Blogposts

Sunday, the last Sunday in October, is the original feast of Christ the King on the date established by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Quas Primas. The traditional liturgy of the Church maintains this original date while the ordinary-form liturgy celebrates the feast on the last Sunday of the Church year.

Pope Pius XI: Therefore by Our Apostolic Authority We institute the Feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ to be observed yearly throughout the whole world on the last Sunday of the month of October—the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints. Pius XI’s intention, as can is to emphasize the glory of Christ as fulfillment of His earthly mission, a glory and mission visible and perpetuated in history by the saints.

The Church has always rejected Freemasonry. It is alive and well in our world and is international in its reach. It is part of a current globalism, the movement to subvert the sovereignty of individual countries with a so-called new world order ruled by oligarchs, power-elites, whose rules don’t apply to them. One of the reasons Freemasonry is rejected is that it is a pseudo-religion. God is simply the Grand Architect of the Universe a form of deism. Deism accepts a notion of God as having nothing to do with this world, who does not intervene in this world or with human beings. Freemasonry gives religious symbols alien meanings and promotes naturalism, the view that only the things of this world count and there is nothing beyond this world. Religion in freemasonry is totally private and can be whatever you want, hence there is no truth in religion and all religions are the same. Brotherhood is based solely on human concerns and endeavors not on God or His Revelation. The pivotal Church teaching on Freemasonry is Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Humanum Genus,(The Human Race)

According to the plan of our Lord the Catholic religion is the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham and the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. This is exemplified by the fulfillment of two major Jewish feast days: the Passover and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We hear the Passover recalled during Lent and this involved the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and to be brought to the Promised Land. Christian commentary views this as also pointing to the deliverance of the human race, Jews and Gentiles, from the slavery to sin and set on the road to the Promised Land of intimacy and friendship with God in the life of heaven. The crossing of the Red Sea and the passing through its waters is seen as a sign of baptism, the entry-point of this deliverance from sin.

Pope Benedict while Cardinal Ratzinger expressed himself on the title of this essay in a book called The Ratzinger Report. He said: It (the saying about Mary you can never say enough) seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for me 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.

By Jeff Z. Klein (Niagara Frontier Heritage Project)
Father Thomas Conway, Navy chaplain for the USS Indianapolis.

The sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in the early morning hours of July 30, 1945, is the worst disaster to befall a single ship in the history of the US Navy. Some 300 men lost their lives when the heavy cruiser was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and went down, and almost 600 more died over the next four days, floating without food or water in the shark-infested Pacific, their distress signals unheard or ignored.

George Agamben is a philosopher in Europe sounding the alarm about the melding of health and political control. His remarks reflect Italy which was devastated by but it also by and large reflects the situation in the United States. Here are his remarks:

Our contemporaries, including many Christians, reject the notion of hell as something incompatible with God’s love and mercy. In fact there have been those who have maintain that at the end even Satan will be reconciled to God, a heresy called apocatastasis, meaning a restoration to the original state, that the Church has rejected as contrary to the teachings of the Faith.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.3 It is written: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."

Based on Cardinal Ratzinger’s talk to the American Bishops before becoming Pope Benedict XVI

1. Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgment regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g. excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (cf. Instruction “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” nos. 81, 83).

In union with and venerating the memory of, in the first place, the glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, but also blessed Joseph, spouse of the same Virgin, and your blessed Apostles and Martyrs, Peter and Paul, Andrew, James and John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Thaddeus: Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and all your Saints by whose merits and prayers grant that we may in all things be fortified by the aid of your protection."

We can’t help but notice today the barrage of advertising directed at getting us to buy products designed to enhance our bodies. “Infomercials” abound with this or that vitamin, health food that will give eternal youth, better looks, and lasting health. In the area of sexuality this trend has developed into the “potency industry” promising ecstasy in human relationships. Noteworthy, also, in this aspect of modern living is the tendency of contemporary society to look at our bodies as machines so that the goal is to develop a fine-tuned, high-powered engine.