Romanian Doctor Addresses Synod on the Family. Nails It!

…We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia’s errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it’s being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin’s sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.

It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

“Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”.

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government.

These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin.

Salvation.

Read the entire text

Randy Engel’s Old Time Religion Prescription, for Catholics

… let us continue to do all that is necessary for our own salvation and for those entrusted to our care. We need to be soldiers of Christ and for Christ. Cradle Catholics like me know the holy drill well enough, at least in part, but it nevertheless bears repeating.

Following the four divisions of the doctrines of salvation found in The Catechism of the Council of Trent: the Apostles Creed (what we are to believe); the Sacraments (the instruments of grace); the Ten Commandments (what we must do); and the Lord’s Prayer (whatever can be the object of the Christian’s desires, or hopes, or prayers), let us strive to:

• Love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and with our whole strength, and our neighbor as thyself.
• Live the spiritual life according to our state in life.
• Be modest in speech, dress and demeanor as is befitting a child of God
• Keep custody of our eyes; avoid the near occasions of sin.
• Keep ourselves in the state of grace.
• Attend the Traditional Mass.
• Frequent the Sacraments especially that of Penance and the Holy Communion.
• Bring the body under subjugation by fasting, acts of penance, and the offering up of sufferings in reparation for thy sins and those of the world.
• Read Holy Scripture; set time apart for daily meditation and recitation of the Rosary, before the Blessed Sacrament when possible.
• Cultivate a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Attend First Friday and First Saturday Masses.
• Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory and unbaptized children in Limbo.
• Pray to our Guardian Angel and to our patron saint (s) daily.
• Make generous use of Sacramentals especially the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
• Pray for our enemies recalling the words of Saint Thomas More written in the Tower of London, 1534: “To think my most enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred.”
• Give Glory to the One Triune God — Father, Son and Holy Ghost — always and everywhere.

Free Download – The Catechism of the Council of Trent (PDF)

 

Romanian Doctor Addresses Ordinary Synod on the Family. Nails It!

…We, as Catholic doctors, defending life and family, can see this is, first of all, a spiritual battle.

Material poverty and consumerism are not the primary cause of the family crisis.

The primary cause of the sexual and cultural revolution is ideological.

Our Lady of Fatima has said that Russia’s errors would spread all over the world.

It was first done under a violent form, classical Marxism, by killing tens of millions.

Now it’s being done mostly by cultural Marxism. There is continuity from Lenin’s sex revolution, through Gramsci and the Frankfurt school, to the current-day gay-rights and gender ideology.

Classical Marxism pretended to redesign society, through violent take-over of property.

Now the revolution goes deeper; it pretends to redefine family, sex identity and human nature.

This ideology calls itself progressive. But it is nothing else than the ancient serpent’s offer, for man to take control, to replace God, to arrange salvation here, in this world.

It’s an error of religious nature, it’s Gnosticism.

It’s the task of the shepherds to recognize it, and warn the flock against this danger.

“Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

The Church’s mission is to save souls. Evil, in this world, comes from sin. Not from income disparity or “climate change”.

The solution is: Evangelization. Conversion.

Not an ever increasing government control. Not a world government. These are nowadays the main agents imposing cultural Marxism to our nations, under the form of population control, reproductive health, gay rights, gender education, and so on.

What the world needs nowadays is not limitation of freedom, but real freedom, liberation from sin. Salvation.

Read the entire text

Christopher A. Ferrara on diabolical disorientation in the Church. And the worst is yet to come.

It was not any “Fatimite,” but Pope Paul VI, who declared in 1972 that “the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God: there is doubt, uncertainty, problems, unrest. Doubt has entered our consciences, and it has entered through the windows which were meant to have been opened to the light. This state of uncertainty reigns even in the Church…. We will confide Our thoughts to you: there has been interference from an adverse power: his name is the devil…” (Paul VI, Insegnamenti, Ed. Vaticana, Vol. X, 1972, p. 707.)

It is no use blinding ourselves to reality: we are indeed witnessing what Paul VI himself saw after his “reforms” were introduced:  diabolical interference in the life of the Church, the consequent decline of the Church since Vatican II, and thus the decline of the world at large along with her.

Read more

Jimmy Akin writes about the apparitions at Fatima

1) What happened at Fatima, Portugal?

A young shepherd girl, Lucia dos Santos, said that she experienced supernatural visitations as early as 1915, two years before the famous appearances of the Virgin Mary.

In 1917, she and two of her cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were working as shepherds tending their families’ flocks. On May 13, 1917, the three children saw an apparition of Our Lady. She told them, among other things, that she would return once a month for six months.

At Our Lady’s third appearance, on July 13, Lucia was shown the secret of Fatima. She reportedly turned pale and cried out with fear, calling Our Lady by name. There was a thunderclap, and the vision ended.

The children again saw the Virgin on September 13.

In the sixth and final appearance, on October 13, a dramatic outward sign was given to those gathered to witness the event. After the clouds of a rainstorm parted, numerous witnesses—some as far as 40 miles away—reported seeing the sun dance, spin, and send out colored rays of light.

Read more

Cardinal George: The very real dangers of being on the wrong side of things.

Eternity enters into human history in often incomprehensible ways. God makes promises but gives no timelines.

Visiting the shrine at Fatima, pilgrims enter a huge plaza, with the spot of the apparitions marked by a small chapel to one side, a large church at one end, an equally large adoration chapel at the other end, and a center for visitors and for the hearing of confessions. Just outside the main grounds, a section of the Berlin Wall has been re-built, a stark witness to what Mary had talked about almost a century ago. Communism in Russia and its satellite nations has collapsed, although many of its sinful effects are still with us.

Communism imposed a total way of life based upon the belief that God does not exist. Secularism is communism’s better-scrubbed bedfellow.

A small irony of history cropped up at the United Nations a few weeks ago when Russia joined the majority of other nations to defeat the United States and the western European nations that wanted to declare that killing the unborn should be a universal human right.

Who is on the wrong side of history now?

Read more from Francis Cardinal George

Randy Engel’s Old Time Religion Prescription, for Catholics

… let us continue to do all that is necessary for our own salvation and for those entrusted to our care. We need to be soldiers of Christ and for Christ. Cradle Catholics like me know the holy drill well enough, at least in part, but it nevertheless bears repeating.

Following the four divisions of the doctrines of salvation found in The Catechism of the Council of Trent: the Apostles Creed (what we are to believe); the Sacraments (the instruments of grace); the Ten Commandments (what we must do); and the Lord’s Prayer (whatever can be the object of the Christian’s desires, or hopes, or prayers), let us strive to:

• Love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and with our whole strength, and our neighbor as thyself.
• Live the spiritual life according to our state in life.
• Be modest in speech, dress and demeanor as is befitting a child of God
• Keep custody of our eyes; avoid the near occasions of sin.
• Keep ourselves in the state of grace.
• Attend the Traditional Mass.
• Frequent the Sacraments especially that of Penance and the Holy Communion.
• Bring the body under subjugation by fasting, acts of penance, and the offering up of sufferings in reparation for thy sins and those of the world.
• Read Holy Scripture; set time apart for daily meditation and recitation of the Rosary, before the Blessed Sacrament when possible.
• Cultivate a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Attend First Friday and First Saturday Masses.
• Pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory and unbaptized children in Limbo.
• Pray to our Guardian Angel and to our patron saint (s) daily.
• Make generous use of Sacramentals especially the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
• Pray for our enemies recalling the words of Saint Thomas More written in the Tower of London, 1534: “To think my most enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favor as they did him with their malice and hatred.”
• Give Glory to the One Triune God — Father, Son and Holy Ghost — always and everywhere.

Read more

This Week’s Ask Alice: The third secret of Fatima.

Send A Question To Alice

She’ll answer your Catholic questions
right here, every Thursday.

Email responses will also be provided, as time permits.

*** Alice is out this week. Doug Lawrence is sitting in. ***

Norma Asks: What is the third secret of Fatima?

Doug Lawrence Answers: The 1917 public apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in Fatima, Portugal, contained a number of prophetic messages for the people of the 20th century, dealing with certain urgent and critical matters of faith and morals, war and peace, repentance and conversion, the state of modern society, and the future of the church.

Among the the messages delivered by the Blessed Virgin Mary to the three young seers, were three “secrets”.

Two of the seers soon died, with only Sister Lucia Santos surviving. Sister Lucia wrote and delivered the messages (secrets) to the then-current pope.

Two of the secrets were soon revealed and widely disseminated. The third was deliberately withheld, for unspecified reasons, by several successive popes, even though, as Sister Lucia had maintained, the Blessed Virgin Mary intended the third secret to be revealed no later than the early 1960’s.

When the third secret was not revealed on time,
a number of  “conspiracy theories” soon arose,
some of which still exist, today.

In April of 2001 (about 40 years “late”) Pope John Paul II finally got around to making the third secret public, as well as offering his own opinion (as well as that of then Cardinal Ratzinger) on what the secret may have actually meant to the church.

By that time, many Catholics (particularly traditionalists) were thoroughly dissatisfied with how the matter had been handled. Some even had concerns about the authenticity of the documents.

This link will take you to the official Vatican document which details the third secret, and explains one possible meaning, according to Pope John Paul II and our present Pope Benedict XVI.

The Fatima Apparitions are probably the most significant events of their kind, in modern times. And while the church has officially approved the authenticity of the apparitions, Fatima remains classified as a “private revelation” … which no Catholic is required to accept, on faith … unless they choose to do so.

Whether or not you believe the “official version” of the third secret, as published by the Vatican, and whether or not you agree with the official Vatican “take” on it … is also totally up to you.

It’s not dogma.

Watch a video on the Fatima Apparitions and the message for our times

Click here to see all of Alice’s other columns

Pilgrim’s Update: World Youth Day 2011

Greetings from Madrid, Spain! We have had a wonderful trip so far.

We spent our first two days in Fatima, Portugal. What a beautiful, peaceful place! There was just a wonderful presence there as pilgrims from all over the world came together in candlelight vigils, prayer, Mass, and processions. Our last night there we celebrated a candlelight vigil with about 40,000 pilgrims. We could feel the Lord’s presence among us.

Now we are in Madrid and the opening Mass is today.

Thank you for your prayers. So many young people have left their families and homes to come together to worship the Lord together. They are now expecting 1.5 million people here. May the Lord bless all those who are here. May hearts be turned to the Lord.

May God bless you and your family.

Peace,

Fr. Burke

Editor’s note: Father Burke Masters is the Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois. After this trip, he might also qualify as director of vacations!

Follow the events on video

Cardinal Sean O’Malley on Fatima, JPII, Muslims

US Cardinal Sean O’Malley told scores of thousands of pilgrims in Portugal that Our Lady of Fatima had spared Pope John Paul II’s life from an assassin’s bullet so that he could help “topple the Iron Curtain” of Soviet communism.

Link

Editor’s note: Now … who do we have to shoot to fix the malevolent “Spirit of Vatican II”?

Catholic common sense and the message of Fatima

Seen on the web…

Posted by Rich R:

I hear people getting so wound up about the Third Secret of Fatima, and focusing so much on a possible Chastisement that they neglect the guidance offered by Fatima.

It reminds me of when I tell my little boys to “clean their room, or else no Wii.” Their first response is not to start cleaning their room. It’s to nail down how long they will be without the Wii. “Is that just for today, Dad, or all week? Do we have to clean everything in the room?” IOW, they are not getting the point. The point is to clean their room and avoid the punishment. When someone focuses too much on determining the punishment, what they really are thinking is, “Is this punishment SO bad that I really need to change my behavior?” IOW, they don’t really want a change of heart.

I often think it regrettable that people are missing the call to repentance and reparation because they are so enamored with the mystery of the Third Secret.

Link

October 13 is the 93rd anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun that occurred in Fatima, Portugal in 1917

Read about the most significant apparition of the 20th century, that was witnessed by tens of thousands of Catholics, as well as numerous atheists and unbelievers, of which photos, eye-witness testimony, and various contemporary newspaper accounts, still exist.

More …

Writer offers advice for confused post-Vatican II Catholics

We must first adhere to what the Church has always taught through its infallible teaching and through its consistent teaching of the centuries. We must listen to the Secret of Fatima, and embrace Our Lady’s warning to protect ourselves against the bad Council. In the practical order, we must ignore its false teachings and not base any decisions on the Second Vatican Council, but rather, base our decisions on the Church’s teaching prior to the Second Vatican Council.

So, if the Second Vatican Council upholds what the Church has always taught, then you can follow it safely. But if the Second Vatican Council teaches things which are unclear, then simply ignore them. And if the Second Vatican Council teaches things that are contrary to what the Church has always taught, or if it initiates a new orientation that is different from what the Church has always taught and practiced, then we must reject those bad teachings and practices and embrace whole-heartedly what the Church has always taught prior to Vatican II.

The same goes for all the teachings of the Popes since October 1958 to the present. We must remember that the dogmatic Vatican Council I taught infallibly that not even a Pope may change Catholic teaching. (5)

Thus, when the Conciliar Popes have taught what the Church has always taught, then it is safe to follow them in those matters. That is, when Pope John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, have taught what the Church has always taught, then we are safe in following those teachings.

If these Popes, however, have taught things which are unclear — that seem to contradict the papal teachings of the past — then we are better off to ignore these teachings. This is especially true if these new papal teachings are based on the new orientation of the Second Vatican Council.

And yes, if the post-Conciliar Popes have taught anything contrary to what the Church has always taught, then you must reject those teachings and embrace whole-heartedly what the Church has always taught prior to Vatican II.

That is our very simple program, and that is what Our Lady of Fatima would have us do. This is why the present administration in the Vatican has hidden deliberately, with lies and half truths, the full Fatima Message, the full Third Secret of Fatima.

And now that we have this act of apostasy promoted by the Bishop of Fatima and Rector Guerra of Fatima, the whole plan of the false Catholics is exposed. The enemies of Christ and His Church, who occupy positions of Cardinals, bishops and archbishops and Vatican officials, work to destroy the Church from within by getting people to become involved in Ecumenism, which is another way of leading people out of the Church. It leads Catholics away from the dogmatic teachings of the Church, away from converting non-Catholics to the Catholic Faith.

Their policies work toward perverting Catholics from their Catholic Faith, into believing something that looks Catholic but is not Catholic at all. And Catholics are being led into apostasy in stages, in little or large steps.

Read more

Pray the Rosary for peace in the world on May13th

There’s a worldwide Fatima Rosary on May 13, since it was on May 13, 1917 that Our Lady appeared at Fatima and said: “Pray the Rosary for peace in the world.”

Also, the Rosary destroyed the Turkish invasion of Europe and saved Austria and Brazil from Communism. And Sister Lucy said: “…the Virgin Mary, in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is … that cannot be solved by the Rosary.”

The Rosary can save the world now. On May 13, together with millions worldwide, pray the Rosary of the Blessed Mother for the conversion of sinners, for a return to Catholic morality and true peace in the world.

If you know devout souls who would be interested, please pass this on. Help pray the Rosary around the world on May 13.

Sincerely in Jesu et Maria,

Robert E. Ritchie

America Needs Fatima

www.ANF.org

“Divine serendipity”: Muslims deny Jesus is God, deny Jesus died on the cross, yet choose Friday (the day Jesus sanctified by his death) for worship

When Mohamed decided which day to officially set aside for Muslim divine worship, Saturday and Sunday “were already taken” … so he chose … for no particular reason … Friday.

It’s also worthy of note that when most of today’s Muslims kneel and bow in the direction of the city of Mecca during their prayers, the vast majority of them are also facing towards Calvary.

Catholics have an old Latin saying:  “Lex orandi, Lex credendi”  … how you worship is how you believe.

The great devotion that Muslims have for the Blessed Virgin Mary, coupled with many other “divine coincidences” (the town of Fatima, Portugal, where the most important Marian apparitions of the 20th century occurred, is named after Mohamed’s only daughter … who became a Christian)  are certainly reasons for hope, no matter how dark things seem to appear, in the short term.

Petition says Fatima message of 1917 anticipated current crisis in the church, urges prompt action

… Indeed, Holy  Father,  in  1931  the  future  Pope  Pius  XII  predicted precisely the current situation in the Church in light of the Message of
Fatima:

I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This  persistence  of  Mary  about  the  dangers  which  menace  the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. … A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp
where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, “Where have they taken Him?”

Holy Father, what Pope Pius XII foresaw has happened! And given that Pius XII  foresaw  these developments  in  light of Fatima,  they can only have been mentioned  in the Third Secret since those portions of the Message of Fatima thus far disclosed say nothing about such events in the Church.

We  also  know, Holy  Father,  that  Pope  John  Paul  II  alluded  to  the Third Secret in his sermon at Fatima on May 13, 2000, which warns the
Church to beware of the tail of the dragon that drags down one-third of the stars of Heaven (commonly interpreted as one-third of the Cardinals,
bishops and priests).

Read the entire petition (PDF file)

Fatima: The Message and the Miracle – Remarkable eye witness testimony that still holds up, today.

…And then the Miracle began. We recount here the testimony of a reporter who cannot possibly be accused of partiality in this matter and for a good reason! We refer to Avelino de Almeida, the chief editor of O Seculo, the large “liberal” anticlerical and Masonic daily newspaper of Lisbon. He writes:

From the road, where the carriages were crowded together and where hundreds of persons had stayed for want of sufficient courage to advance across the muddy ground, we saw the huge crowd turn towards the sun which appeared at its zenith, clear of the clouds. It resembled a disc of silver, and it was possible to stare at it without the least discomfort. It did not burn the eyes. It did not blind. We would say that it produced an eclipse. Then a tremendous cry rang out, and the crowd nearest us were heard to shout: “Miracle! Miracle! … Marvel! … Marvel!” Before the dazzled eyes of the people, whose attitude transported us to biblical times, and who, dumbfounded, heads uncovered, contemplated the blue of the sky, the sun trembled, it made strange and abrupt movements, outside of all cosmic laws, “the sun danced”, according to the typical expression of the peasants …⁷

Attacked violently by all the anticlerical press, Avelino de Almeida renewed his testimony, fifteen days later, in his review, Ilustração Portuguesa. This time he illustrated his account with a dozen photographs of the huge ecstatic crowd, and repeated as a refrain throughout his article: “I saw … I saw … I saw.” And he concluded fortuitously: “Miracle, as the people shouted? Natural phenomenon, as the experts say? For the moment, that does not concern me, I am only saying what I saw… The rest is a matter for Science and the Church.”⁸

Read the whole amazing story

Bishop Sheen on Fatima – Video and Text

Visit the site

The Holy Face of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Around the year 60 A.D. St. Luke visited the Blessed Virgin Mary at the home she shared with St. John the Apostle, in the town of Ephesus, southwestern Turkey.

At that time, St. Luke produced what is today the only known icon of the Virgin, making good use of a three foot by five foot cedar table top (one that was likely hand crafted by Jesus of Nazareth) accurately capturing Mary’s delicate facial features. The extremely well preserved icon has remained in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, for the last 1700 years.

About 1900 years later, in 1947, Sister Lucia, seer of the Fatima Apparitions that took place in Portugal in 1917, closely collaborated with sculptor Jose Thedim to produce an authentic image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as Lucia and her two cousins originally encountered her there.

While the style of the work and the quality of the media are quite different, the resemblance between the two renderings is absolutely striking (see close-ups above).

Eyes, facial shape, nose, lips and chin are all remarkably similar.

Take a close look. Pray on it. Then make up your own mind.

“We do not praise God sufficiently by keeping silent about his saints, especially Mary, ‘the Holy One’ who became his dwelling place on earth. The simple and multiform light of God appears to us exactly in its variety and richness only in the countenance of the saints, who are the true mirrors of his light. And it is precisely by looking at Mary’s face that we can see more clearly than in any other way the beauty, goodness and mercy of God. In her face we can truly perceive the divine light.” – Pope Benedict XVI

Update: (My friend Bob Stanley rightly pointed out that we have another precisely rendered authentic image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the tilma of St. Juan Diego, done in 1531. The style and the type of media are different once again, and in the Guadalupe image, Mary is facing left, rather than right.  I added the Guadalupe image to the picture study for you.)

Featured Website: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)

The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) was born of a group of Catholic Americans concerned about the multiple crises shaking every aspect of American life. Founded in 1973, the American TFP was formed to resist, in the realm of ideas, the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times and proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and property.

Central to the TFP mission is the idea that the various crises threatening American society and the Church cannot be seen as separate and disjointed. Rather they originate from a single cause.

The TFP handbook Revolution and Counterrevolution by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira masterfully traces the historical and philosophical roots of this single cause: a phenomenon called the Revolution.

The TFP was born from the idea of a Counterrevolution, a reaction that would embrace every field of of human activity, but especially art, ideas and culture. TFP books, publications and newspaper advertisements help bring these views to the public. Moreover, the TFP is not afraid to take them to the streets with colorful sidewalk campaigns in major cities.

The first TFP was founded in Brazil in 1960 by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. The American TFP is one of many autonomous TFPs that now exist around the world dedicated to the same ideals and at the service of Christian Civilization (See links).

Visit the site