Authority which ought to come from God to the Pope then to the bishops does not exist any longer.

It is good that Fr. Voigt publicly admits that the Pope no longer has the authority that God has previously supplied to the papacy. One need not obey another who lacks authority, regardless of his lack of faith.

Meanwhile our Catholic men have no such excuses.  We are not called to quiver at home trembling timidly behind the skirts of our womenfolk.  We are called to go aggressively into the Outer Darkness and slay the many monsters of nightmare that presently lurk and slither there.  In this 21st Century the Catholic men are become Dragonslayers, holy werewolves and somewhat literally the Wrath of God in the flesh.

What florid prose!

But as I've said before to agent provocateurs and activists, I want you to be specific, as well as honest/candid/open with what you are advocating.

If you mean terrorism, say terrorism. If you mean armed rebellion against the current government, then please own up to it. Be a man and admit it! Don't hide behind the skirts of your womenfolk -- or your flowery prose. :wink:

Seriously, I'm getting tired of all the "calls to action" aimed at men who are already doing all they can. What is your criticism? That we don't have the desired results yet? I would retort that it's not for us to solve the Crisis in the Church, which is bigger than all of us and obviously a supernatural problem. Only God can untangle this mess. In the meantime, we have to do ALL WE CAN to hold the forts against the encroaching modernism, liberalism, feminism, Judaism, political correctness, atheism, and the other modern errors.

Are Traditional Catholics called on to keep the Faith? YES.
Are Traditional Catholics called on to save their souls? YES.
Are Traditional Catholics called on to solve this Crisis in the Church. NO.

When you're outnumbered 10,000 or even 100,000 to one, anything more than a defensive posture is madness. Unless you're talking about asymmetrical warfare (a.k.a. "terrorism")

All we can do, even priests and bishops, is promote the reign of Christ the King to our utmost. Sanctify souls one at a time, helping each other to keep the Faith (both priests and laity) and live the Faith in our daily lives. Promote the Fatima message, which includes prayer, sacrifice, and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Get people to consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart (True Devotion to Mary).

There is no way to peace besides that Peace Plan outlined by heaven: the consecration of Russia to the I.H.M.

Any other path I consider a dead end, a temptation, and the path of a false prophet trying to lead us all astray.

Quote from: Franciscan Solitary

Meanwhile our Catholic men have no such excuses.  We are not called to quiver at home trembling timidly behind the skirts of our womenfolk.  We are called to go aggressively into the Outer Darkness and slay the many monsters of nightmare that presently lurk and slither there.  In this 21st Century the Catholic men are become Dragonslayers, holy werewolves and somewhat literally the Wrath of God in the flesh.

What florid prose!

But as I've said before to agent provocateurs and activists, I want you to be specific, as well as honest/candid/open with what you are advocating.

If you mean terrorism, say terrorism. If you mean armed rebellion against the current government, then please own up to it. Be a man and admit it! Don't hide behind the skirts of your womenfolk -- or your flowery prose. :wink:

Seriously, I'm getting tired of all the "calls to action" aimed at men who are already doing all they can. What is your criticism? That we don't have the desired results yet? I would retort that it's not for us to solve the Crisis in the Church, which is bigger than all of us and obviously a supernatural problem. Only God can untangle this mess. In the meantime, we have to do ALL WE CAN to hold the forts against the encroaching modernism, liberalism, feminism, Judaism, political correctness, atheism, and the other modern errors.

Are Traditional Catholics called on to keep the Faith? YES.
Are Traditional Catholics called on to save their souls? YES.
Are Traditional Catholics called on to solve this Crisis in the Church. NO.

When you're outnumbered 10,000 or even 100,000 to one, anything more than a defensive posture is madness. Unless you're talking about asymmetrical warfare (a.k.a. "terrorism")

All we can do, even priests and bishops, is promote the reign of Christ the King to our utmost. Sanctify souls one at a time, helping each other to keep the Faith (both priests and laity) and live the Faith in our daily lives. Promote the Fatima message, which includes prayer, sacrifice, and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Get people to consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart (True Devotion to Mary).

There is no way to peace besides that Peace Plan outlined by heaven: the consecration of Russia to the I.H.M.

Any other path I consider a dead end, a temptation, and the path of a false prophet trying to lead us all astray.

The above large question requires a large answer.  A blog may not be the best place for this, but so be it.

The up-to-date contemporary style emphasises harmony, so “florid prose” may be more effective these days than the usual emaciated minimalism of journalists and bloggers.  Perhaps some more Baroque and Victorian style with some flesh and muscle to it is what the 21st Century will hear most clearly.

Catholics must keep the Faith; God will save our souls; the Apocalyptic Crisis of the Church will be overcome by God making use of Catholic men and women from within the Church Militant.  Our Lord helps us and often covers our backs, but He does not do our duties or live our lives for us.  That may be good enough for Pagans and Asiatics, but it is not the Roman Way.  Our men are free men and Roman citizens, our men are fighters.  If our men are outnumbered 100,000 or 1,000,000 to one it matters little or nothing.  Because when God is for us, who can be against us?  We have beaten worse odds than those before and we shall do so again.  Please understand that our enemies don’t doubt this, nor should we.

The duty of Catholic laymen is to provide for their own, protect their own and do their military duty.  Normally “prayer, sacrifice and devotion” while convincing others to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is, after all, women’s work.  We men are made of sterner stuff.  (The Catholic ladies are the champions of the Christian home and civilisation; Roman Catholic women are Western civilisation.)    

Catholicism doesn’t often “save souls one at a time”.  We are highly civilised people and operate with Roman discipline, not with the casual methods of anti-social libertarian anarchism.  That would be the false way of  the Masonic Lodges. What we lack is militant men, which is to say MILITANT LEADERSHIP.

What we need most are MILITANT BISHOPS.  This is not a proposal for Keystone Cops playing with weapons.  Here is the plan:  Militant Catholic laymen — Militant Catholic bishops — Militant Catholic education — Militant Catholic liturgy — Salvation.  In brief, a Roman Church Militant.

This vision is not Restoration.  It is at the furthest remove from any conceivable Restoration.  This is precisely the hearing and carrying through of the Peace Plan of Heaven, namely the Book of Revelation.  Fatima is the declaration of Heaven that the Apocalypse had begun.  The Russian Bolshevik Revolution was the Satanic spark that lit the Apocalypse and finally destroyed the entire world.  We are now the small Remnant barely surviving amid the ghastly smoking ruins left behind.  Truly in this our time the living have envied the dead.

God saves us when we read and hear what the Book of Revelation and our Catholic Popes, Emperors and poets have been repeatedly telling us for these past two thousand years.  Catholic history is apocalyptic; Catholic religion is apocalyptic.  The Divinity of Christ is confirmed by the Second Coming of Our Lord with blinding bolts of lightning, deafening claps of thunder and blazing swirling clouds of bright golden glory streaming in His wake.  That is not any Restoration of Christendom by the hands of weak and cowardly mortal men.

When Catholic laymen do their mandatory military duty they are, in somewhat poetic language, Dragon slayers, werewolves and, so to speak, the Wrath of God.   So it has always been and shall forever be.  Nothing is to be gained for us by speaking timidly or stuttering the Catholic truth.  We are not faced with the need to convince our contemporaries.  What our religion and tradition command us to do is to show from within us the Death of Christ, go forth and conquer our contemporaries.  Not to convince the Marxist multitudes, but to conquer them.  That is the clear message of God to us in the Book of Revelation and Fatima.

This is the time for Catholic men to carry through the Message of Fatima, not to do the normally women’s work of prayers wtih feminine virtues and devotions.  Because Catholic men are not women!!!  (Nor Catholic women men, needless to say.)

The activity this suggests is not terrorism, but Catholic education.  REAL historic Catholic education brought up to the present horrendously Apocalyptic time. Our women must learn to undertake their more gentle civilising duties and our men must learn to do their own more strenuous and primarily military ones.

We do not hear God’s will from within the centers of ourselves.  We learn God’s will from outside ourselves, from God Alone.  If we can stop listening for God from inside ourselves and meet Him, so to speak, in the clouds above where He is, then we will understand that He wants us to actively fight against evil wherever we find it and not passively refuse to resist evil while complacently presuming God’s favors like the hypocrites and Pharisees do.  What God wants from us is works, works and more works, to paraphrase the great Saint Theresa of Avila.

May the Catholic Remnant be the Church Militant that God intends and bravely follow Our Lord into the long promised Millennial Kingdom of God on earth that already awaits us.
   

Quote from: Franciscan Solitary

The duty of Catholic laymen is to provide for their own, protect their own and do their military duty.  Normally “prayer, sacrifice and devotion” while convincing others to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is, after all, women’s work.  We men are made of sterner stuff.

How very sad and terrifying that you think so.


We do not hear God’s will from within the centers of ourselves.  We learn God’s will from outside ourselves, from God Alone.  If we can stop listening for God from inside ourselves and meet Him, so to speak, in the clouds above where He is, then we will understand that He wants us to actively fight against evil wherever we find it and not passively refuse to resist evil while complacently presuming God’s favors like the hypocrites and Pharisees do.  What God wants from us is works, works and more works, to paraphrase the great Saint Theresa of Avila.

Sounds completely opposite from what is told to us by our Faith and the Saints, that God is heard in the peace and tranquility of our souls.  

Dear Lady Wallflower:

Then why do we have women and clergy at all?  Since the laymen can take care of everything, aren't the Catholic women and clergy rendered terribly redundant?  By and large the Catholic laymen are out working and struggling hard against what and who opposes them.  Roman Catholic manhood isn't easy and isn't expected to be.  Yes, that would be something terrifying -- to sensible women.  Women are very wise not to want to be men.

To your second point above, no, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity teaches us that creatures and God are truly and really distinct.  We Catholics staunchly reject the pantheist notion that God and Creation are merged into one and that individuality doesn't truly and really exist.  That's another of the many many glories of the Blessed Trinity.  Although the Holy Ghost is within us, He is not of us.  Within and above us, but not literally of us in any absolute or too literal sense.  That would be Pantheism.

Sts. Paul and Francis of Assisi are the classic examples of Catholic men who do not hear God "in the peace and tranquillity of our souls", at least not usually or so often.  Of course sometimes such men do hear the Good God in that more feminine way, but they also enjoy the more stormy joys of Roman Catholic manhood as well.  Catholic manhood is usually more joyful and adventurous than peaceful and tranquil.  Hence the great need among us for Catholic women in particular.  The peace and tranquility is by and large located in your own more pleasant and civilised department.  But for we men hearing God amid the lightning and thunder can also be tremendously empowering and rewarding at times.

While Catholic men and women share the same identical religion, humanity and adulthood, it’s also true that, as my lady French teacher used to say:  “Vive la différance!”

God bless.



 

Quote from: wallflower

Quote from: Franciscan Solitary

The duty of Catholic laymen is to provide for their own, protect their own and do their military duty.  Normally “prayer, sacrifice and devotion” while convincing others to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is, after all, women’s work.  We men are made of sterner stuff.

How very sad and terrifying that you think so.


We do not hear God’s will from within the centers of ourselves.  We learn God’s will from outside ourselves, from God Alone.  If we can stop listening for God from inside ourselves and meet Him, so to speak, in the clouds above where He is, then we will understand that He wants us to actively fight against evil wherever we find it and not passively refuse to resist evil while complacently presuming God’s favors like the hypocrites and Pharisees do.  What God wants from us is works, works and more works, to paraphrase the great Saint Theresa of Avila.

Sounds completely opposite from what is told to us by our Faith and the Saints, that God is heard in the peace and tranquility of our souls.  

Dear Lady Wallflower:

Then why do we have women and clergy at all?  Since the laymen can take care of everything, aren't the Catholic women and clergy rendered terribly redundant?  By and large the Catholic laymen are out working and struggling hard against what and who opposes them.  Roman Catholic manhood isn't easy and isn't expected to be.  Yes, that would be something terrifying -- to sensible women.  Women are very wise not to want to be men.

To your second point above, no, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity teaches us that creatures and God are truly and really distinct.  We Catholics staunchly reject the pantheist notion that God and Creation are merged into one and that individuality doesn't truly and really exist.  That's another of the many many glories of the Blessed Trinity.  Although the Holy Ghost is within us, He is not of us.  Within and above us, but not literally of us in any absolute or too literal sense.  That would be Pantheism.

Sts. Paul and Francis of Assisi are the classic examples of Catholic men who do not hear God "in the peace and tranquillity of our souls", at least not usually or so often.  Of course sometimes such men do hear the Good God in that more feminine way, but they also enjoy the more stormy joys of Roman Catholic manhood as well.  Catholic manhood is usually more joyful and adventurous than peaceful and tranquil.  Hence the great need among us for Catholic women in particular.  The peace and tranquility is by and large located in your own more pleasant and civilised department.  But for we men hearing God amid the lightning and thunder can also be tremendously empowering and rewarding at times.

While Catholic men and women share the same identical religion, humanity and adulthood, it’s also true that, as my lady French teacher used to say:  “Vive la différance!”

God bless.

I am sorry, I don't know that I fully understand the response. If you mean that women have a natural tendency to piety and that men and women pray and sacrifice differently, then yes I agree and I misunderstood your first post.

If you literally mean that prayer and sacrifice is for women (and clergy), then I stand by my first reaction. No one is redundant if each gives glory to God, whether directly through the salvation of their own souls or indirectly by the salvation of those in their care.

We are supposed to be striving for sanctity no matter our sex and no matter our active or contemplative callings, whether in the foreground or the background. Though the expression of virtue may be different depending on the difference in sex and states in life, I don't know how anyone is capable of reaching that common goal of perfection without constant prayer and sacrifice.

As natural a tendency as piety is in women they still have hurdles to jump in practicing the supernatural virtue. They tend to be sentimental and overly human in their devotions. I'd wager that the supernatural virtue of piety in a man would be of 10 times more value than 10 women with natural piety. Now, the supernatural virtue in a woman is powerful too but even then, because so much of it comes so naturally, it doesn't make the impression that it does in men. I have only ever heard men be exhorted from the pulpit to be examples of prayer and sacrifice for their children since no such example is as powerful, even that of their mother. If it's just a "mom thing", then our sons, our future leaders tend lose the connection to the Holy Ghost and the practice of our Faith. From there it's just a short jump to losing the Faith itself and there goes society. The exact impression we are trying to avoid like the plague is that prayer and sacrifice are for women (and clergy).

Again, if you simply mean that men are generally more active, gallant, adventurous, militant in their lives of prayer and sacrifice, then I am simply misunderstanding and I apologize. That that is true is immediately apparent to anyone raising boys and looking to inspire them in their Faith.

As to the other point, I have no Pantheist leanings. I realize God is distinct from us. But His voice, the whisper of the Holy Ghost, is heard most in silence. If He decides to come to us in thunder and lightning (a la St Paul) then that is His choice and He will make Himself heard above the noise. He will BE the noise. But from what I have always understood, we would be presumptuous to voluntarily raise a ruckus and surround ourselves with drama and constant action, then expect Him to compete with it in order to be heard. No matter what action this world brings to us, we must still maintain a level of peace within our souls.

Normally “prayer, sacrifice and devotion” while convincing others to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary is, after all, women’s work.  We men are made of sterner stuff.

I suppose this sort of idea is the reason Russia hasn't been consecrated yet.

Dear Lady,

Thank you for your polite consideration.  Of course women have a natural tendency to piety and men must make much greater efforts in order to fulfil their duties of prayer and sacrifice.  Most assuredly none can reach our common goal of perfection without constant prayer and sacrifice.  But for men this is often more complicated and gradates off into more hard work in studies and the more public sacrifices of work and combat.  Your estimate of 10:1 for the relative values of piety between the sexes makes perfect sense.  That is about the standard ratio that has been reached by the general consensus on that topic.  (Although the much greater perseverence of feminine piety and devotion goes far to balance the scales.)  What this writer was trying to refer to was essentially the tendency of hypocritical men to use what are often called “mincing devotions” and “oily unction” as plagiaries of genuine devotions and real piety among Catholic men.  There are always all too many Tartuffes among us and that obnoxious male character is never far to seek, most notably at present nearby in Boston, Kentucky.

Prayer and sacrifice are different for laymen, laywomen, women religious and clergymen.  Of course prayer and sacrifice are crucial for every Catholic, but we are extremely unequal in our talents and duties.  Prayer is most important for the clergy while women are called much the most to self-sacrifice and men are called to greatly emphasise the masculine virtue of magnanimity.  Laymen would usually be more bold and militant in the performance of their religious duties but also focus much more on their military duty and their obligation to earn a living while laywomen should be morally much freer to pursue and enjoy the many benefits of Christian civilisation, including the fulfillment of their duties of religion in more beautiful and civilised ways than would be proper for the men.

In general Catholic fathers should be examples of dutifulness and heroism to their sons and the boys’ connection to the Holy Ghost and practice of the Faith would be best maintained through the men’s hard struggle to provide for their families and the willingness to shed their own blood in the fulfillment of military duty.  Catholic laymen have always excelled in their military prayers, such as in the chanting of the Psalms when going off to battle.  That is the way laymen might best connect with the Holy Ghost in their prayers and maintain the Faith.  Military song and epic should always be integral to the prayer life of Cathollc boys and laymen; the men should pray and perform devotions, but not in the manner that the women should do them.  For example, the rosaries of men and boys should have dignified black beads, not lovely pastel ones.

The standard religious practice of our contemporary Marxist world is to listen to the God within one’s own Self (in other words, to Oneself) and never to the Just God of the Roman Catholics.  Whereas the Catholic approach has always been to have the Roman discipline to take a part in the Christian Drama and discover what we can do to increase the external Glory of God.  Catholic men are meant to be magnanimous and when no ruckus is raised around them, then Catholic men should worry what is wrong with them.  How does a lightning rod not attract lightning or the war songs of Catholic warriors not echo loudly?

Catholic laymen are born to be heroes.  Heroes don’t surround themselves with drama and constant action; such drama and action is simply the air they breathe, the inevitable effect of their existence; Christ is invariably soon heard and seen loud and clear.  How would He not be?

As for the absolutely essential level of peace within our souls that you mention, for we men that is usually first and foremost the Mother of God in our lives.  And then that level is in accord with how well the Catholic women in our lives faithfully reflect her.  She and they are our main personal connection with the Holy Ghost.

It is you, dear lady, who have brought the Holy Spirit of Christ into our humble discussion.  We men contribute the glorious sound and fury, but it is for you Catholic women to maintain that level of peace you gently mention, whether inside or outside our souls.

Thank you for clarifying. Though I seriously question the wisdom or objective truth in the assertion that all Catholic men have a literal military duty (especially today as opposed to a thousand years ago), I do agree that we need our men to be magnanimous and heroic in the performance of their daily duties, which includes dealing with the outside world.  

Franciscan, we can not raise soldiers from a culture which has lost the spirit of militancy for God.

Saint Marco D'Aviano pray for us

Only the Muslims do that these days. Religion for Westerners is only an adjunct to their personal lives, if that, which is more disposed to elevating celebrities, sportsmen, and those that promise to maintain their incomes and asset values. Do their comfort zones need religion, let alone a militancy that attacks the status quo? Come a hundred years, residual religion may well disappear apart from it appearing somewhere in psychological books and included in themes holiday breaks.

We can of course rely heavily (and exclusively) on prophesies but that is passive religion. The return of militancy can only occur on the backs of a broad ιnѕυrrєcтισn or crisis which would so disrupt society, causing minds to revisit traditional values for solutions.