OH BUT WE ARE 'BORN WITH THIS VIOLENCE' (letter to NZ Herald)

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“We are not born with this violence," comments  Justice Under-Secretary Jan Logie, on a report showing more than a third of Kiwi women experience family violence.

 

But in fact, since 1977 there have been 500,000 Kiwis ‘born with this violence’: born dead, killed in their mothers’ womb by abortion.

 

The stats on family violence show that since the first generation to survive abortion matured, domestic violence has grown exponentially. In 1978 there were 11 domestic homicides. In 2017 there were 48.

 

The womb, our first home, is where 500,000 New Zealanders - and rising - experienced domestic violence for the first and final time, conferring on mothers, fathers and even siblings a grievous woundedness of spirit, expressed by our inarticulate nature through physical retaliation.

 

“Culturally appropriate solutions informed by science” will achieve nothing. What’s needed is a rediscovery of God’s love and wisdom, especially as expressed in his Ten Commandments, which encompass all the “complex social and psychological issues” implicit in human nature.

 Especially, a return to his Fifth Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill’.

THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS MORE GRACE MILLANES (letter to NZ Herald)

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“Grace should have been safe here,” says Jacinda Ardern. 

What a brainless thing to say. 500,000 New Zealanders have not been safe here – as Ardern is well aware – since 1977, and they were killed in what should be the safest place in the world, their mother’s womb. 

Yes, "emotions run high". But as well as emotions, we have brains. Why not use them?

We’ve all seen the photos of Grace Millane. We can’t see an unborn baby except by ultrasound, but the same principle applies to unborn babies as to pretty young women. Each and every one is a human life which must be respected and protected. 

This is the pillar on which civilized societies rest and its removal means mayhem. 

Until we rebuild that principle by abolishing abortion we can only expect thousands upon thousands more Grace Millanes – lives pitiably lost, inside the womb and out.

LAY WOMEN (OR MEN) ARE NEVER TO BE ENTRUSTED WITH HOMILIES AT MASS

Anon says:

Dear Bishop Drennan,

The Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004)  seems pretty clear.  Are you exempt from it or are you just ignoring it?  Are there other factors that allow it to be over ruled?

 

Please explain.

 

If you are not being obedient to Rome, do we laity or the priests have to be obedient to you or any of the Church's teachings?

 

Whose Church is it, Jesus Christ's, or yours, or who ever gets to make the rules behind the scenes?

 

Just thought I would ask.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Anon.

On the First Sunday of Advent, at the Vigil Mass celebrated by Monsignor Brian Walsh at the Palmerston North Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, the homily was given by a woman.

The homily, termed 'a Reflection' was delivered by Lynette Roberts-King, a manager at the diocesan office. The cathedral newsletter explained that during Advent certain women would be giving 'Reflections' with insights from the Sunday Scripture and from 'the presenter's personal faith and life journey'.

For obvious reasons, I am not one of those women. However I'm more than happy to give my 'insights' from my personal faith and life journey on this blog, on the subject of women giving the homily at Holy Mass. 

It is expressly forbidden by the Church. The Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004) states:

(64) 'The Priest celebrant may entrust (the homily) to a concelebrating priest or occasionally according to circumstances to a Deacon, but never to a lay person. ... This practice is reprobated, so that it cannot be permitted to attain the force of custom.

'(67) Particular care is to be taken so that the homily is firmly based upon the mysteries of salvation', not on one's 'personal faith and life journey' 'expounding the mysteries of the Faith and the norms of Christian life from the biblical readings ... and providing commentary on the texts of the Ordinary or the Proper of the Mass.

'(24) The Sacred Liturgy is quite intimately connected with the principles of Doctrine, so that the use of unapproved ... rites necessarily leads either to an attenuation or the disappearance of that necessary link between the lex orandi and the lex credendi.' 

In other words, leads to the faithful no longer praying as they believe, and subsequently so no longer believing what they pray. Hence the gradual loss of belief in the Real Presence. 

'(9) Abuses are often based on ignorance, in that they involve a rejection of those elements whose deeper meanings are not understood and whose antiquity is not recognised.' 

Monsignor Brian Walsh is a nice man, and when pressure is applied to nice men to give 'greater recognition to women in the Church', they may lack the know-how to resist. 

'(11) The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim so that its sacredness and universal ordering would be obscured”. 

'(27) Anyone who acts thus by giving reign to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved, (28) and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by people today.  

'Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care … are not conducive to true renewal ... they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony. The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal … and vigorous opposition ... all of which greatly confuse and sadden Christ’s faithful in an age when Christian life is particularly difficult on account of the inroads of ‘secularisation’.

As a woman, although not one likely to be invited to give a homily at Holy Mass, I vigorously oppose any such innovation, which can only be a not-so-subtle paving of the way for women in the priesthood. 

'(12) ... It is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions which might engender divisions and factions in the Church. 

‘(4) It is not possible to be silent about the abuses, even quite grave ones, against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and authority of the Church which in our day not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations. ... In some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease.' 

As Edmund Burke memorably said, 'the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is the silence of good men'. Or women.

SIR PETER'S 'MORTAL ENGINES' (Letter to Dom Post, Nov 27)

“God knows” – as Sir Peter Jackson aptly notes – how much we ‘need’ escapism, as in his latest movie, Mortal Engines.

If only we knew how to pray contemplatively, God would transform our mundane and/or horrific lives into a divine ‘fantasy’ which would obviate any need for Sir Peter’s movies. 

Time spent in prayer has this truly awesome advantage over time spent in cinemas: the ‘divine comedy’ of the spiritual life is actually for real and has the potential, shown by Mother Teresa, to make the world a beautiful place.

By spending precious time and millions of bucks fantasising – not just in movies but on smartphones and computers and drugs– fostering dissatisfaction with our quotidian existence and shirking kindness, we actually increase ‘the world’s woes’. 

And create an audience of course, for Sir Peter Jackson.

IN THE US, FR BRYAN BUENGER WILL HAVE THE SUPPORT OF HIS BISHOP

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I wanted to escape to St Joseph's Dannevirke today, to Father Bryan Buenger's patch, even though in our parish it was First Holy Communion Day. (To be precise it was, we were told, their 'First Eucharist'. Really? Had none of these children ever attended Mass before? Things are even worse than I thought.)

Oh yes, they are worse than I thought. I've just learned that Cardinal Blasé Cupich, cheer-leader for the disgraced (but not even yet laicized) homosexual predator former Cardinal McCarrick, has been named by Pope Francis to head the synod in February on prevention of abuse of minors. 

But wait, I hear you say, didn't Cardinal Cupich present 'Cardinal' McCarrick with a prestigious award for 'outstanding work' in the Church, at a time when everyone in the US knew - including Cupich - that McCarrick had been abusing seminarians at his notorious beach house for years? Yes he did. But now we're told by Cupich that it ain't necessarily so. It mightn't have been abuse. It seems we should make a distinction between abusing minors and abusing seminarians, because as Cupich has said, the latter 'could be consensual sex'.

Oh well, that's all right then. So it's not sinning seriously (mortally) against the Sixth Commandment as long as another, consenting, adult is sinning with you. 

Oh yes it is, but that's not what the Pope's picks for the February synod's steering committee say. Besides pro-gay Cupich - who with another disgraced prelate, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, has proposed that the US bishops should investigate themselves for their sex abuse - there's Malta's pro-gay Archbishop Charles Scicluna, India's pro-gay Cardinal Gracias who calls Church language on homosexuality 'judgmental' and pro-gay Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner, who jesuitically goes all around the houses talking about abuse but not homosexuality, implying that consensual homosexual sex is just fine. That's it.

The wolves aren't just in the sheepfold, people, they're running it. 

No wonder Fr Bryan Buenger, Parish Priest of Tararua in the Palmerston North Diocese, is heading back to the US. I asked him why. He said, "Because there I will have the support of my bishop". 

As a wise, holy priest, he knows that  he needs the protection of a wise, holy bishop. In the US he can take his pick of dioceses which are run by such bishops. 

I had to wait a couple of months to get an appointment to see Fr Bryan, and he sat there on a shabby sofa in the shabby presbytery, coughing and apologizing for his voice failing due to a sinus infection. I thought how cold that building would have been in winter - and by comparison how beautifully the church is appointed, with the reno of the kitchen and meeting space Fr Bryan began and has only just completed. 

It was an enthralling conversation, such as one is rarely privileged to have in this life.

He told me the NZ Diocesan Priests' Assembly in Christchurch was "dreadful" and confirmed, without going into any detail, that yes there had been complaints made against him in Tararua. 

I wonder who those whingeing parishioners think is going to replace him? They might well get what they deserve.

PC says: I escaped to Waipawa. Alas, the heresy followed me. What happened to Fr Buenger is disgraceful. But then, much of the 'Roman' Church in NZ is disgraceful. This beautiful country is a liturgical and theological wasteland.

Anon says: It just gets creepier and creepier every time I open my web browser.  According to the testimony of whistle blower Archbishop Vigano, Cardianl Cupichs' appointment was orchestrated by kingmakers McCarrick (now a totally discredited abuser of children and seminarians), Cardinal Wuerl (forced into retirement by Grand Jury revelations of covering up abuse) and Cardinal Maradiaga (so close to Pope Francis he is known as the 'vice-Pope', and also accused of cover ups).

 

So pro-gay Cupich, who beyond all reasonable doubt knew about McCarrick's trail of sodomy, gets to sit on the organizing committee for the long awaited Synod on clerical sex abuse.  This makes me feel very uncomfortable.

 

And locally, soon Father Buenger will be gone, chased away by complaints and whatever else we are not told about.  I hear he is not the only local priest looking for an escape route back to the home country.

 

Its hard to be Catholic these days, even if I close my web browser.

JESUS DOESN'T 'OVERLOOK' OUR SINS. ANYTHING BUT.

 I sat in the pew this morning with my mouth open, gaping at the priest who was telling us that God 'overlooks our sins'.

He was talking about Zacchaeus, a tax collector and so a public sinner, who was told by Jesus to come down quickly from that sycamore tree, because Jesus was coming to dinner at his place.

Jesus overlooked his sins, said Father, and He made the first move in telling him to come down.

I hate to contradict Father, but in fact it was Zacchaeus who made the first move, by climbing the tree. He wanted to see Jesus.

Far from overlooking our sins, Jesus is deeply affected, hurt and offended by them. To Sister Josefa Menendez of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Spanish mystic of the 20th century, Jesus said, The obstinacy of a guilty soul wounds My Heart deeply (but the tender affection of one who loves Me not only heals the wound, but turns away the effects of My Father's justice).

To Sister Mary of the Trinity, a Poor Clare of Jerusalem, also a mystic of last century, He said, At the least sign of repentance, My Heart is aflame with joy, and I wait with inexpressible love for the sinner to turn towards Me.

And again, to Sister Josefa: I pursue sinners as justice pursues criminals. But justice seeks them in order to punish, I in order to forgive.

I am consumed with desire to pardon …

Poor sinners, how blind they are! I want only to forgive them, and they seek only to offend Me. That is my great sorrow; that so many are lost and that they do not all come to Me to be forgiven.

Obviously our sins are not something to be 'overlooked', either by Jesus Christ or by us. 

ARDERN WANTS PNG WOMEN TO BE 'SAFE'. BUT WHAT ABOUT NZ WOMEN?

Jacinda Ardern certainly has nerve. 

It takes nerve to say a surgical procedure that always specifically means death and generally means  long-term adverse health effects for women is ‘a health issue’.

Then she goes to Papua New Guinea and has the nerve to say, “if you want a country to thrive you look after the women”. She hopes the women in PNG are ‘safe’.

Yet her manipulation of the Law Commission shows she intends her own country to make abortion available right up to birth, meaning premature babies, psychological trauma and breast cancer will be more available too.
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It just shows you can get away with murder if you smile.