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TRANSCRIPT
Church Militant exists, as our motto says, to "Serve Catholics." What does that mean, precisely?
Well, precisely, it means two things, two sides of the same coin, because current conditions demand such an approach. We serve Catholics by helping them be better Catholics. And the Church of Nice hates it when we call ourselves Catholic because of this double dynamic we operate by. The work of evangelization today, unfortunately, demands a dual path approach. Why?
Because conditions in the Church are so bad that when you are trying to help someone convert or revert to the faith, you simply cannot ignore this reality. In many places, RCIA is barely a joke, if not downright non-Catholic. Many other evangelization and catechesis-like efforts, like Alpha, barely rise to the level of Christian, much less Catholic. A huge number of prelates and clergy have been poorly formed or even malformed in the Faith.
The rampant homoheresy dominating so much of the life of the Church is out of control. Nutty, anti-Catholic ideas like, for example, everyone, or almost everyone, goes to Heaven, have become ensconced in many Catholics' minds. We could go on and on. The overall point is that there is so a dearth of fidelity to authentic Catholicism these days, owing to either schism, heresy or dissent, that it cannot be ignored or sidestepped when truly serving Catholics.
Church Militant does talk about all this, exposing it for what it is, which is un-Catholic, and for this approach we are roundly despised by the ever-shrinking, ever-disappearing Church of Nice. And for the record, we are on record as saying that given current trends, the Catholic Church in America will essentially be extinct within roughly seven years.
And behind closed doors, meeting with their diocesan finance personnel, every bishop in America knows that's true. That's why there is this massive unprecedented money grab going on across the country, finance campaigns trying to collectively raise billions of dollars.
They know that older Catholics are the most faithful and they are dying off. So better get the money while they still have the chance. It's ironic that the very men who have presided over the destruction of the Church and deprived younger generations of the authentic faith are now turning to the aging grandparents of those they have deprived and asking for their money before they die.
That takes a lot of gall.
"Hey, old Catholics. I am part of the Establishment Church which didn't care enough — or at all because I don't believe it — about the salvation of your children and grandchildren's souls. Nevertheless, can you cough up as much money as possible before you croak, so we can keep pedaling our poison and promoting leftist ideology and pretending it's Catholic?"
Well, at least that would be honest.
This is what we do here every day. Expose the dissident, homoheretical, social justice, big money, traditional Catholicism-hating machine that dominates the Catholic landscape these days. It absolutely needs to be talked about for what it is.
But the other part of the dual aspect approach it is to preach the actual Faith in all its beauty and glory. Think of the dual approach as dealing with both the natural as well as the supernatural.
And right now, the prevailing conditions of the Church of the Church on a natural level are too often a roadblock to the presentation of her supernatural beauty.
So how does Church Militant go about serving Catholics? By talking about both — no holds barred. It's why we ask you to become a Premium member, because your $10 a month not only gives you access to hundreds of hours of solid Catholic video but also allows us to remain in the game of this great war we are in for the soul of the Church. Even though the Church of Nice is dying out, it still is formidable, a wounded dinosaur capable of tricking people out of billions of dollars because it presents what many have called Catholic-Lite — all fluff, no substance.
Not here. We are completely dedicated to hardcore, truthful, terrible, awe-full (as in full of awe) authentic Catholicism. The type which brings about moral miracles, changes lives forever, saves souls from eternal damnation. Your Premium membership, even if you don't have a lot of time to watch, keeps us on track.
We are able to turn about a couple of books a year for those who like to prefer the written word. We sponsor conferences each year where tough topics are tackled. We have our annual Retreat at Sea where hundreds have come to be fed on the majesty of the faith and its sublime soul-stirring truths.
We stream live each weekday our morning prayer and evening prayer and are constantly encouraging you to pray the Liturgy of the Hours with us. We publish easy to read and pass around short pieces on a huge range of Catholic topics for your benefit and those you are trying to convert or help. We are invited to speak in countries all over the world where we record those talks — hundreds of them now — and make them available for you free.
We quietly provide support behind the scenes to many priests and religious who have been abused by the liberal Church of Nice. None of this would be possible without your Premium membership. See - it doesn't just pay for the Premium programming, it keeps us able to do all these other things we would never be able to do otherwise.
We made the decision very early on to offer all this other stuff to you for free because we are convinced this is what a completely committed, comprehensive Catholic apostolate not only does, but has to do in this current environment. Your monthly subscription is not just for your benefit. It helps many other people as well by providing the means by which we can do all these other activities.
Heck, even our news articles, where we are often times the first to bring you important news, even those are free because, again, the times demand it. But we need your help, your commitment, your skin in the game as well, as the saying goes, to help us keep serving Catholics.
Imagine, if an apostolate like this had been around 30 or more years ago where millions read or view our material. Maybe the current conditions wouldn't be so bad. Maybe some souls who abandoned the One True Faith might not have. Maybe even more souls would have converted when presented Catholic glory straight-up.
This is your apostolate as much as it's ours, because it's all the work of the Church, which is saving souls.
Please help us continue serving Catholics by signing up for a Premium subscription today. Thank you to all of you who are Premium members already and thank you in advance for those who respond enthusiastically to this message.
Remember, it costs less than a single cup of coffee a week.
TRANSCRIPT
Two priests I'd like to focus on for a moment: Fr. John Hardon and Fr. Pablo Straub. Father John Hardon, who has been a continual source of inspiration and information for us here at Church Militant, once said called the liberal mainstream media "The Luciferian Media" because of the evil they poured into people's minds. And it didn't matter if it was news media or the entertainment media. He correctly saw that it was all a very valuable tool of the diabolical in destabilizing the culture and the Church.
Father Pablo Straub — a saint of a man who was a dear friend of ours here at Church Militant — once said to me in house one evening while we were visiting, “Michael, we have to bring Christ to the internet.” He was channeling the same inspiration of Fr. Hardon, that the media must be utilized to bring as many souls to Christ as possible, no matter the ferocious uphill battle against the demonic we may face in that industry along the way.
And so here we are. And I'd like to get very personal with you if I can for a moment. This apostolate, as you've heard me say many times before, exists to be used for the salvation of souls. We have faced many many obstacles along the way, from opposition from multiple Church leaders who despise our presentation of authentic Catholicism and pretend it's about the tone, when it's really about no such thing.
We've had a small contingent of people who were at one time close to our work here join forces with those who would seek to destroy us and betray us. We've had blackmail, extortion attempts, necessitating my public confession two years ago of my past sins. We have been blasted by no less than a dozen times by the secular media over the past year and half and labeled every imaginable slur and insult.
We were also specifically singled out by faithless men in the Vatican itself who felt the great need to slam us in a widely publicized article last summer. And through all these times we have stayed true and dedicated to the one prayer we make multiple times a day: "Dear Lord, use us to save souls."
We have consecrated this work to the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. We have dedicated our work here and placed it under the protection of St. Michael the Archangel. And they have never abandoned us. They have stood right beside us every step of the way — as difficult and emotionally draining as many of these times have been. They have stayed with us, supporting us, because we have remained faithful to Our Blessed Lord's Bride, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and, please God, always will.
Years ago, for a variety of reasons, the least of which was not that my entire career had been spent in the television news and production broadcasting business, the decision was made to launch an effort never before undertaken in the Catholic media.
We would, as Fr. Pablo instructed us, bring Christ to the internet, and we would do it through the daily presence of video. One or two at first, but then expanding.
Twelve years later, Church Militant is the most commented on Catholic internet site in the world, recognized as one of the premier news and information Catholic portals and gaining in influence and attention because of the ever-deepening crisis in the Church.
No one else in the Catholic media world does what we do everyday. We bring you the most direct authentic presentation of Catholic truth — no holds barred — in the most professionally produced manner of anyone else. A number of the secular media outlets that came to Church Militant last year to due their "exposé" reports on us were very free with their personal assessments that we were every bit as professional as anything they saw routinely as CNN or MSNBC. And here is what sets us apart from the rest of the Catholic media world: We understand that in this time and place in history and the culture, the visual image is king.
While I personally agree that reading is much more important, in founding and running this apostolate, I understand the reality of the visual image and its impact of viewers. I made my living for decades in this industry. It was my stock and trade and, frankly, I got sick of this wonderful medium being used as a tool of Satan.
So here we are now, constantly elevating our production standards — as many of you have said to us — always digging deeper in trying to get to the heart of the matter of whatever we are conveying to you. In truth, dollar for dollar, I would stack our content and its production value up against anything the Luciferian media has to offer.
We specialize in two major areas of video production: news, current events and theological. For the most part, our news and current events are offered for free, and our theological content resides in our Premium offering for $10 a month.
In short, we generally use the free content opportunity to alert people to the reality that the Church is on fire, and the theological content to provide a solution, which always comes down to increasing your knowledge so you can convert that to increasing your sanctity — the end goal of the Catholic life.
We have hundreds of hours of Premium content, as we said, for a mere $10 a month and your being a Premium subscriber affords us the opportunity to do much more than just produce Premium programming. Your monthly subscription, even if you often times may not have a lot of time to view the Premium offerings, fuels the entire infrastructure of what we do here.
Our annual budget is more than $2.2 million. Yes, TV costs a lot of money — not just paying the dedicated staff of more than 30 in-house employees, but the cost to keep up with ever-changing technology as well as the day to day equipment failures and maintenance required.
We have, hands down, the best productions available in the Catholic world because that is the standard we operate under. If the professionals in the Luciferian media can, and they do, spend themselves for a level of quality to pollute people's minds and souls, then the very least we as faithful Catholics can do is match their professionalism, and in reality, exceed it.
What we are asking you is please, right now, sign up for, or renew a lapsed Premium membership, so you can join us in this mission of fighting for souls amidst all the confusion in the Church and the world.
What we do here is the work of the Church, and that's all we do. We do it through this medium of the visual image, but we do it nonetheless and we put our hearts into it. Nearly everyone who began their time with Church Militant/St. Michael's Media had next to zero experience in this field — whether it was news or script writing, shooting, editing, website management, marketing and so forth.
Through your prayers and financial support we believe we have put together one of the most formidable challenges to the Luciferian media in the Catholic world today. Both of us, the Luciferian crowd and Church Militant, are battling it out for your soul. They lie to you. We give you Catholic truth in all its glory.
We have multiple people tell us, frequently, that they came back to the faith, or converted, because our site was used by Our Heavenly Father as the means to communicate timeless Catholic beauty to them. That is why we exist. That is ultimately the only reason we exist.
Whether you have the opportunity to be a regular viewer of our Premium programming or life is a little crazed and you don't have as much time as you would like, please still become a Premium subscriber. Your subscription helps us continue the work in the trenches. The spiritual war raging all around us has many foxholes on this giant battlefield.
With your help, this is one foxhole — excellent daily video production to match the Luciferian media stride for stride — that we don't intend to surrender. Father Pablo told us to do this. Father Hardon said there was a need for it. Please sign up today and join us in this foxhole.
TRANSCRIPT
The man who is the current pope is wrong in his very personal, very fallible opinion presented as a mere man, and not as Pope. God does not make people gay, and such a person is not born that way.
Jorge Bergoglio is wrong.
Now again, given the circumstances of a person repeating to the press what he said the pope said, we have to presume the victim of a long ago assault by a homosexual priest was not lying when he said the pope said God makes people gay and loves them that way. If Bergoglio the man — not Francis the Pope — did indeed say that, then the gay-controlled Vatican has a moral duty and obligation to come out and deny either that he said it or that was not what he meant.
In either case, crickets from the elitist gays in control in Rome because all of this press suits their plans very well. Just as they schemed and connived behind the scenes at the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family to deliberately produce the headline: "Church Says Gay is Okay" — a plot, as you recall, Church Militant was more than happy to have a part in blowing up.
[Bruno Forte — Transcript Unavailable]
The Vatican gays are now at it again, riding this latest rainbow wave across every major paper in the world. Perhaps the man who is pope is getting fed his bad info from closeted or homosexualists Vatican appointees like Fr. James Martin or Fr. Thomas Rosica, among the biggest gay cheerleaders you will find in Rome. We aren't certain that what is being ascribed to the pope is either what he said, if it was translated correctly, reported correctly or what he did mean if those were his words.
What we do know is this: The Vatican has not "clarified" the matter to any substantial degree, and the homoheresy gang in the Vatican is making hay out of the whole affair
So let's be clear here. The opinion of the man Jorge Bergoglio means absolutely nothing in this regard. He is not a psychologist. He is not gay — that anyone has ever said anyway. Whatever view he has of homosexuality is filtered heavily by a group of influential gay or homosexualist cardinals and clergy who never stir from his side.
For someone, regardless of who the man is, to even suggest that Almighty God actively creates, deliberately brings into existence a disordered sexuality is reprehensible. Then to suggest, or leave open to easy interpretation, that the Almighty likes it or loves the disorder is malicious.
Again, we don't know, for all the above mentioned variables, if that is what the man who is currently pope said or believes or not.
But we do know that there are many standing around him who do believe and say that and we might add it's not unreasonable to consider the possibility that they are using him to advance and normalize their own disordered sexualities. There is an ocean of difference between God permitting the evil effects of a fallen world to play themselves out and Him actually bringing about the evil and then loving it.
People are not born gay — and that message is for you, Fr. Martin. Stop your lying. Holy cow, the "gay" man who claims to have repeated the words of the man who is pope was raped by a homosexual priest when he was a youngster. Think that maybe had anything to do with it?
A predator homosexual priest, by the way kept hidden and tucked away so he could rape multiple other altar boys by the very same establishment now saying we should all embrace gay and build a bridge and listen to a gang of altar boy rapists, or those who support such predators. The only folks who seem to get a nod for mercy in this gay Vatican are other gays or those who embrace sacrilege, because really, it's all part of the same cloth: a denial of truth and right order.
About seven years ago, Church Militant was in Rome and reported on the scandal of gay clergy in the Vatican. We were attacked savagely by the Church of Nice establishment and their media — called sensational, lying, etc. Sadly, little by little, everything we reported has come to pass in spades. But see, what many Catholics don't understand in this whole "gays in the Church" thing is this: One dynamic is these perverts working feverishly behind the scenes to make it appear as though the Church has changed its teaching.
Then there is the complicit Church of Nice establishment who never wants this topic talked about in public because the truth of their own connivance would be completely exposed. Well, the silent treatment hasn't worked because now the homo clergy has not just come out of the closet, but they have come screaming and hooting and hollering out the closet. So the little dirty secret of the Church of Nice — think as just one of hundreds of examples, Cdl. Dolan's homo chancery in New York — has now come completely into the light with the headline: "Pope Say Gay is Okay."
What a filthy rotten disgusting diabolical lie. If God deliberately created gays as gay, and revels in it and thinks its so great and wonderful, then why did he give them the power to reproduce?
No one is born gay.
They are traumatized into it, raped into it, abused emotionally into it, deprived of an authentic masculine presence into it and even coached into it by predatory men — some of whom are priests. I'd like the man who is currently pope to look me in the eye and tell me God made me the way I used to live and therefore intends me to be that way and was happy with it and would have no problem with me returning to it, because after all, He made me that way.
You can imagine what my answer back would be. My answer to the very fallible man with a very errnant, very personal opinion who just happens to also be pope, for now.
Pray for him and the gang of perverted men around him.
TRANSCRIPT
So the Catholic Church in America has a dirty little secret it doesn't really want to know. It's this— how many people who convert to Catholicism through RCIA actually remain practicing Catholics? In short, just how good is the RCIA thing in making people saints? Becoming a saint or at least striving for sainthood is the heart of the Church's mission. If that is not happening then the parish and diocese are failing in its mission.
Here's what needs to be looked at carefully and called into question: The devastation to the Faith that has occurred over the past 50 years is finally having to be dealt with honestly as bishops all over the country close down parishes and schools etc. They can no longer deny that their actions or inaction have wrought destruction on a scale never before seen. So a good number of bishops have implemented various programs to try and stem the flow out of the Church. By far and away, the vast majority of these efforts encompass some sort of watering down of the Faith to make it more palatable to non-Catholics or poorly educated Catholics in an effort to get them to return.
They call it "pre-evangelization," as in get em' in the Church before you can preach em' the Gospel. Problem is, often times, when they do have some marginal success in getting them in the Church, they often times never get around to really preaching. And here's where the dirty little secret comes in — loads of these new people end up leaving cuz' all they are getting is the meringue and no substance. Since no one keeps any official track of these numbers, it's anyone's guess, but informal discussions with various people in the Church who touch all this on a daily basis suggest that as many as 50 percent of RCIA converts leave after the first year and as high as 75 percent have left after five years. Again, there's no way to verify those numbers with scientific certainty, but they can't be that wrong given the reality of how much the Church is atrophying in the U.S.
One out of every eight Americans walking around is a former Catholic and 50 percent of all baptized Catholics in America have left the Faith. There is no way that RCIA is being successful in keeping new Catholics, Catholic, in the face of those known statistics. You can understand why no bishop or the national conference of bishops really want to dig down deep and discover the truth of RCIA success. It would just be further confirmation that their efforts have been and continue to be an epic fail and who wants to deal with that? But that is exactly what needs to be dealt with.
All this blather and cheerleading for "pre-evangelization" like Alpha and a dozen other programs, in the end, accomplishes very little and in some cases is actually hastening the decline because of the long-term, knock-on effect of the failure. Consider if, and this is a big if, if a local parish or diocese has some success in getting people into an RCIA program and then because of the watered down or even anti-Catholic stuff they hear there, eventually leave the Faith, now you have produced a corrupted Catholic — a person who can say, "I went through RCIA, I know what I'm talking about and the Catholicism isn't that different from anything else."
Statistics bear out, in fact, that 50 percent of Catholic who leave the Church go on to no religion and what a sad commentary that the last official exposure the "religion" which they no longer have an interest in was Catholicism. Getting people into a "listening session" or to a "come and see" night at the parish may as well not be done at all if the end result is going to be "come and see and reject."
Church leaders are setting themselves up for a massive failure down the road because they are cooking the books. Each year, every parish and diocese reports and records their numbers of baptisms and conversions to national headquarters and all that information is gathered together in what's called The Kennedy Directory, but it is full of inaccuracies. It records baptisms, but nowhere does it track those who leave the Church, so the number of total Catholics is essentially meaningless.
Right now, the latest numbers show roughly 70 million Catholics in the U.S. But that is nowhere near as reflective of the actual number who embrace and live the Faith. We know, we all know, that number is nowhere near 70 million. It's much closer to around 7 million. We know 35 million have left the Faith. So the number is absolutely inaccurate by at least half. We also know that of the remaining 50 percent, at least half of them do not go to Mass each week, so that's another slash of 25 percent, meaning the real number of total Catholics is no higher than about 17–18 million, not the vastly overstated number of 70 million. Various bishops and dioceses around the country may not have run the actual number on all this, but they know with certainty, this is true. They live in this world everyday. Fewer and fewer Catholics means, among other things, declining revenues. And whatever they may know, they do know that.
So how is this happening? How is it with all the "pre-evangelization" programs, which have enjoyed at least a limited success in getting some people's attention, that all that effort isn't contributing to any kind of turnaround? Allow us to posit that no turnaround is happening because RCIA, Alpha, "Come and See," "Gather us In," "Joyful Bands of Missionary Disciples" — that sounds so gay — and all that marketing hoopla is not faithful to authentic Catholicism. They still concentrate on the subjective experience and emotions and personal-based language that the rest of the world also traffics in. Catholicism has not set itself apart from the world but has rather tried to baptize the attitudes and approaches of the world and it has failed.
Catholicism presents nothing unique under its current presentation. There are a million reasons why, and those are all subjects of many other Vortex episodes, but suffice to say, it's true. Church leaders are embarrassed by the Faith. They have not tried to distinguish it from the world, and when it comes to effectively out-marketing the world with its billions and one distractions from the spiritual life, you ain't gonna' win that battle.
The music is better outside the Church. The preaching is better outside the Church. The "liturgies," such as they are, are better outside the Church. Heck, the message is better outside the Church. Catholic leaders have laid aside Catholicism and are trying to sell a knock-off brand, and no one is buying it. That's why hordes leave even after going through RCIA. RCIA is not effective on the balance because Catholicism is not being taught in those sessions. Friendly, non-offensive, personal feeling Catholicism is being offered and no one cares. They convert and then have buyer's remorse. Exactly how many leave is the dirty little secret. But that they are leaving — in stampedes — is no secret at all.
Unless and until the authentic faith is presented, taught and insisted on, there will be no rescuing of a failing Church, whose leaders appear to be completely tone-deaf or have no desire to do the heavy lifting required to turn this around. We must do our part — those of us who know the truth, the whole truth. We must do our part and do it now. We will answer to Our Blessed Lord for not loving souls enough if we don't get in the game.
TRANSCRIPT
Did you know that Christians and Republican are out to destroy the world? Yes — we are blowing the lid clear off this breaking story. The source of all this is the liberal academic egghead Noam Chomsky — a media darling — who seems like he's been around for centuries he's quoted so often by the Left and hailed as "brilliant." In a speech a few days back at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, the out-of-touch liberal said the following of Republicans and Christians: That they are each engaged in a "unique insanity which is dedicated to destroying organized human life." He added, "People in high places now claim to be devout Christians, and on the basis of Christian ideals, they're saying let's proceed to destroy the world. I don't know anybody in the Islamic world that's doing that." Guess he hasn't been to Europe recently or strolled around the site of the former twin towers in New York, for that fact.
Every now and then, it's good to get all this straight from the horse's mouth — from an icon of the Left — that the Left truly believes Christianity is the enemy. Chomsky has spent an entire career telling the world what's right and wrong based on his perceptions. And his perceptions are very much leftist. In fact, the entire Left could be summed up as the whole political and cultural Establishment aligned against Catholic teaching and values. When the Left thinks "religion," it thinks in terms of Christianity, not Islam or any other threat to Western Civilization.
It hates Western Civilization because it was built by the Catholic Church and therefore, in the small minds of leftists, it must be opposed utterly. So any system, no system, whatever system, is preferable to the system built by the Catholic Church. So stop for a moment, and in that context ask yourself, why are so many Catholics, including priests and bishops, so supportive of the goals of the Left?
Indeed, Chomsky's comment and analysis of Republicans seeking to destroy the world came in the context of what he termed climate change doubters. Insisting that whatever change to the climate that might be happening is directly the result of man, and specifically, greedy Western Civilization built by the Catholic Church supporting white men, this line of thought is one of the Left's most treasured maxims.
Of course, as the narrative runs, white Christian men are essentially responsible for everything wrong in the world from Adam in the garden, through slavery, to controlling the climate and hurting the poor. The Left, with its near dominance of every organ in the establishment, has a "God problem" and, therefore, a Catholic problem. Orthodox Catholicism is seen as the single biggest threat to world domination by the Left, so they set out on a course many decades ago to capture the Church. Since the Church was so publicly opposed to the agenda of the Left, it would have to be some clever tactics employed to bring about a conversion of rank and file Catholics to acceptance and embrace of lefty politics and cultural goals.
One of the ways in which this was supposed to be accomplished was by the infiltration of the Church, something former Communist Party U.S.A. operative Bella Dodd admitted was her mission in the 1920s and 1930s. Bella was eventually converted through the preaching of Abp. Fulton Sheen but after her conversion she admitted to him, as well as other close friends like Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand, that she had successfully recruited and planted over a thousand young Communist agents into American seminaries in the early part of the 20th century.
Could the rush to embrace the leftist agenda by so many churchmen these days be the residual effect of that infiltration which began nearly a hundred years ago? For that matter, could the abandonment of so much Catholic theology by those entrusted to pass it on also be part of this sinister infiltration? All of this would certainly seem to fit together. When Catholics have to wonder how many of their leaders would have stood up and applauded Chomsky at the end of his ridiculous speech, it all points to a much deeper crisis.
When will Catholics who have comfortably ensconced themselves on the sidelines of the most tumultuous battle in human history finally get in the game and realize that these enemies of the Church want you dead? This is a life and death struggle, spiritually for us and even physically for them. They want you gone from the face of the earth, and they are relentless in pursuing their goal. At least they are honest in making their agenda known. We, Catholics, we builders of Western Civilization, constructed around the reality the Supreme Being, we have to be taken out.
This culture isn't big enough for the both of us. That's how they see it. And that's how they are playing it. Sadly, they have a lot of stealth allies inside the Church who also believe authentic Catholicism is the enemy.
TRANSCRIPT
Yes, you knew this Vortex was coming — the disgraceful presence of Cdl. Timothy Dolan at the Met Gala where Catholicism was the inspiration for this year's usual, boring, yet another "star-studded" event with all the glitterati. And by glitterati, we mean more than half-naked women, which is par for the course — #MeToo, anyone? — strutting about and a collection of temptresses par excellence. Only this year, they were adorned in various Catholic-themed outfits, of course with the overseeing of Cdl. Timothy Dolan who continues to raise Our Lord's warning about casting your pearls before swine to a whole new level.
Here is what he had to say, in part, in a tweet: "What's the Church doing here? What is the cardinal-archbishop of New York doing here?" Short answer — selling out the Church. He continued, "Well, because the Church and 'the Catholic imagination,' are all about truth, goodness and beauty." None of which were on display at what's billed as fashion's biggest night.
The event was officially called "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination," the biggest exhibit the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum has ever held. It was the product of years of arduous, behind the scenes negotiating with the Vatican's Abp. Georg Ganswein, Pope Benedict's former aide and Cdl. Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Vatican Pontifical Council for Culture, who met repeatedly with Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue Magazine.
Talk about desperate to appear relevant. And by the way, what happened with all those liberal cardinals' concern for the poor? The most noteworthy of the secular culture come knocking and the doors of the Vatican are thrown open to them and some of the most treasured vestments are made available. Gee, seems like you could have sold those and given the money to the poor. Isn't that what that lot is always babbling on about?
And of course, since it was in New York, Dolan had to be front and center with his cheap theatrics to sell off the Faith once again to the highest bidder, in exchange for a couple photo ops with today's celebrities. Present at the event, one of the main backers who, of course, got the shout out from Dolan in his tweet, was Steve Schwarzman, a multi-billionaire who Dolan turns to get money for his floundering archdiocese. And of course, the ever-present cloud of sodomy was on full display. In a way, considering that so many gay men are actually in vestments for real, maybe the gay stuff all over the place was fitting. And yes, Fr. James Martin was there as well. How could he, of all people, miss out on.
For the sake of His Eminence's soul, we'd like to remind him, Your Eminence, you have seven years left before your time is up. In seven years, you will be forgotten, replaced by whoever comes after you. And your legacy will have been to have debased the Faith for the sake of appearing "with it." Enjoy the little time you have left. You will be called to account, as we all will be.
Catholics all over the globe are outraged that the signs and symbols of our salvation were used as meaningless jewelry on women dressed little better than whores. The Catholic internet lit up, ablaze once these images started appearing in the secular press. But in their usual tone-deaf response, the hierarchical glitterati completely ignored the sell-out they orchestrated and the feelings and further damage done to the faithful.
Nothing on earth could convince faithful Catholics that these men have any supernatural faith. To these men, the Church is little else than a business that needs marketing and when the rich and famous come calling with a great opportunity, why not throw your support behind a little glitzy night out, even with an ample supply of leg and cleavage on full display, popping out from behind knock-off of sacred vestments?
Even Bill Donohue's Catholic League officially refused to comment because, after all, Dolan was there and Donahue would never admit that His Eminence is ever capable of doing anything wrong — ever — even when it involves introducing active homosexuals into the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Nope, nothing to see here folks, move along.
It's funny that Dolan should excuse this sacrilegious-looking event by pandering to the worldly and excuse-baiting that this was all about truth and goodness and beauty. Please, just come clean and say the truth Cdl. Dolan while you are going on about it. You love the limelight and, more importantly, pleasing man more than God, while abusing your position as leader of the archdiocese.
Bishop Sheen, whose body Dolan refuses to release and has gone to court to keep, is instructive here. Years ago, he said that when the Church threw out Her goods, the world picked them up. Although they didn't do anywhere near as well with them as the Church did. We got rid of incense, and incense shops opened all over the place. We got rid of candles and, presto, a whole industry of candles begins blossoming. Well, here, Churchmen dumped truth and beauty and goodness, and the world, true to form, picked them up and cheapened them.
My father used to say over and over again he couldn't understand how these aging prelates could continue to harm the Faith. Have they no fear of God or Hell, he would say a lot? Seven years, Your Eminence, seven years.
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Servant of God, Fr. John Hardon, a solid, faithful Jesuit priest, when that was still possible, once wrote of his time as a seminarian in Rome when he had been appointed to be director of the graduate library at the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome.
His superior had instructed him to get the library in order and retrieve various heretical manuals that had been checked out by other seminarians.
"Before I had retrieved one half of the heretical books, I had become the agent of orthodoxy and therefore the sworn enemy of the Modernists, who were updating the Catholic faith to its Modernist theology. I had doors slammed in my face. I lost friends whom I had considered believers. ... [This experience] taught me that the faith I had so casually learned could be preserved only by the price of a living martyrdom. This faith, I was to find out, is a precious treasure that cannot be preserved except at a heavy price. The price is nothing less than to confess what so many others either openly or covertly denied."
This happened between 1949 and 1951. Notice the years. Ten years before the Second Vatican Council. And it is worth noting that Fr. Hardon spent much of his life under the authoritarian rule of the modernist establishment. He was a white martyr for the faith — constantly derided and abused by not only his fellow Jesuits, but also much of the Church establishment, which had and continues to buy into various aspects of the Modernist heresy.
For example, the archdiocese of Detroit, where Fr. Hardon spent much of his later years and where he died 18 years ago, is the headquarters of the ridiculous Protestant evangelization program known as Alpha. It is essentially run out of the seminary here and ancillary locations and presents a completely watered down version of the faith that often begs the question whether it is even Christian, much less Catholic.
The excuse Abp. Vigneron and his chancery/Alpha cronies offer to keep pushing this nonsense is, well, it's not intended to be catechesis, but an evangelization effort. That's not only stupid, it's insulting.
What on God's green earth are you actually evangelizing if not appropriate and honest catechesis? Church Militant has prepared a complete analysis of Alpha available on our website in the FAQ section. Just click on it and read it. All the salient points about the problems with Alpha are listed right there.
To be sure there are many others, but this is more than enough to let you know this should never come near a Catholic parish and be touted as even approaching the truth of the Faith. No less an intellect than Cdl. Raymond Burke has explicitly condemned Alpha as being not Catholic in any meaningful way.
Now, we mention this in conjunction with Fr. Hardon, because this Servant of God was so disturbed by the state of catechesis in the Church that he actually started his own program known as the Marian Catechist program. When he died, he left charge of the worldwide effort to the care of Cdl. Burke who, when analyzing Alpha, declared that none of that poison should ever be used by those involved in the Marian Catechist program.
And, worth noting, you search high and low for any mention of Mary — you know, the Mother of God — in the Alpha program.
Talking about things like the Assumption and the Perpetual Virginity and Immaculate Conception are just too much, a bridge too far, when attempting to sit down for tea and crumpets with the easily offended "seeker" crowd. Thank God the Apostles didn't use Alpha.
Allow us to ask you, when saintly holy men like Cdl. Burke and Servant of God Fr. John Hardon are warning of errant catechesis and evangelization and modernist heresy permeating every nook and cranny of the Church, what exactly does the clergy and archbishop of Detroit think that will look like?
Do they expect a parade of demons down Woodward Avenue on floats with big banners saying we are going to destroy your faith? Or would they be much more subtle about it and make it all appear "reasonable" and "necessary" to meet people where they're at? Alpha comes right out and says that Scripture is the authority in the Church. That's a lie.
But hey, Modernist bishops and archbishops don't care, really, about that. It's close enough for soup, you know, as long as we can reach people and they aren't offended and will consider coming into the Church.
Yep, consider coming into the Church based on half-truths and watered-down tenets.
Father John Hardon was an eyewitness to the Modernist treachery and heresy back before Vatican II. The major archbishop in the United States who sent the Church in America reeling immediately after Vatican II was the cardinal-archbishop of Detroit, John Dearden, who is still worshipped as a god by the older clergy in Detroit — heck, he ordained most of them.
If Fr. Hardon were alive today here in Detroit, he would see the soft-pedaling of the Modernist heresy, just under a different name.
Alpha. Is. Not. Catholic.
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If you haven't noticed, probably because you don't really care, good for you, Hillary is still barnstorming around the country blaming everyone except herself for losing the election. As a sidebar, it must have been quite the gobsmack on election night there in New York as she and her team sat in their plush quarters expecting a crushing defeat of "The Donald," only to watch one blue wall state after another turn red. Inside reports are she was out of her mind in that room that she hurled a $100,000 bottle of champagne into a $5 million giant monitor, a gift from a Saudi prince to watch the returns on. She was so plastered and enraged according to some former staffers that she couldn't even talk, so she sent bad Catholic John Podesta down to tell the crowd of liberals to go home and she'd talk in the morning, which she did after showing up about an hour late. All this is to point to the fact that she still can't believe she lost — she hasn't been able to process it — so we are collectively watching her going through the grieving process.
She's still in the denial stage apparently. In that light, the two-time Democratic loser's latest appearance to assign blame for her loss was at the Shared Value Leadership Summit in New York on last Wednesday. She's blaming another group but listen to the little truth that slips out just as she first starts talking.
You know, every now and then the truth sneaks out. Truth always finds a way, but it's especially revealing when it falls from the lips of those who hate the truth. The truth that Hillary revealed was the enormous percentage of Democrats who are actually socialists. She was speaking in her response specifically about Iowa Democrats, but there's nothing in the farms of Iowa that would make Democrats there any more socialist than Democrats in, say, New York or California.
What's all this mean for Catholics? It's simple. Catholics need to realize who is on the other side. Socialism is condemned by the Church — period. Pope Leo XIII roundly condemned it in the late 19th century. It was, in fact, the reason for his groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum in which he said that private property holding is necessary for a well-functioning society and a human right for the worker. But Socialism wants to take away individual reward and hand it to the state to dispense. This was, in fact, the campaign stump speech of Bernie Sanders who at one point in the election had a 52 percent favorability rating among Catholics, yes, Catholics! A man flying all over America, touting a governing system actually by name condemned by the Church, was highly thought of among Catholic voters.
Pope St. John Paul II also had something to say about it. And well he should, having been brought up under the oppressive socialist regime of Marxist Communism in his native Poland. In his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialist, he said that "Experience shows us that the denial of this right [of economic initiative] or its limitation in the name of an alleged 'equality' of everyone in society diminishes or in practice, absolutely destroys the spirit of initiative."
So why did Bernie Sanders garner so much support, enough so that Hillary operatives at the DNC actually had to submarine his primary campaign to ensure she won the nomination? Because Leftists want to appear good without actually having to do good. It's called virtue signaling, throwing off the appearance of being all moral and concerned but supporting a system where someone else actually does the heavy lifting.
The Democratic Party is split today over the Hillary crowd and the Sanders crowd or at least those views of the world. Come 2020, it's very likely that a Democrat may get the nomination who supports a system that the Catholic Church actually condemns. It will be curious indeed to see how the American bishops, many of them secret Socialists themselves, publicly respond.
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If you've followed Church Militant or The Vortex with any regularity, you have probably heard us say at one time or another that the Church in America will be essentially extinct in about seven years — maybe, maybe 10 on the outside. This is owing largely to demographics and an epic failure on the part of leaders to not just try and stem the tide of secular humanism which has infected the Church on every level, but rather, the leaders’ willingness to rush headlong into the filth.
We've taken a number of hits about talking like this — just like we took hits for saying there was a crisis of homosexual men in the priesthood who were accelerating this decline. We were right then and sadly, we are right now as well. I mentioned this to a bishop I know in Texas and his response to me was: "Michael, that's quite the statement."
Yeah, I know. It is, but it's true. If it's quite the statement, it's only because it's true. The Church is in ruins in America. Does anyone seriously think that what just happened in formerly Catholic Ireland is isolated to just Irish Catholics? This is a worldwide failure of the episcopate to respond to the crisis of faith — largely owing to their own crises of faith — meaning many of them no longer possess supernatural faith. And — consider this for a moment — them having cast it aside, Almighty God is under no obligation to give it back to them.
The Church is plunging headlong into oblivion. We've been warned about it for decades. The future Pope Benedict, Fr. Ratzinger, said it back in the late 1960s. Pope Paul VI said it in the 1970s. All that would be left is a smattering of faithful. Father John Hardon warned of it over and over. All these men were contemporaries and they all saw events unfolding right before their eyes. All they did was follow these events to their natural conclusions. Just like Church Militant does when it hears multiple inside reports — by the hundreds — of the conditions of the Church nearly everywhere and looks at the demographics.
At some point you just have to say, as the old saying goes, a million people can't be wrong. Well, of course they can be, but the point remains. There is simply too much evidence to conclude anything other than extinction. To wit, for the first time we have ever seen, a priest is publicly stating this is true — all of it.
In an article entitled "The Evolution of the Catholic Church into Oblivion," Fr. Thomas Collins of Virginia lays it all out, saying what we've been saying here for years now. We've provided the article hyperlinked in the transcript for you on our website, and in the description on YouTube, to read this excellent piece and consider it.
I know we get the rap of being naysayers and negative and blah blah. Stupid criticisms because they are not true. If your house is on fire and I say, get out, your house is burning and you're gooing to die if you don't, am I a naysayer? Well, even if we are naysayers, at least we'll be living, breathing naysayers. You'll be dead.
What we want to do in this Vortex is simply point you to Fr. Thomas Collins article and suggest to you read it, carefully. In a few short paragraphs, he goes right down the last 50 years and points the finger at where the finger needs to be pointed in sizing up and assigning blame for the meltdown. The leadership of the Church.
He's only saying publicly what hundreds, if not thousands of priests say privately: The time has come to publicly admit this catastrophic failure and turn this around.
Happy reading, and thank you, Father, for your honesty.
TRANSCRIPT
In the wake of the visible collapse of the Faith in Ireland, you'd think that such a mauling of the Church would give rise to some serious repentance on the part of Irish prelates. You know, the kind of hard smack across the gob that actually serves to wake people up. But no. Even the worst route in modern political history for the Church doesn't serve to wake this lot from their dreamland.
They should have had the decency to resign en masse in the wake of the Irish homosexual clergy sex abuse scandal a few years back, but they were too asleep in that crisis as well. And that crisis precipitated this crisis which is actually much more of a ruination than a crisis. The comments made by most of the prelates in the aftermath of the wipeout are quite revealing. They take no responsibility for this disaster, throw their lot in with the child-killers and deal out even more junk as a remedy for the problem.
And the spokesman for the idiocy is none other than the lead Irish prelate, the Primate of All Ireland: Archbishop Eamon Martin. You'll recall that after a majority of Irish Catholics voted in sodomy as a marriage in 2015, he raced to the secular press to say that he understands how sodomites would feel happy about the vote.
So, first, with regard to accepting no responsibility, listen to this quote:
"For some years we have been aware of a drift away from our congregations, a changed culture, those who had 'quite consciously' rejected the church and were hostile to its teaching." He added the referendum "has confirmed Ireland is conforming to western liberal democracy." That blarney is pure bishop speak. Not a word of his or his brother bishops failure with regard to any of that.
Had they resigned and a whole group of new bishops been appointed by Pope Benedict, maybe that new group could have salvaged something of the Faith, preventing all this. Many who voted in favor of abortion specifically mentioned the lack of moral authority of the Church and how their vote was as much to "give it to the Church" as it was in favor of abortion.
Second point — with regard to throwing their lot in with the pro-abortion crowd, Martin actually said — using Bill and Hillary Clinton vocabulary — that given the results, Catholics would now have to function within this framework to make abortion "safe, legal and rare." Safe, legal and rare are buzzwords from the Planned Parenthood gang meaning abortion for everyone, all the time, anywhere, completely protected by every law and the courts, unregulated and viewed as an untouchable, unassailable human right.
I'm sure the child killers will greatly enjoy your help, Archbishop, in making the murder of thousands upon thousands of little Irishmen, "safe, legal and rare." And then of course — perhaps an even more inane comment, if that's possible — the archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said the following:
"Many will see the results of Friday’s referendum as an indication that the Catholic Church in Ireland is regarded today by many with indifference and as having a marginal role in the formation of Irish culture."
Martin’s comments came in a Mass in Maynooth, seat of the Irish seminary which, for decades, tuned out dozens and dozens of homosexual priests right under these bishops' noses and more than likely with their approval. These priests went on to not only abuse boys but undermine the Faith, setting the stage for this great mauling.
He added, in true social justice blather: "Pro-life means radically rediscovering in all our lives a special love for the poor that is the mark of the followers of Jesus."
Too bad the unborn, those struggling with same-sex attraction, the altar boys who their priests raped and they covered up and the souls of their flock that didn't make the cut when it came to categorizing "the poor."
He's right in observing that the Church is not seen as compassionate. It's seen as a sex abuse cover-up machine whose predominant interest is in controlling Irish society so that it can continue in its predatory evil, not to advance the kingdom of God, and that view is not without good reason.
As we pointed out in yesterday's Vortex, anyone who thinks the bishops of Ireland are somehow special in this regard simply does not understand what has happened in the Church these past fifty years with the infiltration of Freemasons, Communists and homosexuals, or some combination of all the above.
Satan has made mincemeat of the ordained and brought about an unprecedented ruin of the Church, all at the hands of proud, unapologetic clerics who give absolutely no indication of remorse or repentance or even responsibility for this chaos.
And if you're wondering why I'm so hot and bothered by this whole Irish mess, it is also personal to me. Not only has the Faith, which I love dearly, been completely stomped on by the Irish leaders and clergy, it's also a question of the fact that my heritage is Irish. My mother's entire family was from Ireland — County Roscommon and County Galway — they're all from there. My grandparents, as little children, were beaten viciously and attacked by the British Black and Tans.
Those children and their families were Catholic, and they were defending the Faith and they would not give up the Faith. That's my grandparents. I knew both my grandparents, I love them tremendously. They were willing to die for the Faith as little children and these men with their miters on and their collars who have run, just rampages across the Church with all their homosexual crap and their garbage, they deserve to be kicked out.
They should not. They have destroyed the patronage, the patrimony, of thousands upon thousands, tens of thousands of good Irish Catholic souls who, for centuries, were willing to die for the Faith, and these men have completely converted Ireland into a pagan culture worse than when St. Patrick landed on those shores.
And that goes for bishops conferences throughout the West.
Ask yourself this question: Had all this predatory homosexual clergy evil never been exposed, would the bishops have taken steps on their own to root out the evil? They didn't do it before the exposure, and there's nothing to indicate they would admit it now and fix it. In the face of this landslide, they still refuse to accept responsibility.
They should all resign. At least show some integrity — whatever little they can still muster.
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