Of Miracles and Bad Shepherds

It's looking like the site of Noah's ark really has been found. Will the skeptics mock? Often when I read an article about evidence for biblical events and miracles I think of this quote:

“For those who believe in God no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God no explanation is possible.”

The quote is often attributed to Franz Werfel who wrote Song of Bernadette, because the film included a similar quote in the introduction. It does not appear in the historical novel, however, although Werfel's powerful testimony to the Lourdes miracles proclaims it without words. 

Sunday Meditation: May We Have the Courage to Imitate the Prophets!

I'm still working my way through the book of Isaiah in these early days of Christmas. I love the faithful prophets who suffered so much to bring the truth to Israel. They suffered abuse, persecution, and murder; but they never flinched.

Bishop Strickland's Follow-Up on Bishop Elect Thomas Hennen

A number of Pope Leo's appointments are concerning. One addressed by Bishop Joseph Strickland is Bishop Elect Thomas Hennen to the diocese of Baker. Strickland recently tweeted:

@Hennen, bishop-elect, as bishop of Baker...instead of correcting...Francis, Pope Leo XIV is doubling down on it...Hennen...work with Davenport’s LGBTQ+ directive...Fiducia Supplicans green-lighted blessings same-sex unions...No more more blessings without conversion.

An article followed. Here's the beginning:

Make the Bishops Choose: Would they Rather Fight with the Harpies or the Mother Bears?

If the shepherds won't defend the flock,
the laity must! Mamma bears rising!

How can you tell a good priest/bishop from a bad one? It's not really too complicated. Do they followJesus, His teachings and the teachings of the Church Jesus founded? Or are their beliefs more in line with the prince of this world, the father of lies?

Do they like to express their creativity by embracing every "progressive" and popular perversity inflicted on souls by the world, the flesh, and the devil? There are certainly many among the ranks of the clergy who do, sad to say.

Well, today I'm going to give you a heads up on how to recognize bad clerics.

Is This Young Priest a New Fulton Sheen?

Pray for him!

Nabi Sayeth: Climbers, Climbers Everywhere nor any Saint amongst Them!

The only ladder worth climbing
leads to heaven. Painting: Jacob's
Dream by William Blake

Nabi sayeth...Climbers, climbers everywhere …..and tragically in Our Lord’s Holy Church.

Have you ever wondered why, especially when Our Lord Jesus teaches just the opposite?

Luke 14: 7-14

7
He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.
8
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor. A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,

Cooperating with Evil is a Sin -- Especially When You're Wearing a Roman Collar!

Is this wolf in sheep's skin
wearing a roman collar?

My colleague Janet at Restore DC Catholicism posted a great video on the nine ways individuals participate in the sins of others. Cooperation with evil is, in fact, evil.

You don't have to commit a murder to be a party to it. The boyfriend who urges and pays for his girlfriend's abortion is every bit as guilty of killing their baby (perhaps more so) as the mother who agrees to it. The nurse who neglects a patient at the order of a doctor, participates in the death that follows. All those silent staff members complicit in the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo were cooperators in her deliberate murder including Bishop Lynch of St. Petersburg, FL who aided and abetted it using his bully pulpit to endorse it. In 2007 when Lynch retired, Bobby Schindler wrote an open letter decrying the bishop's support for Terri's euthanasia saying, "When bishops don't do their job, innocent people die."

Pray for Priests, Especially the False Shepherds in Danger of Hell

Dymphna has a prayer for unfaithful priests on her blog that I prayed this morning. I invite you to join me. We need our priests desperately for the salvation of our souls. What a blessing when a bad priest repents and returns to the faithful service of his people. What a blessing if we love our priests so deeply and sincerely that we pray and fast and sacrifice for them, especially those most in need of the mercy of God.

Lord Jesus, High Priest and King of Kings, have mercy on us!

Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy and Help of All Christians, pray for us!

When a Prince of the Church Advances Sodomy -- He Drives the Lance into Christ's Heart!

Note the "gay problem" of a homosexual priest sharing his rectory with his same-sex lover. Yes indeed, the smoke of Satan is in the sanctuary and in the rectories and Satan has plenty of sidekicks in the episcopacy. God help those false shepherds on Judgment Day.

Liturgical Aberrations Teach...And What They Teach is Wrong!

I recently had a phone conversation with a fellow parishioners who is going to Germany to visit with her daughter and family. In the course of our exchange she said, "It's interesting. They do things so differently at the Church there," and went on to mention a few innocuous items. Then she said, "At Communion the priest invites everyone up to make a semicircle around him and then distributes the hosts and they all take Communion together." I almost dropped the phone.

The first thing I thought of when she told me this was, "Who receives Communion that way?"

Here's the answer:

Concelebrating priests receive the Eucharist from the main celebrant BEFORE he receives and they all Communicate together. 

So what does it say when a priest does what my friend described? It treats the laity as concelebrating ministers of the Eucharist which is fundamentally dishonest and confusing. It also removes their right to receive on the tongue which is the preferred form of reception. 

Pray for shepherds who scandalize the flock. The German Church is a mess as the divorced/Communion debate is illustrating.

Jesus said clearly that those who are faithful in small things will be faithful in greater. I'm not sure how small the liturgical abuse described is frankly. It sounds pretty serious to me. But, isn't it interesting that priests are often telling Catholics to conform to their own particular idiosyncrasies, like standing after Communion until everyone returns to the pew (real consideration for the elderly, eh?), while laity who refuse to conform to priestly browbeathing are anathemized and called lacking in humility. My take on it? Shepherd, heal thyself!

Why Faithful Catholics MUST Criticize and Expose their Shepherds!

I've been chided on many occasions for "criticizing priests." Usually my personal critic quotes from the Pieta Prayer Book which is filled with errors. But this article illustrates exactly why we MUST speak out against unfaithful shepherds who mislead the flock with their heretical positions. Pray for the wolves in sheep's clothing, but listen to them at your peril. They are helping Satan gobble up souls. You don't want to be one of the lambs at the feast because you won't be AT the table but ON it!

Retired bishops join pro-Planned Parenthood group in call for Catholic funding of pro-abort orgs

"Queering" of the Church Part II

An associate from the other side of the country who asked to be anonymous has also noticed the destruction of the Church from within. Imagine how this betrayal wounded the heart of Christ when he suffered in the garden. He saw the duplicity of the false shepherds and it must have pierced through more heart-rendingly than the spear thrust in his side. Do you live in a diocese like the one my friend describes?

Your post today on the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church resonated. When I first came to [a western] Diocese in 1995, I found it to be very weird -- and I hailed from Mahony Country! The boot of modernist liberalsim has certainly been on the neck of this diocese for decades, but I believe the Diocese is also a homosexualist playground. You wouldn't expect it in a "red" state, but there it is. We don't have "gay Masses" (or at least I've never heard of such), but it seems like every time I turn around, I see a homosexual or fellow traveler or feminist in a position of prominence in either the diocese or parishes. Usually they prefer to work quietly, low-key and behind the scenes, undermining the Faith. But then there was a priest here who, a few years ago, published an article in the [local paper] decrying the Church's teaching on same-sex "marriage." The bishop issued a response announcing his disagreement and basically treating it like a free speech issue. Seems to me yanking this priest from ministry would have been the appropriate response! The same priest followed it up a couple of years later with another article calling for the resignation of Pope Benedict on the grounds that he failed adequately to deal with the sex abuse scandal. Same response from the bishop. I even heard another priest commend this article from the pulpit.

Some attention has got to be paid to backwater dioceses like this one where much damage is being done and nobody notices it.  

The faith is being systematically lost by those who primarily receive their instruction in their parishes and in dioceses led by either bad or weak bishops. Fr. John Hardon warned that entire dioceses in the U.S. would disappear and we are seeing it happen. Oh...they may still call themselves Catholic, but they are filled with dissent. Only faithful voices can pass on the faith. Flee those who get up and speak against the teachings of the Church. Pray for them, but don't listen to their false teachings. Have the discernment to know the true shepherds from the false. That's the only way to escape the wolves and the prowling lions seeking the ruin of souls.