Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Vatican II | Tags: dignitatis humanae, Hungary, liberalism, Liberia, Marcel Lefebvre, modernism, religious liberty, religious state, religious tolerance, secularism, SSPX, third party, Viktor Orban
Liberian citizens have very recently called for a ‘Christian religious state’ demonstrating religious tolerance for other faiths, but not ‘religious liberty’ when defined exactly as we define it in the United States. They specifically reject that. It is one of the most interesting political moves in centuries. (more…)
Filed under: Books and Movies, Culture and Catholicism, Vatican II | Tags: Angelus Press, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Catholic tradition, Catholic values, fiction, Flannery O'Connor, Revelation, SSPX, Teilhard de Chardin, traditional mass, Vatican II
Pius X wrote Pascendi in 1907 to warn us of a special danger: modernist heretics fight dirty. Unlike the heretics of the past, they conceal their true agenda and don’t even leave the Church. And they employ a special rhetorical device, confusion. They decline, Pius X wrote, to lay out their thought coherently, but spread it out in a confused or puzzling way so that the full meaning is not immediately apparent, or bury it in bits in otherwise orthodox material which the unorthodox fragments contradict but very quietly. (And you thought it was you!)
It is not that modernists don’t wish to be understood, but rather from experience (advertising, for one) know they can trust that the whole meaning will reassemble itself in the reader’s psyche later, carried there past security by the shell of orthodoxy. They’re sidestepping a fair fight, to get into the heart. Think virus.
Their cynical tactic proves to be successful. They can even target niche audiences, it would seem. Consider, for example, that, judging from copious online reports, tenth graders ‘get’ Flannery O’Connor, while traditional Catholic school administrators apparently don’t. (more…)
Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Green Catholics, Uncategorized, Vatican II | Tags: carbohydrates, Catholic, Catholic values, culture, Gary Taubes, malnutrition, morality, obesity, Vatican II, war on Christianity, weight loss
Gary Taubes is fighting the power. His books Good Carbs Bad Carbs and Why We Get Fat stand up to a powerful industry of misinformation and corruption. They can afford the hired guns, hackers and snoops capable at least of ruining Taubes’ reputation and making his life miserable. Perhaps worse. Perhaps he thinks of Erin Brockovich when a car pulls up behind him on a lonely road at night. But he probably doesn’t. Instead of following the money, Taubes blames–the Church! (more…)
Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Green Catholics, Uncategorized, Vatican II | Tags: abortion, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI, Catholic values, Christ the King, Christianity, demographics, Feast of the Epiphany, marriage, morality, Occupy movement and Catholicism, religious freedom, religious state, secularism, solemnity of the epiphany, SSPX, Vatican, Vatican II, Wall Street
At midday on the solemnity of the Epiphany, the Holy Father spoke to the faithful assembled outside his windows to pray the Angelus.
…. Western society,” the Holy Father said, “seems to have lost direction and is feeling its way forward. The Church, thanks to the word of God, see beyond the shadows. She does not possess technical solutions but she has her gaze turned to the final destination offering the light of the gospel to all men and women of goodwill, of whatever nation or culture.”
Dearest Holy Father, what do you mean, no technical solutions! We have apps!
Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Muslim feminism, Uncategorized, Vatican II | Tags: abortion, Catholic, Catholic values, ecumenism, feminism, Islam, koran, middle east, middle eastern synod of bishops, Muslim, religious freedom, secularism, SSPX, Vatican II
Although Benedict might have trouble spouting the old ‘springtime of Vatican II’ fable in the West now, without stirring further theological skepticism, he and his bishops are continuing to promote full-bore Vatican II religious modernism in, of all places, the middle east, where the war between secularism and Islam is fierce. The results are not surprising. Muslims don’t like it, and, unlike Archbishop Lefebvre, they shoot back. (more…)
Filed under: Books and Movies, Culture and Catholicism, Vatican II | Tags: Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Benedict XVI, Carli, Catholic, collegiality, Father Ralph Wiltgen, Siguad, SSPX, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, Vatican II
Archbishop Lefebvre gave an exclusive interview to Father Ralph Wiltgen, the author of The Rhine flows into the Tiber during the second session of the Council. (more…)
Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Vatican II | Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholic, Catholic values, collegiality, liturgical abuse, papal power, SSPX, Vatican II
They’re teaching your kid Centering Prayer instead of the rosary at your parish, and you don’t like it. The Catholic university you went to, at major cost, is still hosting ‘The Vagina Monologues’ at the annual reunion. The Catholic politician you voted for has just endorsed gay marriage, and your pastor sits during communion while other folks distribute the hosts. You thought the Holy Father was going to do something about all these things, eventually, but he seems pretty content to be a good example and let it go at that. His promising beginning has just about petered out (heh). You ask an SSPX friend what he thinks. He says, “Collegiality,” and you hand him a tissue. “God bless you,” you say. “Good one,” he says, and then he gives you a website.
Filed under: Culture and Catholicism, Vatican II | Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholic, Christianity, Islam, SSPX, third party, Vatican II, Wall Street
The pictures from Baghdad are unbearably hard to view. Catholics on the steps of their altar, the blood pooled around them. Killed in the very act of worship. Killed ironically during the holy sacrifice of the Mass, in which the Body and Blood of Christ are offered once again to His Father for the salvation of the world. This time they, too, were sacrificed. The attack on 31 October comes after many months of increased violence against Catholics, generally perpetuated by Muslims, but also by Hindus.
When one uses the term ‘increased’ one indicates that there was a preceding period in which there was less violence, and it is true that there preceded this period one in which Catholics and Muslims, and Catholics and Hindus, lived in a state of mutual tolerance occasionally punctuated by breaks in that norm. This escalation is recent. It is new, and it is well to ask ourselves why.
The reason is Vatican II. Don’t sigh! Read on!
Filed under: abortion, Culture and Catholicism, depopulation, Green Catholics, Vatican II | Tags: abortion, birth rate, Catholic church, Catholic values, demographics, economics, Nancy Pelosi, negative population growth, Obama, Planned Parenthood, SSPX, Vatican II
Once again Vatican II has been named in a political struggle between pro-life Catholics and liberal Catholics who would institute public policy at variance with Catholic teaching, and thereby do economic and ecological harm. (more…)
