DE PUBLICAE TUTELAE CIVITATIS VATICANAE EXPOSITIONE

Fr. Gero Weishaupt EF Mass at Saint Joseph Cathedral Groningen

Latin (audio and full text) Swiss Guard History on Vatican Radio/German Edition

Father Gero P. Weishaupt translator.

Below are the closing paragraphs: viz., the Swiss Guard vow of loyalty to the Petrine Office and the Swiss Guard prayer to Saint Michael Archangel for the reigning Pontiff.

Sacramenti verba

"Sacramento dico me munere Petrino fungenti eique iure succedenti fide et totis viribus serviturum. Praeterea promitto me praefectum ceterosque praepositos reveriturum eisque fidem servaturum, oboedientiam praestaturum omniaque, quae ordinis mei sint, observaturum."

Militum a publica tutela precatio

Deus immensae bonitatis, qui nobis amorem Tuum paternum Filium Tuum Unigentum et Spiritum Sanctum donando revelasti, nostram accipe precationem, quam ad Te dirigimus quamque Sancti Angeli maiestati Tuae divinae afferant. Da, ut Sanctus Michael, magnus caeli princeps, eiusque Angeli surgant, qui filios Tui populi defendant, ut instrumenta Tuae sint benedictionis pro Summo Pontifice …, pro pastoribus et christifidelibus Ecclesiae, pro militibus a publica securitate nostrisque familiis. Utinam in Sancti Petri successore et Sede Apostolica servandis et defendendis servientes cooperatores Tui Angeli digni et digni magis et efficaces et efficaces magis evadamus. Tuus Archangelus Michael, defensor amicorum Dei, nobis adsit, ut ab insidiis mali in operibus nostris cotidianis et in horis noctis prohibeamur. Maria, Regina Angelorum, pro nobis intercedat, quae in gloriam caeli assumpta tamquam signum clare fulgens collustret protegatque nostras vias. Pro his omnibus Te deprecamur in nomine et per amorem Christi, Domini nostri. Amen.

N.B. Vatican Radio Nuntii Latini

The Hands at Mass

"The Hands. While standing or kneeling, when the hands are unoccupied, they should be joined before the breast; that is, they are extended and joined palm to palm, the fingers pointing upward at an angle of forty-five degrees, the thumbs crossed right over left. When sitting the hands should be extended one on each knee..."

The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described by Adrian Fortescue, J.B. O'Connell, Alcuin Reid, p. 45.

That ancient liturgical norm is related to the ordination ritual and the priest's solemn promise of obedience when the bishop takes the priest's folded hands into his and asks: "N. Do you promise to me and my successors reverence and obedience?" "I do." "May God who has begun this good work in you bring it to perfection." "Amen."

The liturgically folded hands of the priest is at least, therefore, a sign of that solemn promise of reverence and obedience of the priest to his bishop and to the Church and to her doctrine, morality, books, and laws in his devotion to Jesus Christ Himself. A pledge of loyalty! A commitment against error and arbitrariness, even in the liturgy!

Arabic "Three Little Pigs" Seven Under One Roof

Can a Woman Be Spiritual Director of a Man

No.

The reason is very simple. Lust.

A typical male weakness is his inordinate sexual drive; he cannot hide it in spiritual direction, on the one hand; and it would be too great a scandal for the woman director to handle, on the other hand. He would be damned if he did and damned if he didn't reveal it. Perplexed!

A man, however, with proper caution (e.g. a confessional wall and screen always between them), can very effectively direct women in spiritual direction because the woman is more prone to sexual innocence than the man. His judgement of her will always be favorable and objective because she is normally remarkably much better than he in this area of greatest shame for him! He is able to help her in her specific weaknesses because he is all the more aware of his own faults.

Sin Separates

If you love someone do not sin with that person because sin severs the relationship.

That is why sexual sins never achieve their goal. They divide under the pretext of unity.

Contraception is the icon of that chasm. In contraceptive unions in a very special way the two never ultimately become one. Because sin separates.

God is love. Take love out of the context of God and you are left with raw and meaningless lust.

You are left alone, totally alone, by choice.

Feminine Grandeur

The last type of creature created by God was man, "very good": male and female; first the male. then the female.

Woman, joined to her husband, is the last in the hierarchical procession of divine creation. Royal processions are modeled upon that primordial procession. The most prominent are saved for last.

Furthermore the Lord says "the last shall be first," and "the greatest among you is the one who serves the rest."

According to the Gospels, Christ's first disciple is Mary, a follower of Christ right from the Annunciation Incarnation, a cooperator with God Himself in that act of Salvation. A mere housewife is the greatest human person. God had promised that greatness from the start when he said to the ancient serpent: "I will put enmity between  you and the woman."

Thank God for all holy women who, like the Most Blessed and ever Virgin Mary buck the devil in the name of Christ! Magnanimous servants of the Lord. "Ecce ancilla Domini."

What is more, the material from which the woman was formed is also superior to that of any other creature. She was created from the body of the human person (the man), whereas the man was created from mud. Hence the female primordial human life: the first woman being made out of a living person, henceforth all living persons are made in the woman, according to the plan of God. The Woman is the God-given human incubator: a living person. God willed that because of Eve every human person should henceforth come from within a living person: the Woman.

Cf. Alice von Hildebrand lecture, "The Christian Family and the Transmission of Life" : Saint Joseph Communication, Covina California.

Traditional Retreat for Priests, Male Religious and Seminarians

I have been looking for this sort of thing for some time now.
Hopefully more will be initiated throughout the world.
There should be at least one a year in every diocese.
Unapologetic tradition for priests!

Remembering A Christian America

An icon of moral restraint. Very Protestant.

The Catholic version would have longer dresses, all heads covered, no transformation into imaginary beasts, and, above all, the kiss would be gratis. There would also be a chaperon!

People Passing Communion Hosts Around at Manila Papal Mass

Here is just one more historical reason Communion should not be given in the hand. The norm of kneeling and on the tongue must be promoted and defended by the sacred ordained ministers. No one else should touch the sacred species except in a very rare, grave and necessary circumstance (e.g. danger of desecration).

This kind of sacrilege at large Papal Masses has been happening for decades, with somewhat more caution under Pope Emeritus Benedict. Communion should not be available for all at those enormous venues.

Consider also how many hosts must have been consecrated for a crowd of 5-6 million! How were they consecrated (e.g. how do you get them all onto a corporal for the consecration, or does each priest come to the event with his cache of consecrated hosts in tow for the long and laborious journey to the stadium, with no due proper reverence)? Then, how do the priests get from the one papal altar out to where the millions are? It is physically impossible! What is most grievous of all is what happens with all of the hundreds of thousands of left over hosts and particles and vessels to be purified and priests fingers to be purified, not to mention the fingers and hands of all the handling crowds. Over the past few decades of papal events I have experienced the organized sacrilege at such events!

For example, I have a letter of gratitude from the Vatican for my participation with a brother priest at the Jubilee 2000 Corpus Christi Mass at Saint John Lateran (the Pope's Cathedral) at which His Holiness Pope Saint John Paul II presided. After communion distribution, at that Mass for a modest crowd of probably less than ten thousand, none of the priests distributing communion knew what to do with the ceramic communion bowls and cellophane which covered them, hosts and host particles which were all over everything. So we took the initiative to establish some order in the careful collection at a side chapel altar of all the bowls, etc. as they were shuffling hurriedly in, and the nun sacristan in turn took stacks of them to large tables in the sacristy for the purification. We two lone visiting pilgrim priests stayed and spontaneously purified everything and thereby missed the renowned Papal Corpus Christi Procession from the Lateran to Saint Mary Major. When we came out of the Lateran Basilica we knelt down before the large movie screen in the portico to receive the benediction with the Most Blessed Sacrament which at that moment the Holy Father was imparting from the other Basilica at the procession's end.

A Toast

"I don't know half of you half as well as I would like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
(Bilbo Babbins on his eleventy-first birthday.
The Fellowship of the Ring, p. 38)

On Disbelief

Belief is difficult,
Disbelief is impossible.

                           --Hugo

A Lesson From the Dogs of Rome

Take a hint from the dogs.

Last year during my Roman sojourn it was striking how many people have dogs!

Gender is the first and overwhelming (and often dramatic) concern when two dogs approach each other. It makes all the difference. There are no homosexual dogs! Absolute, discriminatory and intolerant heterosexuality! It's normal. You couldn't change it even if you tried.

There are just certain things that are unchangeable, let us call it, "the birds and the bees!" Gender is specific, always, male and female he made them, nothing in between.

Towards Magnanimity

Three Virtues Correcting Pusillanimity


Purity: against impure concupiscence,
      penitential relying upon Jesus' mercy.

Humility: against despair before great feats,
      expectant in hope for God's grace.

Devotion: against despair before God's justice,
      confident in the glory to be revealed.

On Proper Pursuits

He who seeks what he should not
Finds what he would not.

El que busca lo que no debe
Encuentra lo que no quiere.

Il Pentamerone I, p. 3 (an Italian edition)

Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation

Father Stephen Otto Horn, the Vatican Foundation's head on the thought and works of Pope Emeritus Benedict as elaborated by the various Institutes in the world dedicated to Ratzinger's thought, in an 20th December 2014 interview, made the following points regarding the thought and work of the Emeritus Pope Professor.

The first point is that the theologian is first of all a believer within the Church.

The second point is that God's revelation is God Himself, He reveals Himself personally (i.e. to the human subject); and that Subject to which He reveals Himself is the Church.

Quali sono i capisaldi della teologia di Ratzinger?

Noi abbiamo sempre avuto l’impressione che Ratzinger fosse un teologo dogmatico e un professore di Teologia fondamentale, ma allo stesso tempo un esegeta, che ha studiato e meditato molto la Parola di Dio, l’Antico e il Nuovo Testamento. Per noi è stato l’esempio di un teologo nella linea del Concilio Vaticano II, secondo cui la Sacra Scrittura è il fondamento e l’anima di tutta la teologia, anche alla luce dei primi Padri della Chiesa: il Verbo di Dio e la Chiesa si sono intrecciati nel suo pensiero. La teologia è fondata sulla Sacra Scrittura, ma anche la Sacra Scrittura è interpretata dal centro della fede della Chiesa. Non è una esegesi isolata dalla Chiesa, ma vive nella Chiesa e in essa è interpretata. Inoltre, secondo Ratzinger, i primi teologi sono i santi, che non studiano la parola di Dio, ma la assumono con tutto il loro cuore e la loro vita. Sono loro i primi esegeti e i teologi devono pertanto essere fondati sulla scienza dei santi. È una sua ferma convinzione. La teologia, dunque, dev’essere sempre in relazione con una vera spiritualità.

Ci sono dei pensatori che hanno influito nello sviluppo della teologia ratzingeriana?

Un altro grande pensiero (dopo Agostino) deriva da Bonaventura: la rivelazione non è solamente una somma di verità che sono tramandate nel tempo, ma è l’autorivelazione di Dio a noi, dunque una storia tra Dio e l’uomo. Dio parla con noi e noi riceviamo la rivelazione e questa finisce solamente nella fede: la rivelazione è nel cuore che si apre a Dio che si rivela all’uomo. Dunque è un dialogo, si può dire. Schmaus pensava che questo fosse soggettivismo: quando Dio si rivela all’uomo, ognuno lo recepisce nella sua maniera e ciò costituisce una grande difficoltà. Secondo Ratzinger, però, questa rivelazione non è rivolta solamente a una persona, ma al popolo di Dio, alla Chiesa, che è soggetto della rivelazione e quindi è escluso il soggettivismo.

Good Riddance to One of the Church's Chief In-House Heretics

The self-hating Catholic, theologian Richard McBrien, died today; and the Church on earth is thus relieved of one of Her most shameful prominent intellectual figures of the Bernadine, now mostly bygone, era. Thanks be to God.

It appears he died as he lived: unrepentant and obstinate in his heresy.

Shall we dare hope for the mercy of the Lord upon him? Not sure. I prefer to use in reference to him the words our Blessed Lord coined as the epitaph for Judas, Father McBrien's predecessor-betrayer of the one true Faith: "It were better for that man if he had not been born."(Matt. 26:24) Certainly the Church and the world would have been spared much anguish, confusion, immorality and perversion promoted by the erudite distortion of truth so long tenured by Notre Dame in this very ignoble longtime member of that school's faculty.

Why am I not surprised that Father McBrien is a native of New England, home to such a large proportion of America's elite self-hating Catholics!

Surely he will have a glorious Catholic funeral similar to that of the late notorious self-hating Catholic Ted Kennedy. Will Cardinal O'Malley preside at this scandal too!

In his absence from the earth, the Church will surely, much better, rest in peace!

Hopeful attitudes at Notre Dame.

On Porn

Somebody’s Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from Pornography

"You have heard that it was said to the ancients,

'Thou shalt not commit adultery.'

But I say to you that

anyone who so much as looks with lust at a woman

has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Matthew 5:28

On Orientation

The truth is that the imbalances under which the modern world labors are linked with that more basic imbalance which is rooted in the heart of man. For in man himself many elements wrestle with one another. Thus, on the one hand, as a creature he experiences his limitations in a multitude of ways; on the other he feels himself to be boundless in his desires and summoned to a higher life. Pulled by manifold attractions he is constantly forced to choose among them and renounce some. Indeed, as a weak and sinful being, he often does what he would not, and fails to do what he would.(Cf. Rom. 7:14 ff.) Hence he suffers from internal divisions, and from these flow so many and such great discords in society. No doubt many whose lives are infected with a practical materialism are blinded against any sharp insight into this kind of dramatic situation; or else, weighed down by unhappiness they are prevented from giving the matter any thought. Thinking they have found serenity in an interpretation of reality everywhere proposed these days, many look forward to a genuine and total emancipation of humanity wrought solely by human effort; they are convinced that the future rule of man over the earth will satisfy every desire of his heart. Nor are there lacking men who despair of any meaning to life and praise the boldness of those who think that human existence is devoid of any inherent significance and strive to confer a total meaning on it by their own ingenuity alone.
Nevertheless, in the face of the modern development of the world, the number constantly swells of the people who raise the most basic questions or recognize them with a new sharpness:

What is man?

What is this sense of sorrow, of evil, of death, which continues to exist despite so much progress?

What purpose have these victories purchased at so high a cost?

What can man offer to society, what can he expect from it?

What follows this earthly life?

The Church firmly believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for all,(Cf, 2 Cor. 5:15) can through His Spirit offer man the light and the strength to measure up to his supreme destiny. Nor has any other name under the heaven been given to man by which it is fitting for him to be saved.(Cf. Acts 4:12) She likewise holds that in her most benign Lord and Master can be found the key, the focal point and the goal of man, as well as of all human history. The Church also maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, Who is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.(Cf. Heb. 13:8) Hence under the light of Christ, the image of the unseen God, the firstborn of every creature,(Cf. Col. 1:15) the council wishes to speak to all men in order to shed light on the mystery of man and to cooperate in finding the solution to the outstanding problems of our time.

Gaudium et Spes, 10

"New Rome's" Newest Museum

With the translation of the seat of the Roman Empire to Charlemagne, Aachen became the New Rome with it's Cathedral seat of the Holy Roman Empire together with that of Rome, for over seven hundred years, the most glorious years in the history of humanity, the years of Christian Europe as the invasions of Islam was overthrowing Byzantium!

There is a new Charlemagne Museum right beside the square of the Imperial Cathedral and Palace of Aachen, inaugurated last year, the 1200th anniversary of the 814 death of that great Christian King.

This Sunday's Gospel: The Apostolic Election

Mark 1:14-20 (the same Gospel of two Mondays ago) is a record of the beginning of the Lord's choice of the twelve Apostles whom he ordains to be "fishers of men," a title and dignity he gives only to his Apostles. That title is significant regarding the essential difference between clergy and laity.

Only certain men are ordained by Christ as "fishers of men!" 

N.B. Anti-Clericalism.

Communism's Inevitable Religious Defeat Prophesied by Jesuit in 1971!

"...[C]ommunist humanism, will never be the wave of future history. It has already been characterized as 'a spent wave of the past.' History will record its death and burial. And the Catholic Church will pray over its corpse. Death is its only future. At its fiftieth anniversary, it was hated by its own people and distrusted by the entire world...

"With its ideology a catastrophic failure, its leadership mediocre, its superstructure rotting and its masses defiant, how long can its naked military might hold this massive concentration camp together? For no man of civilized sensibilities would seriously consider communism's national and international states genuine societies. These 'termite colonies' are even now sick unto death; their disease is terminal. It may take a long or short time, but the death of communism is inevitable. A day will come when the forces of decay and revolt within will coincide with the forces of assault and freedom from without; then communism will crumble, be wiped from reality, to be remembered only, like Nazism, Fascism and Japanese militarism, as a horrible nightmare that plagued the human race for over half a century. At present communism's death warrant is written in the soul of every man who loves God, his fellow man, freedom and his Church. The execution of communism will take place when God in his inscrutable wisdom reveals the proper time and brings together the proper forces. Moreover, because communism is so essentially and intensely anti-Christ, anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-religious, the weapon that will be most efficacious in its execution is the fiery sword of Christ's truth and love as incarnated in His Church."

Vincent P. Miceli, SJ, The Gods of Atheism. Roman Catholic Books: New Rochelle, NY, 1971. pp. 134-135.

This prophesy was fulfilled twenty five years ago by means of Pope Saint John Paul II, the Polish Pope who gave hope to his people in the then Soviet Union: the Vicar of Christ who ushered in the third Christian Millennium for the re-founding of a civilization of love in Christ.

Since the Cuban chapter of the demise of communism is not yet closed, please notice the Image of the Immaculate Conception reigning over the Capital of New Spain in the original coat of arms of Cuba.

In 1516, one year after the foundation of Havana in 1515, a coat of arms was granted to the Island as a result of a request of Don Pánfilo de Narváez to the Royal Council of Castilla. [1] It is as follows:

Arms: Per fess: 1. The Virgin Mary standing on a globe and surrounded by clouds and four seraphim in orle in chief; 2. A rider swinging a spear before a wooded mountain at the sinister, in chief the letters I, F and C.

Crown: A mural crown with five battlements

Order:  The emblem of the Order of the Fleece pending from a ribbon.

Supporters: The yoke and the bundle of arrows of the Most Catholic Kings.

Compartment: Two alligators.

Hobbit 3: The Battle of the Five Armies

War.

Avarice.

Loyalty prevails!

I did not like it for the same reason that I did not like the first hobbit: war, war, war. It's just one big war. Please! Life is bigger than that, and so is the book: much bigger!

Where is all the poetic verse and the songs?

The Problem: "You Live Just for Yourself"

You don't care about people Hud. You don't give a damn about 'em. Oh, you got all that charm goin' for ya. And it makes the youngsters want to be like ya. That's the shame of it because you don't value anything. You don't respect nothing. You keep no check on your appetites at all. You live just for yourself. And that makes you not fit to live with. --Melvyn Douglas

"...That we might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as the first fruits for those who believe, so that, bringing to perfection his work in the world, he might sanctify creation to the full." Eucharistic Prayer IV

"Colonizations of the Family"

Go to 1:18 min.

At Friday's Meeting with Families in the Mall of Asia Arena, Manila Philippines, the Holy Father condemned and warned against the foreign powers that attack the Filipino culture and family with outside ideologies which do not come from the prayer of the Filipinos nor from their dreams.

"Just as the gift of the Holy Family was entrusted to Saint Joseph, so the gift of the family and its place in God’s plan is entrusted to us. The angel of the Lord revealed to Joseph the dangers which threatened Jesus and Mary, forcing them to flee to Egypt and then to settle in Nazareth. So too, in our time, God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm.

"God calls upon us to recognize the dangers threatening our own families and to protect them from harm. And be attentive. Be attentive with the new ideological colonization.

Spanish (ad lib.)
"There are ideological colonizations, which are trying to destroy the family. They are not born from the dream of prayer, of the encounter with God, of the mission which God gives us. They come from outside. That is why I say they are colonizations. Let us not lose the freedom of the mission which God gives us, the family mission. And just as our peoples, at fixed moments in their history, arrived at the maturity to say no to any political colonization. As family we must be very clever, very agile, very strong to say no to any attempt at ideological colonization over the family. And to ask Saint Joseph, who is the friend of the Angel, to send us the inspiration to know when to say "yes" and when to say "no".

"...While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality. Those are the ideological colonizations. The family is also threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.

Spanish (ad lib.)
'I think of Blessed Paul VI, in a moment when the question of population growth was presented to him. He had the valor to defend the openness to life of the family. He knew the difficulties of each family, thus in his encyclical letter [Humanae Vitae] he was so merciful regarding the particular cases. And he asked confessors to be very merciful and understanding with the particular cases. But he looked beyond. He looked to the peoples of the earth; and he say this threat of the destruction of the family by the denial of children. Paul VI was valiant, he was a good shepherd. And he alerted his sheep of the wolves that were to come. May he bless us from heaven this evening.

"Our world needs good and strong families to overcome these threats! The Philippines needs holy and loving families to protect the beauty and truth of the family in God’s plan and to be a support and example for other families. Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. The future of humanity, as Saint John Paul II often said, passes through the family (cf. Familiaris Consortio, 85). So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments. Families will always have their trials, but may you never add to them! Instead, be living examples of love, forgiveness and care. Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death. What a gift this would be to society, if every Christian family lived fully its noble vocation! So rise with Jesus and Mary, and set out on the path the Lord traces for each of you."

Full Prepared Text (without ad lib.) and video of the talk.

Shall we call it "condom colonization," "contraception colonization," "abortion colonization," "homosexual colonization?"

Abortion Case Winner Lied About Rape, Never Had the Abortion, Becomes Pro-Life Catholic

Key Abortion Plaintiff Now Denies She Was Raped

By KENNETH B. NOBLE, Special to the New York Times

Published: September 9, 1987

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8— The woman whose challenge to a state law virtually prohibiting abortion led to the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision now says she lied when she declared upon bringing suit that it was rape that had caused her pregnancy.

The assertion of rape was not a factor in the Supreme Court's ruling, which established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, a decision that has stirred emotional debate ever since it was handed down 14 years ago.

The disclosure by Norma McCorvey, the ''Jane Roe'' in Roe v. Wade, came in an interview with the syndicated newspaper columnist Carl T. Rowan. The interview, conducted in June in Dallas, Ms. McCorvey's hometown, is part of a television documentary that will be broadcast Sunday by station WUSA here, which issued a transcript today.

Ms. McCorvey told Mr. Rowan that she had fabricated her account of being raped by three men and a woman in 1969 because she had hoped to circumvent a 100-year-old Texas law that banned abortions except when the woman's life was in danger. 'What I Thought Was Love'

Ms. McCorvey said that she had actually become pregnant ''through what I thought was love'' and that she decided to challenge the state law when her doctor told her that she could not legally have an abortion in Texas. In 1970, her lawyers filed a Federal suit against Henry Wade, the Dallas County District Attorney. The suit, protecting her anonymity by identifying her as ''Jane Roe,'' was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court, which, in legalizing abortion on Jan. 22, 1973, cited the 14th Amendment's privacy protections.

The transcript of the interview does not make clear why Ms. McCorvey thought that an account of rape would necessarily help win exemption from, or overturn, a law that allowed abortion only to protect a woman's life. Ms. McCorvey, now a 39-year-old apartment house manager in Dallas, has an unlisted telephone number there and could not be reached for comment tonight.

However, Mr. Rowan, reached at his Washington home, said, ''She told me that she thought she would win so much public support by claiming that she was gang raped that she might get an exception from the Texas law.''

Mr. Rowan said that when he approached Ms. McCorvey about the possibility of interviewing her, he had no notion that she would make so startling a disclosure. ''I frankly was flabbergasted,'' he said.

As for why Ms. McCorvey would make the disclosure now, after 17 years, Mr. Rowan said she had told a producer for the program that she had been swayed by Mr. Rowan's gentle and concerned manner. #21 at the Time Ms. McCorvey was 21 years old when she became pregnant. At the time, she was working as a waitress and, she told Mr. Rowan, was too poor to travel to California, the closest state where abortion was legal, or to afford local illegal abortionists.

''I was very depressed,'' she said. ''How dare them tell me that I couldn't abort a baby that I did not want!''

Unable to have an abortion in Texas or travel to another state, she said, she grew ''bitter, very bitter,'' and in her anger fabricated the rape story.

Meanwhile, with the legal challenge pending, Ms. McCorvey brought the baby to term and put it up for adoption. According to news reports, she never again saw the baby. Lawyer's Response

According to a news release issued by WUSA about the interview, Sarah Weddington, one of the two lawyers who took the case to the Supreme Court, said she had never ''touched the issue of rape and only emphasized the question of whether the Constitution gives to the state or leaves to a woman the questions of what she can or must do with her body.''

Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, said in an interview today that Ms. McCorvey's disclosure ''should not cloud the discussion about the right of a woman to terminate her pregnancy.''

''If she lied, you have to remember that abortions were illegal,'' Ms. Michelman said, ''and that women were looked down upon if they were pregnant outside of marriage. It was her life circumstances that created the conditions that mitigated against her being straightforward about the fact that she was pregnant and wanted to terminate that pregnancy.''

After the celebrated Supreme Court decision, Ms. McCorvey at first lived in relative obscurity in Dallas, fearing that she would become a target of anti-abortion activists.

In recent years, however, she has become active in abortion rights and feminist groups. Last month, for example, she appeared at a rally, sponsored by the National Organization for Women, denouncing President Reagan's Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork.

Plinthos: This last claim by the Times is surprising given the further developments in McCorvey's journey; viz. she became Catholic the following year, totally rejecting abortion and the culture of sensuality and death upon which it is based and actively campaigning against it ever since, promoting the civilization of love!

Fr. Frank Pavone Confirms former "Jane Roe" of Roe vs. Wade

Priests for Life Newsletter Nov-Dec 1998 Vol. 8

Monday, August 17, 1998 was another day of victory for the pro-life movement as Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" plaintiff of the Roe vs. Wade decision, made her profession of faith in the Catholic Church and received her Confirmation from Fr. Frank Pavone and her First Holy Communion from Fr. Ed Robinson, OP, in Dallas, Texas.

In a post-Communion reflection, Fr. Frank told Norma that because, as Vatican II states, the Lord by His Incarnation united, in some fashion, every human being to Himself, this includes every pre-born baby. "In giving you His Body, therefore, he has given back to you all the babies who were aborted because of what you did," he said to Norma in a moment filled with emotion. "He has restored to you all the children over whom you have wept. He has reconciled them to you, and given you peace."

Fr. Pavone confirms Norma McCorvey

In her press release about becoming a Catholic, Norma called Fr. Pavone "the catalyst to bring me into the Catholic Church." Norma has her own website at http://www.roenomore.org/

That website appears to have been sold and I cannot find any further website for Ms. McCorvey.

Fear of God Divides Humanity

Cf. Proverbs 9:10

There are two types of men.

Those who fear losing God,

And those who fear finding Him!

-Pascal

The Search for Truth and the Crisis of Reason (español)

Búsqueda de la Verdad y Crisis de la Razón

Pbro. Pablo Domínguez Prieto

R.I.P.

The Most Demonic Form of Atheism is That Within the Church

"[The West is mostly silently complicit in the face of the Communist massacre of millions in the Soviet Union and]...the most satanic project of the fifty years of the Revolution is its program to extinguish Christian hope or the hope of any transcendent life hereafter in the hearts of all men. This is an especially demonic program because hope in an after-life is all that is left to men, already condemned to death as all are, a hope that alone can sustain and inspire men to make something worthwhile of the present life...

"Attaining the same end as the Communist project to extinguish Christian hope...[there is a] new crime aris[ing] from the fact that the project to destroy hope is now undertaken and carried through not by professional atheists but by men who, through special training, positions and duties, are supposed to be dedicated Christian leaders. Priests and bishops, whose vocation it is to sustain and foster faith and hope in themselves and among the faithful, have become the advocates for the prostitution of religion to the purposes of atheism. When ordained ministers and consecrated bishops tell the faithful that 'God is dead,' when these teachers of the Gospel declare their inability to accept any longer the Virgin Birth, the Divinity of Christ, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Real Presence, the immortality of the soul, hell, heaven, sin, grace, redemption, when, under the guise of re-interpreting Holy Scripture, these teachers repudiate Christianity, then has the spirit of the Anti-Christ become incarnate in men and the most demonic form of atheism is attacking the Mystical Body of Christ. For then a most grotesque drama is being enacted before the eyes of horrified Christendom in that its anointed ones have become atheists and, still vested as angels of light, they 'disown the Lord' in His own house, cause truth to be maligned, introduce destructive sects into the Church, exploit the faithful with specious arguments and lead many to follow their ungodly ways."

On the 1967 fiftieth anniversary of the Communist Revolution in Russia in The God's of Atheism, Vincent P. Miceli, SJ, 1971, pp. 7-8.

That was the setting for the moral depravity of a corrupt age in the Church, which, thanks to the lifelong work of Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI much of this has been corrected and faith in the true faith has been largely regained and is being boldly proclaimed at every level of the Church.

Warning: profanity, but an eloquent indictment of high level corruption in America!

On Sexual Difference

"A mother knows who's the father of her child.

"The man must believe it!

"Which is greater: faith or reason?

"From this point of view you understand the beauty and the greatness of faith...

"From one point of view, the rational point of view, the woman knows and the man believes. From a human point of view it's more beautiful to believe than to know. Because it's an act of trust. Every time you say 'This is my son', you know what you're saying? 'I trust my wife'."  

--Alice von Hildebrand Lecture: "Chesterton and Feminism."

Every time a child says "This is my dad", he says the same thing. He makes an act of faith in human goodness and in feminine chastity and honesty, and specifically in the moral integrity of his own mother. "This is my dad because I trust my mother!"

Robin Williams' Ignominious End

To remember the late Mr. Williams is a scandal.

Suicide! (Murder of self!)

A murderer is no hero; and it is a confused and confusing culture (a culture of death) which idolizes murderers (e.g. suicides, abortionists, euthanizers) and completely ignores the gravity of their crime. It's akin to whitewashing child molestation or incest. Just as Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson (child molesters) cannot be anyone's heroes, so Robin Williams cannot. He died a murderer!

A life which ends in a deliberate self-inflicted violent death is cold blooded murder and should be treated and condemned as such. He hung himself! How horrible! Anyone that really loves him must condemn that action! How can you approve the total self-destruction of someone you love!

God will judge the soul. We must condemn the act, because it is an act condemned by God: thou shalt not kill! May the Lord have mercy on his soul and forgive his sins.

Suicide is murder and murder is always wrong! Thou shalt not kill. That should be said at any remembrance of Robin Williams whose disgraceful death taints his whole life. He is just one more in a very long list of victims offered to the Moloch of modernity.

Having said that, most people do acknowledge that it is a tragic end and wish they could have done something to stop it. But the great error they make is to canonize the murderer without a fair trial. I don't condemn him to Hell. I roundly condemn the act itself, which is gravely sinful (and thus so regretful). The question of whether he did so deliberately is a further question. And, morally, the deliberate actions that led to that end are essential (e.g. drugs taken, lifestyle, etc.). Every man will respond to God for his actions, good or evil.

I am no fan of Howard Stern, but even he recognizes that this death should have not happened and wishes he could have done something to prevent it.

Well, one thing Mr. Stern and all of us can do to prevent suicide is to roundly condemn it and stop whitewashing it and making the suicides (viz. murderers) out to be saints, presuming all of them to be innocent of any guilt in that heinous crime against oneself and against all of humanity and against God!

Or, rather, we should say, it's against oneself and against all of humanity because it is against God! And it's not bad just because God says so. That would be putting things backwards. God says its bad because it is bad.

Not that evil precedes God. God made all things and he made them all good. Evil came to the world by the sin of man; and, from sin, death entered the world. God's commandments to men are simply the magna carta indicating to us what to avoid and what to do in order to avoid the evil and the self-destruction that constantly threaten us, and how to attain fulfillment and perfect peace in His service.

Film Choice/Decency Progress

Ever seeking to improve the film watching experience and to be selective about the images I watch just realized that watching films on the internet is a great advance given the black-out screen function (Fn F6) on the keyboard!

For too long I have wished that television controls had such a standard function (sort of like a visual mute: a black-out button! [sometimes more essential than the mute, to close the visual]).

And with the YouTube movie you don't have to be caught off guard by any gratuitous sex scene or nudity because by moving the mouse along the elapsing time line at the bottom of the screen you can see all the upcoming frames and know when the bed scenes come before they happen! Finally consumer choice!

For foreign films in any language just put the name of the language (preferably in that language) in the search box: e.g. francais film. Then you go to the filters and click movie, > 20 min. As I am writing this the French film I'm watching is starting a several minute bed scene (the only one of the movie) which is getting pretty steamy; so I also mute the sound! No problem! Now, un-mute and the heat is over! Everybody's dressed. Can go back to the screen enjoyment.

And it's all free! That's real freedom at last, and truly cosmopolitan. The world's the limit!

Who needs television! Who needs theater!

Vive la liberte! Vive l'ordinateur!

The Apostolic Election

I have to say that the Gospel of today's Mass (Mark 1:14-20) is very striking regarding the grandeur and authority of the Apostolic College of which this text recounts the inception.

Our Lord said "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" to his select apostles who would be his chief ministers throughout his public ministry and to which he would entrust the selection of others to continue their line and to rule the Church upon His departure from this world and Whom He would especially guide and accompany upon His resurrection return and on Pentecost and beyond with the Paraclete Whom He would send.

Our Blessed Lord chose just a few men and only to them said "I will make you fishers of men."

N. B. The ubiquitous "Pescador" song which assumes that all of us are equally called by Christ to be fishers of men is, therefore, heretical. All Christians are called to evangelize, but Christ, throughout the Gospels deliberately associates Himself exclusively with twelve men who would be His special disciples essentially different from everyone else. He told only them that they would be catching men. Because, essentially, it is the sacramental ministry that catches men for God (i.e. it's God who catches them!): it's the work of God through the sacraments that claims men for God: baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, extreme unction, holy orders and holy matrimony, all of which properly come through the hands of the priest.

The fishers of men by divine commission were the twelve, which is very clear throughout the Gospels, and indeed the entire New Testament: they were to be and to ordain the episcopoi, presbyteroi and diaconoi: bishops, priests and deacons, as there continue to be in our own day to the glory and exaltation of Holy Mother Church: the Catholic Church, even unto the end of time!

And, please notice, in all four Gospels, Simon (Peter) is always the first to be called by Christ (and in the last Gospel (John 1:42) Christ changes Simon's name to Rock right then and there: you are Cephas [Petrus])! Saint Peter is always first because there is a Pope, a head, in that body of leaders, as ordained by Christ!

Christ spent his three years of public ministry, preaching and teaching and sanctifying, confirming his teaching with miracles, and, don't forget it, forming the body of men who would lead the Church in His stead until the end of time: the apostolic college (the college of Catholic bishops).

Thanks be to God!

Understanding Atheism

The Mystery Atheism => Self Rejection

"What the atheist does not see is that in rejecting God he rejects himself... Vincent P. Miceli, S.J., The Gods of Atheism (Harrison New York: Roman Catholic Books, 1971). p. 11

"If we look at man as he really is known in our concrete experience, we see that his reality is built on the metaphysical fact that his being has its origin in participation in being. His nature craves further participation in being and all his activities are a driving toward a goal which consists in perfect participation in being, in communion with his fellowmen and with the Transcendent. We see that each person's dynamic, physical and metaphysical nature, from its very conception, grows up automatically, spontaneously reaching out for more being, for the plenitude of being. At the moment when the person dramatically breaks the barrier of the womb and appears on the stage of world history, he is caught in the acts of crying, clutching, straining to grasp, to be with other persons and things, to attain greater degrees of being. This spontaneous language of cries and gestures revealing the hunger for greater being testifies to man's innate drive to transcend himself, not merely horizontally to men and things but also vertically to God. Thus, 'to be' means 'to be with'; for man especially, esse est co-esse. Human existence, if it is to be authentically human, must be existence in communion. Isolation and alienation are the death of human persons. Ia a metaphysical depth far below the sociological surface, "No man is an island..." pp. 10-11

"...In refusing to give himself in spirit to God, he refuses to transcend himself in the experience of a felt and lived communion with God. In effect he banishes God from his own horizon and exiles himself from the infinite visibility of God. He determines to contract his vision within the blinders of time. God no longer influences his life or his world because God, by man's decree, no longer lives or indeed exists anywhere. p. 11

"What the believer must somehow demonstrate to the atheist is that when man chooses God he simultaneously chooses the spiritual plenitude of his own person; he decides to achieve full subjecthood, to reject retiring into the shell of objecthood. p.12

"...[W]hen a man is dealing with realities which cannot be objectified, he cannot use effectively the problematic approach to these realities if he would grow in a valid understanding of them. Why? Because such realities do not exist solely outside the knower; such realities necessarily include and involve the knower as a subject. For example, I cannot regard freedom as outside myself, nor myself as outside freedom. Freedom, as such, is not an object for it includes me and it includes me as a subject who is quite concerned about my freedom and the freedom of my fellow man. Here we have a vision of the greater, the infinite range of the mystery of being. Every question bearing on a mystery recoils upon the questioning subject who will never be able to give a perfect answer or produce a perfect solution to the question. The reason is that the area of the mystery being investigated is ontologically infinite, too profoundly fruitful to be fully comprehended by the limited mind of man. Love, participation in being, hope, freedom and their contraries hate, alienation, despair, serfdom are not merely problems; they are inexhaustible mysteries in this non-theological sense of the word. For these realities involve each human subject in his ontological, intellectual, psychological and historical development. p. 10

"[T]he possibility of choosing atheism is simultaneously the opportunity of choosing God. Atheism is possible in order that man may accept the challenge to choose God and make that choice of God with the same qualitative love of preference with which God chose to love, create and dwell with man. In other words, atheism is possible in order that the whole man, knowing and loving, may attain the moral heights of being with God through his free cooperation. If God could be accepted with the same ease as we accept the law of gravity, faith and love of preference as priceless moral values would no longer be existent. And man could no longer follow his noblest vocation--his struggle to participate in God's moral goodness. God has to be won, to be achieved as the result of a long struggle that overcomes many difficulties. Only the violent bear Him away or, to be more correct, are borne away by Him. There is no easy way to God. The person who sulks in atheism because he has no sensible evidence, no solid physical facts for God's existence opens himself to the critique of being petulantly unreasonable in demanding what is impossible... p. 14

"...[T]he modern atheist is not an atheist because he is incapable of finding and using the means to encounter God. Indeed, his denial of God is his choice of a crusade against God... p. 17

"...What contemporary adventurers in atheism have failed to see, as de Lubac so soberly observes, is that "man cannot organize the world for himself without God; without God he can only organize the world against man. Exclusive humanism is inhuman humanism." (Henri de Lubac, S.J. The Drama of Atheist Humanism [New York and Cleveland: Meridan Books, World Publishing Company, 1965, p. ix.) p. 17

"'Gay' Marriage": A Symptom of The Will to Power (Reality as man-made)

Giambattista Vico

"...[T]he sexual revolution is, at bottom, the technological revolution and its perpetual war against natural limits applied externally to the body and internally to our self-understanding. Just as feminism has as its practical outworking, if not its theoretical core, the technological conquest of the female body—”biology is not destiny,” so the saying goes—so too same-sex marriage has as its condition of possibility the technological mastery of procreation, without which it would have remained permanently unimaginable...

"...[T]he state’s presumption to define the family signals its triumph over the family as a natural institution that precedes and transcends it, and so as a consequence we can expect the state to intervene ever more deeply into the family’s life—in education, for instance. But it also makes the state an active agent in bringing the newly designed family about on equal terms with the natural family. This leads inexorably to the state’s promotion of a more extensive regime of ARTs (Assisted Reproductive Technologies) on the one hand, as in the California law requiring insurance companies to pay for IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization) treatments for same-sex couples or in the so-called Family Law recently defeated after massive protest in France, and it implies, on the other hand, that pregnancy is merely an ‘elective procedure’ potentially subject to ‘rationing’ simply through bureaucratic adjustments to the schedule of health benefits. Why, after all, should a heterosexual woman be entitled to unlimited prenatal and neonatal benefits—when pregnancy is essentially a choice—while same-sex couples are denied access to the technology necessary to conceive children of their own?...

"...Underlying the technological conquest of human biology, whether in its gay or feminist form, is a dualism which bi-furcates the person into a meaningless mechanical body made of malleable ‘stuff’ and the affective or technological will that presides over it. The person as an integrated whole falls through the chasm. This is the foundation of the now orthodox distinction between ‘sex’ which is ‘merely biological’ and ‘gender’ which is socially constructed, as well as the increasingly pervasive (and relentlessly promoted) idea that freedom means our self-creation of both. Technological dominance over procreation imposes this bi-furcated anthropology upon parents and children alike, and codifying it implicitly makes this anthropology the law of the land...

"...To declare same-sex unions marriage and their technological ‘reproduction’ normative is essentially to re-conceive the child not as a person but as an artifact. It is to deny that he is essentially the natural fruit of a love inscribed into his parents’ flesh; since love is now a mere emotion with no bearing on the meaning of the body, which has been relegated to the sub-personal realm of ‘mere biology.’ It is to deny that his being from his parents and having a lineage is deeply constitutive of his humanity or his personal identity; since the very notion of ‘lineage’ is confused by these new artificial combinations and since ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are merely names affixed to a social function which can be performed in creative new ways. And it is to deny that he is his own being with inviolable dignity who cannot be manipulated or controlled; since it was a process of manipulation and control that brought him into being in the first place. The technological dominance of procreation asserts, contrary to the child’s true nature and to his parents’ unquestionable love for him, that a child is essentially a product of human making, an assemblage of parts outside of parts that are the parts of no real whole, whose meaning and purpose, as with all artifacts, reside not in itself but in the designs of its maker...

Excerpts from Michael Hanby article: "The Brave New World of Same-Sex Marriage: A decisive moment in the triumph of technology over humanity."

The modern philosophical source for this idea is Giambattista Vico's verum factum principle: the truth itself is made (viz. artificial).

The verum factum principle
Vico is best known for his verum factum principle, first formulated in 1710 as part of his De antiquissima Italorum sapientia, ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda (1710) ("On the most ancient wisdom of the Italians, unearthed from the origins of the Latin language").[8] The principle states that truth is verified through creation or invention and not, as per Descartes, through observation: “The criterion and rule of the true is to have made it. Accordingly, our clear and distinct idea of the mind cannot be a criterion of the mind itself, still less of other truths. For while the mind perceives itself, it does not make itself.” This criterion for truth would later shape the history of civilization in Vico’s opus, the Scienza Nuova (The New Science, 1725), because he would argue that civil life – like mathematics – is wholly constructed.

Joseph Ratzinger traces the roots of this idea in modernity and how it vitiated the ultimate meaning of reality which has it's basis in the logos.

"The first stage in the intellectual revolution, for which the way was prepared by Descartes, attained its full development in Kant, and even before that, in a somewhat different intellectual context, in the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), who was almost certainly the first to formulate a completely new idea of truth and knowledge and who, in a piece of bold anticipation, coined the typical formula of the modern spirit when it comes to dealing with the question of truth and reality. Against the scholastic equation 'Verum est ens' ('Being is truth') he advances his own formula, "Verum quia factum". That is to say, all that we can truly know is what we have made ourselves. It seems to me that this formula denotes the real end of the old metaphysics and the beginning of the specifically modern attitude of mind. The revolutionary character of modern thinking in comparison with all that preceded it is here expressed with absolutely inimitable precision. For the ancient world and the Middle Ages, being itself is true, in other words apprehensible, because God, pure intellect, made it, and he made it by thinking it. To the creative original spirit, the Creator Spiritus, thinking and making are one and the same thing. His thinking is a creative process. Things are, because they are thought. In the ancient and medieval view all being is therefore what has been thought, the thought of the absolute spirit. Conversely, this means that since all being is thought, all being is meaningful, 'logos', truth. (This statement is of course only fully true of Christian thinking, which with the idea of the creatio ex nihilo attributes to God the material too; for the ancient world this remained the a-logical element, the universal matter alien to the divine, thus also marking the limit to which reality could be comprehended.) It follows from this traditional view that human thinking is the re-thinking of being itself, re-thinking of the thought which is being itself. Man can re-think the logos, the meaning of being, because his own logos, his reason, is logos of the one logos, thought of the original thought, of the creative spirit that permeates and governs his being."

Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity. Herder and Herder: New York, 1970, p. 31.

Distinguish the Corrupt from the Weak!

"There is Sin Which is Mortal" 1 John 5:16

Saint John in today's first reading enjoins the Church to distinguish between those whose sins are deadly from those whose sins are not deadly (i.e. distinguish the corrupt from the weak).

The corrupt are those intent on error and/or immorality. They are to be confronted, reprimanded, opposed, and cast out and avoided if they obstinately persist in their mortal sin; for they are with the devil. (Cf. Canon 915, the corrupt who persist publicly in their error are to be refused holy communion.)

The weak believer on the other hand should be helped, prayed with and for, counselled, forgiven, accompanied, because he is struggling but is intent on following Christ and His Church. (Cf. Canon 916, the weak who have fallen into mortal sin are to refrain from receiving communion on their own accord.)

Pope Francis puts it very well in his sermon at Casa Santa Marta.

Vatican City, November 11, 2013 (Zenit.org)

During his homily at Casa Santa Marta today, the Holy Father warned of those who pretend to be Christian while calling on the faithful to recognize themselves as sinners so as not to be corrupt.

Drawing from today’s Gospel from St. Luke, Pope Francis underlined Christ’s example in forgiving a repentant sinner. However, Jesus also gives a word of warning to those who are a cause of scandal. “What is the difference between sinning and scandalizing?” the Holy Father asked.

“The difference is that one who sins and repents, asks forgiveness, feels weak, feels like a son of God, humbles himself, and asks for salvation from Jesus. But the other who scandalizes, what is it that scandalizes? That he does not repent. He continues to sin, but pretends to be a Christian: the double life. And the double life of a Christian does much harm, so much harm. ‘But I am a benefactor of the Church! I put my hand in my pocket and I give to the Church.’ But with the other hand, he robs: the State, the poor...he steals. He is unjust. This is the double life. And this merits - says Jesus, not myself - that a millstone be placed around his neck and thrown to the sea. He does not speak of forgiveness here.”

The one who scandalizes deceives, he continued, and where there is deception, there is no Spirit of God. The Holy Father stated that such is the difference between one who is a sinner and one who is corrupt. One who is corrupt will continue to lead a double life while a repentant sinner will admit his weakness and will go to the Lord.

“And we should call ourselves sinners, yes, everyone, here!, we all are. Corrupt, no. One who is corrupt is fixed on a state of sufficiency, he does not know what is humility,” the Pope said. “Jesus, to these corrupt ones, says: ‘Their beauty is of ‘whitewashed sepulchres’, that appear beautiful, on the exterior, but within are full of dead bones and decay. And a Christian who boasts about being a Christian, but does not live the Christian life, is one of these corrupt ones.”

“We all know one person,” he continued, “who is in this situation and how much damage they do to the Church! Corrupt Christians, corrupt priests...How much harm they do to the Church! Because they do not live in the spirit of the Gospel, but in the spirit of worldliness.”

Pope Francis stressed to those present that entering into this worldliness can take one to live a double life, calling the life one who is corrupt as a “varnished decay.” Concluding his homily, the Holy Father noted the beauty of Christ’s example who called on his disciples to forgive those who are repentant.

“That is what [Jesus] does with sinners. He does not tire of forgiving, only on the condition of not living this double life, to go to Him repentant: ‘Forgive me, Lord, I am a sinner!’. ‘Go forward, go forward,: I know.’ And such is the Lord. Let us ask today the grace of the Holy Spirit that flees from every deception, let us ask the grace to recognize ourselves sinners: we are sinners. Sinners, yes. Corrupt, no.”