How to be a Dhimmi (The Catholic Thing): “We live in a moment when Europe’s elites have repudiated the continent’s Christian past, while revising history to soften and valorize many elements of Islam.”
We Must Build – Recovering Catholic Geography (Aedificemus): “The priesthood can easily serve the practicing Catholic laity, but it can’t staff 16,125 parishes.”
Selling Radical ‘Synodality’ as ‘Social Prophecy’ (The Catholic Thing): “What … is ‘a synodal Church’ in which women religious are ‘called to become experts in synodality’?”
Why the Left Won’t Leave Nuns Alone (The Wall Street Journal):“The Sisters of Hawthorne are the latest to become a progressive target.”
Are pro-abortion politicians canonical ‘accomplices’? (The Pillar): “Calls for excommunication gain attention, but seem unlikely to gain any traction with bishops.”
Should the archbishop excommunicate the governor? (Catholic Culture): “Should Boston’s Archbishop Richard Henning excommunicate Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts?”
It May Be Time to Panic About AI (The Atlantic): “Bots are starting to conspire with one another. Can they be reeled back in?”
Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV (Paarse Pepers – Blogspot): “My question is a simple and earnest one: does the synodal process actually help bring souls closer to Christ and to eternal salvation?”
The Myth of the Miserable Housewife (National Review): “Far from driving unhappiness among women, marriage and motherhood remain the most stable and achievable sources of meaning and joy.”
How to Sit Down: Navigating Creative Resistance—Kate Gaston: (The Rabbit Room): “Time is a precious resource, and everybody wants some of yours. Don’t be surprised at finding yourself fighting this battle again and again. Your enemy? Literally anything you are not vocationally called by God to participate in.”
San Antonio Priest Laicized, Excommunicated after Calling Popes Francis and Leo ‘Usurpers’ (OSV News): A priest of the Archdiocese of San Antonio who was ‘found guilty of schism’ has been removed from the clerical state and excommunicated, according to the archbishop of the archdiocese.
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Thank goodness the Hawthorne Dominicans have another home in the Atlanta area but what’s been happening in NY is terribly sad.
If the good sisters were facilitating euthanasia for the terminally ill I suppose that would be just fine with the NY powers that be.
@ Should the archbishop excommunicate the governor?
Yes. If Gov Maura Healy declines to acknowledge abortion is a grave evil and will not accept disciplinary counsel plus action including denial of the Holy Eucharist.
In these circumstances Archbishop Henning himself requires disciplinary instruction from the Roman pontiff. The unfortunate circumstances will likely include a hands off policy by Pope Leo XIV who by past indication has not corrected Cardinal McElroy, or Detroit Archbishop Weisenburger.
It’s the Laity that suffers the most by example of our hierarchy. What the present state of affairs reveals, is that the Catholic Church, since the heinous McCarrick lie indicated by Phil Lawler is a Church presently reduced to a form of Congregationalism in which anyone may believe whatever they wish.
Fine words and the illusion of a spirituality concerned with the poor and migrants is in effect perhaps more self-inflicted delusion.
@ The Myth of the Miserable Housewife
Inez Feltscher Stepman National Review [an unfairly panned journal] begins with an obvious affirmation of housewife-ism. Unfortunately this article unlike the Brittany Bernstein essay on an alleged Fauci conspiracy does have a paywall [the article can be found on X].
@ Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV
“Does the synodal process actually help bring souls closer to Christ and to eternal salvation? That is the decisive question for me” (Rob Mutsaerts Aux. Bishop Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch).
Bishop Mutsaerts says it all by exclaiming that “the Church is not a conversation but a received reality”. And the ongoing conversation that achieves little of no substance on the truth of the faith, rather, by intentional design of its originator Cardinal Mario Martini former Archbishop Milan – misdirects the faith to places unknown, irreconcilable to what Christ revealed.
@ Open Letter
Possible summary: The Church is communal because it is Eucharistic, not vice versa (Real Presence: CCC 1374).
Therefore, because of both (a) the “universal call to holiness” of the baptized and (b) the distinctive role of the ordained within the Church (“differing in kind as well as degree,” Lumen Gentium), the promised synodal “style” might be achieved/ domesticated in this way:
PROPOSAL: The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith restored as either the “Congregation (!) for the Doctrine of the Faith,” or possibly as a Secretariat, while the Secretariat on Synodality is deflated into an important dicastery among many others—and where the leavening “style” of mutual listening might bear fruit rather than validating itself as an oracle.
(As the great American guru Yogi Berra once observed: “It’s amazing what you can learn by just listening.”)
RECALLING, here, that shortly after the Second Vatican Council—and still before the German/Roman “synodal” sidetrack—Ratzinger/Benedict reflected on the partial loss of “communio”—or the “ecclesial assembly” (his term!)—in the wake of the Reformation. ..
At Trent, the better articulation of the Faith, and the restoration of the sacramentally ordained priest as more than a seeming “cult-minister” (his words) or “primarily as a facilitator” (synodal Vademecum)—but as a bearer of sacramentality through HOLY ORDERS (Apostolic Succession)—also led to too much of a “separation” of the laity from the clergy. The loss of COMMUNIO—”the problem of the laity, which arose at this time and still haunts us today” (“Successio Apostolica,” as Chapter 2 in Ratzinger, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” Ignatius, 1982/Ignatius 1987).
SUMMARY: Walk the talk, not talk the walk. The coherent mission of “walking together” while chewing gum at the same time.
Please see this sketch of the formidable Christian effort of the First Crusade (which was organized by the great Pope, Urban II and in which Christian warriors against all odds and huge enemy numbers and with great suffering did reconquer the Holy Land for Christendom for another century), that erases false and biased anti-Catholic narratives:
Using both Christian and Muslim primary sources (he is fluent in Arabic) historian Raymond Ibrahim provides a detailed account of the sufferings of Christian soldiers during the First Crusade primarily in his book Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (2018), with additional context in Defenders of the West (2022) and various articles on his website.
—Key Accounts of Suffering
Ibrahim focuses on the extreme physical and psychological hardships endured by the Crusaders to contextualize their later actions as reactions to prolonged trauma and defensive necessity:
• The Siege of Antioch (1097–1098): Ibrahim describes this as a period of “emaciation” and “starvation more bitter than death.” He details how Crusaders were reduced to eating dogs, rats, thistles, and even the leaves of fig trees. He cites chroniclers to illustrate that many died of pestilence and thirst, and that the survivors were psychologically broken by the sight of Turkish forces throwing the heads of captured Christian allies over the walls.
• The Battle of Dorylaeum (1097): He highlights this as the first major clash where Western knights experienced the “Muslim way of war.” Ibrahim recounts how the Crusaders were surrounded and subjected to relentless arrow fire under the scorching July sun, suffering from severe dehydration and heat exhaustion while trapped in their heavy armor. He notes the death of thousands of commoners and the sheer desperation of the knightly class before relief arrived.
The March to Jerusalem: Ibrahim emphasizes that by the time the Crusaders reached the outskirts of Jerusalem, they were exhausted, starving, and dying of thirst. He frequently mentions the incident at Maarat al-Numan, where starvation drove some Crusaders to eating flesh from the Muslims dead.
Narrative Purpose
—In these accounts, Ibrahim EXPLICITLY LINKS THE CRUSADERS’ SUFFERING TO THE PRIOR MASSACRES OF CHRISTIANS IN ANATOLIA AND ARMENIA. He argues that the Crusaders’ memory of their own “starvations” and the sight of their coreligionists’ heads being used as projectiles by the Muslims fueled their rage upon finally breaching Jerusalem, framing the final conquest not as unprovoked aggression but as the culmination of a desperate, traumatic struggle for survival against an enemy he describes as employing systematic terror and scorched-earth tactics. “
—MOREOVER, MANY DECADES BEFORE THE FIRST CRUSADE, MUSLIMS RAZED TO THE GOUND THE HOLY SEPULCHER COMPLEX. This Christian holy complex was built under Saint Helen’s guidance and ordered by Emperor Saint Constantine the Great and consecrated in 335 A.D. The complex was much larger than the present Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
THE HOLY SEPUCHER COMPLEX WAS RAZED TO THE GROUND BY MUSLIMS IN 1009. THIS CREATED A FUROR IN EUROPE AND WAS A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE EVENTUAL ORGANIZING OF THE FIRST CRUSADE (launched on November 27, 1095, when Pope Urban II called for it at the Council of Clermont PARTLY IN RESPONSE TO THE REQUEST FOR HELP FROM THE GREK ROMAN EMPEROR WHOSE CHRISTIAN DOMAIN WAS BEING OVERHWELMED BY THE MUSLIM TURKS).
—BTW, THE JEWISH POPULATION OF JERUSALEM SUPPORTED THE MUSLIM CONQUEST OF 637 A.D. LOGISTICALLY AND MILITARY AND WITH INTELLIGENCE AND GUIDANCE. Thus it got its revenge from the years of prohibitions and restrictions from the Christian authorities. It cheered the triumph of Islam over the Christians.
—And BTW there were no Christians (those still living there in dhimmi status) left in the city when it was reconquered. Muslims had expelled them all when the crusade started.
—The battle for Jerusalem was horrendous. That the Christians won was yet another miracle in the First Crusade. So when the Crusaders entered, their rage fell upon the Muslim and Jewish population.
—BUT NO, “THE CRUSADERS DID NOT KILL EVERYONE IN JERUSALEM DURING THE FIRST CRUSADE in 1099, but they massacred many among of the city’s Muslim and Jewish population.
• Survivors: A significant number of inhabitants survived through ransom, expulsion, or sanctuary. Those who could pay were allowed to leave, while others sought refuge in the Tower of David (which negotiated a ransom) or specific buildings under the protection of Crusader leaders like Tancred and Count Raymond.
• Death Toll Estimates: Contemporary and modern estimates vary widely due to biased sources. Muslim sources often cite figures as high as 70,000, which historians consider an exaggeration given the city’s total population of roughly 30,000. More moderate estimates suggest 3,000 to 10,000 deaths, with some survivors remaining as slaves or hostages for years. “
• Understanding the historical context—including the suffering of Crusaders, prior conflicts and massacres of Christians, and the nuanced realities of the Jerusalem siege—provides a more balanced perspective beyond simplified narratives.”
“A priest of the Archdiocese of San Antonio who was ‘found guilty of schism’ has been removed from the clerical state and excommunicated, according to the archbishop of the archdiocese.”
Yet the vile sexual predator Marco Rupnik remains in ministry, as does the vile homosexualist James Martin, SCH. Hypocrites.
My sheep hear my voice: and I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27-28
Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition
There’s an awful lot of “shepherds” who howl and have an unmistakable, acrid lupine stench. As for Martin, I’m not buying his poodle costume.
This priest and his congregation, the Mission of Divine Mercy, are not quitting. This is their site, where they explain their position, which includes rejection of Fiducia Supplicans, etc.:
https://missionofdivinemercy.org/the-mission/
Apparently “the synod” is about what the pontiff Leo says is ‘not very important,’ that is, it’s about getting rid of the 6th Commandment, because: Science is real, and Bruce Jenner is a girl.”
Have you ever encountered the late Flip Wilson as Reverend Leroy in “The Church Of What’s Happening Now”?
Somebody thinks that parody is a blueprint.
The more I read these news headlines, the more convinced I am that the hierarchy are turning Christ’s Church into a bloody circus complete with a ring master, clowns, freak sideshows, lion tamers, acrobats on high wires and barkers. Who’s got the Cracker Jack concession?