Well, the USCCB, which could not bring itself to making a loud, full-throated call to support life, oppose transgender ideology, promote the traditional family and Biblical definition of marriage, has finally found something it can be full-throated about: demanding that American taxpayers cover all expenses for illegal aliens and quit the “indiscriminate mass deportation of people.” No guidance was given on how the government should properly discriminate in deportations. And it was not all countries – and certainly NOT Vatican City that the Bishops demanded that law enforcement cease – this burden was laid only on the United States. Meantime, the Bishops gave no guidance on:
- The duty owed to those people slain, raped, or tortured by the precious illegal aliens.
- The pressure on housing and jobs for ordinary Americans that are now in competition with illegal aliens for same.
- The hundreds of thousands of lives lost to fentanyl and other deadly drugs facilitated by illegal immigration each year.
The USCCB took NO responsibility for the dramatic increase in human trafficking, both for slave labor and sexual slavery that has been facilitated by nearly open borders into the United States. The USCCB did NOT offer to relieve Americans of the financial burden of caring for these people by taking it on themselves. In fact, they demanded that the U.S. keep funding the charitable works that are part of THEIR job description. Meanwhile, they bleat that they spend more on relief for illegal aliens than they get from the U.S. government. Never mind that it is THEIR JOB to provide relief to those suffering, given by their original Boss…so they might show a little gratitude that the government is helping them do THEIR JOB for them. Of course, that is not near as satisfying as thundering about how the U.S. is not measuring up to their lofty moral standards – for the U.S. and the U.S. only…certainly not for themselves.
The Bishops also assured us that human respect and dignity does not depend on citizenship. They had nothing to say about those raped, tortured, murdered or sold into trafficking by illegal aliens and their right to dignity or respect. Apparently, the victims are just collateral damage and unworthy of their notice. The Bishops notably did not demand that the aliens’ countries of origin start treating them with respect or dignity so they can be more easily repatriated. They were probably too busy tracking down chunks of ice to bless or same sex marriages to bless.
I am friends with several Bishops and friendly with more than that. They are good, thoughtful people. But, collectively, the Bishops are perhaps the most dysfunctional, pretentious, feckless group of people I have ever dealt with. If Ronald Reagan had followed the Bishops’ solemn counsel during the Cold War, we would all be speaking Russian right now. On temporal matters they are just clueless – and smugly triumphal, to boot. They are the very archetype of Matthew 23:4 – binding heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and laying them on other men’s shoulders while not lifting a finger to help. This is not new. Shoot, when Islam mounted a war of extinction against Christianity, the hierarchy waited until nearly a third of western Europe had been taken before mounting the Crusades to defend the Christian countries. What IS new is actively undermining the actual faith while virtue-signaling with thunderous pronouncements on temporal matters they don’t understand or seem to even care to understand – as a group, anyway. It tears at me.
In Charlotte, Bishop Michael Martin has banned the Latin Mass and the use of altar rails at any Mass…all in the name of unity, you know. Sheesh! My legs hurt all the time and kneeling is one of the hardest, most painful things I do. But unless the pain is off the charts, I am going to kneel before my God (I do have a dispensation against kneeling because of that, but I rarely use it.) Meanwhile, Austin Bishop Daniel Garcia is banning the use of kneelers for receiving communion, explaining that to receive standing is the “norm,” in America, apparently unaware that it is the canonical norm to receive while kneeling, but the USCCB has gotten the Vatican to waive that norm for America. So, I will still kneel at reception and have a harder, more painful time getting up because Bishop Garcia wants to eliminate what I always greet with relief when I see it in a parish. I am a proud, committed Catholic BECAUSE of Scripture and the Magisterium, but I am completely embarrassed by the fecklessness and dereliction of actual duty by the modern hierarchy. That embarrassment today is coming out as anger. How long, O Lord?!
Yet there is, I have been long convinced, a purpose to God fully revealing the cupidity and the fecklessness of this group. I think that, from the beginning, God intended that there ultimately be a spiritual arm of His Church, the Hierarchy – which was to concern itself with salvation and bringing souls to Christ – not telling them that whatever sin floats your boat is good with them in some pathetic effort to be welcoming. There is a rigor to salvation – and as people jubilantly head towards the edge of the cliff, those charged with safeguarding them who, instead, busy themselves telling them it is just fine, keep going, WILL be held to account. Quit focusing on the splinter you think is in your neighbor’s eye, dear Bishops, while congratulating yourselves for it and ignoring the beam in your own eyes. But God also intended for there to be a secular arm to His Church to deal with such matters. Early on, the Holy Roman Empire served this purpose – but except for a brief, shining moment, it was more feckless, weak and impotent than the average National Conference of Bishops. It died out. But God is all about Resurrection. I think it will be revived – and in a much different way than what people think. Then the Bishops can quit playing at politician and get down to the business of drawing souls to Christ. In the meantime, don’t follow the Bishops’ lead on temporal matters. It would get everyone killed. Not that they give much of a lead anyway, just performative, theatrical pronouncements, with no acknowledgement of the problems their approach creates or counsel on how to actually make it work. Their advice boils down to, “All children deserve to be born” – and they’re not actually very fussy even about that.
And I am scared. I have always known that those Bishops who actively undermine Scripture are doomed to perdition unless they repent. But I now fear that those Bishops who value “collegiality” higher than they do doctrinal integrity are in grave danger, as well. It’s time to get right with God, for real. Preening and posturing don’t cut it – and only kindles the Big Guy’s wrath. He will strike far more quickly than you think.
Okay, spleen vented for today.
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Well, maybe not entirely. I promised a reader I would give a reminder about the infuriating case of Tina Peters. Peters is the Mesa County Deputy Clerk in Colorado who revealed how the Democrats committed and promoted fraud there in the 2020 election – and for her troubles was sent to prison by Colorado Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser. I never thought there could be a more vicious, feckless state attorney general than Kamala Harris was when she was persecuting David Daleiden in California – but with their second city mentality, Colorado officials try desperately to outdo the vicious pretentiousness of California every chance they get.
I have been involved in the legal systems of seven or eight, maybe 10 states, as unofficial councilor to people involved in political, civil, and criminal cases in the court systems. I have long since concluded Colorado has the single most corrupted judicial system in the country. That’s saying something, with California and New York in the mix. But there it is. I worked with a guy who was plaintiff in a case in Colorado. The defendant conceded the accuracy of his charges. The judge decided that the plaintiff should pay the defendant’s legal fees. When the astonished plaintiff’s attorney asked why, since the defendant confessed to the allegations, the judge said, well, she apologized for them. I’ll bet you can guess who was the conservative and who, the liberal, in this scenario.
How did this happen? Well, Colorado adopted “merit” selection of judges – which means the governor chooses them rather than the citizens of the state. Of course, the guv has to choose from several proposed by a “non-partisan” panel (which almost always means a Democrat panel approved by NPR). About 12 years ago Colorado went to all mail-in voting and there has not been a Republican governor since. So, the Dem. Governors choose all Dem judges (with a couple of RINOs sprinkled in for plausible deniability) and there you have it – a judiciary that is not concerned with the law in any case tinged with politics, only with delivering the most left-wing outcome possible, no matter how implausible. That is how the state’s Supreme Court tried to throw Trump off the ballot because he participated in an “insurrection.” The good justices of the highest court in the state apparently did not know that “insurrection” has a specific legal meaning – and it is NOT because CNN and MSNBC wants it to be so. Actually, those judges probably did know that, but they did their jobs as Colorado officials see it: deliver the most left-wing outcome possible, no matter how absurd. That was the highest court in the state. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.
Any political pro – or any law enforcement pro, for that matter, knows what room for mischief it leaves when you destroy the chain of custody. That is what all mail-in voting does. It used to be that to vote, you went in, showed ID, voted, then the ballot was dropped in a locked box with witnesses continually present. That locked box was opened before the same witnesses after voting closed and was counted in the presence of those witnesses. Results were noted and transmitted to the county, along with the raw ballots in sealed pouches. Pretty hard to commit fraud. Ever since the motor voter laws of the 80’s and 90’s every Democrat election proposal has made fraud easier and harder to prove. That is why they can be bat-guano crazy and still win elections. I suspect if you had honest elections, with the same security measures you had in the 60’s, you would be hard-pressed to find 10 blue states in the entire country. But once you allow Democrats to destroy the safeguards ensuring electoral integrity, it is brutally hard to get them back.
Fortunately as the linked article notes, the Trump administration is trying to get Peters transferred to federal custody, perhaps as a witness to election fraud. Cheer them on. I hope the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Dep’t. is quietly and fully investigating the Colorado election and judicial system, including Colorado’s version of Dolores Umbridge, Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
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Many people have asked my thoughts on the Vatican’s note on the titles, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces, as applied to Mary. I covered it exclusively in the latest CORAC Newsletter.
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Make plans to attend the grand, high, exalted, mystic CORAC International Zoom meeting on Sunday afternoon, Dec. 7. I’m looking forward to visiting with all of you. (Or perhaps I should say visiting with y’all, since I’m in Texas right now and reverting to some of my roots. You know, I learned to talk in Birmingham, Alabama. The family moved up to the Chicago area when I was three and a half years old. When I started 1st Grade (didn’t go to Kindergarten) everybody thought two things about me: I was real smart and sure did talk real funny. So, the summer between 1st and 2nd Grades, I decided, “By Gum, I’m going to figure out how to talk Yankee” – and I did. Been going back and forth ever since depending on where I’m at.”
Accents used to be thicker, before the widespread advent of a neutral Midwestern accent used in almost every local news program in the country. When I was 19, two buddies of mine and I went traveling. When we were down south, they hit it off big-time with my cousin (3rd or 4th), Joe Rider (really). Problem was, I don’t think Joe had ever been more than 10 miles outside Birmingham and they could not understand a word each other said. So, I translated for them. As the old joke goes, two regions of the country separated by a common language.
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.
Find me on X at @JohnstonPilgrim
The Corps of Renewal and Charity (CORAC)
18208 Preston Rd., Ste. D9-552
Dallas, Texas 75252
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