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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Eighth Week after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-23-2023, 06:18 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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What joy will he experience at the Judgment when he hears these welcome words: Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! But it is written: What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. Let us weigh well what things we have hitherto been sowing, and let us do now what we shall then wish to have done.
I.
What great consolation he will enjoy at the Judgment hour who, for the love of Jesus Christ, has been detached from all worldly things; who has loved contempt, and mortified the body; who, in a word has loved only God!
What joy will he experience in hearing these welcome words: Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! Be glad and rejoice, for now thou art saved, and there is no longer any fear of being lost.
On the contrary, the soul which leaves this life in a state of sin, will, even before Jesus condemns it, condemn itself, and declare itself deserving of hell.
O Mary, my powerful advocate, pray to Jesus for me. Help me, now that thou art able to help me. For then thou wouldst have to see me perish and not be able to assist me.
What things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap (Gal. vi. 8). Let us consider what things we have hitherto been sowing, and let us do now what we shall then wish to have done.
If now, within an hour, we had to stand for judgment, how much should we be willing to give to purchase another year? And how are we going to employ the years which remain for us?
II.
The Abbot Agatho, after long years of penance, when he thought of Judgment, would say: “What will become of me when I shall be judged?” And holy Job exclaimed: What shall I do when God shall rise to judge? And when he shall examine, what shall I answer him? (Job. xxxi. 14). And what shall we answer when Jesus Christ calls us to account for the graces He has bestowed upon us, and for the bad use we have made of them?
O my God, deliver not up to beasts the souls that confess to thee (Ps. lxxiii. 19). I do not deserve pardon, but Thou wouldst not have me to lose confidence in Thy mercy. Save me, O Lord, and raise me up from the mire of my miseries. I desire to amend my life, do Thou assist me.
The cause to be decided at the hour of our death will be one that will involve eternal happiness or eternal misery. Hence we should be most careful in using our utmost endeavours to secure success. Each one, considering this, should say to himself: Yes, this is true. Why, therefore, do I not leave all things to give myself entirely to God? Seek ye the Lord, while he may be found (Is. lv. 6). The sinner who thinks to find God at the Judgment after death will not find Him. But in life he who seeks Him, finds Him.
O Jesus, if hitherto I have despised Thy love, I now seek for nothing but to love Thee and to be loved by Thee. Grant that I may find Thee, O God of my soul!
Spiritual Reading
PRAYER
GOD WISHES ALL MEN TO BE SAVED.
Taking, then, for granted that Prayer is necessary for the attainment of Eternal Life, as we have proved, we ought, consequently, to take for granted also that every one has Divine assistance to enable him actually to pray, without need of any further special grace; and that by Prayer he may obtain all the other graces necessary to enable him to persevere in keeping the Commandments, and thus gain Eternal Life; so that no one who is lost can ever excuse himself by saying that it was through want of the aid necessary for his salvation. For as God, in the natural order, has ordained that man should be born naked, and in want of several things necessary for life, but then has given him hands and intelligence to clothe himself and provide for his other needs; so, in the supernatural order, man is born unable to obtain salvation by his own strength; but God in His goodness grants to every one the grace of Prayer, by which he is able to obtain all other graces which he needs in order to keep the Commandments and to be saved.
But before I come to treat this point, I must first establish Two Preliminary Propositions:
FIRST PRELIMINARY PROPOSITION
GOD WISHES ALL MEN TO BE SAVED, AND THEREFORE CHRIST DIED TO SAVE ALL MEN.
(a) God wishes all men to be saved.
God loves all things that He has created: For thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made (Wis. xi. 25). Now love cannot be idle: “All love has a force of its own, and cannot be idle,” says St. Augustine. Hence love necessarily implies benevolence, so that the person who loves cannot help doing good to the person beloved whenever there is an opportunity: “Love persuades a man to do those things which he believes to be good for him whom he loves,” says Aristotle. If, then, God loves all men, He must, in consequence, will that all should obtain Eternal salvation, which is the one and sovereign good of man, seeing that it is the one end for which he was created: You have your fruit unto sanctification; and the end life everlasting (Rom. vi. 22).
This doctrine, that God wishes all men to be saved, and that Jesus Christ died for the salvation of all, is now a certain doctrine taught by the Catholic Church, as theologians in common teach, for example, Petavius, Gonet, Gotti, and others, besides Tourneley, who adds, that it is a doctrine all but of Faith.
1.–Proved from Decision of the Church.
With reason, therefore, were the Predestinarians condemned, who, among their errors, taught that God does not will all men to be saved, as Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, testifies of them: “The ancient Predestinarians asserted that God does not will all men to be saved, but only those who are saved.” These persons were condemned, first in the Council of Arles, A.D. 475, which pronounced “anathema to him that said that Christ did not die for all men, and that He does not will all to be saved.” They were next condemned in the Council of Lyons, A.D. 490, where Lucidus was forced to retract, and also to proclaim, “I condemn the man who says that Christ did not suffer for the salvation of all men.” So also in the ninth century, Gottschalk, who renewed the same error, was condemned by the Council of Quercy, A.D. 853, in the third Article of which it was decided, “God wills all men, without exception, to be saved, although all men be not saved.” These men were justly condemned, precisely because they taught that God does not will all men to be saved; since from the proposition that those whom God wills to be saved are infallibly saved, it would logically follow that God does not will even all the faithful to be saved, let alone all men.
This was also clearly expressed by the Council of Trent, in which it was said that Jesus Christ died, “that all might receive the adoption of sons,” and again it says: “But though He died for all, yet all do not receive the benefits of His death.” The Council, then, takes for granted that the Redeemer died not only for the elect, but also for those who, through their own fault, do not receive the benefit of Redemption. Nor is it of any use to affirm that the Council only meant to say that Jesus Christ has given to the world a ransom sufficient to save all men; for in this sense we might say that He died also for the devils. Moreover, the Council of Trent intended here to reprove the errors of those innovators, who, not denying that the Blood of Christ was sufficient to save all, yet asserted that in fact it was not shed and given for all. This is the error which the Council intended to condemn when it said that our Saviour died for all. Further, in Chapter VI, it says that sinners are put in a fit state to receive justification by hope in God through the merits of Jesus Christ: “They are raised to hope, trusting that God will be merciful to them through Christ.” Now, if Jesus Christ had not applied to all the merits of His Passion, then, since no one (without a special revelation) could be certain of being among the number of those to whom the Redeemer had willed to apply the fruit of His merits, no sinner could entertain such hope, not having the certain and secure foundation which is necessary for hope; namely, that God wills all men to be saved, and will grant pardon to all sinners made worthy of it by the merits of Jesus Christ.
2.–Proved from the celebrated text of St. Paul.
On the other hand, both the Scriptures and all the Fathers assure us that God sincerely and really wishes the salvation of all men and the conversion of all sinners, as long as they are in this world. For this we have, first of all, the express words of St. Paul: Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii. 4). The sentence of the Apostle is absolute and decisive–God wills all men to be saved. These words in their natural sense declare that God truly wills all men to be saved; and it is a certain rule received in common by all, that the words of Scripture are to be interpreted in the literal sense, except in the sole case where the literal sense is repugnant to Faith and morals. St. Bonaventure writes precisely to our purpose when he says: “We must hold that when the Apostle says, God wills all men to be saved, it is necessary to grant that He does will it.”
It is true that St. Augustine and St. Thomas mention different interpretations which have been given to this text, but both these Doctors understand it to mean a real will of God to save all, without exception.
And concerning St. Augustine, we shall see just now that this was his true opinion; so that St. Prosper protests against attributing to him the idea that God did not sincerely wish the salvation of all men, and of each individual, as an aspersion on the holy Doctor. Hence the same St. Prosper, who was a most faithful disciple of his, says: “It is most sincerely to be believed and confessed that God wills all men to be saved; since the Apostle (whose very words these are) is particular in commanding that prayers should be made to God for all.”
The argument of the Saint is clear, founded on St. Paul’s words in the above-cited passage: I desire, therefore,… that supplications, prayers … be made for all men (1 Tim. ii. 1); and then he adds: For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved (1 Tim. ii. 3, 4). So the Apostle wishes us to pray for all, exactly in the sense that God wishes the salvation of all. St. Chrysostom uses the same argument: “If He wills all to be saved, surely we ought to pray for all. If He desires all to be saved, do you also be of one mind with Him.” And if in some passages in his controversy with the Semi-Pelagians, St. Augustine seems to have held a different interpretation of this text, saying that God does not will the salvation of each individual, but only of some, Petavius well observes that here the holy Father speaks only incidentally, not with direct intention; or at any rate, that he speaks of the grace of that absolute and victorious will (voluntas absoluta et victrix) with which God absolutely wills the salvation of some persons, and of which the Saint elsewhere says, “The will of the Almighty is always invincible.”
Let us hear how St. Thomas uses another method of reconciling the opinion of St. Augustine with that of St. John Damascene, who holds that antecedently God wills all and each individual to be saved: “God’s first intention is to will all men to be saved, that as Good He may make us partakers of His goodness: but after we have sinned, He wills as Just to punish us.” On the other hand, St. Augustine (as we have seen) seems in a few passages to think differently. But St. Thomas reconciles these opinions, and says St. John Damascene spoke of the antecedent will of God, by which he really wills all men to be saved, while St. Augustine spoke of the consequent will. He then goes on to explain the meaning of antecedent and consequent will: “Antecedent will is that by which God wills all to be saved; but when all the circumstances of this or that individual are considered, it is not found to be good that all men should be saved; for it is good that he who prepares himself, and consents to it, should be saved; but not good that he who is unwilling and resists… And this is called the consequent will, because it presupposes a foreknowledge of a man’s deeds, not as a cause of the act of will, but as a reason for the thing willed and determined.” …
And again: “God, by His most liberal will, gives grace to every one that prepares himself–who wills all men to be saved; and therefore the grace of God is wanting to no man, but as far as He is concerned He communicates it to every one.” … And St. Thomas again, and more distinctly, declares what he means by antecedent and consequent will: “A judge antecedently wishes every man to live, but he consequently wishes a murderer to be hanged; so God antecedently wills every man to be saved, but He consequently wills some to be damned; in consequence, that is, of the exigencies of His justice.”
I have no intention here of blaming the opinion that men are predestined to glory previously to the provision of their merits; I only say that I cannot understand how those who think that God, without any regard to their merits, has elected some to eternal life, and excluded others, can therefore persuade themselves that He wills all to be saved; unless, indeed, they mean that this will of God is not true and sincere, but rather a hypothetical or metaphorical will…
It is certain that the happiness of a creature consists in the attainment of the end for which he was created. It is likewise certain that God creates all men for eternal life. If, therefore, God, having created certain men for eternal life, had thereupon, without regard to their sins, excluded them from it, He would in creating them have utterly hated them without cause, and would have done them the greatest injury they could possibly suffer in excluding them from the attainment of their end, that is, of the glory for which they had been created: “For,” says Petavius in a passage which we abridge, “God cannot feel indifferent whether He loves or hates His creatures, especially men, whom He either loves to eternal life or hates to damnation. Now it is the greatest evil that can befall man to be alienated from God and to be reprobate; wherefore, if God wills the everlasting destruction of any man’s soul, He does not love him, but hates him with the greatest hatred possible in that kind which transcends the natural order.” … “Wherefore,” Petavius concludes, “if God loves every man with a love which is antecedent to his merits, He does not hate his soul, and therefore He does not desire the greatest evil to him.” If, then, God loves all men, as is certain, we ought to hold that He wills all to be saved, and that He has never hated any one to such a degree that He has willed to do him the greatest evil, by excluding him from glory previously to the prevision of his demerits.
I say, however, and repeat again and again, that I cannot understand it; for this matter of predestination is so profound a mystery, that it made the Apostle exclaim: Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? (Rom. xi. 33, 34). We ought to submit ourselves to the will of God, Who has chosen to leave this mystery in obscurity in His Church, that we all may humble ourselves under the deep judgments of His Divine Providence. All the more, because Divine grace, by which alone men gain eternal life, is dispensed more or less abundantly by God entirely gratuitously, and without any regard to our merits. So that to save ourselves it will always be necessary for us to throw ourselves into the arms of the Divine Mercy, in order that God may assist us with His grace to obtain salvation, trusting always in His infallible promises to hear and save the man who prays to Him.
But let us return to our point, that God sincerely wills all men to be saved.
3.–There are other texts which prove the same thing.
As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked may turn from his way and live (Ezech. xxxiii. 11). He says that not only does He not will the death, but that He wills the life of a sinner; and He swears, as Tertullian observes, in order that He may be more readily believed in this: “When moreover He swears, saying, as I live, He desires to be believed.”
Further, David says: For wrath is in his indignation, and life in his will (Ps. xxix. 6). If He chastises us, He does it because our sins provoke Him to indignation; but as to His will, He wills not our death but our life; Life in his will. St. Basil says concerning this text, that God wills all to be made partakers of life. David says elsewhere: Our God is the God of salvation; … of the Lord are the issues from death (Ps. lxvii. 21). On this Bellarmine says: “This is proper to Him; this is His nature; our God is a saving God, and His are the issues from death–that is, liberation from death”; so that it is God’s proper nature to save all, and to deliver all from eternal death.
Our Lord says: Come to me, all ye that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you (Matt. xi. 28). If He calls all to salvation, then He truly wills all to be saved. Again, St. Peter says: He willeth not that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (2. Pet. iii. 9). He does not will the damnation of any one, but He wills that all should do penance, and so be saved.
Again the Lord says: Behold I stand at the gate and knock. If any man shall open to me the door I will come in to him. Why will you die, O house of Israel? Return ye and live (Ezech. xviii. 31, 32). What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? (Is. v. 4). How often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not! (Matt. xxiii. 37). How could the Lord have said that He stands knocking at the hearts of us sinners? How exhort us so strongly to return to His arms? How reproach us by asking what more He could have done for our salvation? How say that He has willed to receive us as children, if he had not a true will to save all men? Again, St. Luke relates that our Lord, looking on Jerusalem from a distance, and contemplating the destruction of its people because of sin, wept: Seeing the city, he wept over it (Luke xix. 41). Why did He weep then, says Theophylact (after St. Chrysostom), seeing the ruin of the Jews, unless it was because He really desired their salvation? How, then, after so many attestations of our Lord, in which He makes known to us that He wills to see all men saved, how can it ever be said that God does not will the salvation of all? “But if these texts of Scripture,” says Petavius, “in which God has testified His will in such clear and often-repeated expressions, nay even with tears and with an oath, may be abused and distorted to the very opposite sense–namely, that God determined to send all mankind (except a few) to perdition, and never had a will to save them, what dogma of Faith is so clear as to be safe from similar injury and cavil?” … And Cardinal Sfondrati adds: “Those who think otherwise seem to me to make God a mere stage-god; like those people who pretend to be kings in a play, when indeed they are anything but kings.”
4.–Proved from the general consent of the Fathers.
Moreover, this truth, that God wills all men to be saved, is confirmed by the general consent of the Fathers. There can be no doubt that all the Greek Fathers are unanimous in saying that God wills all and each individual to be saved. So, St. Justin, St. Basil, St. Gregory, St. Cyril, St. Methodius, and St. Chrysostom, all adduced by Petavius. But let us see what the Latin Fathers say.
St. Jerome: “God wills to save all; but since no man is saved without his own will, God wills us to will what is good, that when we have willed, He may also will to fulfil His designs in us.” And in another place: “God therefore willed to save those who desire (to be saved); and He invited them to salvation that their will might have its reward; but they would not believe in Him.”
St. Hilary: “God would have all men to be saved, and not those alone who are to belong to the number of the elect, but all absolutely, so as to make no exception.”
St. Paulinus: “Christ says to all: Come to me, etc.; for He, the Creator of all men, so far as He is concerned, wills every man to be saved.”
St. Ambrose: “Even with respect to the wicked He had to manifest His will (to save them), and therefore He could not pass over His betrayer, that all might see that in the election even of the traitor He exhibits His desire to save all … and, so far as God is concerned, He shows to all that He was willing to deliver all.” …
St. Chrysostom asks: “Why then are not all men saved, if God wills all to be saved?” And he answers: “Because every man’s will does not coincide with God’s will, and He forces no man.”
St. Augustine: “God wills all men to be saved, but not so as to destroy their free will.” He says the same thing in several other places to which we shall refer later.
Evening Meditation
THE PRACTICE OF THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST
“Charity endureth all things”
HE THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST WITH A STRONG LOVE DOES NOT CEASE TO LOVE HIM IN THE MIDST OF TEMPTATIONS AND DESOLATIONS
I.
Let us come now to the means which we have to employ in order to vanquish temptations. Spiritual masters prescribe a variety of means; but the most necessary, and the safest, of which only I will here speak, is to have immediate recourse to God with all humility and confidence, saying: “Incline unto my aid, O God; O Lord make haste to help me!” This short prayer will enable us to overcome the assaults of all the devils of hell; for God is infinitely more powerful than all of them. Almighty God knows well that of ourselves we are unable to resist the temptations of the infernal powers; and on this account the most learned Cardinal Gotti remarks that “whenever we are assailed, and in danger of being overcome, God is obliged to give us strength enough to resist as often as we call upon Him for it.”
And how can we doubt of receiving help from Jesus Christ, after all the promises He has made us in the Holy Scriptures? Come to me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you (Matt. xi. 28). Come to Me, ye who are wearied in fighting against temptations, and I will restore your strength. Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me (Ps. xlix. 15). When thou seest thyself troubled by thine enemies, call upon Me, and I will bring thee out of danger, and thou shalt praise Me. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall hear: thou shalt cry, and He shall say, Here I am (Is. lviii. 9). Then shalt thou call upon the Lord for help, and He will hear thee: thou shalt cry out, Quick, O Lord, help me! and He will say to thee, Behold, here I am; I am present to help thee. Who hath called upon him and he despised him? (Ecclus. ii. 12). And who, says the Prophet, has ever called upon God, and God has despised him and given him no help? David felt sure of never falling a prey to his enemies, whilst he could have recourse to God. He says: Praising, I will call upon the Lord: and I shall be saved from my enemies (Ps. xvii. 4). For he well knew that God is close to all who invoke His aid: The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him (Ps. cxliv. 18). And St. Paul adds that the Lord is by no means sparing, but lavish of graces towards all that pray to Him: Rich unto all that call upon him. (Rom. x. 12).
II.
Oh, would to God that all men had recourse to Him whenever they are tempted to offend Him; they would then certainly never commit sin! They unhappily fall, because, led away by the cravings of their vicious appetites, they prefer to lose God, the Sovereign Good, than to forego their wretched short-lived pleasures. Experience gives us manifest proofs that whoever calls on God in temptation does not fall; and whoever fails to call on Him, as surely falls: and this is especially true of temptations to impurity. Solomon himself said that he knew very well that he could not be chaste unless God gave him the grace to be so; and therefore he invoked Him by prayer in the moment of temptation: And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it … I went to the Lord and besought him (Wis. viii. 21). In temptations against purity (and the same holds good with regard to those against Faith), we must take it as a rule never to stay and combat the temptation hand to hand; but we must endeavour immediately to get rid of it indirectly by making a good act of the love of God or of sorrow for our sins, or else by applying ourselves to some indifferent occupation calculated to distract us. As soon as we discover a thought of evil tendency, we must disown it immediately, and, so to speak, close the door in its face, and deny it all entrance into the mind, without tarrying in the least to examine its object or errand. We must cast away these foul suggestions as quickly as we would shake off a hot spark from the fire.
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| Giorgio La Pira: A Catholic Communist by Dr. Carol Byrne |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-20-2023, 06:21 AM - Forum: The Architects of Vatican II
- Replies (11)
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La Pira: A Catholic Communist
Part I - What La Pira Expected from the Council
by Dr. Carol Byrne
Taken from here, slightly adapted.
What was it about Giorgio La Pira, twice Mayor of Florence, (1) that elicited the highest praise not only from Dorothy Day but also from Popes Paul VI, John Paul II (who opened his Cause in 1986) and Benedict XVI? And why was it that John XXIII had protected him from all criticism on the grounds that he was a Catholic and therefore beyond reproach? (2)
![[Image: J049_lapira1.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_g-k/J049_lapira1.jpg)
Giorgio La Pira extending a hand to Communism with a smiling, ‘Christian’ face
The answer, in a nutshell, is that they were all Catholics friendly to Communism.
- Dorothy Day called him “a saint in politics” who “took the unused homes of the rich to make homes for the poor” without their owners’ permission. (3)
- Paul VI characterized him as “the example every Christian ought to keep firmly in mind during his earthly passage towards the kingdom of God.” (4)
- John Paul II said he was “an exemplary lay Christian” for “the entire Ecclesial Community” and recommended “everyone to cherish his teaching.” (5)
- Benedict XVI said that as “an eminent figure in politics, culture and spirituality of the last century,” La Pira worked “for the cause of fraternal existence among nations,” setting an example to present day Catholics for “a common effort to promote this basic good in various spheres: in society, politics, the economy, cultures and among religions.” (6)
However, it seems to have been forgotten that there was a time – before Vatican II – when La Pira had been strongly criticized in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, for his pro-socialist views. As a Catholic working in collaboration with communists, he earned the nickname of “the little red fish in the holy water font.” In particular, the newspaper expressed “shock” at his pro-communist activism and issued warnings to Catholics notto follow his example. (7)
Let us look at the teaching and example set by this “saint in politics” who is now being considered for formal canonization. Outwardly, La Pira presented himself as an extraordinarily pious Catholic. He attended Mass daily, read the Bible, lived for some years in a monastery cell and was often seen walking around Florence barefoot, having given his shoes, coat, umbrella and most of his salary to the poor. But his good works were accompanied by flamboyant and idiosyncratic gestures, (8) and inwardly he was not lacking in self-aggrandizing flights of fancy.
La Pira’s Dream of the Council
La Pira felt that Florence was a place called by Providence to produce a “great bridge of peace spanning the world” (9) and saw himself at the hub of that world-changing process. Incredibly, what should have been considered as, at best, a piece of comic fiction and, at worst, an advanced case of megalomania, was taken seriously by the Vatican, which published on its official website the following words by Italian journalist and close friend of La Pira, Vittorio Citterich:
![[Image: J049_PaulVI.jpg]](https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/HTimages_g-k/J049_PaulVI.jpg)
Paul VI praised La Pira highly and helped allay suspicions about his socialist policies
"On September 4, 1962, even before the [Conciliar] Assembly began, a contemplative in political activity like Giorgio La Pira ('the charismatic Mayor of Florence,'” as John Paul II defines him in his great prayer for Italy) seemed to sense its potential impact on the future:
“‘How does the Council fit into the great perspective of the Church and the nations in this technical, scientific and space age which marks an unprecedented turning-point in the history of the world? An age in which war is disappearing, peace flourishes, the world is becoming united, ideologies are crumbling and the Church is emerging more and more every day, almost to enlighten it...’” (10)
Here La Pira shows himself to be one of those millenarian impostors who throughout history have sought to mobilize the masses of the poor towards a communistic dream of a Golden Age where everyone would supposedly live together in harmony. When these utopian dreams are put into practice, however, they have always resulted in widespread mayhem and bloodshed.
His “prophetic witness” has, however, been proved false on two counts. Not only have ideologies been given leave to flourish through Vatican II’s “opening” to the world, but the light of Christianity has been almost totally extinguished from whole nations through the Council’s failure to preach the Truth “in season and out of season.” And so the Church has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, a mere plaything in the hands of would-be reformers like La Pira for the progress of humanity in a new social order.
On the eve of Vatican II, La Pira wrote a circular letter to the religious superiors of convents in an attempt to persuade them of the benefits of the revolutionary changes that the upcoming Council was about to introduce into the Church. He described it as a "new society in justice, hope, progress and freedom":
“The Council ‘opens’ … to all the most active schools of ‘social’ thought (in the broadest sense) which affect peoples all over the Earth and have been so decisively influential – and will continue to be so – in building a new science, a new culture a new economy and a new society in justice, hope, progress and freedom.” (11)
But La Pira’s dream was a mirage. It was that very “openness” of the Council to the modern world (celebrated by Pope John XXIII in his inaugural address) that weakened the Church by flooding her with ideas incompatible with Catholic doctrine.
Beneath La Pira’s rhetoric we can discern a recycled version of the discredited Marxist theory of “historical inevitability,” for he believed that he had insight into the driving force of history, the “hidden plan” on which the history of the world was built, and that his political action would guide it in the “proper” direction.
Unfortunately, the message of the Popes to follow La Pira as a leader of Catholic Action is tantamount to an endorsement of his political views which, as we shall see, were ideologically biased towards the most extreme Left of the political spectrum.
Continued
1. La Pira was Mayor of Florence from 1951-1958 and 1961-1965 i.e. before and during the Second Vatican Council
2. See here
3. Catholic Worker, October 1963
4. Wednesday Audience November 9, 1977
5. Letter of John Paul II To Card. Ennio Antonelli on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Birth of Giorgio La Pira, November 1, 2004
6. In a meeting with the National Association of Italian Local Authorities reported by the Catholic News Agency, April 26, 2004
7. See extracts from the L'Osservatore Romano in the archives of the Catholic Herald, e.g. here, here and here
8. Douglas Hyde, a well known convert from Communism, recounted that when La Pira was returning from his mayoral office in the Palazzo Vecchio, he “thumbed a lift on the back of a passing Vespa motor scooter, ridden by a teenage boy” and entertained his official guest to lunch “sitting on a landing at the top of the stairs in a home for juvenile delinquents”. (Douglas Hyde, ‘Hurricane Mayor’, Catholic Herald July 15, 1955, see here
9. La Pira, Letter of 28 October 1970, quoted by Giulio Andreotti in 30 Days Magazine, February 2004
10. Vittorio Critterich, ‘And the Church becomes News for the World’
See here.
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| Opinion: First it was Covid – now we’re being scared into submission over the weather |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-19-2023, 06:03 AM - Forum: General Commentary
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First it was Covid – now we’re being scared into submission over the weather
There’s no denying it’s hot in Europe, but it feels like sunshine is being weaponised in a bid to get us to adjust our ways to hit net zero
![[Image: TELEMMGLPICT000343057029_16896978465920_...mwidth=960]](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/columnists/2023/07/18/TELEMMGLPICT000343057029_16896978465920_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqnhOKBabfOLZJQBViQ93mSOCFylYSPGVSIorX81r5RaU.jpeg?imwidth=960)
Weather maps are starting to look terrifying
The Telegraph.co.uk [adapted - not all hyperlinks included] | 18 July 2023
Brace yourselves, travel agents of Britain! People have been watching those hysterical chaps with their flapping arms and their weather maps like a homicidal pizza on the telly. Last week, Europe was burning in the hellish heat of Cerberus, this week it’s Charon.
“Sharon who?”
“Oh, Neville, do keep up. It’s Charon. You know, the man who ferried the dead to the underworld in Greek mythology.”
“What’s that got to do with our fortnight in La Palma, Mary?”
“It’s unbearably hot there, wildfires and everything, according to the BBC. Better cancel, Nev.”
Brrrring brrring, brrring brrrrring.
Neville: Hi there, I’d like to cancel our holiday in La Palma. They say on the news it’s very hot.”
Travel agent (sighing audibly): It’s the summer, Sir. It’s always hot in the Med.”
Neville: I know, but they say it’s dangerously hot in La Palma.”
Agent: Actually, the temperature in La Palma has been in the 20s and it’s forecast to remain below 30. Very pleasant, actually, for the time of year.
Neville: What about the wildfires?
Agent: The fires have nothing to with the heat, Sir. I think you’ll find the BBC spliced clips of the fires in La Palma into its heatwave report to make it look like it was happening in Spain.”
Neville: La Palma isn’t in Spain?”
Agent: Er, no, its 1500 kilometres away, Sir.
Neville: So we shouldn’t bother to cancel?
Agent: I’m afraid your travel insurance doesn’t have a clause covering Nervous Nellies scared half to death by the weather forecast on the TV. Sorry, Sir, it’s non-refundable. You won’t get your money back.”
Neville: Ah, okay. I’ll be glad to get away from this awful weather to be honest with you. Not exactly summer, is it?”
You may have noticed that climate catastrophism has gone nuclear over the past week, as if on cue (we’ll come back to that), but the good old British weather refuses to co-operate. Disappointingly for the We’re All Gonna Fry brigade, it’s cool, rainy and sullen here with fitful gusts of wind; almost autumnal at times. As a July baby, I can tell you this is not unusual for July. (Prince George will have to get used to having his parties in the cloudy drizzle on our mutual birthday.) Still, reporters scour the rest of Europe for better (ie bad) news. Tourists at the Trevi Fountain in Rome are invited to agree that the weather is “unbearable”. If it’s unbearable, why aren’t they back in their hotel rooms with a wet towel on their heads instead of happily licking their pistachio gelato and soaking up the rays? Why are reports of wildfires in La Palma being linked to soaring temperatures, when the weather on the island is in fact unusually mild, and set to be in the mid-20s all week?
Really not very unusual weather events have suddenly acquired important, scary names drawn from the mythological flames of hell. After Cerberus and Charon, get ready for Heatwave Hades. If the current weather in the UK had a name it would be Colin.
Are Brits really “cancelling their holiday plans” because of the “truly terrifying conditions”? Or are they, like me, stocking up on Hawaiian Tropic (used to be sniffy about it, now addicted) from Boots and crawling through the final fortnight of work before I can replenish my stocks of Vitamin D on a Turkish sunlounger.
There is something horribly familiar about all these apocalyptic warnings of catastrophic consequences if people don’t act. “Temperatures across the Mediterranean are nearing the highest ever recorded in Europe with travellers being warned that local medical and health services are strained in some areas.”
Ah, yes, that’s it. Knew we’d heard it before: Stay At Home, Save on Sunscreen, Support Net Zero.
It’s almost as if the same people who scared the pants off us during the pandemic, terrorising people into obeying often idiotic rules, were at it again. The Behavioural Insights Team (aka the Nudge Unit) – spun out of the Cabinet Office, and now working many large corporates, global institutions and national governments – is teaming up with broadcasters to drive messages about climate change.
A report by the BIT in collaboration with Sky TV called ‘The Power of TV: Nudging Viewers to Decarbonise their Lifestyles’ says that “behavioural change on climate can be driven by TV... It comes at a critical time as experts now widely accept that we must shift the behaviour of millions of people to deliver our collective net zero goals”.
You don’t have to be a climate sceptic to find something sinister in the idea of broadcasters plotting to manipulate the public into reaching “our collective goals”. Whose goals are they? Why no questioning of whether this is in the population’s best interest or not? Where are the alternative points of view?
After the disastrous impact of its Covid propaganda on the nation’s mental and physical health, a period of embarrassed silence would be welcome from the Nudge Unit. Yet, here they go again with their sly tricks, their cold calculation of human weakness, their sneaky sleight of hand. What is the betting that the sudden change in TV weather maps, from pastoral greens and shy yellows to diabolical reds, even bruised purples and black, was suggested by the Nudge Unit?
And why has the Foreign Office weighed in, updating the Greece and Spain sections of its website, adding an ‘Extreme Weather’ section detailing how to stay safe during the heatwave as well as “important resources to take note of if heading to the holiday hotspots in the near future”? For heaven’s sake, has no one at the FO heard of this excellent thing called “a siesta”?
None of this is to deny that it looks like a very hot summer for southern Europe – although we must wait for the full statistics to properly assess how it compares with previous heatwaves. But if you were being cynical, and after two years of the entire population being professionally frightened by our own government it’s hard to be otherwise, you would conclude that sunshine is being weaponised in a bid to get the British people to adjust their ways to hit an unattainable and self-harming net zero target.
No. No. We have been shamefully mistreated by our masters, criminally misled by “models”, controlled and horribly hurt by unseen forces, and now the wily bunch think because they got away with it last time we will roll over again and do as we’re told. No.
By happy chance, I’ve just read an important new book, Free Your Mind: The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It. Authors Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan have some great ideas how to recognise Nudge Unit tactics and how to fight back because “there is a war on for your mind”.
They have over-reached this time, I think, with their lurid weather maps and their brazen attempt to get us to cancel our summer hols. Rebellion is stirring. People are mocking. “In Cyprus, we’re just about holding out,” reports one laconic reader, “Locals simply call it ‘summer’, but what would they know?”
We shall fight the Nudgers on the beaches. We shall fight in the seas and swimming pools. We shall revel in the heat and defend our fortnight in the sun. We shall never surrender our minds to them, for our minds are ours and ours alone.
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| Pope Francis bows to Communist China and confirms bishop appointed by Beijing |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-19-2023, 05:30 AM - Forum: Pope Francis
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Pope Francis bows to Communist China and confirms bishop appointed by Beijing
Pope Francis' approval and appointment of Bishop Shen Bin to Shanghai reveals who really holds power in the Vatican's deal with China.
![[Image: Pope-Xi-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Pope-Xi-810x500.jpg)
Pope Francis and China's Xi Jinping
none & Gil Corzo/Shutterstock
Jul 18, 2023
VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews [adapted]) –– On Saturday, Pope Francis signaled to China and to the world that the secretive Vatican-China deal does indeed surrender the Vatican’s authority and power to the Communist authorities in Beijing.
In the daily bulletin on July 15, the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis had appointed Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai, thus “transferring him from the Diocese of Haimen, Jiangsu Province.”
The significant news was, as has lately become commonplace from the Vatican, issued on a Saturday in an apparent move to draw the least attention possible.
If the name of Bishop Shen Bin is familiar, that is because he was already appointed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as head of the Diocese of Shanghai back on April 4 of this year, in a move which the Vatican was only “informed” about but not involved in.
READ: Chinese Communists blindside Vatican by appointing new bishop without its involvement
His April appointment came from the state-controlled Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, part of the official Chinese state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA).
Shen serves as head of the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Group, which does not recognize the authority of the Holy See with regard to appointing new bishops.
By appointing Shen to Shanghai, the CCP completely disregarded the terms of the secretive 2018 Sino-Vatican deal, which is supposed to be a collaboration between the Vatican and Beijing with regard to appointing bishops.
Instead, the Vatican stated via its press office that “the Holy See had been informed a few days ago of the decision of the Chinese authorities” and then “learned from the media of the settlement” on the morning the event took place.
At the time, the Vatican-recognized bishop of Shanghai was actually Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who had been appointed to the see as its auxiliary in 2012, with the CCP believing him to be loyal to them. However, after his consecration, he denounced and left the CPA and was subsequently sequestered to house arrest in a nearby seminary.
Shen himself had been recognized by the Vatican in his former diocese of Haimen at the time of his move to Shanghai.
Chinese authorities subsequently visited his new see of Shanghai in May, in order to ensure that he was propagating CCP-approved policies. Local news reports wrote that the visitation was to “study the local church’s progress on the implementation of socialist policies” and to enforce the “Chineseization (Sinicization) of religion.”
With such background, the Pope’s move to retroactively approve the CCP’s decision was widely slated by Catholics who have expressed concerns about the Vatican’s current relationship with Beijing. “Francis’s China policy is fully exposed as an unforgivable, wicked betrayal of Chinese Catholics, as he is forced to act as an agent of the CCP in installing its stooge as Bishop of Shanghai,” wrote The Spectator’s Damian Thompson.
Vatican’s Secretary of State defends move
The Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has, along with Pope Francis, continually defended the deal, which has been twice renewed since its inception in fall 2018. He continued this record on Saturday with the publication of an interview conducted with Vatican News, in which he explained and defended Pope Francis’ decision to approve the CCP’s hijacking of the Vatican’s authority.
Parolin stated that the CCP’s move to install Shen—and also Bishop John Peng Weizhao as auxiliary Bishop of Jiangxi, which is a diocese not recognized by the Holy See—“seems to disregard the spirit of dialogue and collaboration established between the Vatican and Chinese sides over the years and which has found a point of reference in the Agreement.” Indeed, regarding Bishop John’s appointment, the Vatican declared that it learnt of the ceremony afterward with “surprise and regret.”
But Parolin told Vatican News that “the Holy Father Francis has decided to heal the canonical irregularity created in Shanghai, in view of the greater good of the Diocese and the fruitful exercise of the Bishop’s pastoral ministry.”
He argued that Pope Francis’ intention in legitimizing the CCP’s transfer of Shen “is fundamentally pastoral and will allow Bishop Shen Bin to work with greater serenity to promote evangelization and foster ecclesial communion.”
READ: Leading Vatican diplomat says China deal the result of decades work but ‘not the best’
Parolin added that the Vatican was still hoping for future collaboration with the CCP on the position of two other bishops, whose positions “have been pending for some time.”
In his interview—which was issued in full to journalists but only partly published by Vatican News—Parolin also fielded questions about the Sino-Vatican deal itself, stating that “the text is confidential because it has not yet been finally approved.”
Such an argument is slightly peculiar, given that the deal has now been renewed twice since 2018—thus calling into doubt its temporary nature—but also given that Pope Francis has previously published online his temporary reforms relating to the Vatican before they were then re-issued in a final version some years later.
The deal, which “revolves around the basic principle of consensuality of decisions affecting bishops,” is effected by “trusting in the wisdom and goodwill of all,” said Parolin.
But China expert Stephen Mosher described the deal as an action which was “perhaps the most controversial of a papacy dogged by controversy.” Critiquing the deal in 2018, Mosher summarized a Vatican capitulation to Beijing and predicted future power-grabs by the Chinese:
Quote:Given all this, why would Beijing not think that the Pope would prove equally compliant in the future in accepting those candidates they would advance? It has never stopped insisting on total control…The only way for the agreement to work is for the Pope simply to go along with Beijing’s choices. To do otherwise would interfere in China’s “sovereignty.”
The emeritus bishop of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen has repeatedly criticized the deal strongly. He described it as an “incredible betrayal” of China’s Catholics and accused the Vatican of “selling out” Chinese Catholics.
READ: Pope Francis’ deal with Communist China has led to greater persecution of Catholics
While Parolin defended the deal as a necessary means of “dialogue” with the Communists authorities, the deal has actually led to a heightened increase in religious persecution since it was signed, which the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China described as a direct consequence of the deal. In its 2020 report, the Commission wrote that the persecution witnessed is “of an intensity not seen since the Cultural Revolution.”
The Commission directly linked the increase in Catholic persecution to the deal: “Subsequently, local Chinese authorities subjected Catholic believers in China to increased persecution by demolishing churches, removing crosses, and continuing to detain underground clergy. The Party-led Catholic national religious organizations also published a plan to ‘sinicize’ Catholicism in China.”
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| Ireland: Another Fake Eucharistic Miracle? |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2023, 05:51 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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These fake Novus Ordo miracles seem to get more fantastic as time goes on! And notice how many of them
somehow involve a lay 'Eucharistic minister' and are also often the result of some kind of sacrilege related to the reception of Communion. - The Catacombs
Eucharistic Miracle in Ireland?
![[Image: ruxs9xhyxvvqdgrq6g06ybzufuow0wdzjrnx83f....29&webp=on]](https://assistant.gloria.tv/1z94gyaCTBei3D8MsGrYwjE6j/ruxs9xhyxvvqdgrq6g06ybzufuow0wdzjrnx83f.webp?secure=U5NjOGeOQOuBq6H9Vo8GMQ&expires=1689937629&webp=on)
gloria.tv | July 16, 2023
Father Philip Kemmy, a parish priest in Raphoe Diocese, Ireland, had just finished handing out Communion while a communion helper was still doing so.
Then, a strange thing happened, he said in a July 13 video posted online. He went to the tabernacle and emptied the remaining hosts into a larger ciborium.
As he was placing it in the tabernacle, he felt something like a flash, as if something had fallen in front of his face.
He genuflected, closed the tabernacle, and took the empty ciborium. He was surprised to see that it contained a host although he was convinced that he had emptied it. He placed this host in the tabernacle.
Later that day, a lady he knew well called him, and asked if he had not noticed anything strange at the tabernacle that day.
Kemmy admitted that he had the impression that a host had fallen from the sky into the ciborium, “Maybe I'm nuts”, he said.
“No, you’re not”, the lady insisted and told him another story. While Kemmy was at the tabernacle, a stranger took communion from the helper who was still distributing it and returned to his place without consuming it.
The lady saw this and was about to confront the man when suddenly, the host in his hand shot up into the air about seven feet, turned around and shot up to the tabernacle where it dropped down. She said that another woman also witnessed this.
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| ‘I Have Many Friends of My Table, But Few of My Cross’ |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-17-2023, 05:33 AM - Forum: The Saints
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In a world deliriously turned toward pride and sensuality, not excluding transhumanism and artificial intelligence that stems from a pride directly against God, and the sins of the flesh against nature, LGBT and all its deviants, the Letter to the Friends of the Cross by St. Louis Grignion de Monfrot is more timely than ever.
Indeed, the response to this madness is to not follow the tornado of scandals in which we live, but rather to become a friend of the Cross and follow the counsels of the Great Saint who taught us how to walk this path.
Today we bring to our readers an excerpt in which St. Louis de Montfort imagines Our Lord Jesus Christ addressing each one of us.
Dear Brethren, remember that our beloved Jesus has His eyes upon you at this moment, addressing you individually: “See how almost everybody leaves Me practically alone on the royal road of the Cross.
“Blind idol worshipers sneer at My Cross and brand it folly. Obstinate Jews are scandalized at the sight of it as at some monstrosity (1 Cor. 1:23). Heretics tear it down and break it to pieces out of sheer contempt.
“But one thing I cannot say without My eyes filling with tears and My heart being pierced with grief is that the very children I nourished in My bosom and trained in My school, the very members I quickened with My spirit, have turned against Me, forsaken Me and joined the ranks of the enemies of My Cross (Is 1:2; Phil:18).
“Would you also leave Me? (Jin 6: 68). Would you also forsake me and flee from My Cross, like the worldlings, who are acting as so many Antichrists? (1 Jn 2:12). Would you subscribe to the standards of the day (Rom 12:2), despise the poverty of My Cross and go in quest of riches; shun the sufferings connected with My Cross to run after pleasure; spurn the humiliations that must be borne with My Cross and pursue worldly honors?
“There are many who pretend that they are friends of Mine and love Me but in reality they hate Me because they have no love for My Cross. I have many friends of My table, but few indeed of My Cross.” (Imitation of Jesus Christ, Bk 2, Chap 11.)
In answer to the gracious invitation which Jesus extends, let us rise above ourselves. Let us not, like Eve, listen to the insidious suggestion of sense. Let us look up to the unique Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus crucified (Heb 12:2). Let us fly from the corrupting concupiscence and enticements of a corrupt world (2 Pet 1:4). Let us love Jesus in the right way, standing by Him through the heaviest of crosses. Let us meditate seriously on these remarkable words of our beloved Master which sum up the Christian life in its perfection: “If any man will come after Me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16,24).
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| St. Alphonsus Liguori: Daily Meditations for Seventh Week after Pentecost |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-16-2023, 08:02 AM - Forum: Pentecost
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What will be the terror of the poor worldling when he reflects: In a short time I shall be no more! And I know not whether I shall be happy or miserable for eternity! O God, what consternation will the bare words, Judgment, Hell, Eternity, strike into the souls of poor worldlings!
I.
We must die. Sooner or later we must all die. In every age houses and cities are filled with new inhabitants, and their predecessors are consigned to the grave.
We are born but to die–born with a halter, as it were, about our necks. However long, then, our life may be, a day, an hour, will come which will be our last, and this hour is already determined.
I thank Thee, O God, for the patience with which Thou hast borne with me. Oh, that I had died rather than have ever offended Thee! But since Thou givest me time to repair the past, make known to me what Thou requirest of me, and I will obey Thee in all things.
In a few years neither I who write nor thou who readest will be living on this earth. As we have heard the bell toll for others, so will others one day hear it toll for us. As we now read the names of others inscribed in the lists of the dead, so will others read our names.
In a word, there is no alternative; we must all die. And, what is more terrible, we can die but once; and if once lost, we shall be lost for ever.
What will be your alarm when it is announced to you that you must receive the Last Sacraments, and that there is no time to be lost! Then will you see your relatives and friends leave your room, and none remain but your confessor and those who are to attend you in your last moments.
O Jesus, I will not wait until death to give myself to Thee. Thou hast said that Thou knowest not how to reject the soul that seeks Thee: Seek and you shall find (Matt. vii. 7).
Now, therefore, O Jesus, do I seek Thee; grant that I may find Thee. I love Thee, O infinite Goodness! Thee alone do I desire, and besides Thee, nothing more.
In the midst of his schemes and worldly projects the man of the world shall hear it said to him: “My brother, you are fatally ill, and must prepare to die.” He would wish to put his accounts in order; but, alas! the terror and confusion which agitate him render him incapable of doing anything.
Whatever he sees or hears adds to his pain and distress. All worldly things are now thorns to him: the remembrance of past pleasures, his vanities, his successes, the friends who have withdrawn him from God, vain apparel; all are thorns, and all alarm and torment him.
What will be his terror when he reflects: “In a short time I shall be no more; and I know not whether I shall be happy, or miserable, for eternity!” O God, what consternation will the bare words, Judgment, Hell, Eternity, strike into the souls of poor dying worldlings!
My Redeemer, I believe that Thou hast died for me. From Thy precious Blood do I hope for salvation. I love Thee, O infinite Goodness! And I am grieved for having offended Thee. O Jesus, my Hope, my Love, have pity on me.
II.
Consider that poor worldling now seized with his last illness. He who but a little while ago went about slandering, threatening, and ridiculing others, is suddenly struck down and deprived of his strength and bodily senses, so that he can no longer speak, or see, or hear.
Alas! the unhappy man thinks now no more of his worldly projects, or his schemes of vanity; the thought of the account which he must soon render to God alone occupies his mind. His relatives are weeping and sighing, or in sad silence around him, and his confessor is there to assist him.
Physicians consult together. Everything increases his alarm. In such a state, he thinks no longer of his amusements; he thinks only of the news which has been brought him–his malady is fatal!
But there is no help for it, and in this state of confusion, in this tempest of pain, affliction, and fear, he must prepare himself to depart out of this world. But how is he to prepare himself in so short a time and his mind so troubled? But it matters not! There is no remedy; he must depart! What is done is done!
O God, what shall my end be? No, I desire not to die in so great uncertainty as to my salvation. I will change my life. O Jesus! help me, for I am resolved to love Thee henceforward with my whole heart. Unite me to Thyself, and never suffer me to b
e separated from Thee.
Spiritual Reading
PRAYER, ITS POWER
III–GOD IS ALWAYS READY TO HEAR OUR PRAYER
St. Bernardine of Sienna says that Prayer is a faithful ambassador, well known to the King of Heaven, and having access to His audience chamber, and able by his importunity to induce the merciful Heart of the King to grant every aid to us His wretched creatures, groaning in the midst of our conflicts and miseries in this valley of tears. Isaias also assures us, that as soon as the Lord hears our prayers He is moved with compassion towards us, and does not leave us to cry long to Him, but instantly replies, and grants us what we ask: Weeping, thou shalt not weep; he will surely have pity upon thee: at the voice of thy cry as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee (Is. xxx. 19). In another place He complains of us by the mouth of Jeremias: Am I become a wilderness to Israel, or a lateward springing land? Why then have my people said, we are revolted, we will come to thee no more? (Jer. ii. 31). Why do you say that you will no more have recourse to Me? Has My mercy become to you a barren land, which can yield you no fruits of grace? or a tardy soil, which yields its fruit too late? So has our loving Lord assured us that He never neglects to hear us, and to hear us instantly when we pray; and so does He reproach those who neglect to pray through diffidence of being heard.
If God were to allow us to present our petitions to Him once a month, even this would be a great favour. The kings of the earth give audience a few times a year, but God gives continual audience. St. Chrysostom writes that God is always waiting to hear our prayers, and that a case never occurred when He neglected to hear a petition offered to Him with the proper dispositions. And again, he says that when we pray to God, before we have finished recounting to Him our petitions, He has already heard us: “It is always obtained, even while we are yet praying.” We even have the like promise from God: As they are yet speaking I will hear (Is. lxv. 24). The Lord, says David, stands near to everyone who prays, to console, to hear, and to save him: The Lord is nigh to all them that call upon him; to all that call upon him in truth (that is, as they ought). He will do the will of them that fear him; and he will hear their prayer and will save them (Ps. cxliv. 18, 19). It was in this that Moses gloried, saying: There is no other nation so great, that has gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions (Deut. iv. 7). The gods of the Gentiles were deaf to those who invoked them, for they were wretched fabrications, which could do nothing. But our God, Who is Almighty, is not deaf to our prayers, but always stands near the man who prays, ready to grant him all the graces which he asks: In what day soever I shall call upon thee, behold I shall know that thou art my God (Ps. lv. 10). Lord, says the Psalmist, hereby do I know that Thou art my God, all goodness and mercy, in that, whenever I have recourse to Thee, Thou dost instantly help me.
IV–THE POWER OF PRAYER TO OBTAIN GREAT THINGS FOR US.
We are so poor that we have nothing; but if we pray we are no longer poor. If we are poor, God is rich; and God, as the Apostle says, is all liberality to him that calls for His aid: Rich unto all who call upon Him (Rom. x. 12). Since therefore (as St. Augustine exhorts us), we have to do with a Lord of infinite power and infinite riches, let us not go to Him for little and valueless things, but let us ask some great thing of Him: “You seek from the Almighty–seek something great.” If a man went to a king to ask some trumpery coin, like a farthing, methinks that man would but insult the king. On the other hand, we honour God, we honour His mercy, and His liberality, when, though we see how miserable we are, and how unworthy of any kindness, we yet ask for great graces, trusting in the goodness of God, and in His faithfulness to His promises of granting to the man who prays whatever grace he asks: You shall ask whatsoever you will, and it shall be done unto you (Jo. xv. 7). St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi said that “God feels Himself so honoured and is so delighted when we ask for His grace, that He is, in a certain sense, grateful to us; because when we do this we seem to open to Him a way to do us a kindness, and to satisfy His nature, which is to do good to all. “And let us be sure that, when we seek God’s grace, He always gives us more than we ask: If any of you want wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly, and upbraideth not (James i. 5). Thus speaks St. James, to show us that God is not like men, parsimonious of His goods. Men, though rich and liberal, when they give alms, are always somewhat niggardly, and generally give less than what is asked of them, because their wealth, however great it be, is always finite, so that the more they give the less they have. But God, when He is asked, gives His good things abundantly, that is, with a generous hand, always giving more than is asked, because His wealth is infinite, and the more He gives the more He has to give: For thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild; and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee (Ps. lxxxv. 5).
On this point, then, we have to fix all our attention, namely, to pray with confidence, feeling sure that by Prayer all the treasures of Heaven are thrown open to us. “Let us attend to this,” says St. Chrysostom, “and we shall open Heaven to ourselves.” Prayer is a treasure; he who asks most receives most. St. Venture says that every time a man has recourse to God by fervent Prayer he gains good things that are of more value than the whole world: “A man gains any day more by devout prayer than the whole world is worth.” Some devout souls spend a great deal of time in reading, and in meditating, but pay little attention to petition. There is no doubt that Spiritual Reading and Meditation on the Eternal Truths are very useful things; “but”, says St. Augustine, “it is of much more use to pray.” By reading and meditating we learn our duty; but by Prayer we obtain the grace to do it. “It is better to pray than to read: by reading we know what we ought to do; by prayer we receive what we ask.” What is the use of knowing our duty and then not doing it, but to make us more guilty in God’s sight? Read and meditate as we like, we shall never satisfy our obligations, unless we ask of God the grace to fulfil them.
And, therefore, as St. Isidore observes, the devil is never more busy to distract us with the thoughts of worldly cares than when he perceives us praying and asking God for grace: “Then mostly does the devil insinuate thoughts, when he sees a man praying.” And why? Because the enemy sees that at no other time do we gain so many treasures of heavenly goods as when we pray. This is the chief fruit of Mental Prayer, to ask God for the graces which we need for perseverance and for eternal salvation; and chiefly for this reason is it that Mental Prayer is morally necessary for the soul, to enable it to preserve itself in the grace of God. For if a person neglects in the time of Meditation to ask for the help necessary for perseverance he will not do so at any other time; for without Meditation he will not think of asking for it, and will not even think of the necessity of asking for it. On the other hand, he who makes his Meditation every day will easily see the needs of his soul, its dangers, and the necessity for his praying; and so he will pray, and will obtain the graces which will enable him to persevere and save his soul. Father Segneri said of himself that when he began to meditate he aimed rather at exciting affections than at making petitions. But when he came to know the immense utility of Prayer, he more and more applied himself, in his long mental prayer, to making petitions.
I will cry like a young swallow, said the devout King Ezechias (Is. xxxviii. 14). The young of the swallow do nothing but cry to their mother for help and food; so should we all do, if we would preserve our life of grace. We should be always crying to God for aid to avoid the death of sin, and to advance in His holy love. Father Rodriguez relates that the Ancient Fathers who were our first instructors in the spiritual life held a conference to determine which was the exercise most useful and most necessary for salvation; and that they determined it was to repeat over and over again the short prayer of David, Incline unto my aid, O God (Ps. lxix. 2). “This,” says Cassian, “is what everyone ought to do who wishes to be saved: he ought to be always saying, My God, help me! My God, help me!” We ought to do this the first thing when we awake in the morning; and then to continue doing it in all our needs, and when attending to our business, whether spiritual or temporal; and most especially when we find ourselves troubled by any temptation or passion. St. Bonaventure says that at times we obtain a grace by a short prayer sooner than by many other good works: “Sometimes a man can soon obtain by a short prayer what he would with difficulty obtain by pious works.” St. Ambrose says that he who prays while he is praying obtains what he asks, because the very act of prayer is the same as receiving: He who asks of God, while he asks receives; for to ask is to receive.” Hence St. Chrysostom wrote that “there is nothing more powerful than a man who prays,” because such a one is made partaker of the power of God. To arrive at perfection, says St. Bernard, we must meditate and pray: by Meditation we see what we want; by Prayer we receive what we want. “Let us mount up by Meditation and Prayer: the one points out what may be deficient, the other obtains it.”
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, to save one’s soul without Prayer is most difficult, and (as we have seen) in the ordinary course of God’s Providence, even impossible. But by praying our salvation is made secure, and very easy. It is not necessary in order to save our souls to go among the heathen, and give up our life as martyrs. Nor is it necessary, like the hermits, to retire into the desert, and eat nothing but herbs. What does it cost us to say, My God, help me! Lord, assist me! Have mercy on me! Is there anything more easy than this? And this little will be enough to save us, if we will be diligent in doing it. St. Laurence Justinian specially exhorts us to oblige ourselves to say a prayer at least when we begin any action: “We must endeavour to offer a prayer at least in the beginning of every work.” Cassian attests that the principal exhortation of the Ancient Fathers was to have recourse to God with short but frequent prayers. St. Bernard says: “Let no one undervalue his prayer, for God does not undervalue it … He will give either what we ask or what He knows to be better”. And let us understand that if we do not pray we have no excuse, because the grace of Prayer is given to everyone. It is in our power to pray whenever we will, as David says of himself: With me is prayer to the God of my life; I will say to God, thou art my support (Ps. xli. 9). On this point I shall later speak at length, and I will make it quite clear that God gives to all men the grace of Prayer in order that thereby they may obtain every help, and even more than they need, for keeping the Divine Law and for persevering till death. At present I will only say that if we are not saved the whole fault will be ours; and we shall have to answer for our own failure because we did not pray.
Evening Meditation
THE PRACTICE OF THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST
“Charity hopeth all things”
HE THAT LOVES JESUS CHRIST HOPES FOR ALL THINGS FROM HIM
I.
Charity hopeth all things. St. Thomas, with the Master of the Sentences, defines Christian Hope to be a “sure expectation of eternal happiness.” Its certainty arises from the infallible promise of God to give eternal life to His faithful servants. Now Charity, by taking away sin, at the same time takes away all obstacles to our obtaining the happiness of the Blessed; hence the greater our Charity the greater also and firmer is our Hope; Hope, on the other hand, can in no way interfere with the purity of love, because, according to the observation of St. Denis the Areopagite, love tends naturally to union with the object beloved; or, as St. Augustine asserts in stronger terms, love itself is like a chain of gold that links together the hearts of the lover and the loved. “Love is as it were a kind of bond uniting two together.” And as this union can never be effected at a distance, the person that loves always longs for the presence of the object of his love. The Sacred Spouse languished in the absence of her Beloved, and entreated her companions to acquaint Him with her sorrow, that He might come and console her with His presence: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love (Cant. v. 8). A soul that loves Jesus Christ exceedingly cannot but desire and hope, as long as she remains on earth, to go without delay and be united to her beloved Lord in Heaven.
Thus we see that the desire to go and see God in Heaven, not so much for the delight we shall experience in loving God, as for the pleasure we shall afford God by loving Him, is pure and perfect love. Neither is the joy of the Blessed in Heaven any hindrance to the purity of their love; such joy is inseparable from their love; but they take far more satisfaction in their love of God than in the joy that it affords them. Someone will, perhaps, say: But the desire of a reward is rather a love of concupiscence than a love of friendship. We must therefore make a distinction between temporal rewards promised by men, and the eternal rewards of Paradise promised by God to those who love Him: the rewards given by man are distinct from and independent of their own persons, since they do not bestow themselves, but only their goods, when they would remunerate others; on the contrary, the principal reward which God gives to the Blessed is the gift of Himself: I am thy reward exceeding great (Gen. xv.1). Hence to desire Heaven is the same thing as to desire God, Who is our last end.
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| Twitter suspends account of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-16-2023, 06:09 AM - Forum: Archbishop Viganò
- Replies (1)
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Twitter suspends account of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
The account is labeled 'suspended' and all posts hidden, an action which Viganò described to LifeSiteNews’ John-Henry Westen as 'shameful.'
![[Image: IMG_3909-e1686749837991-810x500.jpeg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IMG_3909-e1686749837991-810x500.jpeg)
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò
Jul 15, 2023
(LifeSiteNews) — Twitter, the social media platform that has boasted free speech protections since coming under the control of Elon Musk, has suspended the account of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.
On Saturday afternoon, word began to spread of the incident with followers demanding an explanation from owner Elon Musk and calling for reinstatement of the account.
The account is labeled “suspended” and all posts hidden, an action which Viganò described to LifeSiteNews’ John-Henry Westen as “shameful.”
Deacon Nick Donnelly first announced the “bad news” on Twitter, writing that the platform “has suspended the account of the courageous Archbishop Vigano [and] silenced one of the few voices amongst the Catholic bishops speaking out against the globalist agenda.”
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| How the WEF response to ‘climate change’ is virtually the same as their COVID approach |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-14-2023, 06:47 AM - Forum: Great Reset
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How the World Economic Forum response to ‘climate change’ is virtually the same as their COVID approach
The end goal in both cases is to develop the technological foundation to track and trace every person and object on the planet in order to incentivize, coerce, or otherwise manipulate individual human behavior.
![[Image: Screenshot-2023-07-13-11.45.54-810x500.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-13-11.45.54-810x500.png)
Ma Jun, director of the Chinese NGO Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
Twitter / Screenshot
Thu Jul 13, 2023
(The Sociable [slightly adapted]) — The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) carrot or stick approach to climate policies is virtually the same as it was for COVID.
From COVID contact tracing and vaccine passports to carbon footprint tracking and measuring, the end goal is practically identical – to develop the technological foundation to track and trace every person and object on the planet in order to incentivize, coerce, or otherwise manipulate individual human behavior.
Take the latest WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions, aka “Summer Davos,” that took place in China last month as the latest example of unelected globalists trying to nudge people towards changing their behavior by tracking the carbon footprints of the products they use.
Speaking during a session called “How to Stay Within Planetary Boundaries – Carrot or Stick?” Ma Jun, the director of the Chinese NGO Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said that the Chinese people were aware of tangible things like air and water pollution that they could experience with their own senses, but were less aware of climate issues (i.e. their carbon footprints), which were less tangible, but that measuring carbon footprints could be the solution.
“In China, people’s awareness on the ecological side and on the pollution control side is much higher than the climate side,” said Jun, adding, “On the climate side, it’s still not quite there. We’re still lagging behind, say, regions like Europe, which can have such a high level of public awareness, which can support very, very tough public policy on the climate side.”
China had one of the toughest, most Orwellian responses to COVID while simultaneously rounding up its Uighur population for internment in “re-education camps,” but this man is saying that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can’t support tough policies on climate?
At any rate, Jun went on to explain, “In China, the government have created this 30-60 commitment, but people haven’t really linked their daily lives with that, so how do we create those links?
“It’s not like smog; it’s not as palpable as the water pollution and air pollution, so we need to create those [links].”
To further his point, Jun held up a cup of water to explain how its carbon footprint could be tracked and traced from cradle to the gate and on to the grave.
He said that with emerging technology, people could take a picture of a cup and find all kinds of information about its entire life cycle while also measuring its carbon footprint.
WEF founder Klaus Schwab predicted this in his 2017 book “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
There, Schwab wrote, “Any package, pallet or container can now be equipped with a sensor, transmitter or radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that allows a company to track where it is as it moves through the supply chain – how it is performing, how it is being used, and so on.”
“In the near future, similar monitoring systems will also be applied to the movement and tracking of people,” he added.
Schwab’s words would turn prophetic during the pandemic.
![[Image: Digital-Identity-Chart.png]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Digital-Identity-Chart.png)
Source: World Economic Forum
What started with digital contact tracing and surveillance in 2020 quickly morphed into vaccine passports, which paved the technological framework to push forward digital identity schemes by way of a trojan horse in early 2021 – all of which were championed by the WEF and its partners.
Vaccine passports, according to the WEF, “serve as a form of digital identity” while a “digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.”
While Schwab mentioned RFID chips as a technology by which people and goods would be tracked and traced, Jun said that carbon footprint tracking could be done with smartphones, AI, big data, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
“We need to create a searchable, user-friendly catalogue and link that with new tools, like take a picture to understand the embedded carbon, so next time it’s not just about in general what kind of carbon footprint of this cup, but very, very specific – this specific brand, even the specific batch of this,” said Jun at this year’s Summer Davos.
“If we link that with AI technology, and then big data, and particularly Internet of Things, there are ways for us to come up with instant measurement and reporting of the carbon footprint.
“I hope that through this we can help people to really make different choices,” he added.
But when the carrot fails to work, the stick will come down heavy.
Spare the rod, spoil the child – only this time the child is you and me, and the rod is a social credit system linked to your digital ID and Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) that can be programmed and turned off with a virtual switch.
Presently, banks and ecommerce platforms like Alibaba are beginning to implement carbon footprint trackers as a means to simply measure carbon footprints, but a future where measurement turns into punishment may not be far off.
Speaking at the WEF’s annual meeting in 2022, Alibaba president J. Michael Evans announced that the Chinese multinational e-commerce platform would soon be launching individual carbon footprint trackers in an attempt to change people’s shopping and travel behaviors.
The individual carbon footprint tracker looks to operate similarly to the Chinese Communist Party’s social credit system by rewarding people who “do the right thing” while punishing those who “do the wrong thing” – carrot versus stick.
“At a billion consumers, we’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint,” Evans told the unelected globalists at Davos 2022 during the “Strategic Outlook: Responsible Consumption” session.
“What does that mean?” he went on to say.
“That’s where they’re traveling, how they are traveling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on the platform.
“So, individual carbon footprint tracker, stay tuned! We don’t have it operational yet, but this is something we’re working on.”
An individual carbon footprint tracker doesn’t have to be part of a social credit system – it can be used by shoppers and travelers simply as a way to know how much they are consuming for their own purposes, but it’s a slippery slope towards being a social crediting tool.
Measuring individual carbon footprint is one thing; however, if governments mandate the tracker as a matter of policy for punishing or rewarding behavior, then it becomes yet another tool for enforcing a system of social credit.
And if programmable CBDCs and digital IDs become widely accepted, it would be very easy to turn carbon footprint measurement into carbon footprint enforcement.
After all, what would be the purpose of setting up a system to track people’s carbon footprints if it wouldn’t be used to tax or otherwise punish those who do “the wrong thing?”
In China, citizens are given a credit score based on their online and offline behavior. It’s a system that rewards “good” behavior like spending time with the elderly while punishing “bad” behavior like protesting the government or spending too much time playing videogames.
When “trust” is broken in one area, restrictions are placed everywhere – meaning citizens who commit even minor infractions can be blacklisted from traveling, going to restaurants, renting a home, or even having insurance. This has happened to over 30 million citizens, according to Chinese State-run media.
The ways in which this type of social credit enforcement can be carried out are truly dystopian under the current technocratic takeover of society known as the great reset, as it’s called in its present manifestation.
Go over your carbon limit, and you may be fined at the least, or you may not be able to travel, buy meat, adjust your thermostat, or worse.
Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.
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| Biden FDA approves first over-the-counter birth control pill with no age limit |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-14-2023, 06:34 AM - Forum: Abortion
- No Replies
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Biden FDA approves first over-the-counter birth control pill with no age limit
The FDA has approved Opill, a progestin-based contraceptive with abortifacient potential, to be sold without a prescription starting next year.
![[Image: FDA-810x500.jpg]](https://www.lifesitenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/FDA-810x500.jpg)
Shutterstock
Jul 13, 2023
(LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted]) — The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday that it has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, which starting next year will be available regardless of age.
The Associated Press reports that the FDA has approved Opill, manufactured by Irish company Perrigo, to be sold without a prescription. The pill, which is meant to be taken at the same time every day, uses progestin to block sperm from reaching the cervix, according to the manufacturer. The move follows a unanimous vote in May by a panel of outside advisers to the agency.
“This is really a transformation in access to contraceptive care [sic],” said Ibis Reproductive Health president Kelly Blanchard. “Hopefully this will help people overcome those barriers that exist now.”
“Common side effects of the pill include bleeding, headaches, dizziness, nausea and cramps, according to the FDA,” the AP reports. “The label also cautions that certain drugs can interfere with Opill’s effectiveness, including medications for seizures, HIV and hypertension.” The report adds that the pill could encourage the growth of tumors in women with a history of breast cancer.
Prior to that May vote, the FDA had expressed concern that the company’s instructions were not sufficiently clear for women with medical complications, and that in one of Perrigo’s studies 30% women reported taking more pills than were actually distributed for the study, throwing off the company’s data about the results.
Progestin-based contraceptives like Opill and Plan B are commonly promoted as alternatives to abortion because they supposedly prevent pregnancy rather than end it. In January, the FDA amended Plan B’s label to “clarify” that it was not an abortifacient. But such drugs do in fact have abortifacient potential, and whether they prevent conception or implantation depends on when they are taken relative to a woman’s cycle.
“If Plan B is taken five to two days before egg release is due to happen, the interference with the LH signal prevents a woman from releasing an egg, no fertilization happens, and no embryo is formed,” Dr. Donna Harrison of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists explains, citing numerous studies. However, if the pill is taken during the “two-day window in which embryos can form but positive pregnancy tests don’t occur,” studies indicate it “has a likely embryocidal effect in stopping pregnancy.”
Further confusing the issue is the manipulation of semantics by activists in the medical establishment. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a purportedly impartial medical authority that in reality is heavily pro-abortion, redefined “conception” in the 1960s to refer to implantation rather than fertilization, for the purpose of making contraception more culturally acceptable.
Even so, a 2011 survey found that most OB/GYNs continued to say life begins at fertilization, not implantation, and a 2019 survey found that 96% of biologists “affirmed that a human’s life begins at fertilization.”
With last year’s overturn of Roe v. Wade allowing states to directly ban abortion, which fourteen states have done so far, left-wing activists have identified easier distribution of abortion and birth control pills as one of the most effective ways to preserve abortion “access,” even at the expense of patient safety.
Under the Biden administration, the FDA has eliminated the requirement that abortion pills only be dispensed in-person to the women taking them, and the Biden Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has declared that abortion pills may be freely mailed across the country, despite the fact that a provision of a 150-year-old law called the Comstock Act that expressly says the opposite.
A 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.”
Pro-lifers warn that with the Biden administration completely eliminating requirements that abortion pills be taken under any medical supervision or with medical support close by, those events are certain to increase.
The FDA has been accused of putting political ideology over sound medicine on other issues, as well, from approving COVID-19 shots for children to gutting restrictions on sexually-active homosexuals donating blood.
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| Sorrowful Heart of Mary Newsletter - Summer 2023 |
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Posted by: Stone - 07-13-2023, 01:07 PM - Forum: Sorrowful Heart of Mary
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Summer 2023
Dear Friends of the Cross!
“We have to build while the others are demolishing,” preached Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. How we long for a good Pope in Rome! How we long for bishops to stand fearlessly for the integral Catholic Faith, as Abp. Lefebvre did! Bishops who are not compromising with Vatican II, the New Profession of Faith, the new Sacraments, the New Code of Canon Law, and the New Mass! How we long for a resurgence of the Catholic Faith of Tradition in Rome and the Social Reign of the Heart of Jesus in every nation! “Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven!”
In the ongoing Battle, there’s not a single priest of the Catholic Resistance who desires to be “independent,” working without a bishop and laboring totally on his own. This is abnormal and undesirable for any Catholic, let alone the priest. But, when Conciliar Rome slipped into apostasy after the Second Vatican Council, did Abp. Lefebvre expect to be found standing alone, “rogue,” “disobedient,” “dissident”? Far from it! Did all those priests expelled by their bishops in the 1960’s and 70’s for refusing the New Mass and filthy Catechisms desire to be “independent” and “on their own”? Far from it!
But when the authorities abandon their duties and abuse their position by inflicting unjust punishments and try to coerce their subjects to accept compromises against the Catholic Faith, then they have no choice but to prudently separate themselves from these abusers and continue feeding the flock and fight for the Faith. This was the wise advice of Abp. Lefebvre: “It is a strict duty of every priest who wishes to remain Catholic, to separate himself from this Conciliar Church.” (Spiritual Journey, Abp. Lefebvre, p.13). If this applies to Roman authorities imposing Vatican II and the New Mass on their subjects, the same applies for those bishops demanding compromise, however slight it may be, with Vatican II and the New Mass as a matter of obedience.
Thus, every single priest of the Society of St. Pius X has been in the position of having to make a choice, since 2012. Either, he conforms to the new doctrinal direction which accepts that Vatican II can “enlighten and deepen the understanding of Tradition” and that the New Mass and New Sacraments are “legitimately promulgated”, or he resists this abuse of authority and is consequently silenced or cast out as a rebel. Unfortunately, most priests conformed to the new orientation since 2012, as did thousands of clergy and religious after the Second Vatican Council, in the 1960’s and 70’s.
The same applies to bishops of the False Resistance who give the appearance of standing with Abp. Lefebvre, but insist on the following: that the New Mass “miracles” be believed; the New Mass can give grace and nourish your Faith; that “it's not the time for seminaries, structure and organization;” that the Faith can be taught in silence; and that the true Catholic Resistance is nothing more than disgruntled “Resistants,” who must put away the “toys” of expecting a Catholic resurgence in the pattern of Abp. Lefebvre. These positions are in direct opposition to everything the Archbishop stood for! These bishops do not represent the true Catholic Resistance! They are not the Catholic Resistance! They admit this fact out of their own mouths!
On the contrary, Abp. Lefebvre condemned the New Mass and the errors of Vatican II, in no uncertain terms! He insisted the New Mass is sterile and cannot nourish one’s Faith but rather erodes it! He energetically defended the urgent need for seminaries and founded five of them throughout the world, himself! He established veritable oases of structure and organization in the retreat houses, parishes, missions, schools, universities and convents he founded! He did not restrict his preaching and letters to his chosen few hidden “under a bushel,” but fearlessly preached the Faith and wrote letters to the Popes and the entire world! He called for the crusade of the large family, the generous sacrifices of seminarians, sisters, brothers, and priests to rebuild the Church! Even in his eighties, he traveled the world strengthening the Faith and administering Confirmation to thousands!
Some may object: “You can’t expect everyone to be an Abp. Lefebvre, he was unique and it's unrealistic to expect his bishops to do the same!” This is true, if one speaks of his gentlemanly meekness, his sanctity, and fruitful apostolate as a missionary in Africa. No one can easily match such greatness, sanctity and experience. But the duty of publicly preaching the integral Catholic Faith was imposed by Christ Himself on all the bishops of the Church! “Go, Preach to all nations!” The duty of publicly condemning heresy, scandals against the Faith, compromise, and error are commanded by the Divine Savior Himself! If they fail to do so, He will require the blood of the stray sheep at their hands! (Ezekiel 3:18).
So when it is said: “You Resistance priests are independent, you have no bishop. You are rebels!” What can we say but: “Please show us even one bishop who is not compromising with Vatican II and the New Mass. Please point out one that openly condemns heresy and error and never compromises with it. Please give the information to contact one who stands with the unchanging Magisterium of the Church, like Abp. Lefebvre, but also openly opposes the public scandals of the Modernist Popes, prelates, and Conciliar Magisterium.” Indeed, it should be his spiritual sons, whom he consecrated, who ought to be doing these things. But unfortunately, every one of them has compromised with Vatican II and the New Mass in some way, since 2012, even if by silence. [N.B: The Thuc or De Costa line bishops are dubious and out of the question].
“But you expect perfect bishops and that’s unrealistic, not all bishops in history have been saints.” That is true, not many have been saints. In fact, “Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops,” said St. John Chrysostom! The Novus Ordo bishops may have some excuse due to their lack of formation, ignorance and modernist training.
But the sons of Abp. Lefebvre have no excuse! He formed his seminarians in the good soil of Tradition and in the solidity of the counter-Revolution. They were watered in the sound doctrine of the anti-Liberal Popes and their roots struck deeply in the life of prayer and spirituality of Holy Mother Church. So to expect the same anti-Liberal position from them should be no surprise. What is surprising is their lack of it!
Abp. Lefebvre once said that the faithful have a right to know where their priests stand. They have a right to hear sound doctrine in their preaching and to know that their priests are not evolutionists, ecumenical, modernists or compromisers with Vatican II and the New Mass. The same holds for the bishops.
This is not a call for condemning anyone nor of overly-scrutinizing the least mistake of the authorities, but rather an appeal for all to pray and do penance for them. We must beg the Hearts of Jesus and Mary for Rome to return to Tradition and our bishops and clergy come back to where they once stood, by publicly maintaining the doctrinal position of Abp. Lefebvre. He not only said, but did the Truth. Abp. Lefebvre was a pattern for all shepherds to imitate. He was one that Pope St. Pius X would have unhesitatingly canonized as a model for all clergy. The Archbishop is still a true model, but not the false caricature often portrayed of him as the ever smiling, meek and gentle bishop, to the exclusion of his other side which included his iron fist, the episcopal lion that roared the Truth, and the boxer for the defense of Catholic Tradition, that he truly was!
“Prudent as a serpent, but simple as a dove” defines his character and wisdom. So, if we find ourselves out in the cold, let us at least be found standing by the Sorrowful Mother at the foot of the Cross! The first Pope and bishops fled away in that hour, but She remained with Her Divine Son, strong in Faith, like an immovable pillar, knowing without hesitation that the day of the Resurrection would come. May She inflame us with love for Jesus Crucified and an unshakeable hope that God will grant us, once again, Popes and bishops who will lead and feed the flock! “The gates of Hell shall not prevail!”
In Christ the King,
Fr. David Hewko
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