Pray For Us Saint John The Baptist

Today is the feast of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist.

Here is the event as recorded in Matthew 14:1-12

[1] At the time Herod the Tetrarch heard the fame of Jesus. [2] And he said to his servants: This is John the Baptist: he is risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works shew forth themselves in him. [3] For Herod had apprehended John and bound him, and put him into prison, because of Herodias, his brother's wife. [4] For John said to him: It is not lawful for thee to have her. [5] And having a mind to put him to death, he feared the people: because they esteemed him as a prophet.

[6] But on Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before them: and pleased Herod. [7] Whereupon he promised with an oath, to give her whatsoever she would ask of him. [8] But she being instructed before by her mother, said: Give me here in a dish the head of John the Baptist. [9] And the king was struck sad: yet because of his oath, and for them that sat with him at table, he commanded it to be given. [10] And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison.

[11] And his head was brought in a dish: and it was given to the damsel, and she brought it to her mother. [12] And his disciples came and took the body, and buried it, and came and told Jesus.

Iran Destroys Bibles

This is not the beginning of this sort of persecution, and it certainly isn't the end. Expect it even here. Pray.

(CNSNews.com) – A Shi’ite cleric affiliated with the Iranian regime has warned about the “danger” of Christianity spreading in the Islamic republic. This come amid reports of an anti-Christianity propaganda campaign and the seizure of thousands of Bibles.

According to Mohabat News, an independent Iranian Christian news agency, Ayatollah Hadi Jahangosha expressed concern about “the spread of Christianity among our youth,” citing the availability of Christian satellite television programs, books and objects.

“Everyone in society should feel responsibility in this matter and play his or her role in spreading of pure Islam and fight false and distorted cultures,” Mohabat quoted him as saying during a presentation on Mahdism – the belief in the so-called “hidden” or 12th imam, prophesied to emerge at a time of future chaos.

Last week, Mohabat reported that authorities had seized 6,500 pocket-sized Bibles in northwestern Iran. It quoted a parliamentary advisor, Majid Abhari, as telling the Mehr news agency that Christian missionaries were out to deceive Iranians, particularly the youth.

“They have begun a huge campaign by spending huge sums and false propaganda for deviating the public,” Abhari said. “The important point in this issue that should be considered by intelligence, judicial and religious agencies is that all religions are strengthening their power to confront Islam, otherwise what does this huge number of Bibles mean?”

Mohabat recalled previous incidents of Bibles being seized, including one last February, when Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and security officials in a routine inspection of a bus near the Iran-Turkey border found 600 New Testaments, which they destroyed along with confiscated alcohol in a public burning.

A similar incident in the same area last October also saw officials seize and burn Bibles, it said.

In a third incident, in June 2010, Bibles were found in a town near the border with Iraq. Mohabat said the official IRGC Web site at the time accused the U.S. in neighboring Iraq of conspiring to smuggle Bibles into Iran.

The Barnabas Fund, an organization working with Christian minorities in Islamic societies, reports that Iranian authorities have been waging an anti-Christian propaganda campaign through state media in recent weeks.

“Last month, offensive caricatures depicting Christ and Christians were published in the [IRGC mouthpiece] magazine Javan,” it said.

“False and insulting stories about Christians have also appeared in government media. One such article that was published on the website Youth Online alleged that women evangelists were going into stores, using shopping as a pretext to enter into conversation with staff, and then suggesting sexual liaisons and insulting Islam.”

‘Islamic justice and equity’

Iran’s government claims to uphold religious freedom, noting that the constitution recognizes Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, as permitted religious minorities.

When Iran went before the U.N. Human Rights Council early last year for a routine rights review, its official submission stated that those three minorities, “within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education.”

“The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and all Muslims are duty-bound to treat non-Muslims in conformity with ethical norms and the principles of Islamic justice and equity, and to respect their human rights,” it added.

When Iran in 2008 hosted a conference on “Religion in the Modern World,” attended by former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan and other dignitaries, the Tehran Times in an op-ed said Iran’s hosting of the event showed that its “ancient tradition of showing respect for different cultures and religions is still alive and well.”

“The reality on the ground in Iran is quite different from what is being propagated by certain countries and organizations in their disinformation campaigns,” it said.

“Due to the country’s religious and cultural traditions, in Iran there is no sign of the religious extremism and intolerance that have opened wounds in certain Muslim states and allowed the enemies to present a negative image of Islam to the world.”

Despite such claims, however, reports of religious persecution persist, including most recently the case of a pastor who has been sentenced to death for apostasy.

The Iranian Bible Society’s offices have been shut for decades, and authorities do not allow publishing or reprinting of Bibles in Iran.

Because of this, according to Mohabat, the only solution for Christians needing Farsi-language Bibles is to have them smuggled across the borders from neighboring countries.

One organization that provides Bibles for Iranians is Elam Ministries, which says it printed and distributed 100,000 Bibles and 100,000 New Testaments in 2010.

“Despite the limited support, well over a million New Testaments have been made available in recent years, and up to half a million whole Bibles,” the organization says on its Web site. “And despite the ferocious hostility of the government in Iran to the Bible, brave Christians there have risked their lives to see their fellow country men can read the Scriptures. Some are in prison now for their work.”

Elam was founded in 1988 by senior Iranian church leaders in Britain “with the vision of reaching Iran and the Persian speaking world for Christ.”

It says that at the time of the Islamic revolution in 1979, there were fewer than 500 known Iranian Christians from a Muslim background.

“Today the most conservative estimate is that there are at least 100,000 believers in the nation.”

Clergy AND First Responders Banned From 9/11 Ceremony

Are the Bishops going to say anything about this?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the decision by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ban the clergy from speaking at the 9/11 ceremony next month:

After the Twin Towers were leveled on 9/11 ten years ago, two steel beams in the shape of a cross were found; they were subsequently moved to St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. Last month, when it was announced that the World Trade Center cross was being moved to its new home at the 9/11 Memorial Museum, American Atheists sued on church-state grounds to stop it.

Almost everyone, including non-believers, were critical of this mean-spirited gambit by American Atheists. Among those who could not summon the courage to condemn it was Mayor Bloomberg; without criticizing these activists on moral grounds, he simply affirmed their constitutional right to sue. But when it comes to granting the clergy their constitutional right to freedom of speech on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, he does not equivocate: he simply elects to ban them.

The reason given for this grand act of censorship is spurious: Bloomberg’s office says the focus should be on the families who lost their loved ones. According to this logic, when the clergy are invited to speak at public events, or to open ceremonies with an invocation, they are detracting—not adding—to the overall theme. There is little doubt that if the families were asked about the propriety of allowing the clergy to speak, most would gladly say yes.

Mayor Bloomberg should reverse his decision, allowing a priest, minister, rabbi and imam to make a short statement. This nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, thus the rationale for the presence of the first three clergymen; the inclusion of an imam—to the exclusion of the clergy of other religions—can be justified on the basis of a goodwill gesture to the Muslim community. Aside from kooks, is there anyone who would object to this proposal?

Contact Bloomberg’s Press Secretary, Stu Loeser: sloeser@cityhall.nyc.gov

More On Altar Girls

Just the other day I posted on the travesty that are altar girls. Here is an opinion piece appearing in the UK's Catholic Herald by William Oddie.

The 1994 statement permitting girl servers was a mistaken tactical retreat which led to a fall in priestly vocations. It’s time to withdraw it

Undoing the damage will take time: the sooner the Church starts to clear up the mess, the better

By William Oddie

The rector of the Catholic Cathedral of Phoenix, Arizona, has decided that girls will no longer be allowed as altar servers (though they will continue elsewhere in the diocese). His reason is simple: he thinks that an all-male sanctuary promotes vocations to the priesthood. “The connection between serving at the altar and priesthood is historic,” he says: “it is part of the differentiation between boys and girls, as Christ established the priesthood by choosing men. Serving at the altar is a specifically priestly act.” I’m not sure, to be pedantic, that that’s entirely orthodox (in the context of the Mass, only the priest himself performs specifically priestly acts), but one knows exactly what he means: what the server does is intimately related to the Eucharistic action and can be seen as an intrinsic part of it: the server is a kind of extension of the priest himself; if there were no servers, the priest would do what they do. According to Fr Lankeit, 80 to 95 percent of priests served as altar boys.

The question is, why shouldn’t that happen when there are also girl servers? There are two reasons: firstly because the causal link between servers and priestly vocations is weakened if some or most of the servers in the sanctuary are excluded from it. But secondly because as soon as girls appear, the supply of altar boys tends simply to dry up.

The first time this occurred to me was in the house of friends with whom I was staying in France. One of the guests at dinner one evening was Archbishop André Vingt-Trois of Tours (now Cardinal Archbishop of Paris). The subject of conversation at one point was the way in which, in the local Parish Church, presumably in an attempt to involve women in the celebration of the Mass, not only were all the readers women but so also were all the servers girls; my wife (not I) compared it to a farmyard, with the priest as the cock strutting about in the middle of a flock of hens. Archbishop Vingt-Trois said that the priest may have had no choice over the all-girls serving team: “Once the girls arrive, he said, the boys disappear: you can’t see them for dust” (his explanation was much more graphic in French). And he was adamant that though there were, of course other factors contributing to the decline in priestly vocations, the decline in the number of all-male sanctuaries was certainly one of them.

I suspect, though there’s no way to prove this, that many if not most Catholics, once they think about it, will have the feeling that this is either obviously true, or at the very least a plausible hypothesis. For what it’s worth, the US website Catholic Answers carried out a poll in which they asked the question “does having girl altar boys help with vocations to the priesthood?”

The answers were as follows:

YES, Girl Altar Boys help Vocations To The Priesthood: 2.98%
NO, Girl Altar Boys don’t Help Vocations To The Priesthood: 64.29%
Girl Altar Boys, Have No Effect At All On Vocations To The Priesthood: 32.74%
Voters: 168

It’s a pretty small sample, of course: but I would be surprised if it’s not true that almost nobody thinks that girl servers help vocations to the priesthood, that of the remainder, about two thirds think it doesn’t help, and another third thinks it makes no difference. If the question had been asked differently: if the question had been “does an all-male sanctuary foster vocations to the priesthood?”, I suspect that more than that two thirds would have replied “yes”, since historically it has observably done so. In the US, only one diocese now restricts serving at the altar to boys and men, Lincoln, Nebraska, and it is apparently the case that vocations there are higher than elsewhere.

The late Pope was opposed to the practice, and didn’t allow it in his own diocese of Rome: so why on his watch, in 1994, was the rule that only men and boys could serve at the altar (which had been firmly reimposed by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul himself) relaxed? It’s a puzzler. Some say it was inevitable since, especially in the US, it was already being widely defied: but all kinds of things the Church is against are indulged in defiantly by disobedient Catholics, and the Church quite rightly doesn’t give an inch. One theory is that it was a tactical retreat to avoid legal action. As the writer David L Sonnier explains it,

Take a moment to recall the circumstances under which this practice was allowed. We lived in a hostile political climate in 1994; the politicians in Washington were condemning the Catholic Church for not ordaining women, and ridiculing the Church for Her stand against abortion. It seemed that according to these critics at the highest level of the Clinton administration, the Catholic Church would not be qualified to address the issue of abortion until women were ordained.

In 1994 a document from the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts gave some room for the novel practice of “female altar servers” under political pressure from the U.S., but nevertheless insisted that “the obligation to support groups of altar boys will always remain…” due, of course, to the relationship between service at the altar and future vocations. Has there been any such support for “groups of altar boys?”

Well, no: of course there hasn’t, because as soon as the girls appeared, the “groups of altar boys”, as Archbishop Vingt-Trois put it, couldn’t be seen for dust. But could the document be withdrawn? It won’t be easy: there are already so many girl servers. But they tend to disappear when they grow up. And though no bishop may impose them on his priests, he does have the right to forbid them. This is the paradox; he may not impose girls—but he still may impose boys, as may any of his priests.

And this could be the time to start: radical feminism is much less of a threat than it was, and may be confronted more readily than it could, say, in the US in the eighties. I remember vividly arranging my notes before delivering a lecture on feminist theology in the General (Episcopalian) Seminary in New York, in 1983. I was approached by a male seminarian, who said simply, “Oh Dr Oddie, I just wanted to tell you, since I know your views, how much we admire your courage in coming here to explain them”. “I need courage”, I replied, slightly alarmed: “Oh yes”, he said, and disappeared. And so it proved: I was heckled repeatedly, but I think I gave as good as I got, and the evening was an exhilarating one in the end.

The church has not entirely given in on this, and little by little, girl servers could be phased out: a final date could perhaps be announced for this to be achieved, diocese by diocese, parish by parish. The tradition is still solidly there, beneath the surface. As David L Sonnier puts it,

Let’s take it one point at a time. First of all, the Holy Father does not allow Girl Altar Boys within his own Diocese of Rome. That should be enough to give pause to a number of people who currently see nothing wrong with the practice.…

Second, this practice of placing girls at the altar has absolutely nothing to do with Vatican II and was condemned in the strongest of terms twice following the council. In 1970 Pope Paul VI said in Liturgicae Instaurationes, “In conformity with norms traditional in the Church, women (single, married, religious), whether in churches, homes, convents, schools, or institutions for women, are barred from serving the priest at the altar.”

And in 1980 Pope John Paul II stated in Inaestimabile Donum, “There are, of course, various roles that women can perform in the liturgical assembly: these include reading of the Word of God and proclaiming the intentions of the Prayer of the Faithful. Women are not, however, permitted to act as altar servers.”

That is the tradition of the Church to which we should now return. To begin with, that 1994 statement by the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts (I bet you’d never heard of them) should be simply withdrawn. Why not? Its issue was a huge mistake, whose consequences have been disastrous: It’s time now to begin to repair the damage. It may take some time: so the sooner we start the better. Any priest who reads this can start on Sunday: a bishop could get on the phone today.

Progress!

I don't believe it's a secret that I am not a fan of altar girls. Especially when I attend a Mass somewhere and there is only one young person serving at the altar, and it's a girl. And what really pops my buttons is if there is an altar girl in cassock and surplice. She might as well be dressed like for the Pope, for how ridiculous she looks.

In 1983, seeking the ruination of the priesthood apparently, Canon Law was changed to allow for girls to serve at the altar. The reasoning was that the church had already opened to women other positions that were closed to them such as lector, cantor, etc. and it was deemed an anomaly to restrict young girls from serving.

As Jesus said "By their fruits you will know them." And we have certainly seen the fruits of this corruption of the Altar. Serving at the altar had been a training ground for priests. Now look at our once full seminaries. Altar girls are not the only reason ordinations are down, the secularization of the world is another. But you get my point. Reserve to men what always was reserved to men. Time isn't supposed to cause changes in a supposedly unchangeable church.

The church is suffering from a lack of masculinity, in many cases when you attend the NO Mass specifically you will see one male priest, 3 female EMHC's, two female altar girls, a female lector and cantor. Thats 7 girls roaming around the once sacred sanctuary and one guy. A good ratio? I think not.

That's why I was so pleased to see this article. Read. Enjoy. Discuss.

Girls no longer will be allowed as altar servers during Mass at the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, SS. Simon and Jude.

The Rev. John Lankeit, rector of the cathedral, said he made the decision in hopes of promoting the priesthood for males and other religious vocations, such as becoming a nun, for females.

Made up primarily of fifth- through eighth-graders the altar-server corps in American churches has included girls since 1983 in many places. Girls and boys regularly serve together at churches throughout the Phoenix Catholic Diocese.

Bishops and pastors always have had the option of restricting the role to boys, but only one diocese, Lincoln, Neb., and scattered parishes have done so. Before 1983, when church law was revised, girls were not allowed to serve.

At SS. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, the girls will be offered the role of sacristan, the person who prepares the church and the altar area before Mass.

Lankeit said 80 to 95 percent of priests served as altar boys, but he could not state the percentage of altar servers who go on to be priests.

He made the decision on his own, he said, even though the cathedral is recognized as the home church of Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted and is used for some important church events.

"He leaves these decisions to me," Lankeit said.

SS. Simon and Jude is believed to be the first church in the diocese of Phoenix to ban girls from serving Mass, according to the diocese.

Altar servers have a direct role in the Catholic Eucharistic ceremony, assisting the priest, and are the only lay people directly involved throughout the entire service. Other lay people may serve as lectors or Eucharistic ministers, helping the priest distribute communion.

"The connection between serving at the altar and priesthood is historic," Lankeit said. "It is part of the differentiation between boys and girls, as Christ established the priesthood by choosing men. Serving at the altar is a specifically priestly act."

There appears to be little if any research connecting altar service to a later decision to enter the priesthood - or connecting other types of service for girls to religious life as a nun. Anecdotally, the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., is one of the stronger dioceses in developing new priests.

The Rev. Kieran Kleczewski, pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas in Avondale and director of the diocese Office of Worship, does not expect other parishes following the cathedral's policy just because it is the cathedral.

"That's not the way things work in our diocese," he said. "The pastor has the authority over the parish's liturgical practices."

Kleczewski allows girls to serve Mass and has no plans to change.

Lankeit said there had been little reaction to his decision so far, but it was unlikely to sit well with many Catholics, especially those who have daughters who wish to serve.

"It is a shame on how the church continues to abuse the females," said Bob Lutz of Phoenix, a Catholic with three grown daughters. "Church attendance is shrinking now, and this adds more fuel to the fire on how females are treated as second-class citizens."

Carole Bartholomeuax of Phoenix, who attended St. Joan of Arc parish, said girls outnumbered boys as altar servers there.

"I believe Mary Magdalene set the example for women to be altar servers. I am so sorry to hear of this going backwards," she said, adding that she still loves her church, "warts and all."

But Michael Clancy, who heads the diocesan men's group, said girls never were supposed to be allowed to serve, based on his understanding of the rules of the Mass.

The Fall Of Europe Begins

Troubling numbers and facts from Soeren Kern at the Hudson Institute: “Islamic mosques are being built more often in France than Roman Catholic churches, and there now are more practising Muslims in the country than practicing Catholics.

Nearly 150 new mosques currently are under construction in France, home to the biggest Muslim community in Europe. The mosque-building projects are at various stages of completion, according to Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the Muslim Council of France (CFCM), who provided the data in an August 2 interview with the French radio station RTL.

The total number of mosques in France has already doubled to more than 2,000 during just the past ten years, according to a research report “Constructing Mosques: The Governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands.” France’s most prominent Muslim leader, Dalil Boubakeur, who is rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, recently called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled again – to 4,000 – to meet growing demand.

By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church in France has built only 20 new churches during the past decade, and has formally closed more than 60 churches, many of which are destined to become mosques, according to research conducted by La Croix, a Roman Catholic daily newspaper based in Paris.

Although 64% of the French population (or 41.6 million of France’s 65 million inhabitants) identifies itself as Roman Catholic, only 4.5% (or 1.9 million) of those actually are practising Catholics, according to the French Institute of Public Opinion (or Ifop, as it is usually called).

By way of comparison, 75% (or 4.5 million) of the estimated 6 million mostly ethnic North African and sub-Saharan Muslims in France identify themselves as “believers” and 41% (or 2.5 million) say they are “practising” Muslims, according to an in-depth research report on Islam in France published by Ifop on August 1. The report also says that more than 70% of the Muslims in France say they will be observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in 2011.

Taken together, the research data provides empirical evidence that Islam is well on its way to overtaking Roman Catholicism as the dominant religion in France.

As their numbers grow, Muslims in France are becoming far more assertive than ever before. A case in point: Muslim groups in France are now asking the Roman Catholic Church for permission to use its empty churches as a way to solve the traffic problems caused by thousands of Muslims who pray in the streets.

In a March 11 communiqué addressed to the Church of France, the National Federation of the Great Mosque of Paris, the Council of Democratic Muslims of France and a Muslim activist group called Collectif Banlieues Respect called on the Catholic Church – in a spirit of inter-religious solidarity, of course – to make its empty churches available to Muslims for Friday prayers, so that Muslims do not have to "pray in the streets" and be "held hostage to politics."

Every Friday, thousands of Muslims in Paris and other French cities close off streets and sidewalks (and by extension, close down local businesses and trap non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for midday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of "Allah Akbar" via loudspeakers in the streets.

The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), have provoked anger and disbelief. But despite many public complaints, local authorities have declined to intervene because they are afraid of sparking riots.

The issue of illegal street prayers was catapulted to the top of the national political agenda in France in December 2010, when Marine Le Pen, the charismatic new leader of the far-right National Front party, denounced them as an "occupation without tanks or soldiers."

During a gathering in the east central French city of Lyon on December 10, Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the streets to Nazi occupation. She said: "For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it is about occupation, then we could also talk about it [Muslim prayers in the streets], because that is occupation of territory. It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. It is an occupation. There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents."

Many French voters agree. In fact, the issue of Muslim street prayers – and the broader question of the role of Islam in French society – has become a major issue ahead of the 2012 presidential elections. According to a survey by Ifop for the France-Soir newspaper, nearly 40% of French voters agree with Len Pen's views that Muslim prayer in the streets resembles an occupation. Another opinion poll published by Le Parisien newspaper shows that voters view Le Pen, who has criss-crossed the country arguing that France has been invaded by Muslims and betrayed by its elite, as the candidate best suited to deal with the growing problem of runaway Muslim immigration.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity was at 25% in July – worse than any predecessor less than a year ahead of a re-election bid, according to the TNS-Sofres polling group – has been spooked by Le Pen's advance in the opinion polls. He now seems determined not to allow Le Pen to monopolize the issue of Islam in France.

Sarkozy recently called Muslim prayers in the street "unacceptable" and said that the street cannot be allowed to become "an extension of the mosque." He also warned that the overflow of Muslim faithful on to the streets at prayer time when mosques are packed to capacity risks undermining the French secular tradition separating state and religion.

Interior Minister Claude Guéant on August 8 told Muslims who have been praying on the streets of Paris that they should utilize a disused barracks instead. "Praying in the street is something that is not acceptable," Guéant said. "It has to stop."

Meanwhile, France ushered in Ramadan by inaugurating a new mega-mosque for 2,000 worshipers in Strasbourg, where the Muslim population has reached 15%. Construction also continues apace of a new mega-mosque in Marseille, France's second-largest city where the Muslim population has reached 25% (or 250,000). The Grand Mosque – which at more than 8,300 square meters (92,000 square feet) will accommodate up to 7,000 worshippers in a vast prayer hall – is designed to be the biggest and most potent symbol of Islam's place in modern France.

Boubakeur, of the Grande Mosque of Paris, says the construction of even more mosques – paid for by French taxpayers – would ease the "pressure, frustration and the sense of injustice" felt by many French Muslims. "Open a mosque and you close a prison," says Boubakeur.

But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implied that the construction of mosques and minarets actually is part of a strategy for the Islamization of Europe. Publicly repeating the words of a 1912 poem written by the Turkish nationalist poet Ziya Gökalp, Erdogan said: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers."

Reflecting on the retreat of Catholicism and the rise of Islam in France, Archbishop Giuseppe Bernardini, an Italian Franciscan who heads the Izmir archdiocese in Turkey, and who has lived in the Islamic world for more than 40 years, has recounted a conversation he once had with a Muslim leader, who told him: "Thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our religious laws, we will dominate you."

Are you ready to take action, or will you continue to pretend that this isn't happening?

Tradition at World Youth Day

Did you know that the Mass Of All Times was celebrated at World Youth Day?

No?

Well it was.

Usually one finds at WYD abundant hugging, rock messes, birkenstocks, communion in the hand, and any number of liturgical abuses.

Times, they are a-changing.

The Walsingham Project

Once considered "Mary's Dowry", the nation of England has spiraled into the dustbin of spirituality. After 1500 years of Catholic faith and morals, King Henry VIII, formerly a champion of the Church split with Rome and formed his own church with himself as the head.

Now today the Anglican church in England and worldwide is literally falling apart. They have gay and women bishops, they have taken the most liberal of stances on matters of faith and morals, and now, even their priests and congregations (thank God) have seen their errors and are leaving en masse and returning to the Catholic Church.

And they have another issue to deal with in England.

Islam threatens to become the dominate religion on the island.

Will the English take up the defense of their ancient religion of Catholicism? Or will they allow Islam to finish the conquest they were denied during the crusades? Never before has Islam been so close to a Euro Caliphate as they are now. We must pray for them. And for us , because we face the same threat in America.

From the Walsingham web-site:

Europe and the West are in the death-throes of de-Christianization. Islam is blazing in from a tortured Middle East and either firing up Europeans with their vigorous creeds, or launching a conscious conquest by population increase.

Humanly speaking, the situation is irremediable. Except... Two hundred years of visions, prophecies and observations may hold the key to the salvation of the once Christian west. Raymond and Theresa de Souza have assembled a brief but gripping study of the situation.

Their conclusion? The conversion of England.

Click the link above to visit The Walsingham Project.

Happy Monday!

Something to start your week.

After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognisable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, peoples minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonour and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognisable. Peoples appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to there shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents or elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.

-- St. Nilus, 430 AD

Refreshing

Traddy attended a Novus Ordo Mass at a Novus Ordo parish this Sunday. I am always interested to hear what the priest will say after the Gospel, and whether it will be a homily or a sermon.

Or both.

I got both. The anonymous priest, (to protect him from chancery retribution) did a fine job of explaining to the people Matthew 16:19, which is about the founding of the One Church. This priest was careful in how he worded it, but he almost fully upheld the dogma of outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.

Bully for him, and if I knew the man smoked a pipe, I would send him 1/2 a pound of my special blend.

Pray for him and those like him. They are persecuted in this diocese when they explain to parishioners the fullness of the truth of the Catholic Church.

Pray

I have it on good authority that something long awaited for shall soon be coming from Rome. Perhaps it shall come about in mid-September. Be prayerful and watch.

I'll Have Cherry, Please!

Waitaminit.

Didn't Obama and his criminal gang just get done telling us that in order to avoid a stock market crash and a reduction in our credit rating, that we had to increase their credit limit?

More Kool-Aid for you, or just a bigger glass?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/05/us-official-says-sp-reconsidering-us-credit-downgrade/

Wow

Never thought I'd write this: "Thank you Huffington Post."

It seems that even Dear Leader's strongest allies are seeing the truth.

Verboten!

Sorry, but there will be no more anonymous comments on this blog. While I deeply love to read the insults hurled at me by leftist, progressive sissy boys, I'm gonna have to put an end to it. Sorry.