I'm sorry, Virginia: yes, there is a hell, and you'd better avoid it if you can

This is getting some play over in a post entitled "How many people are going to Hell... and why?" at Fr. Z's Blog, where he posts Voris' video and writes:

The greatest accomplishment of the Enemy of our souls is to deceive people that the Enemy doesn’t exist … that there is no Hell … that people can’t go to Hell … that no one is in Hell, blah blah blah. Let’s be clear about this. Catholics are obliged to believe in the existence of the Devil and of Hell. These are de fide doctrines taught by the Church without the possibility of error. The Devil exists. Fallen angels hate you with a malice no human can imagine. They have an intellect that surpasses our mere human faculties in a way that we can’t fathom. They never tire. They are relentless. They are real. If you don’t believe in the existence of malicious fallen angels, you are in serious risk of joining them in Hell. This is no joke.

The combox at Fr. Z's has been lit up with some provocative exchanges, and even this forray into regions where angels fear to tread by our own correspondent and private eye, Guy Noir:

Fr Barron and Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II are all, quite simply, wrong on this point. You have to be a theologian to miss it! Even suggesting “most” will be saved is a rather comical take on Scripture, and in his encyclical on hope Benedict uses purgatory to push a quasi-universalism. He states most everyone will end up there, prior to Heaven. All of this is plainly and extension of Vatican II’s reformation of doctrine. It is not a valid development, anymore than is the wholesale abandonment on inerrancy. I challenge anyone here to go read Barron, and re-listen to Vorris. Barron essentially says, the pope is always right. Vorris is spot on. God bless him.

[Hat tip to JM]

Songs inspired by Obama

I'm always amazed at the music Mr. Obama inspires ...

• Barack Obama Campaign theme Song
• Obama Kids Music Video
• Obama Anthem
• Every Cent You Make (I'll be taxing you)
• Kids Rap Song for Obama Hey There Obama (Drink the Kool Aid)
• He's Barack Obama

"Would YOU want to know when you'll die? Now there's a watch that can predict your death to the nearest SECOND"

"The watch that shows how long -- to the second -- when you die" (MailOnline, October 7, 2013):

First there was a website that predicted when your parents would die; now there's a watch that not only predicts when you will die, it also begins counting down.

Users fill out a questionnaire about their medical history before subtracting their age from the overall results to get their death score. This score is entered into the Tikker and the countdown begins.

Dubbed the 'death watch', Tikker has been created by Swedish inventor Fredrik Colting but far from being morbid, Colting calls it 'The Happiness Watch' and claims it has been designed to help people make the most of their life and cherish the time they have left.

In my opnion, it's a good thing. Medieval hermits are often pictured with a human skull on their desks. Why? Memento mori: "remember death."

By contrast, death is treated as an obscenity today because people want, more than anything else, to avoid thinking about what is existentially inevitable: their death. That's why physicians and athletes and entertainers are paid so much: they give us something else to think about -- the existentially peripheral, like whether the Green Bay Packers or Pittsburgh Steelers are going to win (sorry fans).

The questions that really matter, however, are of the order: Does my live matter? Is this suffering pointless, or is there a larger purpose? The dominant culture considers such questions unanswerable and therefore meaningless, and evades them by ceaseless distraction.

So: memento mori: "The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop at late or early hour [despite this gizmo]. To lose one's wealth is sad indeed; to lose one's health is more; to lose one's soul is such a loss that no one can restore."

For the record: Germain Grisez on Pope Francis

"Letter #90: Editorial on Pope's Interview" (The Moynihan Letters, September 29, 2013):

Dear Dr. Moynihan,

Insofar as I understand what Pope Francis had to say, I can agree with him, but he said some things that I do not understand, and that have already been made bad use of by the secular media. Take the following passage:

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the Church are not all equivalent. The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

The teachings of the Church certainly are not all equivalent. There is a hierarchy.

But what is the point of saying that the Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a “disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently”? Making this assertion suggests, unfortunately, a caricature of the teachings of recent pontificates. I assume Pope Francis would reject that reading. But where, then, is the state of affairs that needs to be overcome?

Proclamation in a missionary style does focus on essentials. But the new evangelization cannot proceed as if the Gospel has not been already preached, and either understood or not, but in either case, rejected. Still, I agree that what is central needs to be presented more clearly and forcefully than has generally been the case. Unless people believe that Christ has risen and will come again and gather into his kingdom all who are ready to enter, and unless they hope to be among those ready to enter, there is no use trying to instruct them about what they need to do in order to be ready to enter.

But what is meant by “moral edifice of the Church”? Many people mistakenly think that the moral truth the Church teaches is a code she has constructed and could change. If that were so, it could collapse like a house of cards. Perhaps Pope Francis means that the moral teachings, though they are truths that pertain to revelation, will collapse for the individual who lacks hope in the kingdom to come. But who knows what he means? The phrase is impressive. It reverberates in one’s depths. But if it was suggested by a spirit, it was not the Holy Spirit, for it is bound to confuse and mislead.

I’m afraid that Pope Francis has failed to consider carefully enough the likely consequences of letting loose with his thoughts in a world that will applaud being provided with such help in subverting the truth it is his job to guard as inviolable and proclaim with fidelity. For a long time he has been thinking these things. Now he can say them to the whole world — and he is self-indulgent enough to take advantage of the opportunity with as little care as he might unburden himself with friends after a good dinner and plenty of wine.

Ouch!

[Hat tip to JM]

Does the Pope sometimes channel Oprah?

"The Pope of Surprises," Fr. Z. calls him. He believes in hell, he believes in the devil, and he excommunicates heretics. But then, sometimes, he can turn around and say things like this, which make you scratch your head and wonder if he's channelling Oprah (or Barney the Dinosaur, or the Care Bears):

“The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill [or "incarnate in order to instill in the souls of men"] the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. Abba, as he called the Father. I will show you the way, he said. Follow me and you will find the Father and you will all be his children and he will take delight in you. Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.” – Pope Francis

I thought that the Son of God became incarnate, not merely "in the souls of men," but became flesh in order to do something for us that we could never do for ourselves -- namely, to die for our sins. But here comes our universal pastor telling us that the Son of God came to instill a "feeling of brotherhood."

A "feeling of brotherhood," of course, is what Beethoven's 5th Symphony is all about, which offers an orchestral setting to Schiller's famous Ode to Joy with its "Alle Menschen werden Brüder," to yield that glorious, frenzied Deistic proto-Masonic ode to the brotherhood of man based on man's inherent nobility in defiance of any recognition of the scandal of Christ and His cross.

But wait! There's more! I always thought that when Jesus said "follow me," He included a tiny caveat that whoever wants to be His disciple must "deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me," and that "following" Jesus meant turning away from sin and embracing a life of discipleship: "If you love me, keep my commandments," He said (Jn 14:15). But here, the Holy Father tells us that by following Jesus -- which, in the context, seems to mean no more than having "a feeling of brotherhood" -- one will automatically become the object of the Father's delight. No mention of any requirement on our part. I scratch my head.

Finally there's this: I always thought that the "the way of salvation" and genuine "beatitude" meant being delivered from sin and its natural consequence of death by regeneration through faith, repentance, and incorporation into the Body of Christ through the waters of baptism, death of the old nature, and resurrection to new life, both in this world and the next. But here the Holy Father's focus is purely immanent and this-worldly: he explains the "only" way of salvation as lying in "love of each one of us for the other." This, of course, is a very good thing, but not something one could not have garnered from Barney and Friends or the Care Bears.

The danger of such statements is that it can not only undermine the confidence of the faithful -- as in Louie Verrechio's recent fisk entitled "Game On" (Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II, October 3, 2013), or Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara's discussion, "Pope Francis and THE Interview" (The Remnant Forum, September 28, 2013), or Janet E. Smith in "Are We Obsessed?" (On the Square, September 25, 2013) -- but leave lapsed Catholics indifferent about their relationship to the Church, and confuse the objectives of the New Evangelization.

I sometimes worry that the essence of the Gospel will be reduced to "Don't worry, be happy." [Hat tip to Anon.]

Obama Administration attacks Catholic military personnel and threatens their chaplains

Fr. Z, "Obama Administration attacks Catholic military personnel and threatens their chaplains" (WDTPRS, October 5, 2013): "Catholic priests in military face arrest for celebrating Mass."

Oakland County Latin Mass Association to Host All Souls Day Masses at St. Hugo Stone Chapel, Bloomfield Hills

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News (October 6, 2013):

As the Tridentine Mass has expanded across metro Detroit and Windsor, one area that has so far escaped having a regular Mass is Oakland County. In part this is because Oakland County has relatively few historic churches that are architecturally suited for the Extraordinary Form.

One church that has long attracted the speculation of Latin Mass enthusiasts is St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills. St. Hugo is one of the area’s largest and most successful parishes. It has long been comprised of two churches on one campus. Today most of the Masses are said in the new, modern main church, built in the late 1980s to replace the St. Walter’s Chapel, an edifice the parish had outgrown.

Also on the campus is the original church, now known as the Stone Chapel. Nestled into an idyllic park-like setting, the Stone Chapel is historically intact from its 1928 construction. Built in English Gothic style, the chapel seats around 250 and contains Side Altars and a Communion Rail. The original High Altar was pulled away from the reredos so that Mass could be celebrated facing the people, however the predella (altar platform) was extended so that Mass can still be celebrated ad oriéntem.

The Stone Chapel is one of very few churches in the world to incorporate a private family crypt in the lower level of the church. The church was originally built by Mr. & Mrs. Theodore MacManus, of D’Arcy MacManus Advertising, as a memorial to their late sons, Hugo and Hubert. They obtained Vatican permission to establish the crypt, which includes a traditional wall-mounted altar on the lower level ideal for private Masses.

Today the Stone Chapel is used for weekday Masses, funerals, and weddings. It is open for adoration until 9:00 PM daily. Holy Hours with Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament are offered every Wednesday at 7:00 PM and on First Tuesdays at 7:30 PM, followed by all-night adoration. No worries about discomfort: The chapel is one of the area’s few historic churches to be heated – and air conditioned – year-round to a comfortable temperature, during all of its open hours.

Over the past two years, St. Hugo parishioner Cia Lakin has painstakingly organized the many details necessary to establish a new Tridentine Mass Community in Oakland County. Her hard work is finally bearing fruit; the Oakland County Latin Mass Association will be holding its first Mass:

On All Souls Day, Saturday, November 2, there will be two Low Masses simultaneously celebrated at the side altars of St. Hugo’s Stone Chapel starting at 4:00 PM, followed by a Solemn High Mass at the Main Altar at 5:00 PM. The choir of Windsor’s St. Benedict Tridentine Community at Assumption Church will provide the music. Please mark your calendars to join us for this historic event. There will be no comparable event at Assumption Church this year.

[Photo by Patricia Drury. More information and photos of the Stone Chapel are available at www.sthugo.org.]

Main Celebrant & Chaplain: Msgr. Ronald Browne

Archbishop Allen Vigneron has assigned Msgr. Ron Browne as Chaplain of the nascent Oakland County Latin Mass group. Longtime readers may recall Msgr. Browne (not to be confused with fellow Tridentine Mass celebrant Msgr. George Browne) as one of the celebrants of St. Josaphat’s Mass in the early years.

A civil attorney before becoming a priest, a few years ago then-Fr. Browne was temporarily assigned to the Diocese of Marquette as Moderator of the Curia. There he assisted then-Bishop Alexander Sample to set up a weekly Tridentine Mass in Marquette’s St. Peter Cathedral. He was named a Chaplain to His Holiness in January, 2013. Recently, Msgr. Browne returned to the Archdiocese of Detroit, where he has been assigned to the Metropolitan Tribunal.

St. Hyacinth High Mass Next Sunday, October 13

In honor of Pope Francis consecrating the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. Hyacinth Church will hold a special Tridentine High Mass next Sunday at 1:00 PM, followed by Benediction. Music will be led by Joe Balistreri.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 10/07 3:00 PM: High Mass at Sorrowful Mother Shrine, Bellevue, Ohio (Our Lady of the Rosary) – for bus tour registration, call (248) 250-6005
• Mon. 10/07 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Our Lady of the Rosary)
• Tue. 10/08 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Assumption-Windsor (St. Bridget, Widow)
• Sun. 10/13 1:00 PM: High Mass at St. Hyacinth (Twenty-first Sunday After Pentecost) – Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament follows Mass

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Josaphat (Detroit) and Assumption (Windsor) bulletin inserts for October 6, 2013. Hat tip to A.B., author of the column.]

Michael Voris' new tone

I was catching up on some missed episodes of Church Militant TV's "vortex" episodes, and noticed what seems to be a new tone in the host's discussions. If he wasn't sufficiently "offensive" before, he seems to have just decided to take the gloves off completely, as is evident in this latest take-down of Detroit, comparing the bankruptcy of the municipal government with the condition of the local church. He no longer seems concerned with "how to win friends and influence people" (although he's clearly doing that from all indications), but more focused on speaking directly to what he sees as the causes of the current crisis in the Church, even at the cost of exposing local scandals and verging toward naming names. Jeremiah in excelsus:

No common ground

A friend recently emailed me observing that at a recent parents' weekend, a lesbian colleague announced that she had some exciting news: she and her partner were having a baby. How to react and respond? You want to be nice, friendly, supportive, affirming. THAT, of course would be the Catholic thing to do these days, right?

So what is the big deal, afterall? Live and let love. Right?

But as my friend has learned from a long and arduous process, if you actually believe in the morals you espouse, and think they are objectively true and matter, such a reaction, even feigned, is difficult and disingenuous.

People now discuss how oppressive it has been for homosexuals to have been in the closet. "I will give them partial credit," says my friend, "for you soon discover how oppressive covert attitudes and beliefs are if yours rub up against the zeitgeist."

But the problem is that there is no apparent neutral moral ground whatsoever, and if something matters, it matters. Peaceful co-existence is possible, but affirming co-existence?

My friend concludes: "From my own experience I have found that such a state is impossible to maintain along with conflicting moral beliefs."

Indeed. The affirmations of decades of happy parents with cohabitating children does not prove this wrong. It simply proves that the they were compromisers when it came to their children's behavior.

So, is there a common ground? Metaphysically, yes: we have all been created in God's image. We share a human nature, a common reality. Epistemologically, no: our understandings of that common nature and reality may have nothing in common. And today the lines of antithesis are being drawn ever more clearly.

[Hat tip to Anon.]

Blessed Hans Urs von Balthasar?

Okay, I think someone may have gone just a wee bit too far with this "proto-canonizing" von Balthasar!

We've seen the problems with his inordinate fascination with Adrienne von Speyr, not to mention his overweening aestheticism, and quasi-universalism. And now here comes a post by Daniel Klimek on the mysticism of von Balthasar and his fascination with Medjugorje. Read the whole thing and be edified. Here's an excerpt:

Theologically von Balthasar had much in common with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, being a champion of Christian orthodoxy. As MinistryValues has observed in a previous article, John Paul II, like von Balthasar, was also infatuated with Medjugorje. Von Balthasar, however, did not only comment on the subject in his expertise as a Catholic theologian but also in his role as archbishop. Noticing the fruits of faith in Medjugorje, he strongly defended the visionaries and the apparitions against unsubstantiated attacks.

When Bishop Paveo Zanic, who had a notorious reputation for hostility toward the visionaries and devotions of Medjugorje, issued a letter condemning the site and attacking the visionaries, Archbishop von Balthasar responded with his own letter to Zanic. He wrote:

“What a simply sad document you have dispatched throughout the world! I was deeply hurt to see the office of Bishop degraded in this fashion. Instead of having patience as You were advised by Your superiors, You thunder and hurl jupiter’s arrows, blackening renowned and innocent people, worthy of Your respect and protection. You repeatedly come up with accusations which have been proven untrue a hundred times over.”

A couple of such accusations included Bishop Zanic’s claim that the Medjugorje visionaries are guilty of fraud and hysteria. Even Archbishop Frane Franic of Split noted that such erroneous accusations ignored the findings of separate teams of Yugoslav, French, and Italian doctors who thoroughly examined the visionaries, in ecstasy, and found no evidence of fraud or hysteria whatsoever.

Balthasar’s love for the mysticism of Medjugorje, and his confidence in the truth of Our Lady’s messages reported there, were abundant. He always had a spiritual inclination toward the mystical. Among the things he was most known for, in addition to his esteemed role as theologian and Archbishop, was directing the conversion of the Swiss mystic Adrienne von Speyr into the Catholic Church. Speyr, a medical doctor, wife, and the author of over 60 books on spirituality and theology, grew up in a Reformed Protestant family before her spiritual life led her to Roman Catholicism. In the tradition of Teresa of Avila and Simone Weil, she experienced profound spiritual phenomena throughout her life, including mystical experiences of the Trinity and the saints. In 1940 she was introduced to Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, then a young Jesuit priest. Von Balthasar became her friend and spiritual director, to whom von Speyr dictated a total of 69 of her books while in a state of mystical prayer. Von Balthasar would pay homage to his friend and spiritual student, by publishing, among his numerous books, the biography First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, a detailed introduction of her life, theology, and work. Interestingly, even as a young priest, von Balthasar’s sense of the mystical was important in discerning the fruits and messages of God’s supernatural graces.

Objective facts, anyone? Ex opere operato? The real world out side of Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole?

[Hat tip to G.M.]

Pope Francis –What Did You Mean Exactly?

Dr. Monica M. Miller

Another interview with Pope Francis appeared in the Oct. 1, 2013 online edition of the Italian journal Repubblica.  The link is below. Again, the Holy Father, similar to the America magazine interview, has much good to say. But those statements are mixed in with statements that are ambiguous and thus subject to exploitation and misuse by those who do not accept the teaching of Christ.

http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2013/10/01/news/pope_s_conversation_with_scalfari_english-67643118/?ref=HREA-1

Here are the troubling quotes from the latest media saga involving Pope Francis:

1) “The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old.”... Youth unemployment is:  "the most urgent problem that the Church is facing."  Why Francis made such a statement is perplexing. I can think of at least 20 other more dire problems than these two—and yes, legalized abortion is certainly near—if not at the top of the list.

2) "Heads of the Church have often been narcissists"--etc.  Who does Francis actually have in mind here? Recent popes?  Or is he drudging up the Borgias?  It’s difficult to know who or what he is referring to in this statement.

3) "The Church should go back to being a community of God's people."   When did she cease being this exactly?   Just because the Vatican has its problems doesn't mean Christ's Church has stopped being "the community of God's people.”

4) "Proselytism is solemn nonsense."   Here there is no distinction between evangelization and improper proselytizing that does not respect the rights of persons-- and the Church's mission is not ultimately a matter of let’s "listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us." 

5)   We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good" and "Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight the evil as he conceives them."   Francis's articulation of conscience exhibits a lack of moral theological precision. The statements sound like moral subjectivism and even a kind of relativism. It is true that, in terms of “autonomy, the Church affirms that even an erroneous conscience must be followed. However, it would have helped enormously if the pope had explained that human beings have a duty to form their conscience according to objective truths and goods so that they can choose what is truly consistent with human life and dignity. They are not just to follow their own personal lights--maybe though acting in "good faith.” But even in “good faith” many people mistake evil for good.

6) "Jesuits are still the leavening...perhaps the most effective-- of Catholicism, culture, teaching, missionary work, loyalty to the Pope."   Someone needs to inform Francis that not too many Jesuits these days are "loyal to the Pope" and if the Society of Jesus-- known primarily as a heterodox force in the post Vatican II Church, is the most important "leavening" agent-- the Church is in big trouble.

7) "We need to include the excluded."  Yes-- true! But what does this mean exactly and who are they?  Who exactly are being “excluded”? Perhaps he means by "include",   a la Vatican II, dialogue with non-believers as he went on to say one sentence later. 

8) When asked if: "'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' has happened?"  Francis said: "Unfortunately, no." What is the pope saying-- exactly-- that the Church has never practiced this-- that the Church has failed in this practice since her beginning? Who does he have in mind here? Maybe he means generally speaking--the world does not practice this?  This may be true but again ambiguity is a problem. 

9) When the reporter claimed that the “institution [of the Church] dominates the poor.”-- Francis said "In fact that is the way it is."  It sounds like the pope agrees that Christ's Church oppresses the poor? Francis should have pointed out that the Church everywhere and in all ages has been and is the chief defender of the poor--- and then perhaps point out that there have been instances of corruption, etc? 

10) Francis indicated that with his papacy: "This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal."   The Church has never neglected the horizontal aspect of her being. But what exactly does Francis mean here-- a democratization of Catholicism? Many will read it this way-- and maybe (because of ambiguity) that's what he meant to say.

11) "I believe in God, not in a Catholic God."  In a sense this is a completely proper statement. However in another real sense a Catholic can say that they do believe in a "Catholic God"--namely the God who has shown himself to his people, the God taught by the Church and served by the Church and the very God who directly founded her existence though the shedding of His blood for her. This may be called the "Catholic" God. After all, that non-Catholic God founded he Catholic Church.

12) "Our species will end, but the light of God will not end and at that point it will invade all souls and it will be in everyone."  This may be the most theologically off statement in the whole interview.  First of all, "our species" namely the "human race" will not end. Yes, the world as we know it will end, that’s Christian teaching. But God created people and they live forever. The human "species" doesn't end. Furthermore we are not just a bunch of disembodied souls that will be “invaded” by the light of God that “will not end” and "it (God's light) will all be in everyone." 

God does not invade all souls. He doesn't invade anyone. God must be accepted freely and there's no way that Francis can say God's light will just be in "everyone at the end." I mean, we hope that's the case-- pray for this to be the case--work for this to be the case!  But he makes it sound like this will happen to everyone no matter what, apparently even in souls that don't want him. 

This view of the spiritual life is unhinged from the Catholic spiritual/ theological heritage. There isn't even a Christian vocabulary here upon which to stand. The statement is just flying out-there in some new age cosmos. If God will “invade” all souls in the end, the Church can stop evangelizing. Apparently there is no need.  In the meantime we can all be obsessed with that youth unemployment problem.

Ok-- here's the good stuff-- Francis is obviously a great and holy man and before this atheist reporter he affirmed the existence of God as Father, the existence of the soul, man’s need for grace and that the Church is feminine. Let us humbly pray for Pope Francis.

Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph. D.-Director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society

Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Madonna University, Michigan. The foregoing article is posted by permission of the author.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Freemasonry but never dreamed of asking

Stop right there. Another title I thought of giving this post was: The Michael Voris nobody knows. Why? Because everyone who has heard of Voris knows him from his daily 3-5-minute video clips. Because many think he's unstudied, dogmatic, doctrinaire, and annoyingly unsubtle. But few are acquainted with his lengthy investigative reports, where I think he is often at his best. Here his topics are well researched, his positions nuanced, his presentations articulate, and his arguments well-supported.


The topic here is one that few Catholics give much "mental space" to, but I've heard is well worth considering. I listened to the entire lengthy presentation this evening, and I'm convinced there's more to the issue than usually meets the eye. The best part of the presentation, in my view, was after he begins discussing Cecil Rhodes and his Freemason-inspired vision for the world, which takes him all the way up to the Council on Foreign Relations and the United Nations.

Here are three quotations. The first is from a 1922 Foreign Affairs article:

“Obviously there is going to be no peace or prosperity for manking as long as the earth remains divided into 50 or 60 independent states and until some kind of international system is created. The real problem today is that of the world government."

The second is from a 1952 speech by John Foster Dulles to the American Bar Association, in which he addresses how international treaties supersede national laws:

“They are more supreme than ordinary laws... treaty laws can override the Constitution. They can cut across the rights give to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.”

The third is from a book entitled Kissinger on the Couch, by retired Navy Admiral Chester Ward:

“The goal of the CFR is submergence of the US sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one world government ... this lust to surrender the sovereignty and independence of the United States is pervasive throughout most of the membership ....”

All of this reminds me of the overheated fantasies of Auguste Comte, who thought he could enlist the help of Rome's Jesuits in his quest for an international "scientific" religion replacing God with Man (maybe now he could have succeeded), or Charles Maurras's Action française, which did manage to enlist the tacit support of both Pope St. Pius X and neo-scholastic Thomist Garrigou-Lagrange, despite the anti-supernaturalist fantasy at its humanist core.

A funny world we live in.

Related -- an interesting Canadian example:


The "tour guide" here, Bro Frank Albo, is himself a Freemason.

Unpacking the Pope’s PR Debacle — What Happened and What It Means for Pro-Lifers

In an age of confusion, ambiguity serves further confusion
and provides the enemies of Christ with a means
to further their own agenda.

A Critique of the Pope’s America Interview

by Dr. Monica Migliorino Miller
When NARAL—namely the National Abortion Rights Action League—thanks a pope for anything, you know that something went seriously wrong somewhere.

This “thank you” is just one of the outrageous and incredible responses the secular world and the enemies of life have made in the last 5 days to certain statements Pope Francis made in his America magazine interview. See link to that whole, very lengthy article at end of this memo. I urge a full reading.

Before I go any further in this critique—there is much good in what the Holy Father says. Moreover, let me also say it right now—I honor and respect this pope—I believe he is a true holy man of God and his pontificate (still very new) has the potential to bring about great good for the Holy Catholic Church and the world.

However, it does absolutely no good to ignore or try and put a positive spin on the horrific media fallout –or to just blame the secular enemies of the Church for their exploitation of the pope’s interview. A simple “google” search of media coverage of the interview will bring in a harvest of hideous captions and headlines that blast:

“Pope Faults Church—Lay off Gays and Abortion” and “Pope Francis: Gays, Abortion Too Much Of Catholic Church's Obsession”      Huffington Post

“Pope: Church too focused on gays and abortion” with sub-headline: “We have to find a new balance instead of being obsessed with those issues”      USA Today

“Pope Francis…church had become ‘obsessed’ with abortion, gay marriage and contraception.”      Photo caption, New York Times

“Pope Bluntly Faults Church’s Focus on Gays and Abortion”      New York Times — online edition

“Pope faults ‘small-minded’ rules” followed by sub-headline: “He says church shouldn’t be ‘obsessed’ with gays, abortion, and contraception.”      Chicago Tribune

“The Pope Confesses Church’s ‘Obsession’ With Gays, Abortion”      The Daily Beast

“Pope Francis Is a Liberal: It’s not just homosexuality or birth control. He’s profoundly anti-conservative.”      Slate Magazine—which even stated (referring to the Galileo case) that according to Francis’ idea of the “development of doctrine” the Church’s “rules” on abortion and gay sex will change over time!

Screenshot from Drudge Report
I think you get the idea.

Needed: a magisterial pronouncement on what the Pope really meant to say

• Fr. Z: "What Did The Pope Really Say? 1 – UPDATES" (WDTPRS, October 1, 2013)
  
  
• N.C., "Buried beneath the headlines: Yesterday's homily by Pope Francis on proselytism and witness" (Rorate Caeli, October 2, 2013)
  
  
• Fr. Z, "Pope Francis interview in La Repubblica, or, 'Is This Now My Fate?'” (WDTPRS, October 1, 2013)

And yet another papal interview, this time with Eugenio Scalfari

Eugenio Scalfari, "The Pope: how the Church will change" (La Repubbllica): Dialogue between Francis and La Repubblica's founder, Eugenio Scalfari: "Starting from the Second Vatican Council, open to modern culture". The conversation in the Vatican after the Pope's letter to La Repubblica: "Convert you? Proselytism is solemn nonsense. You have to meet people and listen to them:

Pope Francis told me: "The most serious of the evils that afflict the world these days are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old. The old need care and companionship; the young need work and hope but have neither one nor the other, and the problem is they don't even look for them any more. They have been crushed by the present. You tell me: can you live crushed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing." Read more >>

[Hat tip to Dr. Monica Miller]

Related:Louie Verrecchio, "Preliminary thoughts on the Scalfari interview" (Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II, October 1, 2013).