why leave catholicism?

Pew research has it in a chart.

and then there is this:

Some people, particularly men, are attracted to Pentecostalism because they are struggling with substance abuse or other problems. Pentecostalism promotes healthy lifestyles and serves as the largest detox center for Latin American men. Men who join these churches often stop hard drinking … or gambling or womanizing.

so mercy? Putting the horse before the cart.

Mercy means repentence and changing your life, not a mushy God loves you as you are so keep on sinning.

and no I don't plan to leave catholicism: It has the sacraments, and as the apostles said when Jesus asked them why they don't leave: only he has the kep to eternal life.

Fix the family fix the culture

When social and political chaos hit China, Confucius promoted rules based on tradition. He insisted: Fix the family, fix the culture.

Ah, but Pope Francis is too busy trying to make the church ape the cultural dismantling of the family in the name of "mercy" to notice the harm he is doing.

Mercy to the innocent, or a free pass to sociopaths? (Here, the Pope's lessons in mercy to gays meant that not only is our stepson happy God loves him "as he is" but now feels justified to punish his family because they won't "obey" him and objected when he brought his boyfriend home and lavished  my husband's hard earned savings on him).

well anyway, to see the harm done by the weakening of the family, here is a heartbreaking story of single moms coping with their brain damaged babies from the Zika epidemic.

Why are they coping alone? No husband. Common law "partner" left. Ah, but where are their moms, cousins, siblings?

That is unusual in Latino cultures.

and note that the ultrasounds didn't pick up the problem, probably because it infected the child in the last two months of pregnancy (so much for the abortion propaganda... few docs will abort a viable baby).

finally, where are the grandmothers/cousins/ siblings?

The slums often are full of rural people who have lost family ties.

 I hate to tell the Pope, but the evangelical /pentecostal churches often supply the lack of extended family support, along with things like insisting on marriage.

Nah, must push mercy for sinners, not repentance and living a moral life.

Jezabel spirit

Tea at Trianon links to a post about repentance, and the Jezabel spirit that has consumed America

The Jezebel spirit is born of rebellion (1960s? Now?). The Spirit of Jezebel is basically a controlling spirit working through the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (The counter forces to these are poverty, chastity and obedience).
Other ways a Jezebel spirit can gain power of a nation …

• Puts power and politics ahead of people

• Baal worshippers would propagate child sacrifice (today’s abortion)

• Operates through fear and intimidation (Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals)

• Intolerant of Word of God (Banish God from public sphere, loss of religious freedom)

• Allows seduction to prevail

• Twists truth; Lies

• Usurps the law

• Propagates sorcery; Black magic (New Age, Reiki, crystals, horoscopes, ouija boards, luck charms, etc.)

Is any of this sounding familiar? It should. This almost perfectly describes the Motus Operandi of most of the liberal secular ruling class in power today.

The Bible also tells how Jezabel arranged a murder so her husband could get a property he desired. Hmm... sounds familiar too.

Here in the Philippines, we have had similar murders of environmental activists who stand in the way of companies getting land for mining etc.

But essentially its greed and egotism, and the religion of ME ME ME.

Elias the Tesbite?

no, not a pokeman character.

That is what he is called in the bible.

Fountain of Elias has a post about him.

Although an old testament prophet, he is considered the founder of the Catholic Carmelite order.

St Elias came to have many disciples called the "sons of the prophets." (4 Kings 2:5) This group was seen as being the origin of the Carmelite order, since for generations to come, holy men and hermits would seek to live a life of solitude and prayer in imitation of Elias and the "sons of the prophets." 

My favorite part of his story is when he challenged the Baal prophets to make a miracle. They  prayed and chanted all day. At the end of the day, Elias waited until a cloud was seen on the horizen, then poured water over the wood to make the wood less likely to catch fire, said a prayer, and voila, fire from heaven.

Yup. Wet wood attracted a lightning bolt, and thunderstorms often occur at the end of a hot day.

I have no problem if God uses natural means to make a miracle. The real miracles are often that these things seem to be a coincidence: A doctor just happens to be there to save a life (when I was in Africa, we often had emergencies two minutes before I left, or five minutes after I came back from a trip. The nuns just shrugged at the coincidence), The best example of this was a plane that lost their ability to control their flight just happens to have a passenger there whose job just happened to be to train other pilots to cope with this problem by changing throttle controls of the engines.

As Einstein said: God does not play dice.

But the real lesson we learn from St Elias was that he found God in the small voice, not the thunder:

…11So He said, "Go forth and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the firea sound of a gentle blowing. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"… 

so we hear the sound of God's voice in our conscience when it is calm and quiet, not in the thunder of our emotions and the chaos of the latest political scandal.

Ah, but why is he called Elias the Tesbite?

Dictionary.com:

Elijah the prophet was thus named (1 Kings 17:1; 21:17, 28, etc.). In 1 Kings 17:1 the word rendered "inhabitants" is in the original the same as that rendered "Tishbite," hence that verse may be read as in the LXX., "Elijah the Tishbite of Tishbi in Gilead." Some interpret this word as meaning "stranger," and read the verse, "Elijah the stranger from among the strangers in Gilead." This designation is probably given to the prophet as denoting that his birthplace was Tishbi, a place in Upper Galilee (mentioned in the apocryphal book of Tobit), from which for some reason he migrated into Gilead. Josephus, the Jewish historian (Ant. 8:13, 2), however, supposes that Tishbi was some place in the land of Gilead. It has been identified by some with el-Ishtib, a some place 22 miles due south of the Sea of Galilee, among the mountains of Gilead.

There's No Such Thing as Cheap Mercy

No I'm not watching the convention, but if you want to be up to date, Dave Barry is there: He missed the naked ladies protest, but:

Finally, after much wandering, we found the protest march. I have been to every national political convention since 1984, and I have seen many street protests, and I am here to tell you that, despite the fervent desire of the protesters to be edgy, they are by far the most traditional actors in the kabuki theater of American politics. These protesters were no exception: They were mostly young people carrying signs expressing their opposition to racism, sexism, fascism and of course capitalism, and they were shouting slogans that only they were listening to. They were far outnumbered by the news media and the police, who were busy closing streets so the protesters could pass through, to the annoyance of the actual public.

Yes, it's about feeling good about oneself, not about changing one's personal life to make a good society. If you are politically correct, you don't have to worry about hurting people around you, exploiting your sexual partner, or aborting your children.

LesFemmes article on repentence.

There's No Such Thing as Cheap Mercy

An ocean of mercy flows from the pierced side of Jesus.
Repent and hear the good news!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said about grace: “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” Plenty of people out there want cheap grace and cheap mercy. They want mercy without conversion, mercy with the pleasure of continued sinning. But just as there's no cheap grace; there is no cheap mercy. Fr. Tom understands that and explains it all for you.

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How bad is the decline in society? Well, St Maria Goretti is now controversial. (headsup also LesFemmes).

If “conservatives” believe Maria Goretti died to save her virginity then it must be wrong. There must also be something about being accepted by the larger secular world where virginity is routinely mocked.

the comment on her when I was growing up was that she acted like any good Catholic girl should act, a viewpoint that was emphasized when a local Catholic school girl was abducted and killed by a sexual predator for resisting him. (The press, even back then, blamed the system, saying he was bitter for serving too much time in jail for a simple rape. so took it out on her. This was a presage for the 1970's when "non violent" sex offenders were treated sympathetically).

Luckily for us, the governor had a different point of view: Although he opposed the death penalty, he supported it in this guy.

The irony is that Maria even forgave her attacker, who was given a long jail term, and later repented. That says a lot about the problem of the death penalty...

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Religious persecution in the USA is coming

Several recent trends, all of which were imposed either by judicial fiat or by Obama's regulations, are pushing against religous freedom, but you would not know it from the press.

First Things brings up how the "gender bathroom" law (meaning any man who thinks he is a woman, or pretends to think he is a woman) can enter the ladies room is now being pushed on churches, with the idea that since they are open to the public, they must meet public laws that impose this.

This is just the slippery slope pushing the idea that Freedom of religion means freedom of worship, i.e. the church service. But if you don't keep out the non members, you can be prosecuted.

This isn't new of course. My son's tiny Christian school was taken to court for not having "handicapped" ramps. No handicapped kids in the school, but never mind. And who the heck notices a tiny 30 member school in a tiny coal town? They were saved from a huge fine after saying they didn't accept government funding hence that law didn't apply.

But I found it interesting that the church running that school, along with the local Orthodox church that ran prayer groups and bible studies that many Catholic attended (the catholic bible studies were run by PC nuns and would destroy your faith, but that's another story), were the two churches that were trashed with satanic symbols.

So who in the heck finds these tiny churches who obviously can't fight a lawsuit?

Anyone? Anyone? Do they have a list?

and of course, if they take it to court, they will get a precedent to prosecute more churches.

And since the "hate laws" might also be under these type regulations, wait til they read Deuteronomy.

the dirty little secret is that churches etc. are a major source of social help for the poor and those in trouble.

Not just the official things like soup kitchens and food banks etc... even the smallest churches will have their members bring you food and help when you are sick.

and by being a locus of moral living, they also help the poor and not so poor to remake their lives.

Except of course, the feel good churches who insist god loves you no matter what you do.


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Archbishop Chaput just put out recommendations that if you are divorced and remarried, you can't receive communion or work in the church unless you are celibate.

He was promptly renounced as being "non christian".

The meme is Christ said do this in memory of me, and didn't stop anyone at the last supper from receiving the sacrament.

Well, not quite... he told Judas to leave before he instituted the sacrament. And of course, Jesus was against divorce. Period...

The argument is about adultary, but if I remember correctly. in the Orthodox church, such divorces do not allow remarriage of the guilty partner.

by saying all those openly and publically living outside the church's laws, of course, gays will not be able to sue for discrimination.

However, with Pope Francis allowing gay friendly Wuerl and the bishop of Chicago to chose new bishops, I suspect Chaput will be the out man in the Catholic church.

How faithful is he? well, usually the bishop of Philly gets to be a Cardinal. Despite his prominence in preaching the gospel and cleaning up the scandals left by the previous well liked bishop,  he still doesn't have that distinction.

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Finally, you should pay attention to what is going on.

Canada will most likely insist all medical personnel and all hospitals impose euthanasia.