Catholics Who Voted for Biden
This is what Catholics who voted for Biden are going to answer to Almighty God for:
Family Life Reflects Religious Life
While it is true that religious congregations are rightly called "families" (and indeed, are built on the family structure, hence, "father" and "mother" and "brother" and "sister") most people today realize in their hunger for good (and sadly, missing) family life that religious life should reflect family life. But few people remember that family life should also reflect religious life. When I was a neo-conservative (not yet a traditional priest) I noticed that most priestly discussions on the liturgy revolved around what would be most accessible and most pious for most of the laity. Similarly, during the first year of my priesthood, when I was pushing "Theology of the Body," [...]
Proverbs 16:25
Proverbs 16:25 reads, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. (In Latin, est via quae videtur homini recta et novissimum eius ducit ad mortem.). This is where we get the English proverb, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" which has been around since 1855 (at the very latest, and possibly much earlier.) I am shocked how many priests allegedly trained in moral theology are now holding that the end justifies the means on all the issues of 2020 and 2021 from election fraud to vaccines. No, the end does not justify the means in moral theology. [...]
Injecting Appeasement and Shame Into Others’ Lives For Your Own Sins Prevents Repentance
Here's a situation relatively new to the past 50 years, but especially pronounced in the past year in the USA: Liberals justify their sins in front of conservatives by demanding either the conservative ratify the liberal's conscience (appeasement) or the liberal flips the tables and shames the conservative for implying anything shameful exists about the liberal's life-decisions. When a liberal injects appeasement or shame into the mind of any conservative who questions the left's behavior, this seems very much to hurt the right. But from a Christian point of view, it hurts the left. Here's why: The left's every sin demands appeasement and shame from the other (not himself) which [...]
“When You Say It, Don’t Hide”—Bl. Jacinta Marto
Usually when I bring the beginnings of repentance for my sins to prayer, I sense a deeper call to repentance. (In other words, when I begin to repent in prayer, I find I'm not repenting nearly enough.) Lately, I have been trying to bring to prayer the shame I have that I come to such radically different conclusions than almost all other priests online on the issues of 2021. Going to prayer, I expect to feel more shame for these differences of opinion I have with most of the hierarchy. But amazingly (and I realize what we sense in prayer is by no means infallible and probably shouldn't even go [...]
When Conspiracy Theory Becomes Conspiracy Fact
Conservatives need to prepare for suspended or monitored communications. For anyone tempted to call this blog post a "conspiracy theory," remember that here's how numerous conversations went down in 2020 between conservatives and liberals where the below set {a, b, c, d...} could easily be {extended lockdowns, a dishonest election, unending-orders for masks in Churches, arrests in private-residences for lack of social-distancing, suspended civil-liberties} and set {p, q, r, s...} could easily be {medically-dangerous, bigoted, false-information spreading, racist}. So here's how it goes if you want to plug those in: Conservative: "I'm afraid they're going to {a, b, c, d...} to us." Liberal: "That's just a conspiracy theory for you to [...]
How American Catholics Trashed Their Own Civil-Liberties
I'm sure some mildly-conservative Catholics out who follow me on social media believe I still publicly support Trump out of some case of "replacement-holiness" for Church leadership that has let me down. That is not true. Nor do I support Trump out of some notion that he represents our American past or even lost manliness. I support Trump because he is the last symbol of non-communism in this country. And according to Our Lady of Fatima and all of the valid Popes of the past 100 years, communism is the main political-system that Catholics must resist. Remember Nazi stands for "National Socialist Party" and obviously killed millions of people. Following [...]
Heaven 2: Born into the Better Life
Many of you saw the viral video where a man chased a woman around a store here in the US for not having a mask on. The fact he was not only not afraid of catching a virus from a maskless woman but pursued her anyway to conform to his totalitarian mindlessness became proof to millions of Americans not just how lost humanity in 2020 had become, but perhaps how much insanity we must brace for in 2021. This may depress a lot of people to read this first paragraph, but I think if the early Christians were alive today they would simply laugh at how old and ridiculous [...]
Heaven 1: The Beauty of Your Majesty
There is a modern idea that God will forgive everything on one's death bed and let everyone into heaven, but the collect in the Traditional Latin Mass for Epiphany (prayed all week, several times a week in both the Divine Office and every Mass until Sunday) teaches us something very important about getting to heaven. The collect for Epiphany week in Latin is: Deus, qui hodiérna die Unigénitum tuum géntibus stella duce revelásti: concéde propítius; ut qui iam te ex fide cognóvimus, usque ad contemplándam spéciem tuæ celsitúdinis perducámur. Per eúndem Dóminum nostrum Iesum Christum Fílium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula [...]
Becket and Trump
It is nothing short of astonishing that a President of a traditionally Protestant country would name last week as a day dedicated to a Catholic bishop killed by a pre-Protestant state. As most readers already know, President Donald Trump proclaimed "December 29, 2020, as the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket" here in the United States. Becket received his help from Rome, not from the State. Perhaps Trump recognizes it is quite the opposite for conservative Catholics in the USA today: Many support President Trump, not the current events in Rome. It's a very strange irony that doesn't line up with Becket. But what does line up with [...]