I saw Icterus' posts yesterday, and I thought about this a while before I acted.

One might ask what the difference is between Icterus and Vandaler.

1. Vandaler, while serving as a "devil's advocate" for cօռspιʀαcιҽs, seems more interested in accuracy and truth -- I am not convinced that he would never believe ANY conspiracy as a matter of principle.

2. Vandaler is much older and more mature, and his posts reflect this.

3. Vandaler doesn't lambast any/all/most Trads about how they're "all a bunch of conspiracy nuts" due to some ongoing grudge. When he criticizes a particular conspiracy, he usually throws out his argument, what he believes to be the facts, etc. and leaves it at that.

In conclusion, I don't mind having someone on CI who disagrees with me, a bit of a devil's advocate or heckler, etc. but such a heckler can't ALSO be rude about it, annoy most of the forum, etc.

Because there's a limit on how much "heckling" my forum should have.

The banning of Icterus is quite in keeping with my existing rules. I don't allow "dogmatic Sedevacantists" (for lack of a better term) because they are against the whole forum. They see themselves as outsiders among non-Catholics. Why would Icterus be any different, when he has an obvious grudge and chip on his shoulder against "gullible Trads" and considers Trads to be a bunch of backwoods hicks?

Like those who consider "an empty Papal Seat" to be a dogma of the Faith, he has an "I don't belong here" mentality. And indeed, he doesn't belong here. I understand he came from Fisheaters, and only left because of the outrageous and severe nature of the latest scandal (condoning a transsɛҳuąƖ's behavior -- the whole "Clare" scandal).

I must say, if worldly-minded people like Icterus are leaving FE because of the gravity of the scandals, that really says something about FE! I mean, he truly belongs at FE. It makes me wonder if Vox will ever succeed in converting her forum into a new Catholic Answers.

You have certainly acted rightly Matthew and he had plenty of charitable admonitions. His was a rampage of intellectual pride and deliberate contradiction  and a gnawing at the fabric of Catholic truth.  Let us hope he learns and let's keep him in our prayers.

Appositely, whilst not everyone excepts the revelations to Maria Valtorta, whether true or false, the following words are a reminder to us all:



08-Jun-1943 − Knowledge as Destruction When Deprived of the Spirit of Love

Jesus says:

…..”One alone is the necessary Science. Mine. And the Spirit of Truth communicates it to you. In his light all that is is sanctified, is purified, becomes good. If your knowledge takes its origin from this perfect Knowledge, your human knowledge yields works of real utility. Otherwise it does not. If the science you possess is only human science, it is not true science. It is profanation. It tears away the veils enfolding the cosmic forces in which I, who am able to ration the good and the evil which you ought to know, have enfolded them.
The dragon hisses, “Bite, man, bite into the fruit which will make you a god.” And you bite. You do not know that you are eating your condemnation. You develop a semidivine ingeniousness, it is true; you have wrested many secrets from the universe and have enslaved the forces of nature. But, lacking the counterpoise of love in your knowledge, your knowledge has become only destructive power. And Satan hisses his joy because in your discoveries he sees his sign negating God. His sign alone.
If you devoted a fraction of what you devote to evil to doing good, you would already be saved. But following Goodness means being pure, continent, merciful, honest, just,
and humble. And you instead prefer to be workers of iniquity.”


May God give us peace on the site and mutual edification - it is hard enough being a Trad as it is!

Thank-you Matthew for all your initiative and effort (and no doubt expense) for creating and maintaining the site.

God bless you and yours!

Contrary to what Soulguard might believe I wasn't taking the side of Icterus. It was obvious he was trolling.

Several points need to be made. Since no one else is doing it, I'll bite the bullet.

1. Icterus isn't young, either by strict chronology or in maturational terms. He's older than the overwhelming majority of the commenters. More mature, too, by a long shot.

2. He is certainly not a fan of CI-style conspiracy theories, that much is clear. But how many of the conspiracy theories popular hereabouts have even a whiff of substance? Answer: precious few.

3. Is he adamantly opposed to entertaining any conspiracy theories, even fact-based ones? Answer: Who knows? Certainly not I! Look at it this way: how many such get advanced hereabouts? One a year? One every two years? Fewer?

Of course, as anyone who has looked at my older comments can see, I am by no means averse to regarding Jєωιѕн subterfuge and sabotage as the great unspoken and unspeakable facts behind essentially every undesirable aspect of modern life. So, yes, clearly I wish that Icterus had been rather more sympathetic to this concern. Still, since I hadn't amassed the data to embrace and support this outlook till I had reached my early fifties, I think it would be uncharitable of me, at the very least, to sneer at those younger than I am who still haven't had the sand rubbed out of their otherwise bright morning eyes.

(It's odd, too, what happens when people hereabouts who seem willing to indulge virtually any fantasy see one of their pet organizations called out for wilfully evading hard facts. This happened recently when I suggested that a certain hyperlong, poorly researched, and dreadfully written "article" sourced from the radical sedevacantists at Novus Ordo Watch was worthless because the article blamed all the present-day institutional Church's problems on Masons and liberals and global warming and sunspots … and essentially everything BUT the descendants of the mob that chose Barabbas from column B instead of Our Blessed Lord. The sanctimonious howls from every self-anointed Internet Pope around here can still be heard. Most of the screamers were the same ones whose Twitter friends agree 100% with them that planetary epicycles are waaaaay cool and wasn't that horrid Copernicus just a creep?)

4. I could easily spell out an item 4 and 5 and 6, but I think I've advanced enough material to make the only real point I want to make. It is this: I think that Icterus's alleged crimes are all petty stuff—misdemeanor material at most. Even his fits of ill temper, more evident of late than formerly, can be laid at the feet of the smugness and arrogant ignorance that regularly greeted everything he wrote. Some of the resident halfwits here drove him (as they sometimes drive me, too) to resort to less-than-temperate speech. But face facts, ladies and gentlemen: when one spends too much time in the company of folks who scorn introspection, who treat plausibility and probability as synonymous, who spout truisms and call them truths, and who tart up their crassness and know-nothingism in the fancy dress of faux-piety, it's all too easy to write things one regrets.

Frankly, I think Icterus doesn't mind being given the boot. (Cf. Ecclesiasticus 27:13 [in Douay; 27:12 virtually everywhere else].) Until I too leave, croak, or am similarly kicked out, however, I will miss him. I frequently didn't agree with him, but he was seldom dumb and never dull. May the good Lord protect him!

Not much needs be added to Matthew's posts, he's pretty well summed the problem posed by the Jaundiced One's presence on CI.

As Claudel points out, Icterus is not especially young. I believe he gave his age as 43 recently (though perhaps Matthew knows something we don't about this). That's several years older than me, and I certainly don't consider myself a "young man" anymore. It is certainly far too old for his kind of petulance, churlishness and shallow intellectual arrogance to be excused as youthful hubris.

I never bothered to engage him much because I think PereJoseph already did a magnificent job of taking his entire materialistic weltanschauung apart with laudable Thomistic precision and pretty heroic forbearance as well. His charitable corrections were met, however, with Icterus' usual outbursts of haughtiness and feigned exasperation, coupled with a few condescending acknowledgments of PereJoseph's erudition.

His arrogance and pride (which became grotesquely infantile toward the end) were his downfall on this forum. I pray it may not be his downfall spiritually as well.

I don't believe in the conspiracy theories either. Not all of them anyway. Obviously I believe the Joos and Freemasons have infiltrated the Church, but that's about it.

Regrettably, your statement is window dressing for your self-identification with his pride.

You can't even patronize someone in a few dozen plain English words, can you?