Archive for the ‘Church doctrine’ Category

Paris and Majdal Shams: Realty Doesn’t Care About the Left’s Spin

Posted: July 28, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, middle east
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I find the spin interesting.

In France the IOC is doing their best to pretend that their insult to Christians by parodying the last supper with drag queens didn’t happen. They are exercising copyright claims on sites that show the video in order to suppress the reaction.

But the reality is there. The people have seen it Christians and our allies around the world have condemned it (although the French Bishops have spun and the Pope has been silent) and the reality of the attack, which would never be done to Muslims is here.

Meanwhile in the village of Majdal Shams Hezbollah and their allies where all in on the rocket attack there and boasted of it, until it was revealed that they slew a bunch of Druze kids playing soccer.

Suddenly it became “Rockets? Moi?” and the media was all over downplaying the attack, omitting the death of the children and saying that it was unclear where the attack came from.

Both of these attacks and their denials are the same.

Both the organizers of the Paris Olympics and the Butchers of Hezbollah hit the targets they were aiming and are proud to have done so. It’s just that neither wish to deal with the temporal consequences of what they have done and all of their spin is to keep those temporal consequences from happening.

But the reality doesn’t care, those temporal consequences are coming and all the spin in the world won’t spot it.

As for the spiritual consequences, we must pray for them, because those consequences are coming too and as Catholics it’s is our duty to pray for these, our enemies.

It’s not easy but it’s also not optional.

The Future Belongs to Those Who Show Up, Catholic Edition

Posted: May 6, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions, Church doctrine
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These things he said while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Then many of his disciples who were listening said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them,

“Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.”

Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him. And he said,

“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father. As a result of this, many (of) his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him. Jesus then said to the Twelve,

“Do you also want to leave? Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

John 6:60-68

Apparently the AP is shocked SHOCKED that the Catholic faith in the United States is being populated by people who, you know actually believe and follow the faith:

They often stand out in the pews, with the men in ties and the women sometimes with the lace head coverings that all but disappeared from American churches more than 50 years ago. Often, at least a couple families will arrive with four, five or even more children, signaling their adherence to the church’s ban on contraception, which most American Catholics have long casually ignored.

They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions – more Latin, more incense more Gregorian chants.

“We want this ethereal experience that is different from everything else in our lives,” said Ben Rouleau, who until recently led St. Maria Goretti’s young adult group, which saw membership skyrocket even as the parish shrank amid the turmoil.

If the young adult group is souring that means there will be a future generation in the parish consisting of the children of that young adult group. If there are families with four and five children, that means that their children will in a generation fill the pews that the contraception/abortion crowd has been abandoning for two generations.

It’s simple math. People who treated the Church as an Elks club that meets on Sunday tend not to bother to follow the teaching of the church on abortion, contraception and confession. Thus their children don’t bother to come or don’t bother to get married and don’t teach their children. And they certainly aren’t going to be going to the seminary to commit themselves to a life of service. They will be like this seed in the parable of the sower:

This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. Those on the path are the ones who have heard, but the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved. Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of trial. As for the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit.

Luke 8:11-14

And it goes without saying that their children, particularly those who might be gay who in past times choose the church as a respectable cultural option now in a society that embraces and celebrates open homosexuality have a ton of other options. (I’ve always found it interesting while 78% of the cases in the church sexual scandals involved gay men the media unexpectedly of course ducked that fact like the plague.) So who is populating the seminaries now? People like this:

At a time when U.S. college enrollment is shrinking, Benedictine’s expansion over the last 15 years has included four new residence halls, a new dining hall and an academic center. An immense new library is being built. The roar of construction equipment never seems to stop. Enrollment, now about 2,200, has doubled in 20 years. Students, many of whom grew up in conservative Catholic families, jokingly call it “the Benedictine bubble.” And it might be a window into the future of the Catholic Church in America.

I suspect you won’t be seeing anybody calling for the death of the Jews on that campus either.

I find it interesting that the article never mentions Mother Angelica and EWTN who spent decades working to get Catholics catechized with the truth while the Vatican II people didn’t bother. That combined with the liberals going elsewhere means that people who actually believe had the seed of th word planted on good soil, the result:


But as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.

Luke 8:15

And it’s those faithful Catholics who are bearing fruit and giving meaning to their kids in the world that doesn’t offer any.

In the end any institution belongs to those who show up. The conservatives who actually believe the teachings taught those teaching to their children and thus their children go to church and pass those teaching on. The liberals who didn’t bother did not so they find themselves in a church and wonder where their Elks club went.

It’s simple demographics.

WQPH 89.3 First Annual Shrove Tuesday Brunch Feb 13th 2024

Posted: January 21, 2024 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions, Church doctrine, media
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WQPH 89.3 FM Shirley/Fitchburg MA an EWTN Catholic Radio Station will be holding our 1st Annual Shrove Tuesday Brunch on Tuesday February 13th (the feast of the Holy Face of Jesus) at Slattery’s Restaurant 106 Lunenburg St, Fitchburg, MA 01420-4466 (978 342 8880) from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM.

Enjoy a tasty brunch with your local WQPH show hosts (including yours truly who hosts Your Prayer Intentions Saturdays at Noon and Midnight as we prepare together for our Lenten Journey together while helping WQPH (Queen of Perpetual Help) continue to bring you the daily mass, the daily rosary and all our shows to help spread and maintain our Catholic Faith.

Tickets are $45 but only $40 if purchased by before February 4th. 

If you can’t go yourself consider sponsoring a member of the Clergy (Put “Clergy” in the subject line) or someone who might not be able to afford a ticket (Put “Sponsor” in the subject line) to come and share our brunch with us.

You can get tickets or sponsor someone to attend in several ways:

WQPH 89.3 FM
PO Box 589
Medford MA 02155

In all cases above in the subject line put

  • “Tickets” if you are buying tickets for yourself.
  • “Sponsor” if you wish to sponsor someone else to attend.
  • “Clergy” if you wish to buy a ticket for a local Priest, Nun or Deacon to attend.

Hope to see you there.

SPECIAL MATCHING OPPERTUNITY: WQPH has a donor who is offering to match $200 donations unrelated to this event. If you donate $200 to the station our sponsoring donor will match it

Analyzing the Pope’s Dubia on Transgender Individuals

Posted: November 24, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in catholic, Church doctrine
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Pope Francis is an interesting cat. Well, OK, he’s not a cat, he’s the Pope. Like most important figures, he gets misinterpreted a lot, and similar to Trump, anytime someone says “The Pope declared (insert heretical statement here) to be true!”, normally accompanied by worries about the impending apocalypse, my first reaction is always “Did you read the source documents?”

So, dear readers, let’s analyze the controversy around the Pope’s statements concerning transgender individuals. The Pope recently dined with some transgender women, which sparked a ton of news articles and controversy. If you only read headlines, you missed a lot of finer points:

  • One of the attendees, Claudia Salas, is a tailor and house cleaner, was the godparent to three of her nieces and nephews in her home country, Argentina. She did sex work to put the children through school.
  • Claudia, like many others, was impoverished and significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Father Andrea Conocchia, the pastor of the Blessed Immaculate Virgin parish in Torvaianica helped the transgender community with food and other assistance. Parish resources were stretched at the time because many people were cut off from income, so Conocchia asked for help from the cardinal who runs the pope’s charities. As well as sending money, the cardinal arranged for them to have COVID vaccinations in the Vatican and to meet the pope.

We have a good news story about Catholic charities helping all people, not just Christians, that got buried by the mainstream media. And yes, that means helping sinners, not dissimilar from so many stories of Jesus reaching out to the poor and destitute, dining in their homes and calling them to a better way of life.

The Pope’s recent “rulings” on transgender individuals comes in his response to a dubia, in this case from Most Reverend José Negri, Bishop of Santo Amaro, Brazil, who asked the following questions:

  • Can a transsexual be baptized?
  • Can a transgender person be a godparent?
  • Can a transgender person be a witness at a wedding?
  • Can two homo-affective people be parents for a child for baptism?
  • Can a cohabitating homo-affective person be a godparent?
  • Can a homo-affective cohabitating person be a witness at a wedding?

Straightforward questions. Homo-affective is the term used, which I’ll interpret as homosexual going forward.

The response is all of three pages long, and you should read the whole thing here. You can get the original Italian version here.

To the first question, the Pope starts by defining transsexual as someone who has undergone hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery. In the age of people identifying as demisexual and unicorn lattes, I think this is a good thing to do, so that we’re all talking about the same thing. The Pope says yes, you can be baptized, provided you have enough preparation. The preparation for Baptism involves (for adults) learning about the Church’s rules, going to Confession and then being Baptized, and it typically takes a year to do.

The Pope spends a large part of his response focused on the fact that if the person to be baptized does not repent of grave sin, the Baptism won’t confer sanctifying grace. The Church still considers transgender surgery a pretty big sin, and nothing in the Dubia states a transgender individual is not their birth sex. If a transgender person is baptized, they’d be unable to marry in the church or have sexual relations with another person. Essentially, they’d be called to chastity in the single life, similar to the call to chastity for individuals affected by homosexual attraction.

The point of baptism is to bring someone into the Church, and the Church is open to all, including sinners. I’m not surprised by this one bit. The Pope hasn’t said anything controversial here. The call to the transgender person, especially after surgery, would be pretty difficult, but that’s a cross that person would bear as part of their way of entering Heaven.

The response on godparents is much shorter: a transgender person can be a godparent if it won’t cause scandal or “disorientation in the educational sphere,” which I interpret to mean the child wouldn’t be confused as to whether transgender life choices are acceptable. As for wedding witnesses, lots of people can be witnesses, so its not a huge surprise to allow transgender individuals.

The Pope basically said that transgender people can enter the Church through proper preparation, can participate as godparents if not scandalous, and can witness at weddings. They can’t get married in the church, be ordained, and would likely be called to a chaste single life. That’s pretty hard, and many of them, like Claudia, come from a pretty rough background. We should be praying for their conversion.

All of us sin, in both public and private ways, but no sin is truly private. I don’t envy transgender individuals, just like I don’t envy those that struggle with pornography, alcohol, or same-sex attraction. It would be a huge challenge to go from being a transgender sex worker to becoming an upstanding baptized Catholic that must live out a single, chaste life. But the Church has done similar miracles before. Saint Augustine lead a scandalous life, yet he repented and became Doctor of the Church. Saint Mary of Egypt was a prostitute for 17 years before turning her life around. My hope is that this sanctification will hold true for transgender people as well.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, the Roman Catholic Church, or any other government agency.

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