Tomatoes, Roses, and NFP Awareness Week

There’s a rose bush in our back yard that’s been there since before we moved in here. It’s off in the corner, far from the nearest water faucet, and so it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. Nevertheless, it blooms. Every year, I’m amazed at the fruitfulness of this plant. This year, it seems to be particularly prolific.

But then, it’s a rose bush. A rose bush is meant to produce flowers. That’s its natural end. Right? We shouldn’t really be too surprised that a rose bush yields a bunch of roses!

On the other hand, this year I bought three tomato plants, which I have planted in a sunny spot, and watered; and I have even fed them with “Miracle-gro”. They’re green and bushy, looking quite healthy, and they blossomed a while back, so I’ve been waiting for the little tomatoes to appear.

But…after waiting and waiting and waiting, I can only find three actual tomatoes! What’s up with that? I am much more surprised that my tomato plants are barren than that my rose bush has blossomed. The natural end of a tomato plant is to produce tomatoes, is it not?

After some thought, I have discerned that my tomato plants are being responsible. This summer is supposed to be hotter than other summers, and there just might not be enough water for them. If they have to divert their resources to bushels of little tomatoes, they’ll be strapped. They don’t know when I’ll water them again, and they don’t know if there are enough nutrients in that soil I’ve provided. They are wise to limit their progeny.

The rose bush, though, is just being so…providentialist! It knows it might not get watered for days on end! It’s painfully aware of the neglect it’s suffered over the years, I’m sure! And yet…and yet…it is producing a multitude of “offspring”. Has it never heard of being responsible? Has it no concern for how it will provide nourishment for all those new buds?

If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:30)

Click on the NFP tab at the top of the page for a list of other NFP posts on this blog.

Homosexuality in the Church

This week, Michael Voris has two Vortex episodes on the issue of homosexuals in the clergy. I’ve embedded both below, each followed by its script.

I'll make some comments of my own, too. First, I’d like to mention Michael S. Rose’s book, Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church, which was published in 2002. Rose addresses many facets of the priestly vocations crisis, including the “Gay Subculture” in chapter 4 of the book.

Rose’s work is pretty convincing, even though many of his informants were unwilling to disclose their identities. No wonder! Promoters of the homosexualist agenda in the secular world have become more and more violent in their language and actions; you know that when a 14-year-old girl can’t even voice a pro-traditional-marriage viewpoint without getting death threats, something is very wrong with our society. The homosexualist agenda in the Church relies less on such overt terrorist tactics (I think…), but is also strong and vociferous. Consider, for example, the blatant refusal of the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry, or CALGM, to sign an "oath of personal integrity" to Catholic teaching given to them by Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Diocese of Oakland, CA.

In a CNA article from 2011, Louie Verrechio, reflecting on the John Jay Report about the causes of priestly sexual abuse of minors, noted the inescapable conclusion that such abuse is related to homosexuality. But abuse of minors was not the focus of his article; instead, he examined “The Liturgical Impact of Homosexuality in the Priesthood”. It’s an interesting article that makes a good follow-up to the information Voris is presenting in his Vortex episodes.

Verrechio provides an interesting discussion about the source of some of the serious liturgical abuse that continues to permeate the Novus Ordo Mass. First, he notes that:

Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a consultant to the Vatican Congregation for Clergy and a leading expert with more than 35 years of clinical experience treating priests and others who suffer with Same Sex Attraction (SSA), said in a recent interview with regard to homosexuality in the priesthood, “Narcissism – a personality disorder in which an insatiable need for admiration often leads to attention-seeking behavior – is prevalent among men who struggle with homosexuality. This conflict results in a need to draw attention to his own personality in the liturgy rather than to surrender his personal identity in favor of Christ.”

While narcissistic behavior certainly isn’t the exclusive franchise of homosexuals, Dr. Fitzgibbons’ insights speak directly to the reason why homosexual men are ill-suited for the priesthood – a truth that comes into ever sharper focus when viewed through the lens of the sacred liturgy.

…A quest for self-fulfillment on the part of the priest is the antithesis of the spirit of the liturgy, but according to Dr. Fitzgibbons, homosexuals often tend “to see and to treat their own pleasure as the highest end.”

This being the case, a substantial degree of tension can exist between the homosexual cleric and the liturgy properly celebrated, one that is overcome only with resolute determination to engage in intensive therapy and prayer, and even then with great difficulty. 

Setting aside “chicken and egg” arguments for the time being, it would seem that the apparent increase in homosexual orientation among the priestly population, coupled with the liturgical crisis that emerged in the decades after the Council, has created a perfect storm.  

… Given the fact that the Council Fathers encouraged neither the dramatic change in the priest’s posture toward the people nor the construction of free-standing altars to accommodate the practice, it is reasonable to wonder what sorts of influences and pressures within the priestly population itself may have allowed for such a radical liturgical innovation to take hold so quickly.

Now, I don’t propose to offer an exhaustive treatment here, but I would suggest that at least one contributing factor among many may be suggested in the data found in the John Jay Report.

In a graph that plots “Incidents of Sexual Abuse by Year of Occurrence” (on pg. 8) one finds a steep increase in cases of abuse (which again, are overwhelmingly homosexual in nature) taking shape just as liturgical experimentation was gathering worldwide momentum in the mid-1950s. From there we see cases of abuse spiking to unforeseen levels that are then roughly maintained over a 10+ year period beginning in the late 1960s - the very point in time during which the push to create a liturgy celebrated versus populum reached critical mass and found favor in so many places. 

Coincidence? Perhaps, but then again maybe not.

There are, of course, countless problems with having priests who embrace the homosexual lifestyle; but there are also problems with those who, while not embracing and living that lifestyle, are still sympathetic to it and/or will simply not speak out against it.

But since the Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life, the damage done to the liturgy by the homosexualist agenda is the very worst problem of all. It will affect everything else in our Catholic lives.

For other Vortex posts, click on the "Vortex" tab at the top of the page.

Vortex from July 23, 2012

The Script:

It’s a subject no one really wants to discuss in the open.  Every now and then it emerges in an article or book, but then gets the short shrift as clergymen pass over it as quickly as possible.

The subject? The powerful and influential homosexual sub-culture…or should we say semi- sub culture.

Here in Rome, it is no secret; and if you get into discussions with the right people who are well informed, the homosexual mafia is not only a given, but their power and influence are more far-reaching than almost any Catholic in the pew would ever imagine.

These homosexual clergy and their allies have caused tremendous damage to the Church and it’s about time the issue was talked about plainly and openly.

We’ve touched on this topic every now and then – from the so-called Gay Masses in St. Joseph’s Parish in Sydney [Australia]’s  Newtown neighborhood, to the Gay Mass at St. Francis Xavier in the New York Archdiocese, to London’s So-Ho District Gay Mass at The church is Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory.

It doesn’t take a master’s degree or a Papal diploma to know these abominations are evil.  Can you imagine St. Augustine or St. Thomas or Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen giving their blessings to these?

But here’s the larger point.  These are allowed to happen – as well as many other things – because of the pervasive presence of active and passive homosexuals among Catholic clergy…many of them very high ranking who wield enormous amounts of influence.

And here at the Vatican, the question is being wondered about and whispered about: how can this network be put out of business?  The problem is that it appears to be so widespread, and on every level, that no one is sure how to tackle it.

…[T]here are a few open homosexuals in the clergy – some of them bishops like Rembert Weakland who ruled the archdiocese of Milwaukee like his own personal gay Club Med from 1977-2002 when he stepped down in disgrace after his former male “lover” blackmailed him for nearly half a million dollars.

Weakland is just the tip of the iceberg, however.  The homosexual clergy sex abuse crisis which became public ten years ago has brought a number of homosexual clergy – including bishops – to the public eye. 

It’s not the point of this Vortex episode to go back and re-visit each of those cases – they are notorious and easily discoverable on the internet – but rest assured, there are many of them.

The point is to engage in the larger discussion of the power this network of gay priests and bishops wield, and how they use that power not only to live a life of sexual immorality, but to silence those who seek to expose their evil.

Moreover, they have been complicit in willfully doing all they could to pervert the liturgy, seminaries, schools, and every other institutional aspect of church life they could.  They have viciously sought to destroy the faith by undermining it at every turn.

This has all tied into a much larger broad based agenda on the part of the homosexual movement in general to force society into accepting same-sex attraction and acting on those attractions as normal and even good.

The movement coalesced in the late 1960’s – in what some have called The Evil 60’s – for a variety of events that occurred in that turbulent decade.

Militant homosexual activists began to organize socially and politically in the early and mid-70’s, and it was then that they publicly said it was organized religion that would be their greatest obstacle.

So they first began subtle attacks on Protestant groups – fighting to be viewed not as sinners, but as equals.  They joined various denominations and became ministers and leaders, and advanced the so-called gay-agenda.

At the same time, modernist Catholics were banging the drum for greater hand-holding with Protestant groups, and this trend has continued non-stop since. With a bridge to a more “open and welcoming” style of theology, Catholic homosexual clergy now had the opportunity to meet each other through already established social and political networks.

And meet they did.  Up to this time, homosexual Catholic priests had remained somewhat isolated from each other except for the occasional meetings.  But with networking channels now available to them, a sea change happened.

The Protestant Clergy Gay Network model was imported into the halls of Catholic clergy, and shortly thereafter, a whole network began developing – oftentimes under the banner of social justice.  One big organization was Call To Action, which got its start in the Detroit Archdiocese in 1976.

While many consider it the first, Call To Action would not be the last.  Soon more blatant gay Catholic groups would begin emerging, like Catholic Coalition for Gay Civil Rights; Dignity; New Way Ministry; and others which openly protest Church teaching, and call for change.

Attached to these mostly lay groups were numerous priests and diocesan staffs all across the country – various priests who in fact would move up the ranks to become heads of seminaries…monsignors…and bishops.  And what they shared in common was their homosexuality, and their desire for the Church to accept their sin as a virtue.

So they spent decades kicking orthodox straight men out of seminaries, persecuting priests who fought against them, and insuring that they get as many homosexuals ordained as they possibly could.

As part of the larger plan to overthrow Church teaching, they have struggled mightily and quite successfully to undermine ALL sexual morality teachings of the Church. 

It was many of the loudest voices who opposed Humane Vitae, Pope Paul’s 1968 condemnation of birth control – and still oppose it – who have also come out in favor of greater acceptance of homosexuality in general: civil unions and even same-sex marriage.

While this is somewhat of an overview of WHAT went wrong and how it happened, the much more pressing concern is this: how to eradicate this evil from the bosom of the Church.

Here in Rome, which admittedly moves very slowly with everything, the fruits of the homosexual clergy culture in the Church – a mass falling away from the faith – is only now being realized in all its ugliness. 

In many ways, it’s very secretive; and no doubt, in not a few cases, it is able to threaten to blackmail. But however it’s done, there are those in the Vatican who say this network must be exposed and ended before any more souls are lost.

Vortex from July 24, 2012:

The Script:

Following up on our report yesterday about the influx of gay positive males into the Catholic priesthood and episcopacy over the past 50 years or so…there is more than ample evidence that this is the case.

For example, in 1977, Christian Brother Gabriel Moran was speaking before the annual conference of Christian Brothers and heavily intimated in his speech that religious communities were the ideal setting for homosexual relations.

Then there are the widely publicized cases of priests openly challenging Church teaching on homosexuality and receiving absolutely no reprimand or discipline whatsoever.

For example, the Jesuit Magazine America in 1978 made the incorrect claim, "The application of Scriptural texts that condemn homosexuality is dubious at best".  

Uh, no, they are not dubious – but they played into a gay party line coming from pro-gay Protestant Churchmen who contested that Sodom and Gomorra were not destroyed because of homosexuality, and spread the falsehood that it was because they had not been hospitable to their guests.

Not a few Catholic priests were happy to use that line and say it far and wide in CATHOLIC circles – and not a few bishops let them get away with it unscathed.

Then there is Dominican Father Donald Goergen who wrote a widely-circulated, pro-homosexual book entitled The Sexual Celibate.

Far from suffering penalties from the Vatican's Congregation for Religious, Goergen was actually REWARDED and elected Provincial of the Chicago Dominican Province, after the book was published.

Some of this is documented in the now out of print book  The Homosexual Network. It was written by Fr. Enrique Rueda in 1982, who was in shock at what he was seeing all around him in the clergy – bishops and well as priests.

Speaking of Chicago…perhaps no single bishop had a greater hand in advancing the homosexual sub-culture in the United States during the past 50 years than Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

Stories have circulated for years about how gay or gay-friendly much of the Chicago clergy was…or is…and that Mundelein Seminary was a virtual training ground for gay clergy; and it was not alone.  One former student for the priesthood was quoted as saying it was not a seminary, but a “feminary” – enjoying a similar reputation as quite a few others, including Rome’s North American College.

And with regard to Chicago…get this. In the mid to late 80’s, it was becoming apparent even in Rome, that the homosexual movement within the Catholic clergy in the United States was strong and growing stronger.

One of the centers of that rebellion was a group called Dignity, a group of dissident Catholics who claims its sole purpose is "to unite all gay Catholics, to develop leadership, and to be an instrument through which the gay Catholics may be heard by the Church and society." Dignity clearly states that its aim to "promote the cause of the gay Community”.

The Vatican eventually ordered the group out of all Catholic parishes – something that many diocese in the US were very slow to do, defying Rome and being disobedient.

In Chicago, Cardinal Bernardin cleverly used an entirely different tactic. He complied with Rome’s orders. He refused Church recognition to Dignity. However, he created an office called AGLO (Archdiocese Gay and Lesbian Organization), practically identical to Dignity. That office is still operating today, and one of its listed resources is Fr. Richard Sparks, a notorious dissenter from Church teaching.

And moreover, several former Dignity officers ended up as members of AGLO. So what the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago – a prince of the Church – did, in effect, was ended up protecting Dignity by giving it a new and apparently "respectable" identity.

It should be noted that Bernardin requested in his will that the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus sing at his wake in Holy Name Cathedral…which they did in fact do.

And one further note: Bernardin exercised quite the influence in the naming of a good number of bishops in the US.  Many are his protégés and were advanced for that very reason.

The list of these types of accounts could make a dozen books and hundreds of articles…and as a matter of fact they have.  There was even a website called St. Sebastian’s Angels which was a meeting place for dozens and dozens of homosexual clergy, including at least one bishop.  The site closed down after it was discovered, and the bishop was relieved of his duties.

It is of course horribly sad to talk about of any of this.  But the larger point is this:  Men like this, who hide behind collars and under miters, are responsible for the destruction of the faith of GOD knows how many people.

And it’s not just a question of active homosexuals in the clergy, but those who are sympathetic to their cause because of existing friendships from days in seminary, for example.

The homosexual agenda, which is antithetical to Catholic thought and teaching, has been promoted and advanced, or at the very least, ignored or given a wink and a nod, by many many of the very people sworn and graced to protect the faith.

Is it any wonder that when it comes to clear and express preaching on Catholic sexual teaching so much of the clergy is simply silent? Even now, in the face of Obama’s contraception mandate, the issue has been twisted into one of religious liberty other than what it actually is – which is an evil and unjust law because it promotes the intrinsically evil practice of contraception.

Could it be that so much of the clergy has fallen absolutely mute on sexual teaching because so much of the clergy disagrees with it, and may actually be living a life contrary to it – including a vast array of secretive homosexuals who are protected by a network of other homosexuals, or those sympathetic to them in the hierarchy?

Given how SO MUCH has gone wrong in the Church in this area of sexual morality and still continues unabatedly, why has there not been even ONE clear definitive statement from any bishops’ conference clearly stating what has gone wrong, and reaffirming in no uncertain terms the Church’s teaching?

It , after all,  a cleanup effort from the Vatican itself in the wake of the homosexual priests sex abuse crisis that hopefully began something of a reform.  Why was that effort not forthcoming from the US Bishops themselves, who clearly MUST HAVE KNOWN what was going on and cannot be unaware of the homosexual network in their own ranks and among their own clergy and religious orders?

The sex abuse crisis did not drop out of the sky.  It was homosexual in nature.  It was homosexual priests preying on teenage boys. It was bishops – some of whom with questionable associations with homosexual clergy and sympathetic to them – who engaged in a massive cover up.

And even today, it is still many bishops and their staffs that allow the so-called Gay Masses to continue right in their diocese and performed by their clergy.  These priests are promoted, given positions of authority – sometimes in high Church circles – and continue to undermine Church teaching with very alarming regularity. 

And they continue to go unpunished, undisciplined, and unexplained.  Here in Rome, clergy will tell you quietly and privately that even they cannot say some of this publically for fear of retribution.

But the truth of this ongoing situation must be exposed.  Good and faithful Orthodox Catholics – laity and clergy – cannot continue to run into this buzz saw of twisted theology and modernist clap trap promoted by a secretive homosexual militancy every time they want to advance the truths of the faith.

The same thing has always been true in the Church: accept the teaching or leave, but don’t work to undermine the faith for the advancement of your own diabolical and wicked ends.

Years after the miraculous vision of Our Lady at Fatima, Sister Lucy one of the three children who the Queen of Heaven appeared to, said  “a diabolical disorientation” – her words – would seize hold in the Church.  Could this be what she was referring to?  

The Magisterial Weight of Theology of the Body

The question of the magisterial weight of various documents and statements of Popes has been an issue in the discussions of NFP on this blog. In particular, some readers seem to argue for an almost-infallible character to be ascribed to Blessed John Paul II’s Theology of the Body (TOB). In addition, the concept of “responsible parenthood” which appears in a few very recent papal documents seems to have engendered the idea among NFP proponents that it is an infallible and unchangeable teaching – or at least one requiring some assent of faith.

First, let’s review a very general discussion of the relative weight of magisterial teachings given by Helen Hull Hitchcock in her article The Authority of Church Documents. Here’s an abbreviated list and description of the different types of documents issued by the Holy See, based on Hitchcock’s article (I’ve omitted a couple of her categories; see the article for all the details):

Apostolic constitutions (apostolicae constitutiones): solemn, formal documents on matters of highest consequence concerning doctrinal or disciplinary matters, issued by the pope in his own name. They are published as either universal or particular law of the Church. (Examples: the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium; Constitution on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)

Apostolic exhortation (apostolica exhortatio): a papal reflection on a particular topic that does not contain dogmatic definitions or policy directives, addressed to bishops, clergy and all the faithful of the entire Catholic Church. Apostolic exhortations are not legislative documents. (Example: Familiaris Consortio, on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World.)

Apostolic letter (apostolica epistola): a formal papal teaching document, not used for dogmatic definitions of doctrine, but to give counsel to the Church on points of doctrine that require deeper explanation in the light of particular circumstances or situations in various parts of the world.

Encyclical (encyclica epistola - literally, "circular letter"): a formal apostolic letter issued by the pope usually addressed to the bishops, clergy and faithful of the entire Church. Example, Humanae vitae, concerning the Church's teaching on birth control issued in 1968 by Pope Paul VI.

Instruction (instructio): explains or amplifies a document that has legislative force, such as apostolic constitutions, and states how its precepts are to be applied. (e.g., Liturgiam authenticam, on liturgical translation, an Instruction on the correct implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium.)

Institutio: instituted arrangement or regular method, rules (as in Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani).

Motu proprio (literally, by one's own initiative): a legislative document or decree issued by the pope on his own initiative, not in response to a request. (Examples: Apostolos Suos; Misericordia Dei.)

A reader of this blog, in his own research on the topic of papal infallibility, consulted a number of sources, including (but not limited to): Dr. Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma; Father Michael Müller's work, God the Teacher of Mankind: Or, Popular Catholic Theology, Apologetical, Dogmatical, Moral, Liturgical, Pastoral, and Ascetical, Vol I: The Church and Her Enemies; and Monsignor G. Van Noort's Dogmatic Theology, Vol II: Christ's Church. He has provided me with this valuable summary:

Theologians have derived four criteria for determining the infallibility of any statement made by a Pope.

1. What the Pope says cannot be new, because "the Holy Spirit was promised to the successor of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine".

2. The Pope must be speaking "in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority".

-- This means that the pope is not infallible in his opinion, nor in his conversation, nor when writing a book of theology as a private doctor, etc. In general there are certain forms of communication which are considered, and for the most part, have always been considered by their very nature forms of communication in which the Holy Father exercises "his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority". Some of these forms are encyclical letters, consistorial allocutions, apostolic letters, and apostolic constitutions.

3. The Pope must be clearly defining "a doctrine concerning faith or morals".

-- "A doctrine", i.e. a singular issue on faith or morals is defined; therefore an entire catechism can never be considered protected by the charism of papal infallibility no matter how strongly worded the Pope recommended a catechism to be used for learning and teaching the Faith.

4. The Pope must clearly indicate that this definition is "to be held by the whole Church".

-- This has usually been held by theologians to be clearly indicated by an imposition of a penalty for not holding to the definition, e.g. "should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema."

-- Also, the concept of the whole Church is to be understood as not just geographical throughout the whole world, but also temporally throughout the span of time; hence the fact that such papal declarations are "irreformable". This also means that exceptions granted for a particular group, or for a particular time are not infallible. Therefore, an indult for communion in the hand is not to be considered as a practice protected by the infallibility of the Holy Ghost because the Pope granted an official indult.

Now, TOB is the result of John Paul II’s thought which developed well before he became Pope; and this philosophy was expressed primarily through a series of Wednesday audiences. This means that it is primarily his own thought, and is not an explicit expression of Church teaching that has any binding authority on the entire Church. Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI’s pre-papal writings are his own thought, and even the books that have been published since he became Pope, such as Deus Caritas Est [sorry, it's been pointed out that that IS an encyclical; I was thinking of the books Pope Benedict XVI has written about "Jesus of Nazareth", "The Apostles" and "The Church Fathers"), do not carry magisterial weight. Certainly, a pope’s thought and teaching are to be respected and given due consideration, but since the Holy Father is not infallible in all of his teaching and thought, we are entitled to consider whether his words reflect the constant teaching of the Church.

In the case of TOB, the criteria noted above are not met in other ways.  For example, TOB denies a hierarchy of ends to marriage, placing the “unitive” end on the same level as the procreative end. This flies in the face of centuries-old Church teaching that has been reiterated by many fathers and doctors of the Church; it is a “new” teaching.  In addition, author Andrew McCauley has raised a number of points regarding problems with John Paul II’s views of sexual morality and concupiscence in his pre-papal writings, as well as the lack of internal consistency in TOB (see Crossing the Threshold of Confusion, Chapters XI and XII). I won’t go into the details here, but McCauley presents ample evidence which you can read in his book if you so desire.

The bottom line is that we are allowed to – and should – question any aspects of TOB that cannot be shown to have some continuity with the constant teaching of the Church. The same would be true of any document that discusses multiple subjects.

Randy Engel, in her work John Paul II and Theology of the Body: A Study in Modernism gives a number of reasons for her opinion that TOB is not Catholic, including these:

its ‘theology’ is man-centered, not God-centered;

it has abandoned the perennial teachings of Scholasticism in favor of novel contemporary philosophies including Existentialism, Phenomenology (the philosophy of consciousness), and Personalism;

it contradicts the traditional teaching of the Church concerning the ends and hierarchy of ends of marriage;

it promotes the sensuous over the spiritual;

it leads us away from Christ, down the road of Modernism.

These are serious problems.

I think it is clear that TOB certainly does not meet the standards outlined at the beginning of this post for “infallibility”; in fact, the problems reviewed here indicate that it does not really carry any magisterial weight at all – it is John Paul II’s personal thought and philosophy, and does not necessarily reflect the mind of the Church. 

USCCB Contraception Inconsistency

Contraception is a big, big problem, and has been for 50 years. It’s a major force behind the acceptance of abortion; the Supreme Court famously ruled that abortion has become a necessary solution to the problem of failed contraception because couples have come to depend on contraception to limit their family size.

Why has the pro-life movement been unsuccessful in overturning Roe v Wade? Because contraception continues to be approved, accepted, and available in our society. That’s not exactly a popular opinion, but a comment by Michael Voris in a talk given at the end of June to a group in New York rings true. Voris challenged, “Just walk into any pro-life meeting and say we’re not going to get rid of abortion until we get rid of contraception and see what happens.” Many who decry abortion still defend contraception.

Currently, of course, contraception has been in the limelight as our bishops fight the HHS contraception mandate. They have been very vocal in stating that contraception runs counter to Church teaching, and Catholic employers and institutions should not be required to violate their consciences by providing it for their employees. Unfortunately, as Michael Voris notes in a “special report” Vortex, it seems that the USCCB’s right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.

Voris hit the nail on the head again: his “Special Report” Vortex episode (Saturday, July 21) is below, along with the script, but here’s the gist of the most recent gaff as Michael Voris explains it (my emphases throughout):

It was recently reported by the wonderful folks at Life Site News that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “official overseas relief and development agency”, Catholic Relief Services, recently doled out over 5 million dollars to CARE – an international “relief and development organization” which actively promotes contraception around the world.

Let’s boil it down: The US bishops are suing over the Obamacare mandate in the United States because it forces health insurance payments for contraception. Yet…OUTSIDE the United States they are handing money to international organizations that promote and advance contraception – the very thing they are fighting AGAINST on the other side of the Atlantic.

The evidence: Click on the image to see the page at the CARE website.

According to the LifeSiteNews article, CARE’s support of contraception is explicit, and CARE clearly expresses its hostility to anti-abortion legislation.  A 2009 article on the CARE website is a request to then newly-elected President Obama to rescind the Mexico City Policy; it concludes:

According to the UNFPA, about 90 percent of global abortion-related deaths and disabilities could be avoided if women who wanted effective contraception were given access. Is this not a win-win situation?

“Win-win?” Yes – for organizations like Planned Parenthood, who provide contraception knowing that the failure rate will ensure an abortion rate that will fill their coffers. But the CRS doesn’t seem to see it that way. TheThe LifeSiteNews article notes the comments of a CRS official:

When asked if, given the evidence on CARE, CRS would end its partnership with the organization, CRS Communications Director John Rivera said “no.” He indicated that concerns had already been raised and dismissed.

Rivera told LifeSiteNews that CRS doesn’t so much give the money to the organization as act as a “pass-through” for federal funding to such groups, and that the money is given only to projects in line with Catholic teaching.

However, when asked if CRS would similarly issue ‘pass-through’ funding to Planned Parenthood for a morally neutral project, Rivera replied in the negative. “We would never partner with Planned Parenthood,” he said.

He explained the difference saying, it’s about “the preponderance of work they do.” Rivera noted that CRS acts on criteria developed by the U.S. bishops. “We’ve given this a lot of consideration, and there’s a threshold in terms of what the focus of an agency is, and the preponderance of their work.”

LSN quotes noted theologian Dr. William Marshner, the founding professor of theology at Christendom College, who takes exception to this line of reasoning:

“Well this is like saying that we will fund an organization that does 50 or fewer assassinations a year, but not one that will commit 50 or more assassinations a year. The idea of such a threshold is preposterous. The only defense would be if a group to whom they had given money incidentally, or rarely, or accidentally, or inadvertently did something immoral with it. But, if the group to whom the money is given has a regular practice of using some of their funds in this way, then it is immoral for a Church organization to give money to that outfit.”

Or, as Michael Voris notes a bit more succinctly in the Vortex episode below:  “And Mussolini got the trains to run on time, and Hitler built good roads. C’mon!”

Through this kind of inconsistency – and incompetency – the bishops stand to lose ground in the legal battle against the HHS mandate. They can’t make the case that contraception is a moral evil against Church teaching in the US, all the while cheerfully handing out millions of dollars for the spread of contraceptives in other parts of the world.

But then, isn’t that the kind of inconsistency that’s met the issue ever since Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the evil of contraception? Bishops themselves opposed the teaching, priest counseled (and continue to counsel) couples to “follow their conscience” regarding it, and it became a topic never to be discussed from the pulpit. We’re paying the price now.

Actually, we’ve been paying the price for years. It’s just that only recently have we begun to realize that the problem exists. And while the bishops are surely following the right path in fighting the HHS mandate, they are still missing the boat in terms of teaching what the Church has maintained for 2000 years: contraception is a grave moral evil.

Here’s the Vortex (for other Vortex posts, click on the tab at the top of the page):

Some kind of institutional schizophrenia has apparently seized hold at the American Bishops headquarters in Washington DC – and its being recognized over here in Rome.

It was recently reported by the wonderful folks at Life Site News that the United States

Conference of Catholic Bishops “official overseas relief and development agency”, Catholic Relief Services, recently doled out over 5 million dollars to CARE – an international “relief and development organization” which actively promotes contraception around the world.

Let’s boil it down: The US bishops are suing over the Obamacare mandate in the United States because it forces health insurance payments for contraception. Yet…OUTSIDE the United States they are handing money to international organizations that promote and advance contraception – the very thing they are fighting AGAINST on the other side of the Atlantic.

What in the heck is going on at USCCB headquarters? When Our Blessed Lord said, “Do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing”, it’s pretty certain THIS is not what He was talking about.

For years – decades actually – many people have been questioning the whole purpose of the USCCB: its reason for being. For many on the outside, it’s this massive 140-million-dollar-a year-bureaucracy that is completely mysterious in its inner workings.

Apparently, it’s mysterious for the people who work on the inside as well. Listen to the excuse…or reason…that the Communications Director of the CRS gave for handing 5.3 million dollars to a pro-contraception international organization.

John Rivera said CRS doesn’t so much give the money to the organization as act as a “pass-through” for federal funding to such groups, and that the money is given only to projects in line with Catholic teaching.

Oh. So, unlike the Catholic Campaign for Human Development Office at USCCB headquarters – which gives Catholic collection plate money DIRECTLY to pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual groups and has been for years – this is different because CRS is just funneling your government tax dollars to the group.

GOT IT!!!

Just for the record…how is that ONE BIT DIFFERENT than what Obama is doing already – sending Hilary Clinton around the globe with sacks of cash for governments that will promote contraception? Seriously.

When asked further why it was okay to give money to CARE, Rivera basically responded that CARE does all kinds of work – not JUST promote contraception. Uh…what!?! Yeah. And Mussolini got the trains to run on time, and Hitler built good roads. C’mon!

This whole embarrassing and scandalous episode – which folks in Rome have become aware of – is just one more example of how the Church in America has totally sub-contracted the business of the corporal works of mercy to the US government.

It’s also demonstrative of the institutional madness that keeps occurring at the Bishop

Headquarters when the lay mostly-liberal staffers are running the show. Exactly who is Communications Director John Rivera speaking for when he says this practice is perfectly acceptable and moral?

The national conference seems to be unhinged. Take, for example, Obamacare. During the debate in Congress, the Bishops conference was voicing full-throated support for national health insurance. Then all of a sudden, when the truth about abortion funding came out, they slammed on the brakes.

Didn’t anyone at the conference READ the legislation before telling the bishops to back it? Obviously they were too busy looking for the next liberal cause to fund.

Then, when Obama came out with his HHS mandate, again: total shock and awe at USCCB Headquarters. Again: is no one reading this stuff and strategizing BEFORE the disaster hits?

But we see this in microcosm in many different diocese round the States. Who could forget the debacle that was gay marriage in New York? Cardinal Dolan said in a TV interview AFTER the fact that the bishops of New York were caught totally off guard by the passage of gay marriage – led by Catholic governor Andrew Cuomo and finally championed by the votes of two Knights of Columbus state assemblymen.

He said they had been misled, or relied on bad advice from their counselors who said gay marriage didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing. Really? When every public poll showed support for it, and the governor had campaigned ferociously on this very point? Not the slimmest chance of passing? Not even enough to fake mustering some kind of assault?

At every turn, practically every week, USCCB liberals are publishing statements about the economy, immigration, social justice…blah blah blah. At the same time, some other office down the hall is handing money out the door to pro-contraception groups.

Just who runs the USCCB? Who makes the decisions? Who sets policy? More importantly – who enforces policy? Who follows up? Does anyone on staff have to take an oath of loyalty or fidelity to the Faith? Does anyone care?

In the bishops’ lawsuits against Obamacare and the HHS mandate promoting contraception, it would be interesting to see how much money is being paid to Church lawyers for their services, and then compare that number to the 5 million the CRS is paying out to pro-contraception agencies.

Perhaps this is a good time to scrub the whole thing…re-think exactly what the mission of the organization should be, and start over…if that.

As long as this staff-led nuttiness continues to reign supreme and the forthcoming explanations from lay staff are just as spacey, the moral authority of the bishops will continue to be sneered at and made fun of – and that is a situation that Catholics today can simply not brook.

Priestly Vocations and the EF Mass: Southern Orders

There’s a short article by Fr. McDonald at Southern Orders blog is worth considering. He sees the value of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (the Traditional Latin Mass) as an important factor in motivating boys and men to consider a priestly vocation.

He says in part:

…What is it about the Tridentine Mass now known also as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass that attracts young boys and men to consider a priestly vocation and in great numbers?

I can think of a lot of things! But Fr. McDonald sums it up nicely:

The ethos of the EF Mass is more masculine in "personality" compared to the Ordinary Form. By that I mean it is more regimented, military like, "soldier like", "march like" and in sinc with masculine attitudes for better or worse. Men are more private about their faith, less flamboyant and not normally given to wanting to be the center of attention. They are more cut and dry, prefer precise directions and less prone to the openness of how females conduct themselves…

Fr. McDonald also notes the importance of “the cult of altar boys” as a recruitment tool” (my emphases):

The cult of altar boys as a recruitment for the seminary and priesthood has been lost as well as forming a community of altar boys based upon prayer and carrying out the rites of the Mass and other liturgies with great precision and pride. For the most part this has been lost in most parishes and altar servers are not well trained, have minor roles during the liturgy and don't take what they do as seriously as is demanded by the right implementation the celebration of the Mass.
 

Of course, the reason altar servers don’t take it as seriously as they should is because they are not properly trained to do so. And for heaven’s sake, it really is hard to take the Novus Ordo seriously when you have priests carrying lambs (or even poodles) into the Mass, or dressing as clowns, or inviting all the children to surround the altar during the consecration, or playing “rock star” right there in the sanctuary!

Fr. McDonald concludes:

…[W]e need to recover that which promoted and inspired young boys and men to consider the priesthood.

Amen!

Of course, we probably need to do something about the declining birth rate amongst Catholics, too.  If we want more priests, we will first need more babies.

Read the entire article here.

Fr. McDonald included in his post the photo shown at the top of this post. Now here’s a surprise for you: I have it on very good authority that Michael Voris is in that photo! (H/T Fr. Paul Nicholson on Face Book)

The Vortex: Wake Up and Man Up

Michael Voris has agreed to take over again today in order to give me a little breathing room as I attempt to gather some thoughts on various issues. He's sounding the battle cry, and I think we all need to hear it. 
 

Here's the script:


Wake up Catholics.  Wake Up! Do you not see what is happening around the world?

Pay attention to these prophetic words ..

“The world in which we live is the battleground of the Church. I believe that we are now living at the end of Christendom. It is the end of Christendom, but not of Christianity. What is Christendom?

Christendom is the political, economic, moral, social, legal life of a nation as inspired by the gospel ethic. That is finished.

Abortion, the breakdown of the family life, dishonesty, even the natural virtues upon which the supernatural virtues were based, are being discredited. Christianity is not at the end. But we are at the end of Christendom.

And I believe the sooner we face up to this fact, the sooner we will be able to solve many of our problems.


Thirty or forty years ago, it was very easy to be a Christian. The very air we breathed was Christian. Bicycles could be left on the front lawns; doors could be left unlocked. Suddenly, all this has changed; now we have to affirm our faith. We live in a world that challenges us. And many fall away.

Dead bodies float downstream; it takes live bodies to resist the current. And this is our summons. We will have to begin a different church. We are for a moment on a trapeze. We are in between the death of an old civilization and culture and the swing to the beginning of the new.

These are the times in which we live. They are therefore wonderful days; marvelous; we should thank God that we live in times like this.”

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen first uttered those words in 1974. And 38 years later they contain in them a greater urgency than even that giant among bishops may have ever thought possible.

The “new church” that Sheen speaks of that we need to begin is only “new” in the sense that the thoroughly protestantized Catholic Church that has been around for the past 50 years or so is the "old" Church.

What needs to be resurrected is a ferocity about the faith – an unapologetic Apologetics – a refusal and rejection of all that is not solidly Catholic in every corner of the Catholic world. 

This includes cowardly approaches to the Faith by those charged with transmitting and defending it.  If your parish is slowly sapping your faith and the faith of your children, leave it and get to one that actually nourishes you.

It is a spiritual felony for leaders to slowly starve their people of the full and authentic truths of Christ made present in the Magisterium of the Church.

And it therefore makes accomplices of all inside the Church who continue to peddle this soft, glad-handing, girly approach to the faith – being afraid to call out leaders who betray the faithful by word or deed, active or passive.

Too many in the Church – vast numbers – feed off a bureaucracy that is corrupt or morally complicit in the downfall of souls.  Those who know will not speak out for fear of their own loss of income or standing or prestige.

And as the moral and spiritual rot continues to creep along, they continue broadcasting or writing books or blogs supporting the very bureaucracy that's sucking the life out of the Church. 

They aim their barbs and criticisms at enemies of the faith outside the walls – which takes not the least bit of courage – but refuse to talk about what they KNOW going on inside the walls: the refusal, for example, to allow the Latin Mass to expand for example; the continued allowance of employment of heretics in universities; of pastors being allowed to stay pastors as they preach a false gospel of silence on the most pressing issues of the day.

All of this, and much more, they KNOW and refuse to breathe a word about any of it. They refuse to sound a call to arms, and hide behind lofty sounding terms like Prudence and Charity and Unity. 

To do so would cost them their speaking engagements, and the acclaim of ignorant sheep, and the ability to host radio shows, and author books.  They will not tell the whole truth, and therefore are accomplices in degradation of the Church.  They are not so much allies as they are parasites.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen again is instructive here:

"A Catholic who does not strive to spread his Faith is a parasite on the life of the Church." 

How can someone claim to be spreading the faith, particularly those with a platform to do so, when they refuse to confront the very forces INSIDE the Church preventing the spread of the Faith: weak and cowardly bishops, modernist staffers in chanceries and high level offices pushing perverse notions of the Church’s teaching in areas of social doctrine and sexual morality.

The Church of Nice crowd never wants to talk about these people – the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the ravenous wolves. Meanwhile, the wolves are allowed to roam free, the Church continues to be weak, and the world grows more evil as a consequence.

Indeed, the only avenue left for a corpse is to go along with the flow.  The authentic Church must become a Church of ferocious resistance and great saints…unafraid to say ALL that needs to be said.

How long do the parasites think the host will be alive to feed from?

For other Vortex posts, click on the "Vortex" tab at the top of the page.