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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 01

From the Editor's Desk...

By Michael J. Matt

CATHOLIC IDIOCRACY: Cardinal Dolan

In what might just be the most dramatic nine minutes of television you’ll watch in 2019, a prince of the Church manifests the classic symptoms of SRS (Spine Reduction Syndrome) the moment Fox News hosts ask him to provide a Catholic response to abortion becoming the coolest thing in New York since Frank Sinatra.

Cardinal Dolan was brought in not as theologian to explain the hypostatic union or anything particularly challenging.

His job was merely to reiterate Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of murdering preborn babies, and maybe conjure up a little manly angst along the way.

Pretty simple assignment. But that’s when all stupid broke loose.

Summing Up the Abortion Issue According to Dolan on Fox and Friends:

• As long as the opponents of life argued for "safe, legal, and rare" abortion, we could rest easy.

• Get pretty worked up about how it’s now going to be "unsafe, mandatory and frequent", but save the special righteousness for the fact that some people are celebrating this, like with "champagne and brie" and stuff.

• The public figure who claims to be Catholic and who signed the nation’s "most aggressive" women’s health (READ: partial birth abortion) act into law is not the concern of the Church…

~ See Editor's Desk/ Page 2

Editor's Desk,

Continued...

because that’s a pastoral and spiritual thing… which "somebody" should talk to him about… but not Dolan.

Dolan isn’t Cardinal enough for that (the permutations of logic that happened there are the reason your head hurts and your face feels hot).

• Oh no, we certainly can’t excommunicate the Governor for this, because that’s what he wants and that would be "playing into the hands" of the enemy who would- wait for it--say that the Church is too, well, you know, just too intolerant, and everybody knows NewYork’s Cardinal Archbishop is the very picture of laugh and let laugh!The haters of life want the Church to be that stereotypical bigot, so we’re gonna sit this one out, thank you very much. See how clever and classy?

He’s even got working knowledge of sophisticated VIP food like brie!

• Keep the conversation away from the moral and obvious reasons why abortion is cold-blooded murder and those children are souls loved into existence by God and entrusted to mothers who are damning their own souls in the process.

• Instead, try really hard to steer the topic onto that of education and strong public schools, it’s safer and makes us feel better. Plus, watch us take a shot at SOCIAL MEDIA… so righteous.

Even secular media folks, in other words, were looking at the top gun of the Catholic Church in America, and positively begging him to reaffirm their own feelings of horror at the new law. All they got was another stupid joke followed by a blast of mighty wind.

Should Governor Cuomo Be Excommunicated?

Dystopian novels have been chilling readers to the bone for decades. Orwell’s, "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Huxley’s "Brave New World", Walker Percy’s "Love In the Ruins".

These classics provide terrifying glimpses of a harsh and colorless world where human beings have been cowed into a state of perpetual shell-shock as their humanity is stripped away by governments exercising ultimate control over life and death.

The plots and characters vary but the stories have a similar feel: haunting, whitewashed halls, emotionless workers in uniform carrying out murder with hypnotic calm, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness as the protagonist finally succumbs to death, or worse—a mindcontrolling brainwash.

The reality of 2019 is becoming remarkably similar to the fiction of

Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In 2019, dystopia is GovernorAndrew Cuomo signing an act into law for New York State which allows for the execution of babies on their birthday; upon natural entry into a world which was supposed to treasure, nurture and protect them; which instead waits with open shears to stop their tender, beating hearts.

In 2019, dystopia is Virginia Democrat Kathy Tran proposing state legislation that would not only allow abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy, but also permit a woman to decide whether she wants to "abort" her baby as she’s actually dilating and about to give birth.

In 2019, dystopia is Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) not only backing this sordid legislation, but calmly describing the scenario whereby a woman’s "right to choose" now includes "keeping her baby comfortable" after delivery until she can make up her mind whether or not to kill "it". (President Trump decried this in his State of the UnionAddress as an "execution" of a baby, which is exactly what it is.) In 2019, dystopia is a Cardinal of the Catholic Church preferring to sleep with the Left rather than rend his cassock in outraged protest over Godless and inhuman legislation that takes the lives of unbaptized babies. It is his job to call down the wrath of God on those who will not suffer the little ones to even continue to breathe, much less come unto Jesus.

In 2019, dystopia is the blood of innocents on consecrated hands.

In 2019 and where the unborn are concerned, we have achieved a dystopia beyond Orwell’s wildest dreams.

And while Oceania’s most rich and famous bishops are conspicuous by their uselessness, others, in lesser-known outposts around the world, are trying to amplify the silent scream of the unborn:

Statement from the Diocese of Buffalo regarding the Reproductive Health Act: Earlier this week, Bishop Malone added this statement to the NYS Catholic Conference of Bishops, regarding the passage of the Reproductive Health Act: "NYS is already the state with the highest rate of killing pre-born children through abortion. This is a tragic day for NYS that makes a very bad situation even worse. It is a barbaric action of our legislature, and clearly nothing to celebrate."

Welcome words indeed, but still not enough. In New York, in Virginia, in Washington, in San Francisco—we are referring to Catholics who are laboring to help millions procure successful abortions, which according to the Code of Canon Law #1398 incurs the penalty of automatic excommunication. The Catholic bishops of America must make this clear and public.

And if some loophole can be cited whereby latae sententiae excommunication is not incurred in the case of Catholic politicians legalizing de facto infanticide, then the bishops must excommunicate them directly in accord with canon law. Why?

For two reasons: 1) To shock these maniacal baby killers into repentance and conversion.

2) To awaken the entire country to the severity of the horrific sin of abortion and to deter more states from following New York’s satanic lead.

Paragraph #2272 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers reason why abortion is one of the few sins that carry the penalty of automatic excommunication: "The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society" If this country’s "Catholic" bishops do not as a body put this country’s "Catholic" politicians on notice that the penalty for the horrific crime of abortion is expulsion from the Catholic Church, then before God and Man the blood of the innocent will stain their hands forever.

"Expel the wicked man from our midst," Excellencies and Eminences. For God’s sake, do your job and at least try to stop the bleeding of the unborn!

Dolan: I don’t know the man!

But apparently, Cardinal Dolan’s bid to curry favor with Andrew Cuomo didn’t pan out the way he’d hoped, and a week later he pouted over being mistaken as part of the "Religious right" by the cool crowd in NYC. (Challenge Question: Try to find an actual defense of life in this third-gradelevel hissy fit.) From Cardinal Dolan’s blog:

Hiding Behind Labels

Today, with a home field advantage in the New York Times, Governor Cuomo linked me with the "religious right."

This is something new from the governor. He did not consider me part of the "religious right" when seeking my help with the minimum wage increase, prison reform, protection of migrant workers, a welcome of immigrants and refugees, and advocacy for college programs for the state’s inmate population, which we were happy to partner with him on, because they were our causes too. I guess I was part of the "religious left" in those cases.

The civil rights of the helpless, innocent, baby in the womb, as liberal Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey once remarked is not about "right versus left, but right versus wrong."

The governor (Cuomo) also continues his attempt to reduce the advocacy for the human rights of the pre-born infant to a "Catholic issue," an insult to our allies of so many religions, or none at all. Governor Casey again: "I didn’t get my pro-life belief from my religion class in a Catholic school, but from my biology and U.S. Constitution classes."

Yes, religion is personal; it’s hardly private, as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and struggle for civil rights so eloquently showed. Governor Cuomo’s professed faith teaches discrimination against immigrants is immoral, too. Does that mean he cannot let that moral principle guide his public policy? Clearly not.

Debate abortion on what it is. Don’t hide behind labels like "right wing" and "Catholic."

Now, that’s guts "cardinalin", Eminence! And, not to worry: We think they’ll still invite you to do your funny thing on St.

Patrick’s Day now that you’ve made it clear you’re not with those retarded "religious right" people but you’re all down with Martin Luther King and everybody. Well, played!

In case you’re curious, Eminence, we’ve printed an example of how a Catholic bishop—as opposed to bishops in your Church of Idiocracy—should respond in the face of massive political evil.

Keep in mind that His Excellency wasn’t defying a little stain likeAndy Cuomo, either. As the Gestapo was rounding up priests and nuns and making all kinds of Catholics "disappear", the Bishop of Munster stood up in his pulpit like a roaring lion and thundered Christ at the entire Nazi regime… Turn to page 15 to find out! ■

" Could it be that even strong talk against the pro-aborts creates more waves than these guys can handle, as they paddle around the kiddie pool in their neo-Catholic water wings? "

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 01

The Gift of Filial Adoption

The Christian Faith: the only valid and the only God-willed religion

by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Editor’s Note: On February 4, 2019, Pope Francis signed a joint statement with Ahmad el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Egypt’s al-Azhar Mosque, in which it was agreed that "pluralism and diversity of religions" are "willed by God": "The pluralism and the diversity of religions, colour, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings. This divine wisdom is the source from which the right to freedom of belief and the freedom to be different derives." The "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together." While we are in no position to speak to Bishop Schneider's motivation in writing and sending us this excellent article, we are nevertheless most grateful to post what, in the wake of recent events, amounts to an urgent clarification of the constant teaching of the Church. In these difficult days of confusion, we remain ever grateful to His Excellency for his pastoral guidance.

MJM

THE TRUTH OF the filial adoption in Christ, which is intrinsically supernatural, constitutes the synthesis of the entire Divine Revelation. Being adopted by God as sons is always a gratuitous gift of grace, the most sublime gift of God to mankind.

One obtains it, however, only through a personal faith in Christ and through the reception of baptism, as the Lord himself taught: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.That which is born of the flesh isflesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again." (John 3: 5-7).

In the past decades one often heard - even from the mouth of some representatives of the Church’s hierarchy - statements about the theory of "anonymous Christians."

This theory says the following: The mission of the Church in the world would consist ultimately in raising the awareness that all men must have of their salvation in Christ and consequently of their filial adoption in Christ. Since, according to the same theory, every human being possesses already the sonship of God in the depth

~ See Filial Adoption/ Page 5

Filial Adoption:

The Christian Faith: the only valid and the only God-willed religion

B. Schneider/ Continued from Page 1

of his personality. Yet, such a theory contradicts directly Divine Revelation, as Christ taught it and HisApostles and the Church over two thousand years always transmitted it unchangingly and without a shadow of a doubt.

In his essay " The Church, consisting of Jews and Gentiles" (Die Kirche aus Juden und Heiden) Erik Peterson, the wellknown convert and exegete, long since (in 1933) warned against the danger of such a theory, when he affirmed that one cannot reduce being a Christian ("Christsein") to the natural order, in which the fruits of the redemption achieved by Jesus Christ would be generally imputed to every human being as a kind of heritage, solely because he would share human nature with the incarnated Word. However, filial adoption in Christ is not an automatic result, guaranteed through belonging to the human race.

Saint Athanasius (cf. Oratio contra Arianos II, 59) left us a simple and at the same time an apt explanation of the difference between the natural state of men as God’s creatures and the glory of being a son of God in Christ. SaintAthanasius derives his explanation from the words of the holy Gospel according to John, that say: "He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1: 12-13). John uses the expression "they are born" to say that men become sons of God not by nature, but by adoption. This shows the love of God, that He Who is their creator becomes then through grace also their Father. This happens when, as theApostle says, men receive in their hearts the Spirit of the Incarnated Son, Who cries in them: "Abba, Father!" Saint Athanasius continues his explanation saying, that as created beings, men can become sons of God in no other manner than through faith and baptism, when they receive the Spirit of the natural and true Son of God. Precisely for that reason the Word became flesh, to make men capable of adoption as sons of God and of participation in the Divine nature.

Consequently, by nature God is not in the proper sense the Father of all human beings. Only if someone consciously accepts Christ and is baptized, will he be able to cry in truth: "Abba, Father" (Rom.

8: 15; Gal. 4: 6).

Since the beginnings of the Church there was the assertion, as testified byTertullian: "One is not born as a Christian, but one becomes a Christian" ( Apol., 18, 5). And Saint Cyprian of Carthage formulated aptly this truth, saying: «He cannot have Godfor his Father, who has not the Church for his mother" ( De unit., 6).

The most urgent task of the Church in our time is to care about the change of the spiritual climate and about the spiritual migration, namely that the climate of non-belief in Jesus Christ, the climate of the rejection of the kingship of Christ, be changed into the climate of explicit faith in Jesus Christ, of the acceptance of His kingship, and that men may migrate from the misery of the spiritual slavery of unbelief into the happiness of being sons of God and from a life of sin into the state of sanctifying grace. These are the migrants about whom we must care urgently.

Christianity is the only God-willed religion. Therefore, it can never be placed complementarily side by side with other religions. Those would violate the truth of Divine Revelation, as it is unmistakably affirmed in the First Commandment of the Decalogue, who would assert that the diversity of religions is the will of God. According to the will of Christ, faith in Him and in His Divine teaching must replace other religions, however not by force, but by loving persuasion, as expressed in the hymn of Lauds of the Feast of Christ the King: " Non Ille regna cladibus, non vi metuque subdidit: alto levatus stipite, amore traxit omnia" ("Not with sword, force and fear He subjects peoples, but lifted up on the Cross He lovingly draws all things to Himself").

There is only one way to God, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: "I am the Way" (John 14: 6). There is only one truth, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: "I am the Truth" (John 14: 6). There is only one true supernatural life of the soul, and this is Jesus Christ, for He Himself said: "I am the Life" (John 14: 6). The Incarnated Son of God taught that outside faith in Him there cannot be a true and God-pleasing religion: "I am the door.

By me, if any man enters in, he shall be saved" (John 10: 9). God commanded to all men, without exception, to hear His Son: "This is my most beloved Son; hear Him!" (Mk. 9: 7). God did not say: "You can hear My Son or you can hear other founders of a religion, for it is My will that there are different religions." God has forbidden us to recognize the legitimacy of the religion of other gods: "Thou shalt not have strange gods before me" (Ex. 20: 3) and "What fellowship has light with darkness? And what concord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has the faithful with the unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?" (2 Cor.

6: 14-16).

If other religions likewise corresponded to the will of God, there would not have been the Divine condemnation of the religion of the Golden Calf at the time of Moses (cf.

Ex. 32: 4-20); then the Christians of today could unpunished cultivate the religion of a new Golden Calf, since all religions are, according to that theory, God-pleasing ways as well.

God gave the Apostles and through them the Church for all times the solemn order to instruct all nations and the followers of all religions in the only one true Faith, teaching them to observe all His Divine commandments and baptize them (cf. Mt. 28: 19-20). Since the preaching of the Apostles and of the first Pope, the Apostle Saint Peter, the Church proclaimed always that there is salvation in no other name, i.e., in no other faith under heaven by which men must be saved, but in the Name and in the Faith inJesus Christ (cf. Acts 4: 12).

With the words of SaintAugustine the Church taught in all times: "The Christian religion is the only religion which possesses the universal way for the salvation of the soul; for except by this way, none can be saved. This is a kind of royal way, which alone leads to a kingdom which does not totter like all temporal dignities, but stands firm on eternal foundations." ( De civitate Dei, 10, 32, 1). The following words of the great Pope Leo XIII testify the same unchanging teaching of the Magisterium in all times, when he affirmed: "The view that all religions are alike, is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion, and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other religions." (Encyclical Humanum genus, n. 16) In recent times the Magisterium presented substantially the same unchanging teaching in the Document "Dominus Jesus" (August 6, 2000), from which we quote the following relevant assertions: "Theological faith (the acceptance of the truth revealed by the One andTriune God) is often identified with belief in other religions, which is religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself. This is one of the reasons why the differences between Christianity and the other religions tend to be reduced at times to the point of disappearance."

(n. 7) "Those solutions that propose a salvific action of God beyond the unique mediation of Christ would be contrary to Christian and Catholic faith." (n.

14) "Not infrequently it is proposed that theology should avoid the use of terms like "unicity", "universality", and "absoluteness", which give the impression of excessive emphasis on the significance and value of the salvific event of Jesus Christ in relation to other religions. In reality, however, such language is simply being faithful to revelation" (n. 15) "It is clear that it would be contrary to the faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation alongside those constituted by the other religions, seen as complementary to the Church or substantially equivalent to her, even if these are said to be converging with the Church toward the eschatological kingdom of God." (n. 21) "The faithrules it out, in a radical way, that mentality of indifferentism "characterized by a religious relativism which leads to the belief that ‘one religion is as good as another’ (John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris missio, 36)." (n. 22) The Apostles and the countless Christian martyrs of all times, especially those of the first three centuries, would have been spared martyrdom, if they had said: "The pagan religion and its worship is a way, which as well corresponds to the will of God." There would have been for instance no Christian France, no "Eldest Daughter of the Church," if Saint Remigius had said to Clovis, the King of the Francs: "Do not despise your pagan religion you have worshiped up to now, and worship now Christ, Whom you have persecuted up to now." The saintly bishop actually spoke differently, although in a rather rough way: "Worship what you burned, and burn what you have worshiped!"

True universal brotherhood can be only in Christ, and namely between baptized persons. The full glory of God’s sons will be attained only in the beatific vision of God in heaven, as Holy Scripture teaches: "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3: 1-2).

No authority on earth – not even the supreme authority of the Church – has the right to dispense people from other religions from the explicit Faith in Jesus Christ as the Incarnated Son of God and the only Savior of mankind with the assurance that the different religions as such are willed by God Himself. Indelible – because written with the finger of God and crystal-clear in their meaning – remain, however, the words of the Son of God: "Whoever believes in the Son of God is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3: 18).This truth was valid up to now in all Christian generations and will remain valid until the end of time, irrespective of the fact that some people in the Church of our sofickle, cowardly, sensationalist, and conformist time reinterpret this truth in a sense contrary to its evident wording, selling thereby this reinterpretation as continuity in the development of doctrine.

Outside the Christian Faith no other religion can be a true and God-willed way, since this is the explicit will of God, that all people believe in His Son: "This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life" (John 6: 40). Outside the Christian Faith no other religion is able to transmit true supernatural life: "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17: 3).

February 8, 2019 + Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of theArchdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana ■

Pope Francis and Grand Imam of al-Azhar Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb sign a document on God-willed 'diversity of religions', during an inter-religious meeting.

(REUTERS/Tony Gentile)

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The

Church of Accompaniment’s

War on the Family

By Paul Krause

Amid the crises of the church and secular culture’s ongoing war against life and the family, there can no longer be any denying that part of Pope Francis’s support for "pastoral counseling" and other such listening initiatives in the name of "compassion" are means to circumvent Catholic truth. Cardinal Marx is guilty culprit number one in Europe, and Fr. James Martin is probably the public enemy of the truth in America, with Cardinal Cupich not far behind. From homosexuality, adultery, and "environmentalism," this pastoral church of compassion is setting itself up as the personal church of Francis standing against the authentic magisterium.

The ingenuity of the pastoral approach is that it corrupts the language of pastoral shepherding to give it a cloak of Christianity while condemning authentic Christianity for not being compassionate and loving enough.

~ See War on Family/ Page 8

Church of Accompaniment’s War on Family

P. Krause/ Continued from Page 1

Rather than shepherd the flock to the truth, this initiative is a means to affirm lost sheep in their sin. Moreover, it is the most effective way of softening the wishy-washy moderates into privately, then publicly, accepting blasphemy and heresy. The end-game of the "listening" and "pastoral counseling" church is to use this rising tide of confused opinion to ignore Catholic revelation at best or attempt to call good evil and evil good at worst.

Cardinal Marx has spoken about this pastoral approach regarding homosexuals and adulterous Catholics.

Listen, he says. Healing, he utters.

"Spiritual encouragement," he corrects himself later. Spiritual encouragement, not blessing, simply means to encourage sinners in their sin rather than to shepherd sinners into new life.

Like Satan, these clerics engage in doublespeak. They walk the fine line of not rejecting Catholic truth outright.

Though some go as far as even doing this, most speak the language of compassion, tolerance, and multiple interpretations to embrace the chaos of the grey-zone where they can act out their fantasies.

Traditionally, Satan is not only the great deceiver but the great corrupter. Unable to majestically create like God, Satan only corrupts and confuses. In an age when Objective Truth is, in fact, desired, clerics and their journalistic allies in the mainstream media continue to muddy the waters of life with doublespeak which leaves souls confused and malnourished—all in the name of listening and tolerance.

Faithful Catholics, including many well-intentioned but shortsighted "conservatives," are now awakening to the crisis the Holy Church is in. These clerics and their media-savvy allies may not deliberately reject Catholic truth in their sayings or writings, but functionally they do. For the role of the clerics is to shepherd the lambs to the nourishing waters of Truth revealed by God to man and contained in Sacred Scripture and affirmed by Tradition and propagated down the centuries by the faithful to the next generation. The "pastoral" church circumvents this.

Francis’ pastoral church, with its conniving and scheming heretics within the ranks of the clergy, is creating a false counter-church to the True Body of Christ of which the authentic magisterium is the foundational structure. The hope of these willful heretics couldn’t be clearer. Through the pastoral church they hope to establish and control the mechanisms to propagate the desires of their fallen and scornful hearts. From communism to homosexuality and adultery to transgenderism, the pastoral church setting itself up as the counter to the authentic Body has one glaring thing in common: hatred of the family as God intended.

Cardinal Marx is living up to his name. Karl Marx also despised the family. In the German Ideology, Marx identified the sexual division of labor and the nuclear family—headed by the man—as the root of all inequality. The sexual division of labor was the genus of inequality with male headship the structure that reinforces it.

Ignoring the realities of sin and biology, the pastoral church has fallen prey to Marxists who agree that the sexual binary of man and woman and the patriarchal headship of the family is the root of all evil. From this starting point the solution to the world’s problems is the destruction of the "first structure of inequality": the family. The push to de-masculinize the Trinity by stripping away God the Father and God the Son is the exhaustive end to this "egalitarian" thinking.

In worshipping upon the altar of egalitarianism, the crypto-Marxists of the pastoral church advance pastoral initiatives that help hasten the attack on the family rather than shepherd families to more wholesome and stable lives.

The impetus of all the pastoral initiatives that functionally exhaust into blasphemy and heresy all do damage to families. Adultery, which is what divorce and "remarriage" is, is an attack on the family. Homosexuality and Transgenderism also affront the natural order of sexual relationships and cannot, by natural law, bring new life into the world. Communism and socialism too have always aimed at replacing real families with the false family of collective brotherhood and sisterhood where one’s parents are everyone and no one.

The pastoral church, which is neither pastoral nor a church, is the final construction in the all-out assault against the family. It is the end-game of all who deny the most fundamental truths of Catholic revelation: the centrality of the family. It is the end-game to the first corruption Satan engaged in during his seduction of Eve.

One cannot deny that, along with man’s ruptured relationship to God, the result of the Fall was the destruction of the first family. This is why Christ restores the family by becoming Incarnate through the Holy Family. The story of redemption is also the redemption of family.

Catholic truth has always defended the family. Family is what God always intended. Jesus reaffirms the family and makes clear the sacramental nature of marriage when he says, "What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder."

What God joined together was one man and one woman. God’s blessing through the sacrament of marriage is one of the distinctive elements of Catholicism in contrast to Protestantism. And in the war against the family we see, clearly now, the spiritual ruination that the war on the family has wrought. Broken homes, broken societies, and broken individuals. The pastoral initiative does nothing but try to tear asunder what God has joined together. Catholics must always, now more than ever, defend the family against the forces of Babylon that conspire against it. And that includes perfidious forces within the ranks of the Church who are doing Satan’s bidding to destroy the family. We are living in the final throes of the great battle over the sanctity and sacramentality of the family. The Church should be doing more to buttress against these Satanic efforts, not "counsel" or dialogue with the devil.

Only then will she be rejuvenated and direct the world back to God rather than play hospital and positive psychology for a secular society and its disordered passions. ■

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 03

The Remnant Speaks

Letters to the Editor: The Remnant Speaks P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025 ~ Editor@RemnantNewspaper.com

A Letter from Glasgow

Editor, The Remnant: I enjoy reading and listening to the Remnant. I am 70 years old from East Kilbride near Glasgow and seven years ago ‘the lights came on’and I found a Church in Glasgow offering the Traditional Latin Mass. This was because of the many abuses that were going on in my home parish. I can now serve it!

Won’t get many marks out of 10 though!

I am old enough to remember the Latin Mass and realize now we were all sold a pup fifty odd years ago. The past six years have been even worse than I expected under this pontificate Keep up the good work. Yours sincerely, Tom Finnigan

Lessons of Captain Cook

Editor, The Remnant: When Captain Cook visited Tahiti there was a colossal crash of cultures, Enlightenment Protestantism met primordial paganism.

Cook was not particularly pious, but he was compelled by British law to conduct "divine service" for his men. He invited some Tahitians to attend and was impressed by how closely they imitated the English in kneeling and standing, and they intuitively remained respectful and silent.

In return, the Tahitians invited Cook and his men to one of their religious services.

A grown man and a fifteen-year-old girl copulated publicly while the crowd cheered. The English were informed that these were members of the priestly class, and that any children who happened to be born from these ceremonies were killed.

The United States is now worshiping these same devils, who promise unlimited free sex, but still demand the same hideous sacrifice in return.

In Christo Rege, Andrew Senior

Bible Talk

Editor, The Remnant: My research has now been published with the esteemed journal for New Testament scholarship Neotestamentica and is as from this month available online as open access.

I provide a summary of the results and implications, as well as a journal site link to the download at: https://zuiddam.

wordpress.com/2019/02/05/nova-vulgatabetrays- traditional-vulgate/ This research uses an objective quantative method, Greek word count, to prove that these things are so. Luther’s New Testament is practically identical with the Vulgate, while the Vatican’s clearly is not. All major incidents of missing (parts of) verses in modern Catholic Bibles are accounted for.

Prof B.A. Zuiddam DTh PhD "Lantern Waste" Blackstone Heights, Tasmania

Catholic Is as Catholic Does

Editor, The Remnant: I read with particular interest the article by Clare Wilson, "Lost Crisis: The Modern Crisis of Catholic Formation" in the January 31 issue of The Remnant. In the article she said, "Twenty percent of students are Catholic, but only fifteen percent of these Catholics practice."

That reminded me of a night class I took at the local secular university: "Roman Catholic Theology Today." As part of the class the students, of which there were 26, as pairs were instructed to come up with a class that we were to conduct dealing with a controversial topic. The person I paired with and I decided to have a class on abortion, complete with a questionnaire to find out how much the media and its lies had misinformed them about the issue of abortion.

In the course of the class we instructed the class of mostly married Catholics, many of them couples, of the true nature of the abortifacient nature of the pill. Out of 24 Catholics, only four were against contraception. Unfortunately, even after being told about the abortifacient nature of the pill, especially the estrogen only mini-pill, they expressed that they would not do without it. (The class was evenly split men and women, with 26 being the median age.) The only redeeming aspect was that 85 percent of the class were against surgical abortion.

In retrospect, how can any Catholic really believe the use of hormonal birth control, especially the abortifacients like the pill, is of grave concern to the unborn child, when you hardly ever hear a Sunday sermon about it? I remember a very conservative Catholic priest was lamenting how even he didn’t bring up the subject very often. Even something as horrible as abortion is generally only brought up during the January anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and maybe Pro-life Sunday, if even then. As in the Book of Hosea: "My people perish for lack of knowledge."

Michael Steil Omaha NE

Nothing Personal, Just Business

Editor, The Remnant: I’m quite sure that Michael Corleone would be more upset about excommunication than Andrew Cuomo.

Alex Sepkus

American Traditional Catholics Remember the Vendee!

Editor, The Remnant:

Here at St.

Vincent Ferrer’s school in the Diocese of Palm Beach County, the staff and families are celebrating national Catholic Schools Week. While the woes of Novus Ordo school land do not need to be repeated, there are certain lay and religious here trying to offer some Catholic ground for the children to stand on, if you will. (Also, we are members of the Latin Mass Society of the Palm Beaches, attending the TLM.)A yearly tradition is the Battle of the Colors, with each grade being given a certain color that represents a virtue or Catholic beliefmy daughter’s 2nd grade is "red" for the Sacred Heart. You can see in the picture the Sacred Heart of Vendée she created and will be wearing this Thursday. Please pray for this future Soldier of Christ! Pax, Craig J. Paulitz South Florida

Becoming Nazis!

Editor, The Remnant: On Sept. 26th, 1996, WI’s then-Senator, Russ Feingold, was unable to say on the U.S. Senate floor whether his support for "partial-birth" abortion would preclude the killing a newly born baby. This week’s events show that what may have once only been discussed in committees or covens is now "mainstream" thinking at the top of our political and media chains.

As a person born with a physical disability, it is chilling but not surprising, to hear VA Governor, Ralph Northam’s, comments that "…if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen, the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

Note, this newly born citizen apparently

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 03

Inside this issue

February 15, 2018

Reprints of every article are available for $3.00 for 2 copies. Please check the author’s name and send payment to:

The Remnant Reprint Service

P.O. Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025

◆ ◆M. Matt Editor's Desk ( P. 1)

◆ ◆ Bish. Schneider Filial Adoption (P. 1)

◆ ◆ P. Krause Church ofAccompaniment (P. 1)

◆ ◆Letters to Editor (P. 3)

◆ ◆ V. Chiarello Book Review (P. 6)

◆ ◆A. Senior Poetry Corner (P. 7)

◆ ◆ COSA Open Letter to Pope ( P. 9)

◆ ◆ J. Russell New Face of Left (P. 10)

◆ ◆C. Ferrara Anatomy of Coverup (P. 11)

◆ ◆T. Cullen Future Hijacked (P. 12)

◆ ◆C. Wilson Single Vocation (P. 14)

◆ ◆ Catholic Heroes Cardinal Von Galen (P. 15)

◆ ◆Fr. Celatus The Last Word (P. 16)

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Letters to the Editor

Continued...

has no constitutional right to a lawyer, judge or jury before being killed for no crime. (Perhaps one might search the Constitution’s "emanating" "Penumbra" which SCOTUS Justice William O. Douglas claimed to see in 1965. Or maybe in the Declaration of Independence’s self-evident truths such as the unalienable Right to life. To say nothing of "Never again! Nor "Thou shalt not Kill/Murder.") Other Governors in NY and RI have supported or voted for similar legislation.

Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, wanted to eliminate "human weeds" and minorities. In 2009, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told New York Times Magazine reporter Emily Bazelon: "Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe (v. Wade) was decided, there was a concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want too many of." One wonders which "populations" Ginsburg wishes to see eliminated. African-American organizations such as MAAFA 21 understand the results of this ongoing genocide. Recent reports say Ginsburg herself is now clinging to her own life.

The National Socialists of the 1930’s coined the term "Life unworthy of life." I’m sure I fit this category by their "standards"; although my wife and children would disagree. Today’s Socialists and their ilk are themselves too blind to even value human life. National Socialist, and author of Germany’s eugenics laws, Ernst Rudin’s call for "racial purity" was published in Margaret Sanger’s "Birth Control Review." Our government now gives $500 million per year to Planned Parenthood which earns $1.5 billion per year. On January 8th, PP President Leanna Wen stated "Our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion…" Medical "bio-ethicist" Ezekiel Emanuel, who advised "health" panels for both the Clinton and Obama Administrations, wrote in a 2009 Lancet Medical journal article about rationing health care via death panels. Emanuel later wrote that everyone should die at 75. (No word from the 85-year-old Ginsburg.) Duke University’s Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and National Institute of Health’s Franklin Miller, co-authored a 2013 article in the British Journal of Medical Ethics entitled "What Makes Killing Wrong?", which stated that it is not "wrong" to kill a person if that person is not "benefitting" society. The example being a comatose person who could (should?) be killed in order to harvest the person’s organs so as to "benefit" society, rather than be a "drain." (No word on whether Sinnott-Armstrong has been hovering near Ginsburg’s bedside.) A current court case involving abortion providers admitting on video tape that they sell human body parts resulting from their grisly business is being presided over by U.S. District Judge William Orrick, who refuses to recuse himself despite having sat on the board of the "Good Samaritan Family Resource Center" which entered into a "key partnership with Planned Parenthood" during his tenure. Orrick also imposed a "gag order" preventing the release of further "60 Minutes-20/20 style" investigative videos. Killing has become "big business" with major political clout. It is power, plain and simple. Abortion provides big money.

Big money wins elections. However, bloodlust is insatiable; one never gets enough. Perhaps people will pay attention if "Planned Elderhood" should become reality. Hope may "spring eternal"; but godless governments certainly rot. Viva Cristo Rey! Yours in Christ, Robert G. Dwyer West Bend, WI 53090

Last Pilgrim and the 'U.S. Rangers' Editor’s Note: I’d like to personally recommend the author of the following letter for the partial sponsorship he seeks.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Brad Montgomery on several occasions, including at last year’s Catholic Identity Conference where Brad and his brother, Ben, volunteered to work the CIC security detail all weekend long. Brad’s a fairly recent convert to Tradition and, having had several conversations with him myself, I can assure Remnant readers that this young man is fired up for all things Traditional Catholic. This year, Brad has volunteered to partner with my son Walter Matt in organizing what the French affectionately call "The U.S. Rangers"—a team of five young American men who will help with the monumental task of assembling (and then disassembling, relocating and assembling again) the large communal tents needed to house 10,000 pilgrims during the Chartres Pilgrimage in June.

In the photo below, readers can see several members of the U.S. Rangers posing beneath their favorite Sacred Heart flag, which they raise over their gatherings on the campus at Franciscan University. Known as the "trads", these young men aren’t afraid to let everybody know that Tradition is catching on at FUS. Cleary, friends, all is not lost when young Catholic men attend the Latin Mass together, enlist in the League of the Sacred Heart and then volunteer to spend three days in France helping to house traditional Catholic pilgrims. Please consider a tax-free donation of any size the Remnant Tours Youth Fund so that we can get these five young men over to France to help 10,000 pilgrims stay warm and safe during this year’s pilgrimage, while committing themselves entirely to the Catholic counterrevolution.

The Remnant is trying to raise $1000 for each of the 5 U.S. Rangers to help offset the cost of sending them on this mission.

By the way, the Remnant Pilgrimage to Austria and Hungary is now completely sold out. Some of the young people who had applied for sponsorship did not make it but will be placed on the top of the list for next year. Anyone still wishing to attend the 3-day walking Pilgrimage only can still register with the U.S. Chapter at the address below. The cost is $75 and, obviously, does not include airfare. I hope to see you on the Road to Chartres.

MJM Dear Remnant Readers, My name is Brad Montgomery, I am from the Dayton, OH area, where I attended an FSSP parish upon discovering the Traditional Latin Mass. I currently reside in Steubenville, OH where I attend Franciscan University as a graduate student and teach Latin as a part-time teacher at a nearby Catholic school. In an effort to continue following the way of salvation established by Christ, I am hoping to participate in the Chartres pilgrimage to France this coming Pentecost in order to be re-oriented toward Christ the King on my pilgrim way.

The first Latin Mass that I attended was on the feast of Christ the King a few years ago and since that time I have continued to find refuge from the world in the treasures of the Church’s tradition, especially in devotion to the Sacred Heart. I have also found support in a growing body of traditionally-minded Catholics here in the Steubenville area who have done a lot of good work in educating college students in the Latin Mass.

Another reason I would like to attend the pilgrimage is to be strengthened in my faith and better able to contribute to supporting people who have a curiosity of the Church’s tradition. In an age in which so many seem to hate Christ and his Church, including both those inside and outside of the Church, a life lived in the abundance of Christ’s grace seems more necessary than ever so that we might have a chance of serving Christ as good soldiers till the end.

I am requesting some sponsorship so that I might be able to attend this year’s pilgrimage. I would like to stress that I am only in need of partial assistance (about $1200) in order to attend the pilgrimage as I have already set aside some funds for the pilgrimage. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated, and you can be assured of my prayers for you and your intentions throughout the duration of pilgrimage and tour so that Our Lord may bless you with the graces offered by him.

May God bless you and your families, Brad Montgomery

Waiting for Sponsors:

Patrick Seeley - SPONSORED Devan Brandalick - SPONSORED David Kirk - SPONSORED Joseph Meyers- SPONSORED Bridgette Mitchel- SPONSORED Sean Homcy - $2000 thus far Brad Montgomery and the 5 'U.S. Rangers'... $1000 thus far Please send tax-deductible donations to:

Remnant Tours Youth Fund

PO Box 1117 Forest Lake, MN 55025

Tel: (650) 433-5425

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Jesus: A Biography from a Believer

by Paul Johnson

Reviewed for The Remnant by Vincent Chiarello

As is often the case, when a reader comes across a book that leaves a lasting impression, the author’s subsequent, or earlier, publications are often looked for. I first came across the writing of Paul Johnson after returning from an assignment in Madrid; his book, Modern Times, The World from the Twenties to the Eighties," was recommended because of Johnson’s unorthodox treatment, to put it mildly, of the Spanish Civil War.

And so, it was. Johnson’s claim was Francisco Franco had been primarily responsible for the Nationalist victory, but he was" ...an unlovable man and is unlikely ever to win the esteem of historians." That prediction holds true to this day. What Johnson could not have predicted, however, is that Spanish politicians of the Left still hold Franco in such contempt that, 44 years after his death, the current Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, has sought the disinterment of Franco’s body from his final resting place in the "Valley of the Fallen."

Prior to reviewing the Johnson book, I would like to call attention to my recent interview with David Allen White, who expressed the belief that children who are read bed-time stories by their parents are often found to be more literary minded than those who are not. Would that theory also apply in religious matters; specifically, to parents who "taught me about Jesus?" In his dedication, author Paul Johnson writes: "To my mother, Anne Johnson, who first taught me about Jesus."

Then this, appearing in an interview: "Johnson, whose middle name is Bede, is famously Roman Catholic. He kisses the feet of Christ crucified every morning and has met most recent popes.

He presented Pope John Paul II ("one of the most mesmeric characters I have ever met") with a copy of his 600-page

History of Christianity in Polish. "I am not by nature a very religious person.

I could never have been a priest. But religion is something I hang on to very tenaciously, particularly as I get older. I couldn’t do without it. The world is such a horrible and terrifying place in many ways that to have a religious faith is your most precious possession." How much of that "faith" was the direct result of his mother’s influence?

Author of more than a dozen books with both religious and secular themes, and a historian of international stature, Johnson describes his biography of Jesus as "a sketch," but introduces unknown - at least to me - aspects of Christ’s life, times, and legacy. Included in this "sketch" are chapters devoted to people well-known, but not as Johnson describes them; to the formation of the Apostles; and one entitled, "The Danger of the Miracles." But caveat lector: (let the reader beware): early on, he informs the reader: "...I do not cite my authorities, though I am prepared to defend all of my assertions, if challenged, by documentation, my desire is to convey the joy and nourishment I receive in following Jesus’s footsteps and pondering his words."

His sketch begins with a definition of Christianity that is straightforward: "...

but the fact that which all Christians have believed as I believe, that Jesus was and is God, too. The unique event of someone both God and man appearing on earth is the essence of Christianity."

But where did the term, "Christian" arise? Johnson explains: "The religion which commemorates Jesus’s teachings, death, and resurrection was well established in a half a dozen countries by 50 A.D. His followers were already known as "Christians," a term joyfully adopted by the faithful, even though it was coined in Antioch, a city notorious for its slang neologisms."

Educated at Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire, England, and then at Oxford University, Johnson opens his biography of Jesus stating that the earliest surviving document that refers to Jesus is St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, about twenty years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Within a century, "four biographies (the Synoptic Gospels), written in Greek, had been published and all have come down to us." He adds that the stream of biographers has not diminished over the centuries: "Today, there are over one-hundred thousand biographies of Jesus in English alone, and many more monographs. More than one-hundred were issued in the first decade of the twenty-first century." No other figure comes even remotely close to having that many biographies written about him or her.

Many people knowledgeable about the life of Christ know of King Herod, but Johnson completes the picture of this man that may be unfamiliar to most: "... for more than thirty years this astute financier, who had made himself the richest individual in the entire empire...

was the greatest builder of his age, creating a new port at Caesarea in Samaria, rebuilding and enlarging the Temple in Jerusalem, and building public baths, aqueducts and what we would call shopping centers in a half a dozen cities. Only half Jewish by birth, and wholly Greek in his cultural tastes, he was regarded as heretical by the Jewish religious authorities for sponsoring Greek-style games, theatres, and music. As his reign drew to a close - the last year of his life was the year of Jesus’s birth - his suspicions increased, and an atmosphere of paranoia prevailed at his court." Herod’s attempt to murder the infant Jesus - "as the massacre of the innocents came to be known...

was the reality of human wickedness, which Jesus was born to redress...The massacre of the innocents is a foretaste of Calvary."

In some areas, Johnson repeats what many already know: "It is a somber and unwelcome fact that for more than half of Jesus’s life, we know absolutely nothing about what he did or where he went or how he lived."

No writing of Jesus has survived, but Johnson does point out an aspect of the Jewish influence in Christ’s early life.

"Jews helped one another, and their communities ran privately organized welfare schemes for the sick, the infirm and orphans...There were poor Jews...but most of those referred to in the Gospels as "the poor" or "beggars" were non-Jews... Giving to "the poor" was part of the duty of every self-respecting Jew, and it, too, was part of the imagery of Jesus’s life."

But the mystery surrounding Jesus is further complicated by another question: what did he look like?

Johnson: "But not once, in all the four Gospels, are we given any indication of Jesus’s appearance." Neither does a description of Jesus appear in any of the canonical epistles or any documents of the first century A.D. It is not until "well into the second century...that we get the first iconography, and these attempts are typology rather than actual portraiture." There are 104 examples of this iconography in the catacombs, 97 in sarcophagi, 14 in mosaics, 45 in gold glasses, 50 in other artifacts, and 3 in manuscripts." In the end, despite the appearance of Jesus in the West in painting and sculpture, "...there is no credible evidence of what Jesus looked like." I did say that Johnson’s sketch would be a fact-filled biography. And the Apostles?

Using the Gospels as his sources, Johnson states that Jesus went to Caparnaum, on the Sea of Galilee, and, "... it was there that he chose his first followers, sturdy fishermen, strong and resourceful, to stand around him and protect him when his words angered the self-righteously orthodox."

Johnson relates an incident, unknown to me, where, "Jesus escaped being murdered by the pious mob at the hilltop synagogue. "Although the core of the Apostles were fishermen, "Jesus was adamant that the men he called should put his mission first," and "which may have created dissension within families." Still, Matthew’s Gospel has Jesus tell both Simon (Peter) and his brother, Andrew: "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

But with that responsibility came a requirement for all of the apostles: "And he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me, is not worthy of me." Yet, they were special, for they had been given the power to carry out what Jesus had sought. The Gospel of Mark says that the twelve were "ordained" to begin the Christian priesthood, the "apostolic succession" which continues to this day.

Then this: "...and they came unto him...

that he might send them forth to preach." (Mark: 3:13-14) Most Christians are fully aware of Christ’s power to perform miracles, but Johnson notes: "...Jesus, conscious as he was of supernatural powers of every kind, was unwilling to use them for display - that was one of the temptations he resisted in the wilderness. He was a reluctant miracle worker." The first of the miracles recorded occurred when he attended a wedding in the town of Cana, "...one of the most fascinating episodes in the entire New Testament, proving as it does the authenticity of the account and its detailed accuracy." A member

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The Remnant's Poetry Corner

Psalter: A Sequence of Catholic Sonnets

by William Baer

Reviewed for The Remnant by Andrew Senior My father used to say that, as a general rule in literature, a hundred years is a good place to draw a line. Anything newer than that may turn out to be good, but it hasn’t passed the test of time yet.

As with most rules, however, there are some happy exceptions. I believe he would agree that one of these is this collection of sonnets by William Baer.

Most moderns, and even a lot of traditionalists, will say that we cannot go back, that an old form cannot be resuscitated, and that to try to do so is anachronistic. New forms, they say, are needed for new times. While there is some truth to what they say, I don’t think anyone is currently composing like Chaucer in Middle English. Nonetheless there are certain forms which are timeless, and the sonnet is one of them.

The iambic pentameter and the dactylic hexameter will never cease to be, even though in modern times what is called poetry has descended into sentimental nonsense. And while it would be foolish, let alone impossible, to attempt by slavish imitation to recreate exactly what Shakespeare did, it is still possible to give new life to an old form, and this is precisely what William Baer has attempted. In the same way that a family line is not diminished but increased by having more children, so these new sonnets have kept the form alive and vigorous.

Although it is a collection of poems, this might also be called a book of prayers or meditations; his sonnets are based on the Bible, all the way from Genesis to the Apocalypse. They comprise a brief compendium of salvation history.

Pharaoh He breathes the blackness of perpetuant night where nothing is seen, where nothing can be done, where darkness obliterates every trace of light: "What kind of god could blot away the sun?"

Three days ago, when Moses cast his spell, the locusts whirled into the seas forever, but when the Pharaoh was firm, the blackness fell.

No matter, he’ll never capitulate. Never.

"Father?’ He hears the frightened voice say. "I’m here."

Then the unseen little boy, his eldest one, comes forth, and sensing the child’s fear, he pulls him close and tightly holds his son, thinking, within their obsidian abyss,

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Remnant Book Review

Continued...

of Jesus’s mother’s numerous clan was getting married, and it was then that Jesus told Mary, who had presented him with the problem of the guests having no wine, that "mine hour has not yet come." Still, he told the servants to fill "two or three firkins" (a "firkin" was 8 gallons) with water. Most know the rest.

Johnson emphasizes one point: Christ "...repeatedly rejected the mere role of a miracle worker as a human instrument of signs and wonders. Jesus makes it clear that it is preferable in God’s eyes that men show faith by listening to the holy truth, and by accepting and following it, rather than waiting for signs and miracles to convince them."

Yet, Johnson will list the "miracles" performed by Jesus, including "the greatest of Jesus’s miracles: the raising of Lazarus from the dead.'

But Johnson’s chapter is entitled "The Danger of Miracles," and with good reason, for in bringing these miracles to the attention of the public, "...the priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and other pious and orthodox Jews decided Jesus was a threat both to them personally and the Jewish community.

It was the miracles, and their obvious success and truth, which persuaded these men to put Jesus to death... ( emphasis mine) the real threat was Jesus’s teachings, which promised to overthrow all their traditional, ancient, exclusive and hieratic values."

Insisting that Jesus did not "preach," but "taught," wherever he went, Johnson notes this was the antithesis of then current religious beliefs, which had resulted in the development of "codes of law to preserve order," especially in the ancient Near East. These codes were initially necessary in the absence of legal bodies also to preserve the peace, so for at least two millennia, the Jewish religion had accepted their "religiouslegal" roots back to Abraham and Moses. Johnson: "In the process, God had become a very distant and frightening figure, but the law was an ever-present and weighty reality." Then this: "Jesus was a revolutionary who transformed the entire Judaic religious scheme into something quite different. It ceased to be a penal system of law and punishment...

and became an affair of the heart and an adventure of the spirit."

Jesus’s teaching made it abundantly clear that what really mattered was not in this world, "a mere episode in time and space," but the people in it, whose time on earth was limited. What mattered was to emerge from this life and become one with God in the next. Johnson repeats Jesus’s words regarding the faithful, who were "alien" to the world: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world," a sentence repeated in two Synoptic Gospels. In Jesus’s teachings and deeds, "No one before had, and no one since has, so confidently and warmly and indeed naturally opened his arms to the entire human race."

Much of the last half of the book is Johnson’s attempt to place Christ in the social setting he was to find himself: among men and women, especially the role of women who were as numerous - albeit not as prominent - as men.

"Women were put at the center of it (Christianity) alongside men, sharing equally in its duties and consolations.

Without Mary, an indispensable part of the Incarnation, his mission would not have been possible." Mark’s Gospel has a passage, unique in the literature of the ancient world: "They brought young children to him that he should touch them." To those who questioned or criticized that act, Jesus responded: "...Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein".

No review of Johnson’s "sketch" would be complete without his insights into "Jesus’s Trial and Crucifixion," and "The Resurrection and the Birth of Christianity." Although much of what is included in these two chapters is already known, I, for one, did not know that Judas Iscariot was "the keeper of the funds used by the disciples." Or, why "Jesus’s warnings against betrayal did not alarm the eleven apostles more: for their lives were also at risk?' Johnson has no answer to this question.

The agony of the trial and the crucifixion at Golgotha, which means "the skull," are described from accounts in the Gospels, but Johnson does digress to repeat a question about the responsibility for Christ’s death. "Both Jews and Romans, in their different traditions, revered the law...But here they combined to enact a joint travesty, which has tolled through the centuries as the antithesis of law. It is hard to say who was more to blame for this huge evil: Caiaphas, the accuser, or Pilate, who had the power?"

Johnson concludes with a paean to St. Paul, who "made it his business to learn everything he could about Jesus and then to convey it, in systematic form, to the Greek-speaking Gentiles outside of Palestine." As mentioned at the beginning of this review, his letters are "the first Christian documents."

Johnson ends on a note of being not only a devoted Catholic, but a historian as well: "The Gospels are designed to be read and re-read. The oftener we do so, the deeper our understanding and the more we grasp their realism. They are the truth. What they tell us actually happened."

There are events in Johnson’s personal life that may raise questions about his religious faithfulness, but this is not the place for such a discussion. Let it be said that anyone who reads this book will be greatly impressed by the countless number of times you will be informed, as well as impressed, with Johnson’s writing style, a well-known quality in all of his books and works of history.

I can state that I learned a good deal about the life of Jesus after reading this book, and, truth be told, so will you. ■

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Catholic Sonnets,

Continued...

A. Senior/ Continued from Page 7

"Surely nothing could be worse than this." While ordinary prose is good and useful for saying most things, poetry is a higher language, reserved for saying the most important things, about love and death and war. One of the functions of poetry is to fix things in the memory more firmly, by the use of images, rhyme, and rhythm, and in the case of the sonnet, to sum up more briefly.

This is a truth our enemies know all too well. It is a sad fact to admit that most of us don’t know much poetry by heart, but we can all sing a thousand jingles from the relentless attacks of modern advertising. How much better our lives would be if we could manage to keep a few sonnets like this in our memory.

Great orators have always relied on certain mnemonic devices. One of them is to reduce a long story to a few memorable parts. Good poems frequently do the same. They presume that the reader already knows the whole background, while concentrating on certain key elements. Great musical compositions often do the same thing; there are many wonderful works where one couldn’t possibly remember every note and nuance, but the overture or the aria sums it up.

This sonnet, in just a few formal lines, brings to mind the whole story of the miracle of the plagues of Egypt and the terrifying miracle of the Passover. In prose one might be more loose in the use of words, but here the author, restrained but also creatively freed by the shape of the sonnet, has carefully chosen each word. Note, for instance, the phrase "perptuant night." He could well have said "unending" or the more familiar word "perpetual," but instead he creates a participle, giving a slightly different significance. And the phrase "obsidian bliss" is highly evocative, stimming the imagination and the passions.

So, while I would certainly always encourage people to become familiar with the great classics first and foremost, and in general to mistrust newer things, in this case I would also recommend this collection by William Baer. ■

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 09

MEDIA COALITION:

Pope Must Clarify LBGT Position

By COSA

Editor’s Note: A number of traditional Catholic media organizations--including The Remnant--have been invited to sign on with the newly-formed Coalition of Saint Athanasius, which has been established to ask Pope Francis to answer one simple question. It’s an ultimatum of sorts which, whether Francis answers or not (and we suspect he will not), creates an interesting dilemma for the Vatican...a dilemma which even secular media may find newsworthy.

The Remnant encourages its readership to follow and support this unique initiative, especially as the Vatican gears up for the long-awaited summit meeting on the sex abuse crisis in the Church (February 22, 2019).

MJM

COSA Press Release

A Coalition of Catholic Media Defends LGBT Right to Know: What Does the Catholic Church Officially Teach About Homosexual Acts?

CONTACT: Info@RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 5, 2019) — COSA (Coalition of Saint Athanasius) is an association of Catholic media seeking papal verification that the Vatican still accepts the Catechism of the Catholic Church’sofficial prohibition of same-sex sexual intercourse.

COSA’s chief concern is that by creating a false impression the Catholic Church has changed its teaching in this regard, some priests, bishops and even cardinals risk grave injustice to the LGBT community, while sowing disunity within the ranks of all practicing Catholics.

COSA does not seek clarification on the need for pastoral solicitude where gay and lesbian persons are concerned since this falls well within the Church’s clear teaching on the obvious requirements of Christian Charity.

What is increasingly unclear is the Vatican’s own position vis-à-vis homosexual acts, and COSA believes the LGBT community has a right to know the truth.

COSA is enlisting the support of concerned persons from all walks of life—be they gay, straight, Catholic, non-Catholic—in urging Pope Francis to clarify the Catholic Church’s official teaching on homosexual acts so that the wounds of division caused by lack of clarity can be healed.

The founders of COSA are practicing Catholics who accept Francis as pope and therefore regard him as the only Vatican authority qualified to address this international concern.

For more, see COSA’s Open Letter to Pope Francis at www.

RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com

MEDIAADVISORY: Representatives of COSA will be in Rome to present this call for papal clarification to the press during the Vatican’s summit meeting on sexual abuse on Feb. 21-24, 2019.

An Open Letter to Pope Francis

[Available at www.RestoreTheCatholicChurch.com] Your Holiness:

On the Feast of the Conversion of St.

Paul the Apostle and Commemoration of St. Peter, in this year of Our Lord, 2019, we the undersigned approach your august person as representatives of a newly-formed coalition of faithful Catholics seeking to bring the burning concerns of sons and daughters to the feet of their father.

We profess Christ most sincerely, and thus seek pastoral clarification from His earthly vicar on a matter which, if left unresolved, portends dire consequences to the lives of practicing Catholics. That we should do so in this public forum speaks to the urgency of our request and intends no disrespect to the person of the Holy Father. We consider ourselves to be sheep in urgent need of the Shepherd’s word.

There was a time not long since past when we Catholics knew well the infallible doctrines of Faith and Morals that can only be questioned in peril of the soul, the vices that must be rejected, and the temptations steadfastly to be avoided by those longing to see the Face of God in eternity.

Today, alas, we find ourselves upholding doctrines that no longer seem of consequence even to our shepherds, confessing sins our confessors tell us are sins no longer, and observing prohibitions of the moral law our coreligionists insist a Merciful God would never enforce.

All of our lives, we committed ourselves to keeping the Commandments of God and the precepts of His Church, only to be given the impression now that all religions are good, all men are saved, all gods are the same as our God.

As children in Catholic school, we were told to prepare to die rather than commit the "mortal sins" which remove God’s life from the soul—capital sins, which today are so seldom warned against from the pulpit as to be understandably forgotten in the pew.

Some of these offenses against God and nature, categorized as peccata clamantia, were considered so terrible in the eyes of God as to cry to Heaven for vengeance. We were made to understand by priests, nuns, parents, popes and catechisms that the "sin of the Sodomites" was, in fact, one of these.

Today, that same sin has lost its social and moral stigma to such an extent that "rainbow Masses" are commonplace and the Catholic priesthood itself has been labeled a "gay profession."

In the face of all this, our Coalition asks the obvious question: How can a sin which "cried to heaven for vengeance" when we were children—which was condemned by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica as «the unnatural vice" and the "greatest of the sins of lust"—today be regarded as no sin at all? If even the most grievous of sins can become non-sins merely with the passage of time and change in human attitudes, then ultimately what happens to the very idea of sin, the Ten Commandments of God, the theology of heaven and hell, the particular and general judgments? If there is no sin, then what is the point of practicing virtue or frequenting the Sacraments?

Our questions, quite obviously, are rooted not in idle curiosity but in fear of gradual erosion of belief within ourselves and throughout the whole Church. Though we are sinners— because we are sinners—we must know what it is that, before God, we must still believe.

We seek neither to judge nor condemn anyone, especially those who struggle with an inclination to this sin that yesterday "cried to Heaven for vengeance" and today is merely another "lifestyle". They have never been encouraged to guard against that which, according to Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church, leads to the everlasting damnation of the soul.

It would therefore be unjust for us or any Catholic to hold them in contempt for failing to live up to standards of the moral law which are no longer taught to children in Catholic schools and about which even priests and bishops say nary a word.

And herein lies the problem: the ecclesia discens is divided and confused because the ecclesia docens is silent or, worse, accommodating, in the name of "toleration" and "diversity".

Holy Father, surely you must sympathize with your children’s urgent call for unambiguous confirmation of Church teaching on homosexual acts. And we stress acts— not inclination— with purpose and foresight, since we quite agree that those struggling with samesex attraction must be given the same pastoral care and loving catechetical instruction that all sinners have come to expect from a Church made unique by her Confessionals as well as her Altars.

If, as we were taught in Catholic school, unrepented homosexual intercourse— not the mere inclination, mind, but the act itself—leads to everlasting damnation, then how can it be pastoral, merciful or charitable to withhold that teaching from those thus inclined?

Continued Next Page

COSA's Open Letter to Pope Francis,

Continued from Page 9...

This is illogical on its face, and perhaps analogous to the man obsessed with hugging a child caught in the tracks rather than attempting to remove her from the deadly path of the oncoming train. Without an attempt to carry the child from harm’s way, compassionate hugging is not only futile but would amount to criminal negligence.

Where heretofore Mother Church did not hesitate to rescue her children, today she professes a preference to accompany them.

But to where?

Holy Father, we beg you to use the considerable weight of your office to disabuse the world of the false impression that a Church which endeavors to charitably admonish the sinner is a Church wanting in mercy.

How can a Spiritual Work of Mercy -- to Admonish the Sinner -- itself be said to fail in mercy?

Was Pope John Paul II failing to show mercy when in his 1986 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons", he warned that even the inclination to homosexuality is an "objective disorder" since the act itself is an "intrinsic moral evil":

"Therefore, special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."

Who was he to judge? He was the Pope, Vicar of Christ on earth, first Confessor and Shepherd of all the lost sheep in the world.

In answer to St. Peter Damian’s plea to the Holy Father to "take action against clerics immersed in the grievous moral perversion of sodomy", Pope Leo IX replied with a promise of papal action rooted in mercifully urgent concern for the salvation of souls:

"Let it be certain and evident to all that we are in agreement with everything your book contains, opposed as it is like water to the fire of the devil. Lest the wantonness of this foul impurity be allowed to spread unpunished, it must be repelled by proper repressive action of apostolic severity."

Jealously safeguarding the salvation and everlasting happiness of poor sinners, the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent write that «neither fornicators nor adulterers, nor the effeminate nor sodomites shall possess the kingdom of God." Would you, Holy Father, agree that unrepentant practitioners of same-sex intercourse in the LGBT community today will also "never possess the kingdom of God"? If you do agree then does not mercy itself command you to lovingly tell them so?

Help us to understand how a refusal to tell them the truth does not constitute a merciless injustice to the LBGT community which, by the way, never cease quoting your own words on their behalf: Who am I to judge? Holy Father, for them Roma locuta est, causa finita est. But do they not deserve to hear the full truth from you?

Must even the inspired Word of God itself be kept from them in the name of Mercy:

"Men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy ... Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them."

(Romans 1: 27, 32)

In the name of "toleration" and "inclusivity", will Peter silence Paul?

Must faithful Catholics become party to the deception by pretending Scripture’s condemnation of this "grave depravity" is of no consequence?

In point of fact, the teaching of the Catholic Church has not changed:

"Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life.

They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.

Under no circumstances can they be

Continued on Page 13

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 10

Alexandria

Ocasio-Cortez:

The New Face of the Catholic Left?

By Jesse Russell, Ph.D.

On January 3, 2019, the 116th Congress of the United States convened in Washington, D.C. for a new legislative session. Among the newly elected members of the House of Representatives is one Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who defeated the longtime incumbent from New York’s 14th congressional district, Joe Crowley, by a whopping 15 percentage points in the June 28, 2018 Democratic primary election.

This victory was representative of the demographic sea-change that has transformed the Democratic Party in the northeastern United States from the working-class party of ethnic Catholics, such as Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill, into a new "broken coalition" of members of the LGBT community, radicalized people of color (or "POC), and a new class of hipster "bugmen", themselves a lower testosterone version of their ethnic Catholic Democrat forefathers.

The now-defeated Joe Crowley is emblematic of the old Democratic Party that came to dominate the northeastern United States. The son of an Irish Catholic cop from New York, Crowley attended a Jesuit prep school and graduated from Queen’s College, a traditional staging point for New York ethnic Catholics to climb their way out of the tough blue-collar jobs of their parents. In fact, New York’s 14th district, covering the "outer boroughs" of New York, was the district of the fictional Archie Bunker, the emblematic angry working-class dad from the 1970’s hit sitcom All in the Family.

Crowley himself was the quintessential bad Catholic Democrat. He was pro-abortion, prohomosexual "marriage," and championed the radical demographic replacement of Americans. A powerful and influential veteran of the Democratic machine serving nearly 20 years in his seat, Crowley was even eyeing the position of Speaker of the House.

Nevertheless, he was outmatched by a young and aspiring Puerto Rican who markets herself as a hip Latina bartender from the Bronx (more on that later) as well as a progressive liberal Catholic or "LeftCat."

She even wrote a piece for LeftCat Central, America Magazine, on how her Catholic faith is an inspiration for her desired "criminal justice reform."

Ocasio-Cortez’s Catholic faith is not enough to inspire her to defend Christian (i.e. natural) marriage or the life of unborn children in the womb. In fact, her positions on sodomite "marriage" and abortion were largely kept away from her mostly Hispanic constituency until after she locked down the Democratic primary.

Truth be told, there are a lot of confusing and mysterious contradictions about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (popularly known as AOC).

Although she is marketed as a " chica from the block" who grew up in the Bronx who, according to her official biography, was forced to commute 40 minutes to a school in another wealthier district—a commute that allegedly defined much of her earlier life—Ocasio-Cortez actually only lived in the Bronx for a few years after her birth.

This " chica from the block" is actually the daughter of the CEO of Kirschenbaum & Ocasio-Roman Architects. She actually grew up in Yorktown Heights, located in the suburbs of Westchester County, which has a median household income of $96,413. Thus, her official biography appears to be somewhat misleading.

Moreover, although marketing herself during the campaign as a Catholic Puerto Rican, Ocasio-Cortez recently transitioned over to a trans-religious and trans-ethnic global citizen.

Continued on Page 13

New Face of the Catholic Left,

Continued...

J. Russell/ Continued from Page 10

Her ties with various Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) are also curious.

As she admits on the leftist Young Turks program, she was asked by two NGOs— Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress—to run for office. As the Daily Caller notes, Justice Democrats were co-founded by the Young Turk’s Cenk Uygur.

While presenting themselves as a grassroots organization of, for, and by the people, the Young Turks are part of the Media Consortium funded by none other than our old friend George Soros.

If the Media Consortium and its ties to George Soros ring a bell for Catholics, it should.

In April of last year, Crisis Magazine’s Austin Ruse published a piece noting that attacks on Newman Guide Catholic universities in the left-wing Catholic press were being bankrolled by the Nazi-collaborating "Hungarian" billionaire, George Soros, via The Media Consortium.

Not shy about their association with Soros, the "old lady" of liberal Catholic journalism, the National Catholic Reporter, is proudly part of the Media Consortium’s directory.

But what about America Magazine, which published Ocasio-Cortez’s piece advocating a South Africa-style open season on law-abiding citizens from criminals who know they will only receive a slap on the wrist?

Is there a connection with the Soros Media Consortium and the Soros "Catholic" representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the humble Jesuit newspaper? Not directly, but maybe the notorious James Bond-styled villain from Hungary has no need to slip America a few "Benjamins."

Even without verifiable Media Consortium Soros cash, America Magazine is a very strange and interesting place. In addition to showcasing writers who praise violent, racist, and sex offender infested terrorist organizations like ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter, America has rebranded itself as LeftCat central, promoting "prolife Democrats" like Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana along with a smattering of pieces endorsing elements of traditional Catholic piety like the rosary to lure in confused but sincerely pious Catholics.

While they try to maintain their friendly hipster Catholic image on one hand, we can be sure that as globalist-approved faux ethnic and faux Catholic candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez capitalize on the deliberate and malicious demographic and cultural changes wrought on the United States, America is happy to lend their support to the cause.

But there is a coda to this story of "lifetime actor" candidates and subterfuge of both the United States of America and the American Catholic media, and it is a hopeful coda.

Catholics of European descent as well as Catholic Hispanics living in the U.S.

and south of the border have a common spiritual heritage.

We share a common baptism and a common patrimony as heirs to Christendom.

The contemporary crisis of migration and the attendant reaction of populism is an opportunity for collaborative spiritual and political warfare against globalism, a common enemy to us that is bringing about a New World Order of perversion, occultism, and both physical and spiritual slavery.

While we must respect a true diversity and plurality of peoples and nations and borders, the enemy is not the illegal immigrant or the gringo.

It is not the migrant or the native.

Our fight is, as St. Paul says, "against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places."

Let us then follow the words of the apostle in our common struggle together: "Therefore take unto you the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect." ■

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Anatomy of a Cover-up:

Francis, Vatican Exposed

By Christopher A. Ferrara

(Continued from Jan. 31 Iusse)

Worse than the Borgias?

Among those friends and allies is Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, theArchbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who is no less than the coordinator of Bergoglio’s "Council of Cardinals." Maradiaga is not only mired in allegations of financial corruption but is also orchestrating a determined coverup of a "widespread and entrenched pattern of homosexual practice in Tegucigalpa’s major seminary," under the supervision of Maradiaga’s friend, former auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Pineda Fasquelle, who was forced to resign last July after evidence surfaced of his own homosexual activity with seminarians.

Forty-eight seminarians in Tegucigalpa joined in a letter protesting the homosexual infestation of their seminary, citing "irrefutable evidence" that "a homosexual network pervades the institution and is being protected by its rector." The evidence includes "graphic photographic evidence of homosexual pornography, exchanged on WhatsApp between seminarians who did not sign the letter, as well as other obscene messages." Maradiaga, who continues to protect a cadre of homosexuals in the seminary after sending some of them away, has denounced the protesting seminarians as "gossipers." He remains fully a member of Bergoglio’s inner circle.

Another protected Bergoglian ally is Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, former head of Bergoglio’s Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, who endorses Bergoglio’s catastrophic authorization of Holy Communion for the divorced and "remarried." As the whole Catholic world knows and as Life Site News reported, in 2017 Coccopalmerio’s secretary, Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, "was arrested by Vatican police after they caught him hosting a cocaine-fueled homosexual orgy" in an apartment Bergoglio had secured for him, located in the same Vatican building as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It was later revealed that Coccopalmerio, who has since retired to Milan, was not only present during the orgy but was "‘was presiding’ over it when the Vatican Gendarmes broke in, and that they instructed him to absent himself before they started making arrests," including the arrest of Capozzi. As LifeSite further reports: "At the time of the arrest, Capozzi was allegedly so high on cocaine that he was hospitalized for detoxification for a short period in the Pius XI clinic in Rome. He is currently in an undisclosed convent in Italy undergoing a spiritual retreat…" Not surprisingly, Coccopalmerio had earlier argued for the Church’s recognition of "positive elements" in "homosexual unions," an abomination in keeping with the infamous "midterm report" of the 2014 sham Synod on the Family, written by Bergoglio ally Bruno Forte, another "gay"friendly propagandist Bergoglio handpicked as the Synod’s general secretary. The report declares that "homosexual unions" can exhibit "mutual aid to the point of sacrifice [which] constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners." Bergoglio reviewed and approved the report before it was released to the press without the Synod Fathers having had a chance to review what was supposed to be their own document.

Also not surprisingly, it was Coccopalmerio who "generally spoke against the laicization of a priest as a punishment" for homosexual predation, which he viewed as "a kind of ‘death penalty’ for a priest." Accordingly, while serving as a member of the CDF’s review board for priest sex abuse cases, to which he was appointed by Bergoglio, he "regularly proposed mild punishments…" LifeSite’s commentary on the Maradiaga scandal is appropriately entitled: "The new Borgia pope? Francis and the Maradiaga catastrophe." Life Site quotes Riposte Catholique on the significance of the Coccopalmerio-Capozzi scandal: " One thinks one is dreaming: in the most deplorable of ways, the Rome of today seems to have fallen lower than the Rome of the Borgias."

Another Sham Summit

And now Bergoglio is about to stagemanage another sham summit on clerical sexual abuse that will continue to hide the homosexual priest problem as did the "pedophile summit" of 2002. The meeting in Rome from February 21-24, to be attended by the presidents of all the national episcopal conferences, will be entitled "The Protection of Minors in the Church." Once again, it’s all about protecting minors. Nothing whatever to do with homosexual priests and bishops and their acts of sodomy with legal adults— not even vulnerable adults in their very late teens or early twenties exploited by clerical authority figures. Minors, minors, minors, that’s the ticket! Repeat after me: minors.

Clerical sodomy between "consenting adults" is of no concern to Bergoglio and his collaborators, including the homosexuals among them. The event might as well be entitled: "The Protection of Homosexual Priests in the Church."

And just to be sure that nothing is actually done in the meantime about homosexual corruption in the hierarchy, the Vatican, in the very midst of the USCCB’s meeting back in November, decreed that the assembled bishops were not permitted to vote on two measures directed to episcopal misconduct in committing or covering up homosexual abuse—only of "minors," of course: i.e., promulgation of Standards of Episcopal Conduct and creation of a Special Commission for Review of Complaints Against Bishops for violation of those standards. Any such vote, said the Vatican, must abide the outcome of the upcoming Roman junket, where we can be certain no such measures will be approved. As a clearly disgusted Raymond Arroyo tweeted when the USCCB’s proceedings were unexpectedly derailed by the Vatican’s directive: "The Vatican has pulled the rug out from under an already reeling episcopacy in the US with this demand that they not vote on even a toothless Code of Conduct for Bishops."

The elaborate continuation of Operation Homo Coverup soon to take place in Rome will be presided over by Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, and Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, who is also President of the laughably named "Centre for the Protection of Minors" at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. All four members of the steering committee have been carefully chosen by Bergoglio not to rock the homo love boat on which the head of his very household is a notorious passenger: Battista Ricca, dubbed "prelate of the gay lobby" by Sandro Magister, a flagrantly active homosexual of whom Bergoglio infamously said "Who am I to judge?" Ricca joins Coccopalmerio and Capozzi on the passenger list.

As Life Site notes, the appointment of Cupich to the steering committee "is raising concerns because [he] has notably dismissed Archbishop Viganò’s testimony on the McCarrick abuse cover-up as a mere ‘rabbit hole’ distracting the Church, believes that homosexuality is not a significant contributing factor in the abuse of minors… andhasdefendedtheVaticanpostponingU.S. bishops from voting on measures to prevent abuse cover-up." As Archbishop Viganò alleges without contradiction, once having been rehabilitated by Bergoglio, McCarrick as kingmaker assisted both Cupich, Wuerl and Joseph ("gay pilgrimage") Tobin in their rise to power as pro-"gay" prelates. Viganò remarked Cupich’s "ostentatious arrogance, and the insolence with which he denies the evidence that is now obvious to all: that 80% of the abuses found were committed against young adults by homosexuals who were in a relationship of authority over their victims." As for the other three members of the steering committee, all are reliable operatives for the Bergoglian program of undermining obedience to the Sixth Commandment under the guise of "discernment" and "accompaniment." Cardinal Gracias has pronounced the disastrous Amoris Laetitia (AL) "a precious gift for our Church." Archbishop Scicluna is the very promulgator of the Maltese guidelines for implementing AL, which authorize Holy Communion for the divorced and "remarried" in "more complex cases" in which observing continence "may not, in fact, be feasible"— as if feasibility had anything to do with obedience to negative precepts of the divine and natural law forbidding intrinsically evil acts. Bergoglio has dared to endorse as "authentic Magisterium" this radical break with the Church’s constant moral teaching and practice concerning exceptionless moral precepts. As for Zollner, his basic mission as head of the "Centre for the Protection of Minors" requires him to perpetuate the very cover story that protects the operation of the "gay Mafia."

Just it was in 2002 so it is today: the mantra "protection of minors" will continue to conceal homosexual networks and the rot of sodomy among sexually disordered clerics who should never have been ordained, as well as those to be ordained prospectively precisely with the same networks’ help. Absolutely nothing will be done to address this spreading ecclesial gangrene. Quite the contrary, everything will be done to mask it with rhetorical bandages issued at useless meetings. To that end, the Vatican has announced that there will be "plenary sessions, work groups, common moments of prayer with listening to testimonies, a penitential liturgy and a closing Eucharistic celebration." And later, pasta and a good local red on the Borgo Pio. There will not, of course, be any discussion of the urgent necessity to rid the Church of homosexual corruption in the seminaries, the priesthood and the episcopate. Instead, the bishops will hobnob, dine, hobnob some more, dine some more, and make a big show of asking each other what to do, what to do about "the abuse of minors" caused by "clericalism" and a "peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority."

Continued on Page 13

Anatomy of a Coverup

C. Ferrara/ Continued from Page 11

Is Another Eruption of the "Authentic Magisterium" Imminent?

To quote the moral theologian Janet Smith, who can hardly be accused of "radical traditionalism": " The problem of clergy abuse cannot be resolved simply by the resignation of some bishops, and even less so by bureaucratic directives. The deeper problem lies in homosexual networks within the clergy which must be eradicated."

And, as Archbishop Viganò testifies: "These homosexual networks, which are now widespread in many dioceses, seminaries, religious orders, etc., act under the concealment of secrecy and lies with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church."

Bergoglio will do nothing that would even remotely threaten to eradicate homosexual networks in the Church. On the contrary, in defending the flagrant homosexual he had put in charge of his own household ("Who am I to judge?") he would not even admit that such networks exist: "So much is written about the gay lobby. I still haven’t found anyone with an identity card in the Vatican with ‘gay’ on it." Worse, in defending Battista Ricca, Bergoglio said he saw no problem with priests being "gay," so long as "gays" in the priesthood do not form an actual "gay" lobby—the existence of which in theVatican he had just denied:

I believe that when you are dealing with such a person, you must distinguish between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of someone forming a lobby, because not all lobbies are good…. The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another, and there is this one and there is that one. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency."

Likewise, in a report the Vatican will neither confirm nor deny, Bergoglio said the following to Chilean sex abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz: "Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and he loves you like that and I do not care. The Pope loves you as you are, you have to be happy with who you are."

Furthermore,LifeSiteNewshascompiledno fewer than fourteen examples of Bergoglio’s ostentatious winking and nodding in favor of "gay" and "transgender" perversion. Life Site observes that the evidence suggests the alarming possibility of another eruption of his ridiculous "authentic Magisterium," which has already purported to authorize Holy Communion for public adulterers in "second marriages" despite the bimillenial teaching and practice of the Church forbidding it, and has quite impossibly claimed that capital punishment is immoral in every case, contrary to divine revelation and the Church’s invariant doctrine from the time of Saint Paul. Next, it is feared, Bergoglio will attempt to do away with the Church’s infallible teaching on the intrinsic disorder of the homosexual condition and the intrinsic evil and grave depravity of homosexual acts. In fact—and this would explain a great deal—Bergoglio views sins of the flesh in general as rather trivial matters. Sandro Magister reminds us that in a book-interview published back in 2017 Bergoglio declared: "Sins of the flesh are the lightest sins. Because the flesh is weak…. Priests have the temptation—not all, but many—of focusing on the sins of sexuality, what I call morality below the belt. But the more serious sins are elsewhere."

In the same interview Bergoglio held up as a fine pastoral example an unnamed cardinal who, "as soon as someone goes to him to talk about those sins below the belt, he immediately says: ‘I understand, let’s move on.’ He stops him, as if to say: ‘I understand, but let’s see if you have something more important. Do you pray? Are you seeking the Lord? Do you read the Gospel?’ He makes him understand that there are mistakes that are much more important than that." Bergoglio even went so far as to offer the disgusting opinion that priests who do their duty by inquiring when, how and how often a penitent has violated the Sixth Commandment since his last confession are trying to "make a ‘film’ in their head. But these are in need of a psychiatrist."

What sort of Vicar of Christ applauds confessors who do not want to hear anything about sins of the flesh while denouncing as mentally ill priests who properly inquire into the number of gravity of such sins in the confessional? How are we to escape the impression that the current occupant of the Chair of Peter is a lewd and shallow vulgarian suffering from the delusion that he is some kind of spiritual master? Not for Bergoglio is the admonition of Our Lady of Fatima that "More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason." Does Bergoglio really not understand that mortal sins of impurity most easily lead to the ruin of souls, the destruction of marriages and families, the commission of innumerable sex-related crimes (prostitution, sale and distribution of pornography, sex-trafficking), the steady erosion of both public and private morality, and ultimately the fall of civilization itself?

But, after all, who is he to judge? Except when it comes to the people he incessantly condemns for sins he considers more important, such as "the promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past."

Conclusion: The Need for Anger

The reader might conclude that this piece seems designed to arouse anger toward its subjects. And so it is, because there is incumbent upon us a positive duty to be angry about the crimes these men have committed or covered up and the abuses of authority that have facilitated the homosexual infiltration of the priesthood, the episcopate and even the College of Cardinals.

Speaking of the different species of anger according to their objects, Saint Thomas distinguishes anger that is an exercise of reason whose aim is justice from anger that is mere base passion with an evil object, such as envy. St. Thomas makes his own statements attributed (perhaps questionably) to Saint John Chrysostom: "He that is angry with cause shall not be in danger: for without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked….

He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices; it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong."

As St. Thomas explains, righteous anger, informed and limited by reason, merges into the legitimate judgment of wrongdoing: "when a man is angry with reason, his anger is no longer from passion: wherefore he is said to judge, not to be angry." Thus, St.

Concluded on Page 16

Anatomy of a coverup,

Concluded

C. Ferrara/Continued from Page 13

Thomas concludes: "But if one is angry in accordance with right reason, one’s anger is deserving of praise." Moreover, when anger is called for according to reason, "lack of the passion of anger is also a vice, even as the lack of movement in the will directed to punishment by the judgment of reason." (Cf. ST, II-II, q. 158,Arts. 1, 8) We are morally obliged to be angry at what angers God, the ultimate righteously wrathful judge of wrongs. (Bergoglio, as might be expected, rejects the very idea of divine wrath and declares that Christ only "pretends" to be angry.) Were we to cease being angry about what these men have done or failed to do we would, by "unreasonable patience," become complicit in their misdeeds and our passive acceptance would indeed contribute to "a hotbed of many vices" that "fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong." And what but a hotbed of vices fostering negligence and inciting evildoing is the utter lack of anger in the vast majority of the episcopate, including the Bishop of Rome, over the epochal scandal of the worst sort of sexual depravity spreading unchecked among them for decade after decade?

On the other hand, we must not make of righteous anger a mental habit that feeds upon itself and poisons the soul. Nor must anger ever be allowed to devolve into a hatred of those whose wrongdoing justifies, indeed compels, anger toward them. Nevertheless, however strange it may sound, we must "hang on" to our anger and never waver in our contempt for contemptible behavior until the just cause for anger and contempt is remedied. Were we not to do this we would culpably acquiesce in evils we are obliged publicly to oppose and condemn on account of public scandals which, in this age of the Internet, become known almost instantaneously throughout the world, causing incalculable harm to the Mystical Body and the cause of the Gospel.

In this regard it is fitting to conclude with the words of Pope Leo XIII (quoting Pope Felix III) in Inimica Vis concerning the duty of Christians to oppose error and to shame into action those who timidly refuse to do so. While the context is a condemnation of the evils of Freemasonry, Leo’s teaching is no less applicable here:

"An error which is not resisted is approved; a truth which is not defended is suppressed.... He who does not oppose an evident crime is open to the suspicion of secret complicity." By reminding them of the examples of their forefathers, the broken spirits of these men must be reanimated with that courage which is the guardian of duty and dignity alike, so that they may be ashamed and regret their cowardly actions. For surely our whole life is involved in a constant battle in which our salvation itself is at stake; nothing is more disgraceful for a Christian

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COSA's Open Letter,

Concluded.

approved." [CCC, Number 2357]

Therefore, and mindful of the adage, qui mange le Pape, meurt, we seek not to "eat of the pope" but to plead with him for clarity:

• Do you, Pope Francis, believe that homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity," as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches here?

• Do you, Pope Francis, believe that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches here?

• Do you, Pope Francis, believe that homosexual acts are "contrary to natural law," as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches here?

• Do you, Pope Francis, believe that homosexual acts can "under no circumstances be approved," as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches here?

The people of God must know the truth, Holiness, as must the pastors of souls, the children of the world, and the LGBT community. The "field hospital" is filled to capacity with those desperate for the medicine of clear and unambiguous Catholic teaching. And for the patient, there can be no greater mercy than the forthright honesty of the good physician. Therefore, we have informed the ladies and gentlemen of the press that on 23 February next, in the city of Rome, our Coalition will call upon our brothers and sisters the world over—be they gay, straight, protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, atheist or non-believer—to join their voices to ours in requesting clarification from the Chair of Saint Peter: Do you, Pope Francis, uphold as binding and true, the Catholic Church’s constant and authoritative teaching— based on the laws of God and Nature— that homosexual acts are immoral, unnatural and can never be justified?

All men and women on earth—but especially those who identify as homosexual—have a right before God to know the truth. They await your answer, as do we. Please hear us and be assured of our continued prayers for the healing and unity of Christ’s suffering Church.

Yours in Christ Crucified, COSA (Coalition of Saint Athanasius) ■

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OUR FUTURE:

Hijacked by the Devil

by Timothy J Cullen

" There is nothing wrong with your [computer]. Do not attempt to adjust... We are now controlling the transmission, we control the horizontal and the vertical."

(trailer, The Outer Limits, 1963) Just when I believed I had little more to say...

Recently (31 Dec 2018) the Remnant published an essay of mine optimistically titled "Tomorrow Belongs to You" aimed at younger readers and writers of what I believe to be the most important voice of authentic Catholicism—"Tradition"—in English. Owing to the recent hijacking of my computer by the "Do No Evil" (HAH!) internet Goliath Google, I realize that I still have more to say than I believed a short time ago; quite a bit more, in fact.

Unless and until authentic Catholics master pertinent computer and internet technical knowledge, there exists a clear and present danger that the true Catholic voice will be silenced or relegated to oblivion for all practical purposes. The enemies of authentic Catholicism, of nation-states, of traditional thinkers of any stripe, be it with respect to biologically normal sexuality, race realism, societal structure, economics favoring subsidiarity rather than highly centralized globalism, family formation—the list goes on and on—are determined to seize the internet, the most powerful communication and information gathering tool available. They will succeed unless and until we and our posterity make a concerted effort to counter their machinations.

Government and regulatory bodies on all levels, higher and even elementary education, mass media and entertainment...

all these are firmly in the hands of the active enemies of Catholicism. These enemies, both within and without the Church, are determined to ensure that the authentically Catholic remnant remains small and if possible smaller. While it is impossible to eliminate true Catholicism, it is well within the realm of possibility to reduce it to a religion without an influential presence in world affairs, a possibility that 60 years ago would have been considered unimaginable. It is no longer unimaginable to consider that 60 years hence, authentic, traditional Catholicism will be for all practical purposes irrelevant in world affairs.

Granted: authentic, traditional Catholicism is the only means of human salvation with respect to eternal life. That simple fact must remain foremost in one’s thoughts. Nevertheless, we as authentic Catholics know that it incumbent upon us not simply to save our own souls but to evangelize for the salvation of others, to wit, the ignorant at the very least. Without a public voice, a voice with outreach beyond our own community, the authentic traditional Catholics of the future will find themselves muted (by their enemies) outside a very limited audience reachable by technologically outdated means.

Yes, one hopes some of the young will wish to study Catholic theology, history, art, music and other "liberal arts" fields, but to no small extent these can be studied at home or in a small academy; the university might better be considered as a place to study STEM material, given that as of the beginning of 2019A.D., subjectively speaking, it appears that authentic, traditional Catholics are grossly underrepresented in these ever-morevital fields of study and work; if Catholic culture and civilization are to regain prominence, this cannot continue.

The "religious war" of Catholicism is in large measure internecine, pitting those who wish that the Church return to Faith and practice long since defined against infiltrators and usurpers whose "Catholicism" is at best that of Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez1 and at worst an anti-Catholicism that is based on Marx but more on the satanic speculations of Antonio Gramsci2.

This latter has proven enormously successful in its erosion of Catholic (and thus Western) culture and civilization.

Now that its latter-day disciples wield overweening power in nearly all aspects of civil society, it seems to this writer that it is incumbent upon authentic Catholics young and old to recognize this reality and mobilize themselves to combat it.

One may be "credentialed" as an expert on Catholic history, art, music, literature or what have you, but the dissemination of this knowledge to anything approaching a wide audience is deficient: period! What is desperately needed in our community is authentic, traditional Catholics who are educated and trained to master presentand- future-day technology and employ it to evangelize and educate while doing battle in the cultural, civilizational and societal Crusade spearheaded by The Remnant.

This writer was enraged by the hijacking of his computer, but a tech wiz he isn’t.

Nonetheless, "prolonged analysis" (by a geez whose tech skills are, shall we say, limited) finally led to a solution. I abandoned my Firefox browser (I’ve wanted to since they fired their founder over the heterosexual marriage issue, but...) and installed Brave, thus recovering my original, pre-hijack options.

Erudite though one may be, if one wishes to create a greater authentic, traditional Catholic presence on the world-wideweb, one had best know how do to so, then organize one’s presence to maximum effect. Today, one does so largely at the mercy of Goliath (YouTube, Paypal, etc.); and does so at their sufferance.This state of affairs cannot continue, given the high probability that these transnational behemoths will insist upon conformity with their worldview or risk expulsion and a casting into the virtual outer darkness. If and when that occurs, the authentic, traditional Catholic community will certainly be isolated but perhaps

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustavo_Guti%C3%A9rrez

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci "disappeared" if we do not have among us persons educated and trained to do combat, both in the virtual world and that of flesh and blood.

Those among us who are now dogs rather old to learn new tricks with respect to the virtual world will increasingly depend upon those better prepared to keep the message coming and spread it as possible into the virtual world; we ourselves are limited in this respect.

Our Jewish brethren, however, are not. No, no, they have been proactive and dedicated to expressing their worldview, although that is more true of "ethnic" (little or not-at-all religiously observant) Jewish folk, which is to say "secular materialist" folk convinced their highly abstract version of the secular "Messiah" is (as always) just over the horizon but soon to arrive. If it were to come down to who is best prepared to spread such a message, authentic, traditional Catholics would likely not be in a position to rebut such nonsense in any effective manner, as is obvious even today.

The saying "the best defense is a good offense" has been and is well understood by the enemies of the Catholic Faith and what was once in great and worldwide measure the Catholic Church. Said enemies have adopted every imaginable means to drive authentic, traditional Catholicism into obscurity, thus rendering the whole of Catholic-derived Western culture and civilization an historical footnote.

This lesson should by now be flashing stroboscopically before your eyes. We are horribly behind in terms of evangelizing the greater and greater number of pagans who sit in seats of power. We have been outsmarted in worldly terms. It’s that simple. No use in questioning it, because as this writer continues to learn to his growing dismay, technologically-speaking, we’re way behind.

Yes, if we observe the Sacraments, we have the promise of Paradise and, truly, what more can one ask?

And yet...And yet...

We may tire of being manipulated, reviled, the butt of presumptuous and demeaning jokes, unable to compete on a technologically even playing field in the secular world. We may decide to see our young trained and educated in worldly trades and professions that make them— and by default us—the technological equals of those who wish to bury us in a global and virtual obscurity.

In all matters save the Faith, we live in an uncertain social situation in what was once our own territory. Pride may goeth before a fall, but to totally renounce it has its dangers, at least on the secular level. One does not wish posterity to view one as a coward or an ignoramus, but to avoid that, one must act now, within the God-given intellectual capacity gifted us. If we are not up to the task, well, we have our Faith upon which to fall back, but inevitably it will be a Faith that we keep to ourselves, assuming technological advances don’t eventually cause a nearly certain and inevitable repression that makes the authentic Catholic Faith almost entirely a personal matter with parishes worshiping in private homes that have a priest hole3 handy. Adapt or withdraw is already the order of the day. The non-tech-savvy almost certainly have an unenviable future going forward, secularly speaking.

Crudely put, no argument, but facts are facts, ladies and gentlemen, and the fact is either we tech-up or begin searching for a wholesaler of Chuck-the-Glom masks that will proudly express our inner Luddite while our posterity is transformed into serfs and lumpen, whose reward will only be earned in the hereafter. Worse than damnation? Absolutely not. A consolation of sorts, and a worthy one, but...

If, God willing, I live long enough to know my grandchildren as adolescents, will they be able to find authentic, traditional Catholic teaching—theological and social—on whatever electronic gadget is then the principal information gathering tool? Will I be seen by them as a lovable relic but a relic all the same, given to strange ideas from a distant and irrelevant past? Will our local parish church bear any real resemblance to what Grandpa knew as Catholic? Will Grandpa die unshriven and in a state not of Grace but of resignation because the True Faith might only be found far from his home?

I pray that this not be so, but the future depends less and less upon me and more and more upon our young.They must remain and grow into steadfastness in the

3 Johnson, Ben, "Priests Holes", https://www.

historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/ Priests-Holes/. N.B. Highly recommended reading!

Continued on Page 14

Hijacked by the Devil,

Continued...

T. Cullen/ Continued from Page 12

Faith, but like the Jewish scholars of old, they must also learn a trade. Like it or not, they must be in the world even as they are not of it; to do otherwise is a marginalizing withdrawal from the personal and professional apostolate of the present and future.

The secular materialist hijackers of the worldwide web and the civil societies grown from Catholicism will not relent in their conviction and mission that Catholicism must be destroyed, ultimately impossible though this is. Does this mean they should be able to do their damndest to try without meeting resistance? One hopes not.

Study! Learn! Struggle!

Pray as well, receive the Sacraments, but if you the young choose a secular life, this old man begs you to learn technology to ensure an authentic and traditional Catholicism a permanent presence in the virtual world that so strongly influences the real.

Satan has learned to hijack the present and future means of communication and smiles as he sees the people of God routed and confused, struggling to keep up with technology beyond the grasp of the uninitiated and untrained. If he is not engaged by the faithful, your world and that of your posterity will be a deep vale of tears indeed. The culture and civilization created and sustained by Catholicism is on the border of an abyss unthinkable to pre-Vatican II Catholics. We wish to believe we have done all within our power to restore authentic Catholicism to the Church, but our wishes have not proven to be horses, so to speak, and while optimism may be in order, we are still fighting a holding action at best, and without a cadre of trained technological crusaders, in worldly terms we will almost certainly increasingly lose ground.

Old and tired though I may be, I have no wish to cede a millimeter more and will fight to the limits of my admittedly limited technological ability. I hope and pray that our younger faithful will heed this call to action. ■

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 14

Pax Vobis

The Single Vocation in the Present Moment

By Clare Wilson

About the time I turned twelve, I began to worry almost constantly about my vocation. Would I get married as I hoped? Would I wake up one day to find myself with a deep desire to enter a convent? Something that caused even more stress (almost a decade of constant concern, probably to be blamed upon the melancholic undercurrent in my personality!) was the fear that maybe I was somehow blocking my own religious vocation and resisting the will of God because I didn’t want to become a nun. I had read a cautionary tale— horror story might be a more apt term— in a collection of Catholic anecdotes for children, about a young woman who yielded to her mother’s pleas to stay home instead of entering a convent. Much to the mother’s dismay, her daughter stopped going to Mass, became attracted to immoral lifestyles, eventually moved in with a non-Catholic man, and finally blamed her whole spiritual disintegration on her mother. The story infected my teenage self with a lingering paranoia about what might happen if somehow I missed my vocation.

Luckily, in the intervening years, prudent and balanced priests have advised me that, in fact, the desire for the religious life is the chief sign that God has called someone to it. If a person does not have a strong attraction, then in all probability religious life is not his or her vocation.

As you can imagine, this news gave me considerable relief. I admit that I have wondered why no one told me this when I was fifteen, instead of twentyseven, since I could have gone about my intervening life with much greater peace of mind!

In spite of this welcome clarity, however, as a single person, I necessarily continue to think a great deal about the various Catholic vocations. Due to a multitude of factors in modern life (not least the fact that the rampant immorality of secular culture makes it very challenging to date anyone outside Traditional Catholic circles), quite a large selection of young practicing Catholics in my agerange— late twenties and early thirties— are single, with no clear indication that this status will soon change. Almost all these people actively desire to find a vocation, usually marriage, and settle down to the business of serving God in the path He opens for them. At the same time, though, they abide in a deep uncertainty about where to find that path in the present moment, when their lives seem to lack direction beyond fulfillment of the duties of their employment and support for their parents and family.

While I have not made a historical study of this claim, it seems likely that at this moment in history there are far more single Catholics than there have perhaps ever been. The proliferation of religious orders with different focuses and apostolates during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and even through the Victorian and Modern eras, meant that a person in almost any walk of life could fit somewhere in the spectrum of consecrated life. It seems easy to conclude that this fact would have supported more religious vocations in general.

On the other side of the spectrum, during predominantly Catholic time periods, single persons had almost no qualms in marrying anyone they chose, or who was chosen for them, due to the fact that any potential mate would share their basic Faith and morality. And even when society at large had not been baptized, or had rejected the Faith, since marriages were contracted more for security and social advantage than for romance, not even Catholic fathers seemed to hesitate in marrying their daughters to pagan or heretical husbands. Saints Monica and Cecilia are Roman examples. St.

Clotilde married the pagan Clovis, founder of the Merovingian line of Frankish Kings. After the Protestant Revolution, Mary of Modena was wed to the Protestant James II of England.

Many such alliances resulted in the conversion of the non-Catholic spouse, but even in cases where they did not, the need for both women and men to find social stability, produce heirs, and protect family inheritances apparently received primary consideration. Those who did not actively choose the religious life could almost always find a marriage partner for practical reasons, if nothing else.

In today’s postmodern climate, after the destruction of so many Catholic institutions, however, there are only a few options for Traditional Catholic religious life (contemplation and teaching being the most common), which narrows that window for people who might desire such a vocation. Many may find themselves following the single life in the world, simply because no congregation exactly fits their particular God-given talents.

For those who desire marriage, the landscape may seem even bleaker.

Personal preference and romantic attraction are now the most common criteria for marriage. It only makes sense, therefore, that single persons prioritize the need for shared values in their potential spouses. Moreover, a single person can now live alone for his or her whole life without particular inconvenience, so there is little social or economic pressure to marry unless he or she finds a perfect match in desires and beliefs and philosophical or ethical standpoints.

If a Catholic single does not find another suitable and personally attractive Catholic in his or her parish or school or workplace, then the only option seems to remain single indefinitely. Secular-minded people, after all, may not find themselves particularly interested in dating Traditional Catholics, especially if it means exploring a new Faith and embracing it, since there are so many other romantic options who demand no such effort. Human nature remains unchanging, however, so the Catholic single person’s deepseated desire to be married and have children abides, even while it seems increasingly difficult to find a suitable match either inside or outside of Catholic circles.

For someone who is caught in this conundrum, the question of vocation frequently surfaces. After a disappointment with a potential date, it’s perhaps easy to wish bitterly that one’s vocation actually were to the religious life, since then at least the question of one’s future would be settled once and for all. Of course, this very view of religious life as a kind of escape from the suffering of the present, instead of as a chance to devote oneself to God, is itself an indication that the true vocation is not there. Nonetheless, an element of that paranoia about vocations, which young Catholics may have experienced as teenagers, creeps back in while they carry their crosses of uncertainty. They wonder: since I haven’t found a spouse at this age or that age, does it mean that I’ve made a mistake about my vocation after all? Their other lingering, and often increasing, awareness (and, in many cases, fear) is that they may live out their whole lives alone. When this thought is coupled with an abiding desire for a settled life, the years can expand ahead of single Catholics into a daunting, lonely vista.

Since peace in the will of God as it unfolds in our lives is a crucial element in the fulfillment of any vocation, these worries can be dangerous to our spiritual wellbeing. They can undermine our commitment to joy in the marvelous action of Providence. Nonetheless, it can be a constant struggle to resist the temptation towards despondency, or towards some rash course of action which seems like it will resolve uncertainty once and for all (perhaps hasty marriage or abandonment of Catholic morality in favor of easier gratification).

Continued Next Page

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Cardinal Clemens August von Galen

CLEMENS AUGUST VON GALEN was born on 16th March 1878 in Burg Dinklage in Oldenburg. As the eleventh of thirteen children, he grew up in the safeness of a deeply religious family. After studying philosophy at Fribourg (Switzerland) for a short period, he resolved to become a priest. Upon his ordination, he became a minor canon of Münster Cathedral.

In 1906 he became chaplain of St.

Matthias’ Church in Berlin. This was for him the beginning of 23 years of pastoral work in the capital of the Reich. After several years as curate of St. Clement’s he was appointed parish priest of St.

Matthias in 1919. In Berlin he lived through the difficult times of the First World War, the troubled post-war period and a great part of the Weimar Republic.

Great demands were made upon him by the diaspora situation in Berlin.

After the death of Bishop Johannes Poggenburg, Clemens August von Galen was made Bishop of Münster. The consecration took place on 28th October 1933. As his motto he chose: Nec laudibus nec timore-- "Unconcerned about praise, unaffected by fear."

Already in his first Lent pastoral letter in 1934 Bishop Clemens August exposed the neo-heathen ideology of National Socialism. Time and again he stood up for the Church’s liberty, for that of the church associations, and for the protection of religious education, by presenting petitions to the competent state authorities and by pleading these rights in public speeches and sermons.

Above all, his numerous journeys through the districts of the diocese to conduct confirmations—in spite of all the chicanery of the National Socialist Party and the Gestapo—became incontestable demonstrations of faith and solidarity.

In a great sermon in Xanten Cathedral, preached in the spring of 1936, Bishop Clemens August accused the National Socialist regime of discriminating against Christians because of their faith, of throwing them into prison and even killing them.

"My Christians! It will perhaps be held against me that by this frank statement I am weakening the home front of the German people during this war. I, on the contrary, say this: It is not I who am responsible for a possible weakening of the home front, but those who, regardless of the war, regardless of this fearful week of terrible air-raids, impose heavy punishments on innocent people without the judgment of a court or any possibility of defence, who evict our religious orders, our brothers and sisters, from their property, throw them on to the street, drive them out of their own country. They destroy men’s security under the law, they undermine trust in law, they destroy men’s confidence in our government.

And therefore I raise my voice in the name of the upright German people, in the name of the majesty of Justice, in the interests of peace and the solidarity of the home front; therefore as a German, an honourable citizen, a representative of the Christian religion, a Catholic bishop, I exclaim: we demand justice! If this call remains unheard and unanswered, if the reign of Justice is not restored, then our German people and our country...will perish through an inner rottenness and decay."

The Gestapo came to Brishop von Galen’s episcopal palace in Münster to arrest him after he had spoken from the pulpit, not for the first time, against the gassing of the mentally ill (not only Jews were gassed). He asked permission to retire for a moment to change his clothes, which was granted. After a while he came back in full episcopal regalia with mitre and crozier and said "Well, gentlemen, shall we go?" They left with their tails between their legs.

Immediately after the war – but only then – the bishop was made a cardinal.

He died only some months later. ■

_______________ Sources: churchinhistory.org/pages/booklets/ vongalen(n).htm "Pamino" @RemnantNewspaper.com

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The Single Vocation,

Continued...

For Catholics engaged in maintaining the difficult peace of the single life, therefore, some modicum of certainty about God’s will is of primary importance. At least in my own case, I know I tend to worry that perhaps I made a drastic mistake at some earlier point in my life. Maybe I misread the signs of my own vocation. Maybe I did something terribly wrong in one of my earlier relationships and ruined my chances forever. Maybe I’m actually completely unready for any vocation, without even realizing it. All this may sound ridiculous—a small suffering compared to the travails of parenthood or poverty or illness—but living with this unease and anxiety nonetheless constitutes a heavy and constant burden for the single Catholic.

The solution which has lately helped me in carrying this burden is envisioning vocation in broader terms.

At the moment when I write this, it is impossible to know whether God intends to present a potential spouse or some appealing path of religious life tomorrow or in a month or a year or twenty years.

What is possible to know, however, is whether one is called to the active or the contemplative life.

A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine was preparing to enter a Carmelite convent, and I overheard her explaining that the reason she wanted to follow this vocation was her deep desire to pray constantly for the Church and for souls. I was astounded at her words, because it struck me that I have never been particularly motivated by such a desire. Certainly, I will pray for friends and family, or the recently departed in my parish and their families, or for souls who have been commended to my prayers. When there is no direct intention presented to me, though, the thought of this kind of general prayer for the Mystical Body of Christ and the conversion of souls simply never occurs to me. I cannot imagine devoting the entirety of my life to prayer for causes that seem so abstract and distant at first glimpse.

Over the past few years, though, as I have pushed myself to become more engaged in society and thus, hopefully, more charitable—first by helping with the youth group of my parish, and then by attending graduate school at a large secular university—I have met remarkable people, many of whom are not Catholic, yet have devoted themselves to charitable causes. I have been struck by their large hearts and their good intentions, their sharp intellects and their strong wills. I have befriended Jews and Hindus and Muslims, lapsed Catholics, Protestants, agnostics, and atheists. The better I get to know them, the more tragic I have found it that their notable gifts are not employed in the service of God, for His honor and glory.

Suddenly, in relation to these people, it has become crucial for me to beseech God for their conversion, and not just as an afterthought, a rote request for the salvation of unbelievers. Instead, I literally beg for their salvation, demand that God introduce Himself to them and invite them into His friendship.

Motivated by the awareness that their evident human goodness calls out to be sanctified through union with God, I can overcome self-consciousness or fear so as to talk to them about the Faith (not hounding them, but answering questions honestly when they ask—as they often do). The more I interact with them, the more I realize that my life would be well spent as a witness to the goodness and truth of the Catholic Church, which might, in correspondence with the grace of God, attract them to embrace it. I glimpse the enormous responsibility and holy calling it can be to live in the world in strict correspondence to the law of God. I feel simultaneously terrified by the magnitude of such a life and inspired by its beauty.

Comparing this reaction of mine to the eagerness of the girl with a contemplative vocation, I realize that even if at this exact moment I do not know what the future holds for me, I can say with confidence that the active vocation is mine. God teaches me charity through direct interaction with others; I see His incredible goodness mirrored in them and become motivated to reflect it as well. I accept as its own kind of suffering the fact that I may never know whether my efforts have aided in the conversion of these souls and resign myself to continuing these efforts for the rest of my life, even without apparent reward or result.

Discovering the sanctity of the moment into which God has brought each person is the true Catholic vocation. Some need to follow a path of contemplation to find it; some must commit themselves to an active role in the world. For the single person who is unsure exactly where the next days and months and years of his or her life will lead, at least one question can be settled: am I brought closer to God through direct contemplation of His goodness, or do I meet Him through service to others?

Determining the answer will not remove all suffering for those who desire family life, or who cannot find a religious calling that matches their talents. It may, however, at least alleviate the constant worry that one has somehow mistaken the path of God. With feet solidly grounded on that path, whether it be active or contemplative, the single person can bear his or her cross without worry and in true confidence of God’s providential love. ■

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Fri, 15 Feb 2019 | Cover | Page 16

The Ugly Traditionalist Revisited:

"You are either with me or against me!"

By Father Celatus

The Gospel of Saint Matthew records this ominous warning spoken by our Lord: "He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth." The context is important to appreciate fully the strength of this statement.

The enemies of Christ had just accused Jesus of healing a blind and dumb demoniac by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Jesus responded by demonstrating just how illogical their reasoning was, namely, that Satan would drive out fellow demons, thereby dividing his own kingdom. Jesus then warned his enemies about the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Since the time of Christ there have been many who have borrowed upon this evangelical warning, to include some rather unsavory anti-Christian political figures. For example, the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini threatened Italians, "O con noi o contro di noi" (you are either with us or against us) and the democrat Hilary Clinton warned in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, "Every nation has to either be with us or against us…" There are many others who at least implicitly employ this rigid dichotomy, to include those who identify themselves under the title of traditional Catholic.

Here are some examples.

My first personal experience of a traditional Catholic who drew a "with me or against me" line in the sand was about two decades ago, back in the Indult days. The line was drawn by a man who had converted to Catholicism from Protestantism and then had a subsequent conversion from Novus Ordo Catholicism to traditional Catholicism. He and I had a wonderful rapport and I even accommodated his request to be baptized conditionally in the traditional form of the sacrament, in case his Protestant baptism had been invalid. But at some point he became dissatisfied with the limits of the Indult and he ventured into the world of sedevacantism. Soon his gratitude toward me turned to contempt and he cut me off.

Following this sad experience I became more aware of an animosity on the part of many— not all— Sedevacantists toward traditional Catholics who do not share their view on the validity of the papacy the past sixty years. Some sedevacantist websites and bloggers go out of their way to be hypercritical of efforts of fellow traditional Catholics to combat the outrages of the past sixty years, despite the fact that we share many common concerns regarding Vatican Council II and its aftermath.

The contempt they have for us is not unlike that of the ancient Jews toward Samaritans. Truly, the more time that passes, the more hardcore Sedevacantists may find themselves similar to Orthodox Jews wailing at the ancient temple wall, awaiting the coming of their messiah; except Sedevacantists await their pope, from where, who knows?

Sadly, the hard line "with me or against me" stance has been manifesting itself increasingly among some traditional Catholics during the horrific reign of Francis of Rome. I intentionally avoid use of the word "pontificate" when referring to Francis because that is precisely the issue in question, namely, whether or not Jorge Bergoglio is a valid pope. There are those who insist, as though it were a dogmatic truth, that Francis is a valid pope and anyone who questions this assertion is insane or unfaithful: "with me or against me" On the opposite side are those who are utterly convinced, with the conviction of inerrancy, that Jorge Bergoglio is an

invalidly elected anti-pope and if you do not agree with this position you are effeminate or ignorant: "with me or against me." For both of these extremes there is no middle ground, to include those who think it probable but not certain that Bergoglio is one or the other, as to validity.

There are at least two other prominent public figures over whom there has arisen the "with me or against me" mantra among some traditional Catholics. The first is Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the former secretary-general of the governorate of the Vatican City State and apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Archbishop Vigano had already shown himself to be a reformer of corruption within the Vatican ranks while serving in Rome, for which he was exiled from the Vatican; more recently he has come forth as a reformer of the Church universal, for which he is now exiled and in hiding, literally in danger of death.

Without doubt most traditional Catholics are truly grateful to Archbishop Vigano, who has forfeited an otherwise comfortable retirement in order to expose the deep moral corruption of homosexual networks and prelates who protect and promote predators within the Church, to include Jorge Bergoglio and some prominent Cardinals.

This is a laudable act of fortitude in these unprecedented times, and his actions should be applauded and supported by all traditional Catholics. Yet there are some within the traditional ranks who provide fodder for the enemies of the Archbishop and the truth that he has exposed by publicly calling into question his motives.

Again, there is no middle ground, "you are with me or against me." In their minds, if the Archbishop has mixed motives then he is undeserving of our support and his duplicity should be exposed and his supporters shamed.

What we say here at The Remnant is " V is for Vigano!" A final example of the "you are with me or against me" misguided approach by some traditionalists is with regard to President Donald Trump.

Many traditional Catholics supported and voted for Mr. Trump in the past presidential election for two good reasons: the alternative electable candidate ran on a platform and past political practice that was nothing short of demonic; and Donald Trump promised to take strong steps to restore the Nation to a condition more compatible with basic Christian values. But because he is not Catholic and because he does not have a platform to "Make America Catholic Again," there are rigid traditional Catholics who criticize traditionalists for supporting President Trump, even in limited ways.

Newsflash, fellow Trads: We are not canonizing the President, but we are grateful for the good he is doing.

Enough of the "you are either with me or against me" approach to the current crisis in the Church among traditional Catholics! This attitude can arise out of pride and lead to a cult mentality. Let’s unite our efforts in what we agree upon and allow divine providence to work out what is not within our control. Our Lord warned that a house divided cannot stand. Consider how much stronger and more effective the resistance to Modernism would be if we simply set aside differences and work together for a restoration of tradition. ■

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Newsflash fellow Trads: We are not canonizing the

President, but we are grateful for the good he is doing.

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