tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13361179844221026552024-03-14T02:38:25.722-04:00The Rockin Traddy ~ Life in the Diocese of ScrantonLife in the kind of catholic Diocese of ScrantonThe Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.comBlogger1040125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-29609504123061603262014-09-22T00:28:00.001-04:002014-09-22T00:38:03.595-04:00Stages of Islamist Conquest Part Two - Diocese of Scranton<p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Stage Two:Consolidation of Power</span></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Muslim immigrants and host country converts continue demands for accommodation in employment, education, social services, financing and courts.</span></p><ul style="margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; list-style: none; text-indent: -10px;"><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Proselytizing increases; Establishment and Recruitment of Jihadi cells.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Efforts to convert alienated segments of the population to Islam.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Revisionist efforts to Islamize history.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Efforts to destroy historic evidence that reveal true Islamism.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Increased anti-western propaganda and psychological warfare.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Efforts to recruit allies who share similar goals (communists, anarchists).</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Attempts to indoctrinate children to Islamist viewpoint.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Increased efforts to intimidate, silence and eliminate non-Muslims.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Efforts to introduce blasphemy and hate laws in order to silence critics.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Continued focus on enlarging Muslim population by increasing Muslim births and immigration.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Use of charities to recruit supporters and fund jihad.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Covert efforts to bring about the destruction of host society from within.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Development of Muslim political base in non-Muslim host society.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Islamic Financial networks fund political growth, acquisition of land.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Highly visible assassination of critics aimed to intimidate opposition.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tolerance of non-Muslims diminishes.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Greater demands to adopt strict Islamic conduct.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Clandestine amassing of weapons and explosives in hidden locations.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Overt disregard/rejection of non-Muslim society’s legal system, culture.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Efforts to undermine and destroy power base of non-Muslim religions including and especially Jews and Christians.</span></li></ul><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is there a pattern here? Theo van Gogh is murdered in the Netherlands for ‘insulting’ Islam; the Organization of the Islamic Conference demands ‘anti-blasphemy’ laws through the United Nations; France is set afire regularly by ‘youths’ (read Muslims); the rise of (dis-) honor killings…holocaust denial…anti-Semitism…deception re the tenets of Islam; hatred toward Christians and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists. The pattern for all to see is the rise of Islamic intolerance and the covert/cultural jihad to remake host societies into sharia-compliant worlds – to remove host sovereignty and replace it with Islamic sharia law. Sharia law that condemns earthly liberty and individual freedom, that forbids equality among faiths and between the sexes, that rejects the concept of nations outside the global house of Islam, that of dar al-Islam.</span></p>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-1849747455873376002014-09-08T16:07:00.001-04:002014-09-08T16:07:43.913-04:00The Four Stages Of Islamic Conquest - diocese of scranton<ul style="margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; list-style: none; text-indent: -10px;"><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><p><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On Friday we began by speaking about why we should fight Islam in all its forms here in America. Today we learn how Islam tries to conquer the world in the modern age.</span></p><p><strong style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">STAGE 1: INFILTRATION</strong></p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Muslims begin moving to non-Muslim countries in increasing numbers and the beginning of cultural conflicts are visible, though often subtle. </span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*First migration wave to non-Muslim “host” country.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Appeal for humanitarian tolerance from the host society.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Attempts to portray Islam as a peaceful & Muslims as victims of misunderstanding and racism (even though Islam is not a ‘race’).</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*High Muslim birth rate in host country increase Muslim population.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Mosques used to spread Islam and dislike of host country & culture.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Calls to criminalize “Islamophobia” as a hate crime.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Threatened legal action for perceived discrimination.</span></li><li style="text-indent: 0px; margin: 7px 0px 8px 10px;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">*Offers of “interfaith dialogue” to indoctrinate non-Muslims.</span></li></ul><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">How many nations are suffering from Islamic infiltration? One? A handful? Nearly every nation? The Islamic ‘leadership” of the Muslim Brotherhood and others wish to dissolve each nation’s sovereignty and replace it with the global imposition of Islamic sharia law. Sharia law, based on the koran, sira and hadith, condemns liberty and forbids equality and is inconsistent with the laws of all Western nations. As the author and historian Serge Trifkovic states:</span></p><p style="padding-left: 60px;"><em style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The refusal of the Western elite class to protect their nations from jihadist infiltration is the biggest betrayal in history.”</em></p>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-66872210848222704902014-09-05T13:12:00.002-04:002014-09-05T13:30:08.595-04:00Liberty vs Sharia - diocese of scranton<br><div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D7428t00'; font-size: 14.000000pt;">Why We Must Resist<br>
the Vision of a World United under Islam </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D7428t00"><span style="font-size: 19px;"><br></span></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Islam is not just a religion; it is a theo-political doctrine as implemented
under Islamic Sharia Law. People should take note that </span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28D97E0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Islam makes attain-
ment of political goals a religious duty, </span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">thereby making inseparable the
religious from the political. Islam’s express goal is to spread Islam across
the world—to replace or subjugate anything non-Islamic. Wherever Islam
thrives, a state within a state develops and the existing government and
unbelieving (kafir, infidel) culture is rejected. The Islamic minority grows in
until it can conquer, by political or violent means, the established govern-
ment and replace it with Sharia.
</span><br>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;"><br></span>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Early on Islam aggressively spread through violence. Today, its modern
conquest begins with immigration and enlarging populations followed by a
demand for deferential treatment of Islam in the host country, including
insistence on religious accommodations, judicial separateness, and general
cultural and educational non-integration. Imagined affronts to Islam are
claimed and redress demanded. Islam rejects the host law and culture. </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D63A0t00" size="2"><br></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Sharia law, heavily influenced by 7th century Arab culture, denounces free-
dom of speech, religion, expression and action and denies equality be-
tween men and women, thereby violating human rights. Sharia has no
“Golden Rule” to treat individuals equally. Instead Sharia segregates people
into two classes of people: Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims are su-
preme and non-Muslims are inferior, holding no equal rights under Islam.
Muslim-Muslim relations are completely separate from Muslim-kafir rela-
tions, where deceit is </span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28DAE20t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">sanctioned </span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">and maltreatment largely unpunished. </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D63A0t00" size="2"><br></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">No matter the temperament of individual Muslims, the Islamic community
as a whole, the “ummah,” drives the process of Islamization (codification of
Islamic supremacy via Sharia law) in every country where Islam thrives.
There is no room to list the thousands of violent acts of Muslims against
non-Muslims </span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28DAE20t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">in the name of Islam</span><span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">. Across the globe violence and political
upheaval are associated with increasing Muslim populations. </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D63A0t00" size="2"><br></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">The United States is a constitutional republic thoughtfully crafted by our
founders, with its government powers defined in the US Constitution and
separated into three branches filled by the President, Congress and Courts.
Sharia law is irreconcilably in conflict with the US Constitution and our gov-
ernment. Islamic nations, often theocratic oligarchies, condemn liberty,
forbid equality and reject traditional concepts of sovereignty. </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D63A0t00" size="2"><br></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">We cannot extend our tolerance to Islam’s intolerance. Islam and Sharia are
grave dangers to the United States of America and to all Western cultures.
We must choose liberty, equality and representative government, over
Islam’s doctrine of submission, supremacism and dictatorial theocracy. </span></div><div class="column"><font face="TTE28D63A0t00" size="2"><br></font>
<span style="font-family: 'TTE28D63A0t00'; font-size: 10.000000pt;">Consider what the world is going through today, nearly every conflict
across the globe involves Islam threatening native populations. The tenets
of Islam support violence toward non-Muslims. This should concern you. We'll be back with more.</span></div></div>
</div>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-70689684993281067482014-04-19T08:00:00.000-04:002014-04-19T08:00:04.503-04:00Homosexuality and the Church - Diocese of ScrantonRecently, it was suggested by a reader of this blog that for the last 1,000 years or so, the Church in her wisdom has been "awakening to the philosophy of human justice" where the practice of homosexuality is concerned.<br />
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Well, my friend, lets just see what the Church has been saying about these perversions for the last 2,000 years and see how the first thousand years contrasts with the last, the so-called "awakening".<br />
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The first statement of a Church council on homosexual practices was issued by the Council of Elvira (305-306). The decree excludes from communion, even in articulo mortis (at the moment of death), the stupratores puerorum (corrupters of boys). The decree of the Council of Ancyra, held in Asia Minor in 314, strongly influenced the Church of the West, and it was often cited as authoritative in later enactments against homosexual practices. Canon 17 speaks about those “who . . . commit [acts of] defilement with animals or males.” The Council of Ancyra established for these crimes a series of punishments according to the age and state of life of the infractor:</div>
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“Those who have committed such crimes before age twenty, after fifteen years of penance, will be readmitted to the communion of prayer. Then, after remaining five years in that communion, let them receive the sacraments of oblation. However, let their lives be analyzed to establish how long a period of penance they should sustain in order to obtain mercy. For if they unrestrainedly gave themselves over to these crimes, let them devote more time to doing penance. However, those aged twenty and over and married who fall into these crimes, let them do penance for twenty-five years and [then] be received in the communion of prayer; and, remaining in it for five years, let them finally receive the sacraments of oblation. Moreover, if those who are married and over fifty years of age commit these crimes, let them obtain the grace of communion only at the end of their lives.”</div>
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Pope Saint Siricius (384-399) issued norms for admission into the priestly state. They apply indirectly to homosexuality: “We deem it advisable to establish that, just as not everyone should be allowed to do a penance reserved for clerics, so also a layman should never be allowed to ascend to clerical honor after penance and reconciliation. Because although they have been purified of the contagion of all sins, those who formerly indulged in a multitude of vices should not receive the instruments to administer the Sacraments.”</div>
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In the opening speech of the XVI Council of Toledo in 693, Egica, the Gothic King of Spain, exhorts the clergy to fight against homosexual practices: “See that you determine to extirpate that obscene crime committed by those who lie with males, whose fearful conduct defiles the charm of honest living and provokes from heaven the wrath of the Supreme Judge.”</div>
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The most complete set of norms against homosexual practices in the medieval era is contained in the canons approved at the Council of Naplouse, assembled on January 23, 1120 under the direction of Garmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Baldwin, King of the same city. On that occasion, a sermon was preached about the evils that had befallen the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Earthquakes, plagues, and attacks by the Saracens were judged as a punishment from Heaven for the sins of the people. As a consequence, the Council issued twenty-five canons against the sins of the flesh, four of which related to homosexual practices. Death at the stake was decreed for those convicted of those specific crimes.</div>
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The Third Lateran Council (1179) establishes: “Anyone caught in the practice of the sin against nature, on account of which the wrath of God was unleashed upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6), if he is a cleric, let him be demoted from his state and kept in reclusion in a monastery to do penance; if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated and kept rigorously distant from the communion of the faithful.”</div>
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Such was the horror that surrounded the sin against nature that, by the late twelfth century, sodomy was a reserved sin for which absolution was reserved to the Pope and, in some cases, to the Bishop.</div>
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Nevertheless, with the Renaissance this vice surfaced again. Homosexuality was a matter of grave concern to Pope Saint Pius V. As well-known historian von Pastor narrates, “In the first year of his pontificate, the Pope had two preponderant concerns: zeal for the Inquisition and the struggle against ‘this horrendous sin whereby the justice of God caused the cities contaminated by it to be consumed in flames.’ On April 1, 1566, he ordered that sodomites be turned over to the secular arm. . . . The various imprisonments of sodomites . . . impressed Rome and frightened especially well-established people, for it was known that the Pope wanted his laws enforced even against the powerful. Indeed, to punish for vices against nature, the torment of the stake was applied throughout the pontificate of Saint Pius V. . . . An earlier papal Brief mandated that clerics who were guilty of that crime be stripped of all their posts, dignities, and income, and, after degradation, be handed over to the secular arm.” The Holy Inquisitor promulgated two Constitutions in which he castigates and punishes the sin against nature.</div>
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In the Constitution Cum Primum of April 1, 1566, Saint Pius V solemnly established: “Having set our minds to remove everything that may in some way offend the Divine Majesty, We resolve to punish, above all and without indulgence, those things which, by the authority of the Sacred Scriptures or by most grievous examples, are most repugnant to God and elicit His wrath; that is, negligence in divine worship, ruinous simony, the crime of blasphemy, and the execrable libidinous vice against nature. For which faults peoples and nations are scourged by God, according to His just condemnation, with catastrophes, wars, famine and plagues. . . . Let the judges know that, if even after this, Our Constitution, they are negligent in punishing these crimes, they will be guilty of them at Divine Judgment and will also incur Our indignation. . . . If someone commits that nefarious crime against nature that caused divine wrath to be unleashed against the children of iniquity, he will be given over to the secular arm for punishment; and if he is a cleric, he will be subject to analogous punishment after having been stripped of all his degrees [of ecclesiastical dignity].”</div>
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Saint Pius V is no less rigorous in the Constitution Horrendum Illud Scelus of August 30, 1568. He teaches: “That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were burned by virtue of divine condemnation, causes Us most bitter sorrow and shocks Our mind, impelling it to repress such a crime with the highest possible zeal.</div>
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Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] decrees: Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery (chap. 4, X, V, 31). “So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity, taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, We determine that they should be handed over to the secular authority, which enforces civil law. Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which We have decreed since the beginning of Our Pontificate, We establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be executed as mandated by law, according to the appropriate punishment for laymen plunged in this abyss.”</div>
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The Code of Canon Law undertaken at the initiative and encouragement of Saint Pius X, and published in 1917 by his successor Pope Benedict XV, says this: “So far as laymen are concerned, the sin of sodomy is punished ipso facto with the pain of infamy and other sanctions to be applied according to the prudent judgment of the Bishop depending on the gravity of each case (Can. 2357). As for ecclesiastics and religious, if they are clerici minoris [that is, of a degree lower than deacon], let them be punished with various measures, proportional to the gravity of the fault, that can even include dismissal from the clerical state (Can. 2358); if they are clerici maiores [that is, deacons, priests or bishops], let them ‘be declared infamous and suspended from every post, benefit, dignity, deprived of their eventual stipend and, in the gravest cases, let them be deposed’ (Can. 2359, par. 2).”</div>
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Tertullian, the great apologist of the Church in the second century, writes: “All other frenzies of lusts which exceed the laws of nature and are impious toward both bodies and the sexes we banish . . . from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.”</div>
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Saint Basil of Caesarea, the fourth century Church Father who wrote the principal rule of the monks of the East, establishes this: “The cleric or monk who molests youths or boys or is caught kissing or committing some turpitude, let him be whipped in public, deprived of his crown [tonsure] and, after having his head shaved, let his face be covered with spittle; and [let him be] bound in iron chains, condemned to six months in prison, reduced to eating rye bread once a day in the evening three times per week. After these six months living in a separate cell under the custody of a wise elder with great spiritual experience, let him be subjected to prayers, vigils and manual work, always under the guard of two spiritual brothers, without being allowed to have any relationship . . . with young people.”</div>
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Saint Augustine is categorical in the combat against sodomy and similar vices. The great Bishop of Hippo writes: “Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of Sodom, are abominable and deserve punishment whenever and wherever they are committed. If all nations committed them, all alike would be held guilty of the same charge in God’s law, for our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship that we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is Author, is desecrated by perverted lust.”</div>
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Further on he reiterates: “Your punishments are for the sins which men commit against themselves, because, although they sin against You, they do wrong in their own souls and their malice is selfbetrayed. They corrupt and pervert their own nature, which You made and for which You shaped the rules, either by making wrong use of the things which You allow, or by becoming inflamed with passion ‘to make unnatural use of things which You do not allow’ (Rom. 1:26).”</div>
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Saint John Chrysostom denounces homosexual acts as being contrary to nature. Commenting on the Epistle to the Romans (1:26-27), he says that the pleasures of sodomy are an unpardonable offense to nature and are doubly destructive, since they threaten the species by deviating the sexual organs away from their primary procreative end and they sow disharmony between men and women, who no longer are inclined by physical desire to live together in peace.<br /><br />The brilliant Patriarch of Constantinople employs most severe words for the vice we are analyzing. Saint John Chrysostom makes this strong argument: “All passions are dishonorable, for the soul is even more prejudiced and degraded by sin than is the body by disease; but the worst of all passions is lust between men. . . . The sins against nature are more difficult and less rewarding, so much so that one cannot even say that they procure pleasure, since true pleasure is only the one according to nature. But when God abandons a man, everything is turned upside down! Therefore, not only are their passions [of the homosexuals] satanic, but their lives are diabolic. . . . So I say to you that these are even worse than murderers, and that it would be better to die than to live in such dishonor. A murderer only separates the soul from the body, whereas these destroy the soul inside the body. . . . There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad or damaging than this perversity.”</div>
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Saint Gregory the Great delves deeper into the symbolism of the fire and brimstone that God used to punish the sodomites: “Brimstone calls to mind the foul odors of the flesh, as Sacred Scripture itself confirms when it speaks of the rain of fire and brimstone poured by the Lord upon Sodom. He had decided to punish in it the crimes of the flesh, and the very type of punishment emphasized the shame of that crime, since brimstone exhales stench and fire burns. It was, therefore, just that the sodomites, burning with perverse desires that originated from the foul odor of flesh, should perish at the same time by fire and brimstone so that through this just chastisement they might realize the evil perpetrated under the impulse of a perverse desire.”</div>
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Saint Peter Damian’s Liber Gomorrhianus [Book of Gomorrha], addressed to Pope Leo IX in the year 1051, is considered the principal work against homosexuality. It reads: “Just as Saint Basil establishes that those who incur sins [against nature] . . . should be subjected not only to a hard penance but a public one, and Pope Siricius prohibits penitents from entering clerical orders, one can clearly deduce that he who corrupts himself with a man through the ignominious squalor of a filthy union does not deserve to exercise ecclesiastical functions, since those who were formerly given to vices . . .<br />become unfit to administer the Sacraments.”</div>
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Saint Albert the Great gives four reasons why he considers homosexual acts as the most detestable ones: They are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another.</div>
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Saint Thomas Aquinas, writing about sins against nature, explains: “However, they are called passions of ignominy because they are not worthy of being named, according to that passage in Ephesians (5:12): ‘For the things that are done by them in secret, it is a shame even to speak of.’ For if the sins of the flesh are commonly censurable because they lead man to that which is bestial in him, much more so is the sin against nature, by which man debases himself lower than even his animal nature.”</div>
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Saint Bonaventure, speaking in a sermon at the church of Saint Mary of Portiuncula about the miracles that took place simultaneously with the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, narrates this: “Seventh prodigy: All sodomites—men and women—died all over the earth, as Saint Jerome said in his commentary on the psalm ‘The light was born for the just.’ This made it clear that He was born to reform nature and promote chastity.”</div>
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Saint Catherine of Siena, a religious mystic of the 14th century, relays words of Our Lord Jesus Christ about the vice against nature, which contaminated part of the clergy in her time. Referring to sacred ministers, He says: “They not only fail from resisting this frailty [of fallen human nature] . . . but do even worse as they commit the cursed sin against nature. Like the blind and stupid, having dimmed the light of their understanding, they do not recognize the disease and misery in which they find themselves. For this not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures have chosen as their lords. For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.”</div>
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Saint Bernardine of Siena, a preacher of the fifteenth century, makes an accurate psychological analysis of the consequences of the homosexual vice. The illustrious Franciscan writes: “No sin has greater power over the soul than the one of cursed sodomy, which was always detested by all those who lived according to God. . . . Such passion for undue forms borders on madness. This vice disturbs the intellect, breaks an elevated and generous state of soul, drags great thoughts to petty ones, makes [men] pusillanimous and irascible, obstinate and hardened, servilely soft and incapable of anything. Furthermore, the will, being agitated by the insatiable drive for pleasure, no longer follows reason, but furor. . . . Someone who lived practicing the vice of sodomy will suffer more pains in Hell than anyone else, because this is the worst sin that there is.”</div>
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Saint Peter Canisius says this about the sin of sodomy: “Those who are not ashamed of violating divine and natural law are slaves of this turpitude that can never be sufficiently execrated.”</div>
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Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, in an SBT interview about homosexuality in Brazil (not broadcast) on October 29, 1992, stated: “The sexual act exists in the natural order of things for the fecundity of the family and, through the fecundity of the family, for the expansion of mankind. The precept of Our Lord Jesus Christ to men . . . is ‘Multiply and fill the earth.’ It is necessary, therefore, to do this and by all means to favor the fecundity of sexual intercourse, which is legitimately exercised only in Matrimony. Now then, as for homosexuality, there is no Matrimony, and, above all, there can be no fecundity. . . .</div>
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“For many centuries,” Prof. Corrêa de Oliveira continued, “homosexuality was the object of real aversion on the part of successive generations. And this was not because of a whim . . . but by virtue of the doctrinal principles I have just enunciated, which are principles of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic doctrine. . . . This rejection [of homosexuality] is a preservation of society against that which of itself threatens it. Everything that is alive rejects what destroys it. Thus, by a similar movement of the instinct of self-preservation, human societies modeled upon Catholic doctrine . . . have been profoundly anti-homosexual.”</div>
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Question: “Why, in your view, are homosexuals discriminated against in Brazilian society?”</div>
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Answer: “Brazil is a son of Portugal, and Portugal and Spain were always very strong bulwarks of the Catholic Church. We received from our Portuguese ancestors rigidity and consistency in the Catholic Faith, which was the model for the customs of colonial Brazil, the United Kingdom [of Brazil and Portugal], the Brazilian Empire and the Brazilian Republic until some time ago. Hence Catholic aversion for homosexuality impregnated our customs and constituted a tradition.”</div>
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To be continued AFTER Easter. </div>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-86760120074499117532014-04-18T08:00:00.000-04:002014-04-18T08:00:04.342-04:00Good Friday 2014 - Diocese of Scranton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Good Friday (also called "Great Friday" or "Holy Friday") is the most somber day of the entire year. A silence pervades, socializing is kept to a minimum, things are done quietly; it is a day of mourning; it is a funeral. The Temple of the Body of Christ is destroyed, capping the penitential seasons begun on Septuagesima Sunday and becoming more intense throughout Lent. Traditional Catholics wear black, cover their mirrors, extinguish candles and any lamps burning before icons, keep amusements and distractions down, and go about the day in great solemnity.<br /><br />Jesus was put on the Cross at the very end of the third hour (the time between 9 and noon), and almost the sixth hour. He died at the ninth hour:<br />Mark 15:25, 33 <br />And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him... And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour.<br /><br />Because Jesus was on the Cross between the hours of Noon and 3:00 PM, these three hours today are considered the most sacred of all. A devotion called "Tre Ore" or "Three Hours' Agony" might be held at this time; if not, you can do it yourself by meditating on His Passion -- reading the Gospel narratives of the Passion, making the Stations of the Cross by yourself, praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, praying the Litany of the Passion, etc. Draw the curtains, take the phone off the hook, turn off televisions and radios, quiet your environment and yourself, and meditate on what Christ has done for you. At 3:00, "The Hour" He died, the atmosphere should be as if you are standing next to the deathbed of your father who died a moment ago. <br /><br />Catholics also focus their attention on Mary this day and tomorrow (Holy Saturday), empathizing with the pain she endured as Our Lady of Sorrows. In another break in the tradition of veiling statues since Passion Sunday, they might dress the image of Our Lady in a black dress or veil, placing flowers of mourning before it in her honor. <br /><br />Though a somber atmosphere will last until the Easter Vigil, after "The Hour" (3:00 PM) passes, it eases a bit, and life can go back to a "somber normal." The phone can put back on the hook, etc., but candles and other symbols of Christ shouldn't be used, music shouldn't be played, raucous games should be eliminated, etc., while Christ is "in His Tomb" -- i.e., until after Vigil of Holy Saturday when Eastertide officially begins. <br /><br />No true Mass is offered today (or tomorrow until the Vigil tomorrow evening); instead a liturgy called the "Mass of the Presanctified" is offered, which is not a true Mass because no consecration takes place. Instead, we consume Hosts consecrated at yesterday's Mass. Vestment colors will be black, and the liturgy consists of lessons, prayer, St. John's version of the Passion, and ends with a long series of prayers for various intentions: the Church, the Pope, the faithful, those engaged in public affairs, catechumens, the needs of the faithful, unity, the conversion of the Jews, the conversion of infidels. These intentions are called the Great Intercessions, and we kneel after each. <br /><br />Then the Cross will be unveiled and and elevated to be adored by our kneeling three times before it at the words "Venite, adorémus" (come, let us adore). We kneel thrice because He was mocked thrice: in the high priest's courtyard, in Pilate's house, and on Mt. Calvary. Then the priest lays the Cross on a cushion and covers it with a white veil to symbolize the Entombment. He takes off his shoes, like Moses before God, and kneels three times as the choir chants. He and his acolytes kneel and kiss the Cross.<br /><br />The Cross is held up for us, and we file past - - men first, then women -- to kneel and kiss the Cross while the choir sings the Improperia (the Reproaches) of Christ, in which Our Lord reminds us all He has done for us and our ingratitude towards Him. Note the use of the singular "thee" in these Reproaches. Our Lord is speaking to you. The first three of the twelve Reproaches are:<div>
<br />O My people, wha have I done to thee? Or wherein have I afflicted thee? Answer Me. Because I led thee out of the land of Egypt, thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Savior. <br /><br />Because I led thee out through the desert forty years: and fed thee with manna, and brought thee into a land exceeding good, thou has prepared a Cross for thy Savior.<br /><br />What more ought I to have done for thee, that I have not done? I planted thee, indeed, My most beautiful vineyard: and thou has become exceeding bitter to Me: for in My thirst thou gavest Me vinegar to drink, and with a lance thou hast pierced the side of thy Savior.<br /><br />A second choir responds to each of those Reproaches with a trisagion in Greek and Latin. You might recognize its English translation if you've ever prayed the Divine Mercy chaplet:<br />O holy God! <br />O holy God! <br />O holy strong One! <br />O holy strong One! <br />O holy immortal One, have mercy on us. <br />O holy immortal One, have mercy on us!<br /><br />The remaining nine Reproaches are answered with the response "O my people, what have I done to thee? or wherein have I afflicted thee? Answer me." ("Popule meus, quid feci tibi? Aut in quo constristavi te? Responde mihi."). The words evoke awe in reminding us of our ancient Israelite heritage -- and evoke humility in recalling how our ancestors failed repeatedly:<br />For thy sake I scourged Egypt with its first-born: and thou didst deliver Me up to be scourged.<br /><br />I led thee out of Egypt having drowned Pharao in the Red Sea: and thou to the chief priests didst deliver Me.<br /><br />I opened the sea before thee: and thou with a spear didst open My side.<br /><br />I went before thee in a pillar of cloud: and thou didst lead Me to the judgment hall of Pilate.<br /><br />I fed thee with manna in the desert; and thou didst beat Me with blows and scourges.<br /><br />I gave thee the water of salvation from the rock to drink: and thou didst give Me gall and vinegar.<br /><br />For thy sake I struck the kings of the Chanaanites: and thou didst strike My head with a reed.<br /><br />I gave thee a royal scepter: and thou didst give My head a crown of thorns.<br /><br />I exalted thee with great strength: and thou didst hang Me on the gibbet of the Cross.<br /><br />After the Reproaches, we receive Communion, receiving Hosts consecrated at yesterday's Mass. <br /><br />It is customary for churches to offer the Way of the Cross devotion on this day, especially around 3:00, the hour of His death. And, again, there may be a tenebrae service (consisting of the Matins and Lauds for Holy Saturday).<br /><br />Our Lord was laid in the tomb owned by St. Joseph of Arimethea, at a site over which stands now the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, first built on the spot by St. Helena, mother of Constantine the Great. In Jesus's time, the tomb was outside the city; by the time St. Helena was told of it, it was inside the city walls because Hadrian expanded the city's perimeter -- and had built a pagan temple over the site. The basilica built by St. Helena was destroyed by Caliph al-Hakim in A.D. 1009, and was later re-built over time. <br /><br />The exact spot where "the New Adam" was crucified is marked inside the Basilica, and is said to stand over the place where the first Adam was buried. Matthew tells us what happened when Our Lord's Soul left His Body:<br />Matthew 27:51 <br />And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent.<br /><br />Tradition tells us that among those rocks which were rent were those beneath the Cross, and that His Blood dripped down into the crevices (visible today) and reached the spot where the first Adam was interred. The Blood of the New Adam covers the sins of the first Adam! </div>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-16715841712637379892014-04-17T08:00:00.000-04:002014-04-17T08:00:05.707-04:00Maundy Thursday - Diocese of Scranton<h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, FreeSerif, serif; font-size: 22px; font-weight: normal; margin: 0.75em 0px 0px; position: relative;">
<a href="http://rockintraddy.blogspot.com/2013/03/maundy-thursday-diocese-of-scranton.html" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">Maundy Thursday - Diocese of Scranton</a></h3>
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This day, Maundy Thursday (also "Holy Thursday" or "Shire Thursday") commemorates Christ's Last Supper and the initiation of the Eucharist. Its name of "Maundy" comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning "command." This stems from Christ's words in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you." It is the first of the three days known as the "Triduum," and after the Vigil tonight, and until the Vigil of Easter, a more profoundly somber attitude prevails (most especially during the hours between Noon and 3:00 PM on Good Friday). Raucous amusements should be set aside...<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">The Last Supper took place in "the upper room" of the house believed to have been owned by John Mark and his mother, Mary (Acts 12:12). This room, also the site of the Pentecost, is known as the "Coenaculum" or the "Cenacle" and is referred to as "Holy and glorious Sion, mother of all churches" in St. James' Liturgy. At the site of this place -- our first Christian church -- a basilica was built in the 4th century. It was destroyed by Muslims and later re-built by the Crusaders. Underneath the place is the tomb of David. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">After the Supper, He went outside the Old City of Jerusalem, crossed the Kidron Valley, and came to the Garden of Gethsemani, a place whose name means "Olive Press," and where olives still grow today. There He suffered in three ineffable ways: He knew exactly what would befall Him physically and mentally -- every stroke, every thorn in the crown He would wear, every labored breath He would try to take while hanging on the Cross, the pain in each glance at His mother; He knew that He was taking on all the sins of the world -- all the sins that had ever been or ever will be committed; and, finally, He knew that, for some people, this Sacrifice would not be fruitful because they would reject Him. Here He was let down by His Apostles when they fell asleep instead of keeping watch, here is where He was further betrayed by Judas with a kiss, and where He was siezed by "a great multitude with swords and clubs, sent from the chief Priests and the ancients of the people" and taken before Caiphas, the high priest, where he was accused of blasphemy, beaten, spat upon, and prepared to be taken to Pontius Pilate tomorrow morning. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">As for today's liturgies, in the morning, the local Bishop will offer a special Chrism Mass (not in this diocese, however) during which he blesses the oils used in Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, Unction, and the consecration of Altars and churches.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">At the evening Mass, after the bells ring during the Gloria, they are rung no more until the Easter Vigil (a wooden clapper called a "crotalus" is used insead). Parents explain this to their children by saying that the all the bells fly to Rome after the Gloria of the Mass on Maundy Thursday to visit the Popes. Children are told that the bells sleep on the roof of St. Peter's Basilica, and, bringing Easter eggs with them, start their flight home at the Gloria at the Easter Vigil, when they peal wildly. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">Then comes the Washing of the Feet after the homily, a rite performed by Christ upon His disciples to prepare them for the priesthood and the marriage banquet they will offer, and which is rooted in the Old Testament practice of foot-washing in preparation for the marital embrace (II Kings 11:8-11, Canticles 5:3) and in the ritual ablutions performed by the High Priest of the Old Covenant (contrast Leviticus 16:23-24 with John 13:3-5). The priest girds himself with a cloth and washes the feet of 12 men he's chosen to represent the Apostles for the ceremony. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">The rest of the Mass after the Washing of the Feet has a special form, unlike all other Masses. After the Mass, the priest takes off his chasuble and vests in a white cope. He returns to the Altar, incenses the Sacred Hosts in the ciborium, and, preceded by the Crucifer and torchbearers, carries the Ciborium to the "Altar of Repose," also called the "Holy Sepulchre," where it will remain "entombed" until the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">Then there follows the Stripping of the Altars, during which everything is removed as Antiphons and Psalms are recited. All the glorious symbols of Christ's Presence are removed to give us the sense of His entering most fully into His Passion. Christ enters the Garden of Gethsemani; His arrest is imminent. Fortescue's "Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described" tells us: "From now till Saturday no lamps in the church are lit. No bells are rung. Holy Water should be removed from all stoups and thrown into the sacrarium. A small quantity is kept for blessing the fire on Holy Saturday or for a sick call." The joyful signs of His Presence won't return until Easter begins with the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday evening.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arimo;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">And, of course, tomorrow's Matins and Lauds may be read as part of the "tenebrae service".</span></span></div>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-80068940347483934302014-04-16T16:58:00.000-04:002014-04-16T16:58:03.252-04:00Commenting Issues - Diocese of ScrantonDue to the content of recent "anonymous" comments:<br />
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<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">Please comment - but do so with kindness and respect!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">If you break the rules of gentlemanly engagement, (if you are not nice and courteous) then you will be banned.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;" /></b><b><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arimo; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px;">And even though the blog owner is under no such restraint, please, remember to be nice!</span> </b><br />
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<br />The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-12408179407443798752014-04-16T08:00:00.000-04:002014-04-16T08:00:01.669-04:00St. Pio - Diocese of ScrantonWhat a beautiful reminder of our behavior, at Mass and abroad. Read and pray on these words as we move closer to the Passion of our Lord. <div>
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<b><em><big><big><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Comportment at Holy Mass and Afterwards</span></big></big></em></b></div>
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<b><em><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><big>A Letter from St. Padre Pio to Annita Rodote</big><br /><big>Pietrelcina, July 25, 1915</big></span></em></b></div>
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<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beloved daughter of Jesus,</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br />May Jesus and our Mother always smile on your soul, obtaining for it, from Her most holy Son, all the heavenly charisms!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />I am writing to you for two reasons: to answer some more questions from your last letter, and to wish you a very happy names-day in the most sweet Jesus, full of all the most special heavenly graces. Oh! If Jesus granted my prayers for you or, better still, if only my prayers were worthy of being granted by Jesus! However, I increase them a hundredfold for your consolation and salvation, begging Jesus to grant them, not for me but through the heart of his paternal goodness and infinite mercy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br />In order to avoid irreverence and imperfections in the house of God, in church - which the divine Master calls the house of prayer - I exhort you in the Lord to practice the following. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Enter the church in silence and with great respect, considering yourself unworthy to appear before the Lord's Majesty. Amongst other pious considerations, remember that our soul is the temple of God and, as such, we must keep it pure and spotless before God and his angels. Let us blush for having given access to the devil and his snares many times (with his enticements to the world, his pomp, his calling to the flesh) by not being able to keep our hearts pure and our bodies chaste; for having allowed our enemies to insinuate themselves into our hearts, thus desecrating the temple of God which we became through holy Baptism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Then take holy water and make the sign of the cross carefully and slowly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />As soon as you are before God in the Blessed Sacrament, devoutly genuflect. Once you have found your place, kneel down and render the tribute of your presence and devotion to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Confide all your needs to him along with those of others. Speak to him with filial abandonment, give free rein to your heart and give him complete freedom to work in you as he thinks best. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />When assisting at Holy Mass and the sacred functions, be very composed when standing up, kneeling down, and sitting, and carry out every religious act with the greatest devotion. Be modest in your glances; don't turn your head here and there to see who enters and leaves. Don't laugh, out of reverence for this holy place and also out of respect for those who are near you. Try not to speak to anybody, except when charity or strict necessity requests this. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />If you pray with others, say the words of the prayer distinctly, observe the pauses well and never hurry. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, behave in such a way that all present are edified by it and, through you, are urged to glorify and love the heavenly Father. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />On leaving the church, you should be recollected and calm. Firstly take your leave of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; ask his forgiveness for the shortcomings committed in his divine presence and do not leave him without asking for and having received his paternal blessing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Once you are outside the church, be as every follower of the Nazarene should be. Above all, be extremely modest in everything, as this is the virtue which, more than any other, reveals the affections of the heart. Nothing represents an object more faithfully or clearly than a mirror. In the same way, nothing more widely represents the good or bad qualities of a soul than the greater or lesser regulation of the exterior, as when one appears more or less modest. You must be modest in speech, modest in laughter, modest in your bearing, modest in walking. <br /><br />All this must be practiced, not out of vanity in order to display one's self, nor out of hypocrisy in order to appear to be good to the eyes of others, but rather, for the internal virtue of modesty, which regulates the external workings of the body. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Therefore, be humble of heart, circumspect in words, prudent in your resolutions. Always be sparing in your speech, assiduous in good reading, attentive in your work, modest in your conversation. Don't be disgusting to anybody but be benevolent towards all and respectful towards your elders. May any sinister glance be far from you, may no daring word escape your lips, may you never carry out any immodest or somewhat free action; never a rather free action or a petulant tone of voice. <br /><br />In short let your whole exterior be a vivid image of the composure of your soul.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Always keep the modesty of the divine Master before your eyes, as an example; this Master who, according to the words of the Apostle to the Corinthians, placing the modesty of Jesus Christ on an equal footing with meekness, which was his one particular virtue and almost his characteristic: "Now I Paul myself beseech you, by the mildness and modesty of Christ" [Douay-Rheims, 2 Cor. 10:1], and according to such a perfect model reform all your external operations, which should be faithful reflections revealing the affections of your interior. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Never forget this divine model, Annita. Try to see a certain lovable majesty in his presence, a certain pleasant authority in his manner of speaking, a certain pleasant dignity in walking, in contemplating, speaking, conversing; a certain sweet serenity of face. Imagine that extremely composed and sweet expression with which he drew the crowds, making them leave cities and castles, leading them to the mountains, the forests, to the solitude and deserted beaches of the sea, totally forgetting food, drink and their domestic duties. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Thus let us try to imitate, as far as we possibly can, such modest and dignified actions. And let us do our utmost to be, as far as possible, similar to him on this earth, in order that we might be more perfect and more similar to him for the whole of eternity in the heavenly Jerusalem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />I end here as I am unable to continue, recommending that you never forget me before Jesus, especially during these days of extreme affliction for me. I expect the same charity from the excellent Francesca to whom you will have the kindness to give, in my name, assurances of my extreme interest in seeing her grow always more in divine love. I hope she will do me the charity of making a novena of Communions for my intentions. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />Don't worry if you are unable to answer my letter for the moment. I know everything so don't worry. I take my leave of you in the holy kiss of the Lord. I am always your servant. </span></div>
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-48829977220645886182014-04-15T18:25:00.001-04:002014-04-15T18:25:11.310-04:00Altavilla - more revelations - Diocese of Scranton<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, two weeks ago you'll remember police arrested Rev. Philip Altavilla, front man at the flagship church of the Diocese, Saint Peter's Cathedral. Reportedly he was arrested for fondling a 13 year old girls feet and giving her alcohol in the late 90's. Apparently, he told police that he suffers from a "foot fetish".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, now we learn the good reverend has other interests as well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He likes to watch women be strangled, chloroformed, and raped. That means he likes to watch women be harmed. Beaten and raped. And in his fantasies he probably sees himself in place of the man in the videos. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And this is how he receives sexual satisfaction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But, just on the internets, of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At least we hope thats the case. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, I'm not going to throw Altavilla under the bus. I won't be inviting him over to have dinner with my wife and children either, but I'm not going to throw him under the bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hope that the catholics of this diocese are well-formed to know enough about their faith that they are to pray for this priest with his demons and perversions. But I doubt it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are you well-formed Diocese of Scranton catholics? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is our Bishop, Joe Bambera, who admitted to assisting the Diocese in covering up sexual abuse by priests in court proceedings while he was still a Monsignor a true Shepherd of his flock? Or is he more concerned with keeping up appearances and paying lip-service? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My bet is the latter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He needs to publicly answer for his sins.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He needs to march into that cathedral of his that he entrusted to a pervert, take up his cross that is our diocese, and beg our and Gods forgiveness for his part in this. For his covering up sexual abuse. Not have his PR person issue a press release. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talk to us, directly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Come on Bishop. Address your flock one-on-one. Without a script. Accuse yourself of your sins, tell us how sorry you are for enabling fellow priests to hurt our children, and then resign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yeah. Resign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You don't deserve that crozier. You don't deserve to sit up there in your cathedral smiling down on your flock that you willingly fed to the wolves. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a better time of year to do it than to coincide with the memorial of Christ taking up his cross for the souls of his children?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do you have the fortitude to do whats right for the souls of your spiritual children? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No you don't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But you have plenty of lawyers, I'll wager. </span></div>
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-89156231627923524552014-04-04T10:17:00.000-04:002014-04-16T17:11:20.052-04:00Rev. Phillip Altavilla - Diocese of Scranton<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gL-WOJFWVo/Uz69prE3fvI/AAAAAAAAAU0/FkjH0qvLI-I/s1600/3854530761.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4gL-WOJFWVo/Uz69prE3fvI/AAAAAAAAAU0/FkjH0qvLI-I/s1600/3854530761.jpg" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rev. Philip Altavilla shows his childhood bunny during a homily.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: red;">(EDIT: Some folks seem to lack basic reading comprehension skills, so in an attempt to make this piece more readily understandable to those with limited skills, I have made some edits in red, with the EDIT before it. In parenthesis. Thanks.)</span><br />
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Well, at least it isn't a little boy for a change.<span style="color: red;"> (Sarcasm)</span> However, unlike our Bishop, who only sees the opportunity to show how "caring" he is towards the victim in an attempt to ensure that no one sues the diocese and takes his house, I am calling on the faithful to also pray for the priest involved, who has fallen to one of Satan's attacks.<br />
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However, who has not?<br />
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Right Bishop B?<br />
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<blockquote>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Scranton police arrested a priest Thursday for plying<b> </b><span style="color: red;"><b>(notice here the priest is "plying" her with alcohol. whatever does that mean? How does one ply? How much alcohol was given?)</b> </span>a 13-year-old girl with alcohol and touching her feet and thighs inappropriately after a midnight Christmas mass in 1998.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Officers charged the Rev. Philip Altavilla, 48, who was a pastor at St. Patrick's Parish in Scranton at the time of the alleged crime, with indecent assault, criminal attempt to indecent assault and corruption of minors.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The victim, who was a member of the St. Patrick's Parish, told police that the Rev. Altavilla gave <span style="color: red;"><b>(now he merely "gave" her alcohol. Again, I ask how much?) </b></span>her alcohol in the rectory after the midnight service, then offered to drive her home at about 3 a.m. Once in the car, he pulled her legs on his lap and began touching her feet and moving his hands up her legs until the victim attempted to escape, according to the criminal complaint.<b> The priest then apologized and drove the girl home.<span style="color: red;"> (Thank God he was able to restrain himself and it ended there.)</span></b></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The woman met with police Wednesday to report the assault. <span style="color: red;"><b>(Nearly 16 years later. A fact. Sorry for bringing out facts in this case. Silly me.) </b></span>One day later, she called the priest while police listened. He <b>admitted</b> to providing alcohol and to touching her, saying it was "inappropriate" and sexual to him, according to the complaint.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Citizens' Voice does not name victims of sexual assault.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Upon being notified of the charges, the diocese removed the Rev. Altavilla from his assignment and his faculties to exercise priestly ministry were suspended, according to a statement released by Diocese of Scranton Chancellor Teresa Osborne. The statement indicated the diocese was cooperating with police in their investigation.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I am both angry and demoralized to think that, yet again, a priest has been involved in such inappropriate, immoral and illegal behavior," Bishop Joseph C. Bambera said in the statement. "It is particularly distressing that the pastor of our Cathedral Parish, who is known to countless numbers of the faithful and has served in so many positions of trust and responsibility in the Diocese of Scranton has betrayed that trust in such a manner."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The Rev. Altavilla was arraigned Thursday and released on $75,000 unsecured bail. It was unclear late Thursday how long the priest has been with the Diocese of Scranton.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">pcameron@timesshamrock.com</span></blockquote>
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As a side note, above is an example of the Citizen's Voice/Times actually reporting the news versus the lazy 'ole Times Leader who apparently can only manage to reprint the diocesan statement. And here that is, by the way:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On April 3, 2014, the Diocese of Scranton was notified of the arrest of the Reverend Philip Altavilla, a priest of the Diocese of Scranton and pastor of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, who was charged with corruption of a minor and indecent assault. Upon being notified of these charges, the cleric was removed from his assignment and his faculties to exercise priestly ministry were suspended. The Diocese immediately began its cooperation with law enforcement and asks that anyone who may have information about or may have been abused by this cleric contact the Scranton Police Department Detective Bureau at (570) 348-4139.<br />
In response to this crime, the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, D.D., J.C.L. Bishop of Scranton, expressed his remorse and personal sorrow for the victim and all affected by the situation. In acknowledging his concern for the Cathedral community as well as the faithful and clergy of the Diocese of Scranton, the Bishop said, “I am both angry and demoralized to think that, yet again, a priest has been involved in such inappropriate, immoral and illegal behavior. It is particularly distressing that the pastor of our Cathedral Parish, who is known to countless numbers of the faithful and has served in so many positions of trust and responsibility in the Diocese of Scranton has betrayed that trust in such a manner.” The Bishop requests that the faithful of the Diocese join him in praying for this victim and all who are impacted by sexual abuse.<br />
Teresa Osborne<br />
Chancellor</blockquote>
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So, let's look at this carefully. A priest is accused and by his supposed acknowledgement he did in fact give a 13 year old girl alcohol, rubbed her feet and legs inappropriately.<br />
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16 years ago.<br />
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He didn't rape her. <span style="color: red;">(EDIT: Thank God since we now know he enjoys this sort of thing.)</span><br />
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He didn't kill her. <span style="color: red;">(EDIT: Thank God again)</span><br />
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He gave her alcohol, rubbed her feet and legs. <span style="color: red;">(EDIT: This particular sentence is implying that this could have been much, much worse. What he did was bad enough, but remember and give thanks, especially knowing what we now know about this guy, that it wasn't much, much worse.)</span><br />
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Then he stopped when she resisted and took her home. <span style="color: red;">(EDIT Thank God he didn't follow his recently revealed passion for restraint and assault.)</span><br />
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At 3 in the morning. Where were mom and dad? <span style="color: red;">(EDIT: A silly question? Or a legitimate one?)</span> No one wondered where this kid was and why she was coming home at 3am? <span style="color: red;">(EDIT: Again, a question that needs to be asked. I'm a parent. I guarantee you I know where my kids are at all times.)</span><br />
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Why nearly 16 years later is this now 29 year old woman coming forward to report something as innocuous as this?<br />
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Am I the only one who thinks something is up?<br />
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I am calling on investigators to be sure to investigate Rev. Altavilla. Make sure he hasn't done anything like this before or since. Make certain that his behavior did not become worse, and that he has not actually harmed youngsters in any way.<br />
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Be sure to watch this carefully to see how it plays out. In the meantime, be sure to pray for both victims, the victim of Satan's attempt to pull down a priest, and the victim of that lust.<br />
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Here is a nice, traditional prayer for you. By the image above we can see that he is clearly not a traditional priest, but say it for Rev. Altavilla. Say it for ALL priests that they remain true and to ward off the attacks of the evil one on them. Say it that the Rev sees this and amends his life and ministry should he be allowed to do so. Pray he finds tradition in his heart and allows it to flourish.<br />
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But just say it.<br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;">O Jesus, Eternal Priest, keep Thy priests within the shelter of Thy Sacred Heart, where none may touch them. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;">Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Thy Sacred Body. </span></div>
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</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with Thy Precious Blood. </div>
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Keep pure and unworldly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood. </div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Let Thy Holy Love surround them from the world's contagion. </div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
Bless their labors with abundant fruit, and may the souls to whom they minister </div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
be their joy and consolation here and their everlasting crown hereafter. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #000066; font-size: 19px; text-align: center;">Mary, Queen of the Clergy, pray for us: obtain for us numerous and holy priests. Amen. </span></div>
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-4845958442099348952014-04-01T23:37:00.001-04:002014-04-01T23:40:31.475-04:00Orientation in the liturgy - Diocese of Scranton<br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_9msIkjzGAE/UzuGBjZELUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/THLPt1LneFI/s640/blogger-image-1385321755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_9msIkjzGAE/UzuGBjZELUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/THLPt1LneFI/s640/blogger-image-1385321755.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">If you've been around this blog for any length of time, you know that I am of the opinion that Mass said versus populum makes the baby Jesus cry.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">That being said, one of my goals is to see Mass said ad orientem as the norm once again. Here is the beginning of a fantastic 5 part series by Father Scott Newman, <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">pastor of St Mary's in Greenville on ad orientem worship. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You're welcome!</span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span><blockquote><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dear Friends in Christ,<br><br>From Christian antiquity, priests and people have celebrated the Holy Eucharist by facing together towards the LORD. This simple and obvious theological precept has been somewhat obscured in the last generation by the novel practice of the priest standing across the altar from the people during the Eucharistic Prayer, a custom almost never before found in the sacred liturgy except for rare instances of architectural necessity, and in the last few years, theologians and pastors have begun to review this novelty in light of the best scholarship and the experience of the past 40 years.<br><br>Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger was one of the most thoughtful and respected critics of the unintended consequences which flow from the priest and people facing each other across the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer. Ratzinger argued that this arrangement, in addition to being a radical novelty in Christian practice, has the effect of creating a circle of congregation and celebrant closed in upon itself rather than allowing the congregation and celebrant to be a pilgrim people together turned towards the LORD. And this closed circle, in turn, too easily renders the Eucharist more of a horizontal celebration of the congregation gathered than a vertical offering of the sacrifice of Christ to the Father. This flattening of divine worship into a self-referential celebration is, in part, what leads many Catholics to experience Mass as much less than the source and summit of the Church’s life, and the remedy for this malady is to open the closed circle and experience the power of turning together towards the LORD.<br><br>This can be done primarily in two ways: 1) return to the ancient and universal practice of the priest standing with the people on one side of the altar as they together face liturgical East, the place from which the glory of the LORD shines upon us, or 2) even when the priest and people remain separated on opposite sides of the altar, place a cross at the center of the altar to allow both celebrant and congregation to face the LORD. Pope Benedict, through his writing and by his example, is encouraging priests everywhere to work towards these goals to enrich the experience of divine worship and free us from the danger of solipsism which is contained in self-referential ways of praying.<br><br>This is why you see today in the sanctuary a new crucifix standing at the center of the altar. In the weeks ahead, as we grow accustomed to this gentle modification of the way we pray together, I will review with you the meaning and practical consequences of the priest and people turning together towards the LORD. For those of you who would like to read about these matters in some depth, I recommend two books. The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Ratzinger and Turning Towards the Lord by Uwe Michael Lang are both excellent places to learn about the nature and purpose of divine worship and the ways in which the Church’s ritual must reflect the reality of the sacred in liturgical prayer.</span></blockquote>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-81062834990008547502014-03-31T22:14:00.001-04:002014-03-31T22:19:17.105-04:00Is your parish a desert? Diocese of ScrantonAnd by desert, I mean has some goofy liturgist or "innovative" priest removed the holy water from the stoups at your church during this Lenten season?<div><br></div><div>If so, print this letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship and be sure it gets into their hands. </div><div><br></div><div><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> March 14, 2000</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Dear Father:</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.</strong></span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> This Dicastery is able to respond that <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted</strong>, in particular, for two reasons:</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">praeter legem</span> is <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent</strong>, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> 2. <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of the [sic] of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent.</strong> The "fast" and "abstinence" which the faithful embrace in this season does <strong style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals</strong> of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Hoping that this resolves the question and with every good wish and kind regard, I am,</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Sincerely yours in Christ,<br> Mons. Mario Marini <br> Undersecretary</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">So what have we learned, gentle readers? </span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The practice is not permitted.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">As Catholics we are called to catechise, sometimes, we are called to gently correct. And sometimes those we must catechise and correct are clergy that have forgotten, or who choose to ignore the proper way to do things. </span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Be active and deny innovation what it needs to succeed - inactivity by the faithful.</span></p><p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Pax.</span></p></div><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YKDQ6NPilSA/UzoiInGeN_I/AAAAAAAAAUM/UnnnNVAPmCY/s640/blogger-image-19865379.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YKDQ6NPilSA/UzoiInGeN_I/AAAAAAAAAUM/UnnnNVAPmCY/s640/blogger-image-19865379.jpg"></a></div>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-23084481749120355442013-10-24T14:09:00.001-04:002013-10-24T14:09:10.382-04:00Remember the Poor Souls - Diocese of ScrantonYes, I'm still here. Much more active on my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rockin.traddy.7" target="_blank">Facebook</a> page than I am here. I encourage you to visit me <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rockin.traddy.7" target="_blank">there</a> where you can get the latest in real news that matters to Catholics as well as interact with me.<br />
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Todays post is here to remind Catholics that All Souls Day is fast approaching. Those of my readers with a Novus Ordo attachment undoubtedly have not heard this mentioned in your parishes yet, unless you're having a piggie dinner or something on that day.<br />
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The Catholic custom is that when we die, our loved ones pray for our souls. And continue to pray for our souls until they die.<br />
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Because we need their prayers.<br />
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We are not dead when we die, but alive in Christ, and our loved ones help us with their prayers after we die.<br />
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We should pray for our dearly departed everyday, but the octave of All Souls is put aside by Holy Mother Church to pray for them and to gain indulgences for ourselves.<br />
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<b>PLENARY INDULGENCES FOR THE POOR SOULS</b><br />
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<b>Six General rules for obtaining a plenary indulgence:</b><br />
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1. State of grace at when performing the indulgenced act.<br />
2. Complete detachment from sin, even venial sin.<br />
3. Confession (20 days before or after the indulgenced act)<br />
4. Communion (20 days before or after the indulgenced act)<br />
5. Prayers for the Supreme Pontiff (20 days before or after the indulgenced act)<br />
6. Indulgenced act: a special good work with special conditions of place and time.<br />
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<b>Indulgenced acts to be performed for obtaining a plenary indulgence:</b><br />
*From November 1 to 8: visit of a cemetery with mental prayer for the poor souls.<br />
*On November 2: visit of a church or an oratory with one Our Father and one Creed being recited.<br />
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A partial indulgence can be obtained any time by visiting a cemetery and praying for the Poor Souls. The following prayer is especially recommended:<br />
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<i>Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.</i><br />
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<i>Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.</i><br />
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<b>POOR SOULS NOVENA</b><br />
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<b>Starting on October 24th, and continuing until November 2nd, you may say this novena once a day:</b><br />
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<i>O God, the Creator and Redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of thy servants and handmaids departed, the remission of all their sins; that through pious supplications they may obtain the pardon they have always desired. Who livest and reignest with God the Father in unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen. </i><br />
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-71842622151747852142013-04-05T17:06:00.002-04:002013-04-05T17:06:31.058-04:00USCCB and your guns - diocese of scranton<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8bSpe2EWdxw/UV87zsagt2I/AAAAAAAAASY/RJ0CTifDrc8/s1600/blog_S_mary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8bSpe2EWdxw/UV87zsagt2I/AAAAAAAAASY/RJ0CTifDrc8/s1600/blog_S_mary.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">Apparently the Bishops of America do not believe you should have guns either. </span></span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;"><br /></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">Because ya know, owning a firearm is as terrible as sucking a baby out of your womb with a vacuum. Apparently.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">And who is this Sister Mary Liberated speaking for the USCCB? Have they even had a vote on this? Has it come up over afternoon tea?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px;">And anyway, the teaching authority of the USCCB doesn't even exist. According to the Magisterium. We'll get to that next time. For now, have a giggle, enjoy the good sister's assault on "assault weapons". You'll notice she is only credited as "Mary Ann Walsh" in the Post article. Here's her HuffPo bio:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">Sister Mary Ann Walsh is director of media relations for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. She is a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Northeast Community. She is an award-winning writer and has been published in several periodicals including The Washington Post, USA Today, America, and Editor & Publisher and is editor of three books: </span><em style="background-color: white; border: none; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Pope John Paul II: A Light for the World</em><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">, </span><em style="background-color: white; border: none; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">From John Paul II to Benedict XVI: An Inside Look at the End of an Era, the Beginning of a New One and the Future of the Church</em><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">, and </span><em style="background-color: white; border: none; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on His Papacy</em><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;">.</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">Catholic bishops: It’s pro-life to ban assault weapons</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">By Mary Ann Walsh, Published: April 3</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">Some things seem naturally abhorrent – forceps to crush a cranium in an abortion, a needle to deliver a sentence intravenously on death row, and an assault weapon in the hands of the man on the street. Each instrument may have a purpose some time, somewhere, but as used above, each reflects brutality in our society.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">The Catholic Church opposes use of all three instruments to take a life. The church’s pro-life stand against abortion is undisputed. So is its pro-life stand in opposition to the death penalty. It can only be justified if there is no other way to keep a deadly criminal from hurting more people. And in the most recent – and all too common – threat to human life, the church opposes the growing preponderance of lethal weapons on the streets. It stands as another important pro-life position. Read <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/catholic-bishops-its-pro-life-to-ban-assault-weapons/2013/04/03/b8654200-9c15-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_story.html" target="_blank">more</a></span></blockquote>
<br />The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-23240037697925317032013-04-05T15:03:00.001-04:002013-04-05T15:03:17.320-04:00Pedophilia, the new norm - diocese of scrantonIn regard to this matter of gays and marriage I have often asked the question:<br />
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If we make homosexual behavior normal as has slowly been happening for the last 45 years, and if the government redefines marriage, where does it end?<br />
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I have often said some day pedophiles will be declared normal. Just another sexual orientation that we need to recognize and celebrate.<br />
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That day is here.<br />
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California Congresswoman, Rep. Jackie Speier CA (D), wants to federalize a state law to prohibit counseling to change a person’s sexual orientation. That doesn’t sound that extreme, but pedophilia is a sexual orientation according to this bill as well.<br />Under the bill’s language, a mental health counselor could be sanctioned if there was an attempt to get a pedophile or gay individual to change his behavior or speak negatively about their behavior as it relates to sexuality. </blockquote>
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The bill calls on states to prohibit efforts to change a minor’s sexual orientation, even if the minor requests it, saying that doing so is “dangerous and harmful.” </blockquote>
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The text of the legislation doesn’t specifically ban “gay” conversion therapy. Instead, it prohibits attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation. </blockquote>
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“Sexual orientation change efforts’ means any practices by mental health providers that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation,” the bill says. </blockquote>
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Republicans attempted to add an amendment specifying that, “pedophilia is not covered as an orientation.” However, the Democrats defeated the amendment. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) stated that all alternative sexual lifestyles should be protected under the law, and accordingly decided that pedophilia is a sexual orientation that should be equally as embraced as homosexuality. Read the rest <a href="http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/04/03/pedophilia-is-a-sexual-orientation-under-ca-bill/" target="_blank">here</a></blockquote>
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The chastisements must be close.The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-7492864984727992142013-04-03T14:59:00.001-04:002013-04-03T14:59:27.117-04:00The Wuss of Scranton - diocese of ScrantonInstead of the Bishop of Scranton. I like it.<br />
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So little Bobby Casey supports the current administrations stand on same sex marriage, clearly showing his disregard of church teaching.<br />
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What does the Wuss of Scranton do? <br />
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Bar Casey from receiving Holy Communion?<br />
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Nah. Too high church.<br />
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Demand Casey follow church teaching on this subject? <br />
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Nah. Going against church teaching is the norm. Move along people, nothing to see here.<br />
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So what exactly does Wuss Bambera do?<br />
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Nothing.<br />
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Here is the milquetoast response to Bobby Casey support of same sex marriage:<br />
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"Posted on: 04-1-2013 Posted in: News<br />
On April 1, 2013, Pennsylvania’s senior United States Senator, Robert Casey issued a statement supporting marriage equality for same-sex couples and asserting his belief that the Defense of Marriage Act should be repealed. In so doing, Senator Casey has unfortunately and disappointingly set aside the Catholic belief and teaching that the sacrament of marriage, rooted in the natural law, is a faithful, exclusive, lifelong, loving union of a man and a woman open to the transmission of human life. The dual purpose of marriage: the unity and love of a man and a woman, and procreation has been rooted in human history long before any religion, nation or law was established. Senator Casey’s position is contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church. <br />
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While the Church has been and continues to be clear in its long standing teaching on marriage, its defense of marriage should not be interpreted as an attack on individuals with same sex attractions. The Church likewise has proclaimed since its beginnings that every person has an inherent dignity. Like all human beings, our lesbian or gay sisters and brothers are beloved children of God. As a result, the Catholic Church affirms that they “must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in this regard should be avoided” [Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2358]. Clearly, the Church asserts that the fundamental human rights of all persons must be defended, and encourages the elimination of any form of injustice, oppression, or violence against all people, regardless of sexual orientation."<br />
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So what's the penalty for someone who sets aside catholic belief in this diocese?<br />
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There is none. <br />
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Bambera should be ashamed. <br />
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I know I am.<br />
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-14311471012191074362013-03-28T09:49:00.001-04:002013-03-28T09:49:26.580-04:00Maundy Thursday - Diocese of Scranton <br />
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This day, Maundy Thursday (also "Holy Thursday" or "Shire Thursday") commemorates Christ's Last Supper and the initiation of the Eucharist. Its name of "Maundy" comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning "command." This stems from Christ's words in John 13:34, "A new commandment I give unto you." It is the first of the three days known as the "Triduum," and after the Vigil tonight, and until the Vigil of Easter, a more profoundly somber attitude prevails (most especially during the hours between Noon and 3:00 PM on Good Friday). Raucous amusements should be set aside... <br />
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The Last Supper took place in "the upper room" of the house believed to have been owned by John Mark and his mother, Mary (Acts 12:12). This room, also the site of the Pentecost, is known as the "Coenaculum" or the "Cenacle" and is referred to as "Holy and glorious Sion, mother of all churches" in St. James' Liturgy. At the site of this place -- our first Christian church -- a basilica was built in the 4th century. It was destroyed by Muslims and later re-built by the Crusaders. Underneath the place is the tomb of David. <br />
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After the Supper, He went outside the Old City of Jerusalem, crossed the Kidron Valley, and came to the Garden of Gethsemani, a place whose name means "Olive Press," and where olives still grow today. There He suffered in three ineffable ways: He knew exactly what would befall Him physically and mentally -- every stroke, every thorn in the crown He would wear, every labored breath He would try to take while hanging on the Cross, the pain in each glance at His mother; He knew that He was taking on all the sins of the world -- all the sins that had ever been or ever will be committed; and, finally, He knew that, for some people, this Sacrifice would not be fruitful because they would reject Him. Here He was let down by His Apostles when they fell asleep instead of keeping watch, here is where He was further betrayed by Judas with a kiss, and where He was siezed by "a great multitude with swords and clubs, sent from the chief Priests and the ancients of the people" and taken before Caiphas, the high priest, where he was accused of blasphemy, beaten, spat upon, and prepared to be taken to Pontius Pilate tomorrow morning. <br />
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As for today's liturgies, in the morning, the local Bishop will offer a special Chrism Mass (notmn this diocese, however) during which blesses the oils used in Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Orders, Unction, and the consecration of Altars and churches.<br />
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At the evening Mass, after the bells ring during the Gloria, they are rung no more until the Easter Vigil (a wooden clapper called a "crotalus" is used insead). Parents explain this to their children by saying that the all the bells fly to Rome after the Gloria of the Mass on Maundy Thursday to visit the Popes. Children are told that the bells sleep on the roof of St. Peter's Basilica, and, bringing Easter eggs with them, start their flight home at the Gloria at the Easter Vigil, when when they peal wildly. <br />
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Then comes the Washing of the Feet after the homily, a rite performed by Christ upon His disciples to prepare them for the priesthood and the marriage banquet they will offer, and which is rooted in the Old Testament practice of foot-washing in preparation for the marital embrace (II Kings 11:8-11, Canticles 5:3) and in the ritual ablutions performed by the High Priest of the Old Covenant (contrast Leviticus 16:23-24 with John 13:3-5). The priest girds himself with a cloth and washes the feet of 12 men he's chosen to represent the Apostles for the ceremony. <br />
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The rest of the Mass after the Washing of the Feet has a special form, unlike all other Masses. After the Mass, the priest takes off his chasuble and vests in a white cope. He returns to the Altar, incenses the Sacred Hosts in the ciborium, and, preceded by the Crucifer and torchbearers, carries the Ciborium to the "Altar of Repose," also called the "Holy Sepulchre," where it will remain "entombed" until the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday. <br />
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Then there follows the Stripping of the Altars, during which everything is removed as Antiphons and Psalms are recited. All the glorious symbols of Christ's Presence are removed to give us the sense of His entering most fully into His Passion. Christ enters the Garden of Gethsemani; His arrest is imminent. Fortescue's "Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described" tells us: "From now till Saturday no lamps in the church are lit. No bells are rung. Holy Water should be removed from all stoups and thrown into the sacrarium. A small quantity is kept for blessing the fire on Holy Saturday or for a sick call." The joyful signs of His Presence won't return until Easter begins with the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday evening.<br />
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And, of course, tomorrow's Matins and Lauds may be read as part of the "tenebrae service".<br />
<br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9K0xx7V9PHM/UVRKZJal86I/AAAAAAAAASI/J2zmrC0f9Gc/s640/blogger-image--288777156.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-9K0xx7V9PHM/UVRKZJal86I/AAAAAAAAASI/J2zmrC0f9Gc/s640/blogger-image--288777156.jpg" /></a></div>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-50528003052083317072013-03-21T22:39:00.001-04:002013-03-21T23:04:01.728-04:00All About Him - diocese of ScrantonI have taken my own advice this past week and prayed. And discerned.<br />
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So now I have to speak up. <br />
<br />
The Pope is not just the Pope.<br />
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He is the Bishop of Rome.<br />
<br />
Now everyone pretty much thinks of St. Peter's Basilica when they think of the Pope. Well, as Bishop of Rome he also has St. John Lateran as his diocesan cathedral.<br />
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But in his eagerness to be humble, Pope Francis has not yet taken possession of St. John Lateran.<br />
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Holy Thursday Mass, which celebrates the institution of the holy priesthood and the Eucharist has for hundreds of years been celebrated by the Bishop of Rome at St. John Lateran.<br />
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Not this year. <br />
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This year the new Holy Father has decided to take a road trip down to the local prison.<br />
<br />
Yep. <br />
<br />
Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Mass in a youth prison outside of Rome. <br />
<br />
Ok, fine.<br />
<br />
We get it. You're channeling St Francis of Assisi. <br />
<br />
Great.<br />
<br />
Get over it because you are the Pope now, not the bishop of Buenos Aires. You have duties and responsibilities. Remember all those people who stood outside in the crappy weather when you were elected? <br />
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Remember how you spoke as the Bishop of Rome to your flock? <br />
<br />
Yes, it is an act of mercy to visit those in prison. <br />
<br />
But couldn't you visit the prison earlier in the day? Wednesday, perhaps? Said Mass for them some other time? <br />
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The bigger picture is that every time he rides the bus or doesn't wear the Mozzetta, or wears black shoes or moves Holy Thursday Mass to a prison, he makes it all about him. "Oh look! Our Pope is sooooo humble and nice!"<br />
<br />
If he really wanted to show them some mercy, he should have arranged for the prisoners to come to St. John Lateran and get them out of the prison for a few hours to assist at Holy Mass.<br />
<br />
But, what are ya gonna do? Hopefully someone at the Vatican will tell him what he's supposed to be doing. We'll see.<br />
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Watch and pray my friends as the Pope Francis show continues!<br />
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Latest update: Pope Francis also got rid of the Papal Throne, and is making the humble Papal apartments in the Vatican smaller. On top of that, lets not forget they had to order brand new vestments for his installation. He didn't like any of the ones the Vatican had laying around. Not too thrifty, eh? More money that could have been saved for the poor. <br />
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-59400224625088260702013-03-16T12:16:00.000-04:002013-03-16T12:16:44.597-04:00Pray and Discern - Diocese of ScrantonYes, we have a Pope.<br />
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Yes, he is from the "Americas".<br />
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Yes, his name is Francis.<br />
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Other than that, I am praying, watching, and praying some more.<br />
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That's what you all should be doing as well.<br />
<br />
I'll be back, something of this magnitude requires quiet and reflection. And prayer.<br />
<br />
There's a lot of questions. A lot of accusations. A lot of joy. A lot of sadness.<br />
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Discernment is required.<br />
<br />
Don't listen to CNN on this. Don't listen to CBS.<br />
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Pray and listen to what God says to you.<br />
<br />
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.<br />
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<br />The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-43402009152046290002013-03-12T19:24:00.001-04:002013-03-12T19:24:57.564-04:00Obamalley - The Diocese of ScrantonIf you're my friend on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/rockin.traddy.7, you've seen my ongoing comments regarding the conclave today and our first look at the black smoke, and some of my criticism of the American "cardinals" Dolan and O'Malley.<br />
<br />
Here's a story I had to go to Canada for about Obama's connection to O'Malley. Shame on the American media for not reporting this. <br />
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http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/53707The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-83929356303141027082013-03-08T12:57:00.002-05:002013-03-08T12:57:59.406-05:00Conclave 3-12-13 - Diocese of Scranton<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Well, they have set the start date for the conclave that will elect Raymond Cardinal Burke the next Supreme Pontiff. (I hope and pray!) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">(Vatican Radio) The eighth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals meeting in the Vatican Synod Hall Friday has decided that the Conclave for the election of the Pope will begin on Tuesday, 12 March 2013.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">A “</span><i style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">pro eligendo Romano Pontifice</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">” Mass will be celebrated in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning. Then Tuesday afternoon the 115 Cardinal Electors will gather in the Pauline Chapel for a moment of collection and prayer and from there they will process in order of precedence through the Sala Regia to the Sistine Chapel invoking the Holy Spirit.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">There they will take their seats, again observing the order of precedence, to elect the 265</span><sup style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">th</sup><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Successor to St Peter. Once they have taken their seats they will hear the second meditation established by the Apostolic Constitution governing the papal transitions. It will be given by the Maltese Augustinian, Cardinal Prospero Grech. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Following the mediation, the 115 cardinals will swear an oath to observe the rules of Conclave which include to maintain fidelity to the election of the Pope, to maintain secrecy, never to support or favor interference. The Cardinal Dean Angelo Sodano, reads aloud the formula of the oath, the Cardinal electors respond: I do so promise, pledge and swear. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">After all the Cardinals have taken the oath, the Master of the Papal Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini orders all individuals other than the Cardinal Electors and conclave participants to leave the Sistine Chapel. He stands at the great wooden doors and pronounces the phrase: "Extra omnes!" He then closes the door. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">According to the Apostolic Constitution, on the afternoon of the first day, one ballot may be held. If a ballot takes place on the afternoon of the first day and no-one is elected, four ballots are held on each successive day, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. If no result is obtained after three vote days of balloting, the process is suspended for a maximum of one day for prayer, meditation and reflection. A two thirds majority is required for the election of a Pope.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Of the 115 Cardinal Electors, more than half are European with the largest single nationality represented by the 28 Italian Cardinal Electors. In a geographical breakdown: 60 come from Europe, 19 from Latin America, 14 from North America, 11 from Africa, 10 from Asia and 1 from Oceania. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The average age of the Cardinal Electors is 71 while 67 of the Cardinals who will enter in the Conclave Tuesday were appointed by Pope emeritus, Benedict XVI. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #343434; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">There were eight Conclaves in the 20th century, only three of which lasted longer than three days. The longest Conclave in the last two hundred years was 1830-1831. It lasted 50 days for a total of 83 ballots resulting in the election of Gregory XVI, the last religious elected to the papacy. The shortest Conclave in the 20th century took place in 1939. Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pius XII after just three ballots</span></blockquote>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-18330739817582420982013-03-07T10:48:00.001-05:002013-03-07T10:48:12.401-05:00Fit For A Pope - Diocese of ScrantonWhile everyone else is blogging about the coming conclave and what qualities the new Pontiff will need, I wanted to focus a bit more on something gravely important.<br />
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Fashion!<br />
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What will the new Pope be wearing? <br />
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Well, the famous Rome tailor shop Gammarelli, just a stones throw from the Pantheon now has on display in its front window the cassock and accessories to be worn for the new Pope's presentation to the people just after his election the Catholic News Service reported.<br />
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"The Gammarelli shop proudly showcased in its street-level window the white wool cassocks in three different sizes: "tall," "medium," and "small," since no one knows who will be the new pope or what his measurements will be.<br />
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It takes three-and-a-half days to cut, prepare and sew by hand one complete cassock, said the sixth-generation family member, so all three were finished "very quickly" by March 1 and displayed in the shop window the morning of March 4.<br />
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The shop eventually will deliver the ensemble to the Vatican in time for the conclave and election.<br />
<br />
The Gammarelli shop was founded in 1798 and has served every 21st- and 20th-century pontiff except for Pope Pius XII, who stuck with his family's tailor."<br />
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Read the complete story here: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1300975.htm<br />
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I'm thinking about ordering a pair of socks from Gammarelli for Sunday Mass. Probably the only thing I can afford. If anyone else wants to order something, email me, we can save on shipping! <br/><br/><div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-JJvdWwdAuZA/UTi2uqPZflI/AAAAAAAAARo/GtjMSOHZWP8/s640/blogger-image--1977150500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-JJvdWwdAuZA/UTi2uqPZflI/AAAAAAAAARo/GtjMSOHZWP8/s640/blogger-image--1977150500.jpg" /></a></div>The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-223879078605795842013-02-13T13:31:00.001-05:002013-02-13T13:31:49.914-05:00Ash Wednesday - Diocese of ScrantonRemember - Today Lent begins. What are your plans? Fasting and abstinence is the norm. Two small snacks and a meal. And remember - no meat!<br />
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Did you get "shrived" yesterday?<br />
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Is your parish offering the sacrament of confession today? Take advantage if they are.<br />
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Did you know? Parishes diocese-wide will be offering confession every Monday evening during Lent?<br />
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A sincere thank you to Bishop Bambera for making this available to the faithful. It is sorely needed.<br />
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<br />The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-36504201658902611542013-02-13T10:14:00.001-05:002013-02-13T10:14:45.663-05:00Wolves at the Vatican - Diocese of ScrantonWow. What an article by Christopher Ferrera at the Remnant.<br />
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(www.RemnantNewspaper.com) It has been my great privilege to write for this venerable journal regarding some of the most important events in recent Church history, including the election of Pope Benedict XVI, which Michael Matt and I were fortunate enough to witness in Rome itself beneath the very balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica. But how does one gather his wits on such short notice to offer a useful assessment of an event as epochal as the abdication of a Roman Pontiff, and in particular this Pontiff, whose dramatic gestures have favorably altered the landscape of our devastated ecclesial commonwealth in ways we could only hope for during the long and increasingly ruinous pontificate of John Paul “the Great.”<br />
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Two questions immediately present themselves: Can a Pope resign, that is, abdicate, and why did Pope Benedict do so? The first is easily answered, at least technically. As the Catholic Encyclopedia observes: “Like every other ecclesiastical dignity, the papal throne may also be resigned.” Indeed, “[t]he reasons which make it lawful for a bishop to abdicate his see, such as the necessity or utility of his particular church, or the salvation of his own soul, apply in a stronger manner to the one who governs the universal church.” And while there is no higher earthly authority to which a Pope can tender his resignation, “he himself by the papal power can dissolve the spiritual marriage between himself and the Roman Church.” We can dispense by anticipation with any contrary canonical arguments we can expect hear from the amateur canonists of the Internet. None other than Pope Boniface VIII, that great exemplar of the papal supremacy, decreed the inherent capacity of a Pope to resign his own office, which decree is codified in the Corpus Juris Canonici (Cap. Quoniam I, de renun., in 6).<br />
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So, technically and logically at least a Pope has the capacity to renounce his own office as Vicar of Christ. And the abdication of a Pope, while exceedingly rare, is not unprecedented. There are several examples, including the well-known abdication of Pope Celestine V in 1294. One case is particularly striking: Pope Benedict IX (1033-44), who “had long caused scandal to the Church by his disorderly life, freely renounced the pontificate and took the habit of a monk,” to be succeeded by Clement II. (Benedict IX attempted to reclaim the papal throne after Clement’s death, but evidently failed in the endeavor).<br />
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But the abdication of Benedict XVI appears to be sui generis—a purely discretionary decision by a pontiff who is neither incapacitated nor under some objective duty to resign on account of, say, personal scandal or a contested election that has thrown the Church into turmoil, as we see with the abdication of Pope Gregory XII during the Great Western Schism. Quite the contrary, by all appearances, including the elegant text of his own statement of resignation, the Pope retains to the full his intellectual acuity and suffers from no life-threating medical condition, as the Vatican itself insists.<br />
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Why, then, did Benedict XVI abdicate, and so suddenly? The proffered explanation of declining health and strength, which has afflicted any number of Popes who remained in office until God called them, would suggest a Pope who has simply failed in the virtue of perseverance and done something contemptible. (Dante for this reason places Pope Celestine in Hell.) But charity counsels that we seek another explanation. Hilary White of Life Site News has pointed me to the view of theologian Brian Flanagan, who opines that the Pope’s “resignation” reflects a two-fold rationale: “the possible practical benefits of having a younger man… at the helm, preventing the administrative and bureaucratic mayhem of the last years of John Paul’s papacy, [and] this move symbolically brings the papacy down to its proper size. The papacy can now be clearly seen as a crucial office of the universal church, but one in which the pope remains an officeholder, rather than an irreplaceable, magical figure.”<br />
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I think Flanagan may have it have half right: the Pope has abdicated because he perceives that he is simply unable to mitigate any further the ecclesial chaos John Paul “the Great” left behind after the vast crowds had dispersed and their rowdy cheers of “Santo Subito” had faded away. I believe—or at least I want to believe—that Benedict sees as the only hope for an ecclesial restoration the elevation of a younger, fitter conservative to the Throne of Peter. I also believe that Benedict has concluded that if he were to remain in office for several years to come, something disastrous would happen that a more vigorous successor, if elected now, might be able to avert—about which more in a moment.<br />
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In assessing this hypothesis we must begin with the Pope’s extraordinary statement of abdication—the first of its kind in Church history—to see what we can see. Given the enormous historical importance of the document, I set it forth entirely here:<br />
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Dear Brothers,<br />
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I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.<br />
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Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.<br />
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From the Vatican, 10 February 2013<br />
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The first clue the document provides about what is really going on is that it was issued during a Consistory convoked for the canonizations of saints of the pre-Vatican II epoch: First, the martyrs Antonio Primaldo and 799 companions, beheaded at Otranto, Italy in 1480 by invading Turkish soldiers after they refused to convert to Islam. (It is said that the headless body of Primaldo, a humble tailor, stood erect and could not be toppled until every last of one his companions had been martyred.) Second, Laura di Santa Caterina da Siena Montoya y Upegui (1874-1949), the virgin foundress of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, who led a mission to convert the Indians of Latin America. Third, Maria Guadalupe García Zavala (1878-1963), foundress of the Handmaids of St. Margaret Mary and the Poor and a victim of the Mexican government’s persecution of the Catholic Church.<br />
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Tellingly, what appear to be Pope Benedict’s final three acts of canonization—generally acknowledged by theologians to be an infallible act of the Magisterium because it establishes a cult for the universal Church—involved only classic candidates for sainthood. Their heroic virtues were patent and were accompanied by the highest fidelity to their stations in the Church. This is quite unlike the non-infallible beatification of John Paul II, establishing only a local cult in the dioceses of Rome and Krakow (although this crucial distinction was promptly ignored). Concerning this beatification, Vatican spokesmen offered the astonishing rationale that “Pope John Paul II is being beatified not because of his impact on history or on the Catholic Church, but because of the way he lived the Christian virtues of faith, hope and love... John Paul II is being beatified for holiness, not his papacy….” A Pope whose beatification had nothing to do with his pontificate, and yet is called “the Great,” is another of the innumerable oddities that litter the post-conciliar landscape of the Church.<br />
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Now, Pope Benedict’s abdication is to take effect a mere seventeen days from today, on February 28, 2013 at precisely 8 p.m. This means that Benedict will avoid the dubious canonization of John Paul II and the simply absurd beatification of Paul VI. The steamroller driving toward those vexatious events, sweeping aside all reasonable objections, has suddenly been stopped dead in its tracks. Did the Pope abdicate, at least in part, to slow down John Paul II’s saint-making machine, which was threatening to canonize the Council of which Benedict himself (in his more candid moments) has been so critical? We may be permitted think so.<br />
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Consider: Benedict might have been wrestling with the propriety of raising John Paul to the altars of the universal Church and declaring Paul VI a beatus, thus placing his papal imprimatur on what he himself, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, described as a post-conciliar “process of decay”—a process only Pope Benedict has done anything to reverse since the Council. Yet, Benedict was also under tremendous pressure from “conciliarist” forces to perform both acts in order to shore up the collapsing credibility of the conciliar aggiornamento. At this very moment, the trickle of traditionalist critiques is becoming a torrent of criticism by respectable theologians of the mainstream, as the “spirit” of the Council wanes while its disastrous effects become too obvious to explain away any longer. (See, for example, the posthumously revealed commentary by the eminent non-traditionalist theologian Fr. Divo Barsotti, whose diary records this damning assessment: “I am perplexed with regard to the Council: the plethora of documents, their length, often their language, these frightened me. They are documents that bear witness to a purely human assurance more than to a simple firmness of faith.”)<br />
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Thus, we can surmise that Benedict faced a dilemma: If he simply refused to exercise the papal primacy to canonize the Council, he would be met with a storm of outrage from conciliarist militants. But if he yielded to pressure and proceeded with those acts, he would have to answer to his own conscience and ultimately to the Judge of us all. Fearing that he would be unable to resist the pressure to perform the ceremonies demanded and already arranged, awaiting only his approving act, he might have concluded that his best course of action was to jump off the steamroller before it could reach its destination. It stands to reason that if Benedict were at all committed to the idea of “Saint John Paul II the Great” and “Blessed Paul VI,” he would have remained in office at least long enough to perform the necessary papal acts. Yet he has left office, in a purely discretionary manner, just as those acts were slated to occur—during the ironically designated “Year of Faith” that is taking place in the midst of the “silent apostasy” that is our inheritance from the previous two pontificates.<br />
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Or perhaps, even if this was not the Pope’s conscious intent, the Holy Ghost has intervened by prompting him to abdicate rather than inflicting further damage to the Church by acceding to the Council’s canonization via improvident acts of the Magisterium. As this newspaper noted in a recent news item, it does appear to be a miracle that, just days ago, the seemingly imminent canonization of John Paul II was abruptly postponed until at least 2014. Was that postponement Pope Benedict’s doing in anticipation of his abdication? Did he act under the influence of the Holy Ghost? These are reasonable questions in view of the shocking decision by a reigning Roman Pontiff to renounce his office even though he is neither physically nor mentally incapacitated.<br />
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Benedict’s statement does cite his awareness of his own declining mental and physical state, but these are only the normal consequences of aging. If the italicized sentences are read carefully in context, however, they provide key indications of why the Pope has abdicated in the circumstances peculiar to his pontificate. While still physically and mentally sound, he feels himself too weak of mind as well as body to confront “questions of deep relevance for the life of faith” and “to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel…”<br />
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Here we confront what I believe the Pope must know but we do not: that something wicked this way comes. Has Pope Benedict been driven from office by the wolves he feared when his Pontificate began? Recall his momentous words in the sermon during the Mass for what the conciliar neo-modernists refuse to call his coronation, but rather an “inauguration,” as if the Pope were a mere elected official: “Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves.” Among the wolves are, as always, the numberless external enemies of the Church, many of whom demanded precisely that he resign. The apostate Sinead O’Connor is typical of these. Pointing to the sex-abuse scandals that racked the pontificate of John Paul “the Great,” O’Connor declared that “Benedict is in no position to call himself Christ’s representative. The pope should stand down…”<br />
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But we can be certain that the wolves the Pope has in view are preeminently the ones nearest to him, encircling him within the very confines of a Vatican bureaucracy that has crushed the monarchical papacy under the massive machinery of an ecclesiastical democracy installed during the post-conciliar revolution, with its “collegiality” and its “reform” of the Roman Curia. I am reminded here of Bishop Fellay’s revelation that during his audience with Pope Benedict at Castel Gondolfo in August 2005, he pleaded with the Pope to take action to restore the Church fully: “You are the Pope!” said Bishop Fellay (in substance) when the two of them were left alone for a moment. But the Pope, pointing to the door of the room in which the audience took place, replied forlornly: “My authority ends at that door.”<br />
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And what is outside that door? The wolves in the Pope’s own household. The Pope himself confirms a veritable overthrow of the papacy to the extent such is humanly possible. Seen in this light, the Pope’s unprecedented discretionary abdication takes on an apocalyptic aspect. And it was Benedict himself who made it a point to link his situation precisely to the apocalyptic Third Secret of Fatima. During his pilgrimage to Fatima two years ago Benedict revealed what the Secret in its entirety foretells, which is more than what we see in the vision published in 2000 standing alone:<br />
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Beyond this great vision of the suffering of the Pope… are indicated future realities of the Church which are little by little developing and revealing themselves.… Thus it is true beyond the moment indicated in the vision, it is spoken, it is seen, the necessity of a passion of the Church that naturally is reflected in the person of the Pope; but the Pope is in the Church, and therefore the sufferings of the Church are what is announced...<br />
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As for the novelty that we can discover today in this message, it is that attacks on the Pope and the Church do not come only from outside, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from sins that exist in the Church. This has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from enemies outside, but arises from sin in the Church.<br />
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In light of these statements one must ask: What does the Pope know that he has been constrained not to tell us? Why does he speak of terrifying “future realities” that are developing “little by little” without telling us what they are? Does he know, for example, why, as we see in the vision, a future Pope meets his end atop a hill outside a ruined city filled with the dead, from which he has escaped only to be executed by a band of soldiers? Has he read the words of the Virgin that would clarify the vision’s post-apocalyptic scenario? (Only a fool would think that the Mother of God assigned to Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State who covered up the Father Maciel scandal, the task of “interpreting” a vision she herself must have explained quite clearly.) Are the Virgin’s words intimated in the Pope’s statement that “beyond the moment indicated in the vision” the details of a terrifying future are “spoken,” not merely seen? What part of the Secret is beyond the moment indicated in the vision if not a text that speaks where the vision is silent?<br />
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Whatever the Pope sees coming must be the motive for his abdication, unless we are willing to conclude that he simply wearied of his office and decided in his weakness to abandon it. No, there must be more. I echo the sentiments of the Editor in concluding that Pope Benedict has sacrificed himself to the wolves, lying down in front of them while they sniff the corpse of his pontificate in puzzlement, surprised by their ultimately easy prey, and momentarily distracted from what may already have been put in motion respecting the next conclave.<br />
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Benedict, we can suppose, has placed his hope in the Holy Ghost and the election of a successor who might resist where he can no longer resist, repel what he can no longer repel, restore in full what he no longer has the strength to recover in full from those who have kept it from us—including, one must say, the two ill-starred predecessors it is insanely proposed to exalt as among the greatest of Popes. This seems to be what Pope Benedict is saying when he declares, surely in the light of Fatima: “let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff.”<br />
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All of this, of course, is speculation. But reasonable speculation is all we have in the face of this astounding and frightening development. The Pope who, whatever his failings, ended the diabolical suppression of the traditional Roman Rite permitted by his predecessors, and who lifted the preposterous “excommunication” of the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, has suddenly resigned. We are left in a mixed state of bewilderment, gratitude, fear for the future, and hope for what the Holy Ghost may yet bring about despite the best laid plans of the wolves who now look down upon our fallen Pope, pondering their next move. Our Lady of Fatima, confound them!<br />
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The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1336117984422102655.post-34007901965036009562013-02-11T14:22:00.001-05:002013-02-11T14:22:44.410-05:00SSPX on the Abdication of the Holy Father - Diocese of ScrantonMost interesting. But has the ship already sailed in regards to the SSPX? Quite possibly.<br />
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The Society of Saint Pius X has learned of the sudden announcement about the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, which will be effective on the evening of February 28, 2013. Despite the doctrinal differences that were still evident on the occasion of the theological talks held between 2009 and 2011, the Society of Saint Pius X does not forget that the Holy Father had the courage to recall the fact that the Traditional Mass had never been abrogated, and to do away with the canonical sanctions that had been imposed on its bishops following their consecration in 1988. It is not unaware of the opposition that these decisions have stirred up, obliging the pope to justify himself to the bishops of the whole world. The Society expresses its gratitude to him for the strength and the constancy that he has shown toward it in such difficult circumstances, and assures him of its prayers for the time that he wishes to devote from now on to recollection.</div>
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Following its founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Society of Saint Pius X reaffirms its attachment to eternal Rome, Mother and Instructress [<em>Mater et Magistra</em>] of Truth, and to the See of Peter. It reiterates its desire to make its contribution, according to its abilities, to resolving the grave crisis that is shaking the Church. It prays that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the cardinals of the next conclave may elect the pope who, according to the will of God, will work for the restoration of all things in Christ (Eph 1:10).</div>
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Menzingen, February 11, 2013,</div>
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on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes</div>
The Rockin' Traddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13655979831127314413noreply@blogger.com0