Modern Bible Myths: The “Q Source”.

Irenaeus, Eusebius, Tertullian and others had travelled throughout the Roman Empire, and were well educated.

Why did they have no knowledge of the alleged anonymous authors or ‘Q’?

Why did the Jews, heretics and pagans never mention them or it?

Why were all the ancient historians and theologians completely ignorant of ‘Q’? Or the name of the genius, who had produced the key written account of the life and teaching of Christ?

Also, why did all the historians of the period, alleged to have lived far apart, accept the gospels were written by four other men and agree their names and backgrounds?

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Submit to the liberal establishment or be “Deened”.

It is not too difficult to see what will happen if a successful Catholic celebrity or businessman is sued for discrimination by a homosexual person and, in a deposition, asked if he or she has ever harbored the view that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered?  Or what if such a Catholic is asked if he or she thinks that homosexual sexual activity is intrinsically immoral, gravely sinful, and if knowingly and willingly engaged in lands one in hell?  Or what if such a Catholic is asked if he or she has ever been against “marriage equality,” and entertained the view that homosexual “marriage” is against the common good?

Answer “Yes” to any of those questions and, in the mind of the secular liberal, you are guilty of invidious discrimination, of malice.  It is an irredeemable position.  Convert or suffer punishment.  Convert or you will be Deened.

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Shocking video: Watch members of the “Religion of Peace” behead a Catholic priest.

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) – The Vatican is confirming the death by beheading of Franciscan Father, Francois Murad, who was martyred by Syrian jihadists on June 23.

Warning: Graphic violence

Editor’s note: There appears to be a number of beheadings taking place, starting around time frame 3:45 – and seeming to go on forever – to the repeated cries of “Allahu Akbar”. Please pray for these current day Christian martyrs – and their executioners. 

Rome: Ex-priests allegations about clerical-pedophile ring have no merit.

Patrizzio Poggi, who served 5 years of an 8-year sentence on sex-abuse charges, had told reporters that he could identify 20 priests who were involved in child prostitution. But prosecutors said he could not substantiate the claims, and charged that his reports were “motivated by personal feelings of resentment.” Poggi allegedly became enraged with Church officials who did not defend him against the criminal charges that led to his conviction and imprisonment.

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Editor’s note: Michael Voris/Church Militant TV got way out ahead of this when it initially came to light – assuming that all the charges were true. Now, it will be interesting to see how they handle the retraction.

Ralph McCloud is still running the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, in spite of his direct support for pro-abortion Texas state senator Wendy Davis

And if this scandal is not enough, the CCHD – with the support of a number of bishops – is still spouting falsehoods and issuing denials about the various anti-Catholic things they continue to do with Catholic money.

Read the latest “puff piece” in the Washington Post

A “blueprint” for the coming end of days, based on the prophesies of Catholic saints

Well, let me lay this out for you in very simple terms.  The good ol’ days ended a long time ago, long before any of us were born, and long before anyone alive today can remember.  Would it surprise you to learn that our time was prophesied centuries ago with alarming accuracy?  Here, let me give you an example…

After the year 1900, toward the middle of the 20th century, the people of that time will become unrecognisable. When the time for the Advent of the Antichrist approaches, peoples minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonour and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will become unrecognisable. Peoples appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to there shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the Antichrist. There will be no respect for parents or elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vain men, completely failing to distinguish the right hand way from the left. At that time the morals and traditions of Christians and the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds and murder will rule in society.

— St. Nilus, 430 AD

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For-profit businesses are not included in the HHS contraceptive mandate “accommodation” released today.

Eric Rassbach, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm challenging the contraception coverage rule, said “it doesn’t really change the overall way they’re trying to do this.” The Becket Fund represents many of organizations challenging the regulation in federal court.

The Catholic Church prohibits the use of artificial contraception. Evangelicals generally accept the use of birth control, but some object to specific methods such as the morning-after contraceptive pill, which they argue is tantamount to abortion, and is covered under the policy.

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Latest SCOTUS ruling: Casual contempt for the citizenry.

What connects the above to today’s decisions in Washington is the slapdash contempt of Anthony Kennedy’s opinion. Whatever the merits of gay marriage, it ought to revolt anyone with a decent respect for self-government that this incompetent jurist could find no other way to frame the issue than to besmirch the motives of those who oppose him. As Justice Scalia wrote:

To defend traditional marriage is not to condemn, demean, or humiliate those who would prefer other arrangements, any more than to defend the Constitution of the United States is to condemn, demean, or humiliate other constitutions. To hurl such accusations so casually demeans this institution. In the majority’s judgment, any resistance to its holding is beyond the pale of reasoned disagreement… It is one thing for a society to elect change; it is another for a court of law to impose change by adjudging those who oppose it hostes humani generis, enemies of the human race. 

What I always objected to in Canada about Section 13 was its casual contempt for the citizenry, the same contempt on display today in Washington and London. Like Theresa May, Justice Kennedy would rather impute motive than engage argument. The need to delegitimize those who disagree does indeed “demean this institution”, and is profoundly disturbing.

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It’s fair to ask what esteem Pope Francis holds the centuries long Tradition of the Church.

Pelagianism has been a much used word in Catholic circles of late.  Which is a surprising, because as a formal heresy, it was fairly well stamped out  1500 years ago or so. Arianism actually persisted longer than Pelagianism.

Certainly, the Holy Father seems much enamored of the word.  He used it a couple of weeks ago to describe traditionalists to some visitors from S. America. He just used it again yesterday, when he went a bit further:

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Why don’t liberal Jews recognize the close connection between their particular Holocaust and the world-wide abortion holocaust?

A no brainer: It’s all bad! 

Liberal Jewish groups that have made reproductive rights a priority believe that such bills, even when they fail, represent a growing threat to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion a matter of choice.

“We know that yesterday’s vote was symbolic, since the Senate will not take up the bill and the president has said he would veto it,” Barbara Weinstein, the director of the Reform movement’s Commission on Social Action, said in a statement. “Yet the symbolism of the bill’s House passage is indeed important, demonstrating the unfortunate reality that women’s reproductive rights remain at risk.”

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Editor’s note: When your personal, liberalized form of religion (as well as your political ideology) holds abortion rights as sacred, nothing else really matters. These guys sound just like Nancy Pelosi and a lot of other politicians, who claim to be Catholic, but are also blinded by their personal politics.

Abortion champion NARAL exempted from Andrew Cuomo’s lobby-disclosure laws

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed hard to ensure that lobbying groups would have to disclose their donors, and bragged about the sunlight the law would bring.

Now the state government has exempted exactly one lobbying group from the ethics laws: NARAL, the leading lobbyist for legal abortion.

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An interesting article on law and justice, particularly as it applies to the Catholic Church

Moses receiving the Ten Commandments

The Catholic understanding of law that dominated the Western world for approximately a millennium and a half differs radically from the concept of law that emerged around the time of the Enlightenment. In fact the Catholic understanding, albeit a less precise articulation of it, traces its origins to the pre-Christian ancient world.[1]

God created not only the visible, tangible universe but also created law. The eternal law which is the rational plan of God for the universe is the first created law. As one medieval commentator expressed it, “God is himself law and therefore law is dear to Him.”[2] God did not create an unruly cosmos but one permeated with this eternal law which directs all of creation to its appointed end.

The summit of visible creation is Man. He is graced with a nature that reflects the Divine Nature itself. Man is thus called to participate in the eternal law and thus participate in God’s governance of creation. Not only does God entrust Man with the task of naming visible creatures, he is called to participate in the formation and promulgation of the laws by which Man himself will be ruled and guided to his due end. Just as a name brings greater specificity to an entity, so too Man’s participation in law will involve the task of particularizing the precepts of the eternal law.

Through his intellect, the point of contact with the eternal law, Man has the ability to come to know the most general legal principles, the precepts of Natural Law. These precepts command and forbid actions which conform to and obstruct, respectively, the attainment of Man’s natural and supernatural ends. Yet, these precepts are framed in general and universal terms. As a result of the Fall, Man’s participation in this process is afflicted by the wounds of sin and thus God promulgated an additional law, the divine law, to aid Man in his acquisition of knowledge of the primary precepts of law.

The Decalogue is the prime example of the divine law which did not alter the moral status of the operations specified in its ten precepts but which merely provided revealed knowledge of these precepts. Thus revelation and reason together provide Man with a means of knowing the fundamental precepts of the law which rules the universe.

Yet, the precepts of natural and divine law remain general in their formulation. They require further specification to be useful in guiding particular human action. It is to this task that Man has received a Divine call to participate. Ecclesiastical and secular authorities are commissioned by God to determine more particular principles and precepts of the divine and natural law to guide with greater specificity human action.

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Cynical cleric says: If the truths of the faith were to be preached .. the medicine might kill the dog.

Priests with integrity and authentic love for souls – simply will not sit back and preach like this – thy will be true fathers and deal out the tough love when it is needed. They don’t care about being popular or well liked – other than by Our Blessed Lord – who is the only one that counts.

They say what needs to be said and when they open their mouths about contraception or same-sex marriage or whatever – then someone in the pews calls down to the bishop’s office. The bishop calls in the priest and promptly chastises the PRIEST for preaching the truth and upsetting the little offended laity.

The priest is branded a radical or some such nonsense among his fellow diocesan priests who have learned to play the political game and keep their mouths shut when it comes to the truth – if they actually believe it or not themselves is another question.

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The Stages of The Rise And Fall of Great Nations

History shows us that the great nations of the world have almost never lived much more than 200 years, and there has been sequential stages in every case.

The first stage moves from bondage to spiritual faith.
The second from spiritual faith to great courage.
The third stage moves from great courage to liberty.
The fourth stage moves from liberty to abundance.
The fifth stage moves from abundance to selfishness.
The sixth stage moves from selfishness to complacency.
The seventh stage moves from complacency to apathy.
The eighth stage moves from apathy to moral decay.
The ninth stage moves from moral decay to dependence.
And the tenth and last stage moves from dependence to bondage.

Submitted by Bob Stanley

Federal judge gets it right on HHS Mandate ruling

The Government claimed that once a business owner chooses to enter into the marketplace or incorporate his business, he surrenders his right to exercise his religious beliefs.
However, Judge Kovachevich’s 37-page decision which mentioned Thomas R. Beckwith’s unique family history—Beckwith’s ancestors arrived on the shores of America in 1626 to escape religious persecution from England — ended with a powerful statement on religious freedom:

 “The First Amendment, and its statutory corollary the RFRA, endow upon the citizens of the United States the unalienable right to exercise religion, and that right is not relinquished by efforts to engage in free enterprise under the corporate form. No legislative, executive, or judicial officer shall corrupt the Framers’ initial expression, through their enactment of laws, enforcement of those laws, or more importantly, their interpretation of those laws. And any action that debases, or cheapens, the intrinsic value of the tenet of religious tolerance that is entrenched in the Constitution cannot stand.” (Emphasis added)

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Head of CCHD was the campaign treasurer for the woman who filibustered the Texas legislature to stop anti-abortion legislation

While the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has come under well deserved scrutiny for supporting groups such as ACORN and groups with ties to promoting abortion, CMR has uncovered that Ralph McCloud, while heading the CCHD in 2008, was simultaneously working as a highly placed campaign official for a pro-choice politician seeking to unseat a pro-life politician.

As you likely know, CCHD is the bishops’ anti-poverty program which funds community organizing and economic development projects and has been at the center of a number of controversies. Ralph McCloud was named head of the CCHD in November 2007. In his first year as head of the CCHD, according to public records, McCloud also worked as the Treasurer for Planned Parenthood endorsed Democrat Wendy Davis.

Why would the director of the CCHD, during his tenure as head of an ostensibly Catholic institution act as champion and treasurer of a campaign for a pro-abortion politician seeking to oust a pro-life politician? This is the textbook definition of scandal.

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The oldest catholic parish in the United States is celebrating its 415th birthday.

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A priest responds to former President Carter: The equality for which Catholicism argues is one of complementarity, not egalitarianism.

Jimmy Carter regards the exclusion of women from the priesthood as a human rights abuse?  This makes absolutely no sense to me.  Ordination to the priesthood is not a natural right.  It is a spiritual calling and a divine gift.  It cannot be merited.  No one deserves it.  By definition it cannot be associated with any social justice agenda.  People might debate the subject and others might request it; but no one can demand it.  It is a sacrament of the Church.  The Church has every right to regulate her sacraments as she sees fit.

The Church has made great overtures in empowering women.  They minister as pastoral associates, chancellors, office managers, directors of religious education and catechists, music directors, readers, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, religious sisters, lay missionaries, principals and teachers, and the greatest vocation of all, as mothers.

Instead of dictating to the churches and other religions; Carter should have encouraged them to find new avenues for inclusion and service for women.  It is not his place to dictate “theology” which conflicts with the settled doctrine of other faith communities.

If we are going to respect religious liberties then we have to paint in broad strokes and allow them the freedom and ingenuity to find ways to heal gender inequality.  Not everyone looks at the world through the lenses of liberal Protestantism.  Catholicism has its Magisterium and Sacred Tradition.  Conservative Protestantism has its strict reliance upon a literal understanding of Scripture.  Islam is a religion of “the Book” and “the Law.”  Judaism is the religion of “the Promise.”

Read more by Fr. Joseph Jenkins

…and all the tin-horn politicians were falling over themselves trying to get a photo with him.

Denver, Colorado World Youth Day: Twenty Years Ago

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6 Ways to Live a Good Life and Reach Eternal Happiness by Saint John Bosco

Born in 1815, Saint John Bosco was a man of extraordinary intelligence, charm, and physical strength—gifts he used exclusively to serve his neighbor in tireless efforts to win souls to God, especially those of young boys. He founded the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales, a school and refuge for boys, and, in 1859, the Christian education of youth.

His teaching style was candid, simple but filled with wisdom. We present here what he called “medicine” for the soul. The simplicity and efficacy of these “prescriptions” remind us of those good old-fashioned homemade remedies made by our mothers and grandmothers. They help young and old alike.

Prescription #1: Give God the greatest possible glory and honor Him with your whole soul. If you have a sin on your conscience, remove it as soon as possible by means of a good Confession.

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Not interested? Try St. John Bosco’s mystical vision of Hell