Church Militant The Vortex Feed

TRANSCRIPT

Following up on yesterday's Vortex where we broached the subject of a loss of faith in the Real Presence, against the backdrop of the continuing saga of Amoris Laetitia and, what some say, is the permission it grants for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion — there is much to talk about here.

The debates have begun in the Catholic world about the story Church Militant broke over the weekend that the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia by the Argentine bishops has now been officially and publically raised to the level of authentic magisterium by Pope Francis himself. Is this exactly what he meant to do? Whether he meant it or not, does it even fall within his authority to do so? If so, what exactly did he do, and why did he do it? If not, same question, what then exactly did he do, what does it mean, and why did he do it?

Against that backdrop of mass confusion and debate, another much more important question needs to be asked. How is it — regardless of what the pope meant — that so many various bishops and bishops' conferences seem to agree that those in an objective state of mortal sin can in some circumstances receive Holy Communion? And again, regardless of what the pope has to say or muddies the waters about, we have on record various bishops making that exact claim.

This is bringing to a head a very great and troubling concern in the Church — the rejection of the belief in the Real Presence by various, meaning a majority, of Catholics, laity and clergy, especially among the clergy. At this point, we have to step back and look at this from a purely spiritual standpoint. Too few bishops are defending Our Blessed Lord in the Eucharist. They allow Catholics who are public and notorious sinners to walk up and receive Holy Communion — Catholics like a bevy of pro-abortion politicians. This is in direct violation of Canon 915 which says such people must be refused. Yet here in America, a quiet detente has been reached with the devil, a contract whereby this evil can continue essentially unchallenged.

Some of the luminaries of the Church in America are on the record as saying they will not have a political war at the Communion rail — as if. When cardinals like Timothy Dolan, Blaise Cupich and Donald Wuerl speak like that, it sends a message to the rest of the U.S. bishops that real concerns like protecting the integrity of the sacrament and causing scandal to the faithful is not as important as playing political patty cake with the culture, especially the Culture of Death.

And here we must refer back to Scripture and the revealing of the diabolical plan to destroy the Church. Satan was present in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. At one point, He presented Himself to Our Blessed Lord demanding the Apostles so he could sift them like wheat. While probably not understanding everything going on with regard to the Eucharist and its institution and the role the Apostles and their successors would play throughout time, he understood enough to demand that Our Lord hand them over to him. Whatever role they were going to play, it was clear to the mind of the Demon that it was going to be a significant role, and he wanted to end this before it began. Well, that was then. Certainly today, the diabolical understands the full import of the Blessed Sacrament, and its absolute central role in the Church.

The Blessed Sacrament is Jesus Christ — Body, Blood Soul and Divinity — and while the Demon cannot destroy Him, he has been masterful at destroying belief in Him, even and especially among the clergy. What he could not accomplish completely in the Upper Room 2,000 years ago, he has managed to achieve some measure of success with especially in these days. Consider, the large number of Catholics prelates and clergy who approach the Blessed Sacrament with little more care, attention, devotion and reverence than a typical Protestant congregation or preacher. They see vaguely a "spiritual presence" about the bread and wine but not the Real Presence. They completely miss what we could term the real deal.

Recall that it was Martin Luther, also a priest, who set in motion affairs whereby today hundreds of millions of baptized Christians have been deprived of the Eucharist — the central truth of reality —thereby making salvation preemptively more difficult because they lack the abundant graces of Our Lord's Body and Blood. While Luther and a string of his followers largely attacked the authority of the Church, the effect was to bring about a rejection of the Blessed Sacrament, for the Blessed Sacrament is the source and summit of the Faith. Everything flows from it, and everything flows to it because "it" is Jesus Christ personally and physically present on earth.

The very life of the Church is the Blessed Sacrament, so for there to be ambiguity, confusion, a lack of conviction, doubt, a lack of reverence, uncertainty, dismissal and all of the above about it, creates chaos in the Church as we see quite clearly. It takes supernatural faith to perceive the Truth of the Real Presence, and it is a sure sign of a lack or loss of that same supernatural faith when problems arise surrounding the Blessed Sacrament. The major damage to the Church resulting from the Protestant Revolt of the 16th century was the smashing of this belief.

Today, another revolt, another revolution is being had right in our midst with the same result. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God — the Lamb which comes from and belongs to God. It was not by accident — nothing is in the affairs of salvation — that John the Baptist recognized this and announced it at Our Lord's baptism. To his listeners, reference to a lamb brought forth images of sacrifice, for that is what was done with spotless lambs. They were reserved for God. Here was the most spotless Lamb ever to be sacrificed. And when the lambs were sacrificed, they were to be eaten, thus completing the sacrifice — the exchange of one life for another.

This is why the Lamb of God commanded His followers to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood and made salvation normatively dependent on it. The sacrifice of lambs in the Old Testament was to set the stage — to be a preparation — for the sacrifice of the Lamb. And as the sacrificial lambs were to be eaten in the Old Covenant, so He was to be eaten in the New Covenant as He said.

The abuses which have attended the Blessed Sacrament for the past 50 years, so commonplace in fact as to pass by essentially unnoticed, have taken their toll. The Church is in chaos, and it is in chaos precisely because of the sacrileges, abuses in the liturgy and blasphemies attendant to the Real Presence and the permission given, directly or indirectly, by so any shepherds.

Pray for the Church, pray for a restoration of supernatural faith to leaders who would ignore Our Lord and sell Him out for worldly gain and human respect. There is much work and praying to do.

TRANSCRIPT

When we approach the spiritual life, there's is only one view which can predominate and that is spirituality involves conflict — spiritual combat as some of the mystics called it. Images of militancy on the way to holiness are all over the pages of Sacred Scripture. Struggle, combat, fight — this is the hallmark of Catholicism. It's why the Church on earth is called the Church Militant. It's why we chose the name we did for our activities and productions because the need to bring to mind once more the reality that the Church Militant must be emphasized.

Getting to Heaven is a war. That often means that we will be at odds with the world, severe odds on occasion, just as Our Blessed Lord told us in the Upper Room, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you." Given all this, it is very easy to see why the Church in the West has failed in Her mission to make disciples and win the culture for Christ. Leaders long ago laid down their weapons, their spiritual weapons, and set about to make peace with the world.

Leaders have fused together the Church and the world and created a hybrid monster — a Catholicism by consensus — where divine truths are marginalized for the more "practical" solutions to life's problems. The Church, in too many examples, has simply acquiesced to the prevailing whims of the world and tried to make a contract with the world — a sort of peace treaty, a detente with the evil of the so-called sexual revolution.

First, it was no-fault divorce, then contraception, then came little more than the occasional whimper about abortion. Now, we have chosen to remain silent about same-sex marriage and next in queue is the whole transgender insanity. And why has this happened? Leaders have abdicated their leadership in order to keep consort with the average Joe. Instead of protecting Joe when he would have still been open to hear about the evils of rampant sexual license, they chose not to offend him. They wanted and still want his praise, his company, his respect. So, they never challenge him and call him to the greatness for which he was created and leave him to mire in his sinfulness. There is no appeal to his intellect, no formation of his soul. He is left to his own devices — largely unassisted by grace — as his clerical buddies don't just meet him where he's at but pitch a tent and hang out with him there. They make him comfortable in his sin, excuse it with the power of their collar or mitre, help him rationalize himself straight into Hell — all because they don't want to upset the status quo.  

Since the consensus among a majority of Catholics today is that the Sexual Revolution is okay then that's where the religious leaders go, either agreeing with them or at least not challenging them. But they never call Joe out of his darkness because they would have to pay a price for it, a personal price in terms of their careers or the latest diocesan-wide collection or worldly respect — you name it. There isn't really the slightest sign of hope among the clerical ranks at least that any of this is going away anytime soon. No, in fact, we are only at the beginning of the real crisis. Many prelates are willing to sacrifice truth on the altar of consensus, of bridge building.

Consensus Catholicism does not build a bridge. It fashions a slide. And guess where that slide goes?There is no doubt that consensus Catholicism is popular. But most importantly, it is pointless. The only consensus a committed faithful Catholic needs to worry about creating is within his own soul regarding the truth of the Catholic faith. Any other consensus is a fraud.

TRANSCRIPT

Father James Martin is lying to the Catholic world. Not only is he lying about Church teaching and supported in his lies by various powerful Churchmen, he is also lying about the whole gay scene. He lies in presenting it as just "different" from the normal life of heterosexuality and marriage and so forth. He goes to great pains to try and make the whole gay life seem so natural and normal, and in this he is lying through his teeth. And on top of this, he betrays every single Catholic who struggles with same-sex attraction and tries to live according to the teaching of Christ in His Church. He also advances the rotten lie that someone who struggles with this Cross has no hope that it will ever end — that they were born that way, and they just have to embrace it and live a holy gay life. What a filthy liar! And the filthiness of his lies is increased greatly by the fact that he is a priest.

There are so many lies — lies that are destructive to so many young people — that this man must be stopped. No — no one is born gay. There isn't the slightest bit of scientific evidence to suggest that.  There is, in fact, a dearth of evidence. After scouring through every chromosome of the human genome for almost a decade, scientists found no gay gene. And the reason they didn't find it is because it doesn't exist. It is a disgusting lie by Martin and his clerical supporters that some little babies in the womb are actually gay. But they have to advance that argument despite its complete lack of any support at all because it gives Martin the launching pad to fire off more lying missiles — that being gay is some kind of gift from God.

We heard this language mirrored in the Extraordinary Synod on the Family in Rome in 2014 when Abp. Bruno Forte, around whom various gay rumors have circled, introduced in the midterm relatio that "homosexuals have certain gifts and qualities" that would be helpful to the Church. That was a lie, and when Church Militant confronted him directly in the Vatican press hall, he backed down immediately and laughed it off, apparently aware he had been exposed in his propaganda.

Martin has picked up the baton and promulgates this filthy lie. The gay scene is not just like the straight world — just with different objects of attraction. It is populated by juvenile men with daddy complexes who are seriously wounded, psychologically and spiritually, and are encouraged by the environment to work out their pain through illicit, sinful sex. And work it out they do. Promiscuity in that world is astounding.

The psychological illnesses present in that world, manifested by drug and alcohol addictions, not to mention sex addictions, far outstrip such illnesses in the so-called straight world. And sexual prowling and satisfaction is the focus of the gay scene. While Martin and his cronies try to paint the picture and make the claim that so-called LGBT Catholics should not be identified by their sexual appetites, the very acronym L-G-B-T is about nothing other than the sexual appetites. After all, what else defines "gay" other than a desire, frequently acted on, to have sexual encounters with members of the same sex?

It's a self-identifying marker. When the rainbow flag is flown, what else does it mean other than I have a sexual attraction to members of my own sex? Draping this reality in pretended other issues like civil rights and so forth cannot cover over the baseline reality that, at its core, the whole gay identity is wrapped up in same-sex encounters — period.

Martin lies about this, trying to paint the gay world as something other than this reality when it is in reality all about sex — sexual desires, sexual appetites and sexual release. The Church doesn't have and has never had a problem with a person who is chaste in the face of their sexual temptations. Quite the contrary — such people are held up as models of virtue for carrying their Crosses.

If you are a Catholic struggling to live a faithful life in the face of such temptations do not listen to the lies of this spiritually destructive priest who lies about the Church, the gay life and the underlying pain of the gay lifestyle. Martin will never stand toe-to-toe on stage with someone who will call out his lies. He knows his lies would be completely exposed under the withering light of the Truth.

Since an overwhelming number of shepherds will not come to your defense — despicable sins of omission that they will pay dearly for in the next life — then the laity must. These men have conspired and allowed a takeover of the priesthood by psychologically disturbed men with same-sex attraction, who oftentimes act on it and wish to change whatever they need to in the Church to get the Church to "bless" their illness.

They do not care about you. They care about themselves. Martin is the front man, but he is not the only liar. He is able to stand on stage after stage because so many other liars occupy the office of bishop. They lie by both commission and omission.

In either case, they lie. They are lying liars whose father is the devil — the father of lies. Do not listen to them. Challenge them. Oppose them, as they work out their own psychological problems on the backs of troubled souls trying to be faithful.

TRANSCRIPT

When Our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph took the infant Jesus into the Temple to present Him according to the law, Simeon said to Our Blessed Mother that Her Son would be a sign of contradiction. He certainly was and certainly is. Contradicting is the only real disposition a follower of Christ can have.

The world is fallen. All sorts of realities fall from that single truth — sin, evil, an inclination on the part of all humans to sin and quite often more than just an inclination but an actual lusting and desire for sin. The status quo is this fallen, and therefore it must be contradicted.

The status quo, however, is not so easily overthrown. It's the status quo, where things have come to rest, precisely because that is where the majority of mankind wants things to reside — no disturbance, no challenge, no upsetting of things, don't rock that boat whatever you do. Humanity has made a detente with evil — a compromise with the father of lies whereby truth can be molded to whatever is the most convenient even in the face of logic.

For example, you've probably seen those insanely, profoundly stupid bumper stickers that say "Co-exist." They have symbols from various world religions or belief systems and form the word "Co-exist" even in the face of the principle of non-contradiction. That principle which is a foundational, first truth, is that two things which contradict each other cannot exist together at the same time and in the same respect. For example, a light cannot both be off and on at the same time — a contradiction.

The same is true of systems of belief. To think that every religious or even spiritual system of belief is equally valid is a supremely stupid thought. They all contradict each other so how can they each be valid? Only one can be right. We got so sick of seeing those idiotic "Co-exist" bumper stickers all over the place that we decided to produce our own response — a bumper sticker that actually has some logic: "Contradict — they can't all be true." We also made smaller magnet versions of them as well. Talk about a great conversation starter and possible friendship-ender. These debates, these discussions, need to happen, especially within the Catholic world.

Too often, too many leaders are simply content to let it appear as though all religions in their essences are worth the same, propose the same and have the same ends. They are not. They do not. And they don't. This constant pandering and mollie-coddling by lukewarm Catholic leaders even in the face of knowing the Truth really begins to irritate faithful and committed Catholics. We are out here in the trenches like the soldiers, arguing with friends and family, talking with loved ones, trying to explain all this, and there sit the leaders like lazy, oafish generals — safe from the line of fire who never say anything to back us up. A little help from the commanders would be welcome every now and then.

Can anyone identify any of the bishops, particularly here in the United States where diversity and pluralism have risen to the level of gods, who have said Catholicism is the One True Faith? Heck, when homosexualist Bp. Bambera of Scranton forbid me from speaking at one of his parishes back in 2011, this was his entire public reason — announcing the rightness of the Catholic faith makes other faiths feel uncomfortable.Thank God that St. Paul and St. Peter and all of the rest of the Apostles didn't think that way. They saw the world of paganism and idolatry as a world to be vanquished and saved by the Catholic Church. And they died for that. Imagine the horror if this crop of men we have today as their successors would have been the original Apostles. Good Lord — the Church would not have survived the first generation which by the way is what we are witnessing in this generation.

Lots of Catholics often wonder about their local bishop. Is he orthodox? Is he bold? They are often left scratching their heads when he does contradictory things — appears to be pro-life, for example, but doesn't seem to embrace anything of tradition. Here is the question that will immediately provide you the answer to wondering about your bishop: "Your Excellency, do you want the whole world to be Catholic? Yes or no."

Jesus Christ does, and He was and is the sign to be contradicted.

TRANSCRIPT

Frank Andrews: A couple of weeks ago when the Fr. James Martin firestorm hit the local media because he is the winter commencement speaker at Misericordia University, I called him, and we interviewed him. We had non-stop calls for an hour and a half. One of our listeners suggested that based on that conversation that I look up the website of a group called Church Militant, which I did. He suggested that I watch a video, which I did. And then I contacted them and asked if their director would mind doing an interview with us, and Michael Voris is on the line with us right now He is the founder and president of Saint Michael's Media and the senior executive producer of Church Militant. Michael, thank you for taking time out of your busy day.

Michael Voris: I appreciate the chance to speak Frank, thank you.

FA: And I understand that at one time you were a TV reporter, so that was your penance for a time, huh? [laughter]

MV: About twenty years — reporting, producing, anchoring — you know the drill.

FA: Me too! [laughs]. Now, before we get into any controversy, tell us, what is Church Militant and why.

MV: Church Militant is the web presence, internet presence of the apostolate St. Michael's Media. So St. Michael's Media does a number of different things to advance the Catholic faith. Church Militant is that presence on the web. And what we specifically do at Church Militant or on Church Militant is talk about various issues that we think Catholics need to know. And that covers a pretty broad spectrum of things going on in the culture in general, things going on in the world of politics — all of this obviously  touching on matters Catholic. We don't just cover politics for the sake of politics. Things going on within the Church, good and bad, and then many things very devotional, spirituality, you know, directly theological things like that. So there's a broad spectrum of things for Catholics.

FA: Now, correct me if any of what I say is wrong, but I understand you're a graduate of Notre Dame, and then studied in Rome, and you have a bachelor's degree in Sacred Theology as well.

MV: Largely that's correct. I graduated from Notre Dame. It's an ecclesiastical degree, so to say it's a bachelor's degree. It's called a baccalaureate, but it's not an academic degree like from a secular institution. On the ecclesiastical side, it's essentially the equivalent of a double Masters.

FA: Michael, here in northeastern Pennsylvania, I believe there was a poll one time that was done, and I believe in several of the counties here the Roman Catholic and Orthodox population is about 78 percent of the people here. So, that's why, you know, anything that happens here, we get so many calls. Would you give us of your opinion of what the status of the Catholic Church is right now because our listeners said that Church Militant is trying to protect the Church from attacks.

MV: That's correct. For about roughly the past 50 years — and this is not evenly true across the board obviously, evenly distributed, it depends where you might be at a specific time, and all of that — but in an overall trend for the past 50 years, the commitment of the Church, Church leaders and consequently many of the laity to the fundamental teachings of the Church have changed. They've either been sacrificed, abandoned, ignored, downplayed, substituted for, you know, sort of take your pick.

And again that depends on where you are, who the personalities are involved. For example, you have some bishops today who are coming out for things that are quite frankly heretical. Other bishops just don't say anything one way or the other. Other bishops will offer a very weak, passing kind of remark that doesn't really get any publicity, defense, of something of the Church. So again, this isn't evenly distributed, but the net effect over the course of the past 50 years is a great diminution of the Faith.

And I think the major indicator of that, and we've been sort of trumpeting this at Church Militant and Saint Michael’s Media for approximately 10 years, and we've been saying, there's going to come sort of the crest of the raw number of Catholics, which has been increasing steadily for decades and decades and decades. But the rate of that increase has been getting smaller and smaller and just looking at it and of course as you know, same sort of background, same profession as I had, you hang in reporting long enough you get to be a numbers guy and all that, you get to look at trends and graphs and charts and polls and surveys in everything. And I was looking at this stuff a few years ago and said there's going to come the watershed moment somewhere around 2012, 2013, somewhere in that neighborhood, where the raw number of Catholics in the United States is actually going to begin to decline. And we just hit that in, I believe, it was 2015. In 2014, I might be off on my years by one or two cause I'm doing this from memory, but we had 72.4 million Catholics depending on how you count, in the United States. That just means baptized, that doesn't mean they believe anything, that doesn't mean they were raised Catholic, that doesn't mean anything beyond they just were baptized — 72.4 million and in 2016 the number 72 million. So, for the first time since these numbers have been tracked in any significant way, the raw number, and anyone who has familiarity with statistics knows what the raw number means. It's the paramount number, and that has now decreased in the United States, the number of Catholics by half a million.

FA: Of course.

MV: That's astounding!

FA: One of the main reasons that I wanted to talk to you was about the Fr. [James] Martin issue. Father Martin is, of course, speaking at Misericordia University. Michael, I want to just ask you, what is your problem with Fr. Martin speaking at Misericordia University?

MV: Well, it isn't necessarily Misericordia, it's that Fr. Martin be given any public platform anywhere. This one just happens to be Misericordia, where he gets to distort Catholic teaching. Now, if he wants to go speak in some public ground somewhere and say whatever he wants to say, which is not true, this is the point: what he presents in these talks about Catholicism, vis-a-vis the whole homosexual, same-sex attraction thing, is not true, it's incomplete, and it's error-ridden. Now, and as a result, he should not be allowed to speak on Church property, and that's the problem.

FA: OK, now did you read his book Building a Bridge?

MV: No, I don't talk about his book.

FA: Because, I mean ... 

MV: It's not his book, you know, I've never said anything about his book. The issue, and that’s another thing with him, whenever I happen to say something his response is, and his supporters' response is well, "You haven't read his book." That's right, because I'm not talking about his book. His book is just a Trojan horse to get up and talk about these other things.

FA: But now, the concept there is the LGBT community, he wants to open a conversation with them, I mean, I know that's very simplistic, but what's wrong with that?

MV: Well, there's nothing wrong except it's not true. There already is the conversation, for example, LGBT is a political phrase, It's a cultural political phrase. People in the Church don't ... that would be like a Catholic bishop going up and talking to somebody and referring to him or her as "pro-choice." That the language itself, before you ever get to a discussion, the definitions are loaded. "LGBT" may a very fine fun term or acceptable term to talk about out in the culture, but within the Church, which is what he does, he's a priest, talking in the context of the Church on Church property, he should be using Church vocabulary, that's the very first problem. Second of all, there already is a dialogue here. The Church has for example, a marvelous group that was started by a Catholic priest in New York, I think, in the 1970s, maybe in the 1980s, the priest, he's dead now, the priest, God rest his soul, but his name is Fr. [John] Harvey, and he started a group called Courage, which was, is, has, many chapters around the country, I think around the world as well, to engage with Catholics who are same-sex attracted, who are trying to live according to the Church's teachings faithfully. There already is a bridge, to use Fr. Martin's title of his book. So for him to go around and pretend as though the Church hates gays, because that's the message you take away from it — the Church hates gays and has been persecuting towards gays. I mean, half the priests who have been ordained in the last 50 years are gay so I'm not sure how you wind up with "the Church hates gays." So, that's the issue here, and the irritation on this is that Fr. Martin simply lies. He lies about Church teaching in these presentations, and this isn't just me sort of listening to it and doing an interpretation. Father Martin is on the record that the Church's teachings regarding chastity — meaning only having sex within the confines of marriage — that those teachings don't apply to same-sex attracted people, homosexual people.

FA: Michael, the people who responded when he was on, you know, they said there's 20,000 signatures on a petition. And then I contacted the bishop, and it appears that the bishop and Fr. Martin and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church don't want to hear what you have to say, they think you're the crazy radicals.

MV: [laughs] Well, of course, they do.

FA: In fact, I asked a theologian, I said I’m going to have the Church Militant on, he said in theological terms they are what we call crazy.

MV: Well, that's very Catholic of him to speak of a fellow Catholic in those terms. You know, if he wants to take umbrage, you know, first of all, I'm a Catholic theologian. I have an S.T.B., I have an ecclesiastical degree in theology. So, there are theologians of various stripes. He's a liberal theologian who doesn't like the message of orthodox, traditional Catholicism. I get it, I mean we've been talking about this for 10 years that there is this gigantic split in the Church. You could kind of, if you were look at it from a political analogous point, you see the same thing in the country. There are just two versions of America that are being fought out, lived out, side-by-side every day in the country. Well, that same thing is happening in the Church right now. It's just come to a head now over a number of issues and one of them, a leading one, is this particular one — the whole question of homosexuality. And I don't think it's surprising that one of the reasons it's coming to a head that there are so many homosexual clergy. And I find it just beyond the pale that Fr. Martin will not answer the question, because it's a relevant question because he's the one out there. He will not answer the question whether he himself is attracted sexually to men. Now, he won't answer that question, he says, "Well, my superiors have forbidden me from answering it." That's what he told the Washington Post, I think, that was in the summer, late summer, early fall. It's like, well why would your superiors forbid you from saying, you know, if you were straight, why would your superiors forbid you from saying that?

FA: Have you contacted the diocese here at all? I mean, have you had any conversation with the diocese of Scranton?

MV: You mean have ... we called and said, "Hey, why are you inviting him?"

FA: Or at least let them know, you know, your objection to this, I mean, one of the things that ...

MV: Oh yeah, we have publicly backed on numerous occasions that petition that is going around. We don't want to start a second petition, that's kind of pointless, let's have everybody get on the same petition. We've publicly supported that I mean they know our position on this. Father Martin knows our position on this.

FA: Michael, Bp. Joseph Bambera, diocese of Scranton, issued a statement. We asked him to come on the air, but he would only give us a statement, said that Fr. Martin went through all the screening, Fr. Martins book was approved by his superiors, and as far as he's concerned, it's OK for Fr. Martin to speak. Now, when I watched your video which I believe is called The Vortex, I was very uncomfortable with, I don't want to say the attack on the bishop, but you were really, really strong in your comments about him.

MV: Well, yeah because souls are at stake. Bishop Bambera is a coward here. For whatever reason he's going along with, I don't know if he agrees with ... it doesn't matter why he's doing it, I don't know what his intentions are. I don't pretend to read his mind, but I don't need to know any of that to know that what he's doing is wrong. Bishop Bambera is responsible for the spiritual welfare of the souls in his charge as bishop in that diocese, and he is wrong to let this priest who speaks heresy loose on his people. And that's the bottom line. I don't care if he went through some screening, they set up the screening! He passed the screening, all that means is, you approved him! There isn't some objective committee of gods on Olympus that hands down the blessing for it. That's Bp. Bambera's people who get paid by him, who said, yes, we want him to speak, and the bishop goes, "OK." There's no screening, and it's disingenuous to present it that way.

FA: It may come from just my upbringing, but when you call Fr. Martin a liar, and when you call the bishop a coward, I get very uncomfortable, like you're not supposed to challenge the hierarchy of the Church.

MV: You're not supposed to challenge the hierarchy of the Church when they are in communion with the Magisterium of the Church, when they are not in communion with them, I don't mean jurisdictional communion, I mean the harmony of the Church's teaching. When they despise that, ignore it, don't enforce it, won't preach it, you absolutely challenge it. They are wrong. That doesn't mean they don't have the authority of the office, I'm not challenging the fact that he's bishop, none of that. I'm talking about in this case, he is wrong. Father Martin preaches heresy, and that's what I said in this Vortex episode. I said bishop, are you going to stand up at this event and say that what Fr. Martin said about men and women who are same-sex attracted that the Church's teaching doesn't apply to them? That is heresy, Frank, and I think your listeners, I hope, will understand that. Now, if someone wants to agree or disagree that the Church should do this, that's a different discussion, whether the Church's teaching is right. But that's not the discussion. The discussion is that we all agree, and we all at least pretend in the sense of Fr. Martin, that the Church's teaching is right. But then he preaches, he gives talks and is supported by various members of the hierarchy who say that, who give him their approval. By the way, there are many other members of the hierarchy who do not give Fr. Martin any kind of approval. He got into a Twitter war with Bp. Paprocki in Springfield Illinois, over this very issue of homosexuality. Cardinal Sarah, a cardinal, I mean, he may have a couple of cardinals in his back pocket but he also has some cardinals opposed to him publicly. Cardinal Robert Sarah at the Vatican, wrote an article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, saying what he is doing is wrong. Again, what does this all point to? It points to the great split in the Church.

FA: Michael, I have two final points, and I don't want to keep you too much longer, but you apparently have a big following in this area because one of our listeners said please make sure you have him comment on the fact that there's Church Triumphant, Church Militant, Church Suffering, so people don't get the wrong impression. And then everybody wants to know if you're going to the Rosary rally which is 1 p.m. on the day of Fr. Martin's speech.

MV: First, on a theological point, yes, when the Church speaks of Church Militant, that is a centuries, centuries, centuries old term that merely refers to the baptized who are still here on earth fighting evil, they are militating against evil. It doesn't mean anything about violence or picking up guns and weapons, nothing to do with that. And it's part of the Communion of Saints, the Church on earth, the Church in Purgatory and the Church in Heaven. The Church in Heaven is called the Church Triumphant because the souls who are in Heaven are now saints, and their battle is over and they have triumphed. We, here on earth, because we can still lose our salvation, are still fighting for it. That's what it means theologically. I would love to try to come to that Rosary Rally. Much of it depends right now ... my father's health is not doing very well, I think a number of people probably know that, and he's actually in the hospital right now, soon as this interview's over, I have to get back to the hospital. He's been sort of declining since August, so it's kind of a hit and miss thing if I'm able to attend things or not, so I don't like making a commitment about something and backing out of it. If I can make it I will, but my presence at it is not that big of a deal about it one way or the other, what's important is that there be a Catholic witness, a witness to authentic Catholic teaching that what Fr. Martin is saying is wrong and frankly lead souls to Hell.

FA: Okay, Michael I've asked you to stay for a half hour I've kept you much longer, I'm grateful, thank you so much and I hope, I wish well for your father. Thank you and Merry Christmas to you.

MV: Alright, God bless guys.

TRANSCRIPT

One of the biggest lies being dished out by leading churchmen these days is that sin isn't that big of a deal. This lie needs to be exposed, as well as the churchmen who promote it. It's not so much that they come right out and say it, but that is the unspoken message, the prevalent attitude. That's why confession is never really talked about. That's why that idiotic notion that we have a reasonable hope all men are saved is so warmly embraced. It's why sin itself is almost ignored and never addressed in any serious consistent manner.

Sin is awful. It is completely destructive. It damns people. Cuts them off from God for all eternity if not repented from. There is nothing in life worse than sin other than the refusal to admit its destructive power and simply deny it in words or actions or thought.

As I stand vigil at my dad's bedside, the terrible reality of sin simply can't be missed or ignored. All this death and misery that has been repeated over and over billions of times throughout all of human history, this all came into the world as the result of sin but not just sin in general but rather because of just one sin. That original sin completely changed the face of the earth — just one sin. It brought death and the accompanying grief and sadness into the world — just one sin.

If just one sin has that kind of destructive power, dear God, what about the accumulated effects of the trillions upon trillions of hundreds of trillions of sins throughout all of human history? And to get right down to it, the thousands and tens of thousands of sins, probably many more that each one of us has committed. The modernist and dissident clergy in the Church love to go on and on about the love of God but that love cannot even begin to be appreciated if the horror of sin is not understood.

The glory of the Catholic Church is that Our Blessed Lord has opened up a path in the darkness, an escape route, that we may flee from the eternal consequences of sin. We are born into darkness, and we grow up and contribute to this original darkness by our choices. By our fallen natures we are attracted to the darkness. But Our sweet Jesus jumped down from His Heaven and plunged into this darkness to provide us light and open a path, a very narrow path, a sliver in fact of brilliant light so that we might become children of the light.

That narrow path is the Catholic Church which alone provides the sole means of escape from Satan and his powers of enslavement. All this darkness which we have freely added to, and there it is — one slim shaft of brilliant light capable of being seen by even those in the darkest area of the darkness. This is the spiritual reality — what the Church has always preached because this is what the Son of God preached.

It's why we would like to encourage you to sign up for a Premium membership for Church Militant today because you need to think in these terms, not the spiritually numbing terms of the Church of Nice which leads to Hell. This apostolate is all about preparing you to die — to die in a state of sanctifying grace as my father is.

The promotion of the truth of Our Lord and His Holy Spouse, the Church, for whom He gave up His sacred life, this is what we speak of non-stop, and this is why we want you to join us in our effort — this great work of being used to save souls. There is nothing more sobering than death and even death at the bedside of a man dedicated to God and His Church is a very sad event from an earthly perspective. But dying in the light — that sliver of brilliant heavenly light that is the Catholic Church — brings the comfort in all the grief that for all eternity this soul will be a child of the light and the darkness will not have won.

But how horrible, beyond horrible, too terrible to describe, is the deathbed of the one who would not approach the light during his lifetime and chose to remain in the darkness. That miserable creature dies in the darkness and becomes a slave to Satan for eternity — tortured by demons, burning with infernal rage against the light, never again knowing hope or love, nothing but hate and rage, world without end.

For the children of the light, St. Paul's words are solid, "O death where is thy victory, where grave thy sting?" Death is horrible, but we have been given the power to overcome the horror of death. To announce this, to help people think in these terms — the only truth there is — this is the reason, the only reason this apostolate exists.

Please join us today and sign up for a Premium subscription by just clicking on the link. Thank you in advance for your support and prayers. The Catholic Church is the only means of escaping Hell, and this truth must be announced to the world non-stop. Sin is real, and its powers of destruction are frightening.

TRANSCRIPT

This is the first Vortex written and recorded after my dear father's death. I would first of all like to offer my deepest gratitude to the thousands of people who have offered prayers, Masses, Rosaries, "Eternal rests," as well as their condolences — overwhelming really. Thank you — such a huge number of comments really does take the sting away somewhat.

I would like to briefly let you know a couple of details about my father's last couple of days and death to shore up your love and devotion for Our Blessed Mother. My dad had a tremendous devotion to Her. It was even the underlying cause for his enthusiastic support for Notre Dame football we used to watch together and is why he requested to be buried in his Notre Dame garb which I wore a matching set of at his wake.

On my way driving to the hospital the Thursday he died, not knowing of course that he was going to die that day, I was pouring my heart out to Our Blessed Mother. Doctors had suggested I consider moving him from the pulmonary-respiratory unit to hospice — a horrible decision to have to make. His numbers were stable and had been for a couple of days, and just a few days before he had talked about being back home. I prayed to Our Lady not to have to make that decision in case I decided wrongly. She took care of it for me.

My father lived with me for almost 11 years, moving in to help me with rent back in the days of a dire financial scenario for the apostolate. We had become best buds, although when it came to me leaving stuff in the sink, he reminded me he was my father, and he didn't want to come downstairs and see my breakfast dishes. The loss of the closeness that developed between us living under the same roof was going to be extremely difficult to deal with for me. However, what I was not thinking about was that my father had already not been living at the house for over five weeks. He went into the hospital and then rehab and then back to the hospital on December 4th and wouldn't ever come back to the house.

Our Blessed Mother allowed a transition for me so that there would be no sudden lack of his presence at home, which would have been extremely painful, as many of you perhaps know. Most of all, I prayed earnestly driving into the hospital for two things: that I be present to hand him over to Her and that She come to him to lead him to Her Son. My specific prayer was "Blessed Mother, you brought him into the Church 60 years ago; now bring him to Your Son, and let me hand him over to You." You can't stay at the bedside 24 hours a day seven days a week, so there is the real possibility a loved one can die without you present — hence my prayer. I had also prayed that there be some friends around to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet when he did die. And lastly, I prayed to be able to have one of those father-son moments before he died whenever that was.

That day when I arrived at his bed, everything was the same as when I had left about midnight the night before — numbers stable and holding, same appearance. I prayed my own Divine Mercy chaplet for him at his bedside as he slept. The only time he would wake up was when nature called. It was at that moment about every couple of hours that we would get to talk for a little bit. Mid-afternoon, I leaned into him, he was very hard of hearing, and said into his ear, "Thank you, Dad, for being a such a loving father," and he said, "You've been a great son." He said it three times. I will always treasure that moment of grace.

A couple of hours later, somewhat spontaneously, about a dozen or so folks from the studio just trickled in to visit. About 7:20 p.m. or 7:30 p.m. he started getting excited and sat up in the bed and said, "I have to go." I completely missed the moment thinking he was referring to needing to answer nature's call. So, I began helping with that. But then he said, "I need my shoes and socks. I need my clothes." He repeated that a few times. Then he looked right at me and said, "Do you mind if I go?" And I said, "No, Dad, go ahead and go." Then with a great deal of energy, pulling himself up in the bed, he looked ahead and started saying a number of times, "I'm coming. I'm coming."

The nurses had come in during this for his meds and then told us they thought he only had a few minutes left. We began the Divine Mercy chaplet, and as I held his hand, my Dad began his eternal life. Our Blessed Mother had answered every single one of my pleadings to Her from earlier that day when I was driving in. And they were pleadings — believe me. Not one detail had our sweet Mother left unattended.

I believe with all my soul that Our Lady did, in fact, come to the foot of his deathbed to lead him to eternal life. And whether my dad is in Heaven or Purgatory, he is now a saint. Just as my mom is. They are saved forever. As St. Paul says, "In life, in death, we are the Lord's." Reflecting on all this and with a deep desire to inspire in you a love and devotion to Our Blessed Mother such as my dad had, I'd like to leave you with some words of St. Bernard: "Let Mary never be far from your heart or your lips. With Her support, you will never fall. Beneath Her protection, you will never fear. Under Her guidance, you will never tire. And with Her help, you will reach your heavenly goal." And as St. Paul instructed the Catholics in Corinth: "And when this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written — Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?"

Draw closer to Our Blessed Mother. Pray Her Rosary every day. "Pray for us now and at the hour of our death."

TRANSCRIPT

Since practically no bishop and so few priests are willing to just come right out with it, we "gotta" just say it: Outside the Catholic Church, there is no salvation. That is a dogmatic teaching of the Church, by the way, for any poorly catechized Catholics listening in. It goes straight to the heart of not only what the Church is but more to the point who She is. She is the Bride of Christ, His Spouse; and from the God who gave mankind marriage and declared that the two become one flesh, it is within this framework that we must view the Church. She is His visible presence here on earth. It was for Her He died. This is the meaning behind the words of the 19th-century hymn ironically enough penned by Anglican Samuel John Stone:

The Church's one foundation

Is Jesus Christ Her Lord.

She is His new creation

By water and the Word.

From Heaven He came and sought Her

To be His holy Bride;

With His own Blood He bought Her

And for Her life, He died.

Right theology; wrong religion — finish the thought, Samuel. Well, allow us to finish the thought. Every Christian religion is founded by a man, a sinful man, with the single exception of the Catholic Church. Even the Eastern Orthodox, while having valid sacraments and apostolic succession, was stillborn in the midst of human strife and broke away from the Church.

The distinction between Catholics and Protestants is quite simple really. It's rooted in history. Christ gave His authority to His Apostles. To be rooted in Christ, therefore, means that you must be under the authority of their successors — the bishops and ultimately the pope, the successor of St. Peter, chief of the Apostles.

As many of you know, my dad used to make a habit of going to the neighborhood Dunkin' Donuts to have a cup of coffee and his favorite donut and to evangelize. One day a man walked up to him dressed in a white suit and saw my dad reading a Catholic book. He asked him what he was reading, and my dad told him it was Catholic. He smiled and introduced himself as a bishop of some local Protestant congregation, at which point my dad said to him, "Bishop? You're not a bishop. You can't trace your line back to the Apostles." How's that for "encounter theology" and meeting them "where they're at" and having a "language event?" My dad showed him a great mercy by confronting him with the truth.  

Any other religion claiming to be authentically Christian derives from man and is, therefore, a false religion in that it cannot offer salvation. It may have elements of salvation within it but these are always Catholic truths first and foremost. Sooner or later, Protestant theology takes Catholic truth and goes off the rails with it, misinterpreting Scripture or distorting a teaching of Our Blessed Lord or failing to complete the thought and carry it to its logical conclusion. If a Protestant is saved, he is not saved because of his religion but despite it.

In Heaven, there is nothing but unity, for God is one — a revelation first made to the Jews and is the heart of their great prayer, the Shema, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One." There cannot be nor will there be a multiplicity of "faith traditions" in Heaven. Heaven is the Church Triumphant. We, here, on earth are the Church Militant. The whole goal of the Church Militant is to attain everlasting life in the Church Triumphant. And let's be very clear, the "Church" being spoken of is the Catholic Church founded on the Apostles, for Christ only has one Church.

Now, we are very aware that cowardly, politically-correct clerics hate this kind of teaching. They call it divisive and offensive. Of course, it is. The truth is almost always divisive and offensive. Man loves darkness and despises the Truth because it forces him to change his life if accepted, and we prefer to cling to our sin and do not want to change. In fact, it is impossible to change sufficiently to be saved without the Catholic Church because She is the channel of all grace precisely because She is the Bride of Christ. There isn't some other fountain of grace hanging out in the universe somewhere.

This is why faithful Catholics lose their minds over all the namby-pamby, wimpy bishop-speak, refusing to just come right out with it, and by "it," we mean the fullness and the glory of the Truth. Refusing to tell people they need to convert is an act of supreme selfishness because it deprives them of the opportunity to die in a state of grace, which is necessary to enter the Church Triumphant.

My dad used to not only be Protestant, he actually studied for a couple of years to be a minister. Then, he was introduced to the teachings surrounding Our Lady, something even Martin Luther accepted,  and that was it for him. She brought him into the Church because he was a man of goodwill, as the angel said to the shepherds in Bethlehem, and he wanted to know the Truth, wherever it led him.

It's despicable that Catholic clergy, most especially the successors of the Apostles, are so terrified of preaching what those Apostles were martyred for. Well, if they won't say it, then we will because you just "gotta" say it.

If you aren't Catholic or are a poorly formed one — convert. One day, you will leave this earth. Our Lord Himself personally established the means to prepare to meet Him in friendship and love — the Catholic Church.

TRANSCRIPT

Happy Solemnity of the Mother of God — a tremendous Feast! And we are going to need the protection of our heavenly Mother this year. Recall that since the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of God, and at the Incarnation, her Divine Son became our brother, then that makes Her our Mother as well, hence the title Our Blessed Mother. This was, of course, all confirmed for us by Our Lord's words from the Cross on Calvary when He said to St. John standing in the place for all of us, "Behold, Your Mother," a point that those who accept the heresy of Protestantism — like those fake Catholics who preach the Alpha program — are happy to dismiss. Don't want to offend anyone, don't you know, anyone, that is except Catholics who actually believe and profess all that the Church teaches.

But back to the thrust of this Vortex — the Church in 2018 is going to need its Mother, its Holy Mother, more than perhaps any time in our 2,000-year history. The crisis in Rome will devolve into chaos. The homosexual affrontery to the Faith by homosexualist bishops will reach a breaking point. The breakdown in the administration of canon law will become clearly evident, bringing about a state of crisis. Everything is in place for a near-complete, visible and total collapse of the Faith, with this entire situation being precipitated by treacherous bishops, greatly assisted by weak, cowardly, feminized and careerist brother bishops.

We are about to behold the greatest visible shrinking of the Church in living memory, with hundreds if not thousands of parishes being sold, scuttled or merged — all while bishops and their delusional staff drone on about the glories of their new evangelization geared around a "welcoming" program completely reliant on heresy as its foundation. Can you say Alpha?

Things never stay static, especially when there are forces at play — just out of sight — who work tirelessly to orchestrate all this and bring it to fruition. And let's be very clear here, what we are talking about: The "forces" at play are not philosophies and ideologies and so forth floating around in the air. They are people, individual, specific people, in league with the diabolical to destroy the Church. In their minds, they may or may not be intentionally trying to end the Church, but whatever their internal intentions that is the effect of their actions.

Huge majorities of Catholics reject the Faith. An Establishment comprised of individuals who do not believe or care about the salvation of souls is largely in charge of the controlling mechanisms of the Church. The very idea of "salvation of souls" is laughable to this crowd and even viewed with scorn. This group of individuals is far-flung and numerous, one might even appropriately say legion. They control the bulk of the Catholic Establishment — religious orders, universities, chanceries, houses of formation, seminaries, hospitals, the bishops' conference in the United States, as well as other countries, parishes, religious education programs. You name it, they run it. And what they push has everything to do with establishing a Church of Humanism, using the existing structures of the Church to accomplish their ends.

Just as what is happening in the culture with everything being exposed from Washington, D.C. to Hollywood, 2018 is shaping up to be the year of reckoning — a reckoning from Heaven. This we do know and know with dogged certainty — evil does not long perdure. God is not mocked forever. A terrific and terrifying battle is about to explode on the Church and therefore the world.

This is the year the Church will need to have recourse to Her Mother more than any other time in Her sacred history. According to the private revelations of Bd. Mother Mary Agreda about the life of Our Lady, it was the Mother of God Herself who organized the structure of the Church after Her Divine Son's Ascension and before Her own Assumption. All of this makes perfect sense when you think and reflect and contemplate with a Catholic mind.

The Church is the Mystical Body of Her Divine Son. It is Him present here on earth. When He was on earth as a child, She organized life for Him as His mother. Raised to the glories of Her maternal life by God Himself, She became, accordingly, Mother of the Church, as well so, of course, it was She counseling, comforting and inspiring the Apostles in those early days who would have loved Her beyond all telling. Saint John had Her in his home. And even though he was not an original apostle, St. Luke appealed to Her to unlock the secrets of those first moments of the incarnated history of salvation.

We are desperately in need once again of Our Mother, and this will be the year She comes to our assistance. And when Mom shows up to make things right, the troublemakers will regret and, we hope, repent — enough is enough.

"Never was it known that anyone who fled to Thy protection, implored Thy help or sought Thine intercession was left unaided."

Mother of God, come to us!