I Hope You’re Clinging to Christ: My Thoughts on the “Catholic Cartel”

There has been much talk lately of the so-called “Catholic Cartel”, that is the highly organized arm of the institutional Church in these United States responsible for much of the mess surrounding what is patently an invasion of our land. Specifically I am referring to Catholic Charities but there are other agencies too. They all operate under the auspices of local bishops who are all members of the USCCB. Try figuring out the flow chart on this one and if you get it I’ll give you two gold stars.

I remember in the summer of 2018 telling a friend that we needed to really be prepared to hear the absolute worst of the worst before anything would get better. This friend was puzzled. You mean McCarrick isn’t the bottom of the barrel? No, my friend, he’s more like the tip of the iceberg only this iceberg stretches all the way to hell. I knew then that one man was not the problem nor was he only a symptom but merely a cog in a vast mechanical cesspit of disgrace. I told this friend, “Think of the most wretched thing you can imagine and triple it. I guarantee a bishop has done it.” The thing is, if we aren’t prepared to face that reality, we will be scandalized to the point of losing faith.

Others have written, as noted, on these Catholic NGO’s and their role in facilitating armies – literal armies – of military-aged men from countries that despise us in illegally entering our country. There is one bishop along the Rio Grande who is so despicable that only his key-level fruitiness prevents anyone from taking him too seriously. It’s hard to get the attention of the few sane people left when you’re prancing around in a “children of the world” stole. I shouldn’t be too harsh. Perhaps it was a gift from his boyfriend.

But we know it’s not just the hordes of kinetic warriors from places like China (!) wading across the waters. No, it’s also the fentanyl gang and the sex traffickers as well. And who funds their “resettlement”? Who takes money from Washington to promote these evil policies? Who greets the criminals and helps them find busses to the heartland? In other words, who is helping that army encamp? Who is opening the doors to the meth labs? And who is connecting perverts to child rapists? That’s the real question. Didn’t think there were consequences? Oh you’re funny.

St. Francis de Sales Oratory (ICKSP), St. Louis, MO – unrelated to post topic

I remember well an incident in January of 2001. I was a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Newark and my class had been assigned to work for the semester at the archdiocesan offices of Catholic Charities. It was supposed to be some kind of apostolic field work. Previous generations of seminarians not too distant from my own were nose to the grindstone in Liguori and Aquinas. You know, they were learning the Catholic faith so they could teach it to their flocks. Us? We got to spend Tuesday afternoons with a simp, a dyke, and their receptionist. The dyke was a nun if I recall. I remember Sr. Scissors proudly giving us the overview of the network. “We receive an $80,000 per year budget from the state of New Jersey to do this work,” she proclaimed. Or was it $80M? To be honest I can’t remember the exact figure because I was focused on her enormous hands and her dour face. But it would be the same if it had been one red cent. Why on earth was my Church taking obscene amounts of money from the state and to do what?

Flash forward to present. And draw these connections yourself. They’ve been taking the cash all along and for them, there’s no way out.

Have you figured it out yet? Your bishops and their agents are complicit in the rape of children. Now that I write that I realize it’s probably not as shocking as the bishops actually engaging in some of these acts with each other, with priests and seminarians, et al. But when you realize that your bishops are responsible for the invasion of your country by a foreign force? That’s pretty bad.

I could go on. They pushed a poison on the faithful. They stripped us of the sacraments. And they still want us to believe that a heretic antipope has any authority over us. Also, they gave us On Eagles Wings so I may never forgive them.

Pray for the Church.

Our Lady of Good Success, pray for us!

Don Bosco on Purity

Came across this video today. Start sharpening the weapons at your disposal, friends. Lent is right around the corner.

Continuing Preparation for Lent

You Eat the Bugs. I’m Sticking with the Cow.

Cue Copeland’s Rodeo.

Only 15 hours of smoke and this will truly be a thing of beauty.

First Saturday of February / Feast of St. Blaise

If you have not done the five first Saturdays devotion, why not start now?

And go get your throat blessed while you’re at it!

February 1

That is the date, 42 years ago, when yours truly became a twinless twin.

I am 46 now.

15,340 days.

That is how much time has elapsed since a house fire claimed the life of the sister I entered the world with.

On the 3rd and 5th of that month all those years ago two of my brothers – 6 and 10 respectively – would also succumb to the effects of that night.

One of our older sisters – she was not quite 21 at the time – rescued the rest of us that night by tossing us one by one from a second story porch. She suffered many broken bones not only in her own leap but moments before in breaking down a door to get to our bedrooms. She still feels bad that she couldn’t get everyone yet many guardian angels were working overtime that night. I remember the night well – the paradox of the bitter cold air outside and the snow covered lawn with the intense heat and light of the fire and the blackness of the choking smoke. Our parents (younger then than I am now) were down the hall, separated from us by a wall of flame. Mom says she felt the Holy Ghost move her to get on her knees and pray that her children wouldn’t suffer because she knew some of us were dying.

This same image was printed on their funeral cards.

This morning I woke up in a comfortable bed next to my beautiful wife with a dog curled up at my feet, my own children asleep in their rooms. I texted my sister. “Wife and kids say thank you.” Then I got on my knees and thanked God for her, for them, for a twin saint who, for 15,340 days has been praying for me before the throne of God.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

And if anyone reading this has also lost a twin, know that you are never alone.

Now where’s that bottle of gin…

“Watch and Pray, Watch and Pray, Fifteen Decades Every Day.”

Recently a reader sent me a note asking if I could speak a bit more on my daily rosary, particularly my habit of praying all fifteen decades of the rosary daily. Well, dear reader, I will do just that!

First, the title… That clever little rhyme has probably been spoken by more than one person over the centuries; but I first heard it spoken by Bishop Williamson in one of his many YouTube talks. Now, regardless of how one may feel about the good bishop, the truth of what he says here is undeniable. That is, if one has the time to pray a complete rosary every day, one probably should be doing that. As for the “watch and pray” part? It’s not just that he needed words to rhyme with “every day”. It’s a clear reference to the dangerous times in which we live and to Our Lord’s Gospel admonition regarding the return of the Son of Man as Judge.

I heard someone tell a funny story once about the Luminous Mysteries. Wow, I didn’t even write “so-called” before that. I must be mellowing out in my older years. Anyway, the story goes that a fellow asked his parish priest if he should pray the Luminous Mysteries. The priest replied, “There’s no harm in that. Just also make sure you pray the rosary.”

So on praying the original, thirteenth century, handed from Blessed Mother to St. Dominic rosary… Here’s how I do it. The first thing is to mentally commit to the task. When I was young and my father would announce – right after dinner and while I was trying to watch Jeopardy! – that it was time for our family rosary, I wasn’t always thrilled to say the least. I viewed this not as an act of devotion to the Blessed Mother so much as an interruption of my schedule. Isn’t that ridiculous? Obviously, even then I knew that I was being stupid and that, of course, the rosary needed to come first and yet I still hated having to stop what I was doing to pray. Clearly, decades later I have gotten over it. And this is why I believe a family rosary is so important. Even if the kids would rather watch TV and resent you for making them stop to get the beads out, it will eventually sink in. But it can’t sink in if it never happens in the first place.

So on to the fifteen decades… Traditionally, as we know, the rosary is divided into three groups of five mysteries – Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. I find that praying any one of those groups takes me about fifteen minutes. Now, I’m from New Jersey. We all speak fast. I’m the guy at Mass who, during the Leonine prayers at the end, finishes up one full word ahead of everyone else in the church and I’m not even trying. Your fifteen decades may take a few minutes longer. Either way, someone pointed out to me once that fifteen minutes is roughly 1% of the total time in a day. I did the math. It’s true. Now think of it in those terms. Can you spare 1% of the time God gave you? Am I trying to use guilt here? Sure am. Seriously, that time is a free gift from God. You didn’t create it. You cannot stop it advancing. It is yours to use in His service. You can do it

As it turns out, it takes me about fifteen minutes to drive to my parish. Since I’m already going there for Mass every day, I use the opportunity a lot of days to pray five decades either going or coming or both. Plenty of times my kids are in the car with me and we all pray together. Trust me, there’s nothing of value on the radio anyway since Rush died.

That only leaves the final five decades. Typically, if I haven’t prayed those during one of the many other times I find myself behind the wheel during the day, I will finish them before bed. My son and I take a little drive around town just for that purpose. He’s very good at reminding me.

So that’s the how. As to the why? Why not. See above about the percentage of time in a day. That doesn’t even get into the centuries of spiritual writing on the rosary, the words of great saints, the admonition of the Blessed Mother herself at Fatima and other places. Are we in the end times? Things are certainly bad (some would rightly argue worse than they’ve ever been). Should that matter? Can you ever go wrong meditating on the life of Jesus and Mary?

I will continue this more in a future post as it is getting late.

Our Lady, Queen of the Rosary, pray for us!