Pope rehabilitates Holocaust denier, angering Jews

Deo gratias!

Our enemies are the principalities and powers, among them the Associated Press and whatever demon got into that devious Swede's and that idiot Brit's heads to try and torpedo a rapprochement.

As for this little complication...the holocaust questioning thing. I'll not comment and reserve judgement on the substance of it, as I really don't have any knowledge of the event beyond the conventional textbook history (which I distrust) and it would seem hard for anybody who did claim some expertise to question it on the larger points, for it's beyond credulity to hold that anybody could pull off a hoax of such magnitude. The substance of Williamson's stupid comments are not germane to the issue.


Let's consider, though, the shrill argument that we're already hearing in online newspaper comment boxes, and by tomorrow, we'll hear from "more respectable" quarters, who will live only in the present, and cannot consider the past.


1. The question of whether or not this bishop is in communion with the Holy Father is based on his current opinions on an secular subject rather than his part in the unfortunate sequence of events in 1988.

2. Williamson holds a crackpot idea about a secular subject.

3. No one who has crackpot views on secular subjects should be in communion with the Holy Father.

Now, I don't mean to keep Williamson out of the Church, but I'm not so sure I don't find that reasoning compelling or useful if it were applied to the Universal Church, and not just to traddies.

I think the Holy Father should reinstate the excommunication declared in 1988 with respect to Richard Williamson, and in the same decree, he should apply this principle to all Bishops.

Anyone with me?

Browsing at a hospital chapel

I was wandering around Providence Medical Center today (because...I mean....where else would I want to be on a beautiful sunny Labor Day afternoon?), and I started thinking of the devil's latest conquest in Mexico, and I wanted to reread chapter 12 from the Book of Wisdom. Alas, the drawers in the patient rooms all had protty-bibles, placed by the Gideons. No Wisdom to be found in the prots' bible, as you know. They think Wisdom is apochyphal. I didn't hope for a Douay, but there was not even an emasculated RNAB to be found laying about in a Catholic hospital. Where would I look?

Eventually, I found myself in the chapel, where it appeared (from the white electric sanctuary lamp) that the Blessed Sacrament was reserved. Being easily distracted, my reflections passed from Canaanite and modern infanticide to the hospital itself and the religious order that founded it (what each once was, and what each has degenerated to today). It occurred to me then that our Lord, presumptively in the tabernacle, might appreciate a little old-fashioned worship of Himself and honor to His Blessed Mother, so I knelt down and said the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary, in Latin. It seemed unlikely that such a thing was common in that chapel. I cannot know, but I hope He enjoyed the change from his routine of lay-led communion services in English and Spanish.

Afterwards, as I was leaving the chapel, I noticed a pamphlet rack in the back. Even though it was bad form to do so with my back to our Lord in the tabernacle, for some reason I picked up a couple of them, just curious to know what the laymen who ran the chaplain's office were peddling. Expecting to see just the usual kumbaya-Catholicism one finds in such places, I was really surprised to find that about half the space in the rack was literature from the Unity people (you know, those folks who've gotten beyond the idea of a hierarchical church, and gotten beyond the God of Abraham, and who've built the ooh-so-cool temple on the Plaza).

The tracts were full of reflections on sickness, suffering and hope; a few from a version of the Bible I've never heard of, others from random folks I'd never heard of (presumably, they're folks who hang out with Unity types). Some reflections benign or trite. Some reflections assuring me that god (if not God) is within me in a way that...well...seemed to go beyond anything that Pius XI might have said. And at the end of each, there was a phone number you could call to pray with somebody at Unity, 24/7.

And so I thought, "Surely, even for this place, tracts from such a source were not intentionally placed there? I mean, surely, these were put here by someone passing through without asking for permission?"

That must have been it. The Unity tracts HAD to have been left without permission. After all, a Catholic hospital (even one affiliated with enlightened nuns who've kicked the habit) wouldn't promote whatever sort of religion "Unity" is. But I must say that the guy who left those tracts was enterprising. Before he smuggled the tracts into the chapel, he went to the trouble of stamping them all "Providence Medical Center Spiritual Care Office."

At least I could be assured that as soon as the priests or orthodox laymen who staff the Spiritual Care Office noticed, they'd be off the shelf. Right? Right!

Comforted by that thought, I can worry more about the Unity guys than the Providence staff. Perhaps I'll call the Unity prayer line and invite the guy who answers to pray the full version of Leo XIII's prayer to St. Michael with me.

USCCB Summer Games

One of my friends, for whom I've invented the moniker "Kumbaya," has a guest post which I'm happy to put up:

WASHINGTON D.C. (Associate Spoof) -- Nevermind the "real" summer games going on in Beijing; there's a far more interesting set of games going on here in the states: The USCCB Summer Games. Just in case you've never heard of these games, here's a rundown of the most popular events.

Starting with a test of speed, stamina, and strength, the games open with the ICEL Translations Criticism Contest. In short, the contestants vie to see who can complain the loudest, the fastest, and the longest about the translations of the newly proposed liturgical texts. This year's competition looks to be especially interesting as the perennial favorites have been stewing over Cardinal Arinze and Archbishop Ranjith's recent exhortation to toe the line and follow the translations as rendered by ICEL. Cardinal Mahoney is favored to win as long as he's not disqualified for false starts.

Verbal dexterity, creative obfuscation, and use of the diocese legal team will be pushed to the limit in the Abuse Lawsuit Obstacle Course. With the retirement of defending gold medalist Cardinal Law, the field is wide open this year. Speculation among some insiders is that Bishop Brom of San Diego might have an edge but the field is packed with many highly qualified contestants. A record number of requests for press passes have been received for this event.
In the non-clerical events, competition for the gold will be the tight in the Liturgical Dance Competition and the Greet Your Neighbor and Exchange the Sign of Peace individual medlies. Assuming enough traditionalists can be duped into being "catchers," the Javelin Throw should be a real crowd-pleaser at the Olympic Coliseum, as well as the Pick Your Dogmas Archery Contest (which, as in previous years, is only open to "dissenting Catholics").

Two new events have been added to the field thanks to last summer's publication of Summorum Pontificum. The first is Team Weight Lifting, a timed event in which contestants reconfigure a sanctuary from Novus Ordo mode to Tridentine mode and then back again. Also new to this year's games is the Red Tape Relay in which Catholics file requests for a traditional Latin Mass with their local bishop while raising a non-refundable 25% down payment to finance the operations of a part-time community which will be serviced by a bi-ritual priest -- all while preparing an appeal to the Ecclesia Dei Commission in case the request is denied.
Sadly, not all of the planned events will be taking place in this summer's contest. One of casualties was The 100-Annulment Sprint which was nixed when all but two of the contestants were dismissed for "rubber stamping" during the qualification round. Also canceled was the Spirit of Vatican II Road Race because nobody could agree where the race started, where it finished, what path the course was supposed to follow, or who was allowed to take part in the event.

Expect security to be tight at this year's games, as well as possible gender-checks for female contestants attempting to infiltrate the all-male events. Check your local diocesan newspaper for complete coverage.

Boston Post

Updated the Boston Church Closing post below with pictures. Finally got them uploaded.

Diabolical self-storage?

Happy to be back in Kansas, and out of new Sodom, I pulled in to the parking lot at Blessed Sacrament in Kansas City for 11am High Mass, thinking it was great to be back in God's country.

Or was I ?

There it was.

.....The deacon who taught my confirmation class in Texas warned me about it.....

.....I heard a sermon preached on it a few years ago.....

......here it was, the most satanic song ever written, morphed into the most satanic self-storage container ever made, right there in the parking lot of a Catholic parish:

I often wonder about what goes on at Blessed Sacrament when we're not there.

Sometimes I wonder more. And sometimes I wonder less.

The comment box is open.

For Alison

First of all, madam, I think you should start your own blog, if you haven't already. You're much more amusing than I am. Mrs. Curmudgeon thought "Pandas Revealed" far superior to any of my witticisms.

Secondly, a "personal parish" is as follows:

Can 518 (1983 Code of Canon Law): As a general rule a prish is to be territorial, that is, one which includes all the Christian faithful of a certian territory. When it is expedient, however, personal parishes are to be established determined by reason of the rite, language, or nationality of the Christian failthful of some territory, or evn for some other reason.

A parish is a juridic person with some rights (however precarious under the new regime). Many places (e.g., Denver, Rockford, Sacramento, Kansas City Missouri) have traditional communities which are established as personal parishes or their equivalents. Others (e.g., our little group) are mere "chaplaincies," with no rights, but which exist only at the sufferance of the ordinary. That's not to say there aren't risks to personal parishes (see Scranton PA), but they're not entirely a plaything of the chancery as St. Rose Philippine is.

Springtime of Vatican II in Boston

I'm on a business trip, and I had a few hours free last night and found myself in Boston's Chinatown, so I went by and took a few pictures of recently-closed Holy Trinity, a symbol of the wise episcopal governance and collegial papal deference that Boston has enjoyed over the last forty years.

How wonderful the aggiornamento has been! This is the traditional Latin Mass community met for a number of years, and it's my understanding that they were quite prepared to take over responsibility for the historic church(which, judging from the exterior, could stand a little work).

Of course, to allow those traditional folks to have their own place would have been unthinkable; they're not really a part of the larger Church, you know. And besides, Cardinal Sean might be able to make a few thousand dollars to throw at the buggery bill by selling it to some goofy New Agers who would....ironically....have a beautiful place to celebrate gay weddin's.

It was the announcement from the Diocese of Scranton, home of the North American FSSP headquarters, that the FSSP-served traditional personal parish be supressed or merged with a happy-clappy parish "to cope with the priest shortage" when the FSSP is probably the only institute in that diocese that actually produces plenty of religious vocations? I figured, having read that, that I'd venture a little bit and see the wreckage in Boston.

Isn't it something, how incredibly stupid we all are, in the eyes of the evil or incompetent men who've politicked their way into being our shepherds, and in the eyes of their crooked chancery rat handlers? And isn't it something, the money that can be made out of church closings when you team the chancery rats up with guys like Alan Meitler? Church closin' is good business, and business has been good in Boston, and Scranton, as it has been in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas.

New profile photo

It is only out of the profound love I have of Mrs. Curmudgeon that I've donned socks.

What about the one-child policy?

Not surprisingly, some animals are more equal than others in China. Forced contraception and forced abortion doesn't apply to them uniformly:

4 panda cubs born at Chinese breeding center
Sun Jul 27, 9:48 AM ET

BEIJING - Four giant panda cubs were born within 14 hours at a breeding center in southwest China, a mini baby boom for the rare animals, a state news agency reported Sunday.

The births began Saturday at the Chengdu Panda Breeding Research Center when 9-year-old Qiyuan, or Magic Luck, gave birth to female twins at 5:24 p.m. and 6:16 p.m., Xinhua News Agency reported, citing center expert Yang Feifei.

More HERE

Yawn....y'all still here?

I happened to remember my password ... finally. Gosh it's been a long time since I posted. When I look at the site meter I'm absolutely shocked it's not at zero.

Hmm. So much going on in my life. Still not quite settled into the new cave and the environs still need attention. So I guess I'm not ready to resume the blog. Maybe this fall?

In the meantime, if you're still out there, what would you think of a "Kansas Secede!" bumpersticker? I was thinking of printing some up and starting a movement, but I often overestimate the inertia out there.

So what does the average St. Louis Catholic think about his Ordinary?

Well, just so we don't all lose our focus and see a near term success in the culture war, we might spend a few minutes reading the comments to this story about Abp. Burke's rather....episcopal...reaction to SLU coach Rick Majerus's antics (there are almost 500 of them).

The article is stupid and misleading of course...who would expect otherwise from an outlet run by Ted Turner? But the comments are useful, because they give insight into what the "Joe Six-Packs" in St. Louis and elsewhere think about a bishop who dares to do his job. And they help us come to grips with just how far gone the culture is, and just how effective the Vatican II "pastoral" approach has been in forming Catholics and influencing non-Catholics.

"It seems to me that faith education works all right as long as people are not that serious about their faith."

So says, British MP Barry Sheerman, presumably with a straight face. State subsidies for Catholic schools are under fire in Britain because certain (but not all) Catholic Bishops in Britain are acting in ways which vaguely resemble...Catholic Bishops.

Much can be said about the danger state subsidies would pose to Catholic schools here in the US, when we think about vouchers and the strings that would be attached to them.

But I think much more could be said about the fact that so many prelates and educators in Catholic schools....and for that matter, so many parents of Catholic school children, especially ones I know here in Kansas City...would say the same thing.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis

Word comes to us that Msgr. Heliodore Mejak, for over 63 years the pastor at Holy Family Parish in KCK, passed away on Christmas Day.


Msgr. Mejak was reported to be the longest-serving pastor in the world, and only the SECOND pastor to serve in the parish since its formation in the 1920s.


Deus, qui inter apostolicos Sacerdotes, famulum tuum Heliodore, sacerdotali fecisti dignitate vigere: praesta quaesumus; ut eorum quote perpetuo aggregetur consortio.


O God, Who wast pleased to raise Heliodore, Thy servant, to the dignity of the priesthood: vouchsafe to number him with They bishops and priests for evermore.


Msgr. Mejak was always friendly to traddies, and was a calm port in the ecclesiastical storm of the 1970s for many in Kansas City.


No details on funeral arrangements.

Oh yeah, and "Happy Holidays"

Well, I'll wish you the same devious, intolerant, insensitive greetings I've been wishing everyone, including my Jewish friends, all week:

Merry Christmas, and a Blessed New Year!

Two currents of work in women's religious communities...

Well, while we're gratified to see some young women's communities organizing and growing and bringing new Graces into Holy Mother Church, we're not surprised how little some of the older communities, flush with the spirit of Vatican II, have left to contribute:

Nuns leave their brains to science

Seriously, perhaps the neurologists studying those brains can find the "spirit of Vatican II" switch and come up with a way to turn it off before their whole orders disappear.

Malessere?

The answer to the problem, of course is to unwind the masonic revolution that has brough Italy great miseries and small ones over the last 130 years, and to restore the Papal States.

A nugget from Frank Sheed.

Nope, I' m still not really blogging again; too much real life, and too much reading to do.

But the reading is much more rewarding. Finally getting through Frank J. Sheed's Society and Sanity (1953), which I've had for over a year and just hadn't gotten through.

Here's a nuggest from pp. 181-82, which my prottie and flag-wavin' Neo-Catholic friends need to digest:

At the moment the sky is filled with the clang of battle between Totalitarianism and Democracy. In fact, there is no opposition between them. They are answers to two different questions.

Totalitarianism is an answer to the question, "What things are Ceasar's?"--the answer it gives being that all things whatsoever are Caesar's, that the State's right of control is unlimited, that the citizen has no rights against the State, no part of life that is simply his own.

Democracy is an answer to the question "Who is Caesar?"--the answer it gives being that Caesar is whomever the People elects.

Obviously there is no necessary opposition between them. One State might easily give both answers. It might decide that authority resides in the People, and that the People elects its government and can change its goverment. And it might also decide that there is no limit to the People's control, throught that elected and dismissible goverment, over the life of the individual, that, for what is conceived to be the good of the totality, the individualmay be totally regimented. There is no paradox here, no improbability even. A government which can claim to be doing what the majority of the people think best can interfere in the life of citizens as the most absolute tyrant could not: it was not an autocrat who in this century imposed Prohibition upon a great people: no autocrat would have dared. In fact control by government is spreading so fast in the democracies that the distinction already noted between the two main times of social authority has less meaning that of old, and Caesar is as good a symbol for one as the other.

Yes, one very clear explication that supports my view that I'd rather live under an autocrat like Franco that the current Spanish democracy, of for that matter, the current U.S. democracy. God bless Franco.

A friend from Montana has repeatedly recommended this book, and it's wonderful. A shame it's not in print, and you can count on Sheed & Ward, Frank's own publishing house, now run by leftists, be be sure it stays out of print.

Remember the Generalissimo!

The bastard socialists who've taken over Spain are still busy at work, rewriting history and stirring up hatred against the man that saved Catholic Spain (or at least prolonged its life 70 years) and probably saved all of Western Europe from revolutionary barbarians (or at least prolonged its life 80 years).

The ruling party, which is well into its campaign of subtle persecution of faithful Spaniards and Holy Mother Church, has passed a law condemning Francisco Franco.

Ah, it's hard to remember that God knows why he put me here, now, instead of among the Carlists of Spain in 1936. Oh, to have such a noble cause, and to have contributed to its success! Well, I guess if He'd have also had to have given me a better facility in Spanish (worst grades in elementary school) and make me a better shot, too. But to think I might have been there and gotten a shot off at commie Ernest Hemmingway!!!

Hey Lady, that ain't a breadbox you just walked by!

So I'm in St. Louis earlier this week and I find myself across the street from the Old Cathedral with a half-hour to myself. A nice opportunity to go spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the same church from which Fr. DeSmet and countless other Catholic missionaries departed to bring the Faith to the American West.

So I slip over there.

I tug on the door, and it's open. And I'm pleased to see that there's some semblance of order and tradition in the arrangement of the place. Some goofy stuff here and there (the ambo, for instance), but still an altar rail, and a central tabernacle, and a raised altar on which a traditional Mass could be celebrated...still obviously Catholic.


And so I'm rather settled in before the Real Presence there, and I'm midway through the mystery of the Presentation when this older, heavy-set woman in a sleeveless shirt comes wandering out of the sacristy, across the sanctuary, and kicks herself over the velvet rope spanning the central gap in the altar rail. She comes down to me and tells me (with maybe slightly more regard as she just showed our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament) that I'll have to go; she's locking up. I watched her waddle back to the Church and hold the door open waiting on me to leave (again with nary a glance at the tabernacle).


Somehow I bit my tongue, but now I wished I wouldn't have. HEY LADY, THAT AIN'T A BREADBOX YOU JUST WALKED BY, that's the Creator and the Saviour of the World, Who humbled Himself to become a creature. And you can't even humble yourself acknowledge His presence with even so much as a novus-ordo nod to the tabernacle?

Or perhaps, despite the burning sanctuary lamp, He wasn't there at all? Maybe she knows something I don't about the way the sacraments are "celebrated" there? If so, at least she didn't give Him any offense, and it really was just a fancy breadbox.


Argh. Once again I'm reminded of the state of the rest of the Church. God bless Archbishop Burke for trying to restore the Faith in St. Louis, but what regard can people have for the Church when they have no regard for her Founder? Especially people who apparently have some role to play in the upkeep of a holy place that's been designated Bascilica?



I'm not sure I could ever go back in the Old Cathedral now. Next time I'll find a full hour and drive down to St. Francis de Sales.

Carnahan's Still on the Devil's Payroll

Ah, yes...we remember way back to the year 2006, when Robin Carnahan, Satan's apprentice in the Missouri Secretary of State's office, did her part to further the culture of death by assuring that the people of Missouri got a misleading ballot summary of Amendment 2, the Clone-n-Kill initiative. She managed to fool enough people so that (although the initiative's support declined week after week as people learned the truth in the runup to the election) just enough people pulled the lever in Missouri to make sure our own little Island of Dr. Moreau could stay in business. Of course, she did have a little help, to the tune of $30 million from baby-killin' billionaire Jim Stowers. But she did her part by making sure that Missouri voters couldn't tell that the state was redefining "cloning" to mean something that it did not.

And now we fast-forward to the fall of 2007, to learn that Robin's being even more bold. She's taken THIS and written ballot language describing it as a proposal "to repeal the current ban on human cloning or attempted cloning."

OFFICIAL BALLOT TITLE AS CERTIFIED BY SECRETARY OF STATE

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to repeal the current ban on human cloning or attempted cloning and to limit Missouri patients’ access to stem cell research, therapies and cures approved by voters in November 2006 by:

• redefining the ban on human cloning or attempted cloning to criminalize and impose civil penalties for some currently allowed research, therapies and cures; and
• prohibiting hospitals or other institutions from using public funds to conduct such research?

This proposal could have a significant negative fiscal impact on state and local governmental entities due to its prohibition of certain research activities. However, the total costs to state and local governmental entities are unknown.

Of course she'll get away with it. The Missouri courts earned their thirty pieces of silver last time and made sure the challenge to present the proposal fairly and honestly was quashed. And there's no reason to think they won't oblige again.

At this point the Enemy and his instruments are so drunk with his own success, and has gained so much confidence, that they're not even trying to cover their movements anymore.