Blessed Karl of Austria Latin Mass

I was asked by a reader to promote the below event and was happy to oblige.

2nd Annual Blessed Karl of Austria Latin Mass, Veneration of Relic, Luncheon, and Conference

Blessed Karl

Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary

Second Annual

Traditional Latin Mass in Honor of Blessed Karl

Veneration of the Relic

Luncheon & Conference

Sunday, 21 April 2013, 1:00 PM

(Holy Rosary & Confessions begin at 12:30 PM)
Veneration of the Relic After Mass

Saint Titus Church

952 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa, Pennsylvania 15001

Celebrant:

Fr. Gregory Plow, TOR

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Luncheon & Conference Immediately After Mass
in St. Titus Church Hall

Featured Speakers:

Suzanne Pearson

Founder of the Blessed Karl Shrine

St. Mary's Church, Washington, DC

Topic: Blessed Karl's exile, death, and burial on the Madeira Islands

Raymond de Souza, KM

Director of Evangelization and Apologetics, Diocese of Winona, MN
and EWTN Series Host
Topic: The Dictatorship of Relativism and the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Reservations Required for Luncheon & Conference
Cost: $15/person
Make check payable to: "Knights of Columbus 2161"
and mail to: 2335 Concord Street, Aliquippa PA 15001
Deadline for Paid Reservations: Friday, 12 April 2013

Sponsored By:
Knights of Columbus Woodlawn Council 2161
Traditional Latin Mass Guild

EVERYONE IS WELCOME

 

http://knightsofcolumbuslatinmass.blogspot.com/

Thoughts on the Election of Pope Franics

When His Holiness Pope Francis was elected less than one week ago, I met the news with an uncertain heart.  I had never heard of Cardinal Bergoglio, so I knew nothing about his past, his views, or his orthodoxy.  Because of that, I wasn't elated like I was when Benedict was elected almost eight years ago.  I went home after work (as a governmental employee I am not supposed to use the internet for personal purposes) and researched Cardinal Bergoglio on the internet.  What I found (mainly on Rorate Caeli) plummeted my into the depths of depression.  My friends over on Rorate had little good to say about our new pope.  I began to fear that he would suspend Summorum Pontificum and persecute traditional Catholics like myself.  Fr. Zulhsdorf was mostly silent the first 24 hours or so after Francis' election, so I couldn't go to him for help.  I began to judge his pontificate in the first 8 hours of reign, and even found myself hoping he wouldn't live long enough to do much damage to the Church.  Then I found myself feeling guilty for thinking like this.  I was an errant son showing ill will towards his spiritual father.  I realized that I must show respect, obedience, and love towards our new Holy Father, and give him a chance.  He may not have been the man I would have voted for if I were a Cardinal Elector, but he is the man God has allowed to lead His Church.  May God grant him the wisdom, strength, and courage to lead the Church faithfully.  Let us all pray for our Holy Father Pope Francis.

Papal Resignation

My readers must forgive me (if I still have any) for such long periods between posts.  My wife gave birth to our first born child last month, and between the birth and the pregnancy before I have been quite preoccupied the last several months.  Despite my busy life as a new father, I had to post on this historical day:  a papal resignation.

I sat down this morning to have my breakfast and watch the news only to learn that sometime whilst I slept the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI is resigning the papal office effective February 28, 2013.  While a papal resignation is not unprecedented in the 2,000 history of the Catholic Church, it is certainly not the norm.  It is the norm, however, for a pope to die in office.  This pope will not.  I have to admit that I was shocked, stunned, and even felt a little betrayed.  Why is he doing this?  How can the pope who was such a friend to the traditional cause call it quits?  How could this man, the holder of the highest honor on Earth give it up?  I cannot know the mind of the Holy Father or the specific reasons why he is resigning (besides the advanced age and ill health he has cited as the reason), only God can.  I do not have hopes that history will judge him well (has history judged St. Peter Celestine well?), but I pray God will grant him happy and grace-filled days until he meets his final reward.

The media and liberal "Catholics" will call for the next pope to change the Church's teachings on a myriad of issues such as abortion, male-only priesthood, homosexuality, etc.but rest assured that the Holy Ghost preserves and protects all successors of St. Peter from entering into doctrinal error.  Let us pray for the Holy Father and for the man who will succeed him.

Military Service

I recently received a question from a reader:  "Giving the circumstances that we're living today in the United States, do you believe that a traditionalist catholic monarchist can join the Armed Forces, more precisely the Marine Corps?"  I thought that my response warranted a post due to the complexity of the question.

Firstly, I must remind my readers that I served in the Army National Guard as an Officer Candidate for about a year-and-a-half almost ten years ago (I was injured in the line of duty--non-combat related--and was subsequently given a medical discharge from the service).  When I joined I was a neo-conservative Republican, and did not have my present monarchist views.  It was during my service that I heavily developed my current political views (although I believe I have always been somewhat of a monarchist due to interest in royalty from a young age).  Would I serve in the U.S. military now as a Traditional Catholic monarchist?  Absolutely not.

From a political standpoint, I would have to swear to uphold the constitution of the United States.  That constitution is a republican (read that again--republican with a small "r") constitution.  I do not believe in the efficacy of republics, nor do I believe that this republic should ever have been established.  How could I swear before God (although a recruit does have the option of not invoking God's name in his oath) that I would uphold something in which I do not believe?  The U.S. military has also become the self-appointed world police, meddling in other nations' affairs with or without any legitimate American interest.  We talk a lot about spreading freedom and democracy around the world  (a favorite phrase of neo-conservatives from the Bush era wars).  Would a monarchist really want that?  At least not the American version of "freedom and democracy." 

Looking at the military itself, this nation's military isn't the same military in which I served.  When I was in the Guard the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy was in full force.  Now homosexuals can openly serve without repercussions.  A Traditional Catholic would have to ask himself if he feels comfortable serving in close quarters (i.e. sleeping, showering) with open homosexuals.  I don't think the military is any more filled with gays than the general population, but it is a possibility that a new recruit might serve with a homosexual or two.  Our culture is extremely tolerant of homosexuality, so for young people (even young Catholics) this may not prove a stumbling-block, but it's at least something to think about.

From a moral standpoint, you would be serving to defend the U.S. and its way of life.  What about our nation and our culture is worth killing and dying for?  We are a nation that kills its own unborn children for the crime of being conceived under less-than ideal circumstances (and in many cases just because they are unwanted).  We are a nation that is increasingly perverting the institution of marriage by trying to redefine marriage as a union between any two people, even two homosexuals.  We are a nation that is increasingly losing any sense of right and wrong, good and bad, grace and sin.  I don't see much in our culture that is worth dying for, far less worth killing for. 

The military is ultimately led by our elected president.  Our current president, Barack Obama, is an enemy of God's Holy Catholic Church.  He seeks to put limits on our religious freedom by requiring Catholic institutions to provide contraception and abortofacient drugs to its employees or be fined.  I would not serve under this man.

I am not a priest nor a theologian.  If you are seriously considering joining any branch of the U.S. military I would suggest that you consult with a good priest-confessor and express your questions and concerns about joining the service.  I am not in a position to give you spiritual advice, but I can say that if it were me there is nothing that would compel me to serve in this nation's military again.

On Election Eve

I posted a similar entry a few years ago before an election, and it's been a while since my last post, so I thought I'd better post away.

I look upon the country on this evening before a presidential election.  My home state of Washington votes entirely by mail-in ballot, so I have already voted.  I voted for Mitt Romney--reluctantly.  I was very leery of voting for a Mormon (Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, despite their supposed belief in Jesus Christ--their belief in God and His only begotten Son is so far removed from acceptable Christian belief that it amounts to a pagan religion), and I am not totally convinced of the sincerity of his pro-life views.  But his opponent Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion president America has ever had, and an enemy to the Holy Catholic Church (by his repression of the Church's freedoms under his health care law), so I voted for, as Fr. Zuhlsdorf said in one of his posts, the most conservative guy who has a chance of winning.  I don't like Romney, but I like the prospects of another four years under Obama far, far less.

In my home state of Washington, we have a measure on the ballot that would legalize gay marriage.  The government can do whatever it wants, define marriage however it wants, but that won't change the reality that marriage is a sacred bond ordained by God Himself between one man and one woman.  I as a Catholic of course voted to reject the measure, but unfortunately see the nation-wide legalization of gay marriage as inevitable.  If gay marriage becomes any more widespread, it is only a matter of time before someone wants to define it as a union between one man and two women, or three men or three women, or one woman and four men.  Hey, why not define it as a union between any two persons (such as a man and a pre-pubescent girl)?  Take God out of the equation and it all runs down hill from there.  It may seem appalling and outlandish to consider a grown man marrying a little girl, but it is only a matter of time (100 years ago the concept of gay marriage would have seemed outlandish).  Without God, there is no just law.

I don't think Obama (or the gay marriage crowd in my state) is the anti-Christ, and I don't think the end of the world will come the day after Obama is re-elected (if he is), but I'm not feeling well at all about the moral prospects of our nation or my state.  As Fr. Zuhlsdorf recently said on his blog, we may deserve as punishment for our sins the results we get in this election, but pray we get better than we deserve.

Freedom of Speech Gone Awry

Before I continue with this post, I warn my readers that the content of this post may be offensive to some of my more easily offended readers.  The language and content is adult in nature.  If you think you may be offended by this please do not read on.

Back in February several members of a Russian Feminist Punk rock band called Pussy Riot stormed into the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow wearing wearing ski masks (a picture of the band is above) and attempted to play a song protesting the presidency of Vladimir Putin.  The song was titled "Holy Shit."  While details are difficult to find [I originally found a detailed description of the events on Wikipedia that described the members of the group mocking the Agnus Dei (or rather the Russian equivalent of the Agnus Dei) and, if memory serves me right, compared Putin to a relation of Satan within the chant] but as of the writing of this post such details are missing from the Wikipedia site.  Readers who would like to see an actual recording of this event can follow this link on YouTube, but be forewarned that you may see related videos on the sidebar related to this topic that may contain nudity. The members involved in this event were recently convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in prison.  The media and governments around the world have shown the all-too familiar shock at the harshness of the sentencing as well as the Russian government's encroachment upon freedom of speech.

This unfortunate even isn't about freedom of speech, it's about the violation of private property and civil decorum, not to mention blasphemy.  Citizens to do not have the right to storm into a church and desecrate the House of God by screaming vulgarities and blasphemies in the name of political protest.  If the members of Pussy Riot needed to do this, they could have done it from countless street corners, not from the altar of an Orthodox Church.  Is the punishment harsh?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Freedom of speech has its limits, and they violated those limits.  It's time for the world to stop their belly aching in support of Pussy Riot and start standing up for the rights of Christians to worship in the privacy of their own churches without worrying about political dissenters storming in and causing a scene.  With the world's opposition to all that faithful Christians believe, I have a feeling that these kinds of events will become more widespread.  God help us against persecution!

The Fate of the EU

Europe is on the edge of economic disaster due to the EU experiment.  Most of the media chooses to believe that the problem will be eventually fixed, but I believe the EU will fall.  It's nice to see a writer acknowledging that it can happen. (Original post here. My comments in red).

Europe is in more danger than at any time since the 1930s. One nationalist demagogue could cause an earthquake

By Thomas Pascoe July 13 3012

Ours is a complacent continent. Despite impending events that would have precipitated a revolution in almost any other place at almost any other time in history – either a collapse of the currency or the complete secession of budgetary control to a supra-natural body in the EU – we expect the fabric of European society to endure without major changes. I think we are wrong. (This is a fact many will not admit:  Europe is complacent and refuses to see the proverbial writing on the wall.)

There is a presumption of perpetual peace in Europe which rests in turn on a presumption of the perpetuity of our existing capital structures. Once the latter are undermined, the former is called into question. (Europeans think that with the creation of the EU war is a thing of the past in Europe--I think otherwise due to man's fallen human nature.)

The great wars of the secular age have all been fought between ideologies which seek to restructure the relationship between capital and the people. As popular support grows for such plans, Western Europe is entering its most dangerous phase since the 1930s.

As in the early 1930s, the decision on the fate of financial order on the continent rests with debtor countries who admit no guilt for their debt. And, once again, faith is being placed in the treaty system to maintain order. To push the analogy further, I believe that the dominant form of political organisation over the next decade will be nationalism. We are one charismatic leader away from a complete re-ordering of the continent. (Think of what a monarch or exiled royal could do to bring back monarchy to his people or strengthen the monarch.)

The problem with reparations, halted under the Nazi Party in 1933, was not that the Germans were unable to pay a debt which amounted to 83pc of GDP in 1923: on the contrary, they were (I recommend AJP Taylor’s Origins of the Second World War on this point). Instead, it was that neither Germany nor pre-Anschluss Austria recognised the "war guilt" clause in the Treaty of Versailles which justified such payments.

Not only did the debtors believe the debts unjust, so did the creditors. Sophisticated opinion in Britain, shared by Cabinet ministers and Keynes, held that the peace terms were unduly harsh on the Germans and would cause unnecessary deprivation. This combination of stubbornness and sympathy ensured that when debts eventually went unpaid, no nation intervened to support the existing financial system.

There is a parallel here with the contemporary debts of the Club Med states, although their debts are higher – and headed to 170pc of GDP, according to Fitch.
T
he striking feature of almost every dispatch from Greece, Italy (downgraded today by Moody’s), Spain and Portugal is that, irrespective of the commitments of the political class, the population at large feel no culpability for the debts their leaders have amassed. They are willing to endorse plans to pay these debts back only to the extent that such plans extend further credit and allow public sector wages to be paid.

There are two broad routes Europe can take from here.

Firstly, the nations of the eurozone agree to full fiscal union. “The train is on the tracks,” one senior European diplomat told me this week. “It cannot be stopped.” Under such a deal, the south would be bribed into swapping debt sharing for its fiscal autonomy. The electorates of the north would be railroaded by their politicians into accepting responsibility for debts they did not incur and peoples they do not share a deep bond with. (This would be the worst thing the Europeans could choose:  further relinquishment of national sovereignty.)

The second is that the eurozone falls apart under the weight of its internal contradictions. Individual sovereigns would now seek to redenominate eurozone paper into local currency but, even allowing for inflation and devaluation, the burden would still be onerous, particularly as new sources of credit would effectively be cut off once the ECB ceased to be. (A good reason to bring back the gold standard?)

In both circumstances, the obvious political development would appear to be the rise of nationalism, with its face set against the European project and international debt obligations.

Politicians in the modern era have sought to divide and rule. Because of the lack of an external enemy, appeals are made to sectional groups in the electorate at home – ethnic, sexual, religious or economic communities who are then set against other groups in their own nation.

This crisis will produce a window for a skilled politician to unite the entire country against its debt obligations, against international finance, just as the Fascist parties did in the 1930s. No matter which path the EU chooses, the loss of either national sovereignty or proper enforcement mechanisms through the EU gives rise to an opportunity for a nationalist politician willing to repudiate his nation’s debts and start again. (Perhaps the reader can interpret "nationalist" here to be a leader to puts the interests of his own nation first over that of other nations and leave behind the usual racist connotations ascribed to the term "nationalist.")

Ending reparations in 1933 did not cause a crisis in global finance. Germany defaulted on its payments to Britain, which in turn ceased to honour its debts to the United States. Each creditor was large enough to take the hit. Government debt in the modern era is different. The leverage used by banks trading secondary and derivative products means that for every €1 which, say, Greece owes, €100 is set to be lost if she were to default completely.

With leverage on such an irresponsible scale, all nations would be forced to re-examine the relationship between capital and individuals in the event of default, with all of the conflict and strife that would entail.

Europe is one demagogue away from causing an earthquake in global finance such that the current problems seem a tremor in comparison. If Silvio Berlusconi – the only truly populist politician the continent has produced in the last half a century – were 20 years younger, I fancy it would have been him. As it is, a great deal now depends on whether a man will emerge somewhere in Europe capable of pushing nervous and resentful electorates over the precipice to outright default.

I would not bet against it.

(Think of the possibilities if a royal were to stand against the economic integration and lead his people to national sovereignty!  We could just see the return of monarchies across Europe.  These leaders need not be demogogues, just charismatic and passionate leaders.  Is it likely?  I don't know, but I wouldn't rule it out.)

The Fourth of July

The above picture demonstrates how I spent my Fourth of July:  proudly flying the Union Jack for all the world to see (or at least everyone who happened to drive down the street on which I live).  It's rather odd being a monarchist in America on the Fourth of July.  I see the American flags everywhere, patriot sayings such as "God bless America" or "God bless our troops."  I can even hear from my house the fireworks display that my city puts on in our downtown.  For me it's just another day, a day I don't have to work (but still get paid for it!), a day people (not me!) celebrate some far-off war fought against some long-dead king. For me it's a day that's just a little sad for me, a day on which I wish America had never rebelled against King George.  Today makes me wish I lived in Great Britain--hopefully someday.  God save the Queen!

Royal Weather

I just had to share this...hilarious royal humour.