MAYBE I am too harsh regarding the Vatican II Church. Here Jorge Bergoglio says a Children’s Mass in Argentina in 2011. Perhaps millions of martyrs died for this. [Courtesy of Novus Ordo Watch.]
JEAN PAUL writes:
The Sackville Hotel on the strand in Hove was a great, old Edwardian pile. Faded glory, a nice old place to stay on our visits to the town on the English Channel where my mother was born and raised. She came to Canada as an 18-year-old war bride in 1944 and is 88 now, in her own house for 64 years. She still speaks of England as “home.”
IN 2004, the late Sam Francis wrote a column for VDare.com about an especially lewd Monday Night Football ad featuring Nicolette Sheridan. The column is worth revisiting because he makes an important point. Conservative commentators had complained about the sexual innuendo of the ad, but Francis, the former Washington Times columnist who was fired for his writings on race, objected to its racial message as well:
The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it.
So far only one voice has mentioned the ad’s racial meaning and denounced its “insensitivity” (to blacks)—that of black Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy.
Blacks are permitted to notice race. Whites aren’t.
But the ad’s message also was that interracial sex is normal and legitimate, a fairly radical concept for both the dominant media as well as its audience.
Nevertheless, for decades, interracial couples of different sexes have been sneaked into advertising, movies and television series, and almost certainly not because of popular demand from either race. The Owens-Sheridan match is only the most notorious to date.
In the minds of those who produced the ad, race is at least as important as the moral and aesthetic norms their ad subverts. (more…)
SHARBEL FERRO writes:
I recently read a part of your website (here and here) in which you explain that you conclude that Francis I is not the pope of the Catholic Church, and that the Chair is empty. I too have this view, and I am convinced of it in the deepest fibres of my heart. I have held this view for about three years now.
Can I share with you how I came to the sedevacantist position? I think it my be of interest to you, and supportive, because from some of the things you say on your website, it has plenty in common with my own journey. (Actually, I think almost all sedevacantists have a very similar journey to reach their conclusion.)
DRAWING attention again to a previous post, I offer this poem by Keith Jacka, one of series of five poems titled "English Girls," which was posted in February, 2011. "Annie Rose" is about the poet's mother.
THE latest condemnation of the Catholic Church by the United Nations comes after years of appeasement by the Vatican II Church. Here is a previous post at Tradition in Action on the surrender of the Conciliar Church to the U.N.:
The old dream of the Babel Tower – to establish the unity of mankind without God – has been a dream of Freemasonry for centuries. In 1919, after World War I, Masonry established the League of Nations in order to foster a federation of all the countries of the world under its control. Notwithstanding, from 1923 on, it started to fall apart, and its demise was a consummate fact by the beginning of World War II.
In 1945, after WWII, the United Nations was founded to achieve the same goal of its precursor – the establishment of a Universal Republic without God. In 1948 it adopted as its ideal the Declaration of the Rights of Man from the French Revolution. The UN is an organization with an Agnostic philosophy, a Masonic inspiration and a practical disregard of God. It should never receive the support of the Catholic Church, the true Church of God. (more…)
THE spiritual implosion of America, which comes with the inability to sustain a manufacturing and agricultural economy, is particularly vivid in Vermont, now the land of heroin and single mothers. Geoffrey Norman, writing in The Weekly Standard, quotes a single mother who says Vermont is actually a good place to be an addict because there are so many accomodating government programs.
THERE is virtually nothing about this in the American press, but Galliawatch has a report on the decision by the French government to abandon a law that would allow surrogate parenting. Tiberge wrote on Monday:
[The] French government has announced a re-examination of the laws on the Family, and a pledge to oppose surrogate motherhood and medically assisted procreation. These are major concessions from a government that has not budged from its position for a year.
WE were without electricity for most of the week due to damaging storms and that’s why you have not heard much from me. We had no Internet connection and it was difficult to connect anywhere nearby. More than half a million people were without power and most of them still don’t have electricity. Ten inches of snow fell, followed by freezing rain and then regular, normal, wet rain. It all stuck to the trees. For awhile, the roads were blocked in almost every direction with downed trees. A tree fell on the roof of one neighbor’s house and another fell across the driveway of our next-door neighbor. Sadly, a man in a nearby town was killed by a falling limb while he was helping a neighbor lift a branch.
Things are slowly getting back to normal. We have heat, but our house is still encased in ice.
A BLOGGER named Wild Outlander analysizes the hipster’s craving for authenticity and says, if I read him correctly, that this craving ultimately stems from the artificiality of the hipster’s pose.
DON VINCENZO writes:
If the U.S. is failing domestically, it is also declining internationally – in its importance and the prestige that it brings to any negotiation. When the State Department became “an equal opportunity employer,” all bets were off about the future of our foreign relations, and I can describe no better example of this than a recent hearing by President Obama’s selection of three candidates as ambassadors to China, Hungary and Norway, a country where I served at the U.S. Embassy during the late 1980s. (The Washington Post, Federal Page, Jan. 31, 2014.)
Starting with retiring Sen. Max Baucus, the candidate for U.S. Ambassador to China, who began with answering his first question with the response, “I’m no real expert on China,” the mood was set. Colleen Bell, a Hollywood producer who “bundled” $800,000 to the Obama campaign, was clueless about our strategic objectives in Hungary, and George Tsunis, a CEO of a hotel chain, who “bundled 1.3 million to the Obama campaign in 2012, responded to his questions in a way, described by the Norwegian news outlet, NRK, as “faltering, incoherent and displayed a “total ignorance” of the country.” Does this matter? (more…)
IN this interview by Lifesite News, Bernadette Smyth, a leading anti-abortion organizer in Ireland, talks about the recent legalization of abortion in the Republic of Ireland. After passage of an abortion bill last July, abortion is now legal in Ireland for all nine months of pregnancy whenever the mother’s life is in danger. Since depression is considered endangering the life of a mother, the bill essentially legalized abortion for any woman who wants it.
Smyth blames the success of the abortion bill on the redefinition of the issue as a human rights campaign by pro-life activists. She says in doing this, activists became mere marchers and protestors. They had degraded their cause. They had lost sense of the supernatural element of the battle. She also says Conciliar Church leaders in Ireland (that’s the false Vatican II Church, not the true Catholic Church) have outrageously accommodated pro-abortion politicians.
Her words are heartfelt and moving. “The Irish people put God out of the battle. And I think that’s really sad.”
IN SOME parts of America, the decadence that is everywhere is especially apparent. In his recent State of the State Address, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin addressed the scourge of heroin and opiate addiction that has been building for years.
In every corner of our state, heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us. It threatens the safety that has always blessed our state. It is a crisis bubbling just beneath the surface that may be invisible to many, but is already highly visible to law enforcement, medical personnel, social service and addiction treatment providers, and too many Vermont families. It requires all of us to take action before the quality of life that we cherish so much is compromised. (more…)
[This is a re-post of a previous entry. My power has been down for the last 24 hours due to heavy snow and so it seemed relevant.]
SNOWFLAKES are ice crystals that form around dust particles or other microscopic matter in the upper atmosphere. A typical snowflake is a conglomeration of crystals, most damaged as they fall from the heights. A hundred years ago, the science of snow was still in its infancy. Since then, the systematic study of snow has advanced rapidly with greater understanding of its properties and classification of crystals and snow packs. The measurement and management of snow are both consuming issues. Though snow is now the stuff of formal expertise, and probably makes for some tedious dissertations for the general reader, who could ever find the subject dull?
Ken Libbrecht is chairman of the physics department at California Institute of Technology and the creator of one of the more interesting natural history sites on the Internet. SnowCrystals.com presents the science of snow with an appreciation for the beauty of its subject matter. I highly recommend it.
“I feel that with over six billion people on the planet, surely a few of us can be spared to ponder the subtle mysteries of snowflakes,” writes Libbrecht, who is the author of The Secret Life of a Snowflake and other books. His website is an excellent source for homeschoolers. He offers a short summary of the major scientific discoveries, starting with Johannes Kepler. He writes:
In 1611 Johannes Kepler published a short treatise On the Six-Cornered Snowflake, [1] which was the first scientific reference to snow crystals. Kepler pondered the question of why snow crystals always exhibit a six-fold symmetry. Although he doesn’t refer to the atomistic viewpoint, Kepler does speculate that the hexagonal close-packing of spheres may have something to do with the morphology of snow crystals. Kepler was astute in recognizing that the genesis of crystalline symmetry was an interesting scientific question, and he also realized that he did not have the means to answer it. It would be 300 years before Kepler’s question could finally be answered, requiring the development of X-ray crystallography.
Below is Libbrecht’s chart of the most common types of snow crystals:
Is it any surprise that Lloyds Bank of Britain has announced that it will greatly increase women in its top executive positions just at a time when it is facing scandals of rigged lending rates? The presence of more women at the top gives a softer, friendlier face to the world of amoral banking. The bank says 40 percent of senior positions will go to women, which means that every female promotion will reek of affirmative action whether it's deserved or not. The British government and the European Union are pressuring companies to appoint more women managers and place more women on corporate boards. A Lloyds banking spokeswoman is quoted in The Daily Mail as saying "there is a whole body of research suggesting that where organisations have a diverse senior management team they are much more financially successful than those that do not." Given that senior management at most large corporations is predominantly male and that the most successful companies face more pressure to institute affirmative action, there could not be sufficient research to confirm this.
ADITYA B. writes:
Two oceans and three continents once separated me from America.
Like many a fool, I dreamed of America. In my dreams, America was a place where men were free to be men. It was a place where intelligent and fiercely independent minds wrestled with weighty issues and, whilst vehemently disagreeing with you, would defend to the death your right to express such disagreeable views.
After almost a decade in Aztlan-Sodom (the city formerly known as “Los Angeles”), I have concluded that, by and large, most Americans are moral fanatics. And utterly pedestrian (and provincial) moral fanatics. They will destroy any man who does not kow-tow to the “Gods of the City” and will gleefully participate in witch-hunting and burning like their much-maligned ancestors in Salem, Massachusetts.
IN a recent letter to Nigerian president regarding the goverment's passage of a bill that prohibits same-sex "marriage" and promotion of homosexual behavior, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos indirectly attacked the arrogance of John Kerry, who condemned the Nigerian law, as was discussed here. As reported at Rorate Coeli, Kaigama wrote to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on behalf of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria: “Your decision and that of your administration in conjunction with the Federal Legislature, not to bow to international pressure in the promotion of unethical and immoral practices of same sex union and other related vices is indeed a courageous one and a clear indication of the ability of our great country to stand shoulders high in the protection of our Nigerian and African most valued cultures of the institution of marriage and protection of the dignity of the human person.” […] “We commend you for this courageous and wise decision and pray that God will continue to bless, guide and protect you and your administration against the conspiracy of the developed world to make our country and continent, the dumping ground for the promotion of all immoral practices, that have continued to debase the purpose of God for man in the area of creation and morality, in their own countries. Sadly, another group of African bishops, Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, condemned the law --- and its statement was reported at a Vatican news agency.
LT. Col. Jackie Parker was the first woman pilot to become combat qualified in the F-16 and became the first woman to attend U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California in 1988. Parker is considered a hero of women's aviation. In the 1990s, she was a minor celebrity, praised by Hillary Clinton, and was considered the avant grade of a new generation of women combat pilots. But everything you would expect to happen when a woman enters the masculine world of fighter pilots in an age of mandatory integration happened in Parker's case. A story in The Los Angeles Times from 1998 gives the details of her experience training with the New York Air National Guard, which the newspaper called "one of the most destructive explosions of gender conflict since the integration of women in the military began." Parker left a number of derailed careers in her wake and allegedly had a romantic relationship with the unit's operations chief: One year after Maj. Jacquelyn S. Parker began training to become the Air Guard's first female F-16 pilot, her fighter career was over, two superiors had been ousted in disgrace and the 174th Fighter Wing was on its way to a top-to-bottom reorganization. Here are details in The New York Times of October, 22, 1995 about the sex discrimination case that resulted from Parker's experience: On Friday, the commander of the 174th Wing, Col. David Hamlin, was relieved of command, denied the chance…