Waging War on Christmas? And the Pope Said What?

Is this the "charade" of Christmas?

Pope Francis is Waging War on Christmas; Christians Should Join Him

Yikes!

Where did this idea come from? 

Christopher Hale in a Washington Post article on Christmas Eve reminded readers that last year the pope told a group of Mass goers that "Christmas is a charade:" Here's how he quotes the pope:

“Christmas is approaching: There will be lights, parties, lighted Christmas trees and manger scenes. … It’s all a charade....The world continues to go to war. The world has not chosen a peaceful path. There are wars today everywhere, and hate.... We should ask for the grace to weep for this world, which does not recognize the path to peace. To weep for those who live for war and have the cynicism to deny it. God weeps; Jesus weeps.”

Project Veritas vs. Barry University: Whom Do You Trust to Tell the Truth?

I've been having an email exchange with the Florida Family Association over the Project Veritas' report on universities supporting ISIS. James O'Keefe irritates me a little with his "gotcha" approach, but it does get attention; and I enthusiastically applaud his success in going after ACORN with the prostitute/pimp videos. 

"Sr. Linda," Pres. of Barry U.

After O'Keefe's most recent video exposé of Barry University, I received an email from the Florida Family Association that spurred a back and forth between myself and David Caton, FFA president. Here's their original email:

FFA email sent April 6, 2015 -- James O’Keefe issued a report via his organization called Project Veritas titled “O’Keefe exposes another university sympathetic to ISIS." The report states in part “Barry University Officials Unfazed by Club Purportedly Being Formed to Send Aid to ISIS; Their Only Suggestion was a More Politically Correct Name “Because Technically our Country is at War with ISIS.” Numerous organizations that oppose Islamization of America posted O'Keefe's report online and included it in their email broadcasts.

Now that the Synod is Over the Spin is On

Actually it started even before the Synod started with dissent groups all over the world writing letters and organizing their own alternative synod in Rome through Catholic Church Reform International (CCRI) formed in June 2013. CCRI is a coalition of over a hundred dissent groups around the world (CORPUS, Call to Action, We Are Church, Women's Ordination Conference, Roman Catholic Womenpriests USA, Voice of the Faithful, American Catholic Council, Loretto Women's Network, etc.). Although I know they are not particularly orthodox at the national level, I was surprised to see The National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) included as a support group with a link to their president, Rebecca Woodhull I plan to contact my bishop on that one!

One More Reason to be Concerned about Bishop Cupich -- CTA loves him!

Call to Action is thrilled with Bishop Cupich's appointment to Chicago where their national office is based!

Now if you don't know about the dissidents at Call to Action, you have been deprived of many head-shaking experiences: the puppet Masses (See ridiculous video below.), the endorsement of abortion, contraception, sodomy, etc., the frequent rabid dissent at their conferences where nuns beat the drums (literally). Yes, a Call to Action's endorsement definitely makes a person suspect. Now, I wonder what Bishop Cupich thinks of the Chicago-based group. Someone should ask him. Catholic Citizens of Illinois, a faithful group of Catholics, has the press release on their website.

Press Release: A Humbler, More Pastoral Church

Now a little history....

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.]

                                                                        

Pravda USA: the National Catholic Distorter

The Conrad Hilton Foundation has awarded the dissenters' rag, the National Catholic Reporter (aka the National Catholic Distorter), a $2.3 million grant to propagandize for the dissident nuns. NCR will have no trouble finding them since they feature loads of anti-Catholic nuns as regular writers including Sr. Joan Chittister, a long-time rebel against the faith. You can be sure that the nuns publicized with this grant money won't be the Mother Teresas of the world. Nope, watch for the nuns in polyester pantsuits marching for the wetlands, riding on the bus, and demonstrating outside military installations. Don't expect religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor or the Sisters of Life or the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist to be given a voice. They don't fit NCR's dissident agenda.

Keep in mind that several bishops have called for NCR to drop the word "Catholic" from their name since they are anything but. The paper refused. $2.3 mil will buy a lot of Pravda-style propaganda for the dissident nuns who've made it very clear the Vatican can't tell them what to do!

Fr. Tuck Grinnell and the Nuns on the Bus

Protesters greet the Nuns on the Bus to challenge their agenda to re-elect the most pro-abortion president in history!

It was no surprise to me to see that the Nuns on the Bus were launching their "Virginia tour" to get Obama re-elected from St. Charles Borromeo in Arlington, one of the most liberal and dissent-ridden parishes in the Diocese of Arlington. Here's the announcement from the nuns' political action website:

Tour Launch: Arlington, VA
9:30 a.m.
St. Charles Borromeo Church, Benedict Hall
3304 N. Washington Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201
Reception and speaking program followed by tour launch in parking lot. All are
welcome to attend Mass at 9:00 a.m. preceding the reception.

The pastor at St. Charles, Fr. Horace "Tuck" Grinnell,

Ah...the Hypocrites at Catholics United

They never met a democratic pro-abort they didn't worship. Obama and Sebelius are icons of their liberal religion. But oh how they wax eloquent in going after Mitt Romney for acts against life. What hypocrites! As one who is undecided on whether to vote for either Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee, I certainly can recognize unabashed hypocrisy when I see it. The only thing Catholics United can be depended upon is to advance the liberal agenda no matter how many twists and turns it requires. Re-electing their God Obama is the top priority and if they have to turn themselves inside out to do it, they will pursue that end. And, by the way, when is a Catholic bishop going to show the same zeal for forbidding faux Catholic dissent groups like Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good from using the name Catholic as the Archdiocese of Detroit did in going after orthodox Real Catholic TV? Anyone? Anyone?

Catholics United launches pro-life attack on Romney

Moles, Groundhogs, and Termites: More on the LCWR

If you live out in the country you know what a nuisance ground hogs and moles can be. If you live anywhere in the south you know all about termites and watch out for signs your home might be infested. All these pests undermine the integrity of buildings and land and create hazards for farm animals as well. They are the perfect metaphor for the internal enemies of the Church. Any Catholic with an ounce of awareness knows there are groundhogs, moles, and termites in the Church undermining the faith. And among the worst are the members of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious) distorting what it means both to be a Catholic woman and a consecrated religious. Since the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) exposed problems in the organization a few months ago and called for reform, the dissidents have been busy lining up supporters and painting themselves as victims of the mean old misogynist males at the Vatican. They've outlined their immediate strategy in a position paper that rejects the reforms and outlines their strategy for the dispute with Rome. It ends with an interesting statement:

Created in 1956, LCWR has a history of being at the forefront of change and renewal in the US Catholic church as well as acting as a strong advocate for social justice in society.

Let's take this apart. First of all, there is no such thing as a "US Catholic church." (Note the small c for "church"). There is only the Holy Roman Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ on the rock of Peter whose successor is Pope Benedict XVI. By using this phrase, LCWR has already declared its separateness from Rome, the same thing that happened in the 19th century with the heresy of Americanism. Americanism basically declared the situation unique in the U.S. and emphasized individualism thereby undermining Church authority. John F. Kennedy's speech in Houston in 1960 where he declared his independence from the Church was a prime example of Americanism. It's been echoed by other Catholic politicians like Ted Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and John Kerry. But not only politicians promote the mindset. Priests and religious who use personal conscience to undermine Church doctrine (Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was an expert in this department.) also illustrate the infection of Americanism. A particularly insidious example is the healthcare debate. Waving the flag of independence, Sr. Carol Keehan of the Catholic Health Association, defied the USCCB (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) and  was so instrumental in passing Obamacare the president invited her to the signing and she received one of the pens. LCWR honored her for it. So LCWR immediately places itself among those thumbing their noses at Church authority proclaiming by their actions that the U.S. "church" is different and the hierarchy have no right to exercise authority here.

But what does LCWR mean when it says since 1956 their organization  has been at the "forefront of change and renewal?" Change for change's sake is typical of the modernist heresy which is characterized by a break from the past. All tradition is suspect and novelty is pursued for its own sake. That attitude of rejecting the past is certainly reflected in the history of LCWR, it's speakers and its positions. Donna Steichen outlined numerous heretical activities of the group in her 1996 book Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism. The '70s marked a radical departure by the LCWR from traditional charity (the works of mercy) to espousing women's rights including the Equal Rights Amendment, female ordination, women's empowerment, goddess worship, and a decidedly non-Catholic approach to "social justice." In 1986, LCWR held a "think tank" which issued papers written by teams that summarized LCWR's principles. Steichen says the essays:

 disclose a desperately uncertain religious vision, only tenuously related to the "symbol" of Jesus Christ, which looks to a feminist version of "liberation" for the world's earthly salvation. The notes and reading lists constitute a coprehensive bibliography in feminist theology.

But the extremism of LCWR isn't just historical. If people want to see how loopy the LCWR continues to be, they have merely to look at the keynote speaker scheduled for LCWR's 2012 August meeting. Barbara Marx Hubbard's address is titled Mystery Unfolding: Speaking in the Evolutionary Now.  Hubbard teaches a program called Agents of Conscious Evolution the purpose of which is to transform individuals to:

become a powerful catalyst of conscious evolution and play a role in one of the most exciting events ever envisioned: a planetary Birth Day on December 22, 2012. This day will help us shift beyond fearful separation toward a global sense of oneness, symbolically marking the start of a new era in human development....This intense and often emotional drama has one powerful solution: our conscious evolution as a species. We have within us extraordinary creative potentials that have yet to be massively unleashed, leading to wide-scale cooperation, innovation, sustainability and peace. The solutions are available; it is only the human software that needs an upgrade.

This says it all as far as LCWR is involved. Jesus' new covenant wasn't enough, but we need to "evolve" through a new age course in "conscious evolution" that makes us "co-creators" of the "next stage for humanity" to be welcomed on December 22, 2012. Hubbard's program is the same type of new age nonsense promoted by Marianne Williamson, Echhart Tolle, and Oprah Winfrey.  In fact, Hubbard participated with Williamson and Tolle last February in the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment. Take a look at Hubbard's video below and then read the description of her course on the website.  Hubbard has a background as a liberal and at the 1984 Democratic Convention, 204 delegates placed her name in token nomination for Vice President. (Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro were on the ticket that year.) Hubbard is also a proponent of population control and has frequently written about it in her books. Her initial work with conscious evolution was funded by the Rockefellers. Reading what she says about herself is eye-opening and it is clear that she is as far from Catholic teaching as one can be. She believes Eve was correct in disobeying God to seek knowledge and describes hearing an "inner voice" that told her, "I will not let you die." (Do you hear the hissing?) That the LCWR would invite this woman to keynote their annual meeting epitomizes their misguided activities over the past forty years. They are unregenerate in their dissent and scandal.



TO BE CONTINUED....

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"

They're Back

Gay Activists Support Kicanas for USCCB Head

Well, if anyone wanted confirmation that Bishop Kicanas is a bad choice for USCCB head they only have to look as far as the Rainbow Sash web page. You remember those folks. They're the ones who wear the rainbow sash to Mass to show their support for sodomy and gay marriage while demanding to receive Communion. Since homosexual activity is mortally sinful and those who wear the sash are publicly advocating mortal sin, receiving Communion while committing that scandal is a mortal sin of sacrilege. And a few bishops like Archbishop John Nienstedt have acted accordingly and refused them Communion.

The endorsement of the Rainbow Sash homosexuals should be the death knell for Bishop Kicanas' candidacy, but with so many homosexualist bishops in the U.S. perhaps it will enhance his chances. They certainly must think so.

Here's the rainbow sash statement:

THE RAINBOW SASH MOVEMENT
SUPPORTS THE ELECTION OF
BISHOP GERALD KICANAS AS
HEAD OF THE USCCB.

It is appropriate for the only LGBT Catholic Organization in the United States active within the parishes of the Church, and visible about that activity to add its voice to the Bishops election process for its next President. We understand Bishop Kicanas understands that Bishops are privately changing their position because input is bubbling up from the pews of our parishes in support of such issues as Gay Marriage, and Pro Choice.

The not to distant past situation at Notre Dame was an attempt on the part of some fundamentalist Bishops to make a hard turn to the right in general, and the Tea Party in particular. The end goal was to turn Catholic support away from President Obama. Bishop Kicanas voice during this difficult situation called for moderation, and listening.

The fundamentalist Bishops have also turned their sights on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The program has donated $290 million to groups combating poverty during the last four decades, according to Rainbow Sash Movement News. But the program has also attracted fierce church critics who are suspicious of anything that sniffs of socialism. These fundamentalist Bishops have gone as far as to form “Reform the CCHD Now” whose primary goal is dismantling the organization, rather than reforming it. At least 10 fundamentalist bishops have stopped CCHD collections in their diocese so much for the needs of the poor.

Joe Murray the Executive Director of the Rainbow Sash Movement said “that while we have difficulties with Bishop Kicanas present position on Gay Marriage we are hopeful his position will evolve. We believe that Bishop Kicanas follows in the footsteps of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadine, and will lead the USCCB to a position of common ground on issues that are deeply dividing the US Catholic Church. The impending election of Bishop Kicanas I believe is an attempt on the part of a majority of the Bishops to unravel a strangle hold that fundamentalism have on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops." Murray further stated, "Fundamentalist Bishops are trying to tag Bishop Kicanas as being very vulnerable in the area of clergy sexual abuse. I believe that to be a red herring. It may play to the fundamentalist such as Archbishop Chaput and Archbishop Dolan, it does not play well among more moderate and reasonable Catholics, and most of their Bishops. Following this logic could not the same claim be made of Cardinal Francis George current President of USCCB.

The Rainbow Sash Movement believes it is critical that Bishop Kicanas be elected to the Presidency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to set the tone, and be a reasonable public voice and face for the country’s Catholic bishops. It is time to start rebuilding the Church.

Bill O’Connor Rainbow Sash Movement


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Will George Soros Be Funding this "Catholic" Dissent Group?

Homosexual activists are gearing up to start a new dissent group called Catholics for Equality composed of gay activists who want to see the Church change her teachings. I can't believe these folks really think the Church will change her teachings, so I can only presume this is about advancing hatred against the Church. You know, that wicked, misogynist, homophobic group headed by men in skirts who lack tolerance, compassion, yadda, yadda, yadda.

 God have mercy on these poor deluded servants of the evil one. Read more here.