I am Catholic

"Spiritual but not religious"?

2011-10-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

Can Christians NOT Be Religious? | VirtuousPla.net: "I would like to propose a challenge that in fact one cannot be a Christian and not be religious in the true sense of the word."

"Am Spiritual but not Religious"

Great post; how many times have you heard that ; "Am spiritual but not religious"?

Read the rest of the post here

'via Blog this'

Protect Conscience Rights

2011-10-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

Protect Conscience Rights: "Twenty Catholic leaders sign joint statement for reform of health care law
HHS mandate harms religious freedom, access to care"

Catholic organizations urge the protection of conscience rights before the push by the Obama administration to force catholic organizations and taxpayers to pay for abortions and contraception.

Read the story here.

'via Blog this'

Cowardice!

2011-10-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

Latest Headlines : Catholic school principal may lose job over 40 Days for Life - Catholic Culture: "The board of directors of Christ the King School, a K-8 Catholic school in Winnipeg, may fire the school’s principal after he offered community-service credit to seventh and eighth graders who attended a 40 Days for Life rally. Principal David Hood was asked not to report to work on October 13."

And this Canadian school calls itself "Catholic", but they kowtow to the the government if fear of loosing their tax exemption. Cowards! and kudos to the principal.

Read the rest

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Das ElevatorMusik, PapstTrip Edition

2011-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

Whispers in the Loggia: Das ElevatorMusik, PapstTrip Edition: "To be sure, gang, while the liturgy's always supposed to give God's people a lift, the following feels a bit of a stretch."

Opening of Berlin Papal Mass from Rocco Palmo on Vimeo.

Oh boy, now that is elevator music, or worse.
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Archbishop Dolan defends marriage in letter to president Obama.

2011-09-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

"The Administration's failure to change course on this matter will, as the attached analysis indicates, precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions."

Archbishop Dolan's letter to President Obama must be read. It is a defense of marriage against the Federal Government effort's to change its definition to include so called "gay marriage" and put the strength of government against those opposed to such radical redefinition. See the complete letter here.
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St. Vincent de Paul: Faith in Action.

2011-09-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Vincent de Paul: "His zeal for souls knew no limit; all occasions were to him opportunities to exercise it. When he died the poor of Paris lost their best friend and humanity a benefactor unsurpassed in modern times."

Saint Vincent de Paul shows a life of faith in action. His works of mercy speak louder than any sermon as his life was dedicated to help the poor, sick, and unfortunate slaves. His biography is an example of love in action as he organized all kinds of charity ministries and mobilized believers into working towards those less fortunate. Tomorrow, September 27 is his memorial and he is a worthy example of faith that is demonstrated by works, a faith that is alive and active, obeying our Lord's commandment to love others as we love ourselves. Read his bio here.

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Cardinal rips suicide ballot effort - Boston.com

2011-09-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

Cardinal rips suicide ballot effort - Boston.com: “We are called upon to defend the gospel of life with courage and resolve,’’

Good for the Archbishop! He defends life against the proposed euthanasia legislation, read the article here.

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Kill All The Babies Before It Is Too Late

2011-09-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

Kill All The Babies Before It Is Too Late | Blogs | NCRegister.com: "A Palm Beach jury has awarded a couple $4.5 million dollars because medical professionals did not alert them soon enough that they needed a hitman in surgical scrubs to kill their child before it was too late."

The Culture of Death gallops ahead in its war on children and life in general with the stupid collaboration of many. Read the rest of the story from the Catholic Register here.

'via Blog this'

London Times officially atheist

2011-09-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

Did you know that it is the Times newspaper’s official view that a creator God doesn’t exist? Neither did I | CatholicHerald.co.uk: "“The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason”"

The London Times is officially atheistic, are you surprised? I am not, nor would I be if the New York Times, Times Magazine and others would come out with the same "policy". Read the whole peace by William Oddie.

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The Holy Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria

2011-08-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to the earlier blog I reproduce here the legend of the Holy Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria

Commemorated on March 19th

The Holy Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria and with them the Martyrs Claudius the Tribune with his wife Hilaria and their sons Jason and Maurus, and Diodorus the Presbyter and Marianus the Deacon.
St Chrysanthus came from a pagan family who had moved to Rome from Alexandria. He received a fine education, and among the books he read were those in which pagans discussed Christianity. The young man, however, wanted to read books written by Christians themselves. He finally managed to find a copy of the New Testament, which enlightened his rational soul.
Seeking someone to instruct him in the Holy Scriptures, he found the presbyter Carpophoros hiding from persecution, and received holy Baptism from him. After this, he began to preach the Gospel. Chrysanthus' father tried to turn his son from Christianity, and finally married him to Daria, a priestess of Minerva.
St Chrysanthus managed to convert his wife to Christ, and the young couple mutually agreed to lead celibate lives. After the death of the father, they began to live in separate houses. St Chrysanthus converted several young men to Christ, and many pious women gathered around St Daria.
The people of Rome complained to the eparch Celerinus that Sts Chrysanthus and Daria were preaching celibacy and attracting too many young men and women to monasticism. St Chrysanthus was sent to the tribune Claudius for torture.
The torments, however, did not shake the bravery of the young martyr, since the power of God clearly aided him. Struck by this, the tribune Claudius himself came to believe in Christ and accepted holy Baptism together with his wife Hilaria, their sons Jason and Maurus, and all his household and soldiers. When news of this reached the emperor Numerian (283-284), he commanded them all to be executed. The Martyr Claudius was drowned in the sea, and his sons and soldiers were beheaded. Christians buried the bodies of the holy martyrs in a nearby cave, and St Hilaria constantly went there to pray. Once, they followed her and led her off for torture. The saint asked that they give her a few moments to pray, and as soon as she finished, she gave up her soul to God. A servant buried the saint in the cave beside her sons.
The torturers sent St Daria to a brothel, where she was protected by a lion sent by God. A certain man who tried to defile the saint was knocked to the ground and pinned down by the lion, but the lion did not kill him. The martyr preached to them about Christ and set them to the path of salvation.
They threw St Chrysanthus into a foul-smelling pit, into which all the filth of the city flowed. But a heavenly light shone on him, and the pit was filled with a sweet fragrance.
Then the emperor Numerian ordered Sts Chrysanthus and Daria to be turned over to the executioners. After many cruel tortures, the martyrs were buried alive in the ground.
In a cave near the place of execution, Christians began to gather to honor the anniversary of the saints' martyrdom. They celebrated Church services and partook of the Holy Mysteries. Learning of this, the pagan authorities sealed the entrance to the cave, and those within received the crown of martyrdom.
Two of these martyrs are known by name: the Presbyter Diodorus and the Deacon Marianus.
Troparion Tone 1
Let us honour the like-minded pair of Martyrs,/ Chrysanthos scion of purity, and supremely modest Daria./ United in holiness of faith, they shone forth as communicants of God the Word./ They fought lawfully for Him and now save those who sing:/ Glory to Him Who has strengthened you; glory to Him Who has crowned you;/ glory to Him Who through you works healings for all.
Kontakion Tone 1
O Chrysanthos, in the sweet fragrance of holiness/ thou didst draw Daria to saving knowledge./ Together in contest you routed the serpent, the author of all evil,/ and were worthily taken up to the heavenly realms.

Source: www.oca.org, Menologian Software 2.0

The decline on decorum and the "sluttification" of dress

2011-08-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

The decline in decorum on the way people dress for church can’t be separated from the overall decline in the general culture. The 60’s gave birth to the hippie movement, the sexual revolution and the so called “youth rebellion”. There was a tremendous shift in the way people dressed and acted in public. Today we are seeing the logical conclusion of the Cultural Revolution, most of all in the glorification of sex and the widespread “pornificacion” of culture, where behavior and dress that was seen as disgraceful in the past is now celebrated. We saw that in the so called “Slut Walks” http://www.esarcasm.com/21870/slutwalk-2011-organizer-plans-one-million-slut-march/.

Worse, we have parents encouraging their children to dress in such manners, especially girls and buying them or giving them the money to acquire clothing that would make prostitutes of a bygone era blush. And every year this poisoning of decorum targets younger children. Look at the type of dolls little girls play with now such as the “Bratz” dolls and the type of make-up sold to girls as young as five or six years old. Parents should put boundaries on this behavior, but unfortunately it is parents who are sometimes the worst offenders.

They were real! Saints found show Christian stories are based on true events.

2011-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

I recently watched a National Geographic program called “Mystery of the Murdered Saints”. The program is fascinating as it explores how the bones of Chrysanthus and Daria, young saints martyred in Ancient Rome for their Christian faith, ended in the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia in Italy. The bones of the martyrs were kept under the main altar in a stone sarcophagus while their skulls were inside reliquary busts made of gold and silver. As the program develops the scientists involved in the investigation can’t but recognize that the bones do belong to a young man and female, carbon dating puts them smack right at the appropriate time period (circa mid third century) and the characteristics of the skeletons match what we know of the saints based on the legends.

It is funny to see that the scientists come to a positive conclusion, while the religion scholars are skeptical, which is typical of today’s Catholic scholarship. This reminds me of many other cases where the relics taken as archaeological evidence match the stories of saints and martyrs passed on to us throughout the centuries. Some examples are the relics of St. Cecilia, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, and many others. These martyrs and saints were real and God has preserved their holy relics to enable us to have a direct contact to their lives and know that their faith was real and worthy of imitation.

Of all places I was not expecting National Geographic to affirm that these relics are indeed real and that the Church does preserve these valiant young martyrs for veneration and remembrance. You can see the previews for the shows here and read about Chrysanthus and Daria here. SAINT CHRYSANTHUS AND SAINT DARIA PRAY FOR US!

The Destruction of The Church

2011-08-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

Little Catholic Bubble: "If you think, as I naively once did, that the general public will be horrified by the loss of so many wonderful, longstanding Catholic charities, think again. Most Americans are clueless about what's happening, and the secular left loathes the Catholic Church. We've had at least one atheist in the Bubble state with pride that she would be pleased to see a world without the Catholic Church, and she is far from alone in her desire."

Read this from the "Little Catholic Bubble", Leilla Miller the author is absolutely right. Unfortunately many Catholics are deceived into thinking that they can negotiate and accommodate the left and its anti-Catholic stands. Let it be said clear: The aim of the left, in government and inside the Church is the destruction of the Roman Catholic Church by undermining its orthodoxy. The Obama administration, the Gay movement, the rabid Feminists, the Atheists, are out to destroy the Church. So far they have been very successful, helped by either malicious or deceived Catholics.

50 Years of the most lavish welfare state in the planet produced this.

2011-08-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

Police water cannon and plastic bullets? After 50 years of the most lavish welfare state on earth? What an abject failure - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog: "No doubt they will find ways to save themselves. But they will not save the country. Because even now they will not admit that all their ideas are wrong, and that the policies of the past 50 years – the policies they love – have been a terrible mistake. I have heard them in the past few days clinging to their old excuses of non-existent ‘poverty’ and ‘exclusion’."

Read the rest here.

And now for something truly scary

2011-08-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Former consultant to US bishops keynotes conference pushing for acceptance of pedophilia

"A former consultant to the US bishops was the keynote speaker at a conference organized by a group that is lobbying for decriminalization of pedophilia."

"Fred Berlin was for years a consultant to the US bishops in their attempts to develop policies for handling complaints of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Archbishop Rembert Weakland has testified that in 1985, Berlin strongly argued against removing abusive priests from public ministry."

While we are distracted by the efforts to discredit Michael Voris, this is a really scary note, a former consultant to the Catholic Bishops is advocating for a "normalization" of pedophilia of all things. Noted homosexual and retired bishop Rambert Weakland used the services of this person. Talk about the Church in the hands of the devil. Read the story here.

Anticipation!

2011-08-17T12:01:00.000-07:00

What Ever Happened to Homemade Ketchup? | Food & Think: " In addition to being cheap to manufacture—with factories using tomato scraps—the commercial product ended up setting the standard for Americans’ expectation of what ketchup should be: It was thicker, smoother and had had more sugar and vinegar than the homemade varieties."

Don't mess with my Ketchup! The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article. Read a little history of the now all present condiment. Pass the burgers...

Mass is changing soon!

2011-08-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Survey: Most Catholics unaware of Mass revisions

"Most respondents took the survey in English (82 percent), and among these Catholics, awareness was just slightly higher at 26 percent."

Be aware, starting this Advent the text of the mass will change. Read on.

Can We Stop Telling God What To Do?

2011-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Can We Stop Telling God What To Do?: "Notice that such “prayers” rarely involve direct address: “Help us, O Lord, to see your truth and walk in your ways.” Rather, they involve talking about God in the third person as though He weren’t really present. Then there are intercessions that leave out God altogether: “That we may make a greater use of alternative fuels and lessen our dependence on fossil fuels.” Is that a prayer, or a plank in a political platform?"

And that you may read the rest of the article here

UK riots 2011 "You are so special!" Liberal Dogma and the Welfare State.

2011-08-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

UK riots 2011: Liberal dogma has spawned a generation of brutalised youths | Mail Online: "They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong."

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4084073497/

Decades of the Welfare State, of relativistic indoctrination, of stupid immigration policies, of liberal agendas implemented are coming now to produce their fruit. I believe that the U.K. riots if 2011 are only a beginning of a new era. The barbarians are now inside, they are ourselves. Read the excellent article by Max Hastings here, and if you can watch the film with Michael Caine 'Harry Brown' it gives an excellent view of the barbarity that now grips not only England, but the Western World.

The Blood of a Pope

2011-08-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

Pope John Paul II’s Blood to be Displayed in Mexico, Christian News: "“In the perception of a Mexico plunged into terror, pain, hopelessness, anguish, vengeance and rancor as a result of insecurity and violence… the veneration of the relics will be an opportunity for the baptized and people of good will to turn their eyes to God,” said Rev. Manuel Corral, the council’s public relations secretary to reporters."

We pray to Blessed John Paul that trough his intersession with our Lord Jesus Christ, this blood may atone for all the blood shed in terror in Mexico, that peace may return and that the Mexican people return to the light of the Gospel.

Read the story here.

For God is with us!

2011-08-12T06:13:00.000-07:00

CNEWA Connections

"When families lost someone to violence or kidnapping, the sisters stayed with them, accompanied them, let them know we were there for them."

True Christian witness from a group of nuns in Iraq. They preach the Gospel; and when necessary they speak.

Read the interview of the CNEWA magazine here.

Hoodwinked!

2011-08-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

A Pyrrhic 'Victory' - Thomas Sowell - Townhall Conservative: "the Republicans have now been maneuvered into being held responsible for the spending orgy that Democrats alone had the votes to create. Republicans have been had -- and so has the country. The recent, short-lived budget deal turns out to be not even a Pyrrhic victory for the Republicans. It has the earmarks of a Pyrrhic defeat."

Read more from Thomas Sowell here

NATO Crash: Team Seal Six Members Killed in Afghanistan

2011-08-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

NATO Crash: Team Seal Six Members Killed in Afghanistan - ABC News

The Navy Seal Team 6 who found and killed Osama Bin Ladin suffered a devastating loss two days ago when a helicopter carrying 30 Americans including 22 Navy Seals members of Team 6, crashed in Afghanistan.

Taliban forces claim they shot down the Chinoonk helicopter, but Department of Defense says it crashed in an accident.

Rather tragic coincidence, read the whole story here

The World According to Newsweek: Bias? What bias?

2011-08-09T06:25:00.000-07:00

The World According to Newsweek | CatholicVote.org

Bias, what bias? There is no bias, we just despise conservatism and conservatives, that's all.

See the rest of the pics and read the blog here.

Barack Obama's 2012 plan: 'Kill Romney'

2011-08-09T05:47:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's 2012 plan: 'Kill Romney' - Alexander Burns - POLITICO.com

From the presidency of "hope" to the politics of personal destruction. Obama's political advisers plan to "kill" Romney. And we thought that using violent metaphors was out of the question after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting. Read more here

Eat, drink and be merry?

2011-08-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Living to see 100 is just luck, not lifestyle - Telegraph

"They found those who lived extremely long lives ate just as badly, drank and smoked just as much, took just as little exercise and were just as likely to be overweight as their long-gone friends."

Not good news for our health fascist establishment. Read the whole thing here.

Is the US a nation of liars?

2011-08-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Is US a nation of liars? Casey Anthony isn't the only one. - CSMonitor.com: "But as the news fills with one example after another of people – both humble and mighty – telling lies, it's easy to wonder: Can America even see the truth anymore, let alone tell it?"

Can the truth set us free? Read the whole article from the Christian Science Monitor.

RIP John Sott

2011-08-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

John Stott - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Stott remained celibate his entire life. He said, "The gift of singleness is more a vocation than an empowerment, although to be sure God is faithful in supporting those He calls."

John Stott one of the great evangelical theologians of our time passed away last week. I read his book Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount; which showed me that being a Christian in this day and age is being counter-cultural.

Read the Wikipedia article linked above.

The Oldest Book in Europe

2011-08-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

£9m campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel | Past Horizons:

"The British Library has announced an ambitious fund-raising campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel for the nation. Created in the 7th century and intimately associated with one of Britain’s foremost saints, the Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book and one of the world’s most significant books."

The Gospel of St. John, amazingly preserved

I am book enthusiast, a "Bibliophile". Books to me are an extension of our brain, a depository of knowledge, a dialogue with our ancestors. No question, I love books. So this news is very interesting to me, more so because I have to confess I did not know of the St Cuthbert Gospel. This is the oldest book in Europe, having been produced by the monks of Lindisfarne in the late 600's and placed in St Cuthbert's casket, where it lay for four hundred years. In the year 1004 it was rediscovered when the casket was opened on relocating the Saint's remains. The book was probably plundered from its resting place by the barbarians of Henry VIII and went into private possession. It made its way to the Jesuits who are now selling it to the British Library for a cool nine million pounds. The book is in an astonishing state of preservation, its leather cover looks almost new. Read the rest in the link above.

A Dialogue about Abortion

2011-08-05T05:25:00.000-07:00

Little Catholic Bubble: Answering Michelle: I don't think you want all babies aborted

From a favorite blog by Leila Miller a dialogue with a young atheist woman on abortion.:

Answering Michelle: I don't think you want all babies aborted

After my last post, Michelle (a friendly young atheist) left a comment which deserves a whole post in response. Her words are in red, and my comments are in black.

To those saying that the Obama administration views pregnancy as a disease:

Before you go on, let me just say that it's hard not to conclude this. If fertility/pregnancy is not a disease, disorder, illness or pathology, then why are health insurance companies now forced to provide free contraception and morning-after pills to all? What "disease" is being "cured" or "prevented" if not pregnancy? This should elicit a short medical answer, not a long philosophical one like the one you are about to give….

consider this rough analogy. Most of you have probably seen the show Extreme Home Makeover, where families in need are given a fancy new house (and I think sometimes a car as well), one that even the richest families would probably be lucky to have.

Yes, I used to love that show! "Bus driver, move that bus!" (Screams, excitement, tears!!) Good times watching with the family. :)

It's a feel-good sort of show, and you're always left with the impression that despite all of their problems, their lives are finally looking up and everything is going to be fine.

Yes, that's the illusion that "feel good" TV shows leave us with. We Americans like to "feel good", and it sells. Definitely an hour of escapism (and envy!).

But think about the taxes and the maintenance the house will require that they probably can't afford, and how the money spent on the house could probably have better gone towards addressing whatever problem (medical, financial, whatever) was originally plaguing them.

Yes, exactly! Building folks a big house and and providing lots of material things cannot solve the underlying problems that families in crisis face. Thank goodness there are real people in real life who do provide real help, every single day: Catholic Charities, the Societies of St. Vincent de Paul, crisis pregnancy centers, Catholic hospitals and shelters, etc. Real help, real solutions.

Saying that Obama's insistence on contraception means he necessarily considers pregnancy to always be a disease (and babies to always be a punishment)

Did I say "always"? I don't think I did. There are plenty of babies that Obama does not see as "punishments". And then there are the others. For example:

Obama thinks these baby girls were worthy of love and life.
Obama thinks that this this baby girl was not.

He celebrates the "wanted" babies while ardently supporting the legal killing of 53 million other "unwanted" babies. Heck,he even notoriously voted more than once to let born babies die alone and without care should they survive a late-term abortion. (This was no mere academic exercise for him, as he knew from first-hand testimony what was occurring in his own state.)

In the pro-"choice" world, there are plenty of valuable children, worthy of love and life. But there are plenty of children with no value, who are worthy of neither love nor life.

So, for Obama, I'm guessing that pregnancy is not a disease when it's wanted, and babies are not a punishment when they are wanted.

Wanted = Good
Wanted = Valuable

is the same as saying that I'm heartless for recognizing that getting a big new house is not always the best thing for a family.

Not the same thing at all. Look...

These are not heartless:

"It is not good for this family to get a big new house."
"It is not good for children to be conceived out of wedlock."
"It is not the best thing for this drug-addicted battered woman to raise a child."

But this *just might* be considered heartless:

"Because this is not a good time for this woman to have a child, the child must die."

See, the "not heartless" statements don't imply or necessitate that someone has to die as a solution to the unfortunate situation. But the "heartless" statement does. Big distinction.

Just as big new houses are, under the right circumstances, a wonderful thing, so are babies.

Michelle, are you really comparing houses to babies?

Catholics don't believe that houses have the same moral standing, rights and dignity as human beings. I hope you can see that distinction.

Say a teenage mother's conservative parents would disown her if she gave birth out of wedlock,

Whoa, wait. Why do you make "conservative" parents the heavy? I know plenty of conservative parents, and I have seen how they react when children come to them with news of an unplanned pregnancy: Many tears, but also love and support for child and grandchild. I also know several liberal mothers who coerced or forced abortion on their pregnant daughters. So, why not just say "parents"? Sorry, but that is a pet peeve, as if conservative parents are heartless meanies while liberal parents are kind and loving.

ruining all her chances of a healthy, normal life thereafter

Seriously? Ruining all her chances of a healthy, normallife, thereafter? Utterly, totally hopeless? How on earth can one possibly know or predict such an outcome? We can't predict that outcome anymore than we can predict someone being hit by a car tomorrow and being paralyzed for life. And even that scenario wouldn't equate to a "ruined" life. But, okay, let's go with your impossible hypothetical:

- is the baby still a wonderful blessing?

Yes.

If the baby's born to a drug addicted mother who can't and won't even provide for the baby's most basic needs?

Yes. Please get the mother help, and if she truly can't care for the child (who already exists!), then it's time to help her with an adoption plan.

If the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother?

Yes. (Ask Becky how she feels about that one, since she's going through it right now.)

I know, it's not a black-and-white moral standpoint, and what constitutes good circumstances for a baby will change from person to person.

Right, but you're not talking about good circumstances for conception, you're talking about killing a baby. I think Nicole C. got right to the heart of it:

I get so tired of hearing the argument surrounding good and bad circumstances to "have a baby", when what we're really arguing is acceptable circumstances to have an abortion. Please remember, when a woman is pregnant, she already HAS A BABY. As Mark Crutcher would say, "The question is, will she have a live baby or a dead one?"

So, you see, I think you are confusing two different things.

I get it, Catholics don't like that sort of moral ambiguity.

Actually, it's more that Catholics "don't like" the willful killing of innocent human beings. What you call "moral ambiguity", I would call "attempting to justifying an immoral act".

Sometimes, "moral ambiguity" = "moral relativism"

But saying that pregnancy is either always a blessing or always a curse, or a baby is always a gift or always a punishment, is silly at best.

I never once put it in those terms, that liberals think pregnancy is "always a curse" or babies "always a punishment". So, I am not sure where you are getting that?

However, it's not "silly" to believe that all babies are a blessing. They are. They are all equally valuable, and they areall worthy of love and life. To hold any other position is dangerous -- to say the least.

Please, give us some credit and don't ascribe such simplistic ideas to liberals/pro-choicers/whoever.

I never did ascribe those ideas to you or other pro-"choicers". Like I said, I have no idea where you are getting that. Of course you love and cherish some babies.

If I were to get pregnant at this point in my life, it would undoubtedly be an enormous punishment.

Who would be punishing you? The baby? And what would the punishment be for? I truly don't even understand this statement.

At the same time, though, my cousin recently had a baby and I was excited about the baby the moment I heard my cousin was pregnant.

Because in your mind, the baby had that elusive quality that made him valuable and worthy of love: "Wantedness"

Or was it something else that made the baby worthy of your love? I'm interested.

It's not an "either you love babies or you want them all dead" sort of thing,

Right, and I never said that, so we are good.

and I'm offended every time someone suggests that liberals think babies are worthless drooling monsters that all should have been aborted.

I'm glad that's never been said to you here, then. Has someone elsewhere said these things to you? That you thinkall babies should be aborted? That's outrageous if so.

I'm on vacation and won't be commenting after this (blame icky Internet Explorer that won't let me post, plus the fact that abortion debates always, always, always turn ugly whenever I get involved).

It's not exclusive to your involvement, Michelle. Abortion debates necessarily include discussion of the actual act of abortion, which by its very nature is horrifically ugly. The stuff of nightmares, really. So yes, abortion debates are never pretty. We are discussing the willful killing of innocent children, some of whom are shredded in the womb, some of whom are dismembered, and some of whom are burned alive with saline, and some of whom are stabbed in the neck and have their brains sucked out while still living. Most of whom are thrown out as garbage, labeled "medical waste". Ugly, indeed.

But did you think the reality of abortion could be sugarcoated? I realize that's what the "choice" and "women's rights" euphemisms are aiming for: Pleasantness. Our own atheist commenter MaiZeke has said with confidence, "Abortion involves only one person: the woman." How it eases the mind to believe this, when it's the "non-person" being extracted and eviscerated. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and we can sleep well at night, because there is no "person" being killed in an abortion. Just a pregnancy being "terminated".

I hope my points made sense, even if you don't agree.

Some of them didn't make sense, which is why I wanted to flesh them all out here and give you a chance to respond. Thanks for you willingness to dialogue honestly, and I hope to hear from you after your vacation!

Blessings to you, Michelle! I've always enjoyed our discussions.

Gay candidate in trouble for justifying his lover's pedophilia

2011-08-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

David Norris's Irish presidency chances marred by mercy letter | World news | The Guardian

"His campaign has been badly damaged by his links to Yizhak. When the Israeli was accused, and later convicted, of the statutory rape of a Palestinian boy in 1992, Norris wrote a letter claiming his former partner was a "good and moral person".

Wait a second, I thought Irish politicians were furiously indignant because Catholic priests that abused kids were protected by the bishops; are they indignant in this case?

Budget Reform: Opportunity Knocks

2011-08-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

Catholic Culture : On the Culture : Budgetary Reform: Opportunity Knocks

"Catholic leaders, who ought to have charity (which is in most ways the opposite of government-mandated programs) as their first concern, have in my lifetime been characterized by an almost wholesale inability to think outside the Statist box when it comes solving human problems."

Read it all in the link above.

US debt problem visualized: Debt stacked in 100 dollar bills

2011-08-02T04:48:00.000-07:00

US debt problem visualized: Debt stacked in 100 dollar bills

You have to see the link above, it is a graphic representation of the U.S. debt and how politicians have taken us to the brink.

Beckhams a 'bad example' for families because he has too many kids!

2011-07-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

Beckhams a 'bad example' for families | Life and style | The Observer

Fundamentalist environmentalists criticized football star Beckham for having four children (three in the picture and one on the way) and say he is a "bad role model" because his large family (large? My grandma's family was large at 15). These fundamentalist environmentalists who pander "tolerance" are not very tolerant of Beckham and others with large families because "their carbon footprint". Oblivious to their own racial suicide and the fact that they are committing to oblivion their own "genetic footprint" we can at least rest assured that in a few years these rabid environmentalists will have no heirs to carry their "carbon footprint" jihad.

Read the article from the Guardian U.K. on the link above.

Extra, extra! Religion reduces crime

2011-07-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Catholic Culture : On the Culture : Give me that Old Time Religion…to reduce crime

"Professor Byron began his article by noting that if the studies generally showed the opposite—that religion or church-going contributed to crime and delinquency—the press would be all over the story, and a Federal commission would doubtless be established to make sure Americans were officially notified that religious practice is deleterious to your social health.

Funny how it doesn’t work the other way."

A propose of the mad man killing rampage in Norway the above article is an interesting reminder of something we all knew; religion actually decreases criminal tendencies in people. Now of course secularists, pagans, atheists will be touting the Norway horror as an example of "Christian" terrorism. Never mind the mad man is also a Mason (does this mean that Masons and masonic ideas are a breeding ground for terrorists?, no of course). What do you think?

Jesus is a fable, says dissident Australian priest

2011-07-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

Catholic Culture : Latest Headlines : Jesus is a fable, says dissident Australian priest

“There is no corroborating evidence for the existence of a person called Jesus,” he told the AAP news agency. “The Gospels must not ever be taken literally. Scripture scholars tell us that.”

“I do not believe in worshipping God,” he continued. “Whatever God is . . . that God does not need to be worshipped.” Peter Kennedy, Catholic priest.

This is not surprising, even for a supposedly Catholic priest. These are the fruits of the school of "Higher Criticism" and the so called Catholic scholarship. This priest takes the whole thing to its logical conclusion. I hope and pray that this man repents and comes back to a belief in Christ. But he is not alone, there are many like him who are supposed to be pastors of souls but no longer believe and lead others away. Read the rest of the story in the link above.

Bible Wars

2011-07-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Gender Debate: SBC Pastors Denounce NIV | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction: "Southern Baptists have asked their denomination-owned retail chain to stop selling a best-selling Bible translation, saying it contains errors when it comes to language about gender."

The Catholic translation New American Bible "NAB" issued a new version this year now known as the "RNAB" for Revised New American Bible. While the translation is OK even though awkward in many instances, the commentary notes are totally in line with the ideas of contemporary "Higher Criticism". Too bad there is no Catholic group that is willing to be critical of our new translation as the baptists in the story above.

Life by Euthanasia

2011-07-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Life by Euthanasia | Catholic Exchange: "f you have an organ transplant in Belgium, there is a small chance that you will owe your life to someone else’s death by euthanasia."

Welcome to the brave new world. Euthanasia is a fact in some European countries and it has been happening in a very concealed way in the U.S. I wonder how many elderly, severely disabled persons, terminally ill patients and others have been starved and dehydrated to death by zealous medical personnel. Read the link above.

Bikinis a Bad Idea

2011-07-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2011/07/facebook-bathing-suits-bad-idea.html "A note to young women on Facebook, from a guy who works with young men struggling with pornography...you might look good in your bathing suit, but if you were able to see yourself through 20 year-old male eyes, which are struggling to see you as a human and not an object, you would never post that pic. Just a thought." Check the rest of the post at Aggie Catholics linked above.

Real Swimwear

I think wearing bikinis is not a good idea anywhere any time. Young Catholic girls should not offend the virtue of modesty and provoke the vice of lust in men. Older women should be aware of the decaying state of their bodies and spare the spare tire to the rest. Going to the beach virtually naked is a very vulgar development of contemporary culture.

2011-07-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

From the "In the Light of the Law" website blog http://canonlawblog.blogspot.com/:

"A note on proposals to require priests to violate the seal of confession

Concerning recent Irish and Australian proposals to require priests who, through their ministry in sacramental confession, learn the identity of child sexual abusers (or of any other malefactors, for that matter), to disclose such information to civil authorities, I have little to say because, well, because there is little to say, canonically, at any rate. Such proposals, even if they become law, will have absolutely no effect on a priest’s obligation to preserve the seal of confession.Absolutely none.

The seal of confession is a not creature of civil law, rather, it rests on divine law and is articulated by canon law (see cc. 983 and 1388). Because the state has no authority over the seal of confession, it can exercise no authority over the seal by way imposing, regulating, or revoking it, in whole or even in part.

What states can do, and indeed what enlightened states in fact do, is to accommodate the seal of confession within theirs laws (typically, in their laws of criminal evidence procedure). The benefits to states making such accommodations are many, and the “benefits” of disregarding the seal can be shown, upon a few moments’ consideration, to be nugatory, but such prudential points are better made by others. I speak only as a canonist, and I write only to say that any civil laws attempting to break the seal of confession would have no force whatsoever against the sanctity of the seal of confession." + + +

The Irish and Australian proposals are an affront to the freedom of religion. As Mr. Peters says above any such law would be null and void for a Catholic priest since the seal of confession is above any human law. Even if the absurdity of this proposal would become real, who would confess knowing that his confession would not be secret?

The Spanish Civil War 75 Years Later

2011-07-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

"(T)he Spanish Civil War witnessed the “most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western history, in some way even more intense than that of the French Revolution.”

“More than 6,800 Catholic clergy were slaughtered, including 13 bishops, more than 2,360 monks and friars, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, as well as 283 nuns. Thousands of churches were destroyed.

Most of the intense killing occurred in the first six months of the conflict, but by the end of the war about 20% of the nation’s Catholic clergy was dead."

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/spanish-civil-war-75-years-later/#ixzz1T8UJgtI1

Most of what the communists wanted to do in Spain in 1936 is being done now under the Socialist government. The writers of the article included here fail to mention the role of Germany in the war, in all fairness.

Diaconal Ordinations at the Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux

2011-07-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

Diaconal Ordinations at the Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux

Deacons ordained in the Traditional Rite (pre-Vatican II), the photographs show a beautiful liturgy. I am not sure, but I think these are transitional deacons. Notice the tonsure of the men.

Obama Administration Certifies “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” | CitizenLink

2011-07-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

Obama Administration Certifies “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” | CitizenLink

“Mr. Panetta is beginning his term as defense secretary by letting down military men, women and families who were led to believe that their views would be heard and respected,” she said. “Instead, trusting personnel who participated in the 2010 surveys and focus groups in good faith were misused as props to create the impression that military people ‘don’t care’ about this issue.”

Those Catholics who voted for President Obama and wanted to compartmentalize issues can now see how he is ideologically committed to the homosexual agenda, one of the many issues where he stands in direct conflict with Catholic doctrine. The homosexual juggernaut is rolling over 98% of the population to benefit the desires of 2%. Read the article here: http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/07/22/obama-administration-certifies-%E2%80%9Cdon%E2%80%99t-ask-don%E2%80%99t-tell%E2%80%9D/

The New and the Old and unity of worship.

2011-07-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

New Oxford Review

"The liturgy has become a polarizing force in the Church — rather than the great unifier it is meant to be. The release of Universae Ecclesiae, the Vatican’s instruction on the proper implementation of Summorum Pontificum, proves that Pope Benedict XVI is not unfamiliar with the animosity and defensiveness that plague contemporary liturgical discourse. One can glimpse its intensity in the letters section of our May issue (see the entries under the header “Liturgical Reform & the ‘Protestantization’ of Catholic Liturgy”). There is, it seems, increasing entrenchment on both sides of the liturgical divide that separates New Mass and Latin Mass absolutists; reconciliation is a long way off." From the Oxford Review Magazine online.

I do not necessarily agree or disagree with the article. I has some interesting points, for example the fact that with two Latin rites (two masses) are now recognized side by side. Is this good? How about the unity of worship. Is the coexistence of two forms of the same mass dividing the Church? I personally go to the Latin Mass, even serve in it as an acolyte. But I can understand that having two rites with people attending each one not really relating to the other can be divisive. Check the link New Oxford Review. What do you think?

Suspended priest sells $750 ‘Catholic Nuptial Mass’ for gay couples | LifeSiteNews.com

2011-07-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

Suspended priest sells $750 ‘Catholic Nuptial Mass’ for gay couples | LifeSiteNews.com

The only thing I can say is that the rhetoric is rather ridiculous. The Catholic Church has no power to make anyone do anything against their will. The only power structure that can impose morality these days is the government who is protecting, encouraging and celebrating the homosexual agenda.

Two dead as explosion rocks Norway; shots fired at youth camp - The Globe and Mail

2011-07-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

Two dead as explosion rocks Norway; shots fired at youth camp - The Globe and Mail

The bloody trail of terrorism continues to claim more victims.

PEPSI IS USING ABORTED BABIES CELLS FOR EXPERIMENTS ON ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS

2011-07-13T06:00:00.000-07:00

fROM THE WEBSITE OF ALL AMERICAN LIFE LEAGUE.

"PRO-LIFE GROUPS: BOYCOTT PEPSI FOR USING ABORTED FETAL CELL LINES

Thursday, May 26, 2011 - By Leslie Tignor

Pro-Life Groups Call for Pepsi Boycott over Aborted Fetal Cell LinesContact: info@cogforlife.org Phone: (727) 483-9251

(Largo, FL) Scores of pro-life groups are calling for a public boycott of food giant, PepsiCo due to its partnership with Senomyx—a biotech company using aborted fetal cells in the research and development of artificial flavor enhancers.

PepsiCo is funding research and development—and paying royalties—to Senomyx, which uses HEK-293 (human embryonic kidney cells) to produce flavor enhancers for Pepsi beverages.

Senomyx boasts it has over 800,000 unique flavors for foods. The human tongue recognizes only 5 (salty, savory, sweet, sour and bitter). But cells expressing certain proteins produce a chemical signal when flavors are introduced, which determines if it is the proper flavor.

While the aborted fetal cells are not in the product itself, Debi Vinnedge, president of Children of God for Life—the group spearheading the boycott—noted, “There are many options PepsiCo could be using instead of aborted fetal cells.”

The revelation—a potential public relations nightmare—motivated Campbell Soup to sever all relations with Senomyx.

However, PepsiCo continues its business relationship despite the abortion connection. The company drew public ire earlier this year when it responded that “collaboration with Senomyx is strictly limited to creating lower-calorie, great-tasting beverages for consumers.”

When pressed further, PepsiCo attempted to pacify angry consumers with a form letter response insinuating it had been accused of conducting aborted fetal tissue research. The duplicity again drew public outrage.

Bradley Mattes, executive director of Life Issues Institute, said, “While aborted fetal cells aren’t actually in the product itself, the close relationship is enough to repulse most consumers. To our knowledge, this is the first time a food product has been publicly associated with abortion.”

The pro-life groups noted that additional companies collaborating with Senomyx will be targeted for boycott next. Seewww.cogforlife.org/senomyxalert.htm for more information.

Pro-life organizations are asking the public to boycott all PepsiCo drink products and encourage consumers to contact PepsiCo management requesting that the company sever all ties with Senomyx. Consumers are also encouraged to contact Campbell Soup and thank those responsible for responding to pro-life concerns.

Jamie Caulfield, Sr. VP
PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
(914) 253-2000
Email form: http://cr.pepsi.com/usen
/pepsiusen.cfm?time=5189878

Edmund M. Carpenter, Chair, Corporate Development
Campbell Soup
1 Campbell Place
Camden, NJ 08103-1701
1-800-257-8443
Email form: http://campbellsoupcompany.com
/Feedback.aspx

Pro-life groups joining Children of God for Life in the boycott to date are: Life Issues Institute, American Life League, Concerned Women for America, Colorado Right to Life, American Right to Life, Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, ALL Arizona, Central Nebraskans for Life, Pro-Life Waco, Houston Coalition for Life, Mother and Unborn Baby Fox Valley, Womankind, Billboards for Life, Movement for a Better America, Defenders of the Unborn, Focus Pregnancy Help Center, Idaho Chooses Life, EMC Frontline Pregnancy Centers of NY, Four Seasons for Life, CREDO, Life Choices, STOPP Dallas, CA Right To Life, Human Life Alliance, International Right to Life Federation, Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation".

New Instructions on the Latin Mass

2011-05-16T07:02:00.001-07:00

PONTIFICAL COMMISSION ECCLESIA DEI

INSTRUCTION

on the application of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of

HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI given Motu Proprio

Introduction

1. The Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of the Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XVI given Motu Proprio on 7 July 2007, which came into effect on 14 September 2007, has made the richness of the Roman Liturgy more accessible to the Universal Church.

2. With this Motu Proprio, the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI promulgated a universal law for the Church, intended to establish new regulations for the use of the Roman Liturgy in effect in 1962.

3. The Holy Father, having recalled the concern of the Sovereign Pontiffs in caring for the Sacred Liturgy and in their recognition of liturgical books, reaffirms the traditional principle, recognised from time immemorial and necessary to be maintained into the future, that "each particular Church must be in accord with the universal Church not only regarding the doctrine of the faith and sacramental signs, but also as to the usages universally handed down by apostolic and unbroken tradition. These are to be maintained not only so that errors may be avoided, but also so that the faith may be passed on in its integrity, since the Church's rule of prayer (lex orandi) corresponds to her rule of belief (lex credendi)."

4. The Holy Father recalls also those Roman Pontiffs who, in a particular way, were notable in this task, specifically Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Pius V. The Holy Father stresses moreover that, among the sacred liturgical books, the Missale Romanum has enjoyed a particular prominence in history, and was kept up to date throughout the centuries until the time of Blessed Pope John XXIII. Subsequently in 1970, following the liturgical reform after the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI approved for the Church of the Latin rite a new Missal, which was then translated into various languages. In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II promulgated the third edition of this Missal.

5. Many of the faithful, formed in the spirit of the liturgical forms prior to the Second Vatican Council, expressed a lively desire to maintain the ancient tradition. For this reason, Pope John Paul II with a special Indult Quattuor abhinc annos issued in 1984 by the Congregation for Divine Worship, granted the faculty under certain conditions to restore the use of the Missal promulgated by Blessed Pope John XXIII. Subsequently, Pope John Paul II, with the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei of 1988, exhorted the Bishops to be generous in granting such a faculty for all the faithful who requested it. Pope Benedict continues this policy with the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum regarding certain essential criteria for the Usus Antiquior of the Roman Rite, which are recalled here.

6. The Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI and the last edition prepared under Pope John XXIII, are two forms of the Roman Liturgy, defined respectively as ordinaria and extraordinaria: they are two usages of the one Roman Rite, one alongside the other. Both are the expression of the same lex orandi of the Church. On account of its venerable and ancient use, the forma extraordinaria is to be maintained with appropriate honor.

7. The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was accompanied by a letter from the Holy Father to Bishops, with the same date as the Motu Proprio (7 July 2007). This letter gave further explanations regarding the appropriateness and the need for the Motu Proprio; it was a matter of overcoming a lacuna by providing new norms for the use of the Roman Liturgy of 1962. Such norms were needed particularly on account of the fact that, when the new Missal had been introduced under Pope Paul VI, it had not seemed necessary to issue guidelines regulating the use of the 1962 Liturgy. By reason of the increase in the number of those asking to be able to use the forma extraordinaria, it has become necessary to provide certain norms in this area.

Among the statements of the Holy Father was the following: "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the Liturgy growth and progress are found, but not a rupture. What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly prohibited altogether or even judged harmful."

8. The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum constitutes an important expression of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff and of his munus of regulating and ordering the Church's Sacred Liturgy. The Motu Proprio manifests his solicitude as Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church, and has the aim of:

offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure to be preserved;
effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it, given that the use of the 1962 Roman Liturgy is a faculty generously granted for the good of the faithful and therefore is to be interpreted in a sense favourable to the faithful who are its principal addressees;
promoting reconciliation at the heart of the Church.

II.

The Responsibilities

of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei

9. The Sovereign Pontiff has conferred upon the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei ordinary vicarious power for the matters within its competence, in a particular way for monitoring the observance and application of the provisions of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (cf. art. 12).

10. § 1. The Pontifical Commission exercises this power, beyond the faculties previously granted by Pope John Paul II and confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI (cf. Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, artt. 11-12), also by means of the power to decide upon recourses legitimately sent to it, as hierarchical Superior, against any possible singular administrative provision of an Ordinary which appears to be contrary to the Motu Proprio.

§ 2. The decrees by which the Pontifical Commission decides recourses may be challenged ad normam iuris before the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

11. After having received the approval from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will have the task of looking after future editions of liturgical texts pertaining to the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite.

III.

Specific Norms

12. Following upon the inquiry made among the Bishops of the world, and with the desire to guarantee the proper interpretation and the correct application of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, this Pontifical Commission, by virtue of the authority granted to it and the faculties which it enjoys, issues this Instruction according to can. 34 of the Code of Canon Law.

The Competence of Diocesan Bishops

13. Diocesan Bishops, according to Canon Law, are to monitor liturgical matters in order to guarantee the common good and to ensure that everything is proceeding in peace and serenity in their Dioceses, always in agreement with the mens of the Holy Father clearly expressed by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. In cases of controversy or well-founded doubt about the celebration in the forma extraordinaria, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei will adjudicate.

14. It is the task of the Diocesan Bishop to undertake all necessary measures to ensure respect for the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite, according to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.

The coetus fidelium (cf. Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, art. 5 § 1)

15. A coetus fidelium ("group of the faithful") can be said to be stabiliter existens ("existing in a stable manner"), according to the sense of art. 5 § 1 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum,
when it is constituted by some people of an individual parish who, even after the publication of the Motu Proprio, come together by reason of their veneration for the Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, and who ask that it might be celebrated in the parish church or in an oratory or chapel; such a coetus ("group") can also be composed of persons coming from different parishes or dioceses, who gather together in a specific parish church or in an oratory or chapel for this purpose.

16. In the case of a priest who presents himself occasionally in a parish church or an oratory with some faithful, and wishes to celebrate in the forma extraordinaria, as foreseen by articles 2 and 4 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the pastor or rector of the church, or the priest responsible, is to permit such a celebration, while respecting the schedule of liturgical celebrations in that same church.

17. § 1. In deciding individual cases, the pastor or the rector, or the priest responsible for a church, is to be guided by his own prudence, motivated by pastoral zeal and a spirit of generous welcome.

§ 2. In cases of groups which are quite small, they may approach the Ordinary of the place to identify a church in which these faithful may be able to come together for such celebrations, in order to ensure easier participation and a more worthy celebration of the Holy Mass.

18. Even in sanctuaries and places of pilgrimage the possibility to celebrate in the forma extraordinaria is to be offered to groups of pilgrims who request it (cf. Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, art. 5 § 3), if there is a qualified priest.

19. The faithful who ask for the celebration of the forma extraordinaria must not in any way support or belong to groups which show themselves to be against the validity or legitimacy of the Holy Mass or the Sacraments celebrated in the forma ordinaria or against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church.

Sacerdos idoneus ("Qualified Priest") (cf. Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, art 5 § 4)

20. With respect to the question of the necessary requirements for a priest to be held idoneus ("qualified") to celebrate in the forma extraordinaria, the following is hereby stated:

Every Catholic priest who is not impeded by Canon Law is to be considered idoneus ("qualified") for the celebration of the Holy Mass in the forma extraordinaria.
Regarding the use of the Latin language, a basic knowledge is necessary, allowing the priest to pronounce the words correctly and understand their meaning.
Regarding knowledge of the execution of the Rite, priests are presumed to be qualified who present themselves spontaneously to celebrate the forma extraordinaria, and have celebrated it previously.

21. Ordinaries are asked to offer their clergy the possibility of acquiring adequate preparation for celebrations in the forma extraordinaria. This applies also to Seminaries, where future priests should be given proper formation, including study of Latin and, where pastoral needs suggest it, the opportunity to learn the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite.

22. In Dioceses without qualified priests, Diocesan Bishops can request assistance from priests of the Institutes erected by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, either to the celebrate the forma extraordinaria
or to teach others how to celebrate it.

23. The faculty to celebrate sine populo (or with the participation of only one minister) in the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite is given by the Motu Proprio to all priests, whether secular or religious (cf. Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, art. 2). For such celebrations therefore, priests, by provision of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, do not require any special permission from their Ordinaries or superiors.

Liturgical and Ecclesiastical Discipline

24. The liturgical books of the forma extraordinaria are to be used as they are. All those who wish to celebrate according to the forma extraordinaria of the Roman Rite must know the pertinent rubrics and are obliged to follow them correctly.

25. New saints and certain of the new prefaces can and ought to be inserted into the 1962 Missal, according to provisions which will be indicated subsequently.

26. As foreseen by article 6 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, the readings of the Holy Mass of the Missal of 1962 can be proclaimed either solely in the Latin language, or in Latin followed by the vernacular or, in Low Masses, solely in the vernacular.

27. With regard to the disciplinary norms connected to celebration, the ecclesiastical discipline contained in the Code of Canon Law of 1983 applies.

28. Furthermore, by virtue of its character of special law, within its own area, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum derogates from those provisions of law, connected with the sacred Rites, promulgated from 1962 onwards and incompatible with the rubrics of the liturgical books in effect in 1962.

29. Permission to use the older formula for the rite of Confirmation was confirmed by the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (cf. art. 9 § 2). Therefore, in the forma extraordinaria, it is not necessary to use the newer formula of Pope Paul VI as found in the Ordo Confirmationis.

30. As regards tonsure, minor orders and the subdiaconate, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum does not introduce any change in the discipline of the Code of Canon Law of 1983; consequently, in Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which are under the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, one who has made solemn profession or who has been definitively incorporated into a clerical institute of apostolic life, becomes incardinated as a cleric in the institute or society upon ordination to the diaconate, in accordance with canon 266 § 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

31. Only
in Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life which are under the Pontifical
Commission Ecclesia Dei, and in those which use the liturgical books of the forma extraordinaria,
is the use of the Pontificale Romanum of 1962 for the conferral of minor and major orders permitted.

Breviarium Romanum

32. Art. 9 § 3 of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum gives clerics the faculty to use the Breviarium Romanum in effect in 1962, which is to be prayed entirely and in the Latin language.

The Sacred Triduum

33. If there is a qualified priest, a coetus fidelium ("group of faithful"), which follows the older liturgical tradition, can also celebrate the Sacred Triduum in the forma extraordinaria. When there is no church or oratory designated exclusively for such celebrations, the parish priest or Ordinary, in agreement with the qualified priest, should find some arrangement favourable to the good of souls, not excluding the possibility of a repetition of the celebration of the Sacred Triduum in the same church.

The Rites of Religious Orders

34. The use of the liturgical books proper to the Religious Orders which were in effect in 1962 is permitted.

Pontificale Romanum and the Rituale Romanum

35. The use of the Pontificale Romanum, the Rituale Romanum, as well as the Caeremoniale Episcoporum in effect in 1962, is permitted, in keeping with n. 28 of this Instruction, and always respecting n. 31 of the same Instruction.

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience granted to the undersigned Cardinal President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei on 8 April 2011, approved this present Instruction and ordered its publication.

Given at Rome, at the Offices of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, 30 April, 2011, on the memorial of Pope Saint Pius V.

William Cardinal LEVADA

President

Mons. Guido Pozzo

Secretary

Nihilismo en Ciudad Juarez

2010-02-19T05:25:00.000-08:00

Es difícil tratar de decir algo sobre el baño de sangre que ocurre en México, específicamente en Ciudad Juárez. No es solamente una guerra brutal y sádica entre pandillas de narcotraficantes, sino una descomposición social de la cual emana la pestilencia corrupta e inmunda del cadáver de la fabrica social mexicana. Es difícil tratar de decir algo ante las visiones de tremenda brutalidad y desalmada crueldad que no solo afectan a criminales que hacen su modus vivendi del tráfico de drogas, sino que también toca todos los ámbitos de la sociedad. A las horripilantes ejecuciones se unen la extorción generalizada, el secuestro que en muchas ocasiones resulta en el asesinato, en el robo a mano armada, la violación, la intimidación. En fin, la desintegración del orden social y la imposición de la ley de la selva; una sociedad a expensas del brutal capricho de cualquier salvaje gorila que quiera empuñar una arma y tenga la voluntad de usarla sin miramiento.

¿Qué pasa en Ciudad Juárez? ¿Por qué este horrible resquebrajamiento de la fabrica social? En Ciudad Juárez el rostro horrible del caos y del nihilismo aparecen en toda su espantosa brutalidad. La crueldad demostrada por los asesinos rebaza ya hasta la lógica malvada del crimen. Esto ya no es solamente una “guerra” entre pandillas o entre estas y las autoridades. Los síntomas van más allá. La crueldad demostrada por ejemplo en la masacre de los jóvenes adolecentes de hace algunas semanas, o en el caso del hombre al cual le fue mutilada la cara y la piel de su rostro cocida a una bola de fútbol demuestran una enfermedad, una deformación del espíritu que rebaza a la simple empresa criminal. Estas personas matan a hombres, mujeres y niños sin miramiento, sin tocarse el corazón en lo más mínimo. Podemos ver a la maldad en su más cruel expresión, la maldad pura, la maldad desencadenada, la maldad real y escalofriante.

Ciudad Juárez es una sociedad en estado de shock. Los habitantes de la frontera juarense sufren del síndrome de shock post-traumático común entre las tropas que regresan de zonas de combate como Irak o Afganistán. Toda una población ha sido no solamente traumatizada por la sangrienta violencia, sino que ha sido sometida a un secuestro comunitario de miedo e intimidación, un verdadero terrorismo de nuevas dimensiones que tiene a toda la sociedad como rehén. En Ciudad Juárez los buenos no ganan y los malos han impuesto su reino de sangre. Es tanta la carnicería, el crimen cotidiano a que los habitantes de esa ciudad son sometidos que parte del shock incluye la de-sensibilización que trae como consecuencia una acostumbramiento a la violencia diaria, una insensibilidad que hace pensar que esta es la manera en que las cosas funcionan, una normalidad por decirlo “anormal”.

Cuando se confrontó al criminal de guerra Adolf Eichmann la abogada a cargo de su prosecución criminal dijo ser sorprendida por la “banalidad” de la personalidad del criminal. No era un “monstruo peludo” con colmillos, ojos desencajados y rojos. No, Eichmann era una persona común y corriente, alguien que en la calle no hubiera llamado la atención. La personificación del mal en la persona cotidiana, en el vecino de enfrente. En Ciudad Juárez las bestias no son tampoco monstruos horripilantes en su aspecto físico (aunque lo sean en su aspecto mental y espiritual), sino que se trata en su mayoría de hombres jóvenes, hasta adolecentes que pudieran ser cualquier hijo de vecina; pudieran ser el primo, el hermano, el amigo. ¿Quiénes son estas personas, estos asesinos, estos inmisericordes criminales? Son estos jóvenes violentos y desalmados, los hijos del pueblo, la cosecha de la sociedad en sí misma. Es lamentable decirlo, pero quizá debamos vernos en el espejo. Puede resultar que hemos visto al enemigo, y el enemigo somos nosotros mismos.

Durante muchos años en México la ley fue negociable y mercadeable. Durante muchos años la ética nacional fue la mordida y la corrupción. Durante muchos años se toleró al crimen y la corrupción siempre y cuando fuera “controlable”. Durante muchos años se disimuló una construcción nacional aparentemente normal, pero que en realidad tenía como fundamento una fabrica política manufacturada con el entendimiento fraudulento, el cohecho, la deshonestidad, la imposición de un sistema viciado por el relativismo moral y la falta de rectitud. En los puestos policiacos se puso a personas de una honestidad que cuando menos era cuestionable y en muchas ocasiones eran ellos mismos hampones. La filosofía era que los hampones con licencia podrían controlar a los hampones sin permiso y meterlos al “redil”. Durante muchos años los funcionarios públicos se corrompieron al aceptar dinero y componendas con el hampa porque de esta manera podían asegurar la “tranquilidad pública”, un esquema que es muy tentador, sobre todo cuando la violencia se dispara como lo ha hecho ahora, pero que al final de cuentas tan solo ocasiona una metástasis cancerígena de la corrupción social.

Esta corrupción no solo toca a los gobernantes y funcionarios públicos, sino que se extiende a toda la sociedad. En una sociedad donde tan solo unas cuantas familias controlan la gran mayoría de la riqueza y excluyen de sus fuentes de influencia a la mayoría de la población por medio de la corrupción, es natural que los que están fuera del circulo del poder económico y político busquen una movilidad social negada por el sistema económico corporativo y coludido entre las esferas del poder económico y las esferas de gobierno. El resultado de décadas de un sistema político y social oligárquico basado en la corrupción y reforzado por medio de un sistema educativo mediocre, relativista y tan corrupto como el resto de la tela política y económica, el resultado, repito, son generaciones enteras que han crecido no solamente fuera de la esfera del progreso económico, al cual solo pueden recurrir unos cuantos, sino que son generaciones que han sido “educadas” por un sistema que no solamente ha fallado en instruir lo elementos más básicos de una educación, sino que ha dejado un hueco moral en la mente de los egresados de las instituciones educativas.

Al relativismo moral propagado por la “educación materialista científica” y por un sistema viciado por la corrupción, se une el machismo ancestral mexicano y a una tradición violenta. Una sociedad a la cual fue negado los fundamentos morales y religiosos que pongan límites a la conducta, dando como resultado una personalidad vacía de cualquier principio moral ha producido el “nuevo hombre” creado por un sistema corrupto y relativista moralmente. Es este el “nuevo hombre” que, excluido de la movilidad social que ve desfilar ante sus ojos por medio de los medios masivos de comunicación, decide que el también quiere tener una suburban, relojes rolex, botas nuevas, mujeres, licor y sexo, quiere participar en la “buena vida “que el materialismo moral le propone como el ultimo bien, un materialismo tanto del socialismo de izquierda como del capitalismo de derecha. El materialismo “científico” se ha transformado en un materialismo craso y animalesco. Este “nuevo hombre” excluido de la “sociedad bien” encuentra en el trafico de drogas y en el crimen ocupaciones que le permiten acceso a complacer sus deseos y al dinero en cantidades fabulosas. La injusticia social que significa la desigualdad económica y social, que evita la movilidad social legítima se combina con una formación educativa mediocre, relativista y prosaica nula de todo contenido moral que ha contribuido en moldear un desastre social de proporciones mayores.

La solución no son más policías, soldados, armas y planes estratégicos. La solución no es el combate abierto en las calles. La solución no son más cárceles. La solución no son más muertes y venganza. Por muchos policías que se pueda entrenar y pagar, aun cuando fuera uno por cada esquina de la ciudad, no evitaría que la corrupción moral que ahoga a la sociedad se desparramara de todas maneras. El individuo tiene que auto-regular su conducta por medio de un ordenamiento espiritual y mental interno. Cuando este ordenamiento moral no existe, todo lo demás se desata por ende, lo cual se combina con un sistema de justicia viciado precisamente por esta falta de ética y moralidad para que se pierda todo límite a las conductas más bajas. El resultado de de décadas, quizá siglos de relativismo moral están a la vista; sembramos lo que cosechamos.

Es verdad que el consumo de drogas en Estados Unidos es el contribuidor principal a la guerra por controlar los mercados ilegales. Es verdad que el gobierno ha fallado a través del tiempo. Es cierto que no hay un sistema policiaco honesto y eficaz. Pero también es cierto que la crueldad demoniaca y la maldad espeluznante que se han presentado no son justificadas por ninguno de los factores anteriores. La orgia de sangre y violencia es el resultado no de una falla técnica o táctica. Es el resultado de la bancarrota moral de una sociedad que ha perdido su orientación y ha envenenado el alma de sus miembros. La solución no es fácil ni rápida. El mar de sangre y la tempestad de violencia que se han desatado no terminaran de la noche a la mañana. Hasta que confrontemos la realidad espiritual del problema que confronta a la sociedad mexicana no habrá soluciones. Se han necesitado generaciones enteras para llegar a este punto en la vida del país. La desmoralización de la sociedad no se ha logrado de la noche a la mañana; ha sido una obra de mucho tiempo y se necesitará mucho tiempo para sanar lo que aqueja a la sociedad.

¿Cuál es la solución? La solución es el regreso a la moralidad cristiana que se ha abandonado. Es la reconstrucción de una base moral que se abandonó hace ya muchos años. La solución es la conversión individual de cada uno de nosotros para establecer una sociedad más justa y menos materialista. La solución no es eliminar a los “malos”, sino transformar una sociedad que por mucho tiempo tuvo su fundamento practico en la corrupción, la mordida, el disimulo, el abuso y el materialismo. La solución radica en todos y cada uno de nosotros, en nuestra transformación. Como diría San Pablo en una de sus epístolas, que el que roba ya no lo haga y viva del trabajo de sus manos.

ADVENT 2009

2009-11-30T06:16:00.000-08:00

We have come to the end of a liturgical year. The cycle is complete and once more a new Liturgical year opens with the season of Advent, a word from Latin origin meaning “coming”. And for us Christians of course this is the coming of the Lord, the miracle of the incarnation, another Latin word meaning to take on flesh. This is because the awesome act of God, the creator of the universe, of all that is visible and invisible, who stands outside his creation in unlimited freedom and power, taking the form of a human being, sharing with his creation the frailties, weaknesses and humble condition of the flesh.

Imagine that! To give us an idea of the immensity of God’s act is to think of a human being taking the form of an ant and sharing with the ants their anthill. Except that in the case of God the difference is incomparably and infinitely greater than the between the ant humans. At least we and the ants share a carbon based, genetically encoded fleshly constitution. God is spirit and his greatness is so vast that is unfathomable for us humans. Think of it, God created the universe, trillions and trillions of stars, galaxies in which our earth is less than a grain of sand in the beach. This same God created the genetic code; governs the atoms, quarks and other infinitesimal particles. This is power and greatness in an unthinkable scale.

Just like a play writer or a novelist creates his work, so God did create our destinies. And yet He chooses to come down, to humble Himself to become a human, a man born of a young girl in a specific time and place. He who is outside time and space enters these dimensions in the form of a man. He who has complete and absolute power will be limited by a human body that will be hungry, tired, limited in scope of action. He who has no beginning and no end, who was there present at the Big Bang and will be there present when the universe ends, eons and eons of existence, He became mortal in the flesh and blood form of a the man Jesus.

Why did God choose to do this? That is a mystery. But we know that God gave us freedom and that He will not force His will on us. I guess He could have thundered and announced His presence (well actually He did at Mount Sinai and yet the Jews rebelled any way). He could have intervened directly in our affairs (well actually He has done this too, repeatedly). But we are such a stubborn lot that none of this things will suffice to make us choose what is good. Jesus recounts in one of his parables how Abraham tells the rich man in hell who begs him to raise the dead so they can warn his brothers of their impending lot, just like his, in hell forever; And yet Abraham tells him that they already have the Law and the Prophets, surely they will not even listen to someone rising from the dead. So God sends Jesus, to announce God’s Kingdom of mercy and love. Jesus enters humanity to form a group of frail, weak humans and send them like yeast in the dough, to ferment the whole batch and transform the world. Jesus, God’s own son, indeed God in the flesh, enters history to transform it. And yes, he even rises from among the dead knowing full well that many will not even believe this.

God’s redemption through the death of His son is another great mystery. But we are told in God’s word that this death paid a debt owed by all humankind. The heavy debt of our sins paid in full so that from now on it will only take an act of the will; repentance and faith in Jesus to obtain God’s mercy. By entering into space and time, God in Jesus will now take us out of space and time into everlasting life. Just as He became low, suffered and died and then rose, so he allows us now to be exalted, to be taken up into a new dimension where death no longer will exist, where suffering will end. Just as He became a human so now he will make us into gods. Not gods in the idolatrous sense or to be compared to God, but gods in the sense that once redeemed and entering this new dimension, our bodies will become new, full of life, eternal, outside time and space. All we need to have this is Jesus himself, having faith in Him and living for him. Our small sacrifice here on earth has already been paid in full by Jesus to ensure our entrance in the glorious dimension of what we know as “heaven”.

This season of Advent when we re-live the time of expectation that Israel had for the coming of the Savior, we need to reflect, to think hard about our lives. We need to measure our faith, our behaviors, and our response to God. In times past Advent was actually a “small lent”, a season for austere recollection and sacrifice, a time to give and to give up. The Church, that group of people left here on earth by Jesus to transform it, reminds us that in this season of expectation and anticipation we need to think about those others who have less than we do and invites us to give them some of what we have more. Advent is a time for quiet expectation and thoughtful judgment of our shortcomings so that when the time comes we can rejoice in the coming of our Savior.

As this New Liturgical Year starts, may we think about our sins, repent, change and live for our Lord in those he entrust to us. And then when the time comes, may we rejoice in his coming and the Great Good News of his birth among men.

The Bishop, The Conressman and Catholic Teaching

2009-11-24T08:38:00.000-08:00

There has been a controversy in the last few weeks between Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Rhode Island and Congressman Patrick Kennedy who represents the same state in the U.S. Congress.

The controversy at issue has escalated because of the Congressman’s public and harsh criticism of the Catholic Church for not supporting abortion in the Health Care bill initiative initially in the U.S. House of Representatives and now in the U.S. Senate.

In view of Patrick Kennedy’s public criticisms and responses, Bishop Tobin has answered the accusations publicly, even when the initial request from the bishop from the congressman to refrain from communion was originally issued privately in 2007. Kennedy chose last week to divulge this request from the bishop publicly.

The basic issue is that Bishop Tobin has asked Representative Kennedy to refrain from taking communion because of his support for abortion in general and in particular his push to have it inserted into the healthcare reform and funded with taxpayer’s money. In addition Representative Kennedy supports other legal initiatives in favor of homosexual marriage, embryonic stem cell research, cloning and other stances that in direct opposition to the doctrine and beliefs of the Catholic Church.

The issue here is not weather Rep. Kennedy or any other elected politician should obey any religious leader’s order to vote one way or another; the issue is that if the congressman chooses to vote for abortion or any other issue at odds with his Catholic faith he in all effects breaks communion with his Church and commits a grave sin in accordance with Catholic doctrine and law. Patrick Kennedy is free to vote his conscience, but he is not free to do so and still consider himself a Catholic in good standing and partake of the Lord’s body and blood in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Catholic doctrine teaches that a mortal sin precludes one from the privilege (and communion is always a privilege and not a right) of communion. In order for the person to come back for communion he or she needs to repent, that is change their course, make a confession (which is the external expression of penance and contrition for the sins made and the lawful authority of the Church to forgive). Procuring an abortion, helping someone get an abortion, cooperating in the sinful structure of power that has legalized and supported abortion are all mortal sins that automatically set the person apart from communion.

In the end the person alone is responsible to make the decision to abide or not by the commandments and instructions of his or her faith. No power in the United States is going to make Mr. Kennedy or any other politician vote against his or her own conscience. Yet at the same time they should not expect to have the cake and eat it too. If you choose to vote against the teachings of your Church, do not expect this same Church and indeed Christ, to take you back without condition.

SHOCKING, BISHOP UPHOLDS CATHOLIC DOCTRINE!

2009-09-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

How shocking! A Catholic bishop that actually upholds Church teaching, see the note from Channel 5 in Cincinnati:

"CINCINNATI -- A volunteer religious teacher has been dismissed in Cincinnati after writing a letter to the editor backing a Roman Catholic nun ordered to stop teaching for supporting women priests.

Dr. Carol Egner said she has been told she can longer teach her Old Testament class to sixth-graders at Our Lady of Lourdes parish.

The archbishop of the Cincinnati Archdiocese recently banned a nun, Sister of Charity Louise Akers, from teaching at parishes and institutions after 40 years because she supports the ordination of women as priests. Akers says she refused to renounce her support of women priests as a matter of conscience.

Egner's pastor said his decision is not part of a crackdown on dissent. Rev. David Sunberg said parish teachers must follow church teachings. "

Well, the gall of the bishop by requiring a member of his teaching stuff to abide by the Church’s magisterium and teaching.

Art and the pope

2009-09-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

From the BBC today:

“The Pope has announced plans to hold a summit later this year with around 500 international artists.

The move is believed to be an attempt by the Vatican to mend relations with the contemporary art world.

It's being seen as an overture by the Vatican to mend relations with the contemporary art world after Pope Benedict XVI condemned a sculpture by German artist Martin Kippenberger of a crucified green frog. "

“Mend relations with the contemporary art world” What kind of contemporary art world any way? The note from the BBC is tendentious as usual because it implies that the pope is virtually asking the “contemporary art world” (whatever that means) for forgiveness. The art world in our days is a wilderness where there are a few precious examples of beauty but where nihilism, vulgarity, mediocrity and plain hatred of our Church are manifested.

Frogs crucified, crucifixes submerged in urine, a portrait of the Virgin Mary smeared with excrement, portrayals of men performing oral sex on our Lord Jesus, a naked Virgin; that is the contemporary world of art. Not that all modern art is corrupted but a vast majority of what goes for art these days is just ugly and mediocre expressions of so called artists that have a deviant mind.

The note also reflects the thought of the media and liberal Catholics who think the Church should change to accommodate the world and not the other way around.

Santa Muerte, the Cult of Death and the Drug Wars in Mexico

2009-08-24T08:07:00.001-07:00

You can see many when walking along the curious shops of Avenida Juarez in Juarez, Mexico. They come in all sizes and materials, from crude plaster to refined gold, from small pewter crudely made figurines to golden and gaudy pendants from thick necklaces. In all of its forms and sizes the figure remains basically the same, a skeleton dressed in a black robe a sickle with a long handled held in one of the bony hands. It is basically the equivalent of the Grim Ripper in American lore, with the void eye sockets of the skull peering in macabre fashion from inside the hood. There is one for any price range and they may include pamphlets or booklets with prayers dedicated to the grim figure. This is the "Santa Muerte" or "The Holy Death". Yet the name does not express the traditional Catholic concept of dying a "good" or "holy" death by being ready to meet the creator through a good life and receiving the Catholic sacraments during the final hour. No, the concept of this figure is that of Saint for those many that raise prayers to it and expect favors and protection. Perhaps a better translation would be "Saint Death".

Saint Death has a wide and devout following in Mexico, most of all in the northern border cities. But to say that this personage is identified with other traditional Catholic Saints is a mistake. Of course the official Catholic doctrine is that only God is to be worshiped. Saints receive reverence as exemplary people who led a Christian life. The Church says that prayers can be directed to these Saints for intercession. Any miracles or "favors" are the work of God and not the Saint. But Saint Death is, clearly, not a Catholic Saint. The Church has condemned the cult of the sinister "Saint". But this does not discourage millions of Mexicans who pray, ask for help, seek protection, elevate curses and offer sacrifice to the Santa Muerte.

Devotees of this grim character offer "gifts" to the figure. Most offer tobacco, a smoking a cigar spreading the smoke towards the image, some offer alcohol or even food or money. The figurine is either kept in a household "altar" or wore as a pendant on a neck chain or both. Candles are lit, incense is burnt and prayers said to ask the grim character to attract a lover, get a job, protection from death or misfortune. The prayers are usually adorned with Christian words, but the true element is pagan, asking this figure for favors and protection. The prayers can also be curses, directed against enemies, gang rivals, and former lovers. These curses can ask for vengeance, for constant unrest for the victim, even for death. Clearly no Christian Saint is going to intercede for such horrible prayers.

Some sociologist, anthropologist or enthusiasts of Mexican native mythologies (many very hostile to Christianity and to the Catholic Church) see the Santa Muerte as a reinvention of the Aztec gods and goddesses. Some of the most enthusiastic apologists of the practice declare this a "people" religion in opposition to the Christian deity and to Christ. In truth the cult of the Santa Muerte is syncretistic since it uses Christian imagery and words, similar to the Voodoo cult.

The cult is widespread and in the last few years has been adopted and propagated by drug traffickers. The Santa Muerte has become a cultural and religious expression of the most violent. With drug money the Santa Muerte has now even chapels where the idol is worshiped. And not only the gang members worship there but also their families and many other people not even related to the gangs who have also adopted this strange "Saint" who in reality is a pagan god of the most dark kind.

What is revealing is that the Santa Muerte cult rise coincided with the increase in violence in the Mexican side of the border with the U.S. We can say that the cult to the dark idol took off almost simultaneously with the drug violence. This violence has reached the most horrific levels of cruelty and wantonness. Since late 2006 to date more than 15,000 people have died in Mexico in the drug wars. Ciudad Juarez, the eye of the storm in this horrific wave of lawlessness has left anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 victims in 2008 and this year looks to be even more bloody. Is the emergence of the worship of "Death" and the horrific violence coincidence?

Santa Muerte has a faithful following of millions in Mexico, most of all in the northern Mexican states and in cities like Juarez that are plagued by violence, murder and lawlessness. But who is the Santa Muerte? Death of course is nothing. It is the lack of life. Spiritual death is the condemnation of the soul to eternal separation from God a conscious form that negates life. Death came into the world through sin and in the last days, according to Sacred Scripture, death will be vanquished and thrown into the fiery lake with Satan and the Antichrist. So in effect the devotees of Death are worshiping an empty idol. Death cannot offer anything but only the negation of life. Praying to the "Santa Muerte" is like praying to a shadow or a void, it is trusting in something that is nothing and will be nothing. Faith in death is faith in that which lacks life and can offer only corruption, darkness, emptiness and hopelessness.

But who is really behind this macabre idol? The actual statue or figurine of course means nothing; it is mute and blind and cannot do anything in itself. But there is a dark spiritual power behind the worship of this thing. It is the power of the prince of this world and his minions. It is the power of hate, murder and violence. A power that despises all that is human, good and godly. It is the power of the destroyer of life who in his rage seduces people to worship this false idol and captures them in the web of evil that it produces. Santa Muerte is Satan. And we can see his horrible work in the thousands of murders and slaughter that have bloodied Mexico, in the degradation of young people who become cold blooded killers and embrace a life of sin. Santa Muerte offers sex, power, money, drugs. But of course because this is the work of the Devil and he is a liar and a murderer from the beginning, the "benefits" the idol are also a lie and a trap for those who follow it.

As Christians we need to pray to the one and only true provider of all that is good. To God through His Son Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to reject to worship of this horrible idol. We need to direct our young and our families and all those who we know to never pick up such horrible practice and if they have taken it up, to abandon it immediately. Those who have these idols in their houses or possession need to destroy them, and renounce this superstition. As we said, the actual physical idol has no power, but putting our faith on this dark spirit is a rebellion against God.

Ciudad Juarez and many other cities in Mexico are the grip of a spiritual chokehold. We need to pray so that the spiritual powers that have brought the violence leave. We need to dedicate our lives and our families to the good, to Christ. Family by family is how the battle is won. Our weapons are not bullets but prayer. Our alternative should not be hate, violence and empty lawlessness but love according to the love of Christ.

Dear Lord Jesus forgive us our sins, restore our holiness and show us the way of truth. Help us reject the evil idol known as Santa Muerte and free our nation and cities from this instrument of the Enemy. In particular we pray for Ciudad Juarez, that the violence and wickedness brought by the unseen spiritual realities of the evil one may be driven away by the prayers of the faithful, here on earth and in heaven. We pray for our youth who have been corrupted by the influence of Satan. May your Holy Angles protect us and may your Holy Spirit drive to repentance those who are trapped in the circle of violence and murder. Dear Jesus Christ, Only Son of the Father, be the King of Ciudad Juarez and Mexico and vanquish this idol in chains to hell where it belongs.

AMEN.

2009-08-10T10:12:00.000-07:00

Hoy se celebra la fiesta de San Lorenzo, diacono y mártir del tercer siglo.
En la Roma Imperial el aborto era común, el infanticidio practicado constantemente, la eutanasia por medio del suicidio era el recurso de los que se sentían acorralados por el sistema imperial. Famosos emperadores como Nerón practicaban el homosexualismo abiertamente y querían imponer su desviación en toda la población del Imperio. Un imperio global imponía su tolerancia a todas las religiones siempre y cuando le rindieran culto a Cesar y con esto los habitantes del imperio podían gozar del libre comercio, los medios de comunicación, y el entretenimiento para las masas en el circo. Pan y Circo. Por más que cambian las cosas más se quedan igual.
En esta época el imperio atravesaba por una de sus crisis financieras y el emperador Valeriano necesitaba los recursos para seguir financiando sus programas públicos como la compra de trigo para la distribución cotidiana a los ciudadanos sin empleos, pagar por los juegos gladiatorios de gran envergadura y satisfacer su lujuria por la riqueza y el poder. Como una solución a su dilema el emperador decidió iniciar una persecución de los cristianos ya que estos se negaban a ofrecer el sacrificio obligatorio de lealtad al emperador, ofrecer una pizca de incienso al altar del ‘dios’ emperador y llamarlo señor. Los cristianos solo tenían un señor: Jesús Cristo.
Pronto la persecución cobro sus víctimas, entre ellos el obispo de Roma Sixto y sus sacerdotes y diáconos. El emperador pedía que se le revelase donde estaba el oro y la plata de los cristianos. Lorenzo, diacono en Roma ofreció al emperador mostrarle el ora y la plata, los tesoros de los cristianos. El emperador le dio tres días para reunir los tesoros y traerlos al foro. Al final del plazo Lorenzo se presentó con una multitud de pobres en harapos, esclavos, sirvientes, lisiados, viejos, huérfanos y otros que para el imperio eran lo peor de lo peor. Cuando el emperador pregunto a Lorenzo en donde estaba el tesoro, este le mostro la multitud de pobres “aquí están los tesoros de la iglesia”.
El emperador furioso ordeno que Lorenzo fuera torturado, para lo cual se eligió asarlo vivo sobre un fuego lento en una parrilla. Dice la historia que cuando su cuerpo estaba totalmente quemado por la espalda el santo dijo “ya está bien cocinado, ahora volteadme para quedar bien”.
San Lorenzo se negó a conformarse a la imagen del imperio de este mundo y decidió recibir el martirio en el espíritu de Cristo conformándose a la imagen de Dios.

The Catholic Life is Lived through the Sacraments

2009-08-03T12:20:00.001-07:00

When I was finally confirmed in the Holy Catholic Church at the age of 35 our RCIA (Rite of Catholic Initiation of Adults) instructor gave us his final recommendation "practice your faith" he said.

This led me to find a way to practice the faith. Of course prayer, bible reading, getting involved in parish life in different endeavors, but as the years progressed many of these activities ran their course. After several years together my small community disintegrated, the result of people moving to other cities, others getting occupied in their lives, still others went into other groups and areas to serve the Church. Other activities like that of lector (reading the biblical passages that are part of the mass), catechist, evangelization, etc., they all ran their course. In a lapse of almost fifteen years I have moved from my original city.

Another way I looked for a constant refreshment of my faith and commitment to the Church was through reading. And reading I did, dozens, hundreds, thousands of books that accumulated into a rather large collection for a private home. Finally my 6,000 book collection lost about half of its volumes when I moved again from South Texas to Massachusetts. You don't really want to know how much it costs to move boxes loaded with books.

Other friends and Catholic acquaintances have suggested serving in food lines. Give alms to the poor, volunteer in other activities. All of these are worthwhile and necessary ways to live your Christian life, but in the end these also can become stale, routine and with time all things pass. In fact many committed Catholics have found that they can be involved in so many activities that they end by over committing, neglecting their families and jobs.

But then I remembered something I read while preparing to teach pre-baptismal instruction to parents. In one of those old mimeographed copies of a typed manual for baptismal class instructors there was a whole lesson on "Sacramental Living".

The Sacraments provide the true way of living a Catholic life providing the roadmap for a lifetime relationship with Christ and His Church. Rooted in the ministry of Christ and instituted by Him, these are the means to partake of God's grace and guide us in our pilgrimage in life, from birth to death. By exercising our duty and privilege in partaking of these gifts of grace we can always maintain a close relationship with God, Christ and His Church. Even in times when prayer is dry and our faith seems small and God may seem far, the Sacraments are always available, always active in giving us a lighted pathway in what can be the darkness of life.

There are, of course, seven Sacraments instituted by Christ and ministered by the Church. These seven Sacraments are the road markers that show the way of a Christian's life and are intimately related to our life cycle. From the moment of our spiritual birth at baptism to the end of earthly life the sacraments are always present and available to give God's gifts to His people. And the greatest thing is that we do not have to engage in any extraordinary activity. The sacraments provide a constant source of transformation, conversion, repentance and rebirth.

What is a Sacrament? The Church magisterium has said in the past that a Sacrament is an outward sign of inward grace. God uses those things that our senses can see, feel, perceive to indicate that He is always present and lovingly giving us His free gift of fellowship. He uses water, fire, oil, salt and words to indicate that His awesome transforming power is working within us to make us into what He wants. Through the road of our lives the Sacraments are the map if you will, the charting course to unite us with God, to make us his sons and daughters, to purify, to cleanse, to strengthen, to consecrate us into our vocations in life.

This is the way to practice the faith. Each day we can partake of God's Sacraments, and even those that are only given once in a lifetime (Marriage, Holy Orders, Confirmation, and Baptism) provide the character of our vocation as persons and point to the direction of our lives. The Catholic can find a route marked by God and given by His Son to lead a holy life. The Sacraments provide this route and help us to enter into holiness by way of conversion and transformation. We do not have to reinvent the wheel in order to have a relationship with Christ, the Sacraments point to the way and gives us the necessary grace.

Baptism, Penance, Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Holy Orders, Anointing of the Sick (also known as Extreme Unction) are the seven signs of God's grace. In further blogs I will touch on each one as the wonderful markers of the life of faith, the fount of holiness and the way to a close relationship with the Triune God. If we partake of these we will live a Christian life.

President Obama and orthodox Catholics

2009-07-09T10:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a moderate (well I think so) personal evaluation of our relation with our young president. I have tried to be charitable and moderate in my tone. Of course I did not vote for him and would not vote for him in the future. But I want to understand where so many Catholics are coming from as supporters of the president and having voted for him. I sincerely long to at least feel he respects us and that he will not impose on us the values of the secular world.

Where the current administration both differs and can find common ground with Catholic doctrine:

I) Main areas of divergence:

a. Abortion: The president is a staunch supporter of abortion rights all the way to the last weeks of gestation. As a senator he voted against a ban on partial birth abortion (a particularly cruel method of killing the fetus just moments from birth). The president has publically declared his goal of reducing abortions, at this is a laudable objective. Jet his way of coming to a reduction of abortions is by further promoting contraceptive methods and sexual education that directly contradict Catholic moral theology. How can we work with president Obama on this area? The president has a right to disagree with Catholic doctrine, but as he is aware, abortion is a tragedy and for faithful Catholics there can be no compromise in the killing of innocent life. We can work as Catholics to promote life choices within our legal framework and to evangelize. The president can respect this and help by not forcing medical personnel and Catholic medical facilities to provide abortion services that are against Catholic morals.

b. Stem Cell Research: The president supports embryonic stem cell research and seems to have embraced the idea that this type of research is the only hope for illness like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and others. We need to work with the president by trying to convince him that this type of research has been superseded by adult stem cell research and also about the moral dangers of promoting the use of human embryos as research material for experiments. It is a slippery slope that easily takes us into moral landmines and the real possibility of evil.

c. Contraception: The president, as most modern Americans, accept the use of contraception as perfectly natural way of controlling population and regulating family planning. As Catholics we can not impose our moral ideas on the rest of Americans, but we can work towards convincing the president that as parents we have the right to know when medical personnel at schools and other organizations prescribe and give contraceptives to our children under 18 years of age. The same goes to providing abortion to teens and not notifying parents of the intention and the accomplished fact. As a family man the president can relate to this (even though he has expressed that if his daughter would conceive out of marriage he would agree to an abortion).

d. Sexual Education: As Catholics our children must not be forced to receive sexual education that is against our doctrines and moral ethics. We can work with the president by comparing our situation as Catholics with the situation of Muslims. Just as Muslims demand respect for their customs so do we as Catholics.

e. Homosexual Unions: The president is a staunch supported of so called “gay rights”. Yet to his credit he has refused to redefine marriage and supports the concept of marriage as between a man and a woman. Yet his administration is clearly sympathetic to gays and lesbians and so called transgendered persons. Again, as Catholics we can not impose our morals on the general population, but we can ask the president to respect our beliefs and not view and call them as “obsolete attitudes” as he has done recently. We also need to ask the president ensure that the federal government will respect the freedom of Churches and Church related institutions not to hire gays in areas that affect our doctrine or extend benefits to homosexual couples as if they were married.

f. End of life: The president agreed with the decision by Terri Schiavo’s husband to withhold water and food from her, starving her in a painful period a several days. This seems to indicate that the president agrees with those who judge a life according to “quality”. As Catholics we consider innocent life sacred from the time of birth to the time of death.

II) Areas of Agreement

a. Social Justice: The president has a strong social justice sense that may irk some more right leaning Americans. Yet the truth is that Catholic social teaching has no quarrel with favoring the poor, providing health care to people, etc. America is a very prosperous country and even today it provides people with freedoms and opportunities that are undreamt in other parts of the world. We can work with the president in including the poor and the working people in achieving the American dream for as many people as possible.

b. Health Care: The president’s aim to provide universal health care is a point where we as Catholics can agree or disagree. Providing health care to the poor, the handicapped and the elderly who can’t afford medical care to buy medical insurance is a worthy goal. We can work on a plan with the president that allows choice of health providers does not stifle competition and ensures that Americans get the best care possible.

c. International Coexistence: The president has declared his intention to promote pace, respect to other countries sovereignty and cooperation in international initiatives. As Catholics these are worthy goals and we can work with the president as our own conscience dictates.

In his speeches the president has adopted a reasonable tone and seems to adopt moderation in some of his policies. Yet there are profound areas of disagreement between the president and Catholic doctrine. We can not ignore these areas. Furthermore, the president is at the forefront of a philosophical movement that sees religion in general as something from the past and somewhat an impediment to progress. The president believes in the unbounded capacity of the government to provide a road for the happiness and progress of the people. Yet experience shows that governments in themselves become the problem and that a philosophy that ignores the relationship between God and men and even acts in hostility towards it violates one the most profound needs and experiences of men, the religious experience and the reality of a personal God in the life of people.

Can we hope to have respect and understanding from president Obama for our Catholic believes? I hope so. The United States is still a country where we can practice our faith in freedom in all of its ranges from ultraconservative to ultraliberal. This is a precious freedom and something that the president can protect and encourage. Yet the cultural and political trends to curtail, minimize and make our faith irrelevant by indoctrinating our youth in the secular philosophy are undeniable. We can’t hope and it would not be realistic to expect America to become a Catholic country. It has never been so and probably never will, but we can ask from our young president respect for our beliefs, freedom to practice them and the ability to live it in the public arena without hostility, derision or discrimination.

Honduras: Celaya, Hugo and Obama

2009-07-01T04:56:00.000-07:00

Tiny and poor Honduras kicked its Chavez’ puppet president for violating its constitution and wanting to start his road to tyranny in imitation of his master in Caracas. In a swift move the Honduran army carried out a mandate by the country’s Supreme Court to remove Mr. Celaya from office. Of course the tyrants in Caracas and Havana were furious and are demanding the reinstatement of Celaya. The one mistake the Honduras made was to let Celaya out of the country into exile; they should have arrested him.

Celaya is the dear political ‘child’ of Hugo Chavez, the most dangerous buffoon in Latin America. In ten years Chavez has demolished democracy in Venezuela, systematically removing all opposition, silencing the free press, taking over the economy, brutalizing any opponents and installing a gorilla tyranny of the lefty kind. Chavez is megalomaniac that considers himself to be the man to lead Latin America and has exported his brand of communist tyrannical regime to other Latin American countries like Bolivia and Ecuador. While the Bush administration ignored the region Chavez has undermined democratic regimes and is looking to convert it into a huge Cuba like paradise.

But we live in strange days since in the White House now sits one of the most staunch socialists around, Barak Obama. Immediately the Obama administration moved to condemn the so called “coup” and call for the return of Celaya, in unison with the thug Chavez and the geriatric and eternal dictator Castro. The U.S. is now enforcing obedience so that we all become good, well behaved socialists. Strange indeed!

The Hondurans have paid with blood the price of communist ambitions in the region for years. They know that the clown Hugo Chavez revolution is just another version of the military gorilla dictatorship by another name. They know better, and despite their deep problems they know that the so called “Bolivarian” way is a much worse avenue. Today the may be poor, but they are free, with Celaya as a puppet of Chavez they will not only be poor but also subjected to a leftist dictatorship.

Shame on Obama; but we knew all along were his sympathies lie; with the leftist thugs in Venezuela and Cuba. Heck, he is even very well advanced in his few months in power in turning America into a socialist paradise, where all will be equally miserable under the stern nanny state.

Verano en Nueva Inglaterra

2009-06-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

Los días de nieve han pasado a pesar de que por algún momento pensé que nunca terminarían. Ahora que puedo reflexionar a manera un poco más distante sobre los días de invierno en Nueva Inglaterra puedo decir que a pesar de su inconveniencia para la vida moderna, hay muchas veces que son bellísimos. El espectáculo de la blanca nieve contrastando con el verde intensamente oscuro de los pinos y abetos recargados por la acumulación es algo digno de verse. Claro que para el tráfico de vehículos no es tan solo una inconveniencia, sino un real riesgo. Pero la nieve y los árboles estaban aquí mucho antes que las carreteras y los automóviles, y seguirán aquí mucho después que aquellos desaparezcan en la historia.

Pero al fin, a finales de abril (¡abril, lo pueden creer!) el invierno finalmente decidió soltar a esta tierra de sus gélidas manos y se fue a dormir hasta la siguiente visita. Poco a poco los árboles de hojas caducas empezaron a brotar botones de un tierno verde y para mediados del mes de mayo la naturaleza se desbordo en una sinfonía de color. Los cerezos y otros árboles explotaron con matices rosas, rojos, blancos y tierno verde. Las auroras extendieron sus dedos rosas sobre la tierra cada día más temprano y la temperatura empezó lenta pero seguramente a subir sobre el punto de congelación. La primavera aquí fue algo que nunca había experimentado; el gozo de la resurrección después de los fríos y oscuros días de un largo invierno. No puedo describir la sensación de felicidad al ver el sol y la naturaleza retornar a la vida. La ansiedad de salir y tomar el sol, de disfrutar de los días más tibios y de la naturaleza resurgente es casi irresistible.

Ya entramos en el verano y los colores tiernos y nuevos de la primavera han cedido su lugar a los verdes profundos y a las frondas expansivas de las plantas. Todo se cubre de verde y las lluvias llegan para regar el jardín que esta región. Confieso que en este verano bostoniano extraño el sol de suroeste americano. Aquí la vegetación es exuberante, y lo es por que llueve de manera constante. No es una lluvia como las que tenemos en El Paso y Juárez, de esas que caen como diluvio pero en media hora ya se extinguieron y no vuelve a llover hasta después de otros seis meses. Aquí la lluvia no es tan dramática, pero es constante, llueve todos los días, día tras día, toda la semana, por semanas. Hay días que el sol no brilla, cubierto por la cortina de nubes. Es una tierra fértil y templada, podríamos decir que sana hasta cierto grado por que no hay los extremos de sequía del desierto o el ambiente malsano del trópico, pero por otra parte es austera, sombría hasta cierto grado. Por algo le llamaron Nueva Inglaterra a esta región que incluye a Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire y Maine. Comparten con la vieja Inglaterra el clima húmedo, las neblinas tan típicas de Londres, la constante lluvia.

Este clima produce una población con marcadas características; poco amables, parcas con los extraños, no muy cultivada en el trato, algo cortante. Por aquí no hay sonrisas al caminar por la calle, bueno por el mall, por que ya nadie camina por las calles. Cuando le abro la puerta a alguien, cuando sonrío a la mesera o a la cambista, cuando digo gracias, muchas veces la gente se me queda viendo como bicho raro. No están acostumbrados a las amabilidades. Y es que estos inviernos largos y brutales, con veranos llenos de días nebulosos, no es sorprendente. Hasta los hispanos que viven por aquí desarrollan este humor corto. Los días son increíblemente largos, creo que se debe a que estamos extremadamente al norte del hemisferio. A partir del 22 de junio los días empezaran a acortarse nuevamente, pero por lo pronto para las 3:45 de la mañana ya se anuncia el alba y la luz no se va hasta las 9:00 de la noche. Esto produce días larguísimos, pero no siempre muy llenos de sol.

Pero por otra parte, la mejor parte, la tierra aquí nos ofrece tanta belleza que es un regalo para los ojos. Hay lagos, ríos, colinas, bosques y todo a escasa distancia de cualquier parte donde uno se encuentre. El río Merrimack en Andover, el Sant Charles en Boston, ofrecen una vista increíble para mis ojos acostumbrados a las escasas corrientes del Bravo. Hay lagos placidos, mecidos entre las colinas frondosas, dignos de una pintura y que en días de sol ofrecen un solas para el alma de tan solo verlos. Hay iglesias blancas, de torres altas y columnas de tipo griego que fueron construidas por los colonos ingleses hace mucho tiempo. Las casas de los nativos neo-ingleses se esconden entre los árboles y en los caminos aldeanos y son una belleza con sus patios de césped recortado y sus alegres flores de todos colores, sobre todo los hermosos tulipanes que tanto se cultivan aquí, rojos, violetas, amarillos.

Dios ha sido generoso con estas tierras y tienen su belleza muy particular. No me puedo quejar al vivir rodeado de tanta belleza natural. Pero siempre pienso y suspiro por mi desierto, por los panoramas vastos y abiertos, por las montanas doradas y las arenas amarillas, por los cielos azul turquesa y el abundante sol. My familia paterna ha vivido en la región del norte de Chihuahua y lo que hoy es el suroeste americano desde hace casi trecientos años. El amor por esa tierra recia y árida corre en mis venas. Nueva Inglaterra es mi amiga, pero el desierto de Chihuahua es mi madre.

Juarez, Mexico

2009-06-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately the lull on the drug violence in Juarez was short lived. Here in the U.S. newspapers like the L.A. Times and the Washington Post have special sections dedicated to what it is now know here as the "Mexican Drug War". FOX, CNN and all other media outlets are reporting periodically on the Mexican violence. There have been exclusive long articles in Rolling Stone Magazine, Times, Newsweek, American Spectator, etc., all focusing on the issue. And of course guess what city is the most reported on? Ciudad Juarez now labeled the most dangerous city in the world. Not only that, but news agencies in Spain, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Australia, China, etc., routinely report on Juarez. I think there is more news and news detail about the Juarez violence on this multiple sources than there is in the Juarez papers themselves (fear goes a long way, no?).

According to different sources there are now something like 700 - 900 killings in Juarez this year so far including innocent bystanders and children (this weekend a 12 year old girl and a 14 year old boy were killed in a vehicle in the Valle de Juarez).

Mexican reporters, politicians, businessmen, are leaving the border for the U.S and even Canada (there are several articles about some reporters now living in El Paso, Los Angeles and Canada). It seems that the brief period of peace on the wake of the Mexican Army surge has ended and the violence has spiked again to dozens of deaths every week (some times every day!).

I know that the decent people of Juarez (and El Paso) have no way of doing much about this horrible situation. Businesspeople are fearful of the naegative business impact on Juarez. But what in the heck can be said of a city where close to 8,000 people have died in violent murders in three years? The casualties of the Drug War are now higher than those of the American army in Iraq? Where is it all going to end?

One of the great problems is that Mexico and specially the State of Chihuahua and particularly Ciudad Juarez, lack any semblance of an effective Law Enforcement . The SEMFO has excellent labs and professionals, but once it gets into the hands of the "investigators" it just goes to virtual crap. 99% of the homicides in Chihuahua (and I think it goes for the whole country in Mexico) go unsolved. There is no punishment, no justice, no system that can threaten the criminals. This is the legacy of 70 years of lawless, "corporate" rule by the PRI and their legacy of dealing with groups and people not by the rule of law but by the rule of cronism.

There is a spiritual sickness in our souls. We are the drug dealers and the killers and by this I mean that we all know members of our family, friends, relatives, acquaintances that are involved in the illegal drug traffic. It is our society that is sick. When a country can produce bastards that take human life (even innocent children) with the ease these monsters do, there is something awfully wrong. We have abandoned decency, morality, goodness and have exchanged it for moral corruption. Even the Church takes "anonymous" donations from the criminals. Our culture, the "Culture of Death" with its stupid music, movies, TV programs, with its degradation of women and children have produced this moral vomit, the Culture of Death. We need to change, each one individually, otherwise there is no hope.

An then there is our gringo side. Americans who use drugs (our pampered university students, Ivy leaguers, Hollywood types, etc., etc.) are stupid fools who are consuming the blood of Mexicans to satisfy their stupid habit. Americans snort, inject, shoot up, even rub drugs by the tons each year in an insatiable thirst for mind bending trips.

This just yanks my chain, most of all to see innocent children killed and a city submerged in fear, with people acting like ostriches, burying our heads in a hole in the ground pretending nothing is wrong. Of course if you keep quiet, low profile, if you don't talk, don't express your outrage, if you shrug your shoulders and think this is just the drug trafficker’s problem, maybe if you do that, then you will be OK. FAT CHANCE.

The Body of Christ

2009-06-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Sunday June 14 we celebrated the feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Latin name of the celebration is Corpus Christi (Body of Christ). This feast is a remembrance to Christians, especially Catholics that the Lord Jesus gave himself in a very special way to us.

It is an absolute belief of the Catholic Church, a creed of dogma that requires our complete acceptance that the Lord in the night that he was betrayed, when he came together with his disciples to celebrate the Pasch he instituted the Eucharist. He did this by offering his body and his blood when he said “Take this and it, for this is my body” and immediately later when he said “This is my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant”. Some Christian denominations deny this teaching, but it has always been the teaching of the Universal Church that the bread we eat and the wine we drink in the Eucharist is the real blood and body of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is his body we consume in a mystical but very real sense.

It is the Catholic teaching (shared by our brethren in the Eastern Orthodox Churches) that when the priest pronounces the formula of consecration, the Holy Spirit acts in a special way transforming the wheat and the wine into the body and blood of our Lord. According to our Mother Catholic Church this is not a symbol, not a spiritual transformation, neither is subject to the presence of the people, but is a real transformation. The wine and the bread become the REAL flesh and blood of the Lord.

Now, according to our Catholic teaching, the bread and the wine conserve their “accidental” form (a philosophical term coined by St. Thomas Aquinas from Aristotelian terminology to describe what happens at the time of transformation). This means that the bread looks tastes and smells like bread and so also the wine. But even though the accidents remain the substance has changed. We believe literally in the words of the Lord during the Paschal feast (the Last Supper) when he said “this IS my body”, “this IS my blood”.

This is of course hard teaching. In the Gospel according to Saint John we read how many rejected the Lord because this teaching "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood; you have no life in you.” John 6:53 (NIV), many of those following until then left, scandalized by this statement saying “"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” and so many today reject him by the same reasoning.

In a mysterious way the Lord is with us forever, now veiled in a sacramental form but present nonetheless. And so we as Catholics should approach this tremendous sacrament with awe, reverence and humility. It is Jesus in person that we approach. It is his body in a mystical form we consume. What great miracle! What a tremendous and awesome experience that the ONE who is God should come to us individually in such an intimate way. We become actually and really one with him! What a wonderful miracle.

In the mass the priest offers to God the most pure and perfect sacrifice. The Jews used to offer the blood of bulls and lambs for the sins of the people. And the Lord would recognize that sacrifice and every Yom Kippur each year the sins of the people would be atoned, forgiven by God. How much more is now the Lord pleased with the sacrifice of the real and only Paschal Lamb? It is no longer the blood of animals that achieved atonement every year, but the blood of Jesus, the Christ, the sinless perfect offering of God to God. The old sacrifices used to be imperfect, a temporal covenant with a particular people. Now the sacrifice is perfect, offered for many, a New and Everlasting Covenant, never again to be null or void but fore ever acting in mysterious grace, a free gift in atonement for ALL the sins of humanity.

We give thanks to God in our sacrifice at Mass for this tremendous act (Eucharist comes from a Greek word that means to give thanks for a Good Gift). Some object that we are sacrificing Jesus all over again, but that is not so. Mother Church teaches that each Eucharistic sacrifice is not a reenactment, but the actual sacrifice at the cross all of those years ago. A great mystery just as the great miracle of the Transubstantiation (another term used by Saint Thomas Aquinas to describe the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ) is that at the instant of the Mass we are present at Calvary across time and space in that very day and time when the Son of God gave up his life for the ransom of humankind. The same sacrifice happens but now his blood is really present in the wine and his body in the bread. The work of human hands becomes the Body of Christ. This is the perpetual sacrifice, given once and for all for the sins of men.

If we eat his flesh and drink his blood we will have eternal life, and even though we die (physically for is appointed to all men to die once and then the judgment) we will live forever with him, united for all eternity with the Giver of Life. All is required from us is to believe! To come in faith and humility to the table of sacrifice and to believe that Christ’s promises are real and trusting his loving word. And that belief has to be translated in a real transformation of our lives, to be transformed in the renewing of our minds, to give our very own bodies as a perfect and living sacrifice to God (in the same way that Christ gives his own body) to witness to all that is perfect and desirable to paraphrase the great Apostle Paul.

"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood; you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." 59 John 6: 53-58 (NIV)

The Other Mexico ( a positive perspective)

2009-06-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

Someone suggested I post this article about Mexico by Linda Ellerbee: I am a native Mexican even though I have lived in the U.S. for most of my life now; but I think Mexico and Mexicans deserve a better look; This article is I think on the mark.

One Journalist’s View By Linda Ellerbee
Sometimes I’ve been called a maverick because I don’t always agree with my colleagues, but then, only dead fish swim with the stream all the time. The stream here is Mexico. You would have to be living on another planet to avoid hearing how dangerous Mexico has become, and, yes, it’s true drug wars have escalated violence in Mexico , causing collateral damage, a phrase I hate. Collateral damage is a cheap way of saying that innocent people,some of them tourists, have been robbed, hurt or killed. But that’s not the whole story. Neither is this. This is my story.

I’m a journalist who lives in New York City , but has spent considerable time in Mexico , specifically Puerto Vallarta , for the last four years. I’m in Vallarta now. And despite what I’m getting from the U.S. media, the 24-hour news networks in particular, I feel as safe here as I do at home in New York , possibly safer. I walk the streets of my Vallarta neighborhood alone day or night. And I don’t live in a gated community, or any other All-Gringo neighborhood. I live in Mexico .. Among Mexicans. I go where I want (which does not happen to include bars where prostitution and drugs are the basic products), and take no more precautions than I would at home in New York ; which is to say I don’t wave money around, I don’t act the Ugly American, I do keep my eyes open, I’m aware of my surroundings, and I try not to behave like a fool.

I’ve not always been successful at that last one. One evening a friend left the house I was renting in Vallarta at that time, and,unbeknownst to me, did not slam the automatically-locking door on her way out. Sure enough, less than an hour later a stranger did come into my house. A burglar? Robber? Kidnapper? Killer? Drug lord?

No, it was a local police officer, the “beat cop” for our neighborhood, who, on seeing my unlatched door, entered to make sure everything (including me) was okay. He insisted on walking with me around the house, opening closets, looking behind doors and, yes, even under beds, to be certain no one else had wandered in, and that nothing was missing. He was polite, smart and kind, but before he left, he lectured me on having not checked to see that my friend had locked the door behind her. In other words, he told me to use my common sense..

Do bad things happen here? Of course they do. Bad things happen everywhere, but the murder rate here is much lower than, say, New Orleans , and if there are bars on many of the ground floor windows of houses here, well, the same is true where I live, in Greenwich Village, which is considered a swell neighborhood house prices start at about $4 million (including the bars on the ground floor windows).

There are good reasons thousands of people from the United States are moving to Mexico every month, and it’s not just the lower cost of living, a hefty tax break and less snow to shovel.. Mexico is a beautiful country, a special place. The climate varies, but is plentifully mild, the culture is ancient and revered, the young are loved unconditionally, the old are respected, and I have yet to hear anyone mention Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Madonna’s attempt to adopt a second African child, even though, with such a late start, she cannot possibly begin to keep up with Anglelina Jolie.

And then there are the people. Generalization is risky, but in general Mexicans are warm, friendly, generous and welcoming. If you smile at them, they smile back. If you greet a passing stranger on the street, they greet you back. If you try to speak even a little Spanish, they tend to treat you as though you were fluent. Or at least not an idiot. I have had taxi drivers track me down after leaving my wallet or cell phone in their cab. I have had someone run out of a store to catch me because I have overpaid by twenty cents. I have been introduced to and come to love a people who celebrate a day dedicated to the dead as a recognition of the cycles of birth and death and birth with the same joy.

Too much of the noise you’re hearing about how dangerous it is to come to Mexico is just that noise. But the media love noise, and too many journalists currently making it don’t live here. Some have never even been here. They just like to be photographed at night, standing near a spotlighted border crossing, pointing across the line to some imaginary country from hell. It looks good on TV.

Another thing. The U.S. media tend to lump all of Mexico into one big bad bowl. Talking about drug violence in Mexico without naming a state or city where this is taking place is rather like looking at the horror of Katrina and saying, “Damn. Did you know the U.S. is under water?” or reporting on the shootings at Columbine or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City by saying that kids all over the U.S. are shooting their classmates and all the grownups are blowing up buildings. The recent rise in violence in Mexico has mostly occurred in a few states, and especially along the border. It is real, but it does not describe an entire country.
It would be nice if we could put what’s going on in Mexico in perspective, geographically and emotionally. It would be nice if we could remember that, as has been noted more than once, these drug wars wouldn’t be going on if people in the United States didn’t want the drugs, or if other people in the United States weren’t selling Mexican drug lords the guns. Most of all, it would be nice if more people in the United States actually came to this part of America ( Mexico is also America , you will recall) to see for themselves what a fine place Mexico really is, and how good a vacation (or a life) here can be.

So come on down and get to know your southern neighbors. I think you’ll like it here. Especially the people.

When the World is Against Us

2009-06-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

God acts in mysterious ways. It may sound trite but is true. God indeed acts in mysterious ways. Look at his work of redemption for the world. After mankind rebelled against God and fell from grace, by His mercy God did not abandon us to our self deceit and our unwarranted rebellion. In time He sent His Son in the form of a human to teach us and to save us. But when Jesus the Son of God, God in the Flesh was born he did not choose to come among the powerful of this world. He could have chosen to be born in power and privilege, in a palace, perhaps to be the son of a Roman emperor or an oriental king; He could have been born to one of the high priestly families in Jerusalem. In fact many of His fellow Jews expected a conquering Messiah (the Anointed One, the Chosen), riding in a white horse, mustering armies and defeating the hated Romans in the battle field and reigning over an exclusive Hebrew Kingdom.

Instead He chose to be born in exile; to a family of modest means, to a young virgin and a local craftsman. His parents were indeed of royal blood (of a line more ancient and noble than that of the tyrant Herod or the Roman Augustus), but they had no political, economic or social power. They lived in the periphery of the Hebrew society of their day, residing in an obscure village in the countryside of Galilee, a region despised by “politically correct” Jews. The Creator of the world, the God of the entire universe, the wonderful Word made flesh came to earth as a modest craftsman who for many years of His life worked with his hands to earn His bread. He that was originally in the presence of the Father, in majestic glory and splendor, He who lacked nothing and had absolutely everything emptied himself of all to share in our humanity. He worked, suffered, tired, hungered and became one of us even shedding his immortality to taste death. Jesus was an unlikely man to change the world, and yet He did.

And in His mysterious ways the Lord chose twelve fallible men to start His Church. One betrayed Him and the others deserted Him for a time after His arrest, trial and crucifixion. And yet these men later went throughout the world boldly spreading the message of the Gospel of their Master. This bunch of unlikely fishermen, tax collectors and zealots founded a movement that now spans two thousands years of history. And later the movement they founded of pacifists, slaves, and humble followers from all walks of life, who had renounced the power and glory of this world, shook everything. They ware killed, executed, exiled, despised, denounced and persecuted. With no weapons or worldly power they in the end conquered the conquerors. The mighty Roman Empire became Christian. Throughout history of Christ’s grace and salvation these people come from the most unlikely places. Jesus Christ acts through a myriad of witnesses who in their majority are weak vessels according to the rulers of this world. From the early martyrs passing through saints like Catherine of Sienna, Francis of Assisi, Anthony of Padua, Theresa of Jesus and many, many others, the Church survives in the weak and the poor.

For a while the Church had great worldly power, a dispensation given by God to allow the spread of the Gospel, but today we are again in the fringes; in America today to be faithful to the Gospel of Christ and his commandments means to be persecuted and despised. The road to persecution has started already and will only get worse; it is still mild but the signs of the times are now evident. Today if you do not espouse the ideologies of the world (The New World Order would say some) you are exiled from polite company. To be against abortion, euthanasia, legalized prostitution, homosexual activity and so called gay marriages, to fail to be “tolerant” means that you will not be tolerated.

A momentum is gaining in our society to criminalize any action that will “offend” the accepted orthodoxy of the world. Feminists, homosexuals, atheists and all others will have their day in the sun. We as Christians should not fret. We should not stop loving these people by telling them that their lifestyles are leading them in the road to perdition. We should realize that when the Church looses all temporal power, when it is persecuted, when it is despised, when it sheds the blood of the martyrs, that is when the Church is more powerful than ever. The One who will come at the end of the age is with us and His are the victory and the glory and the power forever, amen. They may choose one day to kill our bodies but our souls will live forever in Christ and one day we will return with Him when He brings justice to the universe. The field of salvation is watered by the blood of the martyrs.

Let’s not fret our loss of “social status”. Let’s not regret that our bishops are not invited to the circles of power. Let us count as nothing the rubbish of worldly power and success. Let us not even regret that there are many wolves devouring our sheep dressed in sheep skins and let us not fret that there are thieves among the Lord's flock. Let us rather be faithful to Christ and his Church. Let us work with much tears and trembling for our salvation. Let us be at peace knowing that our discomfort on earth is nothing compared to our eternal destiny with Christ. They can keep their universities, their congressional seats, their position of power of influence and their billions of dollars. They will not take one cent to heaven. Social status and power will count as nothing in the justice court of His Eternal Majesty. Let us pray, let us be strong in our weaknesses. Let us lead the lives that our martyr ancestors did, let us look upon the saints, upon the example of Mary and most of all, let us look upon our Lord Jesus the Christ, the only one and true King of the Universe.

God acts in mysterious ways. And today when the world turns to evil and unfaithfulness He is still at work in His Son and His Church. He will call to account those who today despise and persecute His Church and have rejected Him.

Murder never justified

2009-06-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” Romans 12:14. These are hard words from the Lord. But they are His teaching nonetheless. Even when we feel that a great injustice has been committed, like abortion, we should not seek to take revenge into our hands or the take life in any instance. The means do not justify the ends. Murder is never justified. If you murder in hatred of injustice you become a siccarii; an assassin in the mold of so many others throughout history. Gunning down and abortionist, blowing up a building, smashing an airplane against the Twin Towers; these actions are never justified even if the justification is battling evil.

The murderer of the abortionist doctor recently slain at a protestant temple succumbed to the same evil that the murdered abortionist was practicing. There is no justification on that and this person has done great damage to the pro-life movement. It has opened the doors for a government clampdown of pro-life activists, already in the government sights (according to a declassified government report on rightwing extremism). It will create a wave of sympathy for the dead practitioner and a backlash against the pro-life movement. And even beyond all of that, a Christian must never take the life of another by murder, never.

The slain abortionist had killed over 60,000 babies in late term abortions according to some reports. He was a practitioner of partial birth abortion, a procedure that allows the baby to be partially born (the head), at which time the killing doctor introduces an instrument into the babies base of the skull and sucks the brain out killing the baby. The unspeakable evil of this has no justification either. The ironic part is that the doctor was at protestant Church when he was shot by the killer on Sunday. Christians are called to love others, but the New Testament also prescribes casting out those obdurate in sin from the congregation. How can any church allow such a person in their flock without any disciplinarian action is flabbergasting, but such is the state of Christianity today.

The doctor is right now being judged by God. He will have to respond for his evil actions and surely there will be a crowd of souls clamoring for justice (all those babies). In all honesty I have no sympathy for the slain physician, but that does not justify murder in any instance. The justice of the Lord has fallen, but it was not for the murderer to be the judge and the executioner. We all die, and in the course of our natural life and death we will end in God’s court. The evil done by the abortionist would have been judged sooner or later and the murderer had no right to take the abortionist’s life, even if in this action he saved who know how many more babies lives.

God is in control

2009-05-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

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.

The American Dream up in smoke

2009-05-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Women and the workforce

2009-05-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

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

OBAMA, NOTRE DAME AND THE CULTURE OF DEATH

2009-05-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Celibate?

2009-05-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

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.

Holy Father visits Bethlehem

2009-05-13T08:07:00.000-07:00

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.

Holy Father in Holy Land

2009-05-12T05:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-04-27T07:52:00.000-07:00

Cine Victoria, 1975

La avenida 16 de Septiembre a la altura del mercado turístico Juárez era todavía la más importante área comercial de la ciudad, sus comercios, cines, librerías y edificios aun conservaban algo de su vitalidad. Señas de su declive eran ya visibles, en ese año si bien recuerdo se abrió el primer “mall” de la ciudad, el Río Grande con su principal tienda Futurama y ya se empezaban a abrir negocios fuera de la zona centro que eventualmente en los siguientes años significo el fin de esta como centro comercial de la ciudad y precipito su decadencia a lo que hoy es (ustedes hagan sus conclusiones).

Para un adolescente de 14 años las luces, los automóviles, los negocios, los establecimientos comerciales eran mi versión limitada de Manhattan a la mexicana. En aquellos años mi familia vivía en una casona de la avenida Lerdo (hoy demolida y el solar convertido en estacionamiento) junto a una mansión abandonada que años después se convertiría en albergue de niños de Juan Gabriel. Como esparcimiento (¡que inocencia ahora pienso!) me gustaba caminar desde la Lerdo a la 16 de Septiembre y ver los aparadores, sobre todo de las librerías Villaverde, Juárez y México Teporame (¿existen todavía?) y la Casa de Música de Luxe en la esquina de Lerdo y 16 de Septiembre en donde me gustaba buscar discos (de 38 revoluciones de vinil negro; OK soy dinosaurio) de música clásica (a los catorce años era aficionado de Beethoven, hoy me llamarían “nerd”).

En aquellos años la ciudad era relativamente segura, los ataques de la liga comunista 23 de Septiembre estaban en el futuro y no había ni asaltos, asesinatos, decapitaciones y todas las otras delicias turísticas de hoy. Así que un niño (a mi gustaba pensar que era adolescente) de 14 años podía salir de su casa de manera segura sin temer secuestros y encontrarse en medio de un tiroteo.

Claro que ese día no me imaginaba que aquella percibida seguridad era algo engañosa. Una de mis principales maneras de diversión, inclusive hoy en día, es ir al cine. No me gusta todo lo que este medio produce, pero eso es una visión desarrollada con el tiempo y la experiencia; para la versión pubescente del Rudy García de catorce años edad, eso estaba en el futuro. En aquel tiempo me fascinaban los filmes de ciencia ficción, las películas con temas históricos, las cómicas como “El Mundo esta Loco, Loco, Loco” con un reparto estelar o “Una Fiesta Inolvidable” con Peter Sellers, también las de horror con Peter Cushing y Cristopher Lee de las producciones Hammer y sobre todo las de un niño estrella ahora olvidado, Mark Lester. Pasaba horas de placer y diversión sobre todo en el Cine Victoria (no se si hoy en día todavía exista, después por un tiempo fue cine de “Adultos” o sea fuente de basura pornográfica, pero en mis tiempos era un cine dedicado a los niños).

Aquel día no recuerdo la película que fui a ver (siempre me gustaba ir solo, por que con amigos, “novias” o familia no dejaban ver la película en paz), era la función de la tarde un día entre semana (los cines todavía mostraban dos filmes por función). Pero note que había dos o tres adultos en las butacas. Uno de ellos, un hombre de unos treinta y tantos años, de lentes, calvo pero con melena rizada a los lados de la cabeza (estilo Bozo), se sentó en la misma fila que yo. Durante el intermedio entre filmes salí a la sala a comprar palomitas y el hombre se ofreció a “dispararme” las palomitas y la “soda” (traducción para chilangos, el refresco). La verdad que a los catorce años no pensé mucho de la oferta, pero le dije “no gracias” y pague por mi cuenta. Regrese a la película y el hombre se sentó otra vez en mi fila pero dos asientos mas cerca. Desde ese momento con un ojo veía el filme y con otro vigilaba al fulano. Cuando se termino la función me dirige al baño, claro que Mr. Bozo (no se su nombre) también fue. Esto era ya ridículo así que decidí hacer una apresurada y estratégica retirada. Salí del cine Victoria apresuradamente y comencé a caminar por la 16 de Septiembre rumbo a casa. Ya se han de imaginar, Mr. Bozo me seguía los pasos y cuando trate de cruzar la calle en la esquina de Constitución y 16 de Septiembre, bloqueado por el tráfico el hombre me alcanzo. “¿Quieres que te invite una copa?, “¿Te puedo invitar a cenar? En eso momento el botón rojo de alerta se prendió y sin responder salí disparado corriendo por las aceras y no pare hasta que llegue a mi casa.

¿Por qué escribo esta anécdota? Por que creo que la homosexualidad y los predadores sexuales que hacen victima a niños están muy relacionados. Hoy en día se quiere legitimar “estilos de vida” y se quiere tratar a los homosexuales “gay” como gente normal. Esto ignora que la homosexualidad es un desorden mental y moral, una perversión contra la naturaleza. Esto se combina con homosexuales que tienen por predilección a menores de edad, estos son los mas peligrosos e inexcusables. ¿Cuantas vidas han sido arruinadas por estas personas? La pedofilia y la homosexualidad son nefastas manifestaciones del mal. El homosexual y el pedófilo requieren de tratamiento psicológico y cuando llevan a cabo sus actividades deben de ser sancionados por la autoridad civil. El querer aceptar sus actividades como “normales” va contra la ley de la naturaleza, el derecho humano y la ley divina.

2009-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

Transformación:

La violencia que se vive todos los días en la frontera puede traer consigo la desesperanza. Ante los horrores que toman parte de la vida cotidiana, la sangre, los cuerpos acribillados; ante la impunidad de los criminales y la impotencia de las autoridades y la sociedad civil se puede llegar a pensar que las cosas no tienen remedio. Todo esto nos puede llevar al miedo, al cinismo, la desesperanza. También puede llevarnos a aceptar estos hechos de horror como una cosa normal.

Nos llegamos a preguntar que clase de monstruos son capaces de tanta violencia, de la completa devaluación de la vida humana y podemos en esos momentos sentir odio para aquellos que con sus actos denigran al ser humano. Nuestra frustración ante la impotencia nos lleva precisamente al odio, al cinismo, al criticismo acervo de todo y de todos, al temor.

Al tomar estas actitudes le damos el triunfo al terrorismo criminal que precisamente busca. Todos estos hechos violentos y criminales que han ensangrentado la frontera son una táctica de los criminales para atemorizar, amedrentar, amordazar y mantener a la sociedad civil paralizada por el horror. Y es que en realidad la violencia del narcotráfico ha rebasado los límites de actividades del crimen común y se han convertido un verdadero terrorismo.

El terrorista busca, por medio de la violencia y el asesinato, amedrentar a la sociedad lo suficiente para conducirla a la desesperación, el temor y la claudicación. Al despreciar de la manera mas profunda la santidad de la vida humana, el terrorismo busca establecer una supremacía para poder llevar a cabo sus goles y metas. El estratega alemán Von Clausewitz acuñó la frase que dice “la guerra es la política conducida por otros medios”. Y esto es lo que los narcoterroristas buscan, cumplir sus objetivos políticos por medio del asesinato, de la guerra que han desatado no solo contra el gobierno, sino también contra la sociedad civil.

Cabe la pregunta que habíamos expresado anteriormente; ¿Quienes son los narcoterroristas? ¿Qué tipo de personas son? ¿Son monstruos sin humanidad? La respuesta puede sorprendernos. La realidad es que estos criminales somos nosotros mismos. ¿Cómo? Miremos a nuestro alrededor, ¿conocemos amigos, primos, hermanos, parientes, que se dedican al narcotráfico? ¿Sabemos de hombres de negocios que prestan sus nombres y empresas para lavar dinero? ¿Conocemos policías y otros miembros de las autoridades que aceptan el soborno?

Los que se dedican a traficar drogas y a matar gente no son monstruos peludos y sin forma, son seres humanos tan comunes y corrientes como nosotros mismos. Es lo que la escritora judía Hanna Arendt llamo la “banalidad del mal” al referirse a la personalidad pedestre y mediocre del nazi Eichmann. Estos asesinos y criminales son parte de nuestra estructura social, los vemos en el “mall” comprando botas vaqueras y cinturones piteados. Lo vemos en el pariente muy “vivo” que se gana sus buenos dólares pasando drogas al “otro lado”. Es visible en el hombre de novicios que va a “hacer el nogociazo” por medio de dinero lleno de sangre, o el joven que consume marihuana o cocaína por que le gusta estar en “la onda”. Es toda una red que incluye todas las esferas de nuestra sociedad y que toca a nuestras mismas familias. Como diría el cartonista Walt Kelly “hemos encontrado al enemigo, y el enemigo somos nosotros mismos”.

¿Que podemos hacer para enfrentar y confrontar el crimen dentro de nuestra propia sociedad? Nos podemos ver tentados a responder a la violencia con violencia, a la ceguera moral con odio. Pero como hemos visto, el enemigo esta dentro de nosotros mismos, el enemigo somos nosotros. La verdad es que en México generaciones enteras han crecido en el vacío moral. Nuestra sociedad es una sociedad “pragmática” en donde abundan las actitudes reflejadas en dichos como “que no me den, que me pongan donde hay” o (y disculpen el lenguaje) “si no chingas eres un pendejo”. Es el ambiente en donde hemos aprendido que el “vivo” hace todo lo posible por ganar sin mirar las consecuencias o los medios. Es el relativismo moral, la raíz de la manzana podrida que ha afectado a todo nuestro medio.

El relativismo moral que aprendimos tanto en la escuela como por el ejemplo es una forma de vida para el mexicano. En la escuela hacemos “trampa” en las pruebas, no estudiamos sino que queremos pasar “automáticamente”. Nos la “zorreamos” para irnos a pasear. Pronto aprendemos que tomar demasiado es un placer y que el sexo es un juego. Pronto comprendemos que así como hacíamos trampa en la escuela también podemos hacerle trampa a nuestra esposa. Después entramos en el negocios de las “mordidas” las damos y las aceptamos. Los negocios “chuecos”, el abuso de la autoridad, el “compadrismo” y el “amiguismo”. Y después hacer una “lana” por medio del “narco”. Una cosa lleva a la otra. No hay respeto a la autoridad, no hay respeto a la ley, no hay respeto a la familia, no hay respeto a las personas, no hay respeto a la vida, no hay respeto a Dios.

¿Cuál es la respuesta? El único camino para la transformación de una sociedad es la transformación personal. Empecemos por nosotros mismos sin importar lo que el resto del mundo haga o piense. El Señor Jesucristo nos dice en el evangelio de Mateo: ¡Hipócrita!, saca primero la viga de tu propio ojo, y entonces verás con claridad para sacar la astilla del ojo de tu hermano” Mateo: 7-5. El Apóstol Pablo nos dice en su Carta a los Romanos: “No se amolden al mundo actual, sino sean transformados mediante la renovación de su mente. Así podrán comprobar cuál es la voluntad de Dios, buena, agradable y perfecta.”

La transformación interna de nuestra mente es el primer paso al cambio. Ni todas las policías del mundo, ni todas las armas, ni los programas sociales, ni toda la educación y todo el dinero tienen el poder que tiene la transformación personal. Las cosas solo cambiaran una persona a la vez. Uno por uno en una transformación personal, intima de nuestra visión del mundo.

Algunos pasos que han tomado otros antes que nosotros y que con su cambio interno transformaron al mundo nos pueden ayudar:

Di no al odio: “Ustedes han oído que se dijo: "Ama a tu prójimo y odia a tu enemigo." Pero yo les digo: Amen a sus enemigos y oren por quienes los persiguen” Mateo 5: 42-43.

Practica la justicia: “Bienaventurados los que tienen hambre y sed de justicia, porque serán saciados.” Mateo 5:6.

No desees las riquezas: “Bienaventurados los pobres en espíritu, porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos.” Y “Porque raíz de todos los males es el amor al dinero, el cual codiciando algunos, se extraviaron de la fe y fueron atormentados con muchos dolores” 1 Timoteo 6:10.

Ama a tu familia, a tu prójimo a ti mismo: “Y uno de ellos, intérprete de la Ley, preguntó para tentarlo, diciendo: --Maestro, ¿cuál es el gran mandamiento en la Ley?, Jesús le dijo: --"Amarás al Señor tu Dios con todo tu corazón, con toda tu alma y con toda tu mente", Este es el primero y grande mandamiento. Y el segundo es semejante: "Amarás a tu prójimo como a ti mismo", De estos dos mandamientos dependen toda la Ley y los Profetas.” Mateo 22: 38-40

Ten esperanza de que hay cosas mejores: “Bienaventurados los que padecen persecución por causa de la justicia, porque de ellos es el reino de los cielos. Bienaventurados seréis cuando por mi causa os insulten, os persigan y digan toda clase de mal contra vosotros, mintiendo. Gozaos y alegraos, porque vuestra recompensa es grande en los cielos, pues así persiguieron a los profetas que vivieron antes de vosotros.” Mateo 5:10-12

No temas: “No temas; cree solamente” Lucas 8:50, y “No teman a los que matan el cuerpo pero no pueden matar el alma. Teman más bien al que puede destruir alma y cuerpo en el infierno.” Mateo 10:28

Ten fe: “Ustedes son mis testigos —afirma el Señor—, son mis siervos escogidos, para que me conozcan y crean en mí, y entiendan que yo soy. Antes de mí no hubo ningún otro dios, ni habrá ninguno después de mí.” Isaías 43:10. También: “Ciertamente les aseguro que, antes de que Abraham naciera, ¡yo soy” Juan 8:58; “El que cree en mí, como dice la Escritura, de su interior correrán ríos de agua viva.” Juan 7:38

Ora, reza: “Estén alerta y oren para que no caigan en tentación. El espíritu está dispuesto, pero el cuerpo es débil” Mateo 26:41

La solución a la violencia en la frontera no es fácil y no vendrá de “afuera” o de “arriba”. La única solución es la transformación interna de cada uno, la única y verdadera solución es que el evangelio de Jesucristo se desparrame sobre nuestras dolidas ciudades y que su Santo Espíritu actúe primero en nosotros y después en los demás.

Una Alternativa

2009-01-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

La Prohibición y una solución alternativa

El 16 de Enero de 1920, hace ochenta y nueve años el gobierno de Estados Unidos prohibió el uso y producción de bebidas alcohólicas. Esta prohibición duro hasta el año de 1933 cuando en medio de una depresión económica sin precedentes la ley que estipulaba esta prohibición fue eliminada. Estos trece años son conocidos como la era de la Prohibición y coincide con los “pujantes veintes”.

La ley de prohibición tenia origines en las organizaciones moralistas y religiosas en Estados Unidos, herederas del espíritu puritano de las sectas protestantes americanas. La intención era buena, eliminar los estragos del alcohol, el cual era usado y abusado por la sociedad americana en todos sus niveles y edades. A esta prohibición total se le llamo el “noble experimento”. La venta, comercialización y consumo de todas las bebidas alcohólicas, incluido el vino, la cerveza, los “espíritus” alcohólicos mas fuertes fue totalmente prohibida por la ley. Muchos esperaban que estas medidas mejoraran a la sociedad y evitaran el abuso.

Pero la experiencia nos dice que el resultado fue diametralmente opuesto. Por un lado no hay evidencia que el consumo se redujo. Simple y sencillamente la producción se traslado a Canadá y México, en donde la producción y consumo eral permitidas. Esto resulto en que el contrabando de licor se convirtió en una floreciente industria derramando millones de dólares en ambos lados de las fronteras. En Ciudad Juárez México, las cantinas se multiplicaron y llegaron a una época de apogeo. Muchas grandes fortunas se hicieron en aquellos tiempos y muchas encumbradas familias de millonarios locales deben su prosperidad al tráfico y comercio ilegal de alcohol a Estado Unidos. Nacen en aquellos tiempos la Avenida Juárez y la calle Mariscal como centros de vicio y diversión.

En Estados Unidos el resultado fue que criminales y gángsters como Al Capone, “Bugsy” Moran y otros hicieron fortunas en el trafico ilegal y construyeron imperios criminales. En vez de la mejora social que la prohibición intentaba, el resultado fue el vicio, asesinatos, contrabando y el florecimiento general del crimen, incluyendo el nacimiento de la Mafia como organización. Familias como la de los Kennedy obtuvieron sus fortunas de esta manera. Es la época de las ametralladoras (las famosas Tommy Guns), Bonney y Clyde, los “speakeasies” clubes clandestinos de venta y consumo de alcohol, las “flapers”, la masacre del dia de San Valentín y la música de Charleston y “Ragtime”.

Finalmente, ante la depresión que demandaba el uso de recursos económicos de maneras más emergentes en vez de pelear una guerra sin fin, exhaustos ante la ola criminal, los americanos decidieron legalizar nuevamente el alcohol.

Algunas cosas no cambian o como dirían los romanos “no hay nada nuevo bajo el sol”. El día de hoy México vive su era más sangrienta y violenta desde la Revolución Mexicana. Miles han muerto en una ola de crimen sin precedentes. Y no solamente el asesinato, sino que arrastrándose como pestilente cola de cometa, el narcotráfico trae tras de si otros crímenes; el robo, el secuestro, la violación.

¿Y cual es el origen y raíz de esta situación desoladora? Dos factores: primero, el consumo voraz de drogas por parte de los norteamericanos e inclusive de europeos. Segundo, la prohibición de consumo y comercio legal de drogas.

El consumo de drogas no es nada nuevo. Hubo tiempos en que la cocaína y la marihuana eran legales (La Coca-Cola tiene su nombre por que la Coca era un ingrediente original). No necesitamos estar de acuerdo con el consumo de drogas para reconocer que millones lo hacen y continuaran haciéndolo. ¿Deben los gobiernos prohibir el consumo? Es una pregunta difícil, pero veamos la situación del alcohol y el tabaco. En ambos casos se trata de substancias altamente dañinas si se consumen en exceso. Sin embargo no hay un tráfico ilegal de alcohol desde que se termino la prohibición en 1933 y el consumo del mismo, aun cuando siempre tiene personas que lo abusan, no amenaza la fabrica de la sociedad. Tanto el las bebidas alcohólicas como el tabaco son regulados por medio de impuestos, tarifas y leyes comerciales. Apuesten que si tanto las bebidas alcohólicas como el tabaco se prohibieran totalmente, pronto tendríamos un floreciente mercado negro.

La prohibición del consumo de drogas en Estados Unidos y las famosas “guerras contra las drogas” ha sido un fracaso total. Miles de millones de dólares se han gastado y miles de victimas han muerto en estas guerras. Hoy más de un millón de americanos, principalmente minorías, están en la cárcel por tráfico de estupefacientes. Casi la totalidad de la sociedad negra americana es dependiente en el tráfico de drogas para sus ingresos económicos. Miles de millones de dólares son intercambiados cada año en el tráfico ilegal.

En México es de sobra conocido por todos cuales han sido los resultados de la guerra a las drogas. La verdad es que los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y México no tienen ni los recursos ni la voluntad para ganar esta guerra. Los americanos no dejan de consumirla y los mexicanos no dejaran de traficarla mientras estas condiciones existan.

Hace algunos años no habría dicho esto, pero la única solución lógica el día de hoy es la legalización de las drogas. La única solución al consumo es la educación y la presión social y moral de las familias para que cada uno evite el consumo o el abuso. Así como el consumo del tabaco y el alcohol son limitados ante la presión social y ante los estragos naturalmente resultantes del abuso, así también las drogas como la marihuana y la cocaína será regulada naturalmente por la fábrica social ante su legalización. En México la importación y exportación de drogas debería de ser legalizada y regulada como cualquier otro producto.

Siempre habrá abuso, y las drogas seguirán dañando a personas, pero es lo mismo con alcohol y el tabaco. ¿Cuál es la diferencia?

La alternativa es continuar el camino de la violencia y la futilidad.

Culture War

2008-12-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

We are in a true Culture War, the original term originated, of course, with Bismark and his Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church in the Germany of the XIX century. Today's conflict though, is an end game. The stakes are much, much higher and unfortunately the Catholic Church is loosing big time.

The American culture of today is permeated to its core not by relativism, but by a hatred of everything the Church represents. This hatred is purveyed by the anti-gospel of the media. Almost all forms of entertainment, news, art, thought of today has the same agenda: the demolition of Christianity and the total destruction and ruin of the Catholic Church.

Just look at the movies, radio, music, sitcoms, news, HBO, TV in general. The theme is so repetitive, constant and relentless that it has become obvious. These are some talking points from the media and entertainment:

Christians are fools, dishonest, hypocrites and mindless fanatics
Christ was not Messiah, not God, only a "rebel" with good intentions
Christianity was invented by Constantine to subjugate the "people"
Witchcraft, witches and occult practitioners are "good", enlightened, nurturing, nature loving, peaceful people.
Homosexuality is "good", in most movies and TV programs homosexuals are depicted in very sympathetic ways and Christians are the villains, bigots and persecutors.
Lesbians are "good"
Parents are morons
Sex is always the greater good
All religions are equal, except for Christianity which should be outlawed and shut
The Vatican is the epicenter of evil
Abortion is OK
Ravid feminism is always glorified
Science is superior to religion, but not to New Ager spirituality though
Divorce is the norm
Drugs are a harmless and naughty entertainment (of course all the drug wars and killings in other countries are the work of the "evil" right wing dictators, totally the opposite of the reality of drug wars)
Normal families (dad, mom, sons and daughters) are "evil". Gay marriage, dysfunctional families are "good"
Of course the Inquisition was violent, evil and killed "millions". But Hollywood heroes can kill, maim, dismember, execute and do what ever else the sick minds of their creators will.
The Devil is a debonair, fascinating, full of wisdom character
Left wing dictators are the "people's heroes", any one who is Catholic, Christian, Conservative or leans to the right is always wrong, evil and should be eliminated.
Of course Hollywood "loves" the oppressed but when it comes to represent them in their movies, they are always stereotypical fools, their countries always pictured in the worse possible ways.

Another constant theme is that of "rebellion" against a supposedly conservative establishment. No matter that today the establishment is liberal. The "evil" corporations are worse than Hitler, but yet it is corporations that release all these movies and TV shows.

I guess the movie directors, producers and actors (and TV too) reflect their own wickedness on the portrayal of the Church and Christians in their products. Because of course what is all powerful, persecutes "heretics", casts out errant children, dictates fashion and attitudes, is not the Church, but the Hollywood Empire that dominates all aspects of American culture today.

And personalities like Bill Maher and the like have that arrogance of the victors, always taking time to insult and demean the Church.

Worse is that most Americans derive their awareness and knowledge of the world by what the media tells them.

CONFIESO

2007-03-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

Hermanos, esta es mi confesión publica. Soy un pecador, pero creo que el Señor Jesús murió por mis pecados y resucito para mi salvación. Durante mis primeros 33 años asistí a la Iglesia unas cuatro o cinco veces. Pero por la gracia de Dios me encontró y me acerco a ella, su Iglesia. Durante mi vida he mentido, odiado, guardado rencores, envidiado y muchas otras cosas mas. Comparto con todos la naturaleza caída de la humanidad. Por muchos años pensaba que el ser implacable, burlón, lleno de vanidad, egoísta, me hacia ser el “gran hombre”. Por muchos años ignore a Dios y al Señor Jesús. Por muchos años viví como si Dios no existiera. Lleno de injusticia, maldad, avaricia y malicia; colmado de envidia, pleitos, engaños y malignidad, chismoso, detractor, aborrecedor, insolente, soberbio, jactanciosos, desobediente, sin entendimiento, indigno de confianza, sin amor, despiadado. Participe en las politiquerías del trabajo. Con dolor confieso que mis ojos llenos de lujuria se fijaban en mujeres que no eran mi esposa. Mi lengua esparcía groserías y palabras vacuas e insolentes. El YO era el centro de mi universo. Esta vida, la cual es considerada por el mundo como “normal”, es la que lleve, al igual que muchos la llevan. Para mi todas las religiones eran “iguales”. La Iglesia Católica era mi enemiga, una organización dedicada a la ignorancia y la superstición, aborrecida después de tantos años de propaganda consumida en la escuela y en los medios. Ningún cura “me iba a decir lo que debo de hacer”. Soberbia vana de ignorancia invencible.

El Señor me llamo, gracias a una esposa incomparable, santa y de tremenda fuerza de carácter. Gracias a unas hijas maravillosas que le dan sentido a nuestra vida. Gracias a la misericordia de un Dios incomparable. Gracias a el amor de un Jesús de perdón y gracia. Y todavía aun cuando me llamo, aun cuando regrese a mis 35 años hace ya mas de diez años, aun el pecado seguía clavado en mi alma, resultado de tantos años de una vida sin Cristo. Hermanos, el vicio de la lujuria de la pornografía me ataban. Y durante años después de mi conversión, después de haber reconocido a Cristo como mi Señor, seguí con doblez de corazón sin abandonar mi vicio. Me pesa pensar en el dolor y el sufrimiento que cause mi Señor y a mi familia. Pero gracias le doy a Dios por el perdón, la sanación y la lealtad de mi familia.

El que este libre de pecado que tire la primera piedra dijo nuestro Señor a los que querían apedrear a la mujer adultera, sorprendida en el acto. Es una frase que muchas veces citamos para justificar nuestro comportamiento, pero al mismo tiempo que nos justificamos con ellas, no tenemos intención de cambiar. Se nos olvida que el Señor, después de que los acusadores se fueron retirando poco a poco hasta que quedaron solos, El y la mujer, le dijo “vete a casa y YA NO PEQUES”. Nadie esta libre de pecado, mucho menos yo, la única razón por la que me atrevo a escribir los comentarios en este BLOG es el mandamiento de nuestro Señor de predicar el evangelio; y mi propio corazón herido por el pecado, reconoce muchas de las situaciones de las que yo mismo participe en el pasado. Desgraciadamente soy experto en pecado, y por lo tanto puedo reconocerlo en otras partes. El Señor me ha sanado, pero siguo siendo pecador, sigo luchando contra mis debilidades, contra mi propio corazón lleno de concupiscencia y pecado. El sacramento de la reconciliación es mi avenida para reconocer ante Cristo mi pecado. Ojala todos nosotros recurriéramos mas a esta gracia de perdón que nos dejo el Señor.

Ruego al Señor que tenga misericordia de mi, que perdone mis pecados, que enderece mi torcido camino, me purifique de la maldad y me reestablezca en su reino. Le ruego que no me deje caer mas ante la tentación y que me libre del malo y de todo lo malo. Que se haga su santa voluntad por que suyo es el poder, la gloria y el reino. Aléjame Señor del pecado y de las tentaciones del mundo. No me dejes caer. Hermanos y hermanas, este pecador les pide su perdón por mi hipocresía, por mi soberbia, por mi falta de humildad.
No tiro piedras, pero apunto al camino en el que juntos podremos andar, el camino que nos lleva al Señor.

Amen.

GRACIA BARATA

2007-03-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

Dietrich Bonhoffer fue un ministro de la iglesia Luterana Evangélica de Alemania. A los 39 años fue ahorcado en el campo de concentración de Flossenburg en 1945 a unos cuantos días antes de terminar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, su ejecución fue ordenada por Hitler debido a la oposición de Bonhoffer a su régimen y haberse involucrado en un plan para derrocar al dictador Alemán.

Bonhoffer es uno de los teólogos más importantes del siglo XX y su pensamiento es relevante en nuestra era. Uno de las ideas más importantes que Bonhoffer expresa en sus escritos es el concepto de “gracia barata”. Este concepto expresa la idea de la fe cristiana como un concepto abstracto, una simple “idea”. Esta es la fe que no requiere arrepentimiento, es la fe que no exige, una fe sin sacrificio, sin obediencia. Es la fe que quiere bautismo pero no quiere el discipulado. Es la fe que no nos hace diferentes, al contrario, es esa fe que se convierte en un aspecto cultural o costumbrista y personal. Es la justificación del pecado sin la justificación del pecador y es la gracia de la resurrección sin pasar por la cruz.

Bonhoffer me hace pensar sobre la fe de aquellos que nos llamamos católicos. ¿Qué tipo de fe tenemos? ¿Cuál es nuestra relación con Cristo y con la Iglesia? ¿Por qué nos llamamos católicos o cristianos? La gracia barata del católico que no va a misa, que no practica su fe, que no ora, que no sabe nada para explicar su religión, que no conoce a cristo y no tiene una relación con el. Es aquella gracia de los que bautizan a sus hijos, se casan por la Iglesia y asisten a los funerales religiosos como puro formalismo. Es la gracia de los que exigen estos sacramentos, de los que quieren comulgar sin confesión de pecados, de los que se quejan que la Iglesia no los incluye pero que no dan un centavo para su manutención.

Somos católicos, decimos, pero no seguimos a Cristo. No leemos las escrituras, desconocemos su doctrina. Somos católicos, pero somos partidarios del aborto, la eutanasia, los métodos anticonceptivos. Somos católicos pero vivimos como si Dios no existiera, haciendo trampa, mintiendo, cometiendo adulterio, fornicacion, blasfemia. Somos católicos pero ni siquiera damos gracias por nuestros alimentos o elevamos una pequeña oración de vez en cuando. Somos católicos pero nos comemos al prójimo con nuestros chismes, nuestra envidia, nuestra inquina. Somos católicos, pero no perdonamos. ¿Que es entonces ser católico? ¿Ir a misa de vez en cuando? ¿Llevar a los hijos a bautizar para que ya jamás se paren in la iglesia hasta la comunión y después el matrimonio? Esta es la gracia barata. Es la que exige que el que muere se valla al cielo por que “era muy bueno” aun cuando en vida jamás se haya acordado de darle su lugar a Dios.

La gracia verdadera es aquella que acepta a Jesús como Señor, y una vez aceptado como tal, obedece. Obedece sus mandamientos, por que lo ama. Lee la escritura, por que quiere conocerlo. Se acerca a la Iglesia y obedece sus mandatos por que esa es la voluntad de Dios. La gracia verdadera es la aceptación total de Jesús, ni más, ni menos. Exige arrepentimiento, transformación, sacrificio y renuncia. Por que esta fe sabe que nos espera un destino eterno después de este pequeño interludio que llamamos vida.

Hermano o hermana católicos, arrepintámonos, acerquémonos al sacramento de la confesión, aceptemos a Cristo y tengamos una relación personal con el. Seamos sus seguidores, sus discípulos.

La Oracion de San Patricio

2007-03-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

Hoy me ligo
A la potente virtud de la Invocación de la Trinidad:
Creo en la Trinidad de la Unidad
El Creador del Universo

Hoy me ligo
A la virtud de la Encarnación de Cristo con Su Bautismo
La virtud de Su crucifixión y Su sepulcro,
La virtud de Su Resurrección y su Ascensión,
La virtud de su venida en el Día del Juicio

Hoy me ligo
A la virtud del amor de los serafines
A la obediencia de los ángeles,
En la esperanza de la resurrección como recompensa,
En las oraciones de los Patriarcas,
En las profecías de los Profetas,
En la predicación de los Apóstoles,
En la fe de los Confesores,
En la pureza de las santas Vírgenes,
En las obras de hombres justos

Hoy me ligo
Al poder del Cielo,
A la luz del sol,
Al brillo de la luna,
Al resplandor del fuego,
Al destello del relámpago,
A la rapidez del viento,
A la profanidad del mar,
A la estabilidad de la tierra,
A la solides de las rocas

Hoy ligo a mi
El poder de Dios para guiarme,
La fuerza de Dios para sostenerme,
La sabiduría de Dios para enseñarme,
Los ojos de Dios para guardarme,
Los oídos de Dios para escucharme,
La Palabra de Dios para darme habla,
La mano de Dios para guiarme,
El camino de Dios para seguirlo,
El escudo de Dios para cubrirme,
Los ejércitos de Dios para protegerme,
En contra de las trampas de los demonios,
En contra de las seducciones de los vicios,
En contra de las lujurias de la naturaleza,
En contra del que urde daño contra mí,
Ya sea cerca o lejos,
Ya sea pocos o muchos

Invoco hoy todas estas virtudes
En contra de todo poder hostil e inmisericorde
Que ataque mi cuerpo o alma,
En contra de los sortilegios de falsos profetas,
En contra de las negras leyes del paganismo,
En contra de las falsas leyes de la herejía,
En contra de los engaños de idolatría,
En contra de los conjuros de mujeres, herreros y druidas,
En contra de cualquier conocimiento que esclaviza el alma del hombre

Cristo protégeme este día,
En contra de todo veneno, contra cualquier ardor,
Contra ahogamiento, contra la herida mortal,
Que pueda yo recibir recompensa abundante

Cristo conmigo, Cristo a mi frente,
Cristo atrás de mi, Cristo dentro de mi,
Cristo debajo de mi, Cristo arriba de mi,
Cristo a mi diestra, Cristno a mi siniestra,
Cristo en el fuerte,
Cristo en el carruaje,
Cristo en la nave,
Cristo en el corazón de todos aquellos que piensan en mi,
Cristo en la boca de todos aquellos que hablan de mi,
Cristo en todos los ojos que me ven,
Cristo en todos los oídos que me escuchan

Hoy me ligo
A la potente virtud de la invocación de la Trinidad
Creo en la Trinidad de la Unidad
El Creador del Universo

La Gran Estrategia

2007-03-23T13:25:00.000-07:00

Cualquier revisión muy superficial de las noticias, películas, programas de TV, o sea, de los medios masivos de comunicación en general, nos dan un claro esquema de la Gran Estrategia que estos medios nos inculcan e indoctrinan diariamente, a todas horas. Como dice el lema de una cadena televisiva de noticias, “todo las noticias, todo el tiempo”. Y es que los medios masivos en general, pero particularmente la televisión, se ha convertido en el medio de culturización más importante para las masas. Es por medio de la televisión que la mayoría recibe su dote diaria de noticias, es por medio de la televisión que los niños son entretenidos por esta virtual “niñera”. Es la televisión la que presenta y determina los valores morales de nuestra sociedad. Lo que en otros tiempos fue la Iglesia o la comunidad es ahora suplantado por el tubo del televisor. Y es la televisión en gran parte, junto con los otros medios, los cuales están indoctrinando a la población a la aceptación de una nueva moral, fundada no en la herencia judío-cristiana, sino en los “valores” de la elite mundial actual. ¿Cuáles son estos “nuevos valores”? en seguida revisamos los más prominentes en esta promoción incansable para hacerlos más aceptables a la población, los puntos estratégicos de la Gran Estrategia:

· La homosexualidad: La población homosexual del mundo es pequeña. Se ha estimado que no mas del 2 por ciento. Esto incluye a hombres homosexuales y a mujeres lesbianas. Es obvio que la homosexualidad es una actividad estéril y contra la naturaleza humana. El cuerpo masculino no fue creado para sufrir la penetración anal, un acto extremadamente insalubre y violento. El cuerpo femenino por su parte no tiene la capacidad de auto-reproducirse sin la semilla masculina. Y sin embargo este punto se ha convertido en la vaca sagrada de los medios. Se ha llegado a extremos en Estados Unidos y en Europa en donde cualquier palabra, escrito u oral, que critique la homosexualidad, esta considerada como un “crimen de odio” y penalizado severamente hasta con cárcel. Se le han dado a ese 2 por ciento de la población derechos y protección especiales para su “estilo de vida”.

Podemos ver como en el cine y la televisión se promueve la homosexualidad por medio de integrar a caracteres homosexuales dentro de los argumentos dramáticos de películas y series. Siempre se ilumina de una manera favorable. Siempre el homosexual o la lesbiana serán presentados como personas agradables, buenas y de gran corazón. Su estilo de vida nunca será criticado, al contrario, será presentado como normal. En contraste, cristianos, católicos, o cualquier otro grupo que se atreva a criticar este “estilo de vida” será presentado de la manera mas negativa, como intolerante, vindicativo, hipócrita, malo.

Todas las sociedades humanas desde tiempos remotos han considerado la homosexualidad como una actividad inmoral. Inclusive los griegos y los romanos, los cuales practicaban la pederastia, nunca incluyeron las relaciones homosexuales como practica de matrimonio o de familia. Nuestra tradición judío-cristiana es muy clara en el repudio a la práctica homosexual como desordenada y como una afronta a Dios, como una abominación.

Como en todos los pecados, no se rechaza al pecador. Las personas de orientación homosexual sufren de una condición psicológica que pervierte su verdadera identidad sexual. Es digna de gozar de todos los derechos inherentes a su dignidad humana. Pero no tienen derecho a imponer a la sociedad como practica normal y aceptable, su perversión moral que resulta en relaciones sexuales abominables e infértiles. Debemos amar al homosexual, pero rechazar su práctica. Menos de exigir que las iglesias, sobre todo la Católica, les den “derecho” al matrimonio. El matrimonio cristiano es solamente entre un hombre y una mujer. Cualquier otra “opción” es imposible ante Dios.

Llegara el tiempo, casi es seguro, en que los “matrimonios” homosexuales sean reconocidos. Es indudable que la sociedad se mueve a pasos agigantados para ese rumbo. Es, pues, una realidad que las minorías cristianas de las diferentes iglesias y denominaciones, tendrán que resistir de una manera pacifica, pero determinada, las exigencias tanto de la sociedad, como de los gobiernos que ya están imponiendo sobre sus poblaciones, los “derechos” de homosexuales y lesbianas. Tendremos que separarnos como los antiguos cristianos se separaron de la decadente sociedad romana.

· El aborto: En Europa el aborto esta generalizado y permitido desde la concepción, hasta los últimos días del embarazo. En Canda y Estados Unidos su aceptación es ya generalizada, aun cuando todavía hay oposición. En México se dan los primeros pasos para su eventual legalización. Ahí tenemos el ejemplo mas claro del poder sobre el que no tiene voz. El homicidio de infantes en el vientre materno es uno de los crimines mas infames de la humanidad moderna. Tan solo en Estados Unidos se abortan un millón y medio de criaturas al año.

Se argumenta que la madre tiene derecho sobre su cuerpo. En realidad nadie tiene un dominio absoluto sobre su cuerpo o sobre si mismo. Si una mujer tuviera derecho absoluto sobre su cuerpo, podría salir desnuda a la calle o al trabajo sin ningún tapujo. Pero interviene en primer lugar el pudor moral y en segundo las leyes en contra de personas desnudas en la vía pública o los reglamentos interiores de trabajo que lo impiden en el sector privado. En el embarazo, el feto es una persona independiente de la madre. Ella puede tener ciertos derechos sobre su cuerpo, pero no tiene derechos sobre la vida humana que lleva en su seno. Es de interés común de la sociedad y un acto de derecho natural, la defensa de la vida intrauterina. Todos empezamos igual, dentro del vientre materno. Todos tenemos derecho a la vida. El aborto elimina la vida de un ser humano, no en potencia, no eventualmente, sino completamente humano y con todos los derechos de un humano desde el momento de la concepción. Por que eventualmente el producto de la concepción, si se deja solo, crecerá para convertirse en usted o yo, en una persona pensante.

El aborto es un acto de egoísmo. Se ha demostrado que 99 por ciento de los abortos son por motivos anticonceptivos, que nada tiene que ver con la salud de la madre. Simple y sencillamente la persona abortada resulto ser “inconveniente” para los planes futuros. Ya sea la jovencita que no quiere confrontar el resultado, la mujer que ya no quiere más hijos, ya sea por condiciones económicas o estéticas. El hecho es que estas personas, incluyendo a los varones padres, prefieren matar a la criatura en el seno materno, que confrontar la realidad de que su falta de dominio propio los llevo a una actividad sexual que no debería de haberse llevado a cabo. Las consecuencias morales del dominio propio y la abstención sexual son nulas. La consecuencia de la actividad sexual y el embarazo que termina en aborto, es el homicidio.

La elite global que expresa sus deseos y “valores” en los medios de comunicación, exige el aborto sin restricción y sin límites cuando sea deseado. Las feministas esgrimen el aborto como su “arma” contra la “dominación masculina”, usando a millones de criaturas asesinadas como mero programa político. Y sin embargo las mismas elites exigen la sexualisacion de nuestra juventud desde los años más tempranos. En realidad nadie tiene derechos que afecten la vida de terceros.

· La eutanasia: La publicidad del cine y la televisión siempre nos presenta con caracteres en completo uso de su función mental, que por alguna razón u otra caen en la desgracia de sufrir de alguna enfermedad o condición que los hace sufrir. Ya una parálisis, un cáncer u cualquier otra cosa. El protagonista siempre nos lleva, por medio del argumento dramático a simpatizar con su causa. Se nos presenta con una imagen falsa y compasiva de la eutanasia.

La realidad que es que la eutanasia es actualmente utilizada en la mayoría de los casos por familiares que ya no quieren cuidar a personas a su cargo. Por doctores que se elevan a nivel de dioses, cuando dictaminan que alguna persona ya no tiene una vida “útil”. O por personas que ya no quieren sufrir.

En el caso de ancianos y personas seriamente afectadas que no pueden cuidarse a si mismas, es un elemento básico de humanidad el cuidarlos y proporcionarles lo que necesitan para continuar su vida. Ver la vida desde un sentido meramente “utilitario” es rebajarnos al nivel de monstruos como las nazis. Es nuestro deber el cuidar de los que no lo pueden hacer ellos mismos. Es el deber de las instituciones familiares y del estado respetar esas vidas y cuidarlas cuando así lo requieren. Aquellos que tienen las facultades, deben de velar por los que no las tienen. Los ancianos ya nos dieron sus vidas, su cuidado cuando eran nuestros padres o abuelos; ya produjeron muchos años de trabajo, contribuyendo a la sociedad. En su vejez es un deber de justicia velar por ellos y no desecharlos como objetos que ya no sirven. A los que aun cuando jóvenes o adultos, quedan desvalidos y sin manera de cuidarse a si mismo, es nuestra responsabilidad social como humanos guardar sus vidas. A los infantes con defectos mentales o físicos, a todos ellos, debemos nuestra lealtad y solidaridad humana. SOLO DIOS TIENE EL DERECHO DE ELEGIR A QUE HORA LA VIDA CESA. NO LE TOCA AL ESTADO, NI A LOS ABOGADOS, NI A LOS DOCTORES, INCLUSIVE NI SIQUIERA A LOS FAMILIARES. SOLO DIOS.

Nuestras sociedades, sobre todo las súper-desarrolladas como Estados Unidos, Europa y algunos países del Oriente, están obsesionadas con la juventud. El cine, la TV, las revistas nos presentan como modelos de belleza a jóvenes y adultos dotados de atributos. Nuestra música, nuestro entretenimiento, la moda, todo gira sobre lo joven y lo bello. Nuestro hedonismo contemporáneo no acepta el dolor o el sufrimiento como parte del aprendizaje moral de las personas. Por lo tanto si alguien es percibido como que no tiene “calidad de vida” se le condena inmediatamente a la muerte. Llegar a viejo, tener canas y acumular sabiduría, que eran atributos respetados por casi todas las civilizaciones, ahora es visto como una maldición que debe de evitarse a toda costa. Por lo tanto, al “defectuoso”, al viejo, al indefenso, al que sufre, se le quiere eliminar.

Cristo nos enseño con su ejemplo que el dolor y el sufrimiento tienen un lugar redentivo. Claro que nadie busca el dolor o el sufrimiento, pero son dos factores inevitables de la vida humana. Somos vasos frágiles que se quiebran fácilmente. Nuestros cuerpos se enferman, se accidentan, envejecen, pierden facultades físicas, y al final de cuentas morimos. Pero la filosofía hedonista que huye y teme al sufrimiento, no considera que no somos materia solamente, sino espíritu. El cuerpo se deteriora, sufre y muere, pero el alma pervive eternamente. Cristo y su Iglesia nos enseñan que esta vida terrenal es tan solo una breve transición a lo eterno. Los sufrimientos de este mundo no son el final, sino tan solo la preparación. El ofrecimiento de nuestros sufrimientos como preparación espiritual y la conciencia de que los que ahí suframos en tan solo una cosa breve comparado con la eternidad que nos espera, hacen mas llevadera la fragilidad humana.

· La sexualidad: La revolución sexual de los años 60 ha triunfado. Ni el SIDA, ni otras enfermedades venéreas han logrado disminuir la revolución. Las elites de nuestro día, sobre todo dentro de los círculos artísticos y del entretenimiento, piden, claman, exigen la total y completa libertad sexual, a cualquier edad, en cualquier momento, sobre cualquier otra consideración. En el cine y la televisión, el adulterio (actividad sexual entre casados), la fornicacion (actividad sexual entre los no casados), las perversiones homosexuales-lesbianas, son pasto que consumimos todos los días. Desgraciadamente nuestros hijos e hijas, nosotros mismos, nos hemos desensibilizado a las dosis diarias de perversión y pecado, junto a la violencia, que nos da la televisión. Las series mas populares como “Los Sopranos” “Sexo en la Ciudad” “6 Pies Bajo Tierra”, en inclusive programas como “CSI”, “Ley y Orden”, promueven de una manera casual y cotidiana, todo tipo de perversión sexual. No se diga de los programas de entretenimiento en México, en donde las mujeres son rebajadas a objetos sexuales y el destape ya llega a niveles pornográficos.

A los jóvenes (la juventud, esa condición pasajera que se cura en unos veinticinco años) se les alimenta en la escuela, en los medios masivos, en los lugares de entretenimiento, con dosis toxicas de sexualidad irresponsable. Para los jóvenes nacidos desde los años setenta en México, la promiscuidad sexual es lo más común. Se les proporcionan condones y otros medios anticonceptivos de la manera más casual. Se les alienta a “expresarse” a estar “en acuerdo con su sexualidad”. Quizás para los jóvenes la música sea el conducto mas ampliamente usado. La música los mantiene “en onda”, la música los une a sus contemporáneos, la danza los ayuda a “expresarse”. Consumen música las veinticuatro horas del día, los siete días de la semana. ¿Y cual música escuchan? La música popular de hoy, sin importar el genero, ya sea rock, rap, ranchera, cumbias, tropical, etc., toda tiene el mismo mensaje; la sexualidad irrestringida, “hazme el amor” “me gustas mucho” “úsame” llegando a vulgaridades verdaderamente espantosas del rap, ya sea en su modalidad americana o latina. Esta música rap es un verdadero drenaje de basura, en donde se le da expresión al animalismo mas bajo. La violación, la violencia, el asesinato, son el genero común de esta bazofia, acompañados de un violento ritmo primitivista que no requiere del mínimo talento, que valor puede tener una letra que pide que “se le ponga la gasolina”.

Dios nos creo como seres sexuales. Pero Dios en su sabiduría, determino que la única expresión valida de la sexualidad es el matrimonio. Su juicio sobre ello es definitivo y sin alternativas. Solamente una pareja, hombre y mujer, unidos en el matrimonio pueden expresar su sexualidad, siempre unida al amor conyugal, al respeto y dentro de la expectativa de la vida. Nuestro aparato reproductivo fue creado por Dios precisamente para la reproducción, no para nuestro entretenimiento. Las sociedades que rompen con la cordura moral de la sexualidad están condenadas al declive, la violencia, la alineación y la ruina tanto espiritual como física.

· El relativismo moral y religioso. Las elites del mundo de los medios masivos de comunicación, odian la religión cristiana y sobre todo a la católica. Su perspectiva les hace rechazar inmediatamente cualquier declaración de absolutos morales. En la mayoría de los casos y sobre todo, en cuestiones de moralidad sexual. Es de alguna manera, que el disoluto quiera justificar su perversión por medio de la perversión general de todo. Si no puede ser “normal” y obedecer las leyes permanentes de un Dios, entonces en vez de corregir su comportamiento, intentara corromper el comportamiento de los demás para conformarlo al de el.

Claro que la bandera del nuevo movimiento es la “tolerancia” o sea la tolerancia de sus prioridades e ideas. En cuanto tolerancia para los cristianos y los católicos, ahí si que no llega. Gritan que los que creen les quieren “imponer sus ideas”, pero ellos mismos son altamente impositivos e intolerantes de cualquiera que no comparte sus ideas. Ellos dicen “la tolerancia debe de ser completa” y al hacer este acertamiento, se contradicen, ya que están proponiendo un pensamiento absoluto.

En realidad la Gran Estrategia quiere cualquier expresión religiosa en el Dios de la Biblia y en Cristo, desterrada completamente si no comparte las prioridades que hemos mencionando aquí. También encontraran personas, sacerdotes, ministros que les hagan el juego. Mientras la religión acepte la sexualidad, la homosexualidad, el aborto, el relativismo, entonces todo esta bien. Es obvio que un cristianismo que acepte todo esto deja de tener cualquier significado y se niega a si mismo.

El relativismo moral es la religión de nuestros días. Sus sacerdotes son los intelectuales, su doctrina esta en los libros de texto y en los programas políticos. Esta religión falsa es la elegida por los medios de comunicación como la cual es digna de alabanza y culto.

EL PERDON Y EL GRAN PROGRAMA

2007-03-20T08:26:00.000-07:00

Muchas veces pensamos que para resolver los problemas de la humanidad necesitamos de EL GRAN PROGRAMA. Nuestra sociedad “moderna” nos dice que los problemas que nos aquejan se pueden resolver con EL GRAN PROGRAMA de gobierno o con EL GRAN PROGRAMA de la ciencia. Supuestamente la expulsión de la “superstición” de la religión y la introducción a nuestros centros de educación del “materialismo científico” tendrían como resultado la felicidad y una mejor sociedad. Pero después de ya casi cien años de la revolución Mexicana, esta sociedad no esta mas cerca de la felicidad y la funcionalidad que en tiempos de Don Porfirio. En muchos sentidos nuestra sociedad esta en peores condiciones.

Y si entonces no es EL GRAN PROGRAMA de gobierno o la ciencia, si los sociólogos, políticos, ideólogos, socialistas, neo-liberales, capitalistas, comunistas, revolucionarios y bestias raras como Hugo Chávez no pueden resolver nuestros problemas, entonces ¿Quién?. Podríamos hablar de los GRANDES problemas de la humanidad, como las guerras, las revoluciones, el narcotráfico, y tantas otras cosas más que aquejan a este cansado mundo y que han creado tantos horrores y dolor. Pero la verdad es que no tenemos que irnos tan alto en el esquema de las cosas. Basta con asomarnos a nuestras propias vidas, cotidianas y comunes para darnos cuenta que no todo esta bien en el paraíso de ciencia y sociología de la era moderna. Es en nuestros hogares, en nuestras vidas íntimas donde encontramos las rasgaduras y las heridas más fuertes a nuestras almas. Ahí encontramos el alcoholismo, la violencia, el conflicto. Ahí es donde muchos niños y niñas sufren de abuso, abandono y explotación. Ahí es donde encontramos la perdida del amor y el florecimiento de la negra flor del odio y la violencia. Ahí encontramos el adulterio, la trampa, la mentira, y sobre todo la falta de perdón.

El que este libre de pecado que tire la primera piedra. Yo no me atrevo ni a poner los ojos en la piedra por que reconozco que mi vida esta llena de pecado. ¿Y que es el pecado? Al contrario de lo que muchos podrían pensar, el pecado no es romper las reglas religiosas. El pecado es algo más profundo y problemático. El pecado es un factor que los sociólogos, economistas y planeadores de la rectoría del estado no toman en cuenta por que su visión materialista del mundo no lo ve. El pecado es esa rebelión que nos hace pensar que nosotros somos lo más importante del mundo y todo el demás secundario, “primero yo, después yo y finalmente yo”. Y se manifiesta en un falso orgullo, lleno de egoísmo que se niega a pedir perdón o a perdonar.

Por que al final de cuentas ahí se concentran y se encuentran los problemas y el sufrimiento en el mundo, en el país, en la ciudad y en nuestras familias. Ahí también se encuentra su solución. Es sencillamente la capacidad de cada uno de nosotros de AMAR, PEDIR PERDON Y PERDONAR. El amor cubre una multitud de pecados. El perdonar es amor en acción. Gracias a Dios por el perdón. Cuantas guerras, cuantos conflictos, cuantos divorcios, cuantas almas heridas pudieran ser compuestas y evitadas con tan solo perdonar. Al fin y al cabo el Hijo de Dios fue capaz de morir en la cruz y en medio del sufrimiento haber dicho “perdónalos por que no saben lo que hacen”. Si Dios nos perdona, por que no podemos nosotros perdonar.

El perdón es la clave personal e intima del amor. Gracias a Dios por el perdón; por la esposa que perdona, por la madre que perdona, por el padre, el hermano, los hijos, los extraños que perdonan. Este mundo no se destruye a si mismo tan solo por el perdón. El perdón es la clave del amor. Y a final de cuentas, el amor es la expresión de Dios.

Y ahora, quien podra defendernos?

2007-03-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

Si se le preguntara cual es la creencia principal de los mexicanos hoy, ¿Qué respuesta daría; el catolicismo, protestantismo, la “New Age”, la santería? Probablemente ninguna de estas opciones es la correcta. La verdadera “religión” o filosofía que impera en la mente mexicana el día de hoy es el relativismo. Esta es la filosofía que no acepta ninguna verdad como completa, es la que equipara a todas las religiones como “iguales”, es la que no acepta distinciones morales entre el bien y el mal. El relativismo se acompaña del pragmatismo moral, el cual solo tiene como guía la conveniencia y la satisfacción personal. Es esa mentalidad famosa en nuestra sociedad de “a mi que me pongan donde haya”, es la que constantemente dice “a mi me vale m…..”. Es esa mentalidad en donde robar poquito es aceptable, en donde hacer trampa es algo gracioso, en donde todo queda aceptado bajo el pragmatismo más vulgar. Lo peor de todo es que el relativismo pragmatista ha cundido en nuestra sociedad. Es predominante en todas las clases sociales, sin importar el nivel educativo, económico y social.

Esta filosofía tiene consecuencias. No se trata solamente de una “idiosincrasia” o de “pecadillos”. La desvalorización derramada sobre nuestra sociedad como un manto sucio por el relativismo pragmatista tiene resultados nefastos y horribles. El “gatillero” que mata sin miramiento (en Ciudad Juárez, ¿Cuántos asesinatos ha habido en los últimos años?), el ladrón que asalta bancos, personas y casas. El funcionario publico que acepta mordida, cobra comisiones, extorsiona y defrauda. El marido que engaña a su mujer, la mujer que abandona a sus hijos. El aborto, la drogadicción, el tráfico de narcóticos. Todo es consecuencia de una mentalidad en donde no hay valores morales permanentes. Todo es pragmatismo, ¿Quién no ha oído aquel refrán muy mexicano de “que el vivo viva del mas p….?

No existe el miedo a Dios. Los fundamentos morales que la religión cristiana imbuye en una sociedad, han sido desterrados por la educación positivista, relativista y pragmática que impera en nuestras instituciones educativas. Y es que no se puede culpar a la “falta de educación” de los males que padecemos. Tanto roba el ladrón que se enjaula en una casa y que no termino ni la primaria, como el alto funcionario que defrauda y que tiene hasta doctorados en Harvard. No es el contenido educativo el que determina la falta de valor moral, sino el contenido de la mente formada por un sistema que rechaza la moralidad cristiana y la ha sustituido por una moralidad fabricada por hombres.

Se pueden gastar millones y millones en seguridad pública, se puede gastar más millones en educación, se puede poner un policía en cada esquina, se pueden inventar e implementar todos los programas gubernamentales posibles. Nada cambiara hasta que nos demos cuenta que el problema de México no es un problema de programas, de “reformas fiscales” o “reformas energéticas”, o de “socialismo” o “capitalismo”, el verdadero problema de nuestro carácter es la desvalorización moral. Es el haber perdido el miedo y el amor a Dios y haberlo sustituido con paja, con quimeras de “lucha social” y de “positivismo”. Nuestro carácter ha sido vaciado de su contenido moral y ha sido en cambio lleno con “nada”.

¿Y quien puede cambiar esto? El cambio solamente puede venir de “abajo”. No será el gobierno, ni el PAN, ni el PRI, ni el PRD. No será ninguna filosofía política de izquierda o de derecha. El cambio esta en cada uno de nosotros. La próxima vez que lo pare un agente de transito no ofrezca mordida. No se pase la luz roja. No le “ponga los cuernos” a su esposa o esposo. No acepte la “comisión”, no esquive los impuestos. Y estas son las cosas fáciles, por que además debemos de perdonar al prójimo, renunciar a la violencia, cambiar nuestras vidas.

¿Mas con que poder humano podemos hacer tantos cambios en nosotros? No con poder humano, sino con el poder de aquel que murió en la cruz por nosotros. Por que al final de cuentas la solución a los problemas de Juárez, de México y del Mundo esta en la persona viva de JESUCRISTO. Solamente creyendo en lo absoluto, que es EL, podremos vencer la religión de lo relativo, que nos lleva a la nada.

Rudy Garcia

La Tumba de Jesus

2007-03-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

LA “TUMBA” DE JESUS

El Señor Jesús tiene muchos enemigos. No me sorprende que apenas apagada la controversia del Código de DaVinci haya salido ahora ese documental dirigido por James Cameron, director de la película “Titanic”, el cual llega a la conclusión de que se ha encontrado la tumba de Jesús y su familia en Jerusalén y que los huesos localizados son los del Nazareno. Es claro que Cameron y la cadena televisiva “Discovery” aprovecharan la popularidad del Código de DaVinci para lograr buenos ratings, sobre todo con su conclusión sensacionalista pisándole los talones al éxito del Código DaVinci.

Pero en el fondo no son los ratings, ni la popularidad, ni el dinero que pueda producir este documental los que motivan a sus creadores. Creo que la verdadera motivación es un profundo desprecio y odio, tanto para el Señor Jesús como para el cristianismo en general. Y este odio no es reservado a alguna faceta en particular del cristianismo, ya sea católicos o protestantes, sino contra toda la doctrina cristiana sin importar denominación o credo. Sin importar que cualquier estudio serio de arqueología e historia desacredite las premisas del documental, esta mentira será proclamada mil veces y muchos la tomaran como verdad, demostrando aquella frase del nazi Goebbels “una mentira repetida mil veces se convierte en verdad”.
Y es que no se trata de una investigación seria, sino de atacar al cristianismo en su fundamento principal; la resurrección de Jesús. Decía San Pablo en su primera epístola a los Corintios “y si Cristo no ha resucitado, vana es entonces nuestra predicación, y vana también vuestra fe” (1 Cor 15:14). Por lo tanto si la teoría de los productores de este documental fuera cierta, Jesús no seria más que un hombre mortal, y no solamente eso, sino un engañador de primera y todos sus seguidores serian ya sea unos manipuladores fraudulentos o cuando menos idotas crédulos. El ataque es maligno, fundamental, engañoso. Ciertamente que los productores y el director de esta obra son humanos, pero el ataque es plenamente diabólico. Es un ataque constante e incansable por todos los medios de comunicación y de muchas maneras como lo hemos visto con el Código de DaVinci, el Seminario “Jesús”, e incontables libros, revistas y documentales que quieren exponer al “verdadero” Jesús. Desgraciadamente muchas personas creerán estas mentiras y otras perderán la ya pequeña fe que les queda. Satanás no pierde tiempo y es mucho más inteligente y sutil de lo que se piensa.

Resulta fácil refutar a los “descubrimientos” del documental:

Según el documental se encontró en esta tumba cenotafios con los nombres de Jesús, Maria y José y Judas entre otros. De ahí los autores del documental dan el salto y dicen que esta Maria es la Magdalena y que un Judas en las tumbas es hijo de ambos. El hecho de que se halla encontrado una tumba con los nombres de Jesús, Maria, José y Judas de dos mil años de antigüedad en Jerusalén no es nada extraordinario. Esos nombres eran tan comunes en aquellos tiempos como lo son ahora. Por ejemplo en el Nuevo Testamento se habla de Maria, la madre de Jesús, Maria la hermana de Lázaro, Maria la de Magdala, Maria la madre de Santiago y Juan, Maria la madre de José y Jacobo y Maria la madre de Cleofás entre otras. Algunos expertos creen que la mitad de las mujeres judías de esa época se llamaban Maria. Así mismo los nombres de Jesús (como por ejemplo Jesús el Justo, seguidor de Pablo), José y Judas (San Judas Tadeo, Judas Iscariote, Judas Barsabas) son extremadamente comunes. Maria es la usanza griega de Meriam, así como Jesús de Yehoshua, José de Joseph y Judas de Jehuda. Los “investigadores” del documental pudieran haber llegado a la conclusión de que los restos son de Jesús el Justo el cual se pudo haber casado con cualquiera de las cientos de Marías como por ejemplo la madre de Jacobo, y que Judas es el hijo de estos. Además el nombre de Jesús en uno de los cenotafios no esta claro y es pura especulación aún decir que se trata de este nombre. En ningún lugar en el cenotafio se encuentra el nombre Magdala, así que ¿como podemos saber que los restos femeninos son de la Magdalena? Es como ir a cualquier cementerio, escoger una tumba con el nombre de Maria y asegurar que esa es Maria Magdalena.

Jesús y su familia eran originarios del pueblo de Nazareth (claro que Jesús nació en Belén) gente de pocas posibilidades económicas. ¿Que hace una familia entera de Nazareth sepultada en Jerusalén en una tumba de personas de amplios recursos? Le escritura deja claro que Jesús fue sepultado en una tumba nueva, solo y que su cuerpo desapareció al tercer día. La tradición cristiana mas antigua identifica al sitio de la Basílica del Santo Sepulcro en Jerusalén como el sitio de esa tumba. Se han encontrado miles de tumbas con cenotafios con los nombres de Meriam y Yahoshua, pero esto no prueba que sea la tumba de Jesús el Cristo.

Supuestamente los “investigadores” demostrarían con DNA que los huesos sepultados son los de Jesús. ¿Cómo? ¿Con que muestra cuentan para hacer la comparación? ¿Acaso usaran algún resto de sangre o ropa? ¿Han encontrado barbas o cabello de Jesús?; Lo único que pueden demostrar con el DNA es que se trata de un hombre Judío del siglo uno (si es que se puede demostrar tanto), nada más. El dar el brinco sobre un abismo y llegar a la conclusión de que este cadáver es el de Jesús de Nazareth, el Cristo, es como encontrar cualquier hueso en un cementerio de esa época en Judea y aseverar que son los restos de Jesús. Tal aseveración carece de cualquier verdad científica o investigativa.

Arqueólogos serios, tanto como del Departamento de Antigüedades de Israel, así como otros califican las aseveraciones del documental como sensacionalistas y completamente faltas de merito científico e investigativo. Si los “investigadores” fueran honestos admitirían que lo único que pueden aseverar con seguridad es que han hallado restos de varias personas, probablemente judías, de ambos sexos, con nombres muy comunes en Judea y que no pueden ni siquiera identificar el nombre “Jesús” con claridad en uno de los cenotafios. Decir mas es malicioso, sensacionalista y falto de toda veracidad.

Finalmente, la verdad es que Jesús resucitó, su tumba quedó vacía, al tercer día volvió a la vida por su propio poder, se le apareció a Maria Magdalena, a los discípulos y otras quinientas personas más. Fue tal el impacto de la resurrección que sus seguidores, inseguros y tímidos, esparcidos por el miedo a las autoridades, después de ver a Jesús resucitado, cambiaron sus vidas y se convirtieron en valientes anunciadores de su mensaje, despreciando la muerte e inclusive dando su vida. Jesús es el Cristo, el Hijo del Dios viviente y su Reino no tiene fin y algún día vendrá a juzgar a vivos y muertos; algún día aquellos que lo niegan, insultan y desprecian estarán frente a el para explicar sus acciones.

Rudy Garcia