The world is taking notice. Catholic is back.

‘A step back in time': America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways

BY TIM SULLIVAN

Updated 12:07 AM EDT, May 1, 2024

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.

The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.

So much was changing. Sermons were focusing more on sin and confession. Priests were rarely seen without cassocks. Altar girls, for a time, were banned.

At the parish elementary school, students began hearing about abortion and hell.

“It was like a step back in time,” said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.

It’s not just St. Maria Goretti.

Brothers Leven Barton, left, Florian Rumpza, center, and Angelus Atkinson, sing in Latin during Catholic Mass at Benedictine College, Dec. 3, 2023, in Atchison, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Across the U.S., the Catholic Church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.

The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world.

Read the rest: https://apnews.com/article/catholic-church-shift-orthodoxy-tradition-7638fa2013a593f8cb07483ffc8ed487

 

What Happens When Children Are Exposed to Pornography?

 by Gabriela Coca,Jocelyn Wikle, @JOCELYNWIKLE

• Pornography is killing social interaction and the craving for personal connection that all humans have.TWEET THIS
• One study found that only 57% of children reached out to someone after exposure to pornography, leaving many youth to grapple with the experience alone.TWEET THIS
• Children’s brains are not equipped to process the adult experiences depicted in pornography.TWEET THIS

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Category: PORNOGRAPHY

Most of us probably have people in our lives who struggle with an addiction of some kind, whether it be to smoking, using drugs, gambling, or other vices. An addiction develops when changes in the brain and body cause a person to “feel compelled to continue using a substance or partaking in an activity, even when doing so may cause harm.” These substances or behaviors activate motivation and reward regions in the brain, resulting in an altered dopamine system. The thing about addiction is that oftentimes, the younger a person is when they are first exposed, the higher their risk for developing a serious addiction that can dominate minds and bodies, numbing them to the environment around them. This reality creates a strong motivation for parents, grandparents, schools, and lawmakers to focus on protecting children by preventing or delaying exposure to harmful substances and behaviors until their brains are more fully formed and their risk for developing dependencies is lessened. 

One addiction that is becoming more normalized is viewing pornography, defined as “sexually explicit videos, images, or writing with the intent to cause sexual arousal in its viewers.” Creating pornography is a huge billion-dollar industry. This is troubling because pornography is increasingly impacting children and youth in negative ways. With technology and the internet as a crucial and necessary part of life, pornography has never been more easily accessible to children: 93% of boys and 63% of girls report being exposed to internet pornography before the age of 18, with the average age of first exposure being 12 years old. Today’s children are growing up in a sexualized cultural environment. As adolescents mature, it is natural that they search for information that they do not know. This includes searching for information about dating and sexual relationships, which may often lead to pornography. Thus, it is important to understand the ramifications when exposure to pornography starts at a young age.

Consequences Among Youth

Pornography proves to be especially detrimental to children and adolescents. According to many researchers, early exposure to pornography is connected to negative developmental outcomes, including a greater acceptance of sexual harassment, sexual activity at an early age,acceptance of negative attitudes to women, unrealistic expectations, skewed attitudes of gender roles, greater levels of body dissatisfaction, rape myths (responsibility for sexual assault to a female victim), and sexual aggression. Children’s brains are not equipped to process the adult experiences depicted. Early exposure to pornography also increases the likelihood that depression and relationship problems develop.

Sexual risk taking is another common problem associated with being exposed to pornography at an early age. This includes more sexual partners and not using birth control. As Gustavo Mesch found in a 2009 study: adolescents who use pornography “appear less socially integrated and more socially marginal. They express less commitment to their families, fewer pro-social attitudes, and less attachment to school…” This could be the case simply because youth are so enveloped in what they are viewing and how they feel about it that they lose touch with their environment and the people around them. 

Another key issue is that an individual’s first exposure [and general exposure] to pornography may lead to mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety, particularly among adolescents, and that the earlier a child was exposed, the more mental health problems they faced later in life. Researchers also concluded that the earlier one is exposed to pornography, the more likely they are to have problems in their future sexual and romantic relationships. This may be because pornography tends to be a solo activity, secluding one from people, thus affecting how one interacts with those around them. In a study published in the Child Abuse Review in 2009, Michael Flood also found that pornography exposure can lead to emotional disturbance that may affect the way they interact with others and view sexuality in general. According to Mesch, adolescents who view pornography “appear less socially integrated and more socially marginal. They express less commitment to their families, fewer pro-social attitudes, and less attachment to school.” In a study in the Journal of Pediatric Health Care, Gail Hornor reported that “Children less than 7 or 8 years of age have difficulty differentiating between what is happening on screen and what is happening in real life.” This can lead to problematic sexualized behaviors (or PBS). PBS has been linked to negative behaviors such as negative impulse problems, which can further affect the ability to interact with others. Not only that, but PBS can greatly affect the way one perceives their life, making it much more difficult for someone to perceive what is real and not real. Pornography is killing social interaction and the craving for personal connection that all humans have. It puts a false reality into the minds of those who view it and makes them perceive life in a darker and more selfish way. 

Pornography use among youth also has been found to affect academic performance and mental health in adulthood. As one 2021 study found, this could be because 

sexual stimuli trigger sexual arousal and subsequently also short-term needs of (sexual) gratification, thus discouraging engagement in activities with long-term goals, such as studying. These theories thus suggest that the arousal that comes from using pornographic internet content may impede academically oriented activities and may, consequently, impair academic performance.

Read more for “Solutions”: https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-happens-when-children-are-exposed-to-pornography

Saint Peter describes 2,000 years ahead of time what’s happening right now in Rome

1 “Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same thought: for he that hath suffered in the flesh, hath ceased from sins:

2 That now he may live the rest of his time in the flesh, not after the desires of men, but according to the will of God.
3 For the time past is sufficient to have fulfilled the will of the Gentiles, for them who have walked in riotousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and unlawful worshipping of idols.
4 Wherein they think it strange, that you run not with them into the same confusion of riotousness, speaking evil of you.
5 Who shall render account to him, who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For, for this cause was the gospel preached also to the dead: that they might be judged indeed according to men, in the flesh; but may live according to God, in the Spirit.”

- 1 Pet 4:1-7

They speak evil of those who run not with then, thinking it strange …

The scandals haunting Pope Francis: Scheming cardinals are sharpening their knives

 

 

Damian Thompson

APRIL 27, 2024   20 MINS

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The cardinals are already meeting to discuss who should be the next pope. Some of the liberal ones, who feel safe because they’re in favour with the ailing Pope Francis, can be seen comparing notes in a bar near the gates of the Vatican. The conservative cardinals are more nervous: they gather at suppers in each other’s apartments or — if they can trust the fawning waiters not to betray them — in a favourite restaurant.

Perhaps you can see the flash of a bishop’s ring as he taps a piece of gossip into WhatsApp; the Holy See employs world-class electronic spies, so everyone uses a private phone rather than the Vatican-issued ones. Even the phone-tappers are busy exchanging information, because like everybody in Rome they suspect that the painfully fragile Francis — who is often too short of breath to read out his own sermons — hasn’t got long to go.

They are just guessing, of course. The Pope is secretive about his health, and two years ago he bounced back from major surgery on his colon that was assumed to be advanced cancer. Even so, he’s 87, the oldest pope for more than a century, and a conclave can’t be too far off.

Ludwig Ring-Eifel of the German news agency KNA said in January that seeing the Pope so short of breath at a press conference at which he was too ill to answer prepared questions was “a difficult moment for me … and you can tell that this situation has also affected many colleagues emotionally”. At the beginning of March, Andrew Napolitano, a retired Superior Court judge from New Jersey, was staying in the papal guest house behind St Peter’s. “The Pope is in poor health, can barely speak or walk; and he radiates sadness,” he reported. “I don’t think he’ll be there much longer.”

Vatican nerves are always on edge in the final years of a pontificate. In the case of the conservative Benedict XVI, they were overshadowed by leaks — gleefully reported by a hostile media — revealing flamboyant corruption at the top of the Roman Curia, the government of the Holy See. Benedict was too frightened to act and resigned in despair.

Now the Vatican is once again paralysed by scandals, but this time round, correspondents working for secular and Catholic outlets are trying to protect Francis, who faces more serious questions about his personal conduct than any pope in living memory.

Read the rest: https://unherd.com/2024/04/the-scandals-haunting-pope-francis/

Moral theologian: Fiducia Supplicans was ‘significant endorsement’ of the LGBT agenda

Dr. John Haas, a professor of moral theology, criticized the papally-approved Fiducia Supplicans for seeming to be 'entirely removed from the realm of human action' and representing a 'significant endorsement and advancement' of the 'gay agenda.'

Fr. James Martin gives a same-sex blessing in New York, the day after Fiducia Supplicans was published.X/Screenshot

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Maike Hickson

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Fri Apr 26, 2024 - 8:00 am EDT

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BeyondWords

(LifeSiteNews) — Dr. John Haas, Professor of Moral Theology at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, has raised his voice of opposition to the papally-approved Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans allowing for non-liturgical blessings of homosexual “couples” and heterosexual couples in irregular relationships. The document had been published on December 18, 2023, by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, but was explicitly approved by Pope Francis.

In a statement sent to LifeSite (see full text below), Haas rejects the use of the term “homosexuality” since it is an “abstraction.” Rather, he argues, one need to speak of the “acts” of homosexuals. That is to say, what characterizes a homosexual “couple” is of the following principle: “two individuals in a deep personal relationship which would be worthy of the term ‘couple’ would act as human beings, engaging in activities from which the term couple is derived: copulation.” But such an act, argues Professor Haas, “engender[s] only pseudo-couples,” because it “would not lead to their own good since it would depart from purposes for which their sexuality was created by God.” He also sees a danger to “public health and the social moral order.”

Haas also deals in his statement with the claim Pope Francis had made in the wake of the publication of Fiducia Supplians that such blessings merely deal with “individuals” in relationships. States the theology professor:

The Declaration itself claims that it is dealing with blessings for same-sex couples and those in irregular relationships, but Pope Francis, after its publication, and in the face of significant criticism, claimed that the blessings were to be bestowed on the ‘individuals’ in the relationship, not the relationship itself. Why, then, did the short “Declaration” itself claim nine times that it dealt with blessings for ‘same sex couples’?

For Professor Haas, this Vatican document as it was published on December 18 of last year “was a significant endorsement and advancement of the ‘gay agenda.’ This is beyond doubt.” He continues by saying:

The day after the Declaration was issued there was a front-page photo in The New York Times of Father James Martin, S.J., who helped formulate the Declaration, blessing a same-sex couple in contravention to the very conditions outlined in the Declaration itself that such blessings were to be spontaneous and not public. The pictured blessing was as staged and abstract as the plastic figures of two men in tuxedos atop a gay wedding cake.

Read the rest: https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/moral-theologian-fiducia-supplicans-was-significant-endorsement-of-the-lgbt-agenda/

Sunday Gospel: Dominica V Post Pascha

At MCITL: http://mcitl.blogspot.com/2024/05/sunday-gospel-whatsoever-is-asked-which.html

Thought for the day

 

Western culture: use it or lose it

 

Catholic League Report: Biden Administration and Thought Control

No administration in American history has tried harder to promote thought control than the Biden administration. Orwellian at its finest, the goal is to induce the public to accept its highly politicized vocabulary as a means of controlling its thought patterns. Here are some examples of how this is being done.

Gender Identity

“President Biden has long promised that he would be an advocate for the LGBTQ community should he be elected president. Now, just hours into his presidential term, Mr. Biden’s White House website allows users to choose their pronouns, a change that drew swift praise from advocates. As part of the website revamp that occurs during presidential transitions, the White House changed its contact form. The form now allows individuals to select from the following list: she/her, he/him, they/them, other, or prefer not to share. Those who select other also have the option to write-in what pronouns they use. People can also choose which prefix they use: Mr., Ms., Mrs., Dr., Mx., other, or none.” (CBS News, “Biden administration allows users to choose their pronouns on remastered website”, January 20, 2021)

In August, the department rolled out new guidelines titled, ‘Updated Department Guidance Regarding Transgender Employees in the Workplace’ and mandates that all employees and applicants should be addressed ‘by the name, pronouns, and honorific (Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, Mx., etc.) that they themselves use in everyday interactions, and as they choose to communicate to their supervisor/manager and colleagues.’ ‘Continued intentional use of an incorrect name, pronoun, and/or honorific – also known as misgendering – could, depending on its severity and pervasiveness, contribute to a hostile work environment allegation, and constitute misconduct subject to disciplinary action, up to and including separation or removal,’ the guideline states.” (“GOP Sen. Ted Budd demands State Department roll back requirement for employees to use preferred pronouns” Fox News, October 23, 2023)

“The EEOC’s newly proposed guidance similarly includes ‘Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’ as the basis for prohibited ‘sex-based discrimination’ under Title VII and asserts that ‘sex-based harassment includes harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, including how that identity is expressed.’ ‘Harassment,’ according to this guidance, includes epithets and physical assault as well as ‘intentional and repeated use of a name or pronoun inconsistent with the individual’s gender identity (misgendering).’ Also included as a form of harassment is ‘the denial of access to a bathroom or other sex-segregated facility consistent with the individual’s gender identity.'”  (“The EEOC is trying to make ‘misgendering’ a thought-crime” The Hill, October 8, 2023)

Read the rest:  https://www.catholicleague.org/catholic-league-report-biden-administration-and-thought-control/

Life is sacred. Abortion kills.

 “Thou shalt not kill.” - God

US Bishop Admits: "Frustration" About Francis

en.news

31.5KApr 19

Bishop William Medley of Owensboro, Kentucky, admitted that his diocesan "listening sessions" for the October ex-synod revealed "frustration" with Francis' Vatican (CruxNow.com, 18 April).

Mgr. Medley summarised that this frustration was generally related to Francis' homosexual propaganda piece 'Fiducia Supplicans' and the confusion and consternation it caused among the faithful regarding what was perceived as an endorsement of the blessing of sin, Bishop Medley wrote in a summary report. It was released earlier this month.

Also priests expressed frustration at a lack of clarity from Francis, particularly regarding the text 'Fiducia Supplicans'. Francis was described as "ambiguous" in his teaching, while people want him to be direct: "Tell us what you really mean".

Each US diocese was to send a summary report to the bishops' conference by 8 April.