An evangelistic Protestant minister told me the other night that in his opinion all of the great organized churches, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, are collapsing, while small, independent churches are thriving.
While I think that in the long run he is wrong about small, independent churches, he is right about the large church organizations. Modern distractions -- especially the screens in our screen culture -- are eroding culture severely, including the desire to access organized religion. Women and "out-ed" active homosexuals going into the ministry and leading congregations, and the Catholic Church being plagued with ostensibly celibate homosexual wolves pursuing "prime beef" among young males in their flock -- these things are signs NOT of social advance but rather of the ghettoization of the churches and their abandonment to the effeminate.
In my opinion, we are in the midst of an event predicted in the Bible -- sometimes called "the Great Falling Away." Paul, in 2 Thessalonians, says,
1 We ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with him,
2 not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a "spirit," or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.
3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first [the Second Coming will not occur]
...
5 do you not recall that while I was still with you I told you these things?
"The apostasy" in 2 Thessalonians 3 seems to be a large, general departure from the churches employed by Paul as a pre-end marker. Thus the loose translation, "The Great Falling Away."
But there is what may be an odd reference to the current crisis in the Catholic Church, in the Book of Revelation, which is ironic grounds for hope. More later. GTG.
Showing posts with label Catholic Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic Church. Show all posts
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
How I Say the Rosary...Finding Jesus in the Temple
I'll repeat the structure I devised, then post the Bible verses which I consider to be relevant to a consideration of the named Mystery.
ROSARY STRUCTURE:
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
Then, after contemplating the Mystery, I say one Hail Mary, one Glory Be, and one Oh My Jesus.
Then I repeat the cycle, beginning with the announcement of the next Mystery, and the Our Father, followed by contemplation of that Mystery, and so on.
BIBLE VERSES TO CONTEMPLATE:
Probably very little "contemplation" goes into the story of the finding of Jesus in the temple when the Rosary is said, because everyone knows the story, perceived by most to be an almost kid-level account of an incident in Jesus' life.
In fact, the story has a very special secret built into it.
It's not about Jesus' life.
It's about His death.
See if you can figure it out. From Luke 2...
41 Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.
Here contemplate Luke 19:28-40, and Luke 22:7-38.
43 After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
Here contemplate Luke 22:39 to Luke 23:56.
44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
Here contemplate Luke 24:1-3.
46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions,
47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."
49 And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
Here contemplate Luke 24:4-53.
ROSARY STRUCTURE:
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
Then, after contemplating the Mystery, I say one Hail Mary, one Glory Be, and one Oh My Jesus.
Then I repeat the cycle, beginning with the announcement of the next Mystery, and the Our Father, followed by contemplation of that Mystery, and so on.
BIBLE VERSES TO CONTEMPLATE:
Probably very little "contemplation" goes into the story of the finding of Jesus in the temple when the Rosary is said, because everyone knows the story, perceived by most to be an almost kid-level account of an incident in Jesus' life.
In fact, the story has a very special secret built into it.
It's not about Jesus' life.
It's about His death.
See if you can figure it out. From Luke 2...
41 Each year his parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
42 and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.
Here contemplate Luke 19:28-40, and Luke 22:7-38.
43 After they had completed its days, as they were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.
Here contemplate Luke 22:39 to Luke 23:56.
44 Thinking that he was in the caravan, they journeyed for a day and looked for him among their relatives and acquaintances,
45 but not finding him, they returned to Jerusalem to look for him.
Here contemplate Luke 24:1-3.
46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions,
47 and all who heard him were astounded at his understanding and his answers.
48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, "Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety."
49 And he said to them, "Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"
Here contemplate Luke 24:4-53.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
How I Say the Rosary...the Nativity
I'll repeat the structure I devised, then post the Bible verses which I consider to be relevant to a consideration of the named Mystery.
ROSARY STRUCTURE:
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
Then, after contemplating the Mystery, I say one Hail Mary, one Glory Be, and one Oh My Jesus.
Then I repeat the cycle, beginning with the announcement of the next Mystery, and the Our Father, followed by contemplation of that Mystery, and so on.
BIBLE VERSES TO CONTEMPLATE:
Re the Nativity, contemplate...
Of course, Matthew 1:1-23, and Luke 21-21. But the key verse is Luke 2:7, because the Nativity is really about the Eucharist.
What do I mean by that?
Contemplate Exodus 12:1-28, especially Verses 3 through 10, inclusive. Also contemplate Genesis 27:1-29.
ROSARY STRUCTURE:
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
Then, after contemplating the Mystery, I say one Hail Mary, one Glory Be, and one Oh My Jesus.
Then I repeat the cycle, beginning with the announcement of the next Mystery, and the Our Father, followed by contemplation of that Mystery, and so on.
BIBLE VERSES TO CONTEMPLATE:
Re the Nativity, contemplate...
Of course, Matthew 1:1-23, and Luke 21-21. But the key verse is Luke 2:7, because the Nativity is really about the Eucharist.
What do I mean by that?
Contemplate Exodus 12:1-28, especially Verses 3 through 10, inclusive. Also contemplate Genesis 27:1-29.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Speaking of Prayer...
THE WORLD IF GOD SIMPLY ANSWERED OUR PRAYERS!!!
Prayers really are answered. The secret in "The Secret" is really just a secularized re-telling of the underlying Catholic Faith reality.
Christ promised, "Ask and you will receive." And he said it three times to get it through our thick skulls: Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.
It really does work.
But, you can't prayer any old way you want. And you don't necessarily get what you pray for. Note that we are not told, "Ask FOR IT and you will receive IT; seek IT and you will find IT; knock and it will be opened to you AND WE'LL GIVE IT TO YOU."
It doesn't work like that. If it did, because we are stupid and selfish if God answered our prayers by giving us what we asked for there would be a worldwide cataclysm.
PRAYING FOR GOD'S ASSISTANCE...
When you pray to God for help, pray ONCE for that help, WITH FAITH THAT HE WILL HELP, WITH NO PRECISE REQUIREMENTS RESPECTING THE SHAPE OR TIMING OF THAT HELP, and WITH A WILLINGNESS TO BE "BEAT-UP" BY GOD IF THAT IS PART OF THE ANSWER.
If you can't pray with faith, begin by praying briefly for faith. Then pray the petition prayer.
Then, sit back and watch. The help will come.
When it comes, a voiceless voice will whisper, "This is the answer to your prayer."
The answer will always be more than what you asked for. Always.
Brag to your friends about how you prayed to God, and how your prayer was answered. In other words, give The Boss "free advertizing."
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
How I Say the Rosary
When I was young, I quickly came to realize that the Rosary, as we Catholics say it, is "the world's most boring prayer."
Many of our Protestant brothers condemn the Rosary as Bible-damned "vain repetitions" (Matthew 6:7), verifying our damned state.
But this judgment by our brothers-in-Christ is based on a misinterpretation. What Christ was condemning in Matthew 6:7 is thinking that one can make headway with God through repeated prayer -- in other words, He was condemning prayer uttered without trust in God.
If repetitious prayer, as repetitious prayer, were being condemned, then the divinely inspired Psalms, themselves, are dens of iniquity: Compare Psalm 136:1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 and 19 and 20 and 21 and 22 and 23 and 24 and 25 and 26.
A prayer which requires repetition is not, per se, prayer uttered without trust.
So, go ahead and say your Rosary. It's not proof that you are damned. But, I, personally, still find doing so to be extremely tedious, and I think that the Rosary ought to be substantially restructured.
This is how I have restructured it, for myself...
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
The secret is how.
There are structures in Scripture, called "types" and "word pictures" by Bible commentators.
"Hand" or "arm" in the Bible, for example, are expressions of the "Hand/Arm Type" symbolizing "Christ," even in the Old Testament, not just the New Testament.
"Boat" and "ark" are expressions of the "Boat Type" symbolizing "the Church," wherever you see boats in the Old and New Testaments.
Now, go to Genesis 8:8-9...
8 Then he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
9 But the dove could find no place to alight and perch, and it returned to him in the ark, for there was water all over the earth. Putting out his hand, he caught the dove and drew it back to him inside the ark.
Do you see how the inspired Bible text dwells "in nauseating detail" on how Noah returned the dove to the ark?
That's actually a God-inspired word-picture of the key moment in the Annunciation -- the Incarnation.
The dove "carrying" the hand into the boat is a word-picture of the Holy Spirit carrying Christ to the Church.
By realizing this and studying this, I am actually "comtemplating" the Mystery of the Annunciation, aren't I?
After my "contemplation," I return to the structure of the Rosary, saying a Hail Mary, then a Glory Be, then an Oh My Jesus.
And so on.
In the coming days, I will outline all of the verses in the Bible comprising "word-pictures" of the Mysteries to contemplate.
In effect, you will be saying the Rosary after the fashion it was originally conceived, centuries ago: Narrators would divide the basic gospel story into 150 portions, and then have listeners say one of each of the 150 Psalms during a pause in the narration.
That gradually deteriorated into 3 sets of Mysteries x 5 Mysteries per set x 10 Hail Mary's per Mystery, recited with almost no contemplation of the original core consideration of the Rosary, the basic Gospel story.
By doing what I describe, here, we return the Rosary to its original noble purpose -- careful consideration of the Gospel story!
Many of our Protestant brothers condemn the Rosary as Bible-damned "vain repetitions" (Matthew 6:7), verifying our damned state.
But this judgment by our brothers-in-Christ is based on a misinterpretation. What Christ was condemning in Matthew 6:7 is thinking that one can make headway with God through repeated prayer -- in other words, He was condemning prayer uttered without trust in God.
If repetitious prayer, as repetitious prayer, were being condemned, then the divinely inspired Psalms, themselves, are dens of iniquity: Compare Psalm 136:1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and 9 and 10 and 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 and 19 and 20 and 21 and 22 and 23 and 24 and 25 and 26.
A prayer which requires repetition is not, per se, prayer uttered without trust.
So, go ahead and say your Rosary. It's not proof that you are damned. But, I, personally, still find doing so to be extremely tedious, and I think that the Rosary ought to be substantially restructured.
This is how I have restructured it, for myself...
The Sign of the Cross.
The Apostles Creed.
One Our Father.
One Hail Mary.
One Glory Be.
One Oh My Jesus ("Oh, my Jesus, forgive us our sins," etc.)
Then, the announcement, "First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation."
Then, one Our Father.
Then, I actually really do "contemplate the Mystery."
The secret is how.
There are structures in Scripture, called "types" and "word pictures" by Bible commentators.
"Hand" or "arm" in the Bible, for example, are expressions of the "Hand/Arm Type" symbolizing "Christ," even in the Old Testament, not just the New Testament.
"Boat" and "ark" are expressions of the "Boat Type" symbolizing "the Church," wherever you see boats in the Old and New Testaments.
Now, go to Genesis 8:8-9...
8 Then he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth.
9 But the dove could find no place to alight and perch, and it returned to him in the ark, for there was water all over the earth. Putting out his hand, he caught the dove and drew it back to him inside the ark.
Do you see how the inspired Bible text dwells "in nauseating detail" on how Noah returned the dove to the ark?
That's actually a God-inspired word-picture of the key moment in the Annunciation -- the Incarnation.
The dove "carrying" the hand into the boat is a word-picture of the Holy Spirit carrying Christ to the Church.
By realizing this and studying this, I am actually "comtemplating" the Mystery of the Annunciation, aren't I?
After my "contemplation," I return to the structure of the Rosary, saying a Hail Mary, then a Glory Be, then an Oh My Jesus.
And so on.
In the coming days, I will outline all of the verses in the Bible comprising "word-pictures" of the Mysteries to contemplate.
In effect, you will be saying the Rosary after the fashion it was originally conceived, centuries ago: Narrators would divide the basic gospel story into 150 portions, and then have listeners say one of each of the 150 Psalms during a pause in the narration.
That gradually deteriorated into 3 sets of Mysteries x 5 Mysteries per set x 10 Hail Mary's per Mystery, recited with almost no contemplation of the original core consideration of the Rosary, the basic Gospel story.
By doing what I describe, here, we return the Rosary to its original noble purpose -- careful consideration of the Gospel story!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
The Spear of Longinus
Supposedly, Gaius Cassius was a Roman Centurion stationed in Jerusalem during the life of Jesus. He developed partially-blinding cataracts, with the consequence that Pontius Pilate relieved him of normal duties and assigned him to the task of spying, viewed as a kind of "desk duty."
Simply because Jesus attracted crowds, Gaius, nicknamed "Longinus," began to follow and spy on Jesus, and make reports on him.
Longinus quickly came to respect, and ultimately to love, Jesus. His reports on Jesus were favorable. Pilate was disturbed by the attitude of Longinus toward this "rabble-rouser."
When the day came when Pilate surrendered to political pressure and ordered the execution of Jesus, he decided to test Longinus' loyalty, by placing him in charge of the death march and crucifixion.
Trapped by duty, Longinus did what he could to ease Jesus' execution. He ordered Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for part of the way of the cross. At the Place of the Skull, after Longinus suffered terribly as he watched Jesus get nailed to His cross, something else happened.
When soldiers were sent from Jerusalem with ladders and hammers, Longinus immediately understood precisely what was occurring.
When people were crucified by the Romans, one of the causes of death was suffocation. The weight of the body hanging by the arms from the cross caused the lungs to be squeezed. Crucifixion victims would therefore try to stand on the cross, to relieve the pressure on the lungs, to enable them to breathe. Crucifixion victims would rise, breathe, sink, suffocate, rise, breathe, sink, suffocate, up and down, ep and down, sometimes for days, until their legs gave out, and they they suffocated. The Romans would sometimes shorten the executions by breaking the legs of the crucified, to make it impossible for them to stand, bringing about immediate suffocation.
But, here the hammers and ladders were being brought to the crosses way too early. While spying on Jesus, Longinus had become very familiar with the prophecies in Judaism about a Messiah to come -- among other things that not a bone in his body would be broken. Longinus was certain that someone was anxious to put an immediate end to speculation that Jesus was this "Messiah" by breaking his bones in the guise of hastening Jesus' death by breaking His legs. People would say, "He can't have been the Messiah -- See? Bones were broken!"
This idea filled Longinus with rage. He thought something like, "What???!!! What???!!! Hasn't this perfectly innocent man been abused enough???!!! Now they are going to beat his legs with hammers just to prove that he is not this 'Messiah'!!! I can't stand it!!!"
As the men began their work with the two thieves, to hide their special interest in breaking Christ's legs, Longinus saw to his surprise that Christ was dead already. Yet, he saw the men moving to break Christ's legs, anyway. "They are going to abuse the man's corpse for their stupid political reasons!!!"
Overcome with anger and zeal, Longinus jumped on his horse, spurred the horse over to a soldier holding a spear, seized the spear, spurred his horse over to Christ's cross, and rammed the spear into Christ's side, yelling something like the ancient Latin version of, "There!!! See, you morons???!!! He's already dead!!! No need to break his legs!!!"
And that is why John's gospel says that instead of having His legs broken, Christ was stabbed in the side!!! It was an act of love!!!
When the tip of Longinus' spear pierced Christ's side, the accumulation of lymph and blood filling Christ's lungs, generated by the siezing caused by His savage scourging hours earlier, exploded outward and flooded down the spear and down Longinus' arm, and splashed into his eyes.
His cataracts fell off.
Suddenly, his vision was perfect.
To this day, the head of the spear piercing Christ's side can be found in a museum, the Hofburg, in Austria.
And in Densus, Romania, we have an ancient Christian mausoleum converted into a church. The mausoleum's Latin inscription reveals that the one buried inside is the Roman centurion Longinus.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Priest Sex Problem: Reassurance for the Catholics, Here...
For decades, now, we have been living with the "pedophile priest problem." We are sick-to-death of it.
We are sick of it because the very thing which is the basis of liability of the Church -- bishops enabling the problem by quietly moving priests from a victimized flock to a new, unwary flock, frequently with written recommendations -- caused the problem to go on and on and on and on and on.
Last weekend's revelations -- that even Ratzinger, before he became pope, participated in "pedophile priest" protection and moving -- are so discouraging. In effect, our bishops have engaged in homosexual pimping. I'll talk about why I switched characterizations from "pedophile" to "homosexual" momentarily. Right now, I want to talk about why I call it "pimping"...
Because, after so many decades of bad news and lawsuits, it is impossible for church administrators to not clearly apprehend the overall structure of the phenomenon:
A sexually-out-of-control priest lasciviously stares at male meat walking around him, grabs it and "does" it. He "does" young people -- usually while engaging in sex acts with adults males, too, here and there -- until the local complaints reach a crescendo. Then, the bishop moves him out with a happy letter of recommendation, and moves someone else in. Sometimes, the one coming in was just another "young-male-doing" wolf, staring at the new, unwary male meat "on the hoof" around him.
This has the impact of keeping the people in the pews happy and hopeful -- and in a mood to donate. (Would you keep donating to a parish whose rectory has become a "red light district"? No.)
Years later, the victimized young males come back for their compensation for the sex occurring years before. They go to one of us lawyers, a lawsuit is filed, the case almost invariably settles.
Structurally, the bishops and the homosexual priests and the lawyers have cooperated to reach into the till to pay for homosexual sex acts.
In the Church cases, the prostitutes are paying the "johns" with money from the pockets of passers-by, us.
When the bishops knowingly CONTINUE shifting priests around, once this pattern has been established, they really are consciously paying out our contributions as money for sex for the priests.
The "bottom line" structure of the problem, when a bishop lets a priest off the hook by moving him, is that they are "giving away the store" -- our store, the one we paid for -- so that priests can have sex with young men.
Is that an unfair characterization?
Years ago, sometime in the early 1990s -- in 1993, I'm fairly certain -- Bishop McHugh announced a capital campaign to finance old and new programs within the Camden Diocese. I was appointed our parish's chief collector. The other collectors asked me to ask Bishop McHugh if our work was to finance sex abuse lawsuit settlements -- i.e., were we financing priest sex after-the-fact.
When I asked Bishop McHugh that question when he came to our parish, Bishop McHugh fell silent, and then he said, "Pete, let me put it to you this way. If we catch any priest engaging in sexual misbehavior any more, then he's out on his ass!"
What I did not know, then, was that two years before, in 1991, before Bishop McHugh himself had written a Letter of Recommendation to the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida for a sexual predator priest, Msgr. Philip Rigney, whom I, personally, had only recently investigated. Apparently because in 1992 a parishioner had given to our pastor a written statement to the effect that Msgr. Rigney had sexually molested him, the parishioner, repeatedly years before, our pastor was asked by Bishop McHugh if he thought that the Diocese should pay for the priest's criminal defense. Because I am a lawyer, Msgr. Korda asked me for a formal written opinion. I went out and talked to neighbors who knew the man making the statement. There was no doubt about it -- the young man, when he was a teenager, and two friends, were willingly dropping their pants and bending over for money for the sexual satisfaction of a priest who was clearly an out-of-control homosexual. The neighbors did not paint a pretty picture of either the priest or the boys.
The investigation helped me to form a sound opinion. It was this: The Church becomes the priest's family. If, after a careful investigation, it appears more-probable-than-not that the priest is innocent, the Church should pay for the priest's criminal defense. If, after a careful investigation, it appears more-probable-than-not that the priest is guilty as charged, they should "throw him to the wolves," and cooperate in his prosecution, in light of the Church's position of trust vis-à-vis the laity.
So, even as Bishop McHugh said what he said to us collectors, he was conscious of the fact that he, himself, had written one of the letters of recommendation forming the basis of demands in court that the Church pay out money for priestly sex.
Two years later, McHugh laicized the priest.
So, when Bishop McHugh was sponsoring the "Uniting in Faith and Mission" capital campaign, he was acutely aware of the priestly sexual abuse problem, and acutely aware that, in effect, a wrongdoer for whom he had written a letter of recommendation was enjoying the fruits of his protection.
And collecting money to shore up Diocesan resources thinned-out by huge insurance premiums and lawsuits.
Pimping.
* * *
Does the Bible have anything to say about all of this -- a Church that would probably do less damage to itself if it sponsored pornstar mud-wrestling contests?
Oddly, yes.
First, the gospels do something very odd. They portray Jesus appointing Peter as the first pope...
17 Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matthew 16:17-19.
...and then they spend the rest of the time criticizing Peter nastily...
A few verses after Matthew 16:17-19, Jesus, to criticize Peter for not understanding that Jesus must die, says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." Matthew 16:23. Ouch!
And not too many verses before Peter's appointment, the gospel implicitly portrays the papacy, in the person of Peter, as sinking into the "sea of damnable souls"...
28 Peter said to him in reply, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw how (strong) the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matthew 14:28-31.
And, of course, Peter denies Jesus, AFTER Jesus predicts to Peter that he would do this...
69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. One of the maids came over to him and said, "You too were with Jesus the Galilean." 70 But he denied it in front of everyone, saying, "I do not know what you are talking about!" 71 As he went out to the gate, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazorean." 72 Again he denied it with an oath, "I do not know the man!" 73 A little later the bystanders came over and said to Peter, "Surely you too are one of them; even your speech gives you away." 74 At that he began to curse and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately a cock crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken: "Before the cock crows you will deny me three times." He went out and began to weep bitterly. Matthew 26:69-75.
I think that we, the lay people, are being told something -- that our Church would be led by the same weak, sinning politicians who lead everything else.
But, the "bottom line" concept being taught by God is this: "It is My Church, nonetheless."
Second, in my opinion the current age, in which the Church is almost committing suicide by its sin, while the secular system of justice goes after the Church for its sin, is discussed allegorically in the Book of Revelation!...
15 The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the current. 16 But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth. Revelation 12:15-16.
So, do not be discouraged.
* * *
THE GENESIS OF THE PROBLEM
There is a Wives-Tale-level analysis of the problem afoot in our society which the media encourage. People read the stories about priests doing this and doing that to young victims, mostly boys, and say, "Ah-HAH! Priests are celibate! Celibacy must be the problem. Priests should be married, and that will solve the problem!"
In effect, the implication is that "by-and-large, if women to have sex with are not available to men, men are pre-wired to become like homosexuals, desiring to stick their thingies into male hindquarters and mouths!"
What nonsense! What nonsense! How many grown men reading this "turn homosexual" every time pregnancy or sickness makes their wives unavailable?
The truth is that the Church is attracting homosexuals. In fact, if you do a careful review of exhaustive media analyses of the priests' cases, you will see, again and again and again, reference to ADULT homosexual relationships between priests who like to victimize young males in their parishes and ADULT homosexual men.
Examples:
'Stephen Palo said he cannot erase the image of his first sexual experience from his memory: Awakening from a sound sleep in the bedroom of his Blackwood home, 12-year- old Stephen Palo looks down and finds his parish priest massaging his genitals. Soon the priest begins oral sex." I pushed away," Palo, now 31, said in a recent interview. "I pulled the covers up to my neck. I felt like I was in the corner of the wall, apart from myself, just looking at it." Thus began what Palo said was a 15-year relationship of routine sexual contact between Palo, an altar boy, and the Rev. Joseph Shannon, who directed the altar boy group at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Camden.' http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/1994_01_11_Graham_SourcesDiocese_Joseph_Shannon_etc.htm.
Palo would have been 27 when the sex finally stopped. So, the culprit priest was "doing" a 27 year old man.
Do you know what that is called? That is called, "TWO HOMOSEXUALS ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL SEX."
"Arthur Austin alleges that abuse by Shanley began during a counselling session here, when Austin was 20, and continued for 6 years." http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/Shanley-Paul-Richard.htm#timeline
So, Fr. Shanley "did" Arthur Austin for six years, between 20 and 26 years of age.
Do you know what that is called?
That is called, "TWO HOMOSEXUALS ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL SEX."
The media minimize this part of the analysis. Why? Simple: Gays are the "poster children" of the liberal media. They love them!
In truth, nearly all of the cases are like this. Men don't "become homosexual" if they are "deprived of nookie." These priests are "doing" young males and older males NOT because they are "pedophiles," BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE HOMOSEXUALS.
In truth, pedophiles prefer girls about 9-to-1, in line with the ratio of heterosexuals/ homosexuals in society.
Thus it is not an accident that "MEGAN'S Law" is named after a girl. Her killer, Jesse Timmendequas, really was a pedophile.
The Catholic priest perpetrators, by-and-large, are simply gays -- homosexuals.
Studies verify that male homosexuals have a self-control problem, and so tend to be extremely promiscuous.
A University of Chicago study released in 2004 found that promiscuity among male homosexuals in Chicago is so bad that more than 87% had had more than 15 sex partners, and more than 42% had had more than 60 sex partners.
To put it bluntly, the male homosexual dysfunction tends to be a promiscuous thing.
That they tend to "do" multiple young males is a function of the fact that they are "gays looking for prime beef."
NOT priests mysteriously "made gay" by celibacy.
This is an important concept. It means that the media are actually refraining from going after the real problem -- gays in the clergy.
The genesis of the Church's problem, therefore, is not celibacy, but the fact that the ministry is attracting the effeminate in the modern era.
The reason why our Protestant brothers and sisters are so quiet, despite the fact that the lawsuits against the Catholic Church would seem to be a wonderful PR opportunity is that despite the fact that their churches feature a married ministry, THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES. In their case effeminate married ministers are "doing" mostly young men in their churches!
Access to a heterosexual sexual outlet does not slow down the problem, because celibacy is not the cause.
But why, then, are Protestant churches (and synagogues, too, by the way) sued only about half as much for the same thing?
Simple: The Catholic Church is the only monolithic, persistently-existing target for the lawyers to shoot at. The Protestant and Jewish congregations suffer from a here-today-gone-tomorrow problem, and so are much harder to sue.
Why should the ministry attract the effeminate so much?
I think that the answer is that the churches are suffering from "ghettoization." Just as, beginning after World War II, the American highway system generated a white power exodus from the cities, leaving behind it a social vacuum filled by suddenly-ghettoized minorities, the Age of Screens, very obviously featuring the values of secular humanism's "nice-guy-ness," is successfully killing and replacing Western religious thought, generating a vocations crisis among white males, and leaving behind itself a vacuum which seems tailor-made for "gentle souls" -- the effeminate.
So, while gay rights organizations and women's groups and our liberal media hail the ordination of women as a remarkable advances in enlightened thinking, IN FACT THE EFFEMINATE ARE BEING GHETTOIZED IN CHURCHES BEING LEFT BEHIND BY TRADITIONAL CONGREGATIONS.
The shocking growth of litigable homosexual sex acts by Catholic clergy, and those bishops' letters abetting the orgy, are just one expression of a larger breakdown of religion in the West.
The rats are taking over the ghetto buildings.
We aren't looking at "enlightenment" and "progress."
We are looking at a social and religious cataclysm.
It is, I believe, a symptom of the "Great Falling Away" predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2.
We are sick of it because the very thing which is the basis of liability of the Church -- bishops enabling the problem by quietly moving priests from a victimized flock to a new, unwary flock, frequently with written recommendations -- caused the problem to go on and on and on and on and on.
Last weekend's revelations -- that even Ratzinger, before he became pope, participated in "pedophile priest" protection and moving -- are so discouraging. In effect, our bishops have engaged in homosexual pimping. I'll talk about why I switched characterizations from "pedophile" to "homosexual" momentarily. Right now, I want to talk about why I call it "pimping"...
Because, after so many decades of bad news and lawsuits, it is impossible for church administrators to not clearly apprehend the overall structure of the phenomenon:
A sexually-out-of-control priest lasciviously stares at male meat walking around him, grabs it and "does" it. He "does" young people -- usually while engaging in sex acts with adults males, too, here and there -- until the local complaints reach a crescendo. Then, the bishop moves him out with a happy letter of recommendation, and moves someone else in. Sometimes, the one coming in was just another "young-male-doing" wolf, staring at the new, unwary male meat "on the hoof" around him.
This has the impact of keeping the people in the pews happy and hopeful -- and in a mood to donate. (Would you keep donating to a parish whose rectory has become a "red light district"? No.)
Years later, the victimized young males come back for their compensation for the sex occurring years before. They go to one of us lawyers, a lawsuit is filed, the case almost invariably settles.
Structurally, the bishops and the homosexual priests and the lawyers have cooperated to reach into the till to pay for homosexual sex acts.
In the Church cases, the prostitutes are paying the "johns" with money from the pockets of passers-by, us.
When the bishops knowingly CONTINUE shifting priests around, once this pattern has been established, they really are consciously paying out our contributions as money for sex for the priests.
The "bottom line" structure of the problem, when a bishop lets a priest off the hook by moving him, is that they are "giving away the store" -- our store, the one we paid for -- so that priests can have sex with young men.
Is that an unfair characterization?
Years ago, sometime in the early 1990s -- in 1993, I'm fairly certain -- Bishop McHugh announced a capital campaign to finance old and new programs within the Camden Diocese. I was appointed our parish's chief collector. The other collectors asked me to ask Bishop McHugh if our work was to finance sex abuse lawsuit settlements -- i.e., were we financing priest sex after-the-fact.
When I asked Bishop McHugh that question when he came to our parish, Bishop McHugh fell silent, and then he said, "Pete, let me put it to you this way. If we catch any priest engaging in sexual misbehavior any more, then he's out on his ass!"
What I did not know, then, was that two years before, in 1991, before Bishop McHugh himself had written a Letter of Recommendation to the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida for a sexual predator priest, Msgr. Philip Rigney, whom I, personally, had only recently investigated. Apparently because in 1992 a parishioner had given to our pastor a written statement to the effect that Msgr. Rigney had sexually molested him, the parishioner, repeatedly years before, our pastor was asked by Bishop McHugh if he thought that the Diocese should pay for the priest's criminal defense. Because I am a lawyer, Msgr. Korda asked me for a formal written opinion. I went out and talked to neighbors who knew the man making the statement. There was no doubt about it -- the young man, when he was a teenager, and two friends, were willingly dropping their pants and bending over for money for the sexual satisfaction of a priest who was clearly an out-of-control homosexual. The neighbors did not paint a pretty picture of either the priest or the boys.
The investigation helped me to form a sound opinion. It was this: The Church becomes the priest's family. If, after a careful investigation, it appears more-probable-than-not that the priest is innocent, the Church should pay for the priest's criminal defense. If, after a careful investigation, it appears more-probable-than-not that the priest is guilty as charged, they should "throw him to the wolves," and cooperate in his prosecution, in light of the Church's position of trust vis-à-vis the laity.
So, even as Bishop McHugh said what he said to us collectors, he was conscious of the fact that he, himself, had written one of the letters of recommendation forming the basis of demands in court that the Church pay out money for priestly sex.
Two years later, McHugh laicized the priest.
So, when Bishop McHugh was sponsoring the "Uniting in Faith and Mission" capital campaign, he was acutely aware of the priestly sexual abuse problem, and acutely aware that, in effect, a wrongdoer for whom he had written a letter of recommendation was enjoying the fruits of his protection.
And collecting money to shore up Diocesan resources thinned-out by huge insurance premiums and lawsuits.
Pimping.
* * *
Does the Bible have anything to say about all of this -- a Church that would probably do less damage to itself if it sponsored pornstar mud-wrestling contests?
Oddly, yes.
First, the gospels do something very odd. They portray Jesus appointing Peter as the first pope...
17 Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 18 And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matthew 16:17-19.
...and then they spend the rest of the time criticizing Peter nastily...
A few verses after Matthew 16:17-19, Jesus, to criticize Peter for not understanding that Jesus must die, says to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." Matthew 16:23. Ouch!
And not too many verses before Peter's appointment, the gospel implicitly portrays the papacy, in the person of Peter, as sinking into the "sea of damnable souls"...
28 Peter said to him in reply, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw how (strong) the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matthew 14:28-31.
And, of course, Peter denies Jesus, AFTER Jesus predicts to Peter that he would do this...
69 Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. One of the maids came over to him and said, "You too were with Jesus the Galilean." 70 But he denied it in front of everyone, saying, "I do not know what you are talking about!" 71 As he went out to the gate, another girl saw him and said to those who were there, "This man was with Jesus the Nazorean." 72 Again he denied it with an oath, "I do not know the man!" 73 A little later the bystanders came over and said to Peter, "Surely you too are one of them; even your speech gives you away." 74 At that he began to curse and to swear, "I do not know the man." And immediately a cock crowed. 75 Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken: "Before the cock crows you will deny me three times." He went out and began to weep bitterly. Matthew 26:69-75.
I think that we, the lay people, are being told something -- that our Church would be led by the same weak, sinning politicians who lead everything else.
But, the "bottom line" concept being taught by God is this: "It is My Church, nonetheless."
Second, in my opinion the current age, in which the Church is almost committing suicide by its sin, while the secular system of justice goes after the Church for its sin, is discussed allegorically in the Book of Revelation!...
15 The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with the current. 16 But the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the flood that the dragon spewed out of its mouth. Revelation 12:15-16.
So, do not be discouraged.
* * *
THE GENESIS OF THE PROBLEM
There is a Wives-Tale-level analysis of the problem afoot in our society which the media encourage. People read the stories about priests doing this and doing that to young victims, mostly boys, and say, "Ah-HAH! Priests are celibate! Celibacy must be the problem. Priests should be married, and that will solve the problem!"
In effect, the implication is that "by-and-large, if women to have sex with are not available to men, men are pre-wired to become like homosexuals, desiring to stick their thingies into male hindquarters and mouths!"
What nonsense! What nonsense! How many grown men reading this "turn homosexual" every time pregnancy or sickness makes their wives unavailable?
The truth is that the Church is attracting homosexuals. In fact, if you do a careful review of exhaustive media analyses of the priests' cases, you will see, again and again and again, reference to ADULT homosexual relationships between priests who like to victimize young males in their parishes and ADULT homosexual men.
Examples:
'Stephen Palo said he cannot erase the image of his first sexual experience from his memory: Awakening from a sound sleep in the bedroom of his Blackwood home, 12-year- old Stephen Palo looks down and finds his parish priest massaging his genitals. Soon the priest begins oral sex." I pushed away," Palo, now 31, said in a recent interview. "I pulled the covers up to my neck. I felt like I was in the corner of the wall, apart from myself, just looking at it." Thus began what Palo said was a 15-year relationship of routine sexual contact between Palo, an altar boy, and the Rev. Joseph Shannon, who directed the altar boy group at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Camden.' http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/1994_01_11_Graham_SourcesDiocese_Joseph_Shannon_etc.htm.
Palo would have been 27 when the sex finally stopped. So, the culprit priest was "doing" a 27 year old man.
Do you know what that is called? That is called, "TWO HOMOSEXUALS ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL SEX."
"Arthur Austin alleges that abuse by Shanley began during a counselling session here, when Austin was 20, and continued for 6 years." http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/Shanley-Paul-Richard.htm#timeline
So, Fr. Shanley "did" Arthur Austin for six years, between 20 and 26 years of age.
Do you know what that is called?
That is called, "TWO HOMOSEXUALS ENGAGING IN HOMOSEXUAL SEX."
The media minimize this part of the analysis. Why? Simple: Gays are the "poster children" of the liberal media. They love them!
In truth, nearly all of the cases are like this. Men don't "become homosexual" if they are "deprived of nookie." These priests are "doing" young males and older males NOT because they are "pedophiles," BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE HOMOSEXUALS.
In truth, pedophiles prefer girls about 9-to-1, in line with the ratio of heterosexuals/ homosexuals in society.
Thus it is not an accident that "MEGAN'S Law" is named after a girl. Her killer, Jesse Timmendequas, really was a pedophile.
The Catholic priest perpetrators, by-and-large, are simply gays -- homosexuals.
Studies verify that male homosexuals have a self-control problem, and so tend to be extremely promiscuous.
A University of Chicago study released in 2004 found that promiscuity among male homosexuals in Chicago is so bad that more than 87% had had more than 15 sex partners, and more than 42% had had more than 60 sex partners.
To put it bluntly, the male homosexual dysfunction tends to be a promiscuous thing.
That they tend to "do" multiple young males is a function of the fact that they are "gays looking for prime beef."
NOT priests mysteriously "made gay" by celibacy.
This is an important concept. It means that the media are actually refraining from going after the real problem -- gays in the clergy.
The genesis of the Church's problem, therefore, is not celibacy, but the fact that the ministry is attracting the effeminate in the modern era.
The reason why our Protestant brothers and sisters are so quiet, despite the fact that the lawsuits against the Catholic Church would seem to be a wonderful PR opportunity is that despite the fact that their churches feature a married ministry, THEY HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM THE CATHOLIC CHURCH DOES. In their case effeminate married ministers are "doing" mostly young men in their churches!
Access to a heterosexual sexual outlet does not slow down the problem, because celibacy is not the cause.
But why, then, are Protestant churches (and synagogues, too, by the way) sued only about half as much for the same thing?
Simple: The Catholic Church is the only monolithic, persistently-existing target for the lawyers to shoot at. The Protestant and Jewish congregations suffer from a here-today-gone-tomorrow problem, and so are much harder to sue.
Why should the ministry attract the effeminate so much?
I think that the answer is that the churches are suffering from "ghettoization." Just as, beginning after World War II, the American highway system generated a white power exodus from the cities, leaving behind it a social vacuum filled by suddenly-ghettoized minorities, the Age of Screens, very obviously featuring the values of secular humanism's "nice-guy-ness," is successfully killing and replacing Western religious thought, generating a vocations crisis among white males, and leaving behind itself a vacuum which seems tailor-made for "gentle souls" -- the effeminate.
So, while gay rights organizations and women's groups and our liberal media hail the ordination of women as a remarkable advances in enlightened thinking, IN FACT THE EFFEMINATE ARE BEING GHETTOIZED IN CHURCHES BEING LEFT BEHIND BY TRADITIONAL CONGREGATIONS.
The shocking growth of litigable homosexual sex acts by Catholic clergy, and those bishops' letters abetting the orgy, are just one expression of a larger breakdown of religion in the West.
The rats are taking over the ghetto buildings.
We aren't looking at "enlightenment" and "progress."
We are looking at a social and religious cataclysm.
It is, I believe, a symptom of the "Great Falling Away" predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Now that's Irish!
Here we have the Gallarus Oratory, or place for prayer, in County Kerry, Ireland. Built between 600 A.D. and 1100 A.D. -- clearly, there is much uncertainty about timing of construction -- no mortar holds the structure together. It is made of carefully-fitted local stones.
Next we have St. Kevin's Church in Glendalough, County Wicklow, built in the 1100s.
Next we have St. Kevin's Church in Glendalough, County Wicklow, built in the 1100s.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Miraculously UN-resurrecting a Person
(The following story was greatly simplified for a Vietnamese translator.)
The Catholic Church has many stories about Jesus and the saints bringing dead people to life.
There is one story, which few have heard, about a priest named Philip Neri in the boot-shaped country of Italy. An account of the incident is included in the canonization file of Fr. Neri. So, keep in mind that this story is about one of the miracles which led to his canonization. You will find that somewhat ironic.
In 1583, Father Philip Neri, a very holy Catholic priest, was called to the home of a little boy named Paolo Massimo. The little boy died before Father Neri came to the home.
Father Neri went into the room where little Paolo’s cold, dead body was laid on the bed. Father Neri closed his own eyes, placed his hand on the boy’s forehead, and prayed quietly for several minutes. Then, he gently sprinkled holy water on the boy, and called his name, “Paolo! Paolo!” Suddenly, the boy began to breathe, his body became warm, and he sat up in bed.
The little boy, who knew Father Neri, asked, “Father Neri, why am I at home again? I was with my mother and my sister, in a very wonderful place where we were with God! I don’t want to be here! I want to go back and be with God!”
Father Neri answered, “Well, then, Paolo, go and be blessed, and say some prayers to God for me!”
At that moment, the boy laid down, and died a second time!
The Catholic Church has many stories about Jesus and the saints bringing dead people to life.
There is one story, which few have heard, about a priest named Philip Neri in the boot-shaped country of Italy. An account of the incident is included in the canonization file of Fr. Neri. So, keep in mind that this story is about one of the miracles which led to his canonization. You will find that somewhat ironic.
In 1583, Father Philip Neri, a very holy Catholic priest, was called to the home of a little boy named Paolo Massimo. The little boy died before Father Neri came to the home.
Father Neri went into the room where little Paolo’s cold, dead body was laid on the bed. Father Neri closed his own eyes, placed his hand on the boy’s forehead, and prayed quietly for several minutes. Then, he gently sprinkled holy water on the boy, and called his name, “Paolo! Paolo!” Suddenly, the boy began to breathe, his body became warm, and he sat up in bed.
The little boy, who knew Father Neri, asked, “Father Neri, why am I at home again? I was with my mother and my sister, in a very wonderful place where we were with God! I don’t want to be here! I want to go back and be with God!”
Father Neri answered, “Well, then, Paolo, go and be blessed, and say some prayers to God for me!”
At that moment, the boy laid down, and died a second time!
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