IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH= BLOGGER.George H. Kubeck - THURS. FEB. 27, 2020

 

Ref. the Classic Textbook of Cardinal Ratzinger, "Co-Workers of the Truth" Meditations For Every Day Of The Year, Meditation Feb. 27th, Ignatius Press, San Francisco

 

    LET US ASK THE QUESTION PILATE ASKED: WHAT IS TRUTH? - NOT AS PILATE ASKED IT. HERMANN DIETZFEFLBINGER HAS POINTED OUT THAT WHAT IS MOST DEPRESSING ABOUT PILATES QUESTION IS THE FACT THAT IT IS REALLY NOT A QUESTION, BUT AN ANSWER.

 

    TO HIM WHO CLAIMS TO BE TRUTH, PILATE SAYS IN EFFECT: "LET'S BE DONE WITH ALL THIS TALK. AFTER ALL, WHAT IS TRUTH? WE'LL DO BETTER TO KEEP TO CONCRETE ISSUES.

 

    THIS IS THE FORM IN WHICH PILATE'S QUESTION IS MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED TODAY. BUT NOW IT MUST BE ADDRESSED IN EARNEST.

 

    HOW DOES IT HAPPEN THAT TO GROW IN TRUTH MEANS TO GROW IN GOODNESS; THAT TRUTH IS NOT JUST GOOD; IT IS THE GOOD PAR EXCELLENCE?

 

    HOW DOES IT HAPPEN THAT IT HAS VALUE IN ITSELF AND HAS NO NEED TO JUSTIFY ITSELF BY ITS ENDS? THAT CAN BE THE CASE ONLY IF THE VALUE OF TRUTH RESIDES IN ITSELF, IF IT EXISTS IN ITSELF AND HAS MORE BEING THAN ALL OTHERS; IF IT IS ITSELF THE FOUNDATION ON WHICH I STAND.

 

    I PONDER CAREFULLY THE NATURE OF TRUTH, WE END BY PONDERING THE CONCEPT OF GOD. IN THE LONG RUN, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO COMPREHEND THE NATURE AND VALUE OF TRUTH, ON WHICH DEPENDS, IN TURN, THE VALUE OF MANKIND AND OF THE WORLD, UNLESS WE LEARN TO SEE THEREIN THE NATURE AND VALUE OF THE LIVING GOD.

 

    THAT IS WHY RESPECT FOR TRUTH IS ULTIMATELY INSEPARABLY FROM WHAT WE CALL WORSHIP.

 

    TRUTH AND CULT ARE INEXTRICABLY UNITED - ONE CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT THE OTHER, HOWEVER OFTEN HISTORY MAY HAVE SEPARATED THEM.

 

    THE FREEDOM FOR TRUTH AND THE FREEDOM OF TRUTH ULTIMATELY CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT RECOGNITION AND REVERENCE FOR THE DIVINE.

 

    FREEDOM FROM UTILITARIANISM CAN BE GROUNDED AND CAN ENDURE ONLY WHEN THERE IS SOMETHING OVER AND ABOVE THAT WHICH DERIVES FROM THE POSSESSION AND PROPERTY OF MANKIND, WHEN THERE IS THE HIGHEST OWNERSHIP AND INALIENABLE CLAIM OF THE GODHEAD.

 

    MANKIND'S GROWING IN TRUTH IS, AT THE SAME TIME, A PART OF THE WORLD'S GROWING IN TRUTH IS, AT THE SAME TIME, A PART OF THE WORLD'S GROWING IN TRUTH; AND WHEN HUMAN BEINGS GROW IN TRUTH, THEY GROW IN GOODNESS, AND WHEN THEY DO, THE WORLD GROWS IN GOODNESS WHEREVER THEY ARE.

 

George H. Kubeck

# 41 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 41 OF 45 THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER George H. Kubeck, TUES. FEB 25, 2020

 

Padre Pio - The True Story - C. Bernard  Ruffin

Chapter 18 - L' Americana p. 209 -217

    "Padre Pio was concerned not only for the souls of humanity, but, as we have seen, for the bodies as well. This interest was further demonstrated by his determination to establish a hospital at San Giovanni Rotondo.... St. Francis is Hospital was a start but did not satisfy Padre Pio who wanted a first-class hospital for San Giovanni. That dream would be defeated for two decades.

 

    For many years Pio had desired a Capuchin presence in his hometown. In fact, shortly after his ordination in 1910, as he and Don Salvatore Pannullo were returning to town from the cemetery, Padre Pio pointed to an open field and asked the archpriest, "Don't you smell a fragrance of incense? Don't you hear the singing of angels?"..."Some day there will rise a friary with a church here... the words were fulfilled in June 1926, when work began on a friary, church, and boarding school in Pietrelcina.

 

    This came about through the generosity of one of Padre Pio's most spiritual children who made her appearance in San Giovanni in October 1923. For more than four decades Adelia Maria McAlpin Pyle who would be a fixture a San Giovanni Rotondo and a "strong arm" of Padre Pio.... After several several years of travel with Montessori, Maria Pyle was still restless. After reading a book called Self Abandonment to the Divine Will by one Father Caussade, she began to ask herself, "Why can't I have a spiritual director like Father Caussade? and began a search for a holy man to direct her life.

 

    Sometime in the early 1920s, Maria became aware of Padre Pio, but, as she wrote in a short in a short memoir years later, "I did not want to see him out of mere curiosity. I believed in him, and in my state of lethargy, that seemed to me to be sufficient."...

    Padre Pio had a tremendous effect on both women. Rina was a Romanian married to Nestor Caterinici, who had been a colonel in the army of the murdered czar of Russia. For many years she had been disenchanted with Eastern Orthodoxy. She professed to be "with a true sense of mysticism" because "the Orthodox religion kept dogmas like those which the Catholic religion has, but in practice, the priests never seemed convinced that we receive the living Jesus in Holy Communion," and because Orthodox "confession is nothing but a formality that frees the spirit neither from oppression nor evil....

 

    He handed her a little catechism and showed her various prayers she needed to learn. "Do I have to prepare myself by taking instructions? she asked. Pio answered, "It's necessary to love, love, and nothing more." Both Rino and her husband Nestor became Roman Catholic. As for Maria, she knew at once that in Padre Pio she had found her spiritual director...Pyle returned to Capri, rejoined Montessori, and accompanied her to England and Holland. There she told Montessor, "There is a living saint in this world and it saddens me not to be near him. I want to return there, and it would please me greatly if you would accompany me." ... Maria Pyle at first wondered whether Padre Pio would direct her to the convent. As she later told a relative, "I didn't want to be a nun. I don't like to take orders from anyone."...

 

    Maria Pyle soon endeared herself to everyone she met. Although she was close to forty, she retained the radiant beauty of her youth... A companion said, "Generally, she was happy, with a smile constantly on her lips, having a good word for everyone."....One day, shortly after she settled into her home near the monastery, Maria Pyle asked Padre Pio. "Can I build a friary at Pietrelcina?" Without batting an eye, Pio told her she could. "Do it at once and let it be dedicated to the Holy Family....

 

    A few days later, Luigi Cardinal Lavitrano, the archbishop of Benevento, stopped to see the construction and bless the cornerstone... Soon another problem developed. There was no water. When Padre Pio was apprized of this, he described a certain location and told the laborers to dig there...,. a large spring was found.

George H. Kubeck

LEFTISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR DEFEAT IN VIETNAM!

LEFTISM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR DEFEAT IN VIETNAM!

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. George H. Kubeck, SUN. FEB. 23, 2020

 

Read All About It! Excerpts from the Classic "Leftism Revisited" by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Regnery Gateway, Washington, D.C. p. 318-319

      Between 1958 and 1972, I (Erik) visited that embattled country five times and feel thereby qualified to write with some clarity of the gruesome war. Since the engagement was nothing but a presidential action, American armed forces were not allowed to fight properly; among other things, the generals were not permitted to engage in major actions  a big casualty list was "politically inadmissible"

 

    (Total casualties were in fact low, as cruel as that may sound.) Hanoi could theoretically have been wiped out with five percent of the bombs used on Dresden, but no such action was taken. The strength of the Viet-Cong lay in their firm ideological commitment, in bestial fear that preceded them like a black cloud paralyzing resistance. On the other side, Washington hampered any effective procedure, such as cutting off the North Viet. army by occupying Southern Laos.

 

    Admittedly, terrible tragedies occurred, such as My Lai, but nothing remotely compared to the atrocities of the Viet-Cong. The obscene horrors perpetrated by them,caught in the photographs in the U.S. Information Center in Saigon, were too sickening for the publication.When VC took a village, they would often take the mayor and his wife, tie them to the door of their hut, behead their children before their eyes, and the slit open their abdomens. Dying in agony, the parents watched the pigs eating their own intestines.In Dak-To, the VC burned 250 "brown" aborigines alive for collaborating with the government.The fear spread by the VC has no parallel. (Why wasn't the above reported to the American people?)

 

    Only a very small segment (perhaps 5 percent) of the South Vietnamese back the Viet-Cong. The Viet Masses, many of them Catholic refugees from the North, educated and tough, flatly refused to collaborate with the invaders. The charge of the American Left that war was being waged "against the people of Vietnam" was totally without foundation. ...

 

    General Westmoreland's excellent memoirs ("A Soldier's Report") tell the story of American armed forces betrayal by the leftist network that demoralized the army of conscripts and vilified returned veterans.  Television persuaded the American people that they were suitably informed concerning the war; they little realized that pictures can lie far more effectively than print.

 

    Leftist propaganda had a fateful impact on idealistic young Americans, many of whom, overpowered by the wave of national masochism, were driven to commit treason. Riots broke out in universities, most notable at Kent, causing embattled National Guard to fire in self-defense, killing four students....The cause of the demonstration was the attack of the South-Vietnamese on the "terminus" of the Ho-Chi-Minh Trail, guarded by Pol Pot's Red Khmer's.

 

    These poor students, in reality, died for Pol Pot, for a monster who later succeeded in exterminating one-third of his country's population (he studied Marxism at the Sorbonne) He, like his red colleagues took to its final logical conclusion the Marxist philosophy that deems man a "higher animal." a cousin, if a remote one, of rats, bedbugs, earwigs, and other pests susceptible to extermination...

 

    Another even more revealing book ..on Vietnam is Leslie Gelb's The Irony of Vietnam"The System Worked.

The thesis of Mr. Gelb- presidential adviser, former employee of the Pentagon and State Department, writer for the New York Times - is very simple."The irony of Vietnam is that the withdrawal of the U.S. army was simultaneously a victory for Communism and for Democracy. Why the latter? Because the system worked." Because the people mesmerized by the mass media, decided against the war, and working within the framework of the system, forced the government to retreat. In short: to wage a war in synchrony with the oscillations of public opinion proves democracy a huge success. 

 

    The Frankfurter Alinement Zeitgeist, ... wrote in sarcastic comment: "we Europeans should be delighted to see, in the triumph of communism, victories of American democracy, It seems that Franklin D. Roosevelt is not entirely dead." It quickly became evident that the Diet-Cong were not harmless agrarian reformers, progressive liberals, and enlightened democrats, as loudly maintained by the Diet-Ming, but genuine communists. Moscow-oriented Marxists. Leftists are not bound by the Ten Commandments; they can lie as they please. As Marx said: "We Communists teach no ethics." ...

 

George H, Kubeck, "Leftism is a foreign political, and atheistic virus with nothing American in it."

# 41 of 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

# 41 OF 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. GEORGE H. KUBECK -FRI. FEB. 21, 2020

 

George Neumayer - The Political Pope - Center Street, N.Y. 2017, Excerpts p.195-205

"Freezing Out Conservatives, Promoting Liberals"

"In 2016, Pope Francis entrusted the Pontifical Academy for Life to a social liberal, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia,whose praise for the propagandistic television show Modern Family has confused Catholics. Under the direction of such worldly progressives, the Vatican has received criticism for its unreliable documents.

 

Conservative Catholics, for example, protested the risque and misleading content in sexual education materials that the Vatican distributed at World Youth Day in Poland in 2016. The materials encouraged the use of sexually explicit films as occasions for discussion and neglected to highlight Church teaching. "It's bad enough when Planned Parenthood pushes perverse form of sex education into our schools. For the Vatican to jump on that bandwagon is a night-mare scenario." said Judi Brown, president of the American Life League.  ...

 

In Familiaris Consortio, Pope John Paul had explicitly rejected access to Communion for the divorced and remarried and reaffirmed moral absolutes against the objections of situation ethicists. Amore Laetitia strikes at the root of his work by encouraging the "help of the sacraments" for the divorced-and-remarried, by emphasizing conscience over magisterial teaching, and by obscuring the distinction between mortal and venial sin....

 

Pope John Paul had anticipated this problem when he wrote in Veritable Splendor, "It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings: what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-satisfied, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy."...

 

"Proselytism is solemn nonsense," Pope Francis said to the Italian atheist Eugenio Scalfari after reassuring him that he didn't want to convert to Catholicism... Impossible to square with the message of Dominus Jesus, the 2000 document by Joseph Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II, which said, "If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also true that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church have the fullness of the means of salvation." That document also sought to "rule out, in a radical way ... a religious relativism which leads to the belief that 'one religion is as good as another....

SUPPORTING LIBERAL NUNS

"It has been an open secret for decades that American nunneries operate as centers of left-wing dissent... In 2015, Pope Francis pulled the plug on the investigation and let it be known through his aides that he had no intention of arresting the liberalization of U.S. nuns.... Boston cardinal Sean O'Malley going so far as to call Benedict's investigation a "disaster."...

"Radical Nuns Okayed by Pope Francis" was among the headlines. Francis;s whitewash of the group had produced. Officials under Pope Benedict XVI had spoken about the "doctrinal errors" and "secular mentality" of U.S. nuns... Oblivious to the fact that liberal religious orders are dying.... Francis's Vatican, wrote Weigel, has embraced the appeasement policies of Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who served as a leading diplomat during the Cold War and favored "detente" with the Soviet Union: ...

 

Even Pope Francis canonization of Pope John Paul II, a movement which began under Pope Benedict XVI, was seen as "manipulative" according to German philosopher Robert Spaemann, insofar as Francis  combinded with the canonization of Pope John XXIII in an attempt to pacify liberals in Church."It was already apparent that Francis views his predecessor Pope John Paul II from a critical distance when he canonized him together with John XXIII, even though a second required miracle was not attributed to the latter," Spaemann has said. "It seemed as if the Pope wanted to relativize the importance of John Paul II...

 

At the actual canonization ceremony, Pope Francis appeared indifferent."It was conducted in such an understated fashion as to come off rather flat, despite the enormous number of bishops who came from all over the world. Pope Francis said next to nothing about John Paul, and nothing about Poland at all, despite the immense number of Poles in Rome," according to de Souza....  George H. Kubeck

 

LEFTIST BATTLE CRY: CANCEL ALL THINGS CONSERVATIVE!

LEFTIST BATTLE CRY: CANCEL ALL THINGS CONSERVATIVE!

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER, GEORGE KUBECK - WED. FEB. 19, 2020

 

    *"Recently at the NCAA college championship game between Louisiana State and Clemson a picture was taken of actor Vince Vaughn shaking hands with President Donald Trump as the two watched the game the game from a private box at the Superdome in New Orleans. Someone posted it on the internet, and the idea left-wing social media went nuts against Vaughn. How dare he "humanize" Trump! That was the mantra.

 

    When the left does this their desire is to "cancel" a person; that means to attack and ruin the ability of the targeted individual to live life free of harassment and/or to make a living. And unlike the right, the left controls almost all the levers of power in our country and can make life a living hell for someone (especially public figures like Vaughn) who identifies in any way with Christians or conservatives.

 

    Fortunate for Vaughn, he has been around long enough that he will likely survive the attempt to have him canceled in Hollywood. But had he been an up-and-coming actor the photo with President Trump would have been the end of his career. Vaughn as far as I know, has not taken a public position on Trump's presidency. It's the mere fact that he showed class and civility - he shook hands with the president. What an offense!

 

    Now, try to understand the thought process behind this attempt to "cancel" Americans who disagree with left-wing politics, one has to grasp the way a lot of "progressive" think. They believe that we Christians and conservatives are much like Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In fact, they use these words to describe us: deplorable, bigots, fascists, nationalists, religious extremists, Nazis ... you get the point.

 

    For them Donald Trump is our leader & must be taken out by any means necessary. By "taken out".

I mean politically, but I also means many of these leftists would like to see the president physically dead. They would murder him if they could get to him.

 

    That is why Madonna says she would like to blow up the White House. This is why rapper Snoop Dogg's album cover shoes him pointing a gun at President's head. This is why comedian Kathy Griffin poses with a picture of herself holding up the bloody decapitated head of Donald Trump...

 

    In Hollywood or with corporate America, there is no price to pay for such hateful expression. To the contrary. they are applauded and rewarded. Case in point: former NFL star Colin Kaepernick promotes Communist dictators like Fidel Castro and wears socks as pigs, and is heralded as a man of great courage and moral principle by Hollywood and NIKE. which pays him millions and millions of dollars to be the company spokesman.

 

    Make no mistake, the goal of the progressives is to regulate thought, speech and actions using the force of law to impose their beliefs on all Americans. Now, they are not in a position to do that quite yet, but that is their objective. In fact, one of the reasons they are so angry is that President Trump has appointed 187 conservative federal judges and two Supreme Court justices, thereby reshaping the federal bench.... 2016 threw a major monkey wrench into their plans to have Hillary Clinton appoint judges who would allow Christians and Conservatives to be targeted for fines, imprisonment, or banishment in the name of "ending hate and inequality" or "saving the planet" or "stopping gun violence" ...*

 

*This article by Tim Wildmon, American Family Association, President, March, afajournal.org. published monthly except Jan/Feb. AFA is a Christian organization promoting the Biblical ethic of decency in American society with an emphasis on moral issues that impact families. 

P.O. Drawer 2440, Tupelo, MS 38803, Voice 662-844-5036 X 224 

George H. Kubeck

 

P.S. The CINOP Crazies are out there. Michael Moore, "Anyone who votes for Trump is a racist."

IS THE VATICAN CATHOLIC? # 2 OF 2

IS THE VATICAN CATHOLIC? # 2 OF 2 

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. GEORGE KUBECK, MONDAY. FEB. 17, 2020

 

EXCLUSIVE: VATICAN BISHOP DEFENDS GIVING COMMUNION TO PRO-ABORTION ARGENTINE PRESIDENT AND MISTRESS by Diane Montagna

Rome, February 7, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) - Vatican bishop has defended giving Holy Communion to the pro-abortion president of Argentina and his mistress during their recent visit to the Vatican, saying it a a problem only for U.S. Catholics and Cardinal Raymond Burke.

 

The bishop accused this journalist of being a "fanatic" for challenging him on it. In comments to LifeSite on Feb. 6, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, vigorously argued that canon law "obliges" a priest to give Eucharist to openly pro-abortion politicians who present themselves for Communion. The Argentine prelate said that only someone who has formally

been excommunicated can be refused the Sacrament. [ This is completely new to me.]

 

"The [Argentine] president is not excommunicated, so I can give him Communion," Bishop Sorondo insisted. His pro-abortion policies have "nothing to do with it," he said. Other positions are only "the opinion of some bishops of your country," Bishop Sorondo told of this correspondent, singling out U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke.

 

Canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law states: Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest gave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion." ...

 

The Scandal:

On January 31, a video circulated on social media of Argentine president Alberto Fernandez, 61, and his mistress, Fabiola Yanez, 38, receiving Holy Communion at a Mass celebrated by Bishop Sorondo in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica. Following the Mass, Fernandez has a 45 minute meeting with Pope Francis during which the issue of abortion was reportedly not raised.

 

The new Argentine president has made the legalization of abortion one of his political priorities. At a presser following his meeting with the pope, Fernandez confirmed that he will not back down on legalizing abortion and said the proposed legislation will be sent to Parliament on March 1.

 

Fernandez divorced his wife in 2005, and has been living with 38-year-old actress Fabiola Yanez since 2014 (having lived with another woman for nearly 10 years). After his election in Dec. 2019, Yanez moved to the Presidential Palace in Buenos Aires & acts as first lady despite their not being married....

++++++++++++

IN THE LIFE OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS AND ST. PADRE PIO, BISHOP SORONDO IS MISTAKEN; THE HOLY EUCHARIST IS ABSOLUTELY SACRED, AND WITHOUT A TOUCH OF SCANDAL.

 

"In the Dominican tradition to which St. Thomas belonged, ... Towards the end of his life, Friar Thomas was known to weep copiously during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice. It was obvious that, young though he was (not yet 50), the Lord was ready to call him to Himself, to the eternal wedding feast. While Friar Thomas was offering Mass for the feast of St. Nicholas 745 years ago today, On Dec. 6, 1273, God revealed Himself to the saint in a vision that shattered his writing career and left him, for the remaining three months of his life, longing for the reality that had been disclosed to him. He had drunk so abundantly of the Lord's sweetness that he could say: "All that I have written seems like straw to me, compared with what I have seen." ...

 

    It was Jesus who, at the Last Supper, drawing nearer to us in His friendship than any earthly lovers could ever draw close to each other, changed bread and wine into His Body and Blood, in fulfillment of the promise he had made: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life ... He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats will live because of me" (Jn. 6:54, 56-57)"

    The above two paragraphs came from Peter Kwasniewski, LifeSite, Blogs Catholic Church, Faith, Thu Dec 6, 2018 - "When St. Thomas Aquinas had a foretaste of Heaven on St. Nicholas' Feast Day."

George H. Kubeck

# 30 OF 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

# 30 OF 45 - THIS UNHAPPY BOOK REPORT ON "THE POLITICAL POPE"

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER, GEORGE H. KUBECK, WED. FEB. 12, 2020

 

George Neumayer - "The Political Pope" - Center Street, N.Y. 2017, Excerpts

Chapter - How Francis Is Undoing the Legacy of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI

" In a veiled swipe a his two predecessors, Pope Francis told an interviewer that Vatican II had encouraged openness to "modern culture" and dialogue with nonbelievers" but that after it "very little was done in that direction" in the Church. He promised to correct this shortcoming: "I have the humility and ambition to want to do something." ...

 

By laying the groundwork for change so methodically, "it's more difficult to turn things back, " said Fernandez. The pope is aiming for "irreversible" change and that even if some cardinals have "regrets" about electing him that "doesn't change anything," said Fernandez... Where Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI tried to counteract the influence of liberal theology, Pope Francis is seeking to spread it, noted the Journal....

 

They acknowledges differences between Islam and Christianity, he blurs them. They upheld moral absolutes : he "discerns" exceptions to them.... Quoting Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict described this "misplaced compassion" as a counterfeit of charity, "sentimentality, pastoral only in appearance."...

 

"Among Catholics there are many, not a few, many who believe to hold the absolute truth," Pope Francis has said. "There go ahead by harming others with slander and defamation, and they do great harm... And it must combed." Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI exhorted Catholics to seek the truth, but Pope Francis makes them feel guilty for pursuing it...

 

The St. Gallen group, the cabal of liberal cardinals who were instrumental in Bergoglio's election as pope, had long groused about the "fundamentalist" views of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. They bristled when Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor that situation ethics reinforces the moral relativism widespread in society...

 

Through Pope Francis, the St. Gallen group got its revenge in Amoris Laetitia where the pope implicitly challenges Veritas Splendor by stating that the avoidance of adultery is a mere "ideal" which a Catholic can violae if he "discerns" that his circumstances and conscious justify it.....

 

OPPOSITION TO THE LATIN MASS

"In various interviews and speeches, Pope Francis has made it clear that it wouldn't bother him if the traditional Latin Mass movement died. He has mischaracterized Benedict'd rationale for authorizing wider use of it as a "prudential decision motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity." In fact, Benedict has authorized wider use of the traditional Latin Mass both for the sake of older Catholics and for the sake of future generations of Catholics, whom he feared wouldn't have access to the liturgical riches of the Catholic patrimony...

 

In 2016, Pope Francis gave an interview in which he reiterated his dim view of youth interest in the ancient liturgy, casting as sinister: "I ask myself about this. For example, I always try to understand what's behind the people who are to too young to have lived the pre-conciliar liturgy but who want it. Sometimes, I've found myself in front of people who are too strict, who have a rigged attitude. And I wonder: How come such rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something insecurity, sometimes even more..."

FREEZING OUT CONSERVATIVES, PROMOTING LIBERALS

According to the prominent German philosopher Robert Spaemann, churchmen connected to Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have been rendered irrelevant by this pontificate... "Soon after his election, Francis removed two Americans - Cardinal Justin Rigali and Cardinal Raymond Burke - from the congregation. Both men were major players in constituting the American episcopacy during the papacy of Benedict XVI...

 

In 2015, Pope Francis made Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, one of the Dominican Order's most flagrant liberals, a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace... is known for his open promotion of gay-rights ideology, his support for the Communion for the divorced-and-remarried, and his insistence that the Church embrace female deacons and "loosen" its opposition to female priests and other feminist innovations. He has said that gay sex is "expressive of Christ self-gift..." George H. Kubeck

UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S COLD WAR # 2 OF 2

UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S COLD WAR # 2 OF 2

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. CINOPS BE GONE - MON. FEB.10, 2020

 

A PUBLICATION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE, OCT.. 2018, v. 47, NO. 10, America's Cold Civil War, by Charles R. Kesler, Editor, Claremont Review of Books - Selected Excerpts.

 

"As a result, the gap between the liberal and conservative Constitutions became a gulf, to the extent that today we are two countries - or we are fast on the road to becoming two countries - each constituted differently. Consider a few of the contrasts:

 

The prevailing liberal doctrine of rights traces individual rights to membership in various groups - racial, ethnic, gender, class-based, etc.  ... Today the white race and European civilization are the enemy - "dead white males" is a favored pejorative on American campuses - and the races and groups that were oppressed in the past are the ones that today need compensation, privileges, and power.

 

Conservative, by contrast, regard the individual as the quintessential endangered minority. They trace human rights on human nature, which lacks a race. Human nature also lacks ethnicity, gender, and class. Conservatives trace the idea of rights to the essence of an individual as a human being. We have rights because we're human beings with souls, with reason, distinct from other animals and from God.  We're not beasts, but we're not God - we're in-between beings.

 

Conservatives seek to vindicate human equality and liberty - the basis for majority rule in politics - against the liberal Constitution's alternative, in which everything is increasingly based on group identity. ...

 

Liberals are interested in transforming free speech into what they call equal speech ensuring that no one gets more than his fair share. They favor a redistribution of speech rights via limits on campaign contribution of speech rights via limits on campaign contributions, repealing the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision, and narrowing the First Amendment for the sake of redistribution of speech rights from the rich to the poor. Not surprisingly, the Democratic Party's 2016 platform called for amendment the First Amendment.

 

There is, of course, also a big difference between the liberal Constitution's freedom from religion and the conservative Constitution's freedom of religion. And needless to say, the liberal Constitution has no Second Amendment...

 

If one thinks how America's cold civil war could be resolved, there seems to be only five possibilities.

1.) Ronald Reagan used to say that when the little green men arrive from outer space, all  of our political differences will be be transcended and humanity will unite for the first time in human history.

2.) ... we could change our minds. persuasion and moderation might allow us to end or endure our great political differences... FDR inspired a political realignment that last for a generation... Ronald
Reagan inspired a realignment of public policy...

 

3.) Since 1968, the norm in America has been divided government: the people have more often preferred to split control of national government between the Democrats and the Republicans... 

4.) Trump, of course, is new to this, and his party in Congress is basically pre-Trumpian....gradually  bring them around to his "America first" conservatism if he is to have any chance of achieving a political realignment. And the odds remain against him at this point. 

 

5.) Under present circumstances, the American constitutional future seems to be approaching some kind of crisis - a crisis of the two Constitutions. Let us pray that we and our countrymen will find a way to reason together and to compromise..

 

George H. Kubeck - There also could be religious revival!

# 40 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO

# 40 OF 45 - THIS HAPPY BOOK REPORT ON PADRE PIO 

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. CINOPS BE GONE - THURS. FEB. 6, 2020

 

PADRE PIO - THE TRUE STORY BY C. BERNARD

Chapter 17 - The Miracle Worker  199-208

 

"During the 1920's, many people from different parts of Italy began to visit San Giovanni Rotondo. People began to come from other countries. Some of them were so drawn to Padre Pio that they settled in the little town. One such person was Friedrich Abresch, a native of Germany who came to see Padre Pio in 1925, at the age of twenty-eight, out of pure curiosity. A nominal Lutheran in his youth, he had become Roman Catholic on marrying an Italian but did not practice his religion. "I had no faith," he admitted. Eventually he studied theosophy and became a believer in reincarnation....

 

Padre Pio then explained that theosophy and reincarnation were "heresies." He asked Abresch to retire, get his thoughts together and try to recall when he had last made a sincere confession... Eventually the Abresch family settled in San Giovanni Rotondo, where Friedrich opened a photography studio. For many years he was something of an official photographer for Padre Pio and his brethren, and most of the extant likeness of the celebrated were taken by this man, who was led to Christ through his ministry.

 

What impressed visitors to our Lady of Grace most deeply, however, was not cures, bi-locations, or supernatural intuitions in the confessional (after all),not all who sought out the padre experienced these things); rather it was Padre Pio's Mass. This author has never interviewed anyone who attended one of Padre Pio's Masses who was not deeply impressed....

 

John Mccaffery, a Scottish businessman based in Milan, over the years made numerous trips to see Padre Pio. He attempted to describe the stupendous phenomena of the padre 's Mass in this way: "For more than an hour one is held spellbound by the deep intensity with which it is said; not a physical intensity, for his movements are slow and deliberate, his voice full and low-pitched, but an intensity of the spirit wherein we now glimpse a Padre Pio obviously inhabiting a world other than the material world around him; at times in apparent mental converse, through all and above all his evident tremendous consciousness of of the significance of his words and actions, and there  clearly revealed, the bleeding perforations in his hands. In a way, when you have seen his Mass, you have seen everything, or at least you fully understand and accept everything.

 

Andy Mandato recalls, "At the beginning of the Mass, his face was really pale, just as if he were carrying our suffering, our  pain, and our sin. After the Consecration, his face underwent an amazing change. It seemed to be transfigured with radiant light. From the very first time that I went to Padre Pio's Mass, I realized that the spirit of God was there."

During the course of the service, Mandato - and others - sometimes heard Padre Pio  speak as if he were addressing invisible beings. "Go Away! Go Away!" he was heard to say as if evil spirits were trying to interfere. Although Padre Pio's Mass lasted much longer than most other priests - often an hour and three quarters - many commented that they recollected that when it concluded it seemed as if scarcely a half hour had passed. It was at Padre Pio's Mass that hundred of people professed to feel the presence of God in a way that was uniquely real and uniquely direct.

 

George H. Kubeck

UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S COLD WAR # 1 OF 2

UNDERSTANDING AMERICA'S COLD CIVIL WAR # 1 OF 2 

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - BLOGGER. CINOPS BE GONE - MON. FEB. 3, 2020

A PUBLICATION OF HILLSDALE COLLEGE, OCT. 2018, V. 47, NO. 10 - America's Cold Civil War, by Charles R. Kesler, Editor, Claremont Review of Books - Selected Excerpts.

    " As we saw in Bernie Sanders' campaign, the youngest generation of liberals is embracing socialism openly - something that would have been unheard of during the Cold War. At the same time, identity politics is on the ascendant, with its quasi-Nietzschean faith in race, sex, and power as the keys to being and meaning. In the # MeToo movement, for example - as we saw recently in Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation battle the battle - the credo is, "Believe the woman."

    In other words, truth will emerge not from an adversarial process weighing the evidence and testimony before the bar of reason, but by yielding to the will of the more politically correct. "Her truth" is stronger than any objective or disinterested truth...

    Underlying  our cold civil war is the fact that America is torn increasingly between two rival constitutions, two cultures, two ways of life... Normal politics place within a political and constitutional order and concerns means, not ends.... By contrast, regime politics is about who rules and for what ends or principles ... I fear America may be leaving the world of normal politics and entering the dangerous world of regime politics - a politics in which our political loyalties diverge more and more, as they did in the 1850's, between two contrary visions of the country.

    One vision is based on the original Constitution as amended. This is the Constitution written in 1787 and ratified in 1788.... The other vision is based on what Progressives and liberals, for 100 years now, have called "the living Constitution." This implies that the original Constitution is dead - or at least on life support  - ... in order to remain relevant...the Original Constitution must be infused with new meaning and new ends ....

    As a doctrine the living Constitution originated in America's new departments of political and social science in the late nineteenth century - but it was soon at the very forefront of Progressive politics....

The resulting Constitution - let us call it "the liberal Constitution" - is not a constitution of natural rights or individual rights, but of historical or evolutionary right. Wilson called the spirit of the old Constitution Newtonian, after Isaac Newton, and that of the new Constitution Darwinian, after Charles Darwin. By Darwinian, Wilson meant that instead of being different to amend, the liberal Constitution would be easily amenable to experimentation and adjustment. ...

    But during the sixties, the so-called New Left abandoned evolution for revolution, and partly in reaction to that, the defenders of the old Constitution began not merely to fight back, but to call for a return to America's first principles. ...

    

    The conservative campaign against the inevitable victory of the living Constitution gained steam as a campaign against the gradual sudden disappearance of limited government and of republican virtue in our political life.  And when it became clear, by the late 1970s and 1980s, that the conservatives weren't going away, the cold civil war was on....

George H. Kubeck. 

P.S. What comes to your mind when you think of Biden,[ Pelosi], Kerry, Cumuo, Newsom and many other nominal  Catholics within the Democratic Party? From Dave Carlin's Facebook, "I read about great divisions inside the Democratic Party. Yet they are all united on the anti-Christian basics: abortion, homosexuality, transgender-ism, and teaching filth to little kids in public schools."