Friday, June 26, 2015

The Supreme Court v. Reality

The American Supreme Court has repeated the error of Roe v. Wade: they have overruled tens of millions of citizens and have forced a non-reality upon an unwilling populace. And, like Roe v. Wade, the action guarantees ongoing conflict.

But God is writing straight with crooked lines. Many Catholics have left the faith, and the culture of the West needs to be Evangelized. Catholicism is about reality. Catholicism is Reality. By allowing the ongoing cultural embrace of non-reality, God is opening up an avenue for us to reach our brothers and sisters. As a non-Catholic cleric said "we must offer our views until the time comes when our friends and neighbours, their doctrines broken on the anvil of reality, are humbled enough to listen."

We have often referred to same-sex ‘marriage’ as ‘counterfeit marriage.’ That's insufficient. To counterfeit a thing requires a belief in the thing’s reality. We live in a time when our so-called ‘elites’ believe that reality itself is defined by the perceiver. Theirs may be the first culture in history using solipsism as a guiding principle.

It is suggestive that same-sex 'marriage' coincided with the waning of marriage to an unprecedented low point. The people who believe that same-sex 'marriage' exists do because they no longer believe in marriage.

It is also suggestive that same-sex ‘marriage’ coincided with the popularization of ‘virtual reality.’ Although the term only became widely used with the coming of computers, it was actually coined by the influential (and mentally ill) French dramatist Antonin Artaud in 1938. For Artaud, “imagination was reality.” Sound familiar?


This man imagines he’s a woman:

















This woman imagines she’s black:


















These guys imagine they’re married:


















Our 'elites' accept these things as true. Normal people don't. If they weren’t so destructive, one could almost feel for the LGBT activists. Their ‘victory’ required the redefinition of reality, but they’re not the only ones who can play that game. Look at those pictures: all you can do is laugh.

Same-sex ‘marriages’ themselves will have little import: only a small portion of the 3% of Americans who are same-sex attracted will choose to avail themselves of it. The problem of course is the warping of society as misguided people try to twist others into accommodating the false reality

For us lay Christians, our job as always is to defend and preach reality, which is Christ: the Logos--the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

For our hierarchy, as Archbishop Cordileone has said, their job is to remain true to Christ, and above all to protect the reality of the faith from the heretics who are attempting to redefine it. That’s why his leadership in trying to re-Catholicize our schools is so important. 

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Archbishop Cordileone: Our duty is to speak the truth on marriage



What a blessing it is to be living in the Archdiocese of San Francisco under Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone! I feel like I am with Athanasius: one man and the truth against all the powers of the world.


Here is an excerpt from His Excellency's speech to his brother bishops at last week's USCCB meeting, as reported by LifeSiteNews:

"If the US Supreme Court decides to redefine marriage in the next couple weeks it will not stop the nation’s bishops from proclaiming the truth, says the archbishop serving as point man on the issue.
'Regardless of what happens at the end of this month, nothing the court says can change what marriage truly is and we will continue to promote and defend it,' said San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman for the USCCB Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.
The archbishop quoted Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to illustrate the point for his fellow bishops at their Spring Assembly earlier this month in St. Louis.
'Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me,' said Archbishop Cordileone. 'The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.'
'We may have to suffer this lie about marriage in the law,' he continued, 'but we must not participate in it or keep silent about it.'
He suggested to his fellow bishops that the faithful can offer up small hardships in this regard for the Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere who are being killed and exiled for the faith.
The archbishop knows something about taking heat for the Catholic faith, with the attacks on him over the last several months for working to strengthen the Church’s identity in San Francisco Catholic high schools. His fellow bishops applauded him fervently at the end of his presentation after USCCB President Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz thanked him for his courageous leadership for the Church."

It is a strange but good experience for me as a man born in America to learn the age-old message of the Church, that any country, no matter how good, can never completely be our home. We've been historically spoiled by living in America because it has been so wonderful--so much so that it almost became a religion of its own. Our home is Holy Mother Church.

Bless the Archbishop!

Sunday, June 14, 2015

"We are running the real risk of leaving no place for God in our celebrations"



A beautiful and important piece by Cardinal Robert Sarah.

The translation is from Rorate Caeli. The opening paragraphs are reproduced below. What a marvelous understanding His Eminence shows of the Liturgy is about.







THE SILENT ACTION OF THE HEART

Cardinal Robert Sarah
L'Osservatore Romano
June 12, 2015
[Exclusive Rorate translation by Contributor Francesca Romana]

Fifty years after its promulgation by Pope Paul VI will the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from the Second Vatican Council be read? “Sacrosanctum concilium “ is not de facto a simple catalogue of reform “recipes” but a real “magna carta” of every liturgical action.

With it, the ecumenical council gives us a magisterial lesson in method. Indeed, far from being content with a disciplinary and exterior approach, the council wants to make us reflect on what the liturgy is in its essence. The practice of the Church always comes from what She receives and contemplates in Revelation. Pastoral care cannot be disconnected from doctrine.

In the Church, “that which comes from action is ordered to contemplation” (cfr. n. 2). The Council’s Constitution invites us to rediscover the Trinitarian origin of the liturgical action. Indeed, the Council establishes continuity between the mission of Christ the Redeemer and the liturgical mission of the Church. “Just as Christ was sent by His Father, so also He sent the Apostles” so that “by means of sacrifice and sacraments, around which the entire liturgical life revolves” they accomplish ”the work of salvation”. (n.6).

Actuating the liturgy is therefore nothing other than actuating the work of Christ. The liturgy in its essence is “actio Christi”. [It is]the “work of Christ the Lord in redeeming mankind and giving perfect glory to God.” (n.5) It is He who is the great Priest, the true subject, the true actor in the liturgy (n.7). If this vital principle is not accepted in faith, there is the risk of making the liturgy into a human work, a self-celebration of the community....
We run the real risk of leaving no space for God in our celebrations. We risk the temptation of the Hebrews in the desert. They attempted to create worship according to their own stature and measure, [but] let us not forget they ended up prostrate before the idol of the Golden Calf."
Emphasis added.

Read the whole thing.