Today, I asked STS whether he ever thought of the fact of martyrdom when he is a priest. His answer, "I think it’s always something you keep in mind given the history of the world .”
Friday, 26 June 2015
A Gramsci Moment
If you want to go back and read the genius of cultural change--read my many posts on Gramsci. Today is a Gramsci moment in history.
Catholics will eventually not hold any high positions in any university, government, or business.
Catholics will eventually not hold any high positions in any university, government, or business.
Catholic Kristallnacht Coming
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Kristallnacht and The Lukewarm War
The Cold War is being talked about in the media because of the situations in Iran and Syria. I am concerned about the Lukewarm War. Most Americans and Britains are asleep while their rights and freedoms have been eroded by financial decisions made either in Congress or in the EU, and by the liberal and indeed, Marxist ideologies which control almost all aspects of society. But, the change has been gradual and most Catholics have not realized, as they have forgotten their history, how tyrants get into power. All it takes is one event.
In the horror of Kristallnacht, German Stormtroppers killed 91 Jews and destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses and synagogues, after the assassination of Ernst vom Rath, by a Polish Jew. The violence had been brewing for years, with stricter controls over the Jewish population of Germany, and only one event was necessary for the Government to kill, destroy, round-up 30,000 Jews and send them to the concentration camps. which were ready for them.
Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, burst out like puss out of a putrid sore. a sore which was created by the Lukewarm War. For years, almost the entire population of Germany had been made into automatons by the systematic destruction of many cultural stays-- classical education, the influence of the Catholic Church, and the family. The hatred of the Jews was not created by the Nazis, but fanned into flames by that party, using old prejudices and legal means to create a sub-class.
The Lukewarmness of the German people, greed, and the mediocrity of many of the ministers of religion created an atmosphere of complicity. How many people turned a blind eye to persecution and genocide? Most.
Even in small towns, such as Zeven, a town of 2,300 people or so, witnessed degradation of the Jews, destruction and death. That ordinary people would collaborate with the SS was the result of years of Lukewarm acceptance of the steps of persecution. Read this chilling description of the Night from the Daily Telegraph, from Wiki:
Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the "fun".
Note the dates here.
| SS-Brigadefuehrer Reinhard Heydrich at his Munich office during his tenure as deputy chief of the Bavarian Political Police (photo at site above). As Himmler's assistant in securing control of the Munich and then the Bavarian police after the Nazi seizure of power, Heydrich assured the successful "synchronization" [Gleichschaltung] of the political police in the other German states during 1933-34. In 1934, he became Chief of the Berlin Gestapo and by 1936, he was given command of the Security Police [political and criminal police forces] throughout the Reich. In 1941, Heydrich oversaw the murderous activities of the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) in the Soviet Union, and in keeping with Goering’s instruction to implement a "total solution" to the "Jewish Question," convened and chaired the Wannsee Conference of January 1942, to discuss and coordinate the coming fate of Europe’s Jews. Heydrich was mortally wounded by members of the Czech resistance on May 27, 1942 near Prague and died several days later. |
Such changes happened over several generations, where the True Faith of the German people was exchanged for neo-paganism, financial security, and greed. The phrase itself was a mockery of the horror which occurred. Note:
So, it appears, the term "Kristallnacht" or "Crystal Night" was invented by Nazis to mock Jews on that black November night in 1938. It is, therefore, another example of Nazi perversion. There are numerous other examples of this same tendency in the language of the Nazi perpetrators: Sonderbehandlung ("special treatment") for gassing victims, Euthanasie for a policy of mass murder of retarded or physically handicapped patients, "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes you Free) over the entrance to Auschwitz. When the Nazis launched their plan to annihilate the remaining Jews in Poland in the fall of 1943, they called it "Erntefest," or Harvest Festival. While this may have been a code word, as Froma Zeitlin has observed, it had the same grim and terrible irony that is reflected in Kristallnacht as in so many other instances of the perverted uses of language in the Third Reich. Perhaps most cynical of all is the use of the term, "Endloesung der Judenfrage" (Final Solution of the Jewish Question), for what is now known as the Holocaust. Goebbels frequently used such terminology to amuse his audiences (usually other Nazi officials) and to further demoralize his victims.
Gradual hatred, gradual marginalization, systematic change of culture and breakdown of Western Ideals. Sound familiar?
|
How do such racial hatred and hysteria control a people who live in a democracy? How does such callousness and violence strike at one group of people without consequences?
You can answer those two questions by looking at the financial and cultural chaos of our present time, both in America and in Europe. Who will be blamed? Those who are not politically correct, those who supposedly use hate speech, those who are perceived as intolerant. The Catholics, the real Catholics.
USCCB Statement on Today's Decision
Supreme Court Decision On Marriage “A Tragic Error” Says President Of Catholic Bishops’ Conference
June 26, 2015
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court decision, June 26, interpreting the U.S. Constitution to require all states to license and recognize same-sex “marriage” “is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us,” said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).The full statement follows:
Regardless of what a narrow majority of the Supreme Court may declare at this moment in history, the nature of the human person and marriage remains unchanged and unchangeable. Just as Roe v. Wade did not settle the question of abortion over forty years ago, Obergefell v. Hodges does not settle the question of marriage today. Neither decision is rooted in the truth, and as a result, both will eventually fail. Today the Court is wrong again. It is profoundly immoral and unjust for the government to declare that two people of the same sex can constitute a marriage.
The unique meaning of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is inscribed in our bodies as male and female. The protection of this meaning is a critical dimension of the “integral ecology” that Pope Francis has called us to promote. Mandating marriage redefinition across the country is a tragic error that harms the common good and most vulnerable among us, especially children. The law has a duty to support every child’s basic right to be raised, where possible, by his or her married mother and father in a stable home.
Jesus Christ, with great love, taught unambiguously that from the beginning marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. As Catholic bishops, we follow our Lord and will continue to teach and to act according to this truth.
I encourage Catholics to move forward with faith, hope, and love: faith in the unchanging truth about marriage, rooted in the immutable nature of the human person and confirmed by divine revelation; hope that these truths will once again prevail in our society, not only by their logic, but by their great beauty and manifest service to the common good; and love for all our neighbors, even those who hate us or would punish us for our faith and moral convictions.
Lastly, I call upon all people of good will to join us in proclaiming the goodness, truth, and beauty of marriage as rightly understood for millennia, and I ask all in positions of power and authority to respect the God-given freedom to seek, live by, and bear witness to the truth.
---
Dissenting Statement in Part
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA
and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting.
Petitioners make strong arguments rooted in social
policy and considerations of fairness. They contend that
same-sex couples should be allowed to affirm their love
and commitment through marriage, just like opposite-sex
couples. That position has undeniable appeal; over the
2 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
past six years, voters and legislators in eleven States and
the District of Columbia have revised their laws to allow
marriage between two people of the same sex.
But this Court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex
marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us.
Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what
the law is, not what it should be. The people who ratified
the Constitution authorized courts to exercise “neither
force nor will but merely judgment.” The Federalist No.
78, p. 465 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton) (capitalization
altered).
Although the policy arguments for extending marriage
to same-sex couples may be compelling, the legal arguments
for requiring such an extension are not. The fundamental
right to marry does not include a right to make
a State change its definition of marriage. And a State’s
decision to maintain the meaning of marriage that has
persisted in every culture throughout human history can
hardly be called irrational. In short, our Constitution does
not enact any one theory of marriage. The people of a
State are free to expand marriage to include same-sex
couples, or to retain the historic definition.
Today, however, the Court takes the extraordinary step
of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex
marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I
begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe
in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach
is deeply disheartening. Supporters of same-sex
marriage have achieved considerable success persuading
their fellow citizens—through the democratic process—to
adopt their view. That ends today. Five lawyers have
closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage
as a matter of constitutional law. Stealing this issue from
the people will for many cast a cloud over same-sex marriage,
making a dramatic social change that much more
difficult to accept.
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 3
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment.
The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution
or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly
disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of
humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society
according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of
injustice.” Ante, at 11, 23. As a result, the Court invalidates
the marriage laws of more than half the States and
orders the transformation of a social institution that has
formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the
Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians
and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?
It can be tempting for judges to confuse our own preferences
with the requirements of the law. But as this Court
has been reminded throughout our history, the Constitution
“is made for people of fundamentally differing views.”
Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 76 (1905) (Holmes, J.,
dissenting). Accordingly, “courts are not concerned with
the wisdom or policy of legislation.” Id., at 69 (Harlan, J.,
dissenting). The majority today neglects that restrained
conception of the judicial role. It seizes for itself a question
the Constitution leaves to the people, at a time when
the people are engaged in a vibrant debate on that question.
And it answers that question based not on neutral
principles of constitutional law, but on its own “understanding
of what freedom is and must become.” Ante, at
19. I have no choice but to dissent.
Understand well what this dissent is about: It is not
about whether, in my judgment, the institution of marriage
should be changed to include same-sex couples. It is
instead about whether, in our democratic republic, that
decision should rest with the people acting through their
elected representatives, or with five lawyers who happen
to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal
disputes according to law. The Constitution leaves no
doubt about the answer.
4 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
I
Petitioners and their amici base their arguments on the
“right to marry” and the imperative of “marriage equality.”
There is no serious dispute that, under our precedents, the
Constitution protects a right to marry and requires States
to apply their marriage laws equally. The real question in
these cases is what constitutes “marriage,” or—more
precisely—who decides what constitutes “marriage”?
The majority largely ignores these questions, relegating
ages of human experience with marriage to a paragraph or
two. Even if history and precedent are not “the end” of
these cases, ante, at 4, I would not “sweep away what has
so long been settled” without showing greater respect for
all that preceded us. Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572
U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 8).
A
As the majority acknowledges, marriage “has existed for
millennia and across civilizations.” Ante, at 3. For all
those millennia, across all those civilizations, “marriage”
referred to only one relationship: the union of a man and a
woman. See ante, at 4; Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 1,
p. 12 (petitioners conceding that they are not aware of any
society that permitted same-sex marriage before 2001). As
the Court explained two Terms ago, “until recent years,
. . . marriage between a man and a woman no doubt had
been thought of by most people as essential to the very
definition of that term and to its role and function
throughout the history of civilization.” United States v.
Windsor, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 13).
This universal definition of marriage as the union of a
man and a woman is no historical coincidence. Marriage
did not come about as a result of a political movement,
discovery, disease, war, religious doctrine, or any other
moving force of world history—and certainly not as a
result of a prehistoric decision to exclude gays and lesbi-
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 5
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
ans. It arose in the nature of things to meet a vital need:
ensuring that children are conceived by a mother and
father committed to raising them in the stable conditions
of a lifelong relationship. See G. Quale, A History of
Marriage Systems 2 (1988); cf. M. Cicero, De Officiis 57
(W. Miller transl. 1913) (“For since the reproductive instinct
is by nature’s gift the common possession of all
living creatures, the first bond of union is that between
husband and wife; the next, that between parents and
children; then we find one home, with everything in
common.”).
The premises supporting this concept of marriage are so
fundamental that they rarely require articulation. The
human race must procreate to survive. Procreation occurs
through sexual relations between a man and a woman.
When sexual relations result in the conception of a child,
that child’s prospects are generally better if the mother
and father stay together rather than going their separate
ways. Therefore, for the good of children and society,
sexual relations that can lead to procreation should occur
only between a man and a woman committed to a lasting
bond.
Society has recognized that bond as marriage. And by
bestowing a respected status and material benefits on
married couples, society encourages men and women to
conduct sexual relations within marriage rather than
without. As one prominent scholar put it, “Marriage is a
socially arranged solution for the problem of getting people
to stay together and care for children that the mere desire
for children, and the sex that makes children possible,
does not solve.” J. Q. Wilson, The Marriage Problem 41
(2002).
This singular understanding of marriage has prevailed
in the United States throughout our history. The majority
accepts that at “the time of the Nation’s founding [marriage]
was understood to be a voluntary contract between
6 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
a man and a woman.” Ante, at 6. Early Americans drew
heavily on legal scholars like William Blackstone, who
regarded marriage between “husband and wife” as one of
the “great relations in private life,” and philosophers like
John Locke, who described marriage as “a voluntary compact
between man and woman” centered on “its chief end,
procreation” and the “nourishment and support” of children.
1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *410; J. Locke,
Second Treatise of Civil Government §§78–79, p. 39 (J.
Gough ed. 1947). To those who drafted and ratified the
Constitution, this conception of marriage and family “was
a given: its structure, its stability, roles, and values accepted
by all.” Forte, The Framers’ Idea of Marriage and
Family, in The Meaning of Marriage 100, 102 (R. George
& J. Elshtain eds. 2006).
The Constitution itself says nothing about marriage,
and the Framers thereby entrusted the States with “[t]he
whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and
wife.” Windsor, 570 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17) (quoting
In re Burrus, 136 U. S. 586, 593–594 (1890)). There is no
dispute that every State at the founding—and every State
throughout our history until a dozen years ago—defined
marriage in the traditional, biologically rooted way. The
four States in these cases are typical. Their laws, before
and after statehood, have treated marriage as the union of
a man and a woman. See DeBoer v. Snyder, 772 F. 3d 388,
396–399 (CA6 2014). Even when state laws did not specify
this definition expressly, no one doubted what they
meant. See Jones v. Hallahan, 501 S. W. 2d 588, 589 (Ky.
App. 1973). The meaning of “marriage” went without
saying.
Of course, many did say it. In his first American dictionary,
Noah Webster defined marriage as “the legal
union of a man and woman for life,” which served the
purposes of “preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the
sexes, . . . promoting domestic felicity, and . . . securing the
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 7
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
maintenance and education of children.” 1 An American
Dictionary of the English Language (1828). An influential
19th-century treatise defined marriage as “a civil status,
existing in one man and one woman legally united for life
for those civil and social purposes which are based in the
distinction of sex.” J. Bishop, Commentaries on the Law of
Marriage and Divorce 25 (1852). The first edition of
Black’s Law Dictionary defined marriage as “the civil
status of one man and one woman united in law for life.”
Black’s Law Dictionary 756 (1891) (emphasis deleted).
The dictionary maintained essentially that same definition
for the next century.
This Court’s precedents have repeatedly described
marriage in ways that are consistent only with its traditional
meaning. Early cases on the subject referred to
marriage as “the union for life of one man and one woman,”
Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U. S. 15, 45 (1885), which
forms “the foundation of the family and of society, without
which there would be neither civilization nor progress,”
Maynard v. Hill, 125 U. S. 190, 211 (1888). We later
described marriage as “fundamental to our very existence
and survival,” an understanding that necessarily implies a
procreative component. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1, 12
(1967); see Skinner v. Oklahoma ex rel. Williamson, 316
U. S. 535, 541 (1942). More recent cases have directly
connected the right to marry with the “right to procreate.”
Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U. S. 374, 386 (1978).
As the majority notes, some aspects of marriage have
changed over time. Arranged marriages have largely
given way to pairings based on romantic love. States have
replaced coverture, the doctrine by which a married man
and woman became a single legal entity, with laws that
respect each participant’s separate status. Racial restrictions
on marriage, which “arose as an incident to
slavery” to promote “White Supremacy,” were repealed by
many States and ultimately struck down by this Court.
8 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
Loving, 388 U. S., at 6–7.
The majority observes that these developments “were
not mere superficial changes” in marriage, but rather
“worked deep transformations in its structure.” Ante, at
6–7. They did not, however, work any transformation in
the core structure of marriage as the union between a man
and a woman. If you had asked a person on the street how
marriage was defined, no one would ever have said, “Marriage
is the union of a man and a woman, where the woman
is subject to coverture.” The majority may be right that
the “history of marriage is one of both continuity and
change,” but the core meaning of marriage has endured.
Ante, at 6.
B
Shortly after this Court struck down racial restrictions
on marriage in Loving, a gay couple in Minnesota sought a
marriage license. They argued that the Constitution
required States to allow marriage between people of the
same sex for the same reasons that it requires States to
allow marriage between people of different races. The
Minnesota Supreme Court rejected their analogy to Loving,
and this Court summarily dismissed an appeal.
Baker v. Nelson, 409 U. S. 810 (1972).
In the decades after Baker, greater numbers of gays and
lesbians began living openly, and many expressed a desire
to have their relationships recognized as marriages. Over
time, more people came to see marriage in a way that
could be extended to such couples. Until recently, this
new view of marriage remained a minority position. After
the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 2003 interpreted
its State Constitution to require recognition of
same-sex marriage, many States—including the four at
issue here—enacted constitutional amendments formally
adopting the longstanding definition of marriage.
Over the last few years, public opinion on marriage has
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 9
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
shifted rapidly. In 2009, the legislatures of Vermont, New
Hampshire, and the District of Columbia became the first
in the Nation to enact laws that revised the definition of
marriage to include same-sex couples, while also providing
accommodations for religious believers. In 2011, the New
York Legislature enacted a similar law. In 2012, voters in
Maine did the same, reversing the result of a referendum
just three years earlier in which they had upheld the
traditional definition of marriage.
In all, voters and legislators in eleven States and the
District of Columbia have changed their definitions of
marriage to include same-sex couples. The highest courts
of five States have decreed that same result under their
own Constitutions. The remainder of the States retain the
traditional definition of marriage.
Petitioners brought lawsuits contending that the Due
Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth
Amendment compel their States to license and recognize
marriages between same-sex couples. In a carefully reasoned
decision, the Court of Appeals acknowledged the
democratic “momentum” in favor of “expand[ing] the
definition of marriage to include gay couples,” but concluded
that petitioners had not made “the case for constitutionalizing
the definition of marriage and for removing
the issue from the place it has been since the founding: in
the hands of state voters.” 772 F. 3d, at 396, 403. That
decision interpreted the Constitution correctly, and I
would affirm.
II
Petitioners first contend that the marriage laws of their
States violate the Due Process Clause. The Solicitor General
of the United States, appearing in support of petitioners,
expressly disowned that position before this Court.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. on Question 1, at 38–39. The majority
nevertheless resolves these cases for petitioners based
10 OBERGEFELL v. HODGES
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
almost entirely on the Due Process Clause.
The majority purports to identify four “principles and
traditions” in this Court’s due process precedents that
support a fundamental right for same-sex couples to
marry. Ante, at 12. In reality, however, the majority’s approach
has no basis in principle or tradition, except for the
unprincipled tradition of judicial policymaking that characterized
discredited decisions such as Lochner v. New
York, 198 U. S. 45. Stripped of its shiny rhetorical gloss,
the majority’s argument is that the Due Process Clause
gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry
because it will be good for them and for society. If I were a
legislator, I would certainly consider that view as a matter
of social policy. But as a judge, I find the majority’s position
indefensible as a matter of constitutional law.
A
Petitioners’ “fundamental right” claim falls into the
most sensitive category of constitutional adjudication.
Petitioners do not contend that their States’ marriage laws
violate an enumerated constitutional right, such as the
freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.
There is, after all, no “Companionship and Understanding”
or “Nobility and Dignity” Clause in the Constitution.
See ante, at 3, 14. They argue instead that the laws violate
a right implied by the Fourteenth Amendment’s
requirement that “liberty” may not be deprived without
“due process of law.”
This Court has interpreted the Due Process Clause to
include a “substantive” component that protects certain
liberty interests against state deprivation “no matter what
process is provided.” Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 302
(1993). The theory is that some liberties are “so rooted in
the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked
as fundamental,” and therefore cannot be deprived without
compelling justification. Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291
Cite as: 576 U. S. ____ (2015) 11
ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting
U. S. 97, 105 (1934).
Allowing unelected federal judges to select which unenumerated
rights rank as “fundamental”—and to strike
down state laws on the basis of that determination—raises
obvious concerns about the judicial role. Our precedents
have accordingly insisted that judges “exercise the utmost
care” in identifying implied fundamental rights, “lest the
liberty protected by the Due Process Clause be subtly
transformed into the policy preferences of the Members of
this Court.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 720
(1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Kennedy,
Unenumerated Rights and the Dictates of Judicial Restraint
13 (1986) (Address at Stanford) (“One can conclude
that certain essential, or fundamental, rights should exist
in any just society. It does not follow that each of those
essential rights is one that we as judges can enforce under
the written Constitution. The Due Process Clause is not a
guarantee of every right that should inhere in an ideal
system.”).
The need for restraint in administering the strong medicine
of substantive due process is a lesson this Court has
learned the hard way. The Court first applied substantive
due process to strike down a statute in Dred Scott v. Sandford,
19 How. 393 (1857). There the Court invalidated the
Missouri Compromise on the ground that legislation restricting
the institution of slavery violated the implied
rights of slaveholders.
more here http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
more here http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf
The Weakness of the Church
Today's decision indicates that paganism in America trumps Christianity.
I heard nothing from the pulpit here or in Springfield, where I was before I moved, against this--nothing.
The weakness of our priests and the compromising of the laity contributed to this decision.
We are now, as a nation, in the same category as four famous Biblical cities.
The signers of the Declaration would be appalled.
Pray that you will not compromise and lose your soul.
We are now, as a nation, in the same category as four famous Biblical cities.
The signers of the Declaration would be appalled.
Pray that you will not compromise and lose your soul.
Get ready for persecution.
Get ready spiritually.
God will not be mocked.
For me July 4th will be a day of prayer and penance. Anyone who celebrates should consider "why".
For me July 4th will be a day of prayer and penance. Anyone who celebrates should consider "why".
"But this court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent. Roberts read a summary of his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in nearly 10 years as chief justice.
Justice Antonin Scalia said he is not concerned so much about same-sex marriage, but about "this court's threat to American democracy." Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas also dissented.
Finding Things in An Attic
I was helping my mother find some things in her attic the other day, when I was visiting the old house, which has this attic like all attics of those people, who have had interesting lives, and have lived a long time, an attic full of fascinating things. Mother kept asking me if I wanted this or that, and as I do not really want things, unless they are useful, like a coffee pot, or an iron, I said "no".
As I am still, "peripatetic" as I call it, I am not collecting anything more than what I have, barring a few more books some friends are sending me.
The chapel is in the attic of a friend, my books are in the basement of the same friend. My temporary room is chock-a-block with icons, books, and my suitcases, all my clothes, as well as all my papers which I am using at this time, and photographs.
A tight squeeze...
Attics always have been magical places for children, and I can remember going up into the very hot attic (pre-air conditioning days) and rummaging through Grandpa's books and Grandma's millinery stuff. Four generations of things were in that attic, and more mementoes would be added by later generations.
It was a Catholic attic, with old statues, rosaries, prayer books and missals put into various drawers of various buffets and chest of drawers.
I compare attics with people's memories, places in our selves which like attics that have to be cleaned out, have to be purged of the unnecessaries, and yes, if God so desires, even favorite memories.
The acquiring of both purity of heart and detachment demands purging.
STS and I were discussing one day, how detached we have become regarding things over the years. This, we know, is a particular grace. I could not have been such a free person, moving where God deemed fit, if I had been attached to things.
Most people desire real freedom of spirit, but do not know how to find this freedom.
One finds it in the process of dying to self.
As I sit in my half-storage room, half-bedroom, I honestly can say that I could easily walk away from the things here. What I have I have as a boon from God, but these things belong to Him, not me. Those things which bring me closer to God, I use. Those things which do not bring me closer to God, I give away.
I have nothing, and I am nothing, This realization is the key to freedom, which can lead to purity of heart.
Love is the key and the answer to the question, "How can I become detached?" When one truly desires only God, to be with Him, to rest in Him, to wait to hear His still, small voice, one is in love.
Love is why I want the House of Prayer---to be in a situation where God is first, and to have others join me in that loving commitment.
I have three ladies who said they would come and pray with me sometimes, and come on a retreat to such a house.
But, like this room, like the attic full of stuff, like the basement with my thirty-nine boxes, this prayer house would not be mine. This would be God's House, and I would merely be the caretaker.
Freedom is a gift of those who chose life over things, God over possession, love over memories.
Today, I was also thinking of Mary in the house of John in Ephesus. Within months of the Ascension, persecution broke out against the Christians. At the latest, in about 44, when James was martyred, John would have taken Mary out of the way of danger. He could have moved to Ephesus as early as the summer or autumn of 33, or in 34, after the death of Stephen.
Mary would have had to leave all her relatives and friends, her things, her house.
She would have been asked to show her love by becoming detached from all the places and things which reminded her of Jesus, her Son, when He walked on this earth.
I did return to where I am staying with some artwork I had given my mother--framed prints over 140 years old, of famous fairy tales from Bohemia and Moravia---things passed down and kept Grandma's attic until she gave them to me, and I had them framed long ago. She wanted me to take these.
I do not want to accumulate things, but as my mother wanted me to take these back, I did so. But, my heritage is larger, more universal than that of my Bohemian, Moravian, and Luxembourg ancestors. My real "stuff" comes from my Catholic heritage, and that is what I share on this blog.
God is in charge of my memory, my understanding, my will.
He is the Master and Bridegroom of the little house which is my soul and my body.
Let me end with the famous prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.
I never want to have an attic full of things, nor a memory stuffed with so much that God cannot enter in. His love and His grace are enough for me.
As I am still, "peripatetic" as I call it, I am not collecting anything more than what I have, barring a few more books some friends are sending me.
The chapel is in the attic of a friend, my books are in the basement of the same friend. My temporary room is chock-a-block with icons, books, and my suitcases, all my clothes, as well as all my papers which I am using at this time, and photographs.
A tight squeeze...
Attics always have been magical places for children, and I can remember going up into the very hot attic (pre-air conditioning days) and rummaging through Grandpa's books and Grandma's millinery stuff. Four generations of things were in that attic, and more mementoes would be added by later generations.
It was a Catholic attic, with old statues, rosaries, prayer books and missals put into various drawers of various buffets and chest of drawers.
I compare attics with people's memories, places in our selves which like attics that have to be cleaned out, have to be purged of the unnecessaries, and yes, if God so desires, even favorite memories.
The acquiring of both purity of heart and detachment demands purging.
STS and I were discussing one day, how detached we have become regarding things over the years. This, we know, is a particular grace. I could not have been such a free person, moving where God deemed fit, if I had been attached to things.
Most people desire real freedom of spirit, but do not know how to find this freedom.
One finds it in the process of dying to self.
As I sit in my half-storage room, half-bedroom, I honestly can say that I could easily walk away from the things here. What I have I have as a boon from God, but these things belong to Him, not me. Those things which bring me closer to God, I use. Those things which do not bring me closer to God, I give away.
I have nothing, and I am nothing, This realization is the key to freedom, which can lead to purity of heart.
Love is the key and the answer to the question, "How can I become detached?" When one truly desires only God, to be with Him, to rest in Him, to wait to hear His still, small voice, one is in love.
Love is why I want the House of Prayer---to be in a situation where God is first, and to have others join me in that loving commitment.
I have three ladies who said they would come and pray with me sometimes, and come on a retreat to such a house.
But, like this room, like the attic full of stuff, like the basement with my thirty-nine boxes, this prayer house would not be mine. This would be God's House, and I would merely be the caretaker.
Freedom is a gift of those who chose life over things, God over possession, love over memories.
Today, I was also thinking of Mary in the house of John in Ephesus. Within months of the Ascension, persecution broke out against the Christians. At the latest, in about 44, when James was martyred, John would have taken Mary out of the way of danger. He could have moved to Ephesus as early as the summer or autumn of 33, or in 34, after the death of Stephen.
Mary would have had to leave all her relatives and friends, her things, her house.
She would have been asked to show her love by becoming detached from all the places and things which reminded her of Jesus, her Son, when He walked on this earth.
I did return to where I am staying with some artwork I had given my mother--framed prints over 140 years old, of famous fairy tales from Bohemia and Moravia---things passed down and kept Grandma's attic until she gave them to me, and I had them framed long ago. She wanted me to take these.
I do not want to accumulate things, but as my mother wanted me to take these back, I did so. But, my heritage is larger, more universal than that of my Bohemian, Moravian, and Luxembourg ancestors. My real "stuff" comes from my Catholic heritage, and that is what I share on this blog.
God is in charge of my memory, my understanding, my will.
He is the Master and Bridegroom of the little house which is my soul and my body.
Let me end with the famous prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.
I never want to have an attic full of things, nor a memory stuffed with so much that God cannot enter in. His love and His grace are enough for me.
Thursday, 25 June 2015
From Today's Office
Having died to that which held us prisoners, we are discharged from the law. Let us serve God, then, in a new way, the way of the spirit, in contrast to the old way, the way of a written code.
For those who love God, the written law is unnecessary, not because it is not binding, but because one obeys out of love and not because of the external law. When one becomes free from sin, through Christ, one is discharged from the outside law because the natural law becomes informed by grace.
Law becomes internalized through love. One wants only to please God and not men. Yesterday, we heard in the Scriptures that God said David was a man "after His Own Heart".
David loved God, and God loved David. The relationship between David and God prefigures our own relationship with Christ, through the Church, the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist. Today, we see a prefiguring of that symbol in the fact that the priest in today's reading gives David the temple bread for his hungry soldiers.
Then, the high priest present to David his old sword, kept for posterity, used to cut off the head of Goliath years ago. David represents the Church Militant. Prayer first, action second.
David represents one of the patriachs whose lives reveal the plan of God in the world, preparing the world for Christ. This is our job as well, to bring Christ into the world through prayer and evangelization. But, nothing can be done without purity of heart, the theme of today's readings.
1 Samuel 21:2-10,22:1-5
Thou art our trust, O King of kings, from today's hymn at Lauds.
For those who love God, the written law is unnecessary, not because it is not binding, but because one obeys out of love and not because of the external law. When one becomes free from sin, through Christ, one is discharged from the outside law because the natural law becomes informed by grace.
Law becomes internalized through love. One wants only to please God and not men. Yesterday, we heard in the Scriptures that God said David was a man "after His Own Heart".
David loved God, and God loved David. The relationship between David and God prefigures our own relationship with Christ, through the Church, the sacraments, and especially the Eucharist. Today, we see a prefiguring of that symbol in the fact that the priest in today's reading gives David the temple bread for his hungry soldiers.
Then, the high priest present to David his old sword, kept for posterity, used to cut off the head of Goliath years ago. David represents the Church Militant. Prayer first, action second.
David represents one of the patriachs whose lives reveal the plan of God in the world, preparing the world for Christ. This is our job as well, to bring Christ into the world through prayer and evangelization. But, nothing can be done without purity of heart, the theme of today's readings.
1 Samuel 21:2-10,22:1-5
Why A House of Prayer Is Necessary
Over the past week, it is obvious that the battle for the heart of the Church has increased by confusion concerning the political opinions in The Encyclical.
I pointed out errors in the work in my long series, but I also wanted to point out good ideas, which have been in the Church for a long time, such as simplicity of lifestyle.
Sadly, what is missing in all the comments in the media proves the need for houses of prayer. Without prayer, no amount of talking about the problems or political solutions will work.
As I have noted, without contemplatives praying for the Pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, seminarians, the evils of the world, the flesh and the devil can walk all over the activities of those in the Church. First comes prayer, then activity. And actions without prayer are hollow, ineffective, full of ego.
Prayer, intense prayer, is absolutely necessary for a strong Church. Cannot those in the Church see the connection between the weakness of Church leaders and the lack of contemplative prayer?
How many of us are there who set time aside daily to pray for the Pope and his good and bad advisers? Nothing will change without prayer.
All holiness in the Church begins with a heart of prayer. Out of all the religious orders in the United States for women, I counted today only 16 devoted primarily to contemplative prayer--16!
In England alone, there are about 27.
I am very far from the goal I need to start this house of prayer. At this writing, I need more benefactors. All those who want to live in simplicity and rely on Divine Providence, and the list of founders in that position is long, need those who believe in contemplative prayer and simplicity
to help.
I try to pray in the houses of others and so did St. Paul, But, stability, like the lifestyle of good Benedictines, allows for deeper, more consistent prayer. Plus, I do not want to pray on my own, but with others, as where two or three are gathered together, there is more intercessory power, so Christ tells us.
Please pray about helping set-up the heart of prayer wherever God wants this to be in His Kingdom. Please consider giving to my plea on the side of this blog.
Ideologies Kill Truth
Those who study in depth the Civil War understand that the key issue was not slavery, but states' rights. The Confederacy was made up of states which had joined the Union freely and believed it was constitutional to leave the Union freely.
The United States was split over the question of centralized power vs. the power of the states to determine laws. Slavery, always immoral, would have gone away with the fall of the old regime in the South of Irish and English landowners, who would have been pressured by laws being passed in England to abolish slavery. That Lincoln abolished slavery was a necessary action, but the problem was that at the same time, by not working with the states, he increased greatly power in Washington forever, setting precedences under which we suffer today.
Most of the people in the United States do not understand the "balance of power" issue which formed the Constitution, and which has been eroded by almost every president in the Twentieth Century.
The Executive branch was to be one of three, not one above all, except in rare cases.
The recent flush of hatred against the Confederate flag and anything Confederate ignores the other issues of identity for Southerners, who still fiercely cherish states' rights. This identity must not include slavery or prejudice, which sadly, it has. But, prejudice against any minority group (and soon the white populace will be the minority) is always gravely sinful, a great evil found in every area of America, not just the South.
I do not agree with the Confederate flag flying over a state capitol, but I do agree with a state's rights.
I agree that it is constitutional to secede. The United States must be seen as a group of people with shared values. But, this is changing rapidly.
Some people are calling for the destruction of memorials to fallen Confederate soldiers. This is absurd, as those men died just as valiantly as those in the north. Some people want Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson taken out of history books. This is not only silly, but hiding history from future generations.
These were men who decided against the Union. We honor Washington and Jefferson and they had slaves. Why the rush to get rid of Confederate history? America has been created by many different kinds of people and many different belief systems. Slavery is a black spot on our history, but we cannot deny this happened. And, who decides what truth gets passed on and which groups are pushed out of history? The good can be ignored and never studied just as much as the bad.
For example, will memorials to Catholics be the next target if ssm is approved?
Why not?
Will the Vatican flag be taken out of churches?
Caligula has to be one of the most horrible leaders of all times, but we do not expunge him from the history books. And so on.
History is made up of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Who is to decide which personages are dropped from a curriculum?
Over ten years ago, in my job as a curriculum consultant, I researched various history books used in high schools. In several American texts, Stonewall Jackson was not mentioned at all, and Robert E. Lee was given one small paragraph.
Margaret Sanger, the great baby killer, whose push for abortion has killed more people than in all the wars Americans have ever fought in, or more slaves tortured and killed by slave owners, was featured on two pages, side by side.
See the problem? Americans are losing touch with reality because of ideologies.
Slavery is a horrible, great evil, never to be tolerated, but to not study those on both sides of the debate is to allow a few people to decide what is our heritage and what is not. We cannot deny the past and we should be able to examine the military genius of some Confederate generals without agreeing with slavery.
Ideologies kill truth.
Period.
(P.S. State's rights with the apostrophes indicates one state's rights--states' right indicates plural).
Note on Global Cooling
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/23/weak-sun-could-offset-some-global-warming-europe-us-study
and a note from a commentator on models...discussed this week..online.
Calvin Beisner completely mischaracterises the legendary Feynman's principle (which you can watch here) http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2014/04/richard-feynman-on-the-scientific-method-in-1-minute.html
Let me explain where Calvin goes wrong
let's say I have a formula, maybe the formula I use for determining weapon damage for my game
in the real world
then I actually put in some weapon data according to what I observe from martial arts forums and the like
and I realise that, say, my composite longbow is doing far too little damage compared to what I observe in actual tests: so what went wrong?
the composite longbow data is incorrect
well, I've checked it, and it seems okay. That means it's a problem with the formula itself
2. there's a problem with the model--well, no, because analogous weapons like the crossbow and the shortbow are working fine
so that leaves 3. the specific interaction between the longbow and the formula is creating a specific problem
I realise then that the problem was that the formula was not taking into account the fact that the longbow has additional penetrative power vs armour owing to its unusually large power stroke
now, my formula doesn't take into account the power strokes of various weapons, because it's much simpler than that
but I can solve the formula by changing how the formula computes the longbow data.
In the end, I simply change one integer from positive to negative and tell my players "now you have to roll UNDER this value, not above it" and everything works
the difficulties with climate change are analogous
A) there is no comprehensive model of weather data. It's far too complex.
B) the predictive models of the early 90s were, by and large, wrong, because they overestimated the direct influence of carbon dioxide on ambient temperatures
C) IF YOU CORRECT the predictive models of the early late 80s/ 90s by changing ONE INTEGER (ie the precise degree of warming owed to a doubling of carbon dioxide) the formula still works
and a note from a commentator on models...discussed this week..online.
Calvin Beisner completely mischaracterises the legendary Feynman's principle (which you can watch here) http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2014/04/richard-feynman-on-the-scientific-method-in-1-minute.html
Let me explain where Calvin goes wrong
let's say I have a formula, maybe the formula I use for determining weapon damage for my game
in the real world
then I actually put in some weapon data according to what I observe from martial arts forums and the like
and I realise that, say, my composite longbow is doing far too little damage compared to what I observe in actual tests: so what went wrong?
the composite longbow data is incorrect
well, I've checked it, and it seems okay. That means it's a problem with the formula itself
2. there's a problem with the model--well, no, because analogous weapons like the crossbow and the shortbow are working fine
so that leaves 3. the specific interaction between the longbow and the formula is creating a specific problem
I realise then that the problem was that the formula was not taking into account the fact that the longbow has additional penetrative power vs armour owing to its unusually large power stroke
now, my formula doesn't take into account the power strokes of various weapons, because it's much simpler than that
but I can solve the formula by changing how the formula computes the longbow data.
In the end, I simply change one integer from positive to negative and tell my players "now you have to roll UNDER this value, not above it" and everything works
the difficulties with climate change are analogous
A) there is no comprehensive model of weather data. It's far too complex.
B) the predictive models of the early 90s were, by and large, wrong, because they overestimated the direct influence of carbon dioxide on ambient temperatures
C) IF YOU CORRECT the predictive models of the early late 80s/ 90s by changing ONE INTEGER (ie the precise degree of warming owed to a doubling of carbon dioxide) the formula still works
Many posts to read
Please use today to catch up with the many posts (especially on The Encyclical) I had time to write, and those of the other blogger I have quoted.
Pax vobiscum.
Pax vobiscum.
Wednesday, 24 June 2015
Excellent Post on Gradualism
http://guildofblessedtitus.blogspot.com/2015/06/gradualism-instrumentum-laboris-and.html
better than my posts earlier this year and last year...although I covered the points on grace.
And previous post leading up to this one...from same author:
By PAUL PRIEST.
We are not equal - God isn't a democrat - in just the same way as there is a hierarchy of ranks among the
Therefore when anything happens - we are absolutely forbidden from the presumption that what God's
Now how can we be certain this process works and we won't be misguided or misdirected throughout this?
better than my posts earlier this year and last year...although I covered the points on grace.
And previous post leading up to this one...from same author:
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
What's at Stake at the Synod? Everything!
We are not equal - God isn't a democrat - in just the same way as there is a hierarchy of ranks among the
angels there is a hierarchy of human souls and their perfectibility - it's known as Predilection. God loves us
all infinitely and calls us to fulfill our created perfectibility - but some are created to be more - to do more
[remember the parable of the sower? 30, 60, a hundredfold?]
God loves them more because they are created to be more lovable because they have a vocation to be more
God loves them more because they are created to be more lovable because they have a vocation to be more
... I know it doesn't sound fair but He's God: We're not - we have our place in His divine plan as either tiny cogs or
hard-working pistons or massive power-wheels - whatever that position we were made for it - and can achieve
perfection within it and be fulfilled with absolute joy and happiness in being everything we were called to be.
God made us so we ultimately wouldn't ever wish to be anything but ourselves in our perfection in our part of
His Divine plan [this is why envy - wanting to be another - is the greatest sin against oneself]
Finally on this point it must be noted that in regard to Predilection how we repent from and amend for our sins
Finally on this point it must be noted that in regard to Predilection how we repent from and amend for our sins
will also be variant - for some it will be easy and lengthy - for others it will be more grueling and intermittent.
Now, secondly we have to understand what the Holy Spirit is about - for most of us the Holy Spirit keeps us in
Now, secondly we have to understand what the Holy Spirit is about - for most of us the Holy Spirit keeps us in
existence, He inspires our intellects with truth, beauty and the notion of the good - which motivates our will to
carry out this inspiration freely towards the good - this is what Love is. The Holy Spirit provides us with Sufficient
Grace to never sin - He provides our intellects and consciences to be aware of the Good, the True and Beautiful -
and we can conform to this and be truly free. Remember the only thing we are ever free to do is to do good -
sin is always a denial of our freedom and actually traps us and makes us less free.
Alternatively, we can hoodwink ourselves into thinking happiness may be achieved through another route -
a short-cut - an easy way - and hence we lie to ourselves and our God and our created reality and the rest of
creation and we commit sin - and in the process we as temples of the Holy Spirit in whom we live, move and
have our being - abuse and defy the Lord, the Giver of Life with our lies and sin. These are the only two things
we can say we possess - every other thing comes from God, is worked by God and returns to God - every other
thing is Grace of which we are unworthy but in which we we happy receivers can and should boast.
Normatively, the Holy Spirit works through Sufficient Grace, but there are times where through an extraordinary
Normatively, the Holy Spirit works through Sufficient Grace, but there are times where through an extraordinary
act of predelictive Love, the Holy Spirit acts upon us with what's known as efficient Grace - unstoppable,
unpreventable grace which compels us towards an act.
There's an old Fulton Sheen story of a wayward alcoholic actress who accepts his invite to see the Church on the
There's an old Fulton Sheen story of a wayward alcoholic actress who accepts his invite to see the Church on the
proviso he would not ask her to go to Confession - he kept the promise in his own way for as they were touring
the
Church he opened the confessional door and threw her inside.
Divine Providence decrees that God does this to some of us in extraordinary circumstances. God does not work
Divine Providence decrees that God does this to some of us in extraordinary circumstances. God does not work
against our wills - but instead He takes over with Efficient grace to ensure something happens. Think the Conversion
of St Paul and other profound conversion stories. Think Miracles. Think the imposition of the knowledge of God
upon the Prophets or all who lived and believed during the Incarnation or the appearance of the Sacred Heart or
Our Lady. Think of the Promises of Christ regarding Papal Infallibility and the inability of the Gates of the
Underworld to prevail against the Church. All this is Efficient Grace - unpreventable, unthwartable -
it has nothing to do with the arbitrary, discretionary choices within human free will. God just does it!
Sometimes God uses efficient Grace upon us to actuate His will. Otherwise, it is sufficient grace where we are at
Sometimes God uses efficient Grace upon us to actuate His will. Otherwise, it is sufficient grace where we are at
the helm of our wills - the Holy Spirit inspires our intellects and carries out our wills - but we choose - we decide.
The Holy Spirit does not treat us like puppets or cosmic chess pieces - He limits himself to inspiration of the
intellect to motivate the will - we choose whether to conform to that will or not. Hence in matters of the Church
the Holy Spirit may inspire - but the Pope and his Brother Bishops and clerics and religious act according to their
own either conformed or refusenik wills. The Holy Spirit does not choose a Pope - Cardinals choose a Pope.
The Holy Spirit does not appoint
Bishops - The Pope does. The Holy Spirit does not gerrymander or rig Synod or Oecumenical council votes -
The Pope and Bishops vote.
Now, there is only one real argument against the existence of God - all the others fall apart when rationally
confronted with reality but one remains - one so confrontational that it compelled Ivan Karamazov to refuse to
participate and return his invitation to belong to God's creation: The problem of Evil and there is only one rational
response:
God permits evil - He permits sin. Yes - nothing happens but what God wills - but there is a profound difference
"How else can evil be allowed to exist, save for a greater good?"
God permits evil - He permits sin. Yes - nothing happens but what God wills - but there is a profound difference
between what God wished [His Antecedent will] and what God permits [through which He will actuate a greater
good] - i.e. His Consequent Will. God's antecedent will was for none to fall, for all to share Heaven in their created
perfection with Him for eternity - for all to be saved. God's consequent will - because angels fell, because we fell,
because we continue to sin and because ultimately some of us will not wish eternity with Him if the price means
dying to our selfish vices - is axiomatically very different from God's original antecedent will.
Therefore when anything happens - we are absolutely forbidden from the presumption that what God's
consequent will has permitted remotely conforms to that which His antecedent will desired.
Just because something happens - be it some remarkably fortuitous or ostensibly miraculous event or a revolution
Just because something happens - be it some remarkably fortuitous or ostensibly miraculous event or a revolution
or a restoration or discovery or victory over an evil aggressor in war, or alternatively the horror of war and famine
and personal tragedies or holocausts upon Jews, Chinese, Russians, the Unborn, our euthanised sick and unwanted,
or the ravages of Spanish flu or AIDS or ebola we cannot attribute to God's antecedent will. In fact, we are
absolutely prohibited from ever presuming it is part of God's antecedent will [eg Divine vindication/reward or
Divine retribution]. It is merely the case that what happens is what God permits. Nor can we surmise His will from
the ostensible benefits or the blatantly obvious ravages of what God permits. We are guaranteed that God's
resolution of it all is assuredly a greater Good.
Now comes the big crunch question: What in the name of all sanity has any of this to do with the impending
Now comes the big crunch question: What in the name of all sanity has any of this to do with the impending
Synod on Marriage and the Family? It's about the proposed reception of Holy Communion for civilly divorced
and remarried Catholics and active homosexuals, isn't it? That the ongoing mortal sin of adultery and fornication
should not be a barrier from being one in communion with one's neighbours? By appealing to mercy and tolerance
and the notion of integration and unity and even [ironically] appealing to the notion of solidarity that no-one is i
isolated or alienated
or ostracised? That we all be one?
What has any of this to do with God's sufficient grace or the Holy Spirit not treating us like puppets or God's
What has any of this to do with God's sufficient grace or the Holy Spirit not treating us like puppets or God's
antecedent and consequent will? Well the answer is quite simple: It has EVERYTHING to do with it! Primarily
you have to understand how the world has been contaminated in two ways over the past two centuries -
and how this ideological contamination has infected the mind-frame of those within the modern Church.
The first is easily recognised and understood contamination is Evolutionism. This is not meant in the limited
The first is easily recognised and understood contamination is Evolutionism. This is not meant in the limited
biological sense regarding certain developments within certain species, but universal development of everything -
absolute ever-fulfilling progressivism summed up by "things can only get better" or rather the promise that
"things only do get better" This is a serious error. For further reading look at the writings of Teilhard de Chardin,
Emile Mersch and Karl Rahner and a host of moderns to understand this notion of everything evolving to some i
neffable ethereal omega point where we all become so like God we collectively usurp His role in some Buddhist
nirvana of everything and nothing.
Secondly we have to get a bit philosophical - and although I'll skip the background of the whole metaphysical
Secondly we have to get a bit philosophical - and although I'll skip the background of the whole metaphysical
potency/act problem in presocratics through stoical pantheism and enlightenment naturalism and pantheism -
[which Aristotle and Aquinas perfectly refuted and dealt with], we end up with the nightmare philosophy of
Hegel which like a virus has infected every socio-cultural and political ideology of any wing and flavour -
be it nazism or Stalinism, capitalism or revolutionary Marxism, libertarianism or totalitarianism.
Now I suppose yet again you're asking - what has Hegel to do with the Synod? Please bear with me for a few
more minutes before I tell you. Hegel's philosophy is grounded in two main principles:
The Dialectic - This rests upon the premise that there is no actual truth or understanding of reality, that there
The Dialectic - This rests upon the premise that there is no actual truth or understanding of reality, that there
cannot be as there is division and dissension and alienation. Therefore all is merely a movement towards a more
truthful understanding through a position of compromise and unity between the extremes and tensions of all
aspects of reality. In this paradigm, one takes two seemingly opposing positions and seeks the underlying truth
within both to synthesise this thesis and antithesis into a higher thesis - which in turn is still imperfect and has
opposition through an antithesis and must again be synthesised into a higher thesis into infinity as the process
continues.
Now how can we be certain this process works and we won't be misguided or misdirected throughout this?
Ah, but that's impossible because there is a 'universal spirit' within reality that seeks this unfolding, flourishing,
unifying. coalescing synthesis of the dialectic. The principle at work here is that a spirit is leading ever onward and
upward in all spheres of reality towards a universal holism - this spirit is known as The Geist. The Geist ensures the
validity and integrity of the ideological system itself and its ultimate destiny in perfection. This, resting not on
objective truth but something very tenuous can easily morph into something similar to all our 'utopianisms' of
reichs, or a communist world-state, or universal randian liberty, or the integrationist wonderland of the
multiculturalist or the feminist or the eco-warrior? We are enslaved to the machinations and functions of the
Geist - we are part of a system which
is inseparable from this unstoppable force leading humanity towards its inevitable destiny.
Now are you beginning to see where I'm coming from? The development of Doctrine? It being the will of the
Now are you beginning to see where I'm coming from? The development of Doctrine? It being the will of the
Holy Spirit ? In this world view, we are mere pawns and puppets of this Divine Will - this movement of this
religious geist - the Holy Spirit - towards this evolving ever-re-flourishing progressive end.
In such a spiral, or vortex, we are to seek an end to division and synthesise into uniformity and unity via a
In such a spiral, or vortex, we are to seek an end to division and synthesise into uniformity and unity via a
compromise dialectic which will placate and satisfy - where tolerance and 'mercy and charity' dwell - via
acceptance of all and the elimination of alienation and ostracism. For we are all equal in the sight of God and
none are loved more or less - and equality indicates sameness and uniformity and homogeneity where
dissociating divisive factors like difference or independence or non-conformity are anathematised.
The Synod's proposed 'theology of mercy', the Kasperite position, is going to be grounded upon what I call
The Synod's proposed 'theology of mercy', the Kasperite position, is going to be grounded upon what I call
"three great heresies and a lie". The first two heresies are going to be promoted at every opportunity in order
to introduce a third with which the Church has been contaminated for centuries and which has manifested itself
in three forms of a heresy against God's sufficient grace {Neo-Pelagianism/Molinism- then Jansenism- then
Gradualism}. Rebel Bishops sought to impose at the Synod on the Family 35 years ago, but were halted in their
tracks by Pope St John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio.
The first heresy is quite obvious:
That everything that happens within the Church conforms to the antecedent will of God - that God wished this
The first heresy is quite obvious:
That everything that happens within the Church conforms to the antecedent will of God - that God wished this
for the Church from before creation - and that all movements of the Holy Spirit are manifestations of this Church
progression - forward ever forward - we cannot go back - all is development and what God planned.
Of course, we have absolutely no idea whether it does or not. By such time, we will have dispensed with the holy
Of course, we have absolutely no idea whether it does or not. By such time, we will have dispensed with the holy
doctrines and the integrity of the Church's discipline, which has been guided by the Holy Spirit. In truth, we are not
open to the innermost mysteries of the Divine plan - but it would be the gravest presumption to not believe that
the mass exodus out of the Church - that its secularisation and desacralisation - and its loss of the apologetic,
its cultural identity and the falling away of so many are not merely what God permits in His consequent will -
and were never part of His antecedent. But this naive ludicrous Hegelian optimism that it's all happened
because it's what God always wished is a heresy.
The second heresy is simple. It is the idea that we are but pawns and puppets of the Holy Spirit in our wills -
The second heresy is simple. It is the idea that we are but pawns and puppets of the Holy Spirit in our wills -
our Bishops and clerics and bodies of our reformist laity by their very existence and every thought, word and
deed is all subsumed into the system by which the Holy Spirit moves them all towards the desired end. Of course
this is a heresy - the Holy Spirit inspires our intellect - and we accept or reject and act accordingly - free will -
defy and choose to sin.
Thus these two heresies will be promoted at every opportunity to lay the groundwork for the third. This is the
Thus these two heresies will be promoted at every opportunity to lay the groundwork for the third. This is the
heresy that you can guarantee through the major soundbites and buzzwords from the lips of all those who seek
to change Catholic teaching via a perversion of its pastoral implementation by simply desiring it. This will be one of
Lebensraum:
The third heresy is quite confusing, which is probably why during the last Extraordinary Synod there was almost
"We must allow the Holy Spirit space to reform the Church"
The third heresy is quite confusing, which is probably why during the last Extraordinary Synod there was almost
universal ignorance of what the heresy entailed among Catholic journalists, commentators and media
representatives who all spoke at great length while claiming great understanding about it, but every last one of
them got it wrong.
In Familiaris Consortio Pope St John Paul II refers to the law of gradualism - an easily recognisable phenomenon -
In Familiaris Consortio Pope St John Paul II refers to the law of gradualism - an easily recognisable phenomenon -
our gradual progression through the consequences of our sin after our repentance and absolution we are still weak ,
weary and scarred and that it will take us a while to gradually heal.
BUT Pope St John Paul II rejects absolutely the heresy known as the Principle of Gradualism.
I could go into this heresy at great length and explain its intricacies and consequences and the way it destroys
BUT Pope St John Paul II rejects absolutely the heresy known as the Principle of Gradualism.
I could go into this heresy at great length and explain its intricacies and consequences and the way it destroys
the very fabric of the notion of grace and God's love for us and the integrity of the human person, but all you
really need to know about it is that quite simply it denies God's sufficient grace to immediately repent of all sin or
sinfulness - and the sufficient grace to not sin again.
In other words, using this 'principle' God does not provide sinners with the grace which will prevent them from
In other words, using this 'principle' God does not provide sinners with the grace which will prevent them from
being able to stop sinning or to not start sinning again. The underlying great lie in it all is 'God doesn't love us
enough to get us out of our mess" Therefore, in this heretical viewpoint, all sinners cannot be expected to stop
sinning immediately - they must be treated with compassion and understanding to be weaned off from their
sinfulness - go on a sin-controlled diet - enter into a sin-reduction spiritual fitness plan, like methadone as
replacement for heroin. It cannot be expected for severe or long-term sinners to immediately stop their sins -
it is simply 'not possible' for them.
In other words the underlying message of this heresy is that when it comes to repentance and turning away from
In other words the underlying message of this heresy is that when it comes to repentance and turning away from
sin - GOD COMMANDS THE IMPOSSIBLE. This is a diabolical lie. The lie is that God has not provided the sufficient
grace - therefore they cannot do it.
Now you see this is where the heresy comes undone and, incidentally, many Church fathers, St Augustine & the
Now you see this is where the heresy comes undone and, incidentally, many Church fathers, St Augustine & the
Council of Trent absolutely repudiate and refute Gradualism.
The heresy is not going to be very palatable to the collective faithful when it comes to the conclusion that God
The heresy is not going to be very palatable to the collective faithful when it comes to the conclusion that God
commands the impossible from sinners. This heresy has its ultimate conclusion that:
Hence the Gradualists - of which Kasper and his cronies are mere successors - have to now insert a lie into the
We sin and can't stop: and it's God's fault.
Hence the Gradualists - of which Kasper and his cronies are mere successors - have to now insert a lie into the
equation. It's irrational - yes it's mendacious - yes it is the actions of anti-intellectual scoundrels, but this is what
the Gradualists do if a heresy gives you the principle you want but not the conclusion you desire. You simply
change the conclusion.
In order to retain this "Principle of Gradualism" they have to twist the argument on its head. It is not that God
In order to retain this "Principle of Gradualism" they have to twist the argument on its head. It is not that God
commands the impossible. How could He? He's a merciful, tolerant, forgiving, ever-loving and always charitable
and inclusive God?
It's not God that's demanding the impossible from these poor sinners trapped in their sinful ways needing slow,
pastoral assistance and reassurance to slowly reduce their sinfulness. It's not God who is lacking in Love and Mercy.
It is the Church which is cruel and uncharitable and merciless and intolerant with its hyper-proscriptive
NO - IT'S THE CHURCH!
It is the Church which is cruel and uncharitable and merciless and intolerant with its hyper-proscriptive
alienating legalism and Donatism - its judgmentalism upon the sinner [actually it's judging the sin but they're
on a roll here]. It is the Church's heartless, calcified, rigorist legalism which is to blame and this is NOT WHAT
GOD WANTS!
We are therefore not walking in God's ways. We are not living according to His Gospel and the values of His
We are therefore not walking in God's ways. We are not living according to His Gospel and the values of His
kingdom. We are standing in the way of His message of welcoming love which calls all sinners to Himself.
Remember the ludicrous tag-line to the
film "Love Story"? "Love means never having to say you're sorry". Well gradualism considers God's love means
'we have nothing to ever say sorry about'
In other words when Our Lord said, "If you love Me you will keep My commands" He never really meant we had to
In other words when Our Lord said, "If you love Me you will keep My commands" He never really meant we had to
do it! That's Donatism - that's heartless legalism. Haven't both Donatism and legalism been recently condemned
by our Bishops Conference and Pope Francis?
Do you see what's at stake now? Have a little think about the ramifications of a single gradualist principle
being inserted in any moral adjudication on pastoral practice and praxis within Holy Mother Church - even
to something as seemingly remote as using it to justify the slow reception of people still in mortal sin to
reception of the sacraments. A single gradualist principle sets a moral precedent which may subsequently be
applied to any and every aspect of Catholic moral teaching and its pastoral applications.
In other words the entirety of moral and pastoral theology - contaminated with the lethal virus that sin is
In other words the entirety of moral and pastoral theology - contaminated with the lethal virus that sin is
something with which we have to deal with, to negotiate with, compromise with, excuse and slowly wean people
off from and lead people away from, becomes a hellish nightmare of counter-productive self-contradicting
heterodoxy, lie, fallacy and heresy-in-itself.
Catholic morality in one fell swoop would collapse and fall dead in the water - not merely ineffectual but directly
Catholic morality in one fell swoop would collapse and fall dead in the water - not merely ineffectual but directly
counterproductive - but lethally destructive and toxic! Now, if you wish any further clarifications or explanations
please ask in the combox - but I've already spent way too long writing and taken up far too much of your time.
Gradualism underfoot. For if the Gradualists were to succeed? The price would be too high for us all....
Gradualism underfoot. For if the Gradualists were to succeed? The price would be too high for us all....
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