FROM Tumultuous Times: Twenty General Councils of the Catholic Church and Vatican II and its Aftermath by Fr. Francisco Radecki, CMRI and Fr. Dominic Radecki, CMRI (St. Joseph’s Media, 2004):

In 1534 St. Thomas More and a relatively small number of faithful Catholics refused to sign King Henry VIII’ s Oath of Supremacy because it amounted to a denial of the Catholic Faith. “If More had sworn the oath as it was presented to him. . . he would have concurred the forcible removal of the Pope’s jurisdiction and the effective schism of the Church in England. This he could not do, even at the cost of his life.”

When St. Thomas More stood before Parliament he was taunted by Audley, Duke of Norfolk:

‘Indeed, Master More, you wish to be held wiser than all the bishops, all the nobility, all the realm entire!’ It was the old sneer he had heard so often, and now he flung back challenge for challenge in a voice ringing with the glory of belonging to Christ’s Mystical Body. ‘My lord, for one bishop of your opinion I have a hundred saints of mine; for one Parliament of yours, and God knows of what sort, I have all the General Councils of a thousand years; for one kingdom I have all the Kingdoms of Christendom! ’

Unafraid of the violent death awaiting him, the saint joked with the executioner as he mounted the rickety scaffold: “I pray you, sir, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.”

More’s last words portrayed his deep faith and courage: “I am dying in the faith and for the faith of the Catholic Church, the king’s good servant and God’s first.”

It would be a mistake to claim that traditional Catholicism is false simply because it is not what most people now believe.  … [T]he Catholic Church is distinguished by the purity of its doctrine, not defined by the number of followers. In the fourth century, such multitudes of the faithful were seduced by the Arian heresy, that it appeared to be Catholicism’s great defender “(St.) Athanasius against the world.”

Catholicism is not defined by the possession of church buildings. During the sixteenth century hundreds of Catholic churches were occupied by “Catholic” priests who were, in fact, subtly replacing the true Faith with Protestantism. Catholicism is not guaranteed by those who bear titles of authority; during the Western Schism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, several of the men who bore the title of “pope” were not popes at all.

The New Church created by Vatican II is not the Catholic Church. Because its “popes” are illegitimate, there is no moral obligation to follow such men or their new religion. On the contrary, we are obliged to follow the doctrines handed down by  Christ and His Apostles and to avoid this New Church as we would any other false religion. (more…)

  READERS WHO enjoyed Alan's terrific essay on a long lost St. Louis drugstore might also enjoy "The Bluff of the Big Shops," by G. K. Chesterton. Doesn't everybody hate big retail? Then why do we put up with it? There is no physical law of evolution that demands stores get bigger and bigger or that colossal retail chains exist, as opposed to many more independent stores. Chesterton argued that big stores are not better stores. They also lead to the concentration of wealth. Thus he wrote in 1926: Twice in my life has an editor told me in so many words that he dared not print what I had written, because it would offend the advertisers in his paper. The presence of such pressure exists everywhere in a more silent and subtle form. But I have a great respect for the honesty of this particular editor; for it was, evidently as near to complete honesty as the editor of an important weekly magazine can possibly go. He told the truth about the falsehood he had to tell. On both those occasions he denied me liberty of expression because I said that the widely advertised stores and large shops were really worse than little shops. That, it may be interesting to note, is one of the things that a man is now forbidden to say; perhaps the only thing he is really forbidden to say. If it had been an attack on Government,…

  Call Me Jorge writes: Francis says that the biggest expenses in life are the essentials: food, medicine, and clothing.  After that follows cosmetics (beauty products) and then pets!  Don’t believe him?  Francis says he has the statistics! His answer AUSTERITY!!! Francis conveniently omits usury, rents, insurance, automobile costs,mortgages, taxes, regulation, children, and education!  This is telling as it shows truly who his bosses are.

A READER writes:

    ALFRED SCHAEFER'S home in Germany was recently raided by police and his video recording equipment confiscated. It was the second time the Canadian engineer has been harassed by police, who were taking orders from B'nai Brith, the extremely powerful, Jews-only secret society, for his videos protesting pervasive psychological warfare (the videos are posted online). Schaefer says, "1984 is here today. We have lost our ability to think and to speak clearly. " He stands unofficially accused of "hate crimes" for his challenges to the public understanding of the "Holocaust" and 9/11. He writes: Dear Friends! A few days ago, on July 6 at exactly 6:00 AM, our door bell rang ferociously, as if some berserk madman was about to kick in the door. My wife and I jumped out of bed. I told her do not open just yet, but hold them off for a few seconds. OK, then in they came, seven armed thugs with guns, bullet-proof vests and handcuffs, accompanied by one “witness” from the town administration. Fortunately, Schaefer is amassing supporters around the world, including Jewish supporters -- those who know they also have been victimized by lies and want to fight them. He writes: The timing of this raid and the consequences are amazing. I just returned from a Canadian speaking tour that consisted of 14 presentations in 11 cities, from Toronto to Victoria. After arriving in Toronto I learned that Global TV wanted to…

  JOURNALISTS typically deal with questions about 9/11 with abrupt dismissal and ad hominem attacks. The scientific evidence does not support NPR Neal Conan's claims in this radio clip.

  "When a child is born, his soul leaves the hands of God with the seal of God’s image and likeness. This image and likeness, a potential of great force, will attract the soul to God throughout his life. For this reason a child has a strong tendency to see the image and likeness of God in the ensemble of the universe or in each one of its parts. This tendency toward contemplation, nourished in the child, can develop in the man and become one of his most precious possessions. “The child is father to the man,” wisely observed the poet. Thus the man, to the degree he keeps his innocence, continues to see the reflection of God in the things around him. In this state of innocence the child has a tendency to communicate with the angels. This makes the child open to a kind of world that is different from the concrete and pragmatic world of adults who have lost their innocence." --- From "Nourishing an Appetite for the Marvelous," by Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.

ALAN writes:

My first job was as a clerk in a corner drugstore.  Most of the people with whom I worked are gone now, and the drugstore was demolished more than 35 years ago.  It was locally owned and operated.  It was one of a kind.  Not a trace of it remains.  There is no historic plaque reading: “On this corner stood the only drugstore in downtown St. Louis that was open all day, all night, every day of the year for 62 years.”

It was in some ways a relic from a time when Americans had some understanding of proportion, form, and function.  It had one purpose:  To offer prescription medicine and sundries.  It catered to ordinary, unpretentious people, most of them working class, some of them poor, most of them middle age or older.

There was a steady stream of customers and prescriptions, but the soda fountain/lunch counter kept the store afloat.  The floor was white ceramic tile.  The store had glass display cases with marble foundations.  Pharmacists filled prescriptions on the catwalk-balcony.

It was not a fun house.  We did not sell toys, tires, or beach balls.  The only sound was that of conversations at the lunch counter or sales counter and the bell on the cash registers.  It was never annoying.  You could hear yourself think.  Try that today in the midst of the noise absurdly called “music” that large chain drugstores love to inflict on their customers.  Mercifully, it was long before the cell phone was invented.  We had one pay telephone for customers.  On one wall were dozens of shelves and small wooden cabinet drawers.  Candy, cigars, and cigarettes were always in demand.  We sold Fatima cigarettes, Velvet tobacco in tins, and Bull Durham tobacco in the pouch.  We had “Prince Albert in the can”, and thoughtful people would phone in to say we should let him out.

To borrow a line spoken by Margaret Sullavan to James Stewart in “The Shop Around the Corner” (1940), I was an “insignificant little clerk”.

When I worked in the basement, my only companions were the mice.  One day a pharmacist and I were standing down there talking.  One of our mice was unaccounted for and we were concerned.

I delivered prescription medicine to elderly residents who lived in tall apartment buildings nearby.  There were no locked doors in my path, I needed no push-button security code, and I never had to justify my presence.  All I had to do was walk through the entry door and to the elevator.  And Americans today think they are “free”.  Self-deluded fools.  There is no better guarantee of arrogance than ignorance of the past.

The midnight shift was quiet and uneventful.  We sold and served no liquor.  There were no security guards at the drugstore because none were needed.  There were no spy cameras in the store and no bars on its door or windows.  I never saw more than one police officer in the store, and he came in every evening to talk with the pharmacist or the cashier.  (more…)

  We fly to thy patronage, O Holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.

JANE S. writes: There is a scene from Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop that takes place in a remote Spanish mission in colonial New Mexico. An old man is lying on his deathbed, while the priest administers the Sacrament. Others take turns praying at his bedside while the rest of the community keeps vigil. Watching beside a death-bed was not a hardship for them, but a privilege—in the case of a dying priest, it was a distinction. In those days, even in European countries, death had a solemn social importance. It was not regarded as a moment when certain bodily organs ceased to function, but as a dramatic climax, a moment when the soul made its entrance into the next world, passing in full consciousness through a lowly door to an unimaginable scene. Among the watchers there was always the hope that the dying man might reveal something of what he alone could see; that his countenance, if not his lips, would speak, and on his features would fall some light or shadow from beyond. The “Last Words” of great men, Napoleon, Lord Byron, were still printed in gift-books, and the dying murmurs of every common man and woman were listened for and treasured by their neighbours and kinsfolk. These sayings, no matter how unimportant, were given oracular significance and pondered by those who must one day go the same road. I often recall that passage and think:…

"The Cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self-government afterwards. Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw in me a free agent of the British Government, and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises. So I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what my word was worth, assured the men of their reward. In our two years’ partnership under fire they grew accustomed to believing me and to think my Government, like myself, sincere. In this hope they performed some fine things, but, of course, instead of being proud of what we did together, I was bitterly ashamed. It was evident from the beginning that if we won the war these promises would be dead paper, and had I been an honest adviser of the Arabs I would have advised them to go home and not risk their lives fighting for such stuff: but I salved myself with the hope that, by leading these Arabs madly in the final victory I would establish them, with arms in their hands, in a position so assured (if not dominant) that expediency would counsel to the Great Powers a fair settlement of their claims. In other words, I presumed (seeing no other leader with the will and power) that I would survive the campaigns, and be able to defeat not merely the Turks on the battlefield, but my own country and its allies…

    "Jews should rejoice at the fact that Christian Europe is losing its identity as a punishment for what it did to us for the hundreds of years we were in exile there. We will never forgive Europe’s Christians for slaughtering millions of our children, women and elderly… Not just in the recent Holocaust, but throughout the generations, in a consistent manner which characterizes all factions of hypocritical Christianity… .. Even if we are in a major war with the region’s Arabs over the Land of Israel, Islam is still much better as a gentile culture than Christianity’. ‘And now, Europe is losing its identity in favor of another people and another religion, and there will be no remnants and survivors from the impurity of Christianity, which shed a lot of blood it won’t be able to atone for .... Jews must pray that the Islamization of most of Europe will not harm the people of Israel’."  --- Rabbi Baruch Efrati, 2012

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. --- John F Kennedy, Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, April 27, 1961.

ALMOST makes you want to be an anarchist.

FOR some reason, they have fewer children. Therefore they will need more public services. Many will never reach old age due to disease, suicide and drugs.

ARRESTS of Orthodox Jews who have been accused of welfare fraud in Lakewood, N.J. continue. So far, 26 people have been charged with unlawfully taking more than $2 million in fraudulent benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps and other benefits.

The haredim have been known for depending heavily on welfare benefits in New Jersey for many years. (more…)

  In 2016 the image of Omran Daqneesh, shell-shocked and covered in ash, was disseminated by a number of Western media outlets as a symbol of Aleppo's civilian suffering, with some news agencies even accusing Moscow of conducting the airstrike that the boy was allegedly injured in. CNN has yet to retract or apologize for its misleading use of images of the boy.