Blogposts

Without a doubt parental rights in the rearing and education of their children have become a political issue in the country and in the upcoming election. They are under attack. Laws are being proposed in various jurisdictions to usurp parental rights, in schools especially, to promote gender ideology and puberty blockers in service of this agenda. Along with this is the attempt to sexualize children at a young age in favor of this same ideology in schools and libraries with so called “drag-queen reading sessions” and other perversities. It’s important to deal with a sometime objection from people that they don’t come to church to hear politics. They want to forget about politics.

One of the thinkers who had great influence on Pope Benedict XVI was Fr. Romano Guardini. Below is an excerpt about the challenges we face as Christians in this post-modern world.

From Fr. Romano Guardini’s The End of the Modern World, “The Dissolution of the Modern World”:

The Faith of Christian men will need to take on a new decisiveness. It must strip itself of all secularism, all analogies with the secular world, all flabbiness and eclectic mixtures. Here, it seems to me, we have solid reasons for confidence. The Christian has always found it difficult to come to an understanding of modern attitudes, but we touch an issue here which needs more exact consideration.

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony of Jesus. (emphasis added) Revelation 12:17 The real opposition to things Christian comes not from dogma, but from revolt against the majesty of the revealing God… Fr Romano Guardini, The Faith and Modern Man p.113 1952

St. Maximillian Kolbe was shocked when he saw that “In the years preceding the war, in Rome, the capital of Christianity, the massonic mafia, repeatedly disapproved of by the Pontiffs, was dominating in an ever more brazen manner. (Writings 1328) The brothers with the apron "were celebrating in honor of Giordano Bruno, sporting a black banner with the image of St. Michael the Archangel under the feet of Lucifer and waving their banner in front of the windows of the Vatican”.…which is the center of Christianity. The young cleric immediately began to study their methods and purposes. (Note: Giordano Bruno was a former Dominican friar in the 16th century, who became a heretic and rejected the Catholic Faith.)

A Jesus who agrees with everything and everyone, a Jesus without his holy wrath, without the harshness of truth and true love is not the real Jesus as the Scripture shows but a miserable caricature. A conception of “gospel” in which the seriousness of God’s wrath is absent has nothing to do with the biblical Gospel.
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Look Upon Christ

Only a blind man can deny that there's now in the Church great confusion.
— Cardinal Carlo Caffarra

Cardinal John Henry Newman (now St. John Henry Newman) was an inspiration of Germany's greatest heroine in defying Adolf Hitler, scholars have claimed. New documents unearthed by German academics have revealed that the writings of the 19th-century English theologian were a direct influence on Sophie Scholl, who was beheaded for circulating leaflets urging students at Munich University to rise up against Nazi terror.

One of the premier Catholic thinkers and philosophers in our country is Edward Feser. He recently published an essay called “Perfect World Disorder” where he talks about the meaning of order and disorder and its effects on our country. You can read the whole essay here: postliberalorder.substack.com/p/perfect-world-disorder.  But for purposes here, some bullet points and observations from his essay and Frank Sheed’s Society and Sanity.

Christ entrusted to the Apostles the mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God and preaching the Gospel of conversion (cf. Mk 16:15; Mt 28:18-20). On the evening of the day of his Resurrection, as the apostolic mission is about to begin, Jesus grants the Apostles, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the authority to reconcile repentant sinners with God and the Church: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). Through the centuries, the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance has developed in different forms, but it has always kept the same basic structure: it necessarily entails not only the action of a Bishop or priest, who judges and absolves, tends and heals in the name of Christ – but also the actions of the penitent: contrition, confession and satisfaction.

Pope Benedict while Cardinal Ratzinger expressed himself on the title of this essay in a book called The Ratzinger Report. He said: It seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for mater to understand the true meaning of another famous expression…the declaration that designated the Virgin Mary as the “conqueror of all heresies.” Now in this confused period where truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith-now I understand that it was not a matter of pious exaggerations, but of truths that today are more valid than ever.

'Shun the worship of idols!', (1 Cor. 10:14), [Saint Paul] writes to a community deeply marked by paganism and divided between the observance of adherence to the novelty of the Gospel and the observance of old practiced inherited from their ancestors. ...

The word 'idol' comes from the Greek and means 'image', 'figure', 'representation', but also 'ghost', 'phantom', 'vain appearance'. An idol is a delusion, for it turns its worshiper away from reality and places him in the kingdom of mere appearances.

Over at the Rorate-Caeli blog historian Roberto De Mattei comments on the papal trip to Canada and his apologies concerning the resident schools and the indigent peoples. You can read the whole piece here: rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/08/francis-unwise-mea-culpa-in-canada-by.html#more

An Essay from Archbishop Charles Chaput on the Responsibilities of Catholic politicians and Catholic citizens.

Thinking with the Church as we look toward November

"If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. A fox can claim to be a duck all day long. But he's still a fox." We've all heard that saying, or some version of it, a thousand times. The reason is simple: It's true. Our actions prove who we are. If a gulf exists between what we say, how we look and what we do, we're not living in a spirit of truth. A fox, even if he quacks, is still a fox. Sooner or later, it becomes obvious.

Below is an excerpt of the sermon by Cardinal Blessed Clemens von Galen, who came to be known as “the Lion of Munster,” delivered on Sunday, August 3, 1941, in Münster Cathedral, in which he risked his life by openly condemning the Nazi euthanasia program. Code named "Aktion T4," the Nazi program to eliminate "lives not worth living" began on Hitler's order in October of 1939. The program at first focused on newborns and very young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three that showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry.

To live well is nothing other than to love God will all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes that love is kept whole and uncorrupted(through temperance). No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude). It obeys only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is prudence)

With respect to the state of the Church, former Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Carlo Caffarra said : “Only a blind man can deny that there's now in the Church great confusion.” Part of the reason for the confusion is the refusal of pastors to follow, speak clearly about, and teach the doctrine and moral teaching of the Catholic Church.