Yes, it is the beginning of Wisdom to fear the Lord. When Luther said things like sin and sin greatly which was said specifically to counter the effect of ones conscience and IMO stifle the voice of the Holy Spirit it is such an outright and blatant heresy it is mind boggling to think he was presented to us on a stamp at the foot of the Cross by the Vatican. So many are born into this heretical cult and have never studied what it is that forms the theology behind their beliefs.
I just started a new thread with entire contents of Robert Royal's speech from the Conference of Catholic Families in Dublin which he gave on August 23rd. I am posting a portion of it here which I believe is very pertinent to this thread. What should Christians do in a post-truth world? The Editors | August 24, 2018 | https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/given-the-state-of-the-world-and-the-church-what-can-catholics-do (click for the whole article) ... August 23, 2018 Robert Royal ... This leads to my second large theme: where is the Church in all of this? I’m going to be quite blunt about this, and some of you may wish to disagree. Since the election of Pope Francis, the Church has greatly diminished its essential countercultural role. It has stepped up engagement on poverty, refugees, environment, etc., which were not exactly missing prior to the pope’s election in 2013. The Church has long been the largest provider internationally of relief services – and not just when some disaster strikes but as a steady presence in some of the most challenging places in the world. Where the Church is missing in action is in a very different struggle [that’s] come to be called in some circles “the culture war,” precisely the clash between the two worldviews, the Truth, as I described earlier. Pope Francis’ striking image of the Church as a “field hospital” contains a good bit of truth. We – even we Catholics – can forget, however, that there’s war even in heaven, that as St. Paul says in Ephesians: “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” It’s no wonder that we poor creatures of clay are mired in various evils, many of our own making. But the field hospital, necessary as it is, is not enough. To begin with, treatment depends on knowledge. If a doctor is merciful and accompanies his patient, that’s all to the good. We’d say he has a good bedside manner. But if he hasn’t studied medicine deeply and learned how to use that knowledge in given circumstances, he may be a soothing presence and a much appreciated figure when people are in crisis, but he can’t really help anyone. In the context of this conference, I’m reminded of some unfortunate remarks of Cardinal Kevin Farrell, an Irishman who has lived many years in America and is now head of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life. You may recall that he said about the ability of priests to prepare people for marriage: “They have no credibility; they have never lived the experience; they may know moral theology, dogmatic theology in theory, but to go from there to putting it into practice every day. . .they don’t have the experience.” There’s a sense, a very limited sense, in which this is true. But for me this is like pitting medical knowledge against the bedside manner. It’s as if moral theology, dogmatic theology, and theory – which is to say Truth – have no effect on anything real. If so, why even study them? I covered the election of Pope Francis for EWTN television and I’ve always been impressed with his charisma and genuine ability to touch people. But sheer devotion to the truth leads me to say also that he’s been relatively unconcerned with the careful, patient, consistent work of theology and philosophy that’s been one of the distinctive marks of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years. One of his close collaborators, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., has argued that the pope deliberately does NOT take that approach. He prefers, in some Jesuit fashion that I’m not clear about, to look specifically at a problem, pray on it, contemplate it, then act without too much concern for how it is consistent or inconsistent with other matters. I don’t know if this is true, of course, but it would seem to explain why there’s been so much confusion, disorder, chaos is not too strong a word, at many points over the past five years. Pope Francis seems to believe that the primary problem in the Church is a doctrinal and pastoral rigidity – his word – that prevents Catholics from engaging others in love and mercy. This must correspond to some experience in his own life because he said very early on in an interview with Fr. Spadaro that Catholics had to stop obsessing and insisting on questions like abortion and homosexuality, but instead engage people in the world to work for the common good. This caused no little stir among many people who have sacrificed to defend life, marriage, and family. More recently, he even denounced people who make an idol of the truth. As he said during the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday this year: We must be careful not to fall into the temptation of making idols of certain abstract truths. They can be comfortable idols, always within easy reach; they offer a certain prestige and power and are difficult to discern. Because the “truth-idol” imitates, it dresses itself up in the words of the Gospel, but does not let those words touch the heart. Much worse, it distances ordinary people from the healing closeness of the word and of the sacraments of Jesus. We can all recognize a real failing here, a way that a Christian thinker may use truth against charity. For me, however, a much greater problem is the one I mentioned earlier: we live in a “post-truth” age. And that characterization is not something that was developed by some small group of obsessive Christian intellectuals. Truth has few close friends in any age, but in my own judgment the world is suffering far more from a lack of real truth that leads to real mercy, real forgiveness, real closeness, and real charity. And looking around America and the several countries that I visit regularly, I would be hard pressed to say that the most immediate problem we face is Catholics too much obsessed with the truth. The task for the future, it seems – to me at any rate – is how, as the phrase goes, to have hard heads and soft hearts. ... So what about the Church? It’s hard to say anything about renewal in the Church at this moment in which the abuse crisis is hanging over all our heads. Absent that, we might talk at length about restoring a better balance between the dogmatic and the pastoral elements in the Church: between truth and charity. I’ll come back to that in a minute. But first a word about the abuse crisis in America. This is a terrible moment, but also I think a moment of cleansing fire. Our bishops were slow, very slow, in realizing that we have passed what I call an “inflexion point.” The revelations about Cardinal McCarrick – things that were known to me even as a young man when I was editing a small magazine in Princeton New Jersey in the 1980s – has lit a fuse. There will be no way for the bishops now to avoid a serious reckoning, if only because secular authorities will not be content with the old stonewalling. My wife Veronica is here this afternoon and we began to notice several weeks ago that a few bishops started to step forward and say everything now must be open for inspection. We both came to the conclusion that these men were clear, uncompromised. Bishops in our country – I expect the same is true elsewhere – tend to band together like a flock of sheep, with hardly anyone wanting to be out of step with the herd. But the old arrangements won’t work anymore. In my view, it’s already the case that any bishop who merely talks of penitence and shame, without committing himself to openness and action is going to fall under suspicion. That may be unfair, even unjust, but the sheer magnitude of the evils revealed means no more hiding is possible.[emphasis added] ... I find it shocking that an intelligent and experienced person like Legutko can see our current culture in the West as radical departure from our traditions as Communism. [My comment: I am reminded of Conchita of Garabandal's words, "When communism comes again everything will happen."] So, a conclusion. It may be an odd reflection – and it’s certainly not something to be proud of – but God has chosen us all to exist in this time, a moment of profound division in society and the Church Herself. All time is God’s time, and therefore ours is a great moment to be a Catholic, if we seize it. Here’s a powerful passage, a powerfully prophetic passage, from Joseph Ratzinger’s Faith and the Future: The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith. . . . The future of the Church, once again as always, will be shaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. [emphasis added] This is both a daunting and an inspiring vision, bracing because it’s daunting, eye-opening because of its inspiration. It will not be easy. I myself wake up some mornings wondering how to deal with the day. So much seems to be at stake, perhaps even the very continuation of the West and life of the Church. But we can be confident about the role we are being asked to play because God has matched us with this hour. Pray that we are all worthy of it.
I hope other orthodox Catholic evangelists speak up now... https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/scott-hahn-it-seems-like-a-good-time-to-pray-like-never-before Scott Hahn on Vigano letter: ‘It seems like a good time to pray like never before’ August 27, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Catholic apologist, author, and Franciscan University of Steubenville professor Scott Hahn has thanked the bishop of Tyler, Texas for supporting Archbishop Carlo Viganò’s testimony about Pope Francis and ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. “It seems like a good time to pray like never before…” Hahn tweeted. He linked to LifeSiteNews’ translation of Viganò’s statement, which indicates that Pope Francis knew about and lifted strict canonical sanctions Pope Benedict XVI imposed on McCarrick. Viganò testified that despite knowing about McCarrick’s predation, which included sexually harassing seminarians and priests, Pope Francis consulted him on the appointments of U.S. bishops, notably Cardinal Joseph Tobin and Cardinal Blase Cupich. “Wow! Lord, have mercy!” Hahn tweeted with a link to a National Catholic Registerarticle on Viganò’s testimony. Viganò also said that Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s claims he knew nothing about McCarrick’s actions are “laughable” and that Wuerl “lies shamelessly.” Of Viganò’s statement, Joseph Strickland, the bishop of Tyler, Texas, wrote to his diocese, “Let us be clear that they are still allegations but as your shepherd I find them to be credible.” “Using this standard the response must be a thorough investigation similar to those conducted any time allegations are deemed to be credible,” Strickland said. “I do not have the authority to launch such an investigation but I will lend my voice in whatever way necessary to call for this investigation and urge that it’s findings demand accountability of all found to be culpable even at the highest levels of the Church.” “Thank you, Bishop Strickland…” Hahn wrote on Facebook along with the text of Strickland’s letter. Hahn, a convert to Catholicism from Presbyterianism, is the author of dozens of books on the faith.
This article is a few days old but it really touches on so many relevant issues we are seeing right now and gives a bit of Hope in a time of such violent storms. I really enjoy Mr Skojec's writing. https://onepeterfive.com/iudica-me/ Iúdica Me Steve Skojec August 25, 2018 0 Comments In the centuries-old Missal of the Roman Rite, at the beginning of each and every Mass, the priest places himself before the judgment of God, soliciting divine judgment and making reparation for sin before approaching the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice. In English, this prayer, taken from Psalm 42, begins: “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy…” Today, we see what a loss to the Church it has been for priests to have left such an attitude of humble supplication behind. In many respects, it is the clerical state itself that has become “the nation that is not holy.” It is our very bishops who have become the “unjust and deceitful” men from which priests of old asked God for deliverance. It struck me recently, while I was at Mass, that of every religion I have ever heard about, it is Catholicism that is the most wholesome. Many pagan religions were known for their fertility rites and even sexualized conceptions of deities. Of Islam, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Mohammed “seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men.“ But not Catholicism. Catholicism held up as its paragon of virtue Our Blessed Mother and her perpetual virginity, along with the ever chaste and perfect life of her Divine Son. St. Joseph is himself a patron saint of purity and sexual restraint for men; he lived a life of prayerful continence while married to a woman who was undoubtedly the most perfect and beautiful creature who ever lived. Think of the attacks on the Catholic Faith over the past century. Think of the way a world steeped in the lustful excesses of the sexual revolution mocked and reviled Catholics for their commitment to continence before marriage, their refusal to use contraception, their rejection of acts of sodomy and of all forms of unnatural relationships. Attacks that are embedded forever in the popular culture, from songs like Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” to Monty Python’s “Every Sperm is Sacred” to one of the favored chants of the pro-abortion left: “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries!” In Ireland, when the constitutional protection for the unborn fell before a majority vote earlier this year, a cartoon appeared in The Sunday Independent, Ireland’s largest newspaper. What it depicted was the epitome of this cultural hatred for the Church’s mores and how they were alleged to have held people back: Catholicism has never been hated for its sexual excess; it has been despised for its voice of sexual restraint. It has encouraged us to be pure, to be holy, to understand that only the clean of heart will see God. It has made saints of notable sexual sinners like Augustine (“Lord, give me chastity…but not yet!”) and martyrs for purity like St. Maria Goretti (“No! It is a sin!”). And it has asked us, in all things, to follow these examples – conversion for those who have lived sinful lives and tenacious preservation of purity for those who have, by the grace of God, never fallen into such sins. This is why the Catholic Church has become the center of the most sordid sex abuse scandal in history. Not because there are more sexual predators among Catholic priests and bishops than in other religions or walks of life, but because their predation is such a uniquely vile, outrageous violation of everything Catholicism stands for. We have dared to preach sexual purity to a world hostile to the message, and we have been found so obscenely wanting that we are being eviscerated for our unthinkable hypocrisy. This is the understanding that is lost as people debate the distinctions over whether this is a problem of homosexual priests or of priests in general. It matters very much whether the one leads to the other, but in point of fact, we should have none of either: no homosexual priests, whether unchaste by consent or by predation and abuse. While the latter is worse, the former is nevertheless a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance and a violation of the complete continence demanded by the clerical state. There is a famous painting of the Antichrist by the Italian Renaissance artist Luca Signorelli. It appears in a 15th-century fresco at the Chapel of San Brizio in the Cathedral of Orvieto. In part of a larger tableau of disturbing activities, a crowd of listeners gather to hear a man who looks almost exactly like Christ, except for his dark and repellent visage, who listens attentively to the devil whispering in his ear. He is an ape of Christ – a man who, at a distance, could easily be mistaken for Jesus. Upon closer inspection, one sees a face that displays not love, but malevolence. Contd...
Contd from above.. This is what we see now in our present situation: not the true Church, but an anti-Church, with priests acting not in persona Christi, but in persona Antichristi. These are the men who ape the one true priesthood of Christ, all while desecrating and defiling it through not just the ordinary struggles we all have with sin, but an unrepentant dedication to evil and perversity. When one reads some of the accounts of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, or those related by the late clerical abuse scholar Richard Sipe, one is struck immediately by the flatly Satanic inversion of holy symbols and gestures. The details of these accounts are too gruesome to relate here, but in reading of priests performing mock sacramental actions on victims drenched in sexual perversity, or giving victims gold crosses to mark them, or forcing them to pose in cruciform, one cannot but immediately grasp that these are men not just given over to perversity, but completely under the power of Satan. A priest recently contacted me who does work in the area of exorcism and deliverance. He confirmed for me that another exorcist he knows has dealt with obsession or possession in an alarming number of homosexual priests. He writes: Righteous indignation has filled the hearts of the faithful – by this I mean all those who have eyes to see and ears to hear – and that blessed anger along with holy sorrow has washed over and engulfed us. For the truth of Satan’s plot has been unveiled, like a long awaited but still sudden tsunami of malice breaking upon an unfortified shore. The Enemy lies within, not without. He is in a temporary ascendancy and has overtaken the strongholds of the Church on Earth. It is not a matter of sickening sodomy alone, but of outright Satanic worship within the Vatican and almost everywhere the Church-formally-Militant inhabits. Indeed, the breakers of death are pounding the Barque of Peter, seeking to dislodge as many of Her wayfarers as possible. All the while demonically possessed wretches, willful accomplices of evil, clothed in Scarlet and Amaranth Red are rejoicing over the apparent destruction of the Virgin Daughter Zion. This priest also indicated what he perceives to be a clear sign of hope. It was an insight that came to him in prayer, and which he confirmed had also been received by his friend, the fellow exorcist: that the alarming revelations of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report were released on the vigil of the Assumption. Father writes: God works in the light and exposes the works of darkness to draw His own out of the dark and into the light. Things happen on certain days for a reason. The Church on earth is moribund in the affairs of this world, but she is called to be truly ascendant in Heaven. Mary is the archetype of the Church. This rot being exposed on the vigil, and in the mass media, on the day of her Assumption, is a signal Grace from God that He has heard the pleas of His anguished Faithful and is delivering them from those who work in darkness. In a homily given on the Feast of the Assumption, another priest I know noted that experience has taught us that there is no wrath like that of a mother who has seen a grave injustice done to her child. Mary’s perfect anger, he reminded us, has not lessened with time, and it is “two thousand years old.” It’s a terrifying thought, isn’t it? The idea of Mary, the great consoler, she who so often has sought on our behalf to stay God’s vengeance, becoming instead the agent of retribution for those who have profaned the One True Priesthood of her Son? And yet she is, as the Song of Solomon (6:10) has revealed to us, the one who “comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array.” Think back to her message from La Salette, over a hundred years ago: Priests, my Son’s ministers, priests, by their evil life, by their irreverences and their impiety in celebrating the holy mysteries, love of money, love of honor and pleasures, priests have become sewers of impurity. Yes, priests call forth vengeance, and vengeance is suspended over their heads. Woe to priests, and to persons consecrated to God, who by their infidelities and their evil life are crucifying my son anew! The sins of persons consecrated to God cry to heaven and call for vengeance, and now here is vengeance at their very doors, for no longer is anyone found to beg mercy and pardon for the people; there are no more generous souls, there is now no one worthy of offering the spotless Victim to the Eternal on the worlds behalf. It is a sobering thought. Nevertheless, she is a mother. She is the mother of the Church and our mother, and she is praying and interceding for us always. Her Immaculate Heart will triumph. We do not know when, and we do not know in what manner, but we can take her promise to the bank
I am reminded again that we must choose the path of peace: Phil 4:6 Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Jesus, we trust in You!
This is worth listening to more than once to fully grasp just how far back it goes. Dr Taylor does a great job laying it all out to contemplate.
Yeh he's totally great. Smart and very balanced. It must have taken hm ages of hard work and research to tie this all together. Plus a very good spiritual man and very honest and sincere, bless him.
This is really clear and joins all the dots. If the three Cardinals who presented the folder of evidence to Pope Benedict come forward to confirm, then the current horrific situation becomes nuclear.
Yes, that which was hidden is becomming open to the world. It's like a detective story were we get to see the last episodes for ourselves. It is incredible, I thought we'd have to wait to get to heaven to find out these things. Thank God for it.
Yes interesting that he is a convert, a former Episcopalian Minister. I think it takes and outsider to be bright eyed and bushy tailed like this. I think we Catholics sometimes can't see things so clearly from inside, so to speak.
If there is no differentiation for souls between Heaven and Hell, what is the purpose of our temporal existence? Wouldn't God have stuck us all in Heaven without putting us through all this fuss and suffering? Of course, free will and individual responsibility would lose their meaning, also.
I listened to this today before logging on here. Awesome analysis. I like Dr Marshall. I have taken a few online classes with him and he is very knowledgeable and fair. It is really amazing what is coming out and frightening at the same time. It truly is a global purification.
My understanding of this is that God made Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden They made the fatal choice to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit God did not will that The second part of my understanding, and I could be wrong, is that God made Hell for the fallen angels He didn’t intend for human souls to go there So He sent His Only-Begotten Son To save many, not all
