Monday, February 19, 2024

Faggotry is not a Minority & Poverty is not Perversion

There is a huge (ancient and Jewish) error in present politics which falsely equates material prosperity with virtue and material poverty with vice.

Beware of those who equate sexual perversion with racial equality. That is the age-old racist stance which equates minority with moral evil and perversion: the notion that "those who are not like us are bad."

Beware of those who claim to love the poor but promote abortion, and sexual perversion (faggotry), her mother. Abortion is the bloody daughter of faggotry. And homosexualism, that dirty and infanticidal mother, is not a racial, a minority, category. It is moral perversion raised to the ideological, the political, level.

Both Marx and Hitler (both atheistic anti-Catholic leftists) equated poverty with vice. They theorized that those who are poor will necessarily be in the grip of vice. That is not a self-evident principle any more than the apparently opposite but related Romantic/Positivist principle of the noble savage, that civilization is the source of vice, that man in his natural state is pure and good. This is a denial of the fact of original sin on the one hand and of the glorious cultural achievement of Christian civilization on the other. It is a Hegelian rejection of Christ and His great Virtue in the world, the ideological source of those totalitarian twin brothers Marx and Hitler.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta had a wonderful principle in this regard: poverty does not mean filth. Poverty and cleanliness can and should coincide. On the one hand, minorities and the poor are often the finest Catholics, virtuous to the highest degree, and, there are countless saints among the Catholic royals of history.

Poverty and Virtue are one in Christ, and in His followers, as witnessed by the African exemption to Fiducia supplicans.

Homosexualism, a Western "white" phenomenon in our day, is trying to hijack the hispanics, the blacks, and, now, with Fiducia supplicans, the Catholic faith itself.

Posted by plinthos at 9:41 AM

Saturday, February 17, 2024

DOES FIDUCIA SUPPLICANS AFFIRM HERESY?

Gerhard Cardinal Müller

Does the Vatican’s recent declaration Fiducia Supplicans contain teachings contrary to the divine and Catholic faith? The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) addressed this question in a press release issued on January 4, in response to concerns from many bishops and entire Episcopal Conferences. The press release defends the orthodoxy of Fiducia Supplicans by quoting it, arguing that the declaration does not change the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality and does not state anything heretical. It argues that Fiducia Supplicans concerns not doctrine, but practical matters, and that it simply needs to be adapted to different contexts and sensitivities.

But is it that simple? In reality, the criticism from concerned bishops is not that the declaration explicitly denies Church teaching on marriage and sexuality. Rather, the criticism is that by permitting the blessing of couples who have sex outside of marriage, especially same-sex couples, it denies Catholic teaching in practice, if not in words. The criticism is based on a solid traditional principle: lex orandi, lex credendi—the principle that the way the Church prays reflects what the Church believes. As the Catechism puts it: “When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles.”

There are, in fact, Catholic practices that cannot be altered without rejecting Catholic doctrine. Think, for example, of what the Council of Trent calls the substance of the sacraments, that is, those elements of the sacraments that were established by Christ himself. A change that affects this substance, even if it is a practical change, would be a rejection of Catholic doctrine. For example, if someone were to affirm in words the Catholic teaching on baptism, but then admit to the Eucharist those who are not baptized, he would be rejecting Catholic teaching. St. Thomas said that such contradictions created “falsehood in the sacramental signs.”

The question, then, is whether to accept the “pastoral” and non-liturgical “blessings” proposed by Fiducia Supplicans for couples in irregular situations is to deny Catholic doctrine—not in explicit affirmation, but in practice. The press release issued by the DDF does not answer this question. It is therefore necessary to examine it in detail.

First of all, we must consider the distinction between liturgical blessings and purely pastoral blessings, for it is on this distinction that Fiducia Supplicans relies. Fiducia Supplicans argues that these new “pastoral blessings” for couples in irregular situations are not liturgical. Now, this distinction between blessings is a novelty that Fiducia Supplicans introduces, which has not the slightest basis in Scripture, the Holy Fathers, or the Magisterium. Fiducia Supplicans claims that “pastoral blessings” are not liturgical. Yet they have a liturgical structure, according to the example given in the DDF’s press release (a prayer accompanied by the sign of the cross). And in any case, what is liturgical in Christianity is not measured, as in other religions, by objects, vestments, or altars. The fact that it is a priest, representing Christ, who imparts this “pastoral blessing” makes it a liturgical act in which the authority of Christ and the Church is at stake. The Second Vatican Council emphasizes the inseparable link between all the priest’s actions and the liturgy (see Presbyterorum ordinis).

Moreover, every blessing, whatever its solemnity, implies the approval of what is being blessed. This is what the constant tradition of the Church, based on Sacred Scripture, has taught. In fact, the Greek word used in the New Testament for “blessing” is eulogein, which, like the Latin benedicere, literally means “to say that something is good.” Moreover, in Scripture, to bless something is not just to declare it good, but to say that it is good because it comes from the Creator. Blessings are addressed to God’s creation, which he saw as very good, so that God himself may bring it to maturity and fullness. For this reason, a blessing cannot be invoked over relationships or situations that contradict or reject the order of creation, such as unions based on homosexual practice, which St. Paul considers a consequence of denying the Creator’s plan (Rom. 1:21–27). This need to be in harmony with the order of creation applies to every kind of blessing, regardless of its solemnity.

We should note that the DDF implicitly recognizes that these blessings (including pastoral blessings) approve what is being blessed. That is why the press release takes pains to distinguish between the blessing of the couple and the blessing of the union. If it were true that these pastoral blessings do not legitimize anything, there would be no problem in pastorally blessing the union. The DDF’s effort to clarify that the union is not blessed betrays that the DDF considers the “pastoral blessing” an approval, and therefore insists that it is the couple and not the union that is blessed.

Consequently, given the impossibility of distinguishing between liturgical and pastoral blessings, one must conclude that Fiducia Supplicans is doctrinally problematic, no matter how much it affirms Catholic doctrine in words. It cannot be said, therefore, that the question is merely practical and that it depends on the sensibilities of different regions. We are dealing with an issue that touches on both natural law and the evangelical affirmation of the sanctity of the body, which are no different in Malawi than in Germany.

But the DDF has also used two other distinctions to avoid admitting that Fiducia Supplicans implies approval of homosexual unions. The first distinction is between the blessing of the union and the blessing of the couple. Is this distinction possible? Indeed, if one blesses the couple qua couple, that is, as united by a sexual relationship other than marriage, then one is approving that union, since it is the union that constitutes them as such a couple. It would be a different matter if the couple were blessed not as a same-sex couple, but, for example, as a couple of pilgrims approaching a shrine. But this is not what Fiducia Supplicans means, and that is why it speaks of blessing couples in an irregular situation, including same-sex couples.

Let us now examine a second distinction: Could it be said that what is blessed is not the couple as united by the sexual relationship, but the couple as united by other aspects of their life, for example, by the help they give one another during an illness? This distinction does not change the fact that the couple is blessed as a couple that is united by sexual relations outside of marriage. For what continues to constitute the couple as such is the sexual relationship that unites them. The other aspects of their life as a couple are not what constitutes them as a couple, nor do all these aspects succeed in making good the sexual lifestyle that makes them a couple, as the 2021 Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith already affirmed.

When Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the DDF, discussed how to give these blessings, he implied that it is not a matter of blessing the couple. For example, he suggested that the sign of the cross should be made on each person, not on the couple. However, the cardinal did not want to clarify that the couple cannot be blessed, and continued to accept signs—such as the common prayer over the two persons—that give legitimacy in the eyes of the Church to the existence of the couple as a good for the persons united. The cardinal has also refused to condemn certain blessings, such as the one that Fr. James Martin gave publicly, which are clearly addressed to the couple.

Recently, we have noticed a new semantic change in the official explanations of Fiducia Supplicans. They no longer speak of giving the blessing to “couples,” but to “persons,” adding that it is about persons who are “together.” Now, to bless two people together who are together precisely because of the homosexual relationship that unites them is no different than to bless the union. No matter how much one repeats that one is not blessing the union, that is exactly what one is doing by the very objectivity of the rite being performed.

Having established that the basic question is doctrinal, how should we describe the error of Fiducia Supplicans? Is this heresy?

Consider the classical teaching on the various objects of magisterial teaching and of the believer’s adherence to it. This doctrine is contained in John Paul II’s motu proprio Ad tuendam fidem, which presents three “paragraphs” of the Profession of Faith made upon assuming various ecclesiastical offices. The first paragraph refers to the truths contained in revelation; the denial of these truths constitutes heresy. The second paragraph refers to truths that, while not contained in revelation, are intimately related to it and necessary to the preservation of the revealed deposit. These are truths that, because of their historical or logical connection with the revealed truths, must be accepted and held firmly and definitively. Those who deny such truths are in opposition to the teaching of the Catholic Church, even if their assertions cannot be considered heretical in themselves. The third paragraph of the profession of faith refers to the truths taught by the ordinary Magisterium, to which religious assent of mind and will must be given.

How does this apply to our case? The affirmation that homosexual acts are contrary to the law of God is a revealed truth; to deny it would violate the first paragraph of the Profession of Faith and would be heretical. This denial is not found in Fiducia Supplicans. It would also be heretical to accept a nuptial blessing for same-sex couples. This is likewise not found in Fiducia Supplicans. Thus, Fiducia Supplicans does not seem to violate the first paragraph. Then how do we classify its affirmation that sexual unions outside of marriage can be blessed with a non-nuptial blessing? Even if one were to argue that this affirmation is not explicitly rejected in revelation, this affirmation violates, at least, the second paragraph of the Profession of Faith, for, as we have seen, to bless these persons as same-sex couples is to approve their unions, even if they are not equated with marriage. This is therefore a doctrine contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, since its acceptance, even if not directly heretical, logically leads to heresy.

For all these reasons, Fiducia Supplicans must be considered doctrinally problematic, for it contains a denial of Catholic doctrine. For this reason, it is also problematic from a pastoral point of view. In fact, a good pastor approaches every person in difficulty as a teacher of God’s commandments, recommends him to God’s prayer, and, in the case of grave sin, leads him to repentance, confession, and renewal of life through forgiveness in sacramental absolution. What he will never do in the pastoral care of Catholics in irregular sexual relationships is to draw analogies between God’s blessing for the marriage of man and woman and a so-called non-liturgical blessing for persons in sinful relationships. In the case of two persons living in an irregular situation, what pastoral reason is there for blessing the persons together rather than as individuals? Why would these persons want to be blessed together, if not because they want God’s approval of their union? To bless them together, therefore, is to confirm them in their sin and thus alienate them from God.

Nor does the principle that we are all sinners, and that therefore no distinction can be made between some sinners and others, befit a good shepherd. Scripture distinguishes between types of sin, as we read in John: “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly” (1 John 5:17). The Church’s teaching, based on Scripture, distinguishes between venial sins (which do not necessarily require sacramental absolution to be forgiven) and mortal sins (which do). It also distinguishes those sins that are public from those that are not, as well as sinners who stubbornly persists in their sins from sinners who are open to repentance. These distinctions are important, not for judging people, but for offering them healing. Similarly, a good doctor needs to offer different diagnoses for different cases, for not every illness can be treated in the same way.

In conclusion, as long as the DDF does not correct Fiducia Supplicans by clarifying that blessings cannot be given to the couple, but only to each person individually, the DDF is approving statements that are contrary to at least the second paragraph of the Profession of Faith—that is, it is approving statements that are contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, which, without being heretical in themselves, lead to heresy. This means that these pastoral blessings for irregular unions cannot be accepted by the Catholic faithful, and especially by those who, in assuming an ecclesiastical office, have taken the Profession of Faith and the Oath of Fidelity, which calls first of all for the preservation of the deposit of faith in its entirety.

This refusal to accept Fiducia Supplicans, which can be expressed publicly insofar as it concerns the common good of the Church, does not imply any lack of respect for the Holy Father, who signed the text of Fiducia Supplicans; on the contrary. For service to the Holy Father is due to him precisely insofar as he is the guarantor of the continuity of Catholic doctrine, and this service is honored primarily by exposing the grave defects of Fiducia Supplicans.

In short, the exercise of the Magisterium cannot be limited to giving dogmatically correct information about the “truth of the Gospel” (Gal. 2:14). Paul openly and unhesitatingly opposed the ambiguous exercise of the primacy by Peter, his brother in the apostolate, because the latter, by his erroneous conduct, endangered the true faith and the salvation of the faithful, not precisely with regard to the dogmatic profession of the Christian faith, but with regard to the practice of Christian life.

Gerhard Cardinal Müller is former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Posted by plinthos at 5:24 PM

Saint Peter Damian, Saint for our Time

LIBER GOMORRHIANUS: The judgment of the Doctor of the Church S. Pier Damiani on homosexuality...



Summer readings for our readers.
HERE to buy it. (Italian)

By San Pier Damiani (Introduction by Roberto de Mattei)


His Liber Gomorrhianus appeared around 1049, in an era in which corruption was widespread, up to the top of the ecclesiastical world. In this writing, addressed to Pope Leo IX, Pier Damiani denounces the perverse vices of his time with a language that knows no false mercy and compromises.

He is convinced that of all the sins, the most serious is sodomy, a term that includes all acts against nature, which aim to satisfy sexual pleasure by diverting it from procreation. “If this absolutely ignominious and abominable vice is not immediately stopped with an iron fist, – he writes – the sword of divine wrath will fall upon us, bringing many to ruin”.

Pope Leo gratefully welcomed the Liber Gomorrhianus, writing to Pier Damiani that "each of the statements in this writing meets with our approval, like water thrown on the diabolical fire" and, taking up the saint's indications, he intervened firmly against the sodomites in the Church. Today, writes Roberto de Mattei in his introduction to the work, “Liber Gomorrhianus reminds us that there is something more serious than practiced and theorized moral vice. It is the silence of those who should speak, the abstention of those who should intervene, the bond of complicity that is established between the wicked and those who, under the pretext of avoiding scandal, remain silent and by remaining silent consent and, worse still, the acceptance by men of the Church of homosexuality, considered not as a very serious sin, but as a positive 'tension' towards the good, worthy of pastoral welcome and legal protection [...]. Will the reading of Liber Gomorrhianus instill the spirit of Saint Pier Damiani in the heart of some prelate or lay person, shaking him from his torpor and pushing him to speak and act?”

San Pier Damiani (1007-1072), abbot of the monastery of Fonte Avellana and later cardinal bishop of Ostia, was one of the most prominent personalities of the Catholic reform of the eleventh century.

Roberto de Mattei is professor of Modern History and Christianity at the European University of Rome and president of the Lepanto Foundation.

Gianandrea de Antonellis, writer, taught Christian literature at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Benevento.
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Luisella Scrosati, La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana , 14-1-24

Great reformer and hermit, Pier Damiani denounced plagues such as simony and homosexuality among the clergy. But his Liber Gomorrhianus was uncomfortable even for the popes who agreed with him, probably because they felt the pressure of the sodomite clerics.
A great saint reformer, unfairly little known. Born in Ravenna in 1007, his father died very early and abandoned by his mother (she also died shortly after) due to the extreme poverty of the family, he was first raised by a brother, who treated him very harshly; then he was raised by another brother, the archpriest Damiano, and started to study the arts of the trivium and quadrivium. Having become a professor, he was deeply affected by an episode in which he read a divine warning: having refused a poor man alms, according to some, or white bread, according to others, he risked suffocating to death due to a bone stuck in his throat. He thus decided to embrace the solitary life, entering the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, a not very large Camaldolese monastery, which was however a hotbed of saints (76, according to Camaldolese tradition) and future bishops, very important for the reform of the Church.

Pier Damiani was elected prior in 1043 and became the protagonist of numerous new foundations, zealously propagating the hermitic life as the culmination of cenobitic monastic life. But it is enough to take a look at his letters, collected in eight volumes in the Opera omnia, to understand how this hermit was particularly attentive to the plagues from which the Church of his time suffered, especially simony and homosexuality in the clergy, trying to denouncing evil, advising pastors, including popes, to implement a courageous reform. For this reason, Pope Stephen IX (1020-1058) appointed him bishop of Ostia and cardinal in 1057; a position which he seems to have accepted only under penalty of excommunication and which he endured for only ten years, then managing to return to the hermit's life.

But let's take a step back. With the pontificate of Leo IX (1002-1054), Saint Pier Damiani began his significant influence on the reform of the Church. There are two writings denouncing the sins of the clergy, widespread and very serious, with the proposal of a more decisive and rigorous line by the Pope: the Liber Gratissimus of 1052, on simony, and the Liber Gomorrhianus, composed in 1049, on homosexuality in ecclesiastics. Both writings were welcomed by Leo IX, but something in the relationship between the two soon ended up cracking. Later, in 1059, he also wrote a small book, De cælibatu sacerdotum, precisely to urge Pope Nicholas II (ca 980-1061) to act against prelates who had concubines and who violated the chastity typical of their state.

As for the first publication, Pier Damiani proposed a firm line against simony, but at the same time explained that the ordinations conferred to or by simoniacious prelates were still valid. On the opposite front, Cardinal Umberto da Silva Candida (†1061), in his Adversus simoniacos, instead supported the need to reorganize those who had received ordination from simoniacious bishops. Leo IX appeared strongly undecided in this regard, and it was only with Nicholas II, during the Roman Synod of 1060, that the definitive position of non-reordination was taken.

But Leo IX's management of the problem of homosexuality appears even more curious. The Liber Gomorrhianus represented the strongest and clearest attempt to strike at the heart of this plague present in the clergy, which Pier Damiani called "quadruple vice", in reference to the four concrete ways in which homosexual practice took place, starting from sinning with oneself , which he considered as a first degree of sin against nature, up to the properly sodomite act. The position of Pier Damiani, who also did not intend to arrogate himself the authority to impose ecclesiastical sanctions, was very firm and decisive not only due to the gravity of the unnatural sin, but also and above all due to the fact that it was committed by clerics. In fact, he declared "contrary to reason and to the sanctions of the Fathers" that "those who habitually stain themselves with this purulent disease dare to enter the order and remain in their rank".

Saint Pier Damiani therefore maintained that those who were habitually implicated in any of these quadruple faults, even if not the most serious, had to be dismissed from the clerical state. Leo IX, in the letter Ad splendidum nitentis (1054), responded personally to the hermit, sharing the firm condemnation of the «unbridled license of muddy lust» and recognizing that those who have been guilty of these sins have always been «removed from all degrees of immaculate church", in accordance with the sacred canons. But, not without disapproving Pier Damiani, the Pope decided to operate "with greater benevolence", allowing those who had been purified by a "worthy penance" and having put "a curb on lust" to be reinstated in their rank of sacred order. they were indeed guilty, "but with not a long practice nor with many people" and provided they had not "sinned in the back".

A decision that was certainly condemnatory, but which left wide margins for interpretation, risking weakening the fight against active homosexuality in the clergy: what did a "not long practice" mean? And what was meant by “many people”? A letter (cf. PL ​​144, 208B-209C) written between 1050 and 1054 seems to attest to the fact that there was a certain distance between the two; Pier Damiani reproaches the Pope for having believed some lies against him, without wanting to verify the facts. It is not known who and for what reason spread falsehoods to the detriment of the hermit; and we don't even know the content of these lies. The fact is that the pontificate of Leo IX slipped away, without too much harm to those ecclesiastics who practiced homosexuality.

But Liber Gomorrhianus was to encounter an even more singular misfortune. When, in 1061, Anselmo da Baggio was elected Pope, choosing the name of Alexander II (+1073), the hour seemed to have come for perversions in the clergy. Anselmo da Baggio had been, together with Pier Damiani, the protagonist of the reform of the Church of Milan; between them there was communion of intent and friendship. Furthermore, Pope Alexander owed his friend a strenuous defense of the legitimacy of his election against the antipope Honorius II. Even his positions as pontiff indicated a desire to fight strenuously against simony and Nicolaism. Yet, in a letter (cf. PL ​​144, 270A-272C) addressed to two cardinals (including Hildebrand of Soana, future Gregory VII), Pier Damiani complained that the Pope had borrowed the copy, probably the only one, of a book dear to him (which many identify with the Liber Gomorrhianus), and he had never returned it to him. In essence, a kidnapping. It is not difficult to think that the book in question must have been very inconvenient and annoyed more than one of the ecclesiastics who worked in the Roman Curia.

San Pier Damiani therefore did not have an easy life precisely in terms of denouncing homosexuality in the clergy. The popes were certainly against this plague, but they seemed to approach the reform with a handbrake. A certain vagueness on the part of Leo IX first, and a probable desire not to offend Pier Damiani's adversaries on the part of Alexander II then, make it clear that the problem was evidently not only widespread, but also penetrated even to the men closest to the popes. Who evidently felt the pressure. The case of Leo IX is then particularly significant: behind his "more human" way of acting, one cannot perhaps see the very practical problem that, in dismissing from the clerical state all those who were guilty of the "fourfold vice", would there have been many problems finding sufficient replacements?
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What did Saint Pier Damiani think about homosexual practice? He said: it's the worst of vices!

Written by the Saint and Doctor of the Church San Pier Damiani , perhaps for the pro-gay Vatican lobby that wants to change the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the subject of sodomy: 1867 " The catechetical tradition also reminds us that there are "sins that cry out to heaven". They cry out towards heaven: the blood of Abel; the sin of the Sodomites ( Cf Gn 18,20; 19,13) ; the lament of the oppressed people in Egypt; the lament of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan; the injustice towards the wage earner ".

Louis


Throughout the Middle Ages, i.e. in the period of formation of Western Christian civilization, the Church never stopped promoting the virtue of temperance and renewing the condemnation of unnatural vice; in this way she managed to reduce it to a very rare and marginal phenomenon.
Among the saints who fought homosexual vice in the Middle Ages, one of the greatest was Saint Pier Damiani, Doctor of the Church, reformer of the Benedictine order and great writer and preacher. In his Liber Gomorrhanus, written around 1051 for Pope Saint Leo IX, he denounces with great vigor the spiritual ruin to which those who practice this vice are condemned. A vice is spreading in our parts that is so gravely nefarious and ignominious that if zealous punitive intervention is not opposed as soon as possible, the sword of divine wrath will certainly rage enormously, destroying many. (…) This turpitude is rightly considered the worst of crimes, since it is written that the almighty God hated it always and in the same way, so much so that while for the other vices he established limits through the legal precept, this vice he wanted to condemn him, with the punishment of the most rigorous revenge. In fact, it cannot be hidden that He destroyed the two infamous cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the neighboring areas, sending rain of fire and brimstone from the sky (...)


And it is quite right that those who, against the law of nature and against the order of human reason, hand over their flesh to the demons to enjoy such disgusting relationships, share the cell of their prayer with the demons. In fact, since human nature profoundly resists these evils, abhorring the lack of the opposite sex, it is clearer than the light of the sun that it would never taste such perverse and alien things if the sodomites, who have become almost vessels of wrath destined for ruin , were not totally possessed by the spirit of iniquity; and in fact this spirit, from the moment it takes possession of them, fills their souls so gravely with all its infernal wickedness, that they crave with their mouths wide open not what is solicited by their natural carnal appetite, but only what it proposes. them in his diabolical solicitude. Therefore, when the mean man rushes into this sin of impurity with another male, he does not do it because of the natural stimulus of the flesh, but only because of the natural impulse. (…)


This vice should not be considered an ordinary vice at all, because it surpasses all other vices in severity. In fact, it kills the body, ruins the soul, contaminates the flesh, extinguishes the light of the intellect, drives out the Holy Spirit from the temple of the soul, introduces the demon instigator of lust, leads into error, uproots the truth with a deceived mind, prepares snares for the traveler, throws him into an abyss, closes him there so as not to let him out again, opens Hell for him, closes the door of Paradise to him, transforms him from a citizen of the celestial Jerusalem into the heir of the infernal Babylon , from a star in the sky to straw destined for eternal fire, separates him from the communion of the Church and throws him into the voracious and seething hellish fire. This vice strives to undermine the walls of the heavenly Fatherland and to repair that of the burned and revived Sodom. In fact, it violates austerity, extinguishes modesty, enslaves chastity, kills irrecoverable virginity with the dagger of an impure contagion, defiles everything, stains everything, contaminates everything, and as far as it can does not allow anything pure, chaste to survive. , of a stranger to filth. (…).


This pestilential tyranny of Sodom makes men shameful and drives them to hatred towards God; he plots wicked wars against God; it crushes its slaves under the weight of the spirit of iniquity, severs their bond with the angels, takes away the unhappy soul from its nobility by subjecting it to the yoke of its own dominion. It deprives its slaves of the weapons of virtue and exposes them to being pierced by the arrows of all vices. It makes them humiliate in the Church, it makes them condemned by justice, it contaminates them in secret, it makes them hypocrites in public, it gnaws at their conscience like a worm, it burns their flesh like fire. (…) This plague shakes the foundation of faith, weakens the strength of hope, dissipates the bond of charity, eliminates justice, undermines fortitude, takes away temperance, dampens the acumen of prudence; and once he has expelled every wedge of virtue from the curia of the human heart, he intrudes every barbarity of vice. (…) As soon as one falls into this abyss of extreme ruin, he is exiled from the celestial Fatherland, separated from the Body of Christ, refuted by the authority of the universal Church, condemned by the judgment of the holy Fathers, despised by men and rejected by communion of saints. (...) Let these wretches therefore learn to repress such a detestable plague of vice, or manfully tame the insidious lasciviousness of lust, to restrain the annoying incentives of the flesh, to viscerally fear the terrible judgment of divine rigor, always keeping in mind that threatening sentence of the Apostle (Paul) who exclaims: “It is terrible to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb 10). (…) As Moses says “If there is anyone who is on God's side, let him join me!” (Ex. 32). That is, if someone recognizes himself as a soldier of God, he should fervently set about overcoming this vice and should not neglect to destroy it with all his strength; and wherever it is discovered, let him attack it to pierce it and eliminate it with the sharpest arrows of the word”. (San Pier Damiani OSB, Liber Gomorrhanus, in Patrologia Latina, vol. 145, coll. 159-190).

(The texts above were translated by Google Translate)
Posted by plinthos at 5:05 PM

I am a Spiritual, Doctrinal African



SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2024

On January 29, the Holy Father gave an interview with the Italian newspaper, La Stampa. Many of us cringe when we hear about another papal interview, since we’ve learned it’s rarely good news. And Pope Francis’ recent interview lived up to expectations.

We were told in Fiducia supplicans, which claimed to be crystal clear about permitting blessings of “irregular couples”: “beyond the guidance provided above, no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type.” Yet it seems the Vatican can’t stop talking about that Declaration from the Dicastery on the Doctrine of the Faith. The papal interview was just one more of those supposedly unneeded responses. And, true to form, it has brought more frustration and division than peace and unity.

As I read the English text of the interview provided by Vatican News, I was surprised to learn that the opposition to Fiducia supplicans is only found among those in “small ideological groups.” Later, in an apparent reference to these groups, the pope said: “In the Church, there have always been small groups that manifest reflections of a schismatic nature.”

As a pastor and moral theologian, I’ve expressed my concerns in various settings about both the theological underpinnings of Fiducia Supplicans, as well as my opposition to its approval of blessings for couples in states of sin.

And so, I had to ask myself, do I belong to a “small ideological group” that manifests a “schismatic nature?”

The answer is “no.” I don’t belong to a small group that wants schism. I love the Church and believe in her Catholic and Apostolic faith, transmitted through Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture.

It’s this Catholic and Apostolic faith that the magisterium is supposed to interpret as its servant, in a posture of docility and reverence, as the opening of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum states: “Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith. . . .this present council wishes to set forth authentic doctrine on divine revelation and how it is handed on, so that by hearing the message of salvation the whole world may believe, by believing it may hope, and by hoping it may love.”

In the interview, the Holy Father addressed African opposition to Fiducia supplicans, saying the African continent is “a special case,” since “for them, homosexuality is something ‘ugly’ from a cultural point of view; they do not tolerate it.”

When I read that, I felt a spiritual affinity and a unity in the Spirit with Africa.

Our shared Catechism of the Catholic Church still echoes the Church’s perennial moral teaching: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” [No. 2357]At the 2019 meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) [Vatican News]

If being an African means being opposed to homosexual relationships, and seeing homosexual acts as “ugly,” since they offend the complementarity of man and woman and mock the selfless act of nuptial intimacy, and if being an African means not tolerating such relationships, and efforts to normalize them, especially in supposed “gay marriages” and other such ways, then I had to start asking myself some hard questions.

Since I’m not a part of a small ideological group seeking schism – and never would be – I realized for the first time in my almost fifty years: I’m an African! Spiritually, doctrinally, I’m an African.

“The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” praised by Saint Paul (Ephesians 4:3), compels me to recognize my connection with the believers in Africa and my newly recognized status as a spiritual African.

Years ago, while I was a seminarian at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, I visited Nigeria.

One of the local archbishops, a friend of my home bishop, hosted me for a visit to his diocese. I saw there the strong and vibrant faith of the people, which was reflected in beautiful Masses, inspirational singing and prayers, the people’s love for their shepherds, the building of hospitals and churches literally by the hands of the faithful, and by an intense and warm sense of welcome and hospitality. I had never experienced anything like it. It was like walking into the Acts of the Apostles.

During my stay, the archbishop made time for me every evening to discuss what I had seen or learned that day. As my time in Nigeria was coming to a close, he asked me, “Jeffrey, why is God in Africa?” Honestly, I was confused by the question. My face must have shown my perplexity because the archbishop asked me again, “Jeffrey, why is God in Africa?” I finally had to respond, “I don’t know, Your Grace.”

The archbishop, who was an apostolic man of conspicuous faith and love, smiled at my answer. He then looked directly into my eyes and said, “Jeffrey, God is in Africa because God goes where He is wanted!”

Yes, God goes where He is wanted, and the believers of Africa want Him. They want Him as He has revealed Himself and exactly how as He has taught us to live as His children. There’s no equivocation, no compromise, no adulteration possible.

As a Catholic Christian, I want the same, as do tens of millions in the West and all over the world. And so, in a sense, we are all spiritually African, hardly “small ideological groups,” bound with the believers of Africa in our shared Catholic and Apostolic faith and greatly wanting God and yearning for Him to come where He is wanted – and to open all eyes and hearts still closed to Him.

Posted by plinthos at 4:44 PM

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Courtship


A parish priest for over 25 years, and now a chaplain at an excellent Catholic liberal arts College for the past few years, I am completely familiar with the natural science of courtship.

Righteous (chaste) courtship has five stages.

1. Getting acquainted. Men and women get acquainted with each other in various honest social settings.

2. First dates. Those who are interested in each other go on dates to explore their mutual compatibility/interest. If after the first date they are still both interested they may go on a few successive dates. It is proper for the man to take the initiative in asking the woman "out."

3. Dating/going steady. If the dates go well then they begin a particular friendship, they decide to try to become best friends in steady dating, "going steady." The man and the woman begin to "date." Again, usually at the suggesting of the man, who should typically take the initiative along every major step in the courtship.

4. Engagement. If the dating goes well they decide to get married. The man proposes marriage to the woman.

5. Marriage. They marry for love of God, each other and the plan of God for their marriage, open to the children he might want to send them.

Two important points need to be added regarding courtship.

1. "If you like her, date her!" A clear and immediate transition from stage 1 to stage 2 is important to avoid unnecessary confusion in the relationship. There is no intermediate stage between being simply friends (stage 1) and "going-together" (stage 2). In other words, a young man and a young woman are not fit to simply be best friends, even with the presumption of no romance. Such a platonic arrangement is fiction. It causes great confusion and people get hurt because the relationship--an exclusive male/female relationship--is, by its very nature, sexually oriented, and, therefore, always, at least, ambiguous. A male is 100% male, and a female is 100% female. If a young man and a young lady are to be best friends, they must be so as male and female, and make that clear by dating. If they want to be best friends they must date. Otherwise they must not have an exclusive friendship. That would not be healthy.

2. Chastity is essential throughout courtship. The relationship should not be at all a physical relationship until stage 5 (after marriage; and, in marriage, marital chastity is to be observed). The relevant acronym for courtship is KISS ("Keep It Simple Stupid"). It would be entirely contrary to the true friendship proper to courtship for the couple to habitually and deliberately cause each other to commit even the least sins of lust, because lust would greatly inhibit any real relationship. The flesh and the passions would be an obstacle to the union of persons which happens primarily on the level of the human souls, getting to know each other as persons, not as mere objects. Couples that are dating are not properly lovers, they should simply be best friends who are chastely exploring the possibility of becoming lovers, in the exclusive domain of marriage. Lust and near occasions of sins of unchastity should be carefully avoided and shunned throughout any courtship worthy of the name. Love is the opposite of lust. Lust is selfishness, theft; love is a generosity, gift, self-gift.


Posted by plinthos at 7:46 PM

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

International Condom Day: WHO

"WHO (The World Health Organization) joins communities and partners in celebrating International Condom Day on 13 February 2024. It is important to bring visibility back to this safe, inexpensive and highly effective tool to prevent transmission of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned pregnancies." --Google

Lies!

The prophylactic is not safe nor highly effective in the prevention of the transmission of HIV or any sexually transmitted infections or unplanned pregnancies. Rather, it promotes lust and every manner of sexual immorality and gives a false sense of security and even a pretended nobility to this most perverse tool of sexual license in Gaydom. The Condom is one of the greatest causes of sin, preventable disease, abuse, and murder (e.g. abortion) in our present, especially among the young. Its acceptance and diffusion is a terrible scandal leading innumerable souls to perdition, physical as well as spiritual.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," says the Lord. Sexual sins are death to the soul and they also destroy the flesh itself! Chastity, Virginity and Celibacy are necessary virtues for world health. The World Health Organization is clueless. Cf. Proverbs 5-7, Matthew 19:12.

Condomastic sex is multiple adultery, it is more that one sexual sin, adding to the particular improper extra-marital sexual relation the distortion of the natural procreative end of marriage.
"...[W]hen [Onan] went in to his brother's wife [He] spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born in his brother's name. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing." Genesis 38:9b-10.
Condom use is detestable! It is dirty, shameful, abusive; it is mutual-masturbation; it is akin to sodomy. It is a grotesque misuse of what is meant to be the temple of God, the human body.
"Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. Or know you not, that he who is joined to a harlot, is made one body with her? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit. Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body. Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own? For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body." 1 Cor. 6:15-20.
May Christ Our Sweet and Blessed Lord and Our Lady, the Ever Virgin and Immaculate Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, save us!



Posted by plinthos at 6:45 AM

Monday, February 12, 2024

Nostalgia Cubana

Posted by plinthos at 10:32 AM

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

Ash Wednesday 2024 is Valentine's Day


February 14th, a week from tomorrow, is Ash Wednesday.

How fitting that Ash Wednesday this year should fall on the popular feast of Saint Valentine's Day, that we might do penance for our disordered affections! and for our sexual sins, and for those same sins of disordered sensuality of all men throughout the whole world, making reparation in union with the Passion and Death of our Sweet Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on the Cross!

Memento homo quia pulvus es, et in pulverem reverteris! (Genesis 3:19)

Posted by plinthos at 10:46 AM

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Appeal to Hierarchy for Official Rejection of Fiducia Supplicans



To all Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church (Deutsch) 

Your Eminencies, Your Excellencies:

We, the undersigned Catholic priests, scholars, and authors, write to you on the occasion of the latest document published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fiducia supplicans, which has caused so much scandal in the Church during this last Christmastime.

As is widely known, a relevant part of the world episcopate has practically rejected it, due to its evident break with Scripture and the Tradition of the Church. Twenty episcopal conferences, dozens of individual prelates, and even cardinals invested with the highest positions, such as Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Sarah, have expressed an unequivocal condemnatory judgment. So have also the UK, USA, and Australian Confraternities of Catholic Clergy. Never in the history of the Catholic Church has a document of the Roman Magisterium experienced such a strong rejection.

Indeed, despite its explicit reaffirmation of the traditional doctrine of the Church on Marriage, it turns out that the pastoral practice that the document allows is in direct opposition to it. So much so, that the document has been very favorably received by those few episcopates and prelates that for decades have been openly advocating a change in the doctrine on sexual morality. It is evident that the practical message that this new declaration transmits is much more in line with the program and ideas of those who want to change the doctrine, than with the doctrine itself that the document claims to keep intact.

The document effectively attempts to introduce a separation between doctrine and liturgy on the one hand, and pastoral practice on the other. But this is impossible: in fact, pastoral care, like all action, always presupposes a theory and, therefore, if pastoral care performs something that does not correspond to the doctrine, what is actually being proposed is a different doctrine.

The blessing of a couple (whether “liturgical” or “pastoral”) is, so to speak, a natural sign. The concrete gesture sayssomething naturally, and therefore has a natural, immediate communicative effect, which cannot be artificially changed by the verbal caveats of the document. A blessing as such, in the universal language of humanity, always implies an approvalof what is being blessed.

Therefore, the concrete sign that is given with such blessing, in front of the whole world, is that “irregular couples,” extramarital and homosexual alike, according to the Catholic Church, would now be acceptable to God, precisely in the type of union that specifically configures them as couples. Nor does it make sense to separate “couple” from “union,” as card. Fernández has tried to do, since a couple is a couple because of the union that gives existence to it.

The fact that other significant and accidental circumstances such as timing, location, or ornaments such as flowers and wedding clothes are excluded from the act does not change the nature of the act, since the central and essential gesture remains. Furthermore, we all know from experience what such “restrictions” are worth and how long they last.

The fact is that a priest is imparting a blessing on two people who present themselves as a couple, in the sexual sense, and precisely a couple defined by its objectively sinful relationship. Therefore—regardless of the intentions and interpretations of the document, or the explanations the priest may try to give—this action will be the visible and tangible sign of a different doctrine, which contradicts traditional doctrine.

Let us remember that the traditional doctrine on the subject must be considered infallible, since it is unequivocally confirmed by Scripture and Tradition, a universal and uninterrupted tradition, ubique et semper. And it must be remembered that this is a doctrine of natural law, which does not allow for any change.

In practice, the faithful will not even be aware of the subtle theoretical justifications introduced by the Declaration, much less those that were added in the recent clarification on the Declaration. The message that is effectively launched, and that the people of God, and the entire world, will inevitably register and are already registering is that: The Catholic Church has finally evolved, and now accepts homosexual unions, and, more generally, extramarital unions.

This situation fully justifies the decided rejection of so many episcopal conferences, so many prelates, so many scholars, and so many ordinary lay people. In this context, it is definitely not justifiable, especially for a cardinal or a bishop, to remain silent, since the scandal that has already occurred is serious and public, and if it is not stopped, it is bound to be more and more amplified. The threat does not become smaller but more serious, since the error comes from the Roman See, and is destined to scandalize all the faithful, and above all the little ones, the simple faithful who have no way of orienting and defending themselves in this confusion: “Whoever offends one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him if a donkey’s millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea” (Mt 18,6).

The pastors and all those who have some responsibility in the Church have been constituted as sentinels: “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the horn, so that the people are not warned, and when the sword comes he kills one of them, he will perish because of him, but I will ask the watchman to account for his blood” (Ez.33,6).

In light of the above we fervently implore you to:

(1) Follow the brave example of so many brother bishops around the world: please forbid immediately the application of this document in your diocese.

(2) Please ask directly the Pope to urgently withdraw this unfortunate document, which is in contradiction with both Scripture and the universal and uninterrupted Tradition of the Church and which clearly produces a serious scandal.

In this difficult moment, a clear word of truth would be the best example of your faithful and courageous dedication to the people of God entrusted to you, a sign of fidelity to the true mission of the Papacy and at the same time the best help for the pope himself, an eloquent “fraternal correction,” which he urgently needs in this last and most critical period of his pontificate and probably of his life. If you act promptly, there is still some hope that he may rescue his pontificate and his own person from a stain that could otherwise weigh on him indelibly, not only in history, but in eternity.

Initial Signatories

Edmund P. Adamus, MA, Secretary to Commission of Inquiry into Discrimination Against Christians, UK

Wolfgang R. Ahrens, PhD Philosophy, Chile

Sergio González Arrieta, MA in Classics and History, Chile

Gil Bailie, Founder and President of the Cornerstone Forum

Dr Heinz-Lothar and Raphaela Barth, Bonn, Germany

Donna F. Bethell, JD, USA

Judie Brown, President, American Life League, Falmouth, Virginia

Dr Dr Sergio R. Castaño, CONICET, Argentina

Paweł Chmielewski, commentator for Polonia Christiana, Warsaw, Poland

Michelle Cretella, MD, USA

Edgardo J. Cruz Ramos, President, Una Voce Puerto Rico

Dr Tomasz Dekert, religious studies scholar, Rajbrot, Poland

Deacon Julian L. Delgado, MD

Roberto de Mattei, historian, President of Lepanto Foundation, Rome, Italy

Deacon Nick Donnelly, MA, England

C. Joseph Doyle, Executive Director, Catholic Action League of Massachusetts

Rev. Angelo Luigi Fratus, Montfort Missionary, Zambia

Rev. Stanisław Gibziński, Portsmouth Diocese, England

Corrado Gnerre, professor of theology and founder of Il cammino dei tre sentieri

Maria Guarini, author, Editor of Chiesa e postconcilio

Michael K. Hageböck, headmaster and journalist, Germany

Michael Hichborn, President of the Lepanto Institute, Virginia

Maike Hickson, PhD, Front Royal, VA

Prof. Dr.rer.nat. Dr.rer.pol. Rudolf Hilfer, Stuttgart, Germany

Rev. Joseph Illo, Pastor, Star of the Sea Parish, San Francisco, California

Marek Jurek, former Marshal of the Polish Parlament, Wólka Kozodawska, Poland

Bogusław Kiernicki, President, Saint Benedict Foundation, Dębogóra, Poland

Kacper Kita, publicist, international policy analyst, Poland

Rev. Donald Kloster, Lumen Christi Academy Principal, Pipe Creek, TX

Dr Dr Dr.med. Adorján F. Kovács, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Dr Thaddeus Kozinski, Memoria College

Gabriele Kuby, sociologist and author, Prien am Chiemsee, Germany

Peter A. Kwasniewski, PhD, Lincoln, Nebraska

Dr John R. T. Lamont, D.Phil.

Philip F. Lawler, author, Editor of Catholic World News

Leila M. Lawler, author

Rev. Joseph Levine, Pastor, Holy Family Catholic Church, Burns, Oregon

Pedro L. Llera, director of educational centers, Gobiendes, Spain

Maria Madise, Managing Director, Voice of the Family, UK

Rev. Patrick H. Magee FLHF, Fall River, MA

Dr Regis Martin, professor of theology, Franciscan University Steubenville

Brian M. McCall, Orpha and Maurice Merrill Chair in Law, University of Oklahoma

Deacon Eugene McGuirk, Front Royal, Virginia

Dr Justyna Melonowska, psychologist and philosopher, Warszawa, Poland

Rev. Cor Mennen, emeritus lecturer in Canon Law, Seminary of ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Dr Paweł Milcarek, Editor of Christianitas, Brwinów, Poland

Sebastian Morello, PhD, Senior Editor of The European Conservative

Rev. Alfredo Morselli, Italy

Rev. Gerald E. Murray, JCD, Pastor, Church of the Holy Family, New York, NY

Dina Nerozzi, MD, child psychiatrist and endocrinologist, former professor at the University of Rome

Doyen Nguyen, MD, STD, moral theologian, bioethicist, USA/Portugal

Rev. Daniel R. Nolan, FSSP, Littleton, CO

Deacon Dr Bart Overman, Den Bosch, The Netherlands

Michael Pakaluk, PhD, professor of ethics and social philosophy, Washington, DC

Gottfried Paschke, theologian, retired professor of mathematics, Bad Homburg, Germany

Paolo Pasqualucci, retired Professor of Philososophy, Faculty of Law, Perugia, Italy

Rod Pead, Editor, Christian Order, UK

Dr Claudio Pierantoni, PhD History of Christianism, PhD Philosophy, Chile

Rev. John A. Perricone, PhD, adjunct professor of philosophy, Iona College in New Rochelle, New York

Prof. Thomas Pink, emeritus professor of philosophy, King’s College, London

Rev. Andrew Pinsent, MA, Dphil, PhB, STB, PhL, PhD, FRSA, University of Oxford, UK

Tomasz Rowiński, historian of ideas, Editor of Christianitas, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland

Anna Rist, retired professor of classics, Toronto, Canada

John Rist, PhD, retired professor of classics and early Chrisitian philosophy and theology

Luis Román, theologian and Catholic commentator, Florida

Jesse Romero, Catholic apologist, evangelist, author, Queen Creek, Arizona.

Eric Sammons, Editor, Crisis Magazine

Dr César Félix Sánchez Martínez, professor of philosophy, Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, Perú

Dr Tommaso Scandroglio, author, Italy

Wolfram Schrems, Mag. theol., Mag. phil., catechist, pro-life activist, Vienna, Austria

Dr Anna Silvas, specialist in Greek Fathers, retired adjunct, UNE, Australia

Rev. Robert Sirico, President, St. John Henry Newman Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Dr Michael Sirilla, Professor of Theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio

John Smeaton, Co-founder of Voice of the Family, UK

Rev. Tam X. Tran, S.T.L., Pastor of Our Lady of Vietnam Catholic Church, Silver Spring, Maryland

Rev. Glen Tattersall, Pastor of St. John Newman Parish, Melbourne, Australia

Inge M. Thürkauf, actress, journalist, pro-family public speaker, Germany

José Antonio Ureta, author, Paris, France

Aldo Maria Valli, writer, Rome, Italy

Dr Gerard van den Aardweg, author, psychologist and psychotherapist, The Netherlands

Christine de Marcellus Vollmer, president of PROVIVE, ALAFA, Former Member of PAL, Venezuela.

Mathias von Gersdorff, author and pro-life activist, Frankfurt, Germany

Prof. Dr Berthold Wald, retired professor of philosophy, Münster, Germany

Dr Thomas Ward, President, John Paul II Academy of Human Life and the Family

Leonard P. Wessell, Dr.Phil., PhD, emeritus professor, German Studies, University of Colorado

John-Henry Westen, Co-founder and Editor-in-chief, LifeSiteNews

Elizabeth D. Wickham, PhD, Executive Director, Lifetree.org, Raleigh, North Carolina

Dr Timothy Williams, professor of French, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio

Chilton Williamson, writer, former editor at National Review and Chronicles, Laramie, Wyoming

Dr Hubert Windisch, priest, retired professor of pastoral theology, Burglengenfeld, Germany

Deacon Timothy Woods, Huntington, Indiana

Elizabeth F. Yore, Esq., Founder of Yore Children, Chicago, Illinois

ATTENTION: Pastors, clergy, scholars, professors, doctors, and other qualified individuals may submit their signatures to this list in the next two weeks. Please provide your name, qualifications, position, and location by February 15th, to filialappeal@gmail.com. A definitive list of cumulative signatories will then be published on February 17th.

21,000 have signed.
 
Let's get to 22,500!
Add your signature:
 
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Posted by plinthos at 7:01 AM
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