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Planned Falsehoods

Voris Comes To Scranton!

As followers of this blog will attest, I have posted several videos from Michael Voris of Real Catholic TV. And how could I not? His passion for bringing the truth of authentic Catholicism into our homes via the internet has truly been an inspiration and a blessing.

Now, he's coming to Scranton! Saturday April 9 he will make two appearances, one at a men's conference during the day, and the other that evening at Marywood. I will be speaking with Michael the week before the event, so I will be sure to keep you up to date on all the latest information.

Please be sure to keep Mr. Voris in your prayers as their are those among us claiming fidelity to the Church and the Holy Father who do not want him here spreading the truth.

These are dangerous times...

Support Father Corapi!

Statement of Santa Cruz Media, Inc. Relative to Fr. Corapi’s Suspension

Santa Cruz Media, Inc. is the owner of all of Fr. John Corapi’s intellectual property and the DVDs, CDs, and books that flow from it. We are a secular corporation and not affiliated with the Catholic Church in any way. As such, we are not under the jurisdiction of any bishop or other official in the Catholic Church, although we have the utmost respect for Church authority.

We fully support Rev. John Corapi in this terrible trial, not surprisingly having begun on Ash Wednesday. Through the sacrifice and struggle of the desert and all of the dark moments that this entails, we are confident that the glory of the risen Lord will shine forth from the power of the Resurrection and Easter.

We have consulted with a number of canon lawyers. They have assured us that the actions of the Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas are, on several points of canon law, illicit. It is our fervent hope that The Dallas Charter will be changed because of false accusations like this. There is no evidence at this time that Fr. Corapi did anything wrong, only the unsubstantiated rant of a former employee, who, after losing her job with this office, physically assaulted me and another employee and promised to "destroy" Father Corapi. We all continue to pray for this person, and we ask you to do the same.

We sincerely believe that the work Fr. Corapi has done is of greatest value to the Church, hence hated by the devil. We fully intend to make Fr. Corapi’s material available as a service to the Church and the world for as long as we possibly can.

The Church provides no financial support to Fr. Corapi. He has to pay for his own legal representation, medical costs, food, housing, etc. We have never accepted donations or charitable contributions of any kind. We are supporting Father’s efforts to defend himself. Your purchase of products from Santa Cruz Media helps provide the funding for Father's continued work as well as the legal expenses he continues to incur as a result of these malicious allegations.

Father Corapi and all of us here at Santa Cruz Media, Inc. greatly appreciate your kindness, support, and prayers. Please continue to pray for Father Corapi and his accuser, as well as all priests who find themselves in this unfortunate situation.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Bobbi Ruffatto
Vice President of Operations
Santa Cruz Media, Inc.

It's Not That Bad In Scranton!

Church closings got you down? It could be worse as this former Dominican Church in the Netherlands can attest to. It is now a bookstore. At least it's not a Mosque, right?

Pro-Choice Catholics

Just a quick blog post this snowy morning to introduce this idea to you:

You cannot be both "Catholic" and "Pro-Choice".

Understand?

Democrats, particularly in northeastern Pennsylvania LOVE to claim fidelity to both. I see more "Obama 08" bumper stickers in the parking lots of Catholic churches than anywhere else.



These folks are for all intents and purposes heretics.

Oh NO! Not the "H" word! We don't use that word in our modern touchy-feely Catholic church anymore.

Maybe it's time it made a comeback.

Webster defines heretic as

a dissenter from established religious dogma; especially : a baptized member of the Roman Catholic Church who disavows a revealed truth.

So we see that someone who advances teachings that are contrary to the Catholic faith is a dissenter, and can also rightly be called a heretic. If you publicly disagree with the Church, go to pro abortion rallies, put a pro abortion bumper sticker on your car, work for or vote for a pro abortion candidate, you place yourself outside Holy Mother Church and are a heretic. When you commit a grave sin such as promoting murder, you commit a mortal sin (remember those?) and you separate yourself from the Church.

So stop and think when you are attending your next Mass of the travesties taking place in that very same church. All the profanations of Our Lord as his precious body is handed out to heretics who go to Mass and receive Him with grave sin on their souls. Make an extra act of reparation to Our Lord for this.

And pray for the self professed "pro-choice Catholics" that they beg God for forgiveness and repent of their sins.

Then they may be called "Catholic".

Father Corapi Update

These allegations must be very serious with compelling evidence in order for the powers that be to remove Father Corapi's priestly faculties as well. Is that typical when one is accused in the Church today?

The following is from a press release concerning the cancellation of a fund raiser Father Corapi was due to speak at this Saturday.

“The Diocese of Corpus Christi has informed the Conference of its concerns with regard to Fr. John Corapi, SOLT. The superiors of the Society of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity (SOLT), headquartered in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, have notified the diocese that Fr. Corapi has been placed on administrative leave and has had all of his priestly faculties removed. The superiors of SOLT have further advised the diocese that this action was taken after SOLT received allegations of misconduct on Fr. Corapi’s part, but that these allegations do not appear to involve minors or claims of criminal activity.”

Traitors!

This tape was presented to the Department of Justice earlier today. I'm sure Eric Holder won't touch this like he wouldn't touch the New Black Panther Party case. These are his people.

Ridiculous!

That's what I thought when I learned that Father John Corapi, one of the lone voices of actual orthodoxy in the Catholic Church has been placed on Administrative leave (presumably by the head of his religious order) due to a letter sent by a former employee accusing the well-known priest of several things. Here is the release from Father Corapi's website:

On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual exploits with her and several other adult women. There seems to no longer be the need for a complaint to be deemed “credible” in order for Church authorities to pull the trigger on the Church’s procedure, which was in recent years crafted to respond to cases of the sexual abuse of minors. I am not accused of that, but it seems, once again, that they now don’t have to deem the complaint to be credible or not, and it is being applied broadly to respond to all complaints. I have been placed on “administrative leave” as the result of this.



I’ll certainly cooperate with the process, but personally believe that it is seriously flawed, and is tantamount to treating the priest as guilty “just in case”, then through the process determining if he is innocent. The resultant damage to the accused is immediate, irreparable, and serious, especially for someone like myself, since I am so well known. I am not alone in this assessment, as multiple canon lawyers and civil and criminal attorneys have stated publicly that the procedure does grave damage to the accused from the outset, regardless of rhetoric denying this, and has little regard for any form of meaningful due process.

All of the allegations in the complaint are false, and I ask you to pray for all concerned.

It seems to me that Satan finally found someone evil enough to do his work for him, as he had been trying to destroy John Corapi years before he ever decided to don the stole. Let's not forget Father Corapi's own words "Priests will always be the number one target for the simple reason: no priests, no Eucharist".

In today's "modern" church, upon the placement of an accusation, an accused priest is placed on immediate leave, damaging their credibility and doing much unseen damage to the priest. Do the Bishops care? Not at all. The Bishops are like scared rabbits when it comes to the threat of lawsuit. So scared as a matter of fact, that they throw their priests under the bus quicker than they'd give the Catholic funeral to a public sinner like Ted Kennedy.

But if a priest is giving scandal with an adult as is the accusation here, that is far a different matter than if the priest is sinning with children. Whenever children are involved, an immediate suspension is called for. But not in cases of adults. But that's just my opinion. Gunshy Bishops over-reacting to any accusation.

And also don't forget there have been hundreds of false accusations in the United States by unscrupulous people urged on by dirt bag lawyers, all trying to hop on the Catholic Church gravy train.

Also you must understand that even in the hierarchy of the Church in America there are well placed people that hate Father Corapi for his teaching as certainly as there are spineless priests who refuse to call out their superiors for heterodoxy or pastoral negligence. There are certainly people in the Church reveling in this latest development as we speak.

Please pray for all concerned, and most especially for Father Corapi during his time of suffering, please pray that the truth, for good or bad will be known, and that the evil will be displaced.

Those of us that know him, also know of his strong devotion to our Blessed Mother. She will not abandon him.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Since this is Saint Patrick's Day, and since there is still misinformation about why Catholics "pray" to Saints, I thought this would be a good day to examine this Catholic devotion.

First a definition: "To pray," as a verb, has two very distinct meanings:

1 : to make a request in a humble manner
2 : to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

It is only in this first sense that Catholics "pray" to saints. "To pray" is simply to ask, and it is a common English word.

But when speaking of the Saints, it is very important to remember that all worship is God's alone. All grace comes from God alone. Only Christ can save us. Please read these three sentences again; they are core Catholic doctrine as taught for 2,000 years.

OK, so why pray to saints? We pray to saints to ask them to pray for us, in the same way you might pray for me if I ask and I would pray for you if you ask. Christians are called to pray for each other: James 5:16 "Pray one for another... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." It's what we do.

We do not pray to the Saints in place of God. We ask them to pray for us TO God.

One Mediator:

Yes, there is only one Mediator between us and God the Father Almighty, and that is Jesus Christ. But by praying to the Saints, by asking for their intercession, we are not violating Christ's loan mediatorship, as some say Timothy indicates

"For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus"

(1 Tim. 2:5).

Because then we have this immediately prior:

"I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: [2] For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. [3] For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, [4] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Be not afraid to pray to the Saints, they are our friends and intercessors, and really, who doesn't need one of those. Find one, learn about them, and pray to them, asking for their help. A good place to start is with your own first name. Find out which saint you were named after and pray.

Anyone ever heard of Saint Rockin'?

The REAL History of the Crusades Part Two

Urban II gave the Crusaders two goals, both of which would remain central to the eastern Crusades for centuries. The first was to rescue the Christians of the East. As his successor, Pope Innocent III, later wrote:

How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbor as himself when, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims in strict confinement and weighed down by the yoke of heaviest servitude, he does not devote himself to the task of freeing them? ...Is it by chance that you do not know that many thousands of Christians are bound in slavery and imprisoned by the Muslims, tortured with innumerable torments?

"Crusading," Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith has rightly argued, was understood as an "an act of love"—in this case, the love of one’s neighbor. The Crusade was seen as an errand of mercy to right a terrible wrong. As Pope Innocent III wrote to the Knights Templar, "You carry out in deeds the words of the Gospel, ‘Greater love than this hath no man, that he lay down his life for his friends.’"

The second goal was the liberation of Jerusalem and the other places made holy by the life of Christ. The word crusade is modern. Medieval Crusaders saw themselves as pilgrims, performing acts of righteousness on their way to the Holy Sepulcher. The Crusade indulgence they received was canonically related to the pilgrimage indulgence. This goal was frequently described in feudal terms. When calling the Fifth Crusade in 1215, Innocent III wrote:

Consider most dear sons, consider carefully that if any temporal king was thrown out of his domain and perhaps captured, would he not, when he was restored to his pristine liberty and the time had come for dispensing justice look on his vassals as unfaithful and traitors...unless they had committed not only their property but also their persons to the task of freeing him? ...And similarly will not Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords, whose servant you cannot deny being, who joined your soul to your body, who redeemed you with the Precious Blood...condemn you for the vice of ingratitude and the crime of infidelity if you neglect to help Him?

The reconquest of Jerusalem, therefore, was not colonialism but an act of restoration and an open declaration of one’s love of God. Medieval men knew, of course, that God had the power to restore Jerusalem Himself—indeed, He had the power to restore the whole world to His rule. Yet as St. Bernard of Clairvaux preached, His refusal to do so was a blessing to His people:

Again I say, consider the Almighty’s goodness and pay heed to His plans of mercy. He puts Himself under obligation to you, or rather feigns to do so, that He can help you to satisfy your obligations toward Himself.... I call blessed the generation that can seize an opportunity of such rich indulgence as this.

It is often assumed that the central goal of the Crusades was forced conversion of the Muslim world. Nothing could be further from the truth. From the perspective of medieval Christians, Muslims were the enemies of Christ and His Church. It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion. Indeed, throughout the history of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Muslim inhabitants far outnumbered the Catholics. It was not until the 13th century that the Franciscans began conversion efforts among Muslims. But these were mostly unsuccessful and finally abandoned. In any case, such efforts were by peaceful persuasion, not the threat of violence.

The Crusades were wars, so it would be a mistake to characterize them as nothing but piety and good intentions. Like all warfare, the violence was brutal (although not as brutal as modern wars). There were mishaps, blunders, and crimes. These are usually well-remembered today. During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. "Not for their destruction do I pray," it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but "they only wait for the time of their deliverance."

Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

It is often said that the roots of the Holocaust can be seen in these medieval pogroms. That may be. But if so, those roots are far deeper and more widespread than the Crusades. Jews perished during the Crusades, but the purpose of the Crusades was not to kill Jews. Quite the contrary: Popes, bishops, and preachers made it clear that the Jews of Europe were to be left unmolested. In a modern war, we call tragic deaths like these "collateral damage." Even with smart technologies, the United States has killed far more innocents in our wars than the Crusaders ever could. But no one would seriously argue that the purpose of American wars is to kill women and children.

By any reckoning, the First Crusade was a long shot. There was no leader, no chain of command, no supply lines, no detailed strategy. It was simply thousands of warriors marching deep into enemy territory, committed to a common cause. Many of them died, either in battle or through disease or starvation. It was a rough campaign, one that seemed always on the brink of disaster. Yet it was miraculously successful. By 1098, the Crusaders had restored Nicaea and Antioch to Christian rule. In July 1099, they conquered Jerusalem and began to build a Christian state in Palestine. The joy in Europe was unbridled. It seemed that the tide of history, which had lifted the Muslims to such heights, was now turning.

Massive Attack

Here is another video from our friend Michael Voris on the Old Mass and our Holy Father's attempt to re-establish it across the Church. I too have been told that the Novus Ordo will not be around in 50 years. How lucky for me that I was chosen to be one of the faithful to suffer the slings and arrows of years of liberal theology and bad liturgy, and that I fought the good fight to restore what never should have been denied to me and my Catholic brethren.

The quote that hit home for me from the video was "Many of them (Bishops) have since thrown up roadblocks and made things difficult for priests that began offering the Mass. Nothing official mind you, that's not how this group works. Never official, never out in the open. But nonetheless always working behind the scenes in loud and powerful whispers."

Reminds me of a specific time when something was arranged at a Wilkes-Barre parish and a certain nameless and not yet named Bishop went out of his way to ensure our plans fell through. What this Pope was thinking when he made this person our Bishop is beyond me. But it is our duty as Catholics to pray for his soul and pray that he and our Diocese stay loyal to the Pope and follow his wishes.

"Kill Them Where You Find Them"

What do you get when you take a muslim and let him break into a house full of Jews?

You get a dead family and a three month old baby with her head cut off and the triumphant muslims partying in the streets and passing out candy.

If you haven't heard about this atrocity, don't be surprised. Very few have and the main stream media seems intent on keeping it quiet.

It doesn't fit into their narrative of Muslims being fuzzy, warm, and peaceful.

From Atlas Shrugs

On Friday night at 10:30 pm the terrorists entered the house through the living room picture window. They did not notice the 6-year-old boy sleeping on the couch and continued on to the bedroom where they slashed the throats of the father and newborn baby who were sleeping there. The mother came out of the bathroom and was stabbed on its threshold. The evidence shows that she tried to fight the terrorists. They then slashed the throat of the 11-year old-son who was reading in bed. They did not notice the 2-year old asleep in his bed, but murdered the 3-year old with two stabs to his heart. After that, they locked the door, exited through the window and escaped.

The 12-year-old daughter returned home at 00:30 and found the door locked. She asked a neighbor, Rabbi Yaakov Cohen, of the Itamar Yeshiva, to help her. He brought a weapon with him once he noticed tracks and mud near the house. The two woke up the 6-year old sleeping in the living room by calling through the window and when he opened the door, the Rabbi returned to his home. When she entered the bedrooms, the young daughter saw the horrific bloodsoaked scene and ran out of the house screaming. The neighbor ran back and fired several shots in the air to alert security personnel. Within a short time, large police and IDF forces arrived and began intensive searches to see if the terrorists were still in the community. At 03:30 a.m., military trackers discovered footprints leading to the Arab village of Avrata.

Here is the link to the photographs if you would to see what Muslim peacefulness looks like.

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 41:

Narrated Abdullah bin Masud:

I asked Allah's Apostle, "O Allah's Apostle! What is the best deed?" He replied, "To offer the prayers at their early stated fixed times." I asked, "What is next in goodness?" He replied, "To be good and dutiful to your parents." I further asked, what is next in goodness?" He replied, "To participate in Jihad in Allah's Cause." I did not ask Allah's Apostle anymore and if I had asked him more, he would have told me more.

Oh sweet Islam, continue to bring us peace!

UPDATE: It seems that Glenn Beck is the only person in the mainstream media talking about this.

The REAL History of the Crusades

By Thomas F. Madden

Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. The Crusades are generally portrayed as a series of holy wars against Islam led by power-mad popes and fought by religious fanatics. They are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general. A breed of proto-imperialists, the Crusaders introduced Western aggression to the peaceful Middle East and then deformed the enlightened Muslim culture, leaving it in ruins. For variations on this theme, one need not look far. See, for example, Steven Runciman’s famous three-volume epic, History of the Crusades, or the BBC/A&E documentary, The Crusades, hosted by Terry Jones. Both are terrible history yet wonderfully entertaining.

So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression—an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity—and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion—has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed’s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt—once the most heavily Christian areas in the world—quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne’er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders’ expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth (which many of them had already) but because they hoped to store up treasure where rust and moth could not corrupt. They were keenly aware of their sinfulness and eager to undertake the hardships of the Crusade as a penitential act of charity and love. Europe is littered with thousands of medieval charters attesting to these sentiments, charters in which these men still speak to us today if we will listen. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

The 4 Stages Of Islamic Conquest

Step One: Infiltration

Muslims begin moving to non-Muslim countries in increasing numbers and the beginning of cultural conflicts are visible, though often subtle.

• First migration wave to non-Muslim “host” country.
• Appeal for humanitarian tolerance from the host society.
• Attempts to portray Islam as a peaceful & Muslims as victims of misunderstanding and racism (even though Islam is not a ‘race’).
• High Muslim birth rate in host country increase Muslim population.
• Mosques used to spread Islam and dislike of host country & culture.
• Calls to criminalize “Islamophobia” as a hate crime.
• Threatened legal action for perceived discrimination.
• Offers of “interfaith dialogue” to indoctrinate non-Muslims.

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:

“The refusal of the Western elite class to protect their nations from jihadist infiltration is the biggest betrayal in history.”

Latin. And Why You Should Learn It.

The world's major religions have their sacred languages -- Judaism with its Hebrew, Islam with Arabic, Hinduism with Sanskrit. Christianity is no different, and benefits from a sacred language's ability to unify all in the common liturgy as Christ desired that we be as one. Another benefit is that Latin, aside from at Vatican City, is considered a "dead language" whose words can't change meaning over time (though actually it's not a "dead language," strictly speaking; new words are added to keep up with technology and it is the official language of a country). But that it is not commonly used in a profane way is an exceedingly important fact in light of the problems of politicized language and the absolute importance of Truth.

Latin is, contrary to popular belief, still the language of the Church, and the documents of Vatican II require it to be retained for the Mass (Gregorian Chant, too, is to be not only retained, but given "pride of place"! See Vatican II's document, "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy"; "Instruction on the Liturgy," Congregation of Rites, 16 October 1964; "Instruction on Music in the Sacred Liturgy," Sacred Congregation of Rites, 5 March 1967; "Iubilate Deo," Preface, Pope Paul VI, 14 April 1974; "General Instruction on the Roman Missal," Roman Missal, 1975, 3rd ed.; and "Fidelity to Doctrinal Foundations Must Guide All Liturgical Renewal," Address to US Bishops, 9 October 1998).

Sadly, we've lost much since the "reformers" with their "spirit of Vatican II" have tried to strip away our common language and cultural heritage. It used to be that a Catholic could go to Mass anywhere in the world -- China, India, Italy, Mexico, Australia -- and experience the same Mass in the same way. The American could look at the Chinese man in the pew next to him and know that both are "on the same page," hearing the Latin but each understanding in his own language. They might not be able to speak to each other after Mass, but both of them, during the liturgy, were participating in the same supernatural Sacrifice, praying with the angels in the same language and in a manner thousands of years old. If needed, each could have his Missal, the former his "Latin-English Missal," the latter his "Latin-Chinese Missal," and follow along. Now, in the Novus Ordo liturgy with its predominant abuses of Vatican II documents, the American and Chinese man would each have to have buy a different Missal for every parish he visited which had a different language than his own.

And consider a world where our priests are no longer trained solidly in the Latin language! Some will become Bishops and Cardinals. Some will have to meet in huge Councils with Bishops from other countries. Some will have to meet in Conclaves to elect the next Pope. How will the Bishops and Cardinals from Pakistan, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Lichtenstein be able to even communicate to do the Church's business without a common language?

No, Pope Pius IX had it right when he said in Officiorum Omnium:

For the Church, precisely because it embraces all nations and is destined to endure until the end of time... of its very nature requires a language which is universal, immutable, and non-vernacular.

And so was Pope Pius XII, when he wrote in Mediator Dei:

The use of the Latin language prevailing in a great part of the Church affords at once an imposing sign of unity and an effective safeguard against the corruption of true doctrine.

Since even the documents of Vatican II have been ignored and Latin stripped from our liturgy, since dissidents have won a few generations and have denied us the luxury of growing up with our cultural birthright, we must make a conscious effort to reclaim our unifying heritage and pass it on to our children. Please, expose yourself and your children to Ecclesiastical Latin, to chant, to traditional hymns and Catholic art. Give yourself and your children what was denied to you and what makes life much more beautiful and rich. No layman is expected to make a huge study of Latin Grammar or to be able to carry on conversations in the language, but the ability to recognize a few basic prayers and phrases, to be able to recognize the Latin and chants of those parts of the Mass which never change -- these things are basic to our culture and bring on a flood of mental and emotional associations. Do your soul a favor and attend only the Traditional Latin Mass. Support the ancient liturgy at all times! And, by all means, encourage your children -- especially your sons -- to study Latin in school.

Also, next time you see our Bishop, ask him what he has against Latin.

And Tradition.

And the Old Mass.

And lacey vestments.

And altar boys.

And Gregorian Chant.

And communion on the tongue.

And veiling the chalice.

And, oh you get the point.

Islam's Top Ten List

Ten Obvious Reasons Why
Islam is NOT a Religion of Peace

#1 14,000 deadly terror attacks committed explicitly in the name of Islam in just the last eight years. (Other religions combined for perhaps a dozen or so).

#2 Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had people killed for insulting him or criticizing his religion. This included women. Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad.

#3 Muhammad said in many places that he has been "ordered by Allah to fight men until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger." In the last nine years of his life, he ordered no less than 65 military campaigns to do exactly that.

Muhammad inspired his men to war with the basest of motives, using captured loot, sex and a gluttonous paradise as incentives. He beheaded captives, enslaved children and raped women captured in battle. Again, Muslims are told to emulate the example of Muhammad.

#4 After Muhammad died, the people who lived with him, and knew his religion best, immediately fell into war with each other.

Fatima, Muhammad's favorite daughter, survived the early years at Mecca safe and sound, yet died of stress from the persecution of fellow Muslims only six months after her father died.

Fatima's husband Ali, who was the second second convert to Islam and was raised like a son to Muhammad, fought a civil war against an army raised by Aisha, Muhammad's favorite wife - and one whom he had said was a "perfect woman." 10,000 Muslims were killed in a single battle, waged less than 25 years after Muhammad's death.

Three of the first four Muslim rulers (caliphs) were murdered. All of them were among Muhammad's closest companions. The third caliph was killed by allies of the son of the first (who was murdered by the fifth caliph a few years later, then wrapped in the skin of a dead donkey and burned). The fourth caliph (Ali) was stabbed to death after a bitter dispute with the fifth. The fifth caliph went on to poison one of Muhammad's two favorite grandsons. The other grandson was later beheaded by the sixth caliph.

The infighting and power struggles between Muhammad's family members, closest companions and their children only intensified with time. Within 50 short years of Muhammad's death, even the Kaaba, which had stood for centuries under pagan religion, lay in ruins from internal Muslim war...

And that's just the fate of those within the house of Islam!

#5 Muhammad directed Muslims to wage war on other religions and bring them under submission to Islam. Within the first few decades following his death, his Arabian companions invaded and conquered Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and Zoroastrian lands.

A mere 25 years after Muhammad's death, Muslim armies had captured land and people within the borders of over 28 modern countries outside of Saudi Arabia.

#6 Muslims continued their Jihad against other religions for 1400 years, checked only by the ability of non-Muslims to defend themselves. To this day, not a week goes by that Islamic fundamentalists do not attempt to kill Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists explicitly in the name of Allah.

None of these other religions are at war with each other.

#7 Islam is the only religion that has to retain its membership by threatening to kill anyone who leaves. This is according to the example set by Muhammad.

#8 Islam teaches that non-Muslims are less than fully human. Muhammad said that Muslims can be put to death for murder, but that a Muslim could never be put to death for killing a non-Muslim.

#9 The Qur'an never once speaks of Allah's love for non-Muslims, but it speaks of Allah's cruelty toward and hatred of non-Muslims more than 500 times.

#10 "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!"
(The last words from the cockpit of Flight 93)

Thanks to our friends at www.thereligionofpeace.com