VIDEOS OF SAVANNAH’S MISSA CORAM EPISCOPO

Missa Cram Episcopo, +Stephen Parkes, new Bishop of Savannah:

   

 Bishop Parkes homily:

 

MANY HAVE ASKED, “IS THAT OUR MOST HUMBLE SOUTHERN ORDERS BLOGGER CELEBRATING THE CATHEDRAL’S EF MASS WITH BISHOP PARKES PRESIDING IN CHOIR DRESS FROM THE THRONE?”

 No! It is my former altar boy in Augusta, now Vicar General, Fr. Dan Firmin who is the celebrant.  That is the genius of the pre-Vatican II Mass and now post Vatican II Mass and ad orientem for the OF Mass. The cult of the personality of the priest doesn’t enter in to it, nor do his looks, pious, reverential looks, or whatever other quirks of the personality. 

The McCarrick saga tells us how damaging the cult of the personality is on our liturgies and Church.

The celebrant here could be me or any hundreds of other extremely handsome priests like me, but that doesn’t enter into it. It doesn’t matter:

CAN YOU PICK OUT THE DIFFERENCES IN THESE TWO PHOTOS, YOUR IQ DEPENDS UPON IT

 

IT’S NOT JUST A CATHOLIC CHURCH TRAGEDY

 From the Deacon’s Bench:

ABUSE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ‘FAR ECLIPSE’ THOSE FILED IN CATHOLIC CHURCH CASES

November 15th, 2020|Categories: Sex abuse crisis

“I knew there were a lot of cases. I never contemplated it would be a number close to this.” This

Read More

BOMBSHELL! MOST REVEREND STEPHEN PARKES, BISHOP OF SAVANNAH, IS THE FIRST BISHOP IN 50 YEARS, SINCE THE PROMULGATION OF THE “FABRICATED” 1970 ROMAN MISSAL (POPE BENEDICT’S CRITIQUE) TO PRESIDE AT THE ANCIENT USAGE ROMAN MISSAL MASS IN HIS OWN CATHEDRAL!

 God willing, one day His Excellency will be celebrant at an EF SOLEMN SUNG MASS, at the high altar, the second such in 50 years, I, your most humble blogger, the first in 50 years to use that misused altar to celebrate a Solemn Sung High Mass on it!

More to come...

DOES IT MATTER ANY MORE WHAT KIND OF IMMORALITY A CATHOLIC EMBRACES OR PROCLAIMS?

 

Rome, we have a problem and Rome and all those geographical places united to Rome, do they care about this problem?

There are two major problems associated with embracing immorality. Let’s start with the two in America, one having to do with a secular Catholic politician and president-elect by standards employed for generations. That is Joe Biden:

1. He embraces abortion as a right and through the last stages of pregnancy.

2. He embraces euthanasia as a right.

3. He was a part of a presidential administration and as Vice President desired to force religious entities like the Catholic Church to provide birth control and abortion services through institutional health insurance policies.

The other is a religious leader, and now lacized priest, the former Cardinal McCarrick:

1. It was known that he was living an immoral lifestyle as it concerns the 6th commandment complicated by a person of authority sleeping with those under his authority further complicated by the unnatural aspect of the breaking of the 6th Commandment, homosexual.

2. Despite this he was promoted and eventually named a cardinal 

So what are the implications, Rome?

1. Can a Catholic make Catholicism a do-it-yourself Catholicism picking and choosing which of the Ten Commandments the Catholic will follow? If a Catholic wants to break the First Commandment and worship along with Jesus, Pacchamama or any other cult of the earth is that okay now?

2. Well I could go on but I won’t. 

Rome we have a problem and is Rome and the geographical areas of the world united to Rome in a “could care less” mode that allows for a President Biden and Cardinal McCarrick?

I report; you retort.

RESTORATION OF A WRECKOVATED CHAPEL

 When I was vocation director of our diocese from 1986 to 1998, I had a couple of seminarians on the college level at the Benedictine Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana. The Benedictines, notorious for liturgical renewal after Vatican II, had wreckovated their main abbey church in a despicable way. Since that time it has undergone some repair from the original debacle wreckovation, but still kind of bizarre given what it once was.

But there were smaller chapels and this is one used for the college seminarians which was wreckovated and the altar placed on a side wall rather than where it was in a traditional set-up:

But then, the other day, I saw this photo attached to a Crux article. I thought to myself, self, the photo of that chapel has a beautiful floor that indicates the orientation of the chapel’s altar has be returned to a traditional set-up. And sure enough I looked it up and you can see how the floor is designed to lead to the altar in its once new but now former location of a side wall of a once traditional chapel but now traditional once again.  They have returned it to the traditional design but left the Uber-expensive floor from the original wreckovation which now looks strange. And is that an altar railing I see??????:

IN LIGHT OF THE MCCARRICK REPORT, MAYBE THE GERMAN CARDINAL AND BISHOPS CELEBRATING THIS MASS IN GERMANY WITH A VERY FINE ALL BOYS CHOIR SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED AND JUST WHO IS THAT DANCER DANCING AWAY IN FRONT OF THE CARDINAL AND AT THE AGNUS DEI OF THE MASS???????????????

PRE-VATICAN II SEMINARY FORMATION AND CULTURE COMPARED TO POST VATICAN II SEMINARY AND CULTURE

 

My priestly formation occurred in a very liberal 1970’s seminary, St. Mary Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. I was enrolled there was 1976 through 1979. This is not to be confused with Mt. St. Mary Seminary in Emittsburg, Maryland, which in the 1970’s was considered a throw-back to the bad old pre-Vatican II seminary training. Horrors of horrors, the seminarians there in the 1970’s wore cassocks, prayed the rosary and went to adoration and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament, all pre-Vatican II corruptions of the spiritual life.

Prior to Vatican II and up until about 1968, St. Mary’s Seminary was one of the strictness seminaries in the world and it is the oldest in the USA. It is said that the Navel Academy modeled some of its discipline on St. Mary’s strict regimen. 

Prior to 1968, St. Mary’s followed a strict monastery method of life and formation, strictly regimented. All seminarians and clergy wore cassocks, went to Mass daily and communal Liturgy of the Hours. The Rosary was scheduled each day as well as various popular devotions, the preeminent prayer before the tabernacle and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. 

There were strict rules about going outside the seminary and with whom. All meals were eaten in the refectory and in community. Particular friendships were suspect (why? Fear of homosexual liaisons or the temptation toward it). 

The clergy were above the seminarians and no casual friendships of any kind were allowed, whatsoever! Formality in relationships and a hierarchical formality was demanded!

At the end of the day there was a grand silence and finally lights out. The curriculum and manner of teaching was formal, orthodox and solemn. 

When I got there in 1976, after a rebellion that made the seminary a “spirit” of Vatican II seminary that viewed the Church and seminary life up until 1968 as an aberration and what transpired since 1968 the true way of doing things was in full force. This is only 8 years after 1968! It was a completely different seminary, Church and way of priestly formation. 

This was my experience:

1. It was casual, casual lay clothes, first name basis with all priests on staff including the rector (I had never spoken to a priest on a first name basis before.

2. No cassocks whatsoever. Even to serve Mass we wore casual lay clothes.

3. The campus was open. We could come and go at will and with whomever. We were allowed particular friendships, guests in our room to include laity, male or female. We did not have to eat in the seminary and Mass attendance was not required, just encouraged. The only experience of communal liturgy of the hours was Evening Prayer which was only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The other hours were on our own or with small groups on our seminary floor. Popular devotions were not encourage and seen as highly suspect, especially the Rosary and other Marian devotions, prayer before the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament completely absent until a protest erupted over it from my1976 First year seminarians. The compromise was to have it once a year! So I experienced it in the seminary a total of two or three times. 

4. Classes could be attended in shorts and tee shirts. We were allowed to smoke during classes which i did as I smoked at the time. The teaching of the solemn deposit of faith was a casual, nonchalant experience, just like any secular class at that time would have been taught in a university setting.

My seminary experience as you can read what so much better than the pre-Vatican II model. No accountability, come and go as you wish, spend the night elsewhere as  I did with my 3rd year placement at St. Isaac Jogues Church in Baltimore. In fact we had the weekends free, beginning at noon of Friday and we need not be back until Monday morning. 

What that means is that we were not required to be in the seminary building for Sunday Mass (or any time from noon on Friday until Monday morning), we could go to Mass elsewhere, which I did with a group of friends as we visited almost every liberal parish in Baltimore to get an experience of the true new and improved liturgy. 

I might add that as a 22 year old, I did not even have to seek permission to leave the campus for extended periods of time over the weekend or any holidays that allowed for travel. 

Yes, the post-Vatican II seminary formation of St. Mary’s in Baltimore was the cat’s meow! So much better and improved from its previous 200 years of formation and anything the pre-Vatican II Church would have accomplished or mandated. 

BOMBSHELL INTERVIEW: TO BE HONEST WITH YOU, ARCHBISHOP VIGANO HAS MADE GOSSIPY ACCUSATIONS TOWARDS MANY IN THE VATICAN INCLUDING POPE FRANCIS--HE COULD FACE SANCTIONS HIMSELF IF NOT EXCOMMUNICATION, BUT WHO KNOWS IN THIS WILD CHURCH OF MESSES CREATED SINCE MARCH 13, 2013 IN OTHER WORDS 3/13/13! AND I POST THIS ON FRIDAY THE 13TH!

ANOTHER BIT OF JESUIT WISDOM

Worse than bungling, McCarrick report shows Vatican failed to take abuse seriously

BY THOMAS REESE, RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

NOV 11, 2020

It makes one wonder how many other accusations against bishops were treated in the same way. (Read the rest by pressing by pressing title).

An excerpt and my brief comment on that excerpt:

Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese writes this in The National Chismatic Reporter:

The Vatican appears to play down his misconduct by noting that his victims were adults, not minors, but the fact that they were seminarians makes it an abuse of power. If he had simply picked up willing young men in a bar, that could be forgiven. His preying on those under his authority disqualified him from being a bishop. Again, one wonders how many other bishops received similar clemency. 

My comment: What the hell? Homosexual clericalism would crack down on McCarrick if he picked up willing young woman in a bar and that would not be forgiven!

DISCUSS

IT IS DISPICABLE: WHAT TO MAKE OF IT? THE BLAME GAME CONTINUES

 In this April 24, 2002 file photo, Cardinal James Francis Stafford, left, Pontifical Council for the Laity at the Vatican, Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick of Washington, D.C., center, and United States Catholic Bishops' Conference President Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., attend a news conference at the Vatican concluding a two-day meeting between Pope John Paul II and US cardinals at the Vatican. After an extraordinary meeting sparked by a sex abuse scandal, (Credit: Crux, Pier Paolo Cito/AP.)

Over at Crux, there is an article that blames clericalism, the sin of clericalism. Is there any such sin???? Any way, this is what Cardinal Dolan is quoted as saying in the Crux article:

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, said on his radio show that McCarrick himself is the only person that deserves more blame than the totality of the culture that existed.

“The real villain here, there’s only one. That’s Ted McCarrick,” Dolan said to Father Dave Dwyer on Conversation with Cardinal Dolan Tuesday afternoon. “The second villain here is, I’m afraid we have to say, a climate that held priests above the law, that gave priests special privileges, that said you need to be accountable to no one and we call that the sin of clericalism.”

Clericalism is too nebulous to lay blame at its feet. Let's blame three or four bishops in New Jersey, all now deceased, who did nothing about McCarrick when seminarians and priests told them what McCarrick did. Let's blame their callousness, their inhuman response to sexual abuse, abuse of authority and down right corruption. Don't call clericalism a sin, but the sinners, the mortal sinners, who enabled McCarrick to continue in his high places doing what he was doing. Let's include Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis. Pope Francis only acted once adults who as kids were sexually abused/raped by McCarrick came forward, the media got a hold of it and there was no way to contain the scandal through silence and denial. This scandal was enabled by mortal sinners in the hierarchy and elsewhere and they have names as does their mortal sins.

Let's blame the laxity in sexual morality that evolved since Vatican II and with what is call it's new morality. Let's blame post-Vatican II moral theologians, Charles Curran and Phillip Keene, and bishops and priests, who to this day and to include Pope Francis wanted, to redefine the 6th commandment to accompany mortal sinners by confirming "civil union/partnerships", those in adulterous second marriages marriages and compromises with other sexual sins which are mortal sins such as disordered homosexual sex acts, when these break the 6th commandment as taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

We are talking about psychologically, sexually disordered men who were allowed into the seminary even when their disorders were known and the desire was to make the seminary a therapeutic community to heal them. That is being charitable. Known homosexuals were allowed to enter the seminary and often for nefarious reasons from vocation directors, to bishops to seminary personnel. 

Let's talk too, about non-professional relationships bishops and priests have with seminarians and other priests under their authority and no professional standards to call that out. I am talking about way too casual and hoochy coochy relationships which seminarians and young priests find seductive if it contributes to their rise in the seminary, diocese and broader Church! In some cases, with adult priests and seminarians, one wonders if they aren't prostituting themselves to corrupt bishops for personal gain and favors, either sexual, financial or for career purposes.

I doubt that it was known in the pre-Vatican II seminary system that McCarrick was a corrupt pedophile with a homosexual orientation in his adult desires and with a compulsion toward both. He is a compulsive liar with a winning personality and a psychosis  hidden by that personality.But after Vatican II when it became abundantly clear that he was both a pedophile and a homosexual in his adult abuse, he was given a pass or his behavior ignored. Even McCarrick told his adult seminarians and priests that he abused that it was common for priests to have sex with each other and there was nothing wrong with it. 

Was this McCarrick's liberal formation, post Vatican II and following corrupt theologians who thought that disordered sex opposed to the 6th commandment and natural law could be rehabilitated and seen as a positive thing? Just think of Jesuit priest James Martin and the enablement he allows through his corrupt ideology. Think of how these ideologies promoted in high places, by priests like Martin, enables compromised   seminaries/seminarians (the now closed Christ the King Seminary in Buffalo comes to mind) and a loose lifestyle in these institutions, especially if bishops are involved in the mortal sins, to occur and have occurred. 

And think of Amoris Laetitia's foot note that allows for adultery in adulterous civil unions/partnerships as a process of accompaniment and allowing them to receive Holy Communion and how this impacts seminaries and the lifestyle there that can evolve if no sexual sin is considered a mortal or venial sin, that celibacy is redefined as there was an attempt to do in the late 60's and 70's and by the Jesuits as I recall.

While we are blaming the perpetrators and clericalism, let us also blame post-Vatican II laxity when it comes to sexual/personal morality and a homosexual culture in the hierarchy and priesthood that is a part of this clericalism, that of compromised men who want the compromise to be the norm. Compromised men, especially homosexual men and clericalism is a deadly mixture as we now see. 

Homosexual clericalism needs to be named as the villain, not just the general term, clericalism. The problem in the hierarchy isn't heterosexual clericalism as it concerns giving a pass to heterosexual men in the seminary to have sex with women and in the seminary and bishops and priests enabled to have heterosexual sex without consequences. 

I think the attempt at a "code of professional standards" for the clergy, including bishops, is helpful and programs like  "Virtus" that train both the clergy and laity to understand and notice what could be improper and abusive behavior, like adults taking young adults, teenagers or children to sleep overs and striving to be alone with them, as red flags that need to be reported to the religious and civil authorities. 

And if a child, teenager or adult tells someone they were sexually abused or raped by a member of the clergy, be it a bishop, priest or deacon--go to the civil authorities first and secondly inform the Church authorities. 

If we had had Virtus type training since the 1960's, could McCarrick have gone on as long as he did?

Who knows?

TIME TO DRAIN THE SWAMP AS AN ACT OF JUSTICE (PENANCE)

  See here for the full text of the report.

The McCarrick Report: Full Text and a Vatican Summary

The report details “a tragic page in the recent history of Catholicism, a painful story from which the entire Church has learned,” writes Vatican editorial director, Andrea Tornielli.

Edward PentinVatican

IT’S OUT

 the NCR:

Vatican's explosive McCarrick report largely places blame on John Paul II

LESS THAN A WEEK AFTER THE ELECTION, PFZIER ANNOUNCES A COVID 19 VACCINE

 

It should be available in less than two weeks. Surely no coincidence that it was announced 6 days after the election. This will neutralize any need for further precautions and this issue, a faux campaign issue, pushed by the COVID-19 News Network (CNN) will come to an end.

Very interesting.

I'M ITALIAN AND LOVE CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND THIS IS JUST TOO DELICIOUS NOT TO REPORT

 

Some have put forward this conspiracy theory to keep Trump from winning reelection.

Covid-19 was developed in American laboratories and  then smuggled into Wuhan, China and spread from there to make it look like a "China" or "Wuhan" virus.

From there is spread to Italy, Milan, in particular and the mafia made it into a designer virus letting it go to the USA with the CIA/FBI cooperation. Some say Gucchi brought it here. 

The plan was for the virus to spread and make Trump shut down the country and thus his winning economy.

Three things would evolve from this:

1. Trump's "best in the history of the world" economy would collapse giving  democrats a talking point against him.

2. Knowing that the spread of the virus would be something no political leader could control, masks or not, short of a vaccine, they would blame him for his inept policies that led to the spread of the virus, which they created, and CNN and other msn would use it to work against Trump's reelection. CNN became known now as the Covid News Network, CNN.

3. Knowing that everyone needed to isolate in place and not go to the voting booth, ballots would be mailed to everyone, living and dead, knowing that democrats would prefer that (it makes corrupt voting easier) to going in person. And sure enough most the mail in ballots were for Biden. Interesting.

4. The power of the internet and hacking the way votes are now tallied, the CIA/FBI, of course a part of the deep state and democrat operatives, interfered with the tallying in order to give the illusion that Biden had won.

You just can't make this stuff up!

Machiavellianism, that great Italian instinct and perception, lives on and on steroids! 

I report and you retort!

FORGET ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN IS CATHOLIC (REMEMBER ONCE A CATHOLIC ALWAYS A CATHOLIC!) WHAT ABOUT THE CAST OF 1970’S TYPES WHO ALLOWED THE FORMER CARDINAL, THE FORMER ARCHBISHOP AND THE FORMER PRIEST, NOT TO MENTION, THE FORMER DEACON, SUB DEACON, ACOLYTE, LECTOR, PORTER, EXORCIST, ETC, TO RISE TO SUCH POWER AND INFLUENCE, EVEN THE POPES INCLUDING THE PRESENT ONE, RELYING UPON HIM, ARE THEY CATHOLIC??????

 

At least the left wing paper called by some “fish wrap” but I call “Chismatic” so I can refer to it the way most do, NCR, acknowledges that it was and is a scandal that the McCarrick character, as corrupt as he is, was allowed to climb the latter to that of cardinal. 

No 1970’s type and this includes those my age and older in the hierarchy, living or dead, can escape the mentality that allowed a person of this type to rise. When you look at the horrible track record of bishops and the way they managed sexually abusive priests, we see highly compromised, negligent and down right non-human attitudes about corrupt, disordered and down right perverted sexual behavior. Never mind if they were/are Catholic or not, where they human or not? 

If you read the new Florida report about how the archbishop of Miami in the 1960’s handled abusive priests in his diocese, you will know how a cardinal mccarrick rose to what he rose to do.

Here are several revealing articles in this morning’s NCR but we can only hope the Vatican Report to be released this week won’t be a continuation of fake Catholicism and will name the names and be frank about it:

'We want the truth': Catholics hope for honesty in McCarrick report

BY CHRISTOPHER WHITE

NOV 9, 2020

The Vatican's McCarrick report: a timeline of events

BY JOSHUA J. MCELWEE

NOV 9, 2020

The Vatican's McCarrick report: a roster of likely figures

BY JOSHUA J. MCELWEE

NOV 9, 2020

CAN PRESIDENT ELECT BIDEN HEAL THE CATHOLIC CHURCH? NO, HE’S NOT GOD OR THE POPE OR A BISHOP OR A LAY LEADER IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OR IS HE?

 

Can Joe Biden heal a divided nation — and his own Catholic Church?

Nov 7, 2020

by Christopher White

 

Politics

This article appears in the Election 2020 feature series. View the full series.

20201106T0645-USA-ELECTION-1008755 RESIZE.jpg

Supporters of President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden shout at one another in Philadelphia during the vote count Nov. 5. (CNS/Reuters/Eduardo Munoz) 

During the final week of his presidential campaign, Joe Biden said, "Pope Francis has asked questions that anyone who seeks to lead this great nation should answer." Now, as Biden is set to become the second Catholic president in the history of the United States, some Catholics are wondering if the candidate who regularly talks about his own faith and ran on a platform of bringing together the nation can also manage to help heal his own deeply divided church?

But I will say this, if a Catholic President Biden repents of his mortal sins of enabling abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and gender ideology and fake marriage, he can help heal other Catholics who are in a state of mortal sin embracing ideologies anathema to the Catholic Faith.

"The Catholic Church in the United States is as divided as the country's politics, and often because of politics," said David Gibson, director of Fordham University's Center on Religion and Culture.

Throughout the campaign, Biden — whose support for legal abortion puts him at odds with church teaching — was subject to criticism about his faith, with some church figures suggesting he is not a real Catholic. Yet some church observers are warning that such hostility could backfire and further alienate Catholics who support the president-elect.

READ THE REST AT THE NATIONAL CHISMATIC REPORTER HERE

MY COMMENTS:

I think President Elect Biden will reach across the aisle, won’t tweet inflammatory statements and will be perceived to be more honest in his statements than President Trump. Yes, I believe that a President Biden will help heal that aspect of division in our country. However, there will always be political differences, but with a President Biden, I think those divisions will be toned down. 

But the Catholic Church, can Biden heal it? At his President Elect speech on Saturday night Biden spoke briefly about his faith without mentioning “Catholic” in it. 

One thing he said and has said before and it is indeed a cliche, but a nice one, is: “When I leave home my dad would say to ‘Keep the Faith” and my mom would say “no Joey, spread it around.” Okay, a nice cliche. 

But then, and this is the divisive kicker, he said one song of his faith has meant so much to him and that song you ask? ON EAGLE’S WINGS!

Yes, this song represent the great liturgical divide of the 1970’s types who think “On Eagle’s Wings” is the cat’s meow! Just too cool and really, really groovy! “It’s bad!” But in the 1970’s sense, that’s good. 

I call it the “You Who” song. And every person my age and older demands that it be sung at their funeral or funerals they plan. 

No a Catholic President Biden, as long as he touts “On Eagle’s Wings” the Catholic song of the ages, cannot  heal the Catholic Church.

Only the Holy Spirit can heal the Catholic Church as His powerful winds and “eagle like wings” that of a Dove chases any eagles away!

But I will say this, if a Catholic President Biden repents of his mortal sins of enabling abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and gender ideology and fake marriage, he can help heal other Catholics who are in a state of mortal sin embracing ideologies anathema to the Catholic Faith.

GRACIOUSNESS

 

LET US PRAY

 

Prayer after an election

God of all nations,

Father of the human family,

we give you thanks for the freedom we exercise

and the many blessings of democracy we enjoy

in these United States of America.

We ask for your protection and guidance

for all who devote themselves to the common good,

working for justice and peace at home and around the world.

We lift up all our duly elected leaders and public servants,

those who will serve us, in particular, President Elect Joseph Biden, Vice President Elect Kamala Harris  as well as legislators and judges,

those in the military and law enforcement.

Heal us from our differences and unite us, O Lord,

with a common purpose, dedication, and commitment to achieve liberty and justice in the years ahead for all people,

and especially those who are most vulnerable in our midst in particular the unborn. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

THIS IS WHY GEORGIA IS SEEING RED OVER THE BLUE

 All the walking dead in Atlanta went to the polls and it is indeed a zombie apocalypse!

CARDINAL PELL'S VATICAN REHABILITATION

 

 This is a google translation of Sandro Magister's take on today's news about the Vatican Finances and the Secretary of State no longer in control of it.

“Vatican affairs. Pell's revenge on the secretariat of state ”: this was the title of a post from Settimo Cielo last June 11.

But today the bells ring for this revenge. Because the Vatican press office has released the text of a letter from Pope Francis that gives the coup de grâce precisely to those leaders of the secretariat of state who in 2017 rejected and humiliated the Australian cardinal's reform plans.

(For the record, it was Pope Francis himself who gave George Pell full powers to reform Vatican finances and then soon revoked them for the benefit of his opponents, except today to record this new turnaround, this time in support of the cardinal. ).

The full text of Francis's letter to Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin is also on page 7 of today's edition of "L'Osservatore Romano", with the reference on the front page.

The letter bears the date of August 25 and ends by setting the changes it dictates to "before November 1".

But evidently in the secretariat of state they must not have set to work with due diligence, given that only "on the evening of yesterday, November 4" - as the Vatican press office informed - Cardinal Parolin and the other elders gathered around the papa for a first meeting aimed at the business.

And the enterprise consists precisely in what the secretariat of state has hitherto always refused to do: the delivery of all its movable and immovable property to the Vatican central bank, APSA, under "the control of the secretariat for the economy ”, That is, the office originally presided over by Cardinal Pell.

But in his letter the pope says more.

He explicitly refers to the “investments made in London” and the infamous “Centurion fund”, from which - he orders - “we need to get out as soon as possible”.

The secretariat of state will have to account for and obtain approval of its ordinary income and expenses. And his secret activities will also have to pass the scrutiny of the commission "for reserved matters" recently established under the presidency of Cardinal Kevin Farrell.

Much less can the secretariat of state claim to supervise any other body of the Holy See, in economic and financial matters.

In short, "taking into account that the secretariat of state will no longer have to administer or manage assets, it will be appropriate for it to redefine its administrative office, or to evaluate the need for its existence".

The "terminus ad quem" set by the pope for this spoliation was, as has been said, November 1, the feast of All Saints.

Perhaps the 2nd day of the dead would have been more suitable.

—————

IN 2006 IN AN INTERVIEW WITH CNN'S WOLFE BLITZER, THE NOW LAICIZED AND FORMER ARCHBISHOP-CARDINAL OF WASHINGTON, DC SUPPORTED SAME SEX CIVIL PARTNERSHIPS/UNIONS UNTIL HE WAS FORCED TO CLARIFY A BIT

 

Photo credit (WSJ.com)

I hope Pope Francis will clarify like the former cardinal and now reduced to the lay state, Mr. McCarrick did, as soon as possible what His Holiness actually said and meant!

This is from Catholic News Agency, Washington D.C., Jun 12, 2006 / 12:00 am MT (CNA).

 

- Cardinal Theodore McCarrick issued a clarification Friday on remarks he made during an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The interview had generated some concern among many Catholics.

The cardinal said he recognized that his remarks could have given the wrong impression to people who took them out of context.

“I’m afraid that I misspoke last Wednesday when I was being interviewed on CNN,” the cardinal wrote, referring to the June 7 interview.

The cardinal explained that he and Blitzer were discussing the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment that had yet to be voted on in the Senate. During the interview, the cardinal defended the need to “continue to define marriage as we have defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman.”

“After that, I spoke of the legislation as it had been proposed and that it would not eliminate the possibility of civil unions,” the cardinal wrote in his clarification. “I said, ‘If this is what the legislation would provide for, I think we can live with that.’”

“My point was that the wording of the proposed legislation to protect marriage, which did not eliminate civil unions, might be necessary in order to have the votes needed to pass it,” he explained in the clarification, which was posted on the Archdiocese of Washington’s website this weekend.

“When probed further on the question of civil unions, which came up because the wording of the constitutional amendment did not seem to eliminate them, I returned to the ideal,” he wrote.

The ideal, he had said during the interview, is that everyone should be “able to enter a union with a man and a woman and that would bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps society together.”

“In trying to reply to a question, I mentioned people who may need the right to take care of each other when they are grievously ill and hospitalized, but it was always in the context of the proposed legislation and in no way in favor of a lifestyle that is contrary to the teaching of the Church and Scripture,” he clarified.

“I realized that my words could have given the wrong impression to someone who did not take my remarks in context,” wrote the cardinal. “I regret any confusion my words may have caused because I did not make myself sufficiently clear.”

The official transcript of the segment of the CNN interview in question follows:

BLITZER: Another very sensitive issue that's being dealt with in the Senate right now involves a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Senator Ted Kennedy said this yesterday. He said, "A vote for this amendment is a vote for bigotry, pure and simple." You disagree with him, don't you?

MCCARRICK: On this one, I do. Ted and I have -- do have differences from time to time. And this is a real big one. It seems to me that we really have to continue to define marriage as we've defined marriage for thousands of years as a union between a man and a woman.

Now, I think the legislation as it is proposed would not throw out the possibility of a civil union. And I think we can -- we can live with that if this is what -- if this is what the Constitution will provide for. But to say that you can take this concept of marriage, this word of marriage and use it in ways that it has never been used before, as far as I know, in the history of the world, I think that makes no sense.

BLITZER: So just explain. You think that you could live with -- you could support civil unions between gays and lesbians, but you wouldn't like them to get formally married, is that right?

MCCARRICK: Yes. I think -- I think basically the ideal would be that everybody was -- was able to enter a union with a man and a woman and bring children into the world and have the wonderful relationship of man and wife that is so mutually supportive and is really so much part of our society and what keeps our society together. That's the ideal.

If you can't meet that ideal, if there are people who for one reason or another just cannot do that or feel they cannot do that, then in order to protect their right to take care of each other, in order to take care of their right to have visitation in a hospital or something like that, I think that you could allow, not the ideal, but you could allow for that for a civil union.

But if you begin to fool around with the whole - the whole nature of marriage, then you’re doing something which effects the whole culture and denigrated what is so important for us.  Marriage is the basic foundation of our family structure.  And if we lose that, then I think we become a society that’s in real trouble. 

And new today from sources in the Vatican: 

Vatican report on disgraced ex U.S. cardinal McCarrick expected this month - sources

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A long-awaited Vatican report into disgraced ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is expected to be released this month to coincide with an annual meeting of American bishops, Vatican sources said on Thursday.

McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood last year after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.

Pope Francis ordered a thorough study of all documents in Holy See offices concerning McCarrick in 2018. The four U.S. dioceses where he served - New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington, D.C. - carried out separate investigations to feed into the Vatican report.

U.S. Catholic bishops are due to hold their annual meeting Nov. 15-19. It will be held virtually this year because of the coronavirus.

The sources said the report would be released by the Vatican before the bishops’ meeting starts.

There is great anticipation for the report because it may show how McCarrick managed to rise through the ranks even though his history of sexual misconduct with adult male seminarians was an open secret.

The 90-year-old McCarrick, once a power-broker as Archbishop of Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2006, is the highest-profile Church figure to have been dismissed from the priesthood in modern times.

Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Hugh Lawson

A LITTLE KNOWN “FACT”, I PLAY THE MAN FROM UNCLE’S MR. SOLO BEFORE I ENTERED THE SEMINARY! PHOTOS DON’T LIE!

 Before ordination:

After ordination:

BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLE OF CATHOLIC INCULTURATION!

 Press title for complete article and all photos:

Phat Diem Cathedral in Vietnam

by Shawn Tribeon November 05, 2020

From time to time over the years I have spoken of good models of inculturation. Such models present themselves, not as incompatible compromises, but instead as truly harmonious approaches that adopt local or national cultural and artistic customs to authentically Catholic purposes. One such example, to my mind, is Phat Diem Cathedral located in Ninh Binh, Vietnam. 

WHEN NUNS WERE NUNS A CATHOLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN WERE CATHOLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN

 This is the 1959-60 Catholic school year at Saint Anthony Catholic School on Atlanta’s West End which is close to Atlanta’s East Point where my family lived at that time. Can you pick out your handsome blogger who along with his brother and sister are in Catholic School costumes, I mean, uniforms?

IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU! ARE THERE ANY ETHICS OR MORALS TO TRANSGENERISM IDEOLOGY?

 WINOOSKI, Vt. (WCAX) - Taylor Small is declaring victory, making her Vermont’s first openly transgender state legislator.

Small ran for the Vermont House to represent the Chittenden 6-7 district of Winooski.

Small had the Progressive and Democrat nomination.

She came in second behind incumbent Democrat Hal Colston for the two-seat district.

I just read in the local papers this morning that two black gay men and three “transgendered women” were elected to office in certain parts of the USA. Should the headline simply said that two gay black men and three gay white men were elected to office?

But this raises serious questions in terms of the ideology and farce of “transgenderism.” Does the man who says he is a woman and may have had surgery that becomes like a permanent costume of illusion of femaleism, have an obligation, a moral duty to inform their straight men friends that they only play the part of a female using costumes and/or surgery to create the illusion of being female? 

Is it possible that a man who thinks he is marrying an actual female might be duped into marrying a man who is a great illusion artist even resorting to surgery to cement the illusion? Could this kind of farce, as immoral as it is and unethical in the secular sense too, lead to a farcical “marriage” in the Catholic Church where the actual groom, a straight male, thinks he is marrying an actual female who in fact is only playing that part in a great farce? And the poor priest or deacon who prepares such a couple for Catholic nuptials is completely unaware of it as it the straight male who is being duped?

But this reveals how illogical and hypocritical  the leftist ideology slugging crowd is. They forbid you to change your your race, for example a white person putting on black face or vice versa. That is a mortal sin and you will be “black’ balled to say the least if you did it way back in the past or contemplate it today. 

But let me pose this interesting conundrum. What if a transgendered female (who is a man, btw) marries a transgendered male (who is a female, btw) in the Catholic Church and the couple knows each other’s disguises, is that a sacramental marriage?????? Can it be allowed?????? Keep in mind they are both free to marry and it is a biological man and a biological woman. 

What conundrum!

Discuss. 

MY FAVORITE PHOTO OF THE RESTORATION OF SAINT JOSEPH CHURCH IN MACON TO INCLUDE THE RESTORED ALTAR RAILING AND GATES

 

WHAT IF BIDEN A CATHOLIC, AND REMEMBER, ONCE A CATHOLIC ALWAYS A CATHOLIC, IS ELECTED--WHAT A CONDUMDRUM FOR BISHOPS IN OTHER DIOCESES OTHER THAN WASHINGTON, DC

 Vice President, and possibly President-elect Joe Biden, is a Catholic, still in good standing, although rabidly pro-choice even up to birth. He endorses the slaughter of innocents. 

Will there be bishops who will forbid him to receive Holy Communion in their dioceses?

At least with President Trump, and his many peccadilloes including invalid marriages,  never would present himself to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church, but not so for Vice President Biden.

What to do; what to do; Oh, what are bishops to do??????

THE TWO FORMS OF THE ONE ROMAN RITE ARE WHAT THEY ARE, CAN'T WE JUST AGREE TO THAT AND LOVE BOTH FORMS WHEN CELEBRATED ACCORDING TO THE BOOKS AND RUBRICS?

 

As everyone who reads my blog knows, I love both forms of the One Roman Rite, although there are different rites in the Latin Rite to include the new one, the Ordinariate Rite. Can't we all just get along?

I am off the heels of celebrating both forms in the last three days. All Masses in our daily Mass chapel are ad orientem, thus in terms of the OF and EF there is little to no difference in the "orientation" of the priest at the altar. 

Sometimes that serves to confuse me, as I am now considered elderly by others, and thus I might genuflect in the OF where it isn't prescribed or forget to do so in the EF where it is prescribed. And I might make gestures with my hands in the OF's Roman Canon where it is not prescribed and forget in the EF where it is. Oh, well. Aging makes you mellow.  

On top of all that I had an EF Baptism. I have celebrated a handful over the years and certainly can see where the OF's rite of Baptism is better in some ways and the EF better in other ways. 

In the EF Baptism Rite, here are the deficits, compared to the OF Rite. There is no place for a Scripture reading and brief homily. That is sorely missed and could be easily added and should be. There is no place for the Litany of the Saints and that is sorely missed and could easily be added. 

The EF version treats the child as a "pagan" or better yet, "catechumen." Thus the first part of the rite is a "penitential rite" and the priest wears a violet stole over the cassock and surplice or alb. The baby is treated as an adult or having reach the age of reason and all questions are direct to the baby, although the godfather answers on behalf of the infant. 

There is a scrutiny/minor exorcism and the priest breathes on the infant's face three times. Then there is a second scrutiny/minor exorcism and then a third exorcism with exorcised salt and then a biggy exorcism after that with the infant renouncing Satan and his works and allurements. Then the baby is anointed with the oil of catechumens.

Finally, the penitential rite is over and the priest leads the child to the baptismal font with the violet stole as the Apostles' creed is said and the Our Father, then the priest changes into a white stole with the cope. and the actual baptism takes place  and then the baby by way of the godfather is asked the questions about belief in God, etc.

Then the baby is finally baptized, anointed with sacred chrism, given a white garment and the lighted baptismal candle and then all are dismissed without a final blessing, which I find odd compared to the new rite. 

I find it odd, too that there is a lengthy blessing of the salt rather than using already blessed salt and  no rite of blessing Holy Water which presumes the Holy Waters is already blessed. 

So at my Sunday baptism in the EF Form, Holy Water was used from Holy Water blessed in the OF Form. 

Was it a valid baptism?????? I report; you retort.