Termite Groups Sponsor Speaking Tour by Heretical Irish Priest

The American Catholic Council and their clique are always busy-busy, like termites, undermining the faith. Their latest exploit? A Catholic Tipping Point Tour featuring dissenting Irish priest, Tony Flannery who was silenced after refusing to sign a document affirming Church teachings. Here's how Fr. Tony's situation is described by the dissenters:

Fr.Tony has been ordered to remain silent and forbidden to minister as a priest because of his refusal to sign a document that violates his conscience: namely that women cannot be priests and that he accepts all Church stances on contraception, homosexuality, and refusal of the sacraments to people in second relationships. After a year during which he attempted to come to some accommodation with the Vatican without success, he has decided to take a public stance on the need for reform in the Church.

Oh, my goodness, fidelity to Catholic doctrine "violates [Fr. Tony's] conscience!"

The Chutzpah of Heretics Never Ceases to Amaze Me

I guess it's not surprising that heretics are loaded with chutzpah! After all its definition is "unmitigated effrontery or impudence" and heretics certainly don't illustrate an iota of humility. But I'm always amazed to see how they rewrite prayers. You've seen it, of course. Changing the Our Father to Our Mother.  But heretics continue in their silliness and the American Catholic Council, heretics extraordinaire, has a rewritten Magnificat on their website that stimulates the gag reflex. I can't decide whether to laugh or weep:

A BASTARDIZED HERETIC'S VERSION OF THE MAGNIFICAT

                                                 by Joy Conley 

My soul sings in gratitude. [Mary no longer "magnifies the Lord" or "proclaims His greatness."] I'm dancing in the mystery of God. [No "rejoicing in God, my Savior." After all, who needs a Savior when you're your own god?]
The light of the Holy One is within me and I am blessed, so truly blessed. [What happened to God's "lowly servant? or the "Almighty who has done great things?"]

This goes deeper than human thinking. [Huh?]  I am filled with awe
at Love whose only condition is to be received. [Uh...no. Remember, "He has cast down the mighty from their thrones....and the rich He has sent away empty."]

The gift is not for the proud, for they have no room for it. [Well...she should know. There is no one prouder than one who thinks she can rewrite and improve on holy Scripture.]
The strong and self-sufficient ones don't have this awareness. [Got that right, lady!]

But those who know their emptiness can rejoice in Love's fullness. [Spoken as one who is totally full of herself!]
It's the Love that we are made for, the reason for our being.
It fills our inmost heart space and brings to birth in us, the Holy One. [Wow!...Well, as Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." In the meantime, these folks work to undermine many of the commandments especially those relating to love, marriage, and family. Pray for them! No heretics will get into heaven. But no one is beyond the grace of conversion even these proud, self-sufficient heretics.]

                                                                        

The Dissent Fest in Detroit - Priest Thumbs Nose at Bishop

When priests are ordained they put their hands between the bishop's and promise obedience. Of course, there are some situations where priests can legitimately disobey. Obviously a young priest would not owe obedience to a homosexual bishop who ordered him to engage in sodomy with him. Not only does a subordinate have the right to refuse obedience in such a situation, he has a moral obligation to disobey. An order to sin is immoral and must NEVER be obeyed.

But we aren't talking about that. Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit was acting totally within his authority when he ordered the priests of his diocese NOT to be involved with the Mass at the American Catholic Council event held in Detroit last weekend. Fr. Bob Wurm (well named) a retired 78-year-old priest, did it anyway and made it clear that he doesn't think the bishop will do a thing about it.  Essentially he thumbed his nose at his bishop and dared him to do anything about it. According to the organizers, dozens of local priests and deacons attended the Mass, but they would say that. Liberal liars are as common as bedbugs in New York.

Whatever the truth of other clergy attending, Fr. Wurm participated for sure and I hope the Archbishop follows through on his threats and removes his faculties. We need faithful servants of God in the vineyard; not those who imitate Lucifer's non serviam.

Read more about the ACC event here. Don't miss the slide show. The meeting could have been organized by the AARP. I think Fr. Wurm was one of the younger folks there. I'd love to see photos from the Call to Holiness conference held the same weekend. My bet is it attracted a much broader spectrum of the Church. What is it with these heretical old geezers? Isn't age supposed to bring wisdom? They just appear ridiculous. See Fr. Z's post for some of the other silliness. I hate to say it, but the saying immediately jumped into my head, "There's no fool like an old fool." Pray for these folks to retrieve their sanity.

Archbishop Vigneron Warns Catholics to Avoid Heretics' Meeting in Detroit

In a strongly worded letter issues June 3rd, Archbishop Vigneron has warned his priests and flock to avoid the upcoming meeting of the American Catholic Council to be held this weekend in Detroit. The dissent fest of heretics on parade is filled with groups and speakers who  promote abortion, contraception, and the homosexual lifestyle -- all things they justify according to "primacy of conscience." The archbishop refused permission for the group to celebrate Mass and explained his reasons in the letter:

To confirm the legitimacy of what they had planned, the ACC had been asked to provide details regarding this liturgy. The response received was ambiguous, and there are good reasons for believing forbidden concelebration will take place by the laity and with those not in full communion with the Church.

According to LifeSite News:

Archbishop Vigneron emphasized that he has not given permission for the conference’s “Eucharistic Liturgy,” as required by Church law. He said that concelebrating in the liturgy may result in “dismissal from the clerical state.”

Wow! A bishop who isn't afraid to call evil evil! Thank you, Your Excellency!

The ACC is just one more gathering of the same old dissenters from Call to Action, Voice of the Faithful, Dignity, Women's Ordination Conference, etc. Their message is warmed over modernist claptrap condemned for over a century. Their "Catholic Bill of Rights" is a travesty claiming the right of all to engage in "ministerial leadership" whatever that means. Judging from past action, one has to presume that everybody can be a priest or that no priest is necessary because the laity can celebrate the Eucharist without one. The Bill of Rights also sanctifies "informed conscience" (never defined) which, to them, means throwing out whatever Church doctrines you don't happen to fancy and saying your conscience made you do it. They also demand the right to choose their own leaders. (Martin Luther clones would no doubt be high on the list.)
 
Let's face it. ACC is unrecognizable as Catholic because it isn't. And Archbishop Vigneron has unmasked them. Good for him!

Please pray in thanksgiving for a bishop who takes seriously his obligation to teach, sanctify, and rule in his diocese. And also pray for these poor deluded slaves of the evil one. When you shake your fist at the Church, you shake your fist at God.

Sunday Meditation: The Blind Will See!

Today is Laetare Sunday. We are half way through Lent and rejoice to reflect on the sure knowledge of our rescue from sin and eternal death. The Gospel reading today is one of my favorites -- the story of the man born blind. Jesus doesn't heal him outright. He makes a paste with saliva and mud and sends the man to wash in the pool of Siloam. Why? Perhaps as a gift. The man didn't beg for a cure. The disciples used the man to ask Jesus a question about sin. Whose sin caused his blindness, his or his parents? Neither, Jesus answered. Bad things aren't necessarily a punishment for sin; sometimes they occur to allow God to show his power. And Jesus does just that, restoring sight to this man who did not ask for it.

But what about the person who does ask and does not receive a cure? Does that mean God isn't listening and doesn't care? No! Sometimes the biggest miracle is the cheerful acceptance of our misfortunes and offering them in atonement for our sins and the sins of others.

Blessed Margaret of Costello knew that. She was born blind and hunchbacked, shunned and abandoned by her parents. And yet she modelled cheerful abandonment to God's providence. When a woman she knew received news that she was going blind she despaired and begged Margaret, renowned for the power of her prayers, to ask God for a cure. Think of the irony of this wealthy woman, a member of the nobility, weeping and begging the poor little blind woman, who never had the use of her eyes, to pray for her sight to be restored. Margaret tried to convince her to accept her blindness as a gift to walk more closely with the Savior, but she could not. So Margaret prayed for her and the woman's sight returned. Perhaps had she accepted the loss of physical sight, she would have been particularly blessed with interior sight. It is something to ponder.

The blind man cured by Jesus had to act. Jesus sent him to the pool of Siloam to wash. And when he finished, he could see. He became a reproach to the Pharisees who questioned him over and over about who cured him. When he described Jesus as a prophet, the Pharisees rebuked him and called Jesus a sinner. You can almost hear the man, his sight restored, laughing in their faces as he asks has a sinner ever cured a man blind from birth? "If this man were not from God, he could never have done such a thing." They insult him and throw him out into the street. But Jesus, in a touching scene, seeks him out and asks, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" And he responds, "Who is he, Sir, that I may believe in Him." Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah. "I do believe, Lord," replies this grateful and humble servant and he "bowed down to worship Him." (John 9)

How I love that blind man whose story shows us how eager Jesus is to seek us out and help us "to see." The Pharisees who overhear the conversation are indignant. Is Jesus calling them blind? To which he responds, "If you were blind there would be no sin in that. 'But we see,' you say, and your sin remains." We live among modern day blind Pharisees who claim to see. In fact, there is a Pharisees' conference meeting on Pentecost weekend to "reimagine" the Church in their own heretical image. They call themselves the American Catholic Council. Pray that the misguided among them will meet Jesus and have their sight restored. As for the malicious, many of their leaders, some demons are only driven out by prayer and fasting.

I'm praying today to have the faith of the blind man. Like the other blind man who sat at the gate calling, "Son of David, have pity on me." I want to respond to Jesus' question, "What do you want of Me?"  saying "Lord, that I may see...that I may see all those you put in my path and treat them as you would."

If you haven't been to Confession this Lent, it's not too late. Go now. It's the greatest cure for spiritual blindness.

When Heretics Rage

The American Catholic Council (ACC), a dissent group made up of folks from Call to Action, Women's Ordination Council, Voice of the Faithful, Dignity, and an assortment of other disgruntled cafeteria Catholics sent out a press release today. They should have waited until tomorrow since it seems so much like an April Fool's joke.

The release calls for a "day of prayer and fasting" on April 15 (tax day -- was that on purpose?) for their upcoming dissent fest in Detroit on Pentecost weekend. To whom are they praying one might well ask since what they call the "spirit of Vatican II" is actually the spirit of the world. Now who is the spirit of the world, eh? The same evil one who tempted Jesus in the desert.

And evil is exactly what is being perpetrated by ACC under the false teaching of the "spirit of Vatican II." The new translation of the Roman missal is a correction of one of those evils that saw liberals in ICEL (International Commision on English in the Liturgy) watering down the truths of the faith with bad translations that turned the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass into a community supper complete with folk groups and rock and roll bands.

Despite the corrections going on, the grey-haired dissenters are determined to resurrect the dissenting "spirit of Vatican II" to finish the job begun by Martin Luther, Calvin, and the other revolutionaries who wanted a human institution fashioned in the image and likeness of man. We've seen what that dissenting spirit accomplished: downgrading the Blessed Mother, throwing out Latin, implementing a wide range of banal songs for the pray and sway crowd. Perhaps the most egregious evil was raising uninformed individual conscience to the level of papal infallibility: every little heretic a pope in the pew! The rebellious  "spirit of Vatican II" is still clearly evident in the blather of these aging cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose the doctrines they like and throw out all the rest. Who is Jesus Christ to tell them what to do anyway? They will continue to do all they can to impose their immorality on the body of Christ.

Among the breakout sessions at ACC is one that explores, among other things, the "experience of women Roman Catholic Priests" (There is no such thing.) and the "experience of CORPUS married Catholic priests." CORPUS is a dissent group of renegade priests with no standing in the Church who left to marry, but want to have their cake and eat it too. Many rent themselves out for weddings and baptisms which are not recognized or recorded by the Church. Their list of concerns is the same old dissent from the 70s Call to Action meeting -- deja vu all over again.

A number of bishops have condemned ACC and we echo their voices. The "spirit of Vatican II" is like the evil spirits who invaded the Freeling home in the film, Poltergeist, and the dissenters are the fellow travellers who want to open the door and let them in.

So, by all means, faithful Catholics, pray and fast on April 15. Make your intention the exorcism of the American Catholic Council and the conversion of those participating in it.

Read more:

Archbishop Condemns Schismatic "American Catholic Council"

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