Church Militant The Vortex Feed

TRANSCRIPT

Paprocki, in a theological jiujitsu, absolutely leveled McElroy when he said he's a heretic who has excommunicated himself for his preachings and beliefs. Bam! While it is a point of order that the bishop never actually identified the cardinal by name, he did identify him by his words. Paprocki begins by politely presenting the case as a hypothetical — well, sort of:

Imagine if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to publish an article in which he condemned "a theology of eucharistic coherence that multiplies barriers to the grace and gift of the eucharist" and stated that "unworthiness cannot be the prism of accompaniment for disciples of the God of grace and mercy." Or what if a cardinal of the Catholic Church were to state publicly that homosexual acts are not sinful and same-sex unions should be blessed by the Church?

Well, you don't have to imagine it or speak of it as a hypothetical — because it's actually real. The words Bp. Paprocki lifted to describe the "imaginary" cardinal were directly taken from pro-gay Cdl. McElroy himself. In a January article in the pro-gay magazine, America, published by the pro-gay Jesuits, the pro-gay cardinal said exactly those pro-gay words (attributed to the "hypothetical" and "imaginary" cardinal).

Talk about a big dash of Paprocki "paprika" sprinkled liberally all over McElroy's pro-gay, anti-Catholic heresy about the Eucharist. Bam! But in the final takedown and crushing move, Paprocki says, quite directly, showcasing various relevant sections of canon law, that McElroy's beliefs have rendered him excommunicated, and, therefore, he should be nowhere near the next conclave to elect the next pope. Why? Because he's no longer in the Church. Bam!

That's pretty much the operating definition of excommunicated: "ex" as in, out of, "communicated," the community — out of the Church. Bam! McElroy, who is publicly on record here with his heresy about Holy Communion, has a history of not treating the Eucharist with reverence or faith. Back in August, the week before he was made cardinal, Church Militant released our Special Report on McElroy.

He reinstated a priest in his diocese of San Diego, a priest he knew had desecrated the Holy Eucharist with a woman in a Black Mass ritual. While it's true the event did not happen while McElroy was the bishop there, he was the bishop when it came time to decide the priest's fate, and he put the man back in parish life — and then lied to everyone within earshot, repeatedly.

Of course, as a formal investigation continued, the truth came out: The priest admitted it was true. The dicoese, under McElroy, then threw him under the bus, and the man is now out of the priesthood. But McElroy, in this whole sordid affair, never had a concern for the integrity of the Blessed Sacrament or the man's soul nor the victim in all this. Not a shred of compassion from the likely self-excommunicated prelate who should be asking if you want fries with that burger, not heading to the next conclave.

The article that McElroy penned for the pro-gay social justice rag that James Martin is an editor at large for — the article is a piece of crap — and that's being beyond charitable. The loser cardinal directly defies Catholic teaching across the board, saying, in essence, sexual acts don't really matter; sleep with whomever the hell you want and do whatever the hell you want and then come up to the Lord's table and receive.

And, as usual, the heretical claptrap from the pro–anal sex crowd in robes is rife with woke social justice vocabulary. Inclusion, big-tent dialogue, radical inclusion, cultures of exclusion, discernment, pilgrimage and so on, until you reach for the vomit bag. These types are always saying how much we need to "reimagine" and "dialogue" and "understand things in a new and radical way," but somehow their strategy never seems to apply to themselves.

Yo, Cardinal, go "reimagine" your own damn heresy, for once. Of course, what McElroy filth would be complete without the whole sodomy-cheering portion? And right on cue, His Hereticalness gets down to business with, first, the blasting of Church teaching about sexual sins and, second, using that to bless sodomy as, well, just not that big of a deal (you know, like sex was procreation or something and reserved for married couples actually capable of procreating).

McElroy deserves to be stripped of his office, then his priesthood, then his participation in the life of the Church — including the sacraments — and just be left to count his blessings that he didn't live in former times when being executed would have come along with that list of punishments. Is it cases like this why, all of a sudden, the death penalty is out of fashion in Rome?

The nutcases in miters (and, yes, that is perfectly acceptable language, for the soft and squeamish out there, and, truth be told, it doesn't go anywhere near far enough), these "men," need to be expunged from the life of the Church. They need to be protested, mocked, jeered and humbled into stepping down.

As you've heard us say many times here at Church Militant, except for their baptisms, just like Joe Biden, they aren't Catholic — robes or no robes. People should go to McElroy's Mass in the cathedral and shout him down at the top of their lungs before he even gets to the sanctuary. He has no business around the Blessed Sacrament, except to repent publicly.

But until such a time, he needs to be cast out, challenged at every turn on everything. He is a cancer in the Church, he and his whole cohort, with their modernist filth and corruption. Bishop Paprocki has opened the door on this. Let's see how many other bishops in the United States have the "you-know-whats" to walk through it with him and denounce this demonic corrupter. This is life in the Church in the 21st century, a hundred years after Pope St. Pius X warned us all of the heresy of modernism.

TRANSCRIPT

The culture — in the Church and outside of it — is now engaged in truth wars, a literal battle over truth, meaning, its necessity. The best operating definition of truth is provided by St. Thomas Aquinas: Truth is that which conforms to reality.

And for centuries, the anti-Catholic crowd in every sphere and institution has tried to attack one side or the other of that equation, truth equals reality. Some so-called Enlightenment philosophers attacked the concept of reality: "We can't really know something, can we? How can we trust our senses?" — and on and on.

Others (more contemporary) went after the "truth" side of Aquinas' equation saying, in essence, since reality is different for everyone based on experience and circumstances, then you have your truth and I have my truth. No matter which side of that simple equation you attack successfully, the idea of truth is destroyed.

The crux of the matter is truth in itself. Let's take, for example, the theological debate within Christianity of Catholicism versus Protestantism. Catholics assert the Catholic Church, and She alone, possesses the fullness of truth because Christ Himself established Her and protects Her. Her origins are divine, even while Her administration is human (and often lacking).

Every Protestant calls "baloney" on that Catholic assertion and asserts the exact opposite: that the "church" is just the body of believers around the world who accept Christ in some manner. For the record, the war between and among Protestant sects is much more intense than the one between Catholicism and Protestantism.

That said, the Catholic assertion and the Protestant assertion cannot both be correct because they are contradictory (as opposed to just different ways or traditions or "flavors"). Truth, by its very nature of conforming to reality, cannot contain contradictions. 

Likewise, it is also the case that one (and only one) assertion is actually correct — meaning it cannot be the case that neither is correct because, between the two of them, they encompass all possibilities. Therefore, one is entirely correct and the other is not. One claim is true, the other is not.

The point of debate, discussion, etc., is to simply arrive at the truth, nothing else. So the intellectually honest thing to do is have each assertion defend itself based on facts (historical, theological, logical, philosophical, etc.) until the truth is arrived at and then embraced.

So the first point of debate is to decide what material constitutes a "fact." And remember, a fact is that which cannot be denied. As the saying goes, you get to have your own set of opinions, but you don't get to have your own set of facts.

So, within the world of theological debate, whose entire purpose, remember, is to arrive at truth, the first point of order is to agree upon what facts will be allowed to be considered. In a court of law, for example, much wrangling happens over what facts will actually be allowed into evidence (what will be considered).

In the theological world, that same principle holds true — what is accepted by both sides as fact? God is a Trinity, Jesus is divine, etc. But here is where the rubber hits the road: Depending on who the parties to the debate are, any sets of accepted facts will vary. This is where the battle lines are drawn. It's not what we agree on — which is where soft-minded men like to leave things and win accolades from other soft men, that they are peacemakers and unifiers — it's what we do not agree on where the axe falls.

And this is, after all, the very point of debate, discussion: to logically arrive at agreement and acceptance of each "fact" until the body of facts has been recognized. Once that is done, then the conclusion is arrived at and one assertion has been proven correct and the other disproven. Followers of Christ can claim "contradictory" positions about Him, His Will, His actions and so forth — but that is precisely what the situation is right now.

It's intolerable because we aren't talking about just a truthful proposition but about the very nature of Truth Himself: "I am the way, the truth ..." (John 14:6). Truth not only matters; it is all that matters. It's why Our Blessed Lord associated Himself with truth, declared Himself (His own divine being) to be Truth. From Truth — the Divine Person who is Truth — all else that is good flows.

Saint Paul tells us that, in the end, only three things abide: faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues) — because they have God Himself as their appointed ends. But even with the greatest of the virtues, they are not an end in themselves. They are the greatest means to the end — Truth. Without Christ, they are completely empty and meaningless.

You could even go as far as to say they would actually be a hindrance to human existence — if there is no Truth for those virtues to move toward, then what is their point? Who runs a race with no finish line? Truth matters more than anything else on earth. Nothing, not a single thing, matters as much as truth. Satan is not called "the father of hate," he is called "the father of lies" (John 8:44) because a lie is the opposite of truth. The demonic always knows where to point its guns, without fail.

Yet in this topsy-turvy world of ours, in the Church and out of the Church, even good people don't always like hearing the truth, so the messenger is the one who gets attacked — something we know a little bit about here at St. Michael's Media (Church Militant).

How the truth is presented is far less important than that the truth is presented. Some will always protest (make the subjective call), "That was mean or uncharitable, blah, blah ... ." They will be more upset about how you revealed an evil than the actual evil itself.

They refuse to engage with the truth about the evil because that truth is horrible — almost too much to bear — so they shift their psychologies to something much easier to attack: the messenger. The demonic understands this and plays on people, even "good" Catholics, who will masquerade their fear of the evil as piety:

Oh, we can't speak of the bishops in those terms. You mean the hundreds of men who abused their spiritual authority to help destroy the souls they were supposed to protect — those men? Yes, you don't talk about them nicely. It's uncharitable. It's OK to criticize — but in nicer terms.

That's absurd and it betokens an unwillingness to consider the magnitude of the evil — meaning, the truth. Yup, we are in a war over truth itself, its nature and then everything that falls from that nature. Where you stand in this war — denying the truth for a myriad of reasons, like what's being exposed is your own little agenda, or friend, or pet project or whatever, versus just the plain old truth — really points to a lot in your own spiritual life.

An unwillingness to completely engage with the fullness of the truth, sometimes in all its ugliness, speaks to the character of the man, or, in too many cases, the lack of character. Truth is what matters more than anything else. In fact, nothing matters except the truth because truth is what we are trying as Catholics to unite ourselves to for all eternity. How contradictory to avoid truth in this life and yet expect to be with Truth as a reward for eternity.

TRANSCRIPT

There's a meme floating around the internet we'd like to share with you because of how correct its 60,000-foot view is: "We live in a society where homosexuals lecture us on morals, transvestites lecture us on human biology, baby killers lecture us on human rights and socialists lecture us on economics."

As Catholics, we could add to that: "We live in a Church where heretics lecture us on doctrine, schismatics lecture us on obedience to tradition, money-grubbing bishops lecture us on social justice and modernist theologians lecture us on our ignorance of theology." No matter where you turn — the world or the Church — it's an absolute clown world. Consider the insanity today emanating from both Rome and Washington, D.C., and, moreover, consider the further insanity that arises in response to all that in both spheres.

When the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl on the leg of kicker Harrison Butker, the Catholic trad world went wild online when his brown scapular was seen on the field. Great — all faithful Catholics adopt, wear and love the scapular. However, one wonders just how effusive the praise from the trad bigmouths online would have been if Butker did not attend the Latin Mass. The Latin Mass has become an idol to them, and anything goes in that world so long as it's related to the Latin Mass.

It could be just looking the other way on clerical sex abuse in that world because, you know — the Latin Mass. It could be defending schism in that world because, you know — the Latin Mass. It could mean an overweening spiritual arrogance and hubris because, you know — the Latin Mass. It's like they should post placards and burn down Novus Ordo parishes chanting, "TLM lives matter."

This isn't to rag on the Traditional Latin Mass — by no means. Virtually everyone — certainly, most people — here in the studio attends the Latin Mass frequently if not exclusively. It isn't the Mass itself that's the issue — by no means. It is the off-putting arrogance and insulting superiority of its leading online spokesmen. If the Old Rite is supposed to make people holier, as they all claim — well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we present to you its arrogant online promoters as exhibit one.

The Mass of the Ages, as it is referenced, is beautiful, solemn, reverent and fitting worship of and for Almighty God. But that's the Mass. What about its online celebrity supporters? Are there really no other ways to bring people around to its beauty than to ridicule and mock and condescend? It seems the beauty of the centuries-old liturgy stops at the communion rails when it comes to its online promoters.

The "silver-bullet" notion that all we need to solve the crisis in the Church is the Latin Mass is absurd on its face. Of course, it's true — and Church Militant is on record, for many years, talking about and attacking the daily abuses in many (if not most) usual parishes — that reverent liturgy is absolutely a key component of the much-needed restoration. But to isolate reverence to just one liturgical rite is nuts.

Approximately 10% of Catholics worldwide attend rites other than the Latin Rite. Those other rites are the Byzantine, Alexandrian, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean. These rites also break down into further ritual subdivisions depending on history and geography and almost all of these rites far predate what we in the West today have come to know as the Latin Rite.

They largely derive from the earliest centuries of the Church, which flourished more in the East than in the West — the reason why the first councils of the Church all happened on that side. Adherents to the Eastern Rites wouldn't know a TLM from a hole in the ground. It's not their tradition. And in truth, their tradition came centuries and centuries before the liturgical traditions of the West took hold. That's why, in the Latin Rite, we still have a vestige of the Eastern tongue present when we say "Kyrie Eleison." That’s not Latin — it's Greek.

Likewise, it would be curious to do some form of survey or demographic outline and actually count heads around the world. How many Catholics — again, around the world — actually sit in a TLM each Sunday compared to how many actually are sitting in one of the Eastern Rites? It's a guess, but we'll venture there are more Catholic bodies — again, around the world (in the universal Church) — in the Eastern Rites than the TLM on any given Sunday.

The entire eastern world of the Church is largely unknown or at least a mystery to those of us raised in the Latin Rite. But to the point of just how Catholic it is, Bp. Sheen was bi-ritual, meaning he offered Mass in the Latin Rite and then could walk across the street to an Eastern Rite parish and offer Mass there. The point is, it's all Catholic.

However, that said — and furthering the whole clown world theme — this all makes you wonder exactly why Pope Francis seemingly has it out for the TLM. Correct or not, he is under the impression that a liturgical schism has begun between the TLM and the Novus Ordo adherents, which, of course, was the exact opposite reason Pope Benedict freed the Latin Mass from its earlier confines — to show that each would become more incorporated into the other.

Francis is of the mind, apparently, that the TLM crowd is even more at odds with the Novus Ordo crowd, and, regardless of any hidden motivations heavily speculated about, he has said he wants to put an end to that. Of course, he could just go after the Novus Ordo Mass, but he doesn't. Likewise, he could correct the zillions of abuses that occur at the Novus Ordo Mass, and, for that matter, so, too, could the bishops, who have sat on their hands for decades, and whose inaction has created this liturgical clown world we are all witness to.

In fact, it was the slow creep of liturgical abuse — again, permitted by the bishops and, in some cases, even encouraged by the more modernist ones — that set the stage for this, all of it. Those of us who remember what the initial, original modifications were to the liturgy were not jarred in the slightest. It was when the craziness started creeping in that we (at the time, young altar boys) were scratching our heads and saying, "What's that about? Why are we doing that now and not doing what we used to?"

As a young altar boy — and yes, boy, as opposed to the nonspecific altar "server" — I used to hold the paten under the chins of kneeling communicants at the altar rail. Then, it all got phased out, and pretty quickly. Why did the bishops allow that? And more to the point, why don't they now correct it? I know Church Militant gets grief from many people for constantly talking about the failings of the bishops. But, hey, "if the miter fits ... ."

Of course, every single problem in the Church can be laid at the feet of the bishops because they refuse to ever address the crisis in any substantive way. When you talk about clown world, at least in the Church, the clown is wearing a miter.

TRANSCRIPT

The Catholic Church is in possession of the sacraments, given to Her by Her Bridegroom and Lord as the guaranteed means of making Him "present" to a soul — a transmission, as it were, an infusion, a flooding of grace into the soul when received with the proper disposition. Sacraments as sacraments have always been something of a stumbling block for many of the 40,000 Protestant denominations, to one degree or another, depending on which denomination you're talking about.

Christ instituted seven sacraments, and when Luther felt the need to correct Christ, he cut the list down to five — well, maybe three, then — wait a minute — four seems right, and so on. What Protestantism and even among many malformed Catholics don't get is this: Nature, even fallen, has a certain sacredness to it, and God elevates the underlying nature of that sacredness to its fullness. And therefore, a created thing becomes the instrument, the vehicle, for an even fuller measure of holiness.

Water bears within itself the grace of washing the soul clean from Original Sin. The hand of the priest raised in blessing, accompanied by his voice, bears within it the restoration of that baptized soul — a resurrection from death-dealing sin. The hands of a bishop over the head of a man bring about an ontological change in the man's soul and conform his soul to Christ to perpetuate the Sacrifice of Calvary — one sacrifice for all.

The sacraments take earthly things and make them instruments of holiness in and of themselves. This requires — demands — a Church to ensure the passing on of this for centuries, the making new of all things, generation after generation. Protestantism is organized around the notion of a "personal Jesus," a personal relationship with Christ that doesn't really need a Church. A church or congregation is cool and all, maybe even fun and emotionally supportive, but, in the end, it is not required. Why would it be?

After all, you can read the Bible by yourself. You can pray by yourself. The Holy Spirit can talk to you by yourself and place things in your heart without any need for the Church (an authority) and its "tradition." Or, do you actually stand in need of a church? Aside from your own interior thoughts, how do you know your thoughts about a given Scripture passage are actually true? Is not the very concept of prayer derived from the lived experience of the Church — the community of believers of one mind and heart? "Master, teach us how to pray." (Luke 11:1)

How do you know the "spirit" talking to you "personally" is not the unholy spirit? In short, the idea of a "personal" experience with religion where you essentially make it up as you go along with an occasional vague reference to some quasi-church should make you wonder: Does this idea have it completely backward? There is nothing that goes beyond the subjective, personal opinion, normally based on some emotional stimulation or psychological disposition. It's why St. Paul tells us directly to "discern the spirits" (1 Corinthians 12:10) — because they aren't all good spirits.

The sacraments keep objective truth squarely before our eyes. It's all very much a yes-or-no proposition and therefore easy to grasp and then build from. That water really does wash away Original Sin because of the grace present in it, making visible to our senses the invisible reality. That bread and wine really are changed in substance into Our Lord's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. That couple really is now joined in an inseparable bond as Christ is to His Church. "I saw a New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven, adorned as a bride for Her Groom." (Revelation 21:2)

Created matter is the reality of a temporal universe. God called it into existence out of nothing, and He blessed it and called it good. Even with the effects of the Fall, God still uses matter to effect His will:

The sacraments, especially the Blessed Sacrament, are the lifeblood of the Church. And while God is not bound through just the sacraments to impart His grace, He has guaranteed that His grace will always be at work in them. No matter how sinister and evil the minister might be, a hell-bound minister does not prevent God's desire to give His grace to us in the sacraments.

The sacrament itself imparts the grace. It is not a symbol. It is the vehicle by which the grace flows. God has done this to make Himself tangible and accessible, so great is His love for His Church — the Church he died for on Good Friday. Protestant "theology," such as it is, has never grasped the importance of the tangible, material universe. And it never will, because the entire theological system — that heresy's foundation — would be thrown into disarray.

This is likely a knee-jerk response: If Catholics do it, then we object just because Catholics do it. That's not intellectual — it's emotional. Protestantism's entire footing is based on protesting Catholicism, which creates a religion of "cons." It's not so much "we believe this" — it's that "we reject or protest that." Many of the 40,000 denominations, for example, reject either infant baptism, the efficacy of the removal of Original Sin in baptism — or both.

And yet, glaring at them from the pages of Scripture are accounts of baptism, so the Catholic Church's teaching on baptism has to be rejected or protested, and some new innovative understanding is developed in its place that has absolutely no reference point in the first 16 centuries of Christianity. And then, as heresies tend to do, the original followers, after having walked away from the Church, then walk away from each other, as competing personal opinions take center stage.

That splintering continues right up until today. In fact, just last week, perhaps the most famous of all the Southern Baptist congregations, Rick Warren's Saddleback Church (in SoCal), got kicked out of the Southern Baptist Convention over the question of women pastors. And the beat goes on. And you can pick any doctrinal or moral issue you like: the gamut of sexual ethics, divorce and remarriage, the divinity of Christ, worship — any of them — and you will find nothing but a zillion differing opinions rooted in nothing beyond an individual pastor's thought on something.

A little story: My dad — God rest his soul — used to go to the nearby Dunkin' Donuts a few days a week and read a religious book. One day, a local pastor from the "Temple of Christ" came in, decked out in an all-white suit and lots of bling. He walked over to my dad and said, "Good morning. I'm Bishop (whoever)" and my dad, having been a Protestant for his first 25 years and even having gone to Nazarene seminary, said back to him, "Oh, you're Catholic?"

"Bishop" (whoever) responded, "No, I'm (whatever he was)." My dad replied,"Well, you're not a bishop. You can't trace your line back to any of the Apostles." My dad, Russ, was a spunky one. The "bishop" abruptly walked away. Later on, when he would occasionally see my dad at the Dunkin', he would look right past him and ignore him. Oh well.

A bishop becomes a bishop not because of his degrees or the congregation he presides over, but because he was first ordained into the priesthood and then consecrated bishop in succession stretching back 2,000 years to the Apostles. Break that line, and you're on your own. The ministerial authority for the sacraments derives from the bishops — the successors of the Apostles. The power of the sacraments derives from Christ Who instituted them.

In this way, nothing has changed since the first days after the ascension — complete continuity is preserved. Christ is the spiritual power; the bishops are the ministers of that power. The culture is collapsing because, a few centuries back, the original Protestant revolutionaries took an axe to the tree of authority. You cut down legitimate authority, and illegitimate authority will arise in its place, and that illegitimate authority will be rooted in nothing other than the changing sands of time and popular opinion.

The sacraments stand in direct defiance of those tides of change, whether the minister is a monster or a saint. Humans can defy the will of God; they cannot thwart it. This Lent, get to confession — establish the frequent habit. Do not feel you are unworthy and a huge sinner and all that nonsense. If you are in that camp, recall the prophecy from Isaiah 1:18: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

The sacraments exist to make us right with God and as a means to increase in holiness. Talk about a "personal relationship." Our Blessed Lord Himself comes to each of us personally in the sacraments administered through the Church established by Him for this very purpose. Embrace the gift. Do not leave it unwrapped. As the famous English churchman John Henry Newman famously said, "To be deep into history is to cease to be a Protestant."

TRANSCRIPT

Have you noticed the virtual flood of "Jesus" messaging going on these days almost everywhere? And you can bet that Satan loves every bit of it because none of it presents authentic Jesus — none of it. For example, the "He Gets Us" outfit is spending a billion dollars, including on the Super Bowl, to explain to us how Jesus "gets us" — like followers of Christ don't already know that.

Likewise, the streaming smash hit The Chosen, an ecumenical offering. Always beware that word, "ecumenical," when it comes to a mass audience. It really means "watered down so as few people object or are offended as possible," completely sidestepping the reality that the authentic Jesus is offensive. The Gospels go out of their way to inform us of that.

Then there's Franklin Graham, son of the late Rev. Billy Graham, who is also pounding the pulpit about the need for Jesus back in American life. "We Need More Pro-Life Christians Back in Office," the tweet says. Does that include so-called Christians who, on the one hand, claim to be followers of Christ, while, on the other hand, accept divorce and remarriage as well as contraception?

Then, of course, there was the very popular fad "What Would Jesus Do?" memorialized in rubber wristbands and T-shirts for a number of years. In short, "Jesus" makes a comeback every few years or so in American culture, and yet, somehow, American culture such as it is keeps getting worse. How is that possible?

Well, the answer is going to offend a lot of people, but it's the truth. It's because it's not actually Jesus that keeps making a comeback. It's fake Jesus that keeps making a comeback — one that bears almost zero resemblance to actual Jesus. There is, in reality — aside from feeling like you're in on the fad or having an emotional reaction — not anything genuine about all these "Jesus" movements going on.

They have absolute zero staying power because they are nothing but fads. And fads with a history — older folks will remember the so-called Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The followers of that were called "Jesus Freaks," and they too wore wristbands and T-shirts to identify themselves. And I remember them distinctly because my brother Marshall — God rest his soul — who was seven years older than me, got all wrapped up in that for a minute.

That movement was the precursor of the charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church, which began at Duquesne University and quickly transferred to Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, in the early 1970s with its People of Praise community. That's the group, you'll remember, that Amy Coney Barrett was interrogated about during her Supreme Court nomination hearings. That larger movement was even memorialized in secular publications like Time magazine with its outlandish cover: "The Jesus Revolution."

And if you think all these more contemporary Christian rockers like Casting Crowns and Hillsong United are trailblazers, you are about 40 years behind. Yup, it was cringey then, and it's still cringey now. The point of this little trip down memory lane is to point out that all this Jesus stuff today has a long history and, most importantly, accomplished absolutely nothing substantive in the culture.

Within months, for example, after that performance at a Christian concert called "The Way," abortion had become the law of the land. So much for the Spirit sweeping over America — at least, the Holy Spirit. America, with its roots deeply planted in the heresy of Protestantism, has always been susceptible to the phenomenon of "fake Jesus," and it still is today. Large numbers of Catholics have gone along with this, so desperate for a seat at the cultural table that they would tolerate everything and fall for anything.

"Fake Jesus" naturally flows from the Protestant heresy because at the root of that heresy is an understanding that you are your own pope. Luther and all his theological descendants don't really object to the papacy per se, just who the pope is. Protestants are given permission to simply be their own pope — to invent their own theology through their own personal interpretation of Scripture — and all of that inevitably leads to their own "Jesus."

And since that "Jesus" — or perhaps better said, "Jesuses" — are their own creations, then they are fake. Sure, they bear  some resemblance to the actual Jesus. Every cheap knockoff of everything does, but in the end, that's all it is: a facsimile of the real thing. The evils facing modern man, in greater abundance, perhaps, than at any other time in human history, are very real, and the only assault that can be brought against them is the real Jesus.

This pandering Christ all over the culture — the One who "gets us" — is phony baloney. That He "gets us" is little else than an excuse for our sinning. "I'm gonna divorce my wife because that cute little thing over there — she understands me. She's my soulmate. Jesus 'gets me.' "

The Protestant heresy is alive and well in Catholic circles as well. The "Jesus" of the Jesus Freak movement, in all its latest iterations, would never damn anyone, never exact justice, never demand repentance."Cool Jesus, cozy Christ" never calls for anything greater, never summons forth from us the move to actual holiness.

All "The Chosen" Christ does is make an appeal to your emotions. And that's why you see nothing in these historical trends except emotional responses. There is no appeal to the intellect. No appeal to meditate on the divine truths, to plumb the mysteries of God, to completely change one's life and thinking and orientation.

Saint Paul says, by way of warning, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever." (Hebrews 13:8) Just because a soul possesses goodwill does not mean that soul cannot be duped, nor does it mean it will be saved. Almost nothing worthwhile on earth comes without pain and sacrifice. Usually, comfort and "feeling good" don't even enter into the equation in the day-to-day.

Being understood, being comfortable — those are the rewards of the struggle, not part of the struggle. If they were part of the struggle, then where would the struggle be? Take these words to the bank, and not because Church Militant says them — we are only repeating them. If you have a problem with them, go see the Incarnate Logos and take it up with Him. He who does not pick up his cross daily will be damned.

TRANSCRIPT

Increasingly, men of goodwill are realizing and saying out loud that America's decline is owing to losing a deep spiritual war. But even as that reality is coming into focus for many, others are abandoning religion in general, Christianity in particular and Catholicism specifically.

It hasn't quite hit desperation mode yet, but it has reached a level of high alert as various generic Christian groups, as well as some Catholics, take to social media and various public relations campaigns to peddle Christ and the Good News. The problem, however, is — put simply — it is Christ without the Cross that is being peddled: "cool" Jesus, "relevant" Christianity.

What's being presented — and consequently rejected — is a more worldly Christ: easy to relate to, a comfortable Christ, the answer to all your little problems. The world is rejecting this cozy Christ as the elixir to worldly problems precisely because the world provides much more stimulating solutions to the problems it creates.

You name it:

Comfortable Christ can't hold a candle to any of that. I mean, who wants to listen to the personal opinion of some preacher about what a passage from Scripture means when they can be getting high and having sex with whoever wants to hook up with them? In the end, the world and all its intoxications are much more appealing than Christ without His Cross.

Most modern philosophies and all the man-made religions — which is to say, everything other than Catholicism — are ultimately about some form of self-actualization, becoming "a better you" for your own sake. Do this, read that, go here — and you will be richer or better liked or shedding vast amounts of fat or no longer smoking or you name it.

You will be better according to standards you have set, not had imposed on you from outside. In the end, it's all about you and how you define your own happiness. And the only difference between you and the ne'er-do-well hanging out in his parent's basement masturbating and playing video games is you each just define "happiness" differently. But in the end, you are identical in your philosophy; you just have different ideas of happiness.

So consider all that and why a Christ without His Cross has almost no appeal. In fact, for most people, apparently, Christ has less appeal. All these religions and philosophies and belief systems revolve around the person, the individual, and bear no relation to anything outside themselves. The idea of sacrificing for a greater good, for the other, doesn't even register. Just look at the divorce rates and the number of children who have no dad in their lives.

The social consequences of enough members of society looking inward are devastating. And when raised to a national scale, they point to the end of a nation, its demise and ultimate downfall. Is there anyone in America who does not seriously recognize this is where we have arrived as a nation: the end of the road?

The country, of course, can be likened to a train, a very long train, many cars, and even though the engine and immediate cars behind it have jumped the tracks, there are still many cars back that have not yet come to the moment of derailment — but they will. Once the engine has jumped, all the rest are doomed. The great casualty of the religion of self-indulgence has been the family and hence the nation.

The moral life of a nation, and ultimately its health, is measured by how well it corresponds with natural law. That view, of course, has the purple-haired freaks with face piercings and so forth screaming and howling — but their protests prove the very point. Natural law demands — and will enforce on its own — that a nation of the self-absorbed will perish. Consider the shrieks from the anti–natural law gang to the country's funeral dirge.

Nature follows a pattern, and deviation from that pattern of nature brings catastrophe — the greater the deviation, the greater the corresponding catastrophe. It's taken about 60 years — four generations — for the effects of throwing off natural law to be fully felt, but here we are:

Every violation of natural law you can imagine is now sacrosanct and protected and defended and enshrined in positive law. And frankly, what else would any rational person expect when natural law is jettisoned? When the engine jumps the tracks, the remaining cars all derail one after another as well. There is no other way: Man's end is God, period — not himself.

God is the Author of natural law. It is He who established nature and, most importantly, what nature is. Our nature — our human nature, fallen as it is — is directed toward God. But since we are fallen, it is always a struggle, a massive fight to control the engine and keep it from jumping the tracks. We need help from outside ourselves, a power that does not derive from us naturally to fight our fallen natures. We are self-indulgent — without any additional help needed — thank you very much.

Sacrifice does not come naturally to us. In fact, we generally find it repulsive and something to be avoided. This is why people run from the Cross and pretend to embrace a Christ without one. But down deep, they don't embrace Him. They know He is lacking in the essentials. So, ultimately, they reject Him. In fact, they reject Him more without His Cross than they ever have Him with it.

Paradoxically, the Cross makes you stronger even with its sometimes crushing weight. It's like that extra weight forces the engine to stay on the tracks. The absence of the added weight allows the train engine to jump. Like the natural laws of physics operate as laws, so too does the natural moral law, providing the necessary ballast to keep the ship steady, reinforcing its ability to withstand the enormous pressures of ocean waves and tides.

The nation has abandoned natural moral law and, as a result, is in a free fall. The cliff has been gone over and that cannot be reversed. All that awaits is the crash landing below. The Cross, however, can still, even at this late hour, be embraced and mitigate the devastation waiting below. It doesn't have to be as disastrous as it looks to be right now.

If enough can be salvaged, we can resurrect a nation bent on its own destruction. But it's going to mean some very direct conversations — the unearthing of some very unpleasant topics — all to extract the poison. Standing at the center of any victory will have to be the Cross with all its terror and fright. But the world without the Cross is even more terror-inducing.

The world without the Cross, without sacrifice born from love, is nightmarish — a place without hope from which there is no escape. The Cross, however, points beyond itself to something greater, but as St. Paul came to realize, it must be preached. Christ crucified is the only hope: no Cross, no glory. No Good Friday, no Easter Sunday.

Michael Voris and Bradley Eli discuss how both the secular and the Catholic media have vilified Church Militant since the 2016 presidential election.

TRANSCRIPT

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary.

There is a widening split within the Republican Party and it's not the obvious Trump vs. DeSantis issue. It's the rank and file vs. the Party elites. It's not exactly like that's new to the Party, but in recent years, it's become apparent even to the most Pollyanna Republican on Main Street that the elites don't represent them anymore — not that they really ever did.

A recent survey by the American Principles Project — APP — of Grand Old Party primary voters shows that Republican voters are much more interested in defending American culture than so-called conservative elites. The culture wars have been of little interest to the Paul Ryan–Mitch McConnell ruling class, and that disinterest stretches back decades.

Multiple so-called conservative outlets simply dismissed the culture wars, sensing that Americans in general were reasonably down with the sexual revolution and its aftermath. They were correct in that analysis. It's only now — in the wake of the massive devastation brought on by the 1960s-era train wreck — that more than a few are beginning to wake up.

Quoting from survey results of those GOP primary voters, "There was also significant GOP voter enthusiasm for candidates who back federal laws banning permanent sex-changing medical procedures for minors (76 percent), prohibiting biological males from competing in girls' sports (69 percent), and requiring age-verification measures for pornographic websites to protect kids (86 percent) ... ."

Those are significant majorities. The APP survey also showed that while there does remain support for the pet projects of Party elites — like social security reform, for example, and other economic issues — they scored much further down the list of top concerns. The primaries are a year away and duking it out over religion, race, gender and U.S. history is a sure way to win the votes of these primary voters. That's the good news — that the rank and file still have something of a pulse.

Now for the bad news: The Party elites don't hold any special animus against culture war issues per se; their sole interest is in winning, nothing more. In their calculus, while the culture war issues play well with the 40% of GOP voters who turn out in the primaries, the rest of the GOP and all of the Democrats hate all that and actually support the evil.

So from the elites' perspective, the culture war issues are losers in the general election. And frankly, they're right. Americans have proven time and again that they are largely indifferent to sexual immorality and other cultural issues. And when these topics or candidates who support them come up on the ballot against a Democrat (who supports abortion, contraception, the trans or gay agenda), that Democrat usually wins.

The GOP elites, regardless of how they may personally feel about them, plan their strategy around the culture wars being a sure loser come November. It's not the 1980s anymore. And that's not to say the 1980s were anything great on the culture war front, but given the current state of affairs, looking back, those were halcyon days.

Today, America has so morally deteriorated that many insightful people have true and abiding concerns about whether any of it can be salvaged. But the rank and file of the GOP, which represents about 10–12% of the entire U.S. population, do have some hope, even if it does appear an unreasonable one.

The culture war issues, however, need a further breaking down. While some issues, like race, critical race theory, Second Amendment rights and religious liberty are specifically American — and people can and should rally around the flag on those issues — notice the shift in what constitutes a "cultural issue."

Sexual immorality and abortion and homosexuality aren't on the list anymore because even among GOP primary voters there is wide acceptance of these. But these are the very cause of where we are now as a culture. It was sexual issues that the commie Democrats rode to power on. And too many Republicans — grassroots and elites — were either happy to go along or failed to recognize the danger.

They might remain somewhat mum, for example, on "gay marriage," but they will not come out and oppose it. They might remain mum on other things like contraception, but they will not oppose it when the rubber hits the road. Those things, like abortion, are now baked into the American consciousness as acceptable or at least not worth the fight — not the hill to die on.

So from an authentic Christian point of view, it might be interesting to watch the unfolding GOP war over Trump and DeSantis. But if by some chance one of them were to win the White House come next year, how much change on the moral issues could you really expect to see?

Sure, gas prices would go down, the trade imbalance would level off somewhat, taxes would decrease; we could all afford eggs again. Baby formula would be back on the shelves, interest rates would stabilize and decrease, CRT would be held at bay in schools; lots of good things would happen.

But in the end, the moral decay would continue, just at a slower pace — perhaps. America's illness is not predominantly economic, although that's where everyone can easily see the symptoms. But it's foundationally a rejection of natural moral law. And when that happens, everything else sooner or later spins out of control.

We are now in the out-of-control clown world portion of the collapse. And no amount of fighting about the Second Amendment is going to fix that. America is sick, and only a healthy dose of Catholicism can cure it — because only Catholicism has the intellectual heft to overcome all these issues and provide an answer for all of this. Americans need to convert or watch this nation die.

TRANSCRIPT

Late last week, Biden's Pentagon released a shocking update for military personnel, greatly expanding access to abortion for active-duty soldiers as well as their dependents. The new policy provides for fully paid travel expenses for troops who have to go out of state to obtain an abortion and up to three weeks of leave, including to accompany a dependent or spouse.

What's more, Biden ordered all branches of the military to have the policy operational within 30 days. There is also, contained within its pages, a warning to any commander who might try to slow down the process in hopes of getting the women to reconsider — for example, by speaking to a chaplain or seeking further medical counsel.

According to the Military Times, a senior defense official said,

"We wrote the policy for the 95% of commanders that are going to do the right thing. ... We're going to have to go after those commanders who do the bad thing, just like we go after toxic commanders. And so we'll have to rely on current policy and procedures in those situations." 

The policy says it was issued to negate any impact of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade for women stationed at military installations in states with pro-life laws now on the books. Monstrous — there is no other term for this.

The existing military policy had said a woman in the service could get an abortion for certain limited reasons at a military facility, but if the facility did not provide abortions, things might get a little difficult depending on what part of the world she might be stationed in.

This new policy allows a woman and her spouse to hop on a plane and go anywhere they can kill their child and take up to three weeks to do it — and you foot the bill. The same applies to a dependent child who is pregnant. The parent or parents can go wherever with her and get an abortion. This new policy, by the way, was issued by the same Pentagon that couldn't figure out what do about Chinese spy balloons flying over America.

So here we have yet another case staring the U.S. bishops dead in the face: the most abortion-loving president in U.S. history — even more than Obama, and that's saying something — who also happens to be a baptized Catholic.

And what is their response? "Ah, give him Holy Communion. Come on, man, old Joe ain't that bad. Who are you to judge? Jesus ate with sinners." What happens when a CO (commanding officer) is Catholic and is now put in the moral quandary of having to sign off on one of his subordinates going to kill her child, and he knows about it and signs the order of permission?

He can't say anything to her or even recommend she talk with someone else or even suggest he or others might help her in some way. If so, the Pentagon labels him "toxic" and will go after him as they promise in the new policy.

Looking back over the past 50 years or so, it's important to understand that we got to this point as a nation because of the cowardice of many bishops and the downright evil of some. Almost all looked the other way, and some even encouraged the sexual revolution for their own ends.

That sexual revolution rushed into Catholic colleges and schools, and those institutions began churning out the Joe Bidens and Nancy Pelosis and John Kerrys and the whole sorry lot. And even though that group is now in their 80s, the damage they have caused will long outlive them. And given the current state of the once great American nation, it looks like their damage will outlive the country as well.

Remember, when it comes time to bury America, it will be a Catholic funeral presided over by a cohort of wicked men who never cared for anything or anyone except themselves. The pain of Hell these men will undergo is beyond description — bishops and their political children.

TRANSCRIPT

That FBI report discussing Church Militant and naming some other groups in a list in the appendix is getting a lot of attention — increased attention. The New York Post just recently published its analysis of it, as did The Signal and The Washington Post, including an insightful follow-up piece by The Federalist. There's a portion of the Federalist piece we'd like to highlight for you because we think the publication may be onto something.

The context of the passage is that the U.S. bishops' conference has still not said anything publicly about the FBI dossier — which is beyond strange. In fact, the only bishop to say anything is the bishop whose diocese is home to the local field office that produced the dossier — Richmond.

Bishop Barry Knestout of that Richmond diocese only released a statement after a phone-call campaign by faithful Catholics to his office demanding he say something. So days after the report was leaked and it was gaining media traction and that call-in campaign, he reluctantly released a statement saying what the FBI did was bad. Thanks, Bishop.

But as we said, the Federalist piece has an interesting take on why the bishops may have just ignored this whole story. Here's the relevant passage from the article entitled "U.S. Bishops Silent After FBI Claims Conservative Catholics Are 'White Supremacists'":

The bishops' silence on the FBI report attacking traditional Catholics likely has to do in part with Church Militant — the only media organization named in the report. The FBI's association between Church Militant and so-called violent white supremacists was unfounded and embarassingly badly sourced, and it would be easy for the Catholic hierarchy to come to their defense. But Church Militant is known for stridently reporting on the corruption, sexual abuse, and wokeism infecting the USCCB. Anyone familiar with the USCCB's disdain for Church Militant knows the bishops are more likely to revel in its slander than to rebuke it.

That is a very important insight on multiple levels. Couple that with the all-but-proven-in-a-court-of-law connection between the bishops' behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get our 2021 Baltimore Rally protest against them canceled by the city and the ensuing federal lawsuit that we won — twice — and a pattern begins to emerge.

But wait — there's more. In 2017, in a Vatican-approved publication, La Civiltà Cattolica, extremely close papal confidante, Jesuit priest Fr. Antonio Spadaro wrote a slanderous article naming Church Militant specifically. The article was entitled "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism: A Surprising Ecumenism." The point of the piece was to insist that faithful Catholics joining up politically with conservative Evangelicals were forming what Spadaro labeled "an ecumenism of hate."

There is a shocking rhetoric used, for example, by the writers of Church Militant, a successful US-based digital platform that is openly in favor of a political ultraconservatism and uses Christian symbols to impose itself. This abuse is called 'authentic Christianity.' And to show its own preferences, it has created a close analogy between Donald Trump and Emperor Constantine, and between Hillary Clinton and Diocletian. The American elections in this perspective were seen as a 'spiritual war.' This warlike and militant approach seems most attractive and evocative to a certain public, especially given that the victory of Constantine — it was presumed impossible for him to beat Maxentius and the Roman establishment — had to be attributed to a divine intervention: in hoc signo vinces.

We'll just let that sit there. Later on, during a trip to Africa visiting Jesuit seminarians, Pope Francis himself pointed to that specific article and recommended it to his listeners. One wonders why Jesuit seminarians in Africa would have any concern about the productions of Church Militant on the other side of the world talking about American politics. But — oh, well — it is a universal Church, right?

All of this is to say that the lefties in the Church as well as the Church of Nice establishment have had the long knives out for Church Militant for many years now. That they sit silently by when faithful American Catholics are targeted by their own government and slandered cannot come as a surprise.

In fact, you have to come to expect it. It's part of the price for saying out loud what the bishops long ago gave up saying themselves. In hoc signo evinces — indeed.