Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Happy 90th Birthday to Her Majesty the Queen!

The following montage of 90 photographs for each of The Queen's 90 years, is a reminder of Her Majesty's lifetime of selfless dedication and service to the British people, her other realms, and the millions comprising the great, worldwide family of nations, the Commonwealth.




Monday, April 18, 2016

Pope’s Marxist Bias in U.S. Campaign Signals New Global Order

The liberal media are so in love with Pope Francis that they can’t report the hard truth about his blatant interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and what it represents.

Not only was socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) invited to a conference of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PASS) on Catholic social teaching and the world situation, he also met personally with Pope Francis.
 
A secular Jewish atheist, Sanders is not even a member of the Catholic Church. “I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders has said. His brother Larry says, “He is quite substantially not religious.”

Instead, he is a socialist with strong ties, if not membership in, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the same group that backed Barack Obama’s run for president in 2008 and is the U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.His involvement in the Vatican conference demonstrates how Pope Francis is moving the Roman Catholic Church into the global socialist camp.

Read more at Canada Free Press >>

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Father Rutler: The Ocean of God's Mercy

Fr. George Rutler
There is an account of some poor man with nothing to say for himself, nonetheless begging Alexander the Great for a pittance, only to be astonished when the king handed him more than a few gold coins. “Why gold when copper would suffice?” asked one of his officers, to which the royal voice answered, “He asked as a beggar for copper coins, but I gave him as a king coins of gold.” Our Lord’s kingdom is not of this world, and so when men who are only of this earth ask for what would sustain them temporarily, he gives graces that will last forever.
 

The royal generosity of Christ is called his mercy, and it is given for a purpose. That became clear when at his bidding the apostles caught so many fish that the nets almost broke. Almost. But there never is too much for the Lord. It was something the apostles had to learn, and they never forgot it: after the Risen Lord had vanished, they even remembered that the fish numbered 153.
 

In the sixteenth century, the brilliant scholar and reformer, John Colet, started a school in London that provided scholarships for poor boys, specifically 153 each year to make the point that to obey the Lord ensures a great catch. St. Paul’s School flourished and ornamented culture with hundreds of thousands of boys grown to men, and it continues to do so. Just a few of them include the poet Milton, the diarist Pepys, the victor duke Churchill, the wit of wits Johnson, the Revolutionary spy AndrĂ©, whom Washington regretted having to hang, the happy genius Chesterton, the testy Field Marshall Montgomery, and so far three holders of the Victoria Cross. The list goes on, in tribute to the confidence Dean Colet had, that God’s grace would make 153 a lot more.
 

It was not irrelevant that the Apostles had fished all night and caught nothing. Working hard may seem useless and discouraging, but once the voice of God is heeded, there will be a great catch. Even in the Church there are micromanagers and Dickensian clerks scratching away at their balance sheets, producing little as they ignore the voice from the shore asking with a certain heavenly whimsy, “Have you caught anything?”
 

God’s generosity is available to all who are generous enough to accept it. In the life of grace, that means opening the soul to him. That is what Confession is for. The scrupulous will doubt that we can make enough room for him, and the presumptuous will assume that we do not have to. Recently a kindly but ill-informed clergyman said in an interview that God’s mercy is unmerited, and so there is no need to be sorry for one’s sins. The fact that it is unmerited should all the more move its recipient to contrition. Alexander gave as a king, but only after the beggar begged as beggar.     

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Church and Government Mark 1,050 Years of Christianity in Poland

Poland’s President Andrzej Duda,center, and his wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda attend a Mass as part of Poland’s celebration of 1,050 years of the nation’s Catholicism at the 10th-century cathedral in Gniezno, in western Poland, Thursday, 14 April 2016. Poland's bishops on Thursday opened religious and political celebrations that mark 1,050 years of Christianity in Poland with a debate on its significance for the nation. The church and the conservative government jointly organized the three-day ceremonies that opened Thursday in the western town of Gniezno, considered to be the cradle of Poland's Catholicism. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

From Associated Press
By Czarek Sokolowski


GNIEZNO, Poland (AP) — The head of Poland's influential Catholic Church appealed for an end to enmity and divisions as he celebrated a Mass on Thursday that marked 1,050 years of Christianity in Poland.

The Mass was part of three days of religious and political ceremonies that the church and the conservative government have organized in the western town of Gniezno, considered to be the cradle of Poland's Catholicism, and in the nearby city of Poznan, until Saturday.

Government members want the ceremonies to stress that Poland's Catholic identity ties the nation to Western culture and values, especially now when the European Union is criticizing its policies and warning that they threaten democracy and the rule of law. The policies have also led to massive street protests.

"Shouldn't we reach more boldly to the grace of holy baptism ... in order to overcome enmity and discord, in order to seek reconciliation and forgiveness that we all crave so much," Poland's Primate Archbishop Wojciech Polak said during the Mass at the 10th-century Gniezno Cathedral.

Some 90 percent of Poles declare themselves to be Catholics. The country's Catholicism is dated from Prince Mieszko I, who ruled the area that is now Poland. He was baptized in Gniezno around the year 966, on advice from his Christian wife, Princess Dobrava of Bohemia, chroniclers say.

Earlier in the day, Polak said that the baptism led to the growth of the "spirit of ecumenical freedom and tolerance. There were no wars between denominations. There was their creative coexistence."

During the Mass, the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, read out a message of blessing from Pope Francis, in the presence of President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and dozens of other dignitaries gathered at the Gothic cathedral, which holds an ornate silver reliquary with the relics of St. Adalbert, a 10th-century Czech monk who preached Christianity in Poland.

Duda, a Catholic, said that Mieszko's christening gave Poland the foundations of a modern state and a religion that remains with most Poles until today.

"The spiritual and the state element were woven together and remain that way," he said, referring to the church's authority that the current government wants to strengthen.

Early in the day, Poland's bishops debated the role of Catholicism in the nation. They also discussed Francis' meeting with world youth in southern Poland in July, and Europe's refugee crisis, a communique said.

Duda will address a special session of lawmakers and senators in Poznan on Friday.

Friday, April 8, 2016

The Protestant Who Wrote the Greatest Book About American Catholicism

Though she never became a Catholic, Willa Cather’s novels—especially her masterpiece Death Comes for the Archbishop—are profound and intense Catholic artistry.



 "I am amused that so many of the reviews of this book begin with the statement: ‘This book is hard to classify.’ Then why bother?”—Willa Cather, 1927

Willa Cather’s novel—or “narrative” in the style of legend as she preferred—Death Comes for the Archbishop is not only the greatest book ever written about American Catholicism, it also might very well be the “Great American Novel.” Huge claims, I know, but solid possibilities nonetheless.

At the beginning of Death Comes, we meet the titular character, Father Jean-Marie Latour.

“Mais, c’est fantastique!” he muttered, closing his eyes to rest them from the intrusive omnipresence of the triangle. When he opened his eyes again, his glance immediately fell upon one juniper which differed in shape from the others. It was not a thick-growing cone, but a naked, twisted trunk, perhaps ten feet high, and at the top it parted into two lateral, flat-lying branches, with a little crest of green in the center, just above the cleavage. Living vegetation could not present more faithfully the form of the Cross. The traveler dismounted, drew from his pocket a much worn book, and baring his head, knelt at the foot of the cruciform tree. Under his buckskin riding-coat he wore a black vest and the cravat and collar of a churchman. A young priest, at his devotions; and a priest in a thousand, one knew at a glance. His bowed head was not that of an ordinary man—it was built for the seat of a fine intelligence. His brow was open, generous, reflective, his features handsome and somewhat severe. There was a singular elegance about the hands below the fringed cuffs of the buckskin jacket. Everything showed him to be a man of gentle birth—brave, sensitive, courteous. His manners, even when he was alone in the desert, were distinguished. He had a kind of courtesy toward himself, toward his beasts, toward the juniper tree before which he knelt, and the God whom he was addressing. 

It would be hard, not to mention foolish, to miss Cather’s appreciation of her subject, a fictional protagonist based on the real-life figure Archbishop Jean-Baptist Lamy. It would also be hard to claim that Latour did not represent the best of the Catholic Church in Cather’s mind. Yet, in the previous chapter to this second one in which she introduces the main character, she described several of the highest members of the Church, meeting in the Vatican in the tumultuous year of 1848, with no pretense of delicacy. Her descriptions of these clergy are nothing short of profoundly despicable. The Vatican officials are soft, effete, disordered, arrogant, and ignorant. In short, they could not achieve a higher state of decadence if they tried. The Church, Cather seems to be arguing in strict Augustinian fashion, survives through the small and generally unrecognized acts of holiness, and not through its corrupt and powerful offices and bureaucracies. Cather focuses on the heart and soul of the Church, not its physical body per se.

Read more at Catholic World Report >>

Pat Buchanan: Can the GOP Get Together in Cleveland?



By Patrick Buchanan

After winning only six delegates in Wisconsin, and with Ted Cruz poaching delegates in states he has won, like Louisiana, Donald Trump either wins on the first ballot at Cleveland, or Trump does not win.

Yet, as that huge, roaring reception he received in his first post-Wisconsin appearance in Bethpage, N.Y., testifies, the Donald remains not only the front-runner, but the most exciting figure in the race.

Moreover, after the New York, New England, mid-Atlantic and California primaries, Trump should be within striking distance of the 1,237 delegates needed for the nomination.

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Pat Buchanan: What Trump Has Wrought


By Patrick J. Buchanan

As Wisconsinites head for the polls, our Beltway elites are almost giddy. For they foresee a Badger State bashing for Donald Trump, breaking his momentum toward the Republican nomination.

Should the Donald fall short of the delegates needed to win on the first ballot, 1,237, there is growing certitude that he will be stopped. First by Ted Cruz; then, perhaps, by someone acceptable to the establishment, which always likes to have two of its own in the race.

But this city of self-delusion should realize there is no going back for America. For, whatever his stumbles of the last two weeks, Trump has helped to unleash the mightiest force of the 21st century: nationalism.

Transnationalism and globalism are moribund.