Here's where to get long-lost tremendous Catholic books

Every good book is a lasting treasure, and how much more so the Catholic books that help us preserve the Faith and grow in love for Jesus and Mary.

To find classic faithful Catholic books for yourself, your children and grandchildren, your friends and for Christmas gifts, go to the catalog of:

Preserving Christian Publications, Inc.
http://www.pcpbooks.com/
P.O. Box 221
Boonville, NY 13309-0221
toll-free (866)241-2762
open Mon-Sat, 9 a.m.-9 p.m. EST
closed Sundays & holy days

At any one time they have more than 4,000 books on hand. They specialize in used and out-of-print titles, including 19th- and early and mid-20th-century books. They also reprint Catholic classics.

They grade the used books carefully and price them accordingly (and fairly). They'll send you a printed catalog, or you can check their inventory online.

A sampling of their categories: Our Lord, Our Lady, Saints and Blessed, Catholic Biography, Church History & Christian Civilization, Sacred Scripture, Philosophy, Dogmatic Theology, Moral & Pastoral Theology, Interior Life, Prayer & Meditation, Prayer Books & Devotional Books, Sermons & Conferences, Sacred Liturgy, Papal Teaching & Canon Law, The Priesthood & Religious Life, Catechetics, Catholic Literature, Latin Titles.

Guess what? They also have "Motu Proprio" titles -- classic resources on the Roman Ritual, rubrics, hymns, the breviary, etc. They even have the Missale Romanum...and the Liber Usualis and the Liber Brevior!

Dive into all these long-hidden, hard-to-find Catholic treasures now. I sure have, and I'll never regret it. Neither will you.

Msgr. Weber has a new book out

The current issue of The Tidings reviews (click on this post's title) a new book by Msgr. Francis Weber, Catholic Heroes of Southern California, published by Editions du Signe and available at Cotter's Church Supply.

If you haven't read any of Msgr. Weber's histories before, do it now and you'll discover that he is an excellent historian and an excellent writer.

In this latest book, Msgr. Weber covers 85 Southern California Catholics from earliest colonial times to the present. His categories are: The laity, episcopal leaders, religious women, religious men and "priestly pioneers."

The book sounds fascinating. I haven't gotten hold of it yet, but I plan to. Hope you do, too.

By the way, Cotter's phone is (213) 385-3366.

Mexico City cathedral reopens with police protection

You probably heard about the ultra-leftist mob that invaded the Catedral Metropolitana in Mexico City the week before last and interrupted Mass.

The cathedral is not the same as the Basilica where the Image of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe is, fortunately.

But anyway, the archdiocese closed the cathedral until the government would provide protection. And this past Sunday, that protection was there. A Reuters article (click on this post's title) says 30 policemen guarded Mass and 30 surveillance cameras will be installed.

I stand by my recent post that suggested ideas for safeguarding our churches.

By the way, some liberal Catholics actually claim that we orthodox Catholics are to blame for the attacks on our churches because we use, the liberals say, "hateful" language.

To set the record straight for the liberals, let me say that the ancient and venerable Catholic practice of using right names for things is not "hateful."

Using the word "homosexual" instead of the euphemism "same-sex" is not "hateful." Saying "sodomy" instead of the euphemism "sexual diversity" is also not "hateful."

Similarly, saying "pro-abortion" instead of the euphemism "pro-choice" is not "hateful," and neither is saying "baby" instead of "fetus," which word has, in fact, become genuine hate speech because the pro-aborts use it to dehumanize and depersonalize and even mock the little babies.

So, to say we Catholics bring persecution upon ourselves is to sympathize with and even to justify that persecution. That is disloyalty to one's fellow Catholics.

L.A.'s pro-abortion mayor and his adultery partner have split up

News reports say that our pro-abortion mayor of L.A., Antonio Villaraigosa (pictured above in 1974 when he was still calling himself Tony Villar), and his adultery partner have split up.

So now Villaraigosa has lost his wife and his adultery partner both.

Now, if only we could get those of our clergy and hierarchy who still vote Democrat to drop their illicit ideological and political affairs with the pro-abortion politicians!

( The photo above is from bruinalumni.com )

The party of the rich is...the Democrats!

There's one less excuse now for all the Catholics who vote for pro-abortion Democrats. They claim they're "the party of the poor" -- and they're wrong.

On Friday, the Washington Times reported (click on this post's title) on a new Heritage Foundation (yes, I know they're conservative; so what?) study that shows Democrats "represent the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional districts" and "the vast majority of unabashed conservative House members hail from profoundly middle-class districts."

Somebody invented the term "limousine liberals" years ago, and it applies now more than ever. L.A. is full of them! We all know that.

Catholics who vote for pro-abortion politicians "to help the poor" are phonies. As I've always said, the facts prove that the GOP is all for social spending on a huge scale, just not quite as astronomical as the Democrats would like.

There is absolutely no excuse for a Catholic to vote pro-abortion.

And you don't help poor people by killing their babies, you know.

The Osservatore Romano publishes new comments by Archbishop Ranjith

Catholic World News is reporting (click on this post's title) that the new edition (it doesn't seem to be online yet) of L'Osservatore Romano contains an interview with Archbishop Ranjith in which he warns against abuses in saying Mass and he also continues his recent warnings against opposing Pope Benedict's motu proprio that frees priests to say the Latin Mass.

We know that nothing gets in the Osservatore that the Pope is going to disagree with.

The publication of this interview in such an authoritative journal suggests that Archbishop Ranjith's recent criticisms of anti-Latin-Mass bishops have had the okay of the Pope and that the Archbishop has not, as some opponents of the Latin Mass hope, been speaking as a loose cannon.

May acceptance of the Latin Mass continue to grow, including among the hierarchy!

Catholic-Orthodox partial agreement

You've probably heard that the Holy See-and-Orthodox theological commission recently signed a document agreeing that the Pope is the head of the Church.

The Orthodox still disagree about the extent of the Pope's authority; but nevertheless, what a historic agreement! Deo gratias.

Now, if we can only get certain dissenter Catholics among us to agree that the Pope is the head of the Church!

Cardinal Kasper: Need to find out our pastoral shortcomings in order to stop defections from the Church

An AP article today, the 23rd (sorry I don't have the link), says Cardinal Walter Kasper has told his fellow cardinals the Church must do a "self-critical pastoral examination of conscience" to counter the "aggressive" Protestant sects that are making such inroads among the faithful.

Cardinal Kasper said, "We shouldn't begin by asking ourselves what is wrong with the Pentecostals, but what our own pastoral shortcomings are."

Cardinal Kasper spoke on the eve of the elevation of the 23 new cardinals tomorrow (Saturday).

Got any thoughts about examining our conscience?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks be, and glory be, to God for all His great goodness to us. Deo gratias.

Now for a little debunking: The Pilgrims were a johnny-come-lately bunch.

Spanish Catholics celebrated at least three Masses of Thanksgiving in what is today the USA, long before the Pilgrims.

The first was during Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's expedition, in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, in 1541. Padre Juan de Padilla said Mass.

The next was during the Menendez de Aviles expedition, in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.

And the third was during Juan de Onate's expedition, near present-day El Paso, Texas, in 1598.

So there.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), R.I.P.

On this 44th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president of the United States, let's pray for the repose of his soul, the soul of his also assassinated brother Bobby and the soul of Jackie Kennedy.

Let's also pray for all the Kennedys in politics and public life today, that they repent their support of aborting babies and become pro-life.

Let's pray for the repose of the soul of Ngo Dinh Diem, the Catholic president of the Republic of Vietnam, and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who were assassinated in a U.S.-supported coup d'etat on Nov. 2, 1963.

Let's pray for the repose of the souls of the pro-liberty, anti-Communist Cuban forces who died during and after the Bay of Pigs invasion after JFK would not allow them previously promised air support.

Let's also pray for the repose of the soul of Peter Fechter, the 18-year-old who became one of the first victims of the Berlin Wall. He bled to death on Aug. 17, 1962, after East German Red border guards shot him as he tried to escape over the Wall -- which, it has recently come to light, the Soviet dictator Khrushchev built only in tentative stages in case JFK would try to stop it, which he did not.

Always a lot to pray for...beginning with praying for true repentance and for eternal salvation for our own souls. Amen.

Bizarre comments from U.S. bishops' new v.p.

What does the U.S. bishops' election, last week, of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago as USCCB president and Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas (formerly of Chicago) as vice president and presumed successor, signify?

You could be forgiven for not thinking it means things are going to change for the better anytime soon.

That's because the Chicago Sun-Times reported the following (click on this post's title) on Nov. 14:

"While rector of [Chicago's] Mundelein Seminary in the 1990s, Bishop Gerald Kicanas says he knew about three reports of 'sexual improprieties' against then-seminarian Daniel McCormack.

"Still, Kicanas supported McCormack's ordination, he told the Sun-Times.

"'It would have been grossly unfair not to have ordained him,' said Kicanas, now bishop of Tucson, Ariz., who was interviewed Tuesday after his election to vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"McCormack went to prison in July for molesting five boys while assigned to a West Side parish...

"Mundelein officials learned in 1992 about sexual accusations against McCormack involving two adult males and a minor. The incidents began in 1988 when McCormack was at a seminary school known as Niles College, according to archdiocesan reports.

"'There was a sense that his activity was part of the developmental process and that he had learned from the experience,' Kicanas said. 'I was more concerned about his drinking. We sent him to counseling for that.'...

"'I don't think there was anything I could have done differently,' Kicanas said."
------------------------------
Of course. one thing then-rector Kicanas could have done differently would have been to boot him from the seminary.

He would have saved those boys from being molested. Wasn't it "grossly unfair" to them for the then-rector to let a man with that track record be ordained?

If the rector found it distasteful to kick him out, he could have just pretended to himself that the seminarian favored the Latin Mass or opposed women priests, or some other offense that liberals find heinous. (Disclaimer: This is sarcasm.)

Over half of the bishops voted for Bishop Kicanas as their v.p. Wonder how the members of our hierarchy here in L.A. voted?

I haven't found any subsequent comments by Bishop Kicanas about the Sun-Times article or the whole situation. If he made any, I would be glad to see them and relay them here.

Wichita Diocese parishes officially pray outside an abortion business. Can't the Archdiocese of Los Angeles do that, too?

Wow, look at what commenter Mary Margaret says below! The Diocese of Wichita officially assigns several parishes each and every First Saturday to come together and pray outside the high-volume, late-term-babies-abortion chamber of George Tiller in Wichita. And the pastors lead the prayers!

Your Eminence, Your Excellencies and Reverend Pastors and Clergy of our Archdiocese of Los Angeles, please pray about it and then implement this same plan right here in your midst -- abortion-bloodstained Southern California.

If you want to activate and re-energize your parish life, and unify the parishioners, have them start saving babies' lives together!

If Wichita can do it, L.A. can, too. Don't you agree? Who could possibly have any objections?
---------------------------
Mary Margaret said...

Well, quintero, since you would like to know, the Diocese of Wichita has a first Saturday rosary in front of Dr Tiller's abortion clinic scheduled through Dec 2008. Parishes are assigned dates, and there is always at least one pastor present to lead the rosary (and I think all of the pastors of the assigned parishes are generally present).


I have no idea of how to post a link, but copy and paste the following URL, then scroll down to the First Saturday Rosary Schedule at Tiller's Abortion Clinic. Click on that link to see the schedule. I think this is something that any diocese that is home to an abortion clinic should be doing.


http://www.cdowk.org/diocesan_respect_life

Drop your groceries and go see "Bella"

Finally I've gotten to see the movie "Bella," and it's excelente. What a story! A lot of heart and soul. Fun touches of humor, too. And it's really well made.

I'm going to go back as soon as possible. Hope you get to see it or you already have.

Where I saw it, the audience, a mainly young one, burst into applause at the end. It's a movie that no one will forget.

Go to www.bellathemovie.com and you can find where it's playing nearest you. Enjoy!

Also, if you want to know what kind of a guy Eduardo Verastegui is since his re-embrace of the Faith, just read his Christmas message from last year (I found this on the Net but now I can't find the source):
--------------------------------------------------
Christmas message 2006 from Eduardo Verástegui
December the 24th 2006

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas, spending together with your family. May God enter your heart, bringing His message of Love, Peace, Happiness, good health, and a lot of good luck on all your undertakings.

We are obliged to step up our efforts and will-power of the soul to help the unfortunate, the sick and the poor, and to strengthen family ties, to practice charity, and to live with integrity.

These aspects will make Christ enters our hearts, allowing Him to be become part of our soul.

The celebration of the great Occurrence of Christmas would be a good motivation to start the inner conversion. Christ will surround you with His brilliant Light, to bring Peace to all persons of good will, to all of those who are resilient, and fight bravely against all that keep them separated from Christ.
If God is with us, who can be against us?

With love
Eduardo Verástegui

The L.A. Times says it knows better than the Pope

The L.A. Times, in an editorial on the 14th or 15th entitled, "Teaching the Pope" (sorry, I don't have the link), commits the typical liberal fault of assuming they are infallible but the Vicar of Christ is not.

The L.A. Times also commits another typical liberal fault: They lecture.

Their main worry is that the Pope might "side with the hard-liners" -- the bishops who say ministers of the Eucharist have a duty to deny Communion to obstinate, manifest public sinners such as pro-abortion politicians.

Let's hope and pray that all Catholics will see the Times editorial for the exercise in liberal arrogance and wrong-headedness that it is.

We need to safeguard the Blessed Sacrament, our fellow parishioners and our churches

You probably read about parishioners subduing a man recently as he attacked a church in our Archdiocese just before Mass and knocked down the pastor. And the police found a loaded and cocked pistol on him.

Here are a few ideas that I posted as a comment yesterday about the need for every diocese and parish to defend the Blessed Sacrament, our churches and our parishioners from attacks by anti-Catholics, nuts and demonics.

Some of these suggestions might not fly, because of insurance concerns or existing Church policy, or because law enforcement might deem them unwise. But I am suggesting them anyway, just to get comments going about a genuine need we have.

Parishes can guard themselves, in a strictly defensive posture, against outside attacks -- by working with the police ahead of time to arrange quick response, having a plan in place to have the ushers phone the police immediately in case of attack, stationing as guards during Masses and other events and services any parishioners who are off-duty law enforcement or military, and perhaps using as guards, during Masses, other services and any events, some physically able men including perhaps some from the local Knights of Columbus.

Parishes should also have video surveillance cameras covering the sanctuary and elsewhere inside and outside their churches. Motion detectors are also good. Parishes can also employ security and guard services to patrol their premises and their neighborhoods.

Pastors and parishioners in concert with them should also work ahead of time with the local district attorney and the local FBI and other law enforcement officials to make sure that they will seek hate crimes charges against those who commit anti-Catholic attacks.

What is at stake here is the safety of the Blessed Sacrament and the lives and well-being of our parishioners, as well as the safety of our consecrated churches.

What ideas do you have?


Christ's peace be with us all.

More news about the Santa Barbara Sisters of Bethany

A story (click on this post's title) in today's (Nov. 15) L.A. Times says the Sisters of Bethany whom the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is evicting will accept an offer from local Episcopalian sisters to stay at a retreat house of theirs near the Old Mission Santa Barbara on a "temporary, but open-ended" basis.

So what ole Q understood about where the sisters would go was wrong.

The article says the Sisters of Bethany will move around Thanksgiving. It contains more news about them, and it concludes this way:

"As to why she offered the [Catholic] nuns a place to stay, the [Episcopalian] nun had a ready response. 'They are my sisters,' she said."

Archbishop Kurtz joins Rosary vigil outside abortion business

God bless and reward Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville! Last Saturday he knelt in prayer on the sidewalk for 1-1/2 hours in chilly weather outside an abortion business, reports the Louisville Courier-Journal (click on this post's title; thanks to the online NOR Daily Feed for the tip and the link).

The Rosary vigil is there every Saturday. Two priests and perhaps 250 lay people were there this past Saturday. One of the priests was Fr. Peter West of Priests for Life.

Sure wish a certain Cardinal and certain bishops here in Southern California would start following Archbishop Kurtz's example. There is a CRYING need; think of the little babies and their misguided, misled, abandoned and exploited moms.

Have you asked your Cardinal or your bishop to pray outside an abortion mill? Have you asked your pastor or any other priest? Did they do it? Did they decline? What did they say?

Keep praying for the Santa Barbara Sisters of Bethany

I hear from Santa Barbara that the local paper there has run a couple of articles since last weekend about the Sisters of Bethany whom the Archdiocese is evicting from their convent so as to sell it to help fund the scandal payouts.

Sounds as if there is trouble; the Sisters say they have not seen money that has supposedly been collected for them.

And there is a report that the Sisters have been offered a temporary stay in a nearby facility that was formerly a seminary.

Or should I say, "a nearby facility that was a seminary until the liberals started 'remodeling' our Church, so all the vocations died out or went elsewhere."

Anyway, we'd better keep praying for the good Sisters of Bethany. They don't deserve any trouble.

What if Pope Benedict XVI would lead prayer at an abortion mill when he visits the USA?

What is your wish list for when Pope Benedict XVI visits Washington, D.C., and New York City next April 15-20, as announced today?

My #1 wish, and prayer, is that the Vicar of Christ will take everyone to an abortion mill and lead prayers outside it. That would blow the lid off the great silence and do-nothingness with which our hierarchy and clergy treat the now decades-old, no-end-in-sight mass aborting of America's babies.

My #2 wish, and prayer, is that His Holiness will celebrate Mass in Latin according to the Missal of 1962, the missal of Vatican II.

My #3 wish, and prayer, is that the Holy Father will refuse Communion to any notorious pro-abortion politicians who dare to approach the sanctuary.

What is your wish list for the Pope's visit to the USA?

(The photo above is from dotmarketer.com )

An odd remark by Cardinal Francis George from several years ago

The L.A. Times today (Nov. 11) published an op-ed piece (click on this post's title) by Jason Berry that contains an odd quote, presumably accurate, from Cardinal Francis George of Chicago from several years ago.

By citing this op-ed piece I am NOT giving approval to everything or anything in it, nor to Jason Berry himself and anything he's written or done in the past.

I just want to make you aware of what Cardinal George is quoted as having said several years ago. Here is the portion of the Jason Berry op-ed piece that contains the presumably accurate odd quote:

"In February 2003, for instance, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Father Kenneth Martin of Wilmington, Del., a consultant to the archdiocese on liturgical texts, had been staying at the cardinal's mansion during his monthly visits to Chicago. He had been staying there despite the fact that he had pleaded guilty in 2001 in Maryland to sexually abusing a teenage boy over three years in the 1970s when he was a lay teacher. Martin received a suspended sentence and was declared by the diocese to be a 'priest in good standing' in Wilmington, provided he not do public ministry.

"Needless to say, this was shocking news. The members of the 12-person National Review Board, which had been appointed by the Conference of Catholic Bishops to conduct research on the causes and context of the scandal and report back with recommendations on how to avoid future scandals, had met with George just the day before the story broke in the Sun-Times -- yet he had told them nothing about the priest's visits. What could be more telling about George's attitude than his willingness to welcome an admitted pedophile as a houseguest?

"When Sun-Times reporter Cathleen Falsani asked George why he had allowed Martin to stay in his official residence after his misdeeds had become known, and why the priest was still working for the archdiocese as a consultant, George did not apologize but defended his colleague. 'Are we saying that people with any kind of question in their past are not employable?' he responded. 'Unless we want to say these people are simply permanent pariahs, is it appropriate to put his [Martin's] life under scrutiny that way?'

"'When I read the Sun-Times,' said [pro-abortion] former Rep. Leon Panetta, a California Democrat who served on the National Review Board and was one of those who had met with George that week, 'it confirmed for me what is at the heart of this [pedophile priest] problem -- the [Catholic] hierarchy's failure to understand the seriousness of the crisis.'"

Now, ole Q has asked the question before: How can anyone, especially a bishop or other superior, think that anyone who has committed a sex crime against a child or youth could be fit to ever say Mass again?

Catholics who were around in the 1960s will tell you that liberal Catholics of that time were big on saying sexual sins were not so bad. How many bishops and priests who were in the seminary or were newly ordained at that time bought into that lie and are still under its spell today? (I am not saying this is the case with Cardinal George. But what explains his above remarks?)

Maybe Cardinal George has modified his views in the several years since that quote. It would be nice to hear that he has. I will do some research on this in the near future. If you know anything about this, please comment here; thank you.

New York Times notes Catholics' interest in Latin Mass

Today's (Nov. 10) New York Times carries a report (click on this post's title) on Catholics' interest in the Latin Mass since the Holy Father issued Summorum Pontificum (the photo above is from the Times article).

The article says Kelly Rein, 16, of New Jersey "was struck by the reverence of the Latin Mass." She says, "It's quiet. People are paying attention....here people are completely focused on God.”"

Hey, liberals! She says, "People are paying attention" and "completely focused on God." How's that for "full and active participation?"

The article says there is no groundswell, but there is an undeniable interest, including among young people such as Kelly. It quotes litugists as being surprised by young people's interest but stilll predicting the Latin Mass will not catch on in a big way.

Nevertheless, more from the article:

“'I have no memory of the Latin Mass from my childhood,' Anne McLaughlin said at St. Leo’s. 'But for me it’s so refreshing to see him facing the east, the Tabernacle, focusing on Christ.'

"Her daughter Aine, 15, agreed and said, 'It’s so much prettier.'"

And more:

“'The Mass was like this for 1,500 years, and it was changed by committee in the 1960s,' Joseph Dagostino, 35, said after a Wednesday night service at St. Andrew’s. Joseph Strada, 62, said, 'When you can change the liturgy, you can change anything.' Mr. Dagostino interjected, 'Like the Church’s teachings on abortion or the sanctity of life.'”

Uh-oh, better excommunicate those last two (I'm being sarcastic in saying that); liberal Catholics don't like hearing from pro-Latin Mass pro-lifers!

The Tidings publishes an anti-contraception article

Cardinal Roger Mahony's archdiocesan newspaper, The Tidings, carries "Contraception: Catholic Teaching for Married Couples," a pro-life, anti-contraception article (click on this post's title), in its Nov. 9 issue.

The author is Vincentian Fr. Richard Benson of St. John's Seminary in Camarillo. Among his many points is this:

"Finally, it needs to be mentioned that there is growing awareness that certain 'contraceptives' like the birth control pill may actually have an abortive effect. It is becoming clear that hormonal methods not only suppress ovulation to prevent fertilization, and so are definitely contraceptive, but that also, at times, the contraceptive action fails and fertilization can and does take place. When this happens, these same contraceptives then work to make it impossible for the new life to implant in the uterus and thus cause an early abortion.

"This effect is much more likely in the case of hormone regimens designed to be ingested after intercourse like the 'morning-after' pill. When such methods are used after fertilization has already taken place, their only possible effect is abortive."

Pro-lifers have been pointing out the Pill's abortifacient effect since the 1970's. And even a pro-abortion lawyer acknowledged it in 1989, as the following attests:

"The New York Times of Thursday, April 27, 1989 carried a transcript of the oral arguments in the Supreme Court case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. On pB13 the following dialogue between Frank Susman, lawyer for the Missouri abortion clinics and Justice Scalia appears: 'Mr. Susman: 'The most common forms of what we most generally in common parlance call contraception today, IUD’s, low-dose birth control pills, which are the safest type of birth control pills available, act as abortifacients. They are correctly labeled as both.'" http://www.aaplog.org/collition.htm

For more information, get the wonderful books of a great authority on Catholic moral teaching about marriage, family, contraception, NFP and pro-life, Dr. Janet E. Smith. She is the Chairwoman of Life Ethics and a Professor of Moral Theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

You can find her web page at this site: http://www.aodonline.org/SHMS/

And you should see the One More Soul web site page and bibliography about Janet E. Smith, too:
http://www.omsoul.com/prof-janet-e-smith.php

In fact, an L.A. archdiocesan 40th anniversary celebration of Humanae Vitae next year, which ole Q has proposed, could line up Dr. Janet Smith as a speaker, along with Fr. Benson and others.

Go see "Bella" this weekend

Are you going to see "Bella" this weekend? It's the pro-life, pro-adoption movie starring pro-life Catholic actor Eduardo Verastegui.

"Bella" is no amateur production; on the contrary, it won the top prize at the Toronto Film Festival.

The movie has done well in limited release the last two weekends, and another hot weekend for it should induce more theaters to book it.

Click on this post's title to go to the movie's web site, and there you can find out where it's playing in or near your area. It's rated PG-13.

Okay, I haven't seen "Bella" yet. But pro-life friends who have seen this movie love it. So see a fine movie and help save babies by encouraging more theaters to show this pro-adoption film!

And be sure to tell your family, friends and relatives.

Bishop Vasa slams disobedient, pro-contraception Catholics

In his latest column (click on this post's title) in The Catholic Sentinel, the newspaper of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, Bishop Robert Vasa (pictured above) slams the pro-contraception Catholics who have disobeyed, and continue to disobey, the Church's teaching against artificial contraception.

I'm happy to see that my recent post about Humanae Vitae's approaching 40th anniversary echoes what this faithful bishop has said.

Incidentally, just today (Tuesday), a Reuters story by Will Dunham says this:

"A European study released on Tuesday has raised new concerns about the safety of women's long-term use of the birth control pill, suggesting increased risk of heart attack or stroke.

"Women who had used oral contraceptives were more likely than those who did not take the pill to have a buildup of plaque in their arteries, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.

"'The main concern is if you have higher plaque levels that you might develop a clot on one of these plaques and have a stroke or a myocardial infarction (heart attack) or sudden cardiac death,' Dr. Ernst Rietzschel of Ghent University in Belgium, who led the research, told reporters.

"'That's the main risk with having plaque, with having atherosclerosis.'

"...The researchers saw a rise of 20 to 30 percent in arterial plaque in two big arteries -- the carotid in the neck and the femoral in the leg -- for each decade of use."

Archbishop Ranjith is at it again, urging bishops to start obeying the Pope

You'll recall that on Oct. 6, Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said that bishops who put obstacles in the way of implementing Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio on the Latin Mass are "instruments of the devil."

Now, in an interview with the Papal web site Petrus, Archbishop Ranjith has slammed the recalcitrant bishops again and spoken of "an episcopal rebellion" going on. Catholic World News reports (click on this post's title):

"Archbishop Ranjith complained that in some dioceses, bishops and their representatives have set out policies 'inexplicably' limiting the scope of the Pope's motu proprio. He charged that the resistance to the Pope's policy has been driven by 'on the one hand, ideological prejudices, and on the other hand pride -- one of the deadliest sins.'"

It would seem likely that the Archbishop is making these statements with the permission of the Pope, and even at his request. What do you think?

You can see the interview in Italian at:
http://www.papanews.it/news.asp?IdNews=3840#a

For the sake of the faithful, Cardinal Mahony should initiate a major commemoration of Humanae Vitae on its 40th anniversay in 2008

Next year, July 25, 2008, to be exact, will be the 40th anniversary of Pope Paul VI's wonderful pro-life, pro-woman, pro-marriage, pro-family, anti-artificial-contraception encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae (On Human Life) (click on this post's title).

Shamefully, more than a few in the hierarchy and clergy in the USA and elsewhere dissented from the Holy Father's inspired, prophetic teaching and went on to mislead many of the faithful -- the opposite of being "pastoral."

Not St. Padre Pio (pictured above), though. On Sept. 12, 1968, shortly before his death, he wrote the Vicar of Christ to say:

"In the name of my spiritual sons and of the 'Praying Groups' I thank Your Holiness for the clear and decisive words You have spoken in the recent encyclical, 'Humanae Vitae', and I reaffirm my own faith and my unconditional obedience to Your inspired directives."

All this raises the question: Will Cardinal Roger Mahony initiate a major (not a token) L.A. archdiocesan-wide commemoration of Humanae Vitae in 2008? A big conference and regional and parish seminars would be helpful.

The need is great: So many of our L.A. faithful need true Catholic teaching and genuine pastoral guidance -- need to learn that using artificial contraception is evil, to hear that much of the time it aborts newly conceived babies, and to realize that children are a blessing from God.

In the meantime. can you cite any words Cardinal Mahony might have written or spoken against artificial contraception? I'll be happy to post links and quotes here.

(The image above is from padrepio.com )

High Vatican official: Bishops who disobey Pope on Latin Mass are "instruments of the devil"

You might have heard that Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith (pictured above) of Sri Lanka, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, made a blockbuster pronouncement recently.

Here it is. It was on Oct. 6, and he was speaking to Vereniging voor Latijnse Liturgie, the Dutch Latin Liturgy Association. According to an eyewitness at the talk, as cited by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (click on this post's title), here is what Archbishop Ranjith said:

"The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum on the Latin Liturgy of July 7th, 2007, is the fruit of a deep reflection by our Pope on the mission of the Church.

"It is not up to us, who wear ecclesiastical purple and red, to draw this into question, to be disobedient and make the motu proprio void by our own little, tittle rules. Even not if they were made by a bishops' conference. Even bishops do not have this right.

"What the Holy Father says, has to be obeyed in the Church. If we do not follow this principle, we will allow ourselves to be used as instruments of the devil, and nobody else. This will lead to discord in the Church, and slows down her mission. We do not have the time to waste on this, else we behave like Emperor Nero, fiddling on his violin while Rome was burning.

"The churches are emptying, there are no vocations, the seminaries are empty. Priests become older and older, and young priests are scarce.”

Read and re-read that statement! So much for the ordinaries in the USA who have made "little, tittle rules" about the Latin Mass.

And notice that Archbishop Ranjith sees the Latin Mass as a remedy for the churches and the seminaries emptying.

Maybe The Tidings should apologize for running columns by Fr. Richard McBrien that disparage the Latin Mass.

Also, Abp. Ranjith had said the following early last July, just before the Holy Father issued Summorum Pontificum:

"I will surprise you here: Nowhere in the [Vatican II] conciliar decree does it say that the priest must face the assembly, nor that the use of Latin is forbidden!

"If the use of the common tongue is permitted, notably in the liturgy of the Word, the decree is very clear that the use of the Latin language should be maintained in the Latin rite."

As then-Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, told the amazed reporters after he knocked out Sonny Liston in a huge upset, "What'cha gonna say now, huh?"

Cardinal sees "shadow side" to the New Mass

A Catholic News Service article (click on this post's title) in this week's issue of The Tidings quotes Vatican II luminary Cardinal Gottfried Danneels of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium, as making an interesting admission:

"'The active involvement of the people in the liturgy is an unparalleled gift of the [Second Vatican] council to the people of God,' he said.

"While endorsing that participation, he also cautioned that 'there is a shadow side' to it.

"'Participation and mutual celebration can lead to a subtle form of manipulation.... Those who serve the liturgy, both priests and laity, become its owners' instead of its servants, he said. This can lead to trivializing the liturgy, eliminating the sacred and turning it from the worship it is supposed to be into a mere social event, he added.

"Cardinal Danneels said the trend he was describing is not universal, but it would be wrong to ignore it in any serious attempt to evaluate the state of liturgical practice some 40 years after the council."

Cardinal Danneels said these things, and others, on Oct. 25 at a liturgical conference at the Catholic Univetsity of America.

These points by Cardinal Danneels have also been made for the past 40 years by so many Catholics whom the liberals continue to deride as "traditionalists."

Wow, I didn't know Cardinal Danneels was a traditionalist. Did you? (Just kidding. It's fun to see him make a traditonalist point.)

The heart of the matter

This little girl or boy is the heart of the matter. She or he is the reason people hate pro-lifers, too.

This little girl or boy is in the way. Her or his life needs saving -- from the abortionists, from the feminist ideologues, from the opinion-molders, from the politicians, and, yes, from the many pro-abortion Catholics.

Saving a little baby's life costs something. It's inconvenient. It takes prayer. Effort. Commitment. Love. Worst of all, people might think you're actually a conservative. A traditionalist. A caveman. What a fate!

Our Archdiocese of L.A. will never get better until everyone in it, from the top on down, hierarchy, clergy, religious and laity, stops ignoring the mass killings going on all around us every day and starts taking actual steps to save babies.

How is the Holy Spirit going to come, and how is God going to shower graces and blessings on us, when we keep letting His dear babies be put to death, and without Baptism?

Yes, the sweet little babies are the heart of the matter. Dear God, please give each of us a heart. Amen.
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The photo above is from images.scotsman.com