When I use the term liberalism and liberal, this is what I mean.

Since I often discuss liberalism which undergirds the nature of liberals, I think it might be helpful to define terms and explain exactly what liberalism is. Socrates often began his dialogues by defining terms. How can people have an intelligent discussion if they aren't using words in the same way? They can end up arguing with Humpty Dumpty who says, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less." Unfortunately, many liberals follow Humpty Dumpty's rules of engagement which is a ticket to the Tower of Babel. To use a silly example, suppose an alien landed in Washington, D.C. and someone told him that the first Catholic president, JFK, was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Imagine the confusion going forward. But that's often true when people use language in contrary ways. 

Sunday Meditation: Catholicism and Liberalism Can't Coexist! Why? Because of What it Means to be Catholic.

The fullness of the truth and the glory of God expressed in art, architecture, and music are found in the Catholic Church. She invites us to a closer union with God through the true, the good & the beautiful.

To know and understand the world you live in serves in many ways to free one from the tyranny of confusion and chaos that swirls around us. The fact is that we live in Liberalism Land. I could call it Liberalism Loony Land for it often seems we slog through a Slough of Despond where everything is upside down, backwards, and inside out. A number of isms control the narrative today, a predominant one being liberalism, a philosophy of lunacy.

Sunday Meditation: Let's Talk about Liberals and Liberalism.

Believe it! The Philosophy of Liberalism Brings about the Destruction of Man!

This post was spurred by listening to the fourth episode in the SSPX Crisis in the Church series with Fr. Steven Reuter. I have a special appreciation for Fr. Reuter because he is the priest who inspired my husband and me to return to the Traditional Latin Mass. 

During the lockdowns when our churches were closed, Fr. Reuter and several other priests and seminarians from the seminary in Dillwyn, VA traveled the five hour round trip to bring the Mass to the fairgrounds in Front Royal. While bishops everywhere shut down the Masses, even when they were not required by state governments to do so, these generous and self-sacrificing shepherds fed us the Body and Blood of Christ. Like chaplains to warriors on the battlefield, they recognized the culture war and the attack on God and our sacred faith and responded heroically.

Mass on the Battlefield at Iwo Jima

Sunday Meditation: On Hate and Liberalism

"Liberalism is the root of heresy, the tree of evil in whose branches all the harpies of infidelity find ample shelter; it is today the evil of all evils." 
                        from Liberalism is a Sin  
                  by Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany, 

Chilton Williamason had an interesting editorial in the October issue of Chronicles titled Who's the Most Hateful of Them All? He, I believe accurately, lays the mounting hatred and divisions in our country at the feet of white liberals who created the "condemnatory category of 'dead white males'" and labeled the white race "the cancer of history."

I Challenge Liberals to Show Examples of Conservative Hate to Match Theirs! They Can't!

15 Times Celebrities Envisioned Violence Against Trump and the GOP

Note that these statements are all made by celebrities whose positions essentially give them a bullhorn for advertising their hatred. 

Rachel Maddow did a show back in 2009 titled "A Disturbing Summary of the Death Threats against Obama and Other Democrats."

The difference between these two lists is that most of the threats listed by Maddow were individuals outside townhalls or making anonymous phone calls who had no platform to shout from the housetops. Only a handful of people (if that) were aware of their vitriol and hatred and could have been stirred up by it. Nobody was making rap videos or staging plays that urged the murder of Obama. These individuals didn't have audiences in the millions that they could stir up to violence. They also didn't have George Soros-backed organizations fomenting violence in the streets with paid thugs.

Liberal Tyranny or A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Below are several headlines that indicate exactly how intolerant and prone to censorship the liberal mind is. In a world governed by liberal minds, school children are forced to follow the latest politically correct liberal policies. Businesses are discriminated against. Speech is censored in favor of the latest group-think. Freedom is limited and denied. College and university professors are persecuted (even at so-called "Catholic" schools) if they deviate from the "diversity" that allows no diversity. Citizens are banned from pursuing certain activities unless they affirm the immoral new morality. 

This is liberalism folks. Fight it if you are a Christian who loves the true, the good, and the beautiful as well as the natural law planted in the human heart. Bend your neck to the tyrant's foot if you are a go-along-to-get-along kind of coward.

"Make America Kind Again" is a Liberal Joke.

Yesterday I blogged about our prayer rally in Front Rally responding to the liberals attacking the president. They protest; we pray. Two people on their side of the street carried signs saying, "Make America Kind Again." The implication was clear and other signs confirmed it. Trump is mean and a danger to democracy. (I won't use the word Constitutional Republic because I doubt if many of the protesters understand the difference which is significant.)

Imagine if this had been a mask of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton! 

And of course that accusation extends to any who refuse to disavow and condemn the president. We are angry, hateful, Nazis, racists, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well in view of all this, it seems appropriate to reflect on liberal kindness.

It was interesting (and ironic) that these signs appeared in the midst of the controversy over the incident with Kathy Griffin. That's what got me reflecting on liberal kindness. Here are a few examples:

"Love Trumps Hate?" And that includes wishing for the president's assassination?

Gary Franchi pegs it when he says these people have lost their filters (also their minds). How can anyone think publicly advocating assassination of ANYBODY, much less the president, is okay? It's like being at the airport and joking to the TSA that you have a bomb in your luggage. Hello?

Questions for Double-Standard Liberal Hypocrites

Liberals couldn't care less about
 Tonya Reeves killed by Planned
Parenthood in a botched abortion. 

How come it's not okay for Christians to refuse services that force them to participate in events they consider immoral (e.g., same sex "weddings") but it's okay   for liberals to refuse services for events they consider immoral (e.g., Trump's inauguration)?

How come liberals are "pro-choice" to justify killing innocent unborn babies but are "anti-choice" about capital punishment which involves executing guilty murderers, even serial killers.

How come it's not okay for a white actor, Joseph Fiennes to portray a black celebrity (who spent buckets of money making himself look white), but it's okay for Broadway to portray our white Founding Fathers (Hamilton) with an all black cast and send out a casting call for the road show saying no whites need apply? Are whites "crackers" banned from the black-only lunch counter?

What magazines are on your coffee table?

I subscribe to a number of magazines and newspapers -- too many in fact. And so, along with my book purge, I'm making decisions about which periodicals to give up and which to keep. At the top of the "keep list" is Chronicles.

I love that magazine! Even when I'm reading an issue that's been hanging around for months, I find great food for thought. I'm catching up with the October issue (lots of pre-election commentary) which was buried on my desk.

In an article by Chilton Williamson I found this spot-on description of modern liberalism:

Federal Government Owns Most of the West

Read these figures and ask yourself -- Is this right? Why do the feds own all this STATE LAND? Check out the Washington Times article here.

What's wrong with this picture?

Put another way, one out of every two acres in the West is federally owned. In Nevada, the figure is 81.1 percent; in Alaska, 61.8 percent; in Utah, 66.5 percent; in Oregon, 53 percent. In Connecticut and Iowa, the federal government owns 0.3 percent of the land. 

“The federal estate is larger than France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom combined,” said Robert Gordon, a senior adviser for the Heritage Foundation. “It is too big and was never intended to be preserved as one big park, but the left is strangling use of it and with it, rural America.”

The left is great at robbery -- taxing at usurious rates (one of the seven deadly sins), spending money it doesn't have and "borrowing" (stealing) from future generations, slandering good, hard-working families labeling them domestic terrorist and worse (sin against the 8th Commandment), and lusting after and taking all that it doesn't have already. Yup, the left is evil. Sadly, so is much of the right, especially those who are leftist wannabees.

Fight liberalism. Why because of what it is. Liberalism is the belief that man is autonomous and is the arbiter of morality, that by his reason he can create "heaven" on earth. Of course, we can see how well that's working. Liberalism excludes God from the equation, so it  it is both anti-God and anti-man who is created in God's image and likeness. You see liberalism at work in the French Revolution which attempted to kill God and replace him with Reason. How well did that work for France? You see it in the Spanish and Mexican Civil Wars where Socialist governments murdered hundreds of thousands of their own people and decimated the churches. And you see it here in the U.S. with a growing murderous toll against the week: the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly. Yes, indeed, liberalism is consummate evil.

If you want to learn about the disasters of liberalism you can hardly do better than to read the works of Dostoevsky. Here's a good place to start.

Walter Williams Asks...Are Guns the Problem?

His answer is a big NO! It's the breakdown of moral values, parental authority, and traditions. Here's a snippet from his column:

During the '50s and '60s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine lessons children learned from their parents and the church with fads such as "values clarification." So-called sex education classes are simply indoctrination that sought to undermine family and church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of abstinence were ridiculed and considered passé and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth control pills and abortions. Further undermining of parental authority came with legal and extralegal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent. 

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations,

Democrats Refuse Candy and Welcome Letters from Charlotte Churches

Here's a story you no doubt missed since the drive-by media didn't cover it. Christian churches were prohibited from presenting delegates with pralines and a welcome letter because their values conflict with the Democrats' ungodly platform. But Muslims who came to pray were welcomed with open arms:

According to writer, Todd Starnes, The DNC banned the churches from distributing the gift baskets to delegates because, DNC said, the congregations hold values that are contrary to the party platform. Read that carefully. 

David Benham, one of the organizers of the outreach said, “We were just trying to display Southern hospitality.” DNC officials, however, conveyed to city leaders that the Christians would not be allowed to present their gift baskets. 

Even the Charlotte Mayor’s office jumped in to tell the churches not to participate, saying that their views on women’s rights are contrary to the platform. That’s right….the same platform that booed God later.... 

The baskets did not contain a single political or pro-life message. They just wanted to give them regional candies and a welcome letter. The DNC refused to return numerous phone calls seeking comment. 

But it gets worse. When a gathering of 200 Muslims showed up to pray for the convention, the Dems welcomed them with open arms and the liberal media gave extensive national coverage

Read the entire article here and the Todd Starnes article here.

Obama just released a video trying to convince people of faith how much he values them. Yeah right...about as much as he and his rabid anti-god cronies valued the lovely gesture of hospitality from Charlotte's Christian churches. The Democrats booed God and booed the Boy Scouts who carried in the flag. Let's face it, they hate God and his laws and they hate God's followers. The HHS mandate is no accident. If Obama is reelected, persecution of Christians will increase and become more virulent. Study history. It happened in Germany and Mexico and it's happening here.  Pray for their conversion, but fight what they stand for.

.

No, We Don't All Belong to Government!

Talk about an evil message. The very first statement on this video is a lie. "We are committed to all people," the voice says. Presuming that the "we" is the national Democratic establishment, they most certainly are NOT! They are NOT committed to the unborn. They advocate open season on killing them. They are NOT committed to Christians' right to freedom of religion. They ARE actively hostile to Christians and will force us to cooperate with their evil agenda while working for legislation that defines our beliefs as hate speech. They are NOT committed to those who believe in the Constitution; they are actively working to overthrow it. And that's only the first line. The Democrats' platform shows exactly how great a lie this claim to be committed to "all people" is!

And then there's the second statement. "We do believe you can use government in a good way." What exactly does that mean? For Democrats it means using government to coerce those with whom you disagree by stacking the courts with liberals who will legislate from the bench. That's exactly how we got abortion on demand and legalization of sodomy, both of which most of the country opposed. And that same strategy will likely give us same sex pretend "marriage" as well. Liberals use government all right, the same way socialist and totalitarian governments have used it for centuries -- to take over private businesses, shut down freedom of speech and religion, and turn the people into slaves of the state.

The next statement says, "We're together as part of our city or our county or our state and our nation." No we're not, at least not in the way implied as if we are all marching in lockstep togetherness. The local and state levels are where we express our DIFFERENCES and duke it out to see what philosophy of government will prevail, one based on the Judeo-Christian ethic or one based on secular moral relativism. There is little togetherness possible between those two worldviews.

Frankly, I find this talk of false togetherness eerie. It reminds me of the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung which twisted language for the purpose of manipulation and confusion. The literal meaning is to switch onto the same track and the Nazis went about doing that with a vengeance forcing the nazification of all areas of German life. For example, all youth groups were brought together in the Hitler youth and other youth groups, like those run by the Catholic church were ultimately banned. Anyone who resisted the government "togetherness" was an enemy of the state. 

Don't ever be confused that government is your friend and is "committed to all people." The best government leaves people alone except for the bare minimum necessary. And, as the Founders believed, it must be constantly watched and sometimes resisted. Read the Constitution. There are very few legitimate roles for the federal government. Most issues are reserved to the state and the people. But that's not what liberals believe. They want to control our lives from cradle to grave. We need to be always ready to fight liberalism and defend freedom. 

Good Friday Intercessions

It's funny how your mind works. During the Good Friday service this afternoon Nancy Pelosi kept popping into my head. During the passion, when the Jews responded to Pilate's question, "Shall I crucify your king?" with "We have no king but Caesar!" I thought of Nancy. Isn't that what she's saying when she thumbs her nose at Church teaching in favor of evil laws?

During the intercessions we prayed for those who do not believe in Christ and Nancy popped into my head again. I know, I know...Nancy professes to be a "devout Catholic." Real Catholics know that's impossible though.  If, at the same time, you are radically pro-abortion and a liberal extremist and claim to be "devoutly" Catholic, you just demonstrate cognitive dissonance (the ability to believe two mutually exclusive things at the same time). When the intercession came for those who don't believe in God, Nancy was nudged out by Richard Dawkins, but she may have been lurking in the background, since it's hard to imgaine that Nancy believes in any God but Caesar. Since the state is no God at all, that would put her roundly in the atheist corner with Richard.

Nancy has shown time and again that she knows very little about Church teachings on life and I'd say the same is true with regard to the Church's social justice teachings as well. Liberal policies are all geared toward giving the government more power, not the individual. The policies of liberals like Nancy do nothing to advance the dignity of the human person, but essectially make him a cog at the service of the state, a wage slave (and a debt slave who can never pay what is owed). If liberals get their way we will all be controlled by government from cradle (those who are lucky enough to get that far) to grave (to which we will be hastened by health care rationing).

Good Friday is an important reminder of our own sins. Yes, my personal sins put Jesus on the cross. That's why the congregation takes the voice of the crowd shouting, "Crucify him." But it's also a good time, as the intercessions illustrate, to offer our prayers for others. Nancy was on my mind and in my prayers today. We share a birthday and an alma mater. I wish we shared the same faith.

Dynamite Message Links CCHD to Billionaire Atheist George Soros!

The links to Soros at the bishops' conference (USCCB) are not limited to CCHD. Soros has also contributed over half a million dollars to the bishops' group working for blanket amnesty for illegal aliens, CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network). More on this in the upcoming Fall issue of the THE TRUTH, Les Femmes' quarterly newsletter.

Real Catholics are Conservatives - Just Ask Russell Kirk

I've been reading The Politics of Prudence (published in 1993) by Russell Kirk , a hero of the conservative movement. After the first two chapters I had to find out whether he was a Catholic because his thought is so consistent with Catholic principles. Sure enough, he married and converted to Catholicism in the same year -- 1963 when he was 45. He and his wife, Annette had four daughters. They named their home "Piety Hill" and entertained there often. What an exciting dinner table that must have been. Kirk would not drive or own a television. That no doubt gave him more time to think, write, and enjoy his friends.

I'm a newcomer to Kirk but I don't plan to remain one. He not only wrote books and articles of conservative thought, he also wrote three novels and 22 short stories, particularly in the ghost-story genre. Over the next few days I want to describe Kirk's "Ten Conservative Principles" which could just as easily be described as "Ten Catholic Principles."

In my opinion, to be a Catholic in the public square means to be a Kirk (not a Bush or even a Reagan) conservative. In the political realm Kirk is one bookend for Catholic thought. The other is Fr. Felix Sarda Y Salvany who wrote Liberalism is a Sin. A Catholic would be well advised to position himself between Kirk's and Salvany's principles, embracing authentic conservatism and rejecting the egregious errors of an immoral liberalism.