A Catholic mystery: Archbishop Sheen and Bella Dodd

Bella Dodd was converted from communism by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. She became famous because she announced to the world that Moscow had spent many decades sending men to the seminary to damage the Church from within. Some of these men rose very high.  In 1966, or '67 she told theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand and his wife, Alice that at least four were cardinals working in the Vatican. Archbishop Sheen forbade Bella to name them in public or in private so she couldn't tell the von Hildebrand's who they were.. It's a great mystery why. I guess he feared scandal or perhaps he thought he was protecting Miss Dodd's life.

The Immaculate Conception

May is Mary's month

St. Katherine Drexel, pray for us.

The order St. Katherine founded has gone the way of many orders and now they are selling her shrine and next year her remains will be moved to Philadelphia.  I don't want to hear about the new Springtime in the Church anymore.

Hail Holy Queen!

An unusual Ascension

Most images of Our Lord's Ascension show Him lifting up in view of the apostles and His mother or they show His feet and the apostles straining to see Him for as long they can. This painting by Gustave Dore shows the Lord well above the earth with the angels as His witnesses.

First Friday for the Sacred Heart of Jesus

From the depth of my nothingness, I prostrate myself before Thee, O Most Sacred, Divine and Adorable Heart of Jesus, to pay Thee all the homage of love, praise and adoration in my power.
Amen. - -St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

Ascension Thursday

We had a misa cantata for Ascension Thursday at my parish and there must have been close to 200 people there tonight. It was beautiful; just glorious.

Three great saints

This unusual painting shows St. Teresa of Avila, St. Clare of Assisi and St. Catherine of Sienna. They represent three glorious monastic orders, the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Dominicans.

The whole society is compromised and other random thoughts

St. Dominic, pray for us.

• Feminists destroy everything they touch. First they came to kill the babies now by pushing women into combat they mean to get the young and fertile women killed.
  
  
• One aspect of city living is that I've seen transvestites in the ladies room. I only noticed because the well dressed tall woman with the huge feet in the next stall was doing whatever it was that she was doing standing up and with her back to the door. Later I'd realize that it must have really been a man. A lot of people are upset with Target because the store is now allowing men in the ladies room. I know people who shop at Target and love it but it always seemed to me to be overpriced and for people who were too snooty to go to Walmart or Kmart.  Whenever I went there to shop for pajamas or t-shirts for my uncle in the nursing home I usually left empty handed because the quality didn't impress me.
  
  The American people have been thoroughly manipulated in the last thirty years to accept homosexuality. The battle was lost a long time ago and just as women have always suffered when their soldiers lost wars many of us will suffer now. The occasional transvestite whose disguise was almost perfect was not the danger really. The rapist or the peeping Tom who used to sneak into the ladies room is the problem. Now all he has to do is walk into Target and just wait until one lone woman or girl comes in. No-one at the store will order him out or call the cops. He's free to hang out as long as he wants and if he leaves his victim dead or incapacitated he'll be able to stroll out of the ladies's room without anyone in store security asking him "Hey buddy, whatcha doing in there?" Target has corporate counsel so   the company knows that they could face lawsuits but someone at the top is so attached to this cause that he's willing to risk it.
  
  
• I read that Russian Orthodox and Russian Catholics have pitched in to help Syrian Christians rebuild their churches. That's wonderful but notice who is not helping. I expected nothing from the Protestants of course but where are the Western Catholics?
  
  
• Our whole society has been compromised and perverted. I knew that sort of but it really hit me this week. I was reading a conservative blog that covers politics and society. I'm not interested in politics anymore so the social issues are  what I focus on. Most of the people are over 60 and reading it on a daily basis has been  really shocking. It's clear that they deplore the president and the Democrats but it's unclear what they love. Since we fight for what we love that is important. Most seem to be more delighted by their pets than they are by their grandchildren and seem to loathe their step-children in general.  Only a few lonely voices had a problem with divorce or eugenics. Most seem to be fine with homosexuality as long as it's amusing like Truman Capote and doesn't make any demands. Most seem to belong to no church at all and are just "spiritual".  Only one or two mentioned Easter  when it arrived. Most have no problem with abortion as long as it's in the first trimester. They find the singer, Beyonce offensive but love watching the Lucifer TV show. As I read, I thought, 'If these are the conservatives then what the heck are the liberals like? No wonder this country so screwed up!'
  
   Alice vonHildebrandt once  mentioned in a lecture that she never saw pornographic images when she was a child but today  children are exposed to  many such images. Even if you don't own a TV, and rarely leave your property every time you go outside you are witness to smut that would have gotten someone arrested just 40 years ago.  Get on the bus and you'll see obscene ads. Drive on the highway and you  see obscene billboards. Go to the mall and you can see half dressed teenagers and even older women. Go to the grocery store and there are magazines with lewd headlines and sometimes fully naked women on the cover right there in the check out line. Seeing cleavage, naked thighs and midriffs at Mass is not uncommon. God bless Catholic parents who fight the good fight everyday. Even so-called respectable mainstream society is against us.  No president can fix this sick society.  We need the help of Heaven. 

Mother of the Word

Dinner at Nazareth

Michael Voris and The Perils of Being a Public Catholic

By now everyone has probably heard or read about Michael Voris. Every one of the bloggers I read have been lovely and kind. The Archdiocese denies that a hit piece was about to come out on Voris which is the expected response.  Mr. Voris's aged father looks physically frail in the videos I've seen of him. I hope the poor man knew about all this before this week and if not, I hope the shock wasn't damaging.  Some people who commented on the various sites have said that Mr. Voris is smearing the Archdiocese without proof. Others have said they just can't imagine Archdiocese staff doing such a thing. I'm reminded of two things: First there is an old saying that goes, "If you want to lose your Faith go to work for your diocese". It means you will be shocked by some of the people who are running your diocese and even more shocked at how the worst of them seem to have the most influence with the bishop. Second, does no-one remember that Cardinal Spellman was rumored to be homosexual himself?  Randy Engel's Rite of Sodomy discusses this  in painful detail.  You don't have to like Michael Voris, his style or his organization, or believe they get every detail correct in their reports to realize that there have been whispers concerning what he has been alleging about the Archdiocese of New York for a  long time.

Numerous priests from various dioceses all around the world have said that when they reported to superiors about certain behavior they observed in their rectories, they were punished so, it's no stretch to believe bad stuff is happening in New York. You can read a few things about Cardinal Dolan's diocese at the Restore DC Catholic blog that would shock and depress me if I were a few decades younger.

The main thing about this cautionary tale that many people have missed is if you are going to fight the Powers that Be, you must expect that they will come after you and will look into your past and use it as a weapon. Civil Rights legend, Rosa Parks was not the first person to defy the Jim Crow bus laws. The first person was a brave 15 year old girl but the NAACP did not back her because of her embarrassing sexual past. Instead the NAACP supported Rosa Parks, whose background stood up to hostile scrutiny.  If you choose to be a public Catholic you must be brave and you must be smart. Put on the armor of God and expect that your enemies will come after you and don't be surprised if friends great and small step back from you.

Let the light shine

When I was a child I spent the night at a friend's house and at some point I got out of bed to get something to drink. I walked into the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a huge brown shimmering circle on the wall above the sink. Before I could figure out what this weird sight was, it broke apart and the thousands, (millions?), of German cockroaches that had been socializing on the wall fled from the light. I stood there and no longer wanted drink of water. I went back to bed and when my mother came for me in the morning I couldn't wait to go to home. I told Mama what I'd seen and she never allowed me to spend the night anywhere ever again. Every time the mother of my friend invited me over Mama had a plausible reason why I couldn't go. She didn't want to shame the woman but there was no way she was letting her child visit a roach infested house.



When I read on the  An Archdiocese of Washington DC  blog that the head of the U.S. bishop's news agency has resigned I thought of those cockroaches having a merry time in the dark and how they scattered when I turned the light on. Tony Spence had a lot to say on Twitter as was his right. Twitter in the case of non- celebrities or non-public officials is practically semi-private. People who don't have a Twitter accounts  or even know that you exist  would never know what you said about anything unless someone brought it to their attention. The Lepanto Institute  shone a light on his comments. The interesting question is this: Was Mr. Spence speaking for himself alone or was he really speaking for  members of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops who prefer to keep their true feelings in the dark?

Credo

One of the most darling Nativity scenes I've ever come across

An overheard conversation

Yesterday evening as I was getting ready to go home, one of the attorneys at the law firm I work for came out of his office and with an uncharacteristic smile on his face exclaimed to a secretary, "How about the pope!"  "I know! Awesome," she answered. To my knowledge neither of these people is Catholic and I was not even aware that the woman was remotely interested in men, much less adulterous marriages but there they were both delighted because the news says the Holy Father has made it okay to be remarried and present yourself at Communion.
I listened to them chatter about how great it was that people are getting relief from their misery and I guess my expression was a lot like this:

A Future Conversation?

Mama, what does pastoral mean?

It means, Child, that when your father and his new "wife" go to church the priest has to pretend that I'm dead. 

Let's face it. Notre Dame is not a Catholic school anymore

Our Lady of LaSallette

A lot of people say that Notre Dame isn't all bad and that there are still Catholics there. So what? A dose of poison in a gallon of water could still kill you and there were decent people living in Nero's Rome. Publicly, Notre Dame is no different than State U. In fact, it's worse. At State, you expect certain things but parents are being lulled into a false sense of safety by Notre Dame, Georgetown, Marquette, and Catholic University among others.

On the Feast of the Annunciation, (c'mon, you know that was deliberate), Notre Dame University forgot who it is named after and  invited Wendy Davis, to speak on campus. Wendy is an abortion lover. She killed her own child and is publicly unrepentant. A little while ago, Notre Dame gave Joe Biden the Latare award. Joe is a fascinating figure and I suspect he's only playing the part of the fool but he's Catholic like a Kennedy and I don't mean Rose. Why are serious Catholic parents still sending their kids there? Is it for the name? Is it for the football team? Oh please! Okay, so everybody in your family has been going there since Knute Rockne was a shiny faced lad that is no reason to send your kid now. Picking a school that is unsuited to your individual child can ruin his life. My father-in-law was in love with a particular school and insisted that his younger son go there. My brother-in-law was not happy and  but he stayed and graduated, broken inside in ways we wouldn't even realize until decades later, but his father got his way.

If you are going to work a second job, mortgage the house and put a financial strain on your marriage in order to send your kid to a big name school*, why do it for a one that is Catholic in name only and cheerfully spits on your precious Faith?



*P.S. Skip the big name schools altogether. South Texas College, is the most affordable school in the U.S.A. with an  annual base tuition under $4000. With all the money you save you can afford  the cable TV sports package so you can watch every Notre Dame game wherever you are and buy all the fan gear you want.

There is more than one bishop in Virginia and other random Easter week thoughts

• Rocky and I went to the Easter Vigil at the Franciscan Monastery in DC and earlier in the week to the Burial of Christ service there  on Good Friday. At the Vigil a little girl sitting behind me was sick. The poor thing coughed so long that her sisters kept getting up to take her to ladies room when it she started retching. On Monday I started coughing, sneezing, gagging and running a fever.  Today I reached a disgusting stage and decided to the probable relief of my co-workers to just stay home.
  
  
  
  
• St. Bernadette, a heroic little saint, once said that she hoped she wouldn't end up roasting in Purgatory because no-one would think to pray for her after her death. Mother Angelica may not need our prayers anymore than Bernadette did but say a prayer for the repose of her soul and that of all the poor souls anyway.
  
  
  
• Susan Matthiesen, at  the beautiful, Les Femmes  blog just wrote a very interesting piece on Mohammed's dreadful vision of the Angel Gabriel and asks who did he really see? I think that if Joseph Smith actually saw an angel instead of just making up a magnificent con, it was the same person that Mohammed saw.
  
  
  
• I'm librarian but I have no problem with censorship which makes me a pariah plague dog among my colleagues so I don't bring it up at professional meetings. If you want your kid reading porn, shame on you ----but you want everybody's kid in a public school reading gross sexual content then  you're an overbearing, publicly dangerous person who must be opposed. Public schools were supposed to serve the local community and reflect the wishes of the parents.  As late as 50 years ago public school teachers were expected to be upstanding citizens and held to a high moral standard. Any teacher who slipped up faced the wrath of the town fathers. That meant immediate dismissal and possibly being run out of town. Why were parents so strict? Because they knew that the teacher had access to their children's minds and souls for several hours a day.  That's powerful. I think Mrs. Jones and Mr. Smith have a right to know if the teacher thinks it's cute to have their ten year old reading a graphic rape scene  and they have a right to say, "No, get your dirty, filthy hands off my kid's mind."  My state and national  librarian membership groups are all for this effort to get Governor McAuliffe of Virginia to veto bill HB516, the so-called "Beloved bill," which would require schools to notify parents when their kids are going to be reading sexual explicit material. I can't go along with them and  my annual dues check will not be in the mail this year.  
  
  
  
• I love Rorate Caeli but most of their head honchos are European and it shows in funny ways sometimes. I find that many foreigners have no understanding of how big the US is. Virginia is a large state, bigger than some Western countries and we have had two diocesan entities since 1974. Rorate is calling for Bishop Loverde to ban the governor from Communion because of his public promotion of sin. The governor comes from Northern Virginia, which is part of Loverde's diocese. Fair enough, but the governor lives in Richmond, the capitol of Virginia. That is the diocese of Richmond, which belongs to Bishop Francis Xavier DiLorenzo . If the governor ever  really shows up at a Mass he probably goes to St. Peter's which is a few streets away from the Executive Mansion.  If you want to press Bishop Loverde to make a statement about the governor, fine but don't forget Bishop DiLorenzo, because this particular gubernatorial wild ram is part of his flock on most days.  There is a whole lot of horrible in the Richmond diocese but it exists. You can 't overlook 142 parishes and missions covering 74 counties and call yourself doing good reporting. 

•  The wailing woman approach that columnist Hilary White first decried years ago has not helped the pro-life movement.
  
  
  
  
• Speaking of the pro-life movement, did you notice that the big time professional Catholics who went to pieces over the death of David Bowie  didn't have much if anything to say about the death of a truly great woman, Nellie Gray? The pro-life movement is beset by many enemies including those are supposedly in the same camp.

• I've said it before, I'll say it again and again.  Beware celebrity priest's.