Please join me for eleven minutes as John Kelly delivers stunning press conference every American should see

The left possesses such blind rage over the Trump presidency, the depth to which they will stoop knows no bounds. But they really are making a habit of exploiting Gold Star families, and I find this grotesque.
The audio of the actual phone call Trump made is now making the rounds. There were awkward moments, but how could there not be? Have you ever had to make such a difficult call? I didn’t hear anything offensive, although there were some points of levity which seemed a little forced. I commend Trump for making the call, and the others he’s made.
A lot has been written critically about the phrases “He knew what he was signing up for, he died doing what he wanted to do, he died surrounded by his brothers.” Let me explain something. No one who has ever been in combat or who has family members in combat would take any offense to these phrases. On the contrary, these phrases are a COMFORT, and were repeated over and over by me and my wife when our oldest son was deployed. Repeated to others, and to ourselves.
Repeated when we were constantly asked how could we “let” him go? Repeated when asked “gosh why didn’t he pick a ‘safer’ MOS?” Repeated when asked, “how do you deal with the stress?” You deal with it by accepting that he is over there doing the job he has wanted to do since he was a child; has it ever dawned on you that no nation on earth can stand without warriors? You deal with it by understanding the absolute necessity of the warrior class, and the transcendent honor attached to sacrifice on the battlefield. How many people die while doing the very thing they were born to do? Calvary comes to mind, and that’s a pretty good model if you ask me. We should always aim to unite our sufferings to those of Christ on the cross, never more appropriate than in this case.
Our son went to boot camp two months after high school graduation. He was deployed to Afghanistan as a Navy Corpsman nine months later, exactly as he wanted. This was 2008-09, the height of the surge. He made sure to get ‘CRUSADER’ tattooed on his forearm before he left. I will never forget watching him leave with his Marines, on the bus to the airfield at Camp Lejeune, not knowing if we would see him again. So many prayers.
You dread watching the news. You dread the politics. You dread the deadly and traitorous change in the ROEs, which gave the enemy a real tactical advantage. You dread all the good men being forced out, the unleashing of the LBGTQXYZ agenda by Chuck Hagel and Ash Carter, the opening of combat roles to women.
But mostly you dread the phone call.  You pray it never comes. When the phone rings, you never want to look at the caller ID. When it rings in the middle of the night, your chest implodes. But we knew that if it was bad, the call would come from a duty officer stateside, so whenever the number was clearly from overseas, we knew our son had gotten his turn on the Sat phone. Those times were the best, even when he would lie and tell us everything was just fine, no major firefights, blah blah blah.
Thanks be to God, the dreaded call never came.
The homecoming is so sweet.  It makes you realize that, no matter how many parties you’ve been to, you never really had something to celebrate quite like this. You appreciate the time you have together. Then the next deployment comes, and then the next. It’s a cycle that never becomes comfortable, although it’s never as bad as the first time.
My point is, this episode demonstrates that nothing is sacred to the left except leftism. And even as we are constantly presented with evidence confirming this, we continue to be shocked by it. This is what Chief of Staff John Kelly, retired Marine General and himself a Gold Star father, was trying to get across in his press conference yesterday. First he describes the process of recovering/removing KIA and then walks the press patiently and opening through his discussions with Trump, explaining the process to him. As he relates the moment yesterday morning when he learned what the congresswoman said, I have no idea how he remains so calm.
I beg you to watch the first eleven minutes of this.  You’ll be glad you did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Ps5ttDzWBaY

What to do when the Rosary is under demonic attack? MOAR ROSARY!

We certainly are sprinting toward the 100th anniversary of the Miracle of the sun at Fatima, this coming Friday, are we not?
The latest round of diabolic began with the astounding amount of garbage antipope Bergoglio managed to pack into last Wednesday’s “general audience”, including condemnation of those who are just “repeating memorized lines” without “smiling”. HERE This alone is a great reason to say more rosaries. He went on to condemn as fake Christians those who refuse to believe that “no person is permanently in error”; in other words, unless you believe Hell is empty, you are not a Christian. Then he railed against those who dare take the gospel mission seriously, as if oh I dunno as if souls depended on it, as “Profits of Doom”, which is a variation on an oldie but goody and still a great rock band name to be sewn onto the back of a leather jacket. HERE
Then over the weekend, as we celebrated Our Lady of the Rosary/Our Lady of Victory, there were attacks on Our Lady and on the rosary by various factions within and without the Church. There was a particular slant against Lepanto, not surprisingly, which criticized the rosary as a weapon against Muslims in an attempt to label the rosary Islamophobic.
Which, of course, it totally and rightly is. Deus Vult.
So please join me in deploying what is truly a spiritual WMD. Help me make them multiply. Your goal is to get through all 15 decades EVERY DAY between now and Friday.  Are you groaning? It’s only a few days. And you’re actually going to like it, because I have some super helpful tips to get you through this.
I first made a plea for the daily rosary back in May, as the anniversary of the initial Fatima apparitions was upon us:

Pray it every day. It will change your life like nothing else. If you are searching for that transformative element that seems to be missing, the thing to get you over the hump, so to speak, this is it. I didn’t believe it either. I was incredulous when a priest first explained it to me — in the confessional.
The trick is to find the time during an activity where it fits perfectly and you’re not distracted or tempted by something else. If you are lucky enough to get to daily Mass, arriving a little early or staying after is perfect. Or on your commute… turn off the radio and tune in the mysteries. You’ll be surprised how easy it is. Drive time is actually really good for all sorts of prayer, even really long drives.  Try it. HERE

So if you still aren’t praying at least five decades a day, I realize that all 15 may seem daunting. But fear not. You don’t have to recite it all at once, you could spread it out through the day, but it really is more edifying if you do it all at once. One of the keys, as mentioned above, is to find a time or activity when you are otherwise preoccupied and you can let the mysteries take over.  That might sound counterintuitive, but unless you are in a cloister, it’s imperative. For me, it is mostly my daily hike, followed by drive time. I find myself too easily distracted in church, even an empty church, and I really dislike public/group recitation unless it is for a stated purpose.
If you want to wade in, but not sure you can commit, start with the mysteries proper to the day (Joyful Mon/Thu, Sorrowful Tue/Fri, Glorious Sat/Sun/Wed). Then try to work in a couple more decades of the next set of mysteries. Then try to find a day where you can dedicate one hour to get through all 15 decades. You don’t have to say the opening and closing prayers at every set (Creed, Salve Regina, etc), but just at the overall beginning and end. Don’t worry about a special intention if you don’t have one. She knows what you need, and she knows what others need. You also don’t need beads; I like using my fingers instead.
It’s time to storm heaven, boys and girls. If you don’t understand the power and necessity of spiritual warfare, read THIS.

Spiritual warfare is going on around us 24/7/365 whether you realize it or not. It’s warfare for sure, but the stakes are way higher than any earthly battle, because the outcomes affect the eternal destiny of souls. Our physical actions (i.e. ‘Just War’, proselytising, protests, petitions, voting, BLOGS) are merely small arms fire, or at most, artillery.  But the WMDs of this war are prayers.  It’s easy to forget, or even to doubt whether that’s true, because you’ve been conditioned for 50 years to kneel at the altar of Active Participation.

Won’t you join me?
 
 
 

Understanding and executing the sacred duty to protect your family from corporeal threats: Long guns and training

cassie2
These people walk among us by the millions. They really, really hate you. They see no irony in their wonderment about us wanting to keep our guns to protect ourselves, even in the midst of making death threats. Can’t make it up.
I penned the following essay in the weeks after the election, as the marches and riots were fully underway, attempting to somehow prevent the inauguration, via faithless electors or some other means. It’s one of the most popular posts I’ve ever written, and it bears repeating in the aftermath of Las Vegas. The first few paragraphs accurately predict the Deep State anarchy which we’ve seen play out in the past eleven months. Then it gets down to the practical business. It’s rather long, as sometimes is necessary when you are progressing through the linear thought process, from true premise to logical end. God bless.

Are you honoring your sacred duty to prepare for corporeal threats?

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Everything in this essay is subordinate to my earlier post on spiritual prepping HERE. If you aren’t prepping your soul, none of what follows matters.
The American political situation is NOT, repeat NOT settled. Regardless of the recount/electors/etc, everything is still in complete chaos. Even if Trump is installed, there will continue to be a massive push to maintain the status quo by the entire DC power structure, and this will include covert acts of anarchy, possibly from both sides. $20TTT in debt, out of control spending led by a criminal oligarch/collusory “healthcare” industry, the death of the rule of law and the obstinate refusal of both parties to do anything about it — none of this is going away. The question I have for you today, the answer to which I hereby hope to influence, is this:
Are you prepared to protect your family in the event of some… shenanigans?
The situation of the financial markets, the irreversible debt bubble of world governments, the house-of-cards default-swap leverage mountains of the major banks… none of this will or can change or be remotely fixed in any way. The only solution is a total system collapse and hard reset. Have you done that research yet? Have you been adult enough to look at the publicly available balance sheets? Have you done anything to prepare? Whether the collapse is imminent or merely inevitable, you have a solemn duty to yourself and your family.
Natural disasters also sure seem to be on the rise. Large earthquakes from Europe to South America to Asia.  A lot of them. Earthquakes and other extreme natural phenomena (like lightning striking the dome of St. Peter’s TWICE in the last four years, an occurrence never before recorded) are God’s way of warning humanity to repent, because something big is about to happen. So first of all, repent; the spiritual prep is way more important than the corporeal prep. Start by reading yesterday’s blog post. But still, are you remotely prepared for a sudden natural disaster of any kind? Do you have a plan and does your family know the plan?
And I haven’t even mentioned ISIS! Domestic tactical terror, mass terror, cyber terror, infrastructure terror… are you prepared for any of this? We just had a fresh Somali Muslim “refugee” car/machete attack at Ohio State (soft target/gun free zone). How many tens of thousands of future terrorists have we purposely brought to our shores in the past eight years? Do you understand that invasion by immigration is Islamic doctrine? Google ‘Hijrah’.
How about if the grid went down where you live – no electricity, no cell phones, no refrigeration, no internet – cash registers don’t work, credit card readers don’t work, ATMs don’t work, ahem EBT CARDS DON’T WORK–how prepared are you? What contingencies have you made? Do you think that it’s someone else’s job?
There are plenty of logistical considerations that you can go do the research on crisis management. There are dozens of prepper sites to give you the basics on water, food, shelter, comms, mobility, currency, etc. I will limit myself here to speaking about the God-given duty of self-defense.
If you are a Christian, then you should be interested in what Jesus had to say about self-defense. Do you have not just a right, but actually a God-given duty, to arm yourself for the conflicts ahead?
First, let’s examine what is often presented as the answer. Are you familiar with the scene in the garden where Jesus is ultimately arrested? During the process, Simon Peter strikes the servant of the high priest with his sword, cutting off his ear. Jesus heals him, and tells Peter to put away his sword. This event is recorded in all four Gospels, which means it’s a really big deal, so listen up:  People who claim that Peter was wrong to resort to violence are diabolically inverting the very words of our Savior.
Peter was NOT wrong to resort to violence. Peter was RIGHT/JUST (as in, God-given right) to resort to violence. The reason he was rebuked by Jesus is only because of the broader context: It was time for Jesus to redeem the world, and He had to go willingly. The warning  “all that take the sword shall perish with the sword”, refers to aggressors, not defenders. In fact, not only was Peter justified drawing his sword, but Jesus goes much, much farther, telling Peter in the very next verse that He would be justified in calling down more than twelve legions of angels to slaughter their adversaries.  That’s 60,000 angels, y’all. Matt 26:53.
Also, do you remember what happened immediately prior to the scene in the garden?  Oh yeah, the part where Jesus instructs the apostles to ARM THEMSELVES, even if it means selling their clothes to acquire weapons. Right after He instituted the Eucharist and commissioned the apostles comes this:

He said to them, “When I sent you forth without a money bag or a sack or sandals, were you in need of anything?” “No, nothing,” they replied. He said to them, “But now one who has a money bag should take it, and likewise a sack, and one who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, namely, ‘He was counted among the wicked’; and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.” Then they said, “Lord, look, there are two swords here.” But he replied, “It is enough!” Luke 22:35-38

The last verse is a reference to the situation at hand (in the garden, which follows in the very next verse). The first three verses are a general instruction related to the missionary nature of the Church; a warning for disciples to be prepared, because the world will always be opposed to Truth.
May I also say, we are talking here about full-blown “assault weapons” of the day — swords. It was the most powerful weapon a man could carry with him.  If it were today, in the United States, the equivalent instruction would be to sell your clothes to acquire a semi-automatic rifle. But why, you say? Why would I want that, you say?
Because God doesn’t want the bad guys to have more firepower than you have.
Soooo… here is some very detailed advice from a recent veteran of multiple combat deployments, sent to me for the purpose of sharing here. Bear in mind, tools are useless or even worse than useless without training.

“If you don’t have one, you need one, and you need it now. When this thing comes down, which it will, a pistol isn’t going to cut it in defending yourself, your family, your home, your neighborhood, or in a mobile operation. “A pistol is a tool to get to your rifle”- anonymous SOF operator. You need a fighting rifle, designed to be used in open and close environments against hostile threats. This is a guideline for choosing that rifle, with various specs for you to consider.

Semi automatic: A semi automatic, magazine fed rifle allows for a rate of fire sufficient to rapidly engage threats with multiple rounds. No bolt actions; you are not going to win a close range fight with less than semi automatic.

Accuracy: A fighting rifle needs to have the accuracy to engage targets from 0-300 yards. Any AR or AK produced by a reputable manufacturer, chambered in an appropriate rifle round will be able to accomplish this.

Recoil management: The ability to control recoil to deliver rapid follow up shots. Downing an aggressor with one shot only happens in the movies, unless it’s a headshot. There are numerous examples of aggressors continuing to attack after taking ten or more hits, so you need to manage recoil to get back on target quickly. Example: The recoil of an AR15 or AK47 is manageable and easy to learn to control, but a battle rifle chambered in .308 is a much more difficult weapon to deliver rapid, accurate fire.

Caliber: Choosing a caliber that is both common, easily accessible, and is sufficient for neutralizing a human threat. Example; your chances with a 22 LR at 200 yards is low. Your chance of being able to find large stocks 6.8 SPC is low. It really comes down to just a few practical alternatives, which I will discuss in a moment.

Maneuverability: Your rifle should be of a size and weight that is easily handled in close quarters, and light enough to move rapidly. The same goes for the rest of your gear, i.e. body armor. Example; Deltas don’t clear rooms with a heavy chassis, 26″ barreled M1A, they used short barreled ARs.

Reliability: A fighting rifle should be made with capability to be extremely reliable, with proper maintenance. Your budget determines your options. You can buy a $500-600 dollar AK that will function reliably, but a $500 dollar budget isn’t going to work for a reliable AR.

These factors generally limit you to 2 platforms, an AK chambered in 7.62×39 or 5.45×39, or an AR15 chambered in 5.56. Both of these weapons are plentiful, AT THE MOMENT. They are the most common fighting rifles in the world, and their ammo just as common. These weapons are user friendly, easy to learn the basic operation, and therefore fast to train and become effective with. Yes there are other platforms that fire these cartridges, Tavor, Galil, G36, ACR, etc etc. If you are versed in these weapons, that’s great, if not, your best bet is AR or AK.

The AK and the AR both have ups and downs.  AK is cheaper not only in buying a quality rifle, but cheaper to buy ammo. The AR has greater accuracy and better recoil management. You can buy a quality AK for around $600. A high end AK might get up to $1200. A quality AR will run about $1000, high end ARs run from $1800 to $2600.
The importance is in buying a QUALITY weapon. Your life hangs in the balance of your weapon and level of training. If you are just starting out, its better to go with a quality $1200 rifle and a thousand dollars towards a solid training course than spend 3 grand on a rifle with no training. Training is life.

Lastly, attachments: Once again, just basics. Two things, a proper weapon light, because night time, and sights, because aiming. A proper weapon sight should be able to illuminate a target 50 yards away. Sights, Iron sights at a bare minimum, and a non magnified, quality red dot if you can. Nothing beats a red dot in CQB shooting, super fast. Furthermore, a red dot zeroed at the proper range will ensure that your point of impact will not drift more than 4″ off point of aim from 0-250 yards, depending on your platform and ammo used. You put that dot on a targets chest, and it doesn’t matter if they are 25 yards away or 200, you will hit your target. It is much easier to accurately engage targets at range with a red dot than with iron sights.

The time is now. You can go look at any website that sells weapons parts. They are wiped out. But your local gun shop still has plenty of ARs and AKs. When SHTF, they will be sold out in a day, and prices will skyrocket to the point people will be selling stripped lower receivers (a $150 part) for $550. It’s happened before, in the aftermath of various events.

A fighting rifle, and the training to use it, is the first piece of the puzzle, but not the last.”

Yet how many of you, after reading these 1900 words, instead of immediately seeking to strengthen and protect you and your family’s supernatural life, and immediately seeking to strengthen and protect you and your family’s corporeal life , will just go about your day like none of this is real?

https://twitter.com/cryingcassie/status/914974139152306177

When the Modernists start to make your own argument for you…

…can the formally declared apostasy be far away?


“Not Catholic anymore.” Got that? nuChurch is a totally new religion, and they’re not trying to hide it.  What was Catholic from the Incarnation until 1965 isn’t Catholic anymore. They are screaming it from the rooftops.
There is no room left for anyone to suggest Vatican II was “hijacked”, “misinterpreted”, or is in any way consistent with Church teaching throughout the ages. It is a total rupture; a false floor where neocons go to nuance the documents in a traditional light to make themselves feel better. Tertium non datur — law of the excluded middle — this position NO LONGER EXISTS. You either drop the facade and join the actual Catholics, on the side of Tradition, or you go with this guy, over the cliff.


There is no possibility of coexistence. HE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! nuChurch must be totally rebuked, torn down, and looked back on with scorn. But it doesn’t seem to be moving that way, does it. It seems to be going Massimo’s way.
Apostasy, by its very nature, must be formally declared. The Great Apostasy will be no different. God doesn’t hate us; He will give us every chance to be saved. He will ensure the signs are right out in the open. But be prepared, because choosing sides is the easy part. Where it goes from there won’t be fun, so long as we remain in this vale of tears.
Make sure you have your facts straight when you get attacked. God doesn’t change; He exists outside of time itself. God was the same in 65 A.D. as He was in 965 as He was in 1965 and as He is today. I will attach below a post about immutability published a few days after the publication of #AmorisLaetitia that’s really handy for understanding this. HERE

AL#301 and the dogma of Immutability

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#AmorisLaetitia
This is when I got the knot in my stomach.

301. For an adequate understanding of the possibility and need of special discernment in certain “irregular” situations, one thing must always be taken into account, lest anyone think that the demands of the Gospel are in any way being compromised. The Church possesses a solid body of reflection concerning mitigating factors and situations. Hence it is (sic) can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace. More is involved here than mere ignorance of the rule. A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding “its inherent values”,339 or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.
Footnote339: John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio (22 November 1981), 33: AAS 74 (1982), 121.

Before we get to the footnote, as misleading as the footnote is, there are two other things here that are even worse.  And I only pasted the first half of the paragraph.
See those air quotes around “irregular”?  That’s what writers do when they believe the phrase in question is inherently fallacious. Like Catholics referring to so-called “gay” marriage.  So Francis is mocking the very notion that there is anything irregular about these relationships. Ya think that might be a teensy weensy problem?  Explains a whole lot of other things, doesn’t it?
Then comes a real show stopper.  After 232 pages of set-up, Francis attempts to abrogate the dogma of Immutability. Does everyone remember the dogma of Immutability?  “For I am the Lord, and I change not” (Mal 3:6).  God does not change, so His divine will does not change, so the things which go against His divine will (sin) do not change. Nor can doctrine, which is the codification of His will. How do we know God doesn’t change? Because time is a construct.  Time was created by God, just like all the material dimensions were created by God.  God exists outside of time.  Change cannot occur without the element of linear time.  Now watch this.
“Hence it is (sic) can no longer simply be said that all those in any “irregular” situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.”
Got that?  “Can no longer be said.”  What was true in the past is no longer true. That’s why He is the God of surprises. Surprisingly, He now loves moral relativism, situational ethics, divorce and adultery.  Well, He might not LOVE them, but He knows there is certainly GOOD contained within them, and He wants us to discover that GOOD, and to stop being so mean. Time to face the strange cha cha cha changes.
Someone at the Vatican must be super busy collecting every extant copy of the CCC and whiting out paragraph 2384: (emphasis mine)

2384 Divorce is a grave offense against the natural law. It claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death. Divorce does injury to the covenant of salvation, of which sacramental marriage is the sign. Contracting a new union, even if it is recognized by civil law, adds to the gravity of the rupture: the remarried spouse is then in a situation of public and permanent adultery:  If a husband, separated from his wife, approaches another woman, he is an adulterer because he makes that woman commit adultery, and the woman who lives with him is an adulteress, because she has drawn another’s husband to herself.

Honestly, I will say this.  It is entirely possible that Francis himself is eligible for some of this cheap grace he is dishing out, because the brashness, the hubris he is exhibiting here is at such a level that you wonder if he was ever properly taught the faith.  Is he really rejecting it, or does he just not understand it?  Yes, I really think that could be true.  Think of the irony if he is actually guiltless out of invincible ignorance.
Finally, the footnote. It’s from FC 33 HERE.  Is FC 33 dealing with people in irregular situations who are living their lives in a state of mortal sin?  Um, no. FC33 is about ACTUAL MARRIED PEOPLE, and the subject matter is WHOLLY DIFFERENT from what’s being dealt with here.  Namely, a situation where the actually married couple struggles, in the context of modern sexually depraved society, to understand, accept and practice continence while avoiding artificial means of contraception.
Which in itself is a rather generous bit of sympathy, given that Humanae Vitae isn’t that hard to understand  HERE.

 
 
 
 
 

The mechanics of fear, the silent majority, and the difference between fortitude and courage

Fr. Hunwicke has a post today, in the aftermath of the Correctio, about the origin and mechanics of fear and its paralyzing effect on even the most orthodox clergy. HERE.  It starts out with him quoting a comment from a previous post from a diocesan priest:

“There is another territory to be heard; the diocesan clergy, and I can testify to the fear out there. I feel it myself; … I entered the diocesan priesthood from Lutheranism … my decision to sign may come with danger … Unfortunately, we live in times of great venality and danger for those who just express simple orthodoxy. Going this next step is necessary but fraught with peril. Cosmas and Damian, Cyprian and Justina, pray for our courage.”

On the one hand, I get it. The fear is not unfounded at all. On the other hand, I don’t really get it. Being a layman, maybe empathy isn’t possible in this case. But it seems to me that if care of souls is your primary job function, don’t you have a moral obligation to extend every advantage possible to aid these souls in their journey? This is a situation that requires going beyond fortitude and into courage. I will explain the difference in a moment.
This also applies to academics and all those whose income/title/occupation depends on not stirring the pot, nearly all of them apparently sitting around in terrified silence. Okay so the Correctio is up to 147 signatures. Knock me over with a feather. I’m sorry, but if you are an actual Catholic in a visible role within the Church in some function, and you believe that Bergoglio is pope, you better get your name on this thing pronto. If you want something to really fear, know that God is watching you sit there and do nothing.
Bishops and Cardinals, same goes for you. Are there not even a dozen of you? If you believe Bergoglio is pope, get your own Correctio drawn up and issue it with whatever authority you may or may not have. Do something.
Which brings me back to the Saint Louis Catholic poll, wherein 72% of the readership confessed to believing Benedict is pope. It’s one thing to vote in an anonymous poll, quite another to put your name on it. But we have another problem – none of those hundreds of people can sign/support the Correctio, because the Correctio addresses Bergoglio as true pope and AL as a legitimate magisterial document, neither of which we believe to be true. We need our own Declaratio, spelling out the well-defined argument for Benedict’s failed abdication, by reason of Substantial Error, as foreseen by Canon 188. Then we need people way above sub-layman Mark Docherty to sign it. Hundreds and hundreds of clergy, academics, and professionals in official Church positions and the media. I know, it’s oh so hard, but this is the task God has chosen for you, so get cracking.
Now back to fortitude and courage.
Fortitude is about patiently bearing hardship through strength. It’s about endurance, resilience, steadfastness. It may or may not involve taking positive action, and it can be demonstrated even in the absence of fear. The root is “fortis”, which means strength.
Courage goes beyond fortitude. Courage is about taking positive action amid risk and fear. In fact, in order for courage to be demonstrated, the element of of fear must be present. Courage is about valor, bravery, nerve. The root is “cor” which means heart. It goes to the heart. That’s why a synonym for courageous is “lion hearted”.
If you have souls in your care, no matter your ecclesial rank, you have a solemn duty here. If your name has a bunch of letters after it, you have a duty. If you have any kind of standing or platform, you have a duty. Here is a pious exercise: Review the facts of the failed partial abdication. Confirm yourself in the obvious meaning of what Benedict attempted, and according to Ganswein, that he believes he pulled off. Read Canon 188 and ask yourself, if attempting to change the intrinsic nature of the papacy does NOT rise to the level of Substantial Error, then what on earth ever could? Then go into a church and sit in one of the first rows. Look up and stare at your crucified Lord and Savior and say,
“I don’t care.”
“I don’t care that your bride is being raped. I don’t care that souls are being lost. I don’t care that the Church you founded has a false pope as its visible head. I want to keep it a secret, because it’s embarrassing. I more fear the revenge of men than I fear the fires of Hell. And so I choose silence. I choose comfort. I choose…cowardice.”
It’s time for some courage, boys and girls. It would also be great if you could pray for the Holy Ghost to deliver some courage to Pope Benedict, still reigning.

Initial thoughts on the Correctio

It’s very well done, and far ranging. The “Elucidation” at the end, calling out Modernism and Lutheranism, is very much appreciated. They also did a great job at PR, very professional, with a coordinated release in multiple languages, and several mainstream outlets picking it up.
On the downside, there is plenty of genuflecting to Vatican II, although perhaps that was a strategic move deemed necessary to promote acceptance.
You really do need to read the whole thing, not just the media summaries HERE.
I’m pressed for time, but there is one quick point I want to make for today. The paragraph I’ve seen written about the most is this:

Those Catholics, however, who do not clearly grasp the limits of papal infallibility are liable to be led by the words and actions of Your Holiness into one of two disastrous errors: either they will come to embrace the heresies which are now being propagated, or, aware that these doctrines are contrary to the word of God, they will doubt or deny the prerogatives of the popes. Others again of the faithful are led to put in doubt the validity of the renunciation of the papacy by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Thus, the Petrine office, bestowed upon the Church by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sake of unity and faith, is so used that a way is opened for heresy and for schism. Further, noting that practices now encouraged by Your Holiness’s words and actions are contrary not only to the perennial faith and discipline of the Church but also to the magisterial statements of Your predecessors, the faithful reflect that Your Holiness’s own statements can enjoy no greater authority than that of former popes; and thus the authentic papal magisterium suffers a wound of which it may not soon be healed.

The fact that the authors felt the need to include the bolded sentence is quite interesting, especially given the July 16th date of the letter. Also, in the sentence that precedes it, what exactly are they referring to when they use the word “popes”? But I think there are bigger implications if you read the paragraph that immediately proceeds:

We, however, believe that Your Holiness possesses the charism of infallibility, and the right of universal jurisdiction over Christ’s faithful, in the sense defined by the Church. In our protest against Amoris laetitia and against other deeds, words and omissions related to it, we do not deny the existence of this papal charism or Your Holiness’s possession of it, since neither Amoris laetitia nor any of the statements which have served to propagate the heresies which this exhortation insinuates are protected by that divine guarantee of truth. Our correction is indeed required by fidelity to infallible papal teachings which are incompatible with certain of Your Holiness’s statements.

So after taking great pains to claim that AL was not infallibly promulgated because no precise formulations were used in its language (I did not quote from those passages), now we get to the part where previously doctrines promulgated infallibly are in conflict with the teaching of Bergoglio.
I’ve read this paragraph several times. Read the two paragraphs again, in sequence. It’s very carefully worded. Maybe it’s bias, but it seems to me what it is saying is this: “Listen here, pal. We are already doing you a HUGE favor by giving you the benefit of the doubt, for now, that you really are the pope. But party time is over, and it’s time for you to prove it. If you really did receive the charism of infallibility because you were validly elected, then you need to profess teaching on these matters that is in communion with perennial Church teaching. Or else…”
Now think about the stunning poll over at Saint Louis Catholic, where 72% of respondents confessed to believing Benedict is pope. The authors and signatories of the Correctio could not have had any idea about the enormity of support behind this thesis. Also, not one of us in the Benedict camp could have signed on to the Correctio, due to the insertion of the second quoted paragraph, giving it almost a double effect. It’s something along the lines of this paragraph being strategic, whether the authors intended it or not at the time, because it offers the opportunity to open war on a second front.
I need to spend a little more time with it.
 

The cleaving of the Church as prophesied by Bergoglio is imminent

So a few things happened this week? 72% of polled Trads think Benedict is the pope HERE .  On the exact one year anniversary of the dubia, antipope Bergoglio founded a new institute dedicated to the destruction of the family, thereby answering said dubia HERE. Hellboy Jamth Martin Ethjay tripled down on husbands kissing husbands during Mass, and anyone who disagrees is a Nazi. Massive hurricanes and massive earthquakes.  Anything else going on this week?  North Korea. Anything else?
Oh, the homily today:

The Pontiff observes, “Always a scandal begins with this phrase: ‘But how come?’” He went on to say, “When you hear this sentence, it smells,” and “scandal follows.”
The Pharisees express their disappointment at the “impurity of not following the law”, Francis explains. They were scandalized by “the impurity of not following the law.” They knew “the Doctrine” very well, knew how to go “on the way of the Kingdom of God,” knew “better than anyone how things ought to have been done,” but “had forgotten the first commandment, of love.” Then, “”hey were locked in the cage of sacrifices,” perhaps thinking, “But let’s make a sacrifice to God, let us do all we have to do, “so we are saved.” In summary, they believed that salvation came from themselves, they felt safe. “”No,” said Pope Francis. “God saves us, saves us Jesus Christ”.
Francis dwells on “That ‘how come?’, which we’ve heard so many times from Catholics when they saw works of mercy. How come? Jesus is clear, He is very clear: ‘Go and learn.’ He sent them to learn, right? ‘Go and learn what mercy means. [That’s what] I want, and not sacrifices, for I did not come to call the righteous but the sinners.’ If you want to be called by Jesus, recognize yourself a sinner.”
The papal exhortation to recognize ourselves as sinners, not guilty of “sin” in the abstract but guilty of “concrete sins”: so many “we all have committed them,” he said. “Let us look on Jesus with that merciful glance full of love,” he continued.
While still dwelling on the scandal, he noted that there are so many hypocritical scandals, “There are so many, many – and always, even in the Church today. They say, ‘No, you cannot, it’s all clear, it’s all, no, no – those are sinners, we have to turn them away.’ Many saints have also been persecuted or suspected. We think of St. Joan of Arc, sent to the stake, because they thought she was a witch, and condemned her. A saint! Think of Saint Teresa, suspected of heresy, think of Bl. [Antonio] Rosmini. ‘Mercy I desire, and not sacrifices.’
And he concluded, “The door to meet Jesus is recognizing ourselves as we are: the truth [about ourselves], [that we are] Sinners. And he comes, and we meet. It is very beautiful to meet Jesus.”

Bergoglio believes as Luther did, that we are incapable of reforming our lives, incapable of resisting sin. We don’t really have free will, but rather our will is so damaged after the fall, that we can never make right choices on our own.  Which also means we aren’t really to blame for the sins, because it was concupiscence’s fault, not ours. When we do make right choices, it was really purely God’s grace that produced the decision, and we had nothing to do with it. It’s called Bondage of the Will, and when followed to its logical end is chaos. If it really is true that we have no control over our choices, bad or good, then what is the point of any of this? It’s the Christianity of puppets.
Yes, we are all sinners.  But rooting out sin, especially mortal sin, is possible. God never stops sending His grace, and when we reciprocate by cooperating with His grace, we are capable of doing good, and of greatly reforming our lives. Isn’t this the inescapable message of the Gospel? It seems to me that men who think otherwise are themselves so deeply lost in sin that they can’t imagine it humanly possible to stop. That’s the simplest explanation, whether it is Bergoglio, Luther, or a billion dissenting ‘catholics.’
The pace of events appears to again be accelerating, as we rapidly approach the 100th anniversary of the Fatima Miracle of the Sun (13 October) HERE as well as the 500th anniversary of Protestant Revolt (31 October). Remember Sister Lucia’s letter to Cardinal Caffarra?

Cardinal Caffarra explained that Saint John Paul II had commissioned him to plan and establish the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. At the beginning of this work, the cardinal wrote a letter to Sister Lucia of Fatima through her bishop, since he could not do it directly. “Inexplicably, since I did not expect a reply, seeing as I had only asked for her prayers, I received a long letter with her signature, which is now in the archives of the Institute,” the Italian cardinal said. “In that letter we find written: ‘The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family.’ Don’t be afraid, she added, because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. Then she concluded: ‘nevertheless, Our Lady has already crushed his head’.” HERE

That institute that JPII commissioned Cardinal Caffarra to establish is the same one that Bergoglio abolished this week, two weeks after +Caffarra’s sudden death, replaced by the new institute to enforce Amoris Laetitia HERE. Could the signs be any more clear?
Remember, Bergoglio himself infamously prophesied:

“It is not to be excluded that I will enter history as the one who split the Catholic Church.” HERE

You really need to get your head around the imminent cleaving of the Church. You will be facing your own non veni pacem moment (Matt 10:34) when it happens. Have the courage to make the right choice, and take whoever you can with you. You’re not crazy. All the signs are there, and whatever it is that ends up being the final wedge event, trust me, it will be glaringly obvious if you are looking for it. God won’t let anyone be tricked into choosing the wrong side, they will choose the wrong side of their own free will. They’re already doing it. We also know from from the Abomination of Desolation discourse in Matt 24 that the final religious deception, which this may or may not be, will be so great that it will consume nearly everyone (including even the elect, had those times not been cut short).
So stay frosty. Stay confessed. Hone your bearing these next few weeks. Pray.

“Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it.” Matt 10:32-39

Don’t let fake news keep you away from the polls. Hurry, vote today!

The truth isn’t determined by popular opinion. Or as Chesterton famously said, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” So don’t think that’s what I am getting at here.
However.
There is a very interesting poll going on right now from The Timman over at Saint Louis Catholic. HERE He asks readers their opinion, given the available data, “Who is pope?” As of this writing, with 591 votes counted, an astonishing 73% admit to believing that Benedict is the one true living pope.  Talk about a silent majority!
Now, Tradland is small, but it’s not 591 small. There should be a couple thousand votes by now, and there is only one day left on the poll. So please help get out the vote, if for no other reason than this: I guarantee that antipope Bergoglio will see the results of this poll.
I imagine the rage will be heard across the Tiber.

Hillary’s Blame Book highlights the glorious result of Fake Polls

The excerpts I’ve seen so far reflect a psychotic detachment from reality and total lack of introspection. In other words, totally predictable. Several quotes have caught my eye, but this one really resonated:
hillary quote 2
Forget about Hillary for a second, if you can. Hopefully soon we can all forget about her forever. Focus on the dynamic of the voters. They didn’t do enough, because they didn’t think they needed to. Or they didn’t do enough because they were embarrassed by her. Either way, they thought Hillary had the election in the bag, because the fake polls had her ahead by ten points. The fake news media predicted a landslide. Somehow, the enormous crowds turning out for Trump didn’t scare them, or maybe their media just never showed them. We know for a fact the dismal turnouts for Hillary’s events weren’t televised.
Bottom line, the alternate reality crafted by the Left worked so well, it cost them the election. It’s okay to go ahead and luxuriate in that just a little bit.
I wrote about this dynamic the day after the election. HERE

I awoke 8 Nov 2016 to facebook posts of very long election lines in PA, my native place. A good sign, even in suburban Philadelphia…Then I saw the lines in the blue collar wards within Philadelphia. Very good sign. Even the unions were going for Trump. There is no early voting in PA – you must go to the polls on election day. A bright, sunny, mild election day. Deo Gratias.
In AZ, my current place, about 70% of ballots are cast via early voting. But yesterday there were widespread reports of long lines in suburban and rural places. Republican places. Good sign. AZ is typically a Red state for national elections and statewide races, but we have just enough Lefties to make things interesting sometimes. They started saying AZ was in play about two months ago, after Pussygate.
Now, I happen to live in central Phoenix, in one of the Bluer districts. Our Dem Congresswomen was re-elected with 61%. I don’t think I saw one Trump sign anywhere near my house. And interestingly, at houses full of signs for Dem candidates for all the other races, no Hillary signs. I noticed it weeks ago. For every ten houses with loads of Dem signs, maybe one had a Hillary sign.

So the big question was, what would the lines look like in my heavily Democrat district?

During the lunch hour, I decided to take a drive to check it out. Surely this would be the busiest time, other than 5:15-6pm, right?

vote

Yeah. So I had a pretty good idea at 12:35pm where this was headed. This is what played out across America. In PA, OH, MI, WI, and FLORIDA.
Republicans showed up in droves, with great misgivings about their own candidate, but determined to stop HER. Dems were either repulsed enough to stay away, or else thought Trump didn’t have a chance.
Probably, the latter. They believed their own fake polls.

Thank you, fake news.
electoral-map