Part of winning a war, or even a battle - perhaps the most important part - is knowing who the enemy is. When someone comes at you wielding an axe, it is easier to assume the person is more your enemy than say, the manager of your hostel, no matter how bad he treats you.
It would be difficult to imagine that the manager of your hostel would want you dead given that you think he needs your money for his establishment, even though he has been trying to kick you out ever since he took over management. That bitter taste in your morning porridge may wreak of chlorine or cyanide, but you are probably going to dismiss it. "Pouring chlorine or cyanide into my morning porridge is something he said he would never do", you convince yourself.
That little intro brings us to a piece which ran on Russia Today, or more specifically, RT America - the American version. I much prefer the international version because it is far more serious in its work, and employs far more serious journalists rather than simply slim and young women, although I suppose when in Rome...
The piece is the one below:
It is about Christians who were killed in Libya for their faith, by ISIS or people claiming to be ISIS anyway, whose mass grave has now been uncovered - or at least found. In the piece they are labelled Ethiopians, but I remember them being Egyptians and much of the talk in the piece ends up being about Coptic Christians in Egypt anyway, so I don't know whether it is RT America's young slim women who have made an error or whether the victims referred to were actually Ethiopians or whether they were Egyptians. I digress...
The debate then comes around to something I have often mentioned myself: Namely, that people who claim to be Christians in the U.S. often end up supporting wars in the Middle East whose one consistent outcome has been depriving Christians of their ancestral homelands.These so-called Christians are mentioned as the biggest pro-war faction, which is hardly a controversial opinion, to be fair. The evangelicals in particular are pointed out, again, not in any way unfairly.
The journalist makes the case that it is probably about ignorance; that the U.S. public does not know much about what happens in the world, that it has been duped by the media and political establishment to support wars it otherwise would not do. There is probably some truth to that.
Much more to the point though, is the fact that Christianity is not the biggest religion in the U.S., but actually zionism is, or ameri-zionism, which I suppose is a mix of zionism and americanism in which no number of victims are too great if the U.S. does the killing or zionism is the cause. Most so-called Christians in the U.S., when push comes to shove, would rather support Talmudist Jews who hate Christ and hate everything about the Church that Christ founded than they would support Christians in the Middle East, Arabs or otherwise. That is the cold hard fact that most people do not acknowledge.
In fact, as someone put it recently, Americans would rather give up Alaska than give up support for the zionist state of Israel.The particular appeal of zionism is that it appeals to no particular faith: One can be a zionist with little or not faith in God, and in fact atheist zionists are just as bloodthirsty as their 'religious' peers. Most zionists in the U.S. are not even Jews, but people who claim to be Christians. Of course, zionism is a heresy, so no Christian can hold to it without apostasising.
I wish this were only an evangelical problem, but years of listening to Catholic Answers has taught me otherwise, as have many conversations with people who call themselves Christians, even Catholics, in Sweden. I am often tempted to ask them: "If Judaism is so swell, why don't you just convert to it and leave Christianity to those who follow in the footsteps of the early Christians, the earliest of whom converted from Judaism to Christianity, often at great peril?" One day, perhaps in a bout of anger, I shall ask that question.
That evangelicanism is a creation of the devil is a topic I might have time to pursue in future. For now, suffice it to write that evangelicanism is entirely devoid of intellectual substance, so it should surprise us little that they will claim to care for Christians while supporting regimes which kill them and starting wars which are sure to leave Christianity worse off than it was before. The devil is smart that way, in that he can use our intellectual and moral blindness to fight for evil in the name of an imaginary good.
In the meantime, it bears remembering that the very same people who wage wars in the Middle East - ostensibly against dictators or Islamists - are the very same people who attack Christianity in the formerly Christian lands of Europe. It would indeed, take a very massive mental disconnect, to believe that these people want Christianity expunged from Europe but have it thriving in the Middle East. That these same peope - and the zionists who support them - have been arming the same Islamists who they claim to fight, even in the face of clear evidence that these Islamists want to destroy every last shred of Christianity in the region, is also worth remembering. Let us recall that with the possible exception of Iraq, the U.S. and al-Qaeda have fought on the same side of every war that has taken place in the Middle East over the past 20 years or so - whether that be Libya, Yemen or Syria.
It is sad that I have to contextualise my piece with the following clarification but, given times are as they are I must: I am no friend...
With so much bad news going around it is rarely that I get a chance to lead with a positive story, so when one comes along I sometimes feel duty-bound to start with it. That is certainly the case this week. It deals with family, and introduces what turned out to be a rather family-centric entry.
Given the general malaise in the Western world in general and in what can loosely be termed as Latin Rite countries, it should surprise few that the good news come from outside the Western world, from good old Mother Russia. You see, they have what must be the coolest award in the world in Russia titled "The Order of Parental Glory" and it is given to the father and mother who have raised large families well. If my understanding of the award is correct, we have different winners from different regions of Russia, which presumably is why some families will be much smaller than others. Most of the families will have 8 or more children.
This year's award presentation is embedded below:
whereas last year's, the first I watched, is to be found below:
Before I proceed I would like you to pause for a bit, and realise just how far ahead Russia is compared to all Western countries when it comes to social cohesion and the promotion of decent societal values.
In the West, and especially since the Second Vatican Council, there has been a well-funded drive to destroy any vestiges of commonality, of common values, of ancestral heritage, of natural existence, of natural law and of course of Christianity in favour of individualism, multiculturalism, mutli-religiosity, atheism and the idea that each and every one ought to decide what is good for himself, and that the state cannot get involved in promoting what is good, unless one can put monetary value on it - and not even that, if what is good monetarily gets in the way of the sexual revolution or zionism, or seems to evoke Christian values.
Can you imagine such an award in Sweden, with the king presenting large families with awards based on the fact that the parents have managed to stay together, conceive , bring to term and raise a large number of children? I certainly can't. For one, the awards hall would probably be full of Somali families (more on that later), with the odd Laestadians, and perhaps one traditional Catholic family once every few years (although I doubt Catholics would ever qualify). Secondly, it wouldn't be long before the king bowed to pressure from feminists and homosexualists to include single women with multiple children from multiple sperm donors (which is what men have been reduced to in Sweden), and of course, sodomites with their artificially-conceived children. Soon afterwards, it would probably devolve to parents with 1-2 children, and perhaps even none, as there would also be pressure to show that marriage has nothing to do with children. It would probably not be long before zoo animals would qualify, and they would probably be more deserving that most of the other recipients.
Swedish society is simply messed up and there is no way in which the king, however inclined he may be, would get away with promoting families, unless it was pseudo-families with the award quickly turning into one big depravity fest, more depraved for every year.
Could you imagine Donald Trump doing it in the U.S.? I can't, for he would probably be accused of one phobia or another, of wanting to destroy the planet with humans, of wanting to chain women to kitchen sinks, of taking his cue directly from Putin with the 'logic' that since Putin encourages large families in Russia, an encouragement of large families in the U.S. is somehow doing Putin's bidding. In fact, the only reason I could see this possibly ever happening is because Donald Trump seems to enjoy nothing more than annoying and agitating leftists, so the jury is out on whether Trump would do this given that it aligns with one of his few passions. That, of course, assumes that Donald Trump would even want to promote family life, a contentious point at best.
In any case, where we can imagine him doing it or not, we ought to be able to count on the condemnation of much of academia and the mass media, given how decadent these institutions have become. By this time, it ought to be certain that a number of Catholic bishops would probably get in the act of condemning it, and maybe even the pope - or whatever Bergoglio is.
Neither can one realistically expect the queen of England or the president of France to do such things, for the very same reasons I have outlined above. The less said about the president of Germany the better. Both Poland and Italy seem to have governments which are willing and even working towards raising the birth rate, but I cannot envision either of their political rulers doing such a thing.
So now we can see just what a wonderful - in the true sense of the word - thing it is when the political ruler of a country gets in front of everyone and declares "We are going to promote the family, and we are going to promote large families!" None of that breeding-like-rabbits and great irresponsibilities talk that Bergoglio has thrown about at the mention of large families.
For all of Russia's ills - and the highest abortion rate in the world has to count as the very worst - it is still a nation of old, with a ruler who is expected to look out for the best interests of the country, not only for the short-term so as to ensure his re-election,...
In a week which contained a lot of major news from the secular world, it might seem odd that my highlights are to do with an event that didn't even take this week - the Chartres pilgrimage. My primary concern is for the Church, for only the Church can save the world, and with that in mind I shall go on to address some of the events on the Chartes pilgrimage.
It is rather significant that the Chartres pilgrimage has become so famous. I had not even heard of it until som 4 years ago or so, but I shall have to agree with Michael Matt that it is one of the most significant events taking place in the Church today, although in his case he plainly states that it is the most significant, with which I do not quite agree. Along with its increasing profile, the mass has attracted higher profiles of celebrants. Last year it was Cardinal Raymond Burke, who is probably the closest thing we have right now to a champion of the faith. When Cardinal Burke celebrated though, it was without a position in the Curia, having been unceremoniously kicked out of his position as the head of the Apostolic Signatura (the Church's highest court) so that Bergoglio could railroad his full-throttled assault on marriage through easy annulments and sacreligious Communion.
This year's celebrant, therefore, would have to count as the most high-profile yet. In Cardinal Sarah, we had the head of the Congregation of Divine Worship, the man in charge of not only the Mass but the administration of all sacraments. Yes, there are bureaucratically speaking other higher-profiled cardinals - the secreatary of state comes to mind - and even with regards to Catholicity the prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith ranks higher. However, in his capacity as head of worship, he ranks second only to the pope, so one is entitled to say that they don't come much higher than Cardinal Sarah. Also in terms of standing up for the faith, Cardinal Sarah is one of only 2 cardinals under the age of 80 - the other being Cardinal Burke - who have consistently stood up against efforts to water down the faith, or to outright corrupt the faith (however tepidly).
It was therefore with great sadness that I read a piece written by Peter Kwasniewski titled Traditional Clergy: Please Stop Making “Pastoral Adaptations”. It quickly became clear that the piece was about the final High Mass at the Chartres pilgrimage, of which Cardinal Sarah had been the main celebrant. Among the 'pastoral adaptations' on show was reading both the Epistle and the Gospel in French, instead of Latin, and not bothering with having the proper orientations when reading Sacred Scripture, instead turning towards the people, and not even bothering to chant but rather speaking it out instead. These were grave liturgical abuses. It is unclear who was in charge of these abuses - the master of ceremony, the local bishop, or the cardinal are all potential agents. What cannot be denied, however, was that in perhaps the most prominent Tridentine Mass in the world today, we were being confronted with a very well-orchestrated Novusordoisation, and that ought to trouble us all.
If there is anything that the Novus Ordo has taught us, it is that slippery slopes are real, and once embarked upon one will quickly find oneself close to the bottom. It is therefore inexcusable that at the most prominent Tridentine Mass the celebrants would embark upon the same slippery slope which led us to where we are in NOChurch today, i.e., little if any reverence at Mass, with priests who treat the Mass as if it is their plaything, and laity who froth in anger at hearing that there are authentic Catholic alternatives. Another point that Dr. Kwasniewski made which is worth repeating is that Latin is the language of the Church, and the Chartres pilgrimage is the most international pilgrimage that we have today. It therefore makes little sense to have the readings in French when many of the attendees will be non-French. They could, if they so wished, read out in Latin according to the rubrics and then afterwards read in French (which is allowed by Ecclesia Dei, it turns out, although even that is a slippery slope) but that's not what they did. In other words, I am quite certain that whoever made the decision did it knowing full well that it was against the liturgical laws and against the spirit of the Tridentine Mass, yet did it anyway, perhaps to force the point that the Tridentine Mass has to get along with the Novus Ordo mass.
This being NOChurch times, of course, not everyone was upset. As I have previously mentioned, Catholics as a whole have lost the ability to get angry at anything directed against the faith. In "WHEREIN ROBERT CARDINAL SARAH GETS IT RIGHT AND FATHER Z DOESN'T " (I've no idea why he insists on capital letters for his headlines), a response to Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's Why we Say The Black and Do The Red, which was in turn a commentary on what Dr. Kwasniewski had wrriten , Fr. Allan McDonald chimed in that Cardinal Sarah was right to make adaptations in order to get people to feel at home, once again showing that the Novus Ordo has poisoned the minds of even many of those who say the Tridentine Mass occasionally. We don't adapt the Mass to ourselves; rather we adapt ourselves to the Mass, and the arguments he was making were well-adressed in Dr. Kwasniewski's original piece, which it seems blew completely over his head.
The best commentary on Fr. McDonald's piece came from Henry , who wrote:
A single instance of vernacular abuse, as at Chartres, is not a big deal. No doubt God will survive the desacralization of a couple of moments in this one Mass, and the
This will have to be one of my shorter entries, as I have fallen hopelessly behind schedule in my commentaries. I shall attempt to limit myself to this week's Bergoglian attack on the Church - every week has one - as well as the most important news otherwise.
As we are all well aware by now, Ireland is no longer a Catholic country, and in fact has not been for a while. In Ireland: A Chronology of De-Christianization, ChurchMilitant.tv attempted to chronicle various low-points which led to where we now find ourselves.
Some have not given up on saving the lives of unborn in Ireland, however, and Another big rig in Ireland mentions that there were many irregularities with the referendum, to the extent that some are calling it rigged. As proof of this, the author cites the large discrepancy between the polling data and the outcome. I have no doubt that the elitists would have rigged it had they felt it necessary, I just doubt that it would have been necessary to do so. This is, after all, the same country which voted for sodomitical unions just some 2 or so years ago. It is the same country which has a sodomite as its political ruler, an elected one at that to boot. Having voted for one of the 4 sins which cry out to Heaven, it is rather fanciful to think that the Irish would not want to complete the set and vote in another one.
As if to emphasise my point, Eamon Martin, an archbishop, came out after the referendum and said that abortion should be "safe and rare" - not necessarily a direct quote. He had to walk back those words but it is nonetheless instructive that a Catholic - and I use that word extremely loosely - prelate uses the language of abortionists in response to the referendum. The very fact that protection of the unborn was removed from the constitution does not in itself mean that the battle is over. His duty should have been to make it known that Catholics are obliged to oppose legalising abortion. Alas, we have one of our effeminates mouthing off support for the culture of death.
At this point I am forced to ask: Would anyone follow this guy? Part of the problem with NOChurch is that it has given us such spineless leaders that one is ashamed to say as a Catholic that these people represent any form of hierarchy. Can anyone actually see himself lining up behind Martin in a sort of campaign for the common good? Why is it that NOChurch popes think that being an effeminate non-believer is some sort of qualification for being a bishop? It's no wonder a lot of people think that priestesses can be acceptable clerics.
It is not all doom and gloom though, and I was happy to see that the Portuguese parliament rejected euthanasia. It is a sad state of affairs though when it is the communists who come to the aid of Catholic values in what was a Catholic country just 2 generations ago.
After much consternation, the Vatican released a document saying that the Church in Germany ought not to proceed with issuing heretical guidelines which would allow protestants to receive Holy Communion. The term "heretical", is of course, one I added myself, since this term seems to have been forbidden in the 1960s even for the most obvious of heresies. The Germans were, true to form, most displeased at having to hold off on their sacrilege jumboree. The point to take home in all of this, however, is that Bergoglio only informed the Germans that it was inopportune to do it, not that it was wrong. In other words, it is a bit too early to celebrate! Wait for this one to come back to the forefront when Bergoglio finds his moment!
Whether the prohibition of sacrilege at the hands ordained ministers is cause for celebration, is obviously another matter entirely, but these are desperate times, and there is so little good news to go around.
In the Diocese of Buffalo in the U.S., a couple which attends SSPX services was barred from acting as Godparents . So much for reaching out to the peripheries.
Staying on the theme of the U.S., but this time in the secular realm, we were informed by the 9-man junta which runs the country - the supreme court - that a baker does not have to bake a cake for a sodomite pair which enters his bakery. Most of us would call this common sense, but the decision is not the victory of common sense that some have made it out to be. From what I have been able to understand, the supreme court found that a lower court had been openly prejudicial against religious arguments in siding with the sodomites. My reading is that if the civil rights court had not been as openly hostile to the baker's religious motivations, the decision would have stood. At the very least, it is unlikely to think that 7 of the judges would have come to the baker's aid in those circumstances, although we can still hope it would have been a 5-4 decision on the side of sanity (or what's left of it in the Western world anyway).
Finally, I would like to conclude with another act of Bergoglian mercy. It turns out that there is a bishop in Argentina who did not see eye-to-eye with Bergoglio in his time there. This was the bishop of La Plata - apparently an important see in Argentina - Archbishop Héctor Rubén Aguer. This bishop reached the arbitrary age of 75, which NOChurch has set as the age of sending in one's resignation letter to the pope. To the surprise of nobody, the resignation was accepted immediately. This is where things really get interesting...
