It's All About Me, Me, Me!

Msgr. Charles Pope responds to some criticisms of the new translation of the Mass, one of them being:

I can’t easily understand what Father is saying in those long, run-on sentences. It doesn’t make sense to me and I get lost in all the words.

If the language of the Novus Ordo boggles the mind, I can't imagine what the Traditional Latin Mass would do to her; her head would probably explode.

But here's my suggestion: Missals (you know, those little booklets in the pew) are useful.

The Monsignor also has some sage advice to offer:

The priest is not talking to you. He is not directing the prayer to you, and the first purpose of the prayer is not that you understand it perfectly. The prayer is directed to God, (most often, to God the Father). The priest is speaking to God, and is doing so on your behalf, and that of the whole Church. And God is wholly able to understand the prayer, no matter how complicated its structure.

Here's a revelation: the efficacy of the Mass has absolutely nothing to do with how much you, the parishioner, understand. In fact, your presence is not even required. You could be at home dozing on the couch in front of the telly, and the Mass would be just as efficacious without you there.

It's not all about you.

And I kindly suggest that if the new translation is that hard to understand, that you start setting aside a little time each day to read more books--not Harry Potter or the latest Danielle Steele novel, but good classic literature, history, or theology.

I find this deliciously funny

Siri is pro-life.

And feminists are outraged.

I've never been much on the latest gadgets, and I'm still fairly clueless about Siri, but apparently this computerized personal assistant refuses to direct inquirers to any abortion clinics.

In fact, it will give a list of crisis pregnancy centers in response. When you change the terminology to "pregnancy termination facility", Siri offers, among other things, a list of dentists and acupunturists.

LOL.

Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, predicts formation of a new rite of Mass:

In time, Cardinal Burke expects the Western Church’s ancient and modern forms of Mass to be combined in one normative rite, a move he suggests the Pope also favors.

“It seems, to me, that what he has in mind is that this mutual enrichment would seem to naturally produce a new form of the Roman rite — the ‘reform of the reform,’ if we may — all of which I would welcome and look forward to its advent.”

Iiiinteresting...

Gifts So Manly They'll Put Hair on His Chest

Taylor Marshall offers a nice list.



A few other ideas for your manly man:


Engraved tankard (pewter or glass), to be kept nice and frosty in the ice box until ready to be filled with a foamy stout or pale ale, according to your man's pleasure.


Fleur-de-lys flask, to be filled with your fellow's favorite single malt or London dry; can fit snugly in his pocket and carried about on his person; may be discreetly imbibed during one of the company's interminably long sensitivity training seminars.


Papal cuff links; now he can literally wear his faith on his sleeve.


If your man smokes (and even if he doesn't): Cigarette lighter with hidden camera, microphone, and USB port--how cool is this?


Your manly man, of course, attends the Traditional Latin Mass (or wishes he could), so he will appreciate this classic, thick, leather-bound Fr. Lasance Roman Missal (monogram optional).


Stainless steel grill kit, for serving up the perfect ribeye or running the backyard intruder through...


Men's leather mule slippers, to be kept by his bedside and worn about the house, preferably with the following ensemble:


Cotton sateen striped pajamas (think William Powell first thing in the morning)...

...although he might appreciate this nightwear a little more (ahem--married men only, please)...



One doesn't need loads of cash to make a well-stocked bar; use a side table and nice tray, and load it up with your fellow's favorite drinks. When he gets home from a hard day's work, greet him with a kiss and a gin & tonic, or a Jameson's on the rocks.



The Spiritual Combat Rosary--not only does it look cool, it's tough as nails. Based on the original pull chain rosary commissioned by the U.S. government and issued by the military to soldiers serving in WWI. As the website states, This rosary is meant to endure. Special locking jump rings add to this rosary’s toughness. This rosary’s endurance is meant to highlight the hopeful words of Psalm 136: “His love endures forever.” Get it here.


Nothing beats a gift with eternal rewards--and it doesn't get better than Holy Mass offered for your favorite guy. A novena of Masses is even better--and in the extraordinary form? Out of this world. And these good men at Clear Creek Abbey would be happy to offer Mass for your intentions on any day of the year.


And for the really manly man who literally wants hair on his chest:


The hair shirt. To be worn under the garments. A hair shirt similar to the one above is supposed to have been worn by Pope Celestine V, elected pope as an octegenarian, but who abdicated in favor of the eremitical life of the solitary.

The Americanist Heresy

Russell Shaw's analysis of Testem Benevolentiae is a must-read for any Catholic American.

"There's not a dime's worth of difference between Catholics and their fellow Americans now in moral outlook or religious practice. We fornicate at the same rate. We divorce at the same rate. We abort our children at the same rate. We are materially rich and so, in true chauvinistic fashion, we claim favored-nation status before the Lord." That unflattering judgment appears in a recent article on Americanism by Father Rory Conley, a Washington, DC priest and student of Church history. Writing in (winter 1993), he calls what has happened "the triumph of Americanism over the Roman Catholic Church in this country."

Catholics well-versed in the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights might be surprised (horrified?) when they read that our past pontiffs have condemned rampant freedom of speech and of the press:

15. Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?

16. The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books.

--Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari vos

[W]hile they rashly affirm this [freedom of speech], they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition."

--Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura

[T]he liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils....Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law.

--Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei

Ah, to be Catholic!

Fr. Mark Kirby, OSB, offers a truly Catholic homily for Thanksgiving:

[On the Mass:] This is the Great Thanksgiving of the Church, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. This is the Great Thanksgiving of Jerusalem and of Antioch, of Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. This is the Great Thanksgiving woven into the history and culture of the Western world. This is the Great Thanksgiving that caused men to raise altars to God and build cathedrals and churches to house them.
...
The Mayflower Puritans, you will remember, fled Europe to put far behind them, once and for all, altar and priest, chalice and paten, saints, feast-days, and every Popish trapping and Romish invention. The Puritans of Plymouth and of New Haven deemed the Mass an abomination. They judged even the Protestantized Communion Service of the Church of England by far too Catholic. The Puritans grasped the link between thanksgiving and fruitfulness but, having rejected the Mass, they had no way to express it sacramentally. The Thanksgiving festival emerged in a Eucharistic void, in a culture bereft of altar and of priest. The Puritans of Plymouth and of the New Haven Colony would be horrified to see their “Thanksgiving” observed today in a Papist nunnery with the Romish Sacrifice of the Mass!

For our part, being incurably Papist and given to everything Romish, Thanksgiving Day falls within the greater Catholic rhythm of a life measured by thy Holy Sacrifice. We live from Mass to Mass, from one Great Thanksgiving to another. To be Catholic is “always and everywhere to give thanks.” To be Catholic is to live eucharistically, drawn into the prayer of Christ to the Father and the fruitfulness that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Mayflower Screwballs

The real story behind the first Thanksgiving, including the shenanigans that took place among recusant Catholics on the Mayflower...

Warning: Loss of Brain Cells to Ensue

The Star Tribune has published this piece of genius:

After nearly 40 years, Catholics brace themselves for a new translation of the mass that sticks closer to the original Latin.
...
For more than a year, anxious [anxious?] Minnesota priests and parishioners have been readying themselves for the rollout of the missal, which goes into effect Nov. 27....While some have found a few changes to be more poetic and lyrical, others think the translation will turn people off. [Aww...]
...
[David Haas says,] "the language needs to have a simplicity and a sense of accessibility and ... comprehension. I believe the translation at times is not easily comprehensible or accessible." [Read: BIG words scare us; follow my liturgical lead and keep it simple. Exempli gratia:]

I ask forgiveness in advance for the following.



Musical interlude over. Back to the article:

[This tops it for "Most Patronizing Attitude of the Year" award]"We wanted people to understand the changes and not be scared of them," Klima said. "It's a big deal because we consider the mass to be the central thing we do [thing?]. Different isn't necessarily better, and it isn't necessarily worse. [Then what is it?] It'll be jarring for a while because change is jarring."
...
"It will take some getting used to for people. When we've been doing something for decades, it will be quite an adjustment to read responses and not have them come from deep in our hearts." [Hmm. I vaguely recall something similar happening, oh, 40 years ago or so...]

Fac meam diem.

Acts of the Apostasy shows why movies sound cooler in Latin...

Vote!

WashPo asks: Should girls be allowed to be altar servers?

The Nun in a Cloister Garden, Gabriel Max, 1869, Hamburg, Germany

O the humanity!

Mass had just begun at Corpus Christi Catholic Church when Jennifer Zickel, a Sunday school teacher, glanced at the church bulletin and saw something that made her sick to her stomach.

Tucked in with announcements about a new electronic donation system and a church dinner at Margarita’s Mexican restaurant was news that Zickel, the mother of two girls, had been dreading: Corpus Christi would no longer train girls to be altar servers.

Zickel burst into tears and ran to the bathroom.

“I knew right then that our family couldn’t stay at this church anymore,” Zickel said, her voice breaking. “I’m a mama bear, and they’re going after my girls."

Boohoo. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, deary.

Social Injustice

I sincerely hope no one gave to the CCHD today, that dissenting group masquerading as the social justice arm of the USCCB.

Interview with Fr. Michael Rodriguez

The faithful priest who was shipped 250 miles away to a rural parish because he spoke out against the homosexual lifestyle was interviewed last month:

As I grew up in the early '70s, I was completely unaware of the disastrous post-Vatican II revolution that was sweeping throughout our beloved Catholic Church. Thanks be to God, I was raised by parents who were staunch Catholics with their childhood roots in the pre-Vatican II Catholicism of México.
...
MJM: What was it initially that led you to begin offering the old Mass?

FR: About six years ago, several members of the faithful began asking me if I would be interested in offering the Traditional Latin Mass.... As the weeks passed, I began to study the prayers and theology of the Traditional Latin Mass. The more I studied, the more my awe and amazement grew. I was "discovering" not only the true Catholic theology of the Mass, but also the true Catholic theology of the priesthood, and so much more! Throughout my first nine years of priesthood, I had struggled to make sense of the very serious problems which exist in the Church. At this point, it was obvious that an extreme crisis pervaded the Church and her hierarchy, but why? I just couldn't quite understand how all of this "diabolical disorientation" had come to pass . . . until the brilliant light of the true Catholic Mass ("Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam . . .") began to penetrate my priestly soul. This "discovery" of the Traditional Latin Mass has been, by far, the greatest gift of God to my poor priesthood.
...
MJM: Are you now able to offer the old Mass exclusively?

FR: Since I began my new assignment (Sept. 24, 2011) out in the rural, isolated missions of the El Paso Diocese, I've offered the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively. I consider this to be a marvelous and unexpected blessing from Providence in the midst of a very difficult trial. I hope to continue offering the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively.
...
MJM: Up until last year, I believe, things were pretty quiet in your priestly life. What happened to change all that?

FR: The local, and even national, "controversy" that has engulfed me is due to the fact that I have been vocal in promoting what the Roman Catholic Church teaches in regard to the whole issue of homosexuality. It's a disgrace, but the City Council of El Paso has been adamant in trying to legitimize same-sex unions. This goes completely contrary to Catholic Church teaching. I've made it clear to the Catholics of El Paso (and beyond) that every single Catholic has a moral obligation before God Himself to oppose any government attempt to legalize homosexual unions. A Catholic who fails to oppose this homosexual agenda, is committing a grave sin by omission. Furthermore, if a Catholic doesn't assent to the infallible moral teaching of the Church that homosexual acts are mortally sinful, then such a Catholic is placing himself / herself outside of communion with the Church. These are the Catholics who are actually excommunicating themselves, not the Society of St. Pius X!
...
MJM: I can understand why the civil authorities and media might find this “controversial”; but why would your ecclesial superiors find it so?

FR: The dismal response of both civil and ecclesiastical authorities to the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church in regard to homosexuality demonstrates how extreme the current crisis of faith actually is. It really can't get much worse. There's hardly any faith left to lose! Even a pagan, bereft of the light of faith, can arrive at the conclusion that homosexual acts are intrinsically evil. Reason, natural law, and consideration of the male and female anatomy more than suffice to confirm this moral truth.

MJM: And yet you must go where the bishop tells you to go. Is this difficult for you?

FR: In my particular circumstances, obedience to my bishop has been incredibly difficult. Nevertheless, obedience is essential to the priesthood, and I intend to be obedient. One consoling aspect of "sacrificial," "death-to-self" obedience, is that the Holy Ghost will always come to one's assistance. I'm reminded that my poor sufferings are nothing compared to those of Mater Dolorosa and our Divine Redeemer. If I'm counted as one even slightly worthy to suffer for the Faith and the Traditional Latin Mass, I will consider myself profoundly blessed. God is so good.
...
MJM: How can lay Catholics best survive this crisis of faith?

FR: In order to overcome this crisis of faith, we must (1) do everything in our power to recover the Catholic Faith: the Ancient Rite, traditional Catholic teaching in doctrine and morals, the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, traditional Catholic piety and devotions, and a traditional Catholic “code of living” or “rhythm of life.” (2) On a daily basis we must strive to pray, study, fast, do penance, and practice charity with the aforementioned goal in mind. Finally, I strongly urge all faithful Catholics to (3) pray the Holy Rosary daily and heed our Blessed Mother's Message at Fatima.

One of the hallmarks of the Traditional Latin Mass is its exquisite and concentrated focus on eternity. If we are to survive and overcome this terrible crisis of faith in the post-Vatican II Catholic Church, we have to keep our intellect and will focused on eternity. We cannot lose hope when, from a worldly perspective, all seems lost. Jesus Christ promises “the kingdom of heaven” to those who endure persecution, and “a great reward in heaven” to those who suffer for His sake. (Mt 5:10-12) The final goal is heaven! Like St. Paul, we must press ahead towards the ultimate “prize” (Phil 3:14) and never cease to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.” (Col 3:1)

Worth reading the whole thing.

Catholics Did It First

As Thanksgiving approaches, a nice reminder...

***


If you're anything like me and don't take kindly to celebrating a holiday commemorating a group of Calvinists who set up a Puritan theocracy in New England known for persecuting Catholics, then you can rest easy; the protestants were not the first to celebrate Thanksgiving in this country--Catholics were.

Saint Augustine, Florida is the oldest settlement in the United States, founded in 1565 by Spanish Catholic explorers. On first sighting land on August 28, the feast of St. Augustine, they named the city after him. On September 8, the Nativity of Mary, they came ashore with great fanfare--to the astonishment of the natives. A Mass of Thanksgiving was held, after which a communal feast was celebrated with the local Seloy tribe. It was the first communal thanksgiving celebration in the first permanently settled European colony on American soil.

Others say the date of April 30, 1598, is also significant: Spanish settlers from Mexico set up camp in the American Southwest, held a Mass of thanksgiving, and named the land New Mexico in honor of God and of their king, Philip II. A feast was held, with Franciscan priests blessing the food before everyone ate their fill. At the end of the meal, plays were enacted depicting scenes of Native Americans upon first hearing the Catholic faith.

But what about Plymouth Rock and Pilgrims, etc?

Queen Elizabeth had little patience for Catholics, but even less for Calvinists, who complained the Church of England remained too papist. In their desire to complete the Reformation and "purify" religion of popish trumperies, the Puritans broke from the Anglican Church, rejected the Book of Common Prayer, and preferred the anti-royalist Geneva Bible to the King James version. They instituted an independent congregationalist ideal that upheld the notion of the common priesthood of all believers, and thus granted an equal say among congregants in the election of the minister (some claim the roots of American democracy lie here). All of this naturally brought down on them the wrath of the Crown, and persecution commenced. A number of Puritans fled England and sought refuge in Holland, where they lived for a dozen years, before deciding to leave for the New World. After meeting another group of Puritans in Southampton, all boarded the Mayflower on September 16, 1620. Sixty-five days later, they sighted Cape Cod. The communal meal we know of as "Thanksgiving" took place in 1621 with about ninety Native Americans, and lasted three days.

After the Catholic Spanish were defeated by the British and driven out of the (largely Protestant) colonies, it became more expedient and attractive to focus on the 1621 date marking the arrival of the Pilgrims to celebrate this national holiday of thanksgiving--and Americans have done so ever since, entirely obliterating from national memory any influence from earlier Spanish Catholic settlers.

But don't let such revisionist history fool you; Catholics have as much claim to this celebration as anyone, if not more. And as all good Catholics know, eucharistia is Greek for "thanksgiving"--so be sure to leg it to Mass that day and pay your respects to the Giver of all good gifts.

NJ Nurses Speak Out

Some of the nurses in New Jersey who have faced pressure to do abortions at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey spoke out yesterday at a press conference. They appeared with pro-life attorneys from Alliance Defense Fund and Congressman Chris Smith.
...
[One nurse testified:] The hospital has made statements to the media, saying that they don’t compel anyone to violate their religious beliefs, but this is false. I myself and all 12 of us have been told we must assist abortion cases even though we object. Several of us have been forced to assist already despite objecting. We and our attorneys have repeatedly asked the hospital not to force us to provide services on abortion cases, and the hospital has repeatedly said it will not back down and that we are required to assist.

The hospital is being obstinate in the face of clear state and federal law forbidding this practice. Readers can let the hospital know their minds at this e-mail address: uhcontact@umdnj.edu

Another Latin Mass Community Disbanded

...at least temporarily. Fr. Laurent Demets, FSSP, a French priest and acquaintance of mine, has been removed from his parish because of allegations that he slapped a teenager. Fr. Demets himself admitted the action, and the diocese, under the existing procedures for dealing with child abuse, has removed him from his ministry. In all likelihood, he will be returning to France.

The first thing I'll say is this: Fr. Demets is a holy priest. Second, the little smack likely only hurt the kid's ego, nothing more. Third, the parents had given the priest explicit permission to discipline their child, and were not in the least offended by his actions. Fourth, Fr. Demets is a French priest, with very French sensibilities, and as a Frenchwoman myself, I can say that the French take liberties in disciplining *other people's children* in ways that Americans do not. I witnessed it firsthand on a number of occasions when I lived in France; it is a cultural difference. The French feel a certain freedom in correcting others' children if they see obvious misbehavior, whereas in America, we generally wouldn't dare, and take extreme offense when others do so.

Pope St. Pius X (emphasis on saint) slapped two girls who were being unruly during Mass. And parents might want to be reminded of Proverbs 23:13: "Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die." If Fr. Demets had done in France what he is accused of having done here, I guarantee his diocese would not have batted an eyelash. But here, hysterics are launched, the absurd cry of "child abuse" sounded, and a good and holy priest, who has served his parish faithfully for years, is packed off to exile, while the Latin Mass community languishes as it awaits a replacement. Our loss. I'm sure the good father will be happy to return to his mother country.

Fr. Demets himself has said, "I acknowledge the fact, I do not feel guilty at all for correcting a child, and I did that in front of her mother who should have corrected her in my place but did nothing.... all Western civilization is messed up. You can kill babies, but you cannot smoke. You can say heresy in the Church, but cannot discipline a kid..... O tempora o mores!"

How true...Judging from the tidbit above, it sounds as if the girl may have uttered blasphemy. If so, the priest in his zeal was defending Our Lord's honor, and he did so in a way firm, immediate, and unforgettable. If I were that mother I would have thanked the priest!

Update: SNAP, whose latest efforts center on jailing the Pope, has gotten its grubby fingers on the story.

Love and not nails fastened Him to the cross; love and not men triumphed. How could they have been masters, since with one single word, He could have thrown them to the earth?

--Bd. Raymond of Capua, Life of St. Catherine of Sienna

What separates the saints

Archbishop Fulton Sheen wrote that Christ was born to die. The rest of us come into this world in order to live, and death is a rupture in that life. But Our Lord's entire existence fell beneath the shadow of that Cross, which loomed ever before Him, even from the moment He lay in the cradle.

What separates the saints from the rest is their embrace of this same purpose: that they, in their ardent love for Our Lord, so identify with Him that they see their purpose as one and the same: they, too, were born to die. They cannot bear the thought of their Lord ascending Mt. Calvary alone. They must walk with Him.

Did Pius XII Go Undercover?

Related to my previous post, CNA has an article offering details of one family's experience with the wartime pope, whom they believe dressed up as a Franciscan, went into the Jewish Ghetto, and took them to safety within the Vatican City walls.

Gary Krupp came across the evidence in a letter from a Jewish woman whose family was rescued thanks to direct Vatican intervention.

“It is an unusual letter, written by a woman who is alive today in northern Italy, who said she was with her mother, her uncle, and a few other relatives in an audience with Pius XII in 1947.” Next to Pope Pius during the meeting was his Assistant Secretary of State, Monsignor Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI.

“Her uncle immediately looks at the Pope and he says, ‘You were dressed as a Franciscan,’ and looked at Montini who was standing next to him, ‘and you as a regular priest. You took me out of the ghetto into the Vatican.’ Montini immediately said, ‘Silence, do not ever repeat that story.’”

Krupp, who has made it his life's work to clear the good name of Pope Pius XII, also confirms the recent revelations that the 1963 play The Deputy (in which the pope was portrayed as cowardly acquiescing to the Nazi regime) was a Soviet plot to smear his reputation.

[A] former high-ranking KGB officer, Ion Mihai Pacepa,...claims that the tarnishing of the Pope’s reputation was a Soviet plot.

Krupp explains how the communists wanted to “discredit the Pope after his death, to destroy the reputation of the Catholic Church and, more significantly to us, to isolate the Jews from the Catholics. It succeeded very well in all three areas.”

But Krupp sees the tide turning.

“The dam is cracking now, without question,” he says.

Ironically, perhaps, Krupp says he meets more resistance when he speaks at Catholic parishes than in Jewish synagogues. “Many Jews,” he explains, “have been extremely grateful, saying, ‘I’m very happy to hear that. I never wanted to believe this about him,’ especially those of us who knew him, who were old enough to know him.”

It is said that, at the moment of the Pope's death, Padre Pio, who was in the middle of saying Mass, saw a glorious vision of the Holy Father in his heavenly abode. St. Pio's account is confirmed by several persons, who were told of his vision. Many have also claimed miracles through his intercession. We can therefore pray with confidence for the Holy Father's beatification.

Prayer for the Beatification of Pius XII

O Jesus, Eternal Pontiff, You deigned to elevate to the supreme dignity of Your Vicar here on earth, Your faithful servant Pius XII, and to him You gave the grace of being an intrepid defender of the Faith and a courageous asserter of justice and of peace, a devoted glorifier of Your Holy Mother and a luminous model of charity and of all the virtues. Deem worthy now, in view of his merits, to grant us the grace that we ask of You. We are certain of his efficacious intercession and we hope to see him one day glorified on Your altars. Amen.

Imprimatur
+ Petrus Canisius Van Lierde

Related: CIA episode on Pope Pius XII

Pope Pius XII

How could a man praised for his defense of the Jewish people during World War II by everyone from Franklin Roosevelt to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir become known as “Hitler’s Pope” 50 years later?

Good question. Attorney Ronald Rychlak offers a comprehensive and meticulously researched answer in his excellent Hitler, the War, and the Pope, which was compiled in part by accessing closed sections of the Vatican archives. I read the book some years ago and came away rather enlightened about this courageous pope, whose reputation for heroism during World War II and his sheltering of thousands of Jews garnered him the highest title a non-Jew could be awarded: that of Righteous Gentile.

Numerous Jewish leaders, including Albert Einstein, Israeli Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Moshe Sharett, and Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog, expressed their public gratitude to Pius XII, praising him as a "righteous gentile," who had saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In his meticulously researched and comprehensive 1967 book, Three Popes and the Jews, the Israeli historian and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, who had served as the Israeli Counsel General in Milan, and had spoken with many Italian Jewish Holocaust survivors who owed their life to Pius, provided the empirical basis for their gratitude, concluding that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands." To this day, the Lapide volume remains the definitive work, by a Jewish scholar, on the subject.

Rychlak has recently had to revise his book because of new, rather explosive information that has come to light: the original play that vilified Pius XII, The Deputy, which debuted in West Berlin in 1963 and has done so much damage to the good Pope's reputation, was actually a communist plot to smear the Pope's name.

Rychlak revealed the most stunning evidence supporting the theory that “The Deputy” was a Soviet scheme to discredit Pius—in 2007, the highest ranking Soviet bloc officer ever to defect to the West revealed his part in plan.

“I thought it sounded fishy at first,” Rychlak said. “Then I started to doing the research.”

He found that after World War II, Communist regimes had convicted many religious leaders in show trials.

“It happened from place to place. They’d take well-known leaders and charge them with collaboration with the Nazis. Later, many of those who did this apologized and talked about it," Rychlak said providing several examples.

Drawing from his research, Rychlak noted how almost every person involved in producing, translating, and publishing “The Deputy” had close ties to the Communist Party. Many had ties to the KGB or its predecessor.

“’The Deputy’ was a Kremlin plot, part of a plan to discredit the West,” Rychlak said. And such new evidence required the revision and updating of his book, which came out last May.

You can order the revised version here.

In the meantime, let us pray that the beatification process for this pope moves forward, regardless of any political outcry.

CCHD: Rival Magisterium?

One doesn't know how else to explain their outright disregard for Church teaching by consistently funding groups that advocate or participate in anti-Catholic positions. Even after being called to account with incontrovertible evidence, the USCCB continues to tolerate the CCHD's shenanigans. Some Catholics will claim the "rival Magisterium" charge is "uncharitable", but these are generally Catholics who think anyone wearing a mitre is free from suspicion. They might do well to recall that every English bishop but one caved in to King Henry VIII's demands to renounce the Pope as head of the Church; the one who did not is a canonized saint and martyr. And who can forget the wholesale rebellion of the entire Canadian Bishops Conference when it issued the infamous Winnipeg Statement?

As to the CCHD, here is one example: Ralph McCloud, who runs the daily operations of the CCHD, was discovered to be an active supporter of pro-abortion democrat Wendy Davis when she ran in Texas (she actually defeated the pro-life incumbent). McCloud stayed on board, and continues to run the organization's day-to-day affairs. And then there's this, as reported by Stephanie Block:

[T]here’s the CCHD’s extraordinary funding of the Center for Community Change , an organization that was not only awarded a $150,000 CCHD grant in 2001 but is promoted on the US Catholic bishops’ website and has sent speakers to CCHD functions.

A former chair [John Carr] of the Center’s board heads one of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ departments. Furthermore, at least 31 other CCHD grantees a “partnered” with the Center. Some of those grantees have extensive networks of their own CCHD-funded affiliates and many of these partners and their affiliates work directly within Catholic parishes. This makes the Center for Community Change’s sphere of influence within the US Catholic Church enormous.

What’s the problem with that? Well! The ALL report states, “[T]he culture of death is pervasive throughout the Center for Community Change, from its board members to the grants it receives, to its projects and its promoted literature. Any group partnering with this organization is directly involved with this pervasive attitude.”

The USCCB has since scrubbed clean its website of any evidence of collaboration with the CCC, but John Carr, who was chairman at CCC, remains Executive Director of the USCCB's Dept of Justice, Peace & Human Development.

The following exposé makes it beyond clear why giving a penny to this group should be impossible for any Catholic.