Category Archives: Catholic Church

Irish Language Mass

Presbyter Brendan Fitzgerald said the Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas in the Bronx

On Saturday September 12, 2020, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and other Irish communities and organizations hosted their annual Irish language Mass at St. Barnabas Church in the Bronx. The “Mass” was celebrated by presbyter Brendan Fitzgerald and streamed across the country and in Ireland on the St. Barnabas Parish Facebook Page.

A press release of the event stated:

Dedicated to those who kept Irish language

and culture alive, the Irish Mass takes on

added meaning this year for an Irish

community overcoming Covid in the spirit

our ancestors overcame being denied [the]

Church and Mass by British Penal Laws.*

The response to the event was quite enthusiastic as expressed by the Bronx County Ancient Order of Hibernians, President Martin Galvin:

The Irish language is an important

and indestructible part of our Irish

heritage. . . . we can think of no more

fitting way for AOH members to honor

Irish heritage than an Irish Mass

embodying all of these themes.

There has been a great response from

AOH leaders nationally, Gaelic clubs,

Woodlawn Irish community groups,

musicians and individuals who would

just like to hear the Mass said in the

language of our ancestors.

While the “Irish Mass” may have been a success for its organizers and participants, it shows the ignorance of many contemporary Irishmen about their country’s history and its religion and explains why the Faith has sunk to such a low level on the Emerald Island.

Apparently, Mr. Galvin does not know it, but the Irish ancestors which he thinks he is honoring did not celebrate the Mass in the Irish language, but in LATIN! While the Irish language is an important and integral part of the country’s history, it pales in comparison to what the Mass and Sacraments did for the Irish. The Mass of Western Christendom, which Ireland is an important part, is the Roman Rite, the language of which is Latin.

While it is all well and good, and certainly necessary, to keep alive a people’s heritage and language, especially in these times where the Occidental peoples’ symbols, statutes, and reminders of the past are being systematically destroyed by neo-Marxists all over the globe, it is an abomination to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a vernacular/pagan tongue – a blasphemy long condemned by the Church.

Since the wretched Second Vatican Council and the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Mass by Paul VI, Masses in the vernacular tongues are now the norm. While the celebration of an “Irish language Mass” is supposed to commemorate the nation’s heritage, Mr. Galvin’s ancestors would be horrified at such a display.

Latin was the great unifier of Christendom. As the universal language, it bonded different peoples and cultures together not only in religious practices, but in secular matters. The eclipse of Latin led, in part, to the breakup of Christendom and the rise of national rivalries and warfare.

All of the saints, doctors and theologians, including Irish ones, spoke of the importance of retaining Latin as the language of the Church. They keenly understood that translations no matter how faithful contain errors and change meanings of the original texts.

Volumes could be cited by Catholic Churchmen insisting on the necessity of Latin for the preservation of the Faith, a few will suffice:

For the Church, precisely because it embraces

all nations and is destined to endure until the

end of time … OF ITS VERY NATURE requires

a language that is universal, immutable, and

non-vernacular. –Pope Pius XI, Officiorum

Omnium, 1922

The day the Church abandons her universal

tongue [Latin] is the day before she returns to

the catacombs. –Pope Pius XII

The use of the Latin language prevailing in

a great part of the Church affords at once

an imposing sign of unity and an effective

safeguard against the corruptions of true

doctrine. –Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei,

1947, Sec. 60

*Quoted in The Irish Echo: The USA’s most widely read Irish-American newspaper, vol. 92, No. 37, 9-15 September 2020, p. 3.

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

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Pope Francis the Taxman

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Bergoglio Marxist

On the heels of calling for a Marxist economic conference this coming March (“Economy of Francesco”), Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. “Pope Francis”) has once again opined on financial matters. The purported head of the Catholic Church has now designated “tax cuts” as sinful behavior on a par, apparently, with stealing, lying, and adultery:

Today’s structures of sin include repeated tax cuts for the richest people,

often justified in the name of investment and development.*

Bergoglio did not mention what category of sin advocacy for tax cuts falls under – venial or mortal. Maybe the details of how such a policy ranks in offending Divine Justice will be hammered out at the upcoming Economy of Francesco Commie confab!

In Bergoglio’s collectivist mind, those who try and keep their wealth from the ravenous demands of the State are somehow denying the poor their just due:

Every year hundreds of billions of dollars, which should be paid in taxes to

fund health care and education accumulate in tax haven accounts, thus

impeding the possibility of the dignified and sustained development of all

social agents.

What Bergoglio and his fellow socialists do not understand is that tax cuts lead to economic growth, whether they are for higher or lower income groups. The less wealth that the State confiscates, the more is available to be used for saving and investment – two keys to economic growth. The rich do not horde their money but expand and create businesses which leads to more and better paying jobs for lower income groups who supposedly Bergoglio wants to help.

The poor will only be uplifted by greater production where more goods and services are available at lower prices. Redistribution of income via taxation does not create new wealth, but simply transfers existing wealth from the productive class. Moreover, taxation has the deleterious effect of making individuals produce less since their efforts are siphoned off at the point of a gun. More taxation means less production and, thus, less and more expensive goods for the poor.

Of course, this is basic economic theory that any sane person can understand unless one has matriculated to a Western university or college or pays attention to economic ignoramuses like Jorge Bergoglio!

Bergoglio’s constant attention to the plight of the poor along with other social issues (“climate change,” the environment, immigration) does not align with the vision that the Entity, which created the office that Bergoglio currently holds, had in mind. On at least two occasions, He counseled His followers to focus their attention on spreading the “good news” instead of earthly concerns:

For the poor you have always with you: but me you have not always. [Mt. 26:11]

Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou, and preach the kingdom of

God. [Lk. 9: 60]

While the Church has always sought to protect and help the poor, widows, orphans, and the downtrodden, its primary mission is to preach the Gospel. Since the time of the Second Vatican Anti-Council, 1962-65, and especially during the “reign” of Pope Francis, evangelization has been condemned and, like tax cuts, is now considered sinful activity.

Bergoglio’s criticism of tax reduction is, no doubt, aimed at the Trump Administration’s plan for an additional round of tax cuts. Tax reduction, however, without cuts in government spending will further explode budget deficits which are now even beyond sustainable.

Without corresponding spending reduction, tax cuts will mean that the Federal Reserve will have to make up for the short fall with further money printing. One cannot have Big Government and tax cuts simultaneously. The inevitable monetary crisis will, unfortunately, be blamed on tax cuts and will play into the hands of Bergoglio and his fellow travelers.

That Bergoglio spends most of his time as a social justice warrior instead of the supposed “vicar of Christ” on earth shows the state of the modern Church. Worse, when he does speak on matters of faith, his words and actions are riddled with heresy.

For all those concerned, it is best that “Pope Francis” should be ignored not only for the falsehoods he spreads about Christianity, but also as a social theorist. His pronouncements on the latter will only lead to further impoverishment of the poor and the rest of society while inciting class conflict between those who seek to keep their wealth and those who want to confiscate more of it.

*https://www.teaparty.org/tax-the-rich-pope-francis-calls-for-global-wealth-redistribution-427517/

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

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Pope Francis Calls Marxist Economic Summit

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index

Pope Francis and his mentor

As if there needs to be further evidence that the current occupant of St. Peter’s Chair in Rome is a Marxist, the announcement of an upcoming conference at Assisi entitled the “Economy of Francesco” should convince any skeptic otherwise.

In his invitation letter to “young economists and entrepreneurs worldwide,” Bergoglio sets the agenda for the Leftist confab quite clearly which is virulently anti-market, a call for massive redistribution of wealth, and a reordering of the current economic systems of the world with a healthy dose of climate change nonesense:

. . . a different kind of economy: one that brings life not death, one that is inclusive and not exclusive, humane and not dehumanizing, one that cares for the environment and does not despoil it.*

While Bergoglio’s Marxist credentials have been firmly established, his blashemous actions and words has a growing number outside of “sedevacantist circles” calling him a heretic. The legitimacy of “Pope Francis,” however, is more fundamental than him being a manifest heretic, but his standing as a legitimate pope is invalid since his ordination as a priest and his consecration as a bishop came under the new rites of Holy Orders instituted in the wake of the Second Vatican anti-Council (1962-1965).

The mastermind behind Bergoglio’s summit is professor Luigino Bruni and from his comments he sounds more radical than the Argentine Apostate, if that is possible. Professor Bruni wants to use taxation as a weapon to “redistribute income and wealth from the rich to the poor.”*

Bruni, a professor of political economy at the Italian University, LUMSA, and the author of a number of books, basis his advocacy for redistribution of wealth on the Scriptures:

[T]he Bible has many words to offer our economic life and ideas [with] the transformation of wealth into well-being.**

It appears that the good professor’s Bible is missing the Seventh Commandment of the Decalogue which solemnly states: THOU SHALL NOT STEAL! In no legitimate commentary ever written on this Commandment is there an exception made for the confiscation of wealth from the well-to-do to be given to the poor. Probably just an oversight on the Professor’s part.

Because they are blinded by socialistic ideology, Bruni, Bergoglio, and the likes of Bernie Sanders cannot see that the growing wealth inequality which they complain about is not the result of “capitalism,” but is the outcome of the monetary policy of the world’s central banks. This, along with tax policies which hamper innovation and shield the entrenched financial class from competition, is why financial elites are able to maintain and increase their power.

Central bank policy of suppressing interest rates and of money printing allow banks and financial institutions to receive “free money” which they can invest and speculate with at zero cost. The boom (actually a bubble) in asset prices on Wall Street is a demonstration of how wealth disparity takes place.

If Bergoglio really meant to reform the present system, he would call for the abolition of central banking and a return to “hard money.” Under such an order, banks and financial institutions become wealthy on their ability to make prudent investment decisions subjected to profit and loss. A free market in banking is the antithesis of the current system of credit expansion and money printing.

Not only have Bergoglio and his cohorts abandoned the Faith, but they have also overturned the Church’s long-held condemnation of socialism and have ignored many of its own outstanding thinkers on financial matters. From the Scholastics to the School of Salamanca through the Jesuits and the great Cardinal Cajetan, who finally taught the proper doctrine on interest rates, the Church has produced scores of eminent economic thinkers in its long history.

index 1

School of Salamanca

Ever since socialism reared its ugly head as a social system of thought, the Church has warned of its dangers even its more milder forms as Pope Pius XII wrote, “No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism.” Since Vatican II and especially under Bergoglio’s regime, however, Leftist ideas of all sorts have been warmly embraced.

At the heart of socialism, be it Marxism or its equally pernicious variants, lies envy which became a part of the human condition with the fall of man. While once condemned, envy has been turned into a virtue by the likes of Bergoglio.

While such ideas may sound appealing to human sensibilities, they will not pass the Divine Judge who knows the thoughts and souls of all His creatures even those of supposed popes.

*Vatican website: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2019/documents/papa-francesco_20190501_giovani-imprenditori.html

**Jules Gomes, “Pope Francis Convenes ‘Anti-Capitalism’ Summit,” Church Militant.com, 15 January 2020.

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The Constitution Myth

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One reason for the failure of the modern conservative and libertarian movements to scale back, in even a miniscule way, the now gargantuan US welfare/warfare state has been the misinterpretation of the US Constitution. Many conservatives have a slavish devotion to the document, placing it on a par with the Ten Commandments and New Testament.

A typical misunderstanding of the Constitution’s history and content appeared in this recent op-ed:

The Constitution was intended to limit 1) the power

of government over the citizenry 2) the power of each branch of

government and 3) the power of political/financial elites over the

government and the citizenry, as the Founders recognized the intrinsic risks

of an all-powerful state, an all-powerful state dominated by one branch of

government and the risks of a financial elite corrupting the state to serve

the interests above those of the citizenry.*

The author, like so many “Constitution enthusiasts” has also been hostile to the Medieval era, denigrating its institutions and social constructs – feudalism, aristocracy, crusading – when, in fact, the Middle Ages, in many respects, were far freer with less government than the present epoch. **

When the founding fathers decided to meet in Philadelphia in 1787, they did so at first to “amend” the Articles of Confederation which had guided the young country through some perilous times. While the Articles had some defects (some libertarians even contend that they were too statist***), the delegates, at first, did not want it scrapped, however, it was the “leading lights” of the convention which connived to completely do away with it.

By superior political maneuvering, the pro-Constitution forces were able to ramrod their plan through despite being in the minority. Not only were the majority of the delegates initially against scrapping the Articles, but most Americans were opposed to the creation of a new central government.

Despite this, the Constitution was ruthlessly pushed through and, as its opponents feared, America would be saddled with a highly centralized national government, the loss of considerable state sovereignty, and the eventual erosion of individual liberties even with the inclusion of a Bill of Rights.

A brief examination of the document reveals that its implicit and explicit language grants wide latitude for the expansion of state power. In its Preamble, the ambiguous clause to “promote the general welfare” can and has led to all sorts of destructive social engineering schemes. More ominously, for anyone that is under the illusion that America is governed by a “federal” system, they should reread Article VI which in part says

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United his Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land. [emphasis added]

An all-powerful central state went against much of Western history after the fall of the Roman Empire and the idea was always feared by philosophers. Basic political theory and practical experience showed that a multitude of sovereign states were preferable not only for the protection of personal liberty, but for economic growth. Numerous states and jurisdictions were a far greater check on government than the much celebrated “separation of powers” concept of constitutional government.

Under the Articles of Confederation, each individual state was autonomous while the national government had to rely on the states for most of its support. Unfortunately, it will never be known what would have happened if the country remained as a confederacy of states, it is likely however, that there would have been less bloodshed, greater economic growth, and more personal freedom under a decentralized regime.

It is curious, therefore, why so many on the Right continue to revere the Constitution as some great bulwark against state power. Much of it probably stems from ignorance or personal bias against the political conditions which existed prior to the late 18^th century.

Much of European history was under the sway of monarchial and aristocratic rule and the integral presence of the Catholic Church in society with a diffusion of power among kings, princes, dukes and Churchmen. While far from perfect, the social order which existed under Christendom may not have been as materially or technologically advanced as contemporary times, but in regard to morality, justice, and individual freedom, there is no comparison. The Christian age saw nothing of the social depravity, war making with its mass murder, the trampling of individual rights, and the existence of totalitarian government as witnessed in the supposedly “enlightened” modern age.

Decentralized Europe of 1300

Until it is realized that the Constitution is an impediment to rolling back the American Leviathan, there will be little progress in the fight for individual liberty and economic progress.

*Charles Hugh Smith, “Let’s Face It: The U.S. Constitution Has Failed.” Zero Hedge. 20 February 2019.

**One example, Charles Hugh Smith, “America’s ‘Neo-Feudal’ System is ‘Both False & Precarious.” Zero Hedge 19 December 2018.

***David Gordon, ed., Strictly Confidential: The Private Volker Fund Memos of Murray N. Rothbard, Auburn, AL.: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2015, pp. 96-98.

Antonius Aquinas@antoniusaquinas

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[emphasis added]

Pope Francis: A Clear and Present Danger!

Muslims praying Rome Europe’s Future if Pope Francis has his way!

There is probably no greater threat to the long-term survival of the Occidental peoples of the world than the purported head of the Catholic Church, Jorge Bergoglio, a.k.a. Pope Francis. In his latest plea for greater “acceptance” of refugees, Bergoglio held a “Mass” where several migrants and their family members attended. The service was to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Bergoglio’s visit to the island of Lampedusa which has been a launching pad for invading migrants on their path to destroy what is left of European civilization.

During his “sermon,” the “Pope” condemned the “globalization of indifference” which many hold toward refugees and their plight. “Before the challenge of contemporary movements of migration,” Bergoglio said, “the only reasonable response is one solidarity and mercy.”*

While Bergoglio had the gall to call for even greater societal-wrecking migration, one of his Church’s top prelates, “Cardinal” Theodore McCarrick had just been exposed as being a paedophile and was relieved of his public ministry. To date, McCarrick has been the highest Church official to be guilty of sex crimes with more sure to follow. Worse, McCarrick’s abominable actions had been taking place for years and were known to just about everyone within his inner circle (including Bergogio), but none had the courage to speak out or take any action against the predator for his debauchery.

Sex crime partners – Bergoglio & McCarrick

It is beyond hypocritical that Bergoglio expresses so much concern for the refugee crisis, most of which has been orchestrated by the usual suspects, yet has done virtually nothing against his own underlings, many of whom have assaulted, raped, and molested thousands of young boys and girls. Instead of expunging these perverts from the Church, he has, in some instances, promoted them.

Whether Bergoglio knows it or not, it was the Catholic Church which preserved many of the treasures of the ancient world which would have surely been lost forever during the barbarian incursions. Likewise, it was the Papacy itself which inspired the Christian princes to undertake the Crusades and defend Europe from the repeated attempts by the Muslims to overrun the Continent. Now, in a direct refutation of its history, the Church is encouraging Muslim penetration of its once sacred soil.

At one time, the Catholic Church stood for the integrity of the traditional family, realizing that it was the backbone of any healthy and fertile society. The Church condemned artificial contraception, frowned on “working mothers,” and prohibited divorce while it taught that the primary purpose of marriage was the procreation of children not the embodiment of spousal love. Since the Second Vatican Anti-council (1962-65), however, things have changed dramatically, now the Church speaks of diversity, multiculturalism, and, under Bergoglio, coercive integration.

As the West has crazily adopted Democracy as its governing paradigm, voting and elections will be determined by demographics. If Europeans become a minority, they will be voted out of power, have their property confiscated, and eventually be replaced. For an ominous example of what will happen unless mass migration is halted, the horrific plight of white South African farmers is instructive.

While tighter border controls are imperative, fundamental changes need to take place to reverse Europe’s demographic nightmare as the latest statistics have confirmed where the number of deaths (5.3 million) in 2017 have overtaken the number births (5.1 million).** Most critical in reversing the demographic decline is a revival of the family and the removal of the impediments that have been placed in its way to procreate and nurture children. Two of the most important of these obstacles are the welfare state and public schooling, both of which have been used by the Left to replace the critical role of the family in the upbringing, education, and the shaping of the young’s moral values.

If the likes of Bergoglio get their way, there will be nothing left of Western Civilization; its institutions, arts, music, literature, languages will be swept away under a deluge of racially, culturally, and religiously distinct and often hostile peoples that cannot and should not be assimilated. While immigration enthusiasts must be stopped, Europeans must once again realize what it takes to have sustainable and fruitful societies. When this again becomes part of the Western ethos, the demographic imbalance will cease to be a concern.

*John Bowden, “Pope Francis Celebrates Special Mass for Migrants,” The Hill, http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/395799-pope-francis-celebrates-special-mass-for-migrants 6 July 2018.

**Gavin Freiburger, “Deaths Overtake Births in Europe, New Stats Confirm,” Lifesite, https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/deaths-overtake-births-in-europe-new-stats-confirm 12 July 2018

Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas

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