Majority of Irish Catholics Reject Teaching on Marriage & Family…
Irish bishops’ release of survey findings reveals gulf between church teaching and Catholics’ real-life experience.
19 March 2014 12:03 by Sarah Mac Donald
The Church’s teaching on marriage and family life is disconnected from the real-life experience of many Irish Catholics, the country’s bishops have acknowledged.
Giving a summary of the responses to the Vatican questionnaire, the Irish Bishops Conference said it is not experienced by many Catholics as “realistic, compassionate or life-enhancing”.
Many respondents expressed “particular difficulties” with the teachings on extra-marital sex and cohabitation by unmarried couples, divorce and remarriage, family planning, assisted human reproduction and homosexuality. Some found the Church’s position on these issues left them feeling “guilty and excluded,” the bishops said.
The leadership of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) welcomed the bishops’ decision to release the summary, saying if people are asked for their opinion, it is important that the results be made known.
The group said it was “now beyond dispute” that there was a serious gap or disconnect between official church teaching on family, relationships and sexuality and Catholics’ beliefs and practice. It suggested that the laity, clergy and bishops should come together and search for ways for bridge this gap.
The bishops underlining that they had a responsibility to present the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family faithfully and in a positive and engaging way. But they admitted it must be done in a way that showed compassion and mercy towards those finding it difficult to accept or live the teachings.
Respondents to the survey also cited “immense challenges” for families in Ireland arising out of severe financial hardship, unemployment and emigration. Other difficulties identified were domestic violence, infidelity, neglect and other forms of abuse, as well as the constant pressures on “family time”. Some respondents also expressed concern about the limited amount of state support for marriage and the family.
The ACP, which represents over 1,000 Irish priests, also noted the similarity between the responses received by the 26 dioceses in Ireland and the 1,562 responses received by the ACP through its website. The group said these mirrored the results which had been published elsewhere around the world. Source
Comment
Why is a blatantly dissident organisation like the ACP calling the shots here? We all know what they mean by their suggestion that ” laity, clergy and bishops should come together and search for ways for bridge this gap” – they mean the Church must change her teaching.
Wrong. The clergy and bishops should certainly get together with the dissenting laity but only to give them their marching orders. If they reject the teaching of the Church and God’s natural moral order, then they’re about as Catholic as Stephen Hawking. Or am I lacking “compassion” and “mercy” again?
Comments (86)
I’d like to make two points. It should come as no surprise that the majority of Catholics reject these teachings. They have never been taught them and never heard a sermon on them. It’s like asking me if I accept the laws of quantum physics!
Secondly, everyone associated with the Association of Roman Protestant Priests should be excommunicated.
Like Graeme, I couldn’t agree more with everything you say. It is amazing that the bishops can’t see that they’ve destroyed the Church in Ireland by allowing bad teaching in schools and priests like the ACP to run riot.
After the Consecration of Russia, the scales will fall from their eyes but I can’t see it happening before then.
Petrus, thank you! Could not agree more.
So people sin, where is the news?
That the bishops have so corrupted the seminaries with apostate leadership for decades, so we have priests who do not teach, so we have people who do not know or understand, but are fed the worlds harsh and unkind ways ( dressed up in “compassion and understanding and tolerance”). People who are “led” by bishops who simply do not do their job of teaching!
The bishops need to fall on their knees in repentance and then get up and start doing the Lords work, spreading the good news of the redemption, teaching and governing. It is the Truth that sets us free from the shackles of sin. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen.
‘Some found the Church’s position on these issues left them feeling “guilty and excluded,” the bishops said’.
Then they might just as well ‘exclude’ themselves even more, and leave the Church. They could join the Church of Ireland, where ‘anything goes’.
All the Bishops can do is excommunicate the Association of anything but Catholic Priests (who only contain 15% of Irish clergy) and dissident politicians, and send the only decent message they can: the Church can live without you!!
Well, folks, so far, I agree with you all – and I have to add that I was spoilt for choice when deciding between this topic (Ireland) and similar concerns in England. This is also from The (Terrible) Tablet: the thing to note is the bishops’ delight at the apostasy. “Delight” is the word – take note:
“Two bishops of England and Wales have broken ranks with their confreres with one calling for developments in church teaching on human sexuality and the other criticising the collective decision not to publish the findings of a Vatican survey.
The Bishop of Middlesbrough, Terence Drainey, called for a “radical re-examination of human sexuality” that could lead to a development in church teaching in areas such as contraception, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage and cohabitation and the role of women in the Church.
Bishop Tom Burns of Menevia says that in the interests of transparency the bishops should publish the findings of a Vatican survey which asked questions on cohabitation, contraception and same-sex marriage. In an article for The Tablet, Bishop Burns notes “the height and depth and width of the intense pleas made by God’s people for urgent attention to their pastoral needs”.
“Publish and be delighted!” writes Bishop Burns in defiance of the bishops’ conference’s insistence that it would not be publishing the results of the survey at the request of the Vatican. He says they should follow the lead of the bishops in Germany and Switzerland who have published the survey’s findings.” Read more
The fact is, Pope Francis is a blessing. Thanks to HIS outspoken dissent, the rest of the apostates have found the courage to publish their real (anti-Catholic/anti-divine revelation) beliefs.
And they think we’ll continue to “respect” them, just because they’re bishops? Michael Voris eat your heart out!
I’m not sure I agree with you entirely Editor, although I can see where you’re coming from. The Church is in the mess it’s in because of bad leadership and, frankly, abuse of power.
What can possibly be gained by the Church having a survey and then telling those who contributed to it that they can’t see the collective results, as if we’re somehow unable to understand the data? If the results show a mess then we need to see the mess as it is, not after the bishops have swept some of the mess under the carpet. That kind of approach has contributed to a culture of ‘there’s no crisis, everything is fine to say nothing of cover-up’.
Perhaps if we had more bishops prepared to say it like it is we might just be a bit better off, for at least we’d see the problems both in terms of scope and magnitude.
Laguna,
I think you’ve misunderstood, not just what I have said, but a number of key issues as well, if you don’t mind me saying so.
My penultimate paragraph makes clear the fact that I am very pleased indeed that the apostasy is now more and more public. I’m not for sweeping things under the carpet. The whole raison d’etre of Catholic Truth is to make sure the apostasy is NOT swept under the carpet and we’ve had no end of stick as a result – mostly from priests and bishops.
I do not share your approval of the bishops just because they’ve (under pressure) published the results of those unnecessary surveys. Some of us had no need of a survey to tell us the obvious – that the Faith has been lost; long lost. Since at least 1962 to be precise. To spend good money conducting daft surveys is a questionable, if not sinful, use of our money.
The bishops are largely to blame for this apostasy in the first place, so thanking them for conducting the survey and making the results known is a bit like thanking David Steel for publishing the number of unborn babies murdered in their mother’s womb since his successful campaign to legalise abortion.
Allowing us to see the “scope and magnitude” of the apostasy (some of us have been only too well aware of the scope and magnitude for a very long time, hence the launch of the Catholic Truth newsletter) would be fine and well if the bishops planned to launch a massive re-education programme, implement Canon 915 in the interim, tighten up on discipline, stop permitting dissenters to use Catholic premises to poison the Faith of ignorant and gullible audiences (both clerical and lay) and do all sorts of other things to end the attitudes thrown up in these surveys.
The fact is that, but for the fact that Pope Francis is himself a public dissenter, the bishops would have continued to cover up the apostasy and, perversely, as they do, scream “disobedience” at people like us, who have been exposing the “scope and magnitude” of the crisis in the Church (the apostasy) for quite some time before any bishop thought of conducting a survey.
I take it you realise that Bishop Burns’ exhortation to “delight” in the publication of the survey is to be understood as delight that (in his mistaken view) the results will lead to changes in Catholic teaching? That is, without a shadow of a doubt, what is going on here. More bishops like him? You kidding me?
“Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot: they have changed my delightful portion into a desolate wilderness.” – Jeremias 12:10
“Henceforth the enemy of the Church is no longer outside the Church; he is now within”. -Pope Saint Pius X, encyclical E supremi apostolatus, October 4, 1903
The objectives of the ACP certainly need to be seen to be believed. Nothing original, of course. In fact, it looks rather like the ring leaders went to Pascendi Dominici Gregis for their material and decided on a few of the Modernist errors condemned by Pope Saint Pius X.
Rather than encourage your readers to boost visitor numbers at ACP’s website, it might be helpful to do a bit a comparing:
Pascendi warns that Modernists “disdain all authority and brook no restraint: and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to love of truth that which in reality is the result of pride and obstinacy.” (# 3)
The ACP invokes the “primacy of the individual conscience.”
Pascendi warns of Modernist belief that “ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic parts” (# 38) and that the “ecclesiastical magisterium must be subordinate” to “individual consciences” (# 25).
The ACP calls for “all believers to be treated as equal”, as well as for a “redesigning of Ministry in the Church” and a “restructuring of the governing system of the Church”.
Pascendi warns that Modernists “lay down the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change” (# 26) and for them “there is nothing immutable in the Church” (# 28).
The ACP’s objectives include “a re-evaluation of Catholic sexual teaching.”
Pascendi warns that Modernists “actually admit…that all religions are true” (# 14)
The ACP claims that “full acceptance that the Spirit speaks through all people” is needed so that “the breadth of the Spirit will flow more freely.” I wonder what “Spirit” exactly that is.
In 1894, in first pastoral letter to the clergy of Venice, Cardinal Sarto, the future sainted Pope, gave a very clear demonstration of his care for souls when declaring that liberal Catholics are “wolves in sheep’s clothing; it is more important than anything else that their murky designs should be exposed to the light and denounced.” Do those words not bear constant repetition today?
They are nothing more than the restatement of those of another great Saint and pastor:
“It is an act of charity to cry out against the wolf when he is amongst the sheep, wherever he is.”- Saint Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3 chp. 29
It isn’t possible to overstate the importance of combatting liberalism, the work and instrument of lucifer. Sin against the Faith is the worst of all breeches of the Divine Law. In rejecting even one Church dogma, liberals reject the very teaching authority instituted by Our Lord, and visible in this world in the form of His One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Such rejection wilfully declares that the individual’s own private judgement is the supreme and final arbitrator in faith and morals. Once that line is crossed, the rejection of every element of Divine Law is on the agenda. Though many will of course strenuously deny it, dissenters who reject the Church’s constant and infallible Magisterium march straight from the City of God into the City of Satan; no doubt waving many ignorant and gullible souls onto the path to perdition.
What Ireland, like everywhere else, needs right now are a couple of battalions of resolute medieval Dominicans. In happier times, any propagator of toxic poison such as those included in the ACP’s objectives would have faced a very uncomfortable appointment at the Holy Office, which might have resulted in adjusted attitudes, and left the souls of the faithful unmolested. Nowadays, by contrast, liberal dissenters enjoy the notoriety that comes with approval of the disciples of the father of lies.
“When there is an imminent danger for the Faith, Prelates must be questioned, even publicly, by their subjects.” –Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, q.33, a.4
The ACP have now been at large for over two and half years. It hardly needs repetition that this continuing threat to the salvation of souls is just one more example of catastrophic dereliction of episcopal duty. The inaction speaks very loudly indeed.
No doubt, the shepherds who bear ultimate responsibility for the heresy and perversion which have infested the National Seminary at Maynooth haven’t demonstrated any noticeable determination to alleviate the grave concerns of those Catholics who exercise their right under Canon Law to question the continuing scandal of open dissent amongst the clergy. Perhaps the repetition of the following words might, by the Grace of God, have some effect:
“And if the watchman see the sword coming, and sound not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves and the sword come, and cut off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman.” – Ezechiel 33:6
It really is time to wipe the dust off the Oath against Modernism.
Since only around 10% of the Irish now practice their faith I would put no credence on the opinions of the lapsed 90% who are virtually sex-mad atheists.
I can understand their desire though to get rid of annoying laws. I get a bit perturbed every time I pass a bank knowing I am not allowed to go in with a gun to demand a few thousand bawbees so I might ask the local bishop to bring the matter up at the next conference and demand that the law be changed. I`m quite sure if I visited Barlinnie for support I could gather enough names to force a change in the law.
Frankier,
That’s really good – I can just imagine the law being changed to allow bank robberies!
I am wondering if the Scottish bishops will publish the results of our survey?
I wonder if the results would be a bit different as I can’t help thinking Scots are a more conservative type of Catholic.
“Since only around 10% of the Irish now practice their faith I would put no credence on the opinions of the lapsed 90% who are virtually sex-mad atheists.”
Well put, Frankier.
10% might be a bit optimistic or generous, though. There is no doubt that the Liberal, dissenters and their flock of camp followers are obsessed with, and driven mad by, sexual matters. This is all they have been able to talk about for decades.
I think we can expect a great more of these verifications of apostasy to be rolled out all over the world in the coming months. This is, without a doubt, all part of the revolutionary “democratization” of the Church. The modernist driven call for “Power to the People” is nothing new. The shouts are just getting louder, while the snakes slither out of the shadows.
I wonder how many of the episcopal and clerical cheerleaders would show any respect whatsoever for the words of Pope Leo XIII:
“About the ‘rights of man,’ as they are called, the people have heard enough; it is time they should hear of the rights of God.”- Encyclical, Tametsi, 1900
Meanwhile, the blind, emaciated, and abandoned novus ordo “people of God” reach out, encounter and accompany one another as they journey further and further into the Kingdom of Satan.
Leo
I like the camp followers bit.
I was speaking to my brother the other day, he listens to RTE radio as I do when I am driving and he heard a priest admit that only 3% of his members attend church. The best bit was that he said that he wasn’t duly concerned.
Mind you, I suppose you can get loused earlier from work if you can empty the church in ten seconds rather than half an hour
The Irish were always embarrassed to be accused of being a priest-ridden society so they set about rectifying that by wheeling out the likes of the horrible Dave Allen, Terry Wogan, Father Ted, Mrs Brown’s Boys and countless pornographic films. We now have the gut-wrenching The Walshes to contend with.
They are only popular in this country because the British are delighted to see them falling apart at the seams. They are doing to themselves over a short period of time what
their oppressors couldn’t do in 700 years.
All I can say is, “well done you weak unfaithful servants“
Couldn’t agree with you more on those T V programs absolutely rotten .One of the best statements I ever heard an Irishman quote when trying to be grilled on T V was Richard Harris who said -I would rather die a bad Catholic than have the Church change the rules –The same applies to myself–The funny thing about lapsed and missing Catholics around me is that they all want a RequiemMass .Is it because that really within their heart they want to hear those glorious words. Angels and saints receive their soul and present it to God the most high. Or is it that I heard one say on the radio –The Church should be kept for and I quote–Hatch Match and Dispatch–God save us.
Frankier
I wouldn’t advise listening to RTE ( the Irish version of Pravda) while driving. I’m sure it massively increases the danger of faithful Catholics crashing their vehicles. It is a seriously nasty, tendentious, communist, secularist, hedonist, antichrist organisation, which has polluted the public square for decades, having been infiltrated by Marxists since the 1970’s if not before. RTE is a real study in how the Alinksyites work.
And guess what, most of the so-called big names that invade peoples living rooms morning, noon, and night are paid more than David Cameron. Honestly, I try and avoid RTE as much as possible, as I reckon it is verging on sinful to listen to the propaganda.
Similar remarks could, I think, be applied to all nationwide media outlets in Ireland. The mind rot and pornography that is spewed out is really unrelenting. And of course we have the constant pounding on the Church which has reduced many to cowering silence, hiding behind their sofas.
I see, Frankier, that you mentioned a few names that some will say represent Irish “contribution” to British popular culture. Yikes. Ireland’s revenge on England more likely. To your credit, you didn’t mention the contemptible Graham Norton.
I would disagree however that “the British are delighted to see them (the Irish) falling apart at the seams”. I don’t have any sense of that. No, I think it is definitely a cause of pathological self-loathing and revolt against the Kingship of Christ brought about by materialism and concupiscence.
I haven’t got a citation, but I’ve heard it often enough to accept the account that Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin, a friend of Archbishop Lefebvre’s, on returning from Vatican II reassured anxious laity that the Council wouldn’t have an effect on their lives.
Rather poignant, that.
Leo
I agree entirely with all you say, and more, about RTE. Not living in Ireland I wouldn’t know much about its TV programmes but I would imagine it is much the same.
I listen to keep up with what is happening in my father`s (God rest him) native land; he was from Sligo. It is through this radio station that I have worked out that Ireland has become a horrible, atheistic, anti-Catholic nation. It will soon be as bad as South Africa with its daily shootings. I read a few years ago, so it is not something new, in The Voice of Padre Pio magazine that the Irish media were the most anti-Catholic in Europe.
One horrible journalist in an Irish paper, now defunct, accused Padre Pio of being a sexual abuser also I was delighted to see that his rag went into liquidation not all that long after..
Re. Graham Norton, I wouldn’t take too much credit for not mentioning him,It was just that I had forgotten about him, although it is the so-called Catholic ones who anger me most with their crawling and grovelling in order to get a knighthood, like Sir Terry Tightjacket, or a medal from a long dead empire.
As for the British being delighted at their downfall. Maybe I should have substituted Scottish for British for, I can assure you, their TV programmes are lapped up here. I remember at one time it was only Catholics who went from Scotland to visit Southern Ireland but after the Father Teds and the Graham Nortons came on the scene Ireland became so loveable to them that quite a number went over to work in construction before the Celtic Tiger had its teeth well and truly plucked..
Leo, you`ve got me started. It is times like this that I wish that moderator would lift her cruel ban on bad language 😉 That way I could have let everyone know how I really feel about the rapidly deteriorating situation in a country that I love despite the treachery of 90% of its citizens to a Church that helped educate them and also to take care of their orphan children in the past when many women died during childbirth leaving a large family, as happened to my own grandmother.
Frankier
That was a really cracking post.
You obviously don’t need me to tell you anything about Ireland. I meant to say previously that the one thought that consoles be is that RTE will be surely first port of call when the Extermination Angels hit Ireland, followed by the Irish Times and Irish Independent newspapers. Saint Michael’s division must be getting tooled up at this stage.
“Daily shootings” is just about right. Murder is now staple news fodder. This morning a man was shot in the head and seriously injured outside a crèche. A woman was shot dead in Dublin a few days ago. In the sixties, I’m told, a murder was an absolutely extraordinary news story.
Someone has made the point to me that murder and suicide has increased noticeably since the murder of unborn children up to birth was legalised last Summer. I have heard many remarks about Ireland now having a sinister, cursed air about it. Stands to reason, when a country becomes the playground of satan.
I remember at least two incidents of tabernacles being stolen from Church’s last year, before being recovered, empty. It’s only hearsay at present, and I’m not expecting evidence to be made available through the media, but I find it very credible that there is widespread dabbling in occult practices, with the inevitably associated ritual child abuse. I’ve only heard very recently of two pubs/nightclubs in central Dublin which can only be described as dark, satanic, blasphemous cesspits.
On the issue of child abuse, if people want a glimpse of secular double standards, have a look at the following link. The name of Alan Shatter might be familiar. He’s the Minister in the current antichrist Irish government who was very quick to judge when RTE first broadcast accusations against Father Kevin Reynolds which were quickly found to be utterly baseless and defamatory.
Charming, charming people.
Shatter, people may recall, also floated the idea of priests being forced to break the seal of Confession, before he backtracked.
http://donum-vitae-blog.blogspot.ie/2012/11/does-this-deserve-investigation-mr.html#!/2012/11/does-this-deserve-investigation-mr.html
I’m not aware of any denial of the allegations made by Ian Paisley Junior in the Assembly. I think people will search the Irish media archives in vain for coverage of Shatter’s role in this case.
I agree, Frankier, that at times like this, the use of industrial language can be very tempting, and the best way of getting the message across. I hope Editor isn’t reading this, but I’m sure I’ve seen a dictionary of foreign language swear words in book shops, so that’s given me an idea. As I recall, there was a pretty impressive bit of strong language attributed to Saint Peter Damian on the blog last year (May/June time?).
Your comments about “the treachery of 90% of its citizens to a Church that helped educate them and also to take care of their orphan children” is the best point on the thread so far. Treachery it surely is. Many of those middle aged apostates who did very well during the Celtic Tiger, owed a great deal to the Catholic education they received. We know dreadful things happened in some places. That’s been covered over and over again, often with scant regard for justice and truth. What we very, very rarely hear is public gratitude towards the many priests, and nuns, and brothers who gave their lives unselfishly and unstintingly, with little earthly reward, towards the education and advancement of Ireland’s children. Without that education, God knows what sort of state the country would be in. And yet the latte-supping theological illiterates, whose pious forebears toiled honestly to rear their families, feel entitled to pass judgement.
As for hospitals, when the nuns were running them, nobody was left lingering on trolleys for days, and nobody was dying for want of cleanliness about the place.
National pride constrains me to some extent in going too much further about the present generation, but honestly, shame doesn’t begin to resemble an adequate word for how I feel about the current state of this country. Professional sport, escapist TV, cars, extensions, holidays, and sexual gratification appear to cover the priorities for most people nowadays.
My allegiance now is to the honorable memory of those priests, religious and laity who through dungeon, fire and sword, through attempted bribery, famine and eviction, refused to apostatize, who clung to the Mass of the Martyrs and their Rosaries and passed on the pearl of great price all the way down to these squalid days where self-absorbed ignorami feel qualified to squander the gift received from their betters.
The sixteenth century chieftain Shane O’Neill proclaimed that the Irish people bow to no one but God. I don’t know what he would think now.
“With God and Jesus Christ excluded from political life, with authority derived not from God but from man, the very basis of that authority has been taken away, because the chief reason of the distinction between ruler and subject has been eliminated. The result is that human society is tottering to its fall.” – Pope Pius XI, Quas Primus, 1925
Leo
It`s good to meet at least one Irishman who hasn`t had the wool pulled over his eyes. There is still hope for the country yet.
I`m not surprised, but sad, that more murders have been committed in the past few days. When will it all end, if ever?
Your comment about Ireland having a sinister, cursed air about it reminds me of a statement my mother used to make when in a place where she was happy, mostly the church. She always said that there was the grace of God about it.
I am old enough to remember when there was the grace of God to be felt in Ireland, which makes me so sad about what is happening today It was great to be in a pub at 12 noon when everyone stopped
for the Angelus. People would bless themselves passing the church or when a funeral cortege went past. I still practice this myself to this day.
When I first visited, at 12 years of age, we had to stand outside the church listening to the Mass being relayed over a loudspeaker and
there were statues of The Sacred Heart, Our Lady and the favourite saints outside houses and on the window sills.
People would argue that they don`t want to go back to “those days”
but the sooner they do the better. They were certainly days in which tabernacles were treated with respect.
I read about Shatter but I`m not in the least surprised at the cover up.
They would rather check up on over 1 billion people, similar to the population of China, and glean every rumour of child abuse as long as it was discrediting the Church. It would be interesting to know how much abuse goes on in China or in five countries totalling the population of the US.
It`s true what you say about hospitals being run by nuns. I don`t
know too much about the Magdalene Sisters except what I saw on
a (comedy) film produced by a lapsed Scottish, Marxist Catholic.
We are expected to believe that a few elderly nuns, in convents with very limited accommodation, were able to detain young girls similar to those young colleens starring in Big Fat Gypsy Weddings for years against their will. The doors weren`t even locked but, it seems anyway, that not one of them over the years had the know-how to turn the handle and simply walk away. Nor did any of their families even go and look for them, even if it was just to invite them home for the weekend before the nuns came and frogmarched them back to their prisons.
It was obvious that no one was ever allowed to leave as we saw the elderly nuns slaving away in the background while the young ones were busy slipping the itching powder into the priest`s unmentionables.
It`s funny how we never saw any thirty, forty, fifty or sixty year olds in the film but they must have been there if no one was ever released. Maybe the governments in Ireland and the UK should employ the nuns as prison advisors since they managed to incarcerate people for life without overcrowding or the need to build extensions. They even managed to feed them with no apparent income since the Reverend Mothers, who could handle money like card sharps,
all nabbed the cash to themselves.
Really: it is surprising how many people actually believed this film to be the real thing. So much so that it started all the debate about the Magdalene Sisters which hasn`t yet abated.
If my mother was alive today I would seriously have to think about
claiming compensation from her for forcing me to help her with the housework. We had to help wash the 12″ varnished wooden strip
of flooring between the wall and the linoleum in the days before fitted carpets. We had to go to the Co-op on the bike every day for the messages and go out into the garden for the shallots, greentails, leeks, parsley, carrots and the rest that my father had planted.
My elder brothers even went shooting for rabbits, hares, black cock
and pheasants and if we were really bad we had to go and dig up the potatoes.
Many a day we wished instead that we had been consigned to the Magdalene Laundries.
PS
I forgot to mention all the greetin` weans.
Classic, Frankier.
You must be on for a bonus this week.
I wouldn’t bet that you are a Telegraph reader, but you might have seen this article which deals with the Magdalene Laundries and anti-Catholic agitprop in general. It’s written by one of those rare individuals amongst those with a voice in the public square, a modern day atheist who isn’t an anti- Catholic bigot, appears capable of some reasonable thinking, and isn’t afraid to give voice to the results. And a good Irish sounding name too.
I think the following excerpts might encourage people to read the full article, attached at the end.
“As The Irish Times ponders: “Are factual inaccuracies in movies justified by role in highlighting issues?” The Times cites campaigners for justice who believe that “the role such [movies and books] played in highlighting the issue justified any artistic embellishment”. A playwright told the paper that even if these portrayals of laundry life were exaggerated, they “served an important function at the time” – that is, to raise awareness about the problem of abuse in Catholic life more broadly.”
Well that’s pretty clear. Falsehoods are to be justified when the further the agenda of the Church’s enemies. In case people didn’t get the point, O’Neill leaves no one in doubt.
“Catholic-bashers frequently accuse the Catholic religion of promoting a childish narrative of good and evil that is immune to factual evidence. Yet they do precisely the same, in the service of their fashionable and irrational new religion of anti-Catholicism.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100202781/catholic-bashers-have-embellished-the-truth-about-abuse-in-catholic-institutions-its-time-to-put-the-record-straight/
Frankier and Leo,
You two give a whole new meaning to the complaint that folks are talking about me behind my back. Now it’s “talking about me behind my blog” 🙄
Leo wrote:
“I agree, Frankier, that at times like this, the use of industrial language can be very tempting, and the best way of getting the message across. I hope Editor isn’t reading this, but I’m sure I’ve seen a dictionary of foreign language swear words in book shops, so that’s given me an idea. As I recall, there was a pretty impressive bit of strong language attributed to Saint Peter Damian on the blog last year (May/June time?)”
You forget, our Leo, that St Peter Damian didn’t have the equivalent of Catholic Truth to keep him right. Be fair!
Listen, when Leo next comes over from the Emerald Isle, we’ll get together for a drop of the hard stuff (Diet Coke) and you can use all the “industrial language” you like. It’s (for the moment) still a free country so you can say what you like, while I sit there, looking prim and proper and exuding disapproval. See if you care…
But there are enemies lurking who already take every opportunity to attack this blog for not being Catholic enough, so if we started using choice language all over the place, they’d jump on us like a ton of bricks.
And there’d be no use saying “The Pope used the F word, so what’s the big deal?” 😯
Now, I’m kidding there – we have to be fair, that was a translation mistake. He’s open to criticism on so many justifiable fronts, so I mustn’t criticise him for a genuine mistake.
In any event, the Dalai Lama deliberately used that word some years ago when he visited Glasgow and told the 9,000 (I think) people listening to him: “if you think my teachings are too hard, just say “F” it…” words to that effect – I’ve quoted him exactly in the past but no time to check it right now because…
I’m, recovering from an horrendous bout of food poisoning from last night, so today is dedicated to taking a rest from eating and from wearing myself out on the blog which will make me hungry and so I’ll want to eat and… you’ll get my drift!
Final word – both of you are experts at expressing your views about the crisis in the Church in all its aspects without descending to the levels of the likes of St Peter Damian… 😀
Editor
I don`t think any of the two of us would use it even if it was allowed. Why lower ourselves to use the same language as the Pope or the Dalai Lama or even Peter Damian?
I must confess though, that as someone who wasn`t known to use bad language in the workplace in general, it became a powerful tool when I did use it at times at work when I wished to get someone to toe the line. Especially when there would be around 20m3 of concrete to be spread on a wet day.
I think it can be useful at times to emphasise a point, especially for one who doesn`t use it as normal everyday language.
I might just ask Leo where I can get one of those dictionaries though.
Frankier,
I know that well and truly, neither Leo nor yourself would use bad language. I just wanted to make sure I was right!
And yes, it sure can be useful to emphasise a point – just ask any driver who has crossed my path the wrong way! I tell you this, they’ll not be trying that again 😯
Don’t worry, Editor. Only testing.
I was just having a laugh at the back of the class. More tongue in cheek than foot in mouth. The “enemies” will have to find something apart from language offences to throw at us. Not going to happen. No fear.
Watching that singing, prancing, nun was a fair test for anybody, though.
As for language I think the following offer an ample selection for use against the enemies of Catholic Truth.
Saint Paul called Elymas, the magician a “seducer, full of guile and deceit, a child of the devil, an enemy of all justice.”
Saint Bernard addressed Arnold of Brescia, the liberal agitiator of his times, as “seducer, vase of injuries, scorpion, cruel wolf.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas referred to William of St. Amour and his disciples as “enemies of God, ministers of the devil, members of antichrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates”.
Saint Bonaventure called his adversary Gerard “impudent, calumniator, spirit of malice, impious, shameless, ignorant, impostor, malefactor, perfidious, ingrate.”
Yep, there’s enough material there alright. Obviously dialogue and “luv” are a relatively recent novelty.
Sorry to hear you are under the weather, Editor. Hope you get better quickly.
Leo,
You are so right about “dialogue” and “luv” being a relatively recent novelty. And neither of them applies to us! We get ignored and insulted at every turn. Remind me to attend the next ecumenical meeting I see advertised…
Thanks for your good wishes – I am a little better but still making the most of it… ~Don’t want to let this great nursing care and pampering go to waste… I managed to beg permission to check the blog in case anyone needed my help, but now, back to the hard work of being a very sick patient, eating only crackers and black tea, as prescribed by a friend in the USA, one of our wonderful bloggers. I’ll let her identify herself if she chooses so to do. Whatever, it adds to the aura of illness around me… I’m getting to really love crackers and black tea… 😀
The Irish people like those of most European countries have had no solid Catholic teaching for fifty years or so. Those I have spoken to have no knowledge of of what the Church actually teaches, just like the great majority of catholics now, and even more importantly, why it teaches what it does.My knowledge is slight enough compared to most bloggers, but their ignorance is astounding, given the country’s history.
However I don’t find the people any more sex obsessed than they are in Scotland, the UK or in other parts of Europe.
Those I know are sickened with the clerical abuse that has taken place in Ireland in its different forms; and this in a Catholic country! So I think they have the right to be more bitter than the Scots or the English considering what so many families sacrificed for the Church.
Then there was the unbelievable immersion into the materialism that the Celtic tiger brought with its concentration on who you are is what you own. it was enough to turn the heads of a lot of people.Especially if there had been only poverty in your life before. It was like putting a devil on horseback!
With regard tp the ACP; who is to excommunicate them?
Is it not obvious by now to everyone and everywhere in Europe anyway, that with …….. and this must noted……. exceptions, the bishops are of the mindset that wants to change the teaching of the Church. So they are not going to excommunicate the ACP.
Is it not a bishop that has closed the blog of Nick Donnelly of Protect the Pope? These bishops, and many lay people too who are of a similar mind, are in key positions and it is very difficul,t to get around them.
One way is to blog. But who is being in formed? Is it not only the converted?
Sir I really have to disagree with you on Catholic teaching as we have to take lots of responsibility I E the laity. Also regards to abuse one bad Priest is one to many but things like the Magdeline Laundries also took place in U.K .Our asylums were full of old women who’s only crime was to be a single mother and their families disowned them .Non Catholic as in the 40 s and 50s this was a crime against their family.
Spero,
To answer only your closing question (since I’m supposed to be elsewhere right now) no – it is not only the converted who are helped by blogs – judging from the encouraging emails I’ve had from kind folk seeking to encourage the Catholic Truth team after reading in the current newsletter about the criticisms we’ve had over time, including criticism of our blog. Some of those emails are from young people, and they have assured me that they rely on our blog to learn about Church issues. .
I’ll take this opportunity to point out to those who do not like our blog for whatever reason, that they should take their undoubted knowledge and blogging talent over to the Catholic Herald, and to The (formerly Glasgow) Herald when there are articles and letters about Catholicism published there, as has been the case this past couple of weeks in particular.
I’ve been on The Herald blog a few times recently – alone all alone, more or less – so even if our critics don’t want to blog here, they should blog elsewhere. It’s a fantastic way to educate people about our Faith (it’s not happening in pulpits or schools, after all). Unlike our blog, of course, most others (certainly The Herald) are moderated sites so you have to think carefully before posting – nothing of a personal nature or, note this, nothing criticising The Herald in any way, will get through. Check out the terms and conditions. No usernames are allowed – we have to publish our real names, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most of us.
Briefly, while I agree with what you say about the Irish being disillusioned after having held priests in such high esteem, it really is no excuse, nevertheless, to react to that by blaming “the Church”. That reveals a lack of truly solid comprehension of the nature of the Church, as you know.
Everyone seems to forget that the abusers were ordinary Irish citizens, sons, brothers, uncles, cousins, you name it, before they became priests. It is not as if they were specially imported into the country to carry out their deeds.
Many of them, in my book anyway, were abusers who became priests rather than the other way around, so I don’t see why the Church should carry the can
I wonder how many Irish stopped watching their filthy, pathetic programmes, such as the infantile Father Ted, when aired on the BBC because of the Jimmy Saville investigations. Very few I would bet. Would they have stopped
going into the local pub if the barman was an abuser?
Nobody will convince me that the reason for the drop in Church attendance in Ireland, or any other where, is because of the child abuse. That is only a lame excuse. The facts are that the slide away from the Church was going on rapidly before the full extent of the abuse came to light. For that, you can blame the hierarchy.
Here is an excellent SSPX article on the original survey: http://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/survey-confirms-catholics-rejection-morals-3301
Note in particular this at the end: “…this worldwide survey mistakenly conveys in the minds of Catholics of the false notion that moral truth can be opinioned upon and that the majority makes the truth.”
So we have come to the impasse between Divine Revelation and public opinion about sin. The former labels sin for what it is, and recommends the remedy for it. The latter no longer considers sin a sin, and feels “hurt and excluded” by the truth. These worthless bishops, of course, predictably endorse the latter choice. And our _______ Pope not only follows suit, but causes more of his bishops to make the wrong choice.
The modern church can now truly be said to be the blind leading the blind.
Great Pretender,
“The modern church can now truly be said to be the blind leading the blind”.
Well, at least they can sing…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpaQYSd75Ak
Rome, Italy, Mar 20, 2014 / 01:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News)
Sr. Cristina Scuccia is a 25 year old member of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family who has appeared on The Voice of Italy, a reality show akin to American Idol or Britain’s Got Talent.
Sr. Cristina surprised the four judges on The Voice of Italy March 19 with both her talent and her habit.
The judges on the show begin with their backs turned to the performer, and turn around only if they like what they hear.
As the judges turned to face Sr. Cristina, their astonishment was visible at seeing a young nun singing Alicia Keys’ “No One.”
A native of Sicily, Sr. Cristina arrived at the show accompanied by four sisters from her community, as well as her parents.
The four judges of the popular TV program are the Italian singers Raffaella Carra, J-Ax, Noemi, and Piero Pelu.
After her performance, Carra asked Sr. Cristina if she is really a nun, and why she chose to compete on the show.
“Yes, I am truly, truly a sister,” she replied.
“I came here because I have a gift and I want to share that gift. I am here to evangelize.”
According to the show’s format, when a participant receives the approval of the judges, they then choose which judge’s team to join.
Sr. Cristina chose J-Ax “because I told myself that if they turned around, I would choose the first one.”
J-Ax, who was visibly moved when he saw Sr. Cristina, said he was thrilled to have been chosen by the most popular participant on the show.
Sr. Cristina is trending on Twitter with “#suorcristina.”
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, used the hashtag in a tweet Thursday, commending her for sharing her talent with the Italian people: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others (1 Peter 4:10)”. (emphasis added). Source
To laugh or cry? And remember, it’s the SSPX who are in the “irregular situation” !
Truly, you couldn’t make it up.
The Singing Nun of the sixties, the Medical mission Sisters, The Benedictine Nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of Ephesus in USA, the French Benedictine Sisters all have recorded music albums: Fra Alessandro from Italy!!! So why object to a young nun, in her habit singing in a contest. No sexual content or dance displayed. If I remember The Tyburn Nuns have made several CD’s over the years!!! Surely you don’t think that evangelisation can only be done through the ‘hokey cokey mass’ your so fond of. Gerrragrip.
I think you’ll find that the Singing Nun of the sixties abandoned her vocation. The rest sound more like Gregorian Chanters than pop.
Incredibly, you ask: “Why object “to a young nun in her habit singing in a contest”?
Well, for starters, that ain’t in the job description of religious life, if my memory serves me correctly. Nuns used to teach, nurse, care for the elderly, sure thing, but cavort about a stage making idiots of themselves? Not in my memory. Oh and what do you mean by this: “Surely you don’t think that evangelisation can only be done through the ‘hokey cokey mass’ your so fond of.” What’s a “hokey cokey” Mass? Explain please.
Have you seen the lyrics of the song “Sister” was singing? Here they are, and I’d love to know how you interpret them: who is it she wants “close” and what is it that will “only get better” and what is it that she’s “feeling” that “no-one can get in the way of…”? I’m genuinely asking – I’ve never heard of the song before:
“No One”
I just want you close
Where you can stay forever
You can be sure
That it will only get better
You and me together
Through the days and nights
I don’t worry ’cause
Everything’s going to be alright
People keep talking they can say what they like
But all I know is everything’s going to be alright
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I’m feeling
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I feel for you, you, you
Can get in the way of what I feel for you
When the rain is pouring down
And my heart is hurting
You will always be around
This I know for certain
You and me together
Through the days and nights
I don’t worry ’cause
Everything’s going to be alright
People keep talking they can say what they like
But all I know is everything’s going to be alright
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I’m feeling
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I feel for you, you, you
Can get in the way of what I feel
I know some people search the world
To find something like what we have
I know people will try, try to divide, something so real
So till the end of time I’m telling you there ain’t no one
No one, no one
Can get in the way of what I’m feeling
No one, no one, no one
Can get in the way of what I feel for you
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh [x2] END.
Whatever it all means, it’s hardly the stuff of evangelisation. Who on this earth is going to think “I must become a Catholic now – WOW, what a singer, and she’s a nun too”
Get it together, Chasdom. Before it’s too late.
Editor
I see Chasdom forgot to mention Bing Crosby. One of the best known priests on the planet at one time.
His blasphemous statement about the ‘hokey cokey mass’ shows him up in his true colour, which is obviously blue.
He has undoubtedly been a member of the choir of the football fans who used to remind us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was just hocus pocus.
Frankier,
Yes, poor Chasdom is some kid.
I’ve just deleted his latest post which I was going to allow through until I noticed it was all about me. One of his considered statements was that I am an “old twit” and if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s “old”.
For the record, Chasdom, I did NOT type out all the words of the song – I copied and pasted them, silly billy. Oh and for the further record, Chasdom, I DO have a sense of humour…. Did you hear the one about… 😉
Comment removed
It’s about taste Chasdom. Do you not ‘sense’ it, why it just isn’t right?
It didn’t particularly find it objectionable, but I don’t like it.
The singing nun was in a homosexual relationship and later committed suicide with her partner, so that’s not a particularly helpful example.
“hokey cokey mass”
How revolting. To use a blasphemous parody of the sacred words Hoc est enim Corpus Meam.
Frankier
I agree completely that the apostasy was well advanced before the scandals broke, and would have happened anyway. Undoubtedly. People just seized on a so-called “excuse” for their rejection of Divine Law and the Church.
Unless someone has lived in Ireland over the last two decades, it is hard to grasp the unrelenting hammering, rehashing and churning of the scandals by the media. And the only abusers anyone was interested in hearing about were priests. Abuse victims at the Bethany Home, which was Protestant-run have been virtually ignored and forgotten about.
Many ignorami rely on the statutory reports that have been conducted, without having a clue of their contents, which don’t always reflect well on the secular powers, to say the least.
Such has been the overwhelming success of the secularist agitprop that a poll conducted a two or three years ago found that over 40 per cent of those asked, believed that at least 20 per cent of priests were abusers.
Meanwhile the deaths of 200 children under State care during a recent 10 year period are virtually forgotten.
Editor, I actually think we are saying the same thing but perhaps coming from different angles. In essence I was trying to say that publishing the results of the survey will show just how much of a mess the Church is in. We might be aware of the mess, but there are many who don’t realise how bad it is! Anything which highlights it is a good thing.
I couldn’t agree more with Frankier. The abuse scandal has been used by people who are just looking for an excuse to abandon ship. Good riddance. The facts are that abusers became priests, not the other way about. They saw an opportunity to infiltrate the priesthood and they took it, just as they took it when they became football coaches, swimming teachers, school teachers and doctors. People didn’t stop going to the doctor because of Harold Shipman, did they?
It’s an excuse, and a feeble one at that. I’d have more respect for them if they had at least the guts to be honest and say ‘I’m off because I don’t believe it.’, and not look to blame anyone and everyone else!!
Laguna,
“People didn’t stop going to the doctor because of Harold Shipman, did they?”
Love it! I’ll be quoting that, just you wait and see!
I take your point about the survey being useful to underline the crisis for those who can’t see it – unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be what is happening. What is happening is that the bishops are “delighted” (to quote Bishop Burns) because it gives dissenters the excuse to raise their voices even louder in the cause of changing the teaching of the Church and disciplines where they can get away with it.
Still, I can see that we probably are in broad agreement, which means you’re not losing any pay this week. There’s always something to be glad about, in the Pollyanna philosophy of life!
I know that there is many wrongs in our church today but there have been many wrongs as we all know down through the years .I am in my 60s and can remember The Parish Priest in my town having lets just say to much power. I also can remember when Christmas and Easter collections of families were read from the Alter by Parish Priest which was all wrong . Lots of poor families who had given what they could like –the widow who gave her last penny in the gospel –used to cringe in embarrassment as our names were read out. Remember in the 50s many kids went to bed hungry there was no obesity among my classmates unfortunately there was with our P.Priest .Maybe some of us look back on those days with rose tinted specs. At least today I would say that 90per cent of Catholics although a lot fewer than in the 50s attend Mass with an honest desire to take part in same. I can assure you that was not the case in the 50s and remember what J.Paul11 said in his book Crossing theThreshold of Hope –Quote -we are not in the numbers game its not how many Catholics there are but how many committed Catholics there are.
Faith of our Father,
I think you are being rather unfair in drawing conclusions about “the Church” from a particular example.
I’ve never once heard any priest (before or after Vatican II, to be fair) naming people and praising the amounts of money they give. Never. That priest was very wrong to do that but he didn’t do it because it was the norm. There are always going to be people in every walk of life who abuse their power and authority. The front pages of newspapers often report shocking instances of such, and last week here in Scotland we had a case of a police officer who had falsely accused a man of driving while using his mobile phone. The case was dismissed when it transpired that the man had a prosthesis hand which couldn’t grip his phone. There’s loads of cases of abuse of power and authority in secular society. it’s wrong when it happens in the Church as well of course but unless you want non-humans to be ordained, that’s going to happen from time to time. You said you cringed in embarrassment when your name was called out – did you ever tell the priest you didn’t want your name called out?
You also make the mistake of judging that people are now – in droves – taking part in the Mass whereas before (the new Mass) that was not the case.
The key confusion here is caused because you see people moving around the sanctuary (extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion) and pews (sign of peace) and because the responses are said aloud. Talk about “all that glisters is not gold”. That’s not the participation which pleases God. Participation at Mass is interior, not “active”. Are you sure that all the people who packed the churches before the introduction of the new Mass were not “participating”? Really?
As for Pope John Paul saying we are not in the numbers game. Well, that’s just one other thing that he was wrong about. For Our Lord’s very last words on this earth were that we were to go out into the whole world and convert everybody. Sounds pretty much like a numbers game to me.
It’s not about looking at the past through rose-coloured specs. Things are never perfect when human beings are involved and the Church is both human and divine. But if it wasn’t perfect before, it’s nearly extinct now – last week’s Herald reported that half of the parishes are closing in Glasgow. Yet the modernists keep talking about the “renewal” we are going through. They’re the ones wearing the rose-coloured spectacles. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome – with bells on.
I remember the days when people`s names were read out and nobody I ever met seemed to bother. In fact, in the village where I lived, I am led to believe that before the National Coal Board took over the coal companies deducted money from the men`s wages, with permission of course, for the local churches.
I am not making excuses for any priest but it was the norm in those days.
It was transparency before transparency came into fashion. No accounts went up in the back of the church in those days. A bit like what is happening again today.
It gave everyone an idea as to how much was being collected to help run the church rather than to cause embarrassment.
Those were the days also when everyone seemed to start coughing as soon as the consecration was over. Maybe that would have been a good time to get someone to read out the names. They could even have read them out in Latin and converted the amounts into drachmas. After all, we are always reminded that nobody understood the Latin.
e.g. – Philius the Flautistus – nil drachma, always nil drachma.
Frankier,
I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Unbelievable. I don’t even like the envelope system, and refuse to participate in it, because I do not want any lay person knowing how much I put into the collection, none of their business. All they need to know is that’s one box of chocolates less a week I can afford to buy.
Editor
You are far, far too young to remember.
In fact, I wonder if you remember the days before Vatican 11 or if you just listen to mature people like myself.
Frankier,
Unfortunately, I’m not as young as I (or you!) would wish.
I do indeed remember the days before Vatican II – more than that would give too much ammunition to my enemies and might put an end to the Valentine Day cards, so will leave it at that 😉
I, for one, will be cancelling the card. It was making too big a hole in my pension anyway.
To state as you have done about partaking in Mass past or present to say I mistake this on people doing things such as the sign of peace etc is a cheap jibe. Also in ref to my approaching and telling off P.Priest I was just a child in those days and would have quickly received a clip round the ear for my insolence. I very much disagree with lots of what partakes of the New Mass extraordinary mininsters giving out communition is one. But there are lots of good and holy people who attend New Mass –maybe don’t count myself in that cat–to go around and condemn all shows a lack of Christianity. As someone so well educated as yourself will surely know you can be a good Catholic but be a bad Christian. As for us not being in the numbers game thought you would have known that came from the so called fear factor element forcing indigenous populations to become Catholic. Anyhow thanks for the dialogue have a good and holy day God Bless. F.o F.
Faith of Our Fathers,
There were no “jibes” in my post, cheap or otherwise. My post is factual and it is always a mistake to shoot the messenger just because you dislike the message.
How was I to know you were a child in the days when the priest called out names? That wouldn’t enter my head since I can’t imagine any child “cringing” at such a thing – would they have a clue what was going on? In fact, children normally love to hear their names called out, it’s basic stuff in any school I’ve ever known. So, please be fair.
Neither have I “condemned” all Catholics who attend the novus ordo. I was one myself for over twenty years.
No, sorry, but I don’t know how anyone can be “a good Catholic but a bad Christian” – that sounds like the sort of “theology” which is trotted out by modernist “experts”. The type invited to give talks on Catholic premises, with the aim of poisoning souls against the Church, As Cardinal Newman pointed out, the only true Christians ARE Catholics: “The Catholic Church IS the Christian dispensation” were his exact words. It’s always a mistake to create false dichotomies and that’s one of the classics.
Since you give absolutely no source for your allegation that “indigenous populations (were forced) to become Catholics” I’m dismissing it as yet more modernist propaganda. The Church prohibits any kind of coercion, so if that ever happened anywhere in the world (which I doubt) it happened despite, not because of the Church’s teaching. A bit like the new Mass. Some rebels got together and concocted that, so it would be the same kind of “anything-but-Catholic” types who would even think of forcing anyone into the Church.
You, too, have a good and holy day.
God bless.
To say you can’t think of a child cringing at statements shows a distink misunderstanding of your imagination lots of my classmates sat in fear of the Monday Ritual. Also to say you don’t know of anyone who can be a good Catholic but be a bad Christian astounds me you really should get out more. On our church forcing indigenous populations into doing what they did not wish to do I suggest you read your history with an open and not a closed mind. Anyhow you take care in looking up to you I admire your stance for the Faith and how you have the courage to put your head above the parapet. Take care keep up the good work God Bless.
Faith of our Fathers,
I’m really confused about what you now term the Monday Ritual. I thought you said the priest called out names during Mass, listing who gave which amount of money to the parish. I really think we should leave this as I have never heard of it, take your (and Frankier’s) word that it happened, but thank God I never EVER experienced it. It seems odd to me that priests would call out the names of people (adults) who gave money on a Monday to an audience of children, but then, what do I know. Let’s leave it there.
Again, to clarify, please quote me where the Church has EVER instructed that people are to be coerced into being Catholics. Just quote any one source. I’ve no time to go chasing history books. Quote one, name it, give chapter and verse, author and date, publication details etc. because I’d want to check that this was not propaganda where the true history tells a different story, which is the case in all too many alleged history books. I have never said that individuals did not coerce – no idea – but that is not “the Church.” In a hundred years from now people will be able to claim that in the 20/21st century Catholics held the same moral views as everyone else, e.g. used contraception, supported homosexual partnerships (even the Pope said as much !) Doesn’t mean “The Church” taught that these things were right.. The Church has consistently condemned contraception and homosexuality as she has consistently condemned coercion.
Thank you for your kind comments but please do not “look up” to me. I’m doing nothing more than my duty, she said, one hand polishing her halo…
This simply proves what many of us have been saying for years: of all the Catholics in the world, how many are really Catholic? 3-4 per cent?
CarterBenCJ
“3-4 per cent”? I’d say more likely to be thee and me – and I’m not even sure about thee 😀
Editor
Mind you, I am not even sure about thee, far less CBC, and that only leaves me.
And the other Francis of course. 🙂
Faith Of Our fathers
I do agree that the laity need to take responsibility as well for faith formation especially in the family.
It is nigh impossible to infiltrate the other parish organisations to put forward any orthodox beliefs. And then the schools! Life can be made very unpleasant for teachers who go agin the grain of what passes for Catholic teaching. You try your best but at very very best, they tolerate you to have a little input on the sidelines …… that is until you can be edged out.
Catechesis courses ; i asked to see the contents and it felt like an interrogation by the secret police.
Leo
I don’t live in Ireland but have family there and go there a lot. Perhaps the people I know do confuse the Church with the abusive priests and nuns; and maybe this is through ignorance of the nature of the Church; and maybe they were losing the faith. But it should not a “good riddance’ to them. The Lord loves each one of them.
Editor
I am glad if people, especially young people, e mail you to say they are heartened by this blog. Any blogs I visit i would say that those who comment are of the same views roughly but I am forgetting many people read, are influenced and maybe don’t post at all. Stupid of me because i am one of those on other blogs!
I’ve never tried to comment on, say, the Catholic Herald. Maybe I will now.
I would say that writing to the press can be very frustrating. Chances are the letter won’t be published, particularly in the SCO. Or if it is, the key ideas are lopped off, so losing the entire thrust of the letter. It is not for lack of trying, anyway.
The Scotsman is my paper and i never think of using the internet to access a newspaper so I missed all that stuff in the Herald
Spero,
I couldn’t agree more about the press censorship, including (especially) at the SCO.
Think of this. The news about half the parishes in Glasgow closing was considered important enough to publish on the front page of The Herald early last week. Took up the whole front page, picture of the Archbishop of Glasgow included. Then it received comment in the editorial.
Yet not a single letter on the subject was published in the days following that coverage.
I emailed a letter for publication on the same day as the front page story appeared.
I kept my letter short and to the point. When it was clear it wasn’t going to be published, I followed the advice of a reader and sent it to David Leask, the reporter who had written the front page article. Below is my email to David Leask, forwarding my original letter for publication. As an (albeit amateur) editor myself, I think, with all due humility, which – as you know – abounds in my ever so humble soul – demands publication, not least if no other letters were received at The Herald:
Dear Mr Leask,
I read your front page report Catholic leaders plan to axe half of heartland parishes in The Herald on 12 March. I also read the editorial comment on the same subject. I decided to send in a letter for publication – see below.
There has been a block on my letters for some time now – resumed after a brief respite when Douglas-Home was editor. He rang me at home to encourage me to resume submitting letters after discovering that the then Deputy Editor, Kevin McKenna, had blocked my letters and the letters of our then Media Officer. “Anything from Catholic Truth” he told the Letters Editor was to be sent “upstairs” (to him.) Blatant censorship. I wasn’t really surprised, therefore, when my letter did not make it into print last week. However, the fact that there have been NO letters on the subject at all – given that the matter was considered important enough to make the front page and editorial – seems very strange indeed. A friend suggested that you may be interested in reading my letter in response to your report, although the wider public is not being allowed to consider the points I’ve made, and so, for your personal and professional interest I am forwarding it to you now.
Kind regards – God bless.
(signed)
Editor
Catholic Truth
From: Catholic Truth [mailto:editor@catholictruthscotland.com]
Sent: 12 March 2014 19:51
To: ‘GL-Letters’
Subject: LETTER FOR PUBLICATION
Telephone 07979053666
Catholic Truth
10 Sandyford Place
Glasgow
G3 7NB
Dear Sir,
Your front page report on the demise of the Catholic Church in the west of Scotland came as absolutely no surprise to readers of our publication in the archdiocese of Glasgow (Catholic leaders plan to axe half of heartland parishes, The Herald, 12 March, 2014)
Since our newsletter was first launched 15 years ago, we have predicted precisely this eventuality, documenting the dire state of the Church in Scotland, in sharp contrast to the false public image portrayed by those intent of keeping up the pretence of a thriving Catholicism led by “hard-line bishops”.
But, as any CEO knows, a refusal to enthusiastically advertise the Company product and run a tightly disciplined ship, will always end in failure. An astute CEO, assuming he believes in his product, faced with having to close half of the Company outlets, would waste no time in restoring that which was lost in the name of modernising.
The Scottish Bishops have failed on every front, actively encouraging dissenters and refusing to enforce Vatican instructions on everything from Catholic schools to Catholic worship. Yet, unlike the average CEO, they seem determined to pursue the same policies which have brought the Church to near extinction in Scotland. It seems clear that they do not believe in their “product”.
It’s very sad to learn of such a massive programme of parish closures in Glasgow, but those of us who remember the packed churches, schools, seminaries and convents before the modernising “reforms” were deemed necessary, are struggling not to say “we told you so”.
(signed)
Editor
Catholic Truth.
I’m glad you plan to blog at the Catholic Herald, Spero and I suggest same at The Herald when appropriate. You can subscribe to receive their daily headlines, which helps to alert to anything on the Church published therein. We ought to spread our wings as far as possible, because the ignorance is just of marathon proportions now.
“Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference toward the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being…” – Pope Saint Pius X, Our Apostolic Mandate.
The survey results under discussion here represents just one more exhibition of proof that novus ordoism is self-liquidating, in Ireland as in dioceses across the globe.
“Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot: they have changed my delightful portion into a desolate wilderness.” – Jeremias 12:10
Speaking to priests and the members of parish councils in one Dublin deanery in Clonliffe College at the end February following publication of the survey of attitudes on contraception, fornication, adulterous second unions, and sodomy, which revealed that rejection of Divine Law was in line with that in the other novus ordo devastated lands in what was once Christendom, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin declared his lack of surprise.
‘What should surprise us is the fact that we have not been developing a strong pastoral response to these questions over the years.’
He added, “We should not have had to wait for a questionnaire from Pope Francis to address these questions.”
http://www.catholicireland.net/vatican-survey-findings-dublin/
I just wonder what His Lordship meant by “strong pastoral response”, considering that his sermon at the scandalous Divine Mercy Conference a few days previously contained the following words:
“We are to reach out not with a package of dogmatic formulae or a check list of morality…”
I think we can have a justified concerns, to say the least, at the direction “pastoral” might be moving in. Elsewhere, the manner in which the pastoral approach is being spoken about suggests it is nothing more than a tactical weapon in dodging around immutable dogma. What about leading, teaching, and sanctifying, Your Lordship.
As for surveys, I think the form part of the weapons of modernists in questioning, casting doubt on, and undermining Catholic Truth.
Concerning such things, St. Thomas Aquinas had this to say: “Well, these ones are false prophets, or false doctors, inasmuch as, raising a doubt without resolving it is the same as conceding to it.” (Sermon “Attendite a falsis prophetis”).
Remember that Archbishop Martin recently treated us to the rather unbelievable observation that the Church “has lost its sense of fun”. Hard to imagine those words coming from Saint Charles Borromeo. So are Synods of Bishops in Rome now to be reduced to some sort of ecclesiastical version of the Eurovision Song Contest? Here is the voting from the Dublin jury. Laugh. I thought I’d never start.
No. I expect the plan behind these surveys is a great deal more sinister. Stand by for the roll out of plenty more survey results from around the world. The apostasy is not so silent these days, and getting louder. It looks like the supposedly retired arch liberal Cardinal Kasper is enjoying a new lease of life under his papal admirer. It doesn’t require a great deal of imagination to see that the modernists are really going to go for it at the Synod on the Family later this year. The German lay patrons must be obliged and indulged in sacrilege by their de facto schismatic pastors, it seems. It doesn’t require a great deal of imagination to see these diocesan surveys as a tool in the hands of modernist mob agitators, to be gathered and used to pressurise a Pope who appears to be intent on refusing to proclaim Catholic Truth to the world.
Perhaps Archbishop Martin might reveal to us why exactly he saw fit to publish this example of the Church’s rank failure in its divine mission in Dublin.
What degree of destruction is required before Archbishop Martin will publically admit that the Conciliar programme of intoxicated adherence to the “cult of Man” has endangered countless souls in his diocese? No. I’m not holding my breath.
Perhaps Archbishop Martin will tell us exactly measures he proposes, at this eleventh hour stage, in order to carry out his divine mission to lead, teach and sanctify the souls entrusted to his care.
Perhaps Archbishop Martin will assure us of his intention to prevent sacrilege committed by giving Holy Communion to those living in public mortal sin. And not forgetting abortionist leaders of government for that matter. Will you, Archbishop Martin, refuse Holy Communion to Enda Kenny?
In view of the wasteland that surrounds him, would Archbishop Martin humbly admit to the urgent need to apologise for and make amends for the scandalous statement that he made in his address to the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association Conference in March 2012, when he appeared to consider the decline in Catholic influence over Irish society as something positive:
“The change in Irish society and the change in the life of the Church in Ireland are linked together. There is a growing secularisation in Irish society. This is not entirely a bad thing, if we understand the complex phenomenon called secularisation correctly. Very few of us would wish to return completely to the type of society many of us grew up in, where the Church dominated so much of Irish culture, and where the bishops and the clergy dominated the Church. Irish society and the Church in Ireland have changed and it must be said that the change has in great part been good.”
The total rejection of the Social Kingship of Christ, mass apostasy, legalised butchery of unborn children up to birth, including in Catholic hospitals, contraception, divorce, sacrificing of school children to the antichrist commissars of the education system, the complete undermining of the place of parents in rearing and instructing their children, the screeching celebration of sodomy, increasing propaganda for euthanasia, proposed legislation for court ordered sterilisation of “a relevant person who lacks capacity”, craven Church capitulation in the face of those forces of organised naturalism who seek to expel Catholic voices from the public square and wage unrelenting war against Christ.
With respect, at this point in time, “good” is not the word I would use, Your Grace.
One final question. You are familiar, Your Grace, with the words of the English martyr bishop, Saint John Fisher?
“The fort has been betrayed even by those who should have defended it.”
I do agree about those surveys being a sinister thing, to give the bishops an excuse to say at the Synod that sexual morality needs to catch up with the 21st century. What faithlessness.
Your post is full of truth ,unfortunately .How for Gods sake can these so called Catholic leaders including Cardinal Bergoglio talk about Homosexual so called unions .Nothing to my mind has one minority group of Humans had so much power over the majority than the Homosexual Lobby .Our media especially The Notorious B.B.C led by the likes of S Fry and Co constantly shove this agenda in viewers faces his despicable attacks on the Catholic Church through a state run media is deplorable . That our Bishops also want to even publicly discuss so called same sex unions is dispicable God save us from such so called leaders. God Bless take care. F.o F.
I don’t think it is possible to overstate the extreme gravity of the situation in the Church today. That lucifer is waging all-out war is hardly debateable.
His minions in the dark workshops, the forces of organised naturalism, have given us warning. I came across the following in a well-known, very short, but powerful book, first published in 1974 entitled, Athanasius and the Church of His Time, by Archbishop Rudolf Graber.
Pages 71 and 72 informs us that the Paris journal of the Grand Orient of France, “L’Humanisme” contained the claim in its May/October volume in 1968 that “a kind of Copernican revolution”, a “gigantic revolution” had befallen the Church, which already contains within it “the prelude to victory”.
Does all the current fast moving modernist driven democratization and decentralisation agenda in the Church not fit in very closely with the following statement in the above mentioned vector of antichrist agitprop.
“When the traditional structures collapse, all that remains will follow. The Church did not foresee that it would be contested in this way and it is no longer anything like prepared to absorb and assimilate this revolutionary spirit…It is not the scaffold that is awaiting the Pope, it is the rise of the local Churches organising themselves democratically, rejecting the dividing-line between clergy and laymen, creating their own dogma and living in complete autonomy of Rome.”
It continues with the following ominous warning.
“Soon it will no longer be possible for the Vatican to keep control over the internal motions of a great body which used to be considered homogenous…Might it not be time to return to more ‘national’ Churches?”
In the coming months it might be a good idea to pray Pope Leo XIII’s Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, which contains the following grave words:
“In the Holy Place itself, where has been set the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.”
The point has been made often enough here, but can anyone seriously expect anything but ignorance and apostasy from the laity when seminaries are infested with heresy and sexual perversion.
I’ve heard from good men who had to get out of the Irish national seminary at Maynooth, for fear of losing their faith. I’ve posted here before about the incident when a visiting foreign priest was giving a so-called “retreat” to seminarians, sometime within the last fifteen years. One day in the refectory, he decided to say the prayers of consecration over the salad that was served. I was told that by a first-hand witness. About four years ago (?) it was commonly reported that a group of five seminarians were forced out because they wanted to kneel at Mass. And that’s not the sum total of departures by any means.
I wonder what Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and the other Irish Bishops plan to do with the programme of priestly formation at Maynooth. OK, I can guess. So far there does not appear to be a dramatic improvement following the 2011 Apostolic Visitation, from what I’ve been told.
The following linked story gives an idea of some of the problems. After clicking on the link, just click on the image of the article to read it. It will also be necessary to use the “zoom in” function to enlarge the print.
http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/anonymous-seminarians-criticise-maynooth/
Should these survey results be any surprise?
Leo,
I’ve heard from good men who had to get out of the Irish national seminary at Maynooth, for fear of losing their faith.
And I’ve heard exactly the same about our seminary in Glasgow – the one we don’t have any more. It closed eventually in a cloud of shame.
As for the Apostolic Visitation in 2011, wasn’t Archbishop (now Cardinal) Dolan of New York the appointed apostolic visitor? He who cried “Bravo!” when some famous celebrity recently “outed” himself as “gay”? Oh, he’d be sure to improve the seminaries, no doubt about it. Good old Cardinal Dolan of “whatever the Pope thinks, count me in…” fame.
I’m sure that article you’ve linked was originally published in the Catholic Herald here. It made incredible reading.
You urge us elsewhere to pray to the St Michael’s Prayer in the coming months – you bet. If ever the Devil was making his presence felt, it’s right now, under this pontificate.
I don’t think anyone in authority can feign surprise at the dire state to which the seminary at Maynooth descended. The late Hamish Fraser rendered the necessary service over forty years ago. Here’s a link to his lengthy expose in the Approaches journal in 1973. What an unquantifiable tragedy and criminal negligence that this was effectively ignored. There are names in there of people who have wreaked havoc of one sort or another since. I won’t name a name since I can’t be absolutely certain that they include the name of the “theologian” who infamously and blasphemously claimed the Last Supper was a kind of farewell party given by Our Lord.
http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/the-scandal-of-maynooth-1973/
The linked article contains the views of Monsignor Patrick Francis Cremin, Professor of Moral Theology and Canon Law at St. Patricks Seminary Maynooth, given in 1978.
http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/leading-maynooth-theologian-decries-disintegration-of-the-irish-church/
I doubt it would be possible to find a more reliable witness to the disintegration. No doubt the calamity warned of by Monsignor Cremin mirrored the Modernists’ plan of attack everywhere else.
Every word of the article is worth reading. Here’s a sample:
“The faithful, who are disposed to think right are bewildered because of the absence of confirmation of their religious views”.
“There has been what rather incredibly appears to be a permitted policy of drift and of anarchy or absence of rule”.
“Seminarians are not receiving the full essential formation for which they came to Maynooth College, even though they are not only willing but anxious to receive it.”
“Is it perhaps, that the bishops who did perceive the early ailments and the progressive sickness of our seminary, and those who had the will and the courage to remedy them, were just not able to prevail against those, maybe only one or two, who gave a bad lead and were supported by others?”
What more confirmation does anyone require of diabolical disorientation?
Leo,
As you say, what more confirmation of diabolical disorientation. It’s just rife, everywhere, not just Maynooth. When will it end is the question.
Josephine
“When will it end is the question.”
In God’s good time is about all I can say. Or to ask the question in a different way: When will the Consecration of Russia be done? All the more reason for everyone to be really clocking up the Rosaries for the Rosary Crusade.
http://sspx.org/en/join-rosary-crusade
On the matter of the priesthood and the crisis in the Church, here is a really wonderful short article about Archbishop Lefebvre. I’m inclined to post it at every opportunity, and would encourage others to do the same.
http://sspx.org/en/news-events/news/angel-guarded-sanctuary-3589
Three years ago the Irish Bishops Conference published a document entitled, “O Sacred Banquet, Revitalising the Sunday Celebration of the Eucharist”. I know, it sounds very Bugnini like. It’s probably all most of us would read. Did someone mention section 7 of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal which accompanied the publication of the Novus Ordo Missal?
There is actually a section on silence. Maybe it shouldn’t really be hard to believe the following, but just guess what readers are treated to on page 20. I’m sure those in the dark workshops of the Lodge are laughing.
“Dag Hammarskjöld, one-time Secretary General of the United Nations,became famous for constructing a meditation room in the middle of the enormous United Nations building in New York. In a leaflet for visitors he describes the room in a way that has some relevance for the place where Liturgy is celebrated and is helpful in leading to a deeper spirit of liturgical worship. He writes:
We all have within us a centre of stillness, surrounded by silence. This house, dedicated to work and debate in the service of peace, should have one room dedicated to silence in the outward sense, and stillness in the inner sense. It has been the aim to create in this small room a place where doors may be opened to the infinite lands of thought and prayer. People of many faiths will meet here, at one in the utter simplicity of the universal symbols used … There is an ancient saying that the sense of a vessel is not in its shell but in its void. So it is with this room. It is for those who come here to fill the void with what they find in their centre of stillness.”
Is this what the martyrs died for? The spirit of the meditation room at the UN.
The words “abomination of desolation” spring to mind. Like I’ve said, novus ordoism is self- liquidating. How many souls are going to be lost or endangered before the restoration of Tradition begins?
http://www.iec2012.ie/media/OSacredBanquetVeritas1.pdf
Leo,
Every one of your posts is damning to the modern church hierarchy. Everything you say is so evidently true.
The quote from Dag Hammarskjöld is certainly not what the martyrs died for but he’s quoted in church bulletins along with other non Catholic and even non Christian people.
I think we’re leaping towards the time when something will happen to make the Pope and bishops see how wrong they have been and are. I just shudder to think what it will be but I don’t think Our Lord will be mocked for much longer.
I couldn’t believe the quote from the archbishop of Dublin saying it was really a good thing that the Church didn’t have so much influence over Irish society any more. Can you imagine any other group saying that? It beggars belief, it really does.
Fidelis,
I couldn’t believe the quote from the archbishop of Dublin saying it was really a good thing that the Church didn’t have so much influence over Irish society any more. Can you imagine any other group saying that? It beggars belief, it really does.
Exactly. Just imagine any of the political parties saying “I think we’ve had too much influence over society in recent years, so don’t vote for us again. We need a change”. OR the LGBT brigade: “We’ve had much too much influence over society, we ought to take a back seat now.” Yeah right.
Leo, may God help Ireland. The erstwhile country of saints and scholars is now a spiritual wilderness.
Crofterlady,
How true. If only there were more Catholics like Leo, it would turn around in no time.
Crofterlady & Josephine,
In other words, Ireland has now joined the club. Just about everywhere is now a spiritual wilderness thanks to the new Mass, new Sacraments, New Rosary, New just about everything.
I know a number of men who left Maynooth 25+ years ago, they are now married with their own families having discerned that the priesthood was not their calling. However they have told me many, many very disturbing tales about a serious lack of Church teaching in their classes. Kneeling was just not on, the Rosary was frowned on etc. The “senior” clergy running this place are Judas priests.
Remember that the bishop whose diocese Maynooth was in, when he retired he went on Irish National television stating that he had not believed in God for 30 years.
The devil has been (an is ) running rife with all too many clergy. They are a disaster and the bishops are a disgrace.
What amazes me is that we are asked to pray for vocations. What young man in his right mind, once he had been in one of these apostate factories, could commit his life to these “senior” clergy and bishops?
These are very frightening times indeed.
Leo, I have just read the article you posted and it very much confirms what I have been told by men who went there. The arrogance of these clergy is astounding, it is simply abuse of power.
The part on Our Lord in the Eucharist ( just like in the person next to us/ the word etc) is the garbage we got at secondary school. It is just the arrogance of the apostate at work.
Graeme,
These are “frightening times indeed”. With satan screaming through the keyhole, the gravity of these days cannot be overstated.
I’m convinced that the destruction of so many vocations, and destruction is what it was, was very deliberate and precisely planned. This is only hearsay, but one particular Irish Bishop has reportedly said that his diocese has too many priests! Lots of opportunities must be provided for lay busy bodies and wannabes, no doubt.
The same playbook appears to have been used in the seminaries in the infiltration and assault against the priesthood in many different countries, as with so many other areas of the modernist revolution. No one can tell me that that is just some sort of catastrophic coincidence.
If only all those with genuine vocations which were trampled on by the forces of evil had gone to labour in the Lord’s vineyard with the Society. How many souls would have benefitted greatly?
Then again, looking at things from a different angle and given the mass, almost universal apostasy throughout the world, the oft quoted words of Saint John Eudes spring to mind:
“The most evident mark of God’s anger, and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world, is manifest when He permits His people to fall into the hands of a clergy who are more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds. They abandon the things of God to devote themselves to the things of the world and, in their saintly calling of holiness, they spend their time in profane and worldly pursuits. When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people and is visiting His most dreadful wrath upon them.”
Leo, I could not agree more. It is an organised approach.
In some parishes in Edinburgh they have on their websites words like……we are a parish preparing for a shortage of priests……which means the “ministries” will grow and flourish, leading people into a protestant structure, we do not need priests brigade, we are the priestly people brigade.
We already have an organised “service”, instead of Mass, led by “ministers” in a number of parishes, the Cathedral was one…..preparing the faithful. As if the busy priests could not say more than one Mass a day. It is awful, such liars. These “busy” priests already in most parishes offer 2 to 3 Masses on Sundays, but during the week, the “ministers” are brought out. What see through non-sense. The devil ensured in this arch-diocese (St Andrew and Edinburgh) all the Churches are locked all the time, Card. O’Brien and his wee group of pals have a lot to answer for.
May God have mercy on us all. Amen.
Graeme, I agree with what you say but would like to point out that not all the churches are locked. The Cathedral, St. Patrick’s, Sacred Heart, St Albert’s and Our Lady of Loretto are all open during the day.
Yes Vianney, a few city centre churches are open as well as the Cathedral. However the arch-diocese isn’t just Edinburgh city centre. I for one live 50+ miles from Edinburgh.
Graeme,
Game set and match. That’ll larn Vianney 😀
As more and more of these surveys of the apostate laity around the world are published between now and October, I think a very much justified concern and scepticism are in order. I think any such exercises should be seen in the context of the revolutionary Conciliar novelties and the very pointed way in which Pope Francis is exercising, or not exercising, the Petrine Ministry.
In the hands of modernist revolutionaries, surveys of the “people of God” represent a hefty battering ram against the Divinely-ordained hierarchical structure of the Church. Under the increasingly vaunted Collegiality and synodality programme, and Pope Francis’ marked aversion to outward displays of papal authority, and often apparent outright refusal to act like a Supreme Pontiff, such battering appears to be meeting all the resistance expected of a swinging door. Indeed we must pray much for the Holy Father.
Over the coming months it might be useful to keep in mind the following expressions of the revolutionaries’ mindset. I don’t think there is much grounds for doubting that what is going on at present is very much part of their programme.
These quotes are taken from the very informative book entitled, Animus Delendi – I, by Atila Sinke Guimares
“The total Church exists in the local churches. Those who bear the ministry are not above the people of God, but rather, are included in it. They are nothing but servants of the people, who, as a body, are a priestly people adorned with the gifts of the Spirit.” Hans Kung, Truthfulness, The Future of the Church, p. 43
“The laity should have the right not only to advise, but also to make decisions jointly with their leaders in the community, in both the regional and universal Church.” – What Should Remain in the Church, p. 21, Hans Kung
“In actuality, we can say that the democratic element is appearing ever more clearly in today’s Church. We find this, above all, in the foundation of the institutional structure, in different ecclesiastic provinces and local Churches, and the relations between the Bishops and the faithful. Here, in many places, a more democratic structure is already apparent. This presupposes that the Bishop himself already has a new concept of how his authority functions. Once the episcopal image gradually takes its form within a democratic perspective, the supreme authority in Rome will be able to permit the local Churches, to a large extent, to resolve their own problems themselves. – Foundation of Authority in the Church, Edward Schillebeeckx, –
“If the experienced and qualified counsel of lay people is taken into consideration at all levels of the decision-making process, then the whole structure already will begin to change. This incorporation of the laity must be carried out at all levels, including the Roman Curia and the Synod of Bishops.” – ibid
Many will remember Schillebeeckx as the source of the following notorious statement which gave the “timebomb” strategy away when the very issue of Collegiality was before the Council and ambiguous wording was planted in the document, Lumen Gentium, as I recall:
“We will express it in a diplomatic way, but after the Council, we will draw the implicit conclusions.”- cited from the Dutch magazine, De Bazuin, No. 16, 1965.
“…horizontally today we have the people of God, where there are authorities but the primacy lies in horizontalism. That is what was recorded at the Council, which defined the Church not as a perfect, hierarchical society (the term that used to be utilized was societas perfecta). It was replaced by populous Dei, the people of God…Instead of a societas perfecta, there is the populous Dei, where are authorities but the authorities refer to the people of God. Therefore, this is the new constitution of the Church, which represents a complete change of position. I consider this to be one of the main characteristics of the Council. A vertical authoritarian regime was replaced…” – Dominique Chenu OP, Interview with Atila Sinke Guimares, 1983
I’m not aware of any clear episcopal expression of what exactly this roll out of rejection of Divine Truth by large numbers of the laity is meant to contribute to the Church’s Magisterium or what aid it is meant to give them in their own sacred duty towards the salvation of souls.
With all this talk of democracy and “listening to the voice of the people”, the successors of the Apostles would do well to remember that “the people” chose Barabbas over Our Lord.
Caiphas and Judas also spring to mind.
Leo,
This quote of you from Schillebeeckx really clearly shows what the modernists are up to:
“If the experienced and qualified counsel of lay people is taken into consideration at all levels of the decision-making process, then the whole structure already will begin to change. This incorporation of the laity must be carried out at all levels, including the Roman Curia and the Synod of Bishops.” .
They’re deliberately trying to completely re-structure the Church.
And what you say about the “talk of democracy and listening to the people” – that’s what the new Bishop of Paisley has said, he wants to “listen”. If any new teacher arriving in a school said he/she was going to “listen” rather than teach, they’d be out of a job in no time.
Your post today at 6:38 pm is again chock full of excellent quotes which really help me (and others, I’m sure) to make sense of what the modernists are all about. I especially like your own comment “the successors of the Apostles would do well to remember that “the people” chose Barabbas over Our Lord.” Well said.
Thank you, Josephine.
There is no doubt that there is nothing accidental or haphazard about the destructive Conciliar programme that has been unleashed on unsuspecting Catholics, right down to the lowest level of the Church. It’s just that the revolution has not been televised.
The next time anyone hears the words “parish council”, just think of Hans Kung. That’s right. It was part of his wish list.
“In each parish that does not yet have one, a parish council of men and women should be set up…whose function is to advise and decide on all important matters pertaining to the parish.” – Hans Kung, Truthfulness, The Future of the Church, p. 178
As for Schillebeeckx, I think it would be difficult to beat this statement of his as a clear cut expression of Modernism:
“A crass repetition of the past, be it of the Bible or the Council of the Trent, necessarily appears absurd to the modern man. Furthermore, the past that we interpret in light of today must also be considered from the standpoint of the future, because time and History do not stand still. Every dogma is open to the future; it provides a close-up of a movement that continues and in which it plays a role. Consequently, a definitive (atemporal!) interpretation of the proper meaning of a dogma will never be possible so long as the movement of History continues.” – Schillebeeckx, Church or Churches, as quoted on page 357 of Animus Delendi I, by Atila Sinke Guimares.
Schillebeeckx was one of the most influential theologians at the Council.
For centuries the principal target of the enemies of the Church has been the primacy of Peter, the dogma of the Vicar of Christ, the power of the Keys to the Kingdom held by one man, and one man only, no matter how humanly weak. Pope Leo XIII, in his prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel, included reference to “the iniquitous design that when the Pastor had been struck, the sheep may be scattered.”
And disorientated irony of ironies, it appears those Catholics who are faithful to Tradition, who have a true Catholic understanding of the teaching of the Church on the papacy, who yield to nobody in genuine loyalty to the papacy and defence of the primacy of Peter, are the only ones not to receive a hearing in the Church of the New Advent, but rather calumny and exclusion.
Hans Kung, the purveyor of heresy who remains a priest in “good standing” expressed his joyful satisfaction with the papacy of Pope Francis to date in a recent newspaper interview.
“He has already achieved some things that can no longer be withdrawn,” Küng said. “It cannot even be foreseen what the changes already initiated mean.”
“I have made many proposals for reform in the course of my life. But that a Pope could leave the papal palace in such an elegant way. I could not imagine. ”
In terms of remarried divorcees Küng is convinced that Francis has pursued “a great strategy.” “First of all he surveyed the group of eight cardinals, then the whole College of Cardinals. In the fall there will eventually be a synod on the family. Of course, every step is a risk. But if Francis has the College of Cardinals behind him, he is no longer alone. He lays total emphasis on collegiality. ” Küng is convinced that “the admission of remarried divorcees to the sacraments” will be implemented, most of all desires of the Progressive reform. “There he is performing the mercy of which he so often speaks, and putting it into practice.”
Küng concludes the interview by saying, is “happy” about Pope Francis. He had “always said his profession is not as a critic of the Pope.” “So I’m delighted that I no longer have to act as a critic of the pope.”
Enough said, Hans.
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.ie/2014/03/hans-kung-is-overjoyed-about-pope.html
Indeed we must pray much for the Holy Father.
A couple of quotes from Abp. Lefebvre on “democracy” in the Church:
1. “Collegiality:
The doctrine, already insinuated by the document Lumen Gentium of Vatican Council II, is taken up again explicitly by the new Code of Canon Law (can. 336). According to this doctrine, the College of Bishops united with the Pope, also possesses supreme authority in the Church, in a habitual and constant manner.
“This doctrine of a twofold supreme authority is contrary to the teaching and practice of the Magisterium of the Church, especially in Vatican Council I (Denz. Sch. 3055), and in the Encyclical of Leo XIII, Satis cognitum. The Pope alone has this supreme authority which he can communicate, in the measure which he judges expedient and in extraordinary circumstances.
“This grave error brings with it the democratic orientation of the Church, with the power residing in the ‘People of God’ as it is defined in the new Code. This Jansenist error is condemned by the Bull Auctorem Fidei of Pius VI (Denz. Sch. 2602)….” (from the Episcopal Manifesto to JPII, 1983).
2. From a 2012 sermon by Fr. Benoît Wailliez, Superior of the Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) District of the Society of Saint Pius X:
“(…) You see, my dear faithful, when we talk about the Second Vatican Council, and about one of the grave problems in the Church, we talk immediately about collegiality. That democracy was installed in the Church, where everyone says what he wants, thinks what he wants and opposes everything, even the Pope. Let us pay attention that we will not have that same situation in our Fraternity! We are not a democracy! We do not have collegiality, where everybody can say what he wants, can put things on the Internet, pressure people, leak confidential documents… This is an absolutely lamentable situation! In contrast, my beloved faithful, in an army we follow our leader who has the grace of state to make the decision in this situation.”
Quoted on Rorate Caeli: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/05/using-abp-lefebvres-words-and.html
Great Pretender,
Somebody needs to send those quotes to the Association of (Anything But) Catholic Priests in Ireland. Democracy is their “thing” while Tradition is what you do at Christmas when you put up the tree and pull the crackers.
Numpties…
I certainly don’t want to divert attention or anger away from the deeds of the demonic baby burners with this post. I almost think it’s out of place to be posting on anything else right now and I’m not very comfortable doing so.
Anyway, purely for the record, and to have it on this thread before comments close, here is glimpse of what non-silenced dissident Redemptorist Father Tony Flannery, much portrayed as some sort of “victim of the Inquisition”, has sent to his “colleagues and friends”. I was originally going to add a few words, but I think this toxic incitement is self-explanatory.
“Colleagues and supporters,
This is an update on my schedule of talks on Church Reform, and also an invitation to spread the message for my next two gatherings. I have had a very successful run of talks so far, getting a great response wherever I have gone, and, to be honest, really enjoying them myself. The next two are as follows: Tuesday, March 25th:
The Clarion Hotel, Sligo at 7.30pm Wednesday, April 2nd:
The Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin, at 8.00pm.
I would appreciate if you could spread the word about these events in whatever way is possible. And if I could be so bold as to request our priest members in Dublin to publicise the Stillorgan Park evening in their parishes in whatever way is appropriate. I would be very grateful. I have a real sense that we are living through a great period of opportunity in our Church, with the Pope opening up possibilities for all of us. But it is essential that we do what we can to promote his reform agenda at ground level, so that it will become an unstoppable movement for change. The full schedule of my engagements for April are posted on my website http://www.tonyflannery.com
Tony Flannery”
Leo,
Thank you for that update on the dissenting Fr Flannery who does “flannel” a lot, doesn’t he?
Editor
“Flannel” is one way of putting things, and has a certain ring to it alright. “Baloney” might be another charitable option.
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