I’m guessing that this guy is a good 4 centimeters, just over 1.5 inches long. He didn’t let me get too close, but I swear I saw the bits pictured at the center bottom of the chart below, the pigeon tremex character. The markings, however, are not similar. But I’m in Western North Carolina, in the Smoky Mountains, not in Washington State. The center white dot is a reflection of the sun on the hard shell.
I’m always, always fascinated by the good creation of our Good Creator. And that doesn’t make me an ecoterrorist, or a green-party wild man, but rather one who sees the Creator also through His Creation.
Saint Paul in his epistle to the Romans, the famous chapter one, and then chapter two, speaks of this for us. Read it!
;-)
Meanwhile, here in Western North Carolina, in the back ridges of Appalachia, it’s a paradise: praise God!
Some don’t seem to see it at all, trashing up everything everywhere, shooting up heroin, taking meth and Fentanyl, beating on each other – even decapitations – loving the power of cynicism.
But many do see, as it were, God through His Creation, bringing to the fore the living memory of the first creation only through the living memory of the second creation: “Do this in memory of me…”
Once we have the second, we can get to the first, but then realize that it’s all even better:
O felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.
O happy fault which merited such a great Redeemer.
Want a good read of just a few pages? Try Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s address to the USCCB in 1991:
Warning! If sarcasm triggers you, just man up and suffer through it. It will do you good. There’s a lot of sarcasm in what follows. There’s a lot of clarity – in charity – with sarcasm. It gets the point across. The Scriptures are filled with sarcasm. Holy sarcasm.
My conscience that I have purposely blinded by not paying attention to the Natural Law, to the Ten Commandments, to the Sacred Scriptures… my purposely blinded conscience tells me that I can hunt down “authorities” who agree with whatever the hell I want to do, like the Pope (not speaking infallibly), like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which never speaks infallibly), like the USCCB (which never speaks infallibly), like heretic priest-sycophants of sycophant bishops (who never speak infallibly), like my kids and grandkids (who never speak infallibly)… my conscience purposely blinded, purposely sycophantic, tells me that I can say that I have no conscience, but just the possibility of being a weak coward and because my fallen human conscience infallibly commands me. I can therefore be only a weak coward and just do evil for the sake of evil, and it will all be good because I’m just like all the other weak cowards at home, at work, at church, in society. Therefore…
Because my conscience wounded by fallen human nature is not to be guided by Natural Law or Revelation, because, you know, it’s my sacrosanct conscience of fallen human nature, and always infallible (I’m so very special!), well, therefore, I can just go ahead and do up some idol worship in Vatican Gardens or in my own life, making myself my own god and worshiping myself, doing whatever the hell it is that my fallen but of course infallible human conscience commands me to do.
Because my conscience wounded by fallen human nature is not to be guided by Natural Law or Revelation, because, you know, it’s my sacrosanct conscience of fallen human nature, and always infallible (I’m so very special!), well, therefore, I can just go ahead and believe in the universal salvation heresy of Pope Francis, which means the commandments are stupid and Jesus is stupid for having died to redeem us from sin — we’re all gonna be saved anyway, right? — and with Jesus being stupid for having the right in His own justice to have mercy on us, to forgive us, He having taken on our punishment for our sin, standing in our place, the Innocent for the guilty… because Jesus is stupid for all that mercy founded on justice crap, I can therefore do whatever the hell my fallen conscience tells me to do. My conscience is god, not God. Universal salvation! Yay! Blaspheming God to His face at the judgment will only get us to heaven anyway, so why not follow my fallen human but ever infallible – of course – conscience? I’m god, not God.
Because my conscience wounded by fallen human nature is not to be guided by Natural Law or Revelation, because, you know, it’s my sacrosanct conscience of fallen human nature, and always infallible (I’m so very special!), well, therefore, I can just go ahead and follow the “If-it-feels-good-do-it!” style-of-morality regarding sexual activity because my conscience says I am to do whatever the hell I please as it’s all heavenly — serial polygamy, fornication, adultery, same sex civil unions, pornography and self-abuse, abuse of minors, whatever — and nothing matters because “my” conscience, utterly relative to me, myself and I, gave me an excuse to do whatever the hell I please, and the Pope, the Holy Office, the USCCB, the bishops, the governments, god Fauci have all foisted their slimy selves on my conscience and I love it, because they insist it’s “my” conscience, that I must be arrogantly proud of “my” conscience, that I must choose not to love God or neighbor or myself: I must shriek NON SERVIAM! I WILL NOT SERVE! I must serve my ill-formed conscience of fallen human nature.
Because my conscience wounded by fallen human nature is not to be guided by Natural Law or Revelation, because, you know, it’s my sacrosanct conscience of fallen human nature, and always infallible (I’m so very special!), well, therefore, I can just go ahead follow the new “vaccine” religion and sacrifice children in mandated rituals of aborting living, fully developed, healthy children so as to rip out their living healthy organs for the sole purpose of researching and/or developing and/or testing for my “benefit”, my direct, proximate, formal cooperation in this murder for hire scheme.
HERE’S THE DEAL:
It used to be that the Church taught (and the true Church still teaches) that our consciences of our fallen human nature are to be formed by Natural Law, by Sacred Revelation, by the authentic supreme magisterial interventions of the Sacred Magisterium such as we have with the canons of Trent.
But now THE DOCTRINE is that Natural Law and Sacred Revelation and the authentic interventions of the Supreme Magisterium are all to be a priori rejected in favor of the fallible private conscience of fallen human nature, and if anyone, say, a priest, dares buck this brow-beating, he will forthwith be dismissed from the clerical state for trumped up charges of, say, inciting hatred of the hierarchy of the Church, of being divisive, ineffective, not being a ♬ man-of-consensus ♬, not one-of-us.
HERE’S THE UPSHOT:
Please God, with God’s grace, I’m going to respect the conscience of people not by saying they have no moral capacity and so I’ll just accompany them in their murder and blasphemy.. No… I’m going to respect the conscience of people by encouraging them to repent and try, with God’s good grace, to do what is good and holy, to follow Jesus, who said, “If you love me, keep the commandments.”
Please God, I do this with great joy and enthusiasm, expecting the worst comeuppance, but considering that a privilege. That’s NOT me. That joy and enthusiasm would only be, is with me, because of the grace of God, and me, somehow, in some little way, following my guardian angel. He also wields that fiery sword to bring about my conversion. See the picture above. :-)
JUST AN HISTORICAL NOTE:
This follow-your-own-sacrosanct-conscience thing began in a big way in 1968 with the wholesale rejection of Humanae vitae by the bishops and priests and religious, they rejecting Natural Law, Sacred Revelation and the constant teaching of the Church through the centuries against contraception, abortifacients, abortion, etc., they insisting on private conscience not formed by Natural Law, Sacred Revelation or the constant teaching of the Church.
And today, the same ones who would uphold Humanae vitae congratulate themselves for being good because of that, so good, in fact, that they literally have a license to kill, so that they can insist on people now rejecting properly formed conscience, you know, so as to give people an excuse in relativism to kill the unborn for self-profit as with the “vaccines.”
Hypocrites, all. They have prostituted themselves in exactly the same way that this has been done throughout the millennia: “Just tell me whatever the hell it is that you want to do, and I’ll give you permission to do this, and I’ll make sure to deal with recalcitrant priests, but the deal is that you have to congratulate me, saying that I’m a man of consensus, clever, smart, a sophisticate amongst the best.” But here’s what will happen: those yes-men won’t be there for the defense of the idiots at the last judgement. No, they won’t. These guys will be all on their own to… defend… murder… because, you know, conscience in our fallen human nature is infallible… and stuff like that there… right? right?
Traitor Joe purposely left untold numbers of American citizens and Afghani interpreters behind to be methodically executed as had already been happening. We knew all this would happen – as scripted – long ago. It sends a message.
From senior US source: house-to-house executions in Kabul following US mil departure. There are no words for what this administration has done to all of us – Afghan and American. pic.twitter.com/KzbLALKxGy
That’s you on the receiving end of those terrorist bullets. This couldn’t happen with a population well able to defend itself. That’s the reason why Traitor Joe wants to cancel the United States Constitution’s Second Amendment.
But now we’ve been pretending to solve all our problems with the murder of American Citizens in the womb for so long that it’s second nature to us just to go ahead and kill everyone: abortifacients, abortion, infanticide, and the purposed removal of live, healthy, fully developed, viable babies while extracting their organs for research and/or development and/or testing of “vaccines.” Murder for self-benefit.
I’m sure to be reprimanded by someone somewhere for “playing partisan politics” with this blog post. So, let’s tell it as it really is, shall we? I mean, why blame Traitor Joe? He’s just the easy, low hanging fruit. There are others who are much more responsible than he is for any death and destruction.
Our religious leaders – who should be leading the way with all that is respectful of God and neighbor and self – have instead dulled the consciences of all right through these decades, hurting the Lord’s Little Flock:
“You can choose according to your mature Christian conscience to go ahead and murder those made in the image and likeness of God, those least of the brethren with whom Jesus Himself identifies: ‘What you have done to the least of these you have done to Me’. So, go ahead, be mature! Kill ’em all!” (said with toothy smiles).
Once you murder the least of the brethren for your own benefit, it’s all becomes that blatant. And they don’t even realize that anymore. These “leaders” blather on about how people will work their way to heaven, saving themselves by supposedly exercising their consciences by going ahead and choosing to get the “vaccine” that involves the murder of the little ones. But murder is not what a conscience decides is right to choose. No. This sophistry is straight out of hell. It was used for contraception and abortifacients and abortion with a vengeance against life especially starting in July of 1968 in the rebellion against Pope Paul VI’s encyclical letter on human life, Humanae vitae, a vengeance that has only become more violent as the decades have clicked by. Now even the “orthodox” and “good” bishops are presiding over putting the image of Jesus to death so that they might look clever and nice and thus be able to be promoted. Ooo! Promotion! The same brow beating that went on then goes on now. Priests are removed for respecting Jesus in the least of the brethren.
But an erroneous conscience does not save. Only Jesus saves. Pope Pius XII says in his encyclical Mystici Corporis that Christ Jesus, from the first moment of His conception, embraced the entirety of the members of the Mystical Body of Christ, those He came to redeem and save. But Jesus in the womb is the last One these “leaders” will speak about when they provide rationalizations, sophistries, to go ahead and kill those in the womb who are made in the image and likeness of Jesus Himself. Never. Not once. Why is that. Guilty consciences? They should go to Sacramental Confession. And then confess publicly, guiding those they misled back to Jesus, back to respect for life.
I remember one Bishop in this sorry world – and I know so very many in so very many countries – who ever so condescendingly said that he respects those who for pro-life reasons don’t want to get the “vaccine”, but that in his (arch)diocese they will just keep pushing that everyone get the vaccine, praising those churches which became injection centers, bragging about priests and laity getting vaccines, making life miserable for those who don’t get the vaccine. Condescension praising stupid pro-lifers but marching on to all that is the culture and cult of death cries out to heaven for God Himself to intervene to stop these “leader”-monsters.
Don’t think that our religious “leaders” won’t be participating in photo-opps about how well they murdered people.
Don’t think that our religious “leaders” are not the ones pulling the trigger in that twitter video above.
The bishops and priests who rejected the encyclical letter of Saint Pope Paul VI (part of the infallible ordinary magisterium) back in the summer of 1968 (the nineteen-sixty-haters) and made total hell for those seminarians like me who wanted to remain faithful to Jesus and Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and the authentic interventions of the ordinary and of course of the Supreme Magisterium of the Church… those bishops and priests have been reincarnated in the new breed of compromisers and browbeating bullies who today shriek that we are all mature Christians with our own mature consciences which can, they shriek, choose wonderfully to reject all that is good and holy because, you know, like, um, because…
“We’re smarter today than God and His Church and everyone for the past thousands of years of Judeo-Catholicism, smarter than any natural law, because, like, um, we live today that they don’t. We’re the ones! We’re the only ones! We have power! We can slit the throats of seminarians and priests who don’t get with the program of our self-referential narcissism!”
You gotta know, I saw a great deal of that slitting of throats of faithful seminarians and priests in my lifetime. I was eight years old in 1968. In the mid-1970s as a teenager, I saw that my diocesan seminary just down the road from my home was filled with homosexualists. The horrific desecration of the Blessed Sacrament that happened at the seminary was from hell, the maggots in the Tabernacle… there are so many horrible things I myself witnessed… Along with this rejection of the Church, of all doctrine, of all morality, there was the predictable proclamation that we are mature Christians and we can make up our own mind about, well, really, everything. One of the courses given at the seminary was by an ex-priest whose for-credit for-ordination classes was a presentation of how to rationalize an abortion in any situation. He “assisted” his father to kill himself. He hotly desired to kill his handicapped daughter. He told all this to me personally. His pro-abortion course was a kind of reparation for not having killed his daughter by abortion.
Nothing has changed. In the past it was almost impossible to find even one priest who stood with the Church. The faithful were marginalized, hunted, scorned, the scum of the earth. I have so many accounts of those I’ve personally met and became friends with. Some in formation at the time saw this and stood by Jesus in His trials, and blessed are they, but some ran in fear – the cowards! – and those freakoids, unrecognizable to Jesus (“I don’t know you; go to hell”) are now, of course, in positions of power. They side with Satan over against the Church and proclaim that we are all mature Christians and can go ahead and choose to persecute Jesus in the least of the brethren. And among all these are those who are loudly proclaimed to the icons of orthodoxy, our saviors in these dark times. Always the same.
I mean, this throws me into nostalgia about how many times I suffered to remain faithful. I’m seeing the whole thing being replayed again. Even the ultra-orthodox famous icons of orthodoxy fall on the side of murdering healthy, fully developed children who were purposely used for research and/or development and/or testing of “vaccines.” They shriek:
“We’re mature Christians! We can decide about doctrine and morality all on our own! The teaching of sycophants-of-Satan-ecclesiastics in Rome tell us we can follow our own conscience as devoid of any formation by either the natural law or revelation or the interventions of the authentic magisterium of the Church. We’re us! We live today! We’re not the heretics of the past! We’re the ones! We’re the only ones! And that’s why we’re right and can attempt to please everyone all the time about everything, and be damned anyone, including God His damned Church of the Ages who gets in our way. We have POWER! GO AHEAD AND TAKE THE VACCINE IF YOU WANT BECAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU!”
But it’s really about them being high priests of death of the image of Jesus. In the past this was about destroying the image of God (male and female in marriage and the family) using contraception, and then quickly murderous abortifacient chemicals (the Pill, etc.), and then quickly abortion, and then quickly infanticide, and then quickly the murder of undesirables, you know, those with hydro-encephalitis, etc. Today, there are those who reject all those things, telling themselves that they are pro-life and holy and good, you know, before God and everyone. But no. They are still the same murderous ecclesiastics who persecute Jesus in the least of the brethren.
I mean, this throws me into nostalgia about how many times I suffered to remain faithful. I’m seeing the whole thing being replayed again. Even the ultra-orthodox famous icons of orthodoxy fall on the side of murdering healthy, fully developed children who were purposely used for research and/or development and/or testing of “vaccines.”
Here’s the deal: I have not compromised. I will not compromise. I will not murder anyone. I will stand with Jesus in His trials. I’ve been through all this before. I’m trained up. The horrific things I went through to remain faithful to Jesus could fill many volumes. Jesus was surely training me up for these days. I know something that these power-brokers of hell do not know. There are many of us who are faithful, who are happy to stand close to Jesus, who won’t compromise, not because we are “rigid” but because we are exuberant in the joy of the Holy Ghost, because we have profound peace from the Prince of the Most Profound Peace, because we, totally unworthy as we are, are Tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, because they carry not “vaccine” inside of us, but because we instead carry about the death of Jesus within ourselves so that others may see the resurrected Jesus in us. And it must be this way for all of us. We beg Jesus that this may be so. I beg Jesus that He may provide me this great grace always unto heaven. I beg this for all. We must be saints and go to heaven lest we go to hell. We must not apologize for having great joy and love and truth that is stronger than any political correctness, stronger than any temptation, stronger than being marginalized, stronger than death, strong enough to get us to heaven.
Do you join me in this joy of the Holy Spirit? Let’s be on our way to heaven!
So, I’m forever asking people to pray for Pope Francis. I pray for Pope Francis. I mention his name in the Roman Canon (the Eucharistic Prayer) as expected. I always add an intention for him at the prayers of the faithful Not only that, but I offer Masses – many Masses – for Pope Francis. I announce these Mass intentions publicly, also on Sundays. Yes. I would ask anyone accusing me of being against Pope Francis as to whether they – motu proprio – go out of their way to do the same, or, if they are amongst the laity, have this accomplished by priests.
Moreover, I pray for Pope Francis and encourage people to pray for him even against heavy criticism which has it that if I pray for him, that must mean that I agree with everything he says. He says some nice things, some innocuous things, some ambiguous things, some dangerously ambiguous things, some downright wrong things. Don’t we all?
Hell would be where I would already be if many kind souls including a number of cloistered nuns (God reward them!) were not praying for me. I make mistakes. I commit sin. Thank God, I go to confession. Thank you, dear Lord Jesus.
But let’s not be ostriches. Let’s not be worshippers of Saint Peter’s successors. Saint Peter, when he was not Saint Peter, ran away and then thrice denied our Lord. Later he fell under the rather severe though entirely correct reprimand of Saint Paul. But Peter did become Saint Peter. Get it? We help each other in God’s grace to stay on the straight and narrow. If we don’t do this, we will all go to hell together.
Ezekiel 33:1-9 — The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head. Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.’ “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.”
We’re all in this together. We will all look together on Him whom we have all pierced through, men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, including you and me. I myself – and I know this for a fact – have crucified the Son of the Living God with what has resulted in me because of original sin and because of all my own rubbish sin. So have you, and you and you and you… Right?
Does that mean that any one of us, say, Pope Francis, is above correction if he happens to do or say something so entirely ambiguous and misleading or just downright wrong that out of human respect the terrible scandal that is endangering people’s eternal salvation cannot be corrected? No. Those browbeating others into political correctness and all worldly niceness are simply acting ultra vires, beyond their powers. What remains as fact is that when people’s eternal salvation is endangered, a pastor who has the obligation to protect the sheep is to protect them regardless of whom the wolf du jour happens to be. Period. No, really, even one who is no more than a jackass:
Though I’m nothing but a jackass, I do try to do the best I can. I just want do the right thing, lest Jesus’ Little Flock goes to hell, lest I go to hell. Also, I’m just representing the real concerns of people who are wondering on giving up on the faith because of the inanity and total cowardice going on in high places. I am addressing those concerns for those souls as I MUST do in conscience.
But let’s be specific, shall we? Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? But my question is as to where the fires of hell are really burning, and why the smoke of Satan has infiltrated. Not in any particular order:
(1) PACHAMAMA: I do take issue with Pope Francis worshipping the death-mongering demon idol Pachamama in Vatican Gardens, and I do take issue with Pope Francis causing, for all of us to see, the enthronement of this abomination of desolation where it must not, by divine mandate, be, that is, in the Holy Place, the high altar of Jesus’ Sacrifice above Saint Peter’s relics in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. A Pope doing that. It’s a matter of conscience for me not to go along with the Pachamama prayers and liturgies which are proliferating by the sycophantic. It is a matter of conscience to correct the scandal. There are weak people, souls redeemed by our Lord whom He also wants to save, who go along with all this demonic execration. Is it a matter of bad optics that a priest charitably corrects the Holy Father for the sake of saving souls? Is this causing division? Any division is not my doing. It’s on the one who’s doing the wrong thing, who are set on keeping people from understanding how to remain with our Lord in the midst of chaos. I have remained, do now remain, and will remain in solidarity with Jesus, Divine Son of the Living God, Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception. Jesus is insulted. He hates when He sees His mother grimace at all of this evil.
(2) TRADITIONIS CUSTODES: I do take issue with Pope Francis rejection of the lex orandi (the law of praying) found with Jesus’ Most Holy Sacrifice as presented in the Mass of the Ages, the Traditional Latin Mass. That lex orandi, that Sacrifice, is the self-same lex orandi found in all rites, whatever they happen to be: Coptic, Syromalabar, Syromalankara, Ukrainian, Ambrosian… so very many. Francis says that such lex orandi, such a Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus at the Last Supper and Calvary, is only to be found in the Novus Ordo in the Roman Rite. But since this is the same lex orandi in the Novus Ordo that he rejected for the TLM, he is also rejecting the lex orandi of the Novus Ordo. He is rejecting that the Novus Ordo presents the lex orandi, rejecting that the Novus Ordo is the Last Supper and the Sacrifice on Calvary. He is rejecting the lex orandi in all other rites throughout the world. Reject one as the bearer of the lex orandi, the Last Supper and Sacrifice on Calvary, and you reject all. That’s why it’s called A LAW: it’s the same in all rites. Francis has wrongly equated the rite and the lex orandi. And just to say: that ancient saying, lex orandi lex credendi (the law of praying is the law of believing) to which he refers, means that the rejection of the lex orandi is the rejection of the lex credendi. The entire faith from the Last Supper until today issuing from the Last Supper and Calvary has been rejected by Pope Francis. So, Traditionis custodes is an evil law, and therefore no law whatsoever, neither demanding obedience or disobedience as it is simply nothing. It is to be ignored. That’s on him just for himself. This is his private opinion no matter how public he has made it, how official he has made it. It is not an ex-cathedra infallible statement. But he has caused grievous scandal. I cannot be part of that by some sort of sycophantic silence, letting people be scandalized right in front of me. Nope. Can’t do it. I can’t do that in conscience. Just because I take issue with what Pope Francis can say or do doesn’t mean I’m rejecting him as the Bishop of Rome. As I say, I pray for him, and, ever so ironically, I offer Mass for him. It’s just that I offer that lex orandi, that Sacrifice Most Holy, in the form of the Traditional Latin Mass. I do not support schism. I do not support disrespecting the Holy Father. Not to correct him is extremely disrespectful. Not to correct him is to be sycophantic. To be sycophantic is by definition to be disrespectful. To be sycophantic is by definition the fulfillment of hatred. I don’t want that for anyone. So, I help people understand. I do correct Pope Francis. That is done out of love, obviously at risk to myself, parrhesia and all that.
(3) LGBTQI+: I do take issue with heart stopping ambiguity about anything LGBTQI+, whereby a good thing is said here but then a horrific statement cancelling that is provided there. Pope Saint Pius X rejected such ambiguity as being as bad or worse than any blatant heresy. Indeed, the mind-numbing ambiguity sucks more people in, wears more people out, dispirits people, leads them out of the Church into and beyond the truly darkest of existential peripheries. I just can’t stomach that. I vomit that lukewarmness out of my mouth. It literally makes me sick to my stomach. I just cannot watch people right in front of me take scandal from Pope Francis’ ambiguity. I pray for Pope Francis, but I will present the fullness of the faith to Jesus’ Little Flock as I am bound to do by Christ Jesus Himself. I’m not going to deny Jesus even if by way of omission. I don’t want to be denied by my heavenly Father. No compromise with Jesus, no grey areas. All grey areas bleed red blood, Jesus’ blood. I can’t do that. I will teach the truth with charity for the salvation of souls. Might it seem like I’m optically messaging diversely amidst the big-community conversation? Sure. Good. I’m happy to be as divisive as Jesus. Let’s see… where’s that sword of division of His now? Ah, yes… Here it is. In my heart. I’m convicted by the truth of the Lord Jesus, whose own Most Sacred Heart was pierced through.
(4) AMORIS LAETITIA: Everything I mentioned for LGBTQI+ is good for the entirety of Amoris laetitia…
(5) DIVISIVENESS: Pope Francis repeats ad nauseam that he wants unity. I disagree with any desire for a unity which disregards Jesus. I’m with Jesus. I’m with the Church. I’m with Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the authentic interventions of the Supreme Magisterium of the Church. It is the Living Truth, Christ Jesus, who unites us in Himself, He the Head, we the members of the One Body of Christ. Always and everywhere. No compromise. Ever. And if this eats away at the consciences of people and makes them angry so that they ferociously complain – wait for it – I LOVE THAT! GREAT! Finally I’m getting through. These people just might be saved in the end. I’m glad to take the blowback for Jesus as He uses me. I’m happy to be in solidarity with Jesus who went way out of His way to provoke people with the truth He provided with such great clarity and charity that we in our cynicism crucified Him. Anyone who measures success in the priesthood by a priest not getting complaints has never even once read the Gospels with eyes open. Ever. If they have, and have rejected the Living Truth of the Sign of Contradiction, well, I pray for their conversion to Mary’s Divine Son. Division! More division! That’s what I say. The women of Jerusalem wept. The high priests shook their fists and said that we have no king but Caesar. Such division! I love it. Would that we would have more of it. But who is there? I’m the worst candidate, but if it comes to this, and, among some few others, it does, I say: Here I am Lord! Be Yourself the Cause of Division through me! And that’s not a blasphemy or pride. It’s humble thanksgiving for having the opportunity in my own small way to thank the Lord for all that He’s done for me, especially in forgiving me, and now, for having me be His priest, His instrument of His own Truth for the salvation of souls. Who cares if some have their feathers ruffled if in the end because of that they get to heaven? Yes. Here I am, Lord.
But.. but… -splutter-splutter- you’re imprudent then Father George! Imprudent! Just like that ol’ meanie Jesus!
Let’s discuss that, the prudence of Jesus: should he have been a man of consensus? You can take that and shove it where the sun don’t shine.
Now you’re being rude and inappropriate and boundary-crossing, Father George!
Really? Do you really want me to cite you God’s own extremely graphic insults in the Sacred Scriptures as inspired by the Holy Ghost? See, for example, Ezekiel 23:19 in the context of the condemnation of Religion bowing to State in all political correctness. This is an insult for those prostituting themselves to political correctness! Bwahahaha!
But, that’s a digression. Let me take all this a bit further, let’s talk about the Vaccine. ;-)
(5) MURDERING BABIES FOR VACCINES:https://lozierinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CHART-Analysis-of-COVID-19-Vaccines-02June21.pdf Click on that link to find out that all available vaccines to date in these USA have purpose murdered babies so as to research and/or develop and/or test “vaccines.” Oh, I forgot. Those pushing for vaccines also cite that article with the idea that it’s all cute but we will continue to push vaccines anyway. Pope Francis now has started up having vaccine passports for certain parts of Vatican City. Pope Francis has had vaccines mandated in Vatican City and for multiple Papal trips. I have to take Pope Francis up on that because people are very specifically taking scandal because of this actions and those of the sycophants who follow him. The question is always: “Are you with Pope Francis or not?” It’s never: “Are you with Jesus or not?”
(6) FOLLOW YOUR OWN CONSCIENCE APART FROM THE CHURCH: There are plenty of “Conferences of Bishops” of particular states, such as Colorado, which are offering letters of religious objection to the vaccine (even though this is also a matter of the natural law available to everyone). Great! But then all of them, as far as I know, praise whatever it is that individuals and their consciences come up with, for or against the vaccine. No. The vaccine is evil intrinsically. As Saint Pope Paul VI said in Humanae Vitae about contraception: It’s intrinsically dishonest. And that would be a mortal sin. Pope Francis’ Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith put out a statement affirming conscience as well, but then added, like, you know, most of the time the mandates are not right. Lots of wiggle room for steamrolling people there. And Pope Francis is smashing people down. Imagine what he would do if bishops or priests who were to greet him on his trips or who would want to continue to work in Vatican City would refuse to get the vaccine. This is a scandal, and I must do my part for the tiny portion of the Lord’s Little Flock in this parish to do the right thing, to set the record straight. How is it that even the most “orthodox” amongst priests and bishops and browbeating fellow priests to encourage people to do whatever the hell they want and it’s all good? Oh, I forgot: the stated purpose of the Synod on Synods, to say that everyone is infallible. Yep. More on that in a future post.
That baby is reaching out of the uterus and grabbing hard on the finger of the surgeon. In organ harvesting “vaccine” times, this baby’s organs would be ripped out of him. But that’s all good and holy, is it? That baby is the image of Jesus. How are you going to rationalize that to Jesus and His blessed Mother. No. Pope Francis and the bishops and priests who support him are risking going straight to hell because of their approval and encouragement of the vaccines. I have to reprimand them for the sake of their own eternal salvation, from Pope Francis on down. If I don’t, I will go to hell. But I want to go to heaven.
Cardinal Ratzinger vintage 1991 in Dallas addressing the U.S. Bishops Conference had it that we cannot begin to have any kind of viably working conscience such as we have with the grace of enmity over against Satan as promised in Genesis 3:15 if we do not have an inkling of the Sacrifice outlined in that verse, whereby the Redeemer and, please God, our Savior, takes the initiative to reach out His heel to crush Satan, knowing that He Himself would be crushed, that He would lay down His life for us, taking on the punishment we deserve for sin, the Innocent for the guilty, so that He might have the right in His own justice to provide us with forgiveness and eternal life through, with and in Him.
In other words, we tend to want to congratulate ourselves that we are “nice people”, you know, that because of whatever nice thing we think we are doing we are now back more or less to the pristine Garden of Eden, so that we can do no wrong, giving ourselves a license to sin, ignoring that those were the conditions in which original sin took place. We cannot begin to know, to live in the least way what it is to be in the grace of God analogous to what it was like before original sin – that anamnesis, that living memory if you will – if we we do not first of all have the anamnesis, the living memory if you will – of the Sacrifice promised in Genesis 3:15 and accomplished by Christ our God, who Himself said: “When you do this, do this in memory of me.” We cannot live the grace of redemption without first accepting redemption in salvation.
As has always been the great liturgical tradition, we look to the East, the pristineness, the early morning rising – to go waaay back in the etymology of the Scriptural vocabulary involved – to meet with our Redeemer, Immaculate Mary’s Divine Son. As we are reminded in the book of Revelation, we will all look upon Him whom we have all pierced, men of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, together, priest and laity, for Christ Jesus is our One High Priest.
How can a priest dare to shove his own face versus populum, toward “the people”, instead of being with them ad orientem, looking toward the One High Priest who is Himself the Altar and the Lamb of Sacrifice. How can the laity not get sick of looking at the face of a mere human being, a merely ordained priest.
(1) Anecdote time: In my own parish, I remember one day the other year when my congregation literally shoved the altar back and changed the candles around to the correct side of the altar so that we would all be facing the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass together. They did this without me asking. It is to rejoice.
(2) Anecdote time: In this account don’t be thinking that you know who I’m talking about since I’ve been in a zillion cathedrals in a zillion [arch]dioceses right around the world. I’ve been friends with a multitude of bishops, archbishops and cardinals.
The back story of this account is that, traditionally, a bishop’s cathedra, a bishop’s chair in the sanctuary of a cathedral, his teaching chair, is off to the side, a symbol that he is NOT the teacher, but that Christ Jesus is the One Teacher, the One Magister.
Traditionally (and not speaking of exceptions such as massive basilicas), the tabernacle is most diocesan cathedrals has been situated in the high altar, front and center, that to which the entire architecture of the sanctuary and church pointed, as it should be. More recently, we have seen most tabernacles in cathedrals cast to the side while the bishop’s chair is moved up front and center where the tabernacle had been. This paradigmatically changed perspectives of people: the bishop is god and he is alone the teacher.
In our present anecdote, a bishop of my acquaintance was sitting in his cathedral, empty at that time of day, except for the rector of the cathedral who was in the pew behind him. At a certain point the rector learned forward to start a quiet conversation with the bishop along the lines of the Prophet Nathan with King David:
Rector: “Are you finally sick of it, bishop?”
Bishop: “Sick of what?”
Rector: “Look up in the sanctuary. Aren’t you finally sick of sitting where Jesus should be?”
Bishop: “Do what you have in mind.”
And so it happened that the rector of that cathedral forthwith placed the cathedra, the seat of the bishop, off to the side of the sanctuary, demonstrating that the bishop is submitting to the teaching of Jesus, the Son of God, so that then the tabernacle could once again find its rightful place front and center, enthroned as King, as it should be. It is to rejoice.
Another, more wild rose out front of the rectory under the papal flag, offering symmetry to the other rose bush to the far side of the statue of Our Lady of Grace up top of the steps of the main but unused entrance. Infused sanctifying grace is like gentle dew from the heavens above. We cannot know it with our natural brain power as this grace is, of course, supernatural. However, in giving a close reading to the relevant questions and articles in the Summa Theologica, almost parallel, in the sections on theology and then much later on faith, one sees how supernaturally infused faith works on the conscience so that one might make a correct judgment in conscience to assent or not to what one otherwise perceives with one’s merely natural gray matter. Grace in this way offers purification of the intellect in the sense that one is less likely to run away in idiocy into escapes from topics such as sin and suffering and free will so that we might face who we really are before God and what the wounds on the body of Christ (also His mystical body) manifest in all truth, in all charity.
Besides this teaching of the conscience by way of Sacred Tradition, conscience is also informed in a more mundane manner by the teachings of Sacred Scripture and then, as another essential leg of the tripod, the Sacred Magisterium, while making the necessary distinctions, of course, regarding the unanimous teaching of the Fathers (when this is demonstrated), the teachings of the great ecumenical councils, the ex-cathedra pronouncements of the Holy Father. And then there’s this:
This, of course, is to be taken with the necessary distinctions outlined above. We are not sycophants. We are not idiot ultramontanists who only ram a psychological “transference” of their rotten selves down the throat of the Holy Father, quite the opposite of what they say they do. Instead, we are to offer all the deference to the very person of the Holy Father that we can, all the reverence to the office that there is never an excuse not to manifest. We are to love the Holy Father to pieces, always and in every circumstance, remembering that the Immaculate Mother of God does not ever fail to intercede for him with the most tender maternal solicitation for his welfare and that of the entire Church.
The barque of Peter is not a ship without a rudder. It is not a ship that can be sunk. And if we are bidden to walk on water as Peter once was by our Lord and Savior Himself, we do so, with Peter, reaching out a hand to help him as we would hope he would do the same for us, that help not coming from us but from the goodness and kindness and truth (btw) of Jesus being manifested in the one giving the help, as we hope, though always, of course, always looking to the Divine Son of the Immaculate Conception, who will come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, He never accepting any lame excuse that the devil made me do it, or weak human beings made me do it, or weak just myself made me do it, with “it” being the spirit of schism and rending the body of Christ asunder, torturing Him to death on the Cross while the Immaculate one looks on.
We have the faith, like the dew from the heavens, like a flower for the Immaculate Conception. And with that we understand that we are not fighting one another but intercede for one another. We are instead fighting the fallen spirits, but not us, really, it is Christ Jesus fighting for us, and Saint Michael leads the way under the direction of the Immaculata. Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle…
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 