Blogalyptic

Creative Minority Report outdoes himself.

We're very blogalyptic around here.

For as in the days before Algore, they were writing on paper and commenting in margins, sending letters and receiving letters, even till that day in which Algore invented the internet, And they knew not till the web came, and took them all away; so also shall the coming of the Blogalypse be. Then two shall be at a keyboard: one shall be taken, and one shall be left.

[...]

Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of Blogdom, possess the hosting service prepared for you from the foundation of the internet. For I was searching, and you gave me to read; My statcounter was thirsty, and you gave me a link; I was a stranger, and you commented at my site:

Mailing it in, but you forgave me: anemic statistics and you visited me: I was craving unique visits, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee posting, and read thee; thirsty, and gave thee a link? And when did we see thee a stranger, and comment therein?

...

and in other news:

The Whappsters report a new Vatican appointment.

Pope Benedict XVI ended speculation about Cardinal Arinze's replacement, announcing the new head of the Congregation for Divine Worship was an invincible Dalek warrior from the planet Sarko.

Benedict explained this move would mark the beginning of a new era of decisiveness. When asked his opinion on the future of ICEL, the extraterrestrial prelate responded, 'Exterminate! Exterminate!'

Commentators cautioned at reading too much into this statement, considering that is about the only thing Daleks say, until, when questioned about the USCCB, the new prefect responded 'Ineffable! Ineffable!'

Thanks to the new kid on the block

Unto thee do I lift up my soul

This week's Choral Evensong is very beautiful, sung in the parish church of St.Endellion in Cornwall.

The late Sir John Betjeman, a frequent worshipper at St. Endellion wrote:
"Inside, the church gives the impression that it goes on praying night and day, whether there are people in it or not"

Listen here.

Oh ye works of the Lord, Praise ye the Lord...

I got this from some website somehwere:

"Christopher Smart was a friend of Samuel Johnson (see comments) who died raving in a madhouse. 300 years later, in the best of ironies, "poor Kit Smart" is the best loved, certainly the most read, of that circle of poets because of a kind of prayer/meditation/metaphor/archetype invocation he wrote about the cat that kept him company in the asylum that was discovered and published on its own in the 1920s."

FOR I WILL CONSIDER MY CAT JEOFFRY from"Jubilate Agno"
by Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

Christopher Smart , 1722 - 1771

Real Men Wear Lace

Fr. Blake has an excellent post on Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, a prelate it is obviously unwise to mess with:

Wearing yards of red silk, lace and gloves one might not believe the Cardinal bites open his own beer bottles and wrestles crocodiles but read this article from the Washington Post of 2005.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 75, leads the Vatican's office for priests. He has since retired from this job and heads Ecclesia Dei. Although dozens of priests have been killed in Italy for straightforward talk, Castrillon has a reputation for courage and outspokenness.

Over the years, he has called on a Colombian president whose election campaign was financed by drug traffickers to step down, branded lawmakers bribed by traffickers a national disgrace and urged voters to reject a presidential candidate because he supported the right to divorce.

...Castrillon is remembered as fearless in action as well as words. He would walk at night through the streets of the mountain town with a huge cup of hot coffee and bread for the beggars and mentally ill people who slept on the sidewalks.

From his pulpit, Castrillon accused Pereira police of killing prostitutes, street children and beggars in a lethal "social cleansing" program.

Well, he is Colombian after all. I expect after facing down murderous drug lords and bloodthirsty genocidal "police" in a South American rogue state, the Birkenstock-clad wrinklies of the English Catholic episcopate aren't much of a challenge.

His Eminence celebrated the Mass of All Time at Westminster Cathedral yesterday afternoon. I understand it was well-received... by some. I hope they exorcised the place first; who knows what sort of creatures were lurking around since the inaugural number of the Cardinal's Lectures on Faith and Public Life earlier this year.

Father Blake notes about the Mass:

I was on the sanctuary assisting in choro, looking down the cathedral it was glorious to see a huge number of people standing at the back and in the side aisles, there was a good mix of ages but the under 40s seemed to dominate.

From the Mulier Fortis:

The Pontifical High Mass at Westminster Cathedral was everything I hoped for, and more. It was incredibly moving to see the Cathedral completely packed out with people. Once again, I noticed that Communion was a very reverent affair, without the chatter which often accompanies large Masses.

Heh.

Face it hippies...

Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy~ Sisters in Jesus the Lord

It still seems like Sunday to me, since we had the day off at LifeSite. So today I'm still in Sunday mode and wanted to tell y'all about my favourite charity.

Meet the Sisters in Jesus the Lord, a missionary group that is still in the "private association of the faithful" stage. I met them at the Institute on Religious Life in Chicago several years ago and of all the groups, both established and beginning, they impressed me the most. Their foundress and superior, Sister Julia Kubista, was formerly a Maryknoll sister, who told me that she had asked for ex-claustration when she just found it impossible to carry on with the order that was so completely abandoning its original charism as Catholic missionaries. She said she wanted to bring Jesus Christ and the truth of the Faith to people and all they wanted to do was dance around trees and talk about Marxism (I paraphrase).

She knew the priests of a new missionary order, the Canons Regular of Jesus the Lord, that was running the Mary Mother of God Mission Society in Vladivostok. Things in the Siberian town were not well at all. It had been a Soviet model city, built by gulag labour and populated by people who had been forcibly removed from their homes elsewhere in the USSR and plonked there with little material provision and no spiritual provision. There had been a Roman Catholic church there, but the last priest of the parish had been shot on the steps of his church in 1925. The communists used the building for administrative purposes for a while, but by the time the Soviet empire "fell", it had been more or less abandoned, along with most of the people of Vladivostok.

Sister Julia got to know the priests who ran a mission there, rebuilding the church, opening a centre for elderly people, starting social services for mothers, post-abortion counselling, boy scouts, an orphanage...there was quite a bit of work.

She told me that she had been working with the priests for some time and one day asked Fr. Myron, the superior, "What do you need the most?" The priest answered, "Sisters". Being a practical woman and one who believed fully in Providence, she said simply, "I'll see what I can do".

When I met them, Sister Julia was wearing only a tailored blue suit and veil that looked much like the old ones that used to be worn by the Maryknollers. She was accompanied by a lovely young woman who was finishing a degree in music. Since then that young lady has been clothed in the new "order's" habit and is called Sr. Stella Maris. The two of them were surrounded by a gaggle of very lovely young girls (since the Institute on Religious Life is something of a career's camp for 19 year-old girls looking for nun opportunities). The seriousness of mind, the purity of Sr. Julia's faith, the utter needfulness of their intended mission to the distressed and miserable people of the former Soviet Siberia, all struck me as the most genuine example of the old ideal of active religious life I had yet come across.

The fact that they survived years of trials under the regime in place in their diocese, and have prospered to a degree (another novice is in the habit and there seems to be another postulant) under what was doubtless both subtle and overt persecution from the diocesan authorities, tells me that this is something that God wants to happen.

Now that they have a new bishop who is at least a believer in the Catholic Faith, I can only imagine that things will begin to progress rapidly for them.

There are a lot of very large obstacles in front of them. The Russian government, that had briefly been welcoming Christian missionaries from the States has clamped down and it is now very difficult to get a visa to go there. Language barriers must be overcome with extensive study. Money and supplies are needed to send the missionaries to Russia.

The Mary Mother of God Mission Society does

an orphanage, with a special milk and fruit programme for the kids
Street kid rescues
a volunteer "grandma" mentoring programme with the orphans
Soup kitchen

The parish at Vladivostok rents a cafeteria three days a
week—Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—to provide nutritious meals for the elderly, who
are generally very poor. The meals are served in downtown Vladivostok, which means
that the elderly can take the trolley to the location for free (trolley rides are
free for those who are officially retired).

On their own, the elderly can usually afford only dry bread and tea. We serve hot
soup, meat, cooked buckwheat, vegetables, meat pies, brown and white breads, dessert,
and hot coffee with cream and sugar. Generous portions are offered so that the diners
can take home the leftovers for the following day, on which there will be no meal
offered.

drug and alcohol rehabilitation programme
Women's support centre:

Our Women’s Support Centers (WSCs) are making a tremendous difference
in the lives of Russian women who are seeking an alternative to abortion. Today,
we have seven centers that offer pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, counseling, prenatal
care, vitamins, and help with hospital costs to needy women who are pregnant.
Since 1998—the year we opened our first center—we have assisted more than 10,000
pregnant women who have come to us for help.

Induced abortion continues to this day as the primary method of family planning in
Russia. Estimates vary, but most experts agree that the average woman will have
between 5 and 12 abortions in her lifetime.

Many women openly admit to having 25 or more. In truth, the numbers are difficult to
pin down, as some abortionists report not that they are performing the procedure, but
that they are conducting surgery to “regulate the menstrual cycle.” Others, who
operate private clinics, will not report all the abortions they perform in an effort
to reduce their stated income and the income taxes they must pay.

Restoration of the Cathedral of Vladivostok
A volunteer medical programme for people who cannot afford medical insurance

Other stuff they're doing:
Summer walking pilgrimage
Bicycle pilgrimage
Catholic children's summer camp
Far Eastern Catholic Youth Conference
Evangelization and catechesis
Language and Catechetical Institute, Gaming, Austria
Rachael's Vineyard

There was a wonderful story I remember that the local Orthodox priest (remember most of the Russian Orthodox were communist sympathisers planted there by the KGB) had railed publicly about the sudden appearance of these western Catholic interlopers. He was one of the new mission's most vocal opponents. One night, however, a knock came on the fathers' door. It was the same man. He was near tears as he admitted that his family were starving and could they please help. I don't know if he became a Catholic, but his opposition probably ceased.

Here's a video.

Currently, Russia is in desperate need of more religious vocations, both native as well as foreign! A very important priority in our mission effort has been to seek out persons who might be called to the priesthood or religious life as ordained priests, permanent deacons, or as professed sisters or brothers to labor in the Russian Far East.

As the Catholic Church in Russia matures, there will inevitably be more native Russians who will answer the call to serve God in some capacity in full-time ministry. To assist in this process, though, what is first needed is European and American clergy to answer God's call to labor as missioners in what is truly the last great mission frontier of the world, Siberia.

They're real Catholic Missionaries, for whom the spreading of the Faith as their first goal, who take the liturgy seriously (Novus Ordo) (...for now) and whose primary mission is to save souls and to convert Russia to the true Faith through the witness of their charitable works.

If you want to do volunteer work as a Catholic in a real Catholic mission where your efforts are desperately needed, give it a thought. Get in touch with their office and they'll start the process of getting you over there.

If you want something really Catholic to give money to, here's the address for donations.

If, most importantly, you think you have a vocation to the religious life to do missionary work to spread the Kingdom of God in the true Catholic Faith, get in touch with Sr. Julia or Fr. Myron Effing.

I was talking the other day about incorrupt saints with my (non-religious) family. They were duly impressed with the phenomenon of which they had not previously heard.

For some reason I had been giving some thought to the Incorruptibles, having mentioned to JHW, my editor, my observation that it seems that many of the saints who remain incorrupt after death were those who had enjoyed visions of Our Lady, most prominent of whom, of course is St. Bernadette.

Today, I was just glancing over Daniel Mitsui's blog, (always a rewarding experience), and saw this:

Summa theologica 51.3
It was not fitting for Christ's body to putrefy, or in any way be reduced to dust, since the putrefaction of any body comes of that body's infirmity of nature, which can no longer hold the body together. But as was said above, Christ's death ought not to come from weakness of nature, lest it might not be believed to be voluntary: and therefore He willed to die, not from sickness, but from suffering inflicted on Him, to which He gave Himself up willingly. And therefore, lest His death might be ascribed to infirmity of nature, Christ did not wish His body to putrefy in any way or dissolve no matter how; but for the manifestation of His divine power He willed that His body should continue incorrupt. Hence Chrysostom says that with other men, especially with such as have wrought strenuously, their deeds shine forth in their lifetime; but as soon as they die, their deeds go with them. But it is quite the contrary with Christ: because previous to the cross all is sadness and weakness, but as soon as He is crucified, everything comes to light, in order that you may learn it was not an ordinary man that was crucified.

Since Christ was not subject to sin, neither was He prone to die or to return to dust. Yet of His own will He endured death for our salvation, for the reasons alleged above. But had His body putrefied or dissolved, this fact would have been detrimental to man's salvation, for it would not have seemed credible that the divine power was in Him. Hence it is on His behalf that it is written: What profit is there in my blood, whilst I go down to corruption? as if He were to say: If My body corrupt, the profit of the blood shed will be lost.

Christ's body was a subject of corruption according to the condition of its passible nature, but not as to the deserving cause of putrefaction, which is sin: but the divine power preserved Christ's body from putrefying, just as it raised it up from death.

From which maybe we can extrapolate some kind of explanation for the extraordinary phenomenon of incorrupt saints.

A saint is someone who has become the most Christ-like of people. If their extraordinary sanctity can do things like create a likeness in their lives to the point of showing the marks of Christ's Passion on their bodies, and in phenomena like bilocation, levitation etc, it would stand to reason that this likeness would be carried on after their deaths, especially if it could be a means of convincing unbelievers.

I am going to keep thinking about it.

P.O.D.

Yesterday, as we will be from now on in perpetuity I hope, we had our Mass at the village hovel and it was lovely as always. The priest who says the Mass for us is one of those sturdy and determined missionary types who has a full time and very busy position in a school on the continent and spends his weekends driving all over the northern end of Britain to make sure the sacraments are regularly available to us poor starving British Catholics who can no longer stomach the Novusordinariness with which we are surrounded. He is, in short, one of those heroes of the Faith who won't be known to the wider Church until all truth is revealed on the Last Day.

Yesterday, however, we were starting to worry about him. The weather was awful, pouring rain, and he had to drive down on a bank holiday weekend from Preston. The papers had been full of dire warnings about the wretchedness of traffic this weekend given that, yet again, the trains were going to be mostly non-functional (Hurrah for Blair's Britain). The Mass was scheduled to start at 12:15 and I showed up just barely in time, but there was no need to have hurried.

After half an hour, one of the local parishioners announced that things were going to be a little delayed because, well, there was no priest yet.

Waited some more.

Waited...

Then I just couldn't sit in those wretched little chairs any longer (those who suffer in similar ecclesiastical circumstances will recognise the description of the little raffia-seated wooden seatlets designed to ensure that no one attending Mass in them is tempted to stay and meditate on the Mysteries afterward. They are the favourite furnishing of places built in the Golden Era of NovusOrdo hovel-building c. 1965-75.)

I went outside and waited with a couple of others in the pelting rain. We stood, chatted, peered down the road in both directions, joined occasionally by the altar boys in cassock and surplice, giving the little old lady across the way something interesting to gossip about. We called Father's mobile number several times, getting his French answering service.

Still no priest.

But I was perfectly content to stand about under the brolly, pass the time of day with the choir master and altar boys, listen to the birds twittering and the newly sprouted leaves fluttering in the damp wind.

Just as we were thinking of calling it off for the day, he rounded the corner, with the somewhat thunderous look of a man who had spent at least an hour in a traffic jam.

I beat a hasty retreat into the hovel where I found the Rosary in progress. They were just beginning the fourth decade of the Glorious mysteries as I sat down, automatically mouthing the responses.

It is a good job that getting to heaven has more to do with the grace and mercy of God than with our own level of religious fervour because it occurred to me that I am simply not terribly devout. There I had been, chatting and doing a little light socializing when the church was full of praying parishioners imploring the mercy of God, praying our heroic priest got there in one piece, for an end to abortion, for the conversion of Britain, for the restoration of the Church, for all manner of worthy intentions. But all I felt, truth to tell, was equal parts guilt and relief that I had missed the Rosary, a devotional practice for which I have little enthusiasm.

One of the things I am most grateful for is the free ride we get from God. It is one of the things that makes me think the Catholic religion is the true one: God knows our weaknesses and His Church, like a good mother, gives us what we need whether we deserve it or not. It is a good thing indeed that God has mercy on the less-than-devout, the lackadaisical, the inattentive, the bored, the half-hearted. Or even the cranky, the anti-social and the curmudgeonly. And it is also good to remember that just because a person is a "trad" doesn't make him necessarily devout or a "good Catholic".

Father arrived, the Mass proceeded about an hour behind schedule, and, when my mind was not wandering off to attend to profane trivialities, I tried to remember to thank God for bringing me to the Faith, for showing me the value of Tradition, and for having mercy on a wretched, inattentive, half-hearted sinner.

Winnifrede

Diminutive: Winnie

After St. Winifred of Holywell and my beloved and much missed (Welsh) Grandma, Winifred White.

Winner of Name-the-Cat contest: Me.

Runner up: DF, for suggesting Algernon.

If a second cat is added at a later date, he will, of course, be named Beuno, to make a matched set.

Saint Winifred

Saint Winifred, whose actual name was Gwenfrewi, was a seventh-century Welsh nun.St Winefride According to legend, she was the only child of noble parents; and was taught by the monk Beuno. Winifred decided to become a nun. But, one Sunday, alone at home, Winifred was the victim of attempted rape by Prince Caradog. Escaping, Winifred fled towards Beuno's church; but Prince Caradog caught her on the hillside, and cut off her head. Beuno cursed the unrepentant Caradog, who melted away. Then he replaced Winifred's head, prayed over her - and the girl was restored to life. She became a nun, and eventually became abbess at Gwytherin, where she died. Her grave there was a place of pilgrimage until her body was taken to Shrewsbury in 1138.

Holywell did not forget its saint. Where her head fell, legend says, a spring of healing water broke forth. Here, after her resurrection, Winifred sat with Beuno on the stone still called by his name. Here he told her that anyone seeking help through her prayers at that spot would find it. And from that day to this, people have visited St Winifred's holy well on pilgrimage.

Winifred is more than a legend. Her 'Life' was not recorded until the twelfth century; but earlier evidence to the central core of truth in the legend has survived, in material unknown to the medieval authors. Winifred was related to the Powysian royal family. Beuno was actually her uncle; and St Tenoi, whom she succeeded as abbess at Gwytherin, her great-aunt. These familial relationships place Winifred firmly within the Welsh historical tradition. Most revealingly, she had a brother Owain, who killed Caradog in revenge: indicating that, whatever the exact truth of her death-and-resurrection legend, it does have a basis in historical fact.

And recently a fragment of an eighth-century reliquary from Gwytherin, the Arch Gwenfrewi (Winifred's Casket), was found, witnessing her status as a recognised saint almost from the moment of her death, c.650 - the earliest such surviving evidence for any Welsh saint.

Holywell

Holywell first enters written history in 1093, when 'Haliwel' was presented to St Werburgh's Abbey, Chester. In 1240, the Welsh prince Dafydd ap Llewelyn, once more in control of this area in Wales, gave the holy well and church to the newly-established Basingwerk Abbey; and the Cistercian monks cared for the well and its pilgrims until the Reformation.

Winifred's fame, and with it the fame of the Well, continued to spread throughout the middle ages, but little is factually recorded about the pilgrimage. By 1415, her feast had become a major solemnity throughout Wales and England. Kings could be found among her pilgrims. Henry V came in 1416. Richard III maintained a priest at the Well. But it was during the reign of the Welsh Henry VII that devotion reached its pinnacle, with the building of the present well-shrine under the patronage of Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort.

Such glory was short lived, though the Well's fame was never eclipsed. The Reformation swept away shrines and pilgrimages; but no attempt ever quite succeeded in destroying devotion to St Winifred at her Well. Through all the years of religious persecution, pilgrims, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, continued to visit Holywell. It became the centre of Catholic resistance. James II and his queen visited the Well in 1686, to pray for an heir. But James was exiled, and the persecution renewed. Through these long years, Holywell and its pilgrims were served by the Jesuits. They wrote popular Lives of the saint; and even kept inns in the town, where Mass could be said in comparative safety.

Oh my goodness...

I'll give a prize to the first person who can make it unflinching through all four minutes 25 seconds of this video.

Times will be posted:

HJMW - 40 seconds

I attended a Lent retreat in Birkenhead a couple of weekends ago. At it, the very nice ICK priest said that it was the duty of everyone to encourage vocations to the priesthood and to the religious life. Now, this is generally agreed upon to be a good idea, particularly in the case of young men. But women?

I had to ask, (and I'll admit that I did it mostly to irritate,) where, precisely, ought we to encourage women to go? In this country?

"Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness".

The Anonymous Satanist

For those not hip to the Catholic theological discussion, the term "anonymous Christian" was posed by Karl Rahner, that darling of the warm and tolerant hippie arm of the One Holy C and A, who said it meant non-Christians who could have "in [their] basic orientation and fundamental decision, accepted the salvific grace of God, through Christ, although [they] may never have heard of the Christian revelation."

You've probably heard it expressed slightly differently, something along the lines of "Well, I'm not really into any particular religion; I'm more spiritual".

It is, in effect, an heretical declaration of rejection of the Church's teaching Extra Ecclesiam... (but what isn't these days?)

(Wiki tells us: "Anonymous Christianity has been regarded as the one theological idea that most shaped the Second Vatican Council. The long ranging impact of this notion influenced the "ecumenism" of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI." to which I respond, tell us something we don't know. Anyway...)

Here's an interesting and probably considerably more truthful variation on the theme.

The "anonymous satanist", of whome we see so many paragons speaking, for example, in the House of Commons on the right of doctors to murder patients in varying stages of decay.

A priest tells it like it is: "Liberal Catholic" an oxymoron.

Are you a liberal Catholic? Are you a conservative Catholic?

Political terms really have no place in a discourse about the
Church. About her faithful. Because while once can legitimately be liberal
or conservative with regard to politics, what do we really mean when we apply
these terms to the faithful? More often than not, we mean by 'conservative
Catholic', somebody who has the faith. Who believes what he professes. Who's
faithful to the magisterium.

And when we speak of 'liberal Catholic,'...we mean somebody who has lost the
faith. Is a heretic...these liberal Catholics...are nothing other than
anonymous satanists. Someone who doesn't officially belong to the Church
of Satan, they're not enrolled, they don't go once a week but nonetheless,
by their words and their actions they reveal that they are co-workers with
the devil. Collaborators with him, if not positively possessed by the Evil Spirit.

Christianity and the Environment III

Just a flicker of a thought...

A single phrase from the Anglicans:
"Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made..."

is usually taken to mean we sinners.

But it is an absolute. He who hateth nothing that He hath made... goes for the voles and periwinkles too does it not? And these same creatures are given for safekeeping and good use into the hands of His deputies here on earth, yes?

Face it hippies

The counter revolutionaries have won.

It was demographics really. They're spiritual contraceptors. They spent their lives telling everyone who agreed with them that there was no point in being a Catholic. So it only makes sense that the only people left in the Church are the people who rejected their revolution. Us, in other words, the believers.

They've just been so busy for the last forty years sawing off the branch they've been sitting on, they haven't looked up to notice that they're the only ones sitting on it.

Terrible news for English bishops trying to block the use of the ancient Latin
liturgy liberated by Pope Benedict: a Vatican letter leaked today
confirms that all seminaries will be instructed to teach students how
to celebrate what used to be known as the Tridentine Mass.

The contents of the leaked letter augur well for the Roman Rite

The letter, published on Fr Z’s magnificent blog, is from the pontifical
commission Ecclesia Dei. It is signed by the secretary of the commission,
Mgr Camille Perl, and reveals that the forthcoming clarification of the
Pope’s Motu Proprio will require seminaries to teach both the ancient and
revised forms of the Roman Rite. Cue gnashing of teeth from the doddery
trendies who run most seminaries in the English-speaking world.