My latest column: “Unity is Truth and Truth Unity”

March 23, 2023

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

Throughout the year on Friday each week the Church commemorates the Passion of the Lord by means of abstention from the eating of flesh meat. The giving of His Flesh and Blood on the cross unto death for the salvation of the world is remembered thus by personal penance and self-denial. Not easy in a summer full of Friday barbecues. But all the more significant for that reason. Prayer, too, is recommended by means of meditation on the Stations of the Cross.

During the holiest penitential season of the entire liturgical year, in Lent, the Church imposes Friday abstinence as a grave obligation. Hence if we knowingly break the law, we must confess it. Many parishes host a public praying of the Stations in a communal manner also on the Fridays of Lent. These customs are meant to help us all year. Extending them beyond Lent reinforces Catholic identity and strengthens our faith.

At the spiritual heart of Lent is the meditation on the Passion of the Lord. Art of various means can aid us in better immersing ourselves again in the Lord’s suffering and death. The constant presence of the crucifix in our homes and churches is our primary communal expression of the reality of the Cross. More thoroughly appropriating a sense of the personal love of the Lord for each of us expressed thereby is a life’s work. There is no better opportunity for growing in this aspect of our Faith than Lent, when so many graces are available as we journey toward Easter, which would never have happened without Good Friday.

I recently rewatched the Zeffirelli film Jesus of Nazareth. I remember being impressed as a seminarian with, for the most part, its faithfulness to Scripture. Back then one had to check the TV guide to catch it. Now it’s available on YouTube. No longer needed is a conventional television for this or any other film. I watched it on an Amazon fire tablet.

I take note now of the various accents, gathering together as the film does a variety of A-list actors from places like England, the U.S., and Italy. It has inaccuracies, such as the depiction of a bar mitzvah for our Lord as a youth. Such did not begin to occur until centuries later. Zeffirelli believed the lack of such would make it hard for Jews to relate to the film. We see here an example of the ways in which art is sacrificed for the sake of mass appeal. That aside, the film is quite well done. It achieved a massive audience when first broadcast as a miniseries in the 1970s.

Seeing the world through another’s eyes is always difficult. Understanding the life and death of the God-man is more than Herculean by comparison. In our love for Him, and the holy faith by which He saves our souls, we seek to grow nonetheless in His friendship. Accompanying the Savior by spiritually walking once again in His footsteps is the primary means of aiding us in our love of Him and accepting the graces He offers thereby. “The Father and I are one,” He tells us. When we see the Lord we see the Father, the God who began to reveal Himself by means of revelation to the Jewish people, and in the fullness of time, in Christ.

Read the rest: https://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/our-catholic-faith/unity-is-truth-and-truth-unity/

From “The National Review”! If you want to remain Catholic do not follow the new religion being founded by Cardinal Roche, whatever it is. The Catholic Faith is of Christ, “the same yesterday, today and tomorrow”, so whatever it is he’s promoting, it’s not Catholic.

In the Catholic Tradition we have all we need to be saved. Period. End of story.

The Vatican Agrees with Radical Traditionalists

Archbishop Arthur Roche speaks to Reuters in an interview in Vatican City, August 27, 2022. (Remo Casilli/Reuters)

By MICHAEL BRENDAN DOUGHERTY

March 22, 2023 3:24 PM

In a stunning interview, Cardinal Archbishop Arthur Roche, the man the Vatican has placed in charge of extinguishing the Traditional Latin Mass that Benedict XVI in 2007 had widely permitted, admitted in an interview with the BBC that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and his radical traditionalist followers are right — that the faith once delivered to the saints has been abolished and substituted by the Church in the 1960s.

“The theology of the Church has changed,” argued Roche. “Whereas before the priest represented, at a distance, all the people — they were channeled through this person who alone was celebrating the Mass.” Now, however, Roche stated that “it is not only the priest who celebrates the liturgy but also those who are baptized with him, and that is an enormous statement to make.”

“Roche is of course misstating the old theology. The priest celebrates the Mass not as a representative of all the people, but in persona Christi. All present at Mass assist him in doing so. All talk of distance is a silly slander.”

Read the rest here: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-vatican-agrees-with-radical-traditionalists/

And remember well what Saint Paul taught in Galatians 1:8:

“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.”

That’s Scripture & Tradition, the revelation by which we are saved. There is nothing else.

The Spiritual Resurrection of the Sinner

 

Jesus said, “Young man, I say to thee, arise!” And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother. —Gospel: St. Luke 7:14-16         Jesus encounters a funeral procession in Naim. A young man is being buried, the only son of a widow. A numerous crowd is accompanying this weeping woman to the place of burial of her child.      As St. Ambrose explains, this woman is the image of the Church who weeps for all the souls that live far from God. But the Church does not content herself with weeping. She constantly addresses ardent supplications to Heaven for the unfaithful Christians who, by indifference, by pride or by the draw of the passions, are walking the path to perdition and are going from the spiritual death of their soul toward eternal death.      The crowd which accompanies this woman represents the whole of the faithful who share in the prayers of the Church. These ardent prayers touch the heart of Jesus. He says to the woman of Naim, “Weep not.” Then He says to the young man, “I say to thee, arise!” And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He gave him to his mother.      Today, Jesus very often renews this miracle of the resurrection of the child of the Gospel. As St. Augustine emphasizes, just as “this mother is full of joy at the resurrection of her child, likewise the Church, our mother, rejoices at the men who rise again spiritually every day in her bosom.”      O Jesus, I want to unite my prayer and my sacrifices to Thine own, so that all those who need to rise again to true life might hear Thy voice. May they arise to obtain resurrection through the sacrament of penance! Then I will be able to cry out, in turn, with the inhabitants of Naim, “God hath visited His people!” (Lk. 7:16). Source: https://angeluspress.org/products/toward-easter

Bishop Schneider: Complying with Latin Mass restrictions is ‘false obedience’

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Bp. Schneider encouraged priests, who are devoted to the traditional Mass, to continue offering the ancient liturgy even in secret.

Bishop Schneider distributing Holy Communion at the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest's parish in PittsburghScreenshot/Twitter

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Michael
Haynes

Wed Mar 22, 2023 - 5:58 pm EDT

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BeyondWords

(LifeSiteNews) –– Bishop Athanasius Schneider — the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan — has encouraged priests and Catholics to continue their devotion to the traditional Mass despite any restrictions, since to comply with restricting the Mass would be “a false obedience” that would harm souls.

Bishop Schneider made his comments during the question-and-answer session, which forms part of the monthly meeting held by the Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima. He fielded a number of questions on the state of the traditional Mass after the regular release of fresh restrictions placed on it by Pope Francis since July 2021.

“The Pope has not the power to abolish the traditional Mass,” said Schneider, explaining that this is “because it is a property, a treasure of the entire Church, from all the saints, the Church of all ages.”

Highlighting how the traditional Mass was not born out of the Council of Trent, as is often argued, but rather predates it, Schneider pointed to the history of the Church’s traditional liturgy.

Because of the very venerable age and constant perennial use of this order of Mass by so many saints and generations of Catholics, and of almost all Catholic nations, the Pope has no power to simply abolish this. [Just as] as the Pope would not have the power to abolish the Apostolic creed and to substitute the apostolic creed with a new formula, and to prohibit at the same time the use of the apostolic creed. The same can apply to the order of Mass: this is a formula of venerable old use.

In response to whether a priest has the power to continue to offer the traditional Mass despite the issuing of the numerous restrictions on it, Bishop Schneider answered that a priest can in fact do so in “good conscience.”

Read the rest: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/bishop-schneider-complying-with-latin-mass-restrictions-is-false-obedience/

“Gender ideology preys upon the young, convincing girls and boys that they were “born in the wrong body” and rushing them onto experimental drugs, hormones, and surgeries that will leave them stunted, scarred, and infertile.”

 Biden Turns Christianity on Its Head

Tyler O'Neil  / @Tyler2ONeil / March 15, 2023

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President Joe Biden calls it "close to sinful" for Florida to protect children from experimental transgender medical interventions. Pictured: Biden speaks Tuesday at the Boys and Girls Club of West San Gabriel Valley in Monterey Park, California. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

Tyler O'Neil@Tyler2ONeil

Tyler O'Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of "Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center."

Gender ideology preys upon the young, convincing girls and boys that they were “born in the wrong body” and rushing them onto experimental drugs, hormones, and surgeries that will leave them stunted, scarred, and infertile. Yet the ostensible Catholic who currently occupies the Oval Office not only supports this horror but had the gall to condemn those who would protect children from it as “sinful” and “cruel.”

President Joe Biden slammed the Florida Health Department’s efforts that prioritize counseling over medical transitions for children, calling these efforts “close to sinful” and “cruel.” The president emphasized the humanity of children who struggle with an identity at odds with their biological sex, saying, “They love, they have feelings, they have inclinations”—as if to suggest that the Florida Health Department considers these kids as subhuman.

Biden didn’t address the horrific outcomes of transgender medical interventions, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ team highlighted in a gruesome—yet revealing—video responding to Biden. The president also didn’t address the recent scandal in St. Louis, Missouri, in which a pro-transgender whistleblower claimed that a gender clinic rushed kids into medical transitions on extremely flimsy grounds. 

Biden also didn’t address Pope Francis’ statement Friday—three days before Biden’s remarks aired Sunday—that “the ideology of gender” is “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations,” denying “the richness … of men and women, and of all humanity” in “the tension of the differences.”

Instead, Biden adopted religious language to advance a cause directly opposite from the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Churchand from the witness of Scripture and Christian tradition for the past 2,000 years. He adopted the moral authority to declare sinful what Catholicism doesn’t consider sinful, and to advocate a teaching that contradicts Genesis 1:27, thus turning Christianity on its head.

Read the rest: https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/03/15/did-protecting-children-mutilation-become-sin/

My latest column: "The Rampage Of The Lawless"

 

March 16, 2023

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK

One supposes that the truth becomes “safe” for liars once they control the levers of power and thus can take credit for finally disseminating it, or allowing it be to spread. The power of elected office or bureaucratic privilege is instrumentalized for its own perpetuation at whim through a manipulation of the facts. We are asked to believe that stupidity is as much to blame for the catastrophe of needless mortality as is obscurantism or any other possible motive.

“It always irritates some people when I say this, but it’s just the truth: The people responsible for the last three years of economic destruction, psychological injury, and mass pharmaceutical experimentation are callous and evil, but they’re also just really dumb. None of this meant anything, none of this was for anything, and that’s the bitterest pill of all. Every last person in these text messages, from Johnson to Hancock to other ministers to random experts and everyone else, has absolutely no idea what they’re doing or what the purposes of their restrictions even are.

“Lockdowns were every inch the crazy illogical senseless chaotic policies they appear to be. They are the fruit of shallow low-wattage government functionaries who have a planning horizon extending no more than two weeks, who judge their own success or failure via press coverage, and who regard the public as dimwitted cattle to be herded in expedient directions” (https://www.eugyppius.com/p/yet-another-leak-reveals-that-covid).

We have been informed in recent days that COVID originated in the Wuhan lab, as many previously thought. Those now also admitting such sit at desks in big buildings in D.C. with federal government agency names, signaling that it’s safe for the fellow-traveling propagandists at The New York Times and The Washington Post to get on board. Increasing numbers are stating as well that the vaccines were, for motives of profit, perpetrated hastily and without proper testing. Check.

Perhaps the only question remaining is, when will “the powers that be” decide the catastrophic excess mortality is real? Now that the COVID pandemic has been declared to be over, when will we admit that current excess deaths are no longer from a pandemic that has ended and begin to explore the possibility that the human intervention of the vaccine in response to it is the next most plausible source?

Without neglecting the real tragedy of, and in some cases the preventable criminal negligence resulting in, pandemic deaths we can say that the natural immunity afforded by the virus itself provided for the vast majority the most secure and dependable protection from the disease. The long arc of medical science both observed and documented handed down this knowledge. The question remains as to why so many who should have been expected as medical professionals to rely upon and follow the guidance of such reliable know-how and proved experience panicked instead.

We’ve also learned that elected representatives of the people, in their bitter hatred of a former president who they fear may run again and indeed is doing so, set up a kangaroo court in the Capitol. In this travesty of justice, they cherry-picked camera footage and lied about the death of a police officer, among other crimes, in order to frame, convict, and send to jail some of those very citizens they are charged with representing. These innocent citizens now languish behind bars while the liars who framed and imprisoned them go free. Some have blithely moved on.

The crimes and injustice of the world are also to be found within the Church. The world, the flesh, and the Devil are at play in sinful behavior everywhere. The Founder taught, “To whom much is given much is expected.” He spoke here, however, of believers, the condition necessary when speaking of faith for knowing its value. “One cannot give what one does not have.” The habit does not make the monk, then. “Let the weeds and the wheat grow together,” the Founder also taught.

Read the rest: https://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/our-catholic-faith/the-rampage-of-the-lawless/

French philosopher urges people to rebel – by making friends

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie says focus on friendships over relationships or family is radical act in today’s society

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

@achrisafis

Mon 6 Mar 2023 11.52 EST

Building your life around close friendships rather than family or romance is a joyous and necessary act of rebellion, and governments should put in place “friendship ministries” to radically rethink the way society is organised, a key French philosopher has argued.

Geoffroy de Lagasnerie this week publishes a manifesto for friendship, 3 Une Aspiration au Dehors, detailing his close friendship with two other writers, Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis. The three friends eat together in the evening, speak many times daily, wish each other goodnight and good morning every day and synch their schedules to make sure they prioritise friendship moments, namely meeting up for long chats. He described the friendship as the centre of their lives, “one long discussion that never ends”.

Presented as a kind of radical blueprint for investing in good friendships, De Lagasnerie questions society’s “authoritarian” insistence on prioritising family structures and romantic relationships.

French philosopher and sociologist Geoffroy de Lagasnerie. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images

He describes in the book how the three men always spend their birthdays and special occasions together, including Christmas Eve. “When we send other people our Christmas photos or post them on social media, we get a vast number of messages from people who say they envy the chance to spend the festive season with friends ... This raises the question: why does friendship as a way of life seem so inaccessible, even to those who aspire to it?”

Read the rest: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/06/french-philosopher-geoffroy-de-lagasnerie-friendships