DIRTY WORK AT THE AMERICAN CROSSROADS

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Nuns in MAGA masks at Trump election rally
I reckon they know it also means Make Ardern Go Away

"News of electoral fraud is multiplying, despite the shameful attempts of the mainstream media to censor the truth of the facts in order to give their candidate the advantage. 

"There are states in which the number of votes is greater than the number of voters; others in which the mail-in vote seems to be exclusively in favor of Joe Biden; others in which the counting of ballots has been suspended for no reason or where sensational tampering has been discovered: always and only against President Donald J. Trump, always and only in favor of Biden."

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former Apostolic Nuncio to the US, has spoken out once again to " devout Christians and faithful citizens of the United States of America ... while the final results of the Presidential election are still uncertain."

In truth," says +Viganò, "for months now we have been witnessing a continuous trickle of staggered news, of manipulated or censored information, of crimes that have been silenced or covered up in the face of striking evidence and irrefutable testimony. We have seen the deep state organize itself, well in advance, to carry out the most colossal electoral fraud in history, in order to ensure the defeat of the man who has strenuously opposed the establishment of the New World Order that is wanted by the children of darkness.

"In this battle, you have not failed, as is your sacred duty, to make your own contribution by taking the side of the Good. Others, enslaved by vices or blinded by infernal hatred against Our Lord, have taken the side of Evil."

 +Viganò has an unlikely accomplice, in the shape of Roger Kimball at American Greatness, as reported by Lindsay Perigo this evening:

"Biden didn’t really campaign because he—or at least his handlers—knew the fix was in. They knew that compliant polls would cook the numbers to show that Biden was 10, 15, or even 17 points ahead nationally and in all the battleground states even though he was more or less tied or even behind. The psychological, which means the political effect of that, was to insinuate an element of unreality into the whole campaign and to present the public, and the pundits who were there to spoonfeed them, with a false narrative about the performance and therefore the prospects of the two candidates."

This evening I took "the side of the Good" in +Viganò's terms, by praying the Rosary, as he has urged us to do, in my parish church of St Joseph's, Waipukurau. I prayed alone. That is, not counting two Facebook friends who'd said they were with me in spirit, praying the Rosary at the same time. 

This morning I'd emailed our Holy Trinity Parish secretary with a notice for parishioners asking them to join in praying the Rosary at  5 p m today, for the United States of America. It wasn't long before I had a reply: "Fr Paul (Kerridge, parish priest) does not approve." 

So a parish priest does not approve of his parishioners praying the Rosary together in their church. At least, not for the USA. Or did Father assume we'd be praying for Trump? That's more like it. We know how the liberal bishops of this country, and liberal priests, have sided against the greatest pro-life president in US history.  

So as the one other parishioner who could have joined me wasn't well, I prayed alone - not for victory for President Trump, but for God's will to be done.  

When I first heard yesterday that Biden was ahead in the polls, I was appalled. I staggered around my 'other' garden (on our son's farm), saying "Dear God, help us". I couldn't bear to think of America (and the world) in the hands of a liar like Biden or worse, at the mercy of his  inevitable replacement - Biden obviously being a straw man, to be dispensed with asap by his Democrat and global puppeteers. 

Five and a half hours on my knees amid rampant oxalis, convolvulus, rogue jasmine and ivy restored my equilibrium. I realised that for weeks now I've had trouble reconciling a Trump win with all the prophecies, especially Our Lady's, of a chastisement on mankind, richly deserved, which +Viganò himself has described in citing the 'Great Reset', designed by a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity (see my Tuesday's post at https://juliadufresne.blogspot.com/2020/11/if-biden-wins-catholics-cant-say-we.html.)

And so I prayed and am praying, that God's will be done. Fiat voluntas tua.

Roger Kimball continues:

"The reason Sleepy Joe hid in the basement all the while. The fix was in. (Nancy) Pelosi said weeks ago "We have it in the bag." The Steal was years in the making:

"... For months, people on both sides of the aisle noted the huge discrepancy between the campaign styles of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump was a dynamo, sitting for interviews, holding press conferences, participating in an ever-increasing series of rallies across the country.

"Joe Biden, by contrast, rarely left his basement and when he did it was to address 10 or 15 carefully screened supporters or pundits who were coached about what they could say. Even Biden’s supporters, the innocent ones, marked the difference and were concerned. How could their candidate win when he basically refused to campaign?

"We now know the answer.

"Biden didn’t really campaign because he—or at least his handlers—knew the fix was in. They knew that compliant polls would cook the numbers to show that Biden was 10, 15, or even 17 points ahead nationally and in all the battleground states even though he was more or less tied or even behind. The psychological, which means the political effect of that, was to insinuate an element of unreality into the whole campaign and to present the public, and the pundits who were there to spoonfeed them, with a false narrative about the performance and therefore the prospects of the two candidates.

"The committee fielding Biden also knew that the media was almost totally on board with a Biden candidacy.

Just like NZ's media were on board with Ardern. 

This was clear during the campaign when an overwhelming majority of media coverage was both hostile to Trump and almost comically careful about Biden.

"Consider the conspiracy of silence about Hunter Biden’s laptop or the revelations of Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski ... (w)ith the exception of a few dissident outlets.. (Special praise goes to the New York Post and to Tucker Carlson for bucking the trend and bringing these stories to the public.)

"That most of the media was all-in for Biden was also clear during the election itself."

Just like the media here were all-in for Ardern. 

"Fox News notoriously acted as a cheerleader for Biden. They refused to call Florida for Trump for hours after it was clear that he had won it. They then ceded Arizona to Biden, though it was by no means clear that he had prevailed there and some voters were still in line at the polls. Fox eventually walked back its call (sort of), but only after the damage to Trump’s momentum had been clocked. Two days after the election, Fox refuses to call Alaska and other states for Trump even though it is crystal clear that he has won them.

"Finally, the forces arrayed behind Biden knew that the whole bureaucracy of the state—the poll workers and postal workers in battleground states, for example—would be on board for Biden and would be carefully coached in deploying techniques to manufacture or suppress ballots, as necessary, and skew the vote.

"We see all this playing out before our eyes—or, rather, we see the external manifestations of the massive effort to queer the election for Donald Trump.

Last time, in 2016, the establishment was not ready for Donald Trump. They were complacent because they just knew that Trump could not win, that Hillary Clinton was a sure thing. So they were both careless in covering their tracks and lazy about mounting a serious ground game against Trump should he win. 

"When he did win they screamed and stomped their tiny feet. They paraded around the Washington Mall in pink hats meant to resemble female genitalia in order to protest against Trump’s crudity. Less than 20 minutes after Trump was inaugurated the Washington Post informed its readers that the push for impeachment had begun.

"But the fact remains, the establishment and its media megaphones were blindsided. They thought a Trump victory was impossible. This time, they knew that it was not only possible but probable, and they prepared accordingly.

"Biden’s supporters, from Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol down to Chuck Todd, Chris Wallace, and the unsung destroyers of Trump ballots and fabricators of Biden ballots, all girded their loins and were prepared for a reprise of Trump in 2016. They were ready. But here’s what is surprising them: so was Donald Trump. 

"It is touch and go, but writing now, Anno Domini Guy Fawkes Day 2020, I think that the president will prevail. That is to say, the legitimate ballots will be counted, the illegitimate ones will be discarded, and Donald Trump will be president for four more years. Get ready, though.

"Victory will not come without a fight." 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/05/sleepy-campaign-strategy-mystery-solved/ 

 As +Viganò says:

"Do not think that the children of darkness act with honesty, and do not be scandalized if they operate with deception. ... The Lord has warned us against the Devil: “He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).

"In these hours, while the gates of Hell seem to prevail, I ask you to make an act of trust in God, an act of humility and filial devotion to The Lord of Armies. I ask that all of you pray the Holy Rosary, if possible in your families or with your dear ones, your friends, your brothers and sisters, your colleagues, your fellow soldiers.

"Pray with the abandonment of children who know how to have recourse to their Most Holy Mother to ask her to intercede before the throne of the Divine Majesty. Pray with a sincere soul, with a pure heart, in the certainty of being heard and answered.

"Ask her – she who is the Help of Christians, Auxilium Christianorum – to defeat the forces of the Enemy; ask her – she who is terrible as an army set in battle array (Song 6:10) – to grant the victory to the forces of Good and to inflict a humiliating defeat on the forces of Evil.

"Have your children pray, using the holy words that you have taught them: those confident prayers will rise to God and will not remain unheard. Have the elderly and sick pray, so that they may offer their sufferings in union with the sufferings that Our Lord suffered on the Cross when he shed His Precious Blood for Our Redemption. Have young ladies and women pray, so that they turn to her who is the model of purity and motherhood.

"And you, men, must also pray: your courage, your honor and your boldness will be refreshed and strengthened. All of you, take up this spiritual weapon, before which Satan and his minions retreat furiously, because they fear the Most Holy Virgin, she who is Almighty by Grace, even more than Almighty God*.

"Do not allow yourselves to be discouraged by the deceptions of the Enemy, even more so in this terrible hour in which the impudence of lying and fraud dares to challenge Heaven. Our adversaries’ hours are numbered if you will pray, if we will all pray with Faith and with the true ardor of Charity. May the Lord grant that one single devout and faithful voice rise from your homes, your churches, and your streets! This voice will not remain unheard, because it will be the voice of a people that cries out, in the moment when the storm rages most fiercely, “Save us, Lord, we are perishing!” (Mt 8:25).

"The days that await us are a precious occasion for all of you, and for those who unite themselves spiritually to you from every part of the world"...

That's us, in New Zealand. 

... "You have the honor and privilege of being able to participate in the victory of this spiritual battle, to wield the powerful weapon of the Holy Rosary as our fathers did at Lepanto to repel the enemy armies.

"Pray with the certainty of Our Lord’s promise: “Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you” (Lk 11:9). The King of Kings, from whom you ask the salvation of your Nation, will reward your Faith. Your testimony, remember this, will touch the heart of Our Lord, multiplying the heavenly Graces which are, more than ever, indispensable in order to achieve victory.

"May my appeal, which I address to you and to all people who recognize the Lordship of God, find you to be generous apostles and courageous witnesses of the spiritual rebirth of your beloved country, and with it the entire world. Non praevalebunt.

God bless and protect the United States of America!

One Nation under God 

IF BIDEN WINS CATHOLICS CAN'T SAY WE WEREN'T WARNED

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"Allow me to address you at this hour in which the fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity." 

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò

As New Zealand waits in fear and trembling for a definitive outcome in the vote between Good and Evil in the US elections, faithful Catholics could be spurred on to more prayer and fasting by reading Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's letter to President Donald Trump:

"Mr. President,

Allow me to address you at this hour in which the fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity. I write to you as an ... "Archbishop, as a Successor of the Apostles, as the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America. I am writing to you in the midst of the silence of both civil and religious authorities. May you accept these words of mine as the “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Jn 1:23).

As I said when I wrote my letter to you in June, this historical moment sees the forces of Evil aligned in a battle without quarter against the forces of Good; forces of Evil that appear powerful and organized as they oppose the children of Light, who are disoriented and disorganized, abandoned by their temporal and spiritual leaders ...

And nowhere more so than in New Zealand, where our Bishops' Conference can't decide even on an issue so basic to the Catholic Faith as Communion on the tongue - the only mode of reception of the Blessed Eucharist for over 2000 years - but leave their flocks to the wolf Ardern, frightened off by her threats of death by COVID and abrogating their God-given mission of shepherding to individual parishes. 

Has it occurred to the bishops (never mind that reception of Communion is a sacred right) that Catholics visiting other parishes and unaware of a ban on Communion on the tongue are placed in the invidious position of unexpectedly being denied it (never mind the priest, similarly placed)?    

"Daily we sense the attacks multiplying of those who want to destroy the "very basis of society: the natural family, respect for human life, love of country, freedom of education and business, ...

For example, past-National Party PM Sir James(Jim) Bolger, who was reported in the ODT to say that "a Joe Biden win today would help restore 'normality' to the world."

https://thebfd.co.nz/2020/05/16/jacinda-ardern-creates-a-totalitarian-regime-on-the-back-of-a-cold-virus/

If Bolger thinks Biden would restore 'normality' he's obviously a 'reformed character' in regard to his Catholic faith. A fake Catholic like Biden couldn't restore true normality to a chicken farm.   

..."while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health emergency that is revealing itself more and more fully as instrumental to the establishment of an inhuman faceless tyranny.

"A global plan called the Great Reset is underway," +Viganò continues. "Its architect is a global élite that wants to subdue all of humanity, imposing coercive measures with which to drastically limit individual freedoms and those of entire populations. In several nations this plan has already been approved and financed; in others it is still in an early stage. Behind the world leaders who are the accomplices and executors of this infernal project ...

Jacinda Ardern among them 

... there are unscrupulous characters who finance the World Economic Forum and Event 201, promoting their agenda.

"The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures ...

Such as those already imposed in New Zealand by Ardern, and by our election result implicitly approved by half our population - the 'useful idiots' half. 

"... hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt. The price of these concessions from the International Monetary Fund will be the renunciation of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination against Covid-19 and Covid-21 promoted by Bill Gates with the collaboration of the main pharmaceutical groups.

"Beyond the enormous economic interests that motivate the promoters of the Great Reset, the imposition of the vaccination will be accompanied by the requirement of a health passport and a digital ID, with the consequent contact tracing of the population of the entire world. Those who do not accept these measures will be confined in detention camps or placed under house arrest, and all their assets will be confiscated. 

"Mr. President, I imagine that you are already aware that in some countries the Great Reset will be activated between the end of this year and the first trimester of 2021. For this purpose, further lockdowns are planned, which will be officially justified by a supposed second and third wave of the pandemic.

"You are well aware of the means that have been deployed to sow panic and legitimize draconian limitations on individual liberties ...

Such as Ardern's in New Zealand, Andrews' in Victoria, Johnson's in the UK  

" ... artfully provoking a world-wide economic crisis. In the intentions of its architects, this crisis will serve to make the recourse of nations to the Great Reset irreversible, thereby giving the final blow to a world whose existence and very memory they want to completely cancel.

"But this world, Mr. President, includes people, affections, institutions, faith, culture, traditions, and ideals: people and values that do not act like automatons, who do not obey like machines, because they are endowed with a soul and a heart, because they are tied together by a spiritual bond that draws its strength from above, from that God that our adversaries want to challenge, just as Lucifer did at the beginning of time with his “non serviam.”

"Many people – as we well know – are annoyed by this reference to the clash between Good and Evil and the use of “apocalyptic” overtones ...

Among them many, many 'good Catholics' who conceal their subconscious and only too-well founded fear of Hell with derisive remarks about 'conspiracy theories. 

 

"...which according to them exasperates spirits and sharpens divisions. It is not surprising that the enemy is angered at being discovered just when he believes he has reached the citadel he seeks to conquer undisturbed. What is surprising, however, is that there is no one to sound the alarm. The reaction of the deep state to those who denounce its plan is broken and incoherent, but understandable.

"Just when the complicity of the mainstream media had succeeded in making the transition to the New World Order almost painless and unnoticed, all sorts of deceptions, scandals and crimes are coming to light.

"Until a few months ago, it was easy to smear as “conspiracy theorists” those who denounced these terrible plans, which we now see being carried out down to the smallest detail. No one, up until last February, would ever have thought that, in all of our cities, citizens would be arrested simply for wanting to walk down the street, to breathe, to want to keep their business open, to want to go to church on Sunday.

"Yet now it is happening all over the world, even in picture-postcard Italy that many Americans consider to be a small enchanted country, with its ancient monuments, its churches, its charming cities, its characteristic villages.

"And while the politicians are barricaded inside their palaces promulgating decrees like Persian satraps, businesses are failing, shops are closing, and people are prevented from living, traveling, working, and praying. The disastrous psychological consequences of this operation are already being seen, beginning with the suicides of desperate entrepreneurs and of our children, segregated from friends and classmates, told to follow their classes while sitting at home alone in front of a computer.

"In Sacred Scripture, Saint Paul speaks to us of “the one who opposes” the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity, the kathèkon (2 Thess 2:6-7). In the religious sphere, this obstacle to evil is the Church, and in particular the papacy; in the political sphere, it is those who impede the establishment of the New World Order.

 

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis

"As is now clear, the one who occupies the Chair of Peter has betrayed his role from the very beginning in order to defend and promote the globalist ideology, supporting the agenda of the deep church, who chose him from its ranks.

"Mr. President, you have clearly stated that you want to defend the nation – One Nation under God, fundamental liberties, and non-negotiable values that are denied and fought against today. It is you, dear President, who are “the one who opposes” the deep state, the final assault of the children of darkness.

"For this reason, it is necessary that all people of good will be persuaded of the epochal importance of the imminent election: not so much for the sake of this or that political program, but because of the general inspiration of your action that best embodies – in this particular historical context – that world, our world, which they want to cancel by means of the lockdown. Your adversary is also our adversary: it is the Enemy of the human race, He who is “a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44).

"Around you are gathered with faith and courage those who consider you the final garrison against the world dictatorship. The alternative is to vote for a person who is manipulated by the deep state, gravely compromised by scandals and corruption, who will do to the United States what Jorge Mario Bergoglio is doing to the Church, Prime Minister Conte to Italy, President Macron to France, Prime Minster Sanchez to Spain, and so on.

"The blackmailable nature of Joe Biden – just like that of the prelates of the Vatican’s “magic circle” – will expose him to be used unscrupulously, allowing illegitimate powers to interfere in both domestic politics as well as international balances. It is obvious that those who manipulate him already have someone worse than him ready, with whom they will replace him as soon as the opportunity arises.

"And yet, in the midst of this bleak picture, this apparently unstoppable advance of the “Invisible Enemy,” an element of hope emerges. The adversary does not know how to love, and it does not understand that it is not enough to assure a universal income or to cancel mortgages in order to subjugate the masses and convince them to be branded like cattle.

"This people, which for too long has endured the abuses of a hateful and tyrannical power, is rediscovering that it has a soul; it is understanding that it is not willing to exchange its freedom for the homogenization and cancellation of its identity; it is beginning to understand the value of familial and social ties, of the bonds of faith and culture that unite honest people.

"This Great Reset is destined to fail because those who planned it do not understand that there are still people ready to take to the streets to defend their rights, to protect their loved ones, to give a future to their childrenand grandchildren. The leveling inhumanity of the globalist project will shatter miserably in the face of the firm and courageous opposition of the children of Light.

"The enemy has Satan on its side, He who only knows how to hate. But on our side,we have the Lord Almighty, the God of armies arrayed for battle, and the Most Holy Virgin, who will crush the headof the ancient Serpent. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31).

"Mr. President, you are well aware that, in this crucial hour, the United States of America is considered the defending wall against which the war declared by the advocates of globalism has been unleashed. Place your trust in the Lord, strengthened by the words of the Apostle Paul: “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). To be an instrument of Divine Providence is a great responsibility, for which you will certainly receive all the graces of state that you need, since they are being fervently implored for you by the many people who support you with their prayers.

"With this heavenly hope and the assurance of my prayer for you, for the First Lady, and for your collaborators, with all my heart I send you my blessing.

God bless the United States of America!

+ Carlo Maria Viganò

Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana

Former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America



Archbishop Viganò has also addressed the Catholic Identity Conference, October 24, 2020, on video:    

“As you can see, I am very well.” The archbishop who has not been seen in public in more than two years ...

Because fears are very justifiably held for his life 

"... has finally appeared — on camera...

"Though the archbishop speaks of grave challenges facing the Church, Viganò leaves no doubt that his confidence in Christ, and in His Bride, the Church, and in His Mother, Mary Immaculate, is unshakeable. For him, therefore, the difficulties facing the Church and society will yield to grace when Catholics “return to the center of the life of the Church,” that is, to Christ.

    

"Let us put Our Lord Jesus Christ, King and High Priest, back at the center of the life of the Church. Let us restore the crown to Our Lady Mary Most Holy, Queen and Mother of the Church." 

ABANDON 'CATHOLIC' SCHOOLS LIKE SACRED HEART NAPIER, ST ANTHONY'S PAHIATUA

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"About 20 years ago at St Patrick's Church Napier, two senior girls from the local Sacred Heart College were given the honour/duty of leading the Rosary.    We were flabbergasted that they didn’t know how to say the prayers, and it must have been extraordinarily embarrassing for them."

St Patrick's in flames - a symbol of our loss of Faith

St Patrick's Napier as it was once

The Lion of Bennydale is roaring again, giving vent to a subject close to my heart. I can't say 'dear to my heart' because it's actually downright painful, a heartache, you might say. Leo Leitch is on about 'Catholic' schools, and what's prompted him was yesterday morning's Sunday Mass in Otorohanga. 

"(Yesterday) morning," says Leo, "my wife and I attended Mass at Otorohanga, which is our custom now for Sunday Mass since the Te Kuiti debacle" (reported on this blog and also by the msm).  "The congregation is usually approximately 20-30. The numbers were swelled by the attendance of about 30 schoolchildren (almost all in their school uniform) and a couple of their teachers. There were apparently some parents there, also. 

"A couple of older schoolgirls did the Readings, and five younger schoolchildren read the Prayers of the Faithful. When it came time to receive Communion, all of the children filed up, but only approximately six of them received Communion; all the others put an arm across their chest and received a blessing. 

"I think it’s reasonable for me to assume that these are pupils who attend the local Catholic school. But Catholic school? What is the definition of a Catholic school?"

Logically, spiritually, a Catholic school is a school for Catholics. That's no longer the case and hasn't been, obviously, for twenty years at least - as Fr Bryan Buenger, beloved 'Pa' at St Joseph's Dannevirke and parish priest for Tararua, discovered at St Anthony's, Pahiatua. He noticed two of the three altar servers didn't receive the Eucharist. 

"When I asked them why," says Fr Buenger, "they said they were not Catholic - not baptised and so hadn't received First Holy Communion. On investigating I found there were several students in this situation. With full understanding that it wasn't their fault, my plan was to promote altar serving as something to strive for through the Sacraments - in other words, it was open to any student who had received them or was in preparation.

"I wasn't going to take it away from any of the kids who had been serving, but that "going forward" it would be a requirement to have the sacraments or preparing for them. I also wanted to stress the joy and privilege of serving at the altar and hopefully encourage some vocations through service at the altar. (Most studies of seminarians - at least in the US, 95% - indicate it was serving at the altar that encouraged the vocation, especially in their high school years.) 

"I was told by the Diocese of Wellington that this was the "old Church" way of thinking. 

"When I discussed the altar serving with (St Anthony's principal), she became quite confrontational and told me that I was going to "undo everything that [she did] to build a bridge between school and parish" and that she would "see about that." 

"She did contact (the then) Bishop Charles (Drennan) almost immediately and he asked me about the situation and I indicated my plan. 

"He informed me that "there was no requirement for altar servers to be baptised" so that I should "rethink" my plan.  While he never said I couldn't adopt the plan, there was no question in my mind what his meaning was in his statement."

In Fr Buenger's outline of the facts we see at once the calibre of the priest we lost (he returned to the US), and also of the bishop we lost (he resigned because of unacceptable behaviour of a sexual nature).

Presumably the Mass in Otorohanga was what's called a 'School' Mass - which expression implies that other Sunday Masses are not 'School' Masses, and so school children and parents don't need to attend. Coincidentally, St Joseph's Waipukurau endured a 'School' Mass yesterday too. I can't compare that celebration to Otorohanga's because rather than seeming to contribute to the insults and outrages inflicted on Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament at these events, I attended the 'Vigil' (so-called but not a Vigil because it begins at 5.30 p m, not 6 p m), at St Patrick's Waipawa.

But when Bob Gill weighed in this morning with his experience of St Joseph's School Dannevirke children attending the Holy Souls' Mass this morning, it seemed that in spite of matters of worldwide importance, like Archbishop Vigano's letter to Donald Trump on the "Great Global Reset" weighing upon us, Something Needs to Be Said. Now.

"Not one pupil or teacher (at St Joseph's Dannevirke)," says Bob Gill, "genuflected on entering the pews, or even acknowledged the Blessed Sacrament. 

How was it at your church Mass elsewhere in NZ? Just curious."

Bob, there wasn't any Holy Souls' Mass in Holy Trinity Central Hawke's Bay today because Father, like all the PN diocesan priests (according to Father yesterday) are off on a retreat. It seems only 5 minutes since he was away for a week at an assembly of diocesan priests, and apparently this retreat is self-directed as the promised Australian bishop couldn't show, not due to Covid but due to Hitlinda and her cohorts across the Tasman. So for Holy Souls' Day I 'attended' a Latin Mass in Bristol, livestreamed,instead.

"Approximately 20 years ago," says Leo Leitch, "girls from St Joseph’s Maori Girls’ College in Greenmeadows attended a Sunday Mass at which my wife and I were in the congregation. Similarly, almost all of those girls received a blessing at Communion time."

 Twenty years ago! So many 'Catholic' girls who were not actually Catholic, at a 'Catholic' school, that long ago! 

"At around the same time, my wife and I attended at St Patrick’s church a Novena organised by the Napier Knights of the Southern Cross. On this occasion, two senior girls from the local Sacred Heart College were given the honour/duty of leading the rosary. We were flabbergasted that they didn’t know how to say the prayers, and it must have been extraordinarily embarrassing for them. We give them credit for being willing to take the role, but even after presumably being primed for it, they couldn’t recite a Hail Mary!"

 

St Patrick's today: there's the church, where's the steeple, open the door (what door?) and where are the people?

Tempus fugit, as we all know. Fast forward 20 years, and the Napier Parish is now in the hands of the Marist Order. Father Barry Scannell s.m.(self-styled), following his triumph at St Mary of the Angels Wellington where he spear-headed a $9.5 million fundraiser for earthquake strengthening, is intent on building a 'Parish Administration and Mission Centre' on the site of the old presbytery. 

These days, St Patrick's Church is too small to accommodate the Sacred Heart Prize Giving, which is held instead at the Anglican Cathedral of St John.

But rather than build a new church big enough for the Sacred Heart Prizegiving and 'School' and Requiem Masses - with the tabernacle in its proper place instead of demurely sidelined - the Marists believe 'Administration' is the priority. Really? St Patrick's already has the Hannigan Centre (pictured below) as a large gathering space.

As for 'Mission', isn't the church the true 'Mission Centre' of any parish? No! It seems that 'Mission' is now translated as tourism - maybe because 'The Mission', the original Marist seminary at Greenmeadows nearby, is now the Mission Estate Winery, a high-market restaurant and winery. If faithful Catholics want to add weight to their personal cross, I suggest dining out in its luxury surroundings with American and Asian tourists off the boats. 

St Patrick's, in the boom tourism town of Napier, apparently lacks 'a facility to welcome and offer hospitality to visitors [to Napier and Clive Square], as well as to the many local groups who meet in the Hannigan Centre.' That's what St Patrick's parishioners are asked to cough up for. 

And Fr Scannell has distinguished himself on at least one occasion by refusing Holy Communion to a female parishioner kneeling in front of him, presenting last in the queue. Obviously St Patrick's Napier is not one of those parishes which have 'established the custom of Communion on the tongue, if those receiving on tongue come up last in the queue for Holy Communion', a practice which Cardinal John Dew - in the absence still of any bishop for the Palmerston North Diocese - has said may continue.

Today at a Requiem Mass at St Patrick's another woman, attending weekday Mass not realising it would be a Requiem, presented last in the queue for Communion and was denied the Blessed Sacrament by Fr Damian Cacciopoli, who gave her a blessing, touching her on the head instead of risking life and limb and COVID by giving her Communion on the tongue. (Fr Cacciopoli is of the generation who would have been trained to give Communion on the tongue, in the days when there was no option.)

What can be the rationale for denying Communion in the mode It was given throughout all the plagues? What can be the rationale for It being okay in some parishes but not in others, in the same diocese? 

Fr Barry Scannell s.m.

"My wife and I removed three children from 'Catholic' schools and our youngest three children never attended 'Catholic' schools. We came to understand, along with Archbishop (now Venerable) Fulton Sheen, that it was better to send them to other schools, where they would have to fight for their Faith, than to send them to 'Catholic' schools, where they would have their Faith taken away from them."

That's exactly the decision, very reluctantly arrived at for the same reasons, taken by my husband and me for the secondary education of our youngest daughter, following her years at St Joseph's Waipukurau - my alma mater.  

"Surely, it is well past the time when the Church in New Zealand should abandon the pretence of providing Catholic schools. There is no doubt now that they are entirely secular and exist only to provide employment to teachers."

As I commented on this blog yesterday, at the bishops' meeting in PN's Cathedral of the  Holy Spirit last week one bishop dashed in and out again without any recognition of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, and another chatted with a local liturgical prima donna within a few feet of the tabernacle, with his back turned to the Blessed Sacrament.

It's these bishops who bear the responsibility for the Faith or lack of it in New Zealand's schools and dioceses, and it's the Pope who bears responsibility for these bishops. Actually, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Kazakhstan (now there's a bishop for you), maintains the appointment of bishops is the Pope's first and chief responsibility. 

We are forced to conclude then that the wooing of that old whore, the world, the establishment of the New Masonic Global Church and the promulgation of heresies keeps the occupant of the See of Rome, Jorge Bergoglio, too busy to worry about a bishop for Palmerston North, New Zealand.

 

WOULD WE HAVE ARDERN AND EUTHANASIA IF OUR BISHOPS HAD LED US IN PRAYER?

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Faithful Catholics are reeling from the double whammy of a re-elected neo-Marxist Government and New Zealand's endorsement of euthanasia. The question is, if  our bishops had devoted Prayers of the 'Faithful' (hah! faithful to what? to the bishops, or to Christ?) and their statements and homilies to preaching the Gospel instead of promos for flabby 'social justice' issues, would our nation have been visited with this twin disaster?

Bishop Michael Dooley (Dunedin), Bishop Paul Martin (Christchurch), Cardinal John Dew (Wellington), Auxiliary Bishop Michael Gielen (Auckland), Bishop Steve  (sic) Lowe (iHamilton), Monsignor Brian Walsh (Administrator, Palmerston North which still languishes bishop-less after more than a year).

In the United States, the vast majority of Catholic  bishops, like their peers in NZ, cower in their bunkers while the battle of Good versus Evil rages in the public square. The column below is written by an employee of some diocesan US chancery, who obviously prefers to remain anonymous. Much of it applies just as well to NZ's sheepish shepherds as to those in the US. 

Dear Catholic Bishops

The poet John Milton wrote: “The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.” Church leadership is called upon to do the right thing, especially in difficult times: to speak the truth boldly and lovingly and to watch over those entrusted to their care. When bishops fail to fulfill this sacred obligation, the lay faithful are left feeling confused, neglected, and abandoned.

Such is the situation as we approach our national election

pretty much the same as it was as New Zealand approached ours, last month  

in which a clear and obvious divide exists on essential matters related to earthly wellbeing and eternal welfare: the protection of God-given life from conception to natural death; the safeguarding of the family and the wellspring of sexuality; the dignity of all persons, including the rights of conscience and the freedom to live and worship without interference from the state or persecution from the culture.

The Democratic Party that once championed the civil rights of all

just like the Labour Party in New Zealand 

has now become hostile to Christian faith and those who practise it. Their shrunken tent has no room for those who are pro-life, no room for those who profess what has been called mere Christianity, nor for any who believe in the value of patriotism insofar as patriotism embodies a natural preference for one’s own country.

Moreover, the Democratic presidential candidate himself

pretend Catholic Joe Biden 

can be considered Catholic in name only, for in nearly a half-century of public life he has routinely, repeatedly, and systematically rejected what the Church teaches: on life issues, on sexual morality, on religious liberty. When asked recently whether he would support an eight-year old’s decision to change gender, he answered in the affirmative.

Through it all, the great majority of you have said and done nothing. Those bishops who have spoken – claiming that abortion, for example, is not the pre-eminent moral issue, or that the current administration is the most anti-life in history, or that a Catholic ought have no qualms of conscience voting for Democratic candidates and their party’s dismal culture-of-death platform – have done so without public criticism from their brother bishops who, in this regard, seem to share the Democratic standard bearer’s bizarre preference for remaining safely in the basement.

When will you, as successors to the Apostles, overcome whatever has silenced you?

Do you lack faith and conviction in what the Catholic Church teaches and has taught from the beginning?

From observations made at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Palmerston North when our bishops met there last week, faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist is certainly lacking. A certain prelate was seen to rush in and out of the sacred space without genuflection and another to chat animatedly with a local liturgical prima donna, close by the tabernacle. Perhaps, not being familiar with the cathedral, that particular bishop could be excused for not noticing the tabernacle or recognising it for what it is. But he knew, or should know, that being in the cathedral he was in the Presence of God.

Are you primarily motivated by human respect, fearful that speaking the truth will bring ridicule, laughter, and opposition?

Are you so attached to your standing in civil society, having places of honor at the world’s table, that you cannot speak the beliefs you privately cherish?

Have the basic Christian virtues – loyalty, honesty, and courage – been so bred out of you that you now find yourselves neutered by the world and unable effectively to confront its manifold faults and follies?

Do you have so little love for your flock, including deluded politicians who insist on self-identifying as Catholic when they no longer believe, that you dare not challenge or correct them?

That at least is not a charge that could be levelled at our bishops. The Catholic Faith is now so diminished in New Zealand that very few politicians self-identify as Catholic. 

Have you made a craven surrender to the Zeitgeist such that you have jettisoned the ancient practice of the spiritual works of mercy, counseling the doubtful, instructing the ignorant, admonishing the sinner?

Our bishops seem to be interested only in the corporal works of mercy - you know, the works that bring them the world's approval. 

And if you find yourselves now cringing or smirking at such principles, have you not become model citizens of that dictatorship of relativism of which Benedict XVI warned?

“We cannot be in the business of making political endorsements,” many of you doubtless think and say.

As our bishops did indeed say, rearing up on their hind legs when this blog mistakenly but  hoping against hope stated they were supporting New Conservatives, a political party with Christian policies and principles, and reporting me to the Electoral Commission.  

But does not silence in the face of evil signify consent? ... (C)riticizing a party platform so obviously opposed to faith and morals does not mean you give unqualified support to his opponent.

On the contrary, you are simply speaking the truth, in charity, teaching those who have been entrusted to your care and removing the cloud of confusion that you and too many of your predecessors have allowed for decades to hover over the public square.

A cloud thickened to thunderous proportions by the endorsement of Jorge Bergoglio (aka Pope Francis) of homosexual civil unions, and the endorsement of that endorsement by certain US prelates and our very own Bishop Pat Dunn of Auckland.. 

Surely, you must realize that the regard in which you are now held may well be at an all-time low. Although still reeling by the depravity of the likes of Mr. McCarrick, lay Catholics nonetheless continue to pray for you, hoping that you man up and embrace fully the special calling God has given you. But they do so with diminished confidence, embarrassed by your consistent failure to lead, teach, clarify, and correct.

NZ's faithful Catholics must continue to pray for our bishops. Fiat voluntas tua.  

The time grows short. Will you speak and act in these coming days, for the sake of souls and for the common good? Or will you slide into an even deeper irrelevance, abdicating the awesome responsibility given you by the Lord Jesus to whom you must, at last, make an account of your stewardship?

 

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.