THE NEW SAINT MICHAEL HYMNAL

We must update our old hymnal with a new one. This shows the selection of hymns in the new St. Michael Hymnal publish by World Library Press. While our parish does not sing Spanish hymns, that could change in a few years if the Hispanic population continues to grow in Middle Georgia, or if St. Joseph Church ever hosted a regional Spanish Mass for special events. There is also an excellent selection of Latin Hymns and Latin Mass settings! But almost every English Hymn is singable for our congregation. In addition, the Order of Mass has the Mass both in English and Latin on opposite pages and with the music for singing the Order of the Mass for both the priest and the laity. It is similar in format (in English) to the green booklets that WLP provided for the transition to the new English translation--very easy to find and use and especially helpful for non-Catholics and those in the RCIA to understand the Order of Mass. Comments?

THE ORDER OF THE MASS AT THE FRONT OF THE HYMNAL IN BOTH ENGLISH AND LATIN! PRESS HERE FOR PDF!

Hymns in the New Saint Michael Hymnal in alphabetical order:

A
400 A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing
401 A Message Came to a Maiden Young
402 Abide with Me
403 Ábranse Los Cielos
650 Adeste Fideles
404 Adiós, O Virgen de Guadalupe
405 Adiós, Reina del Cielo
406 Adoramus Te Domine
407 Adoremus in Aeternum
408 Adoro Te Devote
409 Ah, Holy Jesus
410 All Creatures of Our God and King
411 All Glory Be to God on High
412 All Glory Laud and Honor
413 All Glory Laud and Honor
414 All Hail Adored Trinity
415 All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
416 All My Hope on God is Founded
417 All Nations Clap Your Hands
418 All People That on Earth Do Dwell
419 All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine
420 All Things Bright and Beautiful
421 All Ye Peoples, Bless the Lord
422 All You Who Seek a Comfort Sure
423 Alleluia! Alleluia! Hearts to Heaven
424 Alleluia! Alleluia! Let the Holy Anthem
425 Alleluia! Alleluia! Sing a New Song to the Lord
426 Alleluia! Sing to Jesus!
427 Alma, Bendice a Dios
428 Alma, Redemptoris Mater
429 Altísimo Señor
430 Amazing Grace! How Sweet the Sound
431 America
432 America the Beautiful
433 Angels, from the Realms of Glory
434 Angels We Have Heard on High
435 As with Gladness Men of Old
436 At the Cross Her Station Keeping
437 At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
438 At the Name of Jesus
439 Attende Domine
440 Ave de Lourdes
441 Ave Maria
442 Ave Maris Stella
443 Ave Regina Caelorum
444 Ave Verum
445 Awake, Arise, Lift Up Thy Voice
446 Awake, O Lyre and Harp
447 Away in a Manger
448 Away in a Manger
B
449 Be Joyful, Mary, Heavenly Queen
450 Be Not Afraid
451 Be Still, My Soul
452 Be Thou My Vision
453 Behold a Virgin Bearing Him
454 Behold the Lamb
455 Bendito, Bendito
456 Benedictus
457 Bless the Lord, My Soul
458 Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word
459 Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light
460 Breathe on Me, Breath of God
461 Brightest and Best
462 Bring Flowers of the Rarest
463 Buenos Días, Paloma Blanca
C
464 Cantad al Señor
465 Canticle of Zechariah
466 Celebrémos del Señor
467 Cerca de Tí, Señor
468 Christ Be beside Me
469 Christ is Made the Sure Foundation
470 Christ is Made the Sure Foundation
471 Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands
472 Christ, the Glory of the Sky
473 Christ the Lord is Risen Again
474 Christ the Lord is Risen Today
475 Christ the Lord is Risen Today
476 Christian, Do You Hear the Lord
477 Christians, Sound the Name That Saved Us
816 Christians to the Paschal Victim
478 Christus Vincit
479 Christus Vincit
480 Christus Vincit
481 Come, Christians Join to Sing
482 Come Down, O Love Divine
483 Come, Holy Ghost
484 Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs
485 Come, Let Us Join Our Cheerful Songs
486 Come, Lord, and Tarry Not
487 Come, My Way, My Truth, My Life
488 Come, Thou Almighty King
489 Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
490 Come Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain
491 Come, Ye Thankful People, Come
492 Comfort, Comfort Ye My People
493 Como Estrella en Claro Cielo
494 Completed, Lord, the Holy Mysteries
495 Concordi Laetitia
496 Corazones Te Ofrecemos
497 Creator of the Stars of Night
498 Cristo Jesús Resucitó
499 Crown Him with Many Crowns
500 Crucem Tuam
501 Crux Fidelis
D
502 Da Pacem Domine
503 Daily, Daily Sing to Mary
Index of First Lines and Titles 864
504 Day is Done
505 De Boca y Corazón
506 Deck Thyself, My Soul, with Gladness
507 Desciende, Espíritu de Amor
508 Domine Deus
509 Draw Near and Take the Body of Thy Lord
510 Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether
E
511 Earth Has Many a Noble City
512 Eat This Bread
513 Ecce Panis
514 El Dios de Paz
515 El Señor Resucito
516 Es el Señor mi Buen Pastor
517 Eschúchanos, Señor
518 Eternal Father, Strong to Save
F
519 Fairest Lord Jesus
520 Faith of Our Fathers
521 Father, We Thank Thee
522 Firmly I Believe and Truly
523 For All the Saints
524 For the Beauty of the Earth
525 For the Fruits of His Creation
526 Forty Days and Forty Nights
527 From All Thy Saints in Warfare
G
528 Gift of Finest Wheat
529 Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken
530 Glory Be to Jesus
531 Glory to Thee, My God, This Night
532 Go, Tell It on the Mountain
533 God Is Love; His Mercy Brightens
534 God Is Love, Let Heaven Adore Him
535 God Is My Great Desire
536 God, My King, Thy Might Confessing
537 God of Grace and God of Glory
538 God of Our Fathers
539 God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
540 God, We Praise You
541 Godhead Here in Hiding
542 Godhead Here in Hiding
543 God’s Blessing Sends Us Forth
544 Good Christian Men, Rejoice
545 Good Christians All, Rejoice and Sing
546 Good Night, Sweet Jesus
547 Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer
H
548 Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above
549 Hail, Our Queen and Mother Blest
550 Hail, Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star
551 Hail, Redeemer, King Divine
552 Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise
553 Hail Thee, Festival Day
554 Hail to the Lord’s Anointed
555 Hail, True Victim, Life and Light
556 Hark! A Herald Voice Is Calling
557 Hark! The Glad Sound!
558 Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
559 Have Mercy, Lord, on Us
560 Heart of Christ
561 Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
562 Holy, Holy, Holy
563 Holy Light on Earth’s Horizon
564 Holy Spirit, Lord of Light
565 Holy Spirit, Truth Divine
566 Honor, Loor y Gloria!
567 How Firm a Foundation
568 How Great Our Joy!
569 How Great Thou Art
570 Humbly We Adore Thee
571 Hymn to St. Francis
I
572 I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
573 I Know That My Redeemer Lives
574 I Love You, O My Lord Most High
575 I Sing the Mighty Power of God
576 I Wonder As I Wander
577 Immaculate Mary
578 Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
579 In Christ There Is No East or West
580 In His Temple Now Behold Him
581 In Paradisum
582 In the Bleak Midwinter
583 In the Lord
584 Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
585 Into Our Hearts, O Spirit, Come
586 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
J
587 Jerusalem, My Happy Home
588 Jesu, Dulcis Memoria
589 Jesus Christ is Risen Today
590 Jesús Excelso
591 Jesus, Lord, Be Thou Mine Own
592 Jesus, Lord, Have Mercy
593 Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All
594 Jesus, Priest and Victim
595 Jesus, Remember Me
596 Jesus Shall Reign
597 Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee
598 Joy and Triumph Everlasting
599 Joy! Because the Circling Year
600 Joy to the World
601 Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
L
602 La Cruz Excelsa al Contemplar
603 Las Apariciones Guadalupanas
604 Laudate Dominum
605 Laudate Dominum
606 Laudate Omnes Gentes
607 Lead, Kindly Light
608 Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us
609 Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
610 Let All the World in Every Corner Sing
611 Let All the World with Songs Rejoice
612 Let All Things Now Living
613 Let Thy Blood in Mercy Poured
614 Lift High the Cross
615 Lift Up Your Heads
616 Litany of the Saints
617 Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
618 Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
619 Long Live the Pope!
620 Lord Jesus, As We Turn from Sin
621 Lord Jesus, Think on Me
622 Lord of All Hopefulness
623 Lord, Thou Hast Searched Me
624 Lord, Who at Thy First Eucharist
625 Lord, Who throughout These Forty Days
626 Lord, You Have Come to the Seashore
627 Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
628 Lux Aeterna
M
629 Madre Llena de Aflicción
630 Magnificat
631 Magnificat
632 Maiden, Yet a Mother
581 May Choirs of Angels
633 Merciful Savior, Hear Our Humble Prayer
634 My Shepherd Will Supply My Need
635 My Song Is Love Unknown
636 My Soul Rejoices
N
637 Nearer, My God, to Thee
638 Noche de Paz
639 Nothing Can Trouble
640 Now His Years of Life Perfected
641 Now Thank We All Our God
642 Now the Green Blade Riseth
643 Now with the Fast-Departing Light
644 Nunc Dimittis
O
645 O Bless the Lord, My Soul
646 O Blessed Saint Joseph
647 O Christ, Our Hope
648 O Christe Domine Jesu
649 O Come, All Ye Children
650 O Come, All Ye Faithful
651 O Come, Divine Messiah
652 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
653 O Father, All-Creating
654 O Filii et Filiae
655 O Food of Exiles Lowly
656 O Food of Travelers, Angels’ Bread
657 O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
658 O Gladsome Light
659 O God beyond All Praising
660 O God of Love, O King of Peace
661 O God, Our Help in Ages Past
662 O Holy Spirit, Come to Us
663 O Jesus Christ, Remember
664 O Jesus, Gentle Shepherd
665 O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts
666 O Jesus, King Most Wonderful
667 O Jesus, We Adore Thee
668 O Little Town of Bethlehem
669 O Little Town of Bethlehem
670 O Living Bread from Heaven
671 O Lord, Hear My Prayer
672 O Lord, I Am Not Worthy
673 O Lord, with Wondrous Mystery
674 O Love of God
675 O Mary, Our Mother
676 O Merciful Redeemer, Hear
677 O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright
678 O Radiant Light
679 O Sacred Head, Surrounded
680 O Sacred Heart All Holy
681 O Salutaris
682 O Salutaris
683 O Salutaris
684 O Sanctissima
685 O Savior, Rend the Heavens Wide
686 O Trinitas Laudabilis
687 O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair
688 O Word of God Incarnate
689 O Worship the King
690 Oculi Nostri
691 Of the Father’s Love Begotten
692 Ofertorio Nicaragüense
693 Oh, Criaturas del Señor
694 Oh, Dios de Mi Alma
695 Oh María, Madre Mía
696 Oh Rostro Ensangrentado
697 Oh Ven, Oh Ven Emanuel
698 On Eagle’s Wings
699 On Jordan’s Bank
700 On This Day, O Beautiful Mother
701 On This Day, the First of Days
702 Once in Royal David’s City
703 Only-Begotten, Word of God Eternal
704 Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty
705 Oremus Pro Pontifice
P
706 Pange Lingua
707 Pange Lingua
708 Pange Lingua
709 Panis Angelicus
710 Panis Angelicus
711 Parce Domine
712 People, Look East
626 Pescador de Hombres
713 Piedad, Oh Santo Dios, Piedad
714 Por la Excelsa Majestad
715 Portal of the World’s Salvation
716 Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
717 Praise the Lord of Heaven
718 Praise the Lord! Ye Heavens, Adore Him
719 Praise to the Holiest in the Height
720 Praise to the Living God
721 Praise to the Lord
722 Praise We Christ’s Immortal Body
723 Praise We the Lord This Day
724 Prayer of Saint Francis
725 Prepare the Royal Highway
726 Psallite Deo
727 Puer Natus in Bethlehem
Q
728 Qué Niño es Éste?
R
729 Regina Caeli
730 Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers
731 Rejoice, the Lord is King
732 Requiem Aeternam
733 Resonet in Laudibus
734 Ride On, Ride On in Majesty
735 Rorate Caeli
736 Saint Joseph Was a Quiet Man
S
737 Salve Festa Dies
738 Salve Mater Misericordiae
739 Salve Regina
740 Santo Consolador
741 Savior of the Nations, Come
742 See amid the Winter’s Snow
743 See the Conqueror Mounts in Triumph
744 Señor Jesús, Eterno Rey
745 Shepherd of Souls, In Love, Come, Feed Us
746 Shepherd of Souls, Refresh and Bless
747 Silent Night
748 Sing of Mary
749 Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
750 Sing Praise to Our Creator
751 Sing Praise to the Lord
752 Sing to the Lord a Joyful Song
753 Sing We Triumphant Hymns of Praise
754 Sing with All the Saints in Glory
755 Song of Farewell
756 Songs of Praise the Angels Sang
757 Songs of Thankfulness and Praise
758 Soul of Christ
759 Soul of My Savior
760 Spirit Divine, Attend Our Prayers
761 Spirit Seeking Light and Beauty
762 Spiritus Jesu Christi
763 Stabat Mater Dolorosa
764 Stainless the Maiden
765 Star Above the Ocean
766 Stay Here
767 Stay with Us
768 Sub Tuum Praesidium
769 Surrexit Christus
T
770 Take Up Thy Cross
771 Tal Como Soy
706 Tantum Ergo
707 Tantum Ergo
772 Tantum Ergo
773 Te Deum
774 That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright
775 The Advent of Our King
776 The Church’s One Foundation
777 The Coming of Our God
778 The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, is Ended
779 The Eternal Gifts of Christ the King
780 The First Noël
781 The Glory of These Forty Days
782 The God Whom Earth and Sea and Sky
783 The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns
784 The King of Love
785 The King Shall Come
786 The Royal Banners Forward Go
787 The Strife Is O’er
788 The Strife Is O’er
789 There Is a Balm in Gilead
790 There Is One Lord
791 There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
792 This Is My Song
793 This Is Our Accepted Time
794 This Is the Feast
795 This Joyful Eastertide
796 Those Eternal Bowers
797 Thou Art the Way
798 Thou Hope of All the World
799 ‘Tis Good, Lord, to Be Here
800 To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King
801 To the Name That Brings Salvation
802 To You I Lift My Soul
803 Totus Tuus
804 Tu Es Petrus
U
805 Ubi Caritas
806 Ubi Caritas
807 Ultima
808 Unidos en Caridad
V
809 Veni Creator Spiritus
810 Veni, Sancte Spiritus
811 Veni, Veni, Emmanuel
812 Venid, Fieles Todos
813 Venid, Nuestras Voces Unamos
814 Venid, Pastorcillos
815 Vexilla Regis
816 Victimae Paschali Laudes
684 Virgin Full of Grace
817 Virgin Great and Glorious
W
818 Wait for the Lord
819 Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying
820 We Gather Together
821 We Plow the Fields and Scatter
822 We Three Kings
823 We Walk by Faith
824 Were You There
825 What Child Is This
826 What Shall I Render to the Lord
827 What Star Is This
828 What Wondrous Love
829 When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
830 When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
831 When Morning Gilds the Skies
832 Where Charity and Love Prevail
833 While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks
834 With All the Powers My Poor Soul Hath
835 Within Our Darkest Night
836 Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness
Y
837 Ye Sons and Daughters
838 Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
839 Ye Who Own the Faith of

MORE ON PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S ATTACK ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA

The totalitarians on the far left say it's all about birth control, a smoke screen to hide their true intentions, the disrupt the United States Constitution and usurp religious liberty and freedom of conscience in a dictatorial way. It is about "choice" it is about same sex marriage and the right to it, it is about ordaining women as priests and it is about the right to manipulate nature for political means. It is about denying God and Divine Law; it is about the dictatorship of liberalism;it is about Adolph Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin,Castro and Hugo Chávez and the common thread against religious liberty and state interference and suppression of religious freedom:

"The Church's struggle with the dictatorship of relativism may, however, prove one of its most difficult challenges. That's partly because it's a subtle form of oppression that trades off words like "choice" that strongly resonate in Western societies -- the same societies in which many secularists all-too-quickly equate any religion's claim to teach the truth with murderers who fly planes into buildings.

In the span of human history, the Obama Administration is just a blip, however much it considers itself, like all progressivists, to be on history's cutting edge. But be warned: the Catholic Church's fight -- in fact, the fight of anyone, believer or non-believer, who recognizes secularist fundamentalism as a danger to freedom -- against the despotism of "there-is-no-moral-truth-and-Rawls-is-his-prophet" is only just beginning."--Samuel Gregg--Research Director at the Acton Institute.

IS PRESIDENT OBAMA A PUPPET FOR THE RADICAL FEMINIST MOVEMENT AND THEIR AGENDA TO NEUTRALIZE AND CONTROL THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THROUGH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION?

This is from Hardball, please listen to the three democrat party congresswomen (radical wing) feminists and their attitude about the Catholic Church and the mandate for the Church to pay for birth control for women (preventive care)! What these democrat left wing ideologues want to do the Catholic Church says it all! If these left wing totalitarian dictators have their way with the usurping the first amendment rights of the religous liberty and freedom of conscience, what is next, forcing the church to provide same sex marriage, speaking out against the sin of fornication as hate speech and making the Church ordain women, after all it is 2012 or is it 1984?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

HOLY WAR IN WASHINGTON, DC, WATCH CARDINAL WUREL AND NEIL CAVUTO

IF YAHOO NEWS IS REPORTING IT; THEN THE WORD MUST BE REACHING THE WHITEHOUSE

PRESS THIS AND WHEN THE LINK APPEARS SCROLL DOWN TO VIDEO OF Speaker of the House John Boehner vowing to overturn Obama’s birth control coverage rule

A MUST SEE VIDEO--THANK YOU FATHER JONATHAN MORRIS AND FOX NEWS!

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE OF THE LOSS OF CATHOLIC IDENTITY SINCE VATICAN II BY A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF CATHOLICS TODAY AND THE MILQUETOAST LACK OF BACKBONE BY BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND CATHOLICS IN THE PEW

For those who don't know Milquetoast a definition: (One who has a meek, timid, unassertive nature.)
WORD HISTORY An indication of the effect on the English language of popular culture is the adoption of names from the comic strips as English words. Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man named for a timid food. The first instance of milquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930s. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, including sad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942, and Wimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger. If we look to a related form of popular culture, the animated cartoon, we must of course acknowledge Mickey Mouse, which has become a slang term for something that is easy, insignificant, small-time, worthless, or petty.

There is historical criteria to analyze Catholic identity before and after Vatican II.

Prior to Vatican II:

1. For the most part in the Latin Rite of the Church there was a single liturgy in a single language (Latin) that was universal around the world for Latin Rite Catholics

2. There was a universal catechism taught to children and in the USA it was the Baltimore Catechism that was very basic, very foundation and very easy to teach

3. There were clear lines of authority and obedience in the areas of faith, morals and Church law (which always encompasses both divine and human law). Divine law cannot change, but purely human law for the sake of the common good can change (like the hours of fasting before Holy Communion, type of penance on Friday, etc)

4. One could not dissent from the teachings of the Church in the areas of faith, morals and canon law and publicly do so without repercussions and being condemned for choosing mortal sin and hell

5. There was a clear understanding of sin, grace, moral living, judgment, purgatory, heaven, hell and how the Redemption of Jesus Christ (Paschal Mystery) is applied to the sinner who otherwise deserves punishment

After Vatican II:

1. The Latin Rite Liturgy becomes so diverse and stripped of its traditional piety and devotion that the differences in the Mass from parish to parish is so great and diversified and even more so from country to country. The Latin Rite Mass no longer is universally celebrated in a monolithic way. This has had dire consequences for Catholic unity and identity. Seemingly minor things that were removed from the Mass in its revision (such as the Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons, style of music genre, prayers at the foot of the altar, offertory prayers and the unique role of the ordained priest representing the priestly people of God at the altar as he offers the one Sacrifice of Jesus, In Persona Christi Capitis kneeling for Holy Communion and receiving on the tongue and the proliferation of liturgical ministries carried out in sloppy, haphazard ways and with choirs confronting the congregation in entertainment style) contributed to what was deemed even in the 1970's as a loss of respect for the holy and a Catholic sense of reverence

2. Catechetical materials replacing the Baltimore Catechism are either to complex or to simple or simply vapid and has had the most deleterious effect upon Catholic identity and moral living that will take generation to overcome

3. Complete individualism when it comes to personal and public morality, rejection of divine law contained in natural law and contempt for the ecclesiastical authority of the pope and bishops (in part brought on by Humanae Vitae and the theology of dissent from it, but also the lack of strong decisive leadership from the Holy Father and the bishops when dissent becomes public in the clergy and laity and their role in mismanaging perverted priests and the sex abuse scandal--devastating to them and Catholic identity

4. Lack of backbone in the appropriate use of Church discipline, public excommunication, censure, and the like

5. Complete loss and lack of catechesis or preaching on sin, grace, moral living, judgment, purgatory, heaven hell and the other-worldly and this-worldly aspect of the Paschal Mystery (redemption)

Vatican II help create apostates such as Nancy Pelosi and Katherine Sebelious, Joseph Biden, Ted Kennedy and other public but infamous Catholics who trash the Church and her true identity and all have done so without impunity or the threat of excommunication the possibility of hell fire and damnation.

In the area of Church discipline, the bishops and liberal Catholics have become like the character from literature Milquetoast; they have no backbone or desire to rock the boat of dissent and loss of Catholic identity and thus they exacerbate the loss of Catholic identity that now can very well lead to the loss of Religious liberty in this country and freedom of conscience.

This is a wake-up moment for Catholics in the history of the Catholic Church in this Country and the decline and nearly to the point of "fall" of the Catholic Church worldwide--but of course that can't happen because of the promises of Jesus Christ to the Church, but the Church can be diminished by these ungodly forces.

THE POSTER CHILD FOR POST VATICAN II LOSS OF CATHOLIC IDENTITY AND THE BISHOPS WHO REFUSE TO MAKE CLEAR WHAT THE BOUNDARIES OF CATHOLIC IDENTITY ARE BY NOT DENYING HER HOLY COMMUNION

The type of excommunication Rep. Nancy Pelosi needs is from the Holy Father himself, similar to the type of excommunication Father Feeney had from Pope Pius XII on February 13, 1953; there would be great symbolism if hers occurred on the same date, 2012!

A reporter , citing a letter from the U.S. bishops, in which the bishops vowed not to comply with the law, and asked: “will you stand with your fellow Catholics in resisting this law or will you stick by the Administration?”

[Pelosi answered:] “First of all, I am going to stick with my fellow Catholics in supporting the Administration on this. I think it was a very courageous decision that they made, and I support it,” the minority leader responded.

Now see and hear for yourselves!

WHAT A WONDERFUL TIME TO BE A CATHOLIC AND TO BE A PRIEST--I SMELL THE SCENT OF GLORIOUS MARYTRDOM!MY HOMILY FOR SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY AS WELL AS FOR THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME, FEBRUARY 5TH

Preaching truth to power!

NEWSFLASH: Secularists win a major battle in the same sex marriage warfare. Now it will go to the Supreme Court as the lower court found the will of the people in a vote in California overturning the imposition of same sex marriage by the courts in California goes against the U.S. Constitution (as though secularists care about that)! This ties in with the battle that Christians and others are fighting in this country as we slide into a secularist totalitarian state.

My homily from Sunday, February 5th:

Last year our Bishop’s Annual Appeal goal was $132,582 and 486 of us pledged $156,822. Bishop Hartmayer and I are very grateful for your stunning generosity. This year our goal is goal is $139,705.

My personal goal would be that all of our nearly 1300 households would make a pledge, but that can only happen through a miracle of God. So I am setting a personal goal for the parish of 500 households only 14 more households than last year.

I’m making a pledge of $600 and I ask you to meet or exceed my pledge according to your means of course.

You’ve seen and heard from our new bishop why he needs your sacrificial offerings and why we need to give, because we are called as Catholics to be generous stewards of God’s gifts to us which includes our hard earned money. So please respond.

But our bishop needs our support in combating the greatest crisis in the history of religion in the United States of America. President Obama is creating not only a constitutional crisis for our country but also instigating what might be justifiable, peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience from Catholics as it pertains to the President’s plan to force the Catholic Church to provide artificial contraception, abortificiants and abortions for anyone who works for the Catholic Church and her institutions. This is a clear violation of God’s law which is above the President’s law and Catholics must support our bishops who will be fighting this in the most peaceful ways possible and with all the tools at our disposal.

The reason the Church teaches against the use of artificial birth control is that it violates natural law. Natural law is a secular way to discover divine law. For Catholics divine law is not optional nor can we be forced to go against natural law which reveals divine law as well as our Scriptures and Tradition which forbid certain acts and call the immoral. Secularists within the Church and outside have been waging war with the Catholic Church over natural law since Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae in 1968 reiterating the Church’s infallible teaching that divine law is to be discovered in natural law and that the Church cannot change its moral teachings if it violates natural law and thus divine law. The pope did not cave into the pressures of secularists to change Church teaching as the pope has no authority to change divine law and subsequent popes have upheld in the most authoritative way the legitimacy of Humane Vitae and the prophetic teaching Pope Paul VI gave Catholics and the world in 1968 that has so much meaning for us today.

Last week after I read our own Bishop’s letter concerning the HHS’ mandate, I had many people ask me what this was all about. They had not heard or read anything from the liberal mass media or major networks. The same news blackout of the National March for Life in Washington, DC where hundreds of thousands of people gathered in a peaceful march occurred. Compare this news blackout to the vociferous liberal mass media coverage of the Susan Komen foundation’s initial decision to no longer give funds to Planned Parenthood and the pressure that came from this from liberals that forced the Komen Foundation to cave in to their threats and demands. Compare it also to the news coverage now for weeks of the Occupy Wall Street movement. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence from the liberal elitist press to keep the nation from knowing what President Obama is doing in his plan to interfere with Religious organizations in general and the Catholic Church in particular with his brand of big government control of everything and everyone.

Catholics should consider now what godless secularism is doing to our country and now trying to do to our Church. If they are successful in this, what will be next? Will we be forced to have same sex marriage ceremonies in the Church? Will we be prevented from speaking out against same sex marriage and the President as it regards religious liberty and freedom of Conscience? Will we be accused of hate crimes if we do speak out and proclaim unequivocally our Church’s teachings? Will we be forced to hire those who disagree with our faith or even be forced to ordain women to the priesthood?

Will the “emperor” force us to do that which our God and our religion dictate we cannot? What will be our response? In the Old Testament times when the Jews lost the Promise Land and self-governance and were taken over by the pagans in the Babylonian Exile, the emperor wanted to unite his kingdom and all in it under the laws of paganism. He wanted everyone to follow the same laws. So he began to force the Jews to eat pork against their religious laws. Many acquiesced or others pretended to eat pork when it really wasn’t. But the mother of seven sons told her sons to reject the emperor’s demands and not be forced by him to eat pork. They were all faithful to God’s law at their mother’s prodding. She watched as all seven of her sons died at the hands of the emperor and lastly she was killed, all martyrs for their Jewish faith and fidelity to God’s law.

What will we Catholics do when President Barack Hussein Obama tries to force the Catholic Church to eat Pork and not just on Fridays but every day by this Health and Human Services dictatorship? Will we acquiesce or listen to Holy Mother Church and our bishops who say resist and resist with all the powers of heaven at your disposal?

In Ireland last week a bishop at Mass spoke against godless secularism and what this is doing to the Irish culture. A self-professed “godless secularist” intends to bring hate speech charges against the bishop. Liberals dislike free speech when it is directed against their secularism.

Hate speech against those who in their churches preach what they believe to be true about marriage and homosexual sins, not to mention heterosexual sins have already been charged with hate speech in our neighbors to the north, Canada. They are ahead of us in godless secularism or at least pushing God to the private and removing God and His Church from the public square.

Can this happen in America? Yes! If you think that I’m off the wall on this, keep in mind that the Archbishop of the Armed Forces in this country sent a letter to all Catholic chaplains to be read at Mass last Sunday at all military chapels where Mass is celebrated. This is what happened and I quote:

(Quote)“On Thursday, January 26, Archbishop Broglio emailed a pastoral letter to Catholic military chaplains with instructions that it be read from the pulpit at Sunday Masses the following weekend in all military chapels. The letter calls on Catholics to resist the policy initiative, recently affirmed by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, for federally mandated health insurance covering sterilization, abortificiants and contraception, because it represents a violation of the freedom of religion recognized by the U.S. Constitution.

The Army’s Office of the Chief of Chaplains subsequently sent an email to senior chaplains advising them that the Archbishop’s letter was not coordinated with that office and asked that it not be read from the pulpit. The Chief’s office directed that the letter was to be mentioned in the Mass announcements and distributed in printed form in the back of the chapel.

Archbishop Broglio and the Archdiocese stand firm in the belief, based on legal precedent, that such a directive from the Army constituted a violation of his Constitutionally-protected right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, as well as those same rights of all military chaplains and their congregants.
Following a discussion between Archbishop Broglio and the Secretary of the Army, The Honorable John McHugh, it was agreed that it was a mistake to stop the reading of the Archbishop’s letter. Additionally, the line: “We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law” was removed by Archbishop Broglio at the suggestion of Secretary McHugh over the concern that it could potentially be misunderstood as a call to civil disobedience.” (closed quote)

Now you would think that this story concerning the archbishop and the military archdiocese would have merited front page news and coverage by the three major networks. Did anyone see any coverage? No! a total blackout and over something concerning our Constitution’s protection of free speech and the free exercise of religion.

I am an immigrant to this country. My father who was born in 1910 in Canada came to America when he was 17 and eventually ended up in New York City. In 1940 he became an American citizen by choice and in 1941 he was drafted into the army and served our country honorable in World War II, willing to sacrifice his life for our freedoms. He served in North Africa and then in Italy. He met my mother in northern Italy and on December 1, 1945 they were married there. They stayed in Italy until 1957 when we “immigrated” to America (Georgia). My mother chose to become an American citizen in 1959.

She knew firsthand the horrors of Nazism that reared its ugly head with Hitler beginning in the 1920’s and the fascism of the Italian State under Mussolini. She was in her 20’s where the war came to her city of Livorno in the early 1940’s. Her family’s apartment building was destroyed in an air-raid, many of their friends and relatives died and the Italian government moved them to the hills of Siena to escape what was happening. Outside Siena they lived in caves for months at a time and had to forage for what little they could find to eat. She experienced the harassment of the Nazi soldiers first hand and feared them greatly.

My brothers and sisters if your loyalty to your political party and whatever extremes are present in it is greater than your loyalty to God and to His Church and the religious liberty our American Constitution guarantees religions in this country as well as freedom of conscience, I ask you to repent and be loyal first to God and Church and let all other powers fall behind Him and His Church!

Conclusion: My Catholic brothers and sisters, it’s time to wake up the sleeping giant that is us, 70 million Catholics throughout the world. Jesus Christ who sacrificed his life for the Church which we celebrate at this altar every day calls us to share in His sacrifice and do spiritual battle with those who would suppress Holy Church and disfigure her moral teachings in every age. In the 1920’s it was Nazism and Fascism until the mid 1940’s. After that and through the 80’s it was communism, today it is the dictatorship of political godless secularism that half our country accepts and evidently President Obama accepts.

We are in a spiritual battle for the soul of our Church and our country that could well lead to peaceful, non-violent civil disobedience. The Catholic Church as two role models for this civil disobedience, one Catholic and one Baptist! The Catholic role model is Pope John Paul II whose leadership led to the fall of communism in Poland and eastern Europe and the Soviet Union! The other is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his peaceful, non violent civil disobedience that landed him in jail many times but led to the full rights of African Americans who through the law of the land had been treated as second class citizens. He is a martyr for this great cause!

Let us support our parish and our diocese and our new Bishop Gregory John Hartmayer who along with other faithful bishops throughout this country and the world with Pope Benedict XVI have an immense role to play in this spiritual battle against godless secularism! But most of all let us worship Christ the King and put all other worldly kings, queens, dictators, presidents and emperors in their place through prayer, fasting, sacrificial giving and Catholic political action!

THE FLOUTING OF NATURAL LAW IN THE CHURCH AND DURING MASS

Last night on The O'Reilly Factor there was a lively discussion about how those on the political and religious "right" can be bigots towards those who are homosexual. To a certain extent, I would agree and have heard seemingly religious people use the worse kinds of slurs against the dignity of people who have same sex attractions. This is mortally sinful when done with full consent of the will and knowing that it is a mortal sin against charity itself. I know many Catholics struggling with their sexual identity and temptation who nonetheless are wonderful Catholics seeking God's grace in the Church, the sacraments and in their lives to be good, practicing Catholics. They are my friends and parishioners.

There is a wonderful ministry in the Church for those who find themselves as having same sex attractions and are even struggling with their sexual gender-identity. It is called COURAGE and press these next few sentences to go directly to their official website which describes their ministry in the following way:

Are you or a loved one experiencing homosexual attraction and looking for answers?

Courage, an apostolate of the Catholic Church, ministers to persons with same-sex attraction and their loved ones. We have been endorsed by the Pontifical Council for the Family and our beloved John Paul II said of this ministry, "COURAGE is doing the work of God!" We also have an outreach called EnCourage which ministers to relatives, spouses, and friends of persons with same-sex attraction.

In Courage you will get to know men and women who share in your concerns, meeting them online through our Listservs, or in person at Chapter Meetings, Conferences, Days of Recollection, and Retreats.

Come see what we are about. Browse our pages. Get to know our community. You'll be glad you did!

From our website you will learn about same sex attraction and chastity. By developing an interior life of chastity, which is the universal call to all Christians, one can move beyond the confines of the homosexual identity to a more complete one in Christ.

Come see what we are about. Browse our pages. Get to know our community. You'll be glad you did!


Now compare what Courage does as a legitimate Catholic ministry and what is trying to be accomplished during a Catholic Mass in Great Britain during the Prayers of the Faithful for those who are "Gay, Lesbian and transgendered." It is shocking and another sign of the total collapse of the understanding of natural law that reveals divine law and politicizing people during the Mass to be against the Church and her teachings revealed to us by God in natural law, Scripture and Tradition.

I wonder if the priest who allowed this will be suspended?

A transvestite is reading some of the intercessions, but listen to the wording of the intercessions! Capitulation by some Catholics and priests to those who hate the Catholic Church and want to remake her according to an "unnatural secular, sexualized model!" THE QUESTION WE MUST ASK OURSELVES AS ORTHODOX CATHOLICS IS WHEN WILL GOVERNMENTS IMPOSE UPON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THIS SECULAR DOGMA?

THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

What no bishop has been able to do effectively, our President has! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. President! You have helped us as Catholics to articulate our faith concerning Natural Law. Natural Law is a secular way to understand Divine Law which no Catholic should ever violate knowingly. To do so would be a deadly or mortal sin and if we remained unrepentant even unto death, we could expect a very harsh judgment from God and possibly eternal damnation for our conscious choice to violate God's law revealed in Natural Law.

What would reduce one's culpability before God and Church would be not knowing that natural law reveals divine law. Breaking divine law in that context would only be venial sin but always immoral or evil.

So what President Obama is doing is helping us as Catholics to revisit Humanae Vitae in the most authoritative teaching document that pope's have, an encyclical and rediscovering the Church's infallible teaching on natural law revealing divine law which is normative for all Catholics and for all people. Again let me say thank you President Obama, thank you, thank you, thank you! We couldn't do this without you!

Pope Paul VI was besieged by liberals in the Church not to reiterate the Church's teaching that natural law reveals divine law and in fact wanted him to repudiate that infallible teaching by allowing for artificial birth control as a pastoral solution to those struggling to plan their families and support them. There was hell to pay when he issued his prophetic and courageous teaching in Humanae Vitae. He held steadfast in promoting this teaching even when liberal dissenting Catholics castigated him and marched away from the Church or ignored him and the Church altogether by remaining in the Church and receiving Holy Communion even though in a state of mortal sin to flaunt their unbelief in divine law.

The Holy Father did not cave in to these liberal's ungodly demands, unlike the Susan Komen race for the Cure did when they rescinded a sound, moral decision not to fund Plan Parenthood anymore. They were pressured to cave in by the sinister forces of our left wing political elites in the media and in politics.

So, thank you President Obama for helping the Catholic Church to rediscover Humanae Vitae as reiterating the Church's infallible teaching concerning natural law.

But also thank you for allowing us to brush up on our Civics 101 class to understand how you are now trying to undo the Constitution of the United States of America concerning religious liberty and the freedom of conscience.

Thanks for waking up our bishops and the almost 70 million Catholics of this country. We're a sleeping giant coming out of our moral and political slumber!

ARCHBISHOP WENSKI CELEBRATES PONTIFICAL SOLEMN HIGH MASS IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM IN MIAMI, OVER 1200 ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE CELEBRATION OF THE FEAST OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE LORD AND CANDLEMAS

UPDATE THE FULL VIDEO!!!!
My Comments First: In an earlier post, I declared that the rupture between the manner in which the Ordinary Form of the Sung Mass is celebrated in most parishes today with how the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is sung is so great that if a person who is about 40 and a practicing Catholics all their life, went to an EF Sung (High) Mass for the first time, they would probably think they had entered a Hindu Temple so different is the EF celebration of the Mass compared to what that person would have experienced all his life by attending the OF Mass as celebrated today. Did Vatican II's document on the Liturgy really envision that kind of rupture? No! I don't think Pope Paul VI envision that sort of rupture either. But the unbridled liberal "spirit of Vatican II" did foresee such a rupture and placed a gigantic wedge between what preceded Vatican II and what came after through a progressive theology gone bizerk.

In the letter from Archbishop Wenski's secretary inviting the priests of the archdiocese to attend this "historic" celebration, it states Archbishop Wenski's hope of mutual enrichment between the two forms of the one Roman Rite. "By becoming more familiar with and deeply rooted in the Mass of the 1962 Missale Romanum, we can better understand the Missale Romanum of Pope Paul VI and its accompanying ars celebrandi" [art of celebrating the Mass of Paul VI].

The good archbishop is correct. Only by going to the Mass that is meant to be the very foundation of the revised Mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI and revised by Pope John Paul II in 2003 (Latin Version)and the revised English version in 2011, can we truly appreciate how to celebrate the Ordinary Form of the Mass.

What is the "ars celebrandi" of the Ordinary Form of the Mass taken directly from its foundation the Extraordinary Form? I list what it has done for me:

1. Attention to detail and choreography--there is no reason not to choreograph the OF Mass in the same manner as the EF Mass in terms of movements, especially those of the altar servers. There is no reason not to have beautiful vestments for priests, deacons and altar servers that are sumptuous in their noble simplicity.

2. Good liturgical music base upon Gregorian Chant and singing all the propers including the Introit and offertory and Communion antiphons and a genre of music added as filler and for devotional purposes that are within the same sort of chant genre even if with melody and/or polyphony or even more extravagant.

3. The priest paying close attention to all the simplified rubrics of the OF Mass and following them scrupulously.

4. The Benedictine altar arrangement for facing the people or a consistent celebrating of the OF Mass Ad Orientem.

5. Some Latin added to the vernacular--this really needs legislation though. The new Roman Missal in English clearly desires the following to be known by congregations in Latin as these are the only prayers in Latin in this new Missal: the Kyrie (which is Greek); the Sanctus; the Pater Noster (not ignotus) and the Agnus Dei.

What would the EF Mass benefit from the OF Mass?

1. The Liturgy of the Word as it is celebrated in the OF Mass but allowing for the Gradual which is actually allowed in the OF Mass (but how many have ever heard that apart from Pope Benedict's Christmas Mass?)

2. Some vernacular (specifically for the readings of Scripture, but also for some of the laity's parts, i.e prayers at the foot of the altar (which are more devotional in nature rather than liturgical) and perhaps the Gloria and Credo, but in chant fashion when sung and perhaps the changing parts of the Mass that the priest prays or the choir sings, like the Introit, Offertory and Communion antiphons and the Collect, Secret and Post Communion Prayers--all that remains fixed (including the Canon) would remain in Latin.

3. I would recommend the 1965 Missal Order of the EF Mass which eliminate the Last Gospel, makes as the norm, the "Requiem" Prayers at the Foot of the Altar and allows for an audible Roman Canon synchronized with the choir (the priest joins in singing the parts of the Mass with the choir and congregation, rather than being on a separate track saying the Mass quietly as the choir sings their own separately.

(On Second thought, what I suggest for the EF Mass, should in fact become the New Roman Missal for everyone!)

Dear Monsignors/Fathers:

The celebration of a Pontifical High Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for
the feast of Candlemas will be celebrated by Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski on February 2nd
at 7:30pm at the Church of the Epiphany. All priests are welcome to attend.
This wonderful celebration is an opportunity to experience beautiful music in its intended
spiritual setting, but also to be immersed in the rich symbolism of the Tridentine Mass. It is
the Archbishop’s hope that this event will serve as a means for “mutual enrichment,” as
Pope Benedict XVI has noted, between the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms of the
Roman Rite. By becoming more familiar with and deeply rooted in the Mass of the 1962
Missale Romanum, we can better understand the Missale Romanum of Pope Paul VI and its
accompanying ars celebrandi. Attached you will find instructions for Clergy.
Many thanks,

Fr. Richard J. Vigoa
Priest Secretary to the Archbishop of Miami

This video is from a local newscast, yes, it made the local news! Listen to the newscaster introducing the piece--he can hardly believe that the Mass is celebrated in LATIN! Horror of horrors!
BY THE WAY, THE MASS IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM FOR SEPTUAGESIMA IS CELEBRATED TODAY, FEBRUARY 5 AT 2:00 pm AS A HIGH MASS, VIOLET VESTMENTS! WILL WE GET A PACKED CHURCH?

AND NEXT SUNDAY FATHER DAWID WILL CELEBRATE A EF LOW MASS FOR SEXAGESIMA AT 2:00 PM AS A KICK OFF FOR OUR NEW YOUNG ADULT MINISTRY FOLLOWING THE MASS, BUT ALL ARE INVITED TO THE MASS.

I'VE ONLY READ COMMENTS LIKE THESE THAT ARE WRITTEN IN CAPTIONS UNDER THE VOICE BUT ONLY IMAGINED WHAT IT SOUNDED AND LOOKED LIKE COMING FROM COMMENTS ON LIBERAL BLOGS AGAINST THE CORRECTED ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE MASS (HUMOR FOLKS, HUMOR!)

This sounds pretty much like what I imagine those who post negative comments about the corrected English translation of the Mass at Praytell and "What If We Just said Wait" folks, if I could hear and see them! This is all in fun folks, but be sure to watch it all and to read the English captions over the German language of Adolph Hitler as he reacts to the Corrected translation of the Mass--funny!!!! but sadly kind of true!

2012 TO BE A TURNING POINT IN THE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA AND MY FEAR IS A DEVASTATING TURN FOR THE WORST; I PRAY I AM WRONG!

The Second Vatican Council didn't teach this but it happened after the Council. Catholics, both clergy and laity have been clowning around with the Catholic Faith ever since Vatican II and in the process have made the Catholic Faith impotent in a world that is imposing its doctrines upon the Church IN THE MOST DICTATORIAL AND MONARCHICAL OF WAYS. (Word to Praytell readers, fear the monarchy of secularism, not the monarchy of religious authority!)What President Obama is doing today is a result of that because the majority of Catholics voted him into office and the majority of Catholics knowing what he is trying to do to the Catholic Church agree with what he is doing and will re-elect him. Clowns can't be taken seriously but they have been in the Church since Vatican II and we see the devastation this has brought to the Church in this country!

Some Catholics believe that Pope Benedict advocates a "smaller but purer" Catholic Church. In fact he never actually said this (unless someone can Google a direct quote).

What he did say when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger in a Salt of the Earth, interview conducted by the Bavarian author Peter Seewald comes close to it but is more a recognition of a sad fact and reality and perhaps an acquiescence to it.

In the interview the cardinal was asked about the Church’s failure to “bring about a broad movement against the currents of our time and a general change in mentality”. He responded by saying he never imagined he could “redirect the rudder of history”, and that the Church was not a “business operation that can look at the numbers to measure whether our policy has been successful”. He added:

“Perhaps the time has come to say farewell to the idea of traditionally Catholic cultures. Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the Church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intensive struggle against evil and bring the good into the world – that let God in.”

Last week in a post I lamented or at least worried that there was very little or no reaction to Bishop Gregory Hartmayer's letter which was read at all our Masses. I heard that at St. Teresa Church in Augusta after the deacon read the letter there was applause. I've heard that this occurred in some other churches too. Not so at St. Joseph Church and I suspect a majority of other places where letters were read.

Some have said that the media which blacked out coverage of the National Right to Life March in Washington,DC has basically done so with what President Obama is trying to make the institutional Catholic Church in America do--violate its teachings, which one would think would be front page news and for several days. Many Catholics don't know whats going on presumably. (Compare this with media outrage and coverage of the Susan Komen debacle!)

I fear something else. Catholics prefer the comfort of religion but rail against or ignore the challenges of the Catholic Church. This is true for Catholics on the right who feel the Church shouldn't teach about war and peace, the economy, immigrants and the means by which governments should feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless and that society has an obligation to do so, that governments have an obligation to do so. Of course this is done through programs paid by tax payers and laws that allow for programs and services.

For Catholics on the left, they prefer big government and paying taxes to help the poor, the disenfranchised and health care for everyone even when this includes paying for artificial contraception and abortions for those who choose these. But what they hate is anything that touches them personally in the areas of sexuality and medical ethics. They don't want the Church telling them how to have sex, with whom they should have sex, how many children they should have, any interference with medical science even if aborted babies or embryos are used in research.

In other words, liberal Catholics and uninformed Catholics do not want to know Natural Law and they don't believe that Natural Law shows forth divine law. They want to practice artificial birth control, change the meaning of sex and make it whatever a person wants it to be, they favor same sex marriage or recognition of couples who live together without marriage as being married and needing the same benefits as married people. They are pro-choice. They are fierce individualists when it comes to sexuality and they reject divine law in these areas precisely because these laws too intimately touch and confound them!

The question is how did this come about; unfaithful Catholics on the right and the left? Catholics who allow the dictatorship of conscience, personal opinion and public dissent from defined teachings to rule their lives and become gods for them?

This is how I think it came about because I lived through it:

1. Vatican II was a wonderful Council that was hijacked by liberal forces in the Catholic Church after the Council closed and perhaps during--but what was promulgated was promulgated and the Holy Spirit was at work even though nothing in the Council in a new way was defined as infallible, although infallible teachings were reiterated, especially the role of the pope in governing the Church.

2. Very quickly after Vatican II those who had thought nothing in the Church could change were told everything in the Church could and would change, not just discipline but doctrine and morals. This was an outright lie but the tide was so strong and the leadership of the bishops so weak in preventing an apostasy from the true faith that it basically went unchallenged.

3. Rome allowed great experimentation with the "revision" of the Mass. So much so that it became unrecognizable in some of the experimentation with small groups, various cultural adaptations and ad libbing by priests and super-creativity by liturgy committees. There were little slaps on the hand but no major initiatives to stop the silliness and in some dioceses the silliness was institutionalize. A Catholic today who has never attended an EF Mass and goes to one, especially its sung version, would not recognize any continuity between it and the Ordinary Form of the Mass they grew up with. They would think they entered a Hindu service so large is the rupture between these two forms of Mass especially in terms of how the Ordinary Form is celebrated today and acceptably so even by bishops and the Holy Father.

4. Suffice it to say that what Vatican II envisioned for the revision of the Mass has never really been implemented, only a reform in its order has been implemented. What was not implemented was maintaining Latin but allowing for "some" vernacular; Gregorian Chant and strict guidelines on the style of music appropriate for the Roman Liturgy. Worse yet, the propers (Introit, offertory and communion antiphons) of the Mass, which in the EF Mass are mandatory became officially optional--the greatest mistake in the revision of the Mass. The result of this is that the revised Mass is held hostage to hymns that are not official parts of the Mass and hymns of dubious quality, theology and genre. This leads to a loss of Catholic identity in the Mass itself--an institutionalized loss of identity because the law of prayer is the law of belief and when the law of prayer is corrupted so too the belief, thus the saying, save the liturgy, save the world (but it will save the Church first).

5. The allowance of outright dissent or disobedience to Natural Law following Humanae Vitae which reiterated the Church's infallible teaching concerning natural law as a means to discover Divine Law and which is available to all people (Natural Law). While natural law is a secular description of divine law, it nonetheless shows forth divine law to people of faith. Catholics of the 1960's and 70's and all the way to today rejected Natural Law as it concerns sex and we are reaping the tragedy of this today.

6. Bishops have failed to be prophetic to their people in the areas of personal morality based upon not only natural law but revealed doctrines of the Church. At the same time, they have angered other Catholics by being more dogmatic about the economy, disarming America and issues surrounding war and peace, many issues actually out of reach of Catholics personally but more generic and directed toward being influential in the public square almost as lobbyists thus appearing to be partisan.

7. Related to number six, bishops have failed to publicly discipline priests and laity in their diocese who publicly dissent from the teachings of the Church especially in areas of morality. Here I am thinking of high profile Catholics and specifically Nancy Pelosi, Katherine Sebelious and Edward Kennedy, just to name a few. That these people have not be publicly excommunicated or have not had censures placed against them preventing them from receiving Holy Communion boggles the mind and sends a very clear message to the rest of the Catholic world. You can believe and do whatever you want in a public way that is opposed to the Church and the Church will not judge you or censure you or excommunicate you. And implied in this is that God won't judge you either and whatever you do you will go to heaven. But here is the kicker, the straw that broke the moral backbone of the Church in things sexual, the liberality of bishops in allowing priests who break their promises of obedience and chastity (celibacy) not only with adults whose consent is dubious, but tragically with teenagers and prepubescent children, mostly boys, to go unpunished and almost rewarded with long term care and rehabilitation in expensive hospitals and reassignments in parishes with abundant children. The fact that it took the press to reveal this liberality and thus neglect of natural law, divine law and Church discipline already encoded in canon law boggles the mind, but it is part of progressive liberalism in all matters sexual, a private matter to be determined privately without loss of job or censure from the Church or laicization or excommunication. That the clergy got away with murder in things sexual boggles the minds of faithful Catholics and leads them to sin because artificial contraception is small potatoes in this regard! You reap what you sow! Thankfully this has changed, priests are being punished and laicized, but I fear too late to stave off the damage this has done to Natural Law and our acceptance of it as Catholics.

RIGHT THINKING CITIZENS

The good bishop speaks for himself and quite well!

RECOVERING THE AUTHORITY OF HOLY CHURCH NOT ONLY IN SPIRITUAL MATTERS BUT ALSO TEMPORAL

This actually is the tiara of Pope Benedict XVI and please note his coat of arms!

MY COMMENTS FIRST:
Below these comments is an actual history of the Tiara and why it has not been worn since Pope Paul VI used it at his coronation. I've suggested that the Holy Father return to wearing it when appropriate or at least designating appropriate times for it since we are in a critical battle to assure the Gospel is not suppressed by civil, temporal authority as is now being experienced in the USA through unbridled appropriation in our politics and government of the dictatorship of godless secularism.

While the bishops of the world have opened the door to the diminishment of their religious and temporal authority through the sex abuse scandal, make no mistake, the liberal mass media and their liberal politics in this country and elsewhere have exploited it not out of complete concern for victims but to crucify the Catholic Church and her leaders and to undercut their legitimate religious authority over Catholics. Why? Because we are probably the last institution on earth that upholds natural law and thus divine law. Natural law and our moral beliefs stands in the way of the liberal political and media establishment to secularized the world totally, especially in the areas of abortion, stem cell research, birth control, same sex marriage and the role of women and even to the point of neutralizing the differences of gender and allowing for gender selection or no gender as natural and as normal as distinct genders.

The bishops of our country and of the world should have acknowledged their role in mismanaging priests and allowing them access to children even after it was proven they were abusers. But in this scandal they should have also stood up to the Boston Globe, the epitome of liberal, godless secularism and told the liberal media press to back off. They need to reassert their authority. The bishops are fully in their right to use the political system and the court system to protect the wider interests of the Church when lawyer, the media and others are trying to bankrupt the Church for personal gains the political motives I've stated above.

Have you noticed the liberal media's outrage and biased reporting on the Komen decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood and how grateful they are to Mayor Bloomberg for giving Planned Parenthood over $300,000 to offset the loss? Hell has no fury than the liberal media and liberal politics fighting the Catholic Church on natural law and thus divine law. The influence of Satan is tremendous in this regard. And when a secular organization like Komen for the cure stops funding an organization that provides abortions, the pressure put upon them to reverse their decision is so vehement and vicious that guess what, they reverse their decision! Cowardice on the part of Susan G. Komen for the cure--they caved in!

Holy Father, wear your Tiara!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The papal tiara originated from a conical Phrygian cap or frigium.[2][3] Shaped like a candle-extinguisher, the papal tiara and the episcopal mitre were identical in their early forms.[2]

Names used for the papal tiara in the 8th and 9th centuries include camelaucum, pileus, phrygium and pileum phrygium.[2]

A circlet of linen or cloth of gold at the base of the tiara developed into a metal crown, which by about 1300 became two crowns. The first of these appeared at the base of the traditional white papal headgear in the 9th century.[4][5] When the popes assumed temporal power in the Papal States, the base crown became decorated with jewels to resemble the crowns of princes.[4] The second crown is said to have been added by Pope Innocent III (1294-1303) as signifying both his spiritual and temporal power, since he declared that God had set him over kings and kingdoms.[2] However, a fresco in the Chapel of Saint Sylvester (consecrated in 1247) in the church of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome seems to represent the Pope wearing a tiara with two bands and with lappets.[6] The triple tiara is attributed to [[Pope Benedict XI] (1303-1304) or Pope Clement V (1305-1314), and one such tiara was listed in an inventory of the papal treasury in 1316[2] (see "Tiara of Saint Sylvester", below). The first years of the 16th century saw the addition of a little globe and cross to top the tiara.[7]
Mosaic depicting Pope Clement VIII wearing a triple tiara.

Triple tiaras were worn by the popes of Rome from Pope Clement V, at the time when they lived at Avignon, to Pope Paul VI, who was crowned with one in 1963. Pope Paul VI abandoned the use of his own tiara after the Second Vatican Council, symbolically laying it on the altar of St. Peter's Basilica, and donating its value to the poor. However, his 1975 Apostolic Constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo on the manner of electing the Pope, still envisaged that his successors would be crowned.

His immediate successor, Pope John Paul I, decided against a coronation, replacing it with a generic "Inauguration of the Supreme Pontificate". After John Paul I's sudden death, Pope John Paul II told the congregation at the solemn inauguration of his pontificate:
“ The last Pope to be crowned was Paul VI in 1963, but after the solemn coronation ceremony he never used the tiara again and left his Successors free to decide in this regard. Pope John Paul I, whose memory is so vivid in our hearts, did not wish to have the tiara; nor does his Successor wish it today. This is not the time to return to a ceremony and an object considered, wrongly, to be a symbol of the temporal power of the Popes. Our time calls us, urges us, obliges us to gaze on the Lord and immerse ourselves in humble and devout meditation on the mystery of the supreme power of Christ himself.[1] ”


Though not currently worn as part of papal regalia, the continuing symbolism of the papal tiara is reflected in its use on the coats of arms of the Holy See and the flag of Vatican City. Until the reign of Benedict XVI the tiara was also the ornament surmounting a Pope's personal coat of arms, as a tasseled hat (under which a 1969 Instruction of the Holy See forbade the placing of a mitre, a second hat)[8] surmounted those of other prelates. In a break with tradition, Pope Benedict XVI's personal coat of arms has replaced the tiara with a mitre. This particular mitre contains three levels reminiscent of the three tiers on the papal tiara.[9] However, in the coat of arms of the Holy See and of the Vatican City State the triple tiara is kept. See also Tiara of Benedict XVI (2011). Presented to Benedict XVI on 25th May 2011 by a group of Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

ANOTHER WAY TO MOCK THE CATHOLIC MASS AND SACRILEGIOUSLY SO?

I have a sense of humor, but really, are we Catholics so anesthetized by the media's attacks on the Catholic faith and what we hold sacred that we don't care that this is on Pepsi's Face Book page? I'm sure there will be an outcry and it will be removed. At least I hope so.

Apart from the "grievous" error in translating the correct Latin "for many" to "for all" does this offend your sense of the sacred and hands off? Shouldn't there be "righteous indignation" over this by Catholics? What would the Jews do if their most sacred of religious symbols was treated in the same way by Pepsi? Or the Muslims?

THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF FATHER FEENEY AND THE USE OF EXCOMMUNICATION FOR PUBLIC PERSONS WHO ARE CATHOLIC AND FLAUNT THE MORAL TEACHINGS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THUS LEAD OTHERS AND NOT ONLY CATHOLICS INTO MORAL APOSTACY

This is from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

Father Leonard Feeney had a storied life, first as a well-known Roman Catholic writer; he later fell from favour with the Roman Catholic Church after he insisted that only Roman Catholics can go to heaven and that everyone else will be damned.

On 8 August 1949, the Holy Office sent an official declaration of the meaning of the dogma extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church there is no salvation), which Feeney refused to accept.[3] After repeatedly refusing summons to Rome, Feeney was excommunicated on 13 February 1953 by the Holy See for persistent disobedience to legitimate Church authority, and the decree of excommunication was later published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. His followers said that his excommunication was invalid because Feeney was not given a reason for his summons.[4] Following his excommunication, Feeney set up a community called the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.[1][2][5] He was reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church in 1972, but was not required to retract or recant his interpretation of "Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus", which is inscribed on his tombstone [6] . Speaking two decades after the controversy Cardinal Avery Dulles judged Feeney's doctrine on a series of lectures not having to do with "extra Ecclesiam..." to be quite sound.[citation needed](Dulles' reflections on Feeney's life did not endorse Feeney's views on extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, and spoke only to his theology, not his political views on issues such as Zionism.)[7]
[edit] The Point

Feeney was editor of "The Point," which ran a mixture of theological and political articles, many of them branded anti-semitic by Feeney's critics. The newsletter frequently contained sentiments such as:

"Those two powers, the chief two in the world today, are Communism and Zionism. That both movements are avowedly anti-Christian, and that both are in origin and direction Jewish, is a matter of record." (September 1958)
"As surely and securely as the Jews have been behind Freemasonry, or Secularism, or Communism, they are behind the “anti-hate” drive. The Jews are advocating tolerance only for its destructive value — destructive, that is, of the Catholic Church. On their part, they still keep alive their racial rancors and antipathies." (January 1959)

A single year, 1957, saw the following article titles:

January: "Jewish Invasion of Our Country--Our Culture Under Siege"
February: "When Everyone Was Catholic--The Courage of the Faith in the Thirteenth Century"
March: "Dublin's Briscoe Comes to Boston"
April: "The Fight for the Holy City--Efforts of the Jews to Control Jerusalem"
May: "Our Lady of Fatima Warned Us"
June: "The Rejected People of Holy Scripture: Why the Jews Fear the Bible"
July: "The Judaising of Christians by Jews--Tactics of the Church's Leading Enemies"
August: "A Sure Defense Against the Jews--What Our Catholic Bishops Can Do for Us"
September: "An Unholy People in the Holy Land--The Actions of the Jews"
October: "The Jewish Lie About Brotherhood--the Catholic Answer--Israeli Brotherhood"
November: "Six Pointers on the Jews"

Feeney has been described as Boston's homegrown version of Father Charles Coughlin, a priest also accused of antisemitism.[8]

The young Robert Kennedy attended a meeting of students during his Harvard days at which he stood up and challenged Feeney, later storming out, following the priest's assertion that there was no salvation outside the Catholic faith.[9]

MY COMMENTS APPLYING WHAT OCCURRED TO FATHER FEENEY TO CATHOLIC POLITICIANS WHO LEAD OTHERS INTO MORAL APOSTASY CONCERNING THE CHURCH CLEAR, UNAMBIGUOUS, AUTHORITATIVE AND INFALLIBLE MORAL TEACHINGS ON NATURAL LAW REVEALING DIVINE LAW AND THUS AVAILABLE TO ALL, NOT JUST CATHOLICS, AND THE ROLE OF SCRIPTURE, TRADITION AND ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY OVER THE CATHOLIC BELIEVER.

Through the years, I often wondered where my father learned his antisemitism in pre-Vatican II times (renounced that after Vatican II). And then this morning a light bulb went off in my head: it was through Father Feeney and Father Coughlin (the national radio priest)both of whom would have been contemporaries of my father or of his youthful generation.

Father Feeney was excommunicated by the Holy Father, himself, Pope Pius XII in 59 years ago, a little more than a week from now, on February 13th. It was because he refused to submit to ecclesiastical authority and temper his beliefs about "outside the Church there is no salvation" which was being nuanced by the Church even in the 1940's which led to a clear and unambiguous teaching which is also authoritative and normative for Catholics in the documents of Vatican II.

This brings us to Catholic politicians worldwide who use their public and thus moral influence to lead people into moral indifference our our right moral apostasy. I think of Kathleen Sebelius, Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Biden, Edward Kennedy and the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo just to name a few.

They persist in promoting themselves, their political candidacy and their secularized view of morality completely in contradiction to the Church and yet still profess to be Catholics in good standing and make a point of receiving Holy Communion and if the Holy Father is in town at his Masses!

It is long past due for bishops and perhaps even the Holy Father to place a censure against them denying them Holy Communion since these people have broken Communion with the Church in the most serious and public way possible or to excommunicate them outright as Father Feeney was.

Censure and Excommunication are compassionate on two fronts. It is compassionate to Catholics who are confused and misled by these politicians and thus brings division to the Church and moral apostasy on a wide scale. It is a pastoral act of charity to those excommunicated to public repent and renounce their mortal sin of moral apostasy and thus be reconciled to the Church in a public way with the lifting of the public excommunication.

WAKING A SLEEPING GIANT--THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

As Catholics we are in a defining moment in the United States of America. Never before in the history of the Republic has government intrusion and interference into the faith and morals of the Church been as clear as it is with what President Obama is doing. In the past I've referred to it as the "Obama Administration" to spread the blame for their unconstitutional and blatant disregard for separation of church and state. But now we must place the blame where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders President Barack Hussein Obama.

As I mentioned before, our parochial vicar, Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, a Polish native and citizen seeing what President Obama has tried to do in forcing a Lutheran Church to hire people who do not profess what the Lutheran Church believes about sexual morality and doing so by supporting a court case against that Church but lost his bid at government intrusion into the hiring practices of the Church through a unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the Church and now with what President Obama is doing by forcing government intrusion to require the Church not to follow its moral teachings which is clearly against religious liberty and freedom of conscience and thus against the Constitution of the USA, Fr. Dawid said, President Obama is like the communist dictators that Poland had during communism. Their aim was for the government to intrude in on the affairs of the Catholic Church and neutralize its moral influence in society and to force it to take up the communist party line.

Our other parochial vicar, Fr. Godfred Boachie-Yiadom, a native and citizen of Ghana declared too that western liberal, secularizing political forces are trying to dictate to African countries sexual policies in terms of artificial birth control, same sex marriage, abortion and "you name it godless secularism" and are doing so by shoving it down their throats in a dictatorial way. There is great resentment in Africa about this.

Pope Benedict would label all of this rabid political secularism "the dictatorship of secularism." He is right!

In a sense you can see the rabid hatred of Muslims of western immorality and the dictatorship of those who espouse this immorality and wish to shove it down the throats of the rest of the religious world. In this regard the Muslim righteous indignation is spot-on and they are clearly justified in their indignation at the rampant immorality of the west which we are exporting to them. Where they go wrong is through violence and hatred toward those who threaten their way of life. This is seen in radical, fundamentalistic Islam that burns Churches, kills Christians and launches terrorist attacks against the west. There has to be a better way to wage a protest without this extreme and satanic violence.

I think one of our commenters, Marc, on this blog has it right when he wrote:

"I'm glad Obama is an expert in Catholic moral theology now. What a relief! This guy is so brazen - dictating to us what violates our religious principles. This is really just dumbfounding.

Before we engage in civil disobedience, we need to ramp up the prayer and fasting and offer mortification for our bishops/priests/political leaders."

We need our bishops, priests and deacons to use the bully pulpit to make clear what is happening in our treasured land of the United States of America. The policies of President Obama not only affect Catholics but is government intrusion into the lives of most institutions in this country which value the freedom that our forefathers and a current generation of armed forces has fought to protect even unto death.

What we need, besides using the bully pulpit is prayer, fasting and acts of mortification to turn President Obama around and to help him by the grace of God to see his dictatorial ways as it concerns the HHS mandate on health insurance and religious institutions being forced to pay for that which is clearly against natural law and thus divine law.

We need peaceful protests by sending letters to our elected representatives.

If that fails, we need civil disobedience on the scale that those who are in the "Occupy Wall Street" movement only dream of, of course, ours being civil and peaceful and yes we will take showers!

We need to wake the sleeping giant that is the Catholic Church; we need to challenge and castigate in no uncertain terms our members who oppose orthodox Catholic teaching in the areas of natural law and thus divine law and call the rest of Catholics out of their passive slumber and to take action. Vatican II called the laity to be a leaven in society and in politics bringing to bear the Church's mission in the world--this is the number one and greatest ministry of the laity and the area that the laity have not understood or implemented. Implement Vatican II now in this regard!

If our actions don't motivate President Obama to change his unlawful, immoral and unconstitutional actions, then we need to call on Catholics to vote him and others like him out of office. That's the American way!

AS WE DIG DEEPER WE SEE THE PEOPLE OBAMA IS IN BED WITH AS THEY COME FIRST AGAINST THE CATHOLICS

Michelle Malkin
First, they came for the Catholics

02/01/2012

President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It's about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who's next?

This weekend, Catholic bishops informed parishioners of the recent White House edict forcing religious hospitals, schools, charities and other health and social service providers to provide "free" abortifacient pills, sterilizations and contraception on demand in their insurance plans -- even if it violates their moral consciences and the teachings of their churches.

NARAL, NOW, Ms. Magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation all cheered the administration's abuse of the Obamacare law to ram abortion down pro-life medical professionals' throats. Femme dinosaur Eleanor Smeal gloated over the news that the administration had rejected church officials' pleas for compromises: "At last," she exulted, the left's goal of "no-cost birth control" for all had been achieved.

As always, tolerance is a one-way street in the Age of Obama. "Choice" is in the eye (and iron fist) of the First Amendment usurper.

Like the rising number of states who have revolted against the individual health care mandate at the ballot box and in the courts, targeted Catholics have risen up against the Obamacare regime. Arlington (Va.) Bishop Paul Loverde didn't mince words, calling the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services order "a direct attack against religious liberty. This ill-considered policy comprises a truly radical break with the liberties that have underpinned our nation since its founding." Several bishops vowed publicly to fight the mandate.

Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Mich., asserted plainly: "We cannot -- we will not -- comply with this unjust law."

It's not just rabid right-wing politicos defying the Obama machine. Pro-life Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania denounced the "wrong decision." Left-leaning Bishop Robert Lynch threatened "civil disobedience" in St. Petersburg, Fla., over the power grab. Lefty Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote that Obama "botched" the controversy and "threw his progressive Catholic allies under the bus" by refusing to "balance the competing liberty interests here."

White House press secretary Jay Carney blithely denied on Tuesday that "there are any constitutional rights issues" involved in the brewing battle. Yet, the Shut Up and Hand Out Abortion Pills order undermines a unanimous Supreme Court ruling issued just last week upholding a religious employer's right to determine whom to hire and fire. And two private colleges have filed federal suits against the government to overturn the unconstitutional abortion coverage decree.

Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the nonprofit law firm The Becket Fund, which is representing the schools, boiled it down for Bloomberg News: "This is not really about access to contraception. The mandate is about forcing these religious groups to pay for it against their beliefs."

How did we get here? The first salvo came in December 2010, when the American Civil Liberties Union pushed HHS and its Planned Parenthood-championing secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in violation of their core moral commitment to protecting the lives of the unborn.

The ACLU called for a litigious fishing expedition against Catholic hospitals nationwide that refuse to provide "emergency" contraception and abortions to women. In their sights: Devout Phoenix Catholic Bishop Thomas Olmsted, who revoked the Catholic status of a rogue hospital that performed several direct abortions, provided birth control pills and presided over sterilizations against the church's ethical and religious directives for health care.

The ACLU and the feminists have joined with Obama to threaten and sabotage the First Amendment rights of religious-based health care entities. The agenda is not increased "access" to health care services. The ultimate goal is to shut down health care providers -- Catholic health care institutions employ about 540,000 full-time workers and 240,000 part-time workers -- whose religious views cannot be tolerated by secular zealots and radical social engineers.

Is it any surprise their counterparts in the "Occupy" movement have moved from protesting "Wall Street" to harassing pro-life marchers in Washington, D.C., and hurling condoms at Catholic school girls in Rhode Island? Birds of a lawless, bigoted feather bully together.

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DIGS IN DEEPER TO DESTROY RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE! DO THEY REALLY THINK WE'RE THAT STUPID AS CATHOLICS? THAT TELLS YOU A GREAT DEAL WITH WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST

White House denies health-care mandate violates Catholic consciences

February 01, 2012

The White House has denied that requiring contraceptive coverage in health-care plans poses a threat to religious liberty.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters at a January 31 briefing that the administration’s new regulation does not give rise to any “constitutional rights issues.” He said:

The administration believes that this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing access to important preventative services.

Most of the Catholic bishops in the US have expressed their public disagreement with the Obama administration’s position, condemning the new mandate as an offense against religious freedom and the rights of conscience.

MY COMMENT: More than expressing public disagreement with the Obama administration, some bishops are advocating outright civil disobedience.

WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET PEOPLE TO LOVE GOD EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T FEEL LIKE LOVING HIM?

Some Catholics leave the Catholic Church or stop attending Mass because they prefer this:

rather than the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross re-presented in an "unbloody" way at every Catholic altar which is "for us and our salvation:"

Just why are Catholics basing their Christian faith and practice on feelings rather than their own sacrificial commitment to Christ and the Church He founded which He sustains with the Sacrifice of the Mass which He instituted along with Holy Orders on Holy Thursday in anticipation of Good Friday's single event that saves us and is perpetuated in the Church by ordained men who "take His place" in the Sacraments of the Church especially in the the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Altar? Just why is that?


For Catholics, the greatest sign of our love for God in the public forum is to participate in Holy Mass every Sunday and everyday if possible. The Sacrifice of the Mass of course, is the great public sign the Church has to show forth the great love that God has for us in Jesus Christ. His sacrifice on the cross, re-presented in an "unbloody" way at every valid Mass, is the greatest act of God's love made visible ever known to mankind.

A sacrifice is a gift in general terms. When you buy a gift for a loved one, you sacrifice to buy it in a literal way by giving up some of your hard earned cash. The gift is an outward sign of an internal reality, the love that is in your "being" for the one whom you offer the gift. We can actually say, your love is the "sacrificial gift" that the actual present makes visible.

The same for Jesus' gift of His sacrifice on the Cross. It is an outward sign of the great love that is in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus for us, but that love expressed on the Cross is sacrificial. That type of love didn't feel good physically or emotionally for our Lord, but His sacrifice of love was made nonetheless.

God the Father seeing the fidelity of His beloved Son, accepts His Son's immense love for us, accepts His sacrifice, the taking on of all the sins and evils of the world, past, present and to come until the last person is conceived, and giving that sacrifice as a gift to our heavenly Father to pay for our sins and offenses and to remove from us the punishment due these.

This sacrificial act of love made visibly and physically present on the Cross and now on every Catholic and Orthodox altar is not just based on feelings but on hard evidence that is a sign of an eternal commitment to us to save us from the punishment due our sins and offenses against God and one another.

Our participation in the Sacrifice of the Cross each Sunday, which cannot be duplicated in any other type of Church service in any other place no matter how comforting and uplifting the music might be, how warm and friendly the fellowship might be and how meaningful and life changing the sermon might be, demands our sacrificial presence at this event even though we might, as unbelievable as this might be as we stand at the foot of the Cross at Mass, be bored or disinterested in what is occurring at the altar and during the Mass because it isn't emotionally satisfying for us.

So, let me ask this question, why do some Catholics prefer uplifting music, good fellowship and meaningful sermons with life directing messages instead of the sacrificial love of Christ made visible and shared with us in an "unbloody" way at its re-presentation at every Catholic Mass?

So many Catholics will say that what they miss in Protestant Churches and what brings them back to the Catholic Church is Holy Communion which they truly believe is the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord. That is good, but I would say they are missing one thing even more important--the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross re-presented in an unbloody way at the altar. Holy Communion flows from that (and completes the sacrifice when the ordained priest receives) and brings many graces when we receive our Lord worthily (free of mortal sin). But the one Sacrifice is the foundational and heart piercing moment captured from eternity into a specific time and place at every Catholic Mass! In other words, even if you couldn't receive Holy Communion, the actual sacrifice of the Mass brings abundant mercies all directed toward your eternal salvation!

The Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross pleased God the Father (since it is an act of love and fidelity on the part of His Beloved Son) more than our sins whether original or actual, displeases God the Father, therein lies our salvation!