AnarchoCatholic

The Culmination of the Reformation: The Church of Oprah

Someone passed this You Tube video  on to me as a short quasi documentary on Oprah's unofficial church. See her website to learn more about her "New Earth" project (sponsored by Chevrolet).   Interestingly enough, I think the video is produced by a Protestant apologetics ministry. No doubt Oprah does some good and wonderful things, being a child of God. Yet, many American women take their teachings from her and not the Church or, if Protestant, from the Holy Scriptures. Americans love branding and marketing, so it is no wonder she is so popular and effective in fulfilling her mission. Oprah openly affirms New Age pagan beliefs and has for years proudly lived in fornication with another man. The above video just presents more moral and religious relativism that is so popular in the post-Christian west. No surprise that Oprah affirms and proselytizes the same muck. The video present a more Protestant understanding of justification, but I think the point made to be wary of taking one's teaching on matters theological or moral from the television is well made. Say a prayer for Oprah's conversion today, the Triune God could use her mightily for His glory in building up the Church.

Thank you Martin Luther, for giving us the poison of Sola Scriptura, may God have mercy on your eternal soul.

SBW

The Pope and the President

A good friend passed this article  on to me, from the magazine, Chronicles. It offers some insightful commentary on the recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States, and in particular his visit to the White House to meet with President Bush. Recall that second day after his arrival when both Benedict and the president gave speeches in the rose garden. 

SBW

Here are some excerpts:

If you relied on wire service accounts, Catholic commentary, and the few snippets of video on the evening news, you can be forgiven for believing that the White House Welcoming Ceremony held for Pope Benedict XVI on April 16 was entirely “warm,” “friendly,” and marked by “mutual admiration and respect.”

But beneath the surface, the waters weren’t so calm, as anyone who watched the entire ceremony, listened closely to President Bush’s speech, and paid attention to the symbolism knows.

The Joys of Children

My wife and I were just discussing with our two toddler boys about name prospects for the new baby we're expecting in December.  Our four year old came up with a hoot, Franzie O'Connor.  I have no idea where that one came from. 

When prompted to guess the baby's gender, the four year old says it's going to be a girl, but the two year old objects saying it will be a car. 

As to why the oldest thinks it will be a girl, he naturally responds, "because God looks down, sees two boys and says its gotta be a girl."

I haven't laughed so hard in years. 

CK

Celebrate State Kidnapping Week

And kidnap some more:

[New Mexico] State police have removed four children from an apocalyptic church whose leader claims to be the Messiah and acknowledges having sex with some of his followers...

Serna said her agency received information on April 21 that warranted the removal of the children. She declined to reveal the information or its source.

So he's had sex with some of his "followers," mentioned at the very bottom of the article to be wives of other followers, not children. The first line cleverly implies the latter. So we've got some wife-swapping going on. Oh, and an "apocalyptic church." What an absurd demonization. All Christian churches are apocalyptic; the last book in the Bible bears that title. But then I guess that's where we're headed. Even worse! He claims to be the messiah. Totally unlike atheists and new age individualists, right?

Naturally, there may well be real abuse here - but we don't know what the allegations even are, let alone have any proof of them. Maybe this one will be substantiated, but even then evidence can be fabricated, not that our dear always good and benevolent states would ever do such a thing.

From the alleged-abuser:

"We have given everything to prepare them for an eternity with God. We haven't oppressed them with your atheistic globalist curriculum, socialist indoctrination, and 'alternative lifestyles' dogma that comprise modern public education. We have taught them higher values than the values of your slave-state, and have sought to shield them from the abuse that is institutionalized in your system," he wrote...

Yeah, this guy's definitely crazy. Probably supports Ron Paul, too. Better lock him up and take his kids away before anyone else gets uppity and homeschooling spreads even more.

I still don't get the modernist hang-up about polygamy. If Heather can have two mommies and that's okay, why can't she have a daddy thrown in, too?

JMM

NY Cardinal Egan chastises Guiliani for taking Holy Eucharist

Could it be that Pope Benedict XVI's recent to the United States inspired a new vigor in certain American bishops to boldly teach and uphold the Faith? This recent development of Cardinal Egan calling former NY Mayor Guiliani out on sinfully taking of the Holy Eucharist nearly rivals that of Missouri Archbishop Burke and his treatment of John Kerry. However, do not hold your breath for San Francisco's bishop Niederauer to do the same with the infamous Planned Parenthood bulldog Nancy Pelosi.

SBW

LINK

Excerpts from Cardinal Egan's letter:

"The Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God," said Egan.  "Throughout my years as Archbishop of New York, I have repeated this teaching in sermons, articles, addresses, and interviews without hesitation or compromise of any kind."

He continued, "Thus it was that I had an understanding with Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, when I became Archbishop of New York and he was serving as Mayor of New York, that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion."

"I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the Eucharist during the Papal visit here in New York," said Egan, "and I will be seeking a meeting with him to insist that he abide by our understanding."

Now listen to Guiliani's arrogant shallow response:

Responding to the matter in the press, Giuliani said that his faith "is a deeply personal matter and should remain confidential."

When life gives you a lemon

Don't make hard lemonade and give it to your kid in public:

Almost everyone Chris Ratte met the night they took Leo away conceded the state was probably overreacting.

The sympathetic cop who interviewed Ratte and his son at the hospital said she was convinced what happened had been an accident, but that her supervisor was insisting the matter be referred to Child Protective Services.

And Ratte thought the two child protection workers who came to take Leo away seemed more annoyed with the police than with him. "This is so unnecessary," one told Ratte before driving away with his son.

But there was really nothing any of them could do, they all said. They were just adhering to protocol, following orders.

And so what had begun as an outing to the ballpark ended with Leo crying himself to sleep in front of a television inside the Child Protective Services building, and Ratte and his wife standing on the sidewalk outside, wondering when they'd see their little boy again.

I mean, really, how much more are we going to take? The bit about "just following orders" is most disturbing. Hey, I know it's your kid and we don't have a reason to take him from you, but I'm just doing my job. I wonder what else these parasites--the officer, the caseworker, their supervisor--are willing to do when they get  "orders."

At least he got an acknowledgment of the absurdity of the action--more than the FLDS parents got--but I suppose that's about as much as you can expect from the state spending your tax dollars to "protect" your child from your own bad self. No, you can't expect it, you're lucky to get it. You should be grateful.

Calvin had it right when he said "wing it right back and add some lemons of your own."

JMM

Mormon Pantry

One thing I always thought Mormons got right was loading up the pantry, just in case.  It's always struck me as a good insurance policy.  Looks like they're well ahead of the game now that Wall St is taking notice. 

Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.

"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)

And if you can grow your own food, that's a capital investment that is going to be valuable once again in this country.  The days of financial domination are over.  Something tells me many of us are going to be going to the Mormons like the world came to Joseph to buy grain. (Gen 41:53-57)

CK

High Tide for Ron Paul

This is probably the best Ron Paul for president commercial out there.  It encapsulates the essential message of his campaign.  Too bad for the message to get out there it has to look and feel propagandistic. 

CK

   

A Dictatorship of Relative Torture

Political hacks can do a great job of taking a profound insight and turn it into the dreadfully meaningless state of a political slogan, a sound-byte, or worst of all, a talking point.  Voegelin's condemnation against immanentizing the eschaton is one of those profound ideas about the shared eschatological views of modern totalitarians and millenialist Gnostics, stripped to a mere slogan of "yeah let's stick it to those liberals."

   

Like many things at National Review, Rich Lowry has found a new profound talking point from President Bush, in a speech welcoming the Holy Father to the U.S.  For Bush this was actually a good speech hitting many of the themes that His Holiness often espouses, like the complementarity of faith and reason and invocations of the natural law written on the heart.  Whoever Bush's speech writer was for this address, he was assuredly a well informed Catholic.  The high point and extremely ironic part of the speech came when the president acknowledged:

 

"In a world where some no longer believe that we can distinguish between simple right and wrong, we need your message to reject this 'dictatorship of relativism,' and embrace a culture of justice and truth. (Applause.)"

 

Well Hallelujah, let the moral revival of D.C. begin in earnest.  Maybe the president will open his obtuse heart and stop the torture.  "Spe salvi facti sumus"

   

Anyway back to Lowry.  True to the anti-intellectual form of national greatness conservatism he has found in the "dictatorship of relativism" a new slogan to stick it to those libs and evil Europeans.  In the EU, Lowry triumphantly points out that a secular relativism has become "well-advanced."  What Lowry fails to see with the wooden beam stuck in his own eye is just what Ratzinger meant by relativism and how it applies explicitly to Lowry's own thought.  If European relativism is well-advanced, Lowry's relativism is in a critical state of metastasized cancer. 

   

Let us harken back to Ratzinger's brilliant 2005 sermon immediately prior to his elevation to the papacy:

 

"[R]elativism, that is, letting oneself be 'tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine', seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

 

Ratzinger has modernists like Lowry pegged.  No matter that such neocons pay lip service to religion, considerations for nuking Mecca thus advocating the murder of innocents to "send a signal" and dancing around the torture issue advocating waterboarding seem to be the only ways that people like Lowry can cope with modern times.  When it comes to war, murder, and torture nothing with the Rich Lowrys of the world is definite.  Only in a dictatorship of relative torture are people subjected to "90 seconds of uncontrollable panic to get information that might save lives."

      

Rich Lowry should look deeper into the moral theology that forms the basis of Ratzinger's thought and stop immanentizing the eschaton.

 

CK

What a Strange Twist

In the FLDS raids (h/t Rick Fisk):

The FLDS church  has skirted the polygamy laws – not that the laws are legitimate – by avoiding the marriage license. Fine. The state may not recognize unlicensed marriage, but they also have no legitimate legal authority to turn a religious institution into a "legal" institution. However, the FLDS goes a step further by having the "unwed" mothers apply for state welfare.  They don't just want to live their lifestyle in peace, they want to have the people of the State of Texas pay so that they can afford to maintain so many wives and children.

So at the bottom of all this, of course, is the state! Since you'd have to be phenomenally wealthy to support 416 children and their non-working mothers, naturally the whole thing only works with state support. Sort of a funny thing to see how simply allowing the market to operate would take care of this whole situation if the state hadn't gotten into the marriage/welfare business in the first place: polygamy just ain't economically feasible for the average guy. Havin' all them wives is just so gosh darn expensive! What a screwy situation.

Apparently other polygamists have caught on, since they keep separate houses for their various wives, who are of course single mothers in the legal sense. Gee, I wonder if any of them take advantage of their single-mother (jobless?) status to claim welfare benefits. Welcome to America. The state giveth, the state taketh away.

JMM

"You're not human, like me. You're a clone..."

Set the captives free. My wife and I sat down and watched the film, "The Island" this evening. We both have been waiting to see the film, which is a bit old, for quite some time. HERE is the link to the movie's official website. There are so many thoughts and reflections that I have right now concerning the film that it is difficult to state them all right now. I wholehardedly encourage our readers to see the film. It is a stark realization of the not too distant future, a future of utilitarian scientism. (Click the link below to keep reading!)

So Much for a "Free Country"

By now we've all heard of the raids on the FLDS church in Eldorado, TX. There are so many levels of injustice in this case that it would be impossible for me to address them all in one post. One example of blatant hypocrisy stands out: the same state that tried to require 11 and 12 year-olds to get an HPV vaccine is now claiming that children are abused because they married too young. Throw in the fact that the alleged cry for help was a fraud (Tawana II, anyone?), and the broken families, and the smug self-rightenousness of the testifying psychiatrist and CPS official ("This is not about religion -- this is about keeping children safe from abuse"), and the exceedingly low probability that the state will acknowledge its mistake (Nifong, to draw a further analogy), and it's no small wonder that people like the authors of this blog have so little faith in America anymore.

Anyone, with any level of credibility, need make only one phone call, speak the magic words "child abuse," and your family is destroyed or permanently damaged.

JMM

Benedict XVI to the American Bishops: Tend and nurture your flocks!

You can find a full transcript of the Holy Father's speech given to the U.S. Bishops HERE .

Also, some interesting commentary on that speech is both  HERE  and ironically HERE at the NY Times blog.

Video of the speech as well as other events can be found HERE .

More commentary and analysis will follow later. Please continue to pray for the Pope's safety and travels.

SBW

Holy Father arrives in Mordor

Pope Benedict XVI arrived this afternoon in Washington D.C. and was greeted by many American officials of the Roman Curia as well as President Bush, the First Lady, and their daughter, Jenna. He was greeted with cheers and excitement. For his part, Benedict XVI seemed to happily efuse joy and excitement about sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with a very lost and spiritually depressed land overcome with materialism and the despair of modernity. Yet there is hope in this land that begins with Jesus and is witnessed through His Bride the Church.

HERE is a great place to follow the Holy Father's travels and events over the next few days during his visit. It also has links to EWTN and USCCB coverage. Pray for his safe travel and protection against material harm and spiritual evil.

SBW

Terrorizing the Innocent

An excellent article that you will not find anywhere else, except on New Oxford Review, that describes the consequences of the U.S. government adopting its scorched earth bombing campaign policy whereby it intentionally decided to start bombing German civilians because, "the end justified the means." Now the same reasoning holds true for other issues such as abortion, destructive human embryonic research, euthanizing the elderly, etc. A must read article that is difficult to find amidst the accolades that are continuously being showered on the "Greatest Generation."

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=1105-wall

Excerpts:

However, so far as I know, no one has considered the rejection, during World War II by the U.S. government and its military high command, of the Universal Moral Law in order to achieve certain pragmatic political goals (i.e., to win the war). Once this bill of goods (that you could ignore the Universal Moral Law to achieve your ends) was sold to the American people, it became increasingly easier for them to justify the acceptance of other manifestly evil policies.

Thus, we now have abortion, justified for all sorts of pragmatic reasons. The same is also true of homosexuality, promiscuity, divorce, drugs, etc. Once the principle is adopted that you can ignore the Universal Moral Law for pragmatic reasons, the door is wide open for all types of evils to enter. And, as we can see by simply reading the daily newspaper, from looking at the television, listening to the radio, this is exactly what has happened.

Update! Cardinal O'Brien takes the battle to YouTube

I invite our readers to view the good Cardinal's message HERE . Also HERE  is a rehashing of the story in the Daily Telegraph.

This whole story lends some creditability to the idea that the Church is not yet dead in Henry's realm. Perhaps indeed the U.K. Church will be a redeeming force as Europe slides more into neo-paganism and is eventually swallowed up by Islam.

SBW

Being that light shining in a dark cave

On Easter Sunday in Scotland, Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien gave a homily that may have an impact for years to come. Currently in the British Parliament there is a bill, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which would extend funding to various different procedures, some including creating animal/human chimeras as well as creating human embryos en masse to be experimented on and disposed of. However, the chief row was over the voting procedures in parliament. Because of party rules, British PM Gordon Brown mandated that all Labour members provide a full vote. Thus, Labour party members did not have an option to opt out, or "voice their conscience." That was of course until the brave Cardinal spoke.

It was singularly his Easter Sunday homily on the Resurrection  that created an uproar across the U.K. sufficient to get Mr. Brown to allow Labour members to vote their conscience. I encourage our readers to read his homily, which you can find HERE. What is further interesting is that the only other group to sign a joint statement was a group of Islamic medical and social organizations, who condemned the bill as being the "worst bill in the history of Britain." This is notable because my research has indicated that Islamic tradition generally does not recognize the personhood of embryos until 120 days. However, there are exceptions in some S'hia groups. The only other substantive opposition to the bill probably comes from disparate evangelical groups, given that Protestantism is virtually dead in the U.K., and soon to be elsewhere too.

Here is a LINK  to a subsequent speech given by the brave Cardinal.

Pray for the Cardinal to continue to be a strong and faithful shepherd of his flock and that he would continue to defend the Church's teachings. Thank our Lord that the Cardinal has responded in this moment of his calling. St. Thomas Becket pray for your native land.

SBW

BIO's (unsurprising) Conflict of Interest

I thought I would share this completely obvious conflict of interest with our readers. It is something that exists throughout the biotechnology sector, which has in many respects dedicated itself to perpetuating a fairy tale for the suffering among us, teasing them with claims of future "cures" akin to the miracles of Jesus. Meanwhile, the industry cashes in and is aggressively seeking the fatted calf in the form of federal purse strings. How little does America understand or see meaning in suffering.

Check this out, so to be a member of the official "bioethics committee" of BIO, the trade organization for the biotech industry, you must be a part of a member company. So basically, bioethics is not about ethics, it is about marketing and propagandizing the lie that an embryo is a "ball of cells" (as described in BIO's literature). This is exactly what Richard Doerflinger, the chairman of the pro-life office of USCCB said before Congress in a hearing on March 7, 2006. Many of those involved in this industry begin by breaking the commandment not to kill and end up breaking the commandment not to bear false witness.  (SBW) Here are his comments:

In any case, we should not be surprised when an ethic that dismisses "Thou shalt not kill" in the quest for cures applies the same calculus to "Thou shalt not bear false witness." If the embryo's "merely biological" life can be trampled to benefit more valuable lives, "merely factual" truth can be sacrificed for the higher truth of progress.

From BIO's website:

Eligibility for Participation: To become a member of the Bioethics Committee, one must be employed by a company or organization that is a member of BIO.

http://bio.org/bioethics/committee.asp

"Rosie the Riveter" was the first to burn her bra

In an essay I found below, the author makes the point that the beginning of the angry rancorous feminist movement that grew in the 60s and 70s and unfortunately is still badgering on today began as a result of the effect of war. It began as a result of the "good" war (WWII) at behest of the "Greatest Generation." Recall the cartoon propaganda produced by the US government of "Rosie the Riveter" who was keeping the war machine alive on the "homefront" while the "boys" were away at war. Well what happened when the "boys" came home? All of a sudden a conflict emerged between the sexes and a bitter sputtering animosity on the part of many [former] housewives. Hey they should be able to wear the pants too, after all! I think it's time to rethink both characterizations about whether any war can or should be considered "good" absolutely and whether a generation that produced the most selfish egotistical generation in history can really be called so "great." Satan is indeed so deceptive, he first leads men to believe war is necessary and good, and then he uses it to tear apart the family, the individual, society, etc. Thankfully, he shall never prevail against Christ's Church.

SBW

Here is the LINK

Excerpt:

Young feminists have been sold a bill of  goods about American feminism. The enormous changes in women over the past 40 years are constantly and falsely attributed to the organized women's movement of the late 1960s and '70s. But that movement was merely a symptom or corollary of a profound transformation in American society after World War II. My generation of bossy, confident, baby-boom women were something brand new in history. Our energy and assertiveness weren't created by Betty Friedan, unknown before her 1963 book, or by Gloria Steinem, whose political activism, as even the Lifetime profile admitted, did not begin until 1969. 

Govt. must do the "greatest good for the greatest number"

Excerpt from testimony given before the U.S. Congress in March 2002 by former "superman" Hollywood actor, the late Christopher Reeve.

Today 100 million Americans suffer from serious or currently incurable diseases. 54 million Americans are disabled. Our government is supposed to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people; beyond that we have a moral responsibility to help others. Time is absolutely critical. If the government forces scientists to attempt to make adult stem cells behave like embryonic stem cells, they might waste 5 years or more and fail. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands will have died.

Note the extremely horrid irony behind this statement. If that in fact were true in an absolute sense, that the government is supposed to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, then Mr. Reeve would have been sacked a long time ago. Think of how much money and resources he consumed with his expensive wheelchair, ventilator, staff to assist him, medications, electricity, labor, etc. Why, if Mr. Reeve could just be done away with, then that in fact would free up much more resources to do good to a greater number of people in a macro sense. No, Mr. Reeve does not really means what he says, he still presumes that human life deserves respect. Except of course the most innocent and weak of human life, the human embryo. It is perfectly just, in fact it is a moral imperative for Mr. Reeve to experiment and dispose like a predator on these little ones.

SBW