Catholic Voice 19th November 2021 Issue 330

CatholicVoice Omnia possum in eo, qui me confortat

19 November - 2 December 2021

Only 50 Ire land/ NI £2 U K

€/£1.

Issue 330

St Joseph’s Dream - Gaetano Gandolfi (1734 – 1802) “Joseph, son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife” (Matthew 1:20)

St Joseph’s Cord Available now - see page 7

2 CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Christ And The Church: Triumphant, Suffering And Militant Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke In my message to you last month, an update regarding my health was only an introductory point to the more important message of developing the daily devotion of the Holy Rosary, for I take most seriously the fatherly help for your spiritual life, for which I have been ordained to give you. As I did last month, I now refocus this letter to a spiritual topic relating to the conclusion of the Church Year.

Cardinal Burke Praised be Jesus Christ!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Last month, I was pleased to inform you that, by the grace of God and through an intensive rehabilitation program, I have been able to return to the daily offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Offering daily Holy Mass is essential to my identity as priest, Bishop and Cardinal, and also the greatest service that I can give to God’s holy people.

While the intensiveness of my rehabilitation continues to prohibit a return to public ministry, I nevertheless hope that I will, one day soon, resume my normal pastoral activities. During this time of convalescence, you and your intentions remain daily in my prayers. Please, continue to keep my full recovery and my priestly ministry in your prayers.

CatholicVoice

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

During these final weeks of the current Church Year, the Sacred Liturgy draws our attention to what are traditionally called the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. November 1st, for instance, is the Solemnity of All Saints, recalling to our minds and hearts the grace for holiness of life, which we received through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, destining us for eternal life in Heaven.

On the following day, All Souls Day, we remember all of the faithful departed – the Church Suffering or in Purgatory – praying that all temporal punishment due to sins which they may have committed may be remitted and that they may be joined to the Saints in Heaven – the Church Triumphant.

The final Sunday of the month, November 28th, the First Sunday of Advent, begins the new Church Year, while the prior Sunday, according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, is the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

In the Extraordinary Form, the same important feast is celebrated on the last Sunday of October, which fell on October 31st, this year.

Honouring Our Lord under His title of King of Heaven and Earth, we are deeply conscious of our vocation and mission to be His co-workers, His soldiers, in the establishment of His Kingdom in the world.

We – the Church Militant – are one with the Church Suffering and the

Church Triumphant. In fact, we depend on the prayers of the Saints in Heaven and of our brothers and sisters in Purgatory to help us in carrying out the mission of Christ the King in the world. We ask their prayers, so that our hearts, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph, may belong purely and totally to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Christ the King reigns over the world from His glorious Heart, pierced for our salvation. From His Sacred Heart flows unceasingly and immeasurably the graces necessary to be truly His co-workers, His soldiers.

As the current Church Year draws to a close and as we anticipate the beginning of the new Church Year, a new year of grace, the Sacred Liturgy leads us to contemplate more fully the Second Coming of our Sovereign King, when He will establish “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness resides” (2 Peter 3:13). Working daily, so that the Kingdom of Christ may come, as He taught us to pray in the Our Father, we look for His Final Coming.

We want only to be those faithful co-workers, steadfast stewards, whom He will find watching and waiting to welcome Him at His Coming. Our Lord teaches us: “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks” (Luke 12: 35-36).

We gird our loins by striving to lead a good and holy life, in accord with the grace which Our Lord unfailingly pours into our hearts from His Royal Heart. We keep our lamps burning by seeking Our Lord and His Reign through prayer, devotions and, above all, our participation in the Sacred Liturgy.

19th November 2021 Catholic Voice

ADVENT APPEAL 3

CATHOLIC VOICE ADVENT APPEAL Dear Reader As we approach the Advent season this year we especially ask you to consider Catholic Voice as a recipient of your Advent giving.

Your generosity of prayerful and financial support since the coronavirus pandemic started, has enabled us to continue spreading Catholic news and Truth. We have been able to continue reaching a wide audience of readers , not only in Ireland but in many different countries.

During this year we have all been challenged in many ways including the closing of churches and the absence of the sacraments. Many of you have become more aware that Catholic Voice is a not for profit organisation and neither we nor our contributors and promoters take a salary.

The ongoing effects of covid 19 plus the additional strain of Kim’s long rehabilitation result in our need to appeal to you again for your support of Catholic Voice so that we can continue our apostolic work into and beyond 2022.

If you are in a position to contribute financially to our Advent appeal you are assured that you are directly helping to spread our treasured Catholic faith.

Anthony 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, Co Kildare, Eire

Dear Anthony & Kim, I/ We would like to donate towards the ongoing publication of Catholic Voice.

Donation enclosed. Please tick box or enter and individual amount €1,000  €500 €250 €100 €50 €10 Other € _____ Name:

________________________________________

Address: ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Phone: ________________________________________ Cheques & Postal Orders made payable to Catholic Voice Please send your cheque or postal order to Catholic Voice St. Michael’s House Castlemitchell South, Athy Co Kildare, Eire

4 CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

The sure prospect of Our Lord’s Second Coming inspires in us a holy fear, that gift of the Holy Spirit which we call “Fear of the Lord.” It is not a fear of terror before Our Lord but of profound respect for His sublime Holiness and our unworthiness to stand before Him. It is a fear which inspires confidence, for, if we are longing and looking for His Coming, we are eager to welcome Him, trusting in His “infinite goodness and promises” (Act of Hope).

According to the world’s way of thinking, the Kingship of Christ takes away our freedom, subjugating our wills to His own. But the opposite is true. When Christ reigns in our hearts, then we are truly free. We realize our fullest dignity in the pure and selfless love of God and of our neighbor. We give our hearts completely to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for in Him alone do we find the freedom and peace which we so much desire. Christ reigns in our hearts by His pure and selfless love, so that we may love with purity and selflessness. As He promised: “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jn 7, 37-38).

We witness the truth of Our Lord’s promise in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, His Mother and His First and Most Perfect Disciple. Having been preserved from every stain of sin from the first moment of her life, by the Mystery of the Immaculate Conception, she was prepared to be the living tabernacle in which God the Son would take a human heart under her Immaculate Heart.

She was always totally for her Divine Son. As the account of the Finding of Our Lord in the Temple concludes, she treasured the Mystery of the Redemptive Incarnation in her heart. In the same way, she, with Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist and with Saint Mary Magdalene, stood at the Foot of the Cross, receiving, through the words of Our dying Lord to her and to Saint John, the commission to be the Mother of

Fatima Prayer

Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He Himself is offended, and through the infinite merits of His most Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.

Mosaic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Private Chapel of Cardinal Burke Divine Grace: “Woman, behold, your son! … Behold, your mother!” (Jn 19, 26-27).

Intimately one with her Immaculate Heart is the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph, her True Spouse and the FosterFather of her Divine Son. God granted to Saint Joseph extraordinary graces of purity and justice, so that He could be the fitting spouse of the Virgin Mary and, with her, provide the family for God the Son Incarnate.

Even as he was the Guardian of the Virgin Mother and her Divine Son, so he is our Guardian and Protector in the Church. Saint Joseph teaches us how to live, one in heart with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in the company and service of Jesus. On another occasion, I will write more fully to you about devotion to the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph.

After Our Lord had died on the Cross, the Roman soldier pierced His Side with a lance and from His Heart flowed “blood and water” (Jn 19, 34), the sign of the never-failing outpouring of divine grace in the Church.

At that same moment, in fulfillment of the prophecy of Simeon at the Presentation, the Immaculate Heart

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

CHRIST AND THE CHURCH 5

of Mary was mystically pierced: “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed’” (Lk 2, 34-35).

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, Our Mother, draws us to her Immaculate Heart, so that our hearts may rest in the truth and love of the Sacred Heart of her Divine Son. In the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we find the total freedom which is ours, when we give our hearts, without reserve, to the rule of the Royal Pierced Heart of Jesus, so that we pray with her in the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Lk 1, 46-47). Under the maternal care and guidance of the Virgin Mother of God, we find the freedom and joy of a life lived in Christ, lived in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in Whom all virtues are united in the unutterable perfection of Divine Love. Thus, we also pray, with Mary Immaculate: “And His [God’s] mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1, 50).

Let us continue to draw near to the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially through the praying of the Holy Rosary, so that the many graces of the month of November may lead us to draw upon the gift of Fear of the Lord and thus to live more fully our life in Christ, our communion in the Church – Triumphant, Suffering and Militant.

Let us unite our hearts to the Immaculate Heart of Mary who gave her heart completely to the Lord: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1, 38). Let us follow her maternal counsel, the counsel of the Mother of Divine Grace, first given to the wine stewards at the Wedding Feast of Cana: “Do whatever He [Jesus] tells you” (Jn 2, 5). Let us unite our hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Thus, our hearts, resting in His freedom, one with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will manifest the truth of the Four Last Things. Thus will we live in steadfast anticipation of Our Lord’s Second Coming, when He will bring to fullness His Kingdom, the supremely royal work of eternal salvation.

Imploring Our Lord, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, to bless you, your homes, your families, and all your labors, I remain Yours in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and in the Purest Heart of Saint Joseph, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Could you consider leaving a bequest for CatholicVoice?

As a not for profit registered organisation we rely on the generosity of our benefactors for financial and prayerful support.

A bequest from you in your Last Will and Testament would help us to continue growing the publication of Catholic Voice and the dissemination of Catholic Truth If you are in a position to leave a bequest, however large or small, you are assured that it will be used to promote and strengthen Catholic teaching.

May God bless you for your generosity.

6 THE PRIEST AS FATHER & PROTECTOR

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

I Can’t Do It Fr Richard Heilman I can’t be the priest I am being asked to be.

I can’t just be a functionary while the wolves are devouring my family.

In so many words, I’m told, “Stop with all of your warnings about the wolves, and just do your scheduled Masses and plug in your parish programs. It’s not your place to stand against the forces of evil. Leave that to others. If you stand against those who are devouring/ influencing your people, it will be seen as ‘political,’ and priests can’t have the optics of being political.”

HOGWASH! History is replete with clerics who stood against the powers-that-be in their times, beginning with the original persecutor Nero, who many scholars believe was the “beast in question” with the number 666 in the Book of Revelation.

In fact, clerics play a major role in the normalisation of evil when their silence “green lights” this normalisation.

The laity very naturally believe, “If the clerics don’t care, why should we?”

Murdering unborn babies has been with us now for 48 years because almost all clerics chose to remain silent, outside of a few “check the box” statements on abortion.

Don’t tell me I am wrong. During the first half of my priesthood it was common knowledge among clerics to never even speak the word “abortion,” for fear of offending abortion advocates and being pegged as “political.” There are far too many clerics, even today, who still remain silent. They fear the tag, “Divisive,” and “not being liked.”

And, “yes,” I have vivid memories of my congregation being thinned out from the day I decided, “Nuts, I am talking about the evil of abortion openly.” Literally, I watched as folks made their “showy exits” in the middle of my homily. But, an amazing phenomenon occurred. Those emptied pews were “filled back in” by nearly twice as many who were longing to be with a “strong Catholic family.”

You see? I believe I am called, not to be a business manager of an organisation, but to be a “Father.”

A Father who wholeheartedly accepts his call to be protector and provider.

Nobody is advocating any diminishment of Sacraments, etc. to give way to this battle against the present-day forces of evil. Listen, I offer Mass on my day-off and on the rarely offered Saturday morning. We offer an enriched Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form.

I have a 24/7 Confessional. We are excessive in the offering of Eucharistic Adoration. We teach about

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

THE PRIEST AS FATHER & PROTECTOR 7

and provide an excessive amount of sacramentals. We practice just about every devotion known to Catholicism. I have a teaching website (romancatholicman.com) and a spiritual warriors training website (usgraceforce.com), and I have written 7 books that trains us in living the Divine Life in Christ.

Most especially, we are making every effort to “unite” ourselves with Christ and “unite” ourselves as a family of God. Very simply, as a “Father,” I am doing all I can to “provide” for my Catholic family.

It’s the “protector” part of my “fatherhood” that is met with resistance. Listen, my original intent in writing this article was to itemise all of the ways the “powers that be” are assaulting my family.

Instead, I will just say this …

It is those who seek to silence me, as they accuse me of being political, who are the real “political animals.”

Why? They are seeking to ingratiate themselves with some of the most corrupt and worst persecutors of Christians in all of salvation history.

The radical secular progressives of our time have grown to become, not only God haters, but see God’s followers as more dangerous than Al–Qaeda.

The

Dominicans Truth Doesn't Come Dressed In Grey!

These historically corrupt (follow the money) political leaders are quickly turning our country into a Godless wasteland.

No, I will not be the business manager you want me to be. I will not shirk my responsibility as “protector”; of being a “true” Father who “actually” cares for his family, as I do everything within my power to appreciate the friends of Christians, while I warn my Catholic family of the wolves, so they may be at peace in verdant pastures and beside restful waters.

I LOVE YOU, DEAR FAMILY!!

"Those who leave the tradition of Truth do not escape into something which we call freedom; They only escape into something we call fashion."

- G.K. Chesterton www.irishdominicanvocations.com

8 THE METAPHYSICAL SOLUTION Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Why Metaphysics Can Fix This Mess John Horvat II

These are anti-metaphysical times.

Most people don’t realize it because they know nothing about metaphysics and how it affects their lives.

However, rejecting metaphysics has tragic consequences for individuals and society in general. An antimetaphysical world gives rise to individuals who fail to ponder things deeply, skimming the surface of life. Such habits result in persons without certainties, convictions and principles.

Society also suffers because there can be no unity when there are no certainties, convictions, and principles. As this advances, polarization occurs because people can no longer understand the things that might unite them.

Metaphysics is the science of determining the real nature of things, thus allowing people to perceive the meaning, structure and principles of whatever exists. With this foundation, it is easy to establish certainties and thus, facilitate unity and communications.

Without realizing it, the innocent child constantly explores the frontiers of metaphysics in the quest to know the world. Throughout life, virtuous people refine their notions of reality and act accordingly.

The key is to know things as they are.

For example, a metaphysical concept of “book” would be to consider it to be a bound set of written or printed sheets of paper. Using this concept in everyday life, a person can classify as a book all that conforms to this

general notion. Any discussion of a book outside this idea leads to absurdity and disconnection from reality.

When people stay within the notion of what a book is, an immense variety of books can be imagined and produced, including magnificent, splendorous or banal books; large, regular and miniature; page-turners and unappealing; rare, new and used. Thus, metaphysics is the foundation of logic, discussion and debate. It makes progress possible by anchoring the notions of things in reality. It allows the creative imagination to soar while keeping the person away from dangerous fantasy disconnected from reality.

Take metaphysics away, and there is no common understanding that can enable communication. This sets the stage for chaos.

The modern world has long had a problem with metaphysics. Indeed, modernity seeks to dominate nature, not to understand it. It wants to bend nature to the will of humanity.

Its philosophers see metaphysical definitions and categories as restrictive and tend to minimalise them.

Modern man limits his understanding of what things are to what helps dominate nature. Industrial society needs logical and stable systems based on the nature of things.

Anything more profound is dismissed as irrelevant.

Domination leads to the desire to determine what things are based on personal subjectivity.

The post-modernity of the sixties changed everything. If modernity dominates nature, post-modernity annihilates it. Its philosophers respect neither rules nor limits.

They “deconstruct” every historical narrative and truth so that by tearing them down, no coherent whole survives.

Post-modernity annihilates metaphysics because it does not recognize the nature of anything. It celebrates absurdity. Thus, the notion of “book” is whatever a person determines it to be, even if it is a lamppost. A man is not a man but something determined by a preferred pronoun. Nothing can be known with certainty.

Thus, popular culture reflects a society unanchored from reality and certainties, where anything is possible. In such a world, the unbridled imagination rules. The most bizarre things can be called art or music. Where absurdity is enthroned, unity becomes impossible.

Saint Augustine once defined a people as “a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love.” As long as

19th November 2021 Catholic Voice THE METAPHYSICAL SOLUTION 9 people can agree there are objective notions of things that can be loved, a unified society is possible. People might disagree on the expression of the things loved. They might even advance in unity by proposing more sublime manifestations of such things. Societies like this can progress.

Modernity’s liberal society agreed to share things in the shallowest ways to make room for its deep individualism and industrial progress. Alas, at least classical liberals agreed that there were shareable things…and that they were things.

Post-modernity destroys society because it does not believe that things have determined natures. Thus, there is nothing to share or love. There is only the chaotic clash of subjective perceptions informed by unbridled passion.

When perceptions are not anchored in metaphysics, nothing can be defined. Such societies fall apart.

An anti-metaphysical world is both unintelligible and inhospitable.

The march to absurdity has been long developing. A refusal to acknowledge

the nature of things comes from a failure to recognize a divine and intelligent cause. When modernity detached itself from God and His Providence, it struck at the heart of true metaphysics. Science dominated nature and gradually dethroned nature’s God.

The wisdom of God’s Providence governed this universe, often through secondary causes. Above all, God was the supreme point of unity, both loved and shared by peoples.

Without God, Who created all things, it becomes impossible to understand the nature of things and their reason and purpose in the order of the universe. Creation only makes sense in light of the Creator.

The problems of society today cannot be reduced to economic, political or even cultural crises. Above all, this metaphysical crisis undermines certainties, principles and meaning.

Fragmented minds and societies are the result.

Post-modernity’s process of deconstruction and annihilation is now reaching its end with rejection and even hatred of the Creator and the order He established in the universe.

It has reached a point of no return.

Christian civilization was a time of metaphysics. People understood the nature of things because they saw the Creator reflected in His Creation and desired to know Him better through His works.

Moreover, they perceived human society as an integral part of a divinely ordered universe positioned in time.

Today’s Metaphysical Crisis Is of Massive Proportions

As society reaches its final stages of decay, the price of denying reality will prove ever greater, awakening people to their folly and ruin. A metaphysical crisis of vast proportions awaits a world that has long ignored existential questions to its peril.

Thus, there needs to be a return to order reestablishing metaphysics, to know the nature of things. God the Creator will then be acknowledged, and people will share again the things they love. That will make society whole once more and there will be unity and peace.

The devotion to the Cord of St. Joseph took its rise in Belgium, in 1637, in consequence of a miraculous cure effected by the wearing of this precious girdle. During this year of Saint Joseph you may wish to wear the cord to avail of the GRACES ATTACHED TO THE WEARING OF THE CORD. Graces precious to the piety of St. Joseph’s servants are attached to the wearing of this cord. They are: 1. St. Joseph’s special protection 2. Purity of soul; 3. The grace of chastity; The Cord 4. Final perseverance; 5. Particular assistance at the hour of death.

Of Saint Joseph

The pack containing a St. Joseph’s Cord, a prayer card, St. Joseph’s medal and an information leaflet is available now for €/£10 (inc. p&p).

To order your cord/s please complete the form below.

Please send me ___ (insert number required) St Joseph’s cord/s Name: _________________________________________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Telephone: _________________________________________________________________ Eircode ____________________ Credit/Debit Card No:__________________________________ Expiry Date:_________ C.V.V. ____________ Please send completed form with cheque or postal order made payable to Catholic Voice to; Catholic Voice, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare ***PLEASE ALLOW UP TO 21 DAYS FOR DELIVERY ***

10 BOYS WILL BE BOYS

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Boy Scouts and Girl Guides Jonathon Van Maren There is not a single organization that trans activists do not intend to colonize. In 2017, the Boy Scouts changed their century-old policy on admission and decided to permit entrance based on “gender identity,” allowing biological girls identifying as boys to enroll.

This came two years after the Girl Scouts announced that they would be accepting “transgender girls” — biological boys — to join and participate as females.

The Girl Guides also stated that they would permit biological boys identifying as girls to join, and even share showers, changing rooms, and sleeping quarters with girls.

One of Robert Conquest’s three rules of politics is simple: Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right wing will sooner or later become left wing. This has proven true time and again, as the transgender juggernaut conforms institutions according to the new dogmas and centuries-old organizations transform their views of gender overnight. As such, Christians and others seeking alternatives to these radicalised organizations are increasingly being forced to build their own alternatives outside the mainstream.

One example is American Heritage Girls, a Christian alternative to the Girl Scouts founded in 1995 by parents seeking a values-driven organization for their daughters. In a press release, founder and executive director Patti Garibay laid out the position of AHG succinctly: “Scripture is clear: There is a difference between male and female, and it is worth celebrating.

Scripture defines the true nature of a woman: relational, nurturing, vulnerable, with a love for beauty and a desire to respond. God-given femininity is a gift that, when freely accepted, will bless a woman throughout her life.”

“We believe that biblical femininity is the core essence of every woman, purposefully designed by God,” she went on. “He has created men and women differently on purpose. Today, at a time when some attempt to put masculinity and femininity on a spectrum, AHG

Ecclesiastical Art Restorations

by Dr.Nicholas von Kerckhoff Special Church Statues Repair and Repaint - Nationwide Bronze-Gypsum-Wood-Resin-Marble Etc Member of Vatican Art Studio German Mastercraft Association - Museum Art Com. antiquegallery@eircom.net

Mobile 00353 (0)87 2203898

proudly stands up for God-anointed, God-driven femininity.”

“For centuries, the beauty of God-given femininity has been under attack, its definition debated, its behaviour contested. Secular humanism has attempted to destroy the beautiful model of femininity and transform it into an equal model to masculinity. Today, it has gone one step further to claim an embrace of non-binary sexual identity. With all this confusion in our society, it is no wonder that this debate has filtered down to our youngest members: our children.”

All of that, needless to say, is heresy to trans activists and their cultural enforcers, but American Heritage Girls is doing what few other organizations are: Staking out their position in clear and unambiguous terms. Many organizations are, understandably, trying to stay out of the LGBT culture wars, hoping to simply carry on without anyone noticing them. I believe this will prove impossible in the years ahead. You may not be interested in the transgender issue, but trans activists are most certainly interested in you. They wish to force submission from every organization, and then demand vocal fealty to the new dogmas.

That’s why Girl Scouts did not merely grant admission to boys identifying as girls; this year, 13-year-old transgender Scout Sean Miller was granted the Girls Scout Bronze Award in “appreciation for her [sic] hard work and dedication.” Miller was understandably delighted, stating that he received the Girls Scout award due to his “advocacy,” which is undoubtedly true. The best women and girls these days are often men and boys, who receive awards from those seeking to prove their commitment to the LGBT cause and signal their total surrender to the new orthodoxies.

Christians need to found alternatives like American Heritage Girls. Mainstream culture has been conquered, and subcultures based on reality are necessary.

19th November 2021

LUMEN FIDEI APPEAL 11

Catholic Voice

The Lumen Fidei Institute End Of Year Appeal There are three parts to this year’s ‘End of Year Appeal’. Firstly, we are looking for donations to help us to continue our work of promoting, defending and teaching the Catholic Faith. We have lived through some very strange times in the last two years. Our Catholic Churches were closed; restrictions were placed on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; many bishops blocked the faithful from receiving Holy Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling; the Holy Water fonts in most of our Catholic Churches remain emptied of this powerful sacramental.

In the secular field, restrictions were placed on peoples’ movements and on general social activities. This prevented us from hosting any meetings and some venues are required to insist that only those who have taken the abortion tainted vaccines can attend. Lately, we have seen the lifting of many restrictions and we are hopeful that, please God, we will be able to begin having meetings before

the end of the year. We would also like to begin planning for the return of the annual ‘Catholic Voice’ conference, perhaps with a date in May 2022.

The second and third part of our appeal have to do with helping the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and with making reparation for the grave sins of the Irish people. In Ireland, the homosexual lifestyle is being actively promoted to young children and legal recognition has been given to homosexual relationships. This legislation is contrary to Catholic Church teaching and is offensive to Almighty God. Abortion has also been legalised in our country and, in the first two years following this legislation, 13,243 innocent unborn childrens’ murders were sanctioned by the Irish government with the co-operation of medical professionals.

To help to counteract these grave evils in our society, The Lumen Fidei Institute has produced a little booklet on ‘The Way of the Cross’ with meditations from St Alphonsus Ligouri. We are

seeking to rekindle the holy practice of making the way of the cross for the Holy Souls in Purgatory and in reparation to Almighty God for the sins of the Irish People. We are praying particularly for the revoking of the Irish laws on abortion and marriage which are so offensive to Almighty God. We are asking for your help in promoting and distributing this booklet to as many people as possible.

Perhaps you could organise a group of people to begin regularly praying the Stations of the Cross for the relief of the Holy Souls in Purgatory and in reparation for the sins of the Irish people, begging God to restore the Kingship of Christ over Ireland.

You can use the donation form below to order copies of,‘The Way of the Cross’. Alternatively you can contact me by e-mail or by phone to order them.

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing generosity.

CV -

Please make cheques etc payable to The Lumen Fidei Institute

12 SACRAMENTAL LIFE

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

If Your Sins Be As Scarlet, They Shall Be Made As White As Snow: And If They Be Red As Crimson, They Shall Be White As Wool John Lacken Let us pray for our bishops in these difficult times that they will be as lights shining in the darkness leading souls to Christ through their ministry in His One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church.

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.

As I begin this article, I am reminded of the beginning of many jokes where the main character says, “I have some good news and some bad news, which would you like to hear first?”

There are times when all of the news seems to be bad and we can tend to forget to seek out the good news. I want to reflect for a moment on Catholic Church teaching on the forgiveness of sin. This comes in the wake of two more priestly scandals that were recently reported in the media from different parts of the world, concerning sins against the sixth commandment.

What strikes me about much of the media reporting of such events is that, more often than not, what is written consists of detraction.

In a world of instantaneous communication, many people feel entitled to know the sins of others. Many of those who report on scandalous matters, especially when they are connected to those in positions of authority within the Catholic Church, justify their actions by saying that people have the right to know. Such an attitude is contrary to Catholic Church teaching.

Another aspect of this problem is that the mainstream media do not care about the added hurt caused to the innocent family members of transgressors. There is no true compassion shown to either the family and friends of the perpetrator or to the victims. The mainstream media outlets are driven by profit motives and bad news and salacious

stories unfortunately increase sales.

Such is our fallen nature.

Many Catholics are unaware of the difference between the sins of ‘slander’ and ‘detraction’. Slander is to say something about another person which one knows to be false, whereas the sin of detraction, consists in revealing the faults of another without due cause.

The 1917 Catholic Encyclopaedia clarifies this as follows.

“Detraction is the unjust damaging of another’s good name by the revelation of some fault or crime of which that other is really guilty or at any rate is seriously believed to be guilty by the defamer.

An important difference between detraction and calumny is at once apparent. The calumniator says what he knows to be false, whilst the detractor narrates what he at least honestly thinks is true. Detraction in a general sense is a mortal sin, as being a violation of the virtue not only of charity but also of justice.

It is obvious, however, that the subject-matter of the accusation may be so inconspicuous or, everything considered, so little capable of doing serious hurt that the guilt is not assumed to be more than venial. The same judgment is to be given when, as not infrequently happens, there has been little or no advertence to the harm that is being done” The Encyclopaedia gives two points for consideration before one reveals some fault or sin of another.

Firstly, one must assess the damage which might emerge from the failure to reveal another’s sin in certain circumstances, and this damage should be seen as greater than the defamation caused.

There are times when one has a moral duty to reveal another’s faults especially where these faults represent a danger to others.

(Isaiah 1:18)

Secondly, one should only reveal the minimum necessary in order to make known the dangers involved and an attempt at fraternal correction of the wrong-doer should have been considered, if this is an appropriate course of action.

I find it worrisome, when Catholics freely share scandalous news about members of the clergy and others without first of all asking themselves, “have I a just reason for sharing this information.”

The level of detraction might be slight or even non-existent, if the story has already gained widespread publicity, however, we should still be very wary of inadvertently becoming town criers for mainstream media outlets which seek to damage the reputation of the Catholic Church at every possible opportunity. Our first reaction on hearing such stories should be to offer prayers and sacrifices for those who may have fallen from grace.

As a writer, this is something I am acutely aware of, and I try to avoid naming people whenever possible in order to concentrate on the particular action which is the cause of harm.

Another difficulty that I notice in our modern society is the lack of forgiveness for those who fall foul of certain societal norms. Do not expect to be forgiven by any of the mainstream newspapers and other news outlets. Apologies for speaking untruths about others are usually only given begrudgingly by the media and this when they are caught out, but you will never get an apology for detraction, because in this case what was said happens to be true, even though it may be embellished in order to attract more readers. No allowance is made either for those who are striving to reform their bad behaviours.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is all about forgiveness and

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

SACRAMENTAL LIFE 13

even goes so far as to penalise any priest who would dare to break the seal of the confessional with the penalty of excommunication.

“A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal, incurs a ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; he who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the offence.” (Canon 1388 §1 Code of Canon Law) The purpose of this law is not, as some in the secular media might try to suggest, to provide cover for notorious sinners, rather, it is designed to help sinners to come to Christ, the fount of mercy, with true repentance, to make reparation, and to have a firm purpose of amendment so that they can be reconciled with Almighty God and with their neighbour.

If God cannot forgive the sins of notorious sinners who repent of their sins, then there is little hope for any of us. Which of us would like the sins we confess in private to the priest to become the subject of newspaper headlines? Let us consider this before we too readily share certain scandalous stories of Catholics who have fallen from grace or of other notorious sinners, and let us remember the old saying “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” Let us also keep the words of Our Lady at Fatima close to our hearts.

“Pray! Pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to Hell because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”

Through our prayers and our sacrifices we can help to save souls from eternal damnation. What an onerous responsibility we have to make sure that we are properly engaged in the battle for the salvation of souls.

My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee. I beg pardon of Thee for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee. Amen.

Angel to the Children of Fatima 1916

Regular Confession is strongly recommended by the Catholic Church

The Guardian Angel of Portugal encouraged the children of Fatima as follows.

“Offer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus invoke peace upon your country.”

Sister Lucia of Fatima said of the angels visit.

“The words of the Angel were like a light that made us realize who God was, how He loved us and wanted to be loved; the value of sacrifice, to what degree it pleased Him, and how it was rewarded with the conversion of sinners.

From that moment, we began to offer to the Lord everything that mortified us, without trying to find any other ways of mortification or penance than passing hour after hour, bowed to the ground, repeating the prayer that the Angel had taught us.”

“Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly, and I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the same Son Jesus Christ, present in the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for all the sacrileges, outrages and indifferences by which He Himself

is offended. And by the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart, and through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners.”

The same can be said in these times for the sharing of the many stories of doom and gloom that abound.

We need to be careful that we do not discourage others, especially our young people by constantly looking at the darkness around us.

Others speak constantly of alleged prophecies of the end times and of a great chastisement, and of a great enlightenment of conscience which is supposed to be coming in the near future. Christ tells us “of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24: 36) Christ then warns us to be always ready.

“Watch ye therefore, because ye know not what hour your Lord will come. But know this ye, that if the goodman of the house knew at what hour the thief would come, he would certainly watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open.

Wherefore be you also ready, because at what hour you know not the Son of man will come.”

(Matthew 24:42-44)

14 SACRAMENTAL LIFE There are dangers in looking forward to the great chastisement and the enlightenment of conscience and in listening to prophecies which may or may not be true concerning these events. We can become complacent in our duties to evangelise and to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. There is a twofold danger in that we may come to believe that we just have to sit tight and wait for these events to happen. The other danger is that we may become presumptuous and assume that we will be amongst those who are saved when these great events come to pass.

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

r a t u l a t i o g n n s C o

St Paul tells us, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) Our Lord tells us, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.” (Matthew 6:34) Some Good News: My wife Naomi and I were recently blessed to attend the wedding of Richard Casey and Lydia Mannion, now Mr and Mrs Casey.

I first met Richard and Lydia when they attended one of our Roadshow talks in Newbridge, in March of 2019. This was one of those talks where there were few in attendance.

I have learned not to be disappointed or to look on numbers in attendance as a means of measuring the success or otherwise of a given talk. On this occasion, because of the small number who attended, I was able to have a long conversation with Richard and Lydia after the event.

I remember that they were very eager to ask me questions concerning Catholic Church teaching on marriage and family life. It was wonderful to meet a young couple who sincerely desired to make sure that their relationship was in conformity with Catholic Church teaching and they desired to understand exactly what was required of them should they eventually marry.

I met them again on numerous occasions and they became regular attendees at Sacred Heart Church in

Mr & Mrs Richard and Lydia Casey - on their wedding day 25th October 2021

Limerick. There were often more questions and I would encourage them in their relationship sometimes asking, almost jokingly and with a smile on my face, ‘what are you waiting for’.

I was delighted to learn of their engagement last year and I met them again in August, in Sacred Heart Church in Limerick, where they informed me of the date of their marriage.

It was a great gift and a great blessing to be at Richard and Lydia’s wedding. To witness the pure love and joy that radiated from both of them on their special day was a fantastic boost for the soul.

Their deep devotion to God and to each other is a beacon of Hope in a dark world, and that Hope radiates outwards and lifts up the community of their family and friends as we journey onwards to Heaven. The social gathering afterwards was also a joyous occasion with many familiar faces.

As those who read Catholic Voice and have heard me speak will know, I never tire of promoting Catholic marriage and family life. The future of Christendom depends on young Catholic couples dedicating their married lives to God and bringing children into the world who will become the future saints who give witness to the Majesty and Glory of God.

Most of our future priests will come from these Catholic families. I say most because God can call any man to the Catholic priesthood regardless of the circumstances of his birth or family of origin. But in general, the faith is passed on through Catholic parents who strive, despite their faults and failings, to live holy lives thereby giving Glory to God. I am always delighted to see the altar boys that serve at the Latin Masses we attend. On one occasion in St Kevin’s Church in Dublin, I counted sixteen altar boys serving at Holy Mass. I know some of the families of these boys and young men and it is always a delight to witness the commitment of these families to the promoting the Catholic Faith.

Richard and Lydia were blessed to have Canon de Martin, of the Institute of Christ the King in Limerick, to instruct them in how to prepare well for Catholic married life. A vibrant community continues to grow around the Sacred Heart Church in Limerick and we met some young families after the wedding who also have sons who serve the Latin Mass. When I see these young families I know that the Catholic Church has a future.

Many of you who have attended Catholic Voice conferences or social evenings will remember Anthony McGorian and Victoria Smyth who

19th November 2021

SACRAMENTAL LIFE 15

Catholic Voice

sang for us on a number of these occasions. Anthony and Victoria were joined in holy matrimony on September 29th of this year.

So let us pray for Mr and Mrs Richard and Lydia Casey and for Mr and Mrs Anthony and Victoria McGorian. Let us thank God for their witness to Catholic marriage and let us ask God to bless their marriages abundantly.

Those of us who have been married for many years know of the struggles, difficulties and challenges that face Catholic families in our time. Let us be sure to offer our support and encouragement to these men and women as they begin their exciting journey.

Let us offer our support and encouragement to those young people who are currently discerning marriage. We need vibrant and fruitful Catholic marriages if we are to restore the Kingship of Christ over Ireland. You cannot have a Catholic society without Catholic families. The long term solution to all of the problems that currently

beset our society, is to transform that society through the witness and dedication of Catholic families who strive to raise saints for the Heavenly Kingdom of God.

Mr and Mrs Anthony and Victoria McGorian

As Pope Saint John Paul II said in his 1994 letter to Families, ‘Gratissimam Sane’.

“Every effort should be made so that the family will be recognized as the primordial and, in a certain sense “sovereign” society! The “sovereignty” of the family is essential for the good of society.

A truly sovereign and spiritually vigorous nation is always made up of strong families who are aware of their vocation and mission in history. The family is at the heart of all these problems and tasks.

To relegate it to a subordinate or secondary role, excluding it from its rightful position in society, would be to inflict grave harm on the authentic growth of society as a whole.

He also said “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family.”

There’s A Place For Us

Homosexuality in the Divine Plan of Redemption There’s A Place For Us: This testimony does not shirk away from difficult Catholic teachings but shows with piercing clarity why the Church teaches as she does in the area of human sexuality. In our lives we are called to a lot more than sexual satisfaction. Rather, we are granted the privilege of living life on the highest possible plane in responding to the call of the greatness of being the Sons and Daughters of God.

There’s a Place for Us Homosexuality in the Divine Plan of Redemption Jesus said to those who would stone her: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

John Cassidy - Bio Ex-homosexual and New Man John Cassidy has been serving the Catholic Church as a full-time Lay-Man since his conversion in 2014. John has founded the Association of Believing Catholics which is a lay initiative to promote and defend the fullness of Catholic truth.

Paperback €/£6.00 inc p&p in Ireland €/£9.40 inc p&p outside Ireland

Jesus said to the woman: “Woman, where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?

Who said: No man, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither will I condemn thee.”

“Go, And Now Sin No More.”

By John Cassidy

To Order please telephone 085 1208779 ROI 00353 851208779 Outside ROI Alternatively, Order Online @ www.lumenfidei.ie/shop

16 CHRIST THE KING

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Christ the King

Dom Pius Mary Noonan O.S.B. Worthy is the Lamb to receive all honour and glory.

Let us consider Our Lord Jesus Christ glorified amidst the assembly of all the saints of the heavenly court, contemplating how that glorious reign will last for all eternity. By the grace of God, it is to that triumphal celebration that we are marching. We proclaim with the full conviction of our minds and hearts, that Jesus Christ reigns already, here and now, on this earth, in our hearts. He is King, and to Him we pay our homage, prostrating ourselves before Him with love and sincere affection.

It is essential however to remind ourselves that the reason this feast was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1925 was to profess our faith in the social kingship of Jesus. This feast is not primordially about the reign of Jesus in Heaven for all eternity. We consider that in its inception on the feast of the Ascension, and on the feast of All Saints when He is surrounded with the crown of all the elect. Today, the Church professes loud and clear that Christ reigns on earth, in our societies. His reign is meant to be established in each of our hearts where we must prepare a bridal chamber for Him, a loving space

Give a Postal Subscription to

CatholicVoice This Christmas

We will send a Christmas card detailing the subscription to you for the recipient.

In Ireland 6 months €40 12 months €75

(rates for other countries available on request)

To Order Please Telephone 059-8627268 00353 59-8627268

where He can have dominion over all the faculties of our mind, soul and body, giving us to live holy lives in accordance with the moral law. But that reign of Christ in our soul, in each of our souls, is meant to be visible on this earth, just as His humanity was visible, for the Incarnation of the Son of God continues on earth through the Church. The reign of Jesus Christ must not remain in the privacy of the heart, but it must manifest itself by public profession of faith, both individually and collectively. This is why the Catholic Church has actual church buildings that make manifest the reign of Jesus, edifices that distinguish themselves by their order, beauty, harmony, that lift our minds and hearts to things divine and spiritual. This is why those churches must remain open at all times so that the Christian people can at all times and in all places pay homage to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

The reign of Christ in the Church, however, is not to be confined to church buildings. Jesus Christ, by the very fact of His incarnation in the flesh, is King and Lord of all things human, and that includes our societies and governments. This is why the State has the sacred duty to not inhibit the action of the true Church of Christ in any way, but rather to protect and promote it, to guarantee to the Church full and complete liberty to worship, to preach, to teach, for that is the mission She has received from Christ himself. Humanity has only one path to salvation. When you lose your way, you have no option but to go back and find the path you lost. So today, we must remind our people, our leaders, our world: there is no answer but Christ. There is no solution to the world’s problems but a return to faith in Him and entrance into His Church. There is no salvation in any concerted human effort that is not based on Christ. For without Him, human attempts at saving the world are always vitiated by egoism and doomed to failure. Indeed, the State also has the grave duty to prevent public crimes or egregiously sinful acts that destroy the moral social order. If it does not, it thereby condones sin and draws down God’s curse instead of His blessing.

A State disregards the rights of Christ and His Church at its own peril, for Christ alone can save it from the ravages of sin and strife. It is commonly taught in our day that, up until the American and French revolutions, the countries of Europe lived under the dark, heavy yoke of religion, but that thanks to the what is called the Enlightenment they were finally freed from the darkness of the Middle Ages. In reality, the rejection of Christ from the public domain has led to catastrophes the magnitude of which even the worst of struggles in the Middle Ages pale in comparison. We need only consider the tens of millions of dead from the

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

revolutionary wars, the Napoleonic wars, the Two World Wars of the last century, the death camps run

by Nazis and Communists, the destructions of entire cities by bombing and fire, the ongoing genocide of the unborn, which has now reached its gory climax in the shameless murder and exploitation of innocent baby bodies. Finally, the current oppression of so many people through a global sanitary dictatorship which disregards the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the Natural Law: so many sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance, but which can be traced directly back to the rejection of the reign of Christ the King and His expulsion from the public life of nations.

A society that wants to last and prosper must acknowledge the sovereign rule of the one true God and of Him whom He sent, Jesus Christ. If the State does acknowledge that rule, then takes place what we read in this morning’s hymn at Lauds: “O Thrice blest city of the Lord/ Wherein Christ rulers without dearth;/Fervently she doth execute /His heavenly edicts to the earth.

No fiery weapon can ever harm/The peace established by Jesus’ hand;/ In happiness and unity,/The ranks of Christ secure do stand.

A marriage blest by faith in thee,/ Yields virtuous offspring from the womb;/Like seed in fertile soil doth grow,/In virtuous homes do children bloom” In today’s office we conclude the hymns with the doxology: Glory to Thee, O Lord, who holdest in Thy sway the sceptres of the world. And the Book of Proverbs tells us: the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; whithersoever he will, he shall turn it (Pr 21:10). And so we can be sure that nothing happens that is not allowed by Christ the King for our good. This gives us great consolation to know that the Lord Jesus Christ is in complete control, but it does not dispense us

from playing our role in the battle for souls. Each of us is a knight of Christ the King. At His command we speak or remain silent, we march or stand. At His command we are and will remain, and that gives us imperturbable peace.

To fight with Christ is to take blows with Christ. You do not serve a crucified king without taking a few cracks of the whip and shedding some blood. Tomorrow we will meditate more on Christ’s program, the Beatitudes, and the immense cohort of saints who lived according to that program. For today, let’s remember that Christians have been the driving force in the world for the last 2,000 years. The Roman Emperors tried to drown them out in blood, but this tiny minority eventually conquered Rome. In modern times, as more and more fall under the charm of the father of lies and leave the ranks of the Church, those who remain inside her – and I mean really inside, professing the true faith without compromise –, they are the ones whom the enemies of Christ fear. Their tactic, however, is to let sleeping dogs lie, for they know that when the true faithful of Christ wake up, they are an invincible power in any part of the world. Why are they invincible?

Because they have in them the very power of Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And because, unlike the Muslim hordes who imposed the faith with the sword, our only sword is the sword of truth, which cuts right through all the lies that deceive the world, and because, disciples of the crucified, we fear no one. A true Christian fears no one. No one at all.

Let us ever keep in mind the final words of today’s Gospel: Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.

If you do not hear loud and clear the voice of Christ, then you are not

CHRIST THE KING 17 of the truth. If the words of Christ take no hold on you, then you are not of the truth. If you hear them and they slide over you like water on a raincoat, then you are not of the truth. But if you do hear them, if they do touch your heart, if you let them transform you from the inside and take over and start a fire and let it blaze and catch others on fire, then I can assure you, there is no force on earth that will dare to take you on. The enemy will run away scrambling.

The only reason evil triumphs is because the true disciples of Christ are silent. The only reason things have gotten so bad in the last 60 years is because a false spirit of compromise with the world has infected the minds and hearts of too many Catholics. Let us never forget that there is no force in the world like that of those who stand with Jesus Christ the King. The powers that be know that, they know it very well, and that is why they will not dare to take us head on. They will always find ways of turning the real issues aside. And that is why every Christian, every single one, needs to stand up and be counted, and make it clear that when it comes to our faith and all that faith is built on, especially in the realm of the universal moral law and fundamental human rights and duties, we will brook no compromise. Australia is a Christian country and so it will remain. We will not let the enemies of Christ take our Christian heritage from us.

Let us stop believing the lies. Let us open wide to the truth. Only the truth will set us free.

From 31st October 2021 - Dom Pius Mary Noonan, OSB is the founder of Notre Dame Priory in Colebrook, Tasmania. Australia.

“Offer up everything within your power as a sacrifice to the Lord in an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended; and of supplication for the conversion of sinners. Thus invoke peace upon your country. I am her Guardian Angel; the Angel of Portugal. Above all, accept and bear with submission the sufferings that the Lord may send you.”

(The Angel of Portugal to Fatima children 1915)

18 BISHOP MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

A Worthy Successor To St John Fisher Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

Modern totalitarianism in these islands began with King Henry VIII, who needed money for his alimony payments and his generally disastrous military adventures and, with the help of the toad-like Thomas Cromwell, manufactured a pretext for a spat with the Pope so that he could get his hands on the Church’s wealth.

One of the many problems with totalitarian systems of government is the fear they instil into those who would otherwise have stood out against the merchants of brute farce. Of the Bishops at the time of the Deformation, only one – St John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, stood out against the ridiculous fiction that Henry created: the “Church of England”.

From his pulpit in Rochester Cathedral, St John Fisher firmly told his flock: “Luther hath not one jot or tittle of warrant in Scripture for aught that he saith.” For daring to speak up for Almighty God against the almighty State, Fisher was executed, as was St Thomas More, one of a tiny handful of courtiers brave enough to stand firm and refuse to take the Oath of Supremacy that the King had demanded.

Now Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester until 2009, has forsworn the Church of England and has become a Catholic. We are very lucky to have him, as well as the many other bishops, pastors and entire parishes that have left the Anglican Church to join in full communion with the Holy See – and, thereby, with all of us in the household of the Faith – via the Ordinariate established by Pope Benedict.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali - Photo Wilberforce Academy - Oxtrad CC4 The Ordinariate is an anomaly. It appears not quite to fit in anywhere.

It is a three-quarters-of-the-way house between Anglicanism and Catholicism, where many of the liturgies and practices of Anglicanism, including the musical prose of Thomas Cranmer and the King James Version of the Bible, may still be used, but the Faith underlying their use is Catholic.

As Monsignor Alfred Gilbey, who received me into the Church at the age of three weeks, used to say, “Dear boy, never reject an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly, or an anachronism merely because it is an anachronism.”

Little though the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales like the Ordinariate, it is an anomaly that has worked. Pope Benedict wisely took the view that the Church ought not to require that Anglicans intending to join us should altogether abandon their own traditions. It was that flexibility in matters of practice, combined with an unwavering insistence on the integrity the Faith,

that so many leading Anglicans have found attractive.

Aquinas would have approved: for he used to draw an Aristotelian distinction between the substance of the Faith itself and the forms of liturgy, vestments and so forth that he called the “accidentals”: between the meat and the frills, if you like.

Dr Nazir-Ali is one of the Ordinariate’s biggest catches. He was born in Pakistan in 1949 and has British and Pakistani citizenship.

He holds academic awards from the Universities of Karachi, Oxford and Cambridge, as well as a Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity. He has taught and researched at a number of institutions and continues to teach and supervise research. He was ordained an Anglican minister in 1976 and served in England and Pakistan before being consecrated Bishop of Raiwind in 1984. He was the General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society (1989-94) before his appointment as Bishop of Rochester in 1994.

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

As Bishop of Rochester, he entered the House of Lords in 1999 and spoke on international relations, inter-faith dialogue, freedom of speech and defence of human dignity at every stage of life.

Since his resignation as Bishop of Rochester in 2009, he has been Director of the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue, which prepares Christians for ministry where the Church is under pressure and in danger of persecution.

Here, in his own words, are his reasons for coming home to the household of the Faith: “I believe that the Anglican desire to adhere to apostolic, patristic and conciliar teaching can now best be maintained in the Ordinariate.

Provisions there to safeguard legitimate Anglican patrimony are very encouraging and, I believe, that such patrimony in its Liturgy, approaches to biblical study, pastoral commitment to the community, methods of moral theology and much else besides has a great deal to offer the wider Church.

BISHOP MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI 19

this particular anomaly is such a successful anomaly. The parishes that have come wholesale from Anglicanism to Catholicism are packed at every Mass. Like the traditional parishes whose priests adhere to the Faith and preach it with cheerful vigour, their congregations are far larger and more committed than average.

The truth is that the succession of shoddy compromises with modern totalitarianism to which the Bishops have consented, and in which too many of them believe with a passion that too often seems stronger than their commitment to the Faith that it is their missio canonica to preach, have been and continue to be strikingly unsuccessful in retaining existing Catholics, and

still more strikingly unsuccessful in recruiting new converts. Indeed, the very word “convert” seems to have become a dirty word, and that is a shame.

In due time, Dr Nazir-Ali – a formidable theologian – will be ordained a Catholic Priest. Frankly, we need him. He is most welcome, and we pray that many more like him will follow where he has so bravely led. For what he has done requires great courage.

When one of my godsons – the grandson of an Anglican bishop of Oxford – decided to become a Catholic, he wrote to me to say that he had cried when his Anglican life was over. But he has remained unswerving in the Faith of our fathers ever since.

“I am looking forward to receiving from the riches of other parts of the Church, while perhaps making a modest contribution to the maintenance and enhancement of Anglican patrimony within the wider fellowship.

“Ministry in the Church of Pakistan, in the Middle East generally, in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion remains precious to me and I see this as a further step in the ministry of our common Lord and of his people.

At this time, I ask for prayers as I continue to pray for all parts of the Church.”

The Catholic Bishops do not like the Ordinariate precisely because

Portrait of Saint John Fisher - Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 - 1543)

20 CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Priesthood Is Not A Career Mary Kearns

We can get discouraged defending the Church’s position when we try to counter the arguments raised by those who readily give their opinion on all Catholic matters.

This is even more difficult when the arguments are proposed by those people learned in theology.

We often lack confidence and feel unable to uphold what we know to be right. St. Paul claimed that we could become deceived by specious arguments and this does seem to be the case when it comes to discussions regarding women being admitted to the ministerial and sacramental priesthood. A specious argument is one that is hollow and unsound and if we take the trouble to look into these arguments they can be discredited because they have no basis in truth.

The first thing to bear in mind is that a line of reasoning that supports women’s ordination is almost always founded on a secular understanding of what the role of a priest actually is. This line will usually be covered with a thin layer of theology but this can easily be discerned.

Priesthood is conferred by Jesus Christ through his Church. For this reason it is to Church teaching that we must turn and not to the views of individual theologians. There is no difficulty in finding out what the Church holds as it has been made clear in documents issued by several Popes that the ordination of women is not possible. This was recently affirmed by Pope Francis who stated that this question was settled for all time by Pope John Paul II. It is now over twenty-seven years since Pope John Paul II made it clear in the Apostolic Constitution ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ that the sacrament of Holy Orders can only be conferred on a baptised male person. This has been the infallible

Last Supper (detail) - Carl Bloch (1834 – 1890) teaching of the Catholic faith since the time of the apostles. It had previously been taught by Pope Paul VI and is reaffirmed as infallible by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The position is actually very simple. Men, by virtue of the sacrament, participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. They actually carry out this role in the liturgy, in the person of Christ, the Head of his Body, the Church (In persona Christi Capitis).

Consequently not knowing why the Church teaches as she does, many will say that it is absurd in this day and age, that half of the human race is prohibited from a career they feel drawn to.

Of course that particular argument carries no weight with feminists or with women learned in theology who are determined to make a case in favour of female ordination. They disdain the clear teaching of Pope John Paul II and have no problem disregarding the authority of the Magisterium.

The first observation to make regarding these Catholics is that they do not usually know what they are talking about. They regard being a priest as they do any profession.

If a person makes a choice of career like a doctor, teacher or solicitor, they study for a number of years, and when they pass their examinations, they can look for relevant employment. If people have the educational qualifications and suitable testimonials, most will eventually get a job. Of course being a priest entails a special sort of ceremony but then so does matrimony. Accordingly so they say, in line with other professions, priesthood should be open to both men and women.

Sadly there are plenty of Catholics who unfortunately have not heard or do not care to hear that the Church has pronounced for all time on the impossibility of women being ordained to the priesthood.

People who hold these views do not trouble to find out that there is nothing automatic in the career of a priest, if it can be called that. It is also not often acknowledged that all men do not have the right to

Priesthood is not a function; it is a role and it is not possible for any woman to take on this role.

19th November 2021 be admitted to the priesthood just because they are men. Only some are called and it is the Lord who does the calling. Neither can a priest exist in isolation. An individual with the desire to enter Holy Orders must first be accepted by the bishop of his diocese or alternately by a religious congregation such as the Dominicans or the Franciscans.

Such a person will spend many years in formation and discernment as well as in study.

So much for those who don’t know what they are talking about.

However there exists a large body of people both inside and outside the Church who have written volumes of work on the subject of women’s ordination. Apparently these writers do know what they are talking about. They are able to scrutinize ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ and justify their own opinions, confident in the knowledge that not many of the faithful will actually have read the document in full, although it is quite brief.

If we are Catholics who are faithful to the Magisterium, we should arm ourselves with the right information and be able to say why certain of the Church’s teachings apply not just to the present but are to be held definitively for all time. This knowledge will enable us to take apart the arguments given by those who believe women have every right to be priests. However, we will probably not change the minds of hardened feminists. On the other hand we will have the correct means of combating erroneous views which could serve to convince people in the middle ground.

Take for example the claim that women deacons were permitted in the early Church. A deacon is the first stage of Holy Orders, and although deacons normally proceed to become priests that is not always the case. In recent years men have been ordained to the permanent diaconate which means they will not proceed to the priesthood.

The case usually cited is that of Phoebe, mentioned by the Apostle

Catholic Voice Paul in his Letter to the Romans.

It is worth spending a little time finding out more about Phoebe.

St. Paul gives only a few lines regarding this particular woman but we can deduce that since he is recommending her, we can reasonably draw the conclusion that this woman is being entrusted with carrying his letter to the Romans.

Paul refers to Phoebe as someone who has greatly helped him. “I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.”

Scholars who sincerely try to comprehend the mind of the Church in those early days, conclude that a deaconess was actually the wife of a deacon. She assisted her husband when necessary. We should remember this was a time when conversions were numerous.

Baptism was by total immersion and at Confirmation the holy oils were liberally applied to the body of the person, man or woman. A deacon’s wife would be needed to help with towels and other items necessary when a woman or girl was baptised and confirmed.

A deacon is a man in Holy Orders, and in the early Church women

CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD 21 were certainly not admitted to Holy Orders. In fact Paul goes much further. In the first letter he wrote to the newly converted city of Corinth, he directs that women should not make any verbal contribution in church. If they do not understand something they should ask their husbands at home, as they are in submission to the Law. Strong words from the Apostle to the Gentiles!

This does not mean that Paul is antiwoman. We see elsewhere in his writings how he gives respect and honour to women such as Priscilla, Mary, Junia, Tryphena, Tryposa and Persis; although Phoebe is the only one he refers to as a deaconess.

Nonetheless, Paul does not contradict himself. He would of course be aware that during the liturgy the most important duty of a deacon is to read the Gospel, which a woman could not do as she is to be silent at all times. It is obvious that those people who use this argument to bolster up the case for female ordination are not above using St. Paul when it seems to help their case and ignoring him when he disagrees with their own point of view.

For catechesis and liturgical formation: marykeenankearns@gmail.com 087 7794687

22 PRESS RELEASE

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart present Light Up a Memory Mass 2021 Loving memories shine in our hearts forever

In November, we remember, as we pray especially for loved ones who have gone before us. This year, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart invite you to take part in a special live streaming of their annual Light Up a Memory Mass, which will be celebrated on Saturday, November 27th by main celebrant Fr John Fitzgerald MSC. The candlelight memorial service will take place at 6.30pm and will be streamed on the MSC website www.mscmissions.ie, live from the Sacred Heart Church on the Western Road, Cork.

Traditionally, the Month of the Holy Souls is a time to reflect and pray for friends and family who have gone to their eternal rest in the Lord’s love. Sadly, loss and grief have been companions to many during the coronavirus pandemic, and this November, we remember specially those who are no longer with us.

Each year, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart invite mission friends to send the names of their dearly departed for remembrance, and the list is kept on the altar throughout the month as we pray for their perpetual peace. Marking the end of the month of remembrance, the Light Up a Memory Mass lights up the winter darkness in honour of our faithful departed.

Since the first MSC Light Up a Memory Mass took place in 2014, this has become a muchloved tradition to close the Month of the Holy Souls. “Bereavement touches us all, and our Light Up a Memory Mass is a very special way for families to remember together,” says MSC Missions Office Director Fr Michael O’Connell, who will also be participating in this year’s ceremony. “It is a welcome moment to pause, to reflect, and to honour fond memories, with every candle a tribute to beloved friends and relatives.”

While the pandemic has meant that the way we pray together has had to change, we remain ever united in spirit and in faith. All are welcome to watch this year’s Light Up a Memory Mass via the live stream on www.mscmissions.ie, along with all of the Masses for the Holy Souls throughout the month of November. For further information about how you can take part, please visit the website at www.mscmissions.ie, or contact the MSC Missions Office by phone on 021 4545704 or by email at info@mscmissions.ie.

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL 23

The Existence Of Evil In The World Christian philosophy has, like the Hebrew, uniformly attributed moral and physical evil to the action of created free will. Man has himself brought about the evil from which he suffers by transgressing the law of God, on obedience to which his happiness depended.

good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist” (St. Aug., Enchirid., xxvii).

Evil is in created things under the aspect of mutability, and possibility of defect, not as existing per se: and the errors of mankind, mistaking the true conditions of its own wellbeing, have been the cause of moral and physical evil (Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, De Div. Nom., iv, 31; St. Augustine, City of God XII).

Again, the excellence of God’s works in nature is insisted on as evidence of the Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, by which no evil can be directly caused. (Greg.

Nyss., De. opif. hom.)

The evil from which man suffers is, however, the condition of good, for the sake of which it is permitted.

Thus, “God judged it better to bring

Evil contributes to the perfection of the universe, as shadows to the perfection of a picture, or harmony to that of music (City of God 11).

Thus Boethius asks (De Consol.

Phil., I, iv) Who can be the author of good, if God is the author of evil? As darkness is nothing but the absence of light, and is not produced by creation, so evil is merely the defect of goodness. (St. Aug., In Gen. as lit.)

St. Basil (Hexaem., Hom. ii) points out the educative purposes served by evil; and St. Augustine, holding evil to be permitted for the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, shows that it has, under this aspect, the nature of good, and is pleasing to God, not because of what it is, but because of where it is; i.e. as the penal and just consequence of sin (City of God XI.12, De Vera Relig. xliv).

Lactantius uses similar arguments to oppose the dilemma, as to the omnipotence and goodness of God, which he puts into the mouth of Epicurus (De Ira Dei, xiii).

St. Anselm (Monologium) connects evil with the partial manifestation of good by creation; its fullness being in God alone.

24 HELL IS REAL

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Seven Teachings On Hell From St. Thomas Aquinas Msgr. Charles Pope The teachings of the Lord on Hell are difficult, especially in today’s climate.

The most difficult questions on Hell that arise relate to its eternal nature and how to square its existence with a God who is loving and rich in mercy.

1. Does God love the souls in Hell?

Yes. How could they continue to exist if He did not love them, sustain them, and continue to provide for them? God loves because He is love. Although we may fail to be able to experience or accept His love, God loves every being He has made, human or angelic.

The souls in Hell may have refused to empty their arms to receive His embrace, but God has not withdrawn His love for them. He permits those who have rejected Him to live apart from him. God honours their freedom to say no, even respecting it when it becomes permanent, as it has for fallen angels and the souls in Hell.

God is not tormenting the damned.

The fire and other miseries are largely expressions of the sad condition of those who have rejected the one thing for which they were made: to be caught up into the love and perfection of God and the joy of all the saints.

2. Is there any good at all in Hell?

Yes. Are all the damned punished equally? No. While Heaven is perfection and pure goodness, Hell is not pure evil.

Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

(Matthew 25:41)

The reason for this is that evil is the privation or absence of something good that should be there. If goodness were completely absent, there would be nothing there. Therefore, there must be some goodness in Hell or there would be nothing at all. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, It is impossible for evil to be pure and without the admixture of good …. [So]those who will be thrust into hell will not be free from all good … those who are in hell can receive the reward of their goods, in so far as their past goods avail for the mitigation of their punishment (Summa Theologica, Supplement 69.7, reply ad 9).

This can assist us in understanding that God’s punishments are just and that the damned are neither devoid of all good nor lacking in any experience of good.

Even though a soul does not wish to dwell in God’s Kingdom (evidenced by rejection of God or the values of His Kingdom), the nature of suffering in Hell is commensurate with the sin(s) that caused exclusion from Heaven.

This would seem to be true even of demons. In the Rite of Exorcism, the exorcist warns the possessing demons, “The longer you delay your departure, the worse your punishment shall be.”

This suggest levels of punishment in Hell based on the degree of unrepented wickedness.

In his Inferno, Dante described levels within Hell and wrote that not all the damned experience identical sufferings. Thus, an unrepentant adulterer might not experience the same suffering in kind or degree as would a genocidal, atheistic head of state responsible for the death of millions. Both have rejected key values of the Kingdom: one rejected chastity, the other rejected the worship due to God and the sacredness of human life. The magnitude of those sins is very different and so would be the consequences.

Heaven is a place of absolute perfection, a work accomplished by God for those who say yes. Hell, though a place of great evil, is not one of absolute evil.

It cannot be, because God continues to sustain human and angelic beings in existence there and existence itself is good. God also judges them according to their deeds (Romans 2:6). Their good deeds may ameliorate their sufferings.

This, too, is good and allows for good in varying degrees there. Hell is not in any way pleasant, but it is not equally bad for all. Thus God’s justice, which is good, reaches even Hell.

3. Do the souls in Hell repent of what they have done? No, not directly.

After death, repentance in the formal sense is not possible. However, St. Thomas makes an important distinction. He says,

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

A person may repent of sin in two ways: in one way directly, in another way indirectly. He repents of a sin directly who hates sin as such: and he repents indirectly who hates it on account of something connected with it, for instance punishment or something of that kind. Accordingly, the wicked will not repent of their sins directly, because consent in the malice of sin will remain in them; but they will repent indirectly, inasmuch as they will suffer from the punishment inflicted on them for sin (Summa Theologica, Supplement, q 98, art 2).

5. Do the souls in Hell hate God? No, not directly.

This explains the “wailing and grinding of teeth” in so far as it points to the lament of the damned. They do not lament their choice to sin without repenting, but for the consequences.

In the Parable of Lazarus, the rich man in Hell laments his suffering but expresses no regret over the way he treated the beggar Lazarus. Indeed, he still sees Lazarus as a kind of errandboy, who should fetch him water and warn his brothers. In a certain sense the rich man cannot repent; his character is now quickened and his choices forever fixed.

On the other hand, some of His effects are displeasing to the will in so far as they are opposed to any one: and accordingly a person may hate God not in Himself, but by reason of His effects. Therefore, the damned, perceiving God in His punishment, which is the effect of His justice, hate Him, even as they hate the punishment inflicted on them (Summa Theologica, Supplement, q 98, art 5).

4. Is eternal punishment just? Yes. Many who might otherwise accept God’s punishment of sinners are still dismayed that Hell is eternal. Why should one be punished eternally for sins committed over a brief time span, perhaps in just a moment? The punishment does not seem to fit the crime.

This logic presumes that the eternal nature of Hell is intrinsic to the punishment, but it is not. Rather, Hell is eternal because repentance is no longer available after death.

Our decision for or against God and the values of His Kingdom becomes forever fixed. Because at this point the will is fixed and obstinate, the repentance that unlocks mercy will never be forthcoming.

St. Thomas teaches, [A]s Damascene says (De Fide Orth. ii) “death is to men what their fall was to the angels.” Now after their fall the angels could not be restored [Cf. I:64:2].

Therefore, neither can man after death: and thus the punishment of the damned will have no end. … [So] just as the demons are obstinate in wickedness and therefore have to be punished for ever, so too are the souls of men who die without charity, since “death is to men what their fall was to the angels,” as Damascene says (Summa Theologica, Supplement, q 99, art 3).

St. Thomas teaches, The appetite is moved by good or evil apprehended. Now God is apprehended in two ways, namely in Himself, as by the blessed, who see Him in His essence; and in His effects, as by us and by the damned. Since, then, He is goodness by His essence, He cannot in Himself be displeasing to any will; wherefore whoever sees Him in His essence cannot hate Him.

6. Do the souls in hell wish they were dead? No. It is impossible to detest what is fundamentally good, and to exist is fundamentally good. Those who say that they “wish they were dead” do not really wish non-existence upon themselves. Rather, they wish an end to their suffering. So it is with the souls in Hell. St. Thomas teaches, Not to be may be considered in two ways. First, in itself, and thus it can nowise be desirable, since it has no aspect of good, but is pure privation of good. Secondly, it may be considered as a relief from a painful life or from some unhappiness: and thus “not to be” takes on the aspect of good, since “to lack an evil is a kind of good” as the Philosopher says (Ethic. v, 1). In this way it is better for the damned not to be than to be unhappy. Hence it is said (Matthew 26:24): “It were better for him, if that man had not been born,” and (Jeremiah 20:14): “Cursed be the day wherein I was born,” where a gloss of Jerome observes: “It is better not to be than to be evilly.” In this sense the damned can prefer “not to be” according to their deliberate reason (Summa Theologica, Supplement, q 98, art 3).

7. Do the souls in Hell see the blessed in Heaven?

Some biblical texts say that the damned see the saints in glory. For example, the rich man in the parable can see Lazarus in the Bosom of Abraham

HELL IS REAL 25 (Luke 16:3). Further, Jesus says, There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are thrown out (Luke 13:28). However, St Thomas makes a distinction: The damned, before the judgment day, will see the blessed in glory, in such a way as to know, not what that glory is like, but only that they are in a state of glory that surpasses all thought.

This will trouble them, both because they will, through envy, grieve for their happiness, and because they have forfeited that glory. Hence it is written (Wisdom 5:2) concerning the wicked: “Seeing it” they “shall be troubled with terrible fear.”

After the judgment day, however, they will be altogether deprived of seeing the blessed: nor will this lessen their punishment, but will increase it; because they will bear in remembrance the glory of the blessed which they saw at or before the judgment: and this will torment them. Moreover, they will be tormented by finding themselves deemed unworthy even to see the glory which the saints merit to have (Summa Theologica, Supplement, q 98, art 9).

St Thomas does not cite a Scripture for this conclusion. However, certain texts about the Last Judgment emphasize a kind of definitive separation. For example, in Matthew 25 we read this: All the nations will be gathered before [the Son of Man], and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. … Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matthew 25:32, 46).

Clearly, Hell is a tragic and eternal separation from God. Repentance, which unlocks mercy, is available to us; but after death, like clay pottery placed in the kiln, our decision is forever fixed.

Choose the Lord today! Judgment day looms. Now is the time to admit our sins humbly and to seek the Lord’s mercy. There is simply nothing more foolish than defiance and an obstinate refusal to repent. At some point, our hardened hearts will reach a state in which there is no turning back. To die in such a condition is to close the door of our heart on God forever.

Somebody’s knocking at your door.

Oh sinner, why don’t you answer?

Somebody’s knocking at your door!

26 CATHOLIC RSE - SERVING TWO MASTERS ? Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Relationship And Sexuality Education In Catholic Schools 2021 Serving Two Masters? - Part 1 Mary Russell - A Catholic Mother *** NB: Some of what is contained in this article may not be suitable for children. Parental discretion advised.*** Editor’s note: This series of articles begins with an overview of the genesis of secular sex education. Many parents of young children are not aware of the sordid history of the sex education movement.

It is difficult to finger a point at which the sex education movement first thrust itself upon an otherwise fairly conservative public, certainly at no time, ever, have parents clamoured for or demanded sex education programmes for their children, and particularly not for the primary-school child.

The sex education movement has its origins in population control, birth control, and eugenics. From the International Eugenics Society came the National Birth Control Council, which in turn evolved into the Family Planning Association, which then became one of the founding members of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. IPPF is the world’s leading provider and promoter of sex-education programmes, birth control, abortion and population control.

Family Planning Associations are affiliates and operate in at least 140 countries world­ wide, covering most of the world’s population. FPAs, Brook Advisory Centres and other government-sponsored agencies implement the agenda of the IPPF at a local level.

It is unsurprising then, that the campaign to Introduce sex education classes into Northern Ireland’s schools was wholeheartedly supported by the FPA and the Health Promotion Agency.

The commitment to advance their O Jesus, it is for the love of Thee, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners [that I do this]. Amen.

Our Lady of Fatima - June 13th, 1917.

cause is perhaps best illustrated by the enthusiasm and experiences of the speakers at a County Down conference (1991) where, according to The Irish News, “speakers will examine ways to improve and widen sex education, along with the possibility of setting up a family planning clinic specifically for young people”,

and other professionals had become aware of the interlocking and interdependence of large organisations whose aims and objectives were very much in keeping with the Brook mission to cater for underage sexual activity by providing contraceptives to the young without parental knowledge or consent.

The conference chairperson was a key campaigner for the 1967 Abortion Act; secretary to the Abortion Law Reform Association; past president of UK FPA; member of IPPF’s Central council; director of the Birth Control Trust; and member of the national board of directors, Brook Advisory Clinics.

Showing contempt for the role of parents, Lady Brook, founder and President of the BAC stated, “It is now the privilege of the Parental State to take major decisions - objective, unemotional, the State weighs up what is best for the child.”

Other speakers were advocates for homosexual rights, euthanasia, abortion, and Included employees of the Swedish Association for Sex Education, Brook, the Irish FPA, British Abortion Law Reform (which campaigns for abortion on demand and up to birth), and IPPF Europe Region.

There is no doubt IPPF and its affiliates recognise that the most effective vehicle for the re­ordering of society is sex-education, often presented under the guise of ‘helping the young avoid the pitfalls of adolescence’.

President of Planned Parenthood World Population (1973), maintained, “I think we’re going to establish the individual’s complete control over conception, and that will win the battle for abortion if we act wisely.”

Three years later and IPPF had set out its Strategy for Legal Reform, which included a woman’s right to abortion, sterilisation, tax reform, relaxed divorce and family laws, a lower age of consent for birth control services, and compulsory sex education.”

By 1990, and this time using the AIDS campaign to push through their sex education policy, IPPF felt justified in stating, “IPPF should look into acceptable ways of introducing sex education at the earliest possible age, and encourage efforts to introduce appropriate sex education and options for safer sex in schools and communities.”

In 1992 The Brook Advisory Centre opened its doors in Belfast but for some time before that, a group of parents

Promoting their sex education leaflets aimed at children as young as nine, Belfast Brook claimed, “The youngest girl that we had in here was a 12year old girl looking for emergency contraception ...... we treated her no differently to any other client.”

Despite the unholy roots and subsequent fruits of the sex education movement, and despite the explicit warnings in The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality (Vatican Press 1995) in stating,” The Church has always affirmed that parents have the duty and the right to be the first and principal educators of their children.”, and again,” ... catechesis would be distorted if the inseparable links between religion and morality were to be used as a pretext for introducing into religious instruction the biological and affective sexual information which parents should give according to their prudent decision in their own home.”, yet by 1998 the Catholic Church too had embraced the idea that classroom sex education should be implemented and so Catholic schools were expected to deliver an ‘Education for Love’ programme designed for both Primary and Secondary level pupils.

An examination of Education tor Love uncovered that at Age 5-6 years, the aim is “to encourage pupils to use the proper names for the different parts of their body including their external sexual organs.”, while parents are asked to talk to their child about how you know if a new baby is a girl or a boy ... an excellent opportunity to help their child to use the proper terms ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’.

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

At age 7-8 the children will understand birth, labour, pregnancy, womb.

Age 8-9 Details and illustrations of baby’s development in the womb.

Age 9-10 Conception and puberty.

Make a list of the changes during next few years. Parents to assist in completing the list.

Age 10-11 Worksheet showing drawings of naked babies, toddlers, children, adolescents and mature teenagers. The pupils will make a list of at least 5 differences and know the reasons for the bodily differences.

Undertake a yes/no type quiz ....... her breasts develop? Her period begins?

Hair grows under her arms? Her voice changes? His voice changes?

He has wet dreams? His penis grows bigger? Hair grows on his body?

Children are told to ask their parents to help them look through magazines to find an advertisement for menstrual products and ‘stick the ad on this page’. Parents are asked to read over their child’s work and have the child explain the work to them.

Pupils will learn about sperm, seminal fluid, erection, ejaculation, nocturnal

CATHOLIC RSE - SERVING TWO MASTERS ? 27

emission (wet dream) and ‘making love,’ they will also participate in a true or false quiz with questions such as, ‘the penis is soft when sperm leaves a boy’s body?”

Concerned parents had already researched Vatican documents and the New Catechism, alongside critiques by medical professionals, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, head teachers and clergy, the conclusions of which may be summed up by Dr. Sean O’Reilly.

“Provision of detailed sex instruction either in the classroom or in private to pre-puberty children is ill-advised and potentially harmful. The professional reason for this is the existence and importance of the latency period in human personality growth and development. This is a period of varying duration but in most cases it covers the ages of 6 through to 10 or 11 years. During this time sexual thoughts, fantasies and interests are minimal, relatively quiescent, and the child is educationally ideal. The concept of latency and its importance is still accepted by the majority of

LIBERALISM IS A SIN

Don Félix Sardà y Salvany: – was

sound psychiatrists and psychologists, even though the proponents of classroom sex education tend to deny or minimise it” Dr. Melvin Anchell put it forthrightly when he said,” There is no school programme given anywhere at any grade level that does not disrupt normal sexual growth processes.”

The concerned parents produced a 70 page booklet quoting Church Teaching and Lay opposition to school sex education in an effort to inform parents and provide a counter­ argument to ‘Education for Love’.

Nevertheless, the authors remained unmoved by the indisputable evidence and implemented the programme.

The current ‘Relationships and Sexuality Education’ Guidance Document for Primary and Post Primary schools, Northern Ireland 2021, produced by the Catholic Schools’ Trustee Service could best be described as an attempt to forge a union between two opposing forces, the Authority of The Catholic Church against The Advances of the Sex Education Movement.

CATECHISM ON MODERNISM

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.

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

Father J. B. Lemius, produced this ‘Catechism on years. He died on January 2, 1916 at Modernism’ in the familiar the age of 71. This book, Liberalism question and answer format is a Sin, is particularly relevant to of the time, in order to make the teachings of the the times we live in today where Liberalism permeates every Encyclical more accessible to ordinary Catholics and aspect of our society and has deeply infiltrated the thinking of by way of explaining in a clear and concise manner the many of the Catholic hierarchy. reasons why the Encyclical was published.

‘La Revista Popular’ for over forty

Paperback €/£13.50 inc p&p Published by Lumen Fidei Press

Paperback €/£13.50 inc p&p Published by Lumen Fidei Press

To Order please telephone 059 8627268 ROI 00353 598627268 Outside ROI Alternatively, Order Online @ www.lumenfidei.ie/shop

28 THE PRESENTATION OF MARY

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

The Presentation Of The Blessed Virgin Mary Feast Day - November 21st Dom Prosper Gueranger

The Presentation is one of the minor solemnities of our Lady and was inscribed at a comparatively late date on the sacred Cycle; it seems to court the homage of our silent contemplation. The world, unknown to itself, is ruled by the secret prayers of the just; and the Queen of saints, in her hidden mysteries, wrought far more powerfully than the so-called great men whose noisy achievements fill the annals of the human race.

The East had been celebrating for seven centuries at least the entrance of the Mother of God into the temple of Jerusalem, when in 1372 Gregory XI permitted it to be kept for the first time by the Roman court at Avignon. Mary in return broke the chains of captivity that had bound the Papacy for seventy years; and soon the successor of St. Peter returned to Rome. The feast of the Visitation, as we saw on July 2nd, was in like manner inserted in the Western calendar to commemorate the re-establishment of unity after the schism which followed the exile.

In I373, following the example of the Sovereign Pontiff, Charles V of France introduced the feast of the Presentation into the chapel of his palace. By letters dated November 10th, 1374, to the masters and students of the college of Navarre, he expressed his desire that it

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 Complete coupon and return with cheque/postal order to John Lacken, Ballinlough, Claremorris, Co Mayo F12 TN23 Name: ...........................................................................................

Address: ........................................................................................ ....................................................................................................... .......................................................................................................

Phone No: .....................................................................................

Please send me ______copies of the CD - ‘Hands off our Kids’ Total Enclosed: € ________ To pay by post with credit/debit card please complete: Card number: ______________________________________ Expiry Date: _________________ C.V.V._______________

should be celebrated throughout the kingdom: Charles, by the grace of God king of the Franks, to our dearly beloved: health in Him who ceases not to honour His Mother on earth. Among other objects of our solicitude, of our daily care and diligent meditation, that which rightly occupies our first thoughts is, that the blessed Virgin and most holy Empress be honoured by us with very great love, and praised as becomes the veneration due to her. For it is our duty to glorify her; and we, who raise the eyes of our soul to her on high, know what an incomparable protectress she is to all, how powerful a mediatrix with her blessed Son, for those who honour her with a pure heart... Wherefore, wishing to excite our faithful people to solemnize the said feast, as we ourselves propose to do by God’s assistance every year of our life, we send this Office to your devotion, in order to increase your joy.’

Such was the language of princes in those days. Now, just at that very time the wise and pious king, following up the work begun at Brétigny by our Lady of Chartres, rescued France from its fallen and dismembered condition. In the State, then, as well as in the Church, at this moment so critical for both, our Lady in her Presentation commanded the storm, and the smile of the infant Mary dispersed the clouds.

The new feast, enriched with Indulgences by Paul II, had gradually become general, when St. Pius V, wishing to diminish the number of Offices on the universal calendar, included this one among his suppressions.

But Sixtus V restored it to the Roman breviary in 1585, and shortly afterwards Clement VIII raised it to the rank of double major. Soon the clergy and regulars adopted the custom of renewing their holy vows on this day, whereon their Queen had opened before them the way that leads by sacrifice to the special love of our Lord. .

‘Hearken, Oh daughter, and see, and incline thy ear, and forget thy people and thy father’s house; and the King shall greatly desire thy beauty.’ Thus, wording the wishes of the ‘daughters of Tyre,’ sang the Church of the expectation, on the summit of Mount Moriah; and penetrating the future with her inspired glance, she added: ‘After her shall virgins be brought to the King, her neighbours shall be brought to thee; they shall be brought with gladness and rejoicing; they shall be brought into the temple of the King.’ Hailed beforehand as ‘beautiful above the sons of men,’ this King, the ‘most mighty,’ makes on this day a prelude to His conquests; and even this beginning is wonderful.

Through the graceful infant now mounting the temple steps He takes possession of that temple whose priests will hereafter vainly disown Him; for this child whom the temple welcomes today is His ‘throne.’ Already His fragrance precedes and announces Him in the Mother in whose bosom He is to be ‘anointed with the oil of gladness’ as the Christ among His brethren; already the angels hail her as the Queen whose fruitful virginity will give birth to all those consecrated souls who keep

19th November 2021

Catholic Voice

THE PRESENTATION OF MARY 29

for the divine Spouse the ‘myrrh’ and the incense of their holocausts, those ‘daughters of kings’ who are to form her court of honour.

But our Lady’s Presentation also opens new horizons before the Church. On the Cycle of the saints, which is not so precisely limited as that of the Time, the mystery of Mary’s sojourn in the sanctuary of the Old Covenant is our best preparation for the approaching season of Advent. Mary, led to the temple in order to prepare in retirement, humility, and love for her incomparable destiny, had also the mission of perfecting at the foot of the figurative altar the prayer of the human race, of itself ineffectual to draw down the Saviour from heaven. She was, as St. Bernardine of Siena says, the happy completion of all the waiting and supplication for the coming of the Son of God; in her, as in their culminating-point, all the desires of the saints who had preceded her found their consummation and their term.1 Through her wonderful understanding of the Scriptures, and her conformity, daily and hourly, to the minutest teachings and prescriptions of the Mosaic ritual, Mary everywhere found and adored the Messias hidden under the letter; she united herself to Him, immolated herself with Him in each of the many victims sacrificed before her eyes; and thus she rendered to the God of Sinai the homage, hitherto vainly expected, of the Law understood, practised, and made to fructify, in all the fullness that beseemed its divine Legislator. Then could Jehovah truly say: ‘As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and return no more thither, but soak the earth and water it, and make it to spring: . . . so shall My word be . . . it shall not return to Me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please.’

Supplying thus for the deficiencies of the Gentiles as well as of the Synagogue, Mary beheld in the bride of the Canticle the Church of the future. In our name The Presentation of Our Lady (detail) - Titian (1488 - 1576) she addressed her supplications to Him whom she recognized as the Bridegroom, without, however, Please Help Us To Promote knowing that He was to be her own Son. Such yearnings of love, coming from her, were sufficient to obtain from The Five First Saturdays of Reparation the divine Word pardon for the infidelities of the past Order Some of Our New Five and the immorality into which the wandering world First Saturday Devotions Cards was plunging deeper and deeper.

How well did this ark of the New Covenant replace that of the Jews, which had perished with the first temple!

It was for her, though he knew it not, that Herod the Gentile had continued the construction of the second temple after it had remained desolate since the time of Zorobabel; for the temple, like the tabernacle before it, was but the home of the ark destined to be God’s throne; but greater was the glory of the second temple which sheltered the reality, than of the first which contained but the figure.

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

“To forestall this [the second world war], I shall come to ask for the Consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

“If they heed My requests, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace. If not, she shall spread her errors throughout the world, promoting wars and persecutions of the Church; the good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated; in the end, My Immaculate Heart shall triumph.

(Our Lady - Fatima July 13th 1917)

30 BOOKS

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

STRENGTHEN YOUR FAITH DURING THIS CRISIS BUY CATHOLIC BOOKS! DON’T GO TO HELL Catholic Church Teaching on Hell

THE CHURCH IN OUR TIMES

This book contains three essays, one in question & answer format, from a time when pastors were more direct and ‘plain speaking’ in presenting the Truth of Catholic doctrine to their flocks.

They were primarily concerned with the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care rather than being overly concerned about whether or not their flocks would find these Truths offensive or difficult.

They sought the Praise and Glory of God, and not the praise of men.

is a series of reflections on topical issues concerning the Catholic Church and the practice of the faith ranging from ‘Faith and Culture’, to ‘GLBT – New thinking’, to ‘Purgatory and Remembrance’. Fr Hahesy’s style is conversational and he weaves through the various topics all the while pointing to the soul’s need for God. “The daily prayers at the end of this book, will ensure the salvation of our soul and a happier life here. Please believe me. It does not seem much to ask for such a great reward. To know and love God is the ultimate good whether people know this or not, accept it or not.”

€/£7 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

Purgatory - How to Avoid it

One rarely hears sermons preached on the four last things; death, judgement, Heaven & Hell, and this has led to a decline in belief concerning these matters.

CRISIS OF FAITH Bishop Athanasius Schneider This DVD presentation offers two 50-minute talks by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, delivered during a visit to Ramsgate, Kent, in February 2016.

Talks include, ‘The Immutability of the Catholic Faith’, ‘The Crisis of Faith in Our Days’ and ‘Blessed John Henry Newman and the Sacredness of the Liturgy’.

Also included are highlights from the Holy Hour and Benediction, with bishop Schneider reading meditations by St Peter Julian Eymard. €/£6 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

This really is a fantastic book which presents Catholic teaching on sin in a simple, clear and precise way. You will learn about the nature of sin, about the different kinds of sin, mortal and venial, formal and material sins.

Reflections on the Abortion Issue in Ireland.

Those of us here on earth can help to shorten the time that Holy Souls must spend in Purgatory. This book teaches us how best to help the Holy Souls in purgatory

The book also teaches us about sins of omission. After discussing sin, the book then speaks of the great graces offered to us in the sacrament of confession, it teaches us about temptations, about Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, and then it finishes with a very hope filled chapter on the joys of the resurrection.

Many countries, including Ireland, have removed the right to life from the Constitution and given the legislature the power to legalise abortion, which by definition is the intentional killing of the unborn child.

The assumption is that unborn babies have no human rights. The essays in this monograph expose the fallacy that unborn babies do not have the right to life and may be ‘terminated’ if that is the ‘choice’ of the mother. In the New Ireland, human killing is now legal. It is estimated that 800 – 900 unwanted unborn babies are ‘terminated’ every month. Abortion has become the murder machine of our time.”

€/£7 inc p&p Ireland €/£8.50 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£10 inc p&p Ireland €/£12 inc p&p outside Ireland

€/£13.50 inc p&p Ireland €/£15 inc p&p outside Ireland

The souls of most of those who die in a state of grace, will spend some time in Purgatory to be purified before they can enter the all holy realm of Heaven.

Book Title/s: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Credit/Debit Card Number: __________________________________________________ Expiry Date: _______________________________ C.V.V. ________________ Total Enclosed: €/£__________________________ Name: _________________________________________________________________ Address: _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Post Code: __________________________________ Daytime Tel: ________________________________

Send completed form with cheque/postal order made payable to Catholic Voice or with credit/debit card details to: Catholic Voice, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, Co Kildare, Ireland or telephone 059 8627268 (00353 59862726 8 from outside Ireland) Please allow 14 working days for delivery.

CLASSIFIEDS 31

19th November 2021 Catholic Voice

CLASSIFIEDS Services

TELEPHONE 00353 59 8627268

REGULAR TRADITIONAL LATIN MASSES IN IRELAND

Welcome To Our New Lourdes Website saintbernadette.info Included are the following: The life and times of St Bernadette: The Importance of the Holy Rosary for our times: The Lourdes Apparitions: The Song of Bernadette Movie: Prayer cards on request and much much more. Contact via email morgansharpesenior@gmail.com

Next issue of

CatholicVoice On sale in churches, newsagents & bookshops from

3 December 2021

(LISTED BY DIOCESE) DAILY & WEEKLY Meath: Silverstream Priory (Benedictine monks) Armagh: New Mellifont Abbey, Collon, Co. Louth Stamullen: Sunday 10.00 preceded by Terce, other days 11.00.

Every Sunday 3pm.

Meath: Church of the Nativity, Johnstown, Navan, Co. Meath Cork & Ross: Ss Peter’s & Paul’s, Cork: Sundays 12.00 noon, Sundays 1pm; First Fridays 11am; Holydays as announced.

Mon - Sat 10.00.

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

Cork & Ross: St Mary’s, Pope’s Quay, Cork. Sundays 8:00am Raphoe: St. Patrick’s, Drumkeen, Donegal Sun 3pm. in the Dominican Rite; Down & Connor: Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Waterford: (FSSP) St. John’s Church, Parnell Street, Waterford Sunday: 8 and 11am, Mon-Fri (ex Thurs), 19:00. Thurs: 8am, City – Every Sunday 1:30pm, Mon 1:00pm, Tues – Friday Sat: 8am, 11am.

Dromore: St.Mary’s, Newry: Sundays and Holydays 9.00am.

Dublin: St. Kevin’s, Harrington Street: Sundays & non working Holy Days: 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00; (Vespers Sun 3:30pm.) Mon - Fri 08.00; Sat 09.00.

Working Holidays & 1st Fridays; 08.00 and 19.00.

Dublin: St. Joseph’s, Newtownmountkennedy Co Wicklow Sat 11:00 Elphin: Church of the Sacred Heart and St Barry, Whitehall, Tarmonbarry, Co Roscommon. Every Sunday 5pm Ferns: (FSSP) St. Alphonsus, Barntown, Co Wexford: Every Sunday 17.00 (Sung Mass 1st and 3rd Sundays), Holy days as announced.

Galway: Chapel of St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s Road (ICKSP) Sun 15:00 Limerick: Sacred Heart, The Crescent (ICKSP) Sun 8am, 10.30am, 6pm; Mon-Weds 08.00 and 18.00; Thurs 8:00, Friday 18.00; Saturday 08.00 & 10:30 (followed by 1st Saturday devotions)

19:30 (19:00 1st Fridays) Sat 11:00am, Holydays as announced.

TWICE MONTHLY Derry: St. Columba’s , Longtower: First and Third Sunday 14:00 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 Killaloe: St. Joseph ‘s, Ennis, Co Clare: First Sunday 17:30 Tuam: St. John the Baptist, (Old Parish 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 in the event of any changes or errors.

Email: adminmass@latinmassireland.com

Visit our all-new website today!

Mass Cards

Enrollment Books

All Occasion Gifts

It’s now easier than ever to have Mass cards, enrolment books & religious gifts delivered directly to your door.

Web: www.mscmissions.ie Email: info@mscmissions.ie Tel: +353 (0)21 4545704

32 ADVERT

Catholic Voice

19th November 2021

Gamaliel’s Counsel When they had heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they thought to put them to death.

But one in the council rising up, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, respected by all the people, commanded the men to be put forth a little while. And he said to them: Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do, as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theodas, affirming himself to be somebody, to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all that believed him were scattered, and brought to nothing.

After this man, rose up Judas of Galilee, in the days of the enrolling, and drew away the people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as consented to him, were dispersed.

And now, therefore, I say to you, refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God. And they consented to him. (Acts 5:33-39) Published by: Catholic Voice Newspapers, St Michael’s House, Castlemitchell South, Athy, County Kildare. Tel 059-8627268 ROI / 00353 - 59 8627268 Publisher: Anthony Murphy.

Layout by: Lumen Fidei