The kind of Church we need! See more photos like this, and the article about it here. And Dr. Taylor Marshall has further thoughts on the subject of the Mass and masculinity here. |
Along
the same lines, there was an excellent
article at “The Catholic Thing” blog, but Robert Royal. I’ll give you a few
excerpts, but please read the whole thing at the link.
Mr.
Royal says (my emphases):
The U. S. bishops are meeting
in Baltimore this week for their annual get-together. The scuttlebutt is that
they will be mostly discussing matters internal to the Church in America. If
they were asking my advice – for some reason, they seem to have forgotten to
call – I would strongly urge that they begin with a collective session of lectio divina about kindling fires.
I’d also suggest a few other
things. To start with, forget about
being nice. It doesn’t work. Be gentlemen. Be kind. But forget nice. As
learned Latinists, you no doubt know that the word comes from nescius,
which means ignorant. It came, early in modern languages, to mean foolish.
Today, an idiomatic translation might be: clueless.
He
concludes by telling the bishops:
Know that many Catholics, and
non-Catholics, are with you. Seek them out. And the best way to do so is to lead from the front. The apostles knew
it was a bad idea, in a sense, for Jesus to go into Jerusalem at the end. But
they saw who He was, what He was willing to risk, and they were willing to risk
much themselves so that at least they could die with Him.
I know several of you, and know
that some of you know all this. But we need you to inspire even more of your fellow bishops.
You have lifetime tenure and
jobs that make a real difference.
Most people are stuck in humdrum tasks that don’t seem to mean very much. This
is an exciting moment in Catholic
history that offers opportunities for all the imagination, intelligence,
and daring that you can bring to the many challenges at hand.
So make the most of it. Cherish
it. Blessed are you.
Here's the Vortex:
The script:
Shortly
after Nero had Rome set ablaze, he watched from one of the hills of Rome and played
away on his fiddle; hence the expression, Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
While
historians debate the full accuracy of the account, the point is made. So too is
an obvious point conveyed in the expression “re-arranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic”.
The
bishops of the United States are meeting this week in Baltimore for their
bi-annual conference, and much is being discussed – just not much of any real
significance in the face of a Luciferian takeover of the culture.
And we
don’t mean just Obama winning. That’s only a symptom of the sickness and moral
cancer that has brought down formerly Catholic or Christian countries all over
the globe.
But as
Rome – meaning the faith – burns to ashes, the bishops are busy talking about issuing
a document on the economy, and another one…another
one…on immigration.
By the
way – did they take note that for all their work on immigration, the Hispanic
vote, which represents the vast majority of immigration, went for Obama – the
Catholic
Church
hater – by 75 to 25 percent?
America’s
problems are moral. Period. They stem from a denial of faith…God…the Divinity
of Jesus Christ. Even among Catholics. Especially among Catholics.
If most
Catholics REALLY believed that Jesus Christ is GOD – the Divine Majesty and Creator
of the universe – this would be a different country. But since it isn’t… it’s
clear they don’t.
The job
of the bishops is not to issue one meaningless document after another on things
which are not their expertise. BTW – about that economy document…not one
economist weighed in on it. That’s right; a document about the economy with no
input from experts in the field.
The job
of the bishops is to announce Church teaching: support and teach the faithful and
get us to Heaven.
But
that isn’t on the agenda in Baltimore. Now if you log in and read the happy
clappy accounts of the bloggers who are there, they dither on about this nice
meal here and the nice chat they had with bishop whoever in the hall. They seem
all too impressed just by the simple fact that they are in attendance, and seem
to miss the point that they are supposed to be informing what goes on. What
good is Catholic media presence if not to wake up souls to the plight of their
eternal lives?
There
was a Catholic blogger 15 minutes-of-fame meeting a couple of days ago where everyone
smiled and chatted about…oooh…Catholic media and the internet. Where is the
much-needed – not to mention only
discussion that matters – the salvation of souls?
A few
months back, Cardinal Dolan of New York – wo invited Obama to the Al Smith dinner
and posed for pictures with him – told the Wall Street Journal that the bishops,
including himself, had been essentially negligent in their duty to promote the
Church’s moral teaching in the area of sex.
Good
for him, but as many people suspected…that was it. Just words; nothing more.
Where
is the document this week coming from Baltimore instructing and supporting an entire
overhaul of the miserable Catholic education system that has betrayed and lost
countless young minds – and no doubt souls – to the culture of death?
Where
is the document that says ALL priests need to go back and learn about the intrinsic
evil of contraception and cohabitation, and then preach it unashamedly to those
in the pews?
And if
there is a fear that most of the people will get up and leave: so be it. Better
to enter into Heaven with a few then into eternal damnation with a multitude.
Where
are the Catholic bloggers who are in attendance reminding the bishops to be bishops
as VENERABLE Archbishop Fulton Sheen said we, the laity, need to do? Or again, are
they just so impressed with their privileged status of being of having gotten
press credentials to an event – that no one else on earth cares about or even
knows is going on – that they just can’t get over themselves.
A
murderous maniacal monstrous regime that has revealed its full hand is now in sufficient
control of this society’s government. That regime will soon establish and cement
a Supreme Court that will enshrine abortion and gay marriage as the law forever,
with no earthly possibility of it ever changing.
This
same regime will bring to bear all the powers it possesses on the Church, whose
leaders
it has used and fooled and taken advantage of their naïveté. It is not the case
that the bishops were just being kind and Obama mistook that for ignorance. No,
they were ignorant and easy pickins’, and Obama knew it. He knew that, no
matter what, most of these men would never challenge him in any meaningful way,
and even if they did, they had so squandered any moral voice they had owing to
the sex abuse crisis AND their non-stop never ending release of documents and
statements on everything from global warming to unemployment to economy to
peace in the Middle East and on and on – that frankly, they were perceived as
the guy at the party who bores everyone because he passes himself off as an
expert on everything.
And now,
here they are, collectively gathered again in huddled conference, little blogging
teams all in tow, happily tweeting and texting and facebooking about absolutely
nothing – helping everyone to keep firmly fixed in their mind the illusion that
the Emperor is dressed in the finest of robes, when in reality he is buck
naked.
No, the
emperor is not only naked: he’s also pounding away on his fiddle. We know from
personal contact that a number of bishops are deeply concerned about these
affairs – that they recognize that the whole Church is burning to the ground
and what is needed is a decisive turnaround, a Damascus moment among their
brother bishops.
The
problem is what it has been for decades: a desire to influence the culture
through the organs of the state, and not through the power of the Gospel. Stop
publishing these meaningless no-one-cares documents, and stand up and declare
the real evil in our midst: sexual immorality – especially contraception – for
God’s sake; let the chips fall where they may.
Right
now, we are living a lie. The Church in America is living a lie. Of the roughly
75 million baptized Catholics in the US, most likely no more than 10 percent
are fully-believing, totally committed, and faithful.
Heck,
75 percent don’t even go to Mass; that leaves only 25 percent as a possible
pool to draw any faithfulness from. And one visit to most any parish in the US
will show you just how thin the faith is even among the Mass goers.
Publish
a document on the need for absolute faith, on the need to turn away from sin –
after, of course, sin has been defined, and the eternal consequences of dying
in it have been spelled out.
What on
earth is the game that is going on here, anyway? Stand up and preach the truth.
Period.
Stop putting your trust in princes. And remember that despite the power of the
horse; it cannot save.
St.
Catherine of Sienna said, “Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through
fear. Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
When I read what the bishops were discussing at their meeting, I thought the same thing - talk about ignoring the elephant in the room With all that is going on, this is what they choose to focus on? Dorothy Day? No meat on Friday? The economy?
ReplyDeleteGod give me strength to go on and persevere in Holy Mother Church.