Church Militant The Vortex Feed

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First, allow us to continue offering our gratitude for those of you contributing to our end-of-the-year fundraiser. We know times are tough right now, thanks to the Marxist takeover of much of the country, but we too feel the bite of all that, so any contributions you make are most appreciated. If you have not yet donated and would still like to, please just click on the link below — and thank you in advance.

What we do here at Church Militant each and every day is simple: We report the truth. Why we do it is for the salvation of souls, but what we do is critical. Church Militant was the very first Catholic apostolate to pour massive resources into internet video on a daily basis. Others have since followed our lead. We've been doing this for almost 17 years now, blazing the trail — and it's a trail that, frankly, needed to be blazed.

The American public, including Catholics, has long ago become accustomed to watching its information and entertainment, not reading anywhere near as much. Like it or not, that's the reality. And now it has exploded to gigantic proportions with dozens and dozens of internet offerings. We were the leading edge of this back in the day and have been around longer than even secular outlets like Netflix and so forth.

While we produce all kinds of content — this Vortex, for example, Headlines, Evening News, blockbuster investigations — it has all taken on the unmistakable quality of a new era in the life of the Catholic laity. Think about this: Up until only very recently, the idea of a Catholic press was a myth, at least as we all understand the press.

Before Vatican II, with the rare exception of publications like The Wanderer (the oldest lay-owned-and-run publication in the nation stretching back to the Civil War), almost every newspaper originated from either a religious community or a diocese. When the religious communities began disintegrating one by one, the laity stumbled in and picked up the slack.

But even then, as we see with EWTN, for example, if an outfit is not totally independent of the hierarchy, it is going to be compromised — sometimes substantially. Many of these are outfits that guarantee their continued existence by never ticking off the bishops. They are granted access to the halls of power and are part of the establishment because they echo what the bishops want repeated.

They also even enjoy the promotion of the hierarchy, who grant them interviews and such, as long as they toe the party line — step outside, and it's curtains. For example, how many stories have you seen in the non-free Catholic press about the health risks arising from a certain medical treatment pushed by the Marxists?

Yet despite all that is coming out now and being revealed, not a single bishop has come forward and apologized to the faithful, his chancery staff, his priests (some of whom were forced to go along with all that), even seminarians who were not permitted to return to their studies without a stick in the arm.

Yet not a single Catholic establishment press outfit has dared to go near that story. Sacraments were denied, people were not given last rites, schools were closed and parishes were shuttered for months and months — even for more than a year in various places. It turned out to be a fraud, and yet still, not a word from the bishops' stenographers, known as the Catholic press — because they aren't the press. The purpose of a free press — meaning independent press — is to hold those in power accountable.

That single point is what's new in the world of Catholic media. Never before has there ever been any large-scale operation from within the Church to call out the malfeasance of bishops — their corruption — and broadcast it to the world with the goal of bringing about change for the better — and certainly not in the world of video. Church Militant started this, introducing secular, free-press principles into the Catholic world.

And yes, the bishops hate our guts for it; some of them even say so. What we have uncovered over the years and backed up by our reporting is that the degree of corruption and cover-up by these men is staggering — financial, moral, liturgical, legal and political. It boggles the mind.

In the secular realm, political reporters are the watchdog of the government, at least in theory. We all know that hasn't been the case for decades — but it looks good on paper. But even the secular free press does play by the rules of industry professionalism in areas of ethical guidelines among the competition. That is not the case in the Catholic press world. The corruption of the bishops and their love of money (among other things) has spilled over into many outfits in even the independent Catholic press world.

There are clickbait headlines, editorials thinly disguised as "news," just plain old bad reporting — not checking sources, not telling readers that the reporters often have a conflict of interest in the story they are "reporting" on. If you have a dog in the fight in a story you are reporting on and don't come clean with that, it's journalistically unethical. But it's much more common than you might think.

Some stories, for example, are run on behalf of a particular donor's point of view to keep his contributions flowing in. That is not done by an independent Catholic media outfit. It's just controlled by something other than the bishops but just as duplicitous — in some ways, even more.

We say all this because any media outfit rises or falls on its credibility, period. That's true even in the secular world. In the Catholic world, it's true even more because your credibility is tied not just to the truth of what you are reporting, but to the consequences of your reporting on the welfare of souls. We don't report what we report to get people enraged or to donate to us.

We report what we report so people are properly informed about what's going on and can make correct choices — meaning, choices that lead to their salvation and that of the ones dear to them. Some people donate to this work of ours because they believe it is important, and it is. The world is not only changing but changing at a rate unimagined even 10 years ago by most of us.

That means new challenges, new tactics, continuing information (vetted, investigated, well-presented) to help people see through the murkiness and plot their course to Heaven. Church Militant has never compromised this mission. No one produces information like we do — independently — with journalistic professionalism and integrity while also remaining steadfast in properly presenting the authentic teachings of Holy Mother Church, even while many are tempted into schism or heresy, not to mention apostasy.

This is what we are asking for your help with: to maintain what we do here, how we do it and why we do it. There's going to be a lot more explosions along the way in the coming months and years, and Catholics, as well as others of goodwill, need a clear, clarion voice to help them struggle through all this.

That voice is Church Militant's, the leader in every bit of this. So please click on the donate link and contribute whatever you feel you are able, before the end of the year. Thank you in advance for your generosity.

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Our thanks to all of you, once again, for your continuing support and generosity for the work we do here each and every day, as we turn the page on 2022 and look ahead to 2023. If you'd like to contribute to our end-of-2022 fundraiser, please just click on the provided link below — and thank you in advance.

We are very aware of the sacrifice many of you make on our behalf, especially in this current economy, which, by all predictions, isn't going to get any easier in the coming year. And speaking of 2023, in the next few weeks, we will be making some visible changes to our content presentation.

Every now and then in the media world, it's necessary to change things up a bit and produce things in a new and improved fashion — and you can look forward to this coming soon. In preparation, in the last few weeks, we've shortened the time of our Evening News program so we can direct more resources to new programming.

It takes a lot of people here working, not just on camera but especially behind the scenes, to crank out the volume of news, information and commentary Church Militant produces each day — and, unfortunately, we don't have unlimited resources. So we are redistributing the workload to bring you even more analysis and commentary, not just in the area of straight-up theology and faith life, but, just as importantly, in the application — the relevance of the Faith in everyday life.

Unless you're a hermit who has taken certain vows to live apart from the world as much as humanly possible in isolation from day-to-day life, then walking through the world and understanding daily the relevance of our faith is critical. Our Lord sent His followers into the world to baptize it and make disciples of all nations.

But given the complexities of today's world, the never-ending news cycle and what often appears as one debilitating effect after another (especially in the Church), the Great Commission, as it is called, can sometimes seem next to impossible. Even faithful Catholics can seem buffeted and tossed about by modern life with its constant barrage of sadness, confusion and distraction.

So we are shifting the direction of some of our content, beginning early this new year to focus on just this: the application and relevance of our Catholic faith in today's crazy world. More than just covering contemporary events (which we will continue to do because we all live in this world and need to be aware), we will also be examining events from the perspective of their relevance to our faith life.

We have, of course, been doing this for many years (blazing the trail in doing so among all Catholic media), but what you will see is a greater emphasis on this, to provide an even greater spiritual aid as we walk through this increasingly maddening world.

So as we move through day-to-day life, how should we look at — and even more importantly, think about — these events in terms of our faith and, of course, most importantly, our salvation? Our Lord established the Church to be the sole means of not just combating evil but defeating it.

Evil — the power of Hell — is much stronger than our frail, fallen ability to withstand it. We cannot save ourselves. Left to our own devices, evil will always crush us underfoot. It's for this reason that the Eternal Logos was incarnated and then established a Church to last throughout time, and if we enter into it and remain faithful (even when we fall), that victory could be achieved.

That is the good news. The fight now has meaning. The victory can be won. Heaven has provided an opportunity, a tiny crack through which we can escape the pains of this world and the everlasting flames and torments of the next. For 2,000 years, this has been the view and understanding of the Church (the saints, the Fathers, the Doctors, the martyrs).

Each successive generation has had to plow through the world on the way to meriting salvation, made possible only because of the love and mercy of God. But those two parts there — the world and salvation — bring about a dynamic tension in our lives. Our faith lives must win out, but that cannot happen in isolation from the world.

In fact, Abp. Sheen used to refer to the world as the "theater of redemption." Correct! Our Lord has redeemed us — something we could never have done on our own. It's why His chief way of being understood is as savior, not teacher (although He obviously taught) or miracle worker (although He obviously performed miracles) but as savior, the bringer of salvation.

All we need to do is participate in that salvation, as St. Paul stresses to us, to work it out in fear and trembling. Well, that working out happens in the world, in our lives; so each generation and age of the Church has to do that "working out" in the context of the times in which it finds itself.

However poorly — and it is pretty poorly — the way the last four generations of Church leaders have executed the call to holiness brought forward at Vatican II, what remains the individual mission of each Catholic's life is personal sanctity.

But without a doubt, some ages are tougher than others, and they present challenges and obstacles that appear to make the call to holiness seem next to impossible. As we look around and see many of those dear to us leave the Faith and cave to the world, it can sometimes appear hopeless.

But followers of Our Lord can never be without hope. In fact, hope is one of the three theological virtues, along with faith and charity. Therefore, hope is critical to the life of holiness, since all three of those virtues have God Himself as their final end. So the tension, the grinding of our faith and the world that occurs in each of our lives as those two rub up against each other, has to be seen and thought about from the perspective of faith and the world.

Understanding the forces at play and thinking about how to combat all of this means thinking with a Catholic mind and acting with a Catholic sense. All this will be a much greater point of emphasis for us here at Church Militant, for your (as well as our) benefit — the relevance of the Faith and its application in our world.

That's what 2023 holds in store for us: a greater linking up of all of us, better application of what we do every day and being a help to you in the struggle we each face every day. We think it will be of great service to you, temporally as well as spiritually. We are, after all, a composite of body and soul, and each needs to be tended to.

Near the end of the Creed each Sunday, do we not say, I look forward to the resurrection of the dead? Our bodies are saved as well, the same bodies whose eyes look out on the world. We who speak with and to those around us, trying to help them with our hands and intellects also try to achieve salvation and participate each day in the opportunity provided by the Savior.

The Faith must be understood, not only in relation to itself but also in terms of the world, where it eventually must be applied and made relevant. This is what you will see and hear even more of this coming year (and moving forward) here at Church Militant.

Think of it (perhaps) as Church Militant 2.0. You'll see some cosmetic changes to the website to make it more user-friendly, and you'll see some new programs. But what you won't see is any retreat from the mission. It will, in fact, be quite the opposite: a greater commitment to that same mission, with ways of helping you think and act to fulfill Our Lord's Great Commission to go into the world and help save it.

That's what 2023 holds in store for us, even as we rocket into uncertain times, keenly aware that evil is on a rampage. The baptized have been given power to overcome evil if only they remain faithful and committed to employing this power, no matter how much of a struggle it is.

Heaven costs. It's so expensive, in fact, that it costs your life. And no one, absolutely no one, achieves it without paying the ultimate price: death to self. The Cross is fearsome. It's terrifying. It is suffering and pain, even agony at times. But for those who persevere, it is, ultimately, victory. It is conquest over the world. So let's get to it and renew the commitment to sharpen our bayonets and fix them in place.

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Many of you were extremely generous in our end-of-the-year donation request, and we'd like to show what your money helps produce. Late last week, we did a perspective piece: our 2022: Year in Review.

In many ways, it showcases what we do so well here at Church Militant: look at events and contextualize them in terms of the Faith.

Since we reviewed many stories from the entire year, the end result is necessarily comprehensive — but, again, it highlights what we do so well here at this apostolate.  

The crew here busted hump to put all this together for you, and it is well worth the watch, despite its length. So please watch and enjoy the full-length Church Militant 2022: Year in Review.

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A programming note for everyone: Tomorrow evening at 5 p.m. EST (after the funeral and burial at St. Peter's in Rome), Church Militant will be airing a special presentation called Remembering Benedict — a look back on his life and papacy and the many enigmas surrounding the man faithful Catholics called "God's Rottweiler," as a tip of the hat to his adherence to the faith.

Benedict was elected in 2005, and he wrote a last testament in 2006, a custom for those elected to the throne of St. Peter. The last part of that testament bears intense scrutiny for all men of goodwill because of what he says: 

Stand firm in the faith! Do not let yourselves be confused! It often seems that science — the natural sciences on the one hand and historical research (especially exegesis of Sacred Scripture) on the other — is able to offer irrefutable results at odds with the Catholic faith. I have experienced the transformations of the natural sciences since long ago and have been able to see how, on the contrary, apparent certainties against the faith have vanished, proving to be not science, but philosophical interpretations only apparently pertaining to science.

Even though he would not die for 16 more years, he was writing those words in view of his death — literally taking a parting shot at the false gods of this world. He plainly understood that these false gods exist for one reason and one reason only: to upend and eradicate the Catholic faith.

In his last official words, he echoes the thoughts of Pope St. Pius X in his landmark encyclical Pascendi Domini Gregis, Latin for "feed my sheep," written almost 100 years earlier.

Both men had great insight into the attacks on Sacred Scripture posing as historical research or biblical exegesis.

For so-called science to refute Scripture has been a ploy of the Freemason modernists for 300 years now. And yet the truth of Scripture remains undimmed, despite their agitations and warring against it.

Freemasons, modernists and Marxists attack scripture so violently because they know it emerged from the lived practice of those first-century Catholics. It was that part of the Tradition that was written down, but it is not the totality of the Catholic faith.

After all, there was no agreed-upon canon of Scripture (what we would today call the Bible) until Pope Damasus settled the matter in A.D. 405. He then assigned Jerome the task of translating the scriptures from Greek into Latin, a task he fulfilled in the cave at Bethlehem.

It was St. Jerome who said that "ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ," and that became a strategy for the enemies of the Church. If they could undermine the Scriptures, they reasoned, then they could tear down the Church.

They understood the connection between the Church and the Scriptures: that the words of the Bible are the Church's own, breathed onto the parchments of history. If they could sow doubt about them, they could create confusion in the minds of many about the Church Herself.

So for almost 200 years now, that is what they have done and, we might add, not without some major success along the way. 

This is why Pope Benedict's final call to us is to "stand firm in the faith! Do not let yourselves be confused!" He goes on to conclude that "Jesus Christ is truly the way, the truth and the life — and the Church, with all its insufficiencies, is truly His body."

And on this point about the body of Christ, remember the sufferings He endured in His body while still on earth. He chose to undergo hunger, cold, deprivation, thirst, heat, pain and, eventually, the tortures of death.

But because He chose those did not make them less real. In fact, because His human body in its natural form was perfect, vivified as it was by His divinity, all that would have been much more agonizing for Him than we mere mortals.

In these troubling times in the Church and, consequently, the world, Benedict points to the never-ending reality that even "with all its insufficiencies, [the Church] is truly His body."

Just as His human body was pinned lifeless to the Cross — flesh ripped from it, all water and blood drained from it — beneath the horror, not a single bone of that body had been broken. The Church remains divine, despite the human evil playing out in it. 

The Church remains His body throughout all time until He Himself draws down the curtains on human history; the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And as He departed from the direct view of men at His Ascension, He left His own last testament: "I shall be with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world."

This is the ultimate reality of the God that Benedict points us to, helping us to stand firm in the Faith against the attacks of false gods.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. My He and the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Joseph Ratzinger, pray for us.

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A programming note: Church Militant will be airing a special presentation on Pope Benedict today at 5 p.m. EST. We invite you to please watch.

Pope Benedict has now been laid to rest, entombed in the grotto of crypts under St. Peter's. He's alongside the bodies of many previous popes, including, of course, St. Peter himself (the first pope), which is why St. Peter's Basilica bears his name.

It's a two-thousand-year connection, a straight line back to Peter. It was Christ Himself who gave Simon the keys to the kingdom after changing his name to Peter.

After raising Simon Bar-Jonah to great heights by announcing that He would be the holder of the keys, Peter lost privilege by betraying Our Blessed Lord. And Peter did betray Him, not just deny Him. His betrayal came in the form of denial, but it was a betrayal nonetheless. Not much different than Judas' betrayal, in fact. 

From the moment at Caesarea Philippi when Our Lord designated Simon as Peter and future leader of the Apostles by virtue of the keys, he was known as Peter. However, after the Resurrection, Jesus called him Simon Bar-Jonah, reverting back to his pre-designation name.

It would have been an emotional blow to Peter, and he would likely have felt it keenly.

Along the shores of the sea, Our Lord says to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" This would have been an extremely difficult thing for Peter to have heard.

First, Our Lord puts the question of his love firmly in front of him, not as a means of humiliation, but as a way to undo his betrayal of Him in the courtyard during the trial where Peter cursed and blasphemed that he didn't know Him.

Second, this occurs in the presence of some of the other Apostles, giving it a public character. Fitting, however, because what Peter did in the courtyard was a public act.

Third, that stinging name, "Simon Son of John," replaced the more intimate "Peter."

Peter was being given the chance to undo his betrayal, but since his betrayal had come in three separate moments, Our Blessed Lord asks Simon Son of John to reaffirm his commitment and love three separate times.

Every sin and every transgression must be countered. This will be the case for each and every one of us. God's justice must be embraced, but His justice is encapsulated in His mercy.

The encounter by the seashore with the other Apostles came weeks after the Resurrection, but even before appearing in the upper room to the Apostles that first Easter, He had already privately appeared to Peter.

It was not there at that very first post-resurrection appearance to Peter that He asked Peter to set things straight, to reaffirm his loyalty and his love, to undo and reverse his sin. The first utterance was of love, not justice, even though justice was waiting in the wings. It is always best delivered in charity to those willing to accept charity.

In the days and weeks following, much will be discussed about the reign and the pontificate of Pope Benedict, and this is fitting. Some of it will be uncomfortable.

There are many questions surrounding the remaining days of his time as pope before he stepped down, paving the way for Pope Francis and the ensuing confusion, even chaos. But any analysis of all this must be conducted in an air of charity.

The Church and the world are in historic times, and much of this was brought on by the single decision of a man named Joseph who had publicly said at his installation, "Pray for me that I may not flee for fear of the wolves" and then did it anyway.

The world and, most especially, the Church are in desperate need of virtuous men of action. We are in a war, and wars are not won by internal virtue alone, although they're definitely lost for lack of it.

With the passing of Joseph Ratzinger — the last pope of what we could style "the old way" — it will now take an iron resolve born out of love for Our Lord and His Church to resist and hold fast.

Much more than just the body of Joseph Ratzinger has been entombed under St. Peter's. The Church and the world have entered a new Dark Ages. And just as the Church led the way out of those dark ages of the past, it will have to do it again.

But there will be much pain and gnashing of teeth, and likely much blood spilled along the way. The times demand men of action, arising from their virtue to face the coming age. The actions must combine faith and reason, as the actions of virtuous Catholic men always have.

It is not just to Simon that Our Lord directs this soul-searing question: "Do you love me more than these?"

Today's Vortex features our special Remembering Benedict — reflecting on the life of "Gods Rottweiler," Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI.

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With the death and burial of Pope Benedict now in the past, whatever small modicum of decorum or standing on protocol that the crazies in the Vatican and throughout the larger Church may have exercised will surely be gone now.

The machinery of the Church has been overrun from within and turned into a propaganda outfit for the new world order run by the likes of Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau and many others.

In fact, the co-opting of the Church was a necessary step in all this for them because it "baptized" their efforts, putting a respectable face on super-control efforts like climate change, the destruction of borders, pandemics and so forth.

When Antonio Gramsci founded the Italian Communist Party a hundred years ago, he wrote that the biggest obstacle to world domination would be the Catholic Church.

The Church is not only universal (which is the definition of the Greek word from which we derive "Catholic") in its teachings and doctrines and theology, it's also just plain old normal universal; it's everywhere.

For a movement like Marxist communism to try and take over the world (its stated goal), it would sooner or later come face to face with the Church established by Christ, the only institution on earth capable of preventing communism's success.

So Gramsci, Stalin and eventually Mao Zedong set about in various ways to undermine and weaken the Church in anticipation of the eventual face-to-face encounter.

Gramsci understood that Western civilization was founded on Catholicism, and the best way to get to the Church would be through the institutions the Church built. His plan would later come to be called "the long march through the institutions," but before it was called that, the march had already begun.

Education and the media were the first to be targeted. First was higher education, where so-called leaders would eventually be produced who could carry the manifesto of destruction into other fields — and they did.

It was not long near the end of the 19th century before newspapers began publishing stories about eugenics and its benefits — all of that funded by the Rockefellers. Birth control quickly followed as not just a eugenics method, but as an avenue to freedom for women unshackled from their biology, the media said.

The end of the 19th century and the next roughly 50–60 years saw the groundwork laid for the systematic dismantling of the family.

First came its devaluing. Indeed, the devaluing of human life in general - as in, there are too many people on the planet and we need to save the planet. This was evidenced in a famous work, which proved to be a pack of lies, by Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich called Population Bomb, published in 1968.

The staunchest defender of the family and children has always been Catholicism, recognizing in the family the divine will for proper order in society, as well as a nurturing home for the raising of children. That teaching is despised by the new-world-order crowd who have set about to not just devalue the family but also redefine the family.

Now, there are all types of "families": gay families, blended families, trans families, single-parent families and fatherless homes — and that includes setups overseen by two disturbed homosexuals posing as male role models. Fatherless homes damage children, sometimes severely.

But the destruction and trivialization of the family, propagated in the media and cultural institutions, is just one way, albeit a significant one, that the Marxists have worked to undermine the Church.

In South America, for example, the Soviet KGB went after the Catholic Church by introducing the flawed notion of Liberation Theology, a straight-up Marxist co-opting of Catholicism, turning it into a means to conduct class war.

That began in the mid-20th century and accomplished its goal. South America used to be overwhelmingly Catholic, around 90%. Today, it's barely over half and dwindling. That's hundreds of millions of souls for those of you keeping count at home.

And in each of those Latin American countries where Catholicism waned, first birth control, then abortion and then homosexual crap came roaring in, which was the point all along.

But the destruction was able to happen all over the world because Churchmen became theological illiterates.

Weak men were brought into seminaries, just a few at first, and slowly began to transform the culture of the priesthood into a crowd-pleasing, joke-telling, look-at-me, "you really love me!" emasculated profession for men. Today, that is dominant in the priesthood. The mantra is: Never preach anything that might give offense.

Church Militant has reported on ample cases of priests being shot down by their bishops for doing so — bishops who are mere cadavers, a theological prototype of the walking dead.

The forces of darkness never have a problem raising up men of action. Paul Ehrlich is just one of the millions of tiny examples. Some rise to great notability; others remain in the background, content to pollute as many minds as they are able to according to their circumstances.

But the point is this: They are men of action. Their actions are for the cause of evil, of course, but they are nonetheless actions. And for the most part, they deal in words, mostly spoken, but still words.

They stand in front of college lecture halls, campaign trails, courtrooms, television programs, entertainment venues, social media platforms and even pulpits talking, twisting truth — endless sputum mixed with just enough honey to entrap the weak mind, the one that has not been trained to think critically.

The counterpart to this would, of course, be well-versed, well-trained, dedicated faithful Catholics — our version of men of action. The problem is that they are in short supply, and when that type of man does stand up to speak and rightly points to the evils of the hierarchy as the epicenter of the great cultural demise, they are attacked.

It's a very basic, foundational principle that is never allowed to be spoken out loud in establishment Catholic circles and it is this: All salvation comes through the Catholic Church. Outside this Church, there is no salvation.

Satan knows this, which is why he engineers the entire globalist communist effort to crush the Church. And he has created many allies within the Church, just as he created Judas and eventually entered into his heart in the upper room, inspiring the action of his betrayal — yet another man of action.

There is some personality flaw, a lack of robust masculinity, on the part of too many men in the Church and among the bishops. It's not that they don't intellectually accept the faith; they do. It's not that they aren't heartsick by all of this; they are.

But they will not, for some unfathomable reason, ever address it head-on. It's always in private at cocktail parties, or it's alone, one-on-one, in their offices, or it's delivered in veiled terms in some esoteric speech that's hardly motivating.

The plain talk of solid Catholic men is what is needed today more than ever, but it's continually squashed by these supposedly "good bishops."

They seem to have some extremely misplaced sense of decorum or proper etiquette — some country club, overly refined, pinky-finger extended understanding that "gentle" men never speak directly or in any way that might reflect poorly on the institution.

I had one of them tell me, "Michael, you just aren't aware of what we're doing behind the scenes." Seriously? How's all that plotting and quiet planning working out for you, Excellency?

It's become extraordinarily clear that the only way to preserve even any vestiges of the culture is for men, not children with bombastic idiocy and clever memes, who critically think through issues and philosophy. Men who have the intellectual prowess to dismantle the arguments of the diabolical.

Men of action, dedicated to the good, need to step forward and begin asserting themselves over and above the meandering and "prudence" of a decidedly emasculated hierarchy. They have the authority of office, but they possess none of the qualities or virtues of manhood. They are provoked to retaliate when their manhood is challenged but never provoked enough to do something about what they are being challenged over.

The members of the hierarchy — we are speaking of the so-called "good ones" — have proven themselves nothing more than fodder for the enemy. They stick their heads in theological compendiums and produce tomes of boring speeches that couldn't motivate a termite to gnaw on wood. They long ago missed the boat on "fighting back."

They behave as though there is something they are "preserving" through their inaction, while in reality, it is a cover for their cowardice and hesitation. They are self-delusional. God Himself cannot motivate them to get off their comfortable, out-of-shape bottoms and get in the fight and shed their blood. They won't join forces; they don't inspire. It's not even clear they understand the problem itself. If they do, they are deadly silent about it.

A few years back, while visiting with one of these men, I asked him, given the horrible evil present in the hierarchy (which he readily agreed was the case), "Well, Excellency, what's the plan? We're ready to help." Even to this day, his response floors me. He looked me in the eyes and said, "Michael, there is no plan. Follow your conscience." That is a direct quote. I couldn't believe my ears.

OK, fair enough. I am following my conscience. The loss of souls, the destruction of the Church, the eclipse of reason, the attacks on truth and the resultant massacre of innocent bodies and souls cannot remain unchallenged, no matter how many bishops get ticked off. Do your jobs so we the laity don't have to.

The Church needs men of action who will speak the truth directly — about everything.

TRANSCRIPT

For all those crazies out there preaching and thinking that everyone goes to heaven, they're sort of right — at least with the underlying assumption in their poor reasoning that it's a simple process. It is. It really is simple: If you die in a state of sanctifying grace, you're there. Likely Purgatory beforehand, but you're still saved. And that's not to discount the sufferings of Purgatory, but this Vortex is about salvation, not the purgations we'll likely experience. 

So if all that's required is to die in a state of sanctifying grace, then sign me up, right? Well, sure. But this is where the rubber hits the road. It's unfathomable that the vast majority of humanity actually does die in a state of grace. The logic then follows that the vast majority of humanity is damned, no matter what Bp. Barron says — or smokes.

A state of sanctifying grace means that you are in a condition of holiness to the degree that the Holy Trinity resides in you. The opposite of this is being in a condition of serious sin, mortal sin, where the Holy Trinity cannot abide in you because God cannot dwell where there is sin.

So the examination and analysis that has to be objectively engaged in is this: Am I in a state of grace or a state of mortal sin right now? In short, the logic continues, if I were to die at this instant, would I be damned or saved? That question is the answer to the much-ballyhooed question, "What is the meaning of life?" The meaning of life is to be saved — period.

So let's look at this state of grace, shall we, and let's use the analogy of a light switch and dimmer. Regardless of there being a dimmer, it is true that the light bulb is either on or off; there is either electricity flowing to the light bulb or not.

If the switch is on and only 1% of the light is being emitted from the bulb, it's still on! The question for the moment is not, "Is the light really bright? The question is, "Is there light? Yes or no?" Now if there is no light, then there is no light. No matter how much you twist and turn that dimmer, no light is emitted from the bulb; it's off.

A soul is either emitting light or it's not. How much light is a different matter, and that can increase or decrease throughout a moment, hour, day or whatever. But there is light, whether it's 1% or 87%. You can say that the bulb is in a "state of light" to a lesser or greater degree. But if the world were to suddenly end and that bulb was to "die," it would die in a state of light.

Now, how does a soul calculate if it is in a state of grace or in a state of mortal sin? How does it know that the light that was once present is gone?

Well, Our Blessed Lord Himself lays all this out pretty clearly. Being in a state of grace means the soul has sufficiently conformed itself to be able to "host," or be a home to, the Holy Trinity. So how does that happen? By keeping the commandments.

Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will keep my commandments, and my Father and I will come to you, and We will make Our home in you."

So being a residence for the Holy Trinity requires an act of the will. We must actively choose this and then act accordingly. It doesn't just happen. It must be chosen by our free will and then reinforced by our actions. Salvation is absolutely dependent on what we do, our deeds.

No one is saying we "earn" or "win" salvation based strictly on our good deeds. Salvation was opened for us as a possibility because of Our Lord's Passion and death. However, having accomplished that, it is now up to us, as He Himself instructs us, to conform ourselves to Him by obedience. Redemption was a one-way street, and only Christ could travel it. Salvation is a two-way street and is the highway we must travel. 

So let's take this truth and look at its relevance in the modern world. Can we seriously look around and think that the vast majority of people are walking around in a state of grace? Seriously? No, no one except God can judge their souls, but what a person does is produced from their soul.

What about lawmakers voting for child killing and sodomy? The Swamp stealing from taxpayers and creating massive hardships for families? Lawmakers' overall refusal to deal with, and, in frequent cases, actually causing economic collapse and all the devastating consequences that has on the average citizen?

And on a more ground-game level, what about a person's acceptance of sexual and financial sin, and often embrace of it, in his own life? A man's sexual promiscuity being acted on, casting his lust onto another? Participation in porn and masturbation, expending his powers where they are not meant to be?

All these sins are grave in nature and the Holy Trinity takes leave of such a soul because they cannot dwell where there is serious sin. What about the spiritual ignorance of people being indifferent to the sufferings of their friends and family and those around them? What about the refusal to speak because of fear of being rejected or humiliated?

All of these things are serious sins and a person cannot, at the same time, embrace these sins and yet still love God. Electricity cannot both be flowing and not flowing to the bulb at the same time. The light is either off or on.

Despite the insanity of those in the culture who claim "nonbinary" as their identity, as well as those who sit by silently in the face of that, the world is very much binary, and, most of all, the spiritual world is.

You are either in light, even if it's dim, or darkness. You cannot be both. And each human being will either be in Heaven or Hell, not both, as a result of his actions. Sin and its effects are much more serious and deadly than is commonly believed or lived.

All the saints and Doctors and Fathers of the Church were of a near-unanimous mind on this point: Most of humanity is damned. To pretend otherwise is foolhardy.

TRANSCRIPT

Many of you were extremely generous in our end-of-the-year donation request, and we'd like to show what your money helps produce. Late last week, we did a perspective piece: our 2022: Year in Review.

In many ways, it showcases what we do so well here at Church Militant: look at events and contextualize them in terms of the Faith.

Since we reviewed many stories from the entire year, the end result is necessarily comprehensive — but, again, it highlights what we do so well here at this apostolate.  

The crew here busted hump to put all this together for you, and it is well worth the watch, despite its length. So please watch and enjoy the full-length Church Militant 2022: Year in Review.

TRANSCRIPT

Our thanks to all of you, once again, for your continuing support and generosity for the work we do here each and every day, as we turn the page on 2022 and look ahead to 2023. If you'd like to contribute to our end-of-2022 fundraiser, please just click on the provided link below — and thank you in advance.

We are very aware of the sacrifice many of you make on our behalf, especially in this current economy, which, by all predictions, isn't going to get any easier in the coming year. And speaking of 2023, in the next few weeks, we will be making some visible changes to our content presentation.

Every now and then in the media world, it's necessary to change things up a bit and produce things in a new and improved fashion — and you can look forward to this coming soon. In preparation, in the last few weeks, we've shortened the time of our Evening News program so we can direct more resources to new programming.

It takes a lot of people here working, not just on camera but especially behind the scenes, to crank out the volume of news, information and commentary Church Militant produces each day — and, unfortunately, we don't have unlimited resources. So we are redistributing the workload to bring you even more analysis and commentary, not just in the area of straight-up theology and faith life, but, just as importantly, in the application — the relevance of the Faith in everyday life.

Unless you're a hermit who has taken certain vows to live apart from the world as much as humanly possible in isolation from day-to-day life, then walking through the world and understanding daily the relevance of our faith is critical. Our Lord sent His followers into the world to baptize it and make disciples of all nations.

But given the complexities of today's world, the never-ending news cycle and what often appears as one debilitating effect after another (especially in the Church), the Great Commission, as it is called, can sometimes seem next to impossible. Even faithful Catholics can seem buffeted and tossed about by modern life with its constant barrage of sadness, confusion and distraction.

So we are shifting the direction of some of our content, beginning early this new year to focus on just this: the application and relevance of our Catholic faith in today's crazy world. More than just covering contemporary events (which we will continue to do because we all live in this world and need to be aware), we will also be examining events from the perspective of their relevance to our faith life.

We have, of course, been doing this for many years (blazing the trail in doing so among all Catholic media), but what you will see is a greater emphasis on this, to provide an even greater spiritual aid as we walk through this increasingly maddening world.

So as we move through day-to-day life, how should we look at — and even more importantly, think about — these events in terms of our faith and, of course, most importantly, our salvation? Our Lord established the Church to be the sole means of not just combating evil but defeating it.

Evil — the power of Hell — is much stronger than our frail, fallen ability to withstand it. We cannot save ourselves. Left to our own devices, evil will always crush us underfoot. It's for this reason that the Eternal Logos was incarnated and then established a Church to last throughout time, and if we enter into it and remain faithful (even when we fall), that victory could be achieved.

That is the good news. The fight now has meaning. The victory can be won. Heaven has provided an opportunity, a tiny crack through which we can escape the pains of this world and the everlasting flames and torments of the next. For 2,000 years, this has been the view and understanding of the Church (the saints, the Fathers, the Doctors, the martyrs).

Each successive generation has had to plow through the world on the way to meriting salvation, made possible only because of the love and mercy of God. But those two parts there — the world and salvation — bring about a dynamic tension in our lives. Our faith lives must win out, but that cannot happen in isolation from the world.

In fact, Abp. Sheen used to refer to the world as the "theater of redemption." Correct! Our Lord has redeemed us — something we could never have done on our own. It's why His chief way of being understood is as savior, not teacher (although He obviously taught) or miracle worker (although He obviously performed miracles) but as savior, the bringer of salvation.

All we need to do is participate in that salvation, as St. Paul stresses to us, to work it out in fear and trembling. Well, that working out happens in the world, in our lives; so each generation and age of the Church has to do that "working out" in the context of the times in which it finds itself.

However poorly — and it is pretty poorly — the way the last four generations of Church leaders have executed the call to holiness brought forward at Vatican II, what remains the individual mission of each Catholic's life is personal sanctity.

But without a doubt, some ages are tougher than others, and they present challenges and obstacles that appear to make the call to holiness seem next to impossible. As we look around and see many of those dear to us leave the Faith and cave to the world, it can sometimes appear hopeless.

But followers of Our Lord can never be without hope. In fact, hope is one of the three theological virtues, along with faith and charity. Therefore, hope is critical to the life of holiness, since all three of those virtues have God Himself as their final end. So the tension, the grinding of our faith and the world that occurs in each of our lives as those two rub up against each other, has to be seen and thought about from the perspective of faith and the world.

Understanding the forces at play and thinking about how to combat all of this means thinking with a Catholic mind and acting with a Catholic sense. All this will be a much greater point of emphasis for us here at Church Militant, for your (as well as our) benefit — the relevance of the Faith and its application in our world.

That's what 2023 holds in store for us: a greater linking up of all of us, better application of what we do every day and being a help to you in the struggle we each face every day. We think it will be of great service to you, temporally as well as spiritually. We are, after all, a composite of body and soul, and each needs to be tended to.

Near the end of the Creed each Sunday, do we not say, I look forward to the resurrection of the dead? Our bodies are saved as well, the same bodies whose eyes look out on the world. We who speak with and to those around us, trying to help them with our hands and intellects also try to achieve salvation and participate each day in the opportunity provided by the Savior.

The Faith must be understood, not only in relation to itself but also in terms of the world, where it eventually must be applied and made relevant. This is what you will see and hear even more of this coming year (and moving forward) here at Church Militant.

Think of it (perhaps) as Church Militant 2.0. You'll see some cosmetic changes to the website to make it more user-friendly, and you'll see some new programs. But what you won't see is any retreat from the mission. It will, in fact, be quite the opposite: a greater commitment to that same mission, with ways of helping you think and act to fulfill Our Lord's Great Commission to go into the world and help save it.

That's what 2023 holds in store for us, even as we rocket into uncertain times, keenly aware that evil is on a rampage. The baptized have been given power to overcome evil if only they remain faithful and committed to employing this power, no matter how much of a struggle it is.

Heaven costs. It's so expensive, in fact, that it costs your life. And no one, absolutely no one, achieves it without paying the ultimate price: death to self. The Cross is fearsome. It's terrifying. It is suffering and pain, even agony at times. But for those who persevere, it is, ultimately, victory. It is conquest over the world. So let's get to it and renew the commitment to sharpen our bayonets and fix them in place.