That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill

Christ has died!
Christ has risen!
Christ will come again!
Happy and blessed Easter to all readers.
Deo gratias!

Hard-hitting but rather accurate portrayal of the Biden-Communion scandal in New York.
When will Catholics who are so publicly out of Communion with Christ and His Church be told that they have placed themselves out of Communion with His Church?

Sunday saw the biggest demonstration against 'same-sex marriage' yet witnessed in France, with 1.4 million French citizens descending upon Paris to protest against Francois Holland's proposal to redefine marriage in the country.

Ex-patriot French living in the United Kingdom, in solidarity with those protesting against the proposal in Paris, gathered to make their voices heard in Trafalgar Square in a three hour demonstration along with English supporters of 'Le Manif pour tous' ('The March for All') campaign. As many as 2,000 protesters were estimated to have been present at the foot of Nelson's column in support of traditional marriage as both English and French citizens railed against the French Government and British Government's plans to 'extend marriage' to include same-sex relationships.

While the Trafalgar Square demonstration passed off without violence or major incident, the news from France was different today, with Life Site New…

Two Popes pray at a chapel at Castel Gandolfo, but where is the free standing Altar? Mysterious. This video is really very moving...

Catherine Pepinster on Thought for the Day on Radio 4. First Catherine discusses the Passion of Our Lord and goes on:

"...Rather than people paying homage to Him, He will be mocked. Perhaps it was grief at that mockery that led the churches to focus so much on Christ the King but they seem to have turned themselves into a sort of court. Bishops, Archbishops and Cardinals wear sumptuous vestments, Altars are awash with ornate gold and silver, the people who run the churches belong to strangely Byzantine bureaucracies. Yearning for the transcendent has been replaced by the material."
Several things cross my mind when I listen to these words of Catherine Pepinster. First, did Our Lady chastise the Magi who brought to Her Divine Son gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh? Secondly, this is, fundamentally, Protestantism that Catherine Pepinster is promoting - the stripped Altars of the Protestant Reformation, the destruction of beauty, the tearing down of the sacred, to replace i…

Pope Francis today meets Pope Emeritus Benedict for lunch at Castel Gandolfo. Already a media circus has swarmed at Castel Gandolfo to report on what the new Pope and the ex-Pope will be having for lunch.

Reports suggest that Pope Francis will be taken by helicopter to the residences of Pope Emeritus Benedict, but it is more likely that Francis will instead send the helicopter to a local prison to greet a newly released prisoner on his first day of freedom and take the journey by foot or by donkey.

Some are already suggesting that this decision will be seen by many as a repudiation of the previous Pope's methods of transportation.

A small group of Catholic traditionalists have gathered outside St Peter's to pray that, following a mutually respectful dialogue, the former Pope will ask a trusted butler to squirt tomato ketchup over the black shoes of the new Pope, thus turning His Holiness's black shoes red. 

It is rumoured that Pope Emeritus Benedict will be having somethi…

This could catch on you know...

I woke up early this morning, looked out at the wretched weather (Benedicte, opera Domini Domino...etc) and turned on the wretched BBC to hear the presenter talking briefly about Pope Francis's election as Successor of St Peter, only then for the presenter to say, "...so let's hear from someone who doesn't think there should be a Pope, or even a Priesthood."

Introduced to us, then, was a professor who uses the Bible for his proposition that Our Lord didn't want Priests, never established a Papacy and that none of the Apostles were Priests. Ergo, the Church shouldn't have Priests. Is this professor a Catholic? Er...Well, he is a baptised Catholic who tried his vocation in a seminary and has since abandoned, entirely, the Catholic Faith. His central line of argument was that, "the words 'priest' and 'pope' aren't in the Bible".

The BBC presenter kindly pointed the professor to the bit in the Gospel about Our Lord establishing …

Pope Francis sits in the back of Domus Sanctae Marthae Chapel after celebrating Mass for the Vatican gardeners and janitors.

Legend.

I am a trained gardener. If anyone sees any gardening vacancies on the Vatican jobs site, do let me know.

Traditional Catholics, sadly unable to organise even a whimper of a protest at 'same-sex marriage' or a mass demonstration against the industrial scale slaughter of the unborn taking place on their home soil are organising a million man march on Rome in order to bring back the papal red shoes.

For the pilgrimage event, dubbed 'Red Shoes Day', the marchers have as their chief aim the reinstatement of the papal red shoes signifying that the Pope walks in the Blood of Christ and the blood of His Martyrs and hope that if a million men and women turn up in St Peter's Square in red shoes, His Holiness Pope Francis will see that not only do these shoes look perfectly pleasant but that they can be bought for a price that is right.

"We know the Holy Father wants his shoes to be modest and humble," said one traditionalist commenter on the site Rorate Caeli, "but we aim to prove that red shoes do not have to be expensive. For instance, you can get some Christi…

Sounds to me like the new Pope isn't worlds apart from the old Pope, though you wouldn't glean that from the media coverage. Sounds to me the new Pope says what the old Pope says only the previous Pope was more terse and pithy.

I do like that though: '...the so called richer countries...'

May God bless our Holy Father Francis, now reigning gloriously.

Honesty is the best policy. We have nothing to fear from the truth. What happens when we lie or conceal is far more frightening. I don't know whether seminaries are operating a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in regard to admitting homosexual persons to the Priesthood. How did that policy work out for you, Cardinal O'Brien? How did that policy work out for you, Catholic Church in Scotland? Never mind how Cardinal O'Brien rose to the rank of Cardinal. How on Earth did this man get ordained?
The Church, surely, must ask men coming forward for the Priesthood about their sexual orientation and make a judgment call on whether a man has sufficiently mastered his disordered passions to be considered for the Sacred Priesthood. If Holy Church is still ordaining homosexual men (and it is likely She is) then surely the Church needs to get real and ask some very serious questions of those being admitted to Holy Orders.

It doesn't have to be the Inquisition, but som…

Last night I met a young man in his early twenties who is expected to enter the seminary this year.

I asked him whether anything in particular had inspired him to explore a vocation to the Priesthood and he answered that being involved with a local Christian community with young people living out their faith had helped him to understand more about the Faith and it seems that for him things have progressed quite organically from there.  He is well catechised, faithful to the Church's teachings and sometimes attends the Traditional Latin Mass when he gets the opportunity. Concerning the traditional Mass, he says that "the future is bright." Other young seminarians and priests, he says, if they are not learning the traditional rite desire to do so and many will almost certainly learn it once ordained, if seminaries are not teaching it.

So, as I said before, don't worry too much if the reigning Pope does not follow the liturgical tradition and desires of Pope Emeritus B…

A planned witness to support marriage on Passion Sunday from 2pm to 5pm has been initiated by a group of French ex-patriates. Christian UK-based campaigning groups have been slow to organise anything, so the French, flushed with the success of the ‘manifestation’ in Paris in January, have decided to organise a demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Passion Sunday, 24th March, 2013.

What is little known is that this will be their second pro-marriage London witness. Canon Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream explains: ‘You may remember that in January around a million people - including many thousands of students and young people – demonstrated on the streets of Paris against their government’s proposals to redefine traditional marriage to include same sex couples. Hundreds of the demonstrators were UK-based French residents who boarded the Eurostar to Paris to join their compatriots.

‘What is less well known is that on the same day a further 600 French residents refrained from travell…

According to The Argus the gentleman pictured left is establishing a 'suicide group' in Sussex.

Astonishingly, the man who is spearheading this 'initiative' is a doctor, dubbed 'Doctor Death' by the local newspaper.

Isn't there enough despair and suicide in this city already?

According to the local press...

'Dr Michael Irwin, who has a home in Cromwell Road, Hove, yesterday (March 17) told how plans for the “Die-alogue” group were under way. It is due to be launched in Hove in mid-April and already a number of people have expressed an interest in joining. Members of the group will share advice on euthanasia, the Swiss suicide clinic Dignitas and end-of-life care.'
"Die-alogue" group. Well, you can't say Dr Irwin hasn't retained a his cuddly local GP sense of humour despite his frankly criminal egging on of the vulnerable to die as quickly as possible. According to The Argus...

'He told how the idea for the group came from th…

I was just visiting a friend who lives quite near me as I haven't heard from him for a while.

He and his mother are both lapsed Catholics, so I thought Pope Francis would be a good 'evangelising moment' for two people who are no longer practising the Faith.

"What do you think of Pope Francis?" I asked his mother.  "Oh," she replied, "I think he's wonderful, a real breath of fresh air."
So with such a positive response, I asked, "Does it inspire you to go to Mass again?"  "No," she replied, "Nothing could do that." "No, nothing could do that." Depressing! 
She added, "I shouldn't have given it up in the first place," as if giving something up means that you cannot take it up again. I've given up smoking before and I took it up again, so its not impossible.

I wanted to talk to her son, my friend about the new Pope, among other things, but he was unfortunately too drunk to discuss any…

For details of this opportunity to pray as you walk on pilgrimage to Walsingham for the conversion of England to the One True Faith click here.

I missed the inauguration of Pope Francis yesterday because of work commitments. I've read a bit about it (apparently the liturgy was actually rather reverent and good). However, one image in particular of the Pontiff's inauguration serves to remind us just what it is that will always make Christianity relevant in 'the public square'.

This reminder, indeed, was served, in St Peter's Square. The World in general is ready to cast off 'the least' of Christ's brethren as an economic and societal burden. The Church, since its very beginnings, has put the society in which it resides to shame because of Her members care for those whose humanity has been forgotten. The first Christians would recover the infants left to die from exposure atop hills because the children were deemed unfit for human purpose.

Today, a new report gives us ample more evidence that we are becoming a society willing to sacrifice weak and dependent human life for economic 'necessity…

I have some concerns about the idea of a Pope taking the name of Francis. Let us be clear, this is something the then Cardinal Bergoglio decided before being named as Pope and stepping out to greet the public. Further, I wish not to criticise His Holiness's actions hitherto, just to suggest, tentatively, that the Holy Father, while making gestures bound to make the Church more 'populist', are also a little dangerous.

Hot on the heels of the abandonment of the red shoes, I hear that His Holiness is to receive at his inauguration a second hand fisherman's ring which has been converted from a ring originally worn by Pope Paul VI's secretary. His Holiness obviously sees Francis as a name that connotes divesting if not the authority of the Papacy, then at least the signs and symbols of what we have become familiar with in the Papacy. Could not His Holiness, for instance, invest in some cheap red shoes, if His Holiness did not want expensive ones?

First, it is hard not …

A Cypriot friend of mine says that there's no money in the ATM machines in her town.

God made ermines to adorn the Prince of the Apostles. The ermines will not easily allow such a high vocation to slip away from them. 


While they are content to adorn royalty, like Queen Elizabeth II, they are not Protestants. The ermine, however, will resist any attempts to make the Queen wear polyester on the throne. They will not accept this in the name of 'humility', 'modernity' or a perceived need for 'low royalty'. The ermines enjoyed glorifying God through the Papacy.

Be assured that the entire ermine community are not happy with you, Cardinal Mahony. For their vocation was a high one, indeed! Already an ermine community has formed that will be striving to regain their place adorning the Successor of St Peter. They are called, 'Ermines for The Ermineutic of Continuity'.

Love St Francis of Assisi? Want to help Jesus and Mary bring joy to a World darkened by sin? Devoted to his message of Christian hope and salvation? Want to follow Jesus in poverty and simplicity of life? Love traditional Catholic liturgy and in particular the Traditional Latin Mass? Love Pope Francis and venerate His Holiness as Successor of St Peter? Then join these young guys... You never know. The odds are long, but one of your Order could one day become Pope. Learn more about the Franciscans of the Immaculate today...


Like I said, Mr Mickens, the traddie cat is well and truly out of the bag, has started sleeping on your couch and now expects feeding, but I expect you are too busy feeding the poor, tending to the sick and meditating on the Passion of Our Lord to notice. I'd like to dedicate this Lennon classic to Pope Emeritus Benedict, without whom the liturgical revolution already underway 'on the ground' could never have happened. The lyrics are so apt Pope Fra…

Pope Francis's Inauguration Mass booklet is now available for view.

Will it be shown live on BBC?

H/T The Chant Cafe

Well, I'm watching Pope Francis's celebration of Sunday Mass now taking place St Anne's Church, within the Vatican walls.

So far, the Pope has walked into St Anne's and incensed the Altar to the choir's Gregorian chant of Attende Domine.

So far, not a guitar in sight.

One disgraced Cardinal and one journalist lacking a certain grace have praised highly Pope Francis, now reigning gloriously.

Cardinal Mahony of LA, who presided over great scandal within his own Diocese has taken time to praise the Pope for what His Eminence believes will be a new era of Papal ceremonies in a 'LOW and humble Church' devoid of 'lace and ermine'. With the deepest respect to Pope Francis's predecessor, Cardinal Mahony tweeted:

"So long fancy ermine and papal lace! Welcome, simple cassock, and hopefully, ordinary black shoes! St Francis must be overjoyed!!"
Obviously, for certain liberals kindness and respect do not go hand in hand with humility, that most praiseworthy of virtues. Others have already commented that it would be ironic if Cardinal Mahony was in future to be ordered by the Pope to a penitential life somewhere for bringing the Bride of Christ into disrepute and failing the Church's little ones.

Meanwhile, Bobby Mickens, for w…