Thursday, December 29, 2022
‘Let Love Speak’: No One Should Die Alone| National Catholic Register
‘Let Love Speak’: No One Should Die Alone| National Catholic Register: COMMENTARY: ‘A Christian knows when it is time to speak of God,’ says Benedict XVI, ‘and when it is better to say nothing and to let love alone speak.’
DECEMBER 28, 2022 BY MSGR. CHARLES POPE On The Feast of the Holy Innocents, A Meditation on the Sins Committed Against Children
http://blog.adw.org/2022/12/on-the-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-a-meditation-on-the-sins-committed-against-children-2/
Today, we observe the feast of the Holy Innocents, a feast commemorating the young children, of even younger age who were cruelly murdered by the paranoid and crazed killer known as Herod “the Great.” So paranoid was he that others might usurp or limit his power that he killed three of his own sons, and his wife. He ruthlessly killed many others as well. As his own death drew near, according to Josephus, Herod decreed that in order that the nation properly mourn his death, one member of each family should be killed in his honor, and thus the mourning in all Israel for him would be sincere. His last and final act as King was to rise from his death bed and sentence to death a group of Jewish zealots who had removed an Eagle he place over the entrance of the temple. They had thought the image a desecration. Having killed them, he himself died (in bed) the next day.
Herod was a cruel tyrant and a ruthless and paranoid killer. Calling him “the Great” can only be a reference to his skill in architecture and building and to his headship of the equally cruel Herodian dynasty.
Yet here Christ was born and found, in the midst of crisis and disaster. More than ever, the Christmas message is relevant. For despite our cruelty and despite the crises of this world, Christ is still to be found. He was born in one of the most crisis-torn regions of the world. He bids us to find him in just these sorts of places and times, as if to say, there is still hope: The mercies of the Lord are not exhausted, his compassion is not spent; it is renewed each morning (Lam 3:22-23).
That he was willing to be born in such circumstances is clear, and from this we see his mercy.
But from our perspective he should not have to have been born like this. And thus our call to repentance remains. This crisis at Christmas was our human doing, our insensitivity. As Scripture says, He came unto his own, and his own received him not (Jn 1:11). That’s us the scriptures are talking about, No room in the inn.
And while Herod may be said to have acted alone, we cannot evade all responsibility, for to some extent we all participate in making and maintaining a cruel world where such ignominies routinely happen.
Children have much to suffer in this world of our collective making. And while not all of us are equally guilty of contributing to the suffering of children, none of us are wholly innocent either, if for no other reason than our silence.
Our culture has sinned against children by sexualizing them, robbing them of their innocence at an earlier and earlier age, and exposing them to all sorts of indoctrination and experimentation in schools. The most recent horrors center on exposing even kindergarteners to confusing sexual messages and practices related to transgenderism, homosexuality, “drag-queen story hours” and many other practices that desensitize and groom little children in sexual matters about which they need not know so far before puberty. We used to have discretion about this; we used to protect little children from sexual matters, rightly concluding that they were too young to understand and that such matters could trouble and confuse them. Adults speaking to little children about these matters used to be considered a grave and even criminal violation. What is wrong with so many today? And how is it legal for doctors to administer puberty-blocking drugs and even perform mastectomies and genital mutilations on minors (with or without parental permission)? Imagine the health complications in stopping puberty, a natural and essential stage of growth! How can a minor make such life-altering and often permanent decisions? It is a sin against these children to incite sexual confusion, indulge it and even cooperate in dangerous hormonal and surgical interventions in service of a lie that one can alter their sex. All this used to be obvious to us until about five minutes ago in our culture.
- Next, consider that most children born today are no longer born into the lasting family units they deserve with a father and mother committed to one another till death do them part. The problems begin with fornication, which is rampant in our culture. And while most do not think of this as a sin of injustice, it is. It is so because of what it does primarily to children.
- Many children are also conceived of fornication. Tragically most of these children who are thus conceived are outright killed by abortion. 85% of abortions are performed on unmarried women. And for all the vaunted declarations of how contraception makes every baby a wanted baby, nothing could be further from the truth. Abortion has skyrocketed with the availability of contraception. This is because the problem is not fertility, it is lust, promiscuity, fornication and adultery. And contraception fuels these problems by further enabling them. The promises associated with contraception are lies, it does the opposite of what it promises.
- So, fornication and the contraceptive mentality (founded on lies) cause grave harm to children, beginning with death, in huge numbers. And the children, conceived of fornication who do (thankfully) survive are, nevertheless subjected to the injustice of usually being born into irregular situations. There are single mothers, some single fathers, and many other irregularities.
- Add to this picture the large number of divorced families. And make no mistake, these shredded families cause great hardships and pain for children that include: children being shuttled back and forth between different household each week, having to meet “daddy’s new girlfriend” or mommy’s new “live-in boy-friend” and all sorts of other family chaos. Blended families also dramatically increase the likelihood of sexual and emotional abuse, since legal relationships seldom have the built-in protections of natural relationships. To be sure, not all people are divorced in the same way. Some tried to prevent it but their spouse was unwilling, etc. Still the harm caused to children remains.
All of this misbehavior, individual and cultural, harms children. Not being raised in a traditional marriage dramatically increases a child’s likelihood of suffering many other social ills, starting with poverty.
The chief cause of poverty in this country, is the single motherhood, absent fatherhood.
71% of poor families are not married.
Children of single parent homes are 2 times more likely to be arrested for juvenile crime,
2 times more likely be treated for emotional and behavioral problems,
Twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school,
33% more likely to drop out of school,
3 times more likely to end up in jail by age 30.
50% more likely to live in poverty as adults,
And twice as likely to have a child outside of marriage themselves. [*]
Not all of us do all these things personally and to the same degree. We should further note that abortion is complex and some women have recourse to it out of despair, others are pressured and so forth. But the point emphasized in this reflection is that all of us do contribute to the sort of culture that is increasingly poisonous and unjust to children if not downright deadly.
If nothing else, too many of (starting with clergy) are far too silent about the sins of injustice committed against children. Many remain quite silent while the bad behaviors adults pile up in our culture. Our silence is largely the product of fearing to offend other adults. Meanwhile children suffer, and the injustices pile higher, beginning with the body count of aborted babies and watered by the tears of surviving children who have had much to suffer.
Something to think about on the feast of the Holy Innocents.
I put the following video together to honor these young martyrs. The musical setting is by Michael Haydn of the hymn for the Feast of the Holy Innocents: Salvete Flores Martyrum The Latin text of this ancient hymn is quite beautiful. I produce here the Latin text followed by a fairly literal translation.
Salvete flores martyrum, – Hail Martyr Flowers
quos lucis ipso in limine – On the very threshold of the dawn (of life)
Christi insecutor sustulit – Christ’s persecutor destroyed (you)
ceu turbo nascentes rosas. – like the whirlwind does the budding roses.
Vos prima Christi victima, – You Christ’s firstfruits
grex immolatorum tener, – A flock of tender sacrificial victims
aram sub ipsam simplices – right up by the very altar
palma et coronis luditis. – now play with your palms and crowns
Iesu, tibi sit gloria, – Jesus to you be glory
qui natus es de Virgine, – who were born of the Virgin
cum Patre et almo Spiritu, – with the Father and loving Spirit
in sempiterna saecula. Amen. – unto to eternal ages. Amen.
Monday, December 26, 2022
Thursday, December 22, 2022
Shawshank Redemption actor Tim Robbins says demonizing the unvaccinated was ‘incredibly dangerous’ Lifesite News
Shawshank Redemption actor Tim Robbins says demonizing the unvaccinated was ‘incredibly dangerous
(LifeSiteNews) — An Academy Award-winning actor denounced the demonization of the unvaccinated during the COVID-19 outbreak and regrets his own anger toward those resisting standard anti-COVID policies such as masking.
Tim Robbins, famous for his leading role in the beloved film The Shawshank Redemption, decried the effect that COVID health “doctrine” “had on us as human beings” on British comedian Russell Brand’s December 18 podcast.
“We turned into tribal, angry, vengeful people,” Robbins said. “I don’t think that is something that is sustainable for the earth. That we start demonizing someone who doesn’t agree with our particular health policies and turn them into monsters. Turn them into pariahs. Say that they don’t deserve a hospital bed.”
He suggested that such a stance from someone who considers vax refusal unwise is hypocritical considering that we still “take care of” people who have made “bad mistakes,” like those who overdose on drugs.
“Because we’re compassionate. Because we want to make sure that people live. And this turned into ‘You should f—ing die because you have not complied.’ That’s incredibly dangerous.”
Robbins, however, said he himself used to have this vengeful mindset, explaining to Brand how he initially accepted the prevailing COVID narrative to the hilt and without question.
“I bought into it. … I was masking everywhere. I was keeping my social distance. I was adhering to the requests made of me, and I felt angry at people that didn’t do that,” the liberal actor told Brand.
It was not until he traveled to the United Kingdom, where he said he saw many people defying health protocols, that Robbins began to question government health policies.
“When I saw that there wasn’t a huge death rate [in Britain], after I witnessed personally what was happening, I started to wonder more and more about what we were being told and whether it was true or not,” Robbins told Brand.
His perspective further shifted when he walked amid an anti-lockdown protest in London out of curiosity.
“I saw the way that they were being described in the press, and it wasn’t true,” he said. “These were not, you know, National Front Nazis. These were liberals and lefties and people who believed in personal freedom.”
Robbins cited two incidents that were particularly “disturbing” to him.
“One was when the CDC … changed the definition of a vaccine on their website,” Robbins said. In September 2021, the CDC changed its definition of vaccine from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease” to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.”
Robbins also found health authorities’ denial of the sufficiency of “natural immunity” to be troubling.
“My alarm bells went off,” Robbins said.
When Brand proposed that “there is a lot more political ideology at play than is perhaps wise,” and more than is being admitted, Robbins pointed out, “At first, if you were a Democrat, when Trump was president, well, you weren’t going to take that vaccine because it was Trump’s vaccine, and then that seemed to somehow change.”
“It was kind of Orwellian. It was like we are no longer at war with East Asia,” said Robbins, alluding to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, in which government propaganda required that history be erased in order to promote the state’s latest objectives.
Robbins went on, “However after the political winds shifted and Democrats assumed power during the pandemic, if you didn’t take the vaccine, you were a Republican.”
Robbins’ interview with Brand echoed previous statements he made to reporter Matt Taibbi.
“You go from someone that is inclusive, altruistic, generous, empathetic, to a monster. Where you want to freeze people’s bank accounts because they disagree with you,” he said, appearing to refer to the Canadian government’s freeze on the assets of Freedom Convoy demonstrators for protesting government COVID measures.
“That’s a dangerous thing. That’s a dangerous world that we’ve created. And I say ‘we,’ because I was part of that. I bought into that whole idea early on.”
Pro-Life Groups Demand DOJ Records After FBI Ignores Attacks on 178 Churches, Pregnancy Centers - LifeNews.com
Pro-Life Groups Demand DOJ Records After FBI Ignores Attacks on 178 Churches, Pregnancy Centers - LifeNews.com: A coalition of pro-life organizations called on the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) to address the “ongoing violent attacks against pro-life organizations.” Led by former Vice President Mike Pence and his Advancing American Freedom initiative, the inquiry seeks to determine whether the Justice Department is intentionally ignoring the attacks on pro-life groups. Pregnancy centers, pro-life […]
Monday, December 19, 2022
Run With Life: "I understand that the Liberal party is pro-abortion"
Run With Life: "I understand that the Liberal party is pro-abortion": My first ATIP to the Department of Finance (DOF) revealed no records on Justin Trudeau's discriminatory hateful promise to revoke th...
Wednesday, December 14, 2022
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