So...Is Catholic Doctrine Immutable or Relative?

Some questions require either a yes or a no answer. Like Scripture says, "Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one." [Matt 5:37] Jesus was no prevaricator. When he spoke, his message was clear. Even his parables, when explained, made perfect sense. If the seed of truth is strewn on soil filled with lies, excuses, rationalizations, etc. it will be choked and rootless, will not thrive, and will not produce a harvest.

Ordinary Conscience Cannot Exempt from the Church's Moral Law

The classic definition of conscience in the Catholic Church is that of Thomas Aquinas for whom conscience is the mind of man passing moral judgments. It is the voice of reason separated from feeling, emotion and desire. Conscience is imbedded in the intellect which apprehends and interprets the moral law. It is not an immediate internal illumination of each person for himself without reference to an objective norm found outside of man and independent of his subjective persuasion. It requires development and careful training for knowing the laws of God. We have an obligation to educate it.

Garbage In, Garbage Out! What Are You Thinking? Philosophy Matters!

Ideas have consequences. Filling our heads with the true, the good and the beautiful leads us to God who is Truth Himself, as well as being all-good and all-beautiful. Conversely, filling our heads with the false, the evil, and the ugly... well... what do you think the result is?

My New Year's Resolution is to watch the Crisis of Faith Series (CFS) offered by the SSPX. The first few episodes are introducing some of the false philosophies that undergird the world's embrace of modernism, the "synthesis of all heresies."  Some of those introducing bad ideas were not malicious. Nevertheless, they contributed to screwing up the world bigtime. 

Jesus and the devil go to confession, get the same penance

Jesus goes into the confessional and tells the priest that He's perfect, that He's like God, that in fact He is God and likes babies and people and animals and the beautiful world He created, that He tries to guide each person to heaven, that He wants sinners to amend their lives and live with Him in heaven forever. 

The priest thinks, "Hmmmm - a bit prideful, isn't He. Pride is definitely a sin," so he gives Jesus His penance: "Do an act of mercy." Jesus then goes out of the confessional to heal the sick, make the blind see and the deaf hear. He raises the dead and then does the most merciful act of all - He dies on the cross so that we can be redeemed and live in heaven with Him for eternity.

The devil then goes into the confessional and tells the priest that he has compassion for all people and their rights, that he is a devoted social justice warrior, that he accompanies people on their earthly journey encouraging them to fight for their rights whatever they might be - the right to move about freely from country to country, the right to be themselves or change themselves into whatever they dream themselves to be, the right to be free from all burdens and authority, the right to think and speak as they want.

Finding the Truth on my Kitchen Counter

I'm surrounded by "hot spots!" In the jargon of the FLY Lady, FLY stands for "Finally Loving Yourself. The FLY Lady helps people, especially hoarders, get out of CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome).

A "hot spot" is a place that accumulates stuff...and more stuff...and more stuff. My hotspots are generally large stacks of paper: books, newspapers (The Remnant, The Wanderer...), magazines (Chronicles, Celebrate Life, The Defender...), newsletters (from the FSSP, the Carmelites of Cody, the Carmelites of Clear Creek Abbey...), advertisements, fast food restaurant coupons, letters and drawings from grandchildren, etc. Every now and then I attack a hot spot. Generally I don't get very far because something invariably catches my eye and I absolutely MUST sit down and read it. At 5:30 this morning I found a gem! I have no idea where it came from or who wrote it, but it is well worth sharing and so I shall.

Topsy and Tuptim Discuss Cardinal Mueller's Manifesto and Sign the Petition

Sign the petition supporting the manifesto!

Topsy and Tuptim meet at Topsy's favorite brewery for a discussion of Cardinal Mueller's Manifesto. Topsy gets two Tipsy Squirrels and some sliders and leads Tuptim to a table.

Jahi McMath and the Massacre of Truth

On June 22nd Jahi McMath went home to God. The adolescent who was declared dead in 2013 by a California coroner defied the phony assessment of her death. While in a coma and on a ventilator, she continued to live. She went through puberty, began menstruating, and continued to grow -- all after being declared legally dead. The reality is that she lived for five years with her faithful mother caring for her tenderly and never giving up on her. What an image of motherhood she gives us!

Rest in peace, sweet Jahi.

Today we see the massacre of truth everywhere, the promotion of a false "reality" including at the beginning and end of life.

• Planned Parenthood tells us that a baby conceived doesn't exist. They redefine life's beginning as when the little one implants in the womb seven to ten days after conception. 

On Grammar and The Abolition of Man

What is education doing
to our children?

I just finished reading C.S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man, and, it illustrates what I was saying in my last post -- words matter. Not only that, but the way words are put together, i.e., grammar, matters as well. The saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword." cuts two ways. The pen can be used to spread the truth and goodness as Dante does in The Divine Comedy or the pen can be used to spread the lie and evil like the works of Marx and Hitler.

Lewis' book is about education and how relativism leads to the "abolition of man" making him little more than a social experiment of his "conditioners." It begins with a discussion of an unnamed work Lewis calls the Green Book which is a "little book on English intended for 'boys and girls in the upper forms of schools.'" Lewis doesn't name the book or the authors because, "I do not want to pillory two modest practising (sic) school-masters who were doing the best they knew." At the same time he decries the evils he sees in the "actual tendency of their work."

He particularly emphasizes a "momentous" paragraph where the authors attribute statements of judgment to personal feelings when they write, "This confusion is continually present in language as we use it. We appear to be saying something very important about something: and actually we are only saying something about our own feelings."

Is Logic Dead? Situation Ethics Seems More Alive than Ever!

Socrates was forced to drink Hemlock for asking
questions that disturbed people. Sound familiar?

I was browsing blogs today and am disheartened by the apparent inability to think on the part of seemingly intelligent people whom I believe love the faith. 

Two I read are totally on board with Francis mercy and both engaged in condemning "rigidity" as in, the cardinals who issued the Dubia are "rigid" for asking five simple yes and no questions about how to interpret Amoris Laetitia. 

The bishops of Argentina, on the other hand, who developed a creative and loose approach to doctrine that undermines the moral law are compassionate. 

Oh gosh! I recognize this. Been there, done that. It's Situation Ethics all over again. I think I'm back in Mr. Reilly's immoral moral theology class at Trinity!

Please, wake me up; I think I'm having a nightmare!

The public circus is over --- at least for now

The Vatican released the full text of the closing message from the Synod today and it's actually quite good. Unfortunately, it can hardly undo the damage of the Ratio that went viral around the world last week to confuse Catholics and non-Catholics alike. That document focused almost exclusively on sexual issues (homosexuality, cohabitation, and reception of Communion after divorce and remarriage) and implied that the old rigid, intolerant Church has seen the light and is being transform into an open, tolerant pastoral one.

My own diocese (Arlington) joined the mainstream media this week with a frontpage CNS (Catholic News Service) article headlined "A place for gays, nonmarital unions."

More Persecution of Christians

How many Christians will be thrown out of medicine, counseling, pharmacy, etc. for daring to stand courageously for Christ. Check out this case where a counseling student working toward her masters was told to counsel homosexuals and affirm their behavior. What do you think about this type of discrimination? Do people have a right to conscience? Should doctors be forced to kill babies through abortion? Should pharmacists be forced to fill prescriptions for drugs that kill? Should counsellors be told they must affirm immoral behavior like fornication, sodomy, etc.? Christians are facing more and more persecution. We need to put on the armor of Christ and hold our ground. Pray for this young woman and for all the legal groups fighting for the rights of Christians.

Is Jimmy Carter Channeling Saul Alinsky?

The community organizers are at it again...or still. Jimmy Carter is the latest liberal clone beating the drum that opposing Obama's policies proves you are a racist. (Hmm...does that include the black conservatives in the movement?)

Carter appears be channeling Saul Alinsky. Here's a little of what the famous rebel espoused. Quotes are taken from Rules for Radicals.

First of all, Alinsky was a true secular humanist who believed in nothing but the accumulation of power. Like most liberals he believed there is no such thing as truth. "An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations." Carter, who left his Church recently, has always been a moral relativist, able to justify almost anything despite it opposing the Christian faith he professes.

Since the Alinsky organizer does not believe in truth and his only God is power, his ethics are Machiavellian: "The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." And also: "The seventh rule... is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics...." In other words, "Might proves right." So if you lie, cheat, spread slanderous and false rumors about "the enemy," you are justified as long as it moves you toward the goal. Bingo! Does Carter really believe that all those opposing Obama are racists or is this simply a convenient tactic?

Positioning yourself on the moral high ground is one of the most insidious rules in the playbook. "Do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments." On target again. Carter is attempting to take the moral high ground by labeling all those who oppose Obama's government takeover as racists. It fits with another Alinsky tactic, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." We know who the target is - conservative Americans who love the Constitution and want it upheld by government. Carter, the mainstream media, liberal politicians, etc. are all engaging in "freezing the target." They attempt to paint those who disagree with Obama's policies as extremist, racist, dangerous, anti-government, gun-toting, Southern, rednecks. Look at the rhetoric and recognize the tactic. If you repeat a lie long enough, as Joseph Goebbels knew, many people will chant the mantra. Carter has just become the highest profile cheerleader for the lie.

Do you think Obama/Carter are unhappy with the current hostile atmosphere being created in the country? Think again! Remember, Obama is a community organizer first. Alinsky says, "The first step in community organization is community disorganization....Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." Hostility and tension carry the plan forward.

Alinsky goes further. "The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of conflict."

Playing the race card is a manipulation. "[The organizer] must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt [of bleeding-heart liberals] for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time." Who are they trying to manipulate? Not the conservative, tea party patriots, that's for sure, but their liberal base. The real racists are the organized agitators who keep their useful lackeys on the liberal plantation stirred up and ready to attack THOSE RACIST, REDNECK, SOUTHERN BIGOTS.

Why is this the most divisive president we've ever seen? Do you recall any president who so often attacked good-hearted, patriotic Americans as this man has? It's not an accident. Obama is an Alinsky organizer and he and his allies (or useful idiots) like Carter are following the rules.

Things are unlikely to calm down because another important Alinsky rule is, "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose." Obama has plans now to circulate among his media adorers with a string of appearances on TV talk shows. Hopefully, the dumbing down of the American people, which I believe is deliberate, will work against him here. The thirty-second attention span of many viewers may make them sick to death of seeing Obama's pretty face once again going "yadda, yadda, yadda."

Read Rules for Radicals. If you want to combat Madison Avenue's manipulative advertising tactics, you need to know what they are. If you want to combat the community organizer's plans you need to know when he's trying to "freeze, personalize, and polarize" you.

Maybe we need to develop our own book of rules for fighting the radicals. We have a good start already -- The Ten Commandments and the Eight Beatitudes. Our standard bearer is Christ the King. Our boot camp is in Church.

As for Jimmy Carter, his statements about racism, whether misguided or deliberately provocative, indicate he is willing to slander good Americans to advance the liberal agenda. It reflects badly on him and puts him squarely in the camp of Saul Alinsky and those willing to use any immoral means to a bad end. Shame on you, Jimmy, you should have stuck with peanut farming.

Carter 'Racism' Claim Draws Widespread Criticism

Fr. Corapi describes AMERICA'S DEATH WISH!

Listen to this fifteen minute teaching on the disintegration of American culture. If you love our country, listen to Father's words, take them to heart, and begin to transform your own family, your parish and your precinct, your diocese and your county. Fight for the faith! How to begin? Join in the 40 Days for Life Campaign to start. If there is no activity in a city near you, join in spirit. Go to daily Mass and raise up your prayers with all those fighting for the unborn. We cannot save our country, but God through the intercession of the Blessed Mother will. Devote yourself to the message of Fatima. Put on the armour of God and wield the sword of the spirit, the word of God through Holy Scripture. On this feast of the guardian angels join your prayers with all the angels and saints for our poor country and our poor world.