that this blog identified as “changing Catholic moral teaching on aberro-sexuality”. Reading the below, it becomes obvious that communion for remarried is just a side issue, as was the billing as a Synod about the family. The side issues were needed to create the impression that the HIDDEN AGENDA encompassed more than just the fraction of the 1% of Catholics who may suffer from any of the “objective intrinsic disorders” that collectively comprise aberro-sexuality. We laid out the case for this in a series of post that culminated in our post titled The Three Paragraphs. (see here)

The second theme that we have been pursuing is that of the Soap Bubble Papacy™. We have demonstrated that the entire Francis Effect at its base, is nothing more than a VIRTUAL REALITY, a media created illusion that Francis is “popular”. This aspect of the Francis Effect was very poignantly summed up by Cardinal Brandmuller when he made the following observation: “It is superficial. Were this a religious movement, the churches would be full”. We illustrated this Soap Bubble Papacy™ in posts such as Searching for the “Illusive Francis Effect” (see here) and A Grand Ole Time Had By All (see here).

When reading the below, please keep the above in mind for context. (with emphasis added)

Confidential Meeting Seeks to Sway Synod to Accept Same-Sex Unions

ROME — A one-day study meeting — open only to a select group of individuals — took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

Around 50 participants, including bishops, theologians and media representatives, took part in the gathering, at the invitation of the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, Switzerland and France — Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Markus Büchel and Archbishop Georges Pontier.

One of the key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly “no one” opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church.

Participants also spoke of the need to “develop” the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and called not for a theology of the body, as famously taught by St. John Paul II, but the development of a “theology of love.”

One Swiss priest discussed the “importance of the human sex drive,” while another participant, talking about holy Communion for remarried divorcees, asked: “How can we deny it, as though it were a punishment for the people who have failed and found a new partner with whom to start a new life?”

Marco Ansaldo, a reporter for the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, who was present at the meeting, said the words seemed “revolutionary, uttered by clergymen.”

French Biblicist and Ratzinger Prize-winner Anne-Marie Pelletier praised the dialogue that took place between theologians and bishops as a “real sign of the times.” According to La Stampa, another Italian daily newspaper, Pelletier said the Church needs to enter into “a dynamic of mutual listening,” in which the magisterium continues to guide consciences, but she believes it can only effectively do so if it “echoes the words of the baptized.” 

The meeting took the “risk of the new, in fidelity with Christ,” she claimed. The article also quoted a participant as saying the synod would be a “failure” if it simply continued to affirm what the Church has always taught.

The closed-door meeting, masterminded by the German bishops’ conference under the leadership of Cardinal Marx, was first proposed at the annual meeting of the heads of the three bishops’ conferences, held in January in Marseille, France.

The study day took place just days after the people of Ireland voted in a referendum in support of same-sex “marriage” and on the same day as the Ordinary Council of the Synod of Bishops met in Rome. Some observers did not see the timing as a coincidence.

The synod council has been drawing up the instrumentum laboris (working document) for the October synod on the family. Integrated into the document will be the responses of a questionnaire sent to laity around the world. Those responses, particularly from Switzerland and Germany, appeared to be overwhelmingly in favor of the Church adapting her teachings to the secular world.

 

Why the Lack of Publicity?

No one would say why the study day was held in confidence. So secret was the meeting that even prominent Jesuits at the Gregorian were completely unaware of it. The Register learned about it when Jean-Marie Guénois leaked the information in a story in Le Figaro.

Speaking to the Register as he left the meeting, Cardinal Marx insisted the study day wasn’t secret. But he became irritated when pressed about why it wasn’t advertised, saying he had simply come to Rome in a “private capacity” and that he had every right to do so. Close to Pope Francis and part of his nine-member council of cardinals, the cardinal is known to be especially eager to reform the Church’s approach to homosexuals. During his Pentecost homily last Sunday, Cardinal Marx called for a “welcoming culture” in the Church for homosexuals, saying it’s “not the differences that count, but what unites us.”

Cardinal Marx is also not alone, among those attending the meeting, in pushing for radical changes to the Church’s life. The head of the Swiss bishops, Bishop Büchel of St. Gallen, has spoken openly in favor of women’s ordination, saying in 2011 that the Church should “pray that the Holy Spirit enables us to read the signs of the times.” Archbishop Pontier, head of the French bishops, is also known to have heterodox leanings.

The meeting’s organizers were unwilling to disclose the names of everyone who took part, but the Register has obtained a full list of participants. They included Jesuit Father Hans Langendörfer, general secretary of the German bishops’ conference and the leading figure behind the recent reform of German Church labor laws to controversially allow remarried divorcees and homosexual couples to work in Church institutions.

 

Father Schockenhoff

Among the specialists present was Father Eberhard Schockenhoff, a moral theologian. Some are particularly disturbed about the rise to prominence of Father Schockenhoff, who is understood to be the “mastermind” behind much of the challenge to settled Church teachings among the German episcopate and, by implication, at the synod on the family itself.

A prominent critic of Humanae Vitae (The Regulation of Birth), as well as a strong supporter of homosexual clergy and those pushing for reform in the area of sexual ethics, Father Schockenhoff is known to be the leading adviser of German bishops in the run-up to the synod.

In 2010, he gave an interview in which he praised the permanence and solidarity shown in some same-sex relationships as “ethically valuable.” He urged that any assessment of homosexual acts “must take a back seat” on the grounds that the faithful are becoming “increasingly distant from the Church’s sexual morality,” which appears “unrealistic and hostile to them.” The Pope and the bishops should “take this seriously and not dismiss it as laxity,” he said.

Father Schockenhoff has also gone on record saying that moral theology must be “liberated from the natural law” and that conscience should be based on the “life experience of the faithful.”

He has also insisted that the indissolubility of marriage is “not seriously called into question” by admitting remarried divorcees to holy Communion and that the term the “official Church” should be done away with because of a growing gap between the institutional Church and the Church of the faithful.

Also present was Marco Impagliazzo, president of the Sant’Egidio lay community; Jesuit Father Andreas Batlogg, professor of philosophy and theology and chief editor of the liberal periodical Stimmen der Zeit (Voices of the Time); and Salesian Msgr. Markus Graulich, prelate auditor of the tribunal of the Roman Rota — one of very few Curial officials to attend. Some of those participating, such as Msgr. Graulich, took part in the previous synod.

 

Media Participation

Also noted were the large number of media representatives. Journalists from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, German broadcasters ZDF and ARD, the Italian daily La Repubblica and French-Catholic media La Croix and I-Media were also present. Their presence was “striking,” said one observer, who predicted they will be used to promote the agenda of the  subject matter under discussion in the weeks leading up to the synod.

Monday’s meeting is just the latest attempt to subtly steer the upcoming synod in a direction opposed by many faithful Catholics. A statement on the study day released by the German bishops’ conference May 26 said there was a “reflection on biblical hermeneutics” — widely seen as code words for understanding the Bible differently from Tradition — and the need for a “reflection on a theology of love.”

This, too, is seen as undermining Church teaching. By replacing the theology of the body with a “theology of love,” it creates an abstract interpretation that separates sex from procreation, thereby allowing forms of extramarital unions and same-sex attractions based simply on emotions rather than biological reality. Gone, say critics, is the Catholic view of marriage, which should be open to procreation.

The statement, which conspicuously failed to mention sin, ended by saying that “further discussion on the future of marriage and family is necessary and possible” and that it would be “enriched by a further, intensive theological reflection.”

This, too, is code for wanting a change in teaching, giving the impression that the doctrine in these areas is open to change. But for the Catholic Church, it is a settled issue.

“Imagine if the Church accepted homosexual relationships,” said one source speaking on condition of anonymity. “Ultimately, that is what these people want.”

I rest my case!

Concluding, somehow I am not shocked,… shocked that the HIDDEN AGENDA of the Secret Synod of Bishops of 2014 and the upcoming Stealth Sex Synod of Bishops of 2015 was and will be all about “changing Catholic moral teaching on aberro-sexuality”.

T -155: Calling a Spade, a Spade w/Update From Hilary White w/Update From the From Rome Blog w/Update from Deacon Augustine

Tags

1968, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI, Bergoglio, Bruno Forte, Cardinal Burke, Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Reinhard "Bling" Marx, Catholic Church, Francis church, German Bishops' Conference, Great Cardinal, heretical pope, hippies, Jesuits, Joseph Ratzinger, Kirchensteuer, 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, Team Bergoglio, Tradition, US Bishops' Conference, Vatican, Vatican II

A very dear friend of this blog sent me a message from the Voice of the Family Life conference in Rome. (see here – in comment box) I am reproducing the comment in its entirety and …

FOR THE RECORD

This is off topic, but thought you might like some news from Rome. I attended the Voice of the Family Rome Life conference today which was addressed by Cardinal Pell and which Cardinal Burke also attended.

In the Q&A session after his talk Cardinal Pell was asked whether he agreed with Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s assessment that the Extraordinary Synod on the Family represented the 4th greatest crisis in the Church (the last one being the Reformation). His reply was that not all these great crises can bear direct comparison..”after all the Catholic Church and Luther both agreed that Christ was central to the questions, even if they disagreed on the answers. The difference today is that one side of the dispute doesn’t believe in God. On the one hand you have people who believe that you start by preaching the Gospel, on the other you have people who believe that you should adapt to the world.”

It will be interesting to see if that makes any headlines, because the implications of his words are quite damning. He is adamant that the Kasperites will not get what they want at the Synod and that nothing will change in either doctrine or practice. I hope he is right, but not so sure I share his confidence.

Can’t wait to get back to the coolth of England. God bless.

 

UPDATE: Sunday 10 May 2015 1:16

This blog has been graced by a comment from Hilary White with respect to the above subject matter. I am re-posting Hilary’s comment below in its entirety and FOR THE RECORD. I am also linking to the From Rome blog, where the information above was used in a subsequent post titled:  Cardinal Pell says that “Team Bergoglio” are atheists (see here). Below is Hilary’s comment:

Here is the comment I posted on the other page of this blog:

I asked Cardinal Pell that question at the conference but at the time, I and others there did not think that his response was pertaining to the crisis of the Synod particularly.

It was not clear that Cardinal Pell was familiar with Bishop Schneider’s comment, or its precise context of concerns over the Synod and the apparent split in the upper levels of the hierarchy over the vexed questions at the Synod, though judging from the reaction to the question by the conference attendees, the implications were well taken, and there seemed to be general familiarity with Bishop Schneider’s observation. Nearly everyone in attendance at that conference yesterday was gravely and particularly concerned about the Synod and its possible outcome, but since the Cardinal had not attended the rest of the conference sessions he was perhaps not aware of our very focused attention on the Synod.

No one at the time thought that his response to my question meant what you have indicated above. If he had intended to imply that “Team Bergoglio” were “atheists” I don’t think it would have been an implication or a nuance that anyone there, many of whom were seasoned Vatican journalists, would have missed. Instead, his comments with regard to the crisis inside the Church were circumspect to the point of being somewhat uninteresting. Certainly none of the experienced journalists, whose news antennae were especially sharply tuned-in that day, perked up our ears.

He started by saying that the various major crisis of the Church’s history were all different. There is no indication that his distinction between “godlessness and the godly” was aimed at the Church’s interior crisis in general or at the Synod.

Here is his full quote from LifeSiteNews.com’s recording:

“For example, the crisis is quite different from the Protestant crisis, because both sides of the Protestant crisis agreed on the importance of Christ and God. The greater contingent today is between Godlessness and the Godly. And I think within the Christian communities the fundamental tension is between those who believe that growth comes from starting with Gospel teaching, and those who believe that growth comes from adaptation [with] [unclear in the recording] the world. And I think the second option leads to death. No comparison fits exactly, probably the situation is more stark in countries that have been ruled by communism, Nazism for a long time. But there’s no doubt that we have a challenge on our hands.”

Hilary White
for LifeSiteNews.com
Rome

On an aside, the following comes to mind: “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God!”

UPDATE #2: Monday 11 May 2015 02:08

It appears that this blog has been doubly privaleged this weekend. First it received a follow-up responce from the excellant Rome journalist Hilary White, and now this blog has received a responce from Br. Alexis Bugnolo of the From Rome blog. Below is the responce to Hilary White’s follow-up and FOR THE RECORD:

Dear Hilary J White.

Your disagreement with the byline and introduction to our article, seems not to be based on what the Cardinal said, but on its signification. You seem to want to take it out of the historical context of the present moment or the Synod; you also seem to want that the Cardinal knows nothing of what has transpired in the Church or in the Vatican since March 2013. If your hypothesis were true, your argument would be sound; but you cannot fabricate a historical context which does not exist, so your argument is simply an elaborate sophism, or false argument (cf. Aristotle’s, Elenchae).

The truth is, that if those proposing adaptation with the world at all costs, are the ones who are proposing the Kasper thesis; and the ones proposing the Kasper thesis (Cardinal Kasper) are “Team Bergoglio” members or players, then Team Bergoglio are atheists, in the Greek sense of the word (atheoi = without God).

So, we have employed the accepted logical rules of inference from Aristotle and concluded that the Cardinal implies that Team Bergoglio are atheists. We could have said he is implying that Bergoglio is an atheist. It does not really matter what he was thinking at the moment; the truth of what he said is a fact, which with other truths, as we have documented at the From Rome blog, lead to the inextricable conclusion which we have summarized in the introduction to our reblogged post, Team Bergoglio is a heretical conspiracy to overthrow the Church of Christ.

Even Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor in a recent interview in a British Newspaper admitted that they Cardinals involved met in Switzerland to plan the election of Bergoglio so as to arrive at the change they wanted. Perhaps there are some polly-annas who believe they want the restoration of Trent or Vatican I, but at From Rome we only print facts and realistic inferences, not imaginary tales.

From the point of view of The Deus Ex Machina Blog, the nice part of being a Catholic is that one is not afraid of the Truth. To be more specific, we worship Him!

UPDATE #3: Monday 11 May 2015 14:02

Below is the reply from Deacon Augustine, the original source for this post to Hilary White which I am posting FOR THE RECORD:

Hilary, I am grateful to you for providing the transcript of Cardinal Pell’s actual words. It gives us sure and certain material to work with rather than the original report I gave to s.armiticus which was based on my long-hand scribbling and dull memory.

However, on the interpretation of those words, I think Br Alexis Bugnolo makes very valid points which would be in line with the impression I received on the day. Your question to the Cardinal clearly framed the context by reference to Bishop Schneider’s statements regarding internal crises within the Church. Cardinal Pell is an intelligent, sharp-witted and insightful man whom I hold in the highest regard, and I think it unlikely that he would be ignorant of the thrust of your question – especially set, as it was, in the context of conference called to discuss the Synod on the family.

Replying that the key to the current crisis amounted to a struggle between godlessness and the godly, it seems only logical to ask which parties are represented by the above descriptors within the Catholic community. I hardly think that he had in mind those who defend the traditional doctrine and practice of the Church when he used the term “godlessness.” I may be mistaken of course, and he could have been referring to Cardinal Burke who was sitting in front of him, the African and Polish bishops etc.

The fact that he further set his reply in the context of “Christian communities” generally, while it might afford plausible deniability, it cannot detract from the fact that there is one very obvious party or “lobby” which wants to see the Synod and the Church accommodate her doctrine and practices with the fallen world. As he rightly said, this would lead to death. As he further qualified his reply by indicating countries which had been ruled by communism or Nazism for a long time, it seems pretty obvious whom he had in his sights.

However, setting all of the above in the context of Cardinal Brandmuller’s recent reference to those same lobbies as “heretical”, and Cardinal Koch inferring that the Germans were accommodating to the world in the same way as they did at the time of the Nazis, Cardinal Pell’s words don’t appear particularly notable.

T -157: Benchmarking Bishoprics

Tags

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In 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 -158: To Compare and To Contrast

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Today we are back in our catching-up mode with our daily postings, leading up to the what we have termed as The Stealth Sex Synod of 2015™. As of today, the beginning of the Synod is coming up on Monday, the 5th of October of this year, i.e. in 152 calendar days.

In today’s post, we return to our thread comparing and contrasting the decisions made by the head of the Broadway United Methodist Church and the bishop of the Diocese of Scranton who both have very similar problems, i.e. dwindling church attendance numbers as illustrated in our post titled A Fate Worse Than Death. (see here)

Before we begin, I would just like to make one point clear at this point. The subject matter of the posts in this thread is not intended to be a case study of “business restructurings” or even ‘’best business practices” per se, with respect to how to run a church or a religious congregation. The reason that the “bottom line” enters into these discussions or that the “collection plate take” is important, is that they serve as proxies for how effective the respective manager/ordinary is in executing his primary function, i.e. leading the souls in his care to heaven. This last point is obviously being made, irrespective of the fact that a Methodist minister by definition can’t “save” anyone’s soul. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. But just for the sake of arguement, if a Methodist has a desire to have his “soul saved”, he would still need to attend the religious services of the Methodist sect, regardless of the objective futility of this exercise. But I digressed…

Just as a quick recap, in the case of the Methodist’s, we have observed the manager of Broadway United in his second attempt at restructuring the institution’s “business” strategy, or as Francis would rather refer to it, his “Lord’s pastoral call”, (see here) for his congregation. This Methodist manager, in his second restructuring attempt, had implemented a strategy based on an “objective” methodology in order to not only stop, but likewise to reverse the drop in church attendance, attendance which has a direct and positive correlation to the aggregate amount of contributions received and by direct extension to his church’s bottom line.

Now moving on to our bishop at the Diocese of Scranton, we have made the observation that the “Lord’s pastoral call” that he had adopted was not based on any recognizable “objective” methodology. In fact, we observed an element of dissonance between what the bishop claimed was at issue –shortage of priests and vocations, and what his “Lord’s pastoral call” in fact entailed, i.e. the formation of discussion groups. Here is the pertinent quote:

In the video, the bishop said there will be regional gatherings throughout the diocese to discuss how the Church can prepare if more don’t rise to replace outgoing priests.

What became obvious at this point in the narrative was that the TRUE AGENDA behind the bishop of Scranton’s Easter video was not one of trying to arrest the decline in the numbers of priests and vocations, but rather one of giving notice to his flock that they should prepare for a “wind down” of the Scranton Diocese as has existed to this time. This inference was made from the following paragraph contained in the bishop’s Easter message:

The solution is nothing new for the Church, he said, as some dioceses in other parts of the country have entrusted parish administration to lay people for 20 to 25 years.

Given the above, it is only reasonable to assume that the solutions designed to address the issues facing the Diocese of Scranton have very little to do with regards to increasing the numbers of priests or vocations, but rather with a transition to “entrusting parish administration to lay people”.

Furthermore, the other aspect of the situation in the Diocese of Scranton that becomes apparent at this point is that the bishop of Scranton is not really concerned with implementing any kind of “Lord’s pastoral call”, let alone one based on “objective” criteria, to arrest the issues facing his diocese that he himself identified in the video. Actually, there is evidence that the bishop of Scranton has not made any real effort to put any sort of “Lord’s pastoral call” in place. This is how some unnamed participants assessed the situation and this is the relevant passage: (see here)

Such committees may be reminiscent of local church councils formed by Martino during his “Call to Holiness and Mission” process that ultimately led to the closing of about half the churches in Luzerne County.

While few people spoke openly, there was some criticism from participants who felt the local councils were largely for show and that the decision were being made for them at a higher level. Bambera made no direct mention of more closings.

Summing up the above situation, one can say that the bishop of Scranton has: been there, done that, got that seamless garment.

Moving on, and since we are on the subject of comparing and contrasting similar issues faced by various ordinaries and managers within the Catholic Church and the wider Christian community, one recent piece of evidence has come to this humble bloggers attention that describes another Catholic ordinary who was faced with a similar situation as that of the bishop of Scranton, i.e. a shortage of priests and vocations. This ordinary put in place a “Lord’s pastoral call” that actually addressed that specific issue. What’s more, the “Lords pastoral call” that this ordinary put in place has been very successful. Here is this pertinent passage: (see here)

Madison (WKOW) — For the Catholic Diocese of Madison, a new wave of those studying for priesthood is an Easter blessing.

For the first time in forty years, more than thirty men are involved in seminary training. On top of that, six others are being ordained this June.

More information is provided in another post also on the Fr. Z. blog. Here is that relevant passage: (see here – emphasis and comments are Fr. Z’s)

There are now 33 seminarians, or priests-in-training, up from six in 2003 when Bishop Robert Morlino arrived.[! And the diocesan foundation for seminarians was set up for the 6, not the 33.] But that increase comes with responsibility, Ganshert said.

And how can this 10+ fold increase in vocations can be explained? Here is the passage from the Madison State Journal with Fr. Z.’s comments and emphasis:

[Quaeritur…] 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.

But there could be more to it. [Here we go!] The very traits that have made Morlino controversial may be the reason he’s successful at recruiting new priests, Hendershott’s research suggests.

[Keep going…] 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. [Notice how the writer worked in the concept of “tolerance”. It’s not that he defends or teaches sound doctrine, is’s that he doesn’t “tolerate dissent”. What is the reader supposed to take away from that? Watch where the article goes next…]

“I’d hesitate to call them culture warriors, but they know what they stand for,” [Remember… amongst liberals it’s a bad thing to be a cultural warrior.] said Hendershott, a sociology professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. “If you are considering the priesthood, you’d want to see that. [NB]You don’t want to commit yourself to something that’s backed only halfway.” [Exactly. It’s common sense. But wait! There’s more…]

So from that presented above, it would appear that if there is the intent by a motivated and determined ordinary to formulate and execute a “Lord’s pastoral call” with the aim to increase and foster vocations in his diocese, thereby increasing the number of priests serving in his diocese, it can be done. And the case of Bishop Morlino and the Diocese of Madison is a case in point.

Concluding today’s post, what this humble blogger thinks is most critical to understand from the above is the following: most of the problems that are common to the Catholic Church in our times, are problems that can be overcome.

The dearth of vocations is one problem, if not the largest of the common problems identified in the Universal Church, and one that is often explained away by a host of reasons, reasons that have very little bearing with the actual underlying cause of the problem.

Second takeaway from this post is that it would appear that a lot of these problems that exist in the Catholic Church are actually ones that have been created by the leadership of the Catholic Church. In other words, they are self-inflicted.

However, if an ordinary comes at one of these self-inflicted problems in a rational and “objectively methodical” manner, it would also appear that these problems can easily be resolved. One of the two situations compared (contrasted) above is proof.

Guess which one?

T -160: Catholic on Catholic Crime

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Today the Armaticii family is back from a three-week sojourn to the old country with First Communion and Confirmation squarely behind us.

While traveling, I noticed the outbreak of violence in Baltimore. Here is the play-by-play of the violence: initial outbreak can be seen here, the “police” response to the outbreak can be seen here and the piling on from the “out-of-town” element can be seen here.

NB: All the blogs to which I have linked, I  considered to be exceptional blogs and ones that I would highly recommend reading. But like in all families…

Now for those who have been following my blog, one thing you will notice is that this blog does not engage in “internecine” warfare. This blogger refuses to criticize anyone who appears to the helpful in the work of the Holy Spirit, work that can be summarized as “trying to restore all things in Christ”. This includes, but is not limited to Catholics, small “c” catholics, neo-conservatives, “luke warm catholics”, lapsed catholics and other catholics that fall on the above identified continuum. The policy of this blog is very simple:the dividing line that separates the good guys from the bad guys is ERROR. To be more specific, MAGISTERIAL ERROR.

Furthermore, given that the source of our faith comes to us from two sources, i.e. the “revealed Word” and the “natural light of reason from the things that are made”, and given that other bloggers can do a much better job of providing for you dear reader the commentary on our FAITH derived from the “revealed Word”, much better than can this humble blogger, this blog concentrates on commenting on THE ONE TRUE FAITH that comes to us from the latter source. To this end, this blogger has produced a short “Discernment Guide for Dummies” to help with the identification of what could constitute an act that could be ascribed to the Holy Spirit and what acts most likely can not. (see here)

Now given the above, I would just like to point your attention to two pieces of evidence, what we call data points on this blog, that indicate where the work of the Holy Spirit can be observed. The reason that I have brought Him into the picture is due to the two underlying premises, namely that the Holy Spirit is charged with protecting the indefectible Church in this Vale of Tears and next, that Our Lord promised us that the “gates of hell shall not prevail”. Given these two underlying “assumptions”, it should be very easy to discern what the Holy Spirit is expecting of us unworthy sinners with respect to “restoring all things to Christ”.

As to the evidence itself, the first data point is provided in the video at the top of this post. (see here) It is crucial to understand what his piece of evidence is telling us, since it represents an “objective data point”. In other words, regardless of how you view the actions of certain popes, bishops, priests and laymen in the past, and regardless of whether you are a “hyper-ultramontanist”, a “pope sifter” or a “magisterium sifter”, to use just three of some of the well knows labels floating around the World Wide Web these days, one thing that CANNOT be ignored is: the state of the Church as it was before and as is after the Second Vatican Council. And regardless of how one explains the causal relationship or the lack there of, for who or what is responsibile for the complete disintegration of the Catholic Church in the West post Vatican II, this disintegration is there for all to see. In other words, THIS DISINTEGRATION IS AN OBJECTIVE REALITY. And that is the point that the above video makes very clearly and concisely.

The second data point comes from the Musings of a Pertinacious Papist blog. In the linked post (see here), the following passage appears:

St. Agnes School Enrollment Surges

These days it’s common to hear about declining attendance at Catholic schools, along with closures of many parish schools. One standout exception to this trend is St. Agnes School, the K-12 institution associated with St. Paul, Minnesota’s St. Agnes Parish. Not long ago St. Agnes School’s future was in question, but a recent newsletter mentioned that with the school’s renewed emphasis on the Classics, Latin, traditional Catholic teachings and sacred music, enrollment has surged to record levels, there is a waiting list for students, and a 50,000 square foot addition is being built. Some students commute over 40 minutes each way. With the Extraordinary Form, the Ordinary Form in Latin, 30 orchestral Masses per year, multiple choirs, Sunday Vespers, and all Masses celebrated ad oríentem at the High Altar, St. Agnes Parish and School walk the talk, and the effort is bearing fruit.

Now, the above passage speaks for itself.

On an aside, and while we are on the topic of oratories, please keep Fr’s. Illo and Driscoll and the Star of the Sea Church and the Oratory-in-Formation (see here) of San Francisco in your prayers.

Given the above, what inferences can be drawn from the two above data points and how does this tie in with our Baltimore violence “flare-up”?

It could be that these “flare-ups” of violence occur are simply random events. Yet, we know that the forces of Good and evil are in perpetual conflict, both on the natural level and on the supernatural level. Therefore, the explanation that these observations are caused by random effects are rather quite low. Furthermore, when these types of “flare-ups” occur, we naturally try to discern what it is that we are observing. And to properly discern what we are in fact witnessing, a good rule of thumb could come in handy.

And as you no doubt by now have guessed dear reader, this blogger has just such a “rule of thumb” at hand, one that will make the discernment of what constitutes acts as being intrinsically Good and what constitutes acts as being intrinsically evil. Actually, no better “rule of thumb” can exist for our purposes here than the “rule of thumb” based on a quote that most of you should be familiar with. And here it is:

“What Catholics once were, we are. If we are wrong, then Catholics through the ages have been wrong.

We are what you once were. We believe what you once believed.

We worship as you once worshipped. If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.

If you were right then, we are right now”.

Robert DePiante

Could not have said it better myself.

On another aside, if you want to take this new “rule of thumb” for a spin, try it out on the suppression of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, and see what results you get. Hint: If you are an ultramontanist’s with a heart condition, DON’T DO IT! But I digress…

In closing, please consider the above as food for though for this Monday morning, while your faithful blogger engages in one of his personal eternal battles, this time with jet lag.

T -168: Hate For The Sake Of Hate!

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FOR THE RECORD!

I’m with these two.