"I spent a long time in the pro-life movement, and I met a lot of good people who have given their lives to the struggle against abortion. But among them, I have met very few who understood how their own acceptance of the new mores of the Sexual Revolution have affected them and the movement." . . . Hilary White

In front of the entrances of many Italian churches, including St. Peter’s Basilica, visitors will find a sign that asks them to remember that the building they are entering is not a museum, not a tourist attraction, but a holy place.

At St. Peter’s the long, serpentine queue is punctuated along its length by signs showing stick figures wearing shorts, short skirts and sleeveless t-shirts covered with a big red slashed circle. Italian churches expect a base-line level of modesty and respect from visitors, even if they are expected to know nothing about the Faith for which they are built.

On September 23, 2017, we will see the constellation Virgo with the sun rise directly behind it (the woman clothed with the sun). These events transpire during the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of “the woman clothed in the sun,” Our Lady at Fatima in 1917. What does it mean?

[Editorial Note: In the following article, I intend to present a series of facts and observations from which I draw no definitive conclusion. Yet, these facts and observations are of such a nature, for no other reason than their observation and reporting, that lend themselves to misinterpretation. So let me be clear, in the following article, I predict nothing. I am offering my observations on some upcoming phenomena, both heavenly and man-made, potentially of great import, that people might find interesting and of which people should be aware.]

“And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given two wings of the great eagle that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times and half a time. * * * Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.” - Apocalypse of St. John, Chapter 12, verse 13-17.
 
Despite the fact that it is already mid-October, Rome is heating up. In the midst of the so-called Synod on the Family, scandal after scandal continue to rend the Rock. And, through the cracks the ugly core of heretical hierarchical real politik becomes ever more apparent to the faithful.

When you were a kid, and went to the pool, did you play the “how low can you go” game? Using keys or any object that would sink to the bottom, you stood at one end of the pool and threw it as far as you could into the deep end, then swam down after it. The game was really about nerve. Most pools are only about 10 feet at the diving end, and the lifeguard was always watching, so our daredevil diving was harmless.

But I get the impression that no matter how far down any bishop goes in the current synodal version of the game, there’s going to be someone ready to follow him a few feet lower. And the lifeguard on duty doesn’t seem to care one way or another. This rivalry among the Synod’s ultra-progressives (“heretics,” in Catholic) to see how outrageous they can get, right in front of the pope, seems to be bringing us to new depths that perhaps most ordinary Mass-going novusordoist Catholics had previously never guessed existed among the episcopate.