Friday, May 29, 2009

God is in control


The world seems to be spinning out of control. The world seems to be on fire all the time. War, terrorism, economic disaster, abortion, and so many other evil and bad things and yet this is the opportunity to let go. God is in control, He is merciful and compassionate; He watches over the world and knows exactly all that is good and bad. In the midst of chaos and bad things He is there and nothing happens that he does not see or in His infinite wisdom permits. We are in his hands. He has given us His Son and that suffices for all. All our anxieties, all our worries, all of our frustrations and suffering, Christ is there to take them. He is the safe harbor in a stormy sea. He is the gentle hand that guides when we are lost. Dear Jesus! When the world seems to be hostile, when evil seems to be prevailing we trust in you. Victory is yours and all we have to do is trust in your love. Dear Jesus! Forgive us for our lack of faith and our lack of trust.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The American Dream up in smoke


Your 401 K has evaporated; Your house value is crashing through the floor; Your dollar buys a lot less than it did five years ago; You get a pink slip on the mail; Your bank has gone belly up and its Brook Brothers clad executives are begging with hand out to the government for money; You look for work and all you can find is low paying service jobs like flipping burgers at McDonald's; You go to Church on Sundays and consider your self a faithful Catholic and you find out that your government considers you a right wing extremist susceptible to radicalization and becoming a terrorist; Your taxes will go up; You look at the newspapers and find out your government now owns car companies, investment firms and banks; Good Morning America, the age of Barack Obama has dawned (and of course he inherits the brilliant economic stewardship of George Bush).

If you have a job and pay taxes now you find your self paying to prop up companies that should go broke. You will find that your savings have evaporated because billions and trillions of dollars have been stolen, taken away, evaporated by greed, mismanagement and outright dishonesty. You will see your country become a third world nation in your lifetime. All the good paying jobs went away a long time ago to China and Mexico where our patriotic companies pay .75 cents per hour. You could have worked for Wall Street but then again, they are in the unemployment lines and the smart ones probably sent their money to the Cayman Islands. You could be a doctor, but then again Obama will take care of that with his socialized medicine (even though the insurance companies have already ruined the system so you are not allowed to choose your doctor).

America has been sacked. Trillions of dollars have disappeared along with hundreds of thousands of jobs. GM, Chrysler, GE, and other American icons are going down the tubes and when the government owns Chase and other financial institutions it’s a clear sign that times are indeed changing. An economic coupe d’état of gigantic proportion just took place, transferring wealth to who knows who and destroying the American prosperity. A prodigous magic trick and pooff! all gone. Pax Americana is no more; the era of the American Dream has gone up in smoke along with your 401 K and home equity. Perhaps its time to turn to Christ; He won’t fail.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Women and the workforce


Our society has been reengineered in the past forty years to integrate women in the workplace. It has been tweaked to confront men and women in a competition field that puts them many times at odds with their mutual complementary nature. It has deprived men of better wages by bringing more labor from women and driving them down by sheer volume of competition. It has deprived them of the moral leadership of their families and households. Male father figures have become irrelevant and obsolete when a woman can live without a husband’s support. This may sound horrible to our new reengineered morality, but men have been emasculated and put in competition with women. Under the banner of liberation and equality women have been uprooted from their nurturing role of mothers and household caregivers and have been sent to the workplace as so many more “production units” where family comes a distant third to the company’s interests and the woman’s career path. It is no coincidence that since the so called “women’s liberation” movement and their integration into the workforce, divorce rates have skyrocketed, illegitimacy has become rampant and abortion has become a monstrous grinding mill of death for one million and a half babies every year. The black family has been destroyed as out of wedlock children and single mothers are the norm and Hispanic and Caucasian families are fast on the same track.

Living with one income today is very, very hard, it sometimes seems impossible. The cost of living and lifestyle expectancies demand so much of a household’s money that even between both parents working, sometimes is just enough to “make ends meet”. But if that is the situation, if it is so hard to make a good living with both parents working, what then is the benefit? Why sacrifice the children from the mother’s presence just to subsist in any case? But that is precisely what the social engineers had in mind from the beginning, the rending of the family; the destruction of the self sufficient one earner household. Betty Friedan, Margaret Sanger, Simmone de Beauvoir and their likes despised the Judeo-Christian family model and their goal was not a “better standard of living” but the destruction of the traditional family. Their dream was a world where children are the wards of the state, woman live totally independently from both children and men and where “work” will be the ultimate realization for the “sisters”. Work place integration was also seen as a way to have women become “like men” and share in the same vices and sins of their male counterparts; adultery, fornication, drinking, cavorting and even homosexuality.

The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower denounced at the end of his presidential term has been implemental in restructuring and reengineering society by allowing woman into military areas formerly restricted to men in combat related occupations. Of course pregnancy is out of the question for a combat soldier so artificial contraception and abortion have to be part of the package. Next World War (and of course there will be one, is just a matter of when) will see the carnage of women probably at the same of level of men’s in past wars. The only question is who will take care of the children when both mommy and daddy are war casualties? The answer of course is Big Brother government. In addition the integration of boot camp and basic training into coed barracks and training environments is part of the radical redefinition of sex roles.

Christ is the head of the Church and men are the head of their household. It is not a “misogynist” or prejudiced stand but the biblical model for the family. Husbands and wives are to submit to each other in a loving complementary relationship, but the male remains the head of his house. Children need their mother’s love and this is irreplaceable by the daddy or anyone or anything else. Mother’s are feminine, loving, nurturing, they impose order and care in the household, and they are relationship oriented. Men are the warrior figures, protective, aggressive in seeking the welfare of their families, breadwinners, task oriented. It is a complementary relationship of sexes.

Of course women have the ability to compete with men in all senses. We are not talking about inferior woman or superior man or vice versa. But the issue is not the capacity of men and women to compete or ability to perform, the question is the redefinition of the family, of the sex roles in the context of the traditional Christian concept of the leadership of men and complementarily of the sexes, against the radical new world of the secularist feminist vision. Women who work and earn money, who take care of their children and love them immensely, who make sacrifices each day by going to work and leave their children to daycare or grandparents or nannies, may be conflicted between their career path and their family. Sometimes it seems that they can have both, but the truth is that in the end the children always suffer and the family has ceased to be one thing and has become something else.

Our modern industrial society values men and women as production units, as clogs in a productive machinery geared towards the production of goods and services for a consumer oriented new morality. In our society be “productive” to “get ahead” to find “fulfillment” in work are the ultimate goals. Of course this view does not even apply to men in the Christian model, much less to women. We can see that the so called beneift programs offered by companies like maternity leave and daycare are just token concessions to the family; what these companies (most of all large corporations and bureaucratic government organizations) require is body and soul and 120% dedication to work that is incompatible with a Christian based family worldview. In addition these organizations require employees to sign on ethical codes of conduct that include acceptance of gay lifestyles, family planning programs and other “ethical” practices in opposition to a Christian and in particular Orthodox Catholic worldview

The integration of women in the work force and the armed forces is the radical revolution of a combined establishment of government, industry, armed forces, educational and activist policies geared towards the eradication of the traditional family. It has succeeded in transforming our society into a brave new world where families have been radically altered and redefined. As the need for the father leadership figure is discarded, other forms of so called “family” have been created; the “gay” family, the “lesbian” family, the “single parent” family, etc. All of them directly opposed to the traditional Christian family model, and even directly opposed to natural law and the survival of civilization, as in gay “marriages” where the infertile and unnatural union of persons of the same sex is offered as an “alternative” to children, where they will two “mommies” or two “fathers” while at the same time hiding the fact that the so called “parents” are engaging in sexually perverted, infertile, unnatural and disordered behavior.

Of course for struggling parents of traditional families, trying to make a living with both of them working, all of the above may sound “sanctimonious” as a someone put it , or superfluous or mean or narrow minded. But the reality is that if, as we said above, we look at the abortions, divorces, suicides, adultery, out of wedlock pregnancies, crime, and unhappiness of our modern society, we can clearly see that something is profoundly wrong, and this is not related to freedom or fulfillment in work place. The reality is that there is a hollow space in the hearts of men and women that only God can fill with his spirit and this can't happen unless we submit to His will.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009


An e-mail to a friend discussing the entertainment and media industry:
Entertainment is a big industry, probably one of the last really successful industries still based in the U.S. It makes billions each year in movies, records, videos, TV, news, etc. Also news has become an entertainment media both on its overwhelming liberal side (CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, BBC, etc.,) and also its conservative side (FOX News and radio talk show like Rush and others). Most of the book industry is also "entertainment" and most Americans read inane stuff like self help books, and romance and thriller novels. Sure there are good authors and books out there, but the overwhelming majority of books published and in the best seller lists are trash and propaganda mostly for the left.

It seems that the entertainment industry is the best and most pervasive propaganda tool of all time. It actually molds and educates the masses. Young people (as I did in my youth unfortunately) slavishly follow the latest media trends of the day in music, clothes, attitudes and morals.
Much or of our media in the U.S. preaches a gospel of death, indulgence and effette rebellion (rebellion against what?); if you notice all conflict is resolved by killing, shooting and fist fights in most movies, TV programs and books. Sex is the ultimate good, and in the media the fictional characters have sex outside marriage as a rule (it seems that faithful husbands and wives do not exist in the Hollywood mind). Religion is mostly ignored but when presented is almost invariably Orthodox Christians (Catholic or not) that are presented as the evil bad guys. It seems that the media's marching order is to present true believers as deranged, hypocritical, evil, frustrated, ignorant, obscurantist, paranoid and murderous. Even entertainment that portrays religion somewhat sympathetically, always presents any dogma as "rigid". By the way, have you noticed that conservative republicans are always the bad guys and how the liberal democrats are always the heroes?

TV has completely changed the behavior and pattern of our lives. It is on all the time, invading the mind even when not watched. Apologists of the media will say that it is inoffensive, but why then spend billions of dollars in advertisement on TV if it does not affect people's choices? TV has altered our mentality, it is both a drug for the masses and a medium of conveying the new morality in a very effective and pervasive way.

Most successful actors (and actresses of course) have made a deal with the devil, even if unaware of it. Yes, there are a few good films (sometimes even unwittingly) and a few good actors and directors, but they are often ostracized from the industry, relegated to a few films. Having conservative or orthodox beliefs in Hollywood is an almost sure disqualifier for employment. And these few good actors and directors are very often swallowed by the monster. Megastars like Mel Gibson are not given up by the Devil easily and often will be destroyed or reconverted to the mind of Antichrist.

Liberal Religion, Hollywood and Liberal Politics are the three heads of Antichrist. They just need the person who will become their own perverted and evil "Messiah"; a charismatic person that will bring about the destruction of the Church and the coming of the kingdom of Satan to the world.

Take care

Rudy

Monday, May 18, 2009

OBAMA, NOTRE DAME AND THE CULTURE OF DEATH


Notre Dame could have invited president Obama to their commencement and though it does show the political leaning of the university in general, that would have been uncontroversial. What is problematic is that they not only invited him but that the university chose to honor him going against the policies set by the Conference of Catholic Bishops. Notre Dame claims to be a Catholic institution and its president is a Catholic priest, Father Jenkins. He should have known better.

President Obama is charismatic and has an ease of speech and presence that makes him very popular and persuasive in a way, but even though he talks about consensus and reconciliation, his talk does not match his walk. He has in the past five months dismantled all of the prior administration checks on abortion and stem cell research. He is a steadfast and strong supporter of abortion and his constituency is the radical feminist, abortionist, gay and other liberal organizations. In choosing to honor the president the university shows that it agrees enthusiastically with of his views.

But this is not surprising since it would be my guess that a large majority of Catholics in the United States are liberal leaning and have very little information as to what the Church teaches. Most Catholics in the United States feel (not think, feel) that they can choose any part of the faith they like and discard the rest. Of course Catholicism is a religion with dogmas, not open to popular vote or debate, but for the vast majority of the American Catholic mind this is just not a reality they choose to accept. American individualism overrules any dogma. We could say that the dogma of American Catholics is that there is no dogma.

American Catholics feel free to disagree with their Church’s dogmas and they do inf fact ignore what they don’t like in areas like contraception, abortion, divorce, weekly mass attendance, etc. They want to be Catholic but have little understanding of what it means. Ask these Catholics what would happen if they choose to ignore the law and not pay their taxes because it somehow would violate their conscience. Of course they would be in a world of trouble with Uncle Sam and could loose their property and even go to jail. That sounds pretty dogmatic indeed. Catholics also like to complain about the authoritarian hierarchy in Rome. But in reality, what power does Rome have? Can Rome send you to jail? Can Rome come into your house and force you to obey? What power does Rome have compared to the power of the American federal government over the life of its citizens?

In honoring president Obama Notre Dame is demonstrating the same kind of thought. Not surprisingly the majority of the students enthusiastically agreed with their leaders and I am sure that many in the clergy were also enthusiastically supportive. But when you choose to ignore your Church teachings on such life and death things such as the killing of innocent life, natural law issues such as the invalidity of any gay “marriage”, fundamental love and marriage issues such as contraception, then you have to ask yourself why you want to be called Catholic in the first place.

The answer is that we are deceived by a contemporary culture steeped in a satanic rebellion against God. But Satan is very clever. He is now assuming the role of an angel of light. Inclusion, tolerance, diversity are the buzz words that the satanic tyranny of the relative is now using and with it has duped a great majority of the world, including, probably a great majority of the Catholic people. A culture of death has taken over with over 40 million innocent lives taken by abortion since 1973 in the United States, with euthanasia and assisted suicide gaining ground and with the gay movement gaining the battle in all fronts of the culture war. The fact is that we are living in an Antichrist culture that has already won the culture wars and it is now in the stage if taking over politically. In a few years, perhaps before Obama’s first term is over, we will see how the Catholic Church will be marginalized, ridiculed and probably even outlawed with hate crime laws. It has already been bankrupt due the satanic infiltration of gay child molesters and weakened internally by so called “dissenters”. The so called “liberal” Catholic wing will establish a parallel “inclusive” church that will water down all the dogmas of the faith, just like the liberal Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. that will be acceptable to the New World Order system already in place. The only thing for orthodox believers is to try to live their faith, persevere, prepare for the worst, pray and wait for the Lord Jesus to rescue its Church.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Celibate?


I am originally from West Texas, more precisely from the border town of El Paso. About eight months ago I had to leave El Paso and come and reside near Boston up here in frigid New England due to a work opportunity. I am married and have three daughters but due to the circumstances they and my wife had to stay behind in Texas.
In the past months I have seen my wife twice and yet I have not decided out of loneliness to have an extramarital affair. Why? Well, because I love my wife, because I am conscious of my marital vows, because I know full well the damage that would do to my family.
Why bring this up? Well a few days ago Father Alberto Cutie caused a scandal when some paparazzi took pictures of him cavorting and kissing with a woman in a Florida beach. Of course Alberto Cutie is a Catholic priest and a such he made a vow of chastity and celibacy. Behaving the way he did causes grave scandal to the Church, his ministry and his flock. Now, I am not a paragon of virtues and I am definitively not as good looking as father Cutie. But we can guess that being celibate for his whole career is harder than being faithful to your wife when you are apart for months. But the situation has some similitude; Father Cutie made a commitment to his priestly vows of chastity and celibacy, no one forced him to accept the Church discipline on this. He could have rejected such discipline and instead chosen the road of marriage and raising a family.
I sympathize with the father, he is a young, good looking successful person and the lure of sex is always there. But whenever you join any organization, be it the army, a sports club, a social group, an employer, they all have rules you must follow. With the Church is the same, and one of the Church’s rules is that of a celibate priesthood. If I do not like or agree with an organization’s rules then I should not joint them or leave them. Father Cutie knew that his very public affair was bound to cause grave scandal and he chose to ignore his promise and vows.
All priests are joined to the Church in the same manner that a husband is joined to his wife and doing what father did is equivalent to being unfaithful in marriage. He should have thought carefully about his actions given his very public persona. Instead he went ahead and now the damage done is grater than all the good he did in his media ministry.
Not only that, but now he wants to play the victim of an intransigent Church and wants it to change to accommodate his preferences. This is typical, those whose sexuality is out of bounds with what the Church teaches instead of repenting and changing their ways want the Church to change its doctrines to accommodate the sexual preferences of its members.
Father Cutie has two roads ahead of him; one is to ask the Church to revoke his vows and hang the cloth for good so he can marry. The other is to repent, be silent, do penitence and perhaps after a few years of reflection and humility return to the ministry. I pray that he makes the right choice.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Holy Father visits Bethlehem


The whole papal visit has been so politicized but it was probably inevitable given the realities of the area today. The pope is a messenger of Christ and therefore peace and neutral to any political faction. But there is so much hatred between Palestinian Arabs and Jews that any action or statements by the Holy Father is bound to dissatisfy either or all the factions. This is a trip fraught with thorns and landmines (figuratively of course).

The visit to the Palestinian Bethlehem was a sounding board for the Palestinian movement. Good or bad? I don’t know but it is clear that we seldom get to hear the Palestinian side of things in the media; it is Israel that always gets the whole sympathetic ear.

If the pope represents anybody (in the human sense) in that land today it is the Palestinian Christians, a minority lodged between the Muslims Arabs and the Israelis. But the visit will probably cause the Israeli government’s displeasure and may an obstacle to the Church goals to administer the Holy sites.

Our Lord was born in this now bustling city when it was a small little town two thousand years ago. When our Lord was born Israel was a complex landscape of occupying Roman armies, a tyrannical Jewish King, different Jewish sects and minorities of foreigners all embroiled in a geopolitical game of power. How little things have changed!

We have been trained to sympathize with the Jewish state by years of media and propaganda, but it is very interesting to hear the Palestine side for a change. I believe that the Israelis have a right to their state and have the weight of history and Tradition. But the Palestines also have a right to live in peace and have their rights. The Holy Father is navigating a very difficult situation.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Holy Father in Holy Land


I followed the Holy Father’s visit to the Holy Land on EWTN last night. What a day for the pope. First the visit to the Shoa Memorial; the whole thing was so stiff and formulaic. The Holy Father looked uncomfortable, kind of lost. I guess the whole thing is supposed to be grim, but there was a glacial attitude about the whole event. Then later the surreal and just wacky situation at the ecumenical meeting where a Muslim cleric got up (previously unannounced I think) and started to rant in Arabic (or at least I think it was Arabic). The pope simply had to endure without understanding what was being said. The uncomfortable look from the audience gave a hint and then a Cardinal tried to get the ranting Mullah off stage unsuccessfully.

The Holy Father’s words were right on during the inter religious event, only truth can give a fixed point of reference to seek a peaceful coexistence. Yet I think that neither the Arabs nor the Israelis want this. The Muslims hatred for Israel precludes any meaningful dialogue and on the other hand the Jews stiff intransigence just makes things worse. Neither the Muslims nor the Jews want to hear about Jesus Christ as savior either; they are so stiffed necked to the Gospel.

There has been calls from Jewish religious leaders to have the pope declare that the Jewish people need not convert or accept Jesus Christ as Messiah. This is preposterous! It would negate the whole commandment of the Lord to announce the Gospel to the whole world, gentile or Jew; if the Jews are exempt from the Gospel, then so why not also the Muslims or Buddhists or even Atheists for that matter. If Jesus is not the Lord of all then he is not the Lord of anyone or anything. In the other hand the Muslim intolerance and outright hostility is increasing. Converting to Christianity in most Muslim countries is a grave offense and can lead to ostracism, discrimination, jail time and even a death sentence.

I think that working from the assumption that Jews and Muslims want to “coexist” peacefully and in tolerance is a flawed premise. Islam is NOT a religion of peace; it is a religion of dominance and if followed to its logical consequences means the eradication of all other faiths. And that is just fine; Christianity also seeks to convert the whole world. The difference is that Islam justifies and blesses the killing of others in order to establish Islam. Christian martyrs die for their faith but in peaceful submission, Muslim martyrs die killing others. And our elder brothers the Jews, they will not have none of Jesus; His name is even unmentionable to them.

The pope is right to look for peace and understanding but I think we are at a stage in history were things are so out of quilter, so radicalized that it is naive to expect that Muslims, Jews, Secularists, etc., will just give up their own claims and sing Kumbaya together. We should pray that all of these people will come to the light of truth and that truth is only found in the Lord of Creation, the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, God in the flesh.