Rush Limbaugh: Drive-Bys Shocked to Learn Pope Francis is Catholic

Any Catholic who has been listening to the secular media's inane commentary  about the Conclave this past week and who heard Rush Limbaugh  discussing it today, must have broken out into a "Te Deum" and mid-Lent "Alleluia's."  Limbaugh, a non-Catholic, said clearly and persuasively what every faithful Catholic has been thinking.  He, unlike 99% of the media, understands that the Church cannot be explained with a left-right political paradigm.  He understands that the role of the Church is to be counter-cultural, to be, like the cross, a sign of contradiction, immutable in its proclamation of Truth.  It is a church which will never conform itself to the world, but rather seeks to convert the world to Christ.

As Limbaugh explains so well, the media, lacking faith, cannot understand that Pope after Pope continues to be, well, CATHOLIC!  After all, hasn't conforming a church to the feminist movement, the LGBT movement, the pro-abortion movement, to pantheistic environmentalism, to every passing fad, worked so well for The Episcopal Church?

Catholics and those fed-up with a godless media will find the following transcript from today's Rush Limbaugh Show to be a wonderful, refreshing dose of truth.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: New pope. I am not Catholic. But I have endeavored, I have dug deep, I have attempted to find out from sources that I trust as much as I can, that I can understand, that I could then relay to you about this new pope. He's the first pope from the Americas. I realize some of you from Rio Linda say, "Wait a minute. Argentina? That's South America." He's the first one. And he didn't want to be pope. But there's some incredible things about this man. He is a classic Catholic theologian. There appears not to be one shred of moral relevance. In fact, I'll play the sound bites for you in just a minute.

The media, select members, they're out there. I watched some of it this morning, and it's kind of funny to watch. They're wringing their hands, "How can the church attract young people when it is opposed to contraception? Doesn't the church need to modernize? Doesn't the pope, don't these cardinals realize what they've gotta do if they want to attract young people to the church? If they want to spread their message they can't have this position that's anti-gay marriage and anti-contraception." And they treat the church as a political institution.

And of course there's politics clearly in the Curia throughout the Vatican, but in terms of church teaching, it's not a political institution. It's religious. I heard people, in fact, media people, "Is this new pope, is he a liberal? Is he a conservative?" He's a Catholic! It's no more complicated than that. Catholicism is what it is. You don't have to believe it. You don't have to follow it. But it's not up to them to modernize to you. It's not up to any religion, although some do this, 'cause they want the money. They want the membership. But the Catholic Church doesn't do it. It's not up to them to bend and shape and mold itself to accommodate the shrinking depravity of a worldwide culture. It's to provide the exact opposite. It's to provide a beacon out of depravity, among other things.

Father Christopher Smith: Refashioned or True Religion?

In New York, Virginia, New Jersey and South Carolina, I have been extraordinarily blessed in my pastors.  They could not be more different in their personalities, yet each one is an alter Christus, carrying out the Church's salvific mission, building the Kingdom and serving all that is good, true and beautiful.  The following is the weekly parish bulletin letter written by my current pastor, Father Christopher Smith, Ph.D, S.T.D.

Father Smith

As a young theology student, I once stated that the Church is divided, because there are so many different denominations.  Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the new Prefect of the Congregation for the New Evangelization, corrected me:  "The Church is one.  It is Christians who are divided."  Every Sunday we say, I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  For Catholics, we know that means us, the Church founded by Jesus Christ.  But there are millions of other Christians who say the same Creed every Sunday, yet are not Catholic.  And there are countless more who say no Creed at all when they come to worship.

The Catholic Church has remained one, the original Christians since the beginning.  We "do" Church as it were together.  But from time to time individuals convince themselves that they can "do" it better.  So while there is 1 Catholic Church, there are over 33,000 different groups of Christians protesting our claim to hand on the apostolic faith.  And because the only thing they all agree on is that they are not Catholic, they divide on and on.  There used to be denominations, like the Anglicans or the Presbyterians or the Lutherans, but they too have split into all sorts of splinter groups.  And many Christians are just opting out entirely of denominations, opening shop in a coffee shop or a house or a warehouse.  Some of these grow into megachurches and others never go very far, and many of those megachurches implode and divide too.

I find it interesting that the vast majority of these sects are found in the USA or funded by American missionaries.  There is something about our culture which is very individualistic and entrepreneurial.  And here, the customer is always right.  I am always coming across people who say, "I haven't found  a Church home yet."  What they mean is they haven't found a Church that reflects their own image and likeness.  That consumerist mentality is not just something Protestant, though.  Once upon a time, people went to the Catholic parish closest to them.  Now, people shop around for what they think will fulfill them, for the image of the Church they like.  Parishes are pressured to market themselves to cater to what people like.

There is one place where all of this comes from: Pride.  And it created division among Christians.  It hampers our efforts at evangelization, apologetics and ecumenism.  The consumer mentality has a way of filling up churches for a little while, whose members then float away and cease to practice the faith when they don't get the high they have been expecting.

We have a motive for rejoicing today though on this Gaudete Sunday.  There are Catholic Christians who seek to serve God and His Truth and not themselves.  They resist the attempt to remake the Church and the Gospel in their own image and likeness.  Our task is to be faithful to the Church handed down from Jesus to the Apostles down to our own day.  It is time to repent from the pride which leads us to make up our own religions or refashion the true religion as we see fit.  GK Chesterton once asked, "Do you want a Church that is moved by the world, or a Church that moves the world?"  I know which one I've got, and I am blessed and highly favoured to have it right here in my Catholic Church and our Prince of Peace family.

A Traditionalist Avant-Garde

We love The Economist almost as much as we love to see the secular media confounded by all those zealous, young, counter-cultural Catholics.  They just can't figure it out!

 It’s trendy to be a traditionalist in the Catholic church

Smells and bells galore

From The Economist

SINCE the Second Vatican Council in 1962, the Roman Catholic church has striven to adapt to the modern world. But in the West—where many hoped a contemporary message would go down best—believers have left in droves. Sunday mass attendance in England and Wales has fallen by half from the 1.8m recorded in 1960; the average age of parishioners has risen from 37 in 1980 to 52 now. In America attendance has declined by over a third since 1960. Less than 5% of French Catholics attend regularly, and only 15% in Italy. Yet as the mainstream wanes, traditionalists wax.

Catholics Today Could See the Birth of a New Model of Church

The shedding of institutional structures and the diminishing number of priests could, in fact, be liberating 

By Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council could not have foreseen how the Church would change (Photo: CNS)

It is 50 years since the Vatican Council began, and everyone, it seems, has had something to say on the anniversary; what strikes me, rather belatedly, reading the documents again, just how the world has changed since 1962, in a way that the Council Fathers could not possibly have foreseen.

Let me count the ways.

Christianity's New Centers of Power

Photo: Pope Benedict XVI in Cameroon. The Catholic church has seen tremendous growth in regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia. (Cristophe Simon/AFP/Getty Images)

From The National Post (CDN)

By Ron Nurwisah

It is a vision most mainstream Canadian church leaders can only dream of: Sunday mornings in which parishioners dance and sing through three-hour services. Seminaries overflowing and unable to keep up with demand for pastors as the number of the newly baptized rises.

The dream is a reality in such places as Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, where there is an explosion in Christianity. In the past decade, this demographic surge has started to spill out of Africa, as well as Asia and Latin America, in the form of missionaries to the West, a trend influencing everything from styles of worship to doctrine.

Whereas many Catholic intellectuals and academics in North America have the luxury to worry about, for example, the ordination of women, the Africans entrust that issue to the judgement of the Vatican and concern themselves instead with the practical work of basic survival.

John Allen, in his most recent book, The Future Church, a look at global Catholicism over the next 100 years, wrote that issues such as abortion, condoms and female priests will not even be on the table in part because of the African influence.

Even the woes of the Anglican Church of Canada can be put on the doorstep of surging African Anglicanism. The conservative parishes that deserted their far more liberal national Church in the past decade received their moral support primarily from the conservative bishops of Africa.

The reasons for this growth and subsequent influence are complex, but simple demographics help tell some of the tale: Western birth rates are in sharp decline while African rates are soaring.

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A Catholic Among the Evangelicals

From First Things
By Gerardine Luongo

In 2005 I accepted a position at CURE International, an evangelical mission organization. Today I serve as CURE’s director of government and foundation relations. At first blush, my story appears unexceptional—until I add that I am a Catholic. CURE’s motto is “Healing changes everything,” and the organization is devoted to overcoming brokenness on many levels. Although I did ponder the implications of accepting such a position, I must admit I was in no way prepared for the ramifications this job would have on my life. My experience at CURE clearly demonstrates that a shared commitment to seeking God trumps the need for a shared theology. To focus on differences can only cause us to get lost among the weeds.

I grew up during the great Kumbaya revolution in Catholicism that grew out of the Second Vatican Council. My background kept me sheltered from the deep mistrust that existed among some Christian denominations, and especially between some Catholics and evangelicals. Ironically, I finally became aware of these divisions through global humanitarian outreach.

Shortly after I joined CURE, I made my first trip to Africa. This trip included CURE’s annual meeting, a gathering of colleagues from around the world. After a few days I mentioned to some colleagues from Uganda that I was Catholic. I can’t recall why the subject even came up. I will never forget the stunned look in my fellow workers’ eyes. I was told that I couldn’t be Catholic because I was clearly a Christian. Now it was my turn to be stunned! Thus began a conversation that continues to this day—a conversation that has changed our views of one another and strengthened our faith.

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Pope Reaching Out to Traditional Catholics

From the National Post (Canada)
By Charles Lewis

Pope Benedict's decision to bring back to the fold four bishops from a schismatic religious order was an attempt to reach out to a growing element of the Church that longs for a more traditional practice of Catholicism, especially in the heart of worship -- the Mass, writes Charles Lewis.

In the storm following the Pope's decision to lift the excommunication of four bishops -- triggered by the revelation that Richard Williamson, one of the bishops from the Society of St. Pius X, was a Holocaust denier and 9/11 conspiracy theorist -- a profound message about the future of Catholicism was obscured.

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