Had a wee sojourn to London this week & whilst there popped into St Paul's to see what the prods are up to. Never been there before so thought it would be interesting.
It wasn't.
Lots of statues of soldiers, General this & that. Very few stained glass windows and very few images of Christ.
My children complained. One said it felt like a courtroom. It certainly helped confirm that Anglicanism has officially moved further away from Christendom.
It was not centred on the worship of Christ and the Church He founded, but on British military exploits and worship of the British State.
Seperated from the nourishing Truth of Holy Mother Church, like the errors of Americanism (& to a lesser extent Eastern Orthodoxy), the Anglicans are set in a narrow plastic patriotism rather than wider Christian civilisation.
We didn't stay for very long, and I left feeling reassured in my Catholicism but feeling very sad for England, Mary's Dowry.
"Gay marriage" (think of apostolic Satanism or darkness visible), isn't even finished going through parliament and two homosexuals are seeking to sue the CofE.
Can anyone get "we told you so" t-shirts, badges etc run off for the long litany of car crashes that will happen?...
Cleric gives interview to media. In long interview he is asked about the government asking churches to protect against secularisation.
Cleric answers honestly that this is chutzpah, that the govt is destroying Faith, especially via "gay marriage"
The media blows response out of all proportion.
The media, secularists and homosexual lobby say church is fixated on sexuality.
Example 2:
Cleric gives long speech/homily. In it he deals with Our Lord, poverty, loving ones neighbour, loss, drink and drugs, abuse, unemployment, divorce, prayer, adoration, Confession. He also mentions "gay marriage."
The media reports that priest has spoken publicly against gay marriage.
The media, secularists and homosexual lobby say church is fixated on sexuality.
Example 3:
Govt passes law giving homosexual couples rights. When it does it promises this will not lead to "gay marriage".
Just a few years later government pushes for gay marriage despite no public clamour, no need in law, huge petition against, and deep unease of many.
The government pushes and pushes and pushes for "gay marriage" even justifying it by appealing to Christian ideals and a pro-family spin.
Christians and pro-family activists quite naturally speak against the government who initiated this.
The media, secularists and homosexual lobby say church is fixated on sexuality (not the government!).
Anyone spot the pattern here?
The enemies of sanity are fixated with sex. Their society is preoccupied by sex. Homosexuality is promoted at every turn, as is adultery, infidelity, hedonism etc.
Yet whenever the church speaks against something that is pushed on prime time TV on virtually every channel, virtually every night - the media, secularists and homosexual lobby say church is fixated on sexuality!
Even though it is not true (the church spends more money educating and caring for the poor, for example), one may as well complain that the fire service is fixated with warning people about the effects of fires.
I don't expect the media, the politicians, the secularists, the atheists or the homosexual lobby to change tack. They are what they are. they lie as often as they speak.
Catholics need to 'shake the dust from their sandals' and move on from the baiters, the trolls and the ne'erdowells and keep promoting the Truth.
As Our Lord said "the Truth will set you free."
No Warnings?
In the meantime I'll leave you with this thought. medical evidence is that smoking kills people. Not all smokers. Not outright. But a significant number die early. So the government puts warnings on cigarettes bans smoking in public buildings, taxes cigarettes, hides them in shops and so on. Schoolchildren are warned against smoking and shown the negative effects of it.
Medical evidence also proves that homosexuality kills people. Not all homosexuals. Not outright. But a significant number die early. Yet government (national and local) promotes homosexuality. Schools also promote it. Laws are passed to help its growth and existing laws against public/gross indecency are ignored by police forces to enable individuals to engage in common homosexual practices.
Why is one action which will kill a person early frowned on and banned; yet another action which will kill a person early is actively promoted? This is a blatant attack on active homosexuals themselves whose lives are at risk. Don't they deserve the help to quit their actions, like smokers?
Doesn't seem a caring attitude. Who are the haters? Those who wish individuals to live a full life? Or those happy to help them to a possible early death?
Catholics (and Anglicans etc.) do not hate homosexuals. We love them. We want them to be free from a deathstyle, from a world filled with drugs, abuse and disease.
We are always taught to hate the sin and love the sinner. The difference is when a cleric speaks against theft, gluttony, greed, divorce, bigamy, adultery, false witness, etc. the media ignore his speech because sin is de rigeur these days. But when he speaks against homosexuality, the media, the politicians, the secularists, the atheists and the homosexual lobby go into overdrive.
They are fixated with sex, not the cleric who dares to speak out once in a while. And whether it is active homosexuals, children abused by a step parent, children traumatised by divorce, or a generation of inner city gang members with no decent male role models - it is a rapidly disintegrating society that is picking up the pieces of their fixation.
At the moment I am watching the Queen's Jubilee service at St Paul's. A few things strike me.
Primarily:The
songs, readings and manner of the service is just like the New Mass, in
English. People centred, in the vernacular, outward glorification of
God, yet no Real Presence, so people can be sincere, devout and full of
praise if they wish, or just go through the motions, sing a nice song
and go back to their night clubs, drugs and making vast sums of money by
spreading poverty or entrenching the poverty that exists.
Table, tapestry: protestant? or Catholic?
In fact with the sumptuous vestments and surroundings, one might even (without wishing to stray into the realms of the schismatic)
suggest that this looks more Catholic than all too many of the new
Masses, held in roller-disco settings, with "We Love Jesus" 70s
child-like 'tapestries' and Rainbow Dove posters and priests in
'vestments' devoid of any colour or meaning pottering about, back to the
tabernacle (if it isn't in a side-room or shoved off in a hidey-hole
somewhere) pottering about and ad-libbing to please the few. Not to mention some of the ridiculous "bidding prayers" that see the light of day (climate change being just one example out of many).
Perhaps this was the plan of the architect of the New Mass, the subsequently disgraced Archbishop Bugnini, to take the (sometimes ambiguous) words of Vatican 2 and mould them to fit his own agenda. For as the great Welsh Catholic writer and defender of the Faith Michael Davies made perfectly clear: V2 gave no green light to the destruction of the sanctuaries that took place through the 70s and 80s: the ripping out of altar rails, the replacement of altars with tables, the pulling down of statues, the removal/replacement of tabernacles etc.
So, in seeing that the protestant Anglican service in St Paul's is like the New Mass, am I not really seeing that the New Mass (unlike its predecessor which was codified [not created] by saints and vouchsafed for eternity by Mother Church in her wisdom) has been sculpted, changed and metamorphosed into being close to the protestant service?
Is it not so much that I am seeing the small remnant of Catholicism (mostly in the vestments and surroundings) in the protestant Anglican service, but that the Catholic Church has allowed the New Mass to be an imitation of the man-centred 'common meal' of the protestants?
If that is so it leads me to ask why the Church so easily forgets the glories and sacrifices of St John Lloyd, St Phillip Evans, St Richard Gwyn, St Thomas More, St John Fisher, St Margaret Clitheroe and the many others who gave of their lives to defend the Sacraments, the Mass and the authority of the Pope over the Princes of Europe (including the Kings and Queens of England) who would otherwise descend into relativist chaos: as they so clearly have today ("Defender of Faiths," women priests, homosexuality, abortion etc.)
A very Happy St Patrick's Day to all men of goodwill. I pray we may one day get a glorious saint like Patrick to evict all the "snakes" out of Wales and Britain...
We all know St Patrick was Welsh. In today's Daily Mail it is shamefully written that he came from England. This is the standard of education and journalism today! When Patrick was alive England hadn't yet been created. In a similar piece earlier this week another Mail writer asked if an Anglo Saxon burial from circa 600AD could be "Britain's first Christian."
I despair! I really do. Just as the whole Medieval glory of Welsh and English Catholicism (from the monastic glories of Strata Florida and Rievaulx to the 'lowliest' parish churches) are airbrushed from a history that focuses on the oath-breaker, regicide and murderess "Good Queen Bess" (sic), so the entire history of Welsh Catholicism and the Age of Saints in these Celtic lands are forgotten by a media that thinks Anglicanism --born in heresy and divorce and "flowering" today in homosexual bishops, untreadable goo and outright apostasy-- is the beginning and end of Christianity in these Isles.
Catholicism in Wales can trace its roots directly back to the time of the Diocletian Persecution and the Roman catacombs, the age of St Philomena, and earlier. Certainly by the 6th century Wales was a Christian land, the Mass and Sacraments received by all, and a hotbed of Monasticism.
If you are a journalist, a teacher, a pupil, a writer or just a bod like me: please remember that our Catholic heritage goes right back in these isles in an unbreakable line to at least the third century and possibly even right back to Apostolic times.
The airbrushing of history seems to fit in with the Weltanschauung of the modern world in which a government says "we are going to have gay marriage whether you like it or not, but we will have a public consultation on how best to do it!" all lead by PM David Cameron who says he favours gay marriage: "because I am a Conservative." Furthermore the 'Equalities Minister' Lynne Featherstone calls anyone who opposes the oxymoron that is 'gay marriage' "homophobic" and wears a gay pride rainbow lapel badge.
Nice to know that this isn't already decided by Whitehall mandarins and MPs and we're all being steamrollered by a minority of a minority -- the influential "gay lobby."
St Patrick, St David, St George and St Andrew pray for us all! I fear these islands are being dragged downwards into a new dark ages that will make the savagery of the heathen Saxons look mild by comparison, especially as the new atheists have more sophistication, the media to ply their wares and the ability to gain influence in our very families. The very sophistication, eloquence and weasel words of the new atheists (apart from when the mask slips) makes them a worse enemy than the Saxon horde who desecrated Churches and whose misplaced loyalty to false gods was eventually overcome by the Catholic Faith.
If "gay marriage" is enacted (as seems humanly most likely), then it sets the gay lobby and the human rights lobby (backed by the courts especially in Europe) on a collision course with the Catholic Church. An immovable object and an irresistible force... If the court finds against the Church (in human rights lingo this is likely) then the Church, unable to back-down or give in becomes a law-breaker.
Fines, arrests, priests locked up, those who cave-in excommunicated, mobs demonstrating against "hateful" clerics... it all has the smack of the Reformation, or to use a more recent example the (atheistic) Communist repression of the Church. Might the new atheists follow in the footsteps of the old ones? Hardy times call for hardy souls.
But first we need to campaign against the idea of gay marriage (start by spreading the petition against gay marriage) and pray like never before! Might I suggest a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament? Some time spent in prayer before and after Communion in thanksgiving. Some preparation for Mass? It really is the very least we can do.
I have a tendency towards sin. I am not proud of it. Quite often when I hear a holy man's sermon my ears burn.I suppose you have the same problem. So does everyone up to and including the Pope.
Concupiscence - the tendency to sin - is something that every human being in history (bar Adam, Eve, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ) were and are born with.
It's a result of Original Sin.
Now there's two issues I'd like to chew over with you on that subject, if you'll permit me.
The first is that I am a Catholic, that I have all the weaknesses associated with Original Sin. Therefore as with all those before me (and after!) I need the help of Holy Mother Church to stay on the straight and narrow. My very concupiscent nature makes me susceptible to fall off that road, all too often.
Thus I need the "props" that Our Faith provides, not least the Confessional. Regular Communion fortifies and strengthens us all. But there is also the example, "rules" and order laid out by the Church.
Heaven knows (yes, it really does) that without these I would be like a blob of jelly, spineless and weak.
That is why I am convinced we all need the help of the Church. Our Lord was not stupid. He left us His Church, with His Sacraments, for exactly this reason. His Love, His Charity, meant that as well as suffering His Passion and dying for us all, he left behind all we need to attain Heaven.
The world says that the Church must become "softer." The Church must become more "realistic" and (I shudder as the word enters my mind!) "relevant."
What "the world" really wants is a Church that is powerless to help us, that is as jelly-like, weak and floppy as we are. They want an emasculated Church, that would result in the blind leading the blind. Why does the world want this?
Never forget that the devil offered Our Lord the whole world if he would fall on His knees and worship him. The world today is a conglomeration of media-men, politicians and other opinion-formers, most of whom are anti-Catholic in nature if not in fact. Through omission or commission they seek to make the Church relativist.
Behind this herd of cats lies Satan. He wants a Church that is powerless to help us avoid sin, and certainly powerless to help us get up, dust ourselves off and get back on the narrow way. He wants the pews emptied - less bums on pews means less souls saved (as Linen on the Hedgerow blog wrote the other day, not attending Mass on Sundays and Days of Obligation is a Mortal Sin, and that is a victory for Satan).
The more Catholics are turned away from the Church, via false pride, sloth, greed - whatever the perceived motivation ("right" or "wrong") - then the more souls are in danger of falling away, forever. Didn't Our Lady show the children at Fatima the many souls falling into Hell?
God knows (yes, He really does!) that without His Church I would have fallen away too. There are 101 reasons for not going to Church, and the devil will always find the one that most appeals to you, dripping honey words in your ears that appeal to your pride.
The response to the paedophile scandal has been more souls lost. I know this because I hear this from family members, friends and acquaintances. The Church, to many (via the world's media) has become synonymous with this scandal, with hypocrisy, with absolute evil.
These people are human of course. They are concupiscent. They are open to the devil's honeyed-words. Souls are being lost.
The first job of the Princes of the Church is to save souls. One day they, like we parents, will have to answer for the souls under their charge.
So why is this scandal being allowed to go on and on and on? Certainly the media is milking it, but there can be no doubt that their ability to do so is the fault of the Church in not acting like Catholics in the first instance.
And why is the Church putting Pope John Paul II on the road to canonisation via the "fast track" system, when it must be said that most of this scandal happened under his watch? This does not sit well with people outside the Catholic bubble. Not addressing the issue smacks of the same cover-up that hit us in the face after the years and years of this abuse scandal.
I am sorry if I have genuinely offended any good and faithful Catholics, but I think we need to wake up and smell the coffee. The truth is that the paedophile scandal (which correct me if I'm wrong but happened primarily through the 70s, 80s and 90s?) has destroyed the image of the Church in the eyes of many -- including many Catholics.
Now maybe they are weak Catholics, but so am I! So are we all. There but for the Grace of God... etc.
The only way the Catholic Church can get to the bottom of this is to grasp the nettle. The acts and the nature of the people involved must, of course, be absolutely condemned, as I'm sure it has been. But the dualistic approach to moral relativism, immoral acts etc. such as has happened in Westminster Archdiocese viz the (homosexual) Soho Masses must be nipped in the bud by the Church authorities. It was this cowardice and relativism, this 'looking the other way' that allowed the paedophile scandal to go and grow underground.
I am reminded of a priest friend who went back to his Seminary a few years back only to exclaim "it is full of homosexuals" in a most dejected way. Catholics must learn from the ills that have befallen Anglicanism. You cannot be one thing and say another. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. If we say that homosexuality is an abomination, a disorder, then the priesthood and seminaries must be gone through with a fine-tooth comb.
Sounds harsh? Indeed. But when it comes to souls, Salvation, Heaven and Hell I do not think we can cut corners. Of course anyone with homosexual tendencies can and should be helped in a most charitable manner; but the priesthood must be closed off to them (as it should to people with other disorders such as alcoholism, an adulterous nature, etc.)
The fact that Catholic children were sexually assaulted by men with the indelible character of Christ's priesthood on their soul should fill us all with horror, grief, terror, remorse and shame.
Pussyfooting around issues when it comes to the Church, its moral character, its nature etc. has let too many souls fall away and let a tiny percentage [but one was too many!] of the priesthood become outright evil.
Let us learn the lesson and have a thoroughly Catholic Church run on Catholic principles, promoting the Sacraments and defending Catholic dogma and tradition.
The second issue is the issue of Original Sin itself.
A few months back I was at a local lecture on the Faith and the Salvific nature of Christ's Incarnation came up. It set me to thinking at the time, and its an issue addressed in the latest Christian Order (CO)mag too, that if one does not believe in Creation, in Adam and Eve, in our First Parents' fall from grace, then the Incarnation becomes meaningless.
A friend told me he overheard someone at his Church muttering that Creationism was ridiculous. Now if Creation is a "myth" then so is Christ's mission. His Death on the Cross in turn becomes meaningless because by their rationale there was no break between man and God, no rift, no loss of Heaven for Christ to remedy via His Passion and Death on the Cross.
Furthermore, as CO magazine makes clear, Creation is a Catholic Dogma. In other words if you do not believe that God created the entire world and all things in it ex nihilo (out of nothing) in an instant, then you are officially an heretic. I'm not a cannon lawyer but I think that means you should not receive Communion.
It is not a moot point. It is not open for debate. It is not an issue where there can be movement. Church Dogma is that God Created the earth and the beasts on it. Furthermore he created man; not a bit of slime that became a cell, that became a fish, that became a reptile, that became a mammal, that become a monkey, that became a man.
If you do not believe in Genesis (no, not Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel) and its account of Creation, then you cannot believe in Christ's Incarnation to break us free from the bonds of sin.
When Christ uttered the words "it is done/accomplished" He was surely referring to His Salvific mission to restore Heaven to mankind. Yet the very idea that we come from [soulless] monkeys and therefore cannot have lost Paradise through the actions of Adam and Eve, means that Jesus cannot have been the second Adam come to our rescue, nor Mary the second Eve conceived without sin to bring Our saviour into this world.
This heresy reduces Jesus to a "nice bloke" like we here atheists prattle on about on the telly. They tell us he was just a 'good guy' amongst many others (Buddha, Gandhi etc.) and we can pick n choose because really we're just talking soulless monkeys.
The Church has dogmas for a reason. It is not be constrain us, anymore than the need to breath oxygen constrains us or the laws of gravity constrain us. It is so that we my know, understand and dwell on the Truth.
"We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end." G. K. Chesterton
So what am I asking for? As usual I guess I am asking for a Catholic Church, i.e. for Our Faith, for the Pope and for the Bishops to be Catholic, to be dogmatic, to fight for the Truth and above and beyond all else, in all they say and do, to fight for every soul!
To do all you can in your power to keep a soul on the narrow path to Heaven and to lose is a great sadness, but it is not your fault. But to be lukewarm, to let your sheep go wandering off the track and be lost in mists, in quagmire, in thorns and be torn apart by wolves, then their fate rests on your shoulders, whether you are Catholic parents, priests or Bishops.
Please God let us all be watchful and do our Catholic duty.
I am sorry that I have 'gone on' so much, but this something I feel strongly about, and not out of pride, for I am a very weak Catholic, like all of us far too prone to sin. It is because I need so much help and I do not want to fall away (and I wish others not to, and yet more to come back to the Faith, let alone be converted) that I really desire a strong, dogmatic Catholic Church.
I feel we have gone without it for 50 odd years and the pews have emptied as a result. Please. I am not, to quote Basil Fawlty, asking for an elephants ear on a bun. I just want my Catholic Church to be Catholic! It's not too much to ask is it?
The Anglican vicar-boss of London, Richard Chartres (ironically bearing the name of the great Catholic Cathedral and place of Pilgrimage), made reference to St Catherine of Siena, in his homily at the Royal Wedding earlier today.
It always makes me smile that the Anglican church acknowledges Catholic Saints. Even St Thomas More -- the (great, lay) Catholic Saint most opposed to the schism of Anglicanism is acknowledged as a Saint by the church he opposed at its very foundation by Henry VIII (not Christ as was the Catholic Church!).
The Anglican church, with its invalid orders, has no Saints of its own. All within in it of any real value (Churches, Sacraments, Icons, Abbeys etc.) are pale remnants of what was once Catholic (like the post-60s "roller disco" Catholic "Churches" are pale remnants of the beautiful, ornate, Catholic Churches raised-up before Vatican 2).
I've got a great idea!
Why doesn't the Catholic Church go back to the beauty, sanctity and surety of the pre-V2 days - and all the Anglicans convert?
Francesca Stavrakopoulou, the smiling face of anti-Christ atheism
I caught two things today by unhappy chance. The first was one of the happy clappy crowd, that sing-song tribe that infest the airwaves at certain times of the morning intent on putting you off your corn flakes, and via their syrupy forced happiness seem to induce a depression over the fact that religion can descend into a Kum-ba-ya meets Eastenders mentality/theology-lite.
This one was akin to the Sisters of Perpetual M&S, the cardigan-clad nuns, only worse: a CofE priestess. She was busy telling the millions listening (to Radio 2) how great a BBC2 TV series about the Bible is and how great it is that the presenter is an atheist.
How typical. How could anyone, claiming to be a Christian, find solace that a soul is (temporarily, I hope) lost to God, let alone someone with access to a prime time TV show which, no doubt, would be busy trying to "prove" the Bible was so much hogwash,so many fairy tales that no-one in the 'modern world' could take seriously?
No doubt so many vicars, vicaresses, priests and priestesses will celebrate, for they too are atheists, they too do not believe in the Bible. They too do not accept the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord, they too do not accept the Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Incarnation of God-made-man, and so much more. They certainly do not believe in Transubstantiation and the Real Presence of Our Lord.
Welcome to the world of the social-worker-priest(ess). Oh yes, you see, Jesus was a great man. He loved the poor, he preached a brand of socialism, and he loved his neighbour. I use a small "h" because he, the cuddly Jesus, is not God to these people, he is the good guy. This is the cult of "Jesus hearts U" so beloved of yuchy modern tapestries, in yuchy modern roller-disco churches: all Godless, all soulless, all empty.
Then this evening I just about remembered this programme was on, and so I switched on the TV to catch the last 5 minutes of "the Bible's Buried Secrets." What I heard was nothing new (is anything new under Heaven?) but a miasma of old lies and old anti-Christian propaganda as insideous as the whisperings of the serpent in Paradise (which, next week, we'll be told didn't exist).
Some years ago I read Hilaire Belloc's superb book The Great Heresies. Get yourself a copy or read it online (see below). This wonderful defender of all things Catholic makes it clear that there is indeed nothing new under Heaven, that all heresies are just repeats of old lies, woven anew, presented in new form, designed to attack the Faith from left, then from right, on a new front here, then from a different angle there. So it was with this BBC2 series tonight.
Oh the Jews weren't monotheists but invented this later, the angels were pagan deities reinvented, other pagan gods became demons (I always thought they were demons), and the oldest lie of all (repeated by Jews, gnostics, pagans, protestants, atheists and all the enemies of Christ for almost 2000 years), that the Virgin Mary was a reinvention of a pagan fertility goddess (take your pick of which one) and so Christians venerate a pagan deity.
You see the presenter of the BBC programme, Hebrew scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou, is giving us nothing new. This is classic Sanhedrin propaganda, reinvented by the mass murderer and Church desecrator Cromwell, spread anew by Communist commissars by the point of the gun, and now promoted by the BBC in the age of multi-format media.
The sad thing, in the post-Dan Brown DaVinci Code era, these old lies of the enemies of the Church have become the stock-in-trade of the media luvees. Those too busy in their drug-addled media world, enveloped in a world full of sin and debauchery, have picked up the oldest of lies, dressed them up in 21st Century garb, and spoon fed them to people who think they are individualists by following this "new" religion.
That a CofE priestess rejoices in this TV series and its atheist presenter with an anti-Bible and anti-Christ agenda is, in and of itself shocking. Yet I am not surprised in the least. Ever since St Cuthbert's heretical "descendant," the layman Jenkins, dressed in Bishop's garb in Durham presented the world with his Resurrection-doubting beliefs in the 1980s (the same man went onto bless one of the first to "bless" a civil partnership in 2005), the empty vessel that is the post-Reformation State religion has been all too obvious.
Belloc was right. The Church has always been, and will always be under attack. His good friend GK Chesterton once described the Church's history as an adventure, as exciting because it swerves one way to avoid one heresy (that the Church is too worldly), then swerves the other way to avoid another heresy (that the Church is too spiritual) and so the history of the Church is not one long boring 'plod' but rather a breath-taking escapade to avoid the errors of the world.
That Radio 2's trendy CofE priestess could find any comfort in yet another assault on the Church, on Christ, on the angels and saints, and on the Holy Mother of God speaks volumes about the CofE. Any pretence that it is in any way Apostolic is out the window. This "church" of priestesses, of homosexuals, of Bible burning is a whited sepulchre, seemingly 'Christian' on the outside, yet internally is little more than an empty vessel making a lot of noise. It has become so "inclusive" that whilst it is busy, at its front door, hugging a world that is debauched, atheist and anti-Christ, it cannot see that at the side door its faithful, with any remnant of that Apostolic tradition, are leaving in droves to join the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
That the BBC is putting out this gnostic-pagan nonsense, dressed up in modern media clothes, and then promoting it on another outlet tells us all we need to know about the BBC, that is if we had any doubts about its agenda to begin with. Its idea of religious output is Songs of Praise. Puuurrrlease!
Let us hope and pray that the modernist heretics inside the Catholic Church do not put-off the Anglicans finding their home-in-Rome. The last thing these many thousands of souls need is to escape one nest of vipers dressing up atheism, gnosticism, goddess-worship feminism, social-worker vicars and priestesses, and kum-ba-ya meats Eastenders theology as Christianity, only to find the small but vocal heretics in the Catholic Church that the holy pope St Pius X warned us about in his Syllabus of Errors.
Let us hope and pray, for our hope is in God, and the Saints that will guide the Church and keep her loyal to the Magisterium and to her Traditions, so that we can (in the imagery of GKC) swerve to avoid the heresies of this age and thus embark on another adventure with our beloved Church.
The BBC is reporting that 300 Anglicans are converting to Catholicism.
According to their report, "300 members of six congregations" from "three parishes in Essex, and three in east London" will join the Ordinariate.
Quite frankly that is an incredible number, circa 50 per parish (I know... all those years sat in Maths classes finally paid off!).
I have to say, despite my hopes and fears regarding the Ordinariate, this is wonderful news.
It does show that a large number of people, even in that small area of east London and Essex, are sick to death of the creeping liberalism and its 'good intentions pathway to Hell' agenda.
The handful of nutters who call themselves Catholics who call for women priests, homosexual "weddings" and so on can see for themselves the damage their agenda does.
Thank God the Pope had the courage to move ahead with his plans for Anglican converts without endless conflabs with a man who pretends to be an Archbishop, otherwise these 300 souls (and the many others who will follow) would have been left in the wilderness.
Let us all pray for the fortitude of the converts, that may grow in the Catholic Faith. Their forefathers in the Church Triumphant will be overjoyed!
Many Anglicans feel abandoned by their own leaders
Well, England hasn't converted yet, but this is surely a sign recognised in Heaven that more Englishmen are reverting to the Faith of their fathers.
England is returning to Walsingham. Our Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary is reclaiming her dowry.
All is not rosy in the Church, but the conversion of souls must lift all our hearts (especially coming after decades when conversion seemed like a dirty word as a false ecumenism took root) and remind so many people in England (and the Celtic nations around it) that their home is in Rome.
As a first step, Damian Thompson's blog entry is a start, and he has links to many other good sources.
Let us hope that the new Ordinariate, under the direct guidance of Rome, leads more to seek conversion and for more Catholics (in England and elsewhere) to open their eyes and realise that if Christian unity is to be achieved, then it must be in the One, True Fold of the Catholic Church.
With more souls seeking conversion to Rome, in effect coming home after 450-odd years of wandering in the wilderness led in the most part by weaklings, hirelings and heretics, at least this must be an end to that false ecumenism that had some Catholics putting over the message that salvation could just as easily be found in the Anglican church.
There was only one Church established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, and that Church has descended from His first choice as Pope, St Peter (with all his failings), to the Roman Catholic Church today with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI at its helm.
John Broadhurst, ex-Anglican Bishop of Fulham, now a Catholic
Of course like every Catholic in England & Wales I am very excited about the conversion of Anglicans to our Faith.
As the Catholic Herald reported here the largest steps to date were taken by three ex-Anglican bishops, who converted to become, as I understand it, simple Catholics [like me - I'm a simple Catholic ;-)].
Now I have had all manner of opinions on this thrust at me by friends, but let me put my own out there.
I have to say that I am pleased at events, because it shows many Anglicans that their real home is in the Catholic Church. It also reminds more people that Anglicanism is a very strange heresy started by a Catholic king who wanted a divorce, and later taken over by Protestants (hence the Heinz 57 Varieties of Anglicans available!).
At the same time, my worry is that 'liberals' (maybe quasi-Catholics or media hirelings) who are always trying to nibble away at authentic Catholicism, will try and use these events to apply pressure for a married clergy, planned family mentality, etc. - in short to move the Catholic Church closer to the former Anglicanism of the converts, than bringing all the Anglican converts over to Catholicism as outlined in our catechisms (which kind of undermines the point of them converting in the first place!).
Of course we all know of the Eastern (Greek, Russian, Ukrainian) Uniat Churches that keep their own liturgies but moved back to recognise the Pope. Do some see the Ordinariate, established by the Pope, as being a version of this? But then I believe I'm right in saying that the Orthodox Mass is legitimate, whereas no Catholic seriously believes that transubstantiation takes place under Anglican auspices.
So is this a clever way to get Anglicans to convert en masse (but with free will) to the Faith of Our Fathers? Or a way to try and validate Anglican liturgy in a Catholic setting?
One friend of mine has said he is worried that the conversions are being 'fast tracked' and that the Anglican converts therefore won't know their Catholicism, possibly bringing heretical ideas with them (thus bolstering heretical ideas held by a vocal minority within the Church)
Another has said that the Ordinariate is a clever move by the Vatican to keep the Anglican converts under the direct control of the Vatican, and thus free of the "ecumania" of the Bishops Conference.
We have to be ecstatic at the turn of events that has brought more souls to our Church, and the fact that it is women 'bishops' and homosexual 'clergy' that has pushed Anglicans in recent years into the Catholic fold should be a warning to all Catholics to keep our Faith orthodox on the issues of married clergy, female clergy, homosexuals etc. because we have all seen the damage such moves have made to the Anglicans.
As the Catholic Herald article says:
We all received Communion (five of our new brethren, including all three former bishops, on the tongue) and, lo, it was done. We are in communion.
Perhaps more Catholics receiving Communion on the tongue, together with the demand that Papal Masses can only have Communion on the tongue, might see a move for more Catholics to move away from the horrifying and unedifying sight that is Communion being placed in unconsecrated hands (which Mother Theresa said is the worst thing in the world!).
In short we as Catholics must receive our formerly separated brethren with great joy and charity, hope for many positives, yet be watchful as always, certainly against ecumaniac suggestions as this.
I think the advent of the Ordinariate will give the many millions of Catholics in Britain renewed vigour in their Faith (following on from the Pope's visit) and a sharp lesson that what GK Chesterton would have labelled as 'fads' in churches only lead to people losing their beliefs or walking out of their church. If anyone tries to use it as a fop to more ecumaniacal behaviour then it will only lead to Catholics (of the 'old' or 'new' type) losing their Faith.
These good people wanted to join the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: not to see the Catholic Church become another variant of the liberal, all-things-to-all-men/women/transgenders mess they left behind.
