Hands in pockets? Best place for them, sometimes. Ask any old school prefect.
Month: Oct 2019
“Your opponents, my Brothers, are too often emphatically not gentlemen: but it will be for you to be manly and noble in your bearing towards them…” (St John Henry Newman)
Catholics didn’t squib the NSW abortion fight
Monica Douit in the Spectator Australia
“Christopher Akehurst’s lament of the Catholic Church’s apparent absence from the recent New South Wales abortion debate, Eavesdropping on Sin, was a conspicuously inaccurate characterisation in an analysis of the rise of state-sanctioned anti-Catholicism in Australia that otherwise rang true.
“Not only did the Catholic Church in Sydney and NSW more broadly declare the abhorrence of the abortion bill from the rooftops; it led so many others in the fight as well.
“Western and Eastern rite Catholics joined with Orthodox churches, various Protestant denominations and groups like the Australian Christian Lobby and Right to Life NSW to hold two of the largest pro-life rallies the country has ever seen, in the space of a month…
“Added to the rallies were simultaneous all-night vigils held on Macquarie Street outside the Parliament House and inside St Mary’s Cathedral, attended by hundreds more.
“The faithful in Catholic parishes throughout NSW were encouraged to phone their local MPs, and provided with contact details and talking points to help them in making the call. Thousands of them did so, many of whom commenting that it was the first time they had ever made a call to their local MP. So numerous were the calls that I know of one MP who received a text message from a staffer which read: “The bloody Catholics will not stop calling.”
Biden denied communion at SC parish over abortion stance
“A South Carolina Catholic priest denied Holy Communion to presidential candidate Joe Biden on Sunday, because of the candidate’s support for legal abortion.
“Fr. Robert Morey, pastor of St. Anthony Catholic Church in the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina, denied Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden Holy Communion at Sunday Mass for his support of legal abortion, the Florence Morning News reported Monday…
“Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law states that “Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion.”
“Then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote a memorandum to the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2004, explaining the application of Canon Law 915 to the reception of Holy Communion.
“The memorandum stated that “the minister of Holy Communion may find himself in the situation where he must refuse to distribute Holy Communion to someone, such as in cases of a declared excommunication, a declared interdict, or an obstinate persistence in manifest grave sin.”
“The case of a “Catholic politician” who is “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” would constitute “formal cooperation” in grave sin that is “manifest,” the letter continued.
“In such cases, “his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist,” Ratzinger wrote.
“Then, he continued, when the individual perseveres in grave sin and still presents himself for Holy Communion, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it,” Ratzinger wrote.”
https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2019/10/29/biden-denied-communion-over-abortion-stance/
‘Pachamama’ statues absent from Amazon Synod’s closing Mass after bishops’ resistance
“To the surprise of many observers, the “Pachamama” statues were not present in St. Peter’s Basilica during the closing Mass of the Amazon Synod on 27 October. Sources in Rome overheard bishops in the synod hall saying that they would not participate at the closing Mass in St. Peter’s if the Pachamama statues were going to be present.”
May God bless those good bishops.
How many Catholics will truly stand up to the new paganism?
CC Pecknold
“During the Decian persecution of the third century, Christians were issued certificates called libelli if they conformed to the Emperor’s demand for the required sacrifices. Some Christians willingly apostatized, others actually seem to have had their libelli forged so as to give the appearance of having acquiesced without actually having done so. And others still were martyred as witnesses to Christ’s true sacrifice — those who stand fast in the truth are the hope of generations.
“While one can understand the weakness of those Christians who seek the approval of the new pagans, Catholics should constantly pray for the grace of wisdom and fortitude — the wisdom to avoid persecution and the fortitude to endure it.”
‘Courageous…prophets of today’: Dubia cardinal praises men who threw Pachamamas in Tiber
“Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the two remaining dubia cardinals and a respected Church historian – praised the men who removed the controversial pagan “Pachamama” statues from a church in Rome and threw them into the Tiber River as “courageous…prophets of today.”
“These two courageous ‘Maccabees’ who have removed the ‘abomination of desolation in the holy place’ are the prophets of today.”
What Cardinal Newman can teach the modern world about freedom of conscience
“The writings of newly-canonized St. John Henry Newman offer important reflections for contemporary society on freedom of conscience and the duty to search for truth, said a leading figure in international religious freedom.
“Newman prefigured the Church’s 1965 Declaration on Religious Freedom, Dignitatis Humanae,” said Thomas Farr, president of the Religious Freedom Institute.
Farr, who served as the inaugural director of the U.S. State Department’s international religious freedom office in the early 2000s, spoke at a symposium hosted by the Thomistic Institute at the Angelicum University in Rome earlier this month. The event celebrated Cardinal Newman’s canonization on Oct. 13…
“Farr said that Newman’s well-known phrase, “Conscience has rights because it has duties,” offers an important reminder that we are obliged to form our consciences in truth, recognizing that “our freedom does not give us a moral right to do what is wrong.”
“Dignitatis Humanae affirms the right to religious freedom, a freedom from coercion in matters of conscience, Farr said…
“But while human beings are obliged to follow their consciences, they are also bound to obey God, Farr said.
“An erring conscience that results from our failure to ensure it is ordered to the truth leads to moral culpability,” he remarked. “Willful pursuit of the wrong could lead one into grave sin. A man could follow an ill-formed conscience straight into hell.”
“The saint once wrote, “[I]n this age…the very right and freedom of conscience [is seen as the right] to dispense with conscience, to ignore a Lawgiver and Judge, to be independent of unseen obligations.” Conscience, he warned, was being replaced with “self-will.”
“In his warnings on conscience, Newman proved to be prophetic, Farr said. Today, Western culture distorts the view of conscience to an even greater degree than in Newman’s time, so that it is no longer oriented toward God, but toward self.
“This false understanding of “freedom of conscience” has contributed to an atheism and rejection of natural law.”
Pray for a Miracle — An Initial Reaction to the Close of the Synod
Msgr Charles Pope
“Reported from Rome are terrible and seemingly impious things at worst, and confusing and ambiguous things at best. In the final document of the synod are included proposals for married priests on a wide scale and women “deacons.” The Church is currently deeply divided and, I would argue, on the brink of schism, if the Pope includes such proposals in his apostolic exhortation and plan. We must pray for him as never before to hold the line, much as Pope Paul VI miraculously held the line in 1968 when he wrote Humanae Vitae, upholding the Church’s perennial view of the nature and purpose of human sexuality and the ancient forbiddance of contraception. He did this against pressure from the spirit of the age — a pressure that was even stronger than the pressure Pope Francis currently encounters. And, like Francis, Paul VI was no conservative and was very friendly with the agents of radical change. This makes Humanae Vitae all the more miraculous, and we must allow this to give us hope now that Pope Francis will issue a document that does not take us over the brink.
“But frankly, it would seem it is going to take a miracle. Pope Francis is deeply enmeshed in the Amazon Synod and its outcomes. It is clear that the Synod was stacked with liberal — even radical — members and that all the matters that ordinary Catholics feared going into the synod have been realized. Pope Francis was certainly at the helm in this Synod and seems to have learned his lessons well at previous Synods where he was publicly resisted. There was a tight leash on the proceedings and press conferences were highly scripted…
“Add to all this the appalling event in the Vatican Gardens, attended by the Holy Father and a number of Synod participants and fathers. There are pictures of some of them, bowing fully prostrate before a wooden statue of a naked, pregnant woman. After weeks of silence we are told by the Pope that this was not idolatry and there was no idolatrous intention. But then why did people, including priests, prostrate before it? Why was the statue carried in procession into churches like St. Peter’s Basilica and placed before altars at Santa Maria in Traspontina? And if it isn’t an idol of Pachamama (an earth/mother goddess from the Andes), why did the Pope call the image “Pachamama?” What am I to think? And why am I not reassured by the ambiguous and contradictory statements? How is this not analogous to the “abomination or desolation” that foretold the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. Matthew 24:15)? To any average person this has idolatry written all over it. Simply saying there is no idolatrous “intention” does not remove what the eye can plainly see. I would be shocked even to see the faithful prostrating before statues of the saints. Kneeling can indicate mere prayer, but prostration — which photos of the event seem to clearly depict — indicate full worship of adoration…
“Pray for an apostolic exhortation that glorifies and lifts up Jesus as the only way to salvation. An exhortation that focuses not merely on a clean environment but purified souls. An exhortation that doesn’t speak of listening to the spirits of the rainforest, but of listening to Jesus, the Eternal Word of the Father. An exhortation that summons us to prayer, to the sacraments, to the Word of God and to the ancient and perennial teachings of the Church. Pray for an exhortation that casts aside Pachamama and points to Mary, who leads us to her Son!”
Early Renaissance painting found in French kitchen fetches record $39 million at auction
“A rare masterpiece by Italian early Renaissance master Cimabue that was discovered in a French kitchen was sold on Sunday for 24 million euros ($39 million), about five times the initial estimate.
“The Acteon auction house did not identify the winning bidder for the painting Christ Mocked at the sale in Senlis, outside Paris.
“The selling price, which included costs, smashed the initial estimate of between 4 million and 6 million euros.”
seamasodalaigh 
