The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Extra, extra! News and views for October 26, 2022

Here are some articles, essays, and editorials that caught our attention this past week or so.*

Detail from "While Reading the Newspaper News" (1912) by Hans Andersen Brendekilde (Image: WikiArt.org)

Catholic Media – “In an address to employees of the mega international conservative media conglomerate EWTN, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin stressed the importance for Catholic media of unity with the pope and of avoiding polarization.” Top Vatican diplomat stresses unity with pope in speech to EWTN (Crux)

The Rainbow Reich – “Our ruling class seems determined to drive our country into a ditch. H.R. 8404, the Respect for Marriage Act, is a case in point.” Harms Done by Gay Marriage (First Things)

New Ebook Series – “CatholicCulture.org is very happy to announce the first in a new series of ebooks by Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, who has been writing on this website since 2015.” Resolving Faith Difficulties: eBooks by Fr. Jerry Pokorsky (Catholic Culture)

Escaping the Rapture – “My wife and I became Catholic for many reasons, but the Eucharist was central to our decision.” How the Eucharist Put an End to My ‘Rapture Anxiety’ (National Catholic Register)

Loving Them Both – “Even though perinatal hospice is now considered standard care, there are still only about 300 programs worldwide. Many of these programs assist with family bereavement but are not committed to life until natural death for the baby.” Mothers of Congenitally Ill Babies Deserve Better than Abortion | Opinion (Newsweek)

Treasure of the Priesthood – “Father John Whitlock, Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Lansing, and Father Lawrence Hyginus, Director of Vocations for the Companions of the Cross, shared their approach to supporting discernment of the priesthood in their communities.” The Work of Vocations in the Church (Mosaic)

15 weeks – “Roberto Dell’Oro, a bioethicist and theologian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, attacked the Dobbs decision during a panel discussion earlier this month.” At Jesuit University, Member of Pontifical Academy for Life Defends Legal Abortion Prior to Pain Threshold (National Catholic Register)

Brilliant Satire – Mike Judge’s satirical clip captures the mediocre abstractions of post-conciliar Catholicism–and contemporary Christianity in general. Beavis and the Catholic Priest (The American Conservative)

Catholic Worker House – “Toni and Nick Baier have made their home a haven for those experiencing homelessness. And they do it with four little kids in tow!” Meet the young couple who’ve opened their door to the homeless (Aleteia)

Missing Tolkien’s Point – “J.R.R. Tolkien sought to rescue the power of mythology from its misuse by the Nazis. How did the producers of The Rings of Power miss that?” Tolkien’s vision was richer and nobler than The Rings of Power (Catholic Weekly)

Montana Missions – “A new video album features violinist Megan Karls performing solo on location at St. Peter’s Mission near Cascade, St. Mary’s Mission in Stevensville, St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Indian Reservation, and the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, also known as the Pink Church, near Harlem on the Fort Belknap Reservation.” New music considers complex history of Montana’s Catholic Mission (Montana Free Press)

Desire for Heroism – “The Catholic literary imagination does not shy from the messiness of the human heart. Rather, it shows the brokenness of the human condition and the way that grace breaks into that darkness.” To Hell with stifled hearts: The Eucharist and the Catholic Literary Imagination (The University News)

(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)


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13 Comments

  1. “Catholic Media” (top entry): Cardinal Parolin wisely urges unity with the papacy, and at one point even cracks the door for dialogue about distinct “ideas” as such: “There are also some bishops who are linked to a more conservative policy, and the Holy Father himself has commented on the situation of the EWTN television (a large American Catholic network), where many times the commentators are very critical of the Holy Father, at least of his ideas.”

    “…at least of his IDEAS.” I am reminded of a wide-eyed undergraduate who proclaimed a simpleton insight inflicted in a secular university classroom. Said he: “to criticize another person’s ideas is to attack the person!” To his credit, Parolin still articulates the erased distinction…

    So, if centrifugal Catholicism continue under cover of ideological synodism, what about anti-papal and anti-Catholic ideas and grooming by the likes of Marx, Batzing, Grech, Hollerich & Co. (including cute photo ops for poster child James Martin!) which will be the end of the Catholic Church—with or without cosmetic unity under this or a future pope?

    If Cardinal Parolin’s concern is EWTN’s most recent interview with Cardinal Muller, perhaps he should join in a future dialogue? When is the last time senior papal-advisor Parolin counseled Pope Francis to respond to critics from outside the bubble and NOT of the papacy, but rather of some of his (ill-advised!) ideas? Silence toward Veritatis Splendor and the dubia come to mind….

    • The way to respond to an Orwellian Church is not very complicated. When any prelate, even the highest prelate, presents public posturing in word or deed that undermines a sacred responsibility to give witness to truths that serve and protect innocent human life from mass slaughter, that prelate has no standing by way of office to not be subject to the full force of public rebuke by any and all voices in the Church if he will not listen to one time immediate fraternal correction. The lives of the innocent are sacred. The often petulant egos of ordained men count for nothing at all. They are rotted wheat to be trampled upon.

  2. @Catholic Media. Yes, Mother Angelica founded Ewtn “at the service of the Church and the Pope.” Although, that’s when [1981] we had John Paul II and clear affirmation by the papal Magisterium on traditional doctrine. Since 2013 that clarity no longer exists.
    Card [Vat Secy of State] Parolin’s injunction to Ewtn to remain entirely loyal to the papacy is actually not an issue. Ewtn has remained faithful to the Chair of Peter. Although they’re a news media, which media discuss issues, questions regarding the faith. Why would Ewtn be warned they could be sifted like wheat by Satan unless they remain loyal to Francis if he isn’t referring to Ewtn valid responses to doctrinal controversy initiated by His Holiness? Message: Talk kindly and in line with Pope Francis [including his opinions, suggestions, his appointments, that is, everything] or be quiet!
    Vat Secy of State Parolin gives the impression of Hu Jintao, Gen Secy CCP Cent Committee speaking for Xi Jinping. After all, isn’t it Parolin who previously arranged that the Catholic Church in China follow CCP Party ideology rather than Christ’s revelation? And recently renewed it?

  3. @Escaping the Rapture. “The Eucharist is truly a glimpse of heaven appearing on earth. The Eucharist brings us into intimate union with the communion of the saints” (John Paul II in Carl Olson Nation 10.21.22).
    When assigned to the Jicarilla Apache Nation a parishioner warned me, they [Apaches] are very intelligent. Affirmed when a young ‘warrior’ asked me about the discrepancy between our judgment at death, and the general Resurrection from the Dead and final judgment. Double jeopardy? My response, With God there is no consequence as in time. However, we experience judgment, it’ll be experienced within God’s existence, not our human time frame.
    Olson addresses a reality related to time and place, and the eternal presence. The Holy Eucharist he said transported him [and wife] mystically, truthfully, into that ethereal realm absolving fears contrived by mistaken advocates of the Rapture, and left behind anxiety.
    Aquinas, thinking scientifically says post holy communion Jesus lasts within us approx 15 minutes [about the time he assumed the Eucharist would dissolve]. Whereas St Maria Faustina says in her diary Christ informs her he remains with us until the next reception of the Eucharist. What that implies is the continuance of Christ’s presence realized in the assent by the recipient to a charitable [loving], transformative relationship with the living Christ. We are somehow, mysteriously transported into heaven.
    Prayer, silent, receptive, a sense of presence immediately following reception continues with our willful awareness, accented within when we pray silently during the day or night [especially at night] experiencing that presence. Rapture anxiety dissolves into the contrived nothingness it is. As the author says, we’re never alone.

  4. @The Rainbow Reich. “It was always implausible to imagine that our society could celebrate homosexuality and honor it with the institution of marriage without undermining the socialization of children into healthy patterns of male–female reciprocity” (RR Reno First Things).
    When I read the title I thought this reference to German Synodaler Weg should be applied to the US. And, lo and behold, I was right. “Our educational ideologies celebrate critical methods that ‘disorient’ and ‘deconstruct.’ That’s what ‘queering means'” (Reno). Reno insightfully [or is it more an inevitability] observes it will get worse. “In the first chapter of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul gives an account of our descent into bondage to sin. ‘Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity’ [patheatimias—­dishonorable passions]” (Reno).
    I won’t go so far as to analyze the remainder of Reno’s excellent analysis of gay marriage except to note that unlike other peremptory related vices same sex marriage is celebrated, a transformation, recreating a culture in which traditional marriage and social mores are impugned as antithetical. This is the horrible, diabolic moral war in which we’re now immersed, and must engage [the reprobate ideology] in ‘fierce’ opposition.

    • Added to my comment is the important dynamic [also noted by Reno] the Apostle cites in Rm 1 as the cause of a turn to perversion, the refusal to reasonably recognize God as author of nature, the creation, as visible to us in that creation. We find the similar dynamic in our culture, particularly among liberal, and or dissenting, nominal Catholics in their loss of faith, accommodation of homosexuality.

        • Yes. Rm 1 has been omitted from the Liturgy of the Mass, an issue that should be corrected, very doubtful during this pontificate. Taylor Marshall, often criticized including traditional Catholics is at least honest and more perceptive than many, a sample:
          “An example of the silence of offensive passages is from the readings of last week, where the reading of Saint Paul against homosexuality [including female lesbianism] in Romans 1:26-32 is notably omitted from the cycle. Below are the readings for the 28th Week in Ordinary Time [Lectionary 468 and 469]” (Dr Taylor Marshall).

  5. “Rapture”
    It was Noah and his family who were ‘raptured’, by being left behind on earth, during the Great Flood. It was Lot who was ‘raptured’, by being left behind, during the destruction of Sodom. The Faithful of the Catholic Church, those immersed in the Wedding Garment of Jesus Divine Mercy, are going to sail right through the heart of the ‘Great Tribulation’, and into Jesus’ Kingdom Come on earth, to live in the Restored Garden of Eden on earth, under Messianic Reign. Messianic Reign will last for tens of thousands of years on Free-willed earth.

    Here is the timeline on the Second Coming of Jesus, where He will ‘Deliver us from the Evil One’. Through modern apparitions of the past 300 years, Jesus has told us that it is now the time for us to enter into His Kingdom Come on earth. We have to all immerse ourselves in Jesus’ recent gifts of His Divine Mercy, which Jesus initiated in the year 2000. Jesus is Not King and Ruler of the world until His Subjects put His Laws into enforcement on earth. Apostolic Successors do so by reading the Revelation 10 ‘small scroll’, which is a list of Catholic auto-anathemas, while blowing seven trumpets. Once the ‘small scroll’ is read and the seventh trumpet blows, Jesus is enthroned in heaven as King and Ruler of the world.

    Once Jesus is enthroned as King and Ruler of the world, we go through the ‘Three Days of Darkness’. Those who have prepared themselves and their families, are all immersed in Jesus’ Divine Mercy, which makes them God’s ‘Elect’. The Elect are in their darkened homes, with all the windows covered over and doors locked. The Elect have their Holy Candles burning and are on their knees praying for three Days of Darkness, straight. On the third day, the Elect step out of their darkened homes and into Jesus’ Kingdom Come, of Messianic Reign on free-willed earth. Jesus will have wiped away His Bride’s, the Catholic Church’s, every tear. Hallelujah!

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1146
    Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.

    Isaiah 26:20 DAY OF THE LORD: REWARD AND PUNISHMENT
    Go, my people, enter your chambers, and close the doors behind you; Hide yourselves for a brief moment, until the wrath is past. See, the LORD goes forth from his place, to punish the wickedness of the earth’s inhabitants; The earth will reveal the blood shed upon it, and no longer conceal the slain.

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 965
    Jesus looked at me and said, Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion. I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy. If they will not adore My mercy, they will perish for all eternity. Secretary of My mercy, write, tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near.

    Revelation 7
    ‘Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.’ I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the Israelites:…
    …Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, ‘Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from’? I said to him, ‘My lord, you are the one who knows.’ He said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’.

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 723
    He who trusts in My mercy will not perish, for all his affairs are Mine, and his enemies will be shattered at the base of My footstool.

    Psalms 91:1
    You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shade of the Almighty, Say to the LORD, ‘My refuge and fortress, my God in whom I trust.’ He will rescue you from the fowler’s snare, from the destroying plague, He will shelter you with his pinions, and under his wings you may take refuge; his faithfulness is a protecting shield. You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, Nor the pestilence that roams in darkness, nor the plague that ravages at noon. Though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, near you it shall not come. You need simply watch; the punishment of the wicked you will see. Because you have the LORD for your refuge and have made the Most High your stronghold, No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near your tent.

    Divine Mercy in My Soul, 635: The Blessed Virgin Mary
    you have to speak to the world about His great mercy and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Him who will come, not as a merciful Savior, but as a just Judge. Oh, how terrible is that day! Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath. The angels tremble before it. Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for [granting] mercy. If you keep silent now, you will be answering for a great number of souls on that terrible day. …

    Isaiah 57:13
    But whoever takes refuge in me shall inherit the land, and possess my holy mountain.

    http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html

    http://www.apocalypseangel.com/eden.html

  6. Regarding the Catholic Media, it is interesting that Pope Francis finds the opinions and content expressed by EWTN as polarizing. However Pope Francis appears to be silent when it comes to President Biden’s pro abortion stance, pro abortion comments by theologians, etc.

    • We should remain loyal to the Church’s Magisterium rather than to the timelessly mindless ideas of modern disciples of Hegelian dialectics. Would the vicar of Christ have us be loyal to heretical teaching or to Magisterium-honoring truth? Which does the vicar of Christ himself believe and follow? Would he recognize and how does he define apostasy, heresy and schism? Does he believe in sin?

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  1. Extra, extra! News and views for October 26, 2022 | Passionists Missionaries Kenya, Vice Province of St. Charles Lwanga, Fathers & Brothers

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