Le Tocsin

“The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but men of Tradition”– Pope St Pius X

 

Crowd Pleasing

The Church in the UK was growing exponentially from the end of the war until 1965, measured by all indicators of Catholic health: baptisms were up year on year; Mass attendance, conversions, vocations and Catholic marriages likewise.  This steady advance came to a grinding holt in 1965; a broad plateau then lasted until 1969, from whence it went into free fall, and this is where we have been ever since.  When I became a Catholic sixty years ago there were three million people at Mass every Sunday in England and Wales, today there is around 600,000, of which a third are immigrants and two thirds of the remainder are heretics who could best be described as Roman Protestants.

Coincidentally, Vatican II closed it doors in 1965 and the Novus Ordo was imposed on the Church in 1969.  Within a mere seven years of the latter novelty nearly half the priests in the world had resigned their ministry and three quarters of the laity had abandoned going to Mass.  But all this is of course mere coincidence, it must be mere coincidence because neo-Catholics keep telling us it is so.

The tragedy is that the Church in this country did not whither on the vine, it was deliberately killed off by the corrupt modernist bureaucracy that has replaced our once great Catholic hierarchy.  And with a man on the see of Peter who is clearly more interested in crowd pleasing than preaching the Catholic faith, our fortunes are unlikely to change anytime soon.  Among numerous mob-pleasing statements made by Pope Who-am- I-to-judge Francis, one of the most bizarre in my estimation was, "I believe in God, not in a Catholic God. There is no Catholic God...."  Oh, really!

The Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Christ when He walked the earth 2000 years ago.  It is called "Catholic" - meaning for all men and for all time - to distinguish it from the innumerable sects founded by men, that have none of the sacerdotal powers of Christ's Church, that have proliferated, especially over the last five hundred years.  Christ was God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and His Church, i.e. the Catholic Church, is, so the Scriptures teaches, His body.  Does God then have a Catholic body and a non-Catholic head?  The Scriptures also teaches us that Christ is wedded to His Church, He is the bridegroom and she is His bride.  Is it now an article of faith that this is a mixed marriage?

MIND YOU LANGUAGE

By: Graham Moorhouse

Someone has cleverly observed that the first casualty of war is truth.  One might add that a close second is language, and that is true of both war and revolution.

It is not an accident that the German Nazis for example spoke of the "final solution" rather that speaking of wiping out the Jewish race.  It sound so much less threatening, less evil, even perhaps a tad positive.  Similarly, it is no accident that pro-aborts talk about the "products of conception", rather than an unborn child or a foetus: it makes what they are doing seem so much more palatable, less evil, even a tad bland.

A parallel process is taking place in the post-Conciliar Church.  There is a war at the moment between Modernists and Catholics for the soul of the Church.  The Modernist has much in common with the sixteenth century reformers, but where he differs radically is in his methodology.  Whereas Luther nailed his dissent to the church door at Wittenberg and shouted his foul mouthed defiance from the rooftop, the Modernist prefers to conceal his dissent and work away termite-like to destroy the Church from the inside.  There will be no loud, coarse mouthed defiance from him, for the very last thing he wants to do is draw attention to himself.

The modernist is at one level a Catholic who has lost his faith but maintains a façade of faith.  He is like the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, all is disarming smiles, effusive politeness, inflated bonhomie and endless empty prattle about "love"; his handshake is always warm, even if usually somewhat unpleasantly limp and moist.  When it suits his purpose he will claim that he is recovering a long lost tradition from the early Church, when he wishes to kill-off same, he will tell us that it is necessary to change to better address the needs of modern man.  Thus, this master of deceit puts himself in a heads I win, tails you lose situation, while all the while smiling you to death. 

Because the Modernist is highly skilled at concealing his loss of faith, he can be difficult to detect, but his language will often give him away.  Just as when someone talks about the "products of conception", you know immediately that they are a raving pro-abort, similarly, when you hear a prelate talking about the "president" when he means "priest," you know you are dealing with a raving Modernist.

A classic example: Bishop Kieran Conry recently spoke of the need to get people back to celebrating the "Sacrament of Reconciliation."  Why do Modernists use convoluted language like "Sacrament of Reconciliation" instead of "confession"?  The answer is very simple, they do not believe in sacramental absolution, that smacks too much of the miraculous, and that "magic" stuff is for children.  So to conceal his dissent he has worked out a clever alternative story.  It goes like this: sin is an offence against one's neighbour (he doesn't actually believe in sin as being an offence against God - which is why men like Vincent Nichols can happily pay public homage to Hindu gods).  Sin therefore separates me from my neighbour, and consequently puts me outside the community.  What is needed therefore is someone with the authority to admit me back into the community.  Who better to exercise this authority than the priest (sorry: president) who has been delegated by the community to take care of community affairs.  Thus we are dealing here with a quasi-judicial act, not a sacerdotal one.  Thus, "Sacrament of Reconciliation" because the bloke in charge has readmitted (reconciled) me back into the community.

Occasionally it is not words but their actions that give them away.  The Church solemnly teaches that she does not have the power to ordain women.  The Modernist, not believing in sacerdotal powers, entirely rationally concludes that anyone, including women, can be appointed by the community to preside.  Thus a few years ago you find Bishop Malcolm McMahon taking two Anglican priestesses with him on his diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes and encouraging the faithful to attend their invalid (hence blasphemous) “Masses.”  He then had both these heretical laywomen dressed in full clerical glad rags on the altar for his final Mass.  This way his lordship can replace our Catholic religion with his own private religion, while cunningly not uttering a single self-incriminating syllable.  Bishop Malcolm McMahon is soon to be inflicted on the long-suffering Catholic remnant of Liverpool.  Meanwhile, like stray dogs praising the dog catcher for having tossed them a couple of biscuits, the brain dead are salivating over the fact that his Lordship has occasionally celebrated the Traditional Mass.

The Modernists have much in common with the predatory sodomites in the ministry whose abuse of adolescent boys since the Council has dragged the name of the Church into the sewer, for both have no scruples about prostituting their clerical office and abusing their powers to advance their private agendas - and both use cunning and deceit to get away with it, while all the while, like that wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood, smiling you to death.. 

There is also another connection: just ask yourself this: why would any normal heterosexual male, who had lost his faith, wish to become a Catholic priest?

BREAKING NEWS: Judge “not satisfied” Boris Johnson told “full story” about ban on Christian bus advert

 

A High Court Judge has ordered the Mayor of London to provide full, unedited copies of emails and other documents sent to and from his office “in order to get to the bottom” of his decision to ban a Christian charity’s bus advertisement (seen on the right above)..

During the 2012 London Mayoral Election, Boris Johnson banned adverts by Core Issues Trust (CIT), a charity which supports men and women dealing with unwanted same-sex attraction.  At the time of the ban, the Mayor was about to address an election meeting organized by the homosexual lobby group, Stonewall.

The proposed adverts by CIT, which read “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!" were a response to bus slogans by Stonewall reading, “Some People Are Gay. Get Over It”, which the Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) had sanctioned.  

Last month, the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Dyson, ruled that the High Court must re-investigate the ban after new email evidence was revealed following a Freedom of Information request by CIT.

One significant email from Mr Johnson’s Director of Communications, Guto Harri, stated: “Boris has just instructed TfL to pull the adverts”.  This and other evidence had not been disclosed at the original High Court hearing, when the Judge, Mrs Justice Lang, upheld the ban on CIT's adverts.

At this week’s hearing, Mrs Justice Lang reviewed the new email evidence and said, “I am still not satisfied that the full story is being told.”

Disclosure order for all documents

In her directions, the Judge added that “in order to get to the bottom of this” she was making an order for disclosure by Boris Johnson and TfL of all relevant documents relating to his decision to pull CIT's adverts.  The order includes emails, memos, internal notes, reports and any other relevant documents sent to or from the Mayor or any person in the Mayor’s office within the Greater London Authority.

The Judge also asked Boris Johnson, Guto Harri and Sir Peter Hardy, Commissioner for TfL, to provide witness statements, adding that she will decide on the basis of the Mayor’s statement whether to call him to court to give evidence under oath. 

Paul Diamond, Standing Counsel to the Christian Legal Center, who is representing the charity, has also been granted the opportunity to apply for permission to cross-examine the Mayor and his colleagues once the witness statements have been submitted.
 
Comment from Andrea

Andrea Williams, CEO of the Christian Legal Center, said: “This is an important vindication of the rule of law.  TfL has made it hard for us to get to this point; it has been hostile and obstructive and has certainly not been a model of transparency. TfL's pursuit of costs against Core Issues Trust is oppressive - the public purse chasing down a small Christian charity. 

“TfL's continued promotion of Stonewall campaigns on its transport system is highly provocative and shows disregard for the Court's judgment.”

Please help the Christian Legal Center to support organizations like Core Issues Trust and to ensure that the Christian voice continues to be heard by making a donation.

Why are French Catholics so much better at putting boots on the pavement than we are?

Aware that there is a news blackout in the secular media regarding La Manif Pour Tous, I emailed a Catholic friend living in Paris for news.  Here is his response:

So sorry I didn't get back to you immediately. In fact there have been demos every weekend in January through to February! We went to most but not this one because we were at a seminary for a young cousin who was taking his "soutane" (I don't know what you say in English : first year seminary student who receives his habit).

Anyway, the fight goes on in lots and lots of different initiatives in France and it's catching elsewhere e.g. the famous "sentinelles" and "veilleurs" are now active in Spain and Italy.

There is another major demo planned in May after the up-coming municipal then european elections.

GOOD TRAD -v- BAD TRAD

By: Don McGovern

Seen through the spectacles of the inhabitants of Novus Ordo la la land, trads come in two distinct types: "good" trads and "bad" trads.  It is important to understand that the word "good" when used here is not indicative of an absolute but a relative good.  What the denizen of Novus Ordo land actually means is that the "good" trad is less bad than the "bad" trad.

It's simple: a man  who attends the traditional rite of Mass out of mere aesthetic preference, rather in the manner that a man may prefer Earl Gray tea to Sainsbury's Red Label, is a "good" trad and someone our citizen of Novus Ordo land is willing, if push comes to shove, to make a reasonable effort to tolerate, if only because his toleration gives him a warm pleasant feeling, like a shot of whisky on a cold night.

However, the "bad" trad, a man who attends the rite of his forefathers, saints and martyrs out of moral, theological and religious conviction, is an entirely different kettle of fish.  For this man, curse him, is like a sort of living breathing walking sandwich board, that reads on the front:

"The Novus Ordo is a Protestantized, doctrinally dumbed down rite, fabricated by a committee under the direction of a Freemason, with input from six heresiarchs, and I would rather be fed through a food mixer feet first than grace it with my presence. Furthermore, to call it 'ordinary' is an abuse of language, for there is nothing 'ordinary' about a novel experiment that has never before been tried in the last two-thousand years - not even close."

If that wasn't bad enough, on the back of his sandwich board is written:

"Furthermore, within seven years of its imposition, nearly half the priests in the world had deserted their ministry and three quarters of the laity had abandoned going to Mass.  It is thus clearly a failed liturgical experiment that would have been consigned to the dustbin of history forty years ago if there was any sanity left in the human element of the post-Conciliar Church."

The "bad" trad will often express surprise that the inhabitants of Novus Ordo la la land hate him so much.  He cannot understand why the leaders of this sect discriminate against him, and even persecute him: the Friars of the Immaculate and Thomas More college are but the most recent and better-known examples of something that has been both ubiquitous and insidious since the Council.  But why the surprise? - revolutions have always been thus.

The last two hundred years has seen numerous revolutions, and those considered by the revolutionary mob and their leaders as counter-revolutionaries have always been treated cruelly and pitilessly.  If one stubbornly insisted on proclaiming the truth during the French Revolution, you were lucky not to be parted from your head.  If you insisted on asserting the truth during the Russian Revolution, you would be sent to a Siberian Gulag.  If you insisted on declaring the truth during the Chinese revolution you were sent to a re-education through labour camp.  Note well: it was never necessary to oppose the revolution publicly, the mere fact that one stubbornly rejects the lie and maintains the truth within the private forum is enough to have one arrested - one must prove one's loyalty to the revolution, even at the level of one's private thoughts.  The reason is obvious, until all men prostitute their soul to the revolution, the revolution has failed, and will eventually be seen to have failed.

Every Catholic alive today owes his faith to a couple of hundred of his forefathers in faith who have passed that faith on to him, many having shed their blood in the process.   At the moment the post-Conciliar PR machine is working overtime on its fairy tale of Pope Who-am-I-to-judge Francis the humble man.  But it requires not humility but a mind boggling arrogance to display the sort of contempt for the faith of one's forefathers that Pope Francis and his entourage exhibit approximately once every forty-five minutes..

The following are but a handful, selected at random, of the insults heaped upon the faithful who cherish the faith of their forefather by "humble" Pope Francis, in the last twelve months: "Old maid!", "Fomenter of coprophagia, "Specialist of the Logos!", "Rosary counter!", "Functionary!", "Self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagian!", "Restorationist!", "Pelagian!", "Mr and Mrs Whiner!", "Triumphalist!", "Museum mummy!", "Ideologue of the Logos!", "Leprous courtier!", "Ideologue!",, "Liturgical obsessive!", "Sayer of prayers!", "Authoritarian!", "Elitist!", "Asker for certainty in all things!", "Creed-reciting, parrot Christian!", "Inquisitorial beater!", "Abstract ideologue!", "Fundamentalist!", "Promoter of the poison of immanence!," “Those closed in the formality of a prayer that is cold, stingy [who] might end up as Michal, in the sterility of her formality.”

Traditionalists, that is those who cherish the faith of their forefathers, it would appear are becoming something of an unhealthy obsession of this Pope.  The need to constantly insult those who adhere stubbornly to the traditions, orthodoxy and orthopraxis of their forefathers, saints and martyrs out of love for what has been handed down is certainly no sign of humility.  Indeed, all revolutions are born, not of humility, but of the sin of Adam, a haughty pride.

We Have At least Two Catholic Cardinals Left

Cardinal Caffarra's [Archbishop of Bologna] firm stance on communion for "remarried": Its approval would mean complete end of "Catholic doctrine on human sexuality" - [and on most else, one might add.]

Regarding the wild proposals of Cardinal Kasper made before the last Consistory of Cardinals regarding legitimizing by way of Eucharistic communion the "remarriage" of divorced couples (we could call the Kasper Doctrine of "mariages sauvages"), Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, Archbishop of Bologna, had the firmest possible words in an interview to Matteo Matzuzzi published this Saturday in Il Foglio:

[Regarding Cardinal Walter Kasper's proposal on the possibility of readmitting to communion, after a period of penance, the couples of remarried divorcees who ask for it, following a period of penance, Caffarra says:] "If the Church admits [them] to the Eucharist, she must anyway grant a judgment of legitimacy to the second union. That is logical. But now - as I asked - what to make of the first matrimony? The second, it is said, cannot be a true second matrimony, considering that bigamy goes against the word of the Lord. What about the first one? Is it dissolved? But the Popes have always taught that the power of the Pope does not reach that point: the Pope has no power over a marriage that is ratum et consummatum. The proposed solution leads us to think that the first matrimony remains, but that there is also a second kind of cohabitation that the Church legitimizes. It is, therefore, an extramarital exercise of human sexuality that the Church legitimizes. But with this, the foundational pillar of the Church's doctrine on sexuality is negated.  At this point, one could ask: so why are not free [extramarital or premarital] unions approved?  And why not relations between homosexuals?"  [Excerpt provided by TMNews Italy.]

Cardinal Caffarra naturally got the fulcrum of the matter - indeed, the Kasper Doctrine means exactly that, the demolition in one fell swoop of the entire Catholic doctrinal edifice on human sexuality and the sacrament of matrimony.  And that consequence is not at all a coincidence.

Click on the picture below to hear Cardinal Burke's blistering dismissal of the gibberish being advanced by Cardinal Walter Kasper, with the encouragement of the Pope!

The Old Evangelization Veritas in Via (Truth in the Street)

The picture above is of a group of traditional Catholics outside Brixton underground giving away Rosaries and pitching for the faith.  This is a missionary outreach that has come from the laity.  Veritas in Via (Truth in the Street) is a grassroots, non-profit Catholic evangelization organization, dedicated to responding to the mandate of Jesus to preach the Gospel to all nations by taking our Catholic faith into the streets. This in done in a mostly non-confrontational way, allowing God's grace to move in the hearts of those who witness our public Catholic presence and engage in conversation with us.  There is a similar unconnected mission in the USA, which you can lean about here.

The aims are very simple: to open the minds and hearts of non-Catholics to the one true faith, to encourage lapsed Catholics to return to the faith and to encourage neo-Catholics to explore the orthodoxy and orthopraxis of our forefather, saints and martyrs.  There is nothing "new" about our efforts, perish the very thought, this is just good old fashioned evangelizing.

It's also great fun and God is indeed good, for we have already seen two new attendees at the local traditional Mass resulting from our witness, and it is very early days yet.

We need both prayer support and free rosaries.  If you can make rosaries or donate rosaries, please email the editor here

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

By Patrick J. Buchanan (copied from his blog)

“Pope Francis doesn’t want cultural warriors; he doesn’t want ideologues,” said Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash.:  “The nuncio said the Holy Father wants bishops with pastoral sensitivity, shepherds who know the smell of the sheep.”  Bishop Cupich was conveying instructions the papal nuncio had delivered from Rome to guide U.S. bishops in choosing a new leader.  They chose Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., who has a master’s degree in social work, to succeed Archbishop Timothy Dolan whom Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times describes thus:  “A garrulous evangelist comfortable in front of a camera, who led the bishops in their high-profile confrontation with the Obama administration over a provision in the health care mandate that requires most employers to have insurance that covers contraceptives for employees.”  That mandate also requires employers to cover abortion-inducing drugs and sterilizations.

Yet here is further confirmation His Holiness seeks to move the Catholic Church to a stance of non-belligerence, if not neutrality, in the culture war for the soul of the West.  There is a small problem with neutrality.  As Trotsky observed, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”  For the church to absent itself from the culture war is to not to end that war, but to lose it.

What would that entail? Can we not already see?  In America, the family has disintegrated. Forty percent of working-class white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic children, and 73 percent of black children. Kids from broken homes are many times more likely to drop out of school, take drugs, join gangs, commit crimes, end up in prison, lose their souls, and produce yet another generation of lost souls.

Goodstein quotes the Holy Father as listing among the “most serious of the evils” today “youth unemployment.” And he calls upon Catholics not to be “obsessed” with abortion or same-sex marriage.  But is teenage unemployment really a graver moral evil than the slaughter of 3,500 unborn every day in a land we used to call “God’s Country”?  Papal encyclicals like Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno have much to teach about social justice in an industrial society.  But what is the special expertise of the church in coping with teenage unemployment? Has the Curia done good scholarly work on the economic impact of the minimum wage?

The cultural revolution preached by Marxist Antonio Gramsci is continuing its “long march” through the institutions of the West and succeeding where the violent revolutions of Lenin and Mao failed.  It is effecting a transvaluation of all values. And it is not interested in a truce with the church of Pope Francis, but a triumph over that church which it reviles as the great enemy in its struggle.

Indeed, after decades of culture war waged against Christianity, the Vatican might consider the state of the Faith.  Our civilization is being de-Christianized. Popular culture is a running sewer. Promiscuity and pornography are pandemic. In Europe, the churches empty out as the mosques fill up. In America, Bible reading and prayer are outlawed in schools, as Christian displays are purged from public squares. Officially, Christmas and Easter do not exist.
The pope, says Goodstein, refers to proselytizing as “solemn nonsense.” But to proselytize is to convert nonbelievers.  And when Christ admonished his apostles, “Go forth and teach all nations,” and ten of his twelve were martyred doing so, were they not engaged in the Church’s true commission — to bring souls to Christ.

Pope Francis comes out of the Jesuits.  Hence, one wonders: Did those legendary Jesuits like St. Isaac Jogues and the North American Martyrs make a mistake proselytizing and baptizing, when they could have been working on youth unemployment among the Mohawks?
An Italian atheist quotes the pope as saying, “Everyone has his own idea of good and evil,” and everyone should “follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them.”  Does this not reflect the moral relativism of Prince Hamlet when he said to Rosencrantz, “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so?” Yet, is it not the church’s mission to differentiate good and evil and condemn the latter?
 “Who am I to judge,” Pope Francis says of homosexuals.  Well, he is pope. And even the lowliest parish priest has to deliver moral judgments in a confessional.

 “Since he became pope,” writes Goodstein, Francis’ “approval numbers are skyrocketing.  Even atheists are applauding.”  Especially the atheists, one imagines.  While Pope Francis has not altered any Catholic doctrines in his interviews and disquisitions, he is sowing seeds of confusion among the faithful, a high price to pay, even for “skyrocketing” poll numbers.
If memory serves, the Lord said, “Feed my sheep,” not “get the smell of the sheep.” And he did not mean soup kitchens, but more importantly the spiritual food essential for eternal life.

But then those were different Jesuits. And that was long ago.

On the Lighter Side The new South African toilet door lock that will be in the shops shortly

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