Sunday Meditation: Did the Bishops Really Consecrate the Nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

On June 11th the bishops ostensibly consecrated the U.S. to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But did they? What is a consecration? Here's the prayer they offered. As you read it find, if you can, the point where they consecrated the nation to the Sacred Heart:

O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus: You know the longings of our hearts, and you desire that we enjoy friendship with you. From your pierced side, you have poured out the wellspring of life, for which we thirst. Your heart burns with a love for all people to return to a right relationship with you.

Guest Post: The Forgotten Message of Jesus to Sr. Lucy

 by Greg Diefenderfer 

"The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father to make, and to order that in union with him and at the same time, all the bishops of the world make, the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate heart, promising to convert it because of this day of prayer and worldwide reparation." The Blessed Virgin to Sr Lucy on June 13, 1929.

Social Justice: What is it Anyway?

Is this the path to social justice?

Ah...so much to study, so little time. I've been wanting to research "social justice" for a long time. It's become the mantra of liberals who seem to define it as open borders, abortion on demand without apology as a civil right, and "free" everything from health care to college. Social justice is social-ism in their vocabulary, government-enforced redistribution of income to make everybody an equal comrade.

Liberals always talk about taxing the rich, but end up robbing the pockets of the middle class to achieve their goals. As my dad used to say, "There just aren't enough rich people!" The real target must be the massive middle. And, of course, capitalism in their book, by nature, is evil, which it certainly can be when it exploits workers making them wage slaves. But socialism does exactly the same thing by its nature! The worker is nothing but a mere creature of the state, a cog in the government machine.

But what is social justice...really?

Did You Hear the Fanfare for March 14th? You Should Have!

Pope Pius XI

March 14th was the 81st anniversary of Mit Brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI's encyclical on Nazism. He wrote it in 1937, four years after Adolf Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. That same year, 1933, Hitler was raised to dictator; the Reich initiated the burnings to purge works that reflected an "unGerman spirit"including books by Helen Keller, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway; construction of Dachau was completed; eugenic sterilization laws were passed and the Vatican signed a Concordat trying to protect the rights of the Church and the Catholic faithful.

Hitler, of course, never intended to keep any of the agreements of the Concordat, a reminder of another tyrant and another Concordat between Napoleon and the Vatican in the 19th century. Hitler was simply one more game-playing tyrant who wanted to suppress intervention by the Church in his political affairs, and the Church was his major opponent. Hitler, a baptized Catholic who hadn't practiced the faith since childhood, was creating his own religion, a combination of teutonic paganism with new age-type spirituality that incorporated distorted elements of Christianity like the "naming ceremony" for babies born in the "Lebensborns" which were essentially brothels for Nazi officers. Hitler saw himself as the Lord and Master of the super race, even manipulating the birth of "perfect" Aryans.

#WhyWeMarch: On the Day of the March for Life Remember This Great Pope!

I've been reading the encyclicals of Pope Pius XI. He reigned from February 1922 to February 1939 between the two world wars. It was a time of both moral and political upheaval. In his book, Vicars of Christ, Charles Coulombe describes the problems faced by the new pope who was elected on the 14th ballot of the conclave:

[Pope Pius XI] faced a number of enormous problems brought about by the course of World War I; for the first time since Constantine, there were no Christian emperors -- indeed, there was no great power at all with a professedly Christian outlook. Moreover, Russia was actively exporting revolution....the defeat of Greece by Turkey in 1922 resulted in virtually the entire Armenian and Greek population of Asia Minor being driven out of Asia Minor (or killed). Thus, for the first time since St. Paul of Tarsus, a region once as Christian as Italy or Spain was almost totally bereft of the faithful....The construction of a power vacuum by the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of the Weimar Republic boded badly for continued peace in Europe. The intial replacement of the "autocratic" Central European regimes with poorly established "democratic ones" would indeed be followed up by true totalitarian ones."

Thought for the Day: What are you Teaching your Children?

Or even more importantly -- what are you allowing your children to be taught?

When you consider the situation of religion teacher Patti Jannuzzi being fired for speaking the truth on her Facebook page, and when you consider the constant brainwashing of children (even in Catholic schools) on tolerance for homosexual activity, and when you consider a host o:f other subjects like evolution, sex ed, etc. all being shoved down the throats of little ones.....

Well...maybe it's time to get back to basics and what the Church has taught for millennia about the truths of the faith and the obligation to pass them on.

Read these words of wisdom from Pope Pius XI (1939):