I am starting this interview from four years ago five minutes into about an 11 minute segment. Watch where Bishop Budde flat out says she believes in a woman’s right to deport her unborn child by hiring a hitman to take her/him out through murder. Bishop Budde isn’t the one to lecture Donald Trump on any moral issue. Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Francis could do it, Cardinal Gregory could also, but not Bishop Budde. Let her know!
I don’t advise doing anything which resembles a Nazi salute and Musk should have known better. But he may be compromised on making appropriate social manners’ judgments.
I hate when bishops and priests raise their hand to offer a blessing and the raised hand looks like a Nazi salute. Anti-Catholics with their hair on fire, like those progressives hysterical and with hair on fire over Musk, make a lot of fake noise over appearances without an honest appraisal.
And if that wasn't enough to get President Trump elected, they chose a complete "airhead" to run against him, the "word salad speaking" Vice President Harris.
You can't make this stuff up. The Democrats got their archenemy elected. They have no one to blame but themselves.
But back to Bishop Budde.
Apart from an inappropriate setting to castigate the president, where he could not respond directly, and make no mistake, she was speaking to him directly, high aloft in a pulpit to protect her and elevate her words, what she said, in general terms, is Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Francis would well have said the generalities in the same way.
I don't think, though, that Pope Francis would have done so speaking high aloft from that same pulpit looking down on President Trump. I might be wrong, but not even Pope Francis would have done that even though he might agree with Bishop Budde.
I agree with Bishop Budde on many points that are religious but separated from political ideologies and laws promoted by that ideology. She clearly is anti-Catholic when it comes to sexual morality, abortion, and LGBTQ+++ Ideologies. No Catholic clergy were asked to pray at the service in which she castigated President Trump while other religions were included. So much for inclusivity.
I have read some commentaries by Episcopalians. They say Bishop Budde and the Anglican Communion have no moral authority to speak to anyone and that there are more clergy prancing around their sanctuaries/church buildings, than laity, as most laity have emptied the pews of the Anglican Communion, especially the super rich, upper class, nose looking down Protestant Episcopal Church USA.
What the Holy Father says, though, says a lot about why one never hears him talking about sexual morality. He thinks too much has been said about it in past; it preoccupies people with morality below the belt and not other issues of morality that should be more emphasized as these, according to the Holy Father, are more hurtful and immoral.
That thinking, in a nutshell, is part and parcel of his backward 1960's papacy. He fails to recognized that in all issues concerning the Catholic Faith and Morals of the Church, as well as canon law, it isn't either/or but both/and.
When one issue of morality is de-emphasized in favor of another, both are de-emphasized and people are given one more reason to elevate situational ethics to a dogma.
The other danger implicit in Collins article below, also shows why the sex abuse scandal and tragedy exacerbated in the 1970's, with 1974 being its peak, according to the John Jay Study, is because of the thinking of bishops throughout the world inspired by the 1960's "new morality" of the Church that wanted to de-emphasize sex and sexual sins and elevate social sins to a new puritanical level of culpability and guilt.
Pope Francis is the best example of why 1974 was a year of disaster for the priesthood and the Church where innocent victims were made to suffer because of sex abuse mortal sins and crimes enabled by bishops and their neglect and/or ambivalence of below the belt crimes and mortal sins.
Press title for Collins' stunning appraisal from Crux:
You can get on your high horse and complain about deporting illegal and criminal aliens and stating that the biological truth is that there is only two sexes, male and female, and the truth hurts those who want to be something else and perhaps even a different race.
But it all starts with what Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta told the world and the sitting president in 1994. If you want abortion throughout the nine months of pregnancy and dare to call it health care, nothing else you say is worth hearing:
He is liberated from being lacephobic and anti-beautiful chasuable and certainly isn’t ad orientemphobic. And despite the lace and ornate vestments, the good cardinal seems to be normal and non-rigid and with no deep seated phobias. All this bodes well if His Eminence is elected the next pope! And when was the last time we’ve had a pope with facial hair? The God of suprizes!
As sanity and mental clarity returns to the USA, will the next pope also respond to the blowing winds of the Most Holy Spirit? Who might the next pope be to deal with the Church’s malaise since 2013? Who will be the redeemed Donald Trump to assume the papacy?
Just wondering? The Church can’t continue with the 1960’s progressive mentality, now or in the future!
I know that President Biden is suffering from severe dementia. Thus I wonder if it was Mrs. Joe Biden who wrote the pardon for Fauci, Milley and the January 6 Committee Members!
What Mrs. Biden forgets or disregards altogether is that in American Law, one is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Thus her pardon through her husband the president, presumes that these characters are in fact guilty, guilty, guilty and need to be pardoned, pardoned, pardoned!
I wonder how these characters Fauci, Milley and the January 6 Committee Members feel that the president or shadow president presumed they are guilty and need a presidential pardon!
This might need to be fact-checked, but just as Pope Francis called out President Joe Biden’s genocide as it concerns the promotion of abortion throughout a woman’s pregnancy, a disgrace, so too does Pope Francis call President Trump’s desire to deport illegal aliens and alien criminals a disgrace. Pope Francis is clearly an equal opportunity condemner of disgraces. Nonetheless, Pope Francis calls down God’s Divine Blessings upon President Trump, President Biden and the USA within the spirit of Fiducia Supplicans!
"I ask God to guide your efforts in promoting peace and reconciliation among peoples."
Pope Francis expressed this prayer in a message he sent on Monday to the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, on the occasion of his inauguration as 47th President in the nation's history.
"On the occasion of your inauguration as the forty-seventh President of the United States of America," the Pope began, "I offer cordial greetings and the assurance of my prayers that Almighty God will grant you wisdom, strength, and protection in the exercise of your high duties."
"Inspired by your nation’s ideals of being a land of opportunity and welcome for all, it is my hope that under your leadership the American people will prosper and always strive to build a more just society, where there is no room for hatred, discrimination or exclusion."
"At the same time," the Pope noted, "as our human family faces numerous challenges, not to mention the scourge of war, I also ask God to guide your efforts in promoting peace and reconciliation among peoples."
"With these sentiments," the Holy Father concluded, "I invoke upon you, your family, and the beloved American people an abundance of divine blessings."
Especially the rectangular altar!
I wonder if the Gathering Song was “On Jordan’s Bank”?
As it concerns infallibility, no pope could create new teachings out of whole cloth. For example, if a pope declared that Jesus was an alien from a distant planet, we would not have to believe it and in fact the pope would be a heretic. There are protections built in to protect rank and file clergy and laity from abusive papal teachings that have no place in Catholic Scripture and Tradition.
The same is true of any pope dabbling with weather and declaring this, that or the other is an infallible truth when it comes to climate.
The same is true with elevating “pop psychology” to a level of magisterial importance as Pope Francis seems to like to do.
Don’t get me wrong, popes are entitled to their opinions, but the office that they hold which is of the utmost importance for Catholic unity in orthodoxy means they should be careful with hobbies they hold as amateurs in psychology and weather.
Thus, in Pope Francis’ recently released book, “Hope” the aging pope, as aging people are wont to do, repeats many of his non-magisterial memes which His Holiness has done over and over and over again.
Here are a couple of quotes from his book as Crux reports, that we can say, wow, I like that, or wow, I can’t believe he said that and then discount it altogether:
In his autobiography, he also defends his work against traditionalist Catholic priests, who has often accused of being “rigid.”
“This rigidity is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation,” he writes.
“These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited,” Francis claims.
He explains the traditional look of a newly elected pope didn’t suit him.
“They were not for me. Two days later they told me I would have to change my trousers, wear white ones. They made me laugh. I don’t want to be an ice cream seller, I said. And I kept my own,” the pope says.
“The red shoes? No, I have orthopedic shoes. I’m rather flat-footed,” Francis writes.
He also speaks about his sense of humor.
“Irony is medicine, not only to elevate and enlighten others but also for oneself, because self-irony is a powerful tool to overcome the temptation of narcissism. Narcissists continually look in the mirror, they get all primped up, they observe themselves over and over again, but the best advice in front of a mirror is always to laugh at oneself. It will do us good,” the pope says.
My final astute comments: Let me put my pop psychology hat on and join the pope in analyzing his comments above. It seems to me to be very narcissistic as he is saying that he is much better than Pope Benedict in forgoing papal dress, lace and the rest of it which means he isn’t rigid and he is superior. It is another kind of way of saying “look at me” as I look in the mirror and what I see is so much better than what preceded me! I am pleased with myself!
Humility has nothing to do with this outlook, it is as narcissistic as the narcissism he condemns. What a study in pop psychology this pope is!
I don't expect those who are warriors and leaders of nations to be puritans when it comes to the 6th Commandment, if you are Catholic, and the 7th Commandment if you are Protestant.
The most virile men and women who are willing to put their life on the line for our country or for anyone else, normally are very virile men and women and their sex lives are the envy of most people who suffer from concupiscence which is all of us.
Thus, we have Democrats, more than likely like members of the "Harper Valley's PTA" calling the kettle black. As one astute Republican said, the Democrats fixated on Pete Hegseth's sex life, more than likely either want to have sex with him or wish they were him. They are envious.
Feigning being sexual puritans in order to place the big "A" on someone else when they are just as guilty of concupiscence is disgusting! Let the first one who has no sin cast the first stone as the most non-Puritanical Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity once said.
Democrats are preoccupied with the sex lives of Republicans as though Republicans are the only ones to have illicit and sinful sex.
Europe is laughing at Democrats! They are a joke, a funny joke if it wasn't so sad and hypocritical!
The pastor of Holy Family Church on Hilton Head Island, has been trying to update the parish’s vestments. Those in the closet are decades old and quite frankly not very clean and tattered. I fear catching Typhoid Fever from some of them, but I make the sacrifice to do so as a penance for my many sins.
I hope the pastor got a good green new deal on this vestment which i like very much and is of my taste:
Thus, I take certain quotes from Bishop Mutsaerts highlighted by Lifesite News and ask "true or false?"
“How did it get to the point where we see what we see today in church circles? Rainbow flags, LGBT activists dancing around the altar, second-rate bands playing pop music, sermons that are an expression of political correctness rather than anything else?” he pointedly asked. (TRUE OR FALSE?)
“How is it that beauty and truth have given way to ugliness and opinions? Ugly buildings, whitewashed walls, iconoclasm, and poorly acted performances that pass for liturgy. Kneelers and communion rails have been removed. The mystery, the sacred, the supernatural had to give way to horizontal flatness.” (TRUE OF FALSE?)
The bishop said that he sees a hunger for tradition and transcendence in young Catholics.“But this has not yet caught on in Rome,” he mused. “There, they are preoccupied with the new buzzword synodality.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
“’Yes,’ says the church, ‘we are committed to the environment, to climate change, to diversity, to the poor and issues like that.’ More emphasis is placed on this than on a dignified liturgy, on sacrality, on the call to conversion, and on prioritizing the salvation of souls. People forget that this is precisely what gives people the nourishment they need to truly perform works of mercy.”
“Since the 1960s, the Church has portrayed the faith as ridiculous, no longer naming its core,” the bishop said. “Look at the liturgical abuse that is the order of the day. I am regularly terrorized at Confirmation Masses by choirs singing only Top 2000 songs. I once experienced the choir, accompanied by a deafening band, singing exclusively songs by Bruce Springsteen. ‘Because the Night’ was the offertory hymn. At the end of the Mass, it was clear to me: we will never see these confirmands in church again.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
In today’s Church, at least in Western Europe, the mainstream view says “it should be about social justice, about soup kitchens, about action,” he continued.“Yes, mainly action. We stand up against discrimination and racism and take part in the social debate on climate change. We are naturally inclusive and diverse and fly the rainbow flag. Of course, we don’t talk about abortion, euthanasia, and mutilation of [so-called] transgender people. The distinction between the sacred and the profane has completely disappeared.”“Young people, in particular, have sensed this very well and have voted with their feet,” the bishop said. “If the liturgy is an incoherent mess, if you are not asked to reorganize your life, if forgiveness and sin are forbidden words, then what are you doing there?”“Good liturgy, clarity, and warmth make all the difference. Young people are looking for answers to questions.”“No wonder young people hungry for meaning, forgiveness, and truth are not at all interested in Laudato Si’, Fiducia Supplicans, and synodality,” the bishop added. “Parishes and dioceses that think they are focusing on this do not attract young people. Where do you find them: in parishes where things are simply traditional, where the Holy Mass is still Holy Mass, where the sacred is in the forefront, where the liturgy is clearly separated from the secular. You discover things there that you didn’t know before. It is a movement towards beauty, truth, holiness, towards devotion, towards places where the sacrament of Confession is offered and the Rosary is prayed. That’s where I see families, that’s where I see young people, that’s where I see the future of the Church.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
My astute comments:
The good bishop from Holland is speaking about what is happening in Europe and how Pope Francis has brought them back to the 1960's and 70's controversies and silliness after a period of purification (not completely) by Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict and their way of going forward instead of Pope Francis' backwards going.
In my Diocese of Savannah, there are no radically liberal parishes as it concerns progressive issues and practices highlight in the article. I would say that liturgically, most of our parishes are mediocre, especially as it concerns music and casualness in the Mass and a folksy, talkative, secular way of imposing the priest's personality and gift of gab onto the congregation.
The various post-Vatican II ministries of the liturgy are sloppily carried out without attention to detail and good taste when it comes to secular dress for liturgical ministries and a continued askewing of liturgical dress for the laity functioning as readers and Communion Ministers at Mass.
The south is conservative and Catholicism in the south is still conservative as are our politics, for the most part.
In other parts of the USA, since I don't travel as I once did, but certainly see videos of outrages at Mass, I don't have a good grasp of what is happening in the majority of parishes.
I do believe that Pope Francis' and His Holiness' henchmen opposed to traditional approaches to the Post Vatican II Mass and a liberal allowance of the TLM are completely out of touch with today's young people who have remained in the Church, don't one to be "nones" and value tradition, be it in the modern Mass and when exposed to the TLM desire it too.
God willing there are more bishops and those who are cardinals who see what this Dutch Bishop sees and calls it out and that this will impact the soon-to-be papal conclave!
As an aside, I am not opposed to social justice, soup kitchens and upholding the dignity and sacredness of life, even though tainted by sin and evil. It isn't either/or but both/and. But when doing both/and, orthodoxy and promoting holiness of life as the Church teaches is what must be proclaimed and lived and when not lived, called sin that needs the person to repent and be forgiven, especially through the Sacrament of Penance.
Recently Pope Francis, perhaps the most authoritarian pope since Vatican II, gushed over his idea of synodality turning things upside-down, meaning that leadership in in the Church is from the bottom up rather than the top down. One has to wonder if the pope is expressing Holiness' complete hubris given his micro management of local bishops and their parishes’ bulletins or the effects of extreme old age is compromising Holiness' expressions!
I am no fan of synodality that turns the Church into political factions manipulating the system to get their way through political means and backroom deals. Or worse yet, gaslighting Catholics into heterodoxy and heteropraxis by beginning processes that will change the faith, doctrines and morals of the Church over the course of time in a horribly discontinuity way.
Where I think synodality has great potential, is in the selection of candidates for the priesthood and as diocesan bishops.
When I was Vocation Director for the Diocese of Savannah, I had a group of laity who would interview potential candidates for the seminary, but in a casual, home-setting way. Then they would write an evaluation of the candidate in terms of the pros and cons of accepting the candidate. I valued their evaluations and helped me to make good recommendations to my bishop in terms of his final yes or no concerning potential candidates for the priesthood.
As well, seminarians on pastoral assignments in diocesan parishes were evaluated by lay staff and certain parishioners. That helped too and in big measure!
When it comes to the selection of bishops for dioceses, I think it is wise to consult with a wide variety of other bishops in the area about who would make a good candidate for a particular diocese. As well, priests, deacons, and religious in the diocese in question, should be consulted as well.
Local laity should be consulted too, especially those in employment positions in dioceses but also rank and file parishioners.
With an Archdiocese of such National and International importance as Washington, DC, I wonder who would have been identified as the best candidate for the Archdiocese if a broader consultation process had taken place.
As far as I can tell, right now there are two groups of cardinals who made different recommendations to Pope Francis. Ultra-progressive Cardinals Cupich and Tobin proposed ultra-progressive Cardinal McElroy to the pope as the new archbishop. The Cardinal Nuncio and Cardinal Gregory proposed someone else.
Pope Francis obviously listened to Cardinals Tobin and Cupich and then made his top down decision on ultra progressive/liberal Cardinal McElroy!
Were only those four the ones consulted?????
So much for synodality!
Not since the so-called “insurrection” of four years ago, on January 6, has Washington experienced something like this kind of breaking news:
Washington, D.C., will now be home to 5 cardinals and one ex- cardinal, Cardinals Donald Wuerl, Wilton Gregory, ex-Theodore McCarrick, the three emeriti, Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio, and now McElroy. Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the retired archbishop of Boston, has indicated he intends to spend about half his time at the Capuchin College in D.C.,
A great deal can be said in praise of the renovation of Notre-Dame in Paris after the devastating fire that took place five years ago. The light is wonderful. The renewal of the devotional spaces is admirable, and the overall design has been strengthened.
The liturgical furniture itself, however, was disappointing. These elements (font, altar, ambo, chair) are the ones that ought to be most deeply rooted, as celebration of the liturgy is the primary reason for the church’s existence. Instead, they appear as “strange visitors” unrelated to the rest of the building.
There are ways in which modern art can harmonize with a medieval building, but these were not pursued. A severely abstract program seems to have been chosen instead. The artist-designer also seems to have had little real appreciation of the liturgical function of these items, as questions of accessibility and Christian symbolism also arise.
