Posts Tagged ‘catholic’

Traditional Catholics and traditional terrorists

Posted: February 11, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in catholic
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So I don’t know where to even start with this one. Obviously I’m referring to the FBI memo from the Richmond, VA office that indicates growing concern over terrorism people not worshiping the state in so-called “Traditional” Catholic parishes. When I first saw this article appear, I gave it the ole’ 72 hour wait to see what ends up being true.

After having the FBI confirm it, I went ahead and read the memo. I have read many, MANY FBI memos in the past. I’ve read plenty of intelligence memos from various agencies, and I’ve written a fair number of memos myself and with others. I also wrote a 100+ page masters thesis that was read by some very smart and important people in our government. I know that writing well is important because you never know how far something you write will travel, whether its an email, memo or 100 page analysis. Since its that important, you should learn to write well, cite good sources and be ready for criticism if you’re going to make points that are controversial.

Does this paper do that? Nope.

Seriously, go read it. First, it starts with an interesting statement: that RMVEs are interested in RTCs. As a network guy, I immediately confused RMVEs with NVME solid state hard drives and RTCs with the people that yell at you at boot camp. But no, RMVE is Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist, and RTC is radical-traditionalist Catholic. OK, lots of acronyms, which tells me this is legitimately from a government agency right off the bat, because we know that government loves its acronyms.

Reading the first few paragraphs, its actually kind of bland. The memo states that the FBI is seeing an increase in RMVEs reaching out to RTCs, attending services and engaging more on social media, and that the RMVEs are trying to recruit RTCs. That’s not a crazy assertion. If all you see at more “radical” Catholic churches is women wearing veils and priests speaking out about the evils of homosexuality, and especially if that group of “radical” Catholics thinks the world is on fire because of sins like homosexuality, then yeah, it might seem like a great place to recruit people that would be OK bombing a gay nightclub.

But that’s where it all starts to break down. When I hear Racially Motivated Violence, I think people that hate black people, or white people, or Asians, or immigrants, or something like that. I suspect most people do too. But I have yet to see the Catholic church, including more traditional churches, argue that racism is good. There are lots of Catholic positions that homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion and sex outside of marriage are bad and causing problems in society. These same Catholics vote and protest against the governments attempts to impose these views on people, which is probably the more likely reason the FBI doesn’t like these people.

Saying that the Catholic Church, and more traditional Church followers, appeals to racist terrorism is even more dumb when you think of the extensive Catholic Church in Africa and the Caribbean that is full of…wait for it…black people! The Catholic Church, even the more traditional portions of it, represents people from all walks of life and all skin colors.

If the FBI memo said they that violent extremists were recruiting traditional Catholics to bomb abortion clinics and gay nightclubs, I might, MIGHT believe it. But that’s not what the memo says. It’s specifically about race and ethnicity, and it makes no sense whatsoever. Heck, even the Huffington Post argued that the Catholic Church lead the way to decriminalize mixed-racial marriage.

Probably should have cited that article over Salon…but I digress.

The next part is though: the FBI referencing “tripwire and source development.” I read that as:

  • Place snitches in churches
  • Develop a list of “trigger” words
  • Wrap up so-called “radical” priests when they say mean things
  • Threaten a “radical” churches tax-exempt status if they say mean things about the state

Sheesh, does this sound like the Tea Party? Or Waco, TX? Or Trump’s home in Florida? Or the dude that got thrown in jail over defending his kid in PA? If I’m drawing this conclusion, so are a lot of other people.

The analysis in the notes section does an OK job of breaking out SSPX vs FSSP vs Norvus Ordo. Honestly, style point here: put in a side-by-side comparison in the future. One nice graphic would make it a lot easier on the reader.

Further down, the memo admits it conducted no Analysis of Alternatives, fancy speak for “what other conclusions could we draw.” For an example, imagine a memo saying “War with China imminent in X years,” linking the increase in Chinese military activity to a desire to invade Taiwan. An alternative analysis might be that China is simply posturing to distract its population from domestic problems. Not having an alternative is another indication of sloppy detective and writing work on the part of the memo’s author.

The memo cites the Southern Poverty Law Center and a Salon article, which is what most conservative news agencies are jumping on. But the issues are deeper then that. There is no analysis of any of the RTCs, not even a basic open source analysis. The “Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary,” a scary sounding organization, is a bunch of nuns at a monastery. I doubt that they receive tactical weapons training on their campus, but maybe I’m wrong. If so, that might make for a cool addition to Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter science fiction series. But even a cursory review online shows that most of the organizations aren’t engaging in anything resembling violence.

The most disturbing thing to me is that this memo was even created and published. I’m sure the FBI gets thousands of leads every year, most of which end up being garbage. This looks like someone created an extensive memo over a single, unreliable source that was likely one racist person trying to recruit people that attend a Latin Catholic church. How did the Richmond station supervisor not read this and think “This looks dumb?” How did he or she not tell the author “You’re gonna need at least another source before we bother publishing this.”? That would have been my first comment.

So the FBI allows a poorly written memo attempting to tie racially-motivated extremists to members of the Catholic Church that attend a Mass said in a foreign language. It’s poorly researched, poorly sourced, draws crazy conclusions without data, all in what seems a blatant attempt to connect “white supremacy” to the Church. Much like the “white supremacy” nonsense that was tied to the military early on, this is only going to build more distrust in the FBI while doing nothing to fight actual terrorists.

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

Five Chosen Season Finale Thoughts Under the Fedora (Spoilers) A Nitpick, A surprise, A key teaching, Cliffhangers and The Bread of life in season 4?

Posted: February 8, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, culture, entertainment
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Tonight is the season finale of the Chosen season 3 for those like me who didn’t see it in the theatre. Here are some thoughts.

There was a big error right in the front. In Israel the queen wasn’t the king’s wife, kings had many wives, it was the king’s mother. We also don’t know which wife of David that was although given her age and pregnancy I’m betting Bathsheba.

It’s an interesting note because it was not uncommon to ask of the queen mother to intercede with the king on behalf of a need, which explains the “Hail Mary” prayer of the Rosary to a “T”.

I’m sure like me A lot of people expected the climax to be the feeding of the 5000, the fact that it ended on the walking on the water and calming the storm was a surprise. Thomas’ line concerning the 2nd most incredible thing he saw that day was funny but what was more significant to me was even having Jesus right and having Jesus do what he had already done that day the Disciples were still urging Simon Peter not to get out of the boat when invited by Christ.

The overall arc of the season was apparently the story of the prodigal son (which he has not told yet) in the sense that Simon Peter and Eden are the faithful child who complains “Why is the fatted calf killed for a party for the one who did not obey?” The frustration of both Eden and then Peter in their suffering while so many are healed around them is poignant.

I also thought that Eden going to her local Rabbi and not waiting for Jesus’ personally was an important reminder that when are priest intervenes when we have problems we ARE getting God’s intervention as he is there in persona Christi.

Just because you don’t see someone dramatically commanding the waves to stop it doesn’t mean your relief from the storm isn’t an act of God.

There were two significant cliff hangers. First of them is Rabbi Shmuel. We know that he was invited by Christ to pray with him when the crowds were gone and that Christ made himself available to him, so:

  1. Did they pray together
  2. Did he question Jesus
  3. If so was he satisfied with the answer

That was to me the big cliff hanger, the second is Atticus Aemilius. He was right being the rabbis from Jerusalem in getting to the crowd, although they didn’t show it he obviously would have questioned them and more importantly he SAW Christ walk on the water and the sudden end of the storm.

Presuming he is a believer in the Roman Gods the idea that Jesus might be “A” God (as opposed to “The God”) would not be out of his comfort zone. The question is will he consider him a threat to Rome, basically a God of the Jews who is acting to challenge Rome or will his part be to be the one who reports to Tiberius, basically the Roman who produces the report to Caesar that is the basis for the movie “The inquiry“.

You could actually had Atticus urging and advising the death of Christ not because he doesn’t believe he is God but because he does.

That will be very interesting to see how it plays out.

Finally as of this writing they are still millions ($13.1) away from raising the funds needed for season 4. As of this day they have not yet payed for episode 4 so we don’t know when we will see it but we know a few things.

  • We know that Jesus will be healing Gaius’ son.
  • We know that even larger crowds will be following him

but most important of all

  • We know that boat will end up back in Capernaum

The significance of this is that in John Gospel directly after the feeding of the 5000 comes what is called “The bread of life discourses” The feeding of the 5000 and those words are basically John Chapter six and they, combined with the last supper, are the basis for the Eucharist where Jesus tells the crowd bluntly that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood and when challenged instead of explaining it as a metaphor doubles down, thus causing many of his disciples to leave him.

I’ve mentioned this before but I recall my Pastor upon hearing of the Chosen noted that Protestant productions that are not word for word adaptions of scripture invariably leave out the bread of life discourses as they are frightfully inconvenient.

I guess the rubber will meet the road in a year, how much influence the VERY catholic Jonathan Roumie will have on this decision will be interesting but either way we will see. (Of course if they do the feeding of the 4000 too they could always put it there).

Full employment for Plumbers, Staying Bought, Blaming those not there, Too rich to Play and a final Catholic 101 Clarification Under the Fedora

Posted: February 6, 2023 by datechguy in Blame Biden Administration, catholic, nfl, race card, Sports, Uncategorized
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Got a call first thing this morning from the plumber concerning the frozen pipes in the attic apartment that DaWife and I first lived in when married and has now been rented out to the same fellow for nearly 30 years. Water was leaking to the 2nd floor where my brother lives. I called and emailed Saturday concerning the problem, apparently it’s a good thing I called fast because while there are a lot of people ahead of me which means we likely won’t see them today, the number of people behind me is a whole lot longer.

That artic blast is a full employment program for the plumbing and heating industry which I suspect isn’t laying off anyone in New England anytime soon, but then again in an age where automation is taking over a lot the trades remain the best option out there during a recession.

My thought on the Chinese balloons was that it would be a better idea to capture it in the air rather than shoot is down as we don’t know if they might contain hazardous materials. With a slow moving balloon of indeterminate weight I don’t know how practicable such a move would have been but if that wasn’t possible I don’t see the advantage of allowing to to gather intelligence and transmit it in real time letting it traverse the country before taking it out over the Atlantic.

By waiting that long you basically gave China not only the real time data they were looking for but data on the use of such balloons as a delivery system for bio weapons for either a first strike or an attack if we defend Tawian.

The Biden administration’s reaction tells me that what I’ve said before still applies, when you buy them, they stay bought.

Let’s point one important thing concerning all this reparations talk that nobody is discussing.

My four grandparents came here around 1906 over 40 years after the end of slavery in the US. and as Sicilians were considered to be of a different “race” than the WASPS in Massachusetts where they settled having to work like dogs to get to where they were.

Even if you make the stupid argument that reparations are due to people who were never slavers and whose parents were never slaves (and whose grandparents were likely never slaves either) why the hell should any of the descendants of people who were no where near America in the 19th century be responsible for those sins?

This past weekend the NFL “Pro-bowl” became a flag football game and skills competitions that I suspect people didn’t care much about.

The reason the pro-bowl is in decline? That’s simple. Current salaries.

When an NFL player was not making generational wealth the bonus from even the loser’s share of a pro-bowl game was something worth showing up for, not to mention the trip to Hawaii.

But when you are making a fortune playing the game already there is little incentive to show up to play an extra game that you have the potential to be hurt at, and one injury could mean the end of your seven to eight figure paycheck.

Thus the well paid stars who the pro-bowl is meant to feature give it a miss and the middle tier guys to whom that extra cash might mean something show up and now you don’t even have a real football game.

How it draws any eyeballs escapes me.

Finally there was yet another “clarification” concerning homosexuality from the Pope as he continues to try to dance around reality so as not to have to speak the truth aloud so in the interest of clarity let me give you four basic Catholic truths.

  1. There are NO circumstances where sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman is not mortal sin.
  2. There are NO circumstances where homosexual sex is not mortal sin.
  3. Mortal sin, sexual or otherwise, if sacramentally confessed with a firm resolve to amend is forgiven independent of sexual orientation.
  4. If you fail in your resolve and sin again, sacramental confession remains available so you can pick yourself up and try again.

This is Catholic 101 and any Priest or Bishop who tells you different is at best ignorant and at worst a liar.

I’d Like to Expand on Ed’s Excellent Piece at Hotair Concerning Francis, Homosexuality and Sin in the Catholic Church

Posted: January 26, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, catholic devotions
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I know it’s redundant to say that a piece by Ed Morrissey is excellent but this particular piece at Hotair titled:

Pope Francis: It’s no crime to be gay — but …

is worth expanding on.

Let’s start at the end rather than at the beginning because he brought up an excellent point that a lot of people forgot in the marriage family debate concerning the Church in Africa:

The AP suggests this is more prevalent in Africa, which is also where the Catholic Church is experiencing its most dynamic growth. The bishops from Africa have argued hard for a firm defense of church teachings on family, and have many good reasons for doing so. As at least one told me directly while I covered the Synod on the Family at the Vatican in 2014, any erosion of that position on same-sex relationships would be disastrous in Africa and the efforts to end polygamy among other religious and secular populations.

He quotes John Allen on the subject:

When cardinals from around the world met in Rome last February [2013] to set the table for the October synod on the family, some prelates from non-Western cultures hinted that polygamy may drive them to oppose any change in the ban on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving the sacraments.

Their argument went like this: The Catholic Church has been telling people in polygamous marriages that they have to change because marriage means one man and one woman, for life. If the Church softens that teaching for the divorced and remarried, it might face pressure to cut a deal for polygamists, too. …

“They’ve been telling people that if you come into the church, you’ve got to choose one wife,” DiNardo said. “If you suddenly change that, couldn’t [people in polygamous marriages] say, ‘Why can’t you give me a break, too?’ ”

The thing is Christ when talking about marriage being between one man and women & inviolate was rather explicit on this point:

Some Pharisees approached him, and tested him, saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause whatever?” He said in reply,

“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?” He said to them,

“Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.”

[His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered,

“Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Matthew 19:3-13 Underline emphasis mine

That underlined portion I highlighted concerning “some being incapable of marriage because they were born that way “ is key to understanding the Catholic position on Homosexuality and understanding Francis’ distinction between “crime” & “sin”

“Being homosexual is not a crime. It’s not a crime. Yes, it’s a sin. Well, yes, but let’s make the distinction first between sin and crime.”

Ed expresses the church’s position on this very plainly

Nothing about this statement is new. To speak in strictly technical terms, Francis errs to the harsh side (clearly inadvertently), as the Catholic Church’s catechism doesn’t make same-sex orientation a sin in itself. Same-sex actions are sinful, as are any sexual relations outside of a marriage based on the traditional model of one-man-one-woman. Sexual activity is blessed within such marriages (if consensual) and are sins in any other context. This is why the catechism urges Catholics to welcome gays as brothers and sisters, so that they can also hear the Word and repent of their sins, the way the rest of us do — and as long as they repent and resolve to sin no more, they can access all of the sacraments. Repenting means either engaging in a sacramental marriage and monogamy, or choosing celibacy … again, just as it does for every other Catholic.

It’s the repent-and-sin-no-more issue that is the sticking point, just as it is for all of us.

Emphasis mine

And that’s where the rubber really meets the road here.

As a person who struggles with habitual sin let me tell you it’s not easy. It’s a fight, and every fall is not only painful but is embarrassing when you have to go back to the priest to confess the same sins that you’ve resolve to avoid again and again. Victory can take years and like a person in AA you’re always subject to relapse.

However some have decided that it’s much easier to redefine sin rather than fighting it. If suddenly something is no longer sinful, you can do it with impunity! (I suspect there are more than a few people who might have considered being catholic clergy when young who left for liberal protestant sects because they have redefined their sins and even celebrated them, even if God has not) Why do all that work to repent when you can by fiat suddenly decide sin isn’t sin.

And let me note that this attitude isn’t just about sexual sin as illustrated by American’s society sudden embrace of theft as not a big deal if done in the right cities by the right people.

How should this be approached: Very simply as Ed notes:

The 2014 synod left many of these issues dangling, at least in the eyes of activists on all sides. It ended with Francis, then in the middle of his second year as Pope, with a declaration of welcome to all regardless of family status, but again clearly on the terms of Church teaching.

Or to put it another way, a person in a state of Mortal Sin, even continual Mortal sin should not skip mass because adding an additional mortal sin to the pile doesn’t help one toward salvation.

So how should the church handle homosexuality or even those in a gay marriage who want to go to church or receive the sacraments? Well for me the answer comes from apply what Fr. John Zuhlsdorf said when asked: In what scenario would you give Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried? Job one is for the priest to educate the people involved:

If a couple who are civilly married, etc. etc., have entered into a process with a priest who has helped them to see what their situation truly is (according to the teaching of Christ and His Church), then they know that what they are doing is wrong.  They know that they are in an adulterous union and that they have committed mortal sins.  Therefore, they know that are not properly disposed to receive Communion.  They also know that Communion is not “the white thing”.

That is what the priest must help them to understand.  That is his duty, at the peril of his own immortal soul and theirs.

That duty of a priest to his own soul is something often ignored but it all comes down to this

If they really get the Eucharist, with the full implications of receiving as Paul describes in 1 Cor 11:27 (“Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”), and if they really get the Four Last Things, then … would they really want to put at risk their eternal salvation by sacrilegious reception?

If they have been working with a sound priest who helps them to understand what mortal sin is and what matrimony is according to the Church’s teachings – BECAUSE THAT’S HIS JOB! – would they really want to receive Communion in their irregular state?

Or course there may be times when they fail in their determination to live in continence and they have sexual relations.

What then?

Simple.  They go to confession and start over with a firm purpose of amendment.

That’s what we all do when we sin in any way.  We go to confession with a firm purpose of amendment and start over with God’s help.  In some Amoris scenario, they might have to live in a near occasion of sin, but for the sake of care of children, etc., they have to bear their Cross.

However, there is a rock solid principle that cannot be set aside: No firm purpose of amendment, no Communion.

underline emphasis mine

That’s what it really comes down to. Do people want to be seen being at church and getting communion and having sins “accepted” for the sake of their own self esteem or cultural goals? Or do they want to save their souls?

If it’s the later then we should do what we can to help them along this path. If it’s the former, we should walk away to avoid being pulled down the slippery slope and into the pit.

If there is one useful thing that the international movement on Transgenderism has done it’s been to illustrate that the “slippery slope” that we’ve been warning about for decades, it’s as much a slope as it is a Luge track but I digress…

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