I'm Praying to Fulton Sheen Not to Pull My Hair Out!

Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria

Update from Fr. Z's blog. But I'm still going to write to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. 


Dispute between dioceses stalls cause for beatification of Fulton Sheen

Hmmm...another Cardinal Dolan decision. 

New York Archdiocese Stalls Canonization Process

Excuse my cynicism, but this sure looks like New York deciding they want the recognition now that so much of the work has been done by Peoria. It matches the profile of the media hungry Cardinal Dolan who certainly enjoys the limelight. Wonder if he'll get his picture taken under the gay banner at the St. Patrick's day parade. Won't that be cute. The Grand Martial blessing the gay activists?

Want to make your voice heard and request speedy resolution of this conflict? See the information on the Congregation for the Causes of Saints below. Let's ask for Fulton Sheen to be beatified as soon as possible. We need recognition of this hero who impacted so many lives and fought so vigorously for the faith!

Make your letter short and leave out the controversy. Just emphasize your own devotion to Cardinal Sheen and your desire to see him recognized by the Church. Cardinal Sheen, pray for us.

Here's the contact information:  

Type of Jurisdiction: Congregation
Roman Curia
Description: deals with everything which, according to the established way, leads to the canonization of the servants of God. (Pastor Bonus, 71)
Section on the Vatican Website:http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/csaints/
Mailing Address: Palazzo delle Congregazioni, 00193 Roma, Piazza Pio XII, 10
Telephone: 06.69.88.42.47
Fax: 06.69.88.19.35

Millstone for Cardinal Dolan -- Again!

Yesterday I was on a blog where a woman expressed her total frustration with the infidelity of so many Catholic bishops and her intention to leave the Church. What precipitated her crisis of faith? The latest scandal in New York by Cardinal, gay-promoting, Timothy Dolan who waxed enthusiastic over a gay group publicly marching under a gay banner in next year's St. Patrick's Day parade.

Ho-hum...We're used to the Cardinal's scandals by now. Why would anyone think he's Catholic in any meaningful sense of the word?

With regard to the disillusioned woman, immediately other Catholics on the blog exhorted her not to do it and she reflected a few posts later that there's no place to go. My dad vented in the same way after Vatican II when Archbishop Borders was destroying the faith in Baltimore. My mom, like the faithful Catholics on the blog, said the same thing...."Where else can we go?" Only Jesus has the words of eternal life, especially when he's being crucified by His own. ("When I return will I find any faith on the earth?")

I trust the woman will stay and fight. But isn't it a tragedy that we have to fight the scandals from clerics within the Church as much as (or more than) we have to fight assaults from outside? Don't give up; keep the faith. As a friend once told Canadian warrior of God, Anne Roche Muggeridge (RIP) who once threatened to leave the Church, "Don't let the bastards drive you out!" There are many bastards (illegitimate children who detest their father) in the Church today. Some of them wear roman collars. But, whenever you find them, pray and fight and never let them drive you away from the way, the truth, and light. There is nowhere else to go!

By the way, I just took the Les Femmes newsletter to the printer and we awarded Cardinal Dolan a millstone. he certainly has earned it over the past few months between shilling for the gays and persecuting faithful priest Fr. Justin Wylie.

Want a Happy Family? Love Your Spouse!

The breakdown of the family is creating chaos in our society. As I consider the likely divorce of another member of my extended family, I can't help thinking how much easier life would be if we all just loved our spouses and our children enough to be faithful to our promises.

Loving families make happy children!

Sin seems pleasant at the time, but I know many folks who did what they wanted claiming "I have a right to be happy" and ended up even more miserable than they thought they were originally. Sin never makes anyone happy in the long run.

I'm re-reading St. John Paul II's 1994 Letter to Families. Here's a good paragraph for meditation and prayer today:

Experience shows what an important role is played by a family living in accordance with the moral norm, so that the individual born and raised in it will be able to set out without hesitation on the road of the good, which is always written in his heart. [Emphasis in original.] Unfortunately various programs backed by very powerful resources nowadays seem to aim at the breakdown of the family. At times it appears that concerted efforts are being made to present as "normal" and attractive, and even to glamorize, situations which are in fact "irregular." Indeed, they contradict "the truth and love" which should inspire and guide relationships between men and women, thus causing tensions and divisions in families, with grave consequences particularly for children. The moral conscience becomes darkened; what is true, good and beautiful is deformed; and freedom is replaced by what is actually enslavement. In view of all this, how relevant and thought-provoking are the words of the Apostle Paul about the freedom for which Christ has set us free, and the slavery which is caused by sin (cf. Gal 5:1)!

The synod on the family coming up next month has the potential to do great good, but could also be another flash point for spreading dissent and confusion like the release of Humane Vitae in 1968. No doubt the forces of evil are set to exploit and distort the outcome for their purposes.

The Vatican released a working document for the Synod in June. Read it here and please pray that the synod becomes a source of strengthening families that are so under assault today rather than one more opportunity for sowing confusion..

Mother Angelica, We Miss You and Your Incredible Courage!

Pray for Mother Angelica and for our poor Church.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown, Is Vatican Radio Crazy?

The slightly edited picture below appeared on the Spanish version of Vatican Radio. The original uses the satanic pentagram as the dot over the I instead of a heart. Do Vatican officials really think this is a way to lead people to Christ, especially children? I continuously pray for an atheist at the gym with the COEXIST bumper sticker on his car. He's a piece of work. One day when the gym was closing early and he wanted to work out my husband witnessed him inflicting profanities and blasphemies on the lovely little gal at the desk. I give her credit. She asked him please not to talk about the Lord that way. His response. "Well, if you want to believe in fairy tales...."

What I want to know is what the folks at Vatican Radio believe in. I'd also like to know if all these folks "coexisting" defend the right to life of babies in the womb waiting to be born. Somehow I doubt it!

Read more here and here. And if you want to see the picture on the Vatican website go here. It brings to mind the Scripture passage about the millstone for those who scandalize God's little ones. Pray your rosary today! And, above all, keep the faith. When Ann Roche Muggeridge was so angry she considered leaving the Church, a friend said, "Don't let the bastards drive you out!" Words of wisdom for today's Catholics!

Are Men and Women Interchangeable? Or Are We Complimentary?

Logic has almost disappeared from our society replaced with feelings. Lack of logic is obvious in discussions about homosexual marriage. "It's a question of fairness," we're told. "How can we deny to two men the right to marry when a man and woman have that right?" Now how exactly does that make sense. It's like saying, "How can we deny the right of men to conceive and bear children, when women can?" Or "How can we deny the right of women to use urinals when men can?"

Some things cannot be used in some ways because of their natures. You can use a match to light a fire, but you can't screw it into an outlet to light a room.

Words of Wisdom from one of my Favorite Bishops

"The danger in our day is not a shortage of honey."

That's for sure! Bishop Vasa wrote this in a blog post about the patron of parish priests, St. Jean Vianney. Here's more:

Indeed it comes as no surprise to any pastor that St. John Vianney was severely abused and derided because he called his people to chastity when debauchery was the norm, to sobriety when drunkenness was rampant, to holiness when secularity was much more popular. 

Because he loved, however, he did not cease to challenge sinfulness and call his people to repentance. His determined love for souls cost him dearly. I strongly suspect that if St. John Vianney himself were in many of our American parishes, there would be an abundance of letters from concerned parishioners about the direction in which he was taking the parish. 

This in no way implies that letters about priests to chanceries all across this country are not sometimes warranted. It also in no way implies our priests are comparable to St. John. What it does imply is that most of us do not respond well when the sinfulness of our own lives is challenged. That goes for all of us. 

And yet the old adage about the need to “hate the sin but love the sinner” makes perfect pastoral sense, but the situation is often made very difficult when the sinner has such a solid affection for and attachment to and even defense of the sin that any attack on the sin—not the person, but the sin—is deemed an unjust and indefensible attack on the sinner!

In some ways the adage has been revised for American sensibilities so that its present rendering might go something like: “Love the sinner, and you do that by condoning the sin.”

Read the rest here and don't forget to pray for your priests today.

Of Noisy Mass and Quiet Parking Lot

We just returned from 11:30 Mass -- a very noisy Mass, I might add. The funny thing was at the end of the Mass we walked out amidst little groups of laughing and talking families and friends who couldn't wait 90 seconds to take their conversations out of the church. Once we threaded our way through the chattering throng we found ourselves in the blissful peace of....the parking lot. What's wrong with this picture?

Perhaps it's because I just read the article on the Mass by Dietrich Von Hildebrand which I posted earlier this morning, but I found the experience particularly disturbing. So I came home and reread Dietrich Von Hildebrand's article. Let me highlight some points he made and questions he asked that were illustrated by this morning's Mass which was certainly not unorthodox:

The Wisdom of Dietrich von Hildebrand

Visiting my granddaughter, a freshman at the University of Steubenville, I took a turn around the bookstore and picked up Alice Von Hildebrand's biography of her husband Dietrich, The Soul of a Lion. Pope Pius XII called Dietrich Von Hildebrand the "20th century doctor of the Church." As I was reading the initial chapters I remembered he wrote a book called Trojan Horse in the City of God. I haven't read it, but plan to.

Recently, I've been in a few discussions where traditionalists are being trashed and it made me ponder what this great traditionalist defender of the faith said about the changes to the Mass after Vatican II.
Actually, he had plenty to say. The article below was written in 1966, but remains relevant today. Despite the "reform of the reform" that we have seen in recent years, many of Von Hildebrand's criticisms accurately describe our modern Mass. (Hat tip to Traditional Catholic Priest):

“The arguments for the New Liturgy have been neatly packaged, and may now be learned by rote.

Pat Buchanan on Fergusonn

As usual...a voice of common sense in a world that has very little of it!

Race-Based Justice