How to Learn the Low Mass
Nota Bene: The beginning of January was going to be for silent retreat, but I'm visiting a family member in the hospital. So, either way, there will be few blogs or podcasts for a little while. Please pray for us. Many people think I'm some traditional liturgy expert, but as you probably heard me say on previous podcasts, I learned French and Spanish and Portuguese in seminary because I just wanted to be a good Novus Ordo missionary priest one day. In other words, I got into the priesthood for the salvation of souls, not to make a stink on liturgy debates. As I've written before, it was only a [...]
Vaccinated Physician Writes About New ICU Patients in California
The following is a letter from a USC/Georgetown/Harvard educated physician (fully vaccinated herself) named Dr. Patricia Lee about new patient presentations at ICUs in California. It first appeared on Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson's government page. Emphasis in following letter is mine. From: Dr. Patricia Lee MD on 28 Sept 2021 To: Dr. Tom Shimabukuro COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Road, NE Corporate Square, Bldg 12 Atlanta, GA 30329 and Dr. Peter Marks Director, CBER Food & Drug Administration 10903 New Hampshire Avenue W071-3128 Silver Spring, MD 20993 Dear Dr. Marks and Dr. Shimabukuro, As a physician, I am compelled by conscience [...]
Christmas in the Mystical City of God
The 17th century Spanish Franciscan abbess, Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda of Spain, received a private-revelation on the life of the Immaculate Virgin Mary that comes to a few thousand pages in a book called The Mystical City of God. The Mystical City of God was attacked by the Jansenists as inauthentic. Is it reliable? Besides the fact that Sr. Mary of Ágreda has been declared “Venerable” by the Catholic Church, her book has the approval of Popes Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, Clement IX, Benedict XIII, Benedict XIV and Clement XIV. By “approved” we mean anywhere from recognizing the authenticity of “Ciudad de Dios” as extant and written by [...]
Kamala Harris Links Griswold to Obergefell
https://rumble.com/embed/v1yf6zg/?pub=e5jg1 In the above 60-second clip (or here if you're on a mobile device) the unelected-squatter to the office of Vice-President, Kamala Harris says, "Let us think about today, December 13th, 2022, a day when—thanks to Democrats and Republicans—we finally protect marriage rights in federal law. For millions of LGBTQI+ Americans and interracial couples, this is a victory, and it is part of a larger fight. The Dobbs decision reminds us that fundamental rights are interconnected, including the right to marry who you love, the right to access contraception and the right to make decisions about your own body." The silly thing about Kamala's words is that "gay marriage" was [...]
How to Conquer Temptation Immediately, by St. Alphonsus
PATIENCE UNDER TEMPTATION & THE MEANS OF CONQUERING With what arms are we to fight temptations in order to conquer? by S. Alphonsus Liguori, Bishop & Doctor of the Church The first and principal, and I may say the only, and absolutely necessary means for conquering temptations, is to have recourse to God by prayer. This means is particularly necessary for conquering temptations against purity; In temptations it is also very useful to make the Sign of the Cross. The second means of conquering temptations is to humble yourself, and to distrust your own strength. Thus let us humble ourselves, and at the same time let us have recourse with [...]
The “Deposit of the Faith” and “the Mode in Which It is Announced.”
Most liberal Catholics will happily admit that the Catholic hierarchy began to openly espouse a new data set of doctrinal points in the 1960s. (Many traditional Catholics—including myself—would ironically agree with this.) But there's a group of Catholics between the liberals and the traditionalists that will say something like, "No, no. Vatican II did not teach a new dogma. Vatican II simply taught us how to transmit the constant dogmas of the Catholic Church in a manner that is now packaged in a new way to accommodate the sensitivities of modern man." Fair enough. This is the teaching of many neo-con Catholics and it's essentially what I espoused in seminary [...]
The Left is a Cult (in Both Church and State)
https://rumble.com/embed/v1v433u/?pub=e5jg1 In the late 1990s, I was an EMT. (I was not yet a paramedic, for that would come two years later when I returned to my hometown of Denver.) Living in Boston from 1996-2000, I brought pediatric patients in an ambulance to Boston Children's Hospital. It was the number-one Children's Hospital in the world, long before it had gender-mutilating clinics against children. I went to Boston in the late 1990s thinking it was a pretty Catholic city. Little did I know that the Spotlight scandals of decades of priests molesting children would explode shortly after I graduated pre-med from a Jesuit University, Boston College, in 2000. On 22 Nov [...]
The Immaculate Conception in the Mystical City of God
The above painting is of SS. Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The 17th century Spanish Franciscan abbess, Venerable Mary of Jesus of Ágreda of Spain, received a private-revelation on the life of the Immaculate Virgin Mary that comes to a few thousand pages in a book called The Mystical City of God. The Mystical City of God was attacked by the Jansenists as inauthentic. Is it reliable? Besides the fact that Sr. Mary of Ágreda has been declared "Venerable" by the Catholic Church, her book has the approval of Popes Innocent XI, Alexander VIII, Clement IX, Benedict XIII, Benedict XIV and Clement XIV. By "approved" we mean [...]
Six-Flags Over Colorado’s Catholicism
I was baptized, confirmed, worked as a city paramedic, and was later ordained a Catholic priest in the city limits of Denver, Colorado. Amazingly, what would one day be the city limits of Denver was originally under the jurisdiction of at least six apostolic territories due to shifting Catholic boundaries. (I am not here writing about different bishops. Denver has had eight ordinaries—three bishops and five archbishops—since its foundation as a diocese in 1868.) Rather, I am writing here that the land of northern Colorado (specifically Denver) was found under many different dioceses as ecclesiastical borders shifted. In my seminary (also in Denver) we took a class on the history of [...]
Building Catholic Utopias?
In Advent, we meditate on the Two Comings of Christ. We meditate first on Christ's coming in the Incarnation and second on His glorious coming in the General Judgment. We are reminded of the fragile and ephemeral nature of our life in exile on earth. More now that ever, serious Catholics all over the world want to get their families to what "the better life," that heavenly fatherland. And they are humble enough to know they need the help of other Catholic families and good clergy to arrive there. Conservatives are now building intentional communities with great foresight and circumspection to protect their families against the overreach of corrupt governments. [...]