Ignatius Press has just released Heroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped Build ‒ and Can Help Rebuild ‒ Western Civilization, by Fr. William J. Slattery, PhD, STL.

The book comes highly endorsed by Cardinals Robert Sarah, Raymond Burke, and Walter Brandmuller; by the novelist Michael O’ Brien, author of Father Elijah: An Apocalypse, who describes Heroism and Genius as an “extraordinary book…an essential read for anyone desiring to understand where we have come from and where we presently are”; by Thomas Woods, Ph.D., the New York Times best-seller author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History who states “Slattery’s book is the final blow to the Enlightenment version of Western history”.

We decided to interview the author about his new book, available already at Amazon.com.

Many thanks to Father Slattery for taking the time to tell us something about this most important work. - Michael J. Matt

Francis: It is a sin to base social policy on legitimate, understandable fears concerning the effects of Muslim immigration. But adultery is not sinful in “complex circumstances.”

As this grotesque mockery of a papacy continues with so sign of abatement, we learn that Francis has just bestowed the title of Commander in the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great on none other than Lilianne Ploumen, former Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in the Netherlands, who is one of the world’s foremost promoters of abortion on demand.  As Michael Hichborn (a fellow parishioner of mine) reports:

“After US President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, Ploumen launched a new NGO called She Decides to provide mass amounts of funds to organizations that would no longer receive funds from the US government.  The Mexico City Policy automatically denies US funding for international organizations which perform or promote abortion.

“Referring to the Mexico City Policy as a ‘Global Gag Rule,’ Ploumen stated that the intention of She Decides was to continue support for existing programs being run by organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International.  She said, ‘These are successful and effective programs: direct support, distributing condoms, making sure women are accompanied at the birth, and making sure abortion is safe if they have no other choice. By July of 2017, Ploumen’s program had raised over $300 million."

Let this sink in:  in the name of Pope Gregory the Great, a wayward successor on the Chair of Peter has conferred the dignity of a papal knighthood on a woman who declares publicly her undying commitment to “making sure abortion is safe if they have no other choice.”  Let no one object that Francis merely provided a pro forma papal blessing to a ceremonial honorific.  He surely knows the worldwide scandal this has caused, but just as surely will never revoke the honor.  Message received!

Meanwhile, the entire Church is expected to hang on Francis’s every word concerning this or that matter which preoccupies him, for as he has made clear in one of his multitude of infamous interviews: “I’m constantly making statements, giving homilies. That’s magisterium.” Constantly indeed!  And this constant stream of “magisterium” includes the obsessive repetition of Francis’s opinion on the imaginary moral duty of European nations to welcome their invasion by endless  waves  of “migrants” and “refugees” the large majority of whom are military age Muslim males.

The most recent example is a sermon on the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

Like the politician he clearly wishes to be, on this occasion Francis spoke out of both sides of his mouth, the better to advance the result that one side of his mouth has never ceased advocating: the effective Islamicization of Western Europe.  Quoth Francis:

In today’s world, for the newly arrived, to welcome, to know and to recognize means to know and respect the laws, culture and traditions of the countries in which they are welcomed….

So far, so good.  But of course we know what is coming next from our bitter experience with the maddening Bergoglian two-step: exactly the opposite thought, which is the real point of the sermon.  Thus, Francis continued:

It is not easy to enter into the culture of others, to put ourselves in the shoes of people so different from us, to understand their thoughts and experiences. And so often we give up the meeting with the other and raise barriers to defend ourselves. Local communities sometimes fear that newcomers disturb the established order, “robbing” something that has been painstakingly constructed. Even the newcomers have fears: they fear confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure.

These fears are legitimate, based on doubts that are fully understandable from a human point of view. Having doubts and fears is not a sin. Sin is to let these fears determine our responses, condition our choices, compromise respect and generosity, feed hatred and rejection. Sin is to renounce the encounter with the other, the encounter with the different, the encounter with others, which in fact is a privileged opportunity to meet the Lord.

To summarize this double-talk: (a) “migrants” and “refugees” (i.e., basically hordes of well-fed, military age Muslims) should respect the laws, culture and traditions of the European nations into which they are swarming; (b) fears that millions of Muslim “migrants” and “refugees” will not respect “laws, culture and traditions” of European nations, particularly in local communities, are legitimate and fully understandable; but (c) civil authorities would sin if they based  their immigration policy decisions on legitimate and understandable fears about the effects of Muslim mass migration.  

Or, more simply: there must be no restriction on Muslim mass migration, and certainly no “barriers” such as those “sinfully” erected by Poland and Hungary in order to “renounce the encounter with the other.”

So, according to Francis, calling a halt to mass Muslim migration, or even sharply restricting it, would be sinful.  But living in a state that the Catechism of John Paul II calls “permanent and public adultery” is not sinful for many in that state, nor is it any impediment to their reception of Holy Communion, given their “complex circumstances.”  No “complex circumstances,” however, would justify halting or restricting Muslim mass migration, even based on legitimate and understandable fears about its effects.

Confronted with rising opposition to his novelties, Francis has dared to affix the label Authentic Magisterium^® to his approval of Holy Communion for public adulterers, even though it introduces “a discipline alien to the entire Tradition of the Catholic and Apostolic faith.”  Doubtless he would, if he deemed it expedient, apply the same label to his view that the “welcoming” of an indiscriminate number of “migrants” and “refugees” is a moral imperative of nations and that its rejection is sinful.

The label as applied by Francis deserves the mockery of the registered trademark symbol because, by standing in opposition to all his predecessors on a matter as fundamental as the sin of public adultery and its consequences respecting the discipline of the Sacraments, Francis himself forfeits any claim that his personal brand of thought can be identified with the perennial Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church. With each passing day of “this disastrous pontificate,” the distinction between what Francis thinks and what the Magisterium teaches impresses itself ever more deeply on the Catholic mind.

 

Bishop Bode put his stripy socks on, everybody. Time to listen up and take him seriously: 

GERMANY, January 10, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) –  Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, the Vice President of the German Bishops' Conference, has called for a discussion about the possibility of blessing homosexual relationships. He believes there to be “much [that is] positive” in such relationships.

The new statement from Bishop Bode comes in the wake of a recent interview given to the German journal Herder Korrespondenz by Cardinal Reinhard Marx – President of the German Bishops' Conference and papal adviser – in which he proposed that the Catholic Church rethink her teaching on sexual morality in which he argued against “blind rigorism.” For him, it is “difficult to say from the outside whether someone is in the state of mortal sin.” Marx applied this statement not only to men and women in 'irregular situations,' but also to those in a homosexual relationship.

There has to be “a respect for a decision made in freedom” and for one's “conscience,” claimed Marx. He said that one has to take into account the “concrete circumstances,” while still remembering “one's own responsibility in light of the Gospels.” Of course, added Marx, one also has “to listen to the voice of the Church.”

In the new interview with the German regional newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, Bishop Bode made remarks which have already led to a vivid discussion in Germany, with conservative Catholics like Mathias von Gersdorff and Dr. Markus Büning raising their voices in protest.

“I think we have to discuss this matter in more detail within the Church,” says Bishop Bode – who has been the bishop of Osnabrück since 1995 – adding that it does not help to maintain “silence” in this matter.

...Bishop Bode asks, with reference to homosexual couples, “how do we do justice to them?” and adds: “how do we accompany them pastorally and liturgically?” Moreover, the German prelate – who had been one of the representatives of the German bishops at the Synod of Bishops on marriage and the family – proposes to reconsider the Church’s stance on active homosexual relationships which are regarded as gravely sinful. “We have to reflect upon the question as to how to assess in a differentiated manner a relationship between two homosexual persons,” he says. “Is there not so much positive and good and right so that we have to be more just?”  READ MORE HERE

 

REMNANT COMMENT:

A New Year Prediction: Vatican Will Greenlight ‘Gay Unions’ in 2018

On January 6, 2018, right to life in Paris received a tremendous advocate:

National Catholic Register: “…Paris now has a vigorous new pro-life champion for its archbishop! His installation [was] Jan. 6.

Archbishop Aupetit, 66, was something of a “late vocation” (if you only count the priesthood as a vocation): He was ordained at age 44, after a previous vocation as a medical doctor. He practiced medicine from 1979 to 1990 and taught bioethics until 2006. His book, L’Embryon, Quells Enjeux? (The Embryo: What Are the Stakes? Paris: Éditions Salvator, 2008) is a vigorous defense of the unborn child.

…What is most appealing about Archbishop Aupetit is that, as a medical doctor, he has the scientific background and expertise necessary to engage and respond to the bioethicists ready to bless the next case of embryo experimentation here or euthanasia there. There is still an aura about the white-laboratory-coated “expert” that affords him deference — often undue deference — to conduct experiments or even formulate public policy. Part of that aura stems from his biological or medical knowledge that his audience neither has nor often understands, so they are ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The value of Archbishop Aupetit is that he can stand toe-to-toe with them and offer plausible rebuttals, having the same command of biology and medicine as his opponent.” Read the full report HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: It is tragically indicative of the nature and full extent of the crisis in the Catholic Church when a new bishop is highly praised merely for being pro-life, as though that's no longer a given.  Well, in fact it's not.  Lots of things once considered givens ain't necessarily so anymore. (Something about popes always and forever being unquestionably Catholic comes to mind.)

Still, the new Archbishop of Paris is highly regarded in the pro-life community and at least is not known to be not supportive of the Traditional Latin Mass movement. In fact, Angelqueen reported a possible good sign in this regard:

Bishop Michel Aupetit, 66, of Nanterre, a former medical doctor, will be the next archbishop of Paris according to the French Journalist Frederic Martel writing on Twitter. Martel refers to “informal contacts in Rome”. On November 11, Nanterre Diocese celebrated the tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum with a Tridentine Latin Mass in Nanterre cathedral. The Latin Mass was even announced on the diocesan website.

Here's to hoping and praying for the best in Paris. 

 

For more information, click HERE

 

 

Next Tuesday at the Argument of the Month:

In order to be a good Catholic in the modern Church, is it necessary to be some sort of progressive, open-minded Democrat, or an environmentalist, anti-capitalist and celebrate Martin Luther's Protestant Revolt? Michael Matt and Father Echert say NO! AOTM asks why not? Is that not the message from the majority of Catholic leaders? Is it OK, for Catholics to stick with traditional moral theology or is it necessary for all of us to change how we believe and get ready to go along with the times? Come see our very own Fr. Echert and Michael Matt defend their positions in a crossfire of objections from our moderator. Come enjoy the good food and fellowship at the next AOTM!

Schedule 5:30pm Social Hour and Appetizers

7:00pm Dinner

7:30pm Main Presentation/Debate

9:30pm Wrap Up

Order your ticket HERE