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Friday, October 17, 2014

Synod on the Family: Treachery in the Vatican?

by Susan Fox
“Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.  There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.  What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs." (Luke 12: 1-5)
 It appears "Someone" in the Vatican single-handedly called into question the Church's  entire doctrine on homosexuality and whether Divorced/Remarried Catholics can receive Holy Communion, when they released the interim report on on the Synod on the Family on Monday, Oct. 13, 2014.

(This was ably exposed by The Church Militant's Michael Voris, who has done an excellent job of investigative journalism on this  matter. Document Gate: Misinformation from the Vatican Press Office)

"If spiritual communion is possible, why not allow them to partake in the sacrament?" the interim Relatio Document of the Synod stated, basically opening the door to Holy Communion for Divorced Catholics who have remarried without the Church's blessing. 

The document went on to say that our Catholic communities need to accept and value the "sexual orientation" of "homosexuals." The gentle and loving Bishop Edward J. Slattery, Diocese of Tulsa, felt impelled to correct the Relatio misperceptions on co-habitation and homosexuality in a You Tube statement. Bishop Slattery's Statement on the Relatio 

Bishop
Edward J Slattery
"Activity must never be confused with identity. The human person always remains greater than what he or she does or experiences. A person who is in a cohabiting relationship ought not to be identified by the irregularity of that union. A man or woman who experiences same sex attraction ought not to be identified by the experiences of these attractions," Bishop Slattery said. He is giving you authentic Catholic teaching. It is not an opinion.

The Church has always been open to each individual's giftedness, he said, but no individual should be identified by behaviors that are contrary to the Gospel. And all are called to chastity.


Cardinal Napier
Unfortunately, the Synod cardinals later admitted that they had not seen, nor had they approved the Relatio document before it was released to the world: "Just like you, I was surprised that it was published," Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, O.F.M., South Africa, told reporters. "You people got the document before we got it, so we couldn't have possibly agreed on it."

Many cardinals said it did not even represent what had been said in the Synod since it convened on Oct. 5. So that means devout Catholics can breathe easy. The Church has not changed its doctrine.

However, the world rejoiced because it perceived the Church was allowing divorced/remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion, ennobling  same sex unions to a footing slightly less than marriage and encouraging people co-habitating outside marriage to feel their relationship has value just as it is. The whole document created the perception in the secular mind that the Church will eventually also approve the use of artificial contraception. 


This is nonsense. But Cardinal Napier recognized that the damage is irreparable. "We are now working from a position that is irredeemable. The message has gone out: this is what the Catholic Church is saying. No matter how much we try correcting that, once it's up there in the public light, there is no way of retrieving it."

Even the conservative and cautious National Catholic Register, owned by Mother Angelica's Eternal Word Television  Network, agrees with conservative commentator Michael Voris: Evidence Emerges of an Engineered Synod

Father of Lies
My opinion is that this is indeed a catastrophe for the world because the prince of this world is leading many astray.  But yet we should have great hope. God always brings good out of evil.

The false sentiments in the heterodox document released Monday have been smoking around the Church for several decades. I have met many in authority in the Catholic Church who held these heterodox views. Their ideas have been hidden, but spreading like an un-diagnosed  cancer or a secret underground schism. These attitudes were even present in the Church during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI, who will be beatified this Sunday Oct. 19!


Pope Paul VI to be beautified
Sunday Oct. 19, 2014
Holding firm to the Deposit of Faith,  Pope Paul VI was forced to reject the opinion of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control established by his predecessor, Pope Saint John XXIII. The Commission composed of theologians and laity recommended the Catholic Church allow married couples to use artificial contraception. Pope Paul VI heroically  said no to that in 1968 in his beautiful teaching  Humanae Vitae. He upheld the precious deposit of faith -- the unchanging Truth both oral and written which has been faithfully handed down to us from Christ's apostles. 

Lawrence and I practiced Humanae Vitae-approved Natural Family Planning in our 31-year marriage to both postpone and attempt conception. When we were young, we used to call its teachings "Human Vitamins." When we thought of doing something regarding intimacy in our marriage, we always said to one another, "What would Human Vitamins have us do?" Human Vitamins never failed us, and in fact I bet it is largely responsible for our happy marriage. Human Vitamins protected the chastity in our marriage.


We all want to be liked by other people, but sometimes it's necessary to remain a witness to the Truth. Pope Paul VI is a great saint, who suffered enormous persecution for his upholding the Church's stance against the use of artificial contraception. On the day he died, Aug. 6, 1978, I was permitted to hear  resounding joy and rejoicing in heaven when he arrived home. 


Once you separate the act of intimacy in marriage from procreation, the selfless act of marriage is despoiled in many different ways. Pope Saint John Paul II built on the foundation of Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae, when he gave a series of talks stating in 1980, which became, "Theology of the Body." With laser sharp vision, he taught us not to turn our spouse into an object for our own pleasure, but to remain open to life and life-long faithful love.  



I hear Protestant men, who still require their wives to use artificial contraception,  crying on the blogs that their wife is no longer interested in sexual intimacy.  No, of course not. Chemical contraception tricks a woman's body into thinking it is pregnant and therefore lowers her libido. Monkey Study May Help Explain Why Synthetic Hormones Affect Women's Libido  Thanks to Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, that doesn't happen in a marriage free of the slavery of chemical contraception. 

Human Vitamins warned that governments would force families to limit their family size if artificial contraception was allowed free reign. 

Look what happened in China with its one-child policy! All the little girls are murdered in the womb or abandoned after birth because the Chinese have a preference for boys, and now these boys have grown up and have no wives. No wives, no grandchildren. No grandchildren, no more Chinese!


No only that, but we have had to read the horror stories of babies taken from their weeping mothers' arms and drowned in rice paddies by arrogant officials, not to mention grieving Chinese women forced to have late term abortions. The suicide rate of Chinese women is 500 a day, and they kill themselves in rural areas by drinking pesticides, a method of death, they know is extremely painful. All this suffering could have been avoided if only the world had listened to our recent popes.


Now regarding contraception, the chickens have come home to roost. On the morning of Oct 6, 2014, many Americans woke up and discovered the U. S. Supreme Court has shoved legal same-sex "marriage" down our collective throats against the express will of the people in many states, including my own, Colorado. I sat down and voted tonight, and I voted most of the judges in Colorado off the bench. 

But the legality of same-sex unions and the misdirected way the Relatio spoke of these unions is a direct consequence of the world's ready acceptance of artificial contraception. Once you separate the joys of marriage from the responsibilities, then marriage itself ceases to exist and any relationship that brings pleasure is considered good. This is an amoral position, and part of the tyranny of relativism.


There are no short-cuts in this life. Those of us who have diabetes know. Every sugar substitute ever offered to us has horrible health consequences. The pink one, the blue one, the yellow one -- all deadly. We've yet to see what Stevia, the green one, will do. 



So almost on the eve of the beatification of the great prophet Pope Paul VI and a week before the official feast day of Pope Saint John Paul II, (Oct. 22) we have this  earthquake regarding the Church's position on marriage, contraception, and homosexuality.  Many Catholics are respectfully asking Pope Francis to clarify the matter as soon as possible. But Pope Francis already has.

Pope Francis
He is beatifying Pope Paul VI on Sunday. In doing that he is affirming the Catholic Church's long held prohibition against the use of artificial contraception, and upholding the dignity of the human person. He recently canonized Pope John Paul II, which means he is upholding the Catholic view of the human person, whose identity can never be reduced to mere sinful activity. Not only that, but he has said directly that the Church's position on Holy Communion for Divorced and Remarried Catholics cannot be changed. Anything else you think about Pope Francis is pure speculation -- smoke and mirrors.


Devout Catholics received the interim report with horror. The world received it with glee. But I look at this moment in time, and I think, well the heterodox viewpoints that have simmered underground in the Catholic Church for decades have been exposed to the Light! This usually happens in the Sacrament of Confession: we expose the weaknesses of our soul to the Light of Christ. And Christ protects our privacy. What we say to Him in His Tribunal of Mercy never leaves the confessional. 

But here look! Confusion is manifest in the interim document of the Synod on the Family. "Someone" hasn't converted. "Someone" hasn't repented. "Someone" hasn't been to

confession. The same thing happened in the priest sex abuse scandal. If we will not seek the private intimacy of the confessional, God is quite willing to allow our sins to flap in the wind like sheets on a clothesline.  


Now here is an opportunity for all of us to pray. The serpent is exposed. He lies wiggling and helpless, naked on the sidewalk for all to see in horror or glee. Let us pray to Our Lady, the Woman of Gen. 3:15, and ask her to crush the head of the serpent. Such is an official exorcism prayer of the Catholic Church.  


Let Our Lady be the surgeon. Once and for all, let the humble Virgin Mother of Christ come, remove this ugly cancer that has been smoking in the Catholic Church under the noses of all the recent pope saints -- John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II. 


Then let us all be at peace.

Life Site News had a good piece on the Reaction of Pro-Family Catholics to the original Relatio of the Synod. 
Pro-Family Catholics Reject Synod Mid-Way Report, calling it A Betrayal




Monday, October 13, 2014

DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP: Religious Convictions are NOT Welcome in the Public Marketplace

by Lawrence Fox
“Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb but he spoke like a dragon…He also forced everyone small and great, rich and poor, free and slave to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that NO ONE COULD BUY OR SELL unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast.” (Revelation 13: 11-17)

Mark of the Beast allows you to engage
in commerce
For centuries, some Protestants fantasied that the “Beast” of Revelation is the Bishop of Rome, and the Catholic Church is the “Whore of Babylon.”

It is poetic justice that among the leading candidates for the “Beast” and the “Whore” today is the U.S. Federal Government presently under the lawless leadership of the Democratic Party.

Democratic leaders mounted a tirade against the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed the Christian company Hobby Lobby the religious freedom NOT to offer its employees abortion-causing drugs and devices. Democrats’ outrage rivals that of the hubris that created the Tower of Babel. “Let us make a name for ourselves before we are scattered abroad into all the lands.” (Genesis 11:4)

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY
 “If you want to enter in the public square of business, you must abandon your religious convictions,” U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, (D-NY) articulated the Democrat Party’s position with resounding emphasis and shocking clarity. Translated, “If you want to buy or sell or conduct commerce, you must be marked by the beast.” In other words, abandon all your religious convictions if you wish to make a living.  Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said the same thing: Religious convictions are not welcome in the Public Square.


 “You’re born with a religion or you adopt a religion. You have to obey the precepts of that religion and the government gives you a wide penumbra – you don’t have to form a corporation,” Schumer added, “We wouldn’t tell the owners of Hobby Lobby to convert to a different religion or disobey their religion – but we don’t say that they have to open up a company and go sell toys or hobby kits.”

The senator’s remarks epitomize the complete re-writing of the First Amendment, which guarantees all Americans the right to religious liberty.  This is not surprising since the Democratic Party for the past century has copulated with post-modernist progressives, Marxists, Atheists, Anarchists, Historical Revisionists, Margaret Sanger psychopaths, and Gender Study Professors.


When the psychotic  “Unaffordable Care Act” passed, it created a conundrum for NARAL (The Nation Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) and Planned Parenthood. They were no longer paid for services directly by the consumer, but by an insurance company that would control their profits.  Democratic Leadership did not understand this, and they blamed Hobby Lobby, or those “horrible bosses with religious convictions.”

Make no mistake; this has nothing to do with the needs of women, but everything to do with the incestuous relationship between the Democratic Party, NARAL, and Planned Parenthood. The federal government gives money to NARAL and Planned Parenthood, which in turn donate it back to the Democratic Party at the expense of the beleaguered American Tax Payer.
The psychotic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and one time Majority Speaker of the House giggled, “We have to pass the (Obama “Care”) bill before anyone can know what is in the bill.”

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision Burwell v Hobby Lobby was absolutely correct. Individuals do not lose their religious freedom when they open a family business. The Federal Government cannot arbitrarily re-define the scope of the First Amendment to mean, “The free exercise of religion shall be limited to a person’s private life.” That’s relativism on steroids.

It is self-evident that men are endowed by their Creator with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The self-evident right to pursue happiness engenders the right to private property and the right to conduct commerce to support oneself and one’s family. The man or woman of faith who choses to enter the market place with tangible hope and prosperity has a fundamental right to do so in the United States contrary to the defecation spewed by the socialist gang-banger in charge of the White House.

Americans, who don’t believe that, have lost their collective minds. The Subjective Will has replaced the Objective Good of the One and the Many. But the Democratic Party and the Mainstream Press continue to foam and froth over “woman’s access to contraception and abortion causing drugs.”

Abortion and Contraception are the
Sacred Cow of Progressivism
The Hobby Lobby “Boss” stated that he would participate in a MANDATED health care plan that paid for contraception, but not for abortion causing drugs. This is anathema to the Democratic Leadership, NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Abortion, including contraception, is the sacred cow of the Democrat Party.

The Democratic Party platform conveys in principle that a woman achieves equality with men when she is able to receive un-restricted access to drugs or procedures, which make her sterile either temporarily or permanently. Think about that for a moment. Women only achieve equality with men when actively making themselves sterile.

And we wonder why the moral compass in America has precipitously declined to the point where the Federal Government now tells the self-sterile woman and man, “Your marriage is no different under the eyes of the law than two men or two women sodomizing each other.”

While men have managed to convince women that they have ceased active dominion over them, they continue to hold passive dominion via chemical sterilization. But women don’t see this. They think men are supporting their “freedom.”

American women buy this lie every day thanks in part to the support of some Protestants who fantasied for centuries that the “Beast” of Revelation is the Bishop of Rome, while the Catholic Church is the “Whore of Babylon.”




Did you enjoy this piece. Check out Barack Obama: A Shameless Marxist Ideologue


Sunday, October 12, 2014

Raspberry Crazy Ants and The Synod On The Family

by Phoebe Wise

Author Phoebe Wise
Have you heard about the Raspberry Crazy Ants that are taking over south Texas? I recently visited Austin for the first time in almost 30 years, and my nephew told me about the latest entymological horror to invade my native state. They came from Brazil sometime before 2003, when they were first noticed by exterminator Tom Raspberry,who named them after himself. Some call them Tawny crazy ants, which better describes their color. The New York Times did a great article on them in 2013 which you can read here: There's a Reason They Call Them Crazy Ants

They are called crazy ants because they zip around in an insanely chaotic fashion. And they swarm together in huge clumps for no apparent reason; the scientists haven’t figured out why they do what they do. As one besieged homeowner in the Times article phrased it: "They're freakin crazy, man."

They don’t have painful bites, so why are they so horrifying?
Just your everyday heap of
dead crazy ants
Sheer numbers—they invade your home by the millions. Like most ants, they are attracted to power sources, and their writhing swarms can short circuit your television, your electrical box… the lights just flicker and go out. In Brazil they have been known to suffocate birds by blocking their nasal cavities. 
After stirring up all this senseless havoc, they suffer massive die-offs that leave piles of dead ants like tawny-colored snow drifts all around your home.


Upon hearing about this new menace, I immediately thought of the Synod on the Family, now going on in Rome. What’s that? you ask. Well, scores of Cardinals, Archbishops, and the Various and Sundry are gathered, even as I'm typing this, to sit around and ponder, um, something about the family—just what that may be, we’ll have to wait and see. 

Why should Raspberry Crazy Ants make me think of the Synod on the Family? Well, actually, what I really thought of was Vatican II. History has shown us that the most recent ecumenical council was more like the random kicking of an anthill than anything else.

Yes, I am aware that Vatican II gave us a five-foot shelf of books that was beautifully faithful to the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church. Too bad nobody read them. 


Instead, most of the guys in red and purple robes went back home and communicated some form of craziness to the troops that made Catholics start swarming around and shorting out all the power sources of our faith: beautiful music, awe-inspiring liturgy, noble art and architecture, devotion to Mary and the saints, belief in the Real Presence… 

Even more debilitating was the abandonment of the life-giving, salvation-bringing Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Because they were no longer hearing the truth taught in their churches and schools, Catholics fell away by the millions, given up to the lies put forth by the culture of death. They drifted around in the world like so many millions of dead husks—just like Raspberry Crazy Ants. (Now you see where I’m going with this analogy.) 
"Vatican II opened up the Church." Response: "And the people left!"

The deaths were physical as well as spiritual; millions of Catholic babies died from abortion and abortifacient contraceptives. Millions more were never conceived because married people had never taken to heart their nuptial promise: to be open to the gift of children that God would send them.

Worst of all, the Vatican II craziness attacked the most stupendous sources of power that this benighted planet has ever known: the sacraments. Baptism makes us adopted sons and daughters of God; confirmation fortifies us for our spiritual battle, confession restores us to grace when we have fallen, communion gives us God Himself as our food for the journey, marriage enables us to love and nurture new life, holy orders make the other sacraments possible, and the sacrament of the sick prepares us for death and the life of Heaven.

Unfortunately no one chooses to access these phenomenal power sources unless they have faith, and the Vatican II craziness confused, or killed the faith of millions. 


To return to my ant analogy, the light of faith flickered and went out. People stopped going to confession and communion, stopped getting married in the Church, no longer had their children baptized or confirmed. Few encouraged a son’s vocation to the priesthood, and for the dying, last rites were ignored, or worse, euthanasia was offered instead. For lack of the sacraments, many millions of people succumbed to spiritual and physical death.

So much death. “I had not thought death had undone so many.”

That's why the Raspberry Crazy Ants made me think of the false spirit of Vatican II. It’s why all this week and next, as long as the Red and Purple Robes are swarming at the Vatican, I will be praying this simple prayer:

“Dear Merciful Father, please don’t let the Synod on the Family be like, well, You know…"





Enjoy this piece? You might like to read also: THE REFINER'S FIRE: Synod 14

And Synod on the Family: Treachery in the Vatican?