Disturbing News from Greece

Fr. Theodore Zisis, of whom I am a huge fan, has ceased to commemorate his bishop over disputes revolving around the Creten Event.

Update: More detailed report from Pravoslavie...

On March 5, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, well-known theologian Archpriest Theodore Zisis announced from the ambo of his church that he was ceasing commemoration of Metropolitan Athimos of Thessaloniki, reports Credo.ru.

After years of involvement in the ecumenical movement, since the 1980s Fr. Theodore has become one of Greece’s strongest and most-trusted outspoken critics of ecumenism. Most recently he has been a vocal critic of the June 2016 Pan-Orthodox Synod on Crete, both before and after its convocation. Critics of the council have mainly focused on the text “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World,” arguing that when the Church is coming together to give voice to its dogmatic self-understanding, it cannot use the term “church” in reference to any other confessions, but must strictly speak of the one Church confessed by the Nicene Creed.

In November, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew called upon Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens to defend the documents produced at the Crete Council and to quell criticism of them, warning that he would break communion with those individuals who vocally criticized the council, after which Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki instructed Fr. Theodore to cease expressing any criticisms of the council.

After a time of prayer and discernment, Fr. Theodore has decided that his conscience will not allow him to be silent about what he sees as a danger to the Church, and thus he has responded by ceasing commemoration of his ruling bishop, stating, that the metropolitan has shown “bareheaded” his alignment with the heresy of ecumenism through his acceptance of the Crete Council and his push for a Church-wide acceptance of it at the Holy Synod meeting of November 23-26, 2016.

In using the term “bareheaded” Fr. Theodore alluded to Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, held in Constantinople in 861 and attended by 318 holy fathers, including St. Photios, the Patriarch of Constantinople, which allows for a priest to cease commemorating a bishop who is “preaching the heresy publicly, and teaching it barehead in church.” The canon notes that this “walling off” is not an act of schism, but is indeed praiseworthy, done in defense of holy Orthodoxy.

Fr. Theodore also stated that the Crete Council cannot be justified as it was neither holy, nor a synod, nor representative of the mind of the fullness of the Church. Then directly citing Canon 15, Fr. Theodore announced that on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, when the Church proclaims its triumph over all soul-destroying heresies, he would cease commemoration of his bishop, as he is unable to commemorate all the great saints who have battled against heresy, while commemorating a bishop he believes has fallen into heresy.

His announcement was met with cheers and applause from the congregation.

Both Fr. Theodore and another Thessaloniki priest, Fr. Nicholas Manolis, who has also ceased commemoration, have been summoned to a spiritual court and face the possibility of being defrocked from the holy priesthood. In his announcement, Fr. Theodore asked Metropolitan Anthimos to defer to Canon 15 of the First-Second Council and to allow Fr. Theodore to continue his work.

Note that among critics of the Crete Council there is disagreement over how to proceed. In January, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), one of the most respected bishops and theologians in the Church today, who has offered several weighty critiques of the council, urged others not to cease commemoration of their hierarchs.

Foul Weather

In my hometown of Binghamton NY they were told to brace for between 8-14 inches of snow between last night and tomorrow morning. My sources inform me that they are currently at about 30" and it's still coming down at 2-4 inches per hour.

Igumen Nektary (Morozov): What Makes a Priest Rejoice at Confession

(Speaking of the great champion of Roman Catholic orthodoxy Fr. Z, see the previous thread, confession is one of his favorite subjects.)

What gives you joy when one person after another lines up to take confession? Not when you hear the confession that many call, “on duty”, but when you become a witness to change that’s happened (perhaps even before your very eyes) in a person; when you have become the witness of his struggle, the result of his work on himself and the action of God’s grace that goes with it. This is always experienced as a marvelous miracle—the most important and most necessary of all miracles, the most unbelievable and most saving.

However, it’s not only the miracle that makes you rejoice, but even the more for the person standing before you. He just now stood far from God, was veritably shrouded in a twilight shadow, and in an amazing way happened this turnaround, this conversion and return to the Father; and he is no longer in that deathly shadow, but in the light that illumines him and you together.

A person can repent of the most terrible sins, the most barbaric evil-doing; his tale may be bitter and worthy of tears. But if an inner change occurs, that very “metanoia”, that is, a change of mind, or more precisely, of the entire human personality, there is no feeling of weariness. To the contrary: the soul becomes so light, like after a thunderstorm when the thunder claps and the lightning strikes, and the water pours down to cleanse and refresh the poor, sinful earth.

Usually when you hear another’s confession or when you yourself confess, you think, “For what does the Lord love us so much?! No, of course He doesn’t love us for something, but in spite of everything…” And here something reveals itself to you... It’s the beauty of the human soul that words cannot express—wondrous, primordial, hidden usually by the deformity of the passions, the wounds of vice, the scabs of sins. It reveals itself—and you understand at last why the Creator loves His creation: As St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) says, in a drop of dew, in the human soul is reflected the light of the Sun, the light of the Divinity, and you admire it in a moment, giving thanks for this mercy and gift.

And more… you rejoice because you feel that you are not standing there in vain in your priest’s stole before the analogion with the Gospels and Cross; nor is your tiny labor in vain or futile, and there is some benefit from your service, your prayer, your words, or at least from your attention and inner sympathy. You are only a witness, and not the performer (there is only one true Performer!), but how good it is that this witness is not fruitless!

And, of course in order to feel and experience all this it is not necessary to see another Mary of Egypt turning from a harlot into a great saint, or Abba Moses the Ethiopian, a murdering thief who once brought fear to all but later became the humblest of monks. You don’t necessarily have to hear a confession filled with dramatic details, “unusual” or “out of the ordinary”. There may not be anything particular to its content. The main thing is that very feeling of change spoken of above. The main thing is the feeling that the person is truly laboring, and the Lord accepts and blesses that labor. And that painful, by no means swift, modest and yet infinitely glorious—ascent to the heights…

Source.

Fr. Z on the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and the Great Anathemas

For the Orthodox, Sunday 5 March was the Sunday of Orthodoxy.   They had solemn proclamations of “ANATHEMA” against heretics.   It is very festive.  I envy them conviction and this solemn ceremony.  We Latins really should have something like this.

Here is looong video from Holy Trinity Monastery, Ekaterinburg in Russia, yesterday.  Yes, this is 2017, not 1054. Click around in it if you can’t watch/listen to the whole thing. It is grand...

Read the rest here. The comment thread is also quite interesting.  And yes the video of the service is really very good.

Divine Liturgy for the Second Sunday of Great Lent (St. Gregory Palamas)

In Church Slavonic

St. Patrick of Ireland and other Western saints officially added to Russian Orthodox Church calendar

St. Patrick, the great enlightener of Ireland, will be officially celebrated in the Russian Orthodox Church for the first time this year on March 17/30. At its March 9 session, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox, under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, officially adopted St. Patrick and more than fifteen other pre-schism Western saints into its calendar, according to the report published on the patriarchate’s official site.
The decision was taken after hearing a report from His Eminence Metropolitan Clement of Kaluga and Borovsk, chairman of the commission for the compilation of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Menaion, or calendar of saints, with the proposal to include several ancient saints who labored in western lands before the Great Schism of 1054.

The commission, created on September 18, 2014 by the blessing of His Holiness, had been working on compiling a list of western saints guided by the following criteria: their unblemished confession of the Orthodox faith; the circumstances in which their glorification took place; the absence of their names from polemical works against the Eastern Church and rite; and their present veneration in foreign dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church and other Local Churches.

Also considered were the “Complete Menaion of the East” by Archbishop Sergius (Spassky), the report of St. John Maximovitch to the Holy Synod of the Russian Church Abroad in 1952, the articles of the Orthodox Encyclopedia and the Snaxarion compiled by Hiermonk Macarius of the Athonite monastery of Simenopetra.
The Western saints added into the calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church are:

Hieromartyr Pothinus, bishop of Lyons, and those with him (June 2/15; c. 177)
Martyrs Blandina and Ponticus of Lyons (June 2/15; c. 177)
Martyr Epipodius of Lyons (April 22/May 5; c. 177)
Martyr Alexander of Lyons (April 24/May 7; c. 177)
Hieromartyr Saturninus, first bishop of Toulouse (November 29/December 12; c. 257)
Martyr Victor of Marseilles (July 21/August 3; c. 290)
St. Alban, protomartyr of Britain (June 22/July 5; c. 304)
St. Honoratus, archbishop of Arles and founder of Lerins Monastery (January 16/29; 429)
St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre (July 31/August 13; 448)
St. Vincent of Lerins (May 24/June 6; c. 450)
St. Patrick, bishop of Armagh, and enlightener of Ireland (March 17/30; 451)
St. Lupus the Confessor, bishop of Troyes (Gaul) (July 29/August 11; 479)
St. Genevieve of Paris (January 3/16; 512)
St. Germanus, bishop of Paris (May 28/June 10; 576)
St. Procopius, abbot of Sazava in Bohemia (September 16/29; 1053)

Also approved and recommended for Church-wide liturgical use was the texts of the service to the Synaxis of Saints of Diveevo, the service to St. Hilarion of Optina, and the troparion and kontakion to St. Adrian of Ondrusov.

Source.

USDA Threatens To Shut Down Farm For Conservative Article In Break Room

Maybe it’s just nostalgia talking, but the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals used to be so much simpler.

For hundreds of years, the meat-packing industry bore the responsibility for transforming Bessie the Cow into carnivores’ favorite source of protein, and more recently the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture ensured that the finished product was “safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged.”

Not so anymore. Due to agency rules issued during the Obama era, FSIS inspectors enjoy expanded duties, including monitoring facilities for any “disrespectful” or “insult[ing]” communication (no, not among the animals). Should they uncover any such communication, inspectors are empowered to take “corrective action,” even if that involves slicing and dicing fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The Fateful Day Don Put an Article in the Break Room

Predictably, unleashing meat inspectors to police the exercise of free speech—with guidelines that provide only vague directional prodding—is the equivalent of releasing a bull in a china shop. At least, it was for Don and Ellen Vander Boon, the owners of West Michigan Beef Company. (To be fair, Mythbusters found that bulls can be surprisingly respectful of grandma’s china. The same cannot be said for the USDA and the First Amendment.)

The USDA threatened to shut down this family-owned company, not because of health concerns, or because short ribs were incorrectly labeled as plate ribs (incidentally, you would not believe the labeling requirements), or because People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals infiltrated their ranks in some sort of hostile takeover bid. Rather, the so-called offense consisted of an article Don placed in the breakroom.

The breakroom at West Michigan Beef includes tables that essentially serve as a repository for newspapers, magazines, articles, and other forms of literature that employees or the owners wish to share with those who care to read them. Think of it as a pre-technological Facebook. Importantly, no one is required to read the materials, any more than I am required to flip through a two-year old copy of People while sitting in my dentist’s lobby, or to read my friend’s Facebook post about replacing smoke detector batteries (true story).

In 2015, following the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that purported to redefine marriage for the entire country, various employees shared articles and information related to the decision. Don participated by sharing an article that expressed the traditional Christian view that God designed marriage as a union between a man and a woman and set forth reasons for that position.

When a USDA public health veterinarian, the on-site inspector, saw the article in the breakroom, well, he had a cow. He removed the article and reported it to his USDA supervisor. The pair stampeded into Don’s office and threatened to remove USDA inspectors—effectively shutting down the facility—if Don returned the article to the breakroom, stating the article was offensive and harassing under expanded agency rules.

Read the rest here.

Trans Rights

Surely a compassionate society must recognize this individual's right to be recognized as a member of whichever species he self identifies with.

156 Years Ago Today

On the eve of the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln and a civil war that would claim upwards of half a million American lives, Czar Alexander II of Russia issued an imperial decree abolishing slavery (serfdom) with a stroke of a pen.

The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete for Clean Wednesday

Feds: After wettest winter in at least 20 years drought appears over in California

Hans Kung: End the schism!

...A further pivotal point in the commemoration process will be the main Service of Repentance and Reconciliation that the Council of the Protestant Churches and the Catholic bishops' conference will celebrate together at Hildesheim on March 11, 2017.

We have, however, heard Vatican declarations of intent and suggestions of repentance and reconciliation all too often. We ecumenically committed Christians at long last want to see actions. Unfortunately, the "Common Word" does not mention the deadlock that exists in both church hierarchies on the decisive issues and disregards the fact that in many Protestant and Catholic communities, ecumenism has already been practiced for a long time now. For these communities, mutual recognition of each other's ministries and Eucharistic hospitality are no longer a problem. Church leaders lag far behind them. If the leaders do not take the matter of "overcoming the still remaining obstacles" seriously, they alone will have to bear the responsibility for not doing so before God and the faithful.

In the 2017 Jubilee Year, those responsible should consistently put the results of the ecumenical Dialogue Commissions into practice. The Catholic Church should consider the following issues:

• Martin Luther's rehabilitation,
• Lifting all the excommunications that were pronounced in the Reformation era,
• Recognizing Protestant and Anglican ministries,
• Mutual Eucharistic hospitality.

Innumerable Christians want to see the Protestant side bring these postulates to the attention of the Catholic Church just as clearly and outspokenly — but naturally not without the necessary self-criticism. Merely celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation without really ending the schism means incurring yet more guilt. May the pressure exerted by theologians, grassroots Christians, Christian communities, and many committed men and women help the church leadership in Rome and elsewhere, which is so often hesitant and afraid, not to miss this historic opportunity but to wake up, otherwise yet more people will turn away from the Church and more communities and groups will take the law into their own hands! In today's globalized, secularized world, Christianity will only come across as credible if it presents itself in truly reconciled diversity.

Read the rest here.

The President's Speech

It was a home run. In all likelihood it was, at least rhetorically, the best speech he has delivered. If you look at the evolution of Trump's public speaking from the early days of the campaign to the primaries, then his generally good but not great speech at the convention and most recently his inaugural, I think we can say with some safety that he is getting better. Trump appears to be a quick study. If this also applies to the job he now holds the next four years could be very interesting times.

For lefties who are feeling a bit blue (pun intended) this morning, take a deep breath. Yes, Trump did much better than most expected last night. He looked and sounded presidential. But... he's Donald Trump. And as far as I know he has not given up his twitter account. So just wait a while. He's bound to do or say something that will get people riled up again.

If/when he gives up Twitter, that will be a sign that it just might be time for the left to panic.

The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete for Clean Tuesday

The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete for Clean Monday

On the Eve of the Great Fast

Please forgive me for any injury or offense I have caused, especially on this blog.

Vacation

Sorry for the blog blackout. I'm taking a pre-lent vacation and should be back next week. I'd post more but the sun is making it hard to see the screen and the sand is getting into my keyboard. 

For the record...

The Church of England has declined to affirm marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Anyone who has not been asleep for the last decade or so will find nothing surprising in this. The CofE and the Anglican Communion are lost. More disturbing are the increasing number of Catholics, including some bishops, who are making noises suggesting their agreement with this apostasy.

That is extremely alarming.

All in the family

It appears the North Korea's left wing dictator does not believe in family first. Having already dispatched his uncle (executed by antiaircraft canon) it now appears that he has successfully assassinated his older half brother. Kim Jong Nam was murdered at an airport in Kuala Lumpur under circumstances that sound like the opening scene of a James Bond movie. Since the late Mr. Kim was under the tacit protection of China it remains to be seen what, if any effect this will have on relations between China and its out of control client state.

The latest from the Telegraph.

RIP... well maybe not

Have you ever rolled your eyes at some sappy obit or eulogy for someone you knew well enough to think privately that s/he was really an SOB and good riddance? Well apparently a family in Texas has decided to be brutally honest in their final remembrance of Leslie Ray Charping.

Lord have mercy.

Reopening the question of women priests

La Civilta Cattolica has published an essay by its deputy editor, Father Giancarlo Pani, which seeks to reopen the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood. This journal, published by the Jesuits but vetted by the Vatican Secretariat of State, has long been a means of communicating lines of thought which reigning popes consider important. Therefore, the kindest way to describe this particular article is “peculiar”. It is, in fact, peculiar in at least three serious ways: politically, administratively, and theologically.

When I say “politically peculiar”, I am applying the idea of political correctness to the Church. The question here is what sort of “political atmosphere” prevails in the Vatican under Pope Francis. What viewpoints do the subtle clues of the powerful indicate are open for discussion, and what viewpoints are discouraged to the point of exiling those who articulate them? We already know, for example, that it is considered very good form to lament the “rigidity” of all who choose to emphasize that adherence to Catholic doctrine and moral teaching is required of us by Jesus Christ.

This consideration of the “political atmosphere” is relevant to La Civilta Cattolica because of its unique status. Since its establishment in Rome in 1850, the journal has served as a kind of unofficial voice of the Holy See. It is the only periodical in the world for which each issue is examined and revised as needed by Vatican personnel, and each issue must be approved prior to publication. At the very least, then, the current understanding within the Vatican is that challenging established Catholic teaching is not frowned upon. Such challenges are not the kind of thing that gets a writer into trouble.

Read the rest here.

Jack Bogle: Putting Clients Second

THE Trump administration recently announced that it intends to review, and presumably overturn, the Obama-era fiduciary duty rule that is scheduled to take effect in April. The administration’s case was articulated by Gary Cohn, the new director of the National Economic Council.

Mr. Cohn, most recently the president of Goldman Sachs, called it “a bad rule” and likened it to “putting only healthy food on the menu, because unhealthy food tastes good but you still shouldn’t eat it because you might die younger.” Comparing healthy and unhealthy food to healthy and unhealthy investments is an interesting analogy.

The now-endangered fiduciary rule is based on a simple — and seemingly unarguable — principle: that in giving advice to clients with retirement funds, stockbrokers, registered investment advisers and insurance agents must act in the best interests of their clients. Honestly, it seems counterproductive to go to war against such a fundamental principle. It simply doesn’t seem like a good business practice for Wall Street to tell its client-investors, “We put your interests second, after our firm’s, but it’s close.”

Read the rest here.

Is the Pope Catholic?

Apparently Catholics are not the only ones opining on that question...

Trump's Supreme Court pick and why he is a done deal

Gorsuch is an outstanding choice. Obviously the other side is apoplectic, and not entirely without reason. When they accuse the GOP of "stealing the seat," well they are right. To which the GOP seems to be responding 'yeah we stole it fair and square, get over it.'

On a more practical note, barring some hitherto undetected scandal coming to light, Gorsuch is in. As in he will be confirmed.

The Democrats are livid but there really is nothing they can do. To be sure they will foam at the mouth and there will be heated speeches on the Senate floor. The committee hearings will be a spectacle. But ultimately Gorsuch is in because the GOP has 52 seats in the Senate and the filibuster is as dead as Jacob Marley. It was killed by Harry Reid when he decided the filibuster was standing in the way of Obama packing the US Federal District and Circuit Courts.

Reid and his fellow Democrats saw an opportunity to reshape the legal landscape which had been decidedly conservative since the 1980's. In fairness the vacancies were there and Obama was within his rights to nominate the judges. Seeing what was at stake the GOP did its best to block this and Reid finally said enough and killed the filibuster.

It was a calculated risk of course, but in the short term it paid off huge. For the first time since the 1970's a solid majority, roughly 2/3, of Federal judges below the Supreme Court are Democratic appointees and they clearly lean left.

Ah, I can hear the objection already... "But but the Democrats left the filibuster in place for Supreme Court Justices!" Well yes they did. There were no open seats at the time on the SCOTUS and if that should change they could easily repeat the process to include Supreme Court nominees. Point in fact, right up to election day, prominent Democrats were openly warning Republicans not to even think about trying to block President Clinton's anticipated SCOTUS nominee or the presumptive Democratic Senate majority would do away with the last vestiges of the filibuster.

So yeah, the filibuster is dead. It may live on in some theoretical form on paper, but like a brain dead man on those machines that keeps the body breathing, it's really dead. The simple truth is that once the Democrats killed the filibuster for political gain they set a precedent. And this particular bell cannot be unrung. If the Democrats try to filibuster Gorsuch, I do not doubt for one minute that the GOP will simply finish what Harry Reid started.

Pope accuses Christians of cowardice for overfocus on following ‘all’ 10 Commandments

February 1, 2017 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In another in a long stream of apparent attacks on his critics, Pope Francis gave a homily last week accusing Christians who avoid taking risks out of concern for the Ten Commandments as suffering from “cowardliness,” warning that such people become “paralyzed” and unable to “go forward.”

“‘Not taking risks, please, no... prudence...Obeying all the commandments, all of them...,'” the pope said, characterizing the thinking of such Christians. “Yes, it’s true, but this paralyzes you too, it makes you forget so many graces received, it takes away memory, it takes away hope, because it doesn’t allow you to go forward.”

Such people become “confined souls” who suffer from the sin of “cowardice,” the pope added. “And the presen[ce] of a Christian, of such a Christian, is like when one goes along the street and an unexpected rain comes, and the garment is not so good and the fabric shrinks...Confined souls...This is cowardliness: this is the sin against memory, courage, patience, and hope.”

Read the rest here.

Checkmate

Black bishop takes white knight. Game over.

The latest on the Knights of Malta scandal

Pope Francis Declares All of Festing’s Recent Acts ‘Null and Void’

Pope Francis has declared that all actions taken by the head of the Order of Malta and its governing council since the dismissal of Albrecht von Boeselager last month are “null and void,” including the election of Boeselager’s replacement.

Writing on the Pope’s behalf to members of the Order’s governing council Jan. 25, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin stated that the Holy Father, “on the basis of evidence that has emerged from information he has gathered, has determined that all actions taken by the Grand Master after December 6, 2016, are null and void.”

He added: “The same is true for those of the Sovereign Council, such as the election of the Grand Chancellor ad interim.” The Council elected Fra’ John Critien as Boeselager's temporary replacement.

Cardinal Parolin began his letter by re-emphasizing that the Grand Commander, Ludwig Hoffmann von Rumerstein, is now in charge of the Order, adding that “in the renewal process which is seen as necessary,” the Pope would “appoint his personal Delegate with powers that he will define in the act of appointing him.”

Grand Master Fra’ Matthew Festing submitted his resignation Jan. 24, according to a Jan. 25 Vatican statement. The Vatican added in the communiqué that the next day “the Holy Father accepted his resignation.”

The Vatican also said the governance of the sovereign Order would henceforth be undertaken “ad interim by the Grand Commander pending the appointment of the Papal Delegate”.

The Pope summoned Fra’ Festing to the Vatican on Jan. 24 on the strict instruction not to let anyone know about the audience — a modus operandi that has been used frequently during this pontificate, the Register has learned. During the meeting, Francis asked Fra’ Festing to resign immediately, to which the Grand Master agreed. The Pope then ordered him to write his resignation letter on the spot, according to informed sources.

The Register has also learned that the Pope told Fra’ Festing that the reason for asking for his resignation was the Pope's conviction that he has to do a new, “complete investigation” of the Order, and that such an investigation would be “more easily conducted” if the Grand Master resigned.

The Register has been told that the Pope then had Fra’ Festing include in his letter of resignation that the Grand Master had asked for Boeselager's dismissal “under the influence” of Cardinal Raymond Burke, the patron of the Order. However, as patron the cardinal has no governance in the Order and can only counsel the Grand Master, meaning the decision to dismiss the Grand Chancellor belonged solely to the Grand Master.

Asked if it could confirm this version of events surrounding Fra’ Festing's meeting with the Pope, the Vatican told the Register Jan. 26 it gives “no comment on private conversations.”

Read the rest here.

More on the Knights of Malta: Is Freemasonry invoved?

Things are starting to get a little... weird.

Pope seizes power from the Knights of Malta, brutally ending 900 years of their sovereignty

Damien Thompson writes...

The Knights of Malta – an ancient Catholic order that dates back to the crusades – have enjoyed the privileges of a sovereign state for 900 years. Last night the Order of Malta was effectively stripped of its sovereignty in what appears to be a brutal power-grab by the Vatican.

Pope Francis has demanded and received the resignation of the Grand Master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, a devoutly orthodox Englishman of (even his critics agree) unimpeachable orthodoxy and personal morality. The Vatican has now taken charge of the order while the knights search for a grand master acceptable to Francis. Canon lawyer Dr Edward Condon this morning tweeted out the reaction of many Catholics:

In terms of international law, the Holy See just annexed another sovereign entity.

A source close to the order puts it more bluntly: ‘It’s like an invasion. Nine hundred years of sovereignty wiped out overnight.’

Festing’s ‘resignation’ follows a complicated row over the dismissal of the order’s Grand Chancellor, Albrecht von Boeselager, who was accused of permitting the distribution of condoms by the order’s international charitable arm.

Boeselager appealed to his friend, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, who set up an inquiry made up of Boeselager’s allies. Festing and the leadership of the order refused to accept the authority of the inquiry, because – they argued – the Vatican had no temporal authority over a body that is independent under international law.

Read the rest here.

Sources say Trump may have his Supreme Court pick

Judge Neil Gorsuch of the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit is rumored to be at the top of President Trump's short list of potential replacements for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. If true, this would be a very solid and encouraging choice based on his track record.

Team Trump: Off to a rough start

Accusing the press of fabricating easily verifiable reports on something as mundane as the size of the crowds at the inauguration is probably not the best way to start your tenure in Sodom on the Potomac. But when the press then calls you on your obviously false statements, and your reply is "we have alternative facts" then all I can say is you need staff with at least one foot firmly planted in the real world. During the campaign Team Trump pretty much was playing to the far right wing of the party and his base was evidently prepared to overlook Trump's deficit in reality based communication. But he is in an altogether different league now and this kind of naked mendacity over something so trivial is going to make him and his staff look like fools.

And seriously, who cares about the size of the crowds? This was a Republican inauguration being held near the middle of one of the most heavily Democratic population centers in the country. He wasn't going to get Obama's crowds because a large percentage of attendees at these things are locals, here blacks and Democrats, but I repeat myself. It's also expensive for out of town people to travel to an inauguration and more than a bit of a hassle with the security bubble. All things considered I thought the crowds were quite respectable.

Theophany in Russia

Our annual video of Russians taking the traditional ice water plunge for Theophany.

Patriarch Ilia of Georgia becomes Godfather to 800 children

The feast of Theophany is one of the twelve great feasts of the Orthodox liturgical year, celebrated with great fervency and pious traditions throughout the Orthodox world. In recent years the ancient Orthodox nation of Georgia has added its own unique celebration.

It first took place on January 19, 2008, and again this year in Tbilisi’s Holy Trinity Sameba Cathedral a mass Baptism was celebrated, with Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II becoming the Godfather of around 800 newly-baptized children, reports Sputnik-Georgia, with a video of the event.
 
“I congratulate all on this sacred feast and may the grace of this bright day come down upon all people. Our whole family is very happy and joyous that our third child has become a Godchild of the patriarch of all Georgia himself and I would like to thank him for it,” said Mariam Lomsadze, the mother of one of the children newly-entered into the Orthodox ranks.

Patriarch Ilia had pledged to baptize the third and later children of parents who have been married in the Church, in a bid to improve the nation’s poor demographic situation. The number of abortions in Georgia was cut in half from 2005 to 2010, with the birth rate rising by 25%. This was the forty-seventh such mass Baptism, the patriarch’s Godchildren now numbering more than 32,000.

Source.

AXIOS!

Top Divinity Schools: Use Gender-Neutral Language to Refer to God

The divinity schools at Duke and Vanderbilt Universities have instructed their professors to start using more “inclusive” language when referring to God because the masculine pronouns “have served as a cornerstone of the patriarchy.”

For example: This year’s divinity course catalogue at Vanderbilt tells professors to give “consistent attention to the use of inclusive language, especially in relation to the Divine,” because the school “commits continuously and explicitly to include gender as an analyzed category and to mitigate sexism.”

“It is up to the individual professor’s interpretation for their classes and is suggestive rather than mandatory,” the associate dean for academic affairs at Vanderbilt’s divinity school, Melissa Snarr, said in an e-mail to Heat Street.

Now, that may sound fair, but in many cases, it’s really not up to the professor. For example, if we are talking about the Christian God, every single reference to Him in the Bible uses a masculine pronoun . . . which kind of gives you the vibe that Christians have decided that their god is a dude. The fact is, teaching anything else would be giving inaccurate information — which is what makes Duke’s particular guidelines even more absurd.

According to Heat Street, Duke’s particular divinity school is “geared toward people already working in the Methodist church, taking supplemental weekend or summer classes.” Yes, “Methodist,” as in the Christian religion that has already completely, officially, 100 percent decided that their God is a man. And yet, Duke’s guidelines suggest avoiding gender specific pronouns when discussing Him and suggest using “God” and “Godself” instead.

Read the rest here.

Vatican to issue stamp featuring Martin Luther

January 17, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — If you happen to receive a piece of mail from the Vatican this year, don’t be surprised to see the face of Martin Luther.

The Vatican office charged with issuing stamps, known as the Philatelic and Numismatic Office, confirmed Tuesday to LifeSiteNews that Luther, who broke away from the Catholic Church in a schism 500 years ago, will be celebrated with a postage stamp in 2017. The office is in charge of the annual commission of stamps, coins, and other commemorative medals.

The Vatican regularly issues such memorabilia for special events, including papal trips and holy years. Honoring Luther and the Protestant Reformation is an unlikely choice, trumping other significant events in the Catholic Church such as the 100-year anniversary of the apparition of Our Lady of Fatima and the 300-year anniversary of our Lady of Aparecida, Brazil.

Major events such as Christmas, Easter, the Holy Year of Mercy, and the World Meeting of Families have also merited a commemorative stamp. In the time before a Papal election, when the seat of Peter is vacant, the Philatelic and Numismatic office issues a “Sede Vacante” stamp.

Usually if individuals are commemorated on stamps they are saints, such as Teresa of Calcutta, John Paul II, and Pope John XXIII, who most recently were honored with stamps.

While the Vatican has in the past collaborated with other national post offices to create stamps that are not of explicitly religious content, such as Charlie Chaplain or the fall of the Berlin wall, the Luther stamp has an undeniable religious connotation linked with much hostility to the Catholic Church.

In 1517, Martin Luther published his 95 theses against the Catholic Church and began what thereafter has been known as the Reformation, leading to a schism in the Church. This was followed by the formation of Protestant denominations that later spilled into other countries, fueled by others such as John Calvin and Jan Hus. The confessional war that followed, the “Thirty Years’ War,” with its 10 million deaths was known to be the bloodiest war in Europe until World War I.

Luther, an Augustinian monk, was excommunicated in 1521 by Pope Leo X with the papal bull, Decet Romanum Pontificem. At age 41, he married Katharina von Bora, a run-away Cistercian nun of 26 years.

Pope Francis was criticized in the fall for his trip to Lund, Sweden for a commemoration of the Reformation's 500th anniversary. He held an ecumenical event with Lutherans in the Vatican on October 13 with a statue of Martin Luther displayed. He has also suggested an openness to some Lutherans receiving the Eucharist. A Vatican office under his direction recently referred to Luther as a "witness to the Gospel."

Source.

I checked and it is not April 1st on any calendar I could find.

Liturgy and Female Ordination

Eucharistic prayer in the 21st century

and

German priests: open the priesthood to women, make priestly celibacy voluntary

This is of course from the usual suspects.

Damian Thompson's latest on the Pope

It's not very nice. I am starting to see a trend out there. Trad Catholics, at least many of them, had this Pope's number from the moment he was announced after the white smoke went up. For the most part your more mainstream conservative, small 'o' orthodox Catholics snorted and rolled their eyes at the dire warnings coming from the traddies.

Not anymore.

More and more of them are coming round to the "there is something seriously wrong with this one" line of thinking. And if most of them have not yet reached the point where they are willing to use the "H" word in connection with the Supreme Pontiff, increasingly they are openly calling into question his temperament, judgement and prudence.

Anyways that's a start.

Question

Does anyone know what the story is with the Midwest Conservative Journal? It went silent back in mid December and I noticed yesterday that the site is now down. It was one of my favorite blogs.

Britain: On the death of the Labour Party

LONDON — The British Labour Party is in meltdown. After reviving the center-left in the 1990s, and then dominating British politics until 2010, Labour now faces the gravest challenge in its 116-year history. One of the oldest social-democratic parties in the world is fighting to survive; there is no guarantee it will.

Labour’s crisis is a microcosm of the test that confronts social democracy at large. In polling, Labour has fallen to its lowest level in generations. Shortly before Christmas, the party’s support dropped to 24 percent, which if repeated in a national election would mark its lowest share of the vote since 1918. Forecasts suggest that the number of Labour seats in Parliament could slip from the 232 the party won in 2015 to 190 in 2020, its poorest showing since 1935.

The bad news does not end there. In a recent election to fill a vacant parliamentary seat, Labour suffered the humiliation of failing to reach even 5 percent of the vote. In Scotland, where Labour lost all but one of its seats in 2015, leaked internal polling not only put the party a distant third behind the Scottish nationalists and the Conservatives, but also offered this ominous warning: “There is no such thing as a core Labour vote anymore.”

This week, a report from the center-left Fabian Society suggested that the Labour vote could fall in the 2020 general election to as low as 20 percent because in previous elections it has underperformed its midterm polling by an average of 8 points. This would leave the main opposition party with only 140 to 150 seats in Parliament. The report spoke “of insignificance, even of looming death.”

Many blame Labour’s radical left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for this decline. Since being elected in 2015, and then re-elected last summer after nearly 200 of the party’s members of Parliament staged an unsuccessful coup, Mr. Corbyn seems destined to lead Labour into oblivion. While his supporters point to an influx of new members, mainly middle-class, college-educated people in Southeast England, they ignore an exodus of support in “Middle England” and Labour’s industrial heartlands.

Read the rest here.

Scottish Episcopal Church Reads from the Quran at Epiphany

Christians are familiar with the Bible texts that detail the conception and birth of Jesus to His mother, the Virgin Mary.

But they are not so used to hearing the Muslim version of the story read out in church. And especially not on Epiphany, which celebrates the incarnation of God as His son Jesus - a doctrine denied by Muslims.

Michael Nazir-Ali, a leading evangelical Christian in Britain, has now condemned the reading on a service at the Scottish Episcopal Church's Glasgow Cathedral last Friday.

The congregation at St Mary's cathedral heard the Muslim version of the Virgin Mary's conception of Jesus, from the Koran's Sura 19, sung by Madinah Javed. The passage explains how Mary gave birth after an angel told her God would give her a child.

Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, and that He was a precursor to Mohammed rather than the Son of God.

Sura 19 states that Mary was "ashamed" after she gave birth, and that the infant Jesus miraculously spoke to her from his crib and claimed he was "a servant of God".

It denies Jesus was the Son of God.

A post on the cathedral's Facebook page describes the service as a "wonderful event".

Read the rest here.

HT: A Blog reader.

Patriarch Kirill's Christmas Message

 On this holy night I extend my heartfelt greetings to you all and from the depths of my soul I congratulate you on the great feast of the Nativity of Christ: the feast of the fulfillment of the promises of old for the salvation of the human race, the feast of the ineffable love of the Maker towards his creation, the feast of the coming into the world of the Son of God who is the Messiah.

The Fathers have spoken much over the centuries on the mystery of the Incarnation of God. And now we, as the Fathers before us, hearken to the words of the Church’s prayers and hymns, with reverence listen to Scripture which tells us of this glorious event, and cease not to be amazed at this wondrous miracle.

In his reflections on Christ’s Nativity, St. Symeon the New Theologian writes the following: “God, as he came into the world … united the divine nature with human nature, so that the human person could become god, and that the Most Holy Trinity may mysteriously abide in this person who has become god by grace” (10th Homily). And St. Ephraim the Syrian speaks of the Incarnation of God thus: “Today the Godhead sealed itself upon humanity, that so with the Godhead’s seal humanity might be adorned” (Hymns for the Nativity of Christ).

In attending to these wise words, we ask ourselves: in what manner may we be adorned with this divine seal? How can we attain the likeness of God, to which all people have been called since the creation of the world? How are we to live so that “Christ be formed in us” (Gal 4:19)? The answer is simple: let us observe the commandments of the Saviour. Together with the apostle Paul I address you all, my beloved: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). Cover all things with love and you will find peace and tranquility of soul. Be of generous spirit when forgiving all – and in your hearts there will reign the joy which “no man taketh from you” (Jn 16:22). “In your patience possess ye your souls” (Lk 21:19) – and you will inherit life everlasting.

How important it is that we Christians not only call upon others to follow lofty moral ideals, but endeavour to embody these very same ideals in our everyday lives and in the first instance in ministering to our neighbours. And then by God’s grace we may obtain within ourselves the true fruits of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal 5:22-23).

“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Heb 10:24). When we overcome conflict and division, we speak convincingly to the world of the Saviour who is born and in our deeds we testify to the unusual beauty and spiritual power of the Orthodox faith.

We have embarked upon the year 2017. Exactly one hundred years separates us from events which radically transformed the life of Russia – a great multinational country, and plunged her into the madness of civil war, when children rose up against their parents and brother against brother. The subsequent losses and afflictions which our people endured were in many ways determined by the destruction of our thousand year-old statehood and the struggle against the peoples’ religious faith, generating a profound division within society.

With awe and reverence we recall the great endeavours of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Church of Russia, through whose prayers, we believe, the Lord never abandoned our people and granted to it the strength to accomplish many great feats of labour and military feats leading us to victory in the most terrible of all wars, to restoring the country, to achievements which evoke admiration.

We give thanks to God for the miracle he has revealed to the world – the resurrection of faith and piety within our people, for the restoration of holy sites once destroyed, for new churches and monasteries, the construction of which is a visible sign of the profound changes that have taken place in peoples’ hearts.

Over recent decades there have been and there remain today many difficulties and hardships. But they are all transient, and that is why we are not afraid of them. The experience of the past century has taught us many things and is to serve as a warning against many things.

Let us fearlessly tread the paths of salvation, “for God is with us.” Let us be stronger in our faith, “for God is with us.” Let hope assert itself within us, “for God is with us.” Let us grow in love and accomplish good, “for God is with us.”

Let us place all our hope in the Lord, for he is “everlasting strength” (Is 26:4) and, as the apostle Peter testifies, “there is no salvation in any other” (Acts 4:12). May the light of Christ illumine all our earthly path, and may this path lead us to the kingdom of heaven, which the Lord has prepared for those who love him.

As I spiritually rejoice today together with all of you who live in various countries, cities and villages, yet making up the one Church of Christ, my prayerful wish is that each of you shall enjoy health of soul and body, peace in your families and success in your labours. And may the Lord and Saviour who was born in Bethlehem grant to each of us the opportunity with renewed strength and with all our heart to feel his presence in our lives.

Amen.

Some Free Legal Tips from a Real Lawyer

More here.

Happy New Year

Concerns for the Queen's Health

The Queen may miss the annual New Year's Day church service at Sandringham, with a decision expected to be taken on Sunday morning on whether she is well enough to attend.

The 90-year-old monarch has not been seen in public for 11 days since she and Prince Philip fell ill with what was officially described as "heavy colds".

The illness forced the Queen to miss the Christmas Day service at St Mary Magdalene church in Sandringham for the first time in 28 years.

Philip, 95, who is known for his robust health, was well enough to attend and walked briskly to the church as usual on Christmas morning with Prince Charles, Prince Harry and other family members.

But a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said she was unable to confirm or deny if the Queen would be going to the 16th century church today on New Year's Day, adding: "The Queen is continuing to recover from her heavy cold and is still in residence at Sandringham."

"We probably will not know what is happening until the morning."

Read the rest here.

Georgian Church says 'No' to Council of Crete

Details

Christ is born!

Merry Christmas and a blessed feast to everyone!

Blog Break

Barring something very important, blogging will be thin until Christmas.

Atlantic Canadian bishops approve last rites before euthanasia: ‘Pope Francis is our model’

Wow. Just wow.

Constantinople to the Greek Church: Defrock and Excommunicate Critics of the Council

Unbelievable. The hubris of this man knows no bounds. Clearly he sees himself as an Orthodox Francis. I wonder if he intends to break communion with the churches of Antioch, Bulgaria Georgia and Russia.

Anaxios!

Quote of the day...

"There is a crackpot quality to this pontificate. Nothing is gained by tripping over our own tongues trying to disguise, excuse, or justify it. The Church was healthier under Alexander VI. A sinner, for sure. Yet the Borgia pope was still an impressive man in many ways. The Church would be better served by a pope who had all his wits plus a mistress on the side than an erratic, mercy-mongering pretender to virtue."

From here.
HT: Bill Tighe

Rome in Eye of A Storm- An interview with Edward Pentin on the crisis in the Catholic Church

He is a veteran Vatican-watcher, the Rome reporter for the USA’s National Catholic Register. He’s also that rarity among journalists – a practicing Catholic.

He’s a real pro, too.  In 2014 Edward Pentin’s journalistic integrity came under fire from a Pope Francis favorite, German Cardinal Emeritus Walter Kasper. The liberal Cardinal’s disparaging comments about African prelates attending the Synod had been captured on Pentin’s Iphone recorder. Kasper publicly denied ever making such remarks – and then had to retract his denial when Pentin quietly published the audio. The resulting furore quickly derailed attempts to hijack the Synod by Kasper and his cronies.

Now it seems that once again, all eyes are on Rome. A group of high-ranking prelates have made public a ‘dubia’ they had sent to Pope Francis with questions on Amoris Laetitia. This, because the Pope ignored  the same dubia, sent privately two months before.

All quite proper under Canon Law. But the move has set off a firestorm of controversy, even involving the Pope himself, who this week made the astounding comparison of journalists covering Vatican scandals to people with a sexual interest in feces. Now, rumours are swirling that the Pope is unwell, and one British journalist has even called for his retirement. Most recently, 23 scholars have signed a public letter supporting the Cardinals, warning of a ‘metastasizing crisis’ in the Church.

What is going on in the Vatican? In an attempt to get some clarity amidst a storm of spin, REGINA asked Edward Pentin to report on what he’s seeing, from his vantage point in Rome.

Read the rest here.

Semper Fidelis

From a speech delivered by General John Kelley USMC...

Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.

Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.

The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island.

They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America’s exist simultaneously depending on one’s race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: “Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.” “You clear?” I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: “Yes Sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, “No kidding sweetheart, we know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.

Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different.

The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event—just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.” The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion.

All survived. Many were injured … some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”

What he didn’t know until then, he said, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion he said, “Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did.”

“No sane man.”

“They saved us all.”

What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “ … let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”

The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines’ weapons firing non-stop…the truck’s windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have know they were safe … because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.

The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.

Six seconds.

Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty … into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.

Four days before delivering these remarks General Kelly's own son was killed in Afghanistan.

75 Years Ago

Memory eternal!

Monarchy done right

Thailand's Prime Minister (center) and other cabinet members are received by the new sovereign, King Rama X. By royal concession former Prime Minister and current President of the Privy Council, Prem Tinsulanonda was permitted to make his obedience while seated in consideration of his age (96).

Dutch bishops update wording of the Lord's prayer

November 30, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Dutch Catholics are raising alarm bells after the bishops of the Netherlands and Belgium changed the words to the Our Father in a way that they believe amounts to an "ideological reinterpretation of the text."

Dutch Catholics who still attend weekly Mass heard a newly-worded Our Father last Sunday that no longer asked God the Father, as Jesus taught, “to lead us not into temptation” but, instead, “not into trial.”

Vox Populi, an orthodox Catholic lay group, is organizing a petition advocating the traditional translation. “Why would this ‘reform’ be necessary now? There is not a single pastoral need to come up with a ‘new common Dutch-Flemish translation’ of the ‘Our Father.’”

Recent Dutch Catholic history is so marked by destructive innovation that in 1996 one faithful scholar declared the situation had long passed the “crisis” phase and achieved “ruin.”

The former translation of the Latin “temptationem” was “bekoring,” or “temptation.” The new version replaces that with “beproeving,” which means in English, “test,” “ordeal,” or “tribulation.”

Read the rest here.

And the hits just keep on coming...

France outlaws pro-life websites

PARIS, December 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) --The socialist government of France passed a bill after one day's debate that criminalizes websites that might dissuade women from abortion.

The “digital interference” bill is aimed at cracking down on French websites that would, in the words of the bill, "deliberately mislead, intimidate and/or exert psychological or moral pressure to discourage recourse to abortion."

Convicted website owners could face two years in prison and fines up to 30,000 euros ($31,799 USD).

The majority left voted in a block for the bill while the minority right formed a block against it.

Bruno Retailleau, who heads the Republicans party group in the Senate, told French radio Thursday that the bill "is totally against freedom of expression,” adding that it contradicts the 1975 law that legalized abortion and which called for women to be informed of alternatives.

Christian Democratic Party member Jean-Frederic Poisson also blasted the bill  on Twitter for what he saw as the government's double standard in banning sites that propose “alternatives” to abortion but not “jihadist websites.”

Read the rest here.

The Bulgarians on the Creten Council: 'No.'

The official declaration of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

It's pretty brutal.

Reuters: Slovakia bans Islam from official recognition as a religion

Wow. I checked and today is not April 1st on any calendar that I could find. It appears that at least in Eastern Europe, the multiculturalism Kool-Aid is losing its appeal.

For the spiritual masochists among us...

May I suggest this. I am not sure I have read anything quite that depressing in a while. Lots of bad people, behaving very badly. There must be fodder for at least a dozen sermons in there.

Bulgarian Orthodox Church: "The Council in Crete is neither Great, nor Holy, nor Pan-Orthodox"

Oh my.

Holy Trinity Seminary Appeal

Holy Trinity Seminary needs help. Thanks to a generous benefactor any donations received by midnight tomorrow will be tripled. Sadly seminaries do not operate out of thin air. They have real bills and expenses. If your circumstances permit, please consider giving.

Orthodox Patriarch Praises Dead Atheist Dictator

We’ve all had a good laugh at the pathetic and obsequious statement that Canadian PM
Pajama BoyJustin Trudeau issued in praise of Fidel Castro, but I can’t let these official remarks by the most powerful church leader in the Orthodox world pass unnoticed.

Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, sent this statement to Raul Castro:

 I learned of the death of your older brother, Fidel Castro Ruz, with deep sorrow. I express to you, to the families and relatives of the deceased, as well as all the people of Cuba, my sincere condolences. Comandante Fidel was one of the most famous and prominent public figures of our time, he won international prestige, and he was a legend even during his own lifetime. As the embodiment of the Cuban people, he expended all his strength to attain his country’s genuine independence to ensure that it took its rightful place in the global family of nations. The Russian Orthodox Church will always say Fidel Castro’s name with respect and gratitude. With his personal involvement, we erected a parish church in Havana dedicated to the Wonderworking Icon of the Mother of God “of Kazan” , and Fidel, in his own words, made himself the “building inspector”. I have fond memories of my meetings with Comandante Fidel. the scale and acuteness of his mind always amazed me, as did his ability to speak with knowledge on a variety of topics. Our last conversation took place  on 13 February of this year at his home, the day after my meeting with Pope Francis. In my heart, I’ll always enshrine a good memory of this courageous and charismatic person, a man who was a sincere friend of the Russian Orthodox Church. In these mournful days, may the Lord bestow upon you and the whole family of Comandante Fidel Castro solace and composure to carry on.

Read the rest here.

To say that this is disappointing is inadequate. Nauseating is a good descriptor. Even the Red Pope didn't go this far.

Ross Douthat: The Pope Declines to Answer

“This is not normal” — so say Donald Trump’s critics as he prepares to assume the presidency. But the American republic is only the second-oldest institution facing a distinctively unusual situation at the moment. Pride of place goes to the Roman Catholic Church, which with less fanfare (perhaps because the papacy lacks a nuclear arsenal) has also entered terra incognita.

Two weeks ago, four cardinals published a so-called dubia — a set of questions, posed to Pope Francis, requesting that he clarify his apostolic exhortation on the family, “Amoris Laetitia.” In particular they asked him to clarify whether the church’s ban on communion for divorced Catholics in new (and, in the church’s eyes, adulterous) marriages remained in place, and whether the church’s traditional opposition to situation ethics had been “developed” into obsolescence.

The dubia began as a private letter, as is usual with such requests for doctrinal clarity. Francis offered no reply. It became public just before last week’s consistory in Rome, when the pope meets with the College of Cardinals and presents the newly-elevated members with red hats. The pope continued to ignore it, but took the unusual step of canceling a general meeting with the cardinals (not a few of whose members are quiet supporters of the questioners).

Francis canceled because the dubia had him “boiling with rage,” it was alleged. This was not true, tweeted his close collaborator, the Jesuit father Antonio Spadaro, though he had previously tweeted and then deleted a shot of the wizard Gandalf, from “Lord of the Rings,” growling his refusal to “bandy crooked words with a witless worm.”

Read the rest here.

Fidel Castro

One of the great tyrants of modern history and an icon of the political left, has died. Lord have mercy.

P.S. The Red Pope has expressed his sadness and grief at the news. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all a blessed feast.

Sources: Baseball's 21-year run of labor peace could be in jeopardy

Baseball’s streak of 21 consecutive years of labor peace is in jeopardy.

The owners will consider voting to lock out the players if the two sides cannot reach a new collective-bargaining agreement by the time the current deal expires on Dec. 1, according to sources with knowledge of the discussions.

A lockout would put baseball’s business on hold, delaying free-agent signings and trades until a new agreement is reached. The winter meetings, a joint venture between the majors and minors scheduled to take place from Dec. 4 to 8 near Washington D.C., might still transpire, but without the usual frenzy of major-league activity.

The possibility of a lockout stems from the owners’ frustration with the players’ union over the slow pace of the discussions, sources said. The two sides still have more than a week to complete a deal, but a number of significant issues remain unresolved.

“We don’t negotiate in the press,” commissioner Rob Manfred said. “We remain committed to the idea that we’re going to make an agreement before expiration.”

Read the rest here.

Report: Pope Francis to End Excommunication for Abortion

The Pope’s decision to make the ability of priests to absolve the “grave sin” of abortion permanent, means Canon Law is to be updated too. Francis had granted priests this power as an exception during the Jubilee Year. The man in charge of co-ordinating the Holy Year of Mercy, Mgr. Rino Fisichella, explained this in his presentation of the pastoral letter “Misericordia et Misera”, with which Francis concluded the Jubilee that ran from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016.

“Canon Law currently stipulates that absolution for the sin of abortion is a faculty that lies with the bishop of the diocese concerned and in some instances, the bishop may delegate some or all priests in his diocese to absolve this sin,” explained the President of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation. “During the Jubilee, Pope Francis had granted all priests the power to absolve this sin, as a concrete sign that God’s mercy is boundless. Therefore, even people who commit this sin – which the Pope reiterates, is extremely grave – will have no trouble obtaining God’s forgiveness if they are repentant. Canon Law is a body of laws and whenever the Pope introduces a measure that alters the dictates of the law, the article that specific measure concerns, necessarily needs to be changed”. More specifically, Fisichella explained, responding to journalists questions, “a latae sententiae excommunication is revoked”. The provision, Fisichella added, does not only apply to women but also to “doctors, nurses and those involved in carrying out the abortion”, as long as they repent: “The sin applies to everyone, so forgiveness of this sin also applies to everyone practically involved.”

Read the rest here.

‘Western laws now clash with moral nature of man’ – Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

Patriarch Kirill lays it on the line.

HT: Blog reader JL

Riots, assassination threats, talk of secession...

From the grapevine

This much is more than rumor. It appears that Pope Francis is to publish an Apostolic Letter on Monday entitled “Misericordia et Misera.” Beyond which multiple sources are suggesting, with no details, that the SSPX will be at least mentioned in the letter.

Hmmm...

Update on the Patriarchate of Alexandria and "Female Deacons"

It appears they are talking about the ancient (and all but extinct) lay office of "deaconess." Due to some vagueness in the early reports there were concerns that they were contemplating the attempted ordination of female deacons.

See this.

For the record

Martyn Percy thinks Justin Welby is preparing an about face on sexual morality. If there is anyone who is surprised by this all I can do is ask what the weather is like on your planet.

Uh oh

I hope this gets dealt with quickly and decisively. That sort of thing can rapidly become an open scandal if attempts are made to sweep it under the rug.

Trump the Supreme Court and the Opposition

Once he assumes office, President Donald Trump is expected to promptly nominate someone to replace Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. This, along with subsequent nominations to the Supreme Court and lower courts, will be among his most consequential decisions.

During the campaign, Trump initially identified two appellate court judges — Diane Sykes of the 7th Circuit and William Pryor of the 11th Circuit — as the sort of individuals he would name to the high court to replace Scalia. Later during the campaign, Trump released a list of 11 names — later expanded to 21 — of potential nominees.

Senate Democrats are unlikely to be particularly pleased with any Trump nomination, particularly after Senate Republicans refused to consider President Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland. Given Republican control of the Senate, however, they may not be able to do much about it. (And, just for the record, let me reiterate that President Obama lacks the power to bypass the Senate on the Garland nomination.)

Back in 2013, after Republicans filibustered Democratic nominees as Democrats had filibustered Republican nominees, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) invoked the “nuclear option,” eliminating the filibuster for lower court and executive branch nominees. As a technical matter, Reid’s move (accomplished by a simple, party-line majority vote) left the filibuster in place for Supreme Court nominees, but there was little question that such a filibuster would not last.

Read the rest here.