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| Archbishop Viganò: Homily on the Feast of the Epiphany |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-06-2025, 12:52 PM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
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![[Image: miniatura-250106-eng.jpg]](https://exsurgedomine.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/miniatura-250106-eng.jpg)
Surge et illuminare
Homily on the Epiphany
6 Gennaio 2025
Taken from here.
Surge et illuminare, Jerusalem,
quia venit lumen tuum,
et gloria Domini super te orta est.
Rise and shine, Jerusalem:
because your light has come
and the glory of the Lord has shone upon you. — Is 60:1
This great feast of the Epiphany, which along with Easter, the Ascension, and Pentecost is called this most holy day in the Canon of the Mass, completes the feast of the Nativity of the Lord.
If in the holy night we adored Emmanuel with the angels and with the shepherds, today in the Child King we adore the dominator Dominus, at whose feet all peoples are called from every end of the earth. Et adorabunt eum omnes reges terræ: omnes gentes servient ei, says the Scripture: “All the kings of the earth shall worship Him, and all peoples shall serve Him.” We have sung it in the Introit: Ecce, advenit dominator Dominus; et regnum in manu ejus, et potestas, et imperium. “Behold, the Lord who dominates comes: in His hand the kingdom, and kingly power and authority.”
This is not merely a sentiment, a pious wish destined to be fulfilled only in part or to be shattered by the harsh reality of a rebellious world; it is instead a very certain affirmation, founded on the ontological necessity of Christ’s triumph, which no one can ever oppose and which no one can ever prevent.
But while we are focused on the adoration of the Magi, who pay their tribute of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the King of kings after the poor homage of the shepherds, we must not forget that the Lord Himself, with His Incarnation, came to this earth to offer to the Most Holy Trinity, and to the Eternal Father, the tribute of souls snatched from the dominion of Satan and conquered in His Passion and death on the Cross.
The Magi offer gold to the Kingship of Christ, frankincense to His Divinity, and myrrh to Christ the sacrificial victim. They are therefore a figure of Our Lord, who offers all of us to the Eternal Father, and along with us all those whom providence has destined for the glory of heaven, through the offering of Christ the victim, raised on the altar of Calvary by Christ the Priest, who as King represents the humanity that belongs to Him by divine right, both of lineage and of conquest, and who as God is able to redeem by making reparation for our infinite sins and the infinite offense caused to God.
But while we are focused on the adoration of the Magi, who pay their tribute of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the King of kings after the poor homage of the shepherds, we must not forget that the Lord himself, with His Incarnation, came to this earth to offer to the Most Holy Trinity, and to the Eternal Father, the tribute of souls snatched from the dominion of Satan and conquered in His Passion and Death on the Cross. The Magi offer gold to the Kingship of Christ, frankincense to His Divinity, and myrrh to Christ the Sacrificial Victim. They are therefore a figure of Our Lord, who offers all of us to the eternal Father, and along with us all those whom Providence has destined for the glory of Heaven, through the offering of Christ the Victim, raised on the altar of Calvary by Christ the Priest, who as King represents the humanity that belongs to Him by divine right, both of lineage and of conquest, and who as God is able to redeem by making reparation for our infinite sins and the infinite offense caused to God. The Secreta of today’s Mass confirms this:
Ecclesiæ tuæ, quæsumus, Domine, dona propitius intuere: quibus non jam aurum, thus, et myrrha profertur: sed quod eisdem muneribus declaratur, immolatur, et sumitur, Jesus Christus Filius tuus Dominus noster:
Look with kindness, we bessech you, O Lord, upon the offerings of your Church, with which gold, frankincense, and myrrh is no longer offered, but rather the very One who through them is represented, offered, and received: Jesus Christ your Son and our Lord.
In the Magi – like in the three Angels who visited Abraham – we can also see a figure of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity who are pleased to see their divine Will fulfilled in the Son: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mt 3:17). What is signified by the treasures revealed by the Magi in the silence of Bethlehem – the divinity of that Child – is proclaimed by his Heavenly Father at the moment of his Baptism in the Jordan, which we also celebrate today together with the miracle of the water turned into wine at the wedding feast at Cana.
The solemnity of the divine manifestation of the Savior – this is the meaning of the word epiphany used in the Roman Church and of the word theophany of the Eastern Church – places us before the Divine Kingship of Christ under two aspects: His first coming and His second coming. The first coming was accomplished in poverty, in silence, in humble obedience to His Parents for thirty years, in preaching for three years, in facing the torments of His Passion, the ignominy of the Cross, His Death, and His Deposition in the tomb; and then in the Resurrection – carried out far from everyone’s gaze, in the silence of the dawn of a Sunday nineteen hundred and ninety-two years ago, and concluded with the Ascension into Heaven and that promise of the Angel: Men of Galilee, why are you looking at heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from among you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven (Acts 1:11).
The second coming of the Lord will take place in glory: et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos, we proclaim in the Creed. And it will again be that Divine King who closes the flow of time and history in the Last Judgment, to end the phase of trial, et sæculum per ignem. Then what was announced in the passage from the Prophet Isaiah that we have just heard will be definitively fulfilled: Arise, O Jerusalem, and be clothed with light, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines upon you (Is 60:1). This Light, which came into the world two thousand and twenty-five years ago, will shine in the Mystical Body, of which Christ is the Divine Head, after these dark times of apostasy and after the Passio Ecclesiæ: For, behold, darkness covers the earth, thick fog envelops the nations; but the Lord shines upon you, his glory appears upon you. Just as in the disfigured and suffering Christ the glory that shone in the Resurrection was obscured, so in His Mystical Body, now disfigured, the glory that awaits Him is eclipsed.
The persecution foretold by the Scriptures will be the last battle that humanity will have to face, siding with God or against Him, and the fate of that epochal clash is already marked by Christ’s victory on the Cross: o mors ero mors tua; morsus tuus ero, inferne, says the prophet Hosea (Hos 13:14), taken up by the Apostle Paul. But before that persecution we will see the kings of the earth and the mighty of the nations ally themselves with the Antichrist and have the power to blaspheme his Name, and his tabernacle, and the inhabitants of heaven (Rev 13:6), that is, God, the Holy Church and the elects. And it was granted [to the Beast] to make war against the saints, and to conquer them. And it was given power over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and nation. And all those who dwell in the earth worshipped it, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, who was slain from the beginning of the world. He who has ears, let him hear (Rev 13:7-9). Christ is the Lamb who suffers and triumphs in those who believe in him: in Abel he is killed by his brother, in Noah he is mocked by his son, in Abraham he was a pilgrim, in Isaac he was offered, in Joseph he was sold, in Moses he was exposed and driven out, in the Prophets stoned and mutilated, in the Apostles tossed about by land and sea, and in the Martyrs so many times and in many ways killed.
Yet, this parenthesis of Satan’s apparent triumph is destined to end with the killing of the Antichrist by the Archangel St. Michael and with the head of the Serpent crushed by the Immaculate Virgin. The prophet Isaiah reassures us once again: The peoples will walk in your light, and kings in the splendor of your rising. Lift up your eyes around and see: all these are gathered, they are coming to you. Your sons come from afar, your daughters are carried in your arms. At that sight you will be radiant, your heart will throb and expand, because the riches of the sea will pour down on you, the goods of the peoples will come to you. A crowd of camels will invade you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah, all of them will come from Sheba, bringing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the glories of the Lord (Is 60:3-6). A little further on, the Prophet Isaiah addresses the Holy Church, the new Jerusalem: Your gates will always be open; they will not be closed day or night, so that the wealth of the nations and their kings in procession may enter into you. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve you will perish; those nations will be completely destroyed (Is 60:10-11). When we look with dismay at the political and economic upheavals of states, we must remember the doom of ruin foretold for nations that rebel against the Lord.
At the beginning and at the end of the liturgical year, Holy Church reminds us of the Lord’s second coming and exhorts us to be ready, as the Jews faithful to the prophecies of the Old Testament were ready for the first coming: You also must be ready, for the Son of Man will come at an hour you do not expect (Lk 12:40). And this warning should make all of us tremble, but especially those whom the Lord has constituted in authority, both in the Church and in civil society: the master of that servant will arrive on the day when he least expects it and at an hour he does not know, and will punish him rigorously by assigning him a place among the infidels (Lk 12:46).
The Virgin Mother, most august Queen and Lady, is present today at the act of adoration of the Magi to her Divine Son. Tomorrow she will attend, crowned with stars and seated on Her throne of glory on which she sits from her Assumption into heaven, the adoration of those who did not recognize Him at the first coming of Christ and of the pagan peoples who will be converted to Her Son. And just as the Father will place the enemies of Christ as a stool for His feet, so will Our Lord do with the Mater Ecclesiæ, humiliating the enemies of the Virgin His Mother and of the Church His Bride: The children of those who have oppressed you will come to you, humbling themselves; all those who have despised you will bow down to the soles of your feet and will call you the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel (Is 60:14). May the intercession of Mary Most Holy, Queen of the Cross, protect us in our moment of trial and grant us the grace of perseverance. And so may it be.
+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
January 6, 2025
In Epiphania Domini
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| Holy Mass in New Hampshire - January 12, 2025 |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-05-2025, 09:33 AM - Forum: January 2025
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Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Feast of the Holy Family
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.c...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.fineartamerica.com%2Fimages%2Fartworkimages%2Fmediumlarge%2F1%2Fholy-family-and-saints-andrea-casali.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=3ddc9fd8638560375fdecad5db9abfb6cf5878e5efc3c122b4ebc1f81c68b673&ipo=images)
Date: Sunday, January 12, 2025
Time: Confessions - 10:00 AM
Holy Mass - 10:30 AM
Location: The Oratory of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary
66 Gove's Lane
Wentworth, NH 03282
Contact: 315-391-7575
sorrowfulheartofmaryoratory@gmail.com
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| An Open Letter to Bishop Fellay by The Catholic Trumpet |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-05-2025, 09:15 AM - Forum: The Catholic Trumpet
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An Open Letter to Bishop Fellay by The Catholic Trumpet
![[Image: rs=w:1280]](https://img1.wsimg.com/isteam/ip/df55e1a9-c854-4d0b-a2a9-94177954436c/IMG_3860.png/:/cr=t:0%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:100%25/rs=w:1280)
The Catholic Trumpet [adapted] | January 4, 2025
Your Excellency,
In the spirit of charity and truth, and for the salvation of souls, we address this letter with profound humility yet great urgency. The crisis in the Church and the world demands clarity and courage from those entrusted with the defense of the Faith.
We write this letter to plead with Your Excellency to act decisively: to publicly and formally condemn the doctrinal and moral errors that have emerged under your leadership, particularly the 2012 Doctrinal Declaration and the SSPX’s silence—or tacit approval—on moral issues such as the COVID vaccines tied to abortion.
This is not written to accuse but to implore: to urge Your Excellency to stand firmly with Tradition and Archbishop Lefebvre’s mission, even at the cost of temporal backlash. The salvation of souls, including your own, depends on fidelity to Christ and His unchanging truths.
The Errors of the 2012 Doctrinal Declaration
The 2012 Doctrinal Declaration is not merely a misstep or misunderstanding; it codifies errors that strike at the very heart of the SSPX’s mission. Two key paragraphs reveal its devastating implications:
1. Paragraph III, 4: Vatican II “Enlightens and Deepens” Doctrine
The Declaration states:
“The entire tradition of Catholic Faith must be the criterion and guide in understanding the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, which, in turn, enlightens—in other words, deepens and subsequently makes explicit—certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church implicitly present within itself or not yet conceptually formulated.”
This paragraph is utterly indefensible. To suggest that Vatican II “enlightens” or “deepens” Catholic doctrine is to grant the Council a level of authority and legitimacy that Archbishop Lefebvre categorically rejected. Lefebvre stated:
“Vatican II is not an authentic Council; it is a revolution within the Church, introducing errors and heresies that contradict Tradition.”
Even more troubling, the footnote to this paragraph cites Lumen Gentium, no. 21, which contains the flawed teaching on the episcopacy—a hallmark of the collegiality Archbishop Lefebvre condemned. This alignment with Vatican II is an implicit endorsement of its errors, contradicting the SSPX’s founding principles.
2. Paragraph III, 5: Acceptance of Religious Liberty and Ecumenism
The Declaration further states:
“The affirmations of the Second Vatican Council and of the later Pontifical Magisterium relating to the relationship between the Church and the non-Catholic Christian confessions, as well as the social duty of religion and the right to religious liberty, whose formulation is with difficulty reconcilable with prior doctrinal affirmations from the Magisterium, must be understood in the light of the whole, uninterrupted Tradition, in a manner coherent with the truths previously taught by the Magisterium of the Church, without accepting any interpretation of these affirmations whatsoever that would expose Catholic doctrine to opposition or rupture with Tradition and with this Magisterium.”
This paragraph is a textbook example of the “hermeneutic of continuity”, a sophistic approach advanced by Benedict XVI to mask the irreconcilable contradictions between Vatican II and prior magisterial teaching.
By framing religious liberty and ecumenism as reconcilable with Tradition, the Declaration endorses doctrines explicitly condemned by the preconciliar Church:
• Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae) contradicts the Kingship of Christ, which Pope Pius XI reaffirmed in Quas Primas: “It would be a grave error to believe that all religions have the same rights as the one true Church of Christ.”
• Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) denies the Church’s unique claim to truth and salvation, violating Pope Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos: “The union of Christians can only be achieved by the return of dissidents to the one true Church.”
By adopting this language, the Declaration relativizes Catholic teaching, reducing immutable truths to matters of “interpretation.” As Fr. Méramo warned:
“Mixing truth and error can only result in new error. This relativism destroys the principle of non-contradiction and jettisons objective truth.”
The SSPX’s Silence on the COVID Vaccine Scandal
Your Excellency, the SSPX’s failure to condemn COVID vaccines tied to abortion has caused grave scandal. Some priests even suggested their use was permissible—a position that violates Catholic moral teaching.
Pope Pius XII taught that cooperation with intrinsic evil is never permissible, even when remote, especially when it involves the destruction of innocent life. Archbishop Lefebvre echoed this:
Quote:“We must reject even the appearance of consent to evil, for such consent endangers our souls and the souls of others.”
Your Excellency, silence or ambiguity on this issue is a grave failure to protect the faithful. We implore you to address this scandal publicly.
A Call for Public Condemnation
We respectfully but urgently ask Your Excellency to:
1. Publicly condemn the 2012 Doctrinal Declaration as a grave error and betrayal of Tradition.
2. Reaffirm the SSPX’s rejection of Vatican II and the New Mass as incompatible with the Catholic Faith.
3. Issue a formal condemnation of the COVID vaccines and clearly prohibit their use.
Such actions would restore clarity to the SSPX’s mission and renew the trust of the faithful.
Eternal Consequences
Your Excellency, Our Lord has warned: “To whom much is given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48).
Failure to act has eternal consequences. The responsibility of shepherding souls comes with immense accountability. Every soul misled by these errors will cry out for justice before God. Archbishop Lefebvre reminded us: “We are not of this world, and our treasure is in Heaven.”
Encouragement and Hope
We assure you that if you take these courageous steps, you will not stand alone. Faithful Catholics worldwide will support you, and more importantly, Our Lord and Our Lady will sustain you.
Let us resist apostasy with all our strength, knowing that the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is certain.
In Christ the King and Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
- The Catholic Trumpet
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| The War on Farming |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-05-2025, 09:00 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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![[Image: modern-farm.jpg]](https://www.newenglishreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/modern-farm.jpg)
The Modern Farm (James McCracken, 1930s)
Farmers across the West are going through financial hell, especially small farmers, many of whom are leaving the profession that was once a noble vocation carried out by hard-working families.
I used to work as an agricultural correspondent and editor of a farming magazine some 20 years ago and things were bad back then throughout the West. But now the cow dung has really hit the fan, especially aggressively in the UK and EU.
The war on farming in the past was less obvious, but it goes back a long time to late-1950s/early ’60s, when new expensive machinery led to bigger intense farming and less farm employees, amongst other socioeconomic factors.
Currently, with AI technologies, some farms are already hosting robotic ‘workers’ toiling away on the land, from dusk to dawn. These tend to the livestock’s needs, but there are also plans to have them watch over crops, while other agri-robots hoe weeds and spray pests. Experts claim that self-guiding machines will soon revolutionize farming and perhaps redraw some of our landscapes. And there is the danger that future generations of large farming animals will become unfamiliar with human contact and aggressive/territorial when approached by a person.
Even in the field of entertainment, negative views on farming were often portrayed in drama. This subtle push to get rid of farms was active in TV soap operas (more like psy-operas), and not just through taxation and Green red-tape, anti-farming initiatives.
In 1965, a dark paradigm shift in world social history prefacing the Sexual Revolution and attack on the Nuclear Family exploded, when TVs went mainstream in every home throughout the West, although many American homes had TVs some years prior to the 1960s. This powerful machine can be used as a Trojan Horse devise, as it is one of the most effective mind-controlling tools of propaganda to influence mainly weak-willed, Normie couch potatoes, especially those lacking in spiritual/social/political discernment.
The year after 1965, when Vatican 2 closed to the sound of singing nuns and trendy priests, the opening of the Church of Satan in San Francisco occurred. Its founder, Anton LaVey, referred to a TV as a “Satanic altar in a room.”
It was also the year an American TV sitcom called Green Acres broadcast its first episode. This hilarious comedy was about a wealthy New York City attorney, fulfilling his dream to become a farmer, with his pretty, high-maintenance wife, uprooted against her will from her Manhattan luxury apartment to a run-down farm in a place called Hooterville. The childless couple’s domestic pet in their farm house was a pig called Arnold, an animal that they treated like a fellow human.
During the same year (coincidence?), across the Atlantic Ocean, another well-made TV drama began, coinciding with the broadcast of Green Acres. Called The Riordans, this well-produced drama was about a farming family in Ireland, screened by the State broadcaster, RTE.
In its early episodes, it was the first soap opera to film exterior scenes, in gritty black and white under dark grey clouds, punctuated by interior studio ones of the bland ‘kitchen sink’ variety.
Both dramas, when viewed by a semiotic/psychological perspective, seem to subliminally ridicule rural life and family wholesome traditions, especially farming. But to a regular ‘Joe’ or ‘Karen,’ they look innocuous and quite entertaining.
In Green Acres, the townsfolk fellow farmers, store owners, and other workers were physically unattractive bumpkins. Similarly, The Riordans, depicted a rural village of plain-looking, curtain-twitching yokels, who were dull, gossipy, and mostly Catholics.
In one scene, broadcasted around suppertime, the young goofy protagonist, Benji, had his arm up a cow’s rectum (part of an artificial insemination process). In another scene, Benji’s parents, looking more like his grandparents, are having tea in the kitchen when the ceiling caves in on them.
The name Benji subsequently became slang for something smelly, as in, “there’s a smell of Benji off you.” One can imagine young boys viewing such scenes as something to be avoided when pondering on their future careers; or young women thinking, “I don’t want to marry a farmer. All that drudgery, muck, and hard labour.”
These women in Western countries during the 1970s would also have viewed The Mary Tyler Moore Show: A sexy sitcom on the joys of a young woman being carefree, beautiful, single, and working as a journalist.
When Moore died in 2017, Newsweek wrote: “It would be an understatement to say The Mary Tyler Moore Show was an important moment in the women’s rights movement in the 1970s.” But the MTM show was a lot tamer than what followed some 25 years later in the hit TV series, Sex and the City: The story of four single young attractive women with top-class professions.
Some of these women are depicted more sexually overt compared to the MTM character. In such a decadent “exciting world,” who needs motherhood and family? Yes, the family-destroying Feminist project was in full flight in tandem with the MTM show and, later, SATC, influencing tens of millions of young Feminists who craved “Girl power” and “freedom.”
Aside from the the television programmes, fast-forward to recent times: In 2023, Irish farmers were pressured to cull up to 200,000 cows to meet climate goals. Most farmers did not go along with this, as dairy farmers, whose herds allegedly produce much of Ireland’s emissions, said large-scale culling was not the answer.
In England, the main political parties were recently up in arms regarding a row about farming finances. During the last Budget, Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, was slammed for “destroying the family farm” by imposing inheritance tax on agricultural land.
According to Daily Mail, TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of leaving all farmers “f****d,” following her inheritance tax raid during an explosive broadside online.
Reeves dropped a £40bn tax bomb, and was accused of destroying the traditional family farm. The result is that, for all farms worth more than £1 million (this includes expensive equipment), the ‘death tax’ will apply with a 50% relief at an effective rate of 20% from April 2026. The UK Spectator reported some constituents warned they would “have to now consider selling up.” A popular TV star called Jeremy Clarkson, who owns a 1,000-acre farm in Oxfordshire, posted on X that farmers had been “shafted” by Labour’s inheritance tax hike.
Eva Vlaardingerbroek is a Dutch common-sense politician and farmers’ activist. She said there is a global war on farming going on under the guise of ‘saving’ our ‘greatest global good’: The planet. In a recently published policy paper called Powering Up Britain, ‘The Net Zero Growth Plan,’ the UK government announced that it has a plan to tackle cows’ seemingly deadly burps and farts.
Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live recently, a potato farmer called Mark said he was left fearing for his livelihood. He told host Nicky Campbell: “It was a sleepless night last night. I started farming 27 years ago … and I have no idea where to go now.
“I’m a third-generation farmer. My next-door neighbour calls us a window-box farmer; we’re just under 500 acres … I’ve worked out I will have £2 million to pay. I have no idea what I’ve got to do other than it will be sold and I will be the last generation which will farm it, which will be a sad state of affairs.”
As for America, farm debt is at an all-time high and thousands of farmers have given up farming. In 2019, Time magazine wrote: “Suicides in farm communities are happening with alarming frequency. Farmers aren’t the only workers in the American economy being displaced by technology, but when they lose their jobs, they are also ejected from their homes and the land that’s been in their family for generations.”
Despite the doom and gloom, we should never lose hope. As we begin our journey at the dawn of 2025, things might get better, as there are many signs of a regime change. History shows us that these (circa) 50-year paradigm shifts come in cycles. Ultimately, God is in charge.
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| Spanish bishops condemn mockery of Sacred Heart of Jesus on Spanish public television |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-05-2025, 07:12 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Spanish bishops condemn mockery of Sacred Heart of Jesus on Spanish public television
![[Image: sacredheartofjesus010225.jpg?w=670&h=447]](https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/storage/image/sacredheartofjesus010225.jpg?w=670&h=447)
The Sacred Heart of Jesus. | Credit: Unidentified painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
ACI Prensa Staff [adapted] | Jan 3, 2025
Spain’s bishops are speaking out after the host of a new year’s countdown on Spanish public television showed during the broadcast a picture with the face of the mascot of a well-known program in place of the face of Jesus on a traditional image of the Sacred Heart.
Laura Yustres Vélez, known as “Lalachús,” is a Spanish actress and comedian who appears on the program “La Revuelta” (“The Revolt”), a nighttime comedy show on Spanish public television characterized by its irreverent humor and asking the show’s guests about their sex life and financial worth.
Yustres starred on the New Year’s Eve episode along with David Broncano, host of “La Revuelta,” in a segment from the Puerta del Sol, a large plaza in Madrid, as its famous clock chimed the last few moments of 2024.
At one point during the broadcast, Lalachús showed an image in which the face of a bull that is a character on “El Gran Prix,” a well-known family entertainment show in Spain, was superimposed over where the face of Jesus would be in an image of the Sacred Heart.
The image includes a halo behind the character’s head, a Sacred Heart on the chest on which the left hand rests, and the right hand is raised with three fingers extended and two folded, symbolizing the Trinity.
“I always carry my little image of the Vaquilla [‘the cute bull’] of the ‘Gran Prix’ with me,” said Yustres, showing it to the viewers as one of her amulets for the new year.
Spanish bishops react
The president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Luis Argüello, said he was saddened by the controversial image. “With the excuse of freedom of expression and the excesses of the festivities, TVE [Spanish public television] makes fun of the symbol of the heart so dear to all Catholics,” he said.
“The saddest thing is that those responsible are not aware of what they’re doing. Once again banality surrounds us,” he added.
The archbishop of Seville, José Ángel Saiz Meneses, also criticized the mockery and asked: “How long will they take advantage of our patience?”
The archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, emphasized that “if she tried to do [the same thing] with [an image of] Mohammed, it wouldn’t be funny at all.”
The bishop of Vitoria, Juan Carlos Elizalde, pointed out that “Catholics are not second-class citizens, and even less so in a country where the vast majority of citizens are baptized or are children of Catholics.”
Fernando Prado, the bishop of Bilbao, invited people to protest the incident by choosing other television options next year.
Christian Lawyers Foundation files complaint
The Spanish Christian Lawyers Foundation filed a complaint against the president of Spanish Radio Television, José Pablo López, and Yustres for an alleged hate crime under Article 510 of the Spanish Penal Code and another complaint in violation of religious sentiments under the code’s Article 525.
In addition, the complaint points out that López posted on his social media the image of Yustres holding the altered holy card, together with other images from the program, stating he is “happy to work with people who take risks.”
For the lawyers, “this message on social media shows that the mockery of Christians had, at the very least, his approval or was even orchestrated by him.”
The organization also charged “that attacks on Christians are being used to create controversy and thus increase viewership, something that already happened with the opening gala of the Olympic Games” and that “the use of the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the [bull] on the ‘Gran Prix’ denotes clear contempt and mockery toward the rites and symbols of Catholicism and constitutes an affront, an insult, and an outrage toward religious sentiments and Catholic beliefs.”
Eliminating crimes against religious sentiments
Last July, the Spanish government announced it would address the issue of eliminating the crime against religious sentiments from the penal code, which has been criticized by different entities and personalities, including the president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference.
The announcement became official last September when the measure was included in the so-called Action Plan for Democracy.
Argüello noted on X that “feelings have been elevated to a category in the law, for example, to be able to change one’s sex; more and more expressions are considered hate crimes. In this environment of paying tribute to emotions in the law, religious sentiments cease to be a protected good in the law.”
The government’s intention has also been opposed by Christian denominations other than the Catholic Church as well as by the Jewish and Muslim communities.
In a recent joint statement they stressed that “as citizens and believers, we also claim the right of our faithful to be able to live their faith in a climate of respect for religious sentiments, protected by other rights also protected by the constitution, such as the right to religious freedom, freedom of conscience, and the right to one’s dignity and moral standing.”
This measure would remove Spain from the majority of the countries in the European Union that protect religious freedom, since 21 of the 27 member states provide penalties for actions against religious sentiments.
The minister of the Presidency, Justice, and Relations with Parliament, Félix Bolaños, reacted to the complaint by Christian Lawyers with a message on X stating that their complaint represents an “attempt by the right-wing opposition to intimidate” in which he reiterated the government’s intention to repeal the crime of offending religious sentiments.
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| Nativity Scene Figures Near Madrid Beheaded |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-04-2025, 08:12 AM - Forum: Anti-Catholic Violence
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Nativity Scene Figures Near Madrid Beheaded
![[Image: xgky83q2lvoba4fv74zx5mmqmb0fngogrvl48ug....06&webp=on]](https://seedus6826.gloriatv.net/storage1/xgky83q2lvoba4fv74zx5mmqmb0fngogrvl48ug.webp?secure=g5OPnoMAHmzLA01qKz1_dg&expires=1736123506&webp=on)
gloria.tv | January 3, 2025
Several figures of the famous Nativity Scene of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in the mountains near Madrid were decapitated on January 2, reports TeleMadrid.es.
Graffiti was also found on the structures of the nativity scene. This Nativity Scene has existed for 27 years. It is visited by more than 100,000 people every year. 500 life-size figures are handcrafted and placed on an area of more than 6,000 m2.
The decapitated figures are those of Herod's castle. The Nativity Scene was inaugurated on December 7 and will be on display until January 7.
Already in 2021, some figures were attacked and destroyed. Since then, surveillance cameras have been installed to prevent such acts and to find the perpetrators.
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| Spanish Republic: Attempts to Deny the Anti-Church Genocide |
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Posted by: Stone - 01-04-2025, 08:10 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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Spanish Republic: Attempts to Deny the Anti-Church Genocide
![[Image: w1k87clmg7m8mi74zn3f0y0l6aqcepk2stayzuv....71&webp=on]](https://seedus2043.gloriatv.net/storage1/w1k87clmg7m8mi74zn3f0y0l6aqcepk2stayzuv.webp?secure=VLlvWpvpS82LrSTEEqSPCw&expires=1736198771&webp=on)
gloria.tv | January 3, 2025
The hatred of the Spanish Popular Front (Communists) against the Church in 1936 went so far as to regularly desecrate the tombs in churches and cathedrals, even posing with the corpses, writes Juan Manuel de Prada in Abc.es (30 December).
After ten years of "hard work", four "political scientists" have produced a forty-page (sic) study in which they claim that the massacres of priests, nuns and religious during the Spanish Civil War were not motivated by hatred but had a "strategic character".
The left has 'explained' the massacres as the work of people who were 'out of control' or who 'disobeyed' the orders of the [Communist] authorities.
De Prada exposes this as a "completely implausible thesis" and writes that "delirious studies are being promoted [by the heirs of the genocidaires] in an attempt to justify these crimes.
In order to avoid the characterisation of the Left as an organisation gangrenous with a blistering hatred, these apologists claim that the violence against the Church was "neither blind nor indiscriminate, but rather obeyed political calculations" and sought to "prevent the formation of a resistance" against the Spanish Republic.
In other words, in order to deny that the massacres were dictated by hatred, they defend the existence of a calculated plan to destroy a "dangerous" group.
In their attempt to deny a hate crime, they acknowledge the existence of a "calculated genocide" directed against "figures with the capacity to mobilise, which points to the strategic nature of the violence".
De Prada recalls that in those unhappy years 13 bishops, 4,184 priests, 2,365 religious and 283 women were murdered. In the Spanish Civil War, however, Church hierarchs and novices, barely out of their teens and with no 'mobilisation capacity', were killed indiscriminately.
Juan Manuel de Prada had the opportunity to study the 'anti-clerical violence' of the Civil War while writing the biography of the Catalan writer Ana María Martínez Sagi (+2000).
Martínez Sagi came from a good family but ended up embracing the murderous anarchist ideology and demonic rage against the Catholic faith, which she exposes in many bile-filled articles.
De Prada offers some quotations published in Nuevo Aragón on 12 May 1937:
Quote:"It would be necessary, out of dignity and ethics, to wage a campaign against those who have unjustly adopted the attitude of mourning beggars, of tortured outcasts, of victims and martyrs, persecuted by misfortune and calamity.
"The Catholic religion, with its justifications for sacrifice, resignation and renunciation, with its anathemas against joy, material enjoyment, against the pursuit of glory and triumph, with its lurid legends and the martyrology of its thousands of saints, has succeeded in darkening the spirit and the life of the majority of mortals".
"Let us fiercely persecute all those who, systematically and with malicious intent, seek to destroy our faith in the destiny of humanity, our faith in ourselves and in the results of our efforts and our work".
"Let all our anger, all our hatred fall on them".
Unsurprisingly, all this is hushed up in the disinformation encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
Such a criminal appetite would lead organisations 'in the service of the Republic' to incite their followers to commit all kinds of crimes in order to eradicate the Church.
In the regime's press of the time, calls for murder, destruction and religious devastation were constant.
De Prada cites as an example an editorial published in Solidaridad Obrera on 18 October 1936:
Quote:"It is necessary to destroy. All the old dogmas must be reduced to ashes. And on the ashes of so much barbarism, raise the monument of freedom. Without hesitation, with blood and fire".
"Not only must not a single beetle be left standing, but we must uproot every germ it has hatched. We must destroy! Their world and ours are incompatible, they do not fit into one, they drown. So let them die, for they represent barbarism, uncivilisation and, what is worse, a constant danger to our existence".
De Prada concludes that the persecution of Catholics was not about "rendering leaderless" an enemy organisation.
He quotes Chesterton, who spoke of a "halo of hatred" which opposes the Church of God from the outside.
"And now they [= the Left] are trying to disguise that halo of hatred academically, to justify it vomitously as a necessary 'strategy'," he writes.
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