BULLYING BEGINS AT HOME (letter to the Herald)

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Bullying begins at home: in our first home, the womb, which historically in our culture has been inviolate.

But now it's a mother’s ‘right’ to violate her own body, her own uterus, and kill her own child - even if she’s little more than a child herself - because that’s her ‘choice’.

Abortion, the ultimate violence, is inflicted by a woman on herself, often because of coercion (bullying) by her child's father or grandparents. NZ society has condoned this violence for 50 years, and now we're faced with the consequences: violent parents who breed violent children.

$3200 has been spent, and a record made of every case of bullying, at St Michael’s Catholic School Remuera. And this is the model proposed by Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft and Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon, for all NZ schools. 

The song and dance at St Michael’s beggars belief: “What goals can you make that will ensure that you never do this (bullying) again?” dah de dah. 

To ensure an end to bullying, a Catholic school need only teach its children to know and love Jesus Christ. 

P S: I do not expect the Herald will print this but I send it anyway. 

LET'S NOT KILL BABIES, LET'S KILL THE BILL (letter to HB Today)

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At last night’s debate on the Abortion Legislation Bill Terry Bellamak of ALRANZ, who was unable to attend due to personal health reasons, left Gina Sunderland of March for Life NZ unopposed.



So there was no debate. And neither should there be any debate. Leaving aside the fact that the unborn baby is human, with exactly the same right to life as its mother, this Abortion Legislation Bill allows for abortions, no questions asked, up till 20 weeks’ gestation.



Science now proves another fact: the baby feels pain at 20 weeks, some experts say 8 weeks.



The debate should end right there. New Zealand prides itself on being a humane society. In every abortion (13000 last year) a baby is killed by being pulled apart, limb from limb, in its mother’s womb, with her consent.



These babies are being sacrificed, exactly as babies were sacrificed in primitive societies to appease the gods, on the altar of ‘choice’. Women – and men - have a choice already, and that choice should be exercised not after conception, but before.



The inevitable unwanted pregnancy often becomes a wanted baby. If not, there are childless couples so desperate to adopt, they advertise on Facebook.



Let’s please not kill babies. Kill this Bill.

SYNODAL SCHISM - BISHOPS BAULK AT IDOLS

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‘Sad.’ ‘Violent.' ‘Intolerant’.

Whence comes this brave denunciation of the unceremonious dunking of the Pachamamas (pronounced Pawch-mamas) in the Tiber? Why, from Vatican News, no less, so we better believe it.

The subtitle reads, ‘The sad episode of the theft and destruction of the Amazonian ‘images’.’ 

There was no ‘destruction’, not even death by drowning - unfortunately - as the idolnappers who stole into the Santa Maria Transpontina under cover of darkness not too cleverly forgot to conceal a sack of bricks about their persons. Being wooden, the idols resurfaced, and were rescued by the brave carabinieri, to be rehabilitated, the Pope suggested, at St Peter’s for the closing Mass of the Amazon Synod.

So ‘destruction’ is the first inaccuracy.  


But the Pachamamas were not present at the closing Mass. 

Because bishops were overheard in the synod hall to say they 

would not participate in the Mass along with idols. 

And not to be outdone by his own press office, the Pope weighed

in at the closing Mass with a diatribe on those who"profess to be

Catholic but have forgotten how to be Christians and human 

beings" … "worship of self carries on hypocritically with its rites

and prayers' - and many are Catholics." 

Thank God for bishops like +Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, who has declared that "the acts of worship of kindling a light, of bowing, of prostrating or profoundly bowing to the ground and dancing before an unclothed female statue which represents neither Our Lady nor a canonised saint of the Church, violates the First Commandment of God: You shall have no other gods before Me."

Schneider called the idolnappers "heroes" … the gestures of these Christian men will be recorded in the annals of Church history as a heroic act which brought glory to the Christian name."

What's more, he called out the clerics who watched that ceremony in the Vatican Gardens: "The acts of high-ranking churchmen who defiled the Christian name in Rome will go down in history as cowardly and treacherous acts of ambiguity and syncretism."

Bishop Marian Eleganti, Switzerland, stated that even if the Pope somehow maintains these statues were used "without idolatrous intentions … there would still the remain the scandal that at least it looks like such (idolatry) and the Rock of Peter (the Pope) is not at all getting worried about it, but that the Pope "even defends those rituals conducted in the Vatican Gardens" which are "alien to Christianity … it is not understandable to an observer that the publicly displayed veneration of Pachamama at the Amazon Synod is not meant to be idolatry."

Cardinal Gerhard Muller had already commented on Thursday that "to bring the idols into the Church was a grave sin, a crime against the Divine Law".

See what I mean? This is schism.

And we Catholics who rejoiced (with Cardinal Muller) at the idols’ removal, are we really ‘sad’, ‘violent’ and ‘intolerant’?

For starters, we may assume that Vatican News’ spin doctor Andrea Tornielli would also indict St Benedict for destroying idols in a pagan temple at Montecassino in 529 AD, an act immortalised in the painting by Fray Juan Andres Rizi now admired at the Prado.

But we idolnappers and sympathisers are not vindicated yet: Tornielli invokes two saints against our one.

First up there’s St Francis of Assisi, reinvented by bleeding-heart environmentalists as some kind of saintly zookeeper, and now having his Canticle to Brother Sun massaged to fit the same agenda. St Francis made it very clear that his poetry was a hymn about God’s creatures. I daresay it would never have crossed the saint’s mind that Christians would ever worship creatures – but then, St Francis was not a modernist.

Then Tornielli parades St John Henry Newman, trying to show that Newman defended ‘the adoption of pagan elements’. 

Ahem. Weren’t various Vatican spokespeople tripping over one another in the rush to deny that these images are pagan? It’s enough to make a cat laugh.

Tornielli quotes Newman’s long list of items “of pagan origin” introduced into Holy Mother Church over the centuries, among them temples, incense, holy water, calendars, vestments etc etc, which “are sanctified by their adoption into the Church”.  In his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, the newly-canonised convert Newman explains that ”The Church’s doctrine can never be corrupt. We consider that a divine promise keeps the Church Catholic from doctrinal corruption …”

Yes, of course, as Newman says, “That great portion of what is generally received as Christian truth is, in its rudiments or in its separate parts, to be found in heathen philosophies and religions”.

The point is, as Tornielli herself triumphantly quotes Newman, these ‘pagan elements’ are sanctified by their adoption into the church (sic).

Tornielli is distressingly literal-minded, and misses the point. “Adoption into the church” - even with a lower-case ‘c’ - cannot be reducedto parking ‘pagan elements’ like the pachamamas up on an altar in Santa Maria Transpontina, or even more absurdly on an altar in St Peter’s Basilica, even by a pope.

Still less does it mean that such a move can sanctify Pachamama, who has been clearly identified as the ‘Earth Goddess’ worshipped by the Incas of Peru, who indulged in human sacrifice. (Well of course, along with pagan New Zealanders, we Catholics indulge in human sacrifice too, viz abortion – but that’s another story.)

And now we must trump (oops sorry, that slipped out, please don’t get upset), Tornielli’s two saints with the greatest of saints, the Mother of God, invoking her under her title of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas, who appeared to the indigenous Juan Diego and is revered as their Heavenly Mother by the indigenous peoples of South America.

At the Amazon Synod, Our Lady of Guadalupe - Our Lady by any title - has been very conspicuous by her absence. She has been elbowed out by the Incan Earth Goddess that Our Lady was sent by God to replace.

Must we really trot out the First Commandment, “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not put strange gods before me”? The literal-minded like Tornielli should surely see that putting Pachamama on an altar - presumably in front of the tabernacle because the Italians, like all European countries, have kept the tabernacle in its rightful place - is literally putting a strange god before God.

If God’s command doesn’t persuade us, we could take a look at any of the Church’s Creeds or Professions of Faith, like for example the Creed of Pius IV, promulgated by the Council of Trent, which begins: “I believe in one  God”…

Sorry. All the ‘adoption’ in the world could not happen to an ‘Earth Goddess’. It’s hard to believe how even a dyed-in-the-wool modernist could want to ‘adopt’ into the Church a naked pregnant wooden woman, even or especially if she’s a Goddess.

In this press release, Vatican News displays the shallow, worldly arguments and prevarication that is only to be expected in their sorry attempts to defend this pontificate.

Catholics are obliged to believe everything that the Catholic Church believes and teaches. Vatican Council II states: By divine and Catholic faith everything must be believed that is contained in the written word of God (the Commandments) or in Tradition (the Creeds), and that is proposed by the Church as a divinely revealed object of belief either in a solemn decree or in Her ordinary, universal teaching. To save his/her soul, every Catholic must adhere to these dogmas of the Faith. 

Any teaching contrary to the Rule of Faith, i.e. contrary to the dogmas contained in the Deposit of Faith (the body of doctrines handed down from Jesus to the Apostles and from the Apostles to their successors) must be rejected as heresy. Nothing can be added that is not contained, at least implicitly, with the Deposit of Faith, because public revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle.

So that nothing can be “sanctified by their adoption into the Church” which is contrary to the Rule of Faith, no matter who proposes it, not even a pope. None of the items in Newman’s list is contrary to the Rule of Faith; on the other hand, who could propose to adopt anything more opposed to the Rule of Faith than idol worship? 

And what a gift the Pope has handed to the Pentecostals, who've already made such inroads into the Catholic Church in South America! 

Now they can say Catholics worship idols, and whip out the pix to prove it. 




Paul Collits says: 

The Benedict option.

I say: 

For those who haven't heard of it, 'The Benedict Option' is a book by Rod Dreher, a best-seller which discusses living in the world while taking our Christian formation seriously. Dreher says we must get serious about forming our conscience on "the teaching of the Gospel, not on the teaching of the media".
Which is why I suggest, for starters, 'Fire Within' by Thomas Dubay SM. 
Bob Gill says:

Thank goodness those statues were not present at the closing Synod Mass, apparently in response to the concerned voices of wise-thinking bishops. I hate to think of what repercussions we would have had if the statues had been on display.

With the conclusion of the Synod, it will be interesting to now see what proposals Pope Francis accepts regarding married priests and if the debate on women deacons will be re-opened.


I say:

See Linda's comment. She reckons the bowl of dirt on the altar represented Pachamama and I reckon she's right.


Linda Clarke says:

These posts are a blessing and I think and pray that they will be of great help to the few (?) souls who are sincerely on the fence. How I see now, what a lean 'banquet' we had with NO.    Knowing nothing else, even  l'il 'ole me didn't like the 'spiritual drink' bit.   I am feasting on the amazing Catechism I bought - ya know, it's SO clear - and strict, I might say.   I love it.
And I did want to say "Bravo, Father Brazil !  It is wonderful to have a priest on board telling the Truth. Thank you!"

I say: 

As to the bowl of dirt and the plants which were placed on the altar at the Closing Mass of the Synod, placing anything except bread and wine on the altar during the Mass is absolutely verboten.  

AMAZONIAN SYNOD CONFIRMS NEW 'AMAZONIAN RITE' FOR CELEBRATION OF MASS

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Schism has arrived. Surely.

In admitting that the statues that got their comeuppance in the murky waters of the Tiber are actually Pachamamas (idols representing 'mother earth'), and announcing that he might reinstate them at the closing Mass of the Amazon Synod at St Peter's, Pope Francis insults the faithful - once again - and finally puts himself quite beyond the pale.

Assemble yourselves, and come, and draw near together, ye that are saved of the Gentiles:they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven work, and pray to a god that cannot save (Is 45,20).

The headline that flashed around the world - "Pope Francis apologises" - must have raised the hopes of millions of faithful Catholics. Ah, we thought, the Pope has realized his mistake in 'watching on' with his cardinals in the Vatican Gardens as indigenous Amazonians and at least one Franciscan prostrated themselves, foreheads to the ground, before a statue of a nude, pregnant woman.

But no: the Pope was actually apologising to those sensitive, ecologically aware people who were offended by the daring night raid of Santa Maria Transpontina and the idols' unceremonious dunking in the Tiber. Talk about adding insult to injury!

But hey, in being insulted by our own Holy Father, as traditional Catholics have become used to in this pontificate, we're in good company, the best: Pope Francis has called St Peter, our first and truly Holy Father, "a hypocrite".

Bishop Jose Luis Aczona of Marajo in the Amazonian region has confirmed that Pachamama (now identified as such by the pontiff) is "a pagan goddess". He denounced the ritual in the Vatican Gardens, saying, "in those rituals there is the devil, there is magic".

The Church of the living God - the pillar and the bulwark of the truth (1 Tim 3:15) - teaches, and so requires that every Catholic believe, that any kind of idolatry or pantheism cannot be considered either as 'seeds' or 'fruits' of the Divine Word, since they are deceptions that preclude the evangelization and eternal salvation of their adherents: The god of this world has made blind the minds of those who have not faith, so that the light of the good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not be shining on them (2 Cor 4:4).

Exactly. The criminals in charge at the Vatican have no faith, and have ensured that millions of Catholics throughout the world have lost the faith also, and their chief instrument in achieving this is Annibale Bugnini's Novus Ordo.

This is where the syrupy songs have led us, where the gross understatements and inanities of the texts ('spiritual drink', for instance, not even 'divine drink', supposed to mean the Blood of our Lord, shed in excruciating agony on Calvary for our salvation) have led us, the lay people doling out the Precious Body of Christ like so many crackers, to laity lining up like a queue in a cafeteria: the Novus Ordo is gradually extinguishing the light of faith.

Which is why, this morning, I'm driving one and a quarter hours to attend the nearest Latin Mass, the only indult Latin Mass this morning in the entire diocese, at little St Columba's, Ashhurst, to be with believers and worship the one true God.

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path than sinners tread, or sit in the company of scorners (Ps 1, 1).

It falls, most appropriately, to Father James Martin SJ to announce on Twitter right now that the Amazonian Synod has confirmed an 'Amazonian Rite' for the celebration of the Mass.

Does this mean we'll soon have Pachamamas on NZ altars?

Most ominous is Father Martin's comment to the effect that this is 'a milestone', a 'recognition that the Eucharist is more central to the Church than is celibacy'.

Tell us something we don't know. But Father Martin is a Jesuit, and there's something as murky as the waters of the Tiber lurking beneath his tweet.

Philippa O'Neill says:

I'm reminded constantly of Jesus... angry in the temple... smashing things.

I say:

Yes, He made a whip and drove out the sheep and oxen, and overthrew the tables and poured out the money of the money-changers. Interesting though, that none of the Gospels says He was angry.

St Augustine suggests that the 'little cords' of the whip Jesus used to drive them out is a metaphor for our sins, with which we scourge ourselves. Jesus I believe was clearing the temple of animals used for sacrifice to make way for the Sacrifice which He Himself was to become.

Bob Gill says:

Not a good time for talking about statues in St Joseph’s Dannevirke either, we hear. In a request to the Palmerston North Liturgical Pastoral Commission to move the Our Lady statue out of a side alcove and situate it to one side of the Sanctuary, the Commission members were unanimous in the decision that the statue remains in the alcove. 

The statue is a secondary image, we are told, and the primary focus of the congregation needs to be on the Sanctuary without distractions. I can tell the Commission members have never seen the interior of our church because the altar is not in the Sanctuary – it’s situated in the middle of the church, where the congregation’s focus will be during a Mass. 

Also, the proposed location for our statue is well away from the Sanctuary and I cannot see how it would interfere with anyone looking towards the Sanctuary. The proposed new position too would have us saying the Rosary facing the Blessed Sacrament, thus avoiding some of us having our backs to the tabernacle.

Linda says:

I just checked out the images online for St Joseph's Dannevirke. You poor people. 

Most Catholic Churches in NZ are appalling. But that is quite weird having the altar in the middle, especially with the architecture clearly designed for the original sanctuary focus. How disorientating. 

Obviously not enough money to tear the whole thing apart so you go plan B. Neanderthal iconoclasts and witless vandals.

IDOLNAPPING AT THE VATICAN: GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH?

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Are there any Catholics out there tonight who don't know that on October 4, a number of pagans and at least one Franciscan bowed down to the ground before pagan statues in the Vatican Gardens, in the presence of the Pope?

Not a lot, I'm thinking.

But there might be a lot who don't know the fate of the pagan idols - carved wooden images of a pregnant, naked woman, widely supposed to represent 'Pachamama', a fertility goddess who presides over plantings, among other sundry items like earthquakes (the Pope was planting a tree from Assisi, on the Feast of St Francis, to inaugurate the Amazon Synod).

It was also suggested that the idols represented the Blessed Virgin Mary. But even if, incredibly and - heaven forbid! - 'inappropriately' a naked pregnant image could suggest the Mother of God, no Catholic would bow down to the ground in worship before it.

And papal biographer/hagiographer Austen Ivereigh misfires twice, first in his attempt to have the image linked to the BVM, and second in saying, lamely, "everything that is human that is not evil is of God". Surely he wasn't saying a carved wooden idol is human?

Anyway, yesterday those naked pregnant idols - suggested by some to represent the Blessed Virgin Mary - were stolen away under cover of darkness and tipped into the Tiber. 

https://youtu.be/CngoabjurIo

Good riddance to bad rubbish? 

Catholic priest and apologist Father Mark Goring would seem to agree. He likens the action of the idolnappers to that of Christ, casting money-changers out of the temple.

But then, my 'little' daughter points out that while idol worship in the Vatican in the presence of the Pope is not a good idea, neither is biffing them into a river. "They were artefacts," she said, "and were probably precious to someone."

Father Nathaniel Tat Brazil says:

No to Pachamama.
Yes to the Blessed Virgin Mary

Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
- Deuteronomy 12:3

Our Lady of Guadalupe protector of the Americas, pray for us!

Anthony Trenwith says:

 And what about JPII’s Buddha?

Father Brazil: 

Buddha is not God but yes he is an Idol as well. Anyway no Buddha in the Church.

Anthony Trenwith:

 Pachamama wasn’t in a church (unlike Buddha).

·     Fr Brazil:  They were in a Church (Santa Maria in Traspontina) before Courageous Souls (I think one of them is Nigel Murray!) took them off to the Tiber .

Anthony Trenwith:  

"Other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these other religions found everywhere (which?) try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men" - Nostra Aetate 2.

1

Nathaniel Tat Brazil:

Maybe St. Benedict can enlighten you:

St Benedict Destroying Idols, Juan Andres Rizzi

Anthony Trenwith: 

You do realise you’re bound by oath to accept Nostra Aetate don’t you?

I say: 

Nostra Aetate does not have any dogmatic authority. Vatican II is the only Ecumenical Council that remained entirely pastoral and never engaged the Extraordinary Magisterium. 

Pope Paul VI himself stated that "in view of the Pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmas carrying the mark of infallibility."

So Catholics are required to give the teachings of VatII only 'religious assent', which is motivated not by faith but by obedience to the religious authority. 

If there is any conflict between obedience and faith, the moral virtue of obedience must give way to the theological virtue of faith. Faithful Catholics must disregard any teaching that is opposed to a truth contained in the deposit of Faith.

• Philippa O'Neill says:

  Have a guess who we had the pleasure of visting us this weekend?... Fr Brockhill. He ran a ladies retreat. Was brilliant. Sooooo blessed eh Ellen Marie Lucas? It was on prayer per St John of the Cross books with influence from St Teresa of Avila. Oh pure rubies. 

  He said 2 Latin Masses as well. We had people come along that had never experienced a Latin Mass and they were so emotional afterwards. They loved it.

  
  
• 
  

  Bob Gill says:

  I too get excited on those rare occasions listening to a priest who sets me on fire. Father Michael Wooler was our Sunday Mass celebrant in St Joseph’s Dannevirke yesterday, stirring us with his wonderful singing voice.   

  and showing much consideration during the Maori Mass by frequently translating the Maori into English for those who made up most of the congregation. I am told he will be coming every second month to say our monthly Maori Mass.
  
  I find it hard to believe that Fathers Wooler and Brockhill are priests belonging to the Palmerston North diocese.

  
  

  I say: Ahem. Fr Wooler does not belong to the PN Diocese. He is stationed in the Archdiocese of Wellington, in Napier, but he is a Marist.
• 
  

  Philippa O'Neill adds:

  Fr Brockhill's sermons were pure gold. He left social justice alone. What a treat! 😁

    

Fr Brazil:

"Catechism of the Catholic Church: 
The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of "idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see." These empty idols make their worshippers empty: "Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them."42 God, however, is the "living God"43 who gives life and intervenes in history."

2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon."44 Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast"45 refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God."

 You are bound to accept the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right?

·                

Rewi Pene says: 

What about Papatūānuku and Ranginui!! They are mentioned in the NZ RE curriculum!! If it’s good enough for the Māoris it’s good enough for the Amazonions.

Father Brazil says:

Yes, like in the Philippines we have deity Idols before Spain came and brought us the True Faith in Christ, we still do learn about them we call them Bathala and Anito but we don't worship them anymore. Like the Maori diety and God's they are part of the Culture but as Catholic we do not worship them. It's against the first commandment to worship other Gods besides the Holy Trinity.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Rewi Pene: thank you Father!!!

 Anthony Trenwith:

 And we don’t worship Pachamama either! So that’s that sorted then...          

 
Fr Brazil: 

She is our Mama, not the Pachamama!

• • Bob Gill https://www.thetablet.co.uk/.../protestor-casts-amazon...

    

    thetablet.co.uk

    Protestor casts Amazon synod symbols into the Tiber

    Protestor casts Amazon synod symbols into the Tiber

    
    

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  Julia du Fresne That sort of puffery is just what we expect from the Tablet and Austin Ivereigh.