In Remembrance of 15 Years

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Francis

Today, the great Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, marks the 15th anniversary of marriage to my wonderful wife, Jeanne. Pondering our anniversary I am reminded of some of those great men and women saints whose holy friendships have so profoundly influenced the Church and the world: Augustine and Monica; Benedict and Scholastica; Francis and Clare. God, in His inscrutable providence, often pairs up individuals who will inspire and even incite one another to ever higher degrees of humility, charity, and ultimately sanctity which overflows into love of God and neighbor. I hereby share with you a brief sketch of two of these holy collaborators who lived in very difficult times, not unlike those that we are experiencing in today’s Church and world.

St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Francis was born to a noble family in Savoy in the southeast corner of France on August 21, 1567, the eldest of six sons. Studying theology in Paris he was came under a spiritual temptation to despair from which he was freed after making a vow of perpetual chastity and consecrating himself to the Blessed Mother Mary. He then went to Padua to take a law degree in 1591, returning to Savoy where a prosperous career awaited him. His father had even arranged an advantageous marriage for him. Instead, under the direction of his Jesuit spiritual director, Francis revealed his intention to enter the priesthood which caused a serious rift with his father. Francis patiently worked to convince his father of his true vocation who finally yielded, but only after the Bishop of Geneva obtained a papal patronage position for the young man. Francis was then allowed to be ordained in 1593.

Geneva was at the very center of Calvinist Protestantism so the Catholic bishopric had relocated to Annecy, some 20 miles away. In the second year of his priesthood Francis volunteered as a missionary to Le Chablais which had succumbed to the Calvinist doctrine. At great risk to his own life Francis began the daunting task of bringing the district back to the Catholic faith, even confounding Calvinist preachers sent out from Geneva. Several attempts against his life failed. By his heroic patience, kindness, and perseverance the young priest slowly began winning the hearts and minds of his listeners. For those who would not hear him he printed little tracts on the truths of the faith which he would slip under the household doors.

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Pope Caiaphas and the good Bishop

Posted on November 14, 2023 by Francis

We sadly witness today something unprecedented in 2,000 years of Church history ~ an assault on the truth by a Bergoglian Papacy which shields predator clerics, formally approves pagan rituals (the new Mayan rite Mass) and promotes sodomy (a la James Martin, S.J.) even as it censures and removes from office holy and faithful prelates simply for adhering to traditional teachings and morality. It would seem that the ‘Pope of Mercy’ has little mercy to spare for those who cross his agenda.

This past March he removed Bishop Daniel Fernandez Torres of Arecibo, Puerto Rico from his lawful See, providing no reason or explanation in what Bishop Torres decried as “a totally unjust action.” It appears that the good bishop had irritated the homo-friendly Archbishop of San Juan and the Vatican Politburo (formerly known as the Curia) by defending conscience objections to the onerous vaccine mandates being pushed onto the Puerto Rican clergy and religious. Apparently the ‘Church of Accompaniment’ quickly morphs into the ‘Bully Church’ when the issue is no longer basic morality but climate change, the environment, or invasive medical interventions.

Last weekend another Bergoglian lightning bolt fell from the sky, landing on the head of another faithful pastor, Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas. The bishop was unceremoniously removed from his office by diktat literally the day before the 400th anniversary of the treacherous and brutal martyrdom of St. Josaphat, the Ukrainian bishop killed for his tireless work to heal the schism between Rome and the Greek Orthodox believers. Like St. Josaphat, Bishop Strickland’s offense seems to have been a deep desire to reconcile factions, in this case traditional Latin Mass Catholics with his mainstream flock. As the good bishop explained, “I didn’t implement Traditionis Custodes (Bergoglio’s motu proprio intended to countermand Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum permitting wide use of the TLM) because I can’t starve part of my flock.”

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Stolen Elections

Posted on May 23, 2022 by Francis

The story of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty’s confrontations with Hungarian Communists immediately after World War II is a gripping tale of intrigue, deception, and power politics. After watching the recent documentary film 2000 Mules I was particularly intrigued by the many parallels between what we had witnessed in November, 2020 and the convulsions Hungary was subjected to during and after the 1947 election that ensconced a Soviet puppet state that would maintain its totalitarian grip over the Hungarian people for the next 42 years. At the time the only organized opposition to the Communist takeover came from the Catholic Church under the strong leadership of its Primate of Hungary, Cardinal Josef Mindszenty. Ultimately Mindszenty himself would be targeted by the Communists, arrested, and imprisoned for his intransigence towards the totalitarian ruling power.

But in order to show the world that a Communist takeover was “the will of the people” that crucial 1947 election had to be rigged to obtain the desired outcome. According to Dr. Nicholas Boer, a Catholic priest who was himself an important official in the Ministry of Education, “In the West and elsewhere, everybody knew that the Hungarian elections of August 30, 1947 took place under an anti-democratic electoral law (which excluded a considerable part of the voters)… We do not want to discuss in detail how the Communists committed numerous abuses with the so-called “blue slips” which enabled a man to vote at various polling stations several times.” Just an aside, as an election judge in Denver County in the early 2000s I personally witnessed something very similar to this after the county had abandoned precinct voting to set up various “polling stations” around the city. I remember reporting to my supervisor that the ticket given to a voter after initial check in then remained in the voter’s custody and could then be simply re-used at any other polling station to vote again without having to check in. My complaint was simply ignored.

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Gnosis ~ Light that leads into Darkness

Posted on August 12, 2021 by Francis

Christ is the true Light of the world, but there is another, false light which ultimately leads one only into darkness. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not comprehend it. The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world… yet the world knew him not.” (Jn 1: 5;9,10) And the reason it knew him not is because there has always been a competing, mendacious light in the world designed only to lead men astray. In the 18th century vicious pirates would sometimes light a fire at night along some rocky patch of shoreline hoping to lure unsuspecting ships to their destruction on the jagged shoals. Just so, the false light which the ancient enemy of God sets up as a guiding beacon is actually intended to lure unsuspecting souls into ruin on the spiritual shoals.

Such false beacons have taken various forms over the millennia, and one of the more dangerous of these deceptive “lights” has long been Gnosticism. Gnostic comes from a Greek word for knowledge, and Gnosticism encourages the notion that some secret learning or knowledge will somehow provide one the key to success and happiness. It treats the “light of reason” in the same way, as indeed a replacement for the Christian “light of faith.” Reason and knowledge is what will free one from this broken world of pain and evil. Sin is no longer a moral fault but merely the effect of ignorance. Spiritually this is a deadly notion because it deflects our attention away from combating sin, the real root cause of our unhappiness, and redirects the will to fighting other things like poverty and ignorance which are only the symptoms, not the real root of human problems.

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“Scrubbing” Our History

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Francis

The recent disgraceful treatment of St. Junipero Serra’s memory reminds me of the main character in George Orwell’s prescient classic 1984 who worked in the Ministry of Truth. His particular job in that ministry was the constant revision of history to fit the official party line at any particular moment. The past was to be constantly readjusted so that it would always jive with the present political narrative. Welcome to our current Orwellian sequel, 2020. Today’s version of the Ministry of Truth goes by various names: Black Studies, Women’s Studies, or Native American Studies. These “truth ministries” are now a part of every major university. There, history is constantly being rewritten to fit a narrow, “victim – oppressor” narrative. Classroom study is further supplemented by disruptive activism (or virtual lab sessions) which includes pulling down or defacing monuments to any supposed “oppressor” from the past.

Fr. Serra, the great Franciscan missionary who founded nine missions up and down coastal California during the late 18th century, has been vilified and had statues vandalized and toppled amidst accusations of genocide and racism leveled against him. But the facts do not bear such charges out. Nearly 5,000 Christian Indian converts lived in relative security on mission lands because Fr. Serra fought diligently to protect them, not only from tribal enemies but also from Spanish civil authorities and colonists who, too often, cheated and brutalized the natives. Serra’s first sin, according to the identity politics view of history, was being a white European male who brought his Catholic faith to the indigenous peoples of California. He is charged with Christianizing pagan Indians, and for that grevious misdeed he will not be forgiven by modern day academics harboring deep hostility towards Christianity. Continue reading →

What Good is Suffering?

Posted on January 14, 2019 by Francis

The modern-day Revolution is primarily a rejection not merely of the Christian social order but of God himself. He is, after all, the ultimate object of insurrection. And what is the nature of God’s supposed crime against humanity to warrants such rejection? The most common complaint lodged against him is that he allows pain and suffering in the world, and therefore he must be a cruel God. In light of the accusation we must honestly ask ourselves, is this a valid charge or a mere pretext?

We all experience some degree of suffering throughout life. This is an unavoidable fact of our human existence. And because there is suffering and yes, evil, many people conclude either, a) that God does not exist or, b) then he must be some kind of cosmic sadist bent on torturing hapless souls for no apparent reason. There is another side to the story, however, which is that human beings also enjoy an abundance of the good things that sustain life and give much happiness and joy besides.

We occupy a world of gratuitous abundance which too often we take for granted. The rains fall to water this fertile earth, thus providing us with food, fibers for clothing, medicine and much more. Then consider the countless natural resources which make our technical civilization possible. We have family, teachers, and friends who nurture us and enrich our lives. Most of all, the gift of life itself was bestowed liberally upon each one of us with no cooperation on our part. What about the particular talents, abilities, and creative drives not to mention the countless material goods that we enjoy and find fulfillment in? Consider the gift of time itself which provides us ample opportunity to grow and develop those talents? Do these things also not come from God? If so, he must be a very poor torturer, indeed. Continue reading →

A Church, “by Law Established”

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Francis

There once existed a special and very privileged land, an island nation blessed in every respect with benign climate, fertile soils, an industrious people, and plentiful natural resources. Its Christian inhabitants were prosperous and happy, lightly ruled by monarchs and able to redress any grievance through a people’s assembly. Common lands surrounded towns and villages providing the industrious peasantry with acreage to till their fields and graze their cows. A protective ‘Common Law’ combined with a ‘Great Charter’ (Magna Carta) ensured a framework of basic rights, making this island kingdom a shining bulwark of freedom among its many feudal neighbors.

Furthermore, the Catholic Church, endowed with lands and property over the centuries by wealthy and pious patrons, provided sustenance for the poor through her manifest resources. This common religion aligned with common law to foster social harmony. There was no standing army or organized police. Crime and theft were at a minimum because everybody in a town was known to everybody else. Continue reading →

Sacrifice in a Post-Calvinist World

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Francis

This is the final part of a four part series on Sacrifice. See previous posts for parts 1,2, & 3.

History is curiously cyclical. Approximately 1,500 years after Moses instituted the Jewish ritual sacrifice, it was ruthlessly cut off by the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Approximately 1,500 years after Christ instituted his Eucharistic Covenant, a group of Christian would-be reformers ‘discovered’ that cultic sacrifice was no longer something useful. In fact, many went so far as to brand it idolatrous. In doing so they disconnected the Mass from its ancient Jewish ancestry of Temple sacrifice ─ and 15 centuries of unbroken Christian Tradition. Sacrifice, the very heart of religion, was thereby dismissed as either mistaken or irrelevant. Continue reading →

Abiding Truth – Dwelling Among Us

Category Archives: History