Ann Arbor, Michigan – Today, Thursday, Sept. 26, would have been my Dad’s 87th birthday. August 24th would have been my Mom’s 84th birthday. (For those of you clever with math, yes that does mean Dad was 18 when I was born and Mom was 15 – but they had been married for a year and a half.) I miss them both dearly.
You get to thinking about the role your parents played in your life and the traits you inherited from them. If you can, you think about who they were and what their lives were apart from the role they played in your life.
I get my quick wit, story-telling penchant, and lively good humor – and love of argument -from my Dad. When I first registered to vote and we were in the same house, it tickled Dad to no end that when we went to vote, the election official had to ask each of us, “Are you Charlie the Democrat or Charlie the Republican?” Mom told me that once, after he recounted that story to a group of friends, one of those friends animatedly told him, “I wouldn’t have a son who didn’t vote the way I told him to.” Mom said Dad immediately ended the conversation by turning to that friend, squinting his eyes, and hotly retorting, “And I wouldn’t have a son who let anybody tell him how to vote, including me.” That says most of what anyone needs to know about my Dad. Would that families around the country could once more have that combination of affection and respect for each other.
I got my love of reading and music from my Mom – and my occasional penchant for a hotly flaring temper. Though a small woman, about 5’3”, when Mom’s sense of justice was offended or she perceived a threat to her family, she was a force to be reckoned with…and I never saw anyone who wanted to reckon with her in that state. Once, in the middle of winter, Mom and Dad had been out shopping with his brother, Harold, and his family. Harold had rented a house from a fellow and was having some troubles with the man’s goofy son – because the son had been trying to get Harold to abandon the lease so he could take over the house. When they got home, this goof was on the porch, having just removed the front door from the hinges. In the middle of winter. After some hot words with him, Dad and Uncle Harold got a tool box and were preparing to put the door back up, when the goof came back around with a pair of bolt-cutters, intending to cut the power line to the house. No one noticed that when the bolt cutters came out, Mom quietly opened the trunk of the car and got the tire iron. They sure noticed when she proceeded to whop the goof upside of the head with it. His legs went rubbery and he sat on the ground as Dad and Uncle Harold desperately restrained Mom, trying to keep her from wailing on him completely. As the fiery sparks slowly faded from Mom’s eyes, the goofy son of the landlord wobbled to his feet and got out of there. If you got Mom’s dander up just right, she could make an enraged mongoose seem downright cuddly. Days later, my Uncle Harold tried to apologize to the landlord. The landlord brushed it off, telling him that Mom probably saved his son’s life. “What kind of idiot tries to cut a high-voltage power line with bolt cutters?” he asked Harold, while promising that his son would not be bothering him anymore.
Both Mom and Dad had their virtues and their flaws, but they were vivid characters. We have few pale pastels in my family line. I miss them.
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While driving through Chicago on my way to Michigan, I saw several big billboards with the slogan, “Welcome to Chicago, where abortion is healthcare.” That’s kind of backwards – and the horrifying sentiment of a dying culture. All I could think was, “Welcome to Dachau, where genocide is hygiene.”
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When I crossed the line into Michigan, I decided to count the campaign signs along I-94 from western Michigan into Ann Arbor on the east side. The final tally was 11 for Trump and one for Harris. I think signs are a dying political art form. I don’t know exactly why. Certainly, there are more loons out there who will assault you or damage your property if they don’t like your yard sign these days. Pity. Once, near the end of a statewide primary where we scored a huge upset victory, we had a couple reporters on our small campaign plane as we traversed the state from the north end to the south. One wrote a column saying he would not be shocked by an upset because, all day, he could see the signs along the highway from the plane with our signature red swoosh in every area of the state.
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Pope Francis caused another kerfuffle over the last few weeks, first by suggesting that to refuse to welcome illegal aliens was a sin on par with supporting abortion, and then by saying, in effect, that all religions are the same. I have sometimes wondered whether these outrages are driven by malice towards Catholic doctrine or whether, maybe, the Pope just isn’t very bright. He is a Jesuit and, sadly, the Jesuits long ago traded intellectual rigor for ideological pretense. The Jesuits have become the modern masters of sophistry. (Not every Jesuit: one of the two smartest Priests I have ever known is a Jesuit. But the dumbest Priest I have ever known is also a Jesuit – and he is not a nice man, either.) It could, of course, be both.
The first thing to know is that these rambling, informal comments are NOT binding on the faithful – or even the clergy. It seems the Pope does not understand the difference between ecumenism (emphasizing the points of unity among denominations while respecting the doctrinal integrity of each) and syncretism (all religions are the same). Pope St. John Paul the Great practiced ecumenism, strengthening Christian unity while sparking a lot of conversions. Pope Francis practices syncretism which, if true, would leave no reason for anyone to be a Catholic. It is no coincidence that, during his reign, a lot of Catholics have gravitated towards Orthodoxy or Evangelical Protestantism.
It would be arguably true to say that all religions that seek unity with God are stirrings of an authentic religious faith. Such stirrings should not be condemned, but encouraged and evangelically redirected towards the one, true God. When St. Paul spoke to the pagans at the Areopagus (Acts 17), he began by congratulating them on their genuine piety. Then he spoke powerfully about Jesus Christ and the true path to union with God. He did not condemn them for their stirrings, but he did not pretend that their path, if persisted on, would lead to the same destination his would. Because it would not have been true. If what Pope Francis said was true, why bother evangelizing at all? Why bother being Catholic – or Christian – at all?
Jesus told us to go and carry His message to all the world under His name. He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. Despite the respect I have for his office, when a Pope demands I choose between his words or those of Christ, I’m going to choose Christ every time.
This, too, shall pass – in God’s good time.
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One of my favorite Catholic essayists is Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family & Human Rights. He wrote a marvelous piece for Crisis Magazine a few years back that still resonates with me. Entitled We Were Made for This Fight, it posits that we are surrounded by cultural assassins, that our duty is not to hunker down, but to stand up and defeat the assassins. While all true Christians oppose the transgender ideology that would mutilate and sterilize our children, I don’t hear often enough the movement described in accurate terms. Transgender ideology is a direct assault on the sovereignty of God. As the Fatima visionary Sister Lucia said, “The final confrontation between the Lord and satan will be over family and marriage.” We’re there.
(Though regular readers know this, I have to distinguish between Armageddon, the final confrontation between good and evil – and the Apocalypse, the final battle before the end of time. Armageddon precedes the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart, which will usher in an extended era of peace, prosperity and brotherhood. At the Apocalypse, the satan will be briefly unchained, specifically to usher in the end of all things. I do not want anyone to misquote me to make it seem as if I am saying this is the end. I signed on, specifically, to help people navigate through this storm to the safe port that is prepared for us at the back end of this perilous journey, the great Era of Peace. That has been emphasized more than anything else in my mystical visions since I was seven years old.)
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Through a series of happy coincidences, I will be at Donald Trump’s encore rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5th. That is the first day of my annual Novena to the penultimate apparition at Fatima. I have asked the Lord to send a battalion of angels along with me. So if you see a bunch of guys with flaming swords on the video of the event, you know what that is all about. Those aren’t “guys.”
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I thank all of you who have answered the call to donate and help us to keep carrying light in this age of darkness to you. We have done a lot of work, but we have only just begun. We are called to carry the light of Christ and His Good News to this poor, battered, darkened world. We have a lot of wood yet to chop. So, as country singers Earl Flatt and Loretta Lynn once said, “Keep those cards and letters coming, folks!”
If communication goes out for any length of time, meet outside your local Church at 9 a.m. on Saturday mornings. Tell friends at Church now in case you can’t then. CORAC teams will be out looking for people to gather in and work with.
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