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We know that the Church warrants a degree of correction, but we're not too happy with the growing whiff of persecution. It's one thing to protest something like the priest-abuse scandals -- which were beyond upsetting -- but in the air is the wafting hint that enemies of the Church are ramping up an attack on our foundational spirituality -- on the Church's very mystical qualities, at the most profound level.

Still, the recent assaults should raise eyebrows. In December, during the feast of Guadalupe (when the Virgin's appearance to St. Juan Diego near Mexico City is celebrated so reverently by millions), the cover for the Mexican edition of Playboy was that of a woman who was barely-clad but for a veil that more than hinted at the Blessed Mother. Playboy apologized, in a way that begged sincerity.

That was followed by an equally brazen smearing of the Virgin in Chile, where a prominent fashion designer dressed up busty models like the Blessed Mother for a catwalk show at a Santiago nightclub. (A conservative group tried unsuccessfully to block it in court, sensing that matters were wandering toward the realm of the dangerous).

This all came after a Minnesota professor had publicly announced that he was desecrating the Eucharist (to show us how superstitious we all are), and a young man appeared on YouTube destroying Hosts by boiling or frying or flushing them. No more simple diatribes against Christianity: now they were attacking the basic mystical Presence.

Meanwhile, in North America, in Chicago, vandals defaced a Guadalupe-like image of Mary that appeared, perhaps miraculously, under a highway viaduct, drawing a devil's face and horns over it (and causing officials to have to paint over the whole thing: a direct physical assault on what many took to be a supernatural manifestation).

And it all came after the now-traditional Yuletide thefts or defacements of Nativity figures (too many to count). Around the world, statues are being damaged while atheists advertise on buses and denigrate Christianity.

The media and leftist officials can pass up no opportunity to throw bricks at Catholicism.

In Los Angeles, a U.S. attorney has launched a federal grand jury investigation into how Cardinal Roger M. Mahony handled (or mishandled) allegations of priestly abuse.

Don't get us wrong: what clerics did -- and the ensuing cover-up -- were horrific. To call it poor judgment is to be kind.

But the energy behind pursuing the hierarchy seems curious. (In the blog under an article in the Los Angeles Times about Mahony were comments -- please excuse us for this -- on how, in the bloggers' words, "Mahoney makes me sick. He just shuffled off the problem instead of mandating therapy for the offenders and protecting the children. Mahony will burn in hell!" or "It's about time Mahony goes down for his three decade long involvement in the priest sex abuse cases and his involvement in the cover up of these illegal activities. The Catholic community in Southern California has had enough of this money-hungry criminal" or "This is a start, but true justice would come when the entire hierarchy -- right up to and including the Pope -- is behind bars.")

If not the Blessed Mother, the target is the Vatican. Earlier this week, certain Jewish leaders -- including the chief rabbi in Israel and Holocaust-activist Elie Wiesel -- disparaged the Church because it lifted the excommunication of four traditionalist St. Pius X Society bishops who had broken with Rome long ago, one of whom denies the existence of Nazi gas chambers. Wiesel went so far as to claim that the affront to Jewry was "intentional."

To immediately attack the Pope before knowing if Benedict even was aware of that one bishop's extreme viewpoints indicates a readiness to attack with any pretext and is worrisome. (A pontiff can't be expected to know the idiosyncrasies of all 4,800 bishops -- especially four who have not even been part of the Church for decades.)

Know this: the Catholic faith, down through the ages, has been persecuted in the same way and with the same intensity that Jews have been persecuted. You can start in Rome in the first century. It withstood that. It will withstand what is to come.

We believe that prayer defeats any adversary. We also don't believe in name-calling. We don't believe in throwing stones back at Mr. Wiesel. We will throw back the ultimate weapon: love.

You are forgiven, Mr. Wiesel. We do not lump you with those who destroy Hosts and deface the Blessed Mother.

But there is certainly the spirit of anti-Catholicism in the air, and that reduces to the spirit of anti-christ.

For Catholicism -- however much they want to deny it -- is Christianity's Mother Church. As ardent secular humanists again ascend to power, those who hate the Church will be emboldened.

Although evil has been unleashed against it in places like Chicago and Mexico (and Chile and Minnesota), we know what Christ said and what He said was that the Church is a rock against which hell can never prevail.

[Recent e-mail comments unedited:

"Your recent reflections on the "Anti Christian cultural storms" which are engulfing us made me think of something I came across. Many of the people attacking Holy Mother Church are former Christians.

Recently you had a link to Cardinal Newman's Advent sermons on a site run, I think, by Randy England. I went to another site to get the date of those sermons and found a quote from a Church of England bishop that was appended to Sermon 4.

In 1835 Cardinal Newman gave 4 Advent sermons.

Here's a site with the sermons under "The Patristical Idea of Antichrist":

http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arguments/index.html#antichrist

As a postscript to the 4th sermon there is a quote from Bishop Horsley (Church of England) attached by Newman, I presume. Bishop Horsley would have written what Newman quotes in the 1890s. This appendix is not insignificant. Newman clearly thought it important enough to include it as an illustration of his own reflections.

The Horsely quote will take your breath away.

My own observations - Sr. Agnes of Akita, Japan and Sr. Lucia and Sr. Faustina all say that our Savior is mustering up an army of victim souls - those who will unite their sufferings to His in reparation through prayer and sacrifice for the sins of others to appease the heavenly Father's wrath at the immorality and outright rejection of him.

Might this be the "sackcloth ministry" that Horsley predicted 200 years ago was to come?

Additionally, Cardinal Ratzinger a long time ago made a comment that the Church will have to realize that it is going to be much smaller. Why? The quote below, I think, explains why this might be true.

Faithfully, Alan

[begin excerpt of Sermon 4] POSTSCRIPT

"THE above expositions of the teaching of the Fathers on the subject treated, were preached by the Author in the form of Sermons in Advent, 1835, and are illustrated by the following remarkable passage in a letter of Bishop Horsley's, written before the beginning of this century; vide British Magazine, May, 1834.

'The Church of God on earth will be greatly reduced, as we may well imagine, in its apparent numbers, in the times of Antichrist, by the open desertion of the powers of the world. This desertion will begin in a professed indifference to any particular form of Christianity, under the pretence of universal toleration; which toleration will proceed from no true spirit of charity and forbearance, but from a design to undermine Christianity, by multiplying and encouraging sectaries. The pretended toleration will go far beyond a just toleration, even as it regards the different sects of Christians. For governments will pretend an indifference to all, and will give a protection in preference to none. All establishments will be laid aside. From the toleration of the most pestilent heresies, they will proceed to the toleration of Mahometanism, Atheism, and at last to a positive persecution of the truth of Christianity. In these times the Temple of God will be reduced almost to the Holy Place, that is, to the small number of real Christians who worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and regulate their doctrine and their worship, and their whole conduct, strictly by the word of God. The merely nominal {108} Christians will all desert the profession of the truth, when the powers of the world desert it. And this tragical event I take to be typified by the order to St. John to measure the Temple and the Altar, and leave the outer court (national Churches) to be trodden under foot by the Gentiles. The property of the clergy will be pillaged, the public worship insulted and vilified by these deserters of the faith they once professed, who are not called apostates because they never were in earnest in their profession. Their profession was nothing more than a compliance with fashion and public authority. In principle they were always, what they now appear to be, Gentiles. When this general desertion of the faith takes place, then will commence the sackcloth ministry of the witnesses ... There will be nothing of splendour in the external appearance of their churches; they will have no support from governments, no honours, no emoluments, no immunities, no authority, but that which no earthly power can take away, which they derived from Him, who commissioned them to be His witnesses.'—B. M., vol. v., p. 520.

June, 1838" [End excerpt]

Over the years I have wondered too, what force is at hand that causes men and woman to become homosexual?

I never bought into the concept of being born homosexual, because God is not the author of something he has repeatedly spoke of according to our bible, as wrong.

When I was in college, lesbians and dikes were around. When I was in high school lesbians and dikes were around.

Around, meaning you knew who they were but you just didn't bring it up regularly, and they were always in the fringe.

In college I became friends with two (they were roommates, and as I understood it, they found each other in freshman year, when I met them they were sophomores) girls, one played the "dike" role and one played the "lesbian" role, this is how it was explained to me. I befriended the lesbian one because she was from New York and I felt totally out of my realm where I was. She was a spoiled child from a Jewish home with lots of money, her mother was just happy she left the house and went to college. She was always emotional, she was kind, and generous, but she herself spent money on stuff like money was no object. The other girl, she was so "butch" as they used to say, and she was totally the guy role without question. She made me uneasy, and she was loud and devious. So I always knew to keep a distance from her, needless to say another spoiled rotten girl from a famous family with lots of money too, and she also was emotional but on a tough girl level, she liked to be rough and guy like.

As for me, I was just there temporarily, I wanted to switch schools the moment I had a chance, which at that point was not in the cards. I had to stick it out.

What I learned from these two "frick and frack" was that they made the choice to be queers. They both liked guys, to be sure because they both wanted to go out with me to straight clubs, especially the lesbian one. All these two girls did was fight constantly, they were both crazy flamboyant people living on the edge. They were unstable on so many levels that being around them was draining and often down right scary.

They went to gay clubs and I came one time, this was one of the most evil experiences I have ever withstood.

It was as though all the patrons of the club were high on something and without question, possessed! They said and behaved in the most insane ways, they contorted their bodies and faces and spoke so demonically, believe me!

I never went out with those two again.

I left there thank God and went my separate way, staying in touch with only the lesbian once in a while. (it was cool to claim back in those days that you had a lesbian friend) She lived in a very exclusive area of the city and sometimes hanging out with her was luxurious, something which I couldn't afford in my life, so I experienced some of that upper crust stuff by hanging out with her.

I can't continue to explain all the nuances of the two of them and their friends but to me, it was all a huge act. They forced themselves to be this way, they wanted the attention, craved it really, they wanted to be different and cause people to notice them. They just couldn't help themselves, sort of like a drug addict or alcoholic or gambler. I think homosexuals are

overdosing on this type of lifestyle to the point of abuse and they are fully addicted to the drug of homosexuality.

As you said in the article: "MANY UNKNOWINGLY USE SIGN OF DEVIL AT TIME WHEN 'DARK SPIRIT' RISES ON ALL SIDES" even heterosexuals can become addicts and abuse heterosexuality. It's a sex abuse issue.

Reading the bible as I have for many years now, sometimes understanding it and other times not getting it one bit, I stumbled upon a verse out of Matthew 19:12 : When the disciples questioned Jesus about not marrying, He said "Some are incapable of marriage, because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."

When I was young girl, it was common place to find sisters in full habit and priests in full garb. This was a beautiful sight to my eyes, especially around all the holy days, like Easter and Christmas. I love the movie "Bells of St. Mary's" and all the old ways of our traditional Catholic faith. I am not special in any way, but those traditional Catholic ways kept everything in its rightful order and God let me see that it was all good in my young innocent eyes. I trusted the feelings I got when I was at church, or in Catholic school or in the school yards walking to and from church and school. I knew it was good and I wanted to be around it. I never intended on becoming a nun, heaven forbid, I used to beg God not to allow that for me, I wasn't a nun type and I knew it. My mother always said that you never know what future God has planned for us from the beginning. I didn't want that. So many of my friends were like me too, they also wanted to be around the church, they also wanted to be close to the church, and some did say they wanted to grow up to be a nun. My mother told me that one of her biggest joys was to be the mother of a religious. I knew she would have loved one of her sons to be a priest and I think most parents then were of similar mindset. I saw young boys in my catholic school go on to the Jesuit Catholic high schools and I fully thought a few of these guys are going to be a priest.

The reason I bring this up is because I think the devil did play a trick on the homosexual sect. I think the devil made a mockery of those born without the desire for the opposite sex, God made them that way so that they could easily choose religious life. Some desired to renounce marriage for religious life and some were Eunuchs (which don't exist anymore) but my feeling is that these homosexuals by choice had the calling to religious life and shunned it, or didn't understand it because it was so underdeveloped. I think that many of the men and woman who we see choosing homosexuality did so because there weren't alternatives to the question "OK if I am not heterosexual, then what am I?" Maybe the alternative to not desiring the opposite sex is to be married to Christ or the other religious denominations work and be celibate.

The idea that homosexuals were born this way doesn't resonate with me having been around some for a few years of my life, I know that they really didn't understand the reason why they were so drawn to this illness. My two friends I found out later, much later, after I was married with four children of my own, they too got married to men and they started families. They didn't choose a religious life, but the point is they didn't choose abstinence as a form of predestination, which would have kept them from the thorns and traps laid out by the devil to follow the trend of homosexuality. I believe they didn't allow their future to unravel before succumbing to or rushing into some foreign unexplored ideology of homosexuality, because for those two girls especially, their desire to be different and make a statement as some sort of rebel was totally due to their upbringing. For some it's being too controlled in childhood coupled with the social agenda creeping in as a bad influence, or it was the total lack of direction coupled with the social ills of our society creeping in. I don't want to blame parents because as one I can tell you that no matter how hard you try to influence in a good way our children, they will and can be influenced and swayed totally against what they lived in your home. Outside of keeping them in a bubble, homeschooling, and cutting off television etc. it's very difficult to run interference with the outside world influences all the time.

Therefore the devil knows just how much influence he has over our youth and how much power he has over the forces who are separated from Christ in deed and spirit, like Hollywood and the media and the liberal left in our country who has so much control over our children.

Look around, we do see the world changing, and people are positive it's because of too much religion that we have gone wrong, people are sure it's the strong hold of conservatives that we are suffering so badly, people are convinced that if we accept everyone in Love for mankind no matter what, we all stand a better chance of living in peace and harmony. Jesus said he did not come to make peace, but bring a sword. He said that to follow him meant that people need to embrace him over his own mother and father, his wife and children too, even his own life. So to be fully with the Lord we cannot be peaceful with people who do not follow his laws because then we compromise the Lord and what he has spoken. We must renounce the idea that we should be compromising with people because if we do we are not fully married to Christ. Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."

So as difficult as it sounds and it is, loving the sinner but hating he sin is a compromise. Because we have compromised so much to be politically correct Catholics that we have allowed for these homosexuals to flourish and take over in our public places too. The worse of which is our public schools, innocent people hearing and seeing this type of abomination in their faces, as though it was normal. It's totally wrong and we lost our grip quite some time back, but nothing is impossible with our God, Jesus Christ. So we have hope and prayer and if we love Christ we need to keep stepping out of our human clothes which enslave us (I am the worse offender) and keep trying to take up the cross of our salvation in the walk with Christ. Pray for me because it is so hard and the struggles are so mounting in this life especially. We have moved so far from our base, we know the way back, but it's our children and their friends and the new youth of today, they have no clue where to begin. They don't even know for the most part that there really is a way back. We need to pray and be the light and by our lives, show them in deed and word as much as we can.

Madeleine Sharp West Islip NY

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This was reported by German witness and journalist Alexander Smoltczyk - Vatican journalist of the anticlerical German boulevard magazine 'Der Spiegel' - on September 14th.

After the end of the papal mass by Benedict XVI and the exodus of most of the clergy, some mass attendees approached the credences in front of the table altar, upon which countless sacred vessels containing the remaining consecrated Sacred Hosts from the celebration were placed. The sacred vessels were unguarded. Also patens with more consecrated hosts on them were situated on the credence tables.

Mass attendees [tourists? pilgrims?] threw themselves towards these credences and without any scruples starting flling their bags and pockets and coats with the remaining Sacred Hosts, for all to see, Smoltczyk. "They stuffed their bags with the holy communion fully and uninhibitedly."

According to the version of the journalist merely one bishop intervened. But only after another couple of [alleged] pilgrims had started to dip their fingers into chalices filled with remaining precious blood, in order to dab their foreheads with the contents. "Non! Non! That is not right!" - the bishop reportedly said.

At the same time - behind the back of the intervening bishop, and after countless sacred hosts had already been stolen by alleged pope devotees - an artificially blonde lady took place upon the large wooden throne, where few moments before pope Benedict XVI had been seaten, and had herself photographed in different poses.

Female scouts from northern Spain posed around the altar, as if they were drinking wine around a standing table of a tapas bar.

In the meanwhile, German journalist reports, "an elderly and frail looking lady succesfully attempted to secretly hide all kinds of used sacred linen into her bags."

And while unimaginable sacrileges against the eucharist (left totally vulnerable by the clergy who left the site in a hurry to follow the papal event into the centre of the town) took place and theft was also only few ft. away, devotees of the pope started kissed and affecting everything that the "very Holy Father" had just fifteen minutes before walked upon or been seated upon.

"This scene was unbelievable, I am still appalled", Smoltczyk writes, while rubbing his eyes.

END

Photographs of the sacrileges and theft. (Not caught in action, but the situation is represented, including the huge unguarded chalice with precious blood in order to dip the hosts

I belong to a diocese that is constantly insisting that their parishioners in the diocese remain standing until the last person receives communion. (i.e.bishop, priest, deacon or layperson) If they see anyone wishing to remain kneeling or sitting during the distribution of holy communion and after these men and women make it a point to let the parishioners know. To me they are discrimating against those whom wish to kneel or sit. Does this seem to be the problem anywhere else besides El Paso and Las Cruces?

What can be done about this?
JMJ,

Karen

Churches reconsecrated after horrific vandalism

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The article about the Los Angeles Cathedral gift shop and Cardinal Mahony is disturbing and made me wish to relate an experience I had the first and only time I had contact with Mahony. As an alter boy for Our Lady of Victory Church in Fresno California, I was allowed to miss class and help with the mass and special services such as funerals during school hours. One such funeral was for a retired State Senators wife and a special priest was coming to perform the funeral in place of Father Desmond our pastor. It was unusual and I thought a little odd, but what does a teenager know or care about politics. I had served for several funerals and knew the routines and was considered the senior alter server, which is why I was chosen. I had meet several visiting priests in the past and all were kind and pleasant people to work with and help. I was told a special priest from the Bishops office would be conducting the funeral. This was before Roger Mahony was made an auxiliary Bishop in the Fresno Diocese. Meeting Mahony was a completely different experience and one that stuck with me. He was not kind and became angry at the simplest of things and for details that were not mistakes but simply not the way he wanted them. He was bossy and arrogant and I am surprised I remember that about him. He was there for the politics involved and the people attending the funeral mass. When the public showed up his angry face and composure changed to another person who smiled for the first time that morning. I had worked in the past with wonderful religious people and they had a spirit about them. Mahony gave me the creeps and did not give me that same spiritual sense. When I heard that he had been made a Bishop and than Cardinal I always think back to that first impression of meeting him. In the media he comes off as a politician and not a defender of the faith and the Church. It made me wonder if the Pope would have chosen this man for Cardinal if he really knew him? The Pope can’t know everyone and has to rely on what others report about individuals. I do not trust Mahony and would question all his appointments and Church activities. Humility is not a word I could associate with him from my experience and it may be judgmental and incorrect, but I felt a need to share this experience for some reason.

My name is Julie Pratt Vrana and my mother is Flavia Pratt in Lake Charles, La. Both of us attended your seminar in St. Augustine a few years ago. Mike, I need help. A few weeks ago my husband and I celebrated our anniversary by going to a small town in Texas that was known as the town “that time forgot”. Well, unbeknownst to us it was also the most haunted small town in Texas. We ended up sleeping in the most haunted room in the hotel (the only room available and we did not know what was going on). We encountered several “spirits” and something passed thru my husband. Yesterday at church I asked my parish priest for special prayers to be said over us and he looked at me like I had monkeys coming out of my ears. Can you recommend someone in the Dallas area that understands all of this and will pray over us? I am afraid to approach any more priests. Mom and I thought maybe you could recommend someone. Thank you so much for your help. Spirit Daily is still my home page and I go there first thing in the morning and several times during the day. Thank you so much for all that you do!! Julie Vrana 972-727-0912

Churches reconsecrated after horrific vandalism