Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

France’s Catholic Revolution

While Mass-attendance rates have steeply declined over the last 30 years, today France is witnessing the rise of an increasingly self-confident—and dynamically orthodox—Catholicism.

 

A boy stands with cross outside Sacre Coeur basilica in Paris April 3. Catholic churches in France have been placed under police protection and urged to take extra security measures against possible Islamist attacks before the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption. (CNS photo/Etienne Laurent, EPA)

When many think about France and religion today, the images that usually come to mind are those of a highly secular society with a growing Islamic presence: a combination of widespread indifferentism, epicurean Voltairans, persistent anti-Semitism, increasingly radicalized Muslims, and now jihadist-inspired and organized terrorism. But now even some secular French journalists have started writing about a phenomenon that’s become difficult to ignore: an increasingly self-confident Catholicism that combines what might be called a dynamic orthodoxy with a determination to shape French society in ways that contest the status quo—both inside and outside the Church.  

Read more at The Catholic World Report >> 

 

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Bishop to Head Ordinariate in Canada and the United States

Monsignor Steven Lopes
For the first time, a bishop will head the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter for Canada and the United States.  Pope Francis has appointed Monsignor Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and an official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to succeed the retiring Monsignor Jeffrey Steenson.

Monsignor Steenson has issued the following statement:
What wonderful news from the Holy See this morning, that Pope Francis has appointed Msgr. Steven Lopes to be the first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter for Canada and the United States!

This is the happy outcome of much careful consultation with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to whom I first made this request almost a year ago. I welcome this news with all my heart, for the Ordinariate has now progressed to the point where a bishop is much needed for our life and mission. A bishop will help to give the Ordinariate the stability and permanence necessary to fulfil its mission to be a work of Catholic unity, whose roots are to be found in the great texts of the Second Vatican Council.

That the Ordinariate would ultimately be headed by a bishop has been the intention of Anglicanorum coetibus, the apostolic constitution under which we were established in 2012. It is indeed an encouraging sign that we have reached that goal.  With the inauguration of our new missal, Divine Worship, on the first Sunday of Advent, the time seems especially propitious.  

It was on the occasion of my reception into the Catholic Church in 2007 when I first met Msgr. Lopes, and we have worked closely together ever since. There is no one who knows better the work of the Pastoral Provision and the Ordinariates: those entities created in response to Anglicans seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.  Msgr. Lopes has been deeply involved the Anglicanae Traditiones Commission, charged with identifying “that liturgical expression which has nourished and maintained Catholic faith amongst Anglicans throughout the period of ecclesial separation and which in these days has given rise to aspirations for full communion with the Catholic Church.” He is thus uniquely qualified to be our first bishop.

It is particularly noteworthy that the Holy Father’s appointment is the culmination of a process for selecting an ordinary laid out in Article IV of the Complementary Norms of Anglicanorum coetibus. This provides for a significant consultative process that begins with the Governing Council of the Ordinariate presenting a terna of candidates. I am grateful to the members of the Governing Council, who accomplished this task with discernment and discretion.

I am grateful, too, for the encouragement, wise counsel, and support of the members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops during these first four years of the Ordinariate’s existence. I will always treasure the friendships made with these bishops. Their warm welcome for us pilgrims has certainly deepened the joy we know as Catholics.

- Monsignor Jeffrey N. Steenson, Ordinary Emeritus


official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpufCongre
has named Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
has named Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
has named Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf
Msgr. Steven Lopes, a priest of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and official of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as the Ordinariate’s first bishop - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=26785#sthash.OnoRYvB2.dpuf

Pat Buchanan: Will Europe Man Up?



By Patrick J. Buchanan

If the purpose of terrorism is to terrify, the Islamic State had an extraordinary week. Brussels, capital of the EU and command post of mighty NATO, is still in panic and lockdown.

“In Brussels, fear of attack lingers” was Monday’s headline over The Washington Post’s top story, which read:

“Not since Boston came to a near-standstill after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 has the life of a major Western city been brought to a halt this way by the fear of terrorism.”

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Father George Rutler: Christ the King


Our former church was begun in 1857 and rebuilt after a fire in 1892. When I kneel before the high altar, which was moved to its present location in 1907 to make room for the Pennsylvania Station, I think of how the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been offered there through the Civil War with its Draft Riots and lynchings, and two World Wars, as well as Korea and Vietnam, with their victory parades and funerals for the young men killed in them. Workers and firemen who worshiped at this altar were killed at the World Trade Center. Every altar in the world is a focus of the human drama, and while Christ died once and rose in victory never to die again, his death transcends time in his merciful union with all human suffering. This is why Pascal said paradoxically in his Pensées that the Risen Christ “is in agony on the Mount of Olives until the end of the world.”
 

When the haters of remnant Christian civilization struck Paris last Friday the 13th, many kept saying that it was “unreal” and “inexplicable.” But the blood was real, and the cruelty was totally explicable by the history of false religion and its embrace of evil. Fittingly, when the attack began in that concert hall, the band was playing a cacophonous piece, barely distinguishable from gunfire, called “Kiss the Devil.” Only those afflicted with the illusion of secular progressivism as a substitute for the Gospel seemed bewildered. Evil is real and explicable by the Fall of Man. Through the battles that have been fought and endured as Mass was being said on our altar, those who knelt here have promised to renounce Satan, and all his evil works, and all his empty promises.
 

It is different now that a whole generation has been taught to think that there is no evil to resist, and no holiness to attain. The highest ambition of our new “therapeutic culture” is no loftier than the desire to “feel good” about oneself. We were solaced by politicians telling us that ISIS has been “contained” and is less dangerous than climate change. While Christians in the Middle East were being slaughtered in what the pope himself called genocide, although our own State Department refused to call it that, coddled and foul-mouthed students on our college campuses were indulging psychodramatic claims of hurt feelings and low self-esteem. They are not the stuff of which civilization’s heroes are made, and when the barbarians flood the gates, their teddy bears and balloons will be of little use.
 

Christ is the King of the universe because “He is before all things and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). To deny that is to be left in a moral whirlwind, thinking that evil is unreal and the actions of evil people have no explanation. 


Father George W. Rutler is pastor of the Church of St. Michael in New York City and the author most recently of Clouds of Witnesses: Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive . His The Spirit of Vatican II appeared in First Things and He is Not Here , his homily for the Mass for the repose of the soul of Richard John Neuhaus, and Words and Reality in “On the Square.”  

 

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe - "To Jesus Christ Sovereign King"



Gospel Jn 18:33b-37

Pilate said to Jesus,
"Are you the King of the Jews?"
Jesus answered, "Do you say this on your own
or have others told you about me?"
Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me.
What have you done?"
Jesus answered, "My kingdom does not belong to this world.
If my kingdom did belong to this world,
my attendants would be fighting
to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.
But as it is, my kingdom is not here."
So Pilate said to him, "Then you are a king?"
Jesus answered, "You say I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."


Friday, November 20, 2015

Pat Buchanan: The End of Obamaworld

By Patrick J. Buchanan

In denouncing Republicans as “scared of widows and orphans,” and castigating those who prefer Christian refugees to Muslims coming to America, Barack Obama has come off as petulant and unpresidential.

Clearly, he is upset. And with good reason.

He grossly, transparently underestimated the ability of ISIS, the “JV” team, to strike outside the caliphate into the heart of the West, and has egg all over his face. More critically, the liberal world order he has been preaching and predicting is receding before our eyes.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

A Soldier's Story



By Christopher Allard in a Facebook post dated November 16, 2015

I don’t typically go on rants or express my political beliefs here (Facebook), but I just have to get this off my mind.
 
As some of you know, I’m active duty Army. Aside from that, I am a medic. I’ve spent 3 years of my life overseas in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve seen some pretty atrocious sites caused by war, from both sides. I’ve picked up blown up body parts of friends and I’ve saved the lives of guys who were trying to kill me and my guys right before I was keeping them from their 72 virgins or whatever they believe awaits them on the other side.
 
Here is an unbiased truthful view to the Syrian refugee situation.
 
My first deployment to Iraq, in 2006, my unit voluntarily ran a childrens burn clinic outside of the FOB. It was a constant target for attacks. You would think that people wouldn’t shoot mortars or rockets at their own children, but you would be wrong. We saw hundreds of children, from infants to 18 year olds. The overwhelming majority of the kids we saw (90% or better) were clear cases of abuse. These parents were literally dunking their kids in boiling water, or throwing hot chai at their kids faces… Yes, we’re talking about babies, toddlers, kids not even old enough to understand why their parents would do these things to them. HUNDREDS of kids… We saw quite a few of these kids that were sexually abused, both girls and boys. Their parents acted if nothing was wrong with this, even when confronted by our doctors.
 
This is the mentality of their society, not the viewpoint of a few individuals… these beliefs have been accepted to the vast majority of these people. Many were educated, well dressed, well spoken men, but yet, they still raped their own children, and kept chai boys (if you don’t know what that means, google it.)
 
During that deployment, we also captured the 3rd largest EFP cache that had ever been captured. There were hundreds of copper plates, homemade explosives, fake curbs to house the EFP’s, hundreds of mortars and rockets and howitzer rounds, even an anti-aircraft gun. All of these things came from one place, Syria. Almost every single IED or EFP we found or hit could be traced back to Syria… A lot of the terrorists we captured were from SYRIA… Imagine that.
 
Fast forward a couple years, and I find myself in Helmand Province, in Afghanistan… We had a group of Afghani’s that were paid to help guard our little mud hut in the middle of an Afghan village (I wasn’t on a fob) These guys also kept a “chai boy” A boy, about 11 years old, who was there to serve these guys sexually. We heard him being sexually assaulted many times, but there was nothing we could do about it. We asked the police, the Afghan Army, and we were told the same thing every time…. it’s their culture, and accepted as the norm….
 
Once again, we captured Syrian made explosives, weapons, and other items… We found Syrian passports during raids… And people out there want us to let these people into the US, with our kids, and near our wives. Near our schools, near our churches, synogogues, malls. Places where we should never have to fear being blown up, shot, kidnapped and tortured…
 
Don’t forget what they did to the Egyptian Coptic Christians, or the Jordanian pilot… Don’t forget about what they do to rape victims! They stone these women to death for being raped! They behead their own people. Do you think they will show mercy to you?
 
Look at the rape statistics in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium. Facts don’t lie… 97% of rapes committed in Sweden were committed by Muslim immigrants… And you want 10,000 of these people here? Even if just 1% of these so called “refugees” were ISIS supporters or active ISIS terrorists, would that be acceptable to you?
 
Chew on it… think about it. Take a good look at your kids or your wife and decide if the risk is worth taking. Feel free to share this if you want.