Catholics should be be very upset with all the high level clerics who were so demented and/or theologically inept to have attempted to equate the pagan, Pachamama fertility goddess with the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God.

In the West, the Pachamama has at the same time been popularised by the development of shamanism in personal development movements, and by a whole new-age literature that combines the cults of different pantheons — Amerindians or Greeks (Gaia).

In the world of feminine self-development she is to be found in works such as the best-selling personal development book of the 1990s, The Four Toltec Agreements. And in the world of ecological awareness, tinged with the mixture of both freedom and incoherence that post-modernism bestows, she has become an agency for “reinventing traditions” and a more intimate relationship with the local land and wider earth.

Those who brought Pachamama into the Vatican gardens in Rome to be reverenced under the cover of the affection that Catholics have for the Virgin Mary were either carelessly or deliberately trying to infuse Catholicism with a shamanistic and ecologically politicised alternative religious movement with a very different religious and spiritual character. One that is in fact entirely at odds with Catholic belief and practice.

Read more

Editor’s note: The most incredible aspect of this great scandal is this demented group of clerics attempting to pull off something like this, at all! And the Pope appears to be 100% on board, with it.

Real life accounts of miraculous healings that have been rigorously verified by medical commissions.

In many cases, these commissions have included doctors of various faiths and none.

In places like Lourdes, of course, there are many other cures that are more difficult to substantiate.

It is a sad truth that cases of spiritual healing, even those involving radical conversions of life, can easily be dismissed by atheists as natural or purely psychological developments.

Read more

Everything you need to know about the court case seeking to stop Government sponsored censorship, disinformation and misinformation

Missouri v. Biden was filed on May 5, 2022. Since it was initially filed, it has taken quite a trip through the court system. The complaint has been amended 3 times, with the most recent Amendment being to transform the case into a class suit – due to the overwhelming evidence of broad harm to the constitutional rights of all Americans. You can view the docket by using this link.

The complaint alleged that the US Government was not only threatening and coercing social media companies to censor Americans on social media, but they were also working WITH social media companies to accomplish that goal.

Read more

Christians urged to celebrate ‘Humility Month’ during June instead of LGBT ‘pride’

(LifeSiteNews) — Radio host Mike Church is calling on Christians to reclaim June as a reverent month focused on the Sacred Heart of Jesus by celebrating it as “Humility Month.”

Traditionally during June, Catholics have honored the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whose feast day is during that month. June is also the occasion of the feasts of Corpus Christi, Saints Peter and Paul, and Saint John the Baptist – a martyr for the sanctity of marriage.

June is supposed to be a “joyful, reverent” month full of increased Eucharistic Adoration and processions to honor Our Lord, Church told LifeSiteNews.

The radio host maintains that June was chosen as “pride” month by LGBT activists to “create maximum offense against the Son of God and therefore God himself.”

Full story

The Mighty Power of the Holy Name of Jesus

…when we speak about the name of Jesus, we speak about the authority that is connected with the Person of Jesus.

It is for this reason that He told His disciples: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:17–18).

The victory of believers over evil is rooted in the name of Jesus.

Read the entire article

How a Nun Turned a Monastery Garage into the EWTN Global Catholic Network

In March of 1978, a 55-year-old cloistered nun named Mother Angelica went to Chicago. She was there to give workshops to supporters who would distribute her Catholic books and tapes.

She had started making spiritual recordings in 1962, after one of the nuns in her community suggested she “record a ‘little heart to heart talk.’”

The sisters sold the records to help pay the bills at their Franciscan monastery in Irondale, Alabama.

While in Chicago, Mother Angelica visited a Baptist-run television station, and reportedly said, “Lord, I gotta have one of those.”

Read more

The Catholic Church has no “small-minded rules – but rather an abundance of small-minded clerics.

Lessons the Coca-Cola Company Promptly Learned
That Catholic Clerics Never Have   

by Doug Lawrence

It is a form of blasphemy to blame God’s Holy Church for what some choose to term “small-minded” rules, since the Church belongs to God – and God is utterly incapable of any type of error.

Rather, let’s look at those clerics – at every level – who have led the Church in more worldly directions – imprudent directions that were  often contrary to the laws of God and detrimental to the care of souls.

I’m not going to attempt to list all of the official sins of the clerical leadership of the Catholic Church, nor is such a thing necessary, since unlike Church teachings, the bulk of those offenses are indeed known and essentially understood by all.

The small-minded truth of the matter is the sheer audacity and unmitigated gall of those liberal, modernist clerics who thought themselves smarter than God and who decided that everything needed to change – and who discarded 2000 years of accumulated wisdom and tradition, in favor of their own, flavor-of-the-week, untested novelties.

When the managers of the Coca-Cola Company got caught up in the very same obtuse spirit of “novelty for the sake of novelty” they too summarily discontinued a tried and true, proven “product” in favor of an all-new replacement which they deemed to be more in tune with modern  times and tastes.

They were wrong – and “New Coke” turned out to be a total, unmitigated disaster – that without prompt corrective action  might  have spelled the end of the company.

So, motivated by economic factors and the desire to survive – within a period of about six months – original Coca-Cola was back – renamed “Classic Coke” – and “New Coke” was on its way out!

You can’t even buy the stuff, today – not that anyone ever really wanted to!

Now, back to us poor, old, Catholics …

Fifty years later, we’re still being set upon by maladjusted incompetents who – having tried everything they could think of to “sell” us what is clearly an inferior “product” – now resort to media events, insults and guilting – in order to cajole the faithful into accepting their damaged and often distasteful spiritual “wares”.

Enough, already! The only reason the post-Vatican II Catholic Church hasn’t already totally gone out of business is the awesome power and the tender mercies of God Almighty – who has obviously taken pity on the remnant of faithful Catholics – those who have patiently born the trials and tribulations of “New Church” – remaining zealous and doing penance – solely for the glory of God and his Kingdom.

“New Church” never tasted right – and it’s not getting any better with age. Waiting more than 50 years to get rid of what should have been immediately recognizable and apparent to all, constitutes an abject failure of Church leadership and a willful denial of the direct advocacy of the Holy Spirit.

This is not only a travesty – it’s a sin!

We Catholics are the victims of incompetent bishops, corrupt lay administrators and a cadre of ill-trained and poorly managed priests and deacons.

Our once great system of catechetical training and Catholic education has become a stumbling block for the faithful and a safe haven for heretics and fools, while at the same time, by virtually every measure, what today passes for the Catholic Church is almost everywhere in sharp decline.

We even have a third world, South American, Jesuit-Contra, community organizer, “water down the dogma” pope who can’t seem to make up his mind about things (other than not liking traditionalists.)

Jesus knew exactly what to do with this type of foul-tasting stuff:

Revelation 3:16-19 But because you art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.

Because you say: I am rich and made wealthy and have need of nothing: and know not that you art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

I counsel thee to buy of me gold, fire tried, that you may be made rich and may be clothed in white garments: and that the shame of your nakedness may not appear.

And anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

Such as I love, I rebuke and chastise.

Be zealous therefore and do penance.

Vatican II – the “pastoral council” that brought chaos to the Church – even before the close of its final session.

Contrary to the official party line, Vatican II was no “love-fest”

Could the great apostasy brought on by diabolically disoriented popes be what is spoken of in the portion of the Third Secret of Fatima that has yet to be revealed?

Let’s consider the testimony of Cardinal Ciappi, who read the Third Secret.  Cardinal Ciappi was a distinguished theologian from the pontifical household from 1955 to 1989.  In a letter to Professor Baumgartner, the Cardinal made an astonishing admission about the Third Secret.

He wrote: “In the Third Secret it is predicted, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.” (6) Notice, he didn’t say it would begin “near the top”, but “at the top” – the same pattern we have seen repeated throughout history.

In a 1984 interview, Cardinal Ratzinger also spoke of the contents of the Third Secret of Fatima.

The interviewer asked: “Have you read what is called the Third Secret of Fatima?”  To his surprise, the Cardinal answered “yes”, and then went on to discuss what it contained.  The Cardinal said “the things contained within the ‘Third Secret’ correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and has been said again and again in many other Marian Apparitions”.  (As an aside, we must ask where Scripture speaks of the failed assassination attempt of John Paul II?)

Continuing on, the Cardinal said the Third Secret speaks of “dangers threatening the Faith… and the importance of the ‘novissimi ’[the end times].”

Once again we see a prelate, who had read the Third Secret, state that it refers to dangers threatening the Faith.

But perhaps the most interesting statement comes from Paul VI himself on the sixtieth anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, during which he spoke of apostasy at the very “summit” of the Church, which confirms what Cardinal Ciappi wrote to Professor Baumgartner.  Here is what Paul VI had to say on October 13, 1977:

The tail of the devil is functioning in the disintegration of the Catholic world. The darkness of Satan has entered and spread throughout the Catholic Church even to its summit. Apostasy, the loss of the faith, is spreading throughout the world and into the highest levels within the Church.  (7)

Is it just a coincidence that Paul VI made this statement on the anniversary of Fatima?   It seems unlikely.  It seems more likely that he was revealing what is contained in the Third Secret.

But if this is what the Third Secret contains, when would it begin?  Is there a particular date that one could look to as the beginning of this great apostasy that would begin “at the top” – at the very “summit” of the Church?

In the famous 1957 interview of Sister Lucy of Fatima with Fr. Fuentes, about the events of Fatima, the cloistered nun asked her interviewer the following question: “Father, how much time is there before 1960 arrives?”  Why would she ask about the date 1960?  She then went on to explain.  She said when this date arrives, “it will be very sad for everyone, not one person will rejoice at all if beforehand the world does not pray and do penance.”  She then ended by saying: “I am not able to give any other details because it is still a secret.”

Read more

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx seems to have some strange ideas about God and his mercy

The Cardinal explains, “Unfortunately, the church is often still accused of wanting to steer people in directions they did not want to take. It would have to ask itself whether it hadn’t set the wrong priorities when proclaiming the Gospel message.”

“Many older people have grown up with the idea that the church is a moral institution and that God is only a merciful God if we keep his commandments. But God doesn’t say, ‘If you’re good, then I’ll also be good to you.’ Jesus proclaims a God who says, ‘I love you — so live,’ and thus gives us the freedom to decide whether we want to accept and return his love.”

Editor’s note: Yes, Marx is a Catholic Cardinal – although his thinking on sin and mercy are much more in tune with the Lutherans.

“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” ― Martin Luther

Does God really give us license to sin? I doubt it! And why does the Cardinal make no mention of the necessity of contrition and repentance – or are those outmoded theological concepts, as well? More importantly, we have to wonder if this an example of Pope Francis’ thinking on these matters.

How’s this for Gospel, your eminence?:

“If you love me, keep my commandments.” ― Jesus Christ

Knowing Enough History to Defend It: Catholic History and Apologetics

Catholics should be prepared with at least a brief reply to commonly cited events and issues in the Church’s two millennia past.

In the words of Blessed John Henry Newman, we need to be Catholics “who know so much of history that (we) can defend it.”

We might not be able to change someone’s mind when she asks us about why the Church was so mean to Galileo, but at least we can demonstrate that we know our history.

If she’s not willing to listen to a dissertation-length explanation, a few points might help her understand better. The fact that we know may impress her, open the door to more friendly conversation, and grant an opportunity to witness the reason for our joy in being Catholic.

This article offers some guidelines and hints for answering these historical questions.

One advantage any Catholic starts with when discussing our history is the position of the Catholic Church as a historic, unique institution. Our Founder entered human history at a definite place and time, established his Church upon St. Peter and the Apostles, and promised to protect and guide it until the end of time, when he returns.

With the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit to inspire it; yet he left imperfect humans to lead it as his representatives on earth. St. Peter had denied him thrice before his death on the cross; all but St. John had abandoned him during his Passion. Upon them, he founded the Church and gave them authority.

So the Church is distinctive among institutions in the history of mankind: it is human and yet divine; perfect, yet in need of reform; holy, yet made up of sinners; infallible, yet led by fallen, fallible humans.

That’s a hard concept to express to someone outside the Church—sometimes it’s hard for us inside the Church to remember it.

Read more

An interesting lesson in traditional Catholic church architecture – and the Bible

They don’t make them like this anymore

Long before most people could read, the Church was preaching the Gospel. And to do so, she used the very structure of her buildings to preach.

Many of our older builds are a sermon in stone and stained glass.

The Scriptures come alive in our art, statues, paintings, and majestic stained glass windows that soar along the walls of our Churches like jewels of light.

Even the height and shape of our older churches preach the word.

The height draws our sights up to heaven as if to say, Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at God’s right hand (Col 3:1).

And the shape of most of our older churches is the shape of a cross. As if to say, May I never glory in anything, save the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ(Gal 6:14).

My own Parish Church is a sermon in stone and wood and glass.

Read more from Msgr. Charles Pope

All that post-Vatican II happy talk and non-judgmentalism had been a façade concealing what then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — would call the “filth” in the Church.

It wasn’t the crimes that did it as much as the bishops’ unwillingness to repent, and the Vatican’s disinterest in holding them to account.

If the church’s hierarchy cannot commit itself credibly to justice and mercy to the victims of its own clergy and bishops, I thought, do they really believe in the doctrines they teach?

All this put the moral unseriousness of the American church in a certain light.

As the scandal raged, one Ash Wednesday, I attended mass at my comfortable suburban parish and heard the priest deliver a sermon describing Lent as a time when we should all come to love ourselves more.

If I had to pinpoint a single moment at which I ceased to be a Roman Catholic, it would have been that one.

Read more

Editor’s note: This is the chief problem with what is termed  “The New Evangelism” – poor catechesis and even poorer inspiration, coupled with thoroughly lukewarm, “happy talk” Catholic parishes.

Thanks to the modernist/ideologue/liberal elitists who run the place, there’s very little “sizzle” remaining in the Catholic “steak”  – and not much else to help “anchor” a normal person’s budding faith, either.

Comrade Lenin couldn’t have done a better job of wrecking things, himself!

It’s interesting that the writer fled to the Russian Orthodox Church in order to help maintain his sanity and his faith – since as of late – Russian President Vladimir Putin has been sounding more authentically Catholic than has Pope Francis.

Yet, I suspect that both are in fact, lying!

Still and all – there’s no substitute for fervent prayer and study, along with full, faithful and active participation in all the work, worship, sacraments and devotions of the Holy Catholic Church – even though such a thing is lately, getting much more difficult to accomplish – and to “stomach”.

But we also know that God’s grace is sufficient. So, there’s that!

Catholic clergy sexually abused Illinois kids far more often than church acknowledged, state finds

CHICAGO (AP) — More than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950, the state’s attorney general found in an investigation released Tuesday, revealing that the problem was far worse than the church had let on.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul said at a news conference that investigators found that 451 Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019, though he acknowledged that the statute of limitations has expired in many cases and that those abusers “will never see justice in a legal sense.”

Read the complete report (PDF)

“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”

See this and other “zingers” from George Weigel

A woman is trapped in the wreckage of a horrific car crash. Then a Catholic priest who had anointing oil with him, arrived.

“He came up and approached the patient, and offered a prayer,” New London Fire Chief Raymond Reed told KHQA-TV. “It was a Catholic priest who had anointing oil with him. A sense of calmness came over her, and it did us as well.”

Considering how many people were at the scene and interacting with the mystery faith leader, the story is a fascinating one.

“I can’t be for certain how it was said, but myself and another firefighter, we very plainly heard that we should remain calm, that our tools would now work and that we would get her out of that vehicle,” the firefighter added.

Now here’s where things get weird.

Read more

Editor’s note: These things happen way more often than most people think. Here’s another short, illustrated, real-life, personal story.

God loves you. God will provide – and that often means answering frantic prayers with just the right person, for the job. All we can do in the mean time, is try not to mess things up too badly – and/or too often – since God’s ways are not our ways – and it’s never wise to act recklessly or presumptuously.

It’s also always a good idea to say a quick prayer for anyone who you might notice, happens to be in distress, may have been injured, may be very near death, or has recently died.

One more thing … thank God for priests. The vast majority of priests are nice guys who are just trying to do God’s work, under what usually turns out to be very difficult circumstances. Priests are at their best – and are most appreciated  – when they are attending to the souls of those who are literally, staring death in the face. Those who have been there will, I am sure, agree.

James 5:14-15 Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. (15) And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man. And the Lord shall raise him up: and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Additional related links:

A last chance for lost souls

Anointing of the Sick, Last Sacraments, and the Apostolic Pardon

What Are “Last Rites”?

Priest’s Heroic Battle Action

Priests Prevented From Anointing Boston Marathon Bombing Victims

Three kinds of holy oil/chrism

Saint Padre Pio and the Angels

According to a new study, the more intelligent a person is, the more likely he/she would be turn away from religion.

Study: “Most extant explanations (of a negative relation) share one central theme —the premise that religious beliefs are irrational, not anchored in science, not testable and, therefore, unappealing to intelligent people…”

Editor’s note: All of this actually goes to prove the eminent practicality of Catholicism, which is based on Jesus Christ – an actual historical person – plus faith and reason – including the entirely logical premise that anyone who claims to be God and subsequently raises himself from the dead in order to prove it – most likely IS precisely who he claims to be!

“Dagger John” was no pacifist Catholic bishop. A lesson for our time?

Archbishop John Hughes of New York, universally known to friend and foe as Dagger John, was  a very tough and fearless man.

After the anti-Catholic riots in Philadelphia in 1844 he called on the mayor of New York, an anti-Catholic bigot, and informed him that if a single Catholic church was touched in New York, New York would be a second Moscow.

(The reference was to the burning of Moscow in 1812 during Napoleon’s occupation of the city.)

Not a Catholic church was touched.

On another occasion when a threat was made to burn Saint Patrick’s cathedral the Archbishop had it guarded within hours by 4,000 armed Catholics.  He earned his nickname!

Among his many accomplishments was his success in leading the New York Irish out of poverty.  It is a fascinating story and relevant to our time.  In 1997 in City Journal, William J. Stern wrote an article on how Dagger John did it…

Link

Everything you probably never wanted to know about the false god of the “New Age”

Throughout the history of Western occultism, the name of the mysterious Baphomet is often invoked.

Although it became commonly know name in the twentieth century, mentions of Baphomet can be found in documents dating from as early as the 11th century.

Today, the symbol is associated with anything relating to occultism, ritual magic, witchcraft, Satanism and esoterica.

Baphomet often pops up in popular culture to identify anything occult.

Text and photos

5 tips for practical Catholic living

Let’s use marriage as an example. With marital love comes certain obligations and responsibilities—some more serious, others maybe not so serious. If we were to compile these individual acts of love into a list, we would end up with a very long list. This list contains obligations that we must follow if we want to preserve our love and want it to grow.

When marital love grows dull, this list seems suffocating.  So, too, in our relationship with Jesus. If our love is allowed to wane, then the Church’s teachings seem too hard. Thus, the problem is not rooted in obeying rules, but in not recognizing that the rules are more than arbitrary. Rather, they are the way to live and grow according to the law of love.

To avoid this apparent restrictive and joyless life for the Catholic, I would like to offer the following points for practical and personal application:

1.) Receive the Eucharist as often as you can. This is the very love of God poured forth into our hearts promised by Jesus. Even more astounding, it is Jesus, body, blood, soul, and Divinity, offered to us mysteriously under the appearance of bread and wine.

2.) Receive Him in a state of grace. That means to practice the Sacrament of Reconciliation at least monthly, or any time we are aware that we have willfully committed a grave sin. After all, one does not give sustenance to a corpse. We must be spiritually able to receive divine sustenance in order to benefit from this grace.

3.) Practice daily mediation. Pick up the Gospels and read a little and then stop when something strikes you. Put the book down, and let that point sink in. When you get overcome with distractions, pick up the Gospels and continue reading until the next thing strikes you. Repeat this process. This approach to prayer was encouraged by St. Theresa of Avila to her community. I have profited much from it myself, so I know that it works.

4.) When you are finished with your 20 minutes or more of spiritual reading, make a daily resolution. A resolution is a promise we make to God to respond to His grace by seeking to uproot some predominant fault that our spiritual reading has just uncovered. You can keep the same resolution daily, or change it up, depending on how the Holy Spirit moves you.

One note on this: the best way to uproot a fault is to work on the opposite virtue. As we develop the virtue, doing the good becomes easier, more joyful, and we act towards it more promptly. Thus, the life of repressing the evil inclination is replaced by a life of doing the good.

5.) Lastly, examine yourself at the end of the day and see how well you tended to your resolution. Thank the Lord for your days’ blessings, challenges, and benefits. Tell Him that you are sorry for offending Him by not keeping your resolution firmly if that is the case, and promise to put more effort into keeping your resolution tomorrow.

Yoga is an essential part of Hindu philosophy and the two cannot be separated.

This is from the Hindu American Foundation: “Yoga is a combination of both physical and spiritual exercises, entails mastery over the body, mind and emotional self, and transcendence of desire. The ultimate goal is moksha, the attainment of liberation from worldly suffering and the cycle of birth and rebirth.”

As a Catholic the term “rebirth” in this excerpt should be very disconcerting. Catholics simply do not believe in rebirth. As Catholics we believe you are given one lifetime. You are baptized and will live your life as a believer in Christ as your Savior. You aren’t given multiple lives to work out your final destiny.

Additionally, Catholics “get” suffering. Maybe sometimes too much; but nonetheless, we don’t—as a group—run from suffering. We understand its redemptive value. While we may wish to be liberated from it and can certainly pursue that through Christ, we don’t see it as our “ultimate goal.” Our ultimate goal is to unite our lives with Christ, the Suffering Servant.

Or there is this from the Hindu American Foundation: “There is the concerning trend of disassociating Yoga from its Hindu roots. Yet, even when Yoga is practiced solely in the form of an exercise, it cannot be completely delinked from its Hindu roots.”

Read more

Psalms 96:3-6 Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people. (4) For the Lord is great, and exceedingly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods. (5) For all the gods of the Gentiles are devils: but the Lord made the heavens. (6) Praise and beauty are before him: holiness and majesty in his sanctuary.

photo: Wikipedia