Historic Survey Of Almost 16,000 Catholics On Real Presence Was Ignored By US bishops: Pollsters. This Time The News Was Good!!

 Wha a difference five years makes!!

From lifesitenews.com and written by LifeSiteNews staff

Tue Jan 14, 2025 - 11:36 am EST

"The results, released October 15, 2024, are fascinating. First, there were nearly 16,000 respondents, and 80 percent of the surveys were completed. More than 97 percent of those who responded attended Mass at least once a week, and 79 percent primarily attended the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo) Mass. Also, 97 percent of those surveyed stated that they personally believed that Christ’s Real Presence is in the Holy Eucharist. This was in startling contrast to the 2019 Pew poll that found that only a third of professed Catholics believe in the Real Presence and fewer than half attend Mass every week."

Finally, some good news!  Real good news!

Historic survey of almost 16,000 Catholics on Real Presence was ignored by US bishops: pollsters - LifeSite

"(LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic organization that commissioned a historic survey of U.S. Catholics’ beliefs about Holy Communion is lamenting that American bishops have taken little interest in it.

In October 2024, when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) were conducting two campaigns, the Vatican’s sponsored Synod on Synodality and their Eucharistic Revival, the Real Presence Coalition (RPC) published what it said was the single largest survey of lay Catholics ever completed in the USA.

“One would think that the ‘listening Church’ would be bending over backwards to ‘listen’ to the voices of thousands of lay Catholics on why they felt there had been a loss of faith in the Real Presence and their recommendations on how this problem could best be addressed,” said a member of the Coalition, who preferred to remain anonymous.

“One would think that the leaders of the Eucharistic Revival would be beating down the doors of the RPC to understand the thoughts of those who had been surveyed. But, alas, this was not the case. If fact, it seemed the bishops went out of their way to avoid hearing about the survey results.”

READ: Largest ever survey of US Catholics shows faithful want an end to Communion in the hand 

The results, released October 15, 2024, are fascinating. First, there were nearly 16,000 respondents, and 80 percent of the surveys were completed. More than 97 percent of those who responded attended Mass at least once a week, and 79 percent primarily attended the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo) Mass. Also, 97 percent of those surveyed stated that they personally believed that Christ’s Real Presence is in the Holy Eucharist. This was in startling contrast to the 2019 Pew poll that found that only a third of professed Catholics believe in the Real Presence and fewer than half attend Mass every week.

The top five reasons those surveyed by the RPC believed were responsible for loss of faith in the Real Presence were the relatively new practice of receiving Holy Communion on the hand while standing, the scandal of Holy Communion being given to public sinners, lack of reverence toward the Eucharist on the part of both faithful and clergy, some clergy’s “casual attitude” toward the Blessed Sacrament, and a failure of catechesis, i.e. priests simply don’t teach the faithful about the Real Presence.

Those surveyed also chose their one preferred piece of advice for bishops to foster belief in the Real Presence. The most popular (29%) was encouraging the older practice of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling. The runners-up were “Catechize the faithful” (24%) and “Encourage greater reverence for the Eucharist” (10%).

The RPC sent LifeSiteNews a timeline of their attempts to share this information with the USCCB:

• September 17, 2024: RPC members decided to publicly release the survey findings on October 15, 2024. RPC sent email to Bishop Andrew Cozzens, head of the USCCB Eucharistic Revival, offering to review the survey results with him personally prior to the public release.
• September 23: Bishop Cozzens responded to the email but declined the offer to review the survey results with him and suggested trying to schedule a discussion with Jason Shanks, the CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress.
• September 24: Jason Shanks declined the offer to review survey results prior to their publication, stating that he would review the findings once they were publicly released on October 15.
• October 5: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Timothy Broglio, head of the USCCB, offering to delay the public release of the survey findings if Archbishop Broglio would prefer for RPC to present the findings at the USCCB November Fall Meeting scheduled for November 11-14 in Baltimore. This would have given the bishops the opportunity to see the results prior to their public release.
• October 12: Archbishop Broglio contacted the RPC requesting the findings be emailed to him. The results were immediately sent to the archbishop, and he confirmed receipt. The email to Archbishop Broglio confirmed the results were scheduled to be publicly released on October 15 unless he specifically requested a delay in order to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
• October 15: Having received no further response from Archbishop Broglio, RPC released the results to the public. An open letter was also sent to all U.S. bishops reiterating the offer made to Archbishop Broglio to present the findings at the USCCB November meeting.
• October 24: Having received no response to the offer of presenting the survey findings at the USCCB meeting, RPC decided to organize its own private event in Baltimore across the street from the USCCB meeting on November 11. An invitation to the private event was sent to all 200 ordinary bishops in the United States. The event included cocktails, dinner, and a presentation by the pollster hired by RPC to assist with the study.
• November 8: Archbishop Broglio responded to the message sent to him on October 15, thanking us for sending him the survey and apologizing for not responding sooner. He sent his regrets for not being able to attend our private event on November 11.
• November 9: After sending a series of 3 emails and a facsimile message to 200 U.S. bishops, the results were as follows:
  • 5 bishops responded stating they planned to attend (2%),
  • 35 bishops responded by saying they would be unable to attend (18%), and
  • 159 bishops did not respond (80%).
• November 10: RPC sent a message to Archbishop Broglio offering to provide printed copies of the survey presentation to all bishops attending the general meeting.
• November 11: RPC received a message from Archbishop Broglio declining the offer of printed copies.
• November 11: A total of 5 bishops and 2 priests attended the RPC private event. Attendees asked good questions during the presentation and were highly complementary of the results.
• December 3: RPC sent a message to Bishop Andrew Cozzens offering to meet with him in person to review the survey findings as well as debrief the bishop on the comments made by the bishops who attended our November 11 event in Baltimore. There was no response from Bishop Cozzens as of January 1, 2025.

Vicki Yamasaki, Coalition member and chair of Corpus Christi for Unity and Peace, told LifeSiteNews that she “can’t begin to guess” why the USCCB isn’t enthusiastic about the survey. However, she hasn’t given up hope of collaborating with them to renew belief in the Real Presence.

“I want to emphasize our commitment to fostering open and respectful dialogue within the bishops,” Yamasaki said by email.

“Our Real Presence Survey, completed in July 2024, represents the voices of thousands of lay Catholics who are deeply concerned about the loss of faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. We genuinely believe that the insights and recommendations from this survey can contribute positively to the ongoing efforts of the Synod on Synodality and the USCCB Eucharistic Revival.”

“While it has been challenging to engage with the leadership directly, we remain hopeful and steadfast in our desire to collaborate. We are grateful for any opportunity to share the findings and work together to find solutions to renewing belief in the Real Presence.”

Michael Hichborn, Coalition member and president of the Lepanto Institute, believes, however, that the USCCB have been “embarrassed” by the survey results, which suggest their recent Eucharistic revival efforts were based on a misunderstanding.

“Imagine spending tens of millions of dollars on an event predicated on misinformation,” he said to LifeSiteNews by email.

“The National Eucharistic Congress last summer was convened because of the false impression that the majority of Mass-attending Catholics do not believe in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. What our survey shows is that this is not the case. The reality is that Mass-attending Catholics DO believe in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while those who have stopped practicing the Faith are the ones who do not.”

“Furthermore, our survey provides real context for why those no longer practicing the faith no longer believe. As our survey shows, Communion in the hand, lack of Eucharistic reverence by clergy, the provision of Communion to pro-abortion politicians and other similar acts have been the primary factors in diminished belief. Given this, corrective measures by the bishops would require them to reverse long-standing permissions, which would be met with heavy resistance.”

Hichborn believes that the Eucharistic Congress was “a very expensive form of preaching to the choir” and what is needed is some old-fashioned missionary work.

“Sadly, an attitude of what I call ‘event Catholicism’ has overridden common sense,” he told LifeSiteNews. “Rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on big ‘flash in the pan’ events and campaigns, the bishops ought to be following the model of their predecessors: going into the communities themselves to preach, to teach, and to convene processions of their own. The restoration of the faith begins with zealous reverence for our Eucharistic Lord and the routine and public exposition of His Glory.”

The anonymous Coalition member who first alerted LifeSiteNews to the bishops’ lack of interest in the survey compared their reaction with Cardinal Blase Cupich’s recent attempt to stop Chicago Catholics from kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament.

“Catholic commentator Dr. Larry Chapp nailed it in his column reacting to Cardinal Cupich’s ban on kneeling to receive communion said it well,” he remarked and quoted Chapp’s opinion that the “letter from the Cardinal shows us is that for all the talk about a more ‘inclusive’ and ‘listening’ and ‘synodal’ Church, and for all the agitprop pontifications from folks like Cupich about how in a synodal Church the ‘people of God’ are ‘finally’ getting their say, all the rhetoric surrounding the Synod about listening to all voices is an empty sham.”

He believes that there are a number of reasons why the bishops have not responded to the survey: a lack of interest in “faithful Catholics who actually practice their faith”; not liking that the findings are contrary to modernist beliefs; not wanting to divert attention from their own Eucharistic Revival, or not wanting to “to legitimize a survey which exposes their knee-response to the 2019 Pew Study, resulting in a multi-million-dollar campaign that targeted the wrong people.”

LifeSiteNews reached out to the USCCB and to Shanks for comment but has not yet received a response."

End of article...

Now, why wouldn't the USCCB bishops take the advice of those surveyed, re-install communion rails, and have the faithful be allowed to receive the Holy Eucharist, kneeling and on the tongue?

Do you have the answer for that question??   I do...

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 

Unbelievable! A Stunning Rejection Of Church Teaching Regarding The Sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance: Pope Francis Says God Loves Homosexuals ‘As They Are’ In New Memoir

  Can Bergoglio actually believe this?? 

Unbelievable!  A Stunning Rejection Of Church Teaching Regarding The Sin That Cries To Heaven For Vengeance: Pope Francis Says God Loves Homosexuals ‘As They Are’ In New Memoir

I ask you to read this article from Francis' memoir and decide for yourself just what is going on here.

Why does he dwell on this un-natural sin -- opposite of what the Church teaches -- that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?  Why does he favor those afflicted with this grievous sin?  Why does he support and encourage the likes of the "Jesuit", J. Martin, and his -- condemned -- "New Ways Ministry"?  Why doesn't he admonish and call to repentance those living in such disastrous relationships??

He never does...

Where there is smoke there is usually fire...

From lifesitenews.com and written by Michael Haynes, Snr. Vatican Correspondent

Tue Jan 14, 2025 - 2:29 pm EST

Pope Francis says God loves homosexuals 'as they are' in new memoir - LifeSite

"VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Expanding defense of the 2023 document approving blessing of same-sex couples, Pope Francis attested that such blessings are for “people” but “not the relationships.”

“It is the people who are blessed, not the relationships,” Pope Francis said of the blessings authorized by the controversial document Fiducia Supplicans.

Francis’ comments, found in his newly released memoir Hope, expand on his prior defense of the highly controversial document he signed that stated priests could offer blessings to couples of the same sex.

“Receptiveness, and certainly not relativism, nor any change of doctrine, is the spirit and heart of Fiducia supplicans,” Francis said.

Released in December 2023, the document caused widespread consternation throughout the entire Church and notable numbers of bishops rejecting the text. Demonstrating such resistance, emeritus prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Cardinal Gerhard Müller wrote that “blessings” of homosexual couples constitute “blasphemy” and that the document is “self-contradictory.”

Indeed, only two years before in 2021, the CDF stated clearly that the Church does not have “power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex.” The CDF wrote that it is “not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”

But according to Francis in his memoir Hope, Fiducia’s approval of same-sex blessings “arises from the wish not to ascribe one situation or one condition to the entire life of those who seek to be illuminated and accompanied with a blessing.”

“Everyone in the Church is invited, including people who are divorced, including people who are homosexual, including people who are transgender,” he added, drawing on his now regular encounters with groups of transgender individuals at the Vatican. “The first time that a group of transgender people came to the Vatican, they left in tears, moved because I had taken their hands, had kissed them … As if I had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God!”

It is unclear if Francis was referring to biological women or men who live as “transgender women” when he made this remark.

Francis has made similar defenses of Fiducia Supplicans on previous occasions, leading commentators to question how a differentiation can be made between blessing two people who present themselves for a blessing together as a couple and blessing the couple as a couple.

The Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” The Catechism is very clear that homosexual activity can never be approved and repeats that “(h)omosexual persons are called to chastity.”

But for Francis, such blessing of homosexual couples is an example of “pastoral open-mindedness”:

It is strange that nobody worries about the blessing of an entrepreneur who exploits people, and this is a grave sin, or about someone who pollutes our common home, while there’s a public scandal if the pope blesses a divorced woman or a homosexual.

Opposition to pastoral open-mindedness often uncovers these hypocrisies.

God loves you as you are

Shortly before Fiducia Supplicans’ release, Francis issued another document with his CDF prefect, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, about transgender individuals. In an apparent violation of canon law and established Church teaching, the pair wrote that transgender people who had undergone a “sex change” could be godparents at baptism.

READ: Pope Francis says ‘trans’ people can be godparents, homosexual ‘parents’ can have children baptized

Alluding to this text, Francis wrote in Hope that transgender individuals “can receive baptism on the same conditions as other believers and can perform the responsibilities of godparents on the same conditions as others, and likewise be witnesses to a marriage.”

“No provision of canonical law forbids it,” he claimed.

READ: Pope Francis’ ‘transsexual’ baptisms document is even more radical than it seems

Decrying laws against homosexuality, which are particularly prevalent in African nations, Francis said that homosexuality “is a human fact” to which the Church must not respond “faintheartedly.”

The Pope also appeared to suggest that there is no need for conversion away from the homosexual lifestyle because God “loves them as they are”:

God the Father loves them with the same unconditional love, He loves them as they are, and He accompanies them in the same way that He does with all of us, being close by, merciful, and tender.

Sexual sins

In 2016, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia infamously contained a passage allowing for the divorced and “remarried” to approach and receive Holy Communion. After widespread consternation and requests for clarification from leading lay theologians and cardinals, Francis then affirmed to the bishops of Buenos Aires that this was indeed the intention of the document and that there were “no other interpretations.”

This was condemned by theologians and then the four dubia cardinals as being in direct opposition to the Catholic faith.

READ: EXCLUSIVE: New cardinal says banning divorced, ‘re-married’ from Communion an ‘enormous injustice’

Writing in Hope, Francis decried “resistance” to the text as based on “inadequate knowledge or some form of hypocrisy.”

He described the document as simply opening “the doors for new pastoral challenges in regard to the family and that note on the possibility of divorced people having access to the sacraments.”

“Sexual sins,” he said, “tend to cause more of an outcry from some people. But they are really not the most serious. They are human sins, of the flesh.”

READ: What motivates Pope Francis’ attempts to normalize homosexual relationships?

On the contrary, he continued, “the most serious … are the sins that have more ‘angelicity,’ that dress themselves in another guise: pride, hatred, falsehood, fraud, abuse of power.”

Though Francis has claimed that Fiducia Supplicans and Amoris Laetitia “opened the doors” of the Church, they have led to numerous Catholics – lay and clerical – to accuse the Pontiff of endangering the faith and of promoting heresy. Notwithstanding this, Francis has remained committed to his agenda as he now approaches his 12th anniversary of being pope."

End of very disturbing article...

READ: What motivates Pope Francis’ attempts to normalize homosexual relationships?

Yes, what are those motivations????

Pray for the conversion of Francis and 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 

"Cardinal" Domenico Battaglia Allowed An LGBT Activist To Promote Homosexual And Transgender Propaganda...During Mass At The Naples Cathedral

 Here's that title again -- let it sink in!!

"Cardinal" Domenico Battaglia Allowed An LGBT Activist To Promote Homosexual And Transgender Propaganda...During Mass At The Naples Cathedral"'

From lifesitenews.com and written by Clare Marie Merkowsky

After seeing this photo and reading the article, I wonder what those sitting in the pews thought about this attempt to brainwash Catholics into accepting the sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance??

You know, those heinous, sins against nature, that led to the total destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, sparing only Lot and his family...

These sacrileges are part and parcel of the new, novus ordo, synodal "church," to get the Church to change its perennial teachings on sexual ethics, marriage and the family.  This is the stated goal of these godless modernists who hate the true Catholic Church and sacred Tradition (we're not talking about the traditions of men, which these thugs are trying, successfully, so far! -- to implement).   

Francis-appointed cardinal of Naples gives platform to LGBT activist during Mass - LifeSite

"NAPLES, Italy (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples, who was recently created a cardinal by Pope Francis, gave a platform to an LGBT activist during a liturgical celebration. 

On December 31, Battaglia celebrated a “Te Deum Mass” at the Naples cathedral, during which he allowed LGBT activist Cristiano Cimmino from Naples’ LGBT group “i Ken” to address the faithful.  

During his speech, Cimmino advertised the LGBT group as a “lay pastoral community” born from a “group of [self-professed] homosexual and transgender people.” 

He celebrated what he called a “ground for dialogue between the Church, association, and institutions” to create so-called “safe spaces in schools so that no one feels judged.”  

“Safe spaces” are a common tactic used by LGBT activists to encourage students in homosexuality and gender confusion and prohibit criticism of such deviant behaviors.

Cimmino also discussed the group’s involvement with migrants who were allegedly “forced to flee their lands for [so-called] sexual orientation and gender identity.” Later, he promoted the “Questo Casa non è un Albergo – Rainbow Center Naples” and “Omovies Film Festival,” a cinema festival dedicated to LGBT propaganda.  

Traditionally, the Te Deum Mass offers thanksgiving to God for the blessings of the past year as Catholics prepare for the New Year.   

The move to allow an LGBT activist to address Catholics during Mass, one of the first incidents of its kind, was roundly celebrated by secular media outlets. 

LGBT Channel TV remarked that “for the first time, an LGBTQIA+ voice […] has found space in such a solemn context,” adding that “what happened […] is not just a celebration. It was an epochal step.” 

Likewise, when news of Pope Francis appointing Battaglia as cardinal was made public, “i Ken” celebrated the decision, mentioning the “strong commitment to dialogue with the [so-called] LGBTQ+ community” of the new member of the sacred college.

In his own homily, Battaglia asked Our Lord to break “in us the fear of change,” failing to explain that Catholic doctrine can never change.  

In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states that God created humans “male and female” and that, “Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life.”

“The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out,” the Catechism continues.   

The Catechism further declares that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved” and that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.” 

End of very disturbing article...

Know that this is the face of the new, novus ordo, synodal "church," devoid of the Holy Ghost and Sanctifying grace, and made in the image and likeness of man, subservient to the zeitgeist, not Christ Our Lord!

This must be resisted with all our being, even unto suffering a red martyrdom!

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 

Unsung Heroines Of The Early Church

 Yes, there were many as this article will touch on, but there were more, I'm sure, as the persecution under some of the most vicious Roman Emperors in the history of the early Church continued until Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313, A.D....

From crisismagazine.com and written by Joseph Pearce

Unsung Heroines of the Early Church - Crisis Magazine

"Whenever the Roman Canon of the Mass is celebrated, there is also a celebration of the saints, dozens of whom are invoked by the priest at the altar. Among these saints are seven women: Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Cecilia, Agnes, and Anastasia. These holy women were martyred during the third and fourth centuries and are justly celebrated by the Church during the holy sacrifice of the Mass. 

Since, however, their names are invoked whenever the Roman Canon is celebrated, they can hardly be considered unsung heroines of Christendom. On the contrary, their praises are sung constantly, in every generation, on every continent, in every century, on every altar. Deo gratias! Since this is so, we will focus instead on other holy women of the early centuries of the Church who are not as well known.

Sts. Callinica and Basilissa were wealthy married women, living in Asia Minor, who took food to their imprisoned fellow Christians. They were arrested in the year of Our Lord 252 and suffered martyrdom for their refusal to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods.

In the following century, St. Macrina the Younger lived a holy life of rigorous asceticism and scriptural scholarship. She was the older sister of two of the greatest Fathers of the Church, Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, the latter of whom wrote The Life of St. Macrina in which he praised her depth of learning and the way in which she had served as a role model of holiness for both her younger brothers. 

St. Macrina founded a community of like-minded women who wished to consecrate their lives to God in chastity, prayer, and scholarship. Having died to herself in life, she spurned the creature comforts even in her final illness in the summer of 379, refusing the deathbed itself and choosing to lie and die on the hard floor to which she’d become accustomed.

As St. Macrina had been an inspiration to her far-better-known younger brothers, another little-known female saint, Marcella, would prove to be an inspiration to another of the Church Fathers, St. Jerome. St. Marcella was a widow who was devoting her life to charity, chastity, and prayer when she and Jerome first met. Almost a third of Jerome’s surviving letters are addressed to women, and many of these are addressed to Marcella. Such was the respect and reverence with which she was held by Jerome that, following her death in 410, he wrote to another female correspondent, named Principia, that Marcella had been a great scholar of Scripture who was confident enough to dispute with Jerome the meaning of specific passages as a means of inducing him to assist her in plumbing ever deeper knowledge of the sacred texts.

“How much virtue and intellect, how much holiness and purity I found in her I am afraid to say…lest I may exceed the bounds of men’s belief,” he wrote. Such was Marcella’s status as a scholar, and such was the esteem in which she was held, that Jerome reported that, after he had departed from Rome, “if any dispute arose concerning the testimony of the Scriptures, it was to her verdict that appeal was made.”               

Another female disciple of St. Jerome was St. Fabiola, a Magdalene figure who had divorced her husband and was living with another man, causing great scandal until she repented publicly and began to devote her life to the care of the sick and the poor. While on pilgrimage to Bethlehem at the end of the fourth century, she met Jerome and studied Scripture under his tutelage. While staying in the Holy Land, she stayed at a hostel for women founded by another great female saint of the Early Church, Paula of Rome. 

Although it is often presumed that Cardinal Wiseman’s celebrated novel Fabiola is based on the life of the saint, this is not the case. The eponymous heroine of the novel lives at the beginning of the fourth century, whereas St. Fabiola lived at the century’s end, and the plot of the novel is not a reflection of the known facts of the saint’s life.

In the same manner in which Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa are far better known than their older sister, and Jerome is far better known than any of his learned female disciples, so the Desert Fathers, such as St. Anthony, are far better known than those whom we might dare to call the Desert Mothers. These include St. Thaïs, a Magdalene-like penitent who had been a wealthy courtesan in Alexandria, offering sexual favors to the rich and powerful until a radical conversion led her to a life of prayer in the Egyptian desert. Other “Desert Mothers” who were pioneers of early monasticism include St. Mary of Egypt, St. Melania the Younger, St. Pelagia, and St. Sarah of the Desert.

Most of these women are little known or indeed completely unknown to all but historians of the Church. We will not hear their names invoked at the altar. And yet they are present at every Mass, unheard and unheeded by the congregation, as members of the company of the saints, the Church Triumphant. We might not sing their praises, but they are eternally singing the praises of their Lord and God. These unsung heroines of the Early Church had sought the Kingdom of God in their earthly lives and have attained it in their heavenly lives. May we be inspired by their example to do likewise.

End of inspiring article...

Author

• 
  Joseph Pearce

  Joseph Pearce is Visiting Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University and a Visiting Fellow of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (Merrimack, New Hampshire). The author of over thirty books, he is editor of the St. Austin Review, series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions, senior instructor with Homeschool Connections, and senior contributor at the Imaginative Conservative and Crisis Magazine. His personal website is http://www.jpearce.co. 

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!!

All the Angels and Saints, pray for us!!

Gene DeLalla

Dutch Bishop Robert Mutsaerts : Young People Love Traditional Liturgy, Not Pope Francis’ ‘Synodality,’ Climate Agenda

 There is still hope...

From lifesitenews.com and written by Andreas  Wailzer

Dutch bishop: Young people love traditional liturgy, not Pope Francis’ ‘synodality,’ climate agenda - LifeSite

Fri Jan 10, 2025 - 2:23 pm EST

"(LifeSiteNews) — Dutch Bishop Robert Mutsaerts has criticized the Catholic hierarchy for focusing on “climate change” and social justice issues instead of the salvation of souls. He said that young people are attracted by traditional liturgy and not by Pope Francis’ “synodality.”

In a blog published in December, Bishop Mutsaerts said that this negative trend has dominated the Catholic Church since the 1960s and the Second Vatican Council.

“How did it get to the point where we see what we see today in church circles? Rainbow flags, LGBT activists dancing around the altar, second-rate bands playing pop music, sermons that are an expression of political correctness rather than anything else?” he pointedly asked.

“How is it that beauty and truth have given way to ugliness and opinions? Ugly buildings, whitewashed walls, iconoclasm, and poorly acted performances that pass for liturgy. Kneelers and communion rails have been removed. The mystery, the sacred, the supernatural had to give way to horizontal flatness.”

The bishop said that he sees a hunger for tradition and transcendence in young Catholics.

“But this has not yet caught on in Rome,” he mused. “There, they are preoccupied with the new buzzword synodality.”

“The leadership of the church resembles Demas, who left Paul out of love for the secular world,” he stated. “And Judas, who thought the money spent on Jesus would have been better spent on the poor. This resonates well with the liberals. They are like those who cry out for Barabbas, the activist who strove for a secular utopia. They say: ‘We take matters into our own hands.’ Jesus, on the other hand, did the will of the Father and chose the cross. That seemed like a failure, but it was the cross that brought redemption.”

Bishop Mutsaerts said people have left the Church in the past 60 years “because the church has let them down.”

“’Yes,’ says the church, ‘we are committed to the environment, to climate change, to diversity, to the poor and issues like that.’ More emphasis is placed on this than on a dignified liturgy, on sacrality, on the call to conversion, and on prioritizing the salvation of souls. People forget that this is precisely what gives people the nourishment they need to truly perform works of mercy.”

“Since the 1960s, the Church has portrayed the faith as ridiculous, no longer naming its core,” the bishop said. “Look at the liturgical abuse that is the order of the day. I am regularly terrorized at Confirmation Masses by choirs singing only Top 2000 songs. I once experienced the choir, accompanied by a deafening band, singing exclusively songs by Bruce Springsteen. ‘Because the Night’ was the offertory hymn. At the end of the Mass, it was clear to me: we will never see these confirmands in church again.”

“At another Confirmation Mass (Nijmegen), the priest refused to give Communion to a confirmand because he wanted to receive Communion on the tongue. That’s actually very clerical: this priest makes his own rules and imposes them on the faithful,” he continued.

“This has been the problem of the Church since the Second Vatican Council: the Church does not teach what the Gospel teaches. We are afraid to proclaim Catholic views. Which priest still talks about ‘salvation’ and the ‘forgiveness of sins?’ We prefer to distance ourselves from it. We apologize for a colleague who stands guard and prays outside an abortion facility.”

“The Pope banned the traditional Latin Mass in Chartres and Notre Dame and added an LGBT pilgrimage to the program of the Holy Year in the same week,” the Dutch bishop stressed.

“We strive so much for ‘freedom and happiness,’ but in practice, this seems to lead to debauchery and dissatisfaction. What is needed are norms and values that we share. Where do we get this from? Norms and values that apply to everyone and at all times. Yes, there is such a thing as the truth that applies to everyone. And yes, we can know it. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle already knew this. This natural law has a supernatural origin that the secular world knows nothing about.”

He said the “dialogue with the world” opened at the Second Vatican Council has led many in the Church hierarchy to “relativize or even deny the timeless truths of the Church.”

These truths “would merely be figments of the imagination of Thomists and other outdated theologians.”

“This led to a completely horizontal translation of the Gospel. Metaphysics was jettisoned, and the focus was exclusively on community. The result is a flat liturgy in which there is no longer any room for sin and forgiveness. The blame was shifted onto others,” Bishop Mutsaerts said.

In today’s Church, at least in Western Europe, the mainstream view says “it should be about social justice, about soup kitchens, about action,” he continued.

“Yes, mainly action. We stand up against discrimination and racism and take part in the social debate on climate change. We are naturally inclusive and diverse and fly the rainbow flag. Of course, we don’t talk about abortion, euthanasia, and mutilation of [so-called] transgender people. The distinction between the sacred and the profane has completely disappeared.”

“Young people, in particular, have sensed this very well and have voted with their feet,” the bishop said. “If the liturgy is an incoherent mess, if you are not asked to reorganize your life, if forgiveness and sin are forbidden words, then what are you doing there?”

“Good liturgy, clarity, and warmth make all the difference. Young people are looking for answers to questions.”

“No wonder young people hungry for meaning, forgiveness, and truth are not at all interested in Laudato Si’, Fiducia Supplicans, and synodality,” the bishop added.

“Parishes and dioceses that think they are focusing on this do not attract young people. Where do you find them: in parishes where things are simply traditional, where the Holy Mass is still Holy Mass, where the sacred is in the forefront, where the liturgy is clearly separated from the secular. You discover things there that you didn’t know before. It is a movement towards beauty, truth, holiness, towards devotion, towards places where the sacrament of Confession is offered and the Rosary is prayed. That’s where I see families, that’s where I see young people, that’s where I see the future of the Church.”

End of article...

Let's see how long it takes for this faithful bishop to be cancelled, laicized, or "ex-communicated" by the heretics in Rome... 

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