Massive Scandal Of "Catholic" Charities!! Child Trafficking CRISIS Met With SILENCE By Pope Leo

 I have to say, that the massive scandal that "Catholic" Charities has been involved in since the apostate, Biden, and his Marxist cronies, allowing hundreds of thousands -- let me repeat that: hundreds of thousands! of children to enter our country with little or no tracking methods, or sponsors!

The main driving force for this disaster was -- money! to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars!

This, sadly, is also happening in Europe!

This is ongoing, yes, it is still going on to this day!

However, President Trump and his deputies are trying to do their best to locate and save these -- in many cases -- abused children!

To date, about 30- to 40,000 kids have been located...

But the numbers are miniscule compared to the actual number of over 400,000 missing -- missing! -- children of all ages! 

Please listen to this short video/interview from lifesitenews.com from Sign of The Cross media: SCANDAL: Child Trafficking CRISIS met with SILENCE by Pope Leo

Pray for the conversion of these modernist monsters!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Same-Sex ‘Parenting’ Is An Injustice Against Children – And The Data Prove It!!

 The question begs: should we even be having this discussion?

In a topsy-turvy world, it seems we have to.

This is what happens when "adults" reject the Natural Law, the Ten Commandments -- and God Himself!

He allows us to use our free will either to accept Him or reject Him.

He doesn't interfere -- we can choose to be saved, or we can choose to be damned.

The following article from lifesitenews.com is slightly dated, but always relevant -- in this day and age... Written by Katy Faust Fri Dec 12, 2025 - 12:36 pm EST: Same-sex ‘parenting’ is an injustice against children – and the data prove it - LifeSite

"(Them Before Us) — If you’ve ever argued against same-sex “marriage” or same-sex “parenting,” you’ve probably been hit with what your opponent thinks is a mic-drop: a link to Cornell University’s roundup claiming that 75 out of 79 studies show children of gay or lesbian “parents” fare no worse than other children.

The glossy PDF “What Does the Scholarly Research Say?” just happened to be ready on the eve of the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing gay “marriage.” The message is unmistakable: 75 out of 79 studies say no difference; therefore, the science is settled, the debate is over, and the research supposedly proves there is no harm.

READ: Florida sues top medical groups for ‘reprehensible’ promotion of child ‘gender transitions’

But once you look past the headline and actually examine the studies themselves, the picture changes dramatically.

Below is a brief summary of what you’ll find when you apply basic scientific standards – the same standards you would apply to any other area of child-wellbeing research.

Most of the 75 “no difference” studies suffer from severe methodological flaws that would disqualify them in any other domain of social science:

First, many participants were aware that the purpose was to investigate same-sex “parenting,” and they may have biased their responses to produce the desired result.

Second, participants were often recruited through networks of friends or advocacy organizations, resulting in samples of same-sex “parents” who were wealthier, more educated, and more socially stable than the general population of same-sex parents.

Third, average sample sizes of fewer than 40 children virtually guaranteed that there would be no statistically significant differences found between groups.

Fourth, vanishingly few studies measured actual child outcomes – such as medical records, report cards, or even the children’s own reports once they were grown. The vast majority relied on parental self-reporting. No surprise that children with two “dads” have fewer externalizing and internalizing problems when “gay father’s report” is the method of data collection.

In any field of study, such factors have a major impact on the credibility of the findings. But when you take into account the cultural/political landscape leading up to redefining marriage, it’s clear that something other than scientific inquiry played a role in the same-sex “parenting” outcomes. What was that “something”? Researcher bias. When the outcome is predetermined, the methodology becomes a formality – and the “science” becomes little more than advocacy with footnotes.

Don’t want to take our word for it? The comprehensive 2015 review, “A Review and Critique of Research on Same-Sex Parenting and Adoption,” concluded that – given high parental instability, limited data on adopted children raised by same-sex couples, and the overwhelming reliance on parental self-report – claims of “no differences whatsoever” are “premature.” In other words, ideologically motivated scholars were building a skyscraper of certainty on a foundation of sand.

And just one of these flaws – recruited vs. randomly derived participants – dramatically alters outcomes. One analysis revealed that:

… studies which recruited samples of children in same-sex unions showed that 79.3 percent (range: 75–83) of comparisons were favorable to children with same-sex parents. In comparison, there were no favorable comparisons (0%, range 0–0) in studies that used random sampling.

Translation: when researchers handpicked the parents, the kids looked great. When the kids were identified randomly or via government data, the picture reversed. That’s not science – that’s prejudice. Rigged research.

Why rely on recruited samples? Because finding children actually raised by same-sex couples is challenging. According to the 2010 census:

• 594,000 same-sex couple households (about 1 percent of all households)
• Only 115,000 reported raising children (0.02 percent of all U.S. households)

READ: Father files federal complaint after daughter forced to compete against ‘transgender’ male

Finding a target population that is two one-hundredths of a percent is like searching for a demographic needle in a geographic haystack. Randomly identifying them is expensive, time-consuming, and methodologically challenging – and it was time that politically-motivated sociologists didn’t have in the lead-up to Obergefell.

That difficulty is precisely why the field leaned so heavily on whatever looked rigorous – and why one study in particular carried outsized weight.

Wainright and Patterson didn’t use recruited samples. It pulled from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health dataset and concluded that adolescents with lesbian “parents” were indistinguishable from peers raised by heterosexual parents in academic performance, psychological health, delinquency, and social functioning.

The researchers pulled data from government records (good) so participants weren’t aware of the study’s aims (good), had a sample size of 44 (typical) and surveyed the actual outcomes of children (good). Because it was one of the few “no difference” studies that employed gold-standard methodology, it was cited by about a dozen of the other 74 studies as “foundational large-sample evidence” that kids with same-sex “parents” were doing “just as well” as kids with heterosexual parents.

The problem was, Wainright and Patterson were wrong. They had misclassified participants by coding teens as having “lesbian parents” if their mother identified as lesbian – even if the teen had never lived with two women. That’s not a minor typo – they were tracking and reporting on the wrong kids.

Dr. Paul Sullins later re-coded the dataset by actual household composition. The original 44 cases of children with same-sex “parents” dropped to barely more than a dozen. And once the category errors were corrected, the results flipped: the supposedly “indistinguishable” kids actually showed clear disadvantages. In that corrected group, adolescents raised by two women showed:

• higher depressive symptoms,
• higher daily fearfulness/crying,
• lower autonomy,
• higher anxiety,
• slightly better school performance.

Sullins also discovered a shocking conclusion – the Wainright and Patterson children with “married” same-sex “parents” fared worse than those with unmarried same-sex “parents”:

• Above-average depressive symptoms: 50 percent → 88 percent,
• Daily fearfulness/crying: 5 percent → 32 percent
• GPA: 3.6 → 3.4
• Reported child sexual abuse by parent: 0 percent → 38 percent
• And, critically, the longer a child was in a same-sex household, the worse the outcomes.

So much for the claim that gay “marriage” was a universal child-welfare cure; in this case, it amplified the very harms to kids that the movement insisted didn’t exist.

READ: Newsom ramps up transgender advocacy ahead of midterms: ‘I want to see trans kids’

What happens when you apply gold-standard scientific screening to the 79 studies?

The gold-standard method requires:

• Participants are not aware of the study’s aims.
• Large sample sizes.
• Randomly derived or government-collected data.
• Objective child outcomes or direct child/young adult self-report.

When you apply that filter, the Cornell roundup collapses. Instead of “75 studies showing no harm,” only a handful remain – and only one found “no difference.”

• 2000 Census PUMS (nationally representative).
• ~3,500 children in same-sex couple households.
• Outcome measured: grade progression/school advancement.
• Objective, government-collected, not parental self-report.
• Controls for socioeconomic status (SES), race, region, and parental education.
• Result: No statistically significant difference after controls.
• Limitations: Cannot confirm children were raised from birthby a same-sex couple; same-sex households are rare; exposure duration unclear.

So much for “75 studies.” When you apply actual scientific standards, only one out of 75 still stand. Which means the famous “75 out of 79” isn’t a research finding at all. It’s a marketing slogan built on statistical quicksand.

On the other hand, three out of four Cornell studies on the side of “you’re damn right there’s a difference” did adhere to the scientific gold-standard.

1. Allen (2013): Canadian Census Microdata

• 1 percent Canadian Census (nationally representative, government-collected).
• Several hundred children in same-sex households.
• Outcome measured: high school graduation.
• Objective, census-verified educational outcome.
• Controls for age, province, income, parental education, urban/rural, and siblings.
• Result: Children in same-sex households are significantly less likely to graduate (girls ~70 percent as likely; boys ~65 percent as likely vs. married opposite-sex parents).
• Limitations: Cannot confirm full childhood exposure; cannot distinguish biological vs. adopted; cannot measure psychological outcomes.

2. Regnerus (2012): New Family Structures Study (NFSS)

• Large national survey (15,000 adults ages 18–39), but not population-based for same-sex households.
• 248 respondents reported that a parent had a same-sex relationship (not necessarily a same-sex household).
• Outcomes measured: adult well-being (employment, criminal justice, education, family stability, psychological health).
• Mix of self-report and survey instruments.
• Controls for demographic variables.
• Result: Respondents whose parent had a same-sex relationship reported worse outcomes on multiple markers of adult well-being.
• Limitations: Does not measure children raised from birth by same-sex couples; captures family instability/divorce rather than same-sex “parenting” per se; widely debated coding and classification issues.

•       3. Sullins (2015): U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)

• National Health Interview Survey, 1997–2013 (large, nationally representative U.S. dataset).
• ~207,000 children total; ~512 identified as living with same-sex “parents.”
• Outcome: emotional and developmental problems (ADHD, learning disability, emotional difficulties, special-education use, mental health service use).
• Parent-reported health and functioning measures (validated NHIS child-health instruments).
• Controls for child age, sex, race, parental education, household income, marital status, region, survey year.
• Result: Children with same-sex “parents” were 2.4 times more likely to have emotional problems compared to children with married biological parents; higher rates of ADHD and learning disability.
• Limitations: Cannot confirm full childhood exposure to same-sex “parenting”; cannot distinguish biological vs. adopted children; cross-sectional design; classification of same-sex “parenting” depends on survey coding.

In other words: when the data aren’t curated, filtered, or massaged, the disadvantage shows up again and again. Reality keeps interrupting the narrative.

After peeling back the layers, the entire “no difference” narrative collapses. Most of the 75 studies Cornell touts depended on tiny, non-representative, hand-selected samples, parental self-reporting, or activist-aligned recruitment pools – methods that would be dismissed outright in any other area of child-wellbeing research. The one study that looked rigorous on its face, Wainright and Patterson, turned out to be based on a fundamental classification error that evaporated once corrected. And when truly representative datasets were used-national census data, government administrative records, large random samples-the results consistently showed disadvantages for children in same-sex households, not parity.

READ: Over 40 percent of Netflix’s children’s shows contain LGBT content: report

Now that the prize of gay “marriage” has been achieved, the pace of research on same-sex headed households has slowed. But there was one study in the last ten years that deserves to be highlighted. A 2020 study – Mazrekaj, De Witte & Cabus – from the Netherlands employed rigorous methodology and showed that children with same-sex “parents” from birth had equal or sometimes better academic outcomes as children raised by heterosexual couples. However, the researchers conceded that much of the advantage could likely be attributed to higher socioeconomic standards in children raised by same-sex “parents.” Meaning, a bigger paycheck, not two “moms” or two “dads,” seemed to bolster academic success.

Taken together, there is still very little evidence that children with same-sex “parents” fare “no different” than kids raised by their own mother and father. The supposed “consensus” wasn’t built on science at all – it was built on misclassification, small samples, self-report bias, and ideologically motivated research shortcuts.

Because once you understand how children thrive – and why biology and gender matter – the whole premise of “no difference” collapses under its own weight.

None of this should surprise us

The general consensus in sociology is that children fare best when raised by their own married mother and father in a low-conflict home. And everywhere except the same-sex “parenting” debate, researchers agree on three realities:

Gender matters in parenting — Fathers and mothers bring complementary parenting styles. Children need and benefit from the distinct maternal and paternal love that maximizes child development and helps children form a healthy sense of self. The absence of a father often correlates with behavioral issues in boys and early sexual activity in girls.

Biology matters in parenting — Research on divorce, step-parenting, and adoption shows that biological parents are statistically the most connected to, invested in, and protective adults in a child’s life. Non-biological caregivers – regardless of sexual orientation – elevate risks of abuse and neglect. A child’s own mother and father also help children establish a stable identity by connecting them to their heritage and kinship network.

Children experience trauma when separated from a biological parent — It is widely acknowledged within the psychological community that children suffer trauma and, thus, negative effects when they lose one or both parents to divorce, abandonment (even if subsequently adopted), death, or third-party reproduction. Losing a biological parent can negatively impact cellular health, mental health, emotional stability, and social development.

Given that children with two “moms” or two “dads” are always:

• missing maternal or paternal love,
• being raised by at least one unrelated adult,
• separated from their natural mother or father,
• deprived of half or all of their biological identity and extended family,

… it should be considered a sociological miracle that any study claims “no difference.”

Marriage’s primary benefit for children is that it tends to place them with their own mother and father. That’s not ideology – it’s anthropology, sociology, psychology, and common sense all in one household. And it’s never possible in a same-sex headed home.

With or without legal same-sex “marriage,” these two pairings will never be equal in terms of child well-being. Opposite-sex marriage is a social institution designed to connect children to their own biological parents. Same-sex “marriage” ensures the opposite.

READ: Australian woman ordered to pay $95k to ‘transgender’ men for ‘misgendering’

The science points in one direction, and it’s the same direction human experience has pointed for millennia: children do best with the mother and father who made them.

Family structure is serious business, and children are depending on us to advocate on their behalf. The best outcomes occur when children are raised by their own married mother and father. That doesn’t mean children raised in same-sex households cannot thrive. It means they face significant, predictable structural disadvantages. And it means that enshrining a family structure in which children necessarily lose a parent is an injustice against children."

(Reprinted with permission from Them Before Us.)

End of very revealing article...

Pray for strength and honor!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

The Martyrdom Of St. Stephen Reflects Christ’s Own Humility And Victory Over Death!

 On the feast of St. Stephen, in the year of 2007, my dear mother passed away...

(Has it really been 18 years since her death??)

She was 92 years old and loved Our Lady to the end of her earthly life.

I remember -- on Christmas Day -- we, Kathy, James and I, visited her in the hospital...

We had a good time!

We laughed, played one of her favorite games, and I have to say, she was as "sharp as a tack"... No dementia for her!

I noticed on her little night table/tray, lay the Rosary, this, no doubt she prayed religiously -- all the way up to the end!  What a way to go to Our Lord!

As our visit ended, we said we'll be back on the 26th, but later on, Christmas night, the nurse called us about 10:30 or 11pm, stating that she had taken her last breath...

We weren't at her side, but she was in our prayers that night -- and always, to this present day...

I wanted to post an article from lifesitenews.com about the proto-martyr, St. Stephen, as my mom passed away on the feast of his great martyrdom.

Folks will recognize the author of the article: Dom Prosper Guéranger Fri Dec 26, 2025 - 12:01 am EST:  The martyrdom of St. Stephen reflects Christ’s own humility and victory over death - LifeSite

"(LifeSiteNews) — St. Peter Damian thus begins his sermon for this feast:

We are holding in our arms the Son of the Virgin, and are honoring, with our caresses, this our Infant God. The holy Virgin has led us to the dear Crib. The most beautiful of the Daughters of men has brought us to the most beautiful among the Sons of men, (Psalm 44:3) and the Blessed among women to Him that is Blessed above all. She tells us … that now the veils of prophecy are drawn aside, and the counsel of God is accomplished … Is there anything capable of distracting us from this sweet Birth? On what else shall we fix our eyes?

… Lo! while Jesus is permitting us thus to caress him; while he is overwhelming us with the greatness of these mysteries, and our hearts are riveted in admiration – there comes before us Stephen, full of grace and fortitude, doing great wonders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8) Is it right that we turn from our King to look on Stephen, his soldier? No – unless the King himself bid us do so. This our King, who is Son of the King, rises … to assist at the glorious combat of his servant … Let us go with him and contemplate this standard-bearer of the martyrs.

The Church gives us, in today’s Office, this opening of a sermon of St. Fulgentius for the feast of St. Stephen:

Yesterday, we celebrated the temporal Birth of our eternal King: today, we celebrate the triumphant passion of his Soldier. Yesterday, our King, having put on the garb of our flesh, came from the sanctuary of his Mother’s virginal womb, and mercifully visited the earth: today, his Soldier, quitting his earthly tabernacle, entered triumphantly into heaven. Jesus, while still continuing to be the eternal God, assumed to himself the lowly raiment of flesh, and entered the battlefield of this world: Stephen, laying aside the perishable garment of the body, ascended to the palace of heaven, there to reign forever. Jesus descended veiled in our flesh: Stephen ascended to heaven amidst the shower of stones, because Jesus had descended on earth midst the singing of Angels.

Yesterday, the holy Angels exultingly sang, Glory be to God in the highest; today, they joyously received Stephen into their company … Yesterday was Jesus wrapped, for our sakes, in swaddling clothes: today was Stephen clothed with the robe of immortal glory. Yesterday a narrow crib contained the Infant Jesus: today the immensity of the heavenly court received the triumphant Stephen.

 Thus does the sacred liturgy blend the joy of Our Lord’s Nativity with the gladness she feels at the triumph of the first of her martyrs. Nor will Stephen be the only one admitted to share the honors of this glorious octave. After him, we shall have John, the Beloved Disciple; the Innocents of Bethlehem; Thomas, the Martyr of the Liberties of the Church; and Sylvester, the Pontiff of Peace.

But the place of honor amid all who stand round the crib of the newborn King belongs to Stephen, the protomartyr, who, as the Church sings of him, was “the first to pay back the Savior, the death suffered by the Savior.” It was just that this honor should be shown to martyrdom; for martyrdom is the creature’s testimony, and return to his Creator for all the favors bestowed on him: it is man’s testifying, even by shedding his blood, to the truths which God has revealed to the world.

In order to understand this, let us consider what is the plan of God, in the salvation He has given to man. The Son of God is sent to instruct mankind; He sows the seed of His divine word; and His works give testimony to His divinity. But after His sacrifice on the cross, He again ascends to the right hand of His Father; so that His own testimony of Himself has need of a second testimony, in order to its being received by them that have neither seen nor heard Jesus Himself.

Now, it is the martyrs who are to provide this second testimony; and this they will do, not only by confessing Jesus with their lips, but by shedding their blood for Him. The Church, then, is to be founded by the Word and the Blood of Jesus, the Son of God; but she will be upheld, she will continue throughout all ages, she will triumph over all obstacles, by the blood of her martyrs, the members of Christ: this their blood will mingle with that of their Divine Head, and their sacrifice be united to His.

The martyrs shall bear the closest resemblance to their Lord and King. They shall be, as He said, like “lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:3) The world shall be strong, and they shall be weak and defenseless: so much the grander will be the victory of the martyrs, and the greater the glory of God who gives them to conquer.

The Apostle tells us that Christ crucified is “the power and the wisdom of God”; (1 Corinthians 1:24) – the martyrs, immolated, and yet conquerors of the world, will prove, and with a testimony which even the world itself will understand, that the Christ whom they confessed, and who gave them constancy and victory, is in very deed the power and the wisdom of God. We repeat, then – it is just that the martyrs should share in all the triumphs of the Man-God, and that the liturgical cycle should glorify them as does the Church herself, who puts their sacred relics in her altar stones; for thus the sacrifice of their glorified Lord and head is never celebrated without they themselves being offered together with Him in the unity of His Mystical Body.

Now, the glorious martyr-band of Christ is headed by St. Stephen. His name signifies the Crowned – a conqueror like him could not be better named. He marshals, in the name of Christ, the white-robed enemy, as the Church calls the martyrs; for he was the first, even before the apostles themselves, to receive the summons, and right nobly did he answer it.

Stephen courageously bore witness, in the presence of the Jewish Synagogue, to the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth; by thus proclaiming the truth, he offended the ears of the unbelievers; the enemies of God became the enemies of Stephen and, rushing upon him, they stoned him to death. Amid the pelting of the blood-drawing missives, he, like a true soldier, flinches not, but stands (as St. Gregory of Nyssa so beautifully describes it) as though snowflakes were falling on him, or roses were covering him with the shower of their kisses.

Through the cloud of stones, he sees the glory of God – Jesus, for whom he was laying down his life, showed Himself to His martyr, and the martyr again rendered testimony to the divinity of our Emmanuel, but with all the energy of a last act of love. Then, to make his sacrifice complete, he imitates his divine master, and prays for his executioners: falling on his knees, he begs that this sin be not laid to their charge.

Thus, all is consummated – the glorious type of martyrdom is created and shown to the world, that it may be imitated by every generation to the end of time, until the number of the martyrs of Christ shall be filled up.

Stephen sleeps in the Lord, and is buried in peace – in pace – until his sacred tomb shall be discovered, and his glory be celebrated a second time in the whole Church by that anticipated resurrection of the miraculous invention of his relics.

Stephen, then, deserves to stand near the crib of his King, as leader of those brave champions, the martyrs, who died for the divinity of that Babe, whom we adore. Let us join the Church in praying to our saint, that he help us to come to Our Sovereign Lord, now lying on his humble throne in Bethlehem. Let us ask him to initiate us into the mystery of that divine Infancy, which we are all bound to know and imitate.

It was from the simplicity he had learned form that mystery, that he heeded not the number of the enemies he had to fight against, nor trembled at their angry passion, nor winced under their blows, nor hid from them the truth and their crimes, nor forgot to pardon them and pray for them. What a faithful imitator of the Babe of Bethlehem! Our Jesus did not send His angels to chastise those unhappy Bethlehemites, who refused a shelter to the Virgin Mother, who in a few hours was to give birth to Him, the Son of David. He stays not the fury of Herod, who plots His death – but meekly flees into Egypt, like some helpless bondsman, escaping the threats of a tyrant lordling.

But it is under such apparent weakness as this that He will show His divinity to men, and He the Infant-God prove Himself the strong God. Herod will pass away, so will his tyranny; Jesus will live, greater in His crib, where He makes a king tremble, than is, under His borrowed majesty, this prince-tributary of Rome; nay, than Cæsar Augustus himself, whose worldwide empire has no other destiny than this – to serve as handmaid to the Church, which is to be founded by this Babe, whose name stands humbly written in the official registry of Bethlehem."

To read the remainder of Dom Guéranger’s reflection on the Feast of St. Stephen, see the Ecu-Men website HERE.

This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Guéranger (1841-1875). LifeSiteNews is grateful to The Ecu-Men website for making this classic work easily available online.

End of wonderful article...

Please say a prayer for my dear mother... and thank you!

Viva Cristo Rey!  Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro, Fr. Emil Kapaun and Fr. Vincent Capodanno, pray for us...

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle...

St. Joseph pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Racing To Irrelevance: Our Bishops Continue To Offer Stones To The Faithful Who Are Simply Asking For Bread.

 From crisismagazine.com and written by Fr. John A. Perricone December 23, 2025: Racing to Irrelevance - Crisis Magazine

"One by one, as though on a conga line for the Democratic National Committee, our bishops last November recited a scripted Instagram paean to illegal immigration. Moreover, at the end of their recent November meeting, it was reported that they also, by overwhelming majority, huffed and puffed: “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of peoples.” 

For greater effect, they should have hired a better costume director. Except for one or two, they looked like unmade beds. Of course, this is part of the episcopal Spirit-of-Vatican-II look: casual, unkempt, pedestrian. All of which contributes to their “we have nothing important to say” message, joined to “we are simply here to listen to you.” The unspoken caveat: “you are listened to if you are the right you.”

Seems as though our good bishops have perfected the art of irrelevance.

Their view on illegal immigration reeks of an inverted Holy Charity: a regimen of good feeling, a happy indulgence of the zeitgeist married to soggy sentiment. This is galaxies away from true Charity, which C.S. Lewis describes as “severe” in his Four Loves, or, the 12th-century Richard of St. Victor, with his “violence of love” in his classic On the Four Degrees of the Violence of Love. Their view on illegal immigration reeks of an inverted Holy Charity: a regimen of good feeling, a happy indulgence of the zeitgeist married to soggy sentiment. Charity has nothing to do with emotion but all to do with truth.

Charity has nothing to do with emotion but all to do with truth. It rips away at the comforts of feelings to make way for the glories of sacrifice.

This episcopal echo chamber of the DNC is a deadly serious matter. Souls hang in the balance. For many Catholics may gather the impression that this is the settled teaching of the Church, binding all Catholics in conscience. It is not. It is the opinion of a number of individual bishops. Making such a widely distributed Instagram message will most definitely leave many Catholics misinformed. The imitable Fr. Pokorsky clarifies,

The content of the (episcopal) statement raises questions about the appropriate boundary between moral teaching and political intervention. Deportation may be immoral by intention or circumstance, but it is not intrinsically evil. The term “indiscriminate” is morally uncontroversial: few would defend capricious deportation practices violating the fundamental dignity of human beings. However, it is more likely that most will perceive the statement as a critique of U.S. immigration enforcement, presumably failing to correspond with the USCCB policy position.

He concludes: 

Only those who reject fundamental Church teaching in matters of faith and morals are dissident Catholics. Blurring the distinction between the authority of Catholic principles and the broader latitude of prudential judgments is unjust. The ambiguity allows doctrinally dissident Catholics to accuse doctrinally orthodox Catholics of infidelity if they disagree with the USCCB political statements.

Intelligent Catholics have every right to ask the good bishops some sharp questions. Mr. Gerard Nadal framed them pointedly in a Facebook post:

• Do all the poor people of the world have a right to free and unfettered entry into the United States?…What are your inclusive and exclusive criteria? What moral and economic calculus has gotten you to the numbers that define their answer? What is the number where you draw the line?
• 
  

• What is the limit of government-funded support of the illegal migrants that you find acceptable? Should the American people be compelled to pay for food, shelter, and medical care for all who choose to just walk in under the umbrella of your blessing? Would you care to set a dollar limit on that? The three-year cost to New York City is in the range of $12 BILLION. Are the bishops saying that New Yorkers have a gospel imperative to pay this, plus however much more from a limitless number of illegal immigrants to follow.

• Why have the bishops not made a distinction between those here legally, who must show evidence of economic self-sufficiency as a condition of entry, and illegal immigrants who have cost American taxpayers well in excess of $100 Billion? Why have they deliberately conflated the two realities?

Mr. Nadal’s questions plunge a dagger into the heart of the robotic parroting of the USCCB.

Would it not have been wiser for the good bishops to speak about St. Thomas Aquinas’ Ordo Caritatis: the right ordering of charity that commences with the obligations to God; then man’s immortal soul; next, to those nearest to us in blood; followed by those of the Household of the Faith; then, those who share with us our native patria. This unmistakable clarity would have unmasked the gauzy blather of the “stranger” so romantically invoked by those who have long been left unmoved by the irrevocable tenets of the Catholic Faith.

Interesting, isn’t it, that most singing off this page have long abandoned a perfect obedience to Catholic moral teaching. Many of these are the same folks who have been peddling a laissez-faire Catholicism which makes very few claims on the human person. A great number of them are the clan that have wreaked havoc on the Catholic liturgy, the principal conveyance of fidelity to Catholic teaching.

Catholics love their bishops.

They pray that they would begin to speak out on issues that speak directly to their path to Heaven and their place in the world. They would rejoice to hear them call every institution of Catholic learning—primary, secondary, and university/college—to a perfect fidelity to Catholic teaching, as Pope John Paul II did in his Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Finally, perhaps, these engines of an etiolated Catholicism might be brought to a halt.  

How their hearts would race if the bishops reined in Georgetown University for hiring a new president, Eduardo M. Peñalver, who has a history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights, having publicly criticized opposition to gay marriage and defended a gay teacher fired by a Catholic school while at Cornell and Seattle University.

How heartened Catholics would be to hear the bishops speak out against runaway contraception, whose use among Catholics now exceeds the general population. Rather than illegal immigrants congesting our cities, the sounds of happy Catholic families bursting with children would make their presence felt.

What applause the bishops would enjoy if they framed a joint statement calling for a true return of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament, in the hope that this joint pressure would put an end to some bishops waging war on Eucharistic piety.

Good Catholics pray daily that their bishops would speak out unequivocally for nothing more than what is taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II. Now that would create a sea change worthy of a thousand Instagram messages.

Catholics are crying out for an Olympian Catholicism which roars the Faith rather than a sandbox one which only speaks in whimpers.

Couldn’t our dear bishops heed the words of Étienne Gilson in his The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King:

One of the greatest evils from which Catholicism suffers today is that Catholics are no longer proud enough of their faith. …instead of confessing in all simplicity what we owe to our Church and to our faith, instead of showing what they bring to us and what we would not have without them, we believe it good politics or good tactics, in the interests of the Church itself, to act as if, after all, we distinguish ourselves in no way from others. 

The Instagram kick-dance of the bishops after their last November conference was profoundly disheartening to the Catholic people. It evoked the sad indictment of Jacques Maritain in his elegiac Peasant of the Garonne, “kneeling before the world.”

Catholics simply wish that every Successor to the Apostles acts apostolically. Catholics only want the Faith of their Fathers spoken clearly, heroically unambiguously.

Now, that’s not too much to ask, is it?"

Author

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  Fr. John A. Perricone

  Fr. John A. Perricone, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of philosophy at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York. His articles have appeared in St. John’s Law Review, The Latin Mass, New Oxford Review and The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies. He can be reached at www.fatherperricone.com.

End of very revealing article...

Pray for strength and honor!

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Gene DeLalla