TEXANNE writes:

I have been reflecting on the Book of Genesis, and it strikes me that it seems to be such an apt allegory of the way in which feminist ideology was introduced into Western consciousness and has been received into the culture without resistance.

The woman knows God’s command, but the most cunning of creatures plants in her mind the seed of cynicism and mistrust — the possibility that God’s motive is not really for her own happiness, but to keep her in her place.  Until this consciousness-raising session, it had not occurred to Eve to think in terms of power, and to think of herself as subservient, and naive, a victim of the oppressive patriarchy.

(Continued)

Still Life of Fruit, Osias Beert;
1610

FROM “Mortification of the Appetite” by St. Alphonsus Liguori:

The ancient monks, as St. Jerome relates, thought it a great abuse to make use of food cooked by fire. Their daily sustenance consisted of a pound of bread. St. Aloysius, though always sickly, fasted three times in the week on bread and water. St. Francis Xavier, during his missions, was satisfied each day with a few grains of toasted rice. St. John Francis Regis, in the great fatigues of his missions, took no other food than a little flour steeped in water. The daily support of St. Peter of Alcantara was but a small quantity of broth. We read in the Life of the Venerable Brother John Joseph of the Cross, who lived in our own days, and with whom I was intimately acquainted, that for twenty-four years he fasted very often on bread and water, and never ate anything but bread, and a little herbs or fruit. When commanded, on account of his infirmities, to use warm food, he took only bread dipped in broth. When the physician ordered him to take a little wine, he mixed it with his broth to increase the insipidity of his scanty repast.

I do not mean to say that to attain sanctity it is necessary to imitate these examples; but I assert that whoever is attached to the pleasures of the table, or does not seriously attend to the mortification of the appetite, will never make any considerable progress in perfection. They who neglect the mortification of the taste will daily commit a thousand faults.

(Continued)

JOHN G. writes:

Thank you for your continued efforts. I also appreciate your growing understanding of the crisis in the Church.

In your item, “The Innate Power of Women,” Pete F. wrote, “Men are naturally barbaric; left to their own devices, many males are perfectly happy to live in relative squalor (Those disinclined to believe this are urged to hang out with a young single guy sometime).”

Paul seconded that comment by writing, “Most men are naturally barbaric.  We need our mothers to teach us how to become civilized and how to treat women.”

This is a serious error, and one that is sufficiently fundamental that believing it will undo and destroy the good that may come from any other truths which we may have comprehended.

It is simply a fact of history that all civilization comes from men. All art, all culture, all beauty, all music, all education, all literature, all painting, all sculpture, all philosophy, all abstract thought – they all come from men, and from men alone, not from women. All government, all law, all civilization, all religion — they all come from men, and from men alone, not from women.

(Continued)

“Pope” Francis in May 2013

AS everyone on Planet Earth now knows, “Pope” Francis, the sloganeering papal impostor, has given his fifth lengthy interview in the press, proving once again that his famous humility does not preclude a seemingly insatiable love of publicity. In his talk with a reporter from the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, Francis, who at one point approvingly quotes that great enemy of the Church, Sigmund Freud, describes some of his vision for meeting the needs of “contemporary man.” That vision is explained with characteristic ambiguity and mumbo jumbo. However, even in the dense vapor of revolutionary ambiguity, one can see that it involves divorce, homosexual civil unions, and euthanasia as acceptable innovations. In other words, it involves denial of infallible Catholic teachings, which are so much “casuistry.” Francis alludes to the Church’s previous unambiguous stand on the indissolubility of marriage, a dogma which no pope has the authority to overturn as it comes from Christ himself and which has stood as a bulwark in the modern world against the overwhelmingly destructive effects of divorce and its unraveling of fundamental social bonds, as “very superficial theology.” He thus nonchalantly dismisses 2,000 years of tradition and the sacrifices of Catholics who remained in difficult marriages to uphold that “superficial theology.” Alexander the Great was humble in comparison. Francis, as the guardian of souls, is a conqueror of a much more devastating nature.

I recommend two excellent posts elsewhere. “Divorce Bergoglio Style” by the Rev. Anthony Cekada provides context to Bergoglio’s comments on divorce and explains the revolutionary agenda behind them. And Dr. Tomas A. Drolesky at Christ or Chaos has an essay on the whole interview. He writes:

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has been masquerading as “Pope Francis” for the past three hundred fifty-nine days, is quite a salesman and marketer.

His product?

Apostasy.

His target audience?

Everyone in the whole world.

In related news (there is always Francis news), the “Pope” has admitted to confiscating a crucifix from the casket of a confessor. His account, as reported by the Associated Press, does not include any remorse:

“And immediately there came to mind the thief we all have inside ourselves and while I arranged the flowers I took the cross and with just a bit of force I removed it,” he said, showing with his hands how he pulled the cross off the rosary. “And in that moment I looked at him and I said ‘Give me half your mercy.’”

Francis said he kept the cross in his shirt pocket for years, but that the cassock he wears now as pope doesn’t have a pocket. He now keeps it in a little pouch underneath.

“And whenever a bad thought comes to mind about someone, my hand goes here, always,” he said, gesturing to his heart. “And I feel the grace, and that makes me feel better.”

JEWEL A. writes:

Say goodbye to the minimum wage waitress, and hello to industrialized pizza on steroids.

Blessings upon you this Lent.

(I won’t be missing pizza. I haven’t had the stomach for it much, lately)

WHILE nominally Catholic colleges annually host stagings of the Vagina Monologue, invite homosexual and pro-abortion speakers to campus, treat the Democratic Party as the American Vatican, encourage feminism (both the radical and mainstream versions) and pursue cultural Marxism with such impunity that at least one survey has shown the obvious reality that students are much less likely to be Catholic by the time they graduate from a supposedly Catholic institution than they were when they entered, a small Texas institution trying  to swim against the tide and adhere to the faith has come under attack from the Vatican II hierarchy. This is truly a remarkable instance of hostility to Catholicism within the superstructure of the American Church.

The bishop of Fort Worth, Texas, the Most Rev. Michael Olson has stepped in (his letter is posted at Rorate Caeli and has been confirmed by the college) not to clamp down on abuses such as those above but to ban the Latin Mass at Fisher More College, which considers the Mass at the center of its academic mission, as every Catholic college should. The college has been struggling to survive and this action seems intended if not to destroy it altogether to change its entire mission. (Continued)

PATRICK BUCHANAN writes that there is no important U.S. interest in Ukraine that would justify any military action or economic sanctions in response to Russia’s actions:

What is the U.S. vital interest in Crimea? Zero. From Catherine the Great to Khrushchev, the peninsula belonged to Russia. The people of Crimea are 60 percent ethnic Russians.

And should Crimea vote to secede from Ukraine, upon what moral ground would we stand to deny them the right, when we bombed Serbia for 78 days to bring about the secession of Kosovo?

Across Europe, nations have been breaking apart since the end of the Cold War. Out of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia came 24 nations. Scotland is voting on secession this year. Catalonia may be next. (Continued)

ATILA SINKE GUIMARÃES, in this older entry at Tradition in Action, contends that the medieval knight succumbed to vanity:

This was the means the Revolution used to change the humble and serene medieval man turned toward the glory of God into a proud and superficial peacock absorbed in himself and his own exploits and talents, spending a considerable amount of his time catching up with the latest fashions. This is how the medieval man became the Renaissance man.