The Negative Power of Silence! "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is Still the Unwritten Seminary Rule!

I recently read Cardinal Sarah's book, The Power of Silence. I took it with me on my annual 5-day silent retreat where it became my go-to spiritual reading between meditations on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. What a powerful companion on the journey! Silence with the Lord nurtures rich spiritual fruit.

But there's another side to silence.

Today, I read an article about that flip side. Think of St. Thomas More and his silence about Henry's "marriage" to Ann Boleyn. In A Man for All Seasons, Cranmer accuses More of a silence that speaks treason against the king. The saint responds vigorously with the legal principle that silence implies consent. On the other hand, some legal scholars say that silence means consent only when the person involved has an obligation to speak. Since More had relinquished his role as chancellor, he had no obligation to embrace martyrdom by publicly denouncing the king's marriage. Only when circumstances forced him (the devil always demands approval for evil) did More speak.

Topsy and Tuptim Discuss the Synod's "New Signs" and "New Flesh" over Lunch

Tuptim: What a great idea to stop at the Wood Grill before going home from your eye exam. 

They sit down and order their drinks then go to the various food stations. 

Topsy: I enjoy this place a lot. Most buffets are low quality but everything here is so fresh. I always have a hard time choosing from the wide variety.

Tuptim: (Laughing...) Yeah, it makes me think of "diversity," another one of those buzz words. I wonder if they practice integral ecology where they grow all the veggies. And we can celebrate all the cultures here because they have Mexican food, American, Chinese, Greek, Thai, you name it!

Fr. Tom Collins: Bishops provided a "safe environment" for sexual predators!

Msgr. Rossi, protege of Cardinal Wuerl

Editor's comment: I doubt if we've seen the end of the sex scandals. Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, is likely to be among the next group of outed homosexuals keeping their boyfriends in comfort using the assets donated for the care of the Church. Check out the American Spectator here, here, and here.  

Abuse of minors is horrendous, but pederasty isn't the only problem. Homosexual priests engaging in "age appropriate" sodomy often, like Bransfield, consider the assets of the Church their personal property and help themselves to the proceeds to fund their extravagant lifestyles. The next big scandal as the Bransfield financial raping of West Virginia indicates, will likely be all about money. Stay tuned and pray hard.

Topsy and Tuptim Start Part 3 of the Synod Working Document at the Opthalmologist's Office

Topsy and Tuptim sit in the opthalmologist's waiting room.

Topsy: Thanks for driving me. I have a terrible time seeing when they dilate my pupils. All this studying the document has done a number on my eyes. Last night while I was reading Part 3 everything went blurry. Thank God I was almost finished. I just needed to review a few footnotes from the last chapter. But the page looked like the Russian alphabet. I think I probably need a stronger prescription.

Tuptim: (Sarcastically...) Gosh, do you think the Russians are colluding in the synod and conspired to make your eyesight deteriorate so we couldn't finish critiquing the working doc?

Topsy: (Laughing...) No... it was the Germans in collusion with the South American liberation theology gurus.

It's "High Noon." Will You Stand to Protect Our Beloved Church against the Synod from Hell?

The prophet Zachariah was
stoned for condemning the
 king and the people's
rebellion against God.

Sometimes it's helpful to have a list of resources together in one place. So I've listed a number of articles on the upcoming synod from hell. I've linked to many of the articles below in the Topsy and Tuptim posts about the Pan-Amazon synod, but some are new.

As we face this latest tsunami barelling down on the Church during the October hurricane season, we need soldiers of Christ committed to the truth to stand up to the liars and Church wreckers. Many wear roman collars, but their hearts wear pagan new age amulets and their minds are steeped in pagan liberation theology. (I deleted the word "pagan" because many pagan's were godly people who valued truth and goodness and lived virtuous lives, like Socrates. It's an insult to pagans to lump them in with these liars and Church wreckers.)

As one writer said, we are facing "High Noon" in the Church. In the film the sheriff, played by Gary Cooper, meets an incoming train arriving at noon filled with a gang of outlaws planning to take over the town. The other townsmen run for cover refusing to stand with the sheriff to protect their loved ones and their community. So Cooper faces them alone. Sound familiar? How few men in miters stand against the outlaws attacking our beloved Church and gobbling up the faith of the sheep? How few are willing to imitate Jesus or even the Old Testament prophets who chose God's law over man's lawlessness. May God have mercy on them come Judgment Day!

Topsy and Tuptim Discuss the Synod Doc as a Propaganda Piece Outside the Washington Post

Washington Post building on K Street

Tuptim: It's kind of appropriate that we're sitting at an outside cafe near the Washington Post building. I always call it Pravda East! Did you know that K St. is a big center for lobbyists?

Topsy: Really?

Tuptim: Yup! When Mitt Romney was running for president, he called K Street the center of "influence peddling." What better place to talk about the Amazon synod. Influence peddling... that's what it's all about -- peddling the influence of the (making quote sign with her fingers) "progressive" wing of the Church.

Topsy: (Rollling her eyes...) Hmm...You mean the heretic wing!

Why I'm Not Contributing to the Topsy and Tuptim Posts: the Instrumentum Laboris Has Driven Me Crazy

Going indigenous means no tan lines.

FYI - Mary Ann is Topsy and I'm Tuptim (T&T) and it used to be that I'd contribute a bit in writing the T&T posts. I had spoken to Mary Ann and we agreed that I'd also read the Pan-Amazon Synod Instrumentum Laboris and send her my remarks however it didn't turn out that way. As I finished Part I, Chapter 2, she was far ahead with Chapter 4 already posted. I just couldn't keep up with her. 

But another thing happened - a very weird thing where I couldn't control my mind. Instead of being upset at what the document was telling me, my mind kept showing me hilarious images of what was leaping from the page into it, preparing me to "go indigenous". Cast off all the shackles and "go native", free at last. Playalinda Beach here I come! 

Have Hope: There is a Jesuit Who STILL BELIEVES the Teachings of the Church!

Fr. Isaac Jogues worked among the Hurons. He and St.
Jean de Brebeuf were captured in an Iriquois raid
and martyred. Fr. Jean was brutally tortured.

There don't seem to be many Jesuits who still embrace the faith judging from Jesuit colleges with their pride events, V-monologues, censored crucifixes, etc. Happily, I seem to have found the proverbial needle in the haystack (Yes, he's sharp!) with Fr Robert McTeigue. If you can take his writing as a guide, he is, indeed, a truth teller amongst liars. He promotes confession, pro-life work, modesty, etc.

But it's his recent article at Catholic World Report on the Amazon synod that caught my eye. After referencing the story about the mission that celebrates not baptizing a single soul in over 50 years, he talks about missionary martyrs of the past. St. Francis Xavier, St. Isaac Jogues, St. Jean de Brebeuf... they all devoted themselves to bringing the good news to those living (literally) in physical and spiritual darkness. When one compares those Jesuits' zeal and willingness to give their lives for the ransom of many, one can only mourn at the collapse of faith among some modern so-called missionaries.

Guest Post - Handing on the Faith to a New Generation: You Can't Give What You Haven't Got!

We can only bring others to Jesus
if we have a personal relationship
with Him ourselves. 

HANDING ON TO A NEW GENERATION

by James M. Thunder*

Last month I listened to a parish Director of Youth Ministry describe a sociological study documenting how so many young Catholics think of our Faith as a set of propositions without a personal relationship with God Who is the subject of the propositions. Then I watched World Over Live broadcast a videoclip of Bishop Robert J. Baker of Birmingham at the June meeting of the American bishops (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), request that the words, the Name, Jesus Christ, appear at least once in one of the USCCB documents that was then under review.

These two events prompted me to think of the time I heard a priest say that St. Paul had such a deep relationship with Jesus that there are passages in his epistles where he uses the Name over and over again. When his letters are read at Mass, I’ll sit up and notice, for example, that St. Paul writes the Name five times in the opening eight verses of his Letter to the Romans, and eight times in the opening 10 verses in his First Letter to the Corinthians.

Being Indigenous in the Lost Church of Z

Vatican Religious Articles Store

"Ancestral medicine"? My mother would be happy to know that Pope Francis' Synod on the Amazon will focus on that. When I'd visit when the children were mere infants and they would not sleep my mother would "fix" a bottle for them with a drop or two of moonshine (no, really...this was the mountains in NC). It worked. So happy to know this "ancestral tradition" will be approved and I'll be able to pass it on to future generations. Gotta crank that still up! Thanx PF!

"Neo-colonialism" in the present is being done by Islam, especially in Europe. While the synod frowns on "colonialism of the past and neo-colonialism of the present", Pope Francis approves colonization by Islam into Christendom, heartily encouraging more and more Muslim immigration into Europe. Therefore it's clear that he thinks the only bad type of colonialism is that which was done by the Church in the past. What must he think of Our Lady of Guadalupe?