Catholic Voice 11th September 2020 Issue 299

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Issue 299

Stabat Mater Dolorosa Stabat mater dolorósa juxta Crucem lacrimósa, dum pendébat Fílius.

At the Cross her station keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping, close to her Son to the last.

Cuius ánimam geméntem, contristátam et doléntem pertransívit gládius.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, all His bitter anguish bearing, now at length the sword has passed.

O quam tristis et afflícta fuit illa benedícta, mater Unigéniti!

O how sad and sore distressed was that Mother, highly blest, of the sole-begotten One.

Quae mœrébat et dolébat, pia Mater, dum vidébat nati pœnas ínclyti.

Christ above in torment hangs, she beneath beholds the pangs of her dying glorious Son.

Quis est homo qui non fleret, matrem Christi si vidéret in tanto supplício?

Quis non posset contristári Christi Matrem contemplári doléntem cum Fílio?

Is there one who would not weep, whelmed in miseries so deep, Christ’s dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain from partaking in her pain, in that Mother’s pain untold?

Pro peccátis suæ gentis vidit Iésum in torméntis, et flagéllis súbditum

For the sins of His own nation, She saw Jesus wracked with torment, All with scourges rent:

Vidit suum dulcem Natum moriéndo desolátum, dum emísit spíritum.

She beheld her tender Child, Saw Him hang in desolation, Till His spirit forth He sent.

Pietro Perugino (c. 1446 - 1523)

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2 EDITORIAL

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

The Church’s Abdication every move and of course there is NO Communion on the tongue.

In short there is to be no return to normality, no freedom to worship.

The local snoops are encouraged to report those who do not fall into line. Amidst all the fear and hysteria no one has noticed that our hospitals are relatively empty and coping well.

Anthony Murphy The role of our parishes – to dispense the sacraments – has been hampered with great enthusiasm by the secular power. The restrictions on reopening the churches have been overly strict and appear to be designed to frighten the faithful into staying away. The Catholic Bishops have so far played ball and the Sunday obligation has yet to be reinstated.

The Catholic Church, on both sides of the Irish Sea, faces more of an existential threat following the pandemic than many of the faithful have yet realised.

Many of our parishes have replaced Faith with a belief in marxist bureaucracy: there is no music, no singing, no kneeling, no lingering, masks everywhere - even on the altar, security guards watching our

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Editor: Anthony Murphy editor@catholicvoice.ie Telephone: 059 8627268 ROI 00353 59 8627268 Outside ROI Keep up to date with news and articles via The Lumen Fidei website www.lumenfidei.ie

We are told these new rules are supposed to keep us safe but safe from what - certainly not from tyranny.

Over the last 50 years the decline in the works of the Church is evident on every hand. More and more of the seminaries and schools are closed. The great Catholic libraries have all but vanished. There were never Catholic universities in recent times, but the universities were at least Christian to some extent. Now they are viscerally, intolerantly anti-Christian.

The hospitals, the almshouses, the Knights of St Columbanus, the Archconfraternity of St Stephen for Altar Servers – all these and many more are mere shadows of their former selves.

And which are the churches that are packed to the doors? They still exist, on both sides of the Irish Sea. They are the traditional churches – the churches where Mass is often said in the old rite, where Benediction and litanies and the Rosary and Confessions and choirs and candles and statues of the saints and uncompromising, unwavering, cheerful teaching are the rule.

It is not the Church that has abdicated: it is the modernists whose policies have abjectly, visibly, terminally failed. Those whose declared aim had been to make the Church meaningful have made themselves meaningless.

A corporation faced with so much loss of business at the hands of its executives would sack them and get a new team in. The hierarchy should put aside its all-too-evident distaste for the Faith of our Fathers.

It should realise that the future of the Church lies in bringing forward the past, with all the enthusiasm, courage and fire of the trembling disciples whose backbones the Holy Spirit stiffened at Pentecost.

Time to stand up and fight for Christ against the secular tyranny.

What is the role of the Church in today’s society? Increasingly, the world’s answer is in just three words: “There isn’t one.”

In Ireland a million attended the Phoenix Park Mass said by Pope John Paul II in 1979. But in 2018, when Pope Francis visited Ireland, the hierarchy had hoped for half the congregation that Pope John Paul II had attracted. However, only 130,000 attended – about an eighth of the congregation in the previous generation.

The ‘New’ New Mass in Knock

11th September 2020 Catholic Voice

THE DUTIES OF BISHOPS 3

The Bishops’ Main Duty Is To Safeguard His Flock’s Salvation – And Many Fail Joseph Shaw

Bishops are discouraged by all sorts of things from performing their duties with the fidelity and vigour that the nature of their job enjoins.

I don’t envy them. It is often said that many priests decline the offer of episcopal promotion, and it is not difficult to see why. But there is a big difference between saying that doing the right thing is very difficult and saying it is impossible.

We can be obliged to do what is very difficult. We can’t be obliged to do the impossible: that is, really impossible.

What should bishops be doing?

They have an obligation to safeguard the salvation of all the Catholics in their dioceses, so they must act against spiritual dangers

to their flock. Thus, they are under an obligation to denounce ideas or individuals who present an urgent threat to their people’s spiritual welfare, and remove people from roles in the diocese, including schools, where they threaten people’s spiritual welfare.

This kind of thing must be done in an intelligent and strategic way, and there is nothing wrong in itself in a bishop minimising bad publicity and observing his obligations as an employer and things like that. But it is difficult to avoid the impression that even many bishops who have a reputation for orthodoxy are not doing this intelligently and strategically: they are just not doing it. They inherit deep-seated

problems and content themselves with fiddling about on the edges of these problems. To strike into the heart of the problem would involve annoying too many people, and these bishops would defend themselves by saying that this would be, for practical purposes, “impossible.”

A prime example of this has been the behaviour of bishops over the past 30 or 40 years who find networks of clerical abusers in their dioceses. In many cases, we will never know which bishops knew what, but no rational person could deny that a great many bishops know a great deal, and failed to act decisively, or sometimes at all, to deal with it. We see exactly the same

4 THE DUTIES OF BISHOPS pattern with other serious problems in dioceses, such as the corruption of Catholic schools, liturgical abuses, the teaching of heresy in seminaries, and so on. Bishops — the good ones, the ones who would like to do something about these things — will tell us the same thing in each case. They do a little, they would have liked to do more, but it is “impossible,” because it would annoy too many people.

Why are they concerned about annoying people? It might be that they are psychologically inadequate individuals desperate for approval from evil people, but there may be more to it than that. It may be that they are convinced, let us suppose with good reason, that the stink their opponents would kick up would be enough to prevent them doing any more good. This may mean that if a local newspaper demonises them they won’t be invited to nice parties to schmooze potential benefactors, but again, there may be more to it.

The extreme end of the spectrum of possibilities is that they will be removed from office by the Holy See or civil authorities.

This is an extremely unusual event, but it is not unheard of. Let us

Catholic Voice

make the maximum concession possible and say: OK, in this case, the bishop would be removed if he took the only steps that would make real headway into the problems in his diocese, which it is his job to oppose with the utmost of his strength.

Does that mean he should not take those steps? Of course not.

It means that their effectiveness will be short-lived, and this is something a bishop with foresight can take into consideration in deciding how to go about it. He can arrange things so he goes out in a blaze of glory, giving witness to the truth. (It is interesting that this never happens.)

OK, suppose things are even worse: suppose that his enemies are so pervasive and powerful that they can make sure that no positive witness will arise from his futile efforts and swift removal. What then? Well, two things follow.

First, bishops and their friends will tell us that the choice is between doing nothing effective,

11th September 2020 and being removed, and doing small good things. But this is not so. The choice is between refusing to cooperate with evil, and agreeing to cooperate with evil. Because the career they have mapped out will involve ceaseless, close, and often formal (intentional) cooperation with evil.

The second thing is that these pervasive and powerful enemies, who are able to ensure that the bishop will not be able to give any effective positive witness by standing up to evil, will obviously arrange the most effective possible negative witness of an apparently good bishop cooperating with abusers and heretics. This has a cripplingly demoralising effect on those beleaguered people in the diocese who are trying to do the right thing.

God alone will judge our bishops, and I hope and pray they are found to have done more good than is visible to us. But if they fail to protect their flocks, as parents must protect their children, regardless of the cost, then their judgment will be heavy.

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11th September 2020 Catholic Voice

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6 LIVES OF THE SAINTS

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11th September 2020

Saint Giles

Deaon Seán Kenney I.C.K.S.P. “When at night I go to sleep, Fourteen angels watch do keep, Two my head are guarding, Two my feet are guiding; Two upon my right hand, Two upon my left hand.

Two who warmly cover Two who o’er me hover, Two to whom ‘tis given To guide my steps to heaven.”

These beautiful words, from a secular author at the beginning of the last century, attest to the devotion which the Fourteen Holy Helpers have enjoyed for many centuries. As you may not know, the Fourteen Holy Helpers were fourteen saints who were commonly invoked against the plague since the outbreak of the Bubonic Plaque in the 14th century. On September first we will celebrate the Feast day of the only non-martyr of these powerful intercessors, Saint Giles.

Giles (Ægidius in Latin, Gilles in french) was born in the seventh century to a noble family of Athens, Greece.

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When still young he became a hermit and started to be known as a holy and wise man. Giles, however, did not want to bring attention to himself and so he fled his homeland and sailed to what is now southern France.

He lived a simple life in the wild lands near the mouth of the Rhone river. He ate a strict diet of vegetables and roots and never touched either meat or fat. But again the renown of his sanctity started to be known and Giles, afraid of temptations to pride, fled.

This time he sought refuge in the vast silent forest near the town of Nîmes. His desire to be alone with God could only be realised by fleeing this world with all its pomps and flattery. He now dwelt in a cave deep in the forest and lived solely on what edible plants he could find in the forest. God must have had pity on his poor friend because, as tradition relates, God sent him a doe deer to sustain him on her milk. This deer was his friend and companion for many years. One day, the king of the Franks was hunting in Giles’ forest with his men and were chasing the same doe that was our saints dear friend. Running from the men to the saint’s cave, the deer found Giles praying alone. The men shot through the bushes at the cave entrance hoping to down the hind, however the arrow planted itself in the leg of our saint. The king was mortified for having injured such a holy hermit and wished to heal his injuries. Our saint however, didn’t want to have anything to do with the good king, wishing only to be left alone with God. Our saint was a cripple for the rest of his life.

Saint Giles had several more visits from the king who insisted on building him a monastery. Giles finally acquiesced to the king’s wishes and accepted the offer to be abbot. The holy man then moved to the new abbey and followed the Rule of Saint Benedict with his few monks. The Abbey of Saint Giles-du-Gard still stands to this day and was for many centuries an important stop for pilgrims to both Saint James of Compostella and Jerusalem. Saint Giles finished his life within the walls of the monastery. He died sometime between 710 and 714. Legend has it that those who attended his funeral heard angels welcoming him into heaven. His tomb is in the Crypt of the church of Saint Gilles-duGard, France.

We can learn many lessons from Saint Giles for our spiritual lives today. As the saying goes, ‘Goodness doesn’t make any noise and noise doesn’t do any good.’ His austere, quiet life merited for Saint Giles

11th September 2020

LIVES OF THE SAINTS 7

Catholic Voice

to be one of the most powerful heavenly intercessors from the middle-ages on. In a world where we are constantly invaded by noise be it from the radio, television, smartphones, or maybe just the healthier hustle and bustle of family life, Saint Giles reminds us the important truth from the psalms “Be ye still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 45:10) In the shady forest glades Giles much loved to pray and meditate on God. He also teaches us that our lives, if lived with the desire to be saints and not just be seen as saints will always bear much spiritual fruit, the good fruits of humility. Humility is the virtue that says, “Without God I am nothing. With God, I can do anything.” Giles’ life shines forth with this truth. One, he fled all renown. He knew that once he was with others they would marvel at the great graces that God gave him and so he didn’t want to tarnish those gifts by even the temptation to show them off. Like Saint John the Baptist, Giles had to decrease so God could increase. God is the author of all gifts. We should be careful not to show off whatever good things He has given us, knowing spiritual vanity is one of the most difficult vices to detect and root out of our souls. Furthermore, our saint’s humility is shown all the more by his obedience to the insistance of valid authority. He did indeed accept to instruct others and bear the burden of being an abbot of monks, but because it was manifestly what God wanted. When we are truly humble we can do the greatest things if God asks us.

Saint Giles is the patron saint of cripples, disabled people, cancer patients, breast feeding mothers, rams, blacksmith, and beggars. He

is invoked against plagues, as well as against fear of the dark, mental illness, and abandonment. He is often depicted as an abbot with a doe deer, an arrow id in either his hand or his leg. He also depicted at times with three lilies growing in the sand (this refers to a legend that says three lilies blossomed in dry sand as Giles explained three points concerning our Lady’s perpetual virginity to a doubting believer.)

May saint Giles help us grow in Faith, Hope and Charity and help us through these troubled times of disease and uncertainty. St. Giles, pray for us!

The

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8 KEEP THE CHURCHES OPEN

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

Our ‘Biggest Misjudgment’ Amid Covid Was To Close Churches, Suspend Sunday Obligation Fr. Michael P Orsi

We’re certainly not through with the “Great Pandemic.”

However, we’ve reached a point where we can reflect on some of the ways in which we’ve reacted to the contagion as a Christian community.

As they say, “hindsight is 20/20.” So we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves over how we’ve dealt with a worldwide crisis involving so many unknowns and scary possibilities.

One thing that’s clear is that, from the beginning, we adopted a “scientific mentality” in our decision-making processes. That’s understandable, since the threats we faced were medical, and the primary guidance received was from health-science experts.

But all along, we’ve had far too little concern for the transcendent dimension of life. Consequently, spiritual health has suffered. Probably our biggest misjudgment was the decision to close our churches and suspend the Sunday Mass obligation.

We could have maintained a regular worship schedule, or something like it. Reasonable, sensible adjustments would have provided a significant measure of protection.

Anyone whose health was compromised, or who feared they might be endangered by coming to Mass (or endangering others), would have had an automatic dispensation from attending — which is the Church’s regular, common-sense rule anyway.

Instead, we’ve tended to take a similar “scientific” approach to worship and devotion. Very clever use has been made of video streaming, social networking, and other online applications. This is to the good, in that it’s introduced pastors who were behind the communications curve to ways in which technology can supplement traditional ministry.

The downside is that people were still denied the encouragement of sharing their faith in community.

They were left to feel cut off from their fellow believers, and kept from reception of the Eucharist, an experience that’s caused much emotional deprivation.

We also should have placed greater emphasis on prayer, fasting, and other pious practices — even organising rosary processions (properly distanced). All of these would have called upon the long history of intercessory prayer so well established in Church tradition.

11th September 2020

Catholic Voice

Such expressions of sacramentality have been tried in scattered parts. I know of one priest who’s been making a weekly march through his parish territory carrying the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance. The effort actually yielded increased parish membership during the lockdown.

These kinds of projects haven’t been undertaken nearly enough. They would have helped to calm fears and bound Catholics more tightly together in faith, even as we stood apart physically.

I don’t wish to disparage medicine or diminish the importance of science and technology. Christian tradition has always honoured human intellect and its capacity to develop ways of lengthening life and making it better.

But in our anxiety about this new and mysterious plague, and in a well intentioned effort to operate our parishes responsibly, we’ve been too ready to compromise faith for the sake of civic duty.

I realise that in many places keeping up something closer to full operations could have meant defying, state mandates. A few non-Catholic churches did it — though they didn’t always do it wisely, with some deaths as the price of their resistance.

Perhaps we were being called to risk a certain kind of legal martyrdom for the sake of religious liberty. Many

Many Christians believe God calls us to be “nice” God has called us to be “good” Good people are strong.

Good people confront evil.

Jesus Wasn’t “nice.”

He was kind and caring.

He was compassionate.

But He was unbending and Unflinching in standing for

TRUTH And it cost Him

His Life.

KEEP THE CHURCHES OPEN 9 people have paid a price for our reluctance. And there might be long-term consequences of the failure to stand our ground.

We’re seeing signs of it already in the vandalism that’s occurred to some church buildings and religious statuary. These incidents can be understood only as efforts to intimidate Catholics into silence on certain issues and movements that faithful people would be expected to oppose.

As we look ahead to the next phase of living with contagion (until we can overcome it completely), we need to bear in mind all we’ve learned so far. We should also remember that death, and the threat of death, provides opportunities to ponder the reality of our limited time on Earth and our responsibility to spend that time in ways pleasing to God. We’re much too inclined to deny death, both as individuals and as a society.

In the Church’s attempts to celebrate life and keep people’s spirits up during these past trying months, we didn’t make nearly enough of the “teaching moment” nature provided. And that has been a great loss during the “Great Pandemic.”

We can do better.

10 LETTERS

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Letters THIS IS THE BACK OF THE SURVEY CARD

11th September 2020 Send your letters to: Letters Page, Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare or email to letters@catholicvoice.ie

Dear Editor,

RED ALERT

We recently received a post card from the Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. It invited the householder to take part in a survey to “Help shape what’s next for Ireland” (Card attached).

SFI was established in 2000 to administer Ireland’s Technology Foresight Fund. The document ‘Agenda 2020 Excellence and Impact’ by the SFI outlines its vision: “Ireland will be a global knowledge leader that places scientific and engineering research at the core of its society to power economic development and social progress” (SFI.ie).

THAT WAS RECEIVED BY A HOUSEHOLDER

HANDS OFF OUR KIDS

PROTECTING PARENTAL CHOICE IN THE CLASSROOM

This CD of the compelling talk given by Charlotte McQuaid-Bruen at Catholic Voice annual conference 2019, sums up the proposed sex education to be taught across schools in Ireland in 2020. Parents, grandparents, friends, family members and clergy need to be informed about what their children are going to be subjected to.

Please help spread this talk TODAY. 4 CDs inc p&p €20

1 CD inc p&p €7.50

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SFI have developed a “Five Point Plan” contributing to the Irish Government’s ‘National Action Plan’ response to Covid-19. Included in the ‘Five Point Plan’ is Contact Tracing: “To understand better the issues and requirements associated with contact tracing, SFI with a panel of experts are working closely with relevant stakeholders to help address these” (SFI.ie). Could this be the next ‘mandatory’ for Ireland? There is a fine line between contact tracing & state surveillance, which undermines citizens’ true freedom.

The SFI has joint funding schemes with wealthy philanthropic groups such as Royal Society & Wellcome Trust. Both push their Godless agendas world-wide & are funding global Covid programmes.

This should raise concern as to who is really running our country. Most disturbingly, the SFI has links with Communist China, an atheistic nation that violates its own citizens’ human rights. The SFI & the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) have formed The SFI-NSFC Partnership. It “will fund excellent and innovative projects in priority areas of relevance to both the Republic of Ireland and to the People’s Republic of China. Proposals …include a joint collaborative programme of research…”(SFI.ie).

SFI literature incorporates the hashtag “#BelieveInScience” Is this being proposed as the new god for post – Catholic Ireland? Science without God – Atheistic science, spawns abortion, unethical research, false climate science & nuclear arms development, to name a few. It teaches your children to be the unprincipled scientists of the future, lacking true ethics & morals. It is responsible for the Wuhan virus & its escape from a Chinese lab causing world-wide havoc, fear & death.

11th September 2020

LETTERS 11

Catholic Voice

Letters To discover where science without God may lead us, we find many of Our Lady’s recent apparitions warning mankind. At Fatima in 1917 Our Lady promised two signs: The miracle of the sun occurred on October 1917 & the ‘great sign’ on the night 25th January 1938, warning of a worse war if mankind did not stop offending God. It was reported as an extraordinary Aurora Borealis. Both signs are regarded as “nuclear connections in the Fatima message” (J. Haffert: Her Own Words to the Nuclear Age).

Mr Haffert states “It was not until

Send your letters to: Letters Page, Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare or email to letters@catholicvoice.ie

1980 that a nuclear physicist… with other scientists discovered that the phenomenon of 1938 was not like a natural aurora, but like the false aurora created by atomic explosion only recently discovered” Confirmation of Sr. Lucia saying that if scientists investigated they would find that it could not have been an Aurora Borealis & was the sign promised by Our Lady.

(J. Haffert: Her Own Words to the Nuclear Age).

Mother Teresa specifically points to abortion as drawing us closer to nuclear disaster saying: “The

fruit of abortion is nuclear war” (T Petrisko: Call of the Ages). St. John Paul understood this danger profoundly. He entrusted all peoples to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on 25th March 1984 & implored Her “From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.

From sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us” (Consecration. 25th March 1984).

St John Paul pray for us.

Mrs Frances Leonard Loughrea, Co. Galway.

Catholic Voice Update Dear Reader, Since March when the pandemic first affected the publication of Catholic Voice we have been grateful for the support received to enable us to continue publishing.

As a not for profit organisation our income is from advertising, publication sales and donations. Both of the former have been seriously reduced for almost 6 months now due to the restrictions and closures of churches and therefore we are relying more heavily on your financial and prayerful support.

Many of you have kindly donated to Catholic Voice and we are most grateful however if you are in a position to send a further donation it would be most appreciated.

You are assured of our ongoing commitment to publish and spread Catholic truth.

Anthony and Kim Murphy HOW TO DONATE: 1. Online - Visit www.catholicvoice.ie click Donate 2. By Telephone call 059 8627268 - (00353 59 8627268 outside ROI) to pay by credit/debit card please leave your phone number and name and we shall return your call 3. Send a cheque or postal order (made payable to Catholic Voice) with the reply coupon to Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare, Eire

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12 WE MUST PERSEVERE

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

The Mind Controllers Are After Your Children Final Installment - John Lacken Please, let us pause for one moment to offer up one Ave for our bishops.

We continue to receive phone calls and e-mails detailing abuses of Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist.

The number of these abuses is increasing in these extraordinary times in which we live and they bring to mind Jesus’ words to St Margaret Mary Alacoque.

“Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love.”

So please, let us pray earnestly for our bishops that they will bring these abuses to an end and that they will restore the norm of the Catholic Church for receiving Holy Communion reverently - that is - on the tongue whilst kneeling.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen I would like to conclude this short series of articles, which looked at how our Catholic faith is being attacked in very subtle ways, with some broad advice especially to parents of young children. The re-opening of schools, and this is not just in Ireland, has a very dystopian look to it. Young boys are not allowed to play any games

that involve physical contact with others; children who come to school with a slight cold or sniffles are at risk of being placed in an isolation area for suspected covid-19; children are being kept apart and some have to wear masks all day whilst being taught by teachers who will also be wearing masks.

I greatly fear that this will do tremendous psychological damage to the children who are subjected to these abuses of their innocence and their freedom.

I recently came across a story from communist Russia, written

by Catherine de Hueck Doherty, who grew up there and was present during the start of the 1917 revolution. The following extract is quite moving.

“One day, it happened! It happened in church. It was an old church with a cold stone floor - without lights, except for the tabernacle light and two slender candles. It happened right after the Consecration, while the priest’s hands were still raised high to allow us all, who were living under a “sentence of death” as it were, to behold Him Who died for love of us, and to give us courage if the need arose, to try to die as gallantly for the love of Him. White were the hands of the priest.

White was the Host, shining white were the candles - dark and dim the church - when suddenly the side door opened with a bang, and rough voices shouted, “Stand still!” The priest froze with the Host still lifted high. We became statues of immobility lost in the dimness of the church. Soldiers! - for that is who they were. Red Army soldiers.

One of them slowly lifted his rifle and slowly took aim. One shot rang out. Only one. The priest quivered, swayed, and fell sideways. The consecrated Host rolled down, down the steps, onto the floor, coming to rest, still and white, on the dark floor by the altar railing in two pieces.

Silence took over, only to be broken and shattered by the rhythmic steps of the hobnailed boots of the soldiers walking toward the tabernacle, then vaulting over the railing. Triumphantly their voices suddenly rang out while one of them crushed the consecrated Host under his heel: “There is no God! We have crushed him.”

Silence wrapped up his voice and killed it. Silence. The silence of Golgotha entered the church. It hung - even like Christ on the cross - only to be broken again by the thin, reedy voice of an old, old man who spoke from the intense shadows of the church. “Father, forgive them, even if they know what they do.”

Slowly, the old man arose. He was a patriarchal figure, with a long white beard and flowing hair.

Reverently he gathered the crushed pieces of the consecrated Host.

Slowly he bade us to come forward and to receive them in our last Communion. Maybe our viaticum.

We did.

Then we got holy water and scrubbed the floor. And we stayed on, to pray in reparation. We buried the priest secretly. He was the last priest in town; there would be no more Mass, no sacraments.”

(Catherine de Hueck Doherty - excerpt from ‘Christmas without Christ’)

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WE MUST PERSEVERE 13

Reading this story gives us a certain perspective on how Catholicism has been persecuted in the past by the use of force and violence. But our enemies have learned that such tactics tend to produce Holy Martyrs, and so they have changed their tactics away from violence towards more subtle, psychological and deceitful methods, some of which have been noted in these recent articles.

The author Walter Macken, summed

it up beautifully in his 1959 book ‘Seek the Fair Land’. In a powerful scene, Fr Sebastian, who is about to be martyred by the redcoats, is giving his sermon during what will be his last Mass at the Mass Rock on the mountain. He addresses the people as follows.

“The future depends on you, it is not an easy future. You will not hold your faith easily. Like a granite rock throws off the water you will have to throw off persecution. It is easy enough to fight and conquer persecution. But it is not as easy to conquer the inducements of the easy road.”

The Catholic faith in Ireland, which survived many years of violent persecution, is now being destroyed by ‘the inducements of the easy road’.

The future of the Catholic faith in Ireland depends on ordinary Catholics remaining loyal to Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The future of the Catholic faith in Ireland depends on Catholic parents handing on the Catholic faith, in its beautiful fullness, to their children. Parents must teach their children to love Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and this love will encourage their children to persevere in living their lives according to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Catholic parents have a grave moral duty to make sure that the children God entrusts to their care are taught the Catholic faith which has been bequeathed to the Catholic Church by Jesus Christ.

Blessed Miguel Pro just before his execution in Mexico in 1927 Most of us will not be given the opportunity for a heroic martyrdom such as that of Fr Miguel Pro, pictured above, because our enemies have changed tactics. Catholic parents, especially those with young children, cannot wait for our bishops to reform the dysfunctional Catholic school system which teaches error to children.

The enemies of the Church have been so successful in undermining Catholic doctrine in the minds of the general public, that they do not need to use violence against us. Now they close our churches, with the full cooperation of our bishops, in order to allegedly protect our bodily health from a virus that is so deadly that most people recover from it.

Now they undermine and abuse Jesus Christ truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar by mandating practices which deny Catholics the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ in accordance with the legal norms of the Catholic Church, and our bishops implement these government directives, which contradict canon law and trample, not just on the rights of the faithful, but on the right of Jesus Christ to come to us in this humble and humbling manner.

We can complain; we can get rightfully angry; we can protest; and we can write letters to bishops, most of which whilst perhaps necessary, will not do much to change the course of the future for the Catholic faith here in Ireland.

This was brought home to me in a very beautiful and unexpected way on a recent visit to a nearby Catholic church. I was perturbed to see a masked man, dressed in a full security uniform, standing outside of the church questioning people as they were entering. As I approached the church he asked me if I was going to Mass. I said ‘no’, walked past him, and entered the church to pray. My peace was disturbed and I was angry at what is happening to our beloved Catholic Church. It took me a while to compose myself and to say my few prayers.

I noticed two men, one of whom was handicapped and probably the son of the other man, sitting together in front of St Joseph’s altar. The older man, arose, genuflected in the side aisle and began walking towards the exit. The younger, handicapped man then arose and began walking towards the exit.

He stopped, turned around to face the main altar, knelt down and in a loud voice that was both childlike and adult he said ‘Thank You Jesus’ then arose

14 WE MUST PERSEVERE and left the church. I looked towards the tabernacle and repeated his words ‘Thank You Jesus’ thinking, ‘thank You Jesus, for everything’.

St Claude de la Columbiere tells us in his treaty on Divine Providence.

“Surely it is reasonable to think that our complaints are groundless and that instead of complaining we ought to be thanking Providence. Joseph was sold into slavery and thrown into prison. If he had felt aggrieved at these apparent misfortunes, he would really have been feeling aggrieved at his happiness for they were the steps to the throne of Egypt.”

Herein lies the way to protect the Catholic future of Ireland and of the whole world. We must trust in God and we must have complete trust that the mission that Jesus Christ came to fulfil in this world, will be fulfilled. Once we know this, we can return to our duties with confidence in order to make sure that when His Kingdom comes, we and our loved ones will be included in the Heavenly reward.

“Well done, good and faithful servant: because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (Matthew 25:23) In the book of Genesis God says “It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself.”

(Genesis 2:18) All the animals are created but there is not found among them a helper like Adam and so God causes Adam to fall asleep and he creates Eve. When Adam beholds Eve he exclaims: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.”

(Genesis 2:23-24)

Catholic Voice The statement that, ‘it is not good for man to be alone’, is profound and deeply relevant to our own times where loneliness, that is, ‘aloneness’, has become a huge problem despite our great communications innovations.

When God created Eve, he created the genesis of marriage and the family.

From now on man would not be alone because man had been given the gift of being able, with God’s help, to procreate others ‘like unto himself’.

God calls each of us into existence.

At the moment of conception, when the sperm from the man meets the ovum from the woman, God parts the veil between heaven and earth and once more enters into human history creating a living soul in His own image and likeness by an act of His Divine Will. None of us are here by accident.

The word ‘vocation’ comes from this ‘call’ of God ‘vocare’, and, whilst this word used to be applied specifically and for good reason to the call to the priesthood or religious life, we are all called into existence by God to fulfil a purpose, we all have a vocation, a calling that comes from God. Let us ignore the modernist usage of the word ‘vocation’, which usage has

11th September 2020 undermined the exalted nature of the religious vocation which is superior to the vocation to marriage, and let us keep in mind that we are called by God to join together in the community of the Catholic Church to build up His Kingdom.

Our modern world, in contrast, exalts the culture of the individual, which destroys communities, destroys individuals, and tears the family apart.

Our young people, may not realise that they have been called by God from before their conception; “Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5) They spend too much time alone, seeking to further their careers and their worldly prospects with little thought of what God’s Divine purpose for them is.

The average age for marriage in Ireland is now 34 for women and 36 for men the oldest on record. This delaying of marriage is not good for our society, it creates an ageing population and it is not in accordance with God’s plan.

St John Henry Newman “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.

Still, He knows what He is about.”

11th September 2020 Another major factor in the decline of our society is the loss of the concept that each one of us is called by God for a particular purpose. The idea of havineg for example, a ‘call’ to nursing or a ‘call’ to be a teacher, was that one was at the service of others for the glory of God. Nowadays people work to make money and the idea of being at the humble service of God and of our neighbour has become an alien concept to most.

This idea of being called by God is where the great Catholic hospitals and education systems came from. Many young people today are not aware that the original universities of Europe were founded by the Catholic church.

They believe the lie that the Catholic Church is against science.

We must return our society to God and we must exalt Jesus Christ as King over our nation. This is where the Catholic family is so important and this is the great role and duty of Catholic parents;

WE MUST PERSEVERE 15

Catholic Voice to raise up citizens for the kingdom of God. We must return to a correct understanding of the primary purpose of marriage and family life and we must teach our children the great beauty and dignity of seeking out what God has called us to do.

As St Paul tells us: “...be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2) Given what the current covid situation has revealed to us about the poor state of the Catholic faith in Ireland, it is time for Catholic parents to seriously consider how they are going to ensure that their children receive a proper Catholic education so that they do not conform to this world but rather seek what is good in the eyes of God for their lives.

LIBERALISM IS A SIN

Simply put, the ‘catholic’ schools in Ireland are just not Catholic, and have not been Catholic for a long time.

There may be one or two exceptions but that is all. As parents we have the grave duty before God to ensure that our children receive a proper Catholic formation so that they can live their lives according to the teachings of the Catholic Church and fulfil their calling from God. The schools have been closed for almost six months and parents have survived. Perhaps now is the time to take the plunge and to take complete control of your children’s education through home schooling.

Home schooling is growing in Ireland and there are many resources availabe to help parents to teach the Catholic faith and the Catholic way of life to their children. We need to form good wholesome communities of Catholic families to protect the Catholic faith in Ireland and to ensure that it has a future. That future depends on us.

May God bless you.

CATECHISM

the Catholic hierarchy.

Holiness Pope Pius X, issued the Encyclical ‘Pascendi Dominici Gregis’ which translates as “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”. Pope Pius X was aware that the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by modernists who were seeking to undermine her doctrines from within.

Father J. B. Lemius, produced this ‘Catechism on Modernism’ in the familiar question and answer format of the time, in order to make the teachings of the Encyclical more accessible to ordinary Catholics and by way of explaining in a clear and concise manner the reasons why the Encyclical was published.

Paperback

Paperback

Don Félix Sardà y Salvany: – was born on May 21, 1844 in Sabadell, Catalonia, Spain. He was a Catholic priest and writer who wrote against Liberalism which he considered a grave sin. He was the editor of the weekly Spanish Catholic magazine ‘La Revista Popular’ for over forty years. He died on January 2, 1916 at the age of 71. This book, Liberalism is a Sin, is particularly relevant to the

times we live in today where Liberalism permeates every aspect of our society and has deeply infiltrated the thinking of many of

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16 SAINT MICHAEL DEFEND US

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

St Michael The Archangel Excerpts from ‘The Feast of the Dedication of the Archangel St. Michael’ by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1877

In Apulia, there is a mountain formerly called Gargano, now Monte St. Angelo, or Angel’s mountain. Near this mountain, a herdsman was keeping his cattle. A steer strayed away from his herd and went into the woods on the mountain, to the entrance of a cave which was concealed by bushes. The herdsman, to drive the animal out of the cave back to the herd, shot an arrow at it. The arrow, however, turned and flew with great force back to him. The herdsman and those who were present were terrified at this and none dared to go nearer to the cave. They went to the bishop, who was at Siponto, a neighboring city, and informed him of what had occurred. The bishop, not doubting that a divine mystery was concealed under it, ordered his congregation to fast and pray three days, in order that God might graciously reveal it to them. At the expiration of the three days, St. Michael, the Archangel, appeared to the bishop and announced to him that the place whither the steer had fled was under his especial protection, and that he desired that they should dedicate the spot to the honor of God, and to the memory of St. Michael and all the Angels.

The bishop, greatly rejoiced, called the clergy and the people together, and having informed them of the revelation, formed a large procession and ascended the mountain. They found a large cave which was like a Church hewn out of the rock. Above the entrance was an opening by which the whole interior received light. To offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass in it, only the altar was wanting; but it was speedily erected by the pious bishop. The Church itself was soon after dedicated with great solemnity to St. Michael and all holy Angels. The fame of this event spread in a short time all around and drew a great many pilgrims to the Church, while the many miracles that took place there, were a visible sign that the veneration and invocation of St. Michael and the other holy angels must be very agreeable to the Most High.

Besides this, other apparitions of St. Michael are recorded, which gave occasion, at different times, to the erection of splendid Churches in his honor, at Constantinople, at Rome and in France, as is to be read in the history of the Church. Experience has taught that

this considerably increased the veneration of this great prince of heaven, and in truth we have most important reasons to show him especial honor; for, he is the head, or, as the Church expresses it, the prince of the heavenly legions. He is the first of those happy spirits who are continually in the presence of God, standing before His throne. It was he who, at the first moment of his existence, turned to the Almighty and submitted to Him in perfect obedience. It was he, who, so to say, first took up arms against the proud Lucifer, who would not be subject, but equal to the Most High.

His humility, obedience and zeal for the honour of God raised him above all in heaven; as pride, disobedience and perfidy abased the proud Lucifer and precipitated him into hell.

St. Michael has been chosen by the Almighty as the protector of the Church of Christ, as in the old Covenant he was the protector of the Synagogue. He was, in olden times, solicitous for the welfare of the true believers in the Synagogue, as is evident from the words spoken by the holy Archangel, St. Gabriel, to the prophet Daniel: “Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me” (Daniel 10:13). The angel, under whose protection the Persians were placed, desired that the Israelites should remain longer in Persia, as many Persians came to the knowledge of the true God by associating with the chosen people. The holy Archangel Gabriel, however, desired that the Israelites should be released out of Persia, because he feared that too great intimacy with the Persians might induce them to become faithless to the true God. St. Michael united his prayers with those of St. Gabriel, and thus evinced his care for the true believers.

Not less watchful is he now for the faithful of the New Testament and for the entire Church. He comes to help her, prays for her and protects her against her enemies.

At the end of the world, he will manifest his protection of her, especially against the Antichrist, the greatest enemy of the Christians, as St. Gabriel revealed to the holy prophet Daniel, saying: “But at that time, Michael shall rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people” (Daniel 12:1). This holy Archangel is also appointed to bring the souls of men to the throne of the Most High, that they may receive their judgment; and that their sentence may be favourable,

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SAINT MICHAEL DEFEND US 17

Defend Us From The Snares of the Devil he strongly assists them in the last combat, which, at the end of their days, they have usually to fight with the Evil one. The devil, at that moment, uses all his powers to overcome man and make him unhappy for all eternity. St. Michael, appointed by God to assist and to strengthen our souls in this dangerous combat, helps us to conquer, Hence the holy Church addresses him in the name of all the faithful in the prayers for the dying, as follows: “Holy Archangel Michael, protect us in our fight, that we may not go to perdition on the day of Judgment.” She teaches us also to invoke this holy Archangel before all other heavenly spirits, in the litany of all Saints.

In conclusion, I will add the beautiful words of St. Lawrence Justinian, by which he admonishes all Christians to venerate the holy Archangel. “It is our duty,” says he, “to give honour to the prince of the heavenly legions. We ought to praise him especially on account of the elevated state of grace in which he is; and because God has distinguished him by bestowing so high a dignity upon him; for his invincible strength, for the Almighty’s favour to him and his heroic constancy in combats; but in all these, we must honour him only in God, who has created him and us, He is very powerful with the Most High. The glorious victory is well known to us, which he won in heaven, soon after the Creation, over the rebellious angels. Not without reason does our Mother, the holy Church, endeavour to honour him especially, because she knows that the divine Majesty has given him to her as protector, mediator and receiver of all elect souls. Hence all should recognize St. Michael as their protector, and duly praising him, honor him with devout prayers, commend their cares to him and rejoice him by reforming their lives, as his love is so great, that he cannot refuse our prayers, nor reject our confidence, nor disregard our love; as he protects the humble, loves the chaste, guides the innocent, guards the pious in this temporal life, and leads them to their heavenly home.”

But if we desire to secure his intercession, and enjoy his assistance in our last combat, it is necessary that we endeavour to imitate his example and fight bravely against the evil spirit, whom, at the end of our lives, we desire to conquer with St. Michael’s assistance. Among different representations of St. Michael there is one in which he has a shield in his hand, upon which are the words: “Who is like unto God?” The word “ Michael “ means in Hebrew, “ Who is like God?” St. Michael used this as a weapon, so to say, against the proud Lucifer who desired to be equal to the Lord. “Who is like God?” “Who is equal to God?” With these words, he conquered and precipitated Lucifer and his followers into hell. The same Practical Considerations. weapons, the same shield we also St. Michael remained true to God should use in all temptations. “Who when thousands of other angels is like God?” Who is so mighty, so became faithless to Him. He followed wise, so beautiful, so amiable as God.” not their example. You also should not Who is so much to be feared as God? Who follow the bad example of others, but fulfil can recompense my service as God? Who can God’s commandments. Remain faithful to the do so much good or so much Lord though thousands of harm to me as God? Whom The Apparition of St Michael on Mt Gargano others leave Him. St. Michael have I reason to serve and was zealous in honouring God and opposed those who obey as God? Whose grace have I to seek more than would not be obedient to the Creator. You can also do the grace of God? Whose disfavor have I to fear more this. When others speak against the true faith in your than the disfavor of God? presence, against the ceremonies and commandments of the true Church, against purity, against the honour Whosoever uses these and other wholesome thoughts of your neighbour; when you see that they transgress as spiritual weapons against the spirit of hell, fights the laws of God and of the Church, you should defend after the example of St. Michael, and will always the honour of the Almighty and prevent all the evil you conquer Satan. And those who accustom themselves can. If you are so situated that you cannot say or do now to combat thus, have reason to hope that they much, show, by your silence, by your seriousness, that will vanquish Satan in the last fight, and that the holy you are displeased by such offences against the Majesty Archangel will surely assist them at that important of the Most High. St. Michael fought valiantly against moment.

Lucifer and his adherents.

18 THE ROGUE STATE

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

In Disaster, The State Grows At The Expense Of The Church And All Else Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Marx wrote that under a Communist world order the State would wither away. Yet in truth it is the Marxists who are the advocates and practitioners of the titanic State.

Privately, they are rejoicing today: for there is nothing that grows the State and diminishes the Church and all else more rapidly than a good global disaster.

dangerous features of this relentless expansion of the State, as it rapidly accelerates while the pandemic endures.

The pandemic has seen an extension of the power, wealth and reach of the State, much of it unnoticed, for even lovers of liberty, low tax and small government will tend to look the other way when disaster strikes.

First and foremost, Marxists want the pandemic to continue. The Chinese Communist Party, which knew at national level in midOctober 2019 that yet another new pathogen had emerged, this time in one of its own virological research laboratories, and had spread rapidly into the local population thanks to the generally squalid conditions in which it imprisons most of its citizens.

Where once the population looked to the Church to care for them in hospital during a pandemic, to comfort the dying, to support those left destitute and to keep the education system running, since the Second World War all these matters have passed from the Church to the State.

The Party did not inform the World Health Organisation within 24 hours, as the International Health Regulations – to which it is a signatory – obliged it to do. Those regulations had been tightened in 2003 precisely because China had failed to disclose the original SARS outbreak of the previous year.

Now, the State even tells the Church when and under what conditions she may offer the sacraments to the faithful.

Why was the brutal Communist regime in Peking so willing to risk international condemnation and the worldwide death and destruction that has inevitably ensued from its second grave breach of its treaty obligations?

It is now time to take note of some

His Excellency Comrade Xi Jingpin with Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden

There are two reasons why the thuggish Mr Xi deliberately spread the pandemic and ordered the World Health Organisation, which is in effect owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and its appalling poodle Ghebreyesus, a ruthless Ethiopian Communist to whose party China had provided financial and ideological support, issued repeated instructions to the world that it should place no restrictions whatsoever on travel to

and from China.

As late as 19th January 2020, the WHO’s China office was issuing statements that it was not likely that the virus could transmit from person to person.

The first reason why China and the World Death Organisation wilfully ensured that the virus would spread worldwide is that they knew this highly infectious and – at the outset – widely fatal pathogen was going to cause economic devastation within China, setting it at a massive disadvantage against the rest of the world – unless the rest of the world could be infected too.

The second reason is that the regime knew from the acquiescence of its own citizens in the accelerated transfer of wealth and power from them to the State that in the hated democratic, Christian West the people would be similarly acquiescent and that thus, in a single bound, Communism would be advanced and the free market – which Communists call “capitalism” – weakened and perhaps even destroyed outright.

And it is working. The pampered, protected, overpaid bureaucrats on the State payroll continue to be employed just as before and paid just as much as before. For them, the Chinese virus has been a minor inconvenience. True, there are heroes such as the doctors and nurses on the front line. But the vast majority of the State’s employees have been protected from any risk of infection, and have continued to collect their pay-cheques just as before.

Not so the private sector. The

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Catholic Voice

smallest enterprises have been hurt first and worst, while the very largest, such as “big Tech” – most of them now run by people whose public declarations on policy matters show them to be ideologically aligned with Communism – have profited mightily. Millions in the private sector have lost their jobs.

None in the public sector have lost their jobs.

The Church has proven particularly vulnerable. Mass attendance had long been declining in the great majority of parishes infected by the sub-Marxist ideology of the Bishops’ Conferences, but – interestingly – increasing in those parishes that kept politics out of the pulpit and firmly, unhesitatingly, cheerfully, fully kept the Faith of our fathers.

have ears to hear, that Communism – the ultimate ideology of pure hatred which has killed up to 250 million people worldwide in the past century and bids fair to kill no fewer in this century – is a clear and present danger not merely to the free market, to democracy and to Christianity, the three pillars of Western civilisation, but also to the very survival of humanity itself.

minded, acquiescent hierarchs and ecclesiastical bureaucrats who have Marxised so much of the Church’s administration, to throw them out and to replace them with priests and bishops who possess the gift of faith and are willing once again to make it their mission to transmit the faith to the world, just as the disciples did in that splendid century after Pentecost.

It is time for the Church to reclaim the intellectual vigour and rigour on which she once possessed a nearmonopoly, and to root out the feeble-

It is only when the Church grows once more at the expense of the State that the world will once again be safe.

Marxism has even stormed the Vatican itself. The Argentinian, Bishop Marcelo Sorondo who heads the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and of Social Sciences is an open supporter of China.

The question must bluntly be asked: will the sub-Marxist majority of the Church survive? The answer is No. It won’t.

DUE TO THE CURRENT CLIMATE WITH

But surely, you will argue, the Lord of Life said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church. She is guaranteed not to fail.

Precisely. The one, true Church has not failed and will not fail. Though the finances drain away with Mass attendance in the parishes deferential to the sub-Marxist majority in the hierarchy, the success of the traditional parishes and seminaries can no longer be ignored.

It is now visible to all who have eyes to see, and audible to all who

COVID-19 WE SHALL BE CLOSING UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

20 THE BEAUTY OF MUSIC

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

Music In Church What Is Appropriate And What Is Not? Niall Carroll

What would you think if you were at a wedding in a Catholic church and the ceremony began with the bride processing up the nave of the church to Chris de Burgh’s In a Country Churchyard? A nice song, perhaps, which has marriage and love as its themes, as well as a preacher thrown in for good measure. It’s not too “raucous”, and the guitarist and the soloist appear to pull it off quite tastefully.

What about at the end of old Johnny’s funeral when that ballad The Parting Glass is played on a CD as the coffin is removed from the church? After all, the requiem Mass is over, and it was Johnny’s favourite song. What would run through your mind if, at your usual Sunday Mass, the priest decided to play (through the church’s speaker system) a recording of Fr. Ray Kelly singing Everybody Hurts by R.E.M. complete with applause from the live broadcast of Britain’s Got Talent in place of the psalm?

Would you think, “This is nice for a change” or would your intuition tell you that this is completely wrong during Mass? Many – probably most – would say the latter, but may not be able to put their finger on exactly why this (and the other examples) are inappropriate for use in our churches.

So, what is right? Can we even speak of right and wrong when it comes to music at Mass and within the church building generally?

Yes, we can. The fact that a song mentions God, is relaxing, or conjures up warm and fluffy images does not make it acceptable. When it comes to music in church we need to consider where we are and what we are doing.

Pipe Baroque Organ - Santa Engracia Church - Lisbon - Portugal In his well-known work, ‘The Spirit of the Liturgy’, Pope Benedict XVI points out that the first record we have in the Bible of people singing occurs in the book of Exodus, when the Lord saved the Israelites from the Egyptians: “The Lord rescued Israel that day from the assault of the Egyptians; and when they saw the dead Egyptians washed up on the shore, and the great defeat the Lord had inflicted upon them, the people learned to fear the Lord, putting their trust in Him and in His servant Moses. Then Moses and the Israelites sang praise to the Lord” (Ex.14:31, 15:1).

We note that the act of singing by the Israelites was not merely because they had escaped from their captors; more important than merely escaping, they realised that it was the Lord who had saved them. The crossing of the Red Sea is a clear prefiguring of our

salvation in Christ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1094), and in the Holy Mass we are truly present at that event when Christ wrought our salvation: His passion, death and resurrection. How much more, then, does the Church sing praise to God in the sacred liturgy for, unlike the Israelites, she is not merely celebrating a prefiguring of our salvation, but the reality.

With this in mind, what the Church wishes to offer in her liturgy – and it is her liturgy, not ours to do with as we wish – is the most fitting worship of God, primarily through the Holy Sacrifice itself, but also through the other elements of the Mass, including music.

Thankfully, the Church has not been vague in terms of guiding church musicians, and over the past century or so there have been several important documents which encourage us to strive not only for what the Church permits in her liturgy, but what she prefers.

11th September 2020

Catholic Voice

One important document is ‘Tra le Sollecitudini’, an instruction on sacred music issued by Pope St. Pius X in 1903. In this document, Pope Pius X puts forth some very important principles – principles which have not been superseded.

He tells us that the “clothing” of liturgical texts with suitable melodies will move the faithful to devotion, by which they will be better disposed to receive the graces of the Mass. Music at Mass, therefore, should not take people’s focus off the object of the liturgy; it should help them to immerse themselves more deeply in the Sacred Mysteries. It must be holy, not profane, in itself and in its presentation. It must also be true art and it must be truly universal, so that “nobody of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them”.

Pope Pius X then speaks of that music which is proper to the Roman Rite and which fulfils all of the criteria he has listed: Gregorian chant. Lest anyone think that the idea of “active participation” only came into being during the Second Vatican Council, Pius X actually called for the restoration of the use of Gregorian chant by the people.

Every document since 1903 dealing with sacred music has made the same appeal. Alas, many cathedrals have abandoned the use of even the most basic chants, often to be replaced with banal ditties which are undeservingly called “hymns”. The reality is that the basic Gregorian chants are not difficult to learn, and our pastors and choir directors have a duty to promote their use in the liturgy.

It is clear from ‘Tra le Sollecitudini’, as well as from other documents such as ‘De Musica Sacra’ (1958) and ‘Musicam Sacram’ (1967) that the songs I mentioned at the outset are totally inappropriate for the sacred liturgy. Apart from the principles listed by Pope Pius X,

they could be ruled out immediately because they are secular songs.

However, in the case of a recording of Everybody Hurts being played in place of the psalm at Mass, it is wrong on several counts. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal is very clear that “it is unlawful to substitute other, nonbiblical texts for the readings and responsorial Psalm, which contain the word of God” (GIRM 57). In addition, the 1958 instruction on sacred music, ‘De Musica Sacra’, expressly forbids the transmission of recorded music, even as a substitute or a support for the choir, during the liturgy and private devotions (DMS 71).

What about weddings and funerals?

Can’t we just make a few exceptions for a person’s “special day” or their “final farewell”? In my experience of dealing with couples for marriage and with grieving families, they tend to be grateful for guidance towards the most suitable music.

They often overlook the fact that something which is unsuitable for the liturgy would work well at, for example, the reception. Again we have the question of sacred versus secular: which is going to help us raise our minds and hearts to God – that sort of music which we hear on the radio every day or that which

THE BEAUTY OF MUSIC 21 the Church says is most fitting?

Should an exception be made at a funeral to play a secular song as the remains are taken from the church?

Some would say that the Mass is over so a secular piece should be permitted. Again, however, we should remember why we are there (namely to pray for the repose of the deceased person’s soul) and where we are (namely a church which has been consecrated for sacred use).

As the Code of Canon Laws directs, “Anything not consonant with the holiness of the place is forbidden” (CIC 1210).

Sadly, music is so often the cause of division and disagreement in our parishes. However, this need not be so. The principles are actually very clear and easily accessible for everyone. While there is a great deal of leeway where music is concerned, church musicians and clergy have a duty to work within the parameters which the Church gives us. With a few minimal changes, any parish can develop a programme of truly sacred music, which is really Catholic, and which contributes to the beautiful and dignified worship which the Lord deserves.

22 BE SINGLE OF HEART

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart – A Reflection On An Often Misunderstood Beatitude And Virtue Monsignor Charles Pope

One of the beatitudes taught by Jesus is often misunderstood, largely due to the popular translations of it from the Greek text: “Blessed are the pure of heart,” or “Blessed are the clean of heart.” Let’s look at three facets of the beatitude: its fundamental meaning, its focus, and the freedom it gives.

I. Fundamental Meaning – While the words “pure” and “clean,” are not inauthentic translations of the Greek word καθαρός (katharos), a more literal translation is “to be without admixture, to be simply one thing.” Hence it means to purely and simply be that one thing with nothing else mixed in. Another helpful way of translating the Greek μακάριοι οἱ καθαροὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ (makarioi hoi katharoi te kardia) is “Blessed are the single-hearted.”

The reason I suggest that the phrase “single-hearted” is more descriptive is that in modern English the words “pure” and “clean” tend to evoke a moral sense of being free of sin, of being morally upright. And while this is surely a significant part, being single-hearted is a deeper and richer concept than simply being wellbehaved, since to be well-behaved is the result of the deeper truth of being one thing, of not being duplicitous, of not having a divided heart.

II. Focus – Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange says, Simplicity is opposed not only to duplicity, but to every useless complexity, to all that is pretentious or tainted with affectation … Christ says to us “If thy eye be single thy whole body shall be lightsome” (Mat 6:22); that is, if our intention is upright and simple, our whole life be one, true and luminous, instead of being divided, like that of those who try to serve two masters … The perfect soul is thus a simplified soul … willing things only for God. The image of the rose window in my church which I have used as the image for this article, is a good illustration of what it means to be single-hearted. It does not deny that life has different facets, but rather shows that every facet of life is ordered around and points to Christ, is subsumed in Jesus and His heavenly kingdom along with the Father and the Spirit as the ordering principle of every other thing. And thus career, family, marriage, finances, spending priorities, use of time, where one lives, and any other imaginable aspect

of life is subsumed in Christ, points to Him, and leads to the Lord and His kingdom on high.

So the single-hearted life is a well-ordered life. Each step, each decision leads in the right direction. St. Paul said, This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). While Paul made many journeys to many places, he was really on one journey and headed to one place. This simplified and ordered his life. He was single-hearted.

A simple life is a well-ordered, singly focused life. But duplicity introduces many complexities and disorders.

Jesus says, He who does not gather with me, scatters (Luke 11:23). Unfortunately, this image of scattering or being hindered describes many Christians whose lives are not ordered on the one thing necessary, who are not single-hearted, whose hearts are not focused on the one thing they should be. Such people have lives that are often scattered, confused, disordered, and filled with a jumble of conflicting drives that hinder them from the true goal of life. The double minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that simplicity is related to the virtue of veracity, since it opposes the duplicity that

11th September 2020

Catholic Voice

James denounced (Summa Theologica IIa IIae q. 109 art. 2, the 4th).

III. Freedom – Finally, being single-hearted, being pure of heart, not only orders our life but it also grants us freedom. In modern Western thinking, freedom is often equated with doing more rather than less.

Freedom is interpreted as “being able to do anything I please.” This attitude has led to the kind of jumbled mess that much of modern life has become: a tangled web of contrary desires with little unifying direction or purpose. We tend to think of freedom in abstract terms and hence we tend to get abstract and disconnected results.

But biblically and spiritually, freedom is the capacity or ability to do what is right, best, and proper. And thus, paradoxically, freedom often means doing less, not more.

Being single-hearted helps to focus us and to pare away a lot of the unnecessary baggage of modern life. Life gets simpler, and simplicity is a form of freedom that allows us to focus on what is important more so than

BE SINGLE OF HEART 23 on what is urgent. We discover that what often seems to be urgent is not really so necessary or urgent after all.

Regarding the good options in life, St. Paul said, All things are lawful to me, but not all things are expedient (1 Cor 6:12).

Pray for the gift to become more single-hearted.

More than ever in this modern age, with its myriad distractions and endless possibilities, we need to learn the lesson of the rose window and centre our lives on Christ, the one thing necessary.

Please Help Us To Promote The Five First Saturdays of Reparation Order Some of Our New Five First Saturday Devotions Cards These cards are designed to help people to complete The Five First Saturdays Devotion of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary Contact John Lacken 085-1208779 secretary@lumenfidei.ie

24 THE CASE FOR TRUMP

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

Pro-Life-And-Family Leader Makes ‘Catholic Case For Trump’ In New Book Andrew E. Harrod

Austin Ruse argues that the faithful must support a president who has ‘advanced the most pro-Catholic agenda in recent memory.’

“The choice is simple: Catholics must support Donald Trump’s reelection” as president, concludes a leading Catholic political commentator Austin Ruse in his new book, ‘The Catholic Case for Trump’. With important insight for not just Catholics, Ruse conclusively proves that Trump “stands for ordinary Americans, common sense, and traditions” as the “last bulwark against a radical Left that wants to destroy our way of life.”

A brief Trump biography sets the tone for Ruse’s subject. A New York real estate deal-maker, “Trump grew up on construction sites with rough men who spoke Queens English, not the Queen’s English.”

He thus has no “immediate need to be liked by the Georgetown and Kalorama set” of Washington, D.C. high society.

Trump was a godsend to conservatives who have grown “weary of cowardly Republicans who refused to take on the left’s stifling political correctness,” Ruse noted. This “rather plainspoken, gruff, and often hilarious nonpolitician came along who knew the enemy, never gave an inch, and always gave back 10 times more than he got.” “Sure, sometimes he shoots himself in the foot,” conceded Ruse, but, as President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War said of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, “here was a man who fights.”

Trump “is no paragon of moral virtue,” Ruse also confessed, but he ranks policy character over past private behavior. President Barack “Obama was considered a model family man and father without a whiff of personal scandal, but he was monstrously evil when it came to public policy.” The Bible’s flawed Samson “teaches that God has a plan, and that sometimes he chooses someone we consider to be the wrong vessel.”

Regarding Obama, “future Democrat administrations will certainly make him look like a moderate,” Ruse warned. Democrats are “all in on the culture war. Today, the abortion industry and the LGBT movement are the two most powerful constituencies in the Democratic Party.” Accordingly, “Democrats weaponized the levers of power at their disposal against dissenters from their disordered sexual morals.”

By contrast, Trump has “advanced the most pro-Catholic agenda in recent memory,” Ruse documented.

Particularly, “abortion, one of the gravest injustices known to man, is the most important priority for Catholics.” He dismisses attempts to relativise this evil, for “if we were killing almost a million refugees a year, the Catholic Left would roust itself to argue that that was the preeminent issue of our time.”

Trump was probably previously “nominally pro-choice” but has surprisingly evolved for Ruse. He catalogues how Trump has become the “most pro-life president in history,” such as with respect to the Republican Mexico City policy.

He expanded this prohibition of American aid to international organisations promoting abortion from roughly $600 million to nearly $9 billion of government funds.

Trump has also won Ruse’s praise in opposing LGBT goals. “Trump has a history of supportive words regarding homosexuality” such that “some faithful Catholics will be disappointed.” Nonetheless, “Trump still draws a line at the imposition

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Catholic Voice

THE CASE FOR TRUMP 25

of the gay and transgender ideology upon the American people and our institutions.”

Trump has, for example, opposed transgender agendas in the military and public schools. That is supremely important to Ruse, for the “Right has to destroy a radical gender ideology that threatens to upend the basis of human life as we know it.” Trump must often contend with a “social liberal deep state,” where the “career staff of the federal government in all the agencies has been flooded with homosexual advocates and activists.”

Equally vital for Ruse, Trump “has already put his stamp on the federal judiciary in a way that will rival any president in history,” including two Supreme Court appointments.

“For several decades, Republicans have lost just about every culture war battle through the courts” as “Democratic presidents appointed wildly ideological judges,” Ruse noted. With Trump’s judicial appointments, “seven of 13 circuit courts have durable conservative majorities,” and a re-elected Trump would have a good chance of replacing on the Supreme Court the “ancient Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born in 1933).”

Trump’s accomplishments often do not win him praise from the Catholic Church hierarchy due to political biases, Ruse observed.

American bishops and their staffers often have views “little different from the garden-variety leftism you’re bound to find on college campuses, where young students are indoctrinated in anti-Catholic morality.” Yet “Catholics are free to practice their own prudential judgment” on a range of nondoctrinal issues.

In particular, for the left, Catholic or otherwise, the “trump card against

Donald Trump is immigration,” Ruse wrote. Yet the “Church does not teach open borders, even remotely,” and Pope Francis has “said it is not Christian to build walls, failing to point out that the Vatican has very high walls with guards at each entrance to Vatican City.” “Immigration is a very complicated issue, filled with as much nuance as any federal policy debate,” Ruse qualified.

Similarly, “(s)ome, perhaps most, in the Catholic hierarchy are all in on catastrophic man-made climate change,” Ruse noted.

“No doomsday evangelical from previous centuries had anything on these guys.” Yet American greenhouse gas emission levels are almost the same as in 1990, and Francis himself recognizes “that the Church cannot settle scientific questions.”

Meanwhile, “Trump has conducted himself in foreign affairs in accord

with standards Catholics ought to accept,” Ruse wrote, such as a “high threshold for war.”

Concurrently, domestically, he debunks accusations that Trump is racist, like the ubiquitous lie that he praised white supremacists after a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The “Left is doing to him what they do to you, using racism as a slanderous epithet against someone they disagree with politically,” Ruse analysed.

Ruse makes his compelling case within the context of Catholic voters, who have become a key swing vote in modern American elections. “Democrats will try every dirty trick to get Catholics to abandon Trump because they know that Catholics in the Rust Belt are essential to Trump’s electoral coalition,” Ruse wrote. Thus, for all conservatives, the stakes in taking Ruse’s Catholic analysis to heart could not be higher.

26 THE CATHOLIC VOTER

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

Trump V Biden Anthony Hofler

Political elections in multiParty democracies are recurrent practical indicators of priorities. A society’s ‘climate’ influences the Parties’ choices of the promises by which they hope to attract votes; it influences also the public’s decisions on whether, and for whom, to vote. Probably for most people, the decision is a choice between imperfect options.

A victorious Party’s claim to have a mandate to implement its Manifesto is, therefore, debatable.

A variety of opinion is often portrayed as not merely normal but good, yet some of its advocates condemn ‘divisiveness’. Division is inseparable from conflicting beliefs and should not be allowed to deter necessary participation in conflict. President John F. Kennedy was, according to his brother Robert, fond of quoting Dante: ‘the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality’ (“Profiles in Courage,” John F. Kennedy; Hamish Hamilton, London, 1965; Foreword, p.11). Some religious, as well as political, people should note that.

God has left some temporal matters to the free and responsible judgment of each person, and when “a plurality of morally acceptable policies and solutions” arises it is not the Church’s task to prescribe the one to be adopted. “It is, however, the Church’s right and duty to provide a moral judgment on temporal matters when this is required by faith or the moral law.... Democracy must be based on the true and solid foundation of non-negotiable ethical principles” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life” - Catholic Truth Society, London, 2003; 3).

To vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals is not permitted by a wellformed Christian conscience (ibid., 4), because (says the “Catechism,” paragraph 2039) personal conscience and reason should not be set in opposition to the moral law or the Magisterium of the Church.”

“When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden, with responsibility” (“Doctrinal Note ...,” ibid., 4). “[N]o Catholic can appeal to the principle of pluralism, or to the autonomy of lay involvement in political life[,] to support policies affecting the common good which compromise or undermine fundamental ethical requirements” (ibid., 5).

Americans are approaching another important event to which these rules apply, a familiar contrast between Republican and Democrat candidates for the Presidency, certainly in regard to subjects which are associated (at least in theory, whether or not justified in practice) with the Catholic Church.

For several decades, candidates for the Democratic Party’s nomination have been much further from Church teaching than have their Republican counterparts. Even when a ‘Catholic’ has been chosen as the Presidential candidate’s ‘running-mate,’ the standard attitude has been ‘I am a Catholic but I don’t want laws and public policies to comply with Catholic principles’ (or with very controversial ones, at least). The same seems to have been the case with elections for State Governorships.

It is an international problem.

A symptom of today’s rampant relativism is that alongside demands that law and public policy should allow unlimited freedom of choice in moral matters there is an exception: Christians, and especially Catholics, are told that they do not have unlimited freedom of choice to insist on compliance with God’s universal and immutable laws, but should allow and even assist violations (cf. ibid., 2).

When Catholics are just as likely as non-Catholics to reject Catholic principles, there is no prospect of

11th September 2020

Catholic Voice

rescuing society from its moral morass. For example, it appears that pro-abortion campaigners have given significantly higher ‘approvalratings’ to allegedly Catholic members of the U.S. Congress than to non-Catholics. When revealing this, Matthew Schmitz (senior editor at America’s “First Things” magazine) commented that “when it comes to defending unborn life, our purportedly Catholic legislators do more-evil than good. ... If every Catholic were removed from Congress tomorrow, the unborn would have less cause to fear [and] the defenders of life would enjoy better odds against their enemies.

Overturning Roe v. Wade, passing a federal ban on abortion, enacting a constitutional amendment defending life - all these would be within easier reach. Nothing could testify more powerfully to the failure of Catholic politics than this grim fact. … Not even the most fevered anti-Catholic can have much fear of popish plotting when Catholic legislators look more favourably on abortion than do their non-Catholic counterparts” (“Catholic Herald,” 31st May 2019, p.21).

This is what happens when ‘being a Catholic’ indicates cultural background more than beliefs and objectives. Such disintegration is widespread, but not inevitable.

Contrasting examples were highlighted by Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., Archbishop of Philadelphia, in his important book, “Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life” (Doubleday; 2008, pp.169-174).

He compared two Democrats, Governor Mario Cuomo and Governor Robert Casey (Sr).

Cuomo adopted the popular policy of ‘personally against abortion but won’t legislate against it’.

His successor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, seems to think likewise, activating in January 2020 “the Reproductive Health Act which

allows the killing of babies throughout pregnancy until birth,” (“Calx Mariae” magazine, Issue 9, p.6).

Reportedly the same basis was invoked in 2019 by neighbouring Democrat Governor Phil Murphy, a self-declared “lifelong practising Catholic,” when he activated the legalisation of assisted suicide (“Catholic Herald,” 26th April 2019, p.8). Governor Robert Casey (Sr.) did not adopt such schizophrenia. He opposed abortion and the availability of it: he said, “Give your country not what it wants or will reward, but what it needs.” Archbishop Chaput suggested (“Render Unto Caesar,” op. cit., p.174) that Casey gave his Party what it needed, whereas Mario Cuomo acquiesced in what it wanted. Apparently, Mario was the model for Andrew Cuomo and Phil Murphy.

Unfortunately, distinctions between needs and wants can be difficult to recognise, and are manipulated in pursuit of support: the message to voters seems often ‘you need this, so you should want it,’ or ‘you should want this because you need it,’ combined in both cases with ‘so vote for me and I’ll give it to you’.

Less emphasis is given to whether ‘it’ is morally good.

THE CATHOLIC VOTER 27 Catholics should be in a good position to know and explain whether some things are good, or bad. In recent decades of U.S. politics, non-Catholics have sometimes seemed to be clearer thinking, or more helpful. For example, Republicans Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush took practical pro-life action, whereas Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did the opposite. Hillary Clinton, also, would have done the opposite if elected. Donald Trump has manifestly and practically been a friend of the pro-life principle, and on his behalf the Vice President, Mike Pence, assured the 2017 annual March for Life that “we will not grow wearied, we will not rest until we restore a culture of life in America.”

This year his opponent is Joseph Biden, described by the newsmedia as a Catholic. The signs are, unsurprisingly, that Mr. Biden is yet another exponent of the ‘cultural’ Catholicism which seems to treat God as “so understanding as to be undemanding” (Neville KyrkeSmith, in ‘’The Path to Rome,” eds. Longenecker and Blamires; Gracewing, 2010, p.255) and is too considerate to wish to Catholicise society.

Reportedly, Mr. Biden did - as long ago as 1981- support a proposal to

28 THE CATHOLIC VOTER

Catholic Voice

allow individual States to outlaw abortion (contrary to the Supreme Court’s Roe-v-Wade decision), but said that in doing so he was “probably a victim, or a product, however you want to phrase it,” of his Catholic upbringing, yet supported Roe-v-Wade when campaigning in 2012 (“Catholic Herald,” 5th April 2019, p.12).

He would not have become the Democrat candidate for President in 2020 if he had promised to curtail abortion. There is also the grave matter of his having presided at the White House ‘marriage’ ceremony of two men. Although his attendance was not the cause of the ceremony, it was a clear endorsement. The presence of Jesus at the wedding in Cana is regarded by the Church as “confirmation of the goodness of marriage” (“Catechism of the Catholic Church,” paragraph 1613). Therefore, it seems logical to deduce a general rule that ‘unless the contrary is made manifest, attendance signifies support’. Unions between people of the same sex are not marriages, and should not be encouraged, allowed, or rewarded. Mr. Biden’s support was contrary to the spirit of paragraphs 2284 to 2287 of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” and was described on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ web-site as “a counter-witness, instead of a faithful one founded in the truth” (ibid.).

No doubt he will avoid showing support for President Trump’s policy on embryo-abuse. Catholic doctrine is that “No objective, even though noble in itself, such. as a foreseeable advantage to science, to other human beings or to society, can in any way justify experimentation on living human embryos or foetuses, whether viable or not, either inside or outside the mother’s womb” (“Donum vitae” Instruction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,” 22nd February 1987, paragraph 17). It is cause for rejoicing and gratitude that currently

11th September 2020

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (‘HHS’) has prohibited the National Institutes of Health from using aborted babies’ stem-cells for Governmentfunded research, and has made a $20 million grant for research to find methods which do not rely on the bodies of such babies (“Catholic Herald,” 14th June 2019, quoting the Catholic News Service). The HHS stated that “promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration” (ibid.).

That pleased the Chairman of the U.S. bishops’ prolife committee, Archbishop Joseph Naumann; he said that “Scavenging and commodifying the body parts of abortion victims for use in research gravely disrespects the bodies of these innocent human beings” (ibid.).

It remains to be seen whether such factors prove to be, as did Democrat Senator Edward Kennedy’s support for abortion, “a source of controversy in many States” (‘’The Joan Kennedy Story;” Marcia Chellis;Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., London, 1985, p.169).

Despite the unreliability of ‘Catholic,’ the word still arouses the hostility which was common long before recent scandals. So Joe Biden and his supporters can be expected to do what John F. Kennedy and his mother did in 1960, when people were afraid that his policies would comply with Catholic principle; they reassured the critics that it was nonsense (“Render Unto·Caesar,” op. cit., pp.133-137, and “Times to Remember,” Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy; Pan Books Ltd., 1975, p.399).

Unfortunately, very often it proves to be.

This is not a matter of mere passing interest for prolifers outside the US, because many of them have relatives and friends who are there. It could make the essential difference if those relatives and friends are urged to vote for the right candidate.

The Lumen Fidei Institute

Parenting Roadshow - Back On The Road We are now taking bookings for small home meetings to inform parents and other interested parties of the plans the sexologists and LGBT ideologists have for our schools. These programmes will corrupt the minds of children by giving them a false understanding of human sexuality.

We also look at the duties and responsibilities of Catholic parents with suggestions on how to strengthen your Faith life in order to be able to meet the challenges of rearing children in 2020s Ireland.

We are happy to host this presentation in small groups of up to six parents (or more depending on current covid restrictions), either in peoples homes or in other small venues. Please get in touch if you would like to host a small meeting and we can arrange the details with you.

Contact: John Lacken +353 (0)85 120 8779 E-mail: secretary@lumenfidei.ie Web: www.lumenfidei.ie

11th September 2020 Catholic Voice

THE WINDOW OF LIFE 29

Polish Nuns Save 18th Baby Left In Convent’s ‘Window Of Life’ Baby Box Clare Marie Merkowsky

Franciscan religious sisters in Poland discovered a newborn baby in their convent’s ‘window of life’ box, a place for parents to leave a baby whom they can no longer take care of. It is the 18th baby who has been left there in almost 12 years since the box was put in place.

On Monday morning, according to Catholic News Agency, Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary in Warsaw, Poland, found a baby girl in their “window of life.”

On December 6, 2008, the baby box was consecrated by Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz.

Since “windows of life” have been reintroduced in Poland, after disappearing for almost a century, they have saved up to 40 babies, offering mothers in need an alternative to abortion.

In 2012, when baby boxes were attacked by the UN, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk Nun with ‘Window of Life Box Poland defended baby boxes, Image courtesy www.catholic.org After finding the explaining that they baby, the nuns, following normal procedures, are part of the tradition of the Roman Catholic contacted authorities, who took the baby to the Church. hospital. The baby girl was reported to be healthy and clean.

Likewise, the director of the Catholic charity Caritas Polska, Father Marian Subocz, said, “We A note beside the baby said she had been born at cannot agree to close the ‘windows of life’ since 3 a.m. August 24; the nuns named the little girl the right to life is the most important of human Zuzia. rights.”

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CLASSIFIEDS 31

11th September 2020 Catholic Voice

CLASSIFIEDS From Our Lady of Fatima Do you want peace in the world?

Will you do what Our Lady tells you?

Say the Rosary every day.

Do the Five First Saturdays in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Those who spread this devotion will be placed by Our Lady as flowers before the throne of Almighty God. Next issue of

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25 September 2020

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REGULAR TRADITIONAL LATIN MASSES IN IRELAND (LISTED BY DIOCESE)

DAILY & WEEKLY Armagh: New Mellifont Abbey, Collon, Co. Louth; Every Sunday 3pm.

Cork & Ross: Ss Peter’s & Paul’s, Cork: Sundays 12.00 noon Mon -Sat 10.30.

Dromore: St.Mary’s, Newry: Sundays and Holydays 09.00.

Dublin: St. Kevin’s, Harrington Street: Sundays & non working Holy Days: 10.30; Mon - Fri 08.00; Sat 09.00.

Working Holidays & First Fridays; 08.00 and 19.00.

Dublin: St. Joseph’s, Newtownmountkennedy, Co Wicklow; Sat 11.00 Limerick: Sacred Heart, The Crescent (ICKSP); Sun10.30; Mon-Thurs 08.00 and 19.00; Friday 19.00; Saturday 08.00 & 12.00 noon.

Meath: Silverstream Priory (Benedictine monks) Stamullen: Sunday 10.00 preceded by Terce, other days 11.00.

Meath: Johnstown, Navan: Sundays 13.00; Holydays as announced.

Ossory: St. Patrick’s, College Rd, Kilkenny; Sundays 17.00.

Raphoe: St. Patrick’s , Drumkeen, Co. Donegal Sundays 10.00am.

Down & Connor: St. Therese of Lisieux, Somerton Rd, Belfast :Sundays at 4pm TWICE MONTHLY Ferns: St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co Wexford: Second Sunday 17.00 and occasional Third Sundays Derry: St. Columba’s , Longtower: First and Third Sunday 14.00.

Waterford: St. John’s Church, Parnell Street, Waterford City - 1pm on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the Month.

MONTHLY Armagh: St. Patrick’s, Dungannon, Co Tyrone: First Saturday 14.00.

Cork & Ross: St. Francis , Liberty St. Cork : First Saturday 13.00.

Derry: St. Marys, Aughabrack, Co Tyrone: Fourth Sunday 12.45 Elphin: St. John’s, carraoe, Co Sligo ; Last Sunday 15.00.

Killaloe: St. Joseph’s, Ennis, Co Clare: First Sunday 17.30.

Tuam: St. John the Baptist, (Old Parish Church), Knock, Co Mayo; Second Sunday 17.30.

Every effort has been made to ensure this list is up to date. Please contact the Latin Mass Society of Ireland of any changes or errors. email president@latinmassireland.com

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32 ADVERT

Catholic Voice

11th September 2020

“Pray the Rosary every day in order to obtain peace for the World” ...Our Lady of Fatima May 13th, 1917

“I could conquer the world if I had an army to say the Rosary” ...Blessed Pope Pius IX

“We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete” ...Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Homily at Fatima, 13th May 2010 Heavenly Mother, in the name of your Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, truly, really and substantially present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar please arrange for a SuperSafe solution to the global covid-19 virus and its attendant mayhem very, very soon. Thank You xxx. EC

Dear Reader, Please join me in including His Excellency President Donald John Trump; His Holiness Pope Francis SJ; His Former-Holiness Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI; and all citizens of the “One Nation Under God” in the intentions and daily recitation of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary while remembering her Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, truly, really and substantially present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Please note that in 1916 the United States authorities commissioned a pull-chain Rosary for military servicemen in World War I, the same year that the Angel of Peace appeared to the three visionary children of Fatima. Also, the United States of America officially entered World War 1 in April of 1917 and Our Heavenly Mother first appeared in Fatima the following month in May of 1917.

Thank You, dear Reader. May God and Our Lady Bless and Protect You. EC

Copies sent to His Excellency President Donald John Trump and His Holiness Pope Francis SJ and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Published by: Catholic Voice Newspapers, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare. Tel 059-8627268 ROI / 00353 - 59 8627268 Publisher: Anthony Murphy.

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