I AM EMBARASSED BY FATHER THOMAS REESE SJ’S BACKWARDISM TO THE 1970’S AND LONGING FOR A TIME BEFORE SAINT JOHN PAUL II

 

IS FATHER REESE, THOUGH, A HERETIC AND AN APOSTATE? OF COURSE ONLY A BISHOP CAN LABEL HIM THAT WAY AND UNLESS HE REPENTED, I PRESUME HE COULD BE EXCOMMUNICATED. HE COULD ALSO BE LAICIZED. SHOULD HE BE?

In a very, very embarrassing for him commentary he writes for the National Catholic Reporter, which you can read in full HERE, he says this in part:

Since my critics often accuse me of heresy, before I go further, let me affirm that I believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I just don't believe in transubstantiation because I don't believe in prime matter, substantial forms and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics…

…So, first, forget transubstantiation. Better to admit that Christ's presence in the Eucharist is an unexplainable mystery that our little minds cannot comprehend.

However, this is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

"The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: ‘Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.’"

My comment to Fr. Reese: There are little minds and then there are little minds. Yours belongs to the second category! Please repent of your bell bottomed 1970’s nostalgia!

IT SEEMS THAT POPE FRANCIS IS MANAGING TO ANGER, INFURIATE AND POLARIZE BOTH THOSE WHO ARE ORTHODOX AND THOSE WHO ARE HETERODOX

 

Wow! Bishop  Bätzing of Germany has said this about Pope Francis and his way to teach and communicate via befuddled and confusing interviews is “extremely questionable.”

I have always thought that the ultra-traditionalists who want the exclusive use of the TLM as well as the Church without the Vatican II documents, because they are so organized and passionate about their views, would be the first to go into a full blown schism, although not an apostasy as they, like most Eastern Orthodox Churches, still maintain the Catholic Faith. The Orthodox don’t accept Vatican II either. 

Apart from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, there were no other bishops advocating what the archbishop was advocating and being disobedient to Pope Paul VI at first and then Pope St. John Paul II, later, who excommunicated him when he ordained bishops. 

This is not true with the German hierarchy where there is not only the potential for schism, but also apostasy. They are creating an apostate Church and damning Pope Francis and others who dare question the German way. It is a kind of fascism that Germans and the rest of us know all too well!

Thus, the heterodox pose the greatest threat to a schism and not only that, to apostasy. 

This is really too hot to handle, like a hot German potato:

READ CNA’S NEWS STORY IN FULL HERE

HERE ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE CNA ARTICLE:

Bishop Georg Bätzing has criticized Pope Francis and dismissed the pope’s recent words that the controversial German Synodal Way is unhelpful, damaging, and ideologically poisoned, saying the Germans had “fundamentally different views of synodality” than Rome. 

In an interview published Jan. 27, the president of Germany’s Bishops’ Conference said Bätzing, considered the pope’s “way of leading the Church by way of interviews” as “extremely questionable,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. Bätzing was referring to comments Pope Francis made about the Synodal Way, among other subjects, in a wide-ranging interview last week with the Associated Press. 

“Why didn’t the pope talk to us about this when we were with him in November?” Bätzing asked. “There would have been the opportunity, but he did not take the opportunity for discussion then.”

‘The brink of schism’

Cardinal Walter Kasper also warned the German bishops that they could not sidestep “the authority of the pope and ultimately the Second Vatican Council” or be undermined by “tricky reinterpretation.” 

A bishop cannot “subsequently renounce, in whole or in part, the authority conferred sacramentally in the succession of the apostles” by binding himself to a synodal council “without violating the responsibility conferred on him personally,” Kasper emphasized, according to CNA Deutsch. 

“Resistance to the letter from Rome, or attempts to slyly reinterpret and avoid it, despite all well-intentioned protestations, inevitably lead to the brink of schism and thus plunge the people of God in Germany into an even deeper crisis.”

WHEREAS CARDINAL ROCHE SHOULD PRAISE BLOGGERS FOR THEIR LITURGICAL INFLUENCE, ESPECIALLY WITH SEMINARIANS AND YOUNG PRIESTS, RATHER THAN DENIGRATE THEM—BEING POSITIVE IS A SIGN OF THE SYNODAL HOLY SPIRIT AND INFALLIBLE!

 Taking refuge in a beautiful type of aesthetic, is that a heresy that deserves punishment, marginalization , ridicule and the like? Cardinal Roche thinks so!

I read this in a tweet from Matthew Hazel:

A couple of... interesting extracts from the 2022 James Crichton Memorial Lecture, given by Cardinal Roche, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship...! (source: "Music and Liturgy: The Journal of the Society of St Gregory", 49.1 [2023], pp. 12-20: pics from p. 19):

As a keyboard Warrior (l like that name, btw) and my blog read around the world to include China, the Philippines, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Canada, not to mention the USA, and unknown places, I am sure bishops from many parts of the world reporting about us warriors have done so in the most positive way possible. 

The distorted agendas of the Vatican is negating and denigrating what was once considered holy and sacred as no longer so—a bizarre sort of commentary from those promoting it, which opens the door to them being canceled too. 

And what about those who find “solace and refuge in a certain aesthetic” like horrible puritanical looking vestments, liturgical dance of the silliest kind, puppets at Mass, not to mention the comedian priest who ad libs his liturgical parts and sees himself more as a talk show MC, or a dramatic actor on a stage and not a sacred priest who is asked to pray a prescribed liturgy! 

Many have found their home in a great community of faith where the TLM is celebrated exclusively and want to be united to the Pope and bishops in union with him, are instead marginalized, denigrated, called names and told that ugly aesthetics is preferred to beautiful, lavish ones. 

Pious platitude about the Modern Missal where priest have always ignored warnings about it’s illicit manner of celebration, is ignored or even encouraged.

No wonder no one listens to the Vatican and its liturgical Dicastery today. Get real!

I HOPE THIS IS JUST DAMAGE CONTROL/COURSE CORRECTION AND NOT JUST MORE GASLIGHTING

 Press for the Pillar’s summary and analysis: 

Why is the Vatican reassuring bishops over the synodality synod?

Two central figures in the global synodal process released a lengthy letter to the world’s bishops Monday.

LUKE COPPEN

January 30, 2023

What’s the context?  Concerns about the bishops’ role in the process were reportedly aired in August during the consistory of cardinals in Rome.

Reservations were expressed again in October when synod organizers unveiled the “Document for the Continental Stage” (DCS), a text intended to guide deliberations during the continental phase. 

• Summarizing the concerns in a Pillar analysis, JD Flynn and Ed Condon wrote that, rather than being asked to engage in discernment, diocesan bishops were being invited to be “cheerleaders and stenographers, called to make a good report about what their people had to say, and then send it up the ecclesiastical food chain.”

In a blistering article written shortly before his death, Cardinal George Pelldescribed the Synodal Process as a “toxic nightmare” and the DCS as “one of the most incoherent documents ever sent out from Rome.” Former Vatican doctrinal chief Cardinal Gerhard Müller, meanwhile, described the initiative as a “democratization, a de facto Protestantization.”

Prominent supporters of the process have suggested that the international synods in 2023 and 2024 will be the forum for watershed debates on issues such as women priests.

What’s next  The cardinals’ letter to bishops is an effort to address and allay doubts about their role in the Synodal Process and the initiative’s agenda. 

Synod organizers will be looking to see whether the intervention dims the tide of criticism. They will have a glimpse of an answer at the continental assemblies and a firmer idea when the bishops descend on Rome in October.

THIS JUST PROVES THAT MOST IN THE HIERARCHY AND LOWERARCHY DON’T TRUST THE CURRENT REGIME IN ROME! AND DON’T BELIEVE THEIR PROTESTATIONS

TODAY’S LETTER PROVES IT: 

Letter from Synod leaders highlights crucial role of Bishops in synodal process

In a letter addressed to all the diocesan and eparchial bishops throughout the world, the General Secretary and the General Relator of the Synod offer considerations on the role of Bishops in the synodal process.

By Christopher Wells

Cardinal Mario Grech and Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich – respectively the Secretary General and the General Relator of the Synod – have addressed a letter to all the Bishops of the world in which they share “a few considerations for a common understanding of the synodal process, its progress, and the meaning of the current Continental stage.”

The Cardinals begin by noting that, as Vatican II teaches, each Bishop has “responsibility” for their own particular Church as well as “solicitude for the Universal Church.” The very reason for the synod, they explain, is “to enable the exercise of the latter,” with the current synodal process making “the role of Pastors and their participation in the various stages even more crucial.”

"For a Synodal Church": the sole theme of the Synod

In their letter, the Cardinals highlight the sole theme of the Synod: “For a Synodal Church: communion, participation, mission.”

“This is therefore the sole theme we are called to explore in each of the stages within the process.”

The exclusive focus on this theme precludes the possibility of other themes being “surreptitiously introduced” by those who would “exploit the Assembly and disregard the consultation of the People of God.”

The Cardinals say “it is understandable” that in the initial phase of the synod, “the scope or margins of the theme were not clearly defined”. However, they say, these have been gradually clarified in subsequent steps. “It is important to remember,” they say, that the syntheses produced in the diocesan stage “are the result of the discernment of the Pastors regarding the contributions made during the consultation of the People of God.”

The Working Document for the Continental Stage, in turn, is meant to give the local Churches the opportunity to listen to others. The themes proposed in that document, they add, “do not constitute the agenda of the next Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.”

Identifying priorities

This process of listening will allow the local Churches to determine what resonates with each of them, allowing the Bishops to identify “the priorities, recurring themes, and calls to action” that can be shared and discussed at the General Assembly in October.

The hope is that “in the Continental Assemblies, the voice of the particular Churches will resound with even greater strength.”

“The more we grow in the synodal style of the Church, the more all of us as members of the People of God – faithful and Pastors – will learn to feel cum Ecclesia [“with the Church”], in fidelity to the Word of God and Tradition.”

This Synod, the Cardinals maintain, aims to respond first and foremost to “the great question challenging the Church since the Second Vatican Council: ‘Church, what do you say of yourself?' ” They say the answer to this question can be found in “the Church that is ‘constitutively synodal’, where all are called to exercise their ecclesial charism in view of carrying out the common mission of evangelization.”

The subject of the synodal process: the People of God

The synod process, they continue, shows how this is possible: “the holy People of God is the subject of the synodal process” precisely through the listening process conducted by each Bishop in his own Church.

The Bishops, then, have a two-fold role in the process: they guide the consultations in their own local Churches, and they exercise their charism of discernment in the succeeding stages, always under the Pope, who has the “prerogative to convoke, preside over, and confirm the synodal assemblies.”

In this way, they say, the Bishops’ ministry “becomes even more decisive for the journey of the People of God.”

In conclusion, the Cardinals emphasize that Bishops, united among themselves and with and under the Pope, represent the “the entire Church in the bond of peace, love, and unity.”

WHY IN THE WORLD AND IN THE NAME OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, ARE THERE GERMANIC CARDINALS, AND EUROPEANS FOR THAT MATTER, LEADING THE SYNODAL WAY AS EUROPE IS A MISERABLE FAILURE OF THE VATICAN II CHURCH?

 

Why isn’t a cardinal from Nigeria or Kenya in charge of the Synod on Synods, a dumb name if there ever was one?

In the article I link below as well as the graphic, it is a real head scratcher that Pope Francis should think we should follow any Catholic leader in countries which have such a miserable Mass attendance, a testament to their failed leadership. 

We need leaders from Africa and Poland to show us the way as well as parishes associated with the FSSP:

Continuing down…the lowest levels of weekly attendance were observed in Lithuania (16%), Germany (14%), Canada (14%), Latvia (11%), Switzerland (11%), Brazil (8%), France (8%), and the Netherlands (7%).

In South America, it is shocking to see the most heavily Catholic Country in our hemisphere have such a low, shockingly low, Mass attendance. I wonder why Argentina was not included in this graph!

It appears to me that Germans, Germanics and certain South American countries and their bishops have no right to tell the rest of us how to be Church and missionary disciples, no right whatsoever!

And to outlaw the Traditional Latin Mass and marginalize the overwhelming young demographic of laity and clergy who prefer this Mass over the silliness of the manner in which the Modern Missal is celebrated, to include its grotesque music, casual atmosphere, incoherence of celebration and ad libbing of priests, is breathtaking given this graph below!

Here’s the graph:

Where is Mass attendance highest? One country is the clear leader

   By Jonah McKeown for CNA

TOO KOOL…

 

ANOTHER PARIAH OF A TLM

 Sacred Heart Church, Savannah, Georgia, 4th Sunday after Epiphany:

UNINTENTIONAL LEVITY AT AN ORDINATION MASS: KOSHER OR NOT?

 I was asked to help vest at his ordination Mass, one of my converts from Saint Joseph Church. Here is a short video of it. It is a moment of levity in an otherwise solemn event. It wasn’t contrived, but just happened. This is a couple of years ago. The newly ordained priest is Fr. Nate Swann:

POPE FRANCIS’ CLARIFICATION ON SIN IS THE CLASSIC DEFINITION

 

For something to be an actual sin within the category of a “mortal sin”, three things are necessary as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

1. Serious Matter

2. You have to know that it is a serious sin (knowledge)

3. You commit the act with full consent of the will and usually with forethought and planning 

If any of those are missing, even one, the serious act is not a mortal sin but rather a venial sin. It remains a sin, though not mortal. I think this is what many don’t understand or neglect to say. 

I think part of the problem with mortal sin as it was taught in the Baltimore Catechism and elsewhere in pre-Vatican II times is that its presentation often trivialized God’s love, mercy and God’s perfect common sense. It also helped to erode belief in the damage that actual mortal sins do to other people, the one sinning and the damage to salvation which opens the immortal soul to the eternal fires of hell.

For example, if a sinner on Good Friday deliberately eats a Hot Dog knowing that Church Law forbids it on Good Friday, but otherwise, this person loves God, lives an exemplary life, goes to Confession regularly, many of us pre-Vatican II children were taught that if we choked to death while eating that Hot Dog, we would go to hell because we committed a mortal sin and did not have a chance to repent because we died during the act of committing the mortal sin. 

I would say that the “mortal sin” was the blatant disobedience of a Church law, not the eating of the Hot Dog, but does that deserve the fires of hell if all else in that person’s life is virtuous? 

No!

To say so would be the mortal sin of making God into something He isn’t, an ogre, small minded, unloving and vengeful even for minor infractions. It makes God a micro manager and a kind of Gestapo. I’d say doing that, making God something He isn’t is a mortal sin!

I have always presented the possibility of damnation as a lifestyle away from God, completely disconnected from Him and His Church. In addition to that, we love our sinful lifestyle more than we love God and His virtues as revealed in natural law which leads us to explicit moral teachings in Scripture and Tradition, the Deposit of Faith. 

If God damns a sinner to hell, or at least allows them to damn themselves, hell is a place where these sinners will be happy because they love their sin and hate God and hell is the perfect place for that. They are sent to the most pleasurable place possible for them who love the devil. 

Thus, if Church leaders fail to teach the fullness of Catholic moral teachings, which is out in the open in the CCC,  out of fear of offending sinners, we enable at least venial sin, which unrepentant can harm our eternal salvation especially if it entails serious matter but the lack of knowledge that it is a mortal sin is absent. 

What the homosexual lobby of the Church is doing (and I say this as in a political party’s lobby) is compromising the integrity and truth of what the Church teaches to enable people to live a lifestyle of sin while telling them that for them it isn’t a sin. 

That’s damnable!

(After I wrote this post, I went over to The Catholic Thing and read the post that I link below. It says in a better way what I just wrote, but shows, nonetheless, that great minds think alike, no?)

Press the title for the link:

Accompanying Those Innocently in Error

By Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023

WOW, A MUST READ, SUCCINCT COMMENTARY ON POPE BENEDICT!

 This meme is only partially true, as Pope Francis is very much a part of Benedict’s era but on a different schematic having not experienced a conversion to pre-Vatican II principles and to continuity rather than rupture, but of the very same era…

Rorate Caeli publishes a brilliant synopsis on Pope Benedict beginning with his progressive side during Vatican II, in which he played an important role, its initial implementation, of which he played an important role and his reconversion to pre-Vatican II principles beginning in 1968, although he remained committed to many Vatican II principles properly interpreted within tradition.

With his death, there is a conclusion to his way of looking at Vatican II and continuity, with the present pope full invested in the Vatican II interpretation of rupture upon rupture with everything that preceded it and an avenue given by Vatican II to pursue that road. 

We’ll have to wait for the reigning pope to die in order that a younger prelate will be elected pope that will have to choose one way or the other or create a middle road that respects reform and continuity. 

This is the last paragraph of this fine commentary, copied from Rorate Caeli:

As for efforts at conciliation, the answer has been given by Pope Francis himself. By asking that the traditional missal be completely abandoned in the near future, by convening a synod on synodality to make it impossible to go back, the current pontiff wants to definitively destroy the principle of the hermeneutic of continuity that broke down on the day Benedict XVI gave up. Instead of seeking such continuity, the present Pope is rooting for the phenomenon of rupture, which is becoming perceptible in all areas of the Church. Everything that is rooted in tradition is mocked, presented as sclerotic, accused of clericalism or immobilism. Yet, all changes, all upheavals are justified, not in the name of the Tradition of the Church, synonymous with perennity, but in the name of Vatican II, symbol of creativity. It is this era of tabula rasa, initiated sixty years ago, that must be interrupted. From now on, we must pray that a pope, definitively freed from the Council and the issues linked to it, will be able to write a new page of the Church, by reaffirming the eternal principles of Catholicism.

[Originally published at Renaissance catholique]

Press the title for the complete commentary:

"The Death of Benedict XVI: The Failure of the Hermeneutic of Continuity"

 by Côme de Prévigny

AFTER 10 YEARS OF PLANTING SEEDS OF POLARIZATION AND CONFUSION, THE FRUIT OF OPEN WARFARE AMONG CARDINALS AND ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS NOT TO MENTION RANK AND FILE CLERGY, RELGIOUS AND LAITY HAS BROKEN OUT

The late great and sainted George Cardinal Pell proclaimed that the papacy of Pope Francis, meaning the polarization, confusion and incoherence of his leadership, has been a catastrophe for the Church.

I have written that the victims of all of this, you and me and everyone who loves the Catholic Faith of the Ages, are not the culprits. Victim blaming has to cease and Cardinal Pell names the one who is the source of it, the sitting pope.

Now, open warfare has ensued. And the knives are out! The pope’s confusing words in yet another interview to a reporter has exacerbated the confusion he has sown so much so that even dissident Father James Martin demands a clarification (although it won’t please him, but he got it immediately)! And even Vatican News prints the so-called clarification on its website so serious is what the pope misspoke to the Vatican’s gay lobby promoting what Martin promotes along with the German synodal way and Cardinals Hollerich and McElroy!

The article I post below by Edward Pentin shows the extent of the open warfare between cardinals, archbishops and bishops. Folks this is quite serious and as serious if not more so than the politics of the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s. It is more serious than what led to the Great Schism between the West and the East in 1054. 2023 may be go down in history as an infamous date for the Church!

Read Edward Pentin’s commentary on Pope Francis’ handpicked Jesuit to be a cardinal and regulator of the synod on synodality and perhaps pope one day, the dissident Cardinal Hollerich. Here are the first few paragraphs, but read the entire article by pressing the title below this money byte:

Edward Pentin BlogsJanuary 28, 2023

VATICAN CITY — One of Pope Francis’ closest aides and a leading figure of the Synod on Synodality has singled out critics of the process, calling them afraid of a “Church on the move” and saying they “know they won’t be able to stop” the synodal experiment.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, the general relator of the 2021-2024 Synod on Synodality, also issued other bold statements this week including asserting that the idea of a Christian Europe is a “thing of the past,” that people should be accepted and not judged, and that Benedict XVI’s former personal secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein had betrayed the former pope by not staying in Benedict’s “shadow.” 

The Jesuit cardinal, who last year called for a revision of the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, told Quotidiano Nazionale Jan. 26 that he believes “those who want Pope Francis to resign do not want a Church on the road.” 

The Pope’s mind “is still clear, thankfully,” he said, but he acknowledged that there are some in the Church, including bishops and cardinals, who would like him to resign. “They are the same circles as those who are afraid of the Synod and of a Church on the move, no longer stuck in the past,” he said. “In truth, they know that they will not be able to stop it.”

Edward PentinCardinal Hollerich: Critics of the Synod ‘Won’t Be Able to Stop’ It

BOMBSHELL! POPE FRANCIS PERSONALLY ANSWERS DUBIA QUESTIONS!

BUT THE QUESTIONS (DUBIA) COME FROM A BEFUDDLED FATHER JAMES MARTIN, SJ, CATHOLIC DISSIDENT, WHO WANTED POPE FRANCIS TO CLARIFY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE SOMETHING THIS POPE SAID IN HIS AP INTERVIEW AND THE POPE COMPLIES IMMEDIATELY! (EVEN VATICAN NEWS HAS IT ON ITS WEBSITE! THE GAY LOBBY IS STRONG IN THE VATICAN AND I WONDER IF THEY WILL BE ENTIRELY PLEASED WITH THE POPES IMMEDIATE CLARIFICATION OF HIS BEFUDDLED WORDS IN YET THE MILLIONTH CONFUSION INTERVIEW! VATICAN NEWS STORY IS HERE.)

 

Several Cardinals, some now dead, asked Pope Francis, first in private and then publicly, to respond to certain “dubia” (questions) they had about some of his confused teachings. They did so face-to-face asking for a face-to-face meeting and answer and they received nothing, nothing, nothing. 

Father James Martin, SJ a Catholic dissident as it concerns Catholic sexual morality applied to homosexuals, was confused by something Pope Francis had said in his AP interview, where he appeared he said the orientation toward same sex attractions is a sin and not just sexual acts that are unnatural and also sinful. This was in the context of the pope saying the state should not criminalize unnatural acts. 

Thus Fr. Martin writes to Pope Francis with his three “dubia” or questions and rather quickly, in a day or two, the pope responds to his questions in a hand written note!!!!

Here are Martin’s three questions and how the pope answered him IMMEDIATELY!

 This is from a google translation of the Italian used:

Father Martin, SJ, asks:

Holy Father, thank you for your strong call to decriminalize homosexuality.  

1. Why did you decide to say it at this moment? 

 2. There seems to have been some confusion over this comment, "Being gay is a sin," which, of course, is not part of the church's teaching.  I got the impression that you were simply repeating what others might hypothetically say.  So, you think that just being gay is a sin?  

3. What would you say to Catholic bishops who still support the criminalization of homosexuality?  

Pope Francis’ immediate answer with a hand written note:

Dear Brother, 

Thank you for his letter.  It is not the first time that I speak of homosexuality and homosexual people.  And I wanted to clarify that it is not a crime, to underline that ciminalization is neither good nor right. 

 When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.  Of course, the circumstances must also be considered, which can lessen or eliminate the guilt. 

 As you see, I was repeating something in general.  I should have said, "It's a sin, like any sexual act outside of marriage. That's talking about the 'matter' of marriage."  This is talking about the "matter" of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality does not only take into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention;  and this, for every kind of sin.  And I would like to tell those who want to criminalize homosexuality that they are wrong. 

 In a television interview, where we spoke in a natural and colloquial and understandable language that there are no such precise definitions. 

 I pray for you  and you work.  Please do the same for me.  May Jesus bless you and may the Holy Virgin protect you. 

 Fraternally,

Francis

MY COMMENTS:

Pope Francis answers to Fr. Martin will not necessarily please Fr. Martin as the pope upholds, to a certain extent, traditional Catholic teaching on the material of sin and culpability. I would also suspect, Cardinal McElroy will not be pleased with this classic definition either.

But there is also a sin of neglect or failing to do what one should do as we proclaim in the revised Confiteor of the Mass. The pope fails to distinguished between types of sexual sins that are sins outside of marriage. For example, acts of foreplay that are meant to lead to the “marital act” to sustain marital love and be open to procreation, even if it isn’t possible for the male and female at that time, are natural acts although sinful in a non-marriage setting. 

Gay sex and its foreplay does not lead to any kind of marital act. In casual sex it is simply for the gratification and pleasure of those who pursue it empty of love or even a casual relationship. If the couple actually love each it, it can’t ever lead to procreation as it is unnatural. Sodomy is classified as a sin that begs for justice from God in God’s Holy and inerrant Word. 

Public foreplay, nudity, copulation of any kind, heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual and the variety of +++’s there are today, should be criminalized and sex with minors should be criminalized. The state has a right to criminalize sexual sins if these are detrimental to the common good. 

The pope did not clarify that!

And his last sentence to Fr. Martin is the foundation of this pope’s communication technique. He thinks that speaking in a “colloquial” way brings clarification to people when it is the source of confusion, even confusing Fr. Martin. 

But with what the pope wrote back to Fr. Martin, do you think Fr. Martin is pleased with that answer.

And why couldn’t the pope have hand written a note to the Dubia cardinals and allowed it to be made public?

THE CRISIS OF AMERICA, THE EVIL SPIRIT OF CONTEMPT FOR HUMAN LIFE EXACERBATED BY A POLITICAL PARTY THAT GLORIFIES THE MURDER OF CHILDREN AS A HUMAN RIGHT

 

The month of January has turned upside down political rhetoric and news media memes about white racism at the root of violence against minorities be in it law enforcement or acts of violence against Asians and African Americans.

The heinous killing (murder) of Tyre Nichols by five African American cops and the back to back killings of innocent Asians in California by two senior citizens who are/were Asian turn the white racism stereotypes upside down. 

Unrelated to these types of murders, is the break-in that occurred at Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s house where we see the intruder with an instrument in hand about to abort (murder) the husband of the former Speaker of the House. I use the word “abort” intentionally, because this murderer/abortionist felt he had a right and a duty to kill this man in the womb of his own home where he had been sleeping!

The duplicity of the media and politicians, especially in the Democrat Party, to include the Catholics there, the current president and the former Speaker, are the problem not the solution to the culture of death and violence they promote by their virulent support for the right of parent, be it the man or the woman and those in the abortion industry to perpetrate the same kind of violence against an unborn child that was perpetrated against Tyre Nichols, Mr. Pelosi and those killed by two Asians in California.

They need to repent, wake up and become pro-life. 

POPE FRANCIS IN HIS AP INTERVIEW ENCOURAGED CRITICISM OF HIM AND HIS POLICIES—THIS IS GOOD NEWS

 

GOOD FOR YOU CARDINAL KASPER! YOU ROCK! PROGRESSIVE CARDINAL KASPER CALLS OUT THE GERMAN SYNOD, ITS SCHISMATIC FOUNDATIONS AND INFIDELITY TO THE WORD OF GOD AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL! IT ALSO SEEMS TO ME THAT HE IS CALLING OUT CARDINALS LIKE HOLLERICH AND MCELROY AND MAYBE EVEN HIGHER UP WITH HIS QUOTE FROM TIMOTHY AND TITUS!!!!!

 

Cardinal Walter Kasper in a statement dated January 26, 2023:

 “I fully agree with the statement by the lay initiative New Beginning on the Roman letter of January 16 on the question of the Synodal Council.  The letter, backed by the authority of the Pope and ultimately the Second Vatican Council, is absolutely clear.  It cannot be undermined by tricky reinterpretations.

 At his episcopal ordination, each bishop was assigned the pastoral ministry in his diocese in the succession of the apostles.  He cannot subsequently waive the exercise of this sacramentally conferred power of attorney in whole or in part by committing himself to a synodal council without violating the responsibility personally conferred on him.

 The theory of bishops' renunciation is in fact a dishonest and self-contradictory trickery.  The resistance to Roman writing or its tricky reinterpretation and evasion inevitably lead, contrary to all well-intentioned protestations, to the brink of schism and plunge the people of God in Germany into an even deeper crisis.

 Today we celebrate the feast of the apostles Timothy and Titus.  It is worth reading the letters addressed to her again in the New Testament.  There is talk of a time in which one can no longer endure healthy teaching and no longer want to listen to the truth, but instead always seeks new teachers who flatter the ears according to one's own wishes.

 Especially in such a situation applies: "Preach the word, stand up for it, whether people want to hear it or not." But you "preach the gospel, fulfill your ministry faithfully!" (2 Tim 4, 2-6).

Cardinal Walter Kasper, emer.  Cardinal of the Curia, former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, former Professor of Dogmatics.

I LIKE HOW THIS LAY PREACHER PREACHES, THE BREVITY OF HIS HOMILY BUT AM PUZZLED BY THE IMPLICATIONS AS IT CONCERNS THE CHURCH HERSELF AND HER LEADERS

THIS COMMENTARY IS BASED ON THE HOMILY I POST AT THE END

As with most social justice warriors and “warrioring”, it is hard for most rank and file laity and clergy to put it into practice except for their own personal morality. By the way, the same is true with the Church’s sexual morality and the call to chastity depending on your state in life. We can’t force everyone to embrace what Jesus teaches us about sex but we can start with ourselves. If only Cardinal McElroy understood this, but I digress.

But this lay preacher in the brief video below is calling us to be social justice warriors and to push back against authoritarian voices and false teachings that harm those Jesus refers to in the Beatitudes. 

Does that mean that Frank Pavone was right in what he was doing (not breaking the promise of celibacy) but disobeying his bishop because Pavone thinks his vocation within a vocation to be a social justice pro-life warrior trumps obedience to his bishop? 

But, if I agree with Cardinal McElroy, and I think the promise of celibacy hinders my growth as a human and a priest and that the Church under which I made that promise discriminates against people who want to have sex and their way, like a Burger King Hamburger, should I push the envelop and just do it, have sex my way and as often as possible, and expect my bishop and my brother priests and laity to accept me, to be inclusive of me and not to judge me?

And as it concerns the unjust clamp down on the Traditional Latin Mass, how do I take this preacher’s words to heart and affect the change he recommends?

SHOULD THE DOCTRINE COMMITTEE OF THE USCCB EXAMINE AND CRITIQUE CARDINAL MCELROY’S MOST RECENT DEPARTURE FROM CATHOLIC MORAL TEACHINGS?

 

When I was stationed at our cathedral in the 1980’s, our Bishop Raymond Lessard was elected chair of the Doctrine Committee of the USCCB. Thus, since the bishop lived at the cathedral rectory, I learned of the various things this committee was doing at that time and there was a lot. 

Perhaps the new president of the USCCB, Archbishop Broglio of the Military Archdiocese should charge the USCCB’S doctrine committee to examine Cardinal McElroy’s most recent foray into moral teaching heterodoxy.

Here is Fr. Raymond de Souza’s commentary on the McElroy debacle of leading Catholics astray in the National Catholic Register. The summary below of his commentary hits the nail on the head, so to speak:

Cardinal McElroy’s Attack on Church Teachings on Sexuality Is a Pastoral Disaster

COMMENTARY: Jettisoning the distinction between ‘orientation and activity’ means the end of chastity as a virtue to be strived for — or implies that ‘the LBGT community’ is not capable of chastity and should therefore be preached a lesser gospel.

Father Raymond J. de SouzaVatican