He Who Is Not Against Us—Is For Us
The late Fr. Gabriele Amorth was the chief exorcist of Rome in the 20th century under Pope John Paul II. In his second book, An Exorcist: More Stories, he recounts on page 124 a soldier with a demon who had originally met with him but couldn't make future appointments. Fr. Amorth writes: "Continuing with the story of the young soldier: he called me to cancel our fourth appointment, citing military duties. Several months later, I received a letter from him. He told me that he had to leave Rome because he had been suddenly transferred to northern Italy. He gratefully thanked me for the help I had provided and joyfully [...]
Attending Ex-Catholics’ “Weddings”
There's a lot of combinations of sacramental debates happening today, but most of them are very similar: Someone's Catholic family member is getting married outside the Church. Half the family feels squeamish about it. A priest steps in and says to the more conservative family members, "You should indeed go to your son's wedding outside the Church, so as to not break the bonds of charity. That way, you can evangelize him back into the Church later." Then, all the lay people in the family have their consciences euthanized by the smiling priest, and they all go to the "wedding." Here's why that priest is wrong and it's actually a [...]
St. John Vianney on the Final Judgment
And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty.—St. Luke chapter 21. Not a God clothed with our weaknesses, hidden in the darkness of a wretched stable, housed in a crib, treated with derision and mockery, bowed to earth by the heavy burden of His Cross, but a God who, clad in the glorious splendor of His great power and majesty, makes known His advent by the most terrifying manifestations, by the darkening of the sun and the moon, by the falling of the stars and by the upheaval of all creation. Not a Redeemer who comes with the meekness of [...]
Don’t Talk to the Dead Even If You Think They’re Saved
Except for asking for the intercession of canonized saints, our main contact with those who have gone before us should be praying for the souls in Purgatory. In other words, we're supposed to be praying to God for them, not usually discussing things with them. It is true that we can ask souls in Purgatory for help, but that has to be done in general asking their intercession, not specifically. In fact, it's either St. Alphonsus or St. Bellarmine who teaches that such requests on earth for intercession from the Holy Souls in Purgatory must be addressed to God first to then He asks the Holy Souls to intercede. (It's [...]
Should Catholics Join the US Military? Part 1: “Negative.”
by Captain Emily Rainey Emily Grace Rainey is a former Army Special Operations Officer who deployed to Afghanistan as the leader of a Cultural Support Team, where she conducted dozens of helicopter infil night raids while assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment. Later she was selected into Psychological Operations, the primary propaganda arm of the Department of Defense and deployed to Iraq as the commander of a tactical PSYOP detachment. The highly decorated Captain Rainey resigned her commission in July of 2021 after receiving career ending reprimands for defying Covid lockdowns as well as peaceably attending the Jan 6 rally in Washington DC. Since leaving the military she bought a [...]
American Mass Attendance Before and After “the Council.”
Photo credit above: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski. A new CARA study quoting Gallup polls has recently published statistics on current American Catholicism as seen above. We have all known for awhile that there were more ex-Catholics than Catholics in the USA, but the spread is enormous in the above numbers that just came out in 2022. In one graphic from CARA (above chart) see especially that there's almost 113 million US Catholics baptized but only about 53 million of them even attempt to attend yearly Mass at Christmas and Easter. Another study (above) came out a few years ago showing the striking comparisons between the faith-based practices of Catholics who currently go to [...]
“Ecumenical:” Old and New Definitions
Top Left: An icon of St. Maximus the Confessor, a 7th century Greek monk loyal to Rome. Top Right: An "icon" of Fr. Hans Urs Von Balthasar SJ, a Jesuit of the 20th century. Ecumenical for the first thousand years of Christianity was an adjective to describe dogmatic meetings of orthodox bishops who cared about accurately defining the Catholic Faith. New Advent has a good definition: "Ecumenical Councils are those to which the bishops, and others entitled to vote, are convoked from the whole world (oikoumene) under the presidency of the pope or his legates, and the decrees of which, having received papal confirmation, bind all Christians." All 21 ecumenical [...]
God Once Permitted Most Bishops to be Arians
Shielding your conscience on moral or doctrinal or liturgical issues on anyone in the hierarchy right now won't get you to heaven. You must study the Bible and the Magisterium to do that. Christ said 2000 years ago towards those blue-collar folks who would hang their hat on the Jewish hierarchy, For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.—Mt 5:20. A few hundred years later, most Arians were bishops and most Catholics trusted them. Maybe they said things like "These are protected offices so God couldn't let 99% of all bishops be wrong." [...]
Epikeia: Why Common Sense Trumps Legalism
Wiktionary erroneously defines epikeia as "the principle in ethics that a law can be broken to achieve a greater good." Of course, the notion that the end justifies the means can never be squared with Catholic moral theology. As soon as one believes that the end justifies the means, one approaches the moral theology heresies of consequentialism and proportionalism. I blogged against those errors here in a post called The Greater Good is Not a Catholic Moral System especially when applied to forcing people to take an experimental injection "for the greater good" a couple years ago. But St. Thomas Aquinas did hold epikeia to be an important virtue. St. Thomas essentially [...]
Cardinal Von Galen: The Lion of Münster
The book above is written by Fr. Daniel Utrecht of the Oratory. It is the book I'm reading on retreat. It's about Cdl. Von Galen of Munster, Germany who publicly resisted the Gestapo as early as 1941. Bishop Von Galen was a saint of charity and courage who took on the Nazis from the pulpit and even in the streets. But he wasn't alone: During the 1930s in Germany, he saw lay Catholics and priests who resisted the Nazis go to prison repeatedly for "currency speculation." Ever notice that godless regimes persecute good people on red-herrings like "currency speculation"? It completely reminds me of President Trump being raided by the [...]