Restoring the Sacred
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Fr. Nix Sermon: 20th Sunday after Pentecost
Today's sermon from Fr. Nix can be accessed by clicking on the below link:
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Fr. Rutler's Weekly Column, October 21, 2017
Father Rutler's Weekly ColumnOctober 22nd, 2017“Use your brain” is a maxim often heard, but often resented. Such was the case when our Lord confronted professional debaters. At the age of twelve his rhetorical skill astonished the rabbis, who presumably thought that he was just a child prodigy. But later on, the legal experts were not amused when he challenged their logical fallacies; yet he came into the world to win souls and not to win debates. Those experts did not think their souls needed saving, so they cynically used syllogisms to “entrap him in speech” (Matthew 22:15). They posed a trick question about paying taxes, to which Christ responded that they should use their brains: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21).
Using the brain to figure out things of Caesar and of God does not easily answer the question, but it does establish some solid principles. Take for instance the neuralgic challenges to capital punishment. Well-used brains have understood that the death penalty belongs to the just domain of the government. The Catechism affirms this (CCC #2267).
This principle belongs to natural law, which in classical philosophy, is “. . . the universal, practical obligatory judgments of reason, knowable by all men as binding them to do good and avoid evil.” Saint Paul appealed to natural law: “Ever since the creation of the world, [God’s] invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made” (Romans 1:20).
Governments exist to maintain “the tranquility of order.” When popes governed the Papal States, they measured out punishments including death. One papal executioner, Giovanni Battista Bugatti, served six popes, including Blessed Pius IX, and personally executed 516 felons.
That was the civil side of ruling; the spiritual side did everything possible to bring the guilty to confession and a state of grace before meeting God, because happiness is the realization of the purpose of life and is not mere pleasure; and unhappiness is the contradiction of that purpose, and not mere pain. Without that perspective, the death penalty seems an arrogant violation of life, and that is why today opposition to the death penalty increases as religious faith decreases. That dangerous alchemy substitutes emotion for truth and platitudes for reason. Such lax use of the brain is to theology what Barney the Dinosaur is to paleontology.
Two professors, Edward Feser and Joseph Bessette, have published an excellent book: By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed. Such right use of the brain explains that abuses of punishment are intolerable, and the application of mercy is a permissible use of prudential opinion. But to posit the death penalty as intrinsically evil contradicts laws natural and divine, and no authorities, be they of the State or the Church, have the right to deny what is right by asserting that.
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L. Todd Wood: Whose Fault Is It?
This essay was published today at ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT.
L. Todd Wood, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, flew special operations helicopters supporting SEAL Team 6, Delta Force and others. After leaving the military, he pursued his other passion, finance, spending 18 years on Wall Street trading emerging market debt, and later, writing. The first of his many thrillers is “Currency.” Todd is a contributor to Fox Business, Newsmax TV, Moscow Times, the New York Post, the National Review, Zero Hedge and others. For more information about L. Todd Wood, visit LToddWood.com
By L. Todd Wood – – Tuesday, September 26, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
I know of no white person alive today in the United States who has ever legally owned a black slave, or any slave for that matter. Almost 700,000 mostly white men died 160 years ago to end slavery. Jim Crow ended generations ago. Yet black America, for the most part, is still locked in inner-city gang violence and economic hardship. Why?
Is it because America is racist? Is it because of some overhanging white privilege supremacy? Is it because of the Illuminati?
No, unfortunately, it is because of black culture and LBJ’s War On Poverty in January 1964, and the adoption of the Progressive Democratic Party’s BIG government dependency.
We have just had eight years of the first black president. Black athletes, and entertainers, routinely earn multi-million dollar incomes. I can easily name several black billionaires without even trying too hard. A large percentage of black America is very successful. But, it is not enough. Too many black youth are being left behind.
And it is no one but black America’s fault.
No one can solve this problem but black America. No one can throw enough money at it. We’ve been doing that since 1964, to the tune of $22,000,000,000,000 (that’s trillion with a T). Black America needs to look in the mirror and stop blaming others, especially white people.
I am obviously white and conservative, and I served in the military, which, during my time, was as color blind as you could be. I can also honestly say I don’t give a damn what color your skin is, neither do any of my friends. I do care about your actions.
Blacks are around 15 percent of the population. Depending on what study you look at, they commit around 40 percent to 50 percent of violent crimes in America (mostly against each other). Of course, there is going to be a problem with police. And, of course, there are some bad policemen. However, those bad apples do not kill black people statistically anymore than they kill white people. Even Harvard University research said that recently. If you were a cop, and you had to work in a neighborhood infested with crime and murder, wouldn’t you act differently than in a neighborhood where there was little to no crime? The most effective thing black America could do to improve its relationship with police is to significantly reduce violent crime where they live. Yes, that means change the culture of where you live and your community.
I for one am tired of being blamed. I am tired of dealing with people who only want something from others I don’t oppress anyone. I don’t hold anyone down. I’m tired of getting on the D.C. metro and seeing white people being harassed by roaming gangs of black youth with their pants around their knees. Yes, you want a white person uncomfortable? That makes me uncomfortable. It’s our nation’s capital and it’s embarrassing.
Blacks have nothing but opportunity in America. Try finding the same opportunity anywhere else in the world. If you are born in America, you’ve won life’s economic lottery. Take advantage of it.
The problem is this generation has been taught an agenda of social justice and cultural Marxism by our public education system. They’ve been taught to be a victim, and it’s still going on. All you have to do is watch the young black, female student at Yale screaming at the college president to understand that. Blacks in America don’t even know how good they got it.
Don’t kneel when my anthem is played. Too many people died for that flag. You are free to protest but not then. I am free to not watch, or pay to watch you play if you do that. The NFL should make it a rule that you stand for the national anthem. There is no free speech to disobey a private employer on private property. This would solve the problem immediately.
The NFL has deeply offended most of America. They will pay an economic and reputational price, as they should.
We have a real cultural problem in this country, the result of the Progressive Democratic-Socialist- Communist-Leftist multicultural agenda. Multi-ethnicity is perfect and should be encouraged. Having more than one American culture is destroying the country. But then again, that is exactly what the Progressive Democratic Party Leftists want and encourage.
Christopher Akers: Moral Progress?
From The Catholic Thing Blog today:
It hasn’t helped that the way in which we perceive morality has undergone a major shift. In a world of NGOs and Twitter, the idea of individual moral improvement – or moral decline –has been almost completely eclipsed and replaced by abstract gestures. Our moral standing is now thought to be assured if we make anti-Trump statements on social media or agitate about boycotting Israel
Monsignor Alfred Newman Gilbey, the one-time Catholic chaplain to Cambridge University, understood this change well. He once remarked to the British philosopher Roger Scruton that “we are not led to undo the work of creation or to rectify the Fall. The duty of the Christian is not to leave the world a better place. His duty is to leave this world a better man.” Most of us may still hope that what we do will benefit those whose lives we touch, but the internal struggle is already a heavy enough task.To read the whole essay click on the link below;
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2017/10/21/moral-progress/
Friday, October 20, 2017
National Anthem: 2017 Kentucky Music Educators Convention
Please watch on YouTube to read the story of what is happening here.
500 high school choir students sing the US National Anthem
in a high-rise hotel.
Each night before curfew, they gather to sing the
Star-Spangled Banner from the balconies of the 18-story atrium at Louisville's
downtown Hyatt. This is part of the Kentucky Music Educators convention.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Death to the Death Panel - Maybe
Finally, it looks like the "death panel" might die. This is from today's Daily Signal:
For additional background on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, also known as the "death panel," see the earlier blog posts on the subject:
https://wwwpopblogger.blogspot.com/search?q=death+panel
Monday, October 16, 2017
Fr. Schall on The Paris Statement
Fr. Schall writing today at Crisis Magazine on The Paris Statement. The first link is to Fr. Schall's piece; the second is to The Paris Statement.
17. The false Europe also boasts of an unprecedented commitment to equality. It claims to promote non-discrimination and the inclusion of all races, religions and identities. Here, genuine progress has been made, but a utopian detachment from reality has taken hold. Over the past generation, Europe has pursued a grand project of multiculturalism. To demand or even promote the assimilation of Muslim newcomers to our manners and mores, much less to our religion, has been thought a gross injustice. A commitment to equality, we have been told, demands that we abjure any hint that we believe our culture superior. Paradoxically, Europe’s multicultural enterprise, which denies the Christian roots of Europe, trades on the Christian ideal of universal charity in an exaggerated and unsustainable form. It requires from the European peoples a saintly degree of self-abnegation. We are to affirm the very colonization of our homelands and the demise of our culture as Europe’s great twenty-first century glory—a collective act of self-sacrifice for the sake of some new global community of peace and prosperity that is being born.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Fr. Nix Sermon: 19th Sunday after Pentecost
Today's sermon by Fr. David Nix (Padre Peregrino) at Immaculate Conception Basilica, Jacksonville, Florida.
Fr. Heilman: Satan's Elite Fighting Force
From Fr. Heilman's Blog: Roman Catholic Man, October 14, 2017:
https://www.romancatholicman.com/satans-elite-fighting-force-may-surprised/This is the story of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. Consequently, it wound up that Nobody told Anybody, so Everybody blamed Somebody.
On October 13, in my parish, we had a record crowd for diocesan TLMs as we celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Throne with our Bishop Robert Morlino. WOW!! And to think I couldn’t be seen with a rosary, when I was a seminarian.
Things are improving. Could it be that the scales are now tipping in favor Christ as Lord and Savior, rather than man as his own lord and savior?
I think we have a long way to go, but maybe … just maybe … God likes the direction it is heading.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Fr. Rutler's Weekly Column, October 14, 2017
Father Rutler's Weekly Column
October 14th, 2017
A bit of unintentional black humor made its way into the news some days ago, in an account of people panicking at rush hour on a commuter train in southwest London outside Wimbledon Station. Rail power lines were cut, disrupting train traffic for nearly twelve hours. The cause? Some sort of evangelist had stood up in one of the carriages and began to read aloud from the Bible.
In our neuralgic society, nervous about terrorism, we might empathize with the passengers, especially if the preacher was shouting. In New York our urban protocol is simply to avoid eye contact with people like that. But the first offense was the police description of passengers “self-evacuating.” As neologisms go, this conjured up some pretty frightful images; one expects better from the land that gave us our glorious English language. The bigger problem is that the unhappy passengers “self-evacuated” because the evangelist intoned “Death is not the end.”
In a more tranquil moment of human history, these words would be a consolation. In paraphrase they were the comforting motto of Mary Queen of Scots. T.S. Eliot used the words in his Four Quartets, and the crooner Bob Dylan made it the title of one of his most popular songs, but it caused none of his fans to self-evacuate.
The utter non-finality of death, the promise of life everlasting, is Good News for those who will listen. But for those who translate the meaning of life according to their limited narcissistic vocabulary, the good news of eternal glory is no more vital than ramblings in the Qur’an or Upanishads.
Saint Thomas More said that to be a real Christian is always to be surprised by the Resurrection. The essence of human response to the Resurrection is astonishment: it was not expected. That should be the psychology and flushed complexion of every encounter with Christ. It explains why the first words of the Risen Lord were not formulas for physics or cures for cancer, but “Peace. Don’t be afraid.” Awe, as holy fear, casts out the ignorance of servile fear. In the same vein, Saint John Vianney said that if we really understood what happens in the Mass, we would die, not out of fear but out of love. So one hyperventilating woman who jumped onto the tracks outside Wimbledon, was not altogether wrong when she said that the Bible the man was carrying was a bomb.
Perhaps it is because people do not love enough, that they panic when someone says that death is not the end. Our Lord said something more radiantly harsh than that: “And fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” Some who first heard that adored him, but a great many self-evacuated.
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Friday, October 13, 2017
The Brilliance of The Fatima Prayer
From The Catholic Herald today, the 100th Anniversary of The Miracle of the Sun:
The prayer reminds us of the reality of hell and the need for humility.
Today, 13th October, is the centenary of the final apparition of Our Lady of Fatima to the three little shepherd children, Lucia, Francisco and Jacinta. How appropriate that Stephen Bullivant, with the co-authorship of Luke Arredondo, has written O My Jesus (Paulist Press £9.99), an insightful study of the meaning of the famous Fatima prayer.
Our Lady revealed this short prayer to the children on July 13th 1917, soon after she had given them a terrifying glimpse of hell, directing them to say it after each decade of the Rosary. She had asked for the Rosary to be recited daily, which makes the prayer, as Bullivant observes, the most commonly recited after the Our Father, Hail Mary and the Glory Be. It is a mere 29 words: “O My Jesus/ Forgive us our sins/Save us from the fires of hell/And lead all souls to heaven/Especially those in most need of Thy mercy/Amen.”
Each petition is packed with significance and it is worth meditating on them in detail. Bullivant draws attention to much that we unthinkingly repeat, such as that the opening address “O My Jesus” is highly intimate, one that would have been used by Our Lady herself. Indeed, it was never used by the disciples, which gives a particularly poignant power to the prayer of the Good Thief: “Jesus, Remember me…”
“Forgive us our sins” reminds us that sin is common to us all, and that although we are saved as individuals our own salvation is bound up with charity towards others. As the late Pope John Paul II said, “We are all really responsible for all” or as the poet John Donne wrote, “Any man’s death diminishes me…” The plea speaks to us of our common flawed human nature.
The reference to hell in the next line reminded me of my blog on Monday, drawing attention to the sombre tone of the Old Rite Requiem Mass, in contrast to the New Rite. As Bullivant wryly notes, “Hell” is not popular today, even among Catholics, despite the fact that Jesus mentions it “an awful lot.” As the author points out, the Cure of Ars was known to have spent up to 15 hours a day in the confessional for years on end, solely to help penitents to understand the grave importance of avoiding sin and hell – the logical consequence of a determined, final refusal to kneel in sorrow for sin.
The sentence “Lead all souls to heaven” has led some, following the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar, to the speculation of “universalism” – the notion that everyone might be saved. Bullivant tells me that he disagrees with von Balthasar; alluding to St Thomas Aquinas, he writes that “God really does will that all people be saved, even if not all people end up being saved.” How could God not will this? Yet at the same time he respects our free will. We should hope for, but not presume on, salvation, our own as well as others’.
When we pray “Especially those in most need of Thy mercy” we are tempted to believe we are praying for others; but as Bullivant makes clear, it is we who are in “most need”; a reminder of the need for humility.
All in all, the book is well worth pondering, for the implications of this Fatima prayer concern the deepest themes of our faith.
