THE STATUE, THE CHAIR AND THE CHURCH

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A statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been ordered out of the sanctuary of St Columba's Church in Ashhurst. By the Bishop Emeritus.  +Peter Cullinane.

The statue normally resides in a niche to the right of the sanctuary, that being the BVM's time-honoured position in very many Catholic churches. But for Holy Mass and Rosary in the month of May (Mary's month), parishioners decided she should be placed more prominently, on the extreme right of the sanctuary, and given a silk-draped frame illuminated with lights.

Bishop Cullinane waited till after the last Sunday of May before issuing an edict that it be removed from the sanctuary because - wait for it - it obscured The Presidential Chair.

I asked whether, at their Sunday (Vigil) Mass, their little church was ever full to bursting. "Oh well, it's usually pretty full," they said. But not apparently so full that any unfortunates would be forced to sit right in front of the statue and look at Our Lady instead of  The Presidential Chair - and its occupant, who more often than not happens to be Bishop Cullinane. 

+Cullinane has a reputation for statue-shifting. Another statue of the BVM, much loved by at least some of the congregation at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, was banished years ago to the bowels of that church and replaced by a modern wooden version which is loathed by the same 'some of the congregation'. I can't offer an opinion on its aesthetic appeal because to me, seen at a distance as I come and go it does not invite closer inspection. Quite the contrary.

I'm told that in fact, +Cullinane prefers his churches bare. Stripped of ornamentation, like Protestant churches. +Cullinane is famous also for instigating the do-we-stand-or-do-we-kneel-or-do-we-sit contretemps which still divides and confuses this Diocese. 

The standing fashion, I note, runs out at about Hastings; in Napier at St Patrick's they kneel. (Except when they're told by the Marist priests there, at Requiems of  life-long faithful Catholics, "you're invited to sit" - for the Eucharistic Prayer! Is that noxious modern Jesuitical influence now affecting the Marist Order? More of that another time, perhaps.)

I suppose it was also +Cullinane who relegated the only indult Traditional Latin Mass in the diocese to an out-of-the-way, tiny country church; the TLM which is a bulwark, standing between what remains of the Catholic Church and the globalists' designs for a New World Order and a New World 'Church'.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the other bulwark defending the holy, Roman Catholic Church from the insidious Protestantism of our modern churches and liturgies, and from the Freemasonry which declared its hatred for Our Blessed Mother in Fatima following her apparition to three shepherd children, in persecution and psychological torture by the local mayor, a freemason. 

For the worldly-wise who pooh-pooh any criticism of freemasonry ("freemasons are lovely people, they do a lot of good"), I reference the words of St Maximilian Kolbe, who witnessed the violently anti-Catholic celebrations of Freemasonry's 200th Anniversary in Rome in 1917:

"Satan will rule in the Vatican and the Pope will serve him in the uniform of a Swiss guard, and other things of that kind. This mortal hatred for the Church of Jesus Christ and for His Vicar (is) a systematic action proceeding from the principle of Freemasonry: Destroy all religion, whatever it may be, especially the Catholic religion."

I think the statue of the BVM in St Columba's Ashhurst may be that of Our Lady of Fatima. Even if not, what real reason can there be for the removal from the sanctuary during Holy Mass of a statue of Our Lady? 

To suggest it on the grounds that it obstructs the view of The Presidential Chair - and upon It, Bishop Emeritus Peter Cullinane - must surely be specious?  

'Unknown' says: 

This ties in with what a priest told me soon after I moved to the Dannevirke parish a few years ago: The aim of the Palmerston North hierarchy is to remove from the Catholic churches everything that is Catholic. A good example of that in St Joseph’s, for example, is that you won’t find any religious paintings hanging inside the church; they hang in the church foyer only. 

At the Catholic Schools Day Mass in St Joseph’s last Tuesday the Blessed Sacrament was somewhat stripped of reverence too. Communicants were starting to join the Communion queue when the celebrant changed his stance and allowed all of the children, row by row, to FIRST come forward for a blessing! I was so incensed that I immediately left the church. 

What can we do about all these changes? You can’t complain to the Bishop or the Liturgy Office as they rarely answer emails, from my experience. 

I say: 

Who was the celebrant? He did this publicly and you are 'unknown' so no reason for us to be coy. If we're forewarned about certain priests' abuse of their liturgical office, we're forearmed.

'Unknown' replies: 

The celebrant was Monsignor David Bell.


Paul Collits says: 
Great post, Julia.


'Anon' says:

Julia, surely its nothing to do with the presidential chair.  Surely the issue at Ashhurst is two groups having to share the same church, a Novo Mass group and a Latin Mass group. 

Surely the issue is who is in control of the church?  From what I have seen there is massive infighting in some parishes over everything, and that's with only one group in residence.  Put two groups in the same church and you have to expect bedlam.

Surely the correct response is to have the good bishop, in the spirit of love and mercy, mediate the relationship between the two groups, perhaps over coffee.  An edict letter looks like a sledgehammer and mismanagement to me.

'Anon' then adds:

The Mary statue in the cathedral seems to be a modern feminist statement.  Mary is normally portrayed in statues (and the Bible) as the humble handmaiden (Her words from today's Gospel) offering to serve God.  

The wooden Mary statue in the Cathedral turns most every previous image of Mary on its head.  The wooden Mary seems to me a strident, self assertive figure.  It shouts, 'look at me!'  What is the motive for this? 

 I can only guess.

'Anonymous' says:

Most excellent post. Correct, and critical. It's a pity they are impervious to criticism, because they are dictators. And the clerics have dictated the corruption of the Mass and our church furnishings since V2. Of course, they cannot corrupt the Faith, but they do impede many of the NO faithful practising it.

COMEDIANS' STUPIDITY IS REALLY CUPIDITY (GREED AND LUST): letter to Dominion Post published May 30

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Rarely have I read such stupidity as that exhibited by 'comedians' Michele A’Court and Jeremy Elwood in Saturday’s Dom Post. Except I realise it’s not stupidity, it’s cupidity: greed for gain, and lust. 

Denying the facts of life, such as when humanity begins (at fertilisation/conception), of Alabama’s female Governor’s statement that “every life is a sacred gift from God”, of the real stats on death in ‘back alley’ abortions and the 25 million female babies killed in the US since Roe v Wade, A’Court wants a career, at any price – even a career as a comedian.

As for Elwood, who denies the fifth commandment, he admits to wanting sex without consequences and claims because he doesn’t have a uterus he doesn’t have a say. 

Really? Well I don’t have a penis, however I do have a conscience, just like Elwood, so I have a say. 

Good will not enter souls glutted with evil, so I may be wasting my say on them but, I hope and pray, not on the majority of New Zealanders.



'Unknown' says:

1. I agree, the stupidity of pro-abortionists is overwhelming. Also the lack of comprehension as to what a human right is. Hollywood actress A. Milano organised a 'sex strike' til they could get abortions back on demand. Is she not aware of how babies are made? If people WOULD first consider striking on sexual frolicking then abortion would be unnecessary full stop.
   Hostess of NZ's stunning media propaganda '(the) Project', Kanoa, reiterated the need for improving NZ's access to abortion. Saying gravely, to the effect, 'or do we want to go back to the dark ages like Alabama?'
   I think she has misunderstood the concept of darkness and Light.
   Who has the right to choose who has (or doesn't have) rights anyway??
   God bless Alabama!! 
2. 
   Julia du Fresne29 May 2019 at 20:19

   I want to emphasise that it may be a question not so much of stupidity, but cupidity (in this context meaning greed and lust).
   
   Greed in women for money and career, and often not just sexual lust fueled by alcohol and/or drugs to deaden the pain of past abortions, but lust for the power that a career can bring, especially power over men whom they may blame for those abortions; and in men in addition to sexual lust and greed for the additional income of their wives/partners, the lust for power over women lost by the former's choice (known or unknown) of death for the latter's children.
   
   Abortion is the ultimate in bullying by both sexes and explains the culture of bullying and violence so prevalent in our pagan country today. 
3. 
   Leo says:

   Women have become so addicted to sex that they're prepared to kill for it!
   
4. I say:
5. I know however, that many women are coerced - some subtly, some by brute force - into abortion by their partner (much less frequently, their husband) and/or their family.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY MULTIGRAVIDA

White-hot with anger at the publication in yesterday's Dominion Post of three sob stories from abortion victims (and I don't mean the babies), in response to the request fron 'Stuff' to 'submit your story', I did just that. Just now.


'I was pregnant at my daughter's wedding. 

Sounds like something out of the Woman's Weekly. That's because the only mags provided where pregnant women waited for attention 27 years ago was, and probably still is, the WW, Woman's Day and  New Idea.

So after 7 months of loitering outside specialists' offices and hospital facilities, what I laughingly referred to as my brain was stuffed with royal scandals, television presenters and medical trauma, couched in terms like "I'm an elderly multigravida". 

Confessions of an elderly multigravida was the title of the feature story I was asked to write for North and South magazine, at a time when late pregnancies were still rare.

I was pregnant for the seventh time, following two miscarriages, at age 46. I'd refused amniocentesis: no point. As 'im indoors told a preggie friend who thought she was elderly (at only 39) and underwent an amnio with dread, "We'll take what comes".

My  mother's two sisters both had Down syndrome babies. In their forties. I read somewhere that for couples over 40 but still, like us, stuck with their original partner (how unenterprising) the chance of Down syndrome babies was one in 10 because apparently, such unfortunates have sex so rarely. 

The radiographer was a friend, who knew better than to suggest amnio; she knew I'd argued with her brother about abortion, quoting the "Father of Foetology", Sir William Liley, who finally committed suicide, in despair I suppose at his country's nihilistic attitude in passing the infamous CS&A Act. Liley maintained that abortion is never justified. 

I told our specialist if we had a handicapped baby, with God's help we'd cope. My engaged daughter wasn't so glib. She knew witty people would ask if she was planning on a baby to keep her mother company. She said to me, "If it's handicapped we'll have to look after it". I felt sicker than ever.

We lived an hour and a half away from Palmerston North Hospital and the services of my specialist. My grown-up sons pointed out that our aged Rover was suited to an emergency delivery in the Manawatu Gorge, the upholstery being blood-red. 

"This babe doesn't want to leave her mother," said my obstetrician. And in the end, two weeks late, I delivered my healthy, perfect, beautiful daughter myself.

The 'only daughter' status of her big sister was surrendered only reluctantly, and not till after she gave birth herself - to twins. I remember her little sister telling me, four years later, that "It's not easy for a child of four, to be an aunt to twins", but aunt she was. 

Ten years later, she would become godmother to the twins' little brother - whose name, incidentally, means 'gift of God'. That would have been the right name, in the eyes of her parents, siblings, whanau and friends, for his godmother, my daughter, my joy.

At a party not long after her birth a friend, a pillar of our community known to many as sober and wise, but to a privileged few as drunk and wiser, went down on his knees to put his arms round me and my baby. He announced he was going to cry. 

"Isn't this magic?" he asked. "This is all that matters in life."

In vino veritas.'

Adelie Reid says:

Blessings all round for those who have faith.. And as for Sir William Liley., I still have the fondest childhood memories of him coming to stay.

I say:
You were privileged, as I was, to know that man. God rest his soul. Paul Collits says:

What a wonderful delightful story.

I say:

Thank you … but wait, there's more. I thought I might as well post the whole N&S feature.

'Anonymous' II says:

	I didn't know Sir William Liley committed suicide.. that's so tragic. I was told by a lady once that she had amnio because if there was anything wrong with the baby then they would abort it as they didn't want the older sibling having to look after her younger sibling later in life. I could happily tell her about my husbands sister who has Downs Syndrome and how we love looking after her. She has given so much love to our family - people just don't get it. I say: Why not submit your story about caring for your lovely sister-in-law with Down syndrome? Why should we let the peddlers of death, doom and destruction of our civilization go unchallenged?
	'Anonymous II' says: I too read that article in the Dompost. I too am very angry - is this what passes as journalism nowadays. Should I respond with a complaint to the broadcaster; or try to find some of the many women who regret their abortions to speak out and submit their story? Turning to the weekend magazine that comes with the paper - the columns by the husband and wife comedians - the narrative gets worse. Every time I get really angry and want to cancel my subscription - I think who will take them to task? As an aside Julia - check out the Dompost article by Glenn McConnell which was reposted to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Wellington Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/MCSHWellington/?ref=search&__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARCzvY5qdfnDQ7XiKAb7tWSbWQ6P0fXMJdiU3GftKs1VO662uhH5wik6pHxDKOpxHPXnC7gDiRW4wdTS I say: I did check out the Wellington Cathedral's Facebook Page and found an article by Glenn McConnell titled 'Will the one Christian God please stand up?" which is highly offensive to any faithful Catholic. What was the context of its posting, do you know? was it posted with the approval of Wgtn Cathedral?