Abbey-Roads: The Michael Voris Affair

Abbey-Roads: The Michael Voris Affair

Man Up! It's War!

While we're all happy about the SCOTUS decision that put part of the Department of Justice in it's place vis a vis Religious Freedom, we shouldn't get cocky--we are still under attack, a severe attack that will grant no quarter.   This is one battle, not the war.  More than that, we can look at our history, our secular history, and realize that's it's entirely possible to win every battle, and loose the war.

Right up front, I want to say that I do not believe that the Church will every be destroyed--we have Our Lords promise of that.  But that doesn't mean that the Church cannot be extirpated in a given region, the disappearance of the particular Churches of North Africa and parts of Asia Minor prove that.  Don't believe me?  Then ask yourself this:  Auxiliary Bishops have "titular sees".  This is because there can only be one Bishop in Charge of any given place, the Ordinary, and so an Auxiliary might be ordained for service in Indianapolis, but he cannot be "co-bishop" of Indianapolis, Furthermore, a Bishop must be ordained to a particular see.  If you look at their titles, Auxiliary Bishops are ordained to sees that no longer exists, defunct and extinct particular Churches.  If you think about that you realize that we can be destroyed in a particular locale.  The Church will survive on Earth, but I'm not so sure about in the US.

SCOTUS, applying sound law and awareness of legal precedent and history (and perhaps under the influence of the Holy Spirit!) upheld an aspect of religious freedom, protecting the Church and every other ecclesiastical body in the US from one aspect of Government oppression.  But the Administration isn't the source of the attack on the Church, it's an instrument of it.  The source is Satan, and anyone who believes will acknowledge that.  The Obama Administration isn't even the most dangerous set of opponents we face.  The most dangerous of those who are working towards the destruction of the Church are those who are, in name at least, inside of it.  These are Satan's Fifth Column, who are the ones who will weaken us so that like Madrid, we will fall.

Just a few things to show what I'm talking about:

The Scranton University was "asked" by the Bishop of Scranton, Joseph C. Bambera to rescind the invitation it issued to former Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies from addressing students, based on her activities which are counter to and inimical to Catholic teaching.  The president of the University, the Rev. Kevin P. Quinn has refused to do so.  Now, I put the word "asked" into quotations for a reason--when someone with the authority to make you do something asks, it's a polite for of order.  The Jesuit run school refused an order from the Local Ordinary, who has canonical authority to do so, if they wish to retain their Catholic Identity.  More than that, we have now nearly twenty years of instructions from the Vatican that make it quite clear that Catholic Schools exist to further Catholic teaching.  Not only that, but speaking at a college or university is in itself an honor, and honoring a politician who supports abortion is specifically forbidden.  Quinn know this.  So what's up?  It's simple, really.  Quinn is a one of Satan's Fifth Columnists.  How he became one of Satan's agents is obvious.  He did so like this:  the greatest commandment is that we shall Love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all are minds and all our strength.  We cannot serve two masters.  Quinn, and those like him have placed (since the Great lakes declaration of '67!) the respect and admiration of secular academia above their desire for single hearted service to the Lord.  Their desire for Academic Reputation, both personal and for their institutions have lead them to become intellectually dishonest--posing as Catholics while opposing holistic Catholicism.   They have become liars, and Satan is the Father of Lies, who has then moved them to deceive themselves, then their students, leading them into mortal sins, rejection of the faith and possibly perdition. The majority of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the US have failed to met all the requirements of  Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and the majority of Bishops in the US have failed to correct them, or to remove their standing as Catholic institutions.  Make no mistake, we, as a Church, are better off with six or a dozen faithful, small institutions than scores of faithless ones.

Then there is the whole apology thing--and I do not mean Apologetics, I mean apologies that we shouldn't make.   This is a wedge in the Church, a wedge that, due in part to the treason and apostasy of Catholic schools is hurting us badly, and removing our ability to even speak clearly about pressing issues.  Take Cardinal George of Chicago:  He clearly opposed the new time of the Gay Sodomite and Transvestite Pride Parade, saying we don't want to return to the days of the KKK in America.  He later went all contrite to apologize.  This was a disservice to the Truth.   To placate a bunch of perverts, and their misguided friends in the City of Chicago, he retracted.  Unfortunately the change from the traditional time for the perverted sex spectacle was done simply to bring them past the Cathedral as services were changing over, to create a confrontation.  An Anti-catholic confrontation.  Cardinal George was right--this move was an exercise in organized Anticatholicism and a chance to provoke a "spontaneous' demonstration against us.  His apology was an abrogation of a truth.  I have to wonder though, when will he apologize to us Catholics for letting us down now, when we need fearless leaders who will speak out?  Blessed Clemens Von Galen spoke out under threat of death, and Cardinal George retracted under threat of insult.  We have a beautiful psalm that tells us to pray that we shall fear no evil--but I guess bad PR is different.  But this apology thing is more widespread than that, and it's become insidious.  In San Geronimo Valley, in California, the CYO rents a municipal gym for it's games.  As is usual before a CYO game, there is prayer.  And, as is usual in secular, evil and selfish California, there is an uproar.  People are appalled that the Catholic Youth Organization would pray before a game.  The Lagunitas School District "co-owns" the gym and one of it's trustees, Richard Sloan, said "I understand that if we want to rent to one religious group we have to rent to them all, but I still don't like it.  I going to put up a sign in front of the gym: 'If you don't pray in my school I won't think in your church'"  Horrible, really, if you look at it.  The statement betrays several things.  First, it shows that Sloan doesn't want to rent to CYO at all--notice that he says he has to rent to all religious groups, and he doesn't like renting to this one.  Next, he gives something else away--he doesn't think Catholics think, that we are mindless, because he equates being in a Catholic Church with not thinking.  Finally he shows something else too--the district co-owns the gym, it doesn't solely own the gym, yet he thinks that he can make a municipal gym a school by decree, and silence us in the public square.  But the worst thing about this whole little exercise in secularist religious bigotry are the remarks by the pastor of St. Cecelia's Church, Rev Cyril O'Sullivan:  "I'm told the prayer is not being pushed on any families, that people have a choice.But I don't like anything that causes division.  Prayer, if it becomes divisive, would be a very poor form of prayer".  Reading that, I have to ask myself if O'Sullivan listens to the readings he proclaims, that we are called to be a people apart, and a royal priesthood.  We're not supposed to fit in.  Even more I wonder if he's ever paid attention to the text where Our Lord tells us he did not come to bring peace, but a sword?  Finally, he obviously has tuned out the Gospel passage about separating the sheep from the goats, possibly because, with an approach like that, he's a goat.  He needs to issue another statement of conciliatory stuff, to the parents who put their kids into CYO for moral and religious guidance outside of Faith Formation Classes, and explain to them why he just confused all these Catholic Kids about how we are supposed to give public witness to the Lordship of Christ, and how he just made them vaguely ashamed of their faith, and afraid to be Catholics in the Public Sphere.  ( And as an example of other effects of Satan's Fifth Column, I have to ask this: Did the parents who felt this was wrong not understand what the word "Catholic" in Catholic Youth Organization meant?)

Of course, in a war characterized by tactics such as a fifth column, having people in positions of authority on the side of the Fifth Column is very valuable.  People like Auxiliary Bishop Gambino Zavala, who had a secret family.  He fathered two kids, out of wedlock.  Zavala has resigned as a bishop, but there are so many questions to be answered, that must be answered, if the devastation these Fifth Columnists is to be repaired, if the Faith is to be Defended.  One is this, how did a man like Zavala, who publically supported gay 'rights' and other moral issues in opposition to the Church become and auxiliary bishop at the request of a Cardinal of the Church? (Mahony, of course!)  And how was he able to conceal this from public view for so long?  One thing that tells, to me at least, is that less than a year after Mahony departed and Archbishop Gomez replaced him, Zavala is out.  it can't have been that deep a secret.  It looks to me like Mahony covered for him, just as he covered for the Child Rapist Carl Stutphin.  Mahony became a fifth columnist through his own ego, opposing Vatican guidelines and pronouncements on the Liturgy, fostering the teaching of moral errors, and presiding over not just the collapse of the Vocation environment in LA, but the erection of structures that were in their intent and execution anti-sacerdotal.  (Come on!  No cleric who puts his face on a jumbotron for his annual "religious education" meeting can be sound!)

We can also look at the Michael Voris affair and see clearly those who oppose Catholic Teaching and Morality at work in the Archdiocese of Detroit.  What's interesting about this isn't that a bishop who has been repeatedly stung by accurate, orthodox criticism lashed out to silence a critic--that happens a lot, it seems, in history but that the canon law used to do so might not be what it seems.   The AOD attacked Voris for using the word "Catholic" in real catholic TV--except for one thing--he didn't.  He owns St. Michael Media.  Real Catholic TV is run by another outfit, that contracts him to produce content.  So he was penalized for something he has no control over,  (well they are attempting to penalize him, much as they did Mother Angelica!).  But, and here's what is interesting, Real Catholic TV, as an entity, is Headquartered in the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend and the Judicial Vicar of that diocese has spoken out in public, saying that they have been aware of REal Catholic TV for years, and have no problem whatsoever with it--and that there have been no complaints against them that hold water.  What we see is Archbishop Vigneron being stung in his pride, and having people actually have the gall to cite the liturgical, moral and theological abuses and failing of his Archdiocese and demand their rights as Catholics to Catholic Worship and Teachings.  So incensed was he at this that he tried to usurp the Canonical authority of another bishop to silence it.  Fifth columns are always a form of espionage and saboteurs, and neither can function without secrecy, or at least silence.  Another Fifth Columnist in a position of authority, using that authority to subvert someone who is teaching in accordance with the Magisterium. 

In this vein, we have my final example for today, of Satan's Fifth Column in the Church.  Bishop Ochoa of El Paso is suing a priest in civil court over "financial mismanagement".  This is, well there is no other word for it, bull shit.  It's an attempt at character assassination by Bishop Ochoa, who, BTW is leaving El Paso, having been named to the see of Fresno California, having been named to that see on 1 December 2011--and by canon law must be installed there with in 60 days of being named.  He will not even be in the Diocese of El Paso when the suit comes to court.  Of course, Ochoa hasn't been listening to the readings he proclaims either, for St. Paul says we are not to take each other before the civil courts when we disputes among ourselves.  Ochoa has a colleague in this suit--Mons. Arturo Banuelas.  What's up with this?  Well Fr. Michael Rodriguez spoke out in public against Civil Unions and Gay Marriage, and the extension of tax payer funded benefits to "domestic partners--concubines and catamites if they receive compensation, like benefits that had been dropped in the face of taxpayer and public disapproval once before.  Ochoa had been silent about these issues, while loudly calling for the indulgence of illegal immigrants (even though the Catechism is clear that immigrants must obey the laws and respect the culture and society of the place they have moved to).  Rodriguez ran an advertisement, called "The Truth About Homosexuality" that was in strict accordance with Catholic teaching.  Ochoa removed him from the Parish he was serving.  According to the members of that parish, it is now dieing, with no ministry.  It's worth noting here that the parish functions in the Extraordinary Form, was growing and has been described by those who went there as "busy" "vibrant" having "vitality" and most of all affecting the neighborhood in which it was located for the better.  Ochoa killed it, rather than face the fact that Catholic Teaching is never popular, is never comfortable and is never easy.  He has caught a lot of crap for this, and is outraged that Catholics paid for that four page ad, by donating directly to it, going around the modernist cabal that dominated El Paso.  So not only was he distorting Catholic teaching on immigration, he was not teaching the whole of the faith, and got shown up by a young priest.  He is no resorting to what I believe to be calumny to discredit him, as Ochoa is widely seen by faithful Catholics as discredited.  Why do I say this is calumny?  Because the bishop filed a civil suit--if he had good proof that Fr. Rodriguez had actually misused or diverted Chruch funds, he would have, under canon law, suspended him and under secular law had him charged with embezzelment.  the Choice to file a civil suit mens that he didn't have evidence to meet the standards of proof in Canon or Criminal law, and hopes to use the wedge of gay rights and the current popularity of concubinage to win an unjust case against this man.  It takes about five minutes in the book of Psalms to see what God thinks of unjust suits, but Ochoa isn't worried about tht, he'sworried about power and reputation--hall marks of Satan's Fifth Column in the Church.

We are in a war for our existence in the US, as an effective Church, as the Body of Christ in the US, that can fulfill the mission of the Church Militant.  This is a spiritual war, in which the actions and machinations of the current, and probably subsequent, administration are but reflections of the true forces against us. The true danger, the only one that can lead to our destruction, is the Fifth Column among us.  We should no more allow this than we would allow a cabal of thieves to have the keys to our homes.  We Catholics need to man up, we need to remember that Charity is not tact, and that the word tact does not appear in it's definition, and if we hold Charity for our children, and our Brethren in Faith, we must speak out loudly, and together against these enemies who call themselves or friends and our pastors.  We must man up, and accept the abuse and anger that will be directed against us, and do our best.  David went out with a rock, and slew a giant.  We have the internet, the Catechism and most of all the sacraments to sustain us, and instead of a rock, we should sling truth.

Bishops

One of the neat things about being Catholic is the ad limina visits the bishops make with the Pope very five years, and now we are in the American bishops turn.  I've always wished I could be a fly on the wall atsuch meetings, to hear what's actually said.  There's a lot to be said, I think.

The American Episcopacy is at best a mixed lot, but things are undeniably improving.  Well, they had to.

According to bishops who have already made their trip, some of the topics being brought up are the New Evangelization, religious freedom and the rights of the Church in the us.  Also being mentioned are immigration, parish closings and the Liturgy, especially the new translation.

The Vatican, in these meetings seems to be concerned that religious rights are being interpreted, in the US as strictly individual, and the rights of organized churches to speak and act are under attack.  That's pretty darned accurate.  As always in our country, the cutting edge of this problem is sex.  Take a look at the Church in Minneapolis.

Archbishop Niestedt has addressed his priests concerning the Catholic Churches opposition to gay marriage.  In his address he specified that if a priest cannot or will not publicly support matrimony, he is supposed to remain silent on the issue.   Leaving aside the issue of a bishop having to tell priests not to publicly contradict Church teachings--something we haven't really seen the specter of since the Protestant rebellion and schism--there remains the fact that someone in the Church leaked the text of this address to the heretical group "Progressive Catholic Voice", and now the Church is being painted as bigoted for supporting our own beliefs.  This is an example of  attempting to silence us Catholics as a unified body, to block our access to the public forum.  The spokes people for this heretical group are appalled--appalled they say--that a bishop would instruct his priests not to oppose Catholic teaching. 

These people are the ones most in need of the New Evangelization.  We Catholics need our bishops to evangelize us, to teach us the faith, and to require our adherence to it if we are to retain our liberty as an organized Church. 

The Gay issue is going to be a battle that we must fight, not only for the spiritual well being and salvation of Gays and Lesbians, but for our very freedom.  And the fight must occur not just in the public sphere, but within the Church itself.  Take the Courage outreach program.  In the Archdiocese of Hartford, Archbishop Henry J. Mansell has implemented it through out the archdiocese, displacing both the"Dignity" program and the New Ways Ministries outreach.  This is being billed as controversial.     How strange is it, that a program that is in accordance with Catholic Moral Teaching is considered controversial when implemented by the Catholic Church?  I suppose that it's to be expected, in today's political climate, that there would be disapproval from secular and non-cathoic quarters.  What's dismaying is that there is resistance to this from those who are supposedly 'within" the Church, especially those who refer to themselves as 'Gay Catholics".  Almost unmentioned is the controversy over Dignity and New Ways Ministries among Catholics with those who support the Churches teaching being scandalized that "ministries" of the Church are telling people that they should be accepting sodomy and same sex activity, and telling those so tempted that it's OK to indulge, if they really love someone.  That controversy isn't reported by the Catholic Press, even. 

I hope His Holiness is communicating to the Bishops the harm to the faithful, to the Mystical Body of Christ, that is done by such confusion, and perhaps, even mentioning the number of Catholics who have given up hope for the Church and gone to other Churches or Ecclesial Bodies.  This rampant pursuit of disobedience and moral revisionism is one of the things needing corrected by a New Evangelism and catechesis of the Faithful.  We, and the bishops, need to accept as well that the Church is shrinking in numbers, and that we are going to lose those who wish to conform to the secular world in any event.  in the end it comes down to triage--we will not be able to evangelize those who wish to practice sexual immorality and require it's acceptance as a prerequisite of their remaining "Catholic", for in their beliefs and moral structures, they have left Catholicism behind long ago.

Then there remains the problem of Evangelizing the bishops themselves.  We have some problem diocese, with problem bishops at their head.  The first one that comes to mind is the Archdiocese of Detroit.  First, you have the Michael Voris Matter.  The Canon Law seems a bit complicated, and I do not understand the the issues of Canon Law here well enough to come down on one side or the other, although my sympathies lie with Mr. Voris.  But the issue that demands to be raised is why a Bishop would tell a layman he cannot call himself Catholic in public, when this same bishop didn't make such a demand of the American Catholic Conference, which espoused Heresy, Schism, Immorality and Disobedience.  Another issue would be such things as the most recent issue of Mosaic, the magazine put out for and by Sacred Heart Major Seminary.  In it, they lovingly recounted a baptism of an infant performed in a hospital.  Not because the infant was ill or in danger of death, but because a Deacon was dieing, and the child was his second grandchild.  The child's grandmother said the formula of baptism while using the dieing deacons hand as a vessel to pour water upon it's head.  This is appalling, not because the baptism was invalid--it is not, according to the sources I read on the matter--but because everyone involved placed family sentiment on a higher lane than the Sacrament itself, and in so doing deprived the child of a Church baptism, with the full ceremonial and blessing thereof.   They interpret the Sacrament as a family event, not an entry into the Mystical Body of Christ, and a participating in the death and resurrection of the Lord.  This is simple proof that the formation of the clergy and Faithful in the Archdiocese of Detroit is lacking, and the onus of this rests upon the Ordinary, Archbishop Allen Vigneron.

Finally, I wonder if His Holiness has mentioned to our bishops how, in the present anti-christian climate, they can raise awareness, and perhaps even support for, the plight of Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa and the middle east, with rampant, violent discrimination and an incipient genocide in Nigeria when the biased, anti-christian mainstream press in the us virtually ignore it.  How odd its it, that the British press covers this issue in much more depth, with much more sympathy than the American, considering the fact that close to 60% of American identify in some way as Christians, and very few British do?  Is this linked to the UK Bishops taking steps to strengthen and solidify Catholic Identity in the UK even as the Church of England dissolves through popular neglect and theological disintegration?

Today is the observance of the Epiphany in the US.  I would recount the stirring Homily I heard today, except I never even figured out what it was about.  It wasn't about the readings or the Liturgy of the day, which center around one thing--the Universal nature of Christs Kingship and Mission.  Perhaps that's part of the problem, and our bishops need to reaffirm Christ as our King, priest and Redeemer, placing that at the forefront of their thought and ministry.  If they do so, the New Evangelization will fall into place, the Liturgy will be reformed, the clerical morality crisis will be corrected, the rights and impact of immigration will be upheld, the faithful will be catechized and our rights and position in society will be protected.  The Three Magi came from a distant land to do homage to a new Priest King for all the world, with gifts of healing (myrrh) worship (frankincense) and sovereignty (gold)--if the bishops focus on Christ, and the Mystical Body of Christ,instead of institutional and political issues, things will be better.  I hope this is his Holiness' remarks to them.