We sent our eldest child to Christendom College with the understanding that this was the best Catholic education we could find. At the time, we believed all the hype that was advertised by the school and the Newman Guide to Catholic Colleges.
Throughout the last four years, it has been revealed how wrong we were. The tremendous scandal of having Liz Lev continue as a professor for the college’s Rome program and inviting her to come speak on campus in Virginia was the last straw. I have zero respect for the administration of Christendom College and we tell anyone who asks what that school is really all about. It’s professional Catholicism at its worst, masquerading as “traditional” Catholic education. We will not be sending our other children to the school. It boggles my mind how they are raising 40 MILLION dollars for a new chapel! It makes one wonder about the other dubious ties they have.
Not only is Lev still employed by the college, but they use her to HIGHLIGHT the Rome program!
God help us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us who have recourse to thee, and for all those who do not have recourse to thee, especially the Freemasons, and for all those who are commended to thee.
This piece has been a LONG TIME COMING. But today’s the day. Put out the cat.
In the wake of the #CatholicMeToo phenomenon which is still holding traction and moving along nicely, pretty much everyone is naively asking the question, “How could they not know that McCarrick was so evil? How could this man have possibly been elevated and advanced up the hierarchical chain the way he was? How could such an evil person acquire so much power?”
The answer in once sentence:
The fact that McCarrick was an open sodomitical predator was considered a FEATURE, not a bug, and the higher he ascended, and the more powerful he became, the more valuable he became to those around him who sought to LEVERAGE CORRUPTION AND CRIMINALITY for their own gain, and the more intensely those around him covered for his crimes against young men and boys.
Folks, we’ve all got to wise up here if there is any hope of prosecuting this war against the infiltrators and forces of evil. When out Lord says, “Be wise as serpents…,” He isn’t just whistling Dixie. The near-unanimous failure of people to grasp these dynamics is really frustrating. You can’t win a war when every general is a doe-eyed Pollyanna constantly looking around and asking, “Why are those angry-looking men pointing guns at us?”
Look, Diabolical Narcissist Psychopaths attract other DN psychopaths. These demoniacal creatures flock together. If you are asking questions such as, “What did Donald Wuerl know about McCarrick, and when did he know it?”, I can tell you the answer right now. He knew damn-near everything, and knew it from the beginning. The same goes for Kevin Farrell. And not just other prelates, but clerics and laypeople that are employed by or otherwise make their livings off the Institutional Church as well. The rot is deep. One might even say hopelessly deep, barring supernatural intervention.
I think the best way to explain this is with a specific case, and that specific case is the former number three and public face of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Thomas Williams. The other reason why this specific example is particularly helpful, is because there are people claiming that people on the so-called “right” are only going after the McCarricks and Wuerls because they are on the so-called “left”. Well, Fr. Thomas Williams and the Legion of Christ are the perfect examples of criminal psychopaths running their racket in the Institutional Church, wrapping themselves in the mantle of “conservatism”. So, let’s kill two birds with one stone here, and show how this cancer infects every corner of the Church – from hard left to soft left to neo-conservative to conservative to Trad – the whole spectrum.
Fr. Thomas Williams, who is now laicized, was the pretty-boy face of the truly evil racketeering organization the Legion of Christ for many years – pretty much from the late 1990s until 2012. Fr. Thomas Williams lived for YEARS with the satanic founder of the Legion of Christ, Marcial Maciel, who was a drug-addled, bisexual incestuous child rapist. That’s right, not only did Maciel sexually assault and rape Legion seminarians right and left, Maciel also RAPED HIS OWN SONS. And Fr. Thomas Williams LIVED WITH HIM. For YEARS.
This is very, very similar to now-Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was also top-ranking Legionary until he left in 1984 to climb the career ladder to the Cardinalate as a diocesan priest and also SHARED AN APARTMENT FOR YEARS with his mentor and patron, “Auntie Blanche” McCarrick, who was likewise an open sex criminal, assaulting and raping seminarians and boys, as everyone knew. Farrell, like Williams, is an inveterate and facile liar – a hallmark of Diabolical Narcissist psychopaths, and simply adopted the strategy of “deny, deny, deny, deny. ” It doesn’t matter how open the secret is. The universal strategy is DENY, DENY, DENY. The Clintons perfected this in the 1990s, specifically in the Lewinsky scandal. DN psychopaths all over the world watched and learned from the Clintons’ tutelage.
Back to Fr. Williams. You can read a very brief summary of the Fr. Thomas Williams scandal in THIS PIECE which Frank Walker at Canon212.com broke last summer on his blog, StumblingBlock.org. Just a couple of high points with additions and details that have been shared with me over the years about these truly deplorable people: Fr. Williams, flying high as the number three of the $30+ BILLION dollar Legion of Christ criminal racketeering organization, was recruited by Neo-con Catholic darling and John Paul II advisor Mary Ann Glendon to recruit Glendon’s Machiavellian apostate daughter, Elizabeth Lev, into the Legion. Glendon and Williams were both teaching at the Legion’s University in Rome. Williams, it should be noted, was no less than the DEAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MORAL THEOLOGY. Glendon’s daughter, Lev, was a hyper-promiscuous art history major who had just relocated to Rome. Glendon knew that her notoriously sexually aggressive and amoral daughter would, despite her apostasy, be more than happy to enter into “spiritual direction” with Fr. Williams with an eye towards a sexual affair with this “sexy” priest.
Sure enough, Lev conceived two children by Fr. Williams in the early 2000s. The first was miscarried, but the second was born with a very severe case of Down Syndrome. Lev, by now in her late 30s, was clearly trying to get pregnant by Fr. Williams as a means of getting her claws into the $30+ Billion Legion of Christ, leveraging her womb into a multi-million dollar blackmail/child support package. It worked. Fr. Williams put Lev on the payroll of Zenit, the Legion of Christ’s news publishing business, and Lev was thrown all manner of work as a tour guide for Legion of Christ’s millionaire recruiting junkets, and quickly became one of the most powerful people in the massive money-making machine that is the Vatican Museums – which the Legion of Christ and Opus Dei essentially run.
Fr. Williams, desirous to maintain his plum position at Maciel’s right hand, denied that he was the father, and even committed the grave sacrilege of baptizing his own bastard son in an effort to cover his tracks. Lev called the conception “a one night stand”, which given her extreme sexual promiscuity was sufficient to cast doubt in the Rome anglo social circle. Lev’s flamboyantly gay “best friend”, (who also had a penchant for sex with priests and seminarians – hey, friends have got to have shared interests, right?) was enjoined to publicly and theatrically “propose marriage” to Lev (which was, after a sufficient period of suspense, theatrically rejected), stood as godfather while Fr. Williams baptized the child, and then Fr. Williams and Lev essentially made the sodomite godfather the child’s caregiver, while both Fr. Williams and Lev aggressively pursued their respective careers in Rome – being sure to grease the gay godfather’s palms, which continues to this day. Remember this when Thomas Williams claims that he left the priesthood in order to care for his son. This is a man that happily stood by and watched while his son – suffering from mental retardation so severe that he is unable to speak and thus ever report abuse of any kind – was put in the care of a sodomite man.
Now to the REALLY unpleasant part. In ARSH 2005, Fr. Williams finally admitted after years of lying to the General Director of the Legion of Christ, and Williams’ immediate superior, Fr. Alvaro Corcuera (now deceased) that yes, the rumors were true, and he was, in fact, the father of Liz Lev’s youngest child. Fr. Corcuera ordered Williams to immediately start withdrawing from public ministry.
Not only did Fr. Williams disobey these orders, Williams turned around and increased his presence and appearances on American broadcast television, essentially being the “face of the Catholic Church” and “Vatican Analyst” for both NBC and CBS news. Williams had also started a racket in book publishing. The business model was simple: have Legion of Christ slaves ghostwrite mass-market books on Catholic “morality” and “spirituality”, have glamour shot photos taken of the somatic narcissist Fr. Williams, slap Williams’ name and picture of the cover, and market the books to the kind of middle-aged American women who buy books by celebrity priests based upon how “sexy” and “dreamy” the priest is. Williams was pushing his brand, and pushing it hard – after being ordered to withdraw from public ministry. All the while, he continued to carry on his sexual affair with Liz Lev OPENLY – frequently co-hosting parties at Lev’s million-dollar apartment overlooking the Vatican, serving as the bartender. Lev and Williams were often seen having romantic dinners in Rome, with Williams in civilian clothes, most notably at the infamous Roman restaurant PierLuigi. As if that weren’t enough, Williams was openly having sexual relationships with students at the Legion’s Rome University where Williams was, in case you have forgotten, the dean of the department of MORAL THEOLOGY. Classy.
And here’s the point, and the million-dollar question:
WHAT DID FR. THOMAS WILLIAMS KNOW ABOUT MARCIAL MACIEL AND HIS SEX CRIMES, AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
Given how brazenly and aggressively Williams disobeyed direct orders and carried on after being told in 2005 to withdraw from public ministry, how can it not be thought possible that Fr. Williams knew about Maciel’s crimes, and the crimes of other top-level Legionaries, and LEVERAGED THAT KNOWLEDGE IN ORDER TO PROTECT HIMSELF AND MAINTAIN HIS OWN LIFE OF SEX AND MINOR CELEBRITY?
Why did Fr. Thomas Williams and his baby-mama’s mother, Mary Ann Glendon, spend years working together character assassinating anyone who tried to blow the whistle on Marcial Maciel? But I think the big tell came in January of ARSH 2014, when Williams, having just married Lev (who wore a snow white dress, naturally) in New York City a few weeks before, published an “interview” with Robert Moynihan in which he claimed that he was unable to process how it could be possible (cue the violins…) that Marcial Maciel, a man that Williams “knew so well” could be anything other than the living saint the Legion racketeering cult claimed that he was.
Oh, COME ON. Maciel was carrying on a double life just exactly like Williams was carrying on a double life. Maciel’s double life was “possible” in exactly the same way Williams’ double life was “possible”.
I strongly, strongly suspect that Fr. Thomas Williams knew damn good and well what Maciel was, and what the other top-tier Legion toadies were – carrying on sexual affairs with both males and females, and how Legion seminarians were being sodomitically abused, and instead of screaming bloody murder and blowing the whistle and trying to PROTECT INNOCENT YOUNGSTERS as any morally sane person would, Fr. Williams proverbially rubbed his hands together, licked his chops, and considered his ability to blackmail the shit out of everyone around him and over him in the Legion as positively ideal.
Sit in stillness with that, and consider what a complete monstrosity a human being would have to be in order to think and operate that way.
If you want to see something that will turn your stomach, watch this clip of Fr. Thomas Williams appearing on CBS news in ARSH 2009 hawking one of his ghostwritten glamour-shot “moral theology” books for lonely middle-aged women. The best part is when Williams says that to be a trusting person makes you a better person, and that trustworthy people are themselves more trusting. That’s rich coming from a dead-eyed psychopath liar whose entire life revolved around abusing trust. I also find it informative that Harry Smith’s question is, “What is the reward in trusting God?” and Williams never makes any mention whatsoever to the one and only real answer to that question – eternal life. Yeah, that’s telling.
And this is the point. It isn’t just the boy-raping sodomite monsters like McCarrick that are the problem. Cleaning them out, while certainly a step in the right direction, won’t even come close to solving the problem, because you will still have an army of Diabolical Narcissist psychopaths who actively want these monsters around and in power so they can LEVERAGE THEIR CRIMES INTO THEIR OWN CAREER ADVANCEMENT, SECURITY AND POWER. If you can blackmail the shit out of the “boss”, then when you tuck yourself into bed at night, you can lull yourself to sleep with the warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with the knowledge that YOU are really the boss.
Thus, the bigger the crime, and the higher the office, the more valuable the commodity men like McCarrick and Maciel become.
Hell, for that matter, Antipope Bergoglio. Don’t kid yourselves – Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin is positively GIDDY to have someone so wildly immoral and blackmailable as Antipope Bergoglio squatting on the See of Peter. Laissez le bon temps rouler!
These leveragers of corruption are demoniacal saprophytes. They feed on the moral rot and decay of others – but want very much to keep the host organism alive, and even thriving and growing. Hence, the silence, the cover-ups, the enabling, the cooperation, the promotion of arch-criminals. McCarrick, Maciel, Bergoglio. it’s all the same thing.
Monsters leveraging the corruption of other monsters.
And, as we have learned from Antipope Bergoglio, the power plane ABOVE the McCarrick-level likewise wants to surround itself with blackmailable psychopaths. Good men are driven out precisely because they can’t be controlled. Psychopathy is a feature. Integrity is a bug. Both above, and below.
So what happened with Williams? A dossier was assembled and sent to the – wait for it – Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in ARSH 2012, which had jurisdiction over priest sex scandals, then still under Cardinal Mueller. Yes, the same Cardinal Mueller that Bergoglio fired along with three of his priest staffers precisely because they got too close and had too much information on Antipope Bergoglio’s boy-raping buddies in South America. That exact same office received a collection of evidence complied by a group of Legion of Christ whistleblowers and abuse victims on Fr. Williams’ sexual scandals, with particular emphasis on Williams’ sexual affairs with students at the Legion University in Rome, with a demand that Williams be removed from teaching. Confronted with this, Williams deployed his rolodex (NBC, CBS, Katie Couric…) and updated his resume, and began searching for a gig in big-time secular journalism that would allow him to “maintain the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed”… while a priest under vows of poverty, while dumping the priesthood and operating as a layman. He found a job offer with the Breitbart organization, from no less than Steve Bannon. So, now able, at long last, to finally move all of his faggoty designer clothes into Liz Lev’s million-dollar apartment and pull down a sweet paycheck as Breitbart’s “Rome Bureau Chief”, doing essentially copy-paste stories lifted from the Italian press, Williams “discerned” that he would leave the priesthood and marry Lev.
As is cited in the Canon212.com piece linked above, Williams admitted to the New York Times that he really didn’t miss being a priest – which is funny because the previous narrative he pushed in the Moynahan interview in January of ARSH 2014 was that his priestly vocation was SO IMPORTANT to him, that he “discerned” that he should go ahead and lead a double life, carrying on his affair with Lev. The truth is probably something like Williams (and Lev) had plans for Williams to eventually become a curial bishop or more, and that plan was ONLY abandoned because of the whistleblower dossier that was presented to the CDF. Had that dossier not happened, Williams would probably still be one of the top-ranking members of the Legion of Christ racketeering organization, and might have been named a bishop by now. We’ll never know.
Given what Antipope Bergoglio intends to do regarding priestly celibacy in the upcoming “youth synod”, which is, destroy it, do not be surprised if Bergoglio starts RESTORING THE PRIESTLY FACULTIES of laicized sacrilegious fornicators who married their concubines like Williams. And don’t be surprised if Williams jumps at the chance, particularly if he is promised a position in the Curia and elevation. After all, Williams already knows how to operate at the highest levels of a racketeering organization filled with boy raping sodomites and psychopaths, so he’d be like a fish in water in the Roman Curia of the Antichurch.
I hope this one example of many helps you understand that there is a massive throng of Diabolical Narcissist Psychopaths actively working to PROP UP, PROTECT, and ADVANCE criminals like McCarrick, and that is how and why men like McCarrick not only survive but thrive in the cesspit of the Antichurch bureaucracy, which is still occupying the same liturgical, sacramental and juridical space as the True Church, the Holy and Spotless Bride of Christ.
Let the #CatholicMeToo movement continue and accelerate. Let all of this filth be flushed out, including the leveragers of corruption. And let the people on the so-called “right” no longer protect and hush up corruption by the likes of Thomas Williams because “he is useful to the pro-life movement”. Wrapping one’s self in conservatism or even traditionalism can no longer be a viable strategy for evading justice.
And beware: these people are going to try to claim that psychopaths like McCarrick and Maciel and whomever else is finally exposed in the #CatholicMeToo movement, protected themselves from suspicion by surrounding themselves with good and holy priests that they kept ignorant of their crimes. NOTHING could be farther from the truth. These men were all surrounded by saprophytic leveragers of their corruption and criminality. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TROPE.
Keep asking the question:
Who knew what, and when did they know it?
A good start would be:
What did Cardinals “Donna Girl” Wuerl and Kevin Farrell know about “Auntie Blanche” McCarrick’s crimes, and when did they know it?
Let me close with a screenshot from just a few days ago that came across my transom by none other than Elizabeth Lev herself:
Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo. Amen.
Fra Angelico weeping as he paints the Crucifixion
I’m sorry I can’t find attribution for the image above – it looks 19th century to me, but that’s about all I can say, other than I find it a very moving image. (UPDATE! Within minutes, eagle-eyed readers, the fastest being a reader in Brazil, sent me the citation of this piece – “Fra Angelico visited by the Angels” by Paul Hippolyte Flandrin, ARSH 1894). That is Fra Angelico painting a fresco in the monastery where he lived in Italy – you can still go there and see the dozens of monastic cells, each with a Fra Angelico masterpiece inside. Here he is painting the Crucifixion of Our Lord, and weeps, while the angels look on.
The fruit of the First Sorrowful Mystery, Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, is sorrow for sin – first and foremost for our own sins, but also for the sins of the world. Imagine that the person who loved you most in the world (parent, spouse, child, friend) was tortured and executed in your place, because of what you had done, and you were then asked to draw a picture of them dying in agony. How could tears not flow? So, I suppose it can be said that what is referred to as “The Gift of Tears”, could actually be called, “The Gift of Moral Sanity”.
Lord Jesus, deliver us from the psychopathy of our own indifference to your Passion and Death for our own sins, and the sins of the world. Lord Jesus, grant us the gift of tears.
I’m LOVING the momentum the McCarrick #MeToo story is holding. We have to keep this going, because McCarrick is just the very, very beginning. If you want all the latest developments, all you need is Frank Walker’s news aggregation site, Canon212.com . Frank does outstanding work compiling all of the headlines and commentary.
Next on the #MeToo list needs to be the monstrous faggot, the current Cardinal Archbishop of Washington D.C., Donald Wuerl. Wuerl was McCarrick’s hand-picked successor in ARSH 2006.
Interesting tidbit: Faggots in general, and especially these faggots in the upper echelon of the Church, have female codenames. Wuerl’s female name is “Donna”. When he was in seminary, he was also known as “Wuerl the Girl”.
McCarrick’s sodomite female codename is “Blanche”. Just FYI.
Donald Wuerl has likewise been well-known in the “open secret” sense of having seminarian slumber parties at his residence, and also of using male prostitutes. As a young cleric, Wuerl was widely understood to be the sodomite partner of Cardinal John Joseph Wright.
Quoting Wuerl’s wiki page now:
He was ordained a priest on December 17, 1966.[6] His first assignment was as assistant pastor at St. Rosalia parish in Pittsburgh’s Greenfield neighborhood and as secretary to Pittsburgh’s Bishop John Wright. After Wright was elevated to cardinal in 1969, Wuerl was his full-time secretary in Vatican City from 1969 until Wright’s death in 1979. Because Cardinal Wright was recovering from surgery and confined to a wheelchair, Wuerl, as Wright’s secretary, was one of three non-cardinals permitted inside the conclave that selected Karol Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II in 1978.
Wuerl was rector at St. Paul Seminary in Pittsburgh from 1981 to 1985. In 1982, he was made executive secretary to Bishop John Marshall of Burlington, Vermont, who was leading a Vatican-mandated study of U.S. seminaries.
Wuerl’s time in Seattle is VERY interesting…
On December 3, 1985, Wuerl was appointed titular bishop of Rosemarkie and auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle. Wuerl was consecrated bishop on January 6, 1986, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy, by Pope John Paul II. Wuerl and Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen worked in adjoining offices without conflict for several months until, in May 1986, they found themselves with opposing positions on proposed state legislation to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in employment. At that point Hunthausen learned for the first time that Wuerl had been charged with responsibility–”complete and final decision-making power”–for several key areas normally within the Archbishop’s control: worship and liturgy; the archdiocesan tribunal that considers requests for marriage annulments; seminarians, priestly formation and laicized priests; moral issues; and issues of health care and ministry to homosexuals. The division of authority only became public when Hunthausen announced it in September 1986. While some chancery officials expressed support for Wuerl, some questioned his role and saw little impact a year after his appointment. In November, Hunthausen won support for his objections to the Vatican’s restrictions on his authority from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.[16] In February 1987, the Vatican announced that a commission of U.S. bishops would investigate the situation in Seattle, and Wuerl met privately with Pope John Paul II and declined to comment, saying “I’m just going to wait and see what the commission does”. In May 1987, following a review by the commission headed by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Pope John Paul II restored Hunthausen’s full authority as bishop, and appointed a coadjutor to assist and succeed Hunthausen. Wuerl later said the arrangement had been “unworkable”. Following the restoration of Hunthausen’s authority, Wuerl moved to a Pittsburgh suburb to await his next posting.
And then he was on the board of the North American College in Rome, yet again giving him an excuse to hang around seminarians and influence career tracks.
From 1994 until 2003, as Bishop of Pittsburgh, Wuerl served as a member of the board of governors of the Pontifical North American College in Rome (Chairman, 1998–1999), representing the Pennsylvania-New Jersey Region (Region III) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In 2008, as Archbishop of Washington he was again elected to the college’s board of governors, this time representing the Washington DC-Delaware-Maryland-Virginia-West Virginia region of the conference (Region IV).
McCarrick is just the very, very, very beginning. The CURRENT Cardinal Archbishop of Washington D.C. needs to be taken down now. There must be dozens if not hundreds of men with stories to tell about Wuerl.
Raise your hand if you love having naked tickle fights with hot Twink seminarians!
Eternal Father,
I desire to rest in Thy Heart this night.
I make the intention of offering to Thee every beat of my heart,
joining to them as many acts of love and desire. I pray that even while I am asleep, I will bring back to Thee souls that offend Thee.
I ask forgiveness for the whole world,
especially for those who know Thee and yet sin. I offer to Thee my every breath and heartbeat as a prayer of reparation.
Amen.
How can anyone of good will NOT ask Our Lord to make reparation of our very breathing and heart beat WHILE WE ARE SLEEPING? Join me in this, starting tonight, and every night. -AB
Infant Jesus Sleeping on the Breast of St. Joseph, José de Alcíbar, latter 19th Century.
“Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
Misprision of Felony. Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.Misprision of Felony.
(A beautiful letter that came along with a $10 per month “subscription” – the kind of letter that serves to remind me of the gravity and responsibility of being whatever it is that I am. Go bunless!)
Dearest Ann,
I finally got around to setting up the recurring donation; sorry it has taken me so long. It is not much and I am hoping at some point to do more.
You have done so much in my life – way more than any dollar amount could ever repay. I was a child of the 80s and a very poorly formed “catholic”. I discovered your blog in 2010-ish via a link on FreeRepublic and my life literally has not been the same since. I thoroughly enjoy the Podcast and it has been a wonderful addition to my life. I am a distance runner and I look forward to the semi-weekly podcasts when I can leave my kids (I don’t mean that as bad as it sounds), husband, chores, etc., pop in the ear buds and have that little bit of uninterrupted time to listen and learn. Sometimes the things you say are a real punch in the gut (my spiritual life is a HUGE work in progress), sometimes I laugh out loud, and sometimes you say exactly what I’ve been thinking so I find myself yelling “YES!” and getting kooky stares from people as I run. Because of your writings and rantings, I am, bottom line, a better Catholic. You brought me to the Latin Mass, taught me more about the Faith, challenged me to step up my prayer life, enlightened me on all things economical and political (I still don’t get the whole Bitcoin thing though), and helped me articulate the moral underpinnings of many issues to my family and friends. As an added bonus, I discovered Fr. Chad Ripperger through you (I listen to him on many of my runs, too)! I cannot thank you enough.
One of my recent interests is the ketogenic diet and endurance sports. I am fully fat adapted now and running purely on ketones, so when you and SuperNerd talk about food and fasting, this really gets my radar up! I love it! Hence, I have named my monthly donation “Bunless Big Macs”. I throw away the bun.
In the very first “Conversations with Ann” edition of the Barnhardt Podcast, we welcome Bai (pronounced “Bay”, as in May Day) Macfarlane, founder of Mary’s Advocates, a lay non-profit organization whose goal is to strengthen marriage, reduce unilateral no-fault divorce, and support those who have been unjustly abandoned by their spouse. Bai and Ann have a no-holds barred discussion about marriage, “divorce”, and “decrees of nullity” which are being handed out like candy – all in the name of “mercy”. Ann asks Bai the 800 pound gorilla questions that other people won’t ask, such as, “What do you do if your bishop is a heretic and refuses to help defend your marriage?” and, “What does a faithful Catholic do if a cookie-cutter declaration of nullity is issued against their marriage which they are certain is false, and their marriage is valid?”
Cardinal Raymond Burke said some tribunals are run by unprepared and unjust workers.
“With sadness, many times I have seen that the diocesan bishop has not sufficiently taken care to prepare well the necessary personnel for his tribunal. In other words, it is not the process that has need of modifications, but the practice of some bishops who do not provide well-prepared and just workers for their tribunals” (33 min. 43 sec.). http://marysadvocates.org/bishop-have-incompetent-and-unfair-staff-managing-tribunals/
From the video of Cardinal Raymond Burke — see here — telling a woman to follow conscience and appeal if she is concerned about her local tribunal’s abuses.
Separated Faithful Spouse: “I know I have valid marriage and need to live my sacramental marriage. But what do I tell my children (y’know) ‘why aren’t I following the church when the Church grants an annulment?’ Because there are abuses [if you live in one of those diocese] if you live in one of those diocese, and I know it was a valid marriage.
Cardinal Burke replies: “All you can say to your children what is your own conviction, and that you have to live according to your conscience. And that also, that the process for the declaration of nullity is not an infallible process. The judge makes the decision with moral certitude–that is–that for him there hasn’t been brought forth anything reasonable against the nullity of the marriage. But/ A declaration of nullity of marriage can–in the Church’s law–be contested, always contested, simply because we know that it is not a divinely inspired decision. [They do it] The judges, and everyone, they do their best. [But] So, if in your conscience, you know that it was a valid marriage, that’s the way you have to live.”
Msg. Cormac Burke, Retired Roman Rota Judge (author Covenanted Happiness: Love and Commitment in Marriage, and The Theology of Marriage; Personalism, Doctrine and Canon Law) wrote the following about the role of the faithful spouse in context to the confusion about the ‘good of the spouses’:
What can one say of the really shipwrecked marriage where for instance one of the spouses reneges on his or her conjugal commitment and walks out on the other? Is it possible to continue to speak of the “good of the spouses” in such a context? Or must one conclude, as would appear, that it also has been totally wrecked?
As regards the reneging spouse, certainly the marriage would scarcely seem capable of working any longer toward his or her “good”. Yet it can still work powerfully for the good of the other, if he or she remains true to the marriage bond. If that fidelity is maintained, moreover, it may in God’s providence act as a call to repentance, as a force of salvation, for the unfaithful spouse, perhaps in his or her very last moment on earth – when one’s definitive “bonum” is about to be decided (from The Object of Matrimonial Consent: A Personalist Analysis, here)
Feedback: please send your questions and comments for the follow-up to this conversation to [email protected]
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Remember how in the early months of the Bergoglian antipapacy in ARSH 2013 that there were rumors that Antipope Bergoglio wanted to ultimately abolish or otherwise liquidate the College of Cardinals? Remember how those rumors popped back up last year?
Remember how I have been screaming for almost as long that EVERY ONE OF THEM is blackmailable because they are either sodomites themselves, or have turned a blind eye to sodomites both around them and under their authority? EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM.
Do you now see how Antipope Bergoglio, after receiving the en masse resignation of every bishop in Chile, COULD conceivably abolish or liquidate the entire College of Cardinals?
Anyone who says, “This can’t happen,” or, “That can’t happen,” should be dismissed. ANYTHING can happen. Anyone who says, “Bergoglio can’t do that because he’s as guilty as sin himself and so that would be … HYPOCRITICAL!” needs to be sent to the childrens’ table and offered a bowl of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and a sippy cup.
I’m waiting for Antipope Bergoglio to form a blue-ribbon commission to study the sodomite problem, with Monsignor Ricca in charge. We will, of course, need laypeople on this blue-ribbon panel, so I’d nominate Gustavo Vera and Ariana Grande.
Remember, folks:
Bergoglio is not and never has been the Pope. Pope Benedict XVI is the one and only living Pope – whether he likes it or not.
Pope Benedict was coerced out by these people (“Pray for me that I not flee for fear of the Wolves.”), and from thence came his failed, invalid attempted partial abdication.
The Church and the Antichurch currently occupy the same sacramental, liturgical and juridical space. The Antichurch is in ascendency, and when it finally decouples from the True Church completely, it will take every square inch of real estate, and be unanimously recognized by the world’s governments as “the catholic church”. Get your head around this now.
Jesus Christ is not your mommy/daddy/spouse who didn’t love you and abandoned you, and if you aren’t clear on who your narcissist loser parents and/or your failed romances are, and who Jesus Christ is, might I suggest developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ so that you are capable, at the very least, of picking him out of a lineup. Actually going to Mass and doing things like, oh, I dunno, praying the Rosary, might be a good little start in getting that whole “personal God” concept to FINALLY sink in.
Point being, Jesus Christ isn’t a liar. His promises ARE KEPT, and woe to those who doubt that for even a second. Bottom line, if you are scandalized unto damnation by ANY of this, it will be, in fact, your own fault – a failure in love of God.
This is Jesus. Get to know Him. Really. It’s time.
In the very first “Conversations with Ann” edition of the Barnhardt Podcast, we welcome Bai (pronounced “Bay”, as in May Day) Macfarlane, founder of Mary’s Advocates, a lay non-profit organization whose goal is to strengthen marriage, reduce unilateral no-fault divorce, and support those who have been unjustly abandoned by their spouse. Bai and Ann have a no-holds barred discussion about marriage, “divorce”, and “decrees of nullity” which are being handed out like candy – all in the name of “mercy”. Ann asks Bai the 800 pound gorilla questions that other people won’t ask, such as, “What do you do if your bishop is a heretic and refuses to help defend your marriage?” and, “What does a faithful Catholic do if a cookie-cutter declaration of nullity is issued against their marriage which they are certain is false, and their marriage is valid?”
