Sunday, July 24, 2011

A Goodbye to the Knights of Columbus

Wow. Michael Voris has publicly expressed what many other faithful Catholic men have quietly been doing for some time now, left the Knights of Columbus.

Many, many years ago, I naively thought the capes, swords and feathers parading in Masses meant they were men who defended Church teaching. When the Deposit of Faith, our schools, our children and the culture was under attack, they were one of the first groups I reached out to. I won't bore you with the all the details but every time I now see them in their ridiculous costumes, it generates disgust.

The Knights does fundraise and uses its sources to do some good work but sadly, the feathers and swords protect corruption, abortion and the political and theological indoctrination of our people into the slavery of sin.

Several of you have written to alert me that Mark Shea stuck more pins into his Voris voodoo doll.

You have to love the irony of this citation in his Voriscreed:

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another.But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. (Galatians 5:14-26)


Helllooowwwwwwwww. Check out your archives Mark!

Or, if you don't have time, CMR has the reader's digest of his most recent:

Mark drops a whole dumptruck of hyperbolic polemic on Voris. Some juicy excerpts.

Voris' sole message is "I am the measure of Real Catholicism and those who agree with me have the right to call themselves Catholic, while those who disagree are liars and lukewarm fake Catholics".
and
Dave Armstrong (who is, of course, not a real Catholic since he questions the infallible Voris) looks at Voris' tissue of prideful, biblically illiterate and theologically stupid assertions
and then Mark unloads on those who like Voris (like me, I suppose)
Why does this matter? Because I am constantly hearing from fans of Voris who think that his method of perpetually sneering at brother and sister Catholics, tearing down anything that he deems to be not "really" Catholic, and endlessly complaining about and sneering at others for their alleged "impurity" (such as singing "Amazing Grace") constitutes being a "bold voice of reform".
and
I don't understand what people see in this guy. You can get all the good things he has to say--without the sectarian self-righteousness and cloddish theological blunders and over-simplifications--from lots of other sources. So it would appear that precisely what people want is his distinctive contribution: sectarian self-righteousness and cloddish over-simplifications.


Good one. LOL.

We all have a job to do. Nobody this side of Colleseum has had the spinal fortitude to do what Michael Voris is doing. Putting Christ's Church above the need to be controlled by donors with cult mentality of protecting corrupt Bishops and Cardinals and priests.

That era is coming to an end. It will be painful for those who want to continue to protect it. Such is life.

43 comments:

Jerry said...

Voris is right to slam the K of C. They've been harboring pro-aborts and Lodge members for a long time. Maybe John O'Gorman can drop by and fill us in. He has suffered from the K of C for pointing these things out.

I was a third-degree mason of Columbus. My Lodge in Billerica had "brotherhood" night with the real Lodge. They brought apron-wearing craft members into St. Theresa's for Mass! When they got an award from the state, in '91 I think, for 25 years of "brotherhood" with the Lodge, I left. I was an officer, and walked out of a meeting. The grand poobah got really upset.

Yes, I think the K of C is a subsidiary of the Lodge, at least in Massachusetts. It's a control-your-opposition ploy.

I could go on about the other stuff, like drink-and-cuss night, but I don't want to hog the comments (heh, heh).

Jerry said...

As for Mark Shea, he's free to create and post videos. Let's guess at how well he'd do with that.

Anonymous said...

CORRECTION MEA CUPLA.

MARK SHEA, and others of his ilk, leave me with nothing but a taste of hate, such that I have no interest in their arguments one way or another, about anything. Something that seems lost to him.

Would that our priests and Bishops and "Catholic" bloggers had the same love for the truth seemingly in Mr. Voris' possession. Would that we were less interested in money, our blog stats and respective on-line businesses, and more wedded to a love for the truth, at any price.

I quote, again, Fr. Hardon:

"The key word in the eighth Beatitude is the word “prophets.” The biblical term for prophet is nabi. It means someone who speaks, acts, or writes under the extraordinary influence of grace to make known the mind and will of God.

Strange to say, Jesus is telling us to proclaim Him to others as the prophets of the Old Testament proclaimed the one true God. No less than the prophets of old had to pay dearly for proclaiming the truth, so we Christians must be ready to pay even more dearly for proclaiming the Incarnate Truth who is Jesus Christ.

Just before His ascension into heaven, He told His disciples that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses for me in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and even to the very ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). As I never tire telling people, the original Greek of the Acts of the Apostles reads “you shall be my martyrs.”

That is the price that we must expect to pay for proclaiming the truth, who is Jesus Christ. This is the verdict of two thousand years of Christian history. No less than the Church was founded on Calvary the moment Christ died on the cross; so the Church has grown and developed only through the cross.

How many times we may have heard the expression, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” The secret is to believe that this is the only way that authentic Christianity, which is the Roman Catholic Church, can be propagated effectively".

Hardon goes on to quote St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (Died in 258 A.D):

“The Lord has willed that we should even rejoice over persecutions because, when persecutions occur then the faith is crowned. God’s soldiers are put to the test and heaven is opened to martyrs. We have not enlisted in an army merely to think of peace and to decline battle, seeing that the Lord, the master of humility, endurance and suffering, has taken the first place in the conflict. He was the first to do what He taught us to do. He was the first to endure for us in order to inspire us to endure for Him.”

God bless Mr. Voris. And, God bless Carol. Thanks Carol!

Maria

Anonymous said...

I'm a 2nd degree Knight. I know my local 202 is very pro-life and does many good things, etc.

http://council202.blogspot.com/

Jasper

Restore-DC-Catholicism said...

Anyone who's been to my blog knows my appreciation for Voris and Real Catholic TV. I read Shea's latest screed once. I will not do so again, lest I boost his blog counts.

Maria said...

Mary Anne, right? I read your blog and very much enjoy it. Am glad to see that you support Voris.

Joseph D'Hippolito said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joseph D'Hippolito said...

What I meant was Shea's response to Voris, not to me.

Anonymous said...

Carol honey - if you don't think Voris has Big Donors on his side...I don't know what to tell you.

Shea has no Big Donors. He has people who buy his books and give to his PayPal account.

Voris has a television network and is doing a big deal event in Madrid at World Youth Day. (look up "no bull in madrid.")

He's got money coming in. Probably a lot more than Shea does. He has his own audience to please and suck up to.

TTC said...

I am well aware Voris has donors. We can't fight the clerical cult mentality without money. We tried that. My point is, we finally have a man willing to go up against the wealthy donors who puppeteer protecting corruption. The crowd left in the pews is sacramental. We want our religion taught to us. Exposing what priests and Bishops ate doing is the most effective weapon we have.

There ate more of us than there are of Mark et al and their donors. If they take an enemy position, they will get trampled.

Steve "scotju" Dalton said...

I'm happy to see that you're pro Voris. MV is a great communicator of our Catholic faith. I suspect the reason why Shea and Dave Armstrong hate him is because Michael is an unapologetic Catholic, and they wish to hang on to whatever Protestantism they got left in them. Witness the "Amazing Grace" dust up. Dave Armstrong was the one that started this idiotic affair. One only has to look at his website to realize that he is too Prot friendly to be an effective Catholic apologist. Oh, he may lash out at extreme anti-catholics like James White, but that doesn't prevent him from being lovey-dovey with the more moderate ones. Poo, he even posts praises from Prots who like his stuff.

Anonymous said...

"MARK SHEA, and others of his ilk, leave me with nothing but a taste of hate, such that I have no interest in their arguments one way or another, about anything. Something that seems lost to him."

Maria, I couldn't agree with you more. If Mark Shea and his cronies dislike someone, they must be okay.

Whose payroll is he on anyway?

No big donors? Maybe if he changed his nasty ways he would be a donor or two.

Veronica

P.S. Jerry, feel free to hog the comments all you want!

Anonymous said...

That should read:

"Maybe if he changed his nasty ways, there would be a donor or two."

Jerry said...

Did folks see the traceback to vox-nova at the bottom of the page? We're "Pharisees," I think. The Novus-Ordo thought police are really a hoot!

I'm not sure if Karlson's post is about Shea, Voris, or Pharisees. But he definitely doesn't like Voris. I'll confess, I've viewed only 2 or 3 Voris videos. Fine stuff. I didn't watch this latest K of C one. It's not Voris, it's me. I don't watch many videos of any kind. But I don't need to watch when Voris is picking on the K of C because the K of C deserves to be criticized (see my rant above). However, Karlson ignores the subject completely.

Karlson makes one interesting point; whether it is a fair characterization of Voris, I don't know. He thinks Voris is trying "to create some sort of false schism between the US Bishops with the Vatican." Well, yes, Michael would be wrong to do that. There is no schism. It's one single program with two faces, like "good cop, bad cop." The program is Modernism, and the Vatican plays the moderate Modern while AmChurch goes full blown. The Roman side is well described at waragainstbeing.com.

Jerry said...

Voris just got an award: he is officially "not in any way recognized or approved by World Youth Day 2011"!

One could only wish that all persons under 21 years of age were not approved to attend WYD either!

Anonymous said...

"Voris just got an award: he is officially 'not in any way recognized or approved by World Youth Day 2011'!"

What an honor!

"Thought police" - that about sums them all up.

When I was entering the convent, I had to take a psychological test. I don't know how to spell it, but when it came to that Rohrshack blob test, I only saw one thing. The psychologist kept trying to make me see things that weren't there. I couldn't see them, and no amount of persuasion on his part could make me see them.

Veronica

TTC said...

Jerry, yes indeed, I caught the wave to Karlson's post.

It needs to be said that Mark is not a Henry Karlson. Mark is faithful to Christ's Church. I don't get over there much, but I don't ever recall anything he's written that departed from the Deposit of Faith. He is not motivated by money, his heart and his ministry serve Christ.

What personality conflicts arise are personal. He genuinely wants peace and good will. Somewhere, we are failing to convey to him exactly what Voris and his ministry does to assist those of us on the ground.

Henry on the other hand, positions himself to confuse Catholics. He leads the uncatechized away from Truth.

I think Karlson's question was something like what will Voris criticize next.

Answer: What he and his crowd of malcontents do when Church teaching is proclaimed:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mS_8Iws5K8&sns=fb

TTC said...

Jerry - love the award!

Oh, we get it, the USCCB carefully controls catechesis to children so that only what is in full communion with the Catholic religion gets approved.

Good one!

Anonymous said...

Mark Shea wants peace and good will? Then why is he so inflammatory and nasty? And don't tell me he isn't, Carol. I used to go to his blog and read. He is the reason why I stopped. I couldn't take him anymore.

Veronica

TTC said...

Veronica, I don't get around as much as I would like to - and readers are in a much better position to know...but here's my hunch:

Remember that the Catholic blogosphere has been through a major metamorphosis throughout the last year or two.

Those of us on the ground who have been dealing with misfeasance, malfeasance and perversion of our religion in our schools, parishes, coming down from our corrupt Chanceries went through a gauntlet of Catholic leaders telling us to sit down and shut up. But, as more of us took up a presence on the internet and supported each other, the people of the cult mentality - like Karlson - got drowned out. in no small way, thanks to Michael Voris.

We have broken the ceiling.

As we grew, our voices resonated with more of the faithful who have been putting up with abuse and abuses. Now, the overwhelming majority of doctrinally-faithful Catholics on the internet are not just supportive of us, they are invigorated.

I think he sees the writing on the wall.

Dan said...

I'm not certain I understand the vitrol directed at Karlson. I've read a lot of his work on VN and I've never seen anything that seems uneven-handed.

Shouldn't we be striving for unity rather than division?

Jerry said...

Hi Dan,

It's my fault. I noticed that VN put a traceback on this discussion, so I went to the site to see what's up. I've never been there before, but noticed that Karlson seems to have it in for Carol. Maybe you'd like to leave a "peace, love and unity" comment at his site and see what happens?

TTC said...

LOL Jerry - you're on a roll!

TTC said...

btw...I checked my stats coming in from Henry's post. A whopping 11.

...yawn

Jerry said...

...yawn

No love lost there, eh Carol? Tee hee.

Kelly said...

Please pardon my ignorance, but I'm getting the idea here that WYD is not a good thing? Goodness, I have several non believing kids and always prayed they would somehow go to WYD....not a good idea?

Kelly said...

OH, and while I'm asking seemingly dumb questions...isn't Bill Donahue all about the Knights? And isn't he all about the Church? How could he be both? I have noticed, since his doctorate, that he has refined his manner of speaking somewhat...a bit easier to listen to...

Jerry said...

Hi Kelly,

I'd never send my kids to WYD. (I'd never send them to a diocesan school, either. But that's another story.) For more info:

http://www.cfnews.org/WYD-DVD.htm
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-2005-1015-world_youth_day.htm
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-2008-0731-sydney_or_sodom.htm

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, Boston! I see that your Cardinal has been chosen as one of the English speaking catechists at WYD. The other lucky prelates are:

"The group of American catechists includes Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York – president of the U.S. bishops' conference – and Archbishop Charles Chaput, newly appointed as archbishop of Philadelphia.

Other bishops speaking at the event are: Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago; Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston; Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo, North Dakota; Bishop Edward Burns of Juneau, Alaska; Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, and Frank Caggiano, auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn"

I notice that the names of Bishops Olmstead, Cordileone, Finn, and Morlino are missing from the list. Hmmmm!

Veronica

Maria said...

MR. SHEA, never short on words, HAD THIS TO SAY ABOUT MR. VORIS,in the com box, at Mr. Madrid's site, on July 25, 2011 at 11:11 PM:


"MY ISSUES WITH VORIS ARE SIMPLE, HE IS AN AN UNACCOUNTABLE DEMAGOGUE GIVEN TO FOMENTING ANGER AND REBELLION AGAINST THE BISHOPS, GIVEN TO POLARIZING CATHOLICS NEEDLESSLY, and given issuing his private opinions in which which suggest that disagreement with him on matters of prudence or aesthetics constitutes disagreement with Holy Church. I typically have ignored him over the years, but after receiving one too many emails from an adoring fan who believes his ever word to fall from Mount Sinai, I emitted a loud groan of frustration. I now hope to return to ignoring him".

The very soul of charity, huh?

Carol: I don't understand how this sort of commentary serves anyone. "If his heart and his ministry serve Christ", as you said, then why would he speak of his brother in Christ, in this manner?

Maria said...

Hey Veronica:

Where you in a convent?

Maria said...

For those wanting a little history on how our Bishops have developed some animus towards Voris, see:

www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/110408

Anonymous said...

Maria,

Yes, but only as a postulant. I never found what I was looking for. To put it another way, what I was looking for was gone - blown away by those Vatican II gales.

Veronica

Maria said...

Veronica; You have such a way w/ words:)

TTC said...

Maria - re: Mark's post on Patrick's blog -- I don't know what to say other than...how peculiar.

This I have to see for myself!

Anonymous said...

"GIVEN TO POLARIZING CATHOLICS NEEDLESSLY"

I wonder if he recognizes himself in this remark?

Veronica

Maria said...

It is hard to understand how people who claim to love Christ and his Church can talk about one another in this way...

Maria said...

A little background on what the Bishops don't want you to know:

PART I

All you can say at this point is, "They have no one to blame but themselves." After suffering for more than 20 years under the rule of closet liberals, clerical dissidents, poorly-instructed clergy, a chancery staff of near-heretics and pastors who refused to preach the truth, the chickens have finally come home to roost in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

In 2009, close to one-third of the chancery staff were let go. But what's killing the archdiocese more than a bad economy is the falling number of faithful Catholics. The question that needs to be asked, therefore, is what has caused Catholics in Detroit to walk away from the Faith — or, perhaps more to the point, an authentic expression of the Faith? The answer is, quite simply, the type of faith promulgated by the archdiocese for the past generation.

In 1976, thousands of liberals who called themselves Catholic met in Detroit under the ominous title of Call to Action, a group that would lay the groundwork for today's meltdown. They proposed a series of initiatives that many in the archdiocese would take up and spend their careers trying to implement.

Over the next 15 years or so, the seminary (St. John's) would churn out a prolific number of actively homosexual priests led by a "gay-friendly" rector, Monsignor Kenneth Untener. On his watch, homosexual pornography was shown on a regular basis under the guise of "sexuality" classes and was mandatory. Multiple reports from inside the seminary said these regular features resulted in an atmosphere that welcomed random and frequent sexual encounters between seminarians on an ongoing basis. St. John's was finally closed down by the Vatican in response.

This continued to be the case for a number of years until Monsignor Untener and the archdiocese's vicar general, Monsignor Thomas Gumbleton, were summoned to Rome to explain the situation. After what has been widely seen as a cover-up story accepted by the Vatican, both men were eventually promoted to bishop — Gumbleton as auxiliary of Detroit and Untener eventually to the Diocese of Saginaw, where he made quick work of destroying the Faith. He died in 2004.

Bishop Gumbleton remained in Detroit where he served for years as a functionary of the homosexualist agenda (his brother is homosexual), advancing the cause of homosexuality whenever possible. Bishop Gumbleton has in fact been forbidden to preach in some dioceses, yet he "ran wild" in Detroit, spreading decidedly anti-Catholic positions in the area of human sexuality. No effort on the part of the chancery was eve r exercised with enough diligence to rein him in.

Under the influence of Bishops Untener, Gumbleton and others, active homosexuality became rampant among the Detroit clergy. Some reliable estimates place the number at well over 50 percent. With the clergy thus compromised, it was only a small step to the near total collapse of the Faith among the laity in the coming years.

Enter the era of a man by the name of [name redacted], who was so influential during the past 20 years that friends and foes alike nicknamed the place the Archdiocese of [name redacted]. He was the power behind the throne during the term of Cardinal Adam Maida (1990-2009), promoting like-minded closet liberals and homosexual priests to positions of authority and influence throughout the archdiocese.

Under the reign of [name redacted], dissident theology ran wild in the parishes as well as the seminary. In truth, much of the blame of what has gone wrong in Detroit can be laid squarely at his feet. As homosexual priests and liberal lay people ascended the ranks of power, the faith life of the archdiocese sunk further into dismay. Parish after parish began being infiltrated with homosexual pastors as well as "gay-friendly" liturgists and music directors".

www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/110408

Maria said...

PART II

Catholic schools — such as the Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak, Michigan — became famous for delivering a "bang-up" education while graduating students who were pro-abortion atheists and Buddhists. Mass attendance began a precipitous decline, particularly among the young (ages 18 to 40). RCIA programs became a joke, with adults being offered coloring books and prayer shawls instead of Catholic teaching. CCD classes were reduced to nothing more than weekly baby-sitting operations for middle school students.

Inside the chancery, the decay was tolerated and even encouraged by the likes of high-ranking archdiocesan officials such as [name redacted], who famously lied for months about the existence of a homosexual-sponsored Mass at Holy Trinity Parish in downtown Detroit until his lies were eventually exposed in a scathing and revealing article [click here to read it] in Catholic World Report (1996).

[Name redacted] continued his rampage against anything and everything even remotely orthodox by routinely slandering lay Catholic groups such as St. Michael's Media, an apostolate founded by lay Catholics dedicated to teaching authentic Catholicism by means of the electronic media. He worked discreetly behind the scenes to undo a contractual arrangement the apostolate had already signed with a Catholic TV outfit in Boston, as well as destroying a budding relationship between St. Michael's Media and EWTN.

The [names redacted] nexus, in fact, was responsible for a continuation of the "gay Masses" that continued unabated at the IHM property every Sunday on Six Mile Road in Detroit. (The article in Catholic World Report shed enough light on the sordid goings-on that the Dignity Mass was quietly moved to the property of the IHM sisters.)

Despite a steady stream of complaints from Mass-going Catholics, not a few priests throughout the archdiocese continue to counsel Catholics against Church teaching in areas such as contraception. Faithful clergy are examined with a rigor normally associated with the Inquisition, while heterodox clergy are given a pass or left to their own devices to preach whatever version of Catholicism they enjoy best — oftentimes from the pulpit.

All this heterodoxy has reached critical mass at the parish level, where an overwhelming majority of Catholics simply no longer see a need to attend Mass. Those who do are rarely instructed in the truth of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist or the need for frequent confession. Unchallenged to live lives of holiness with their priests as living examples, most Catholics in Detroit take a laissez-faire attitude to the Faith and the sacraments.

For close to 20 years, the [names redacted] nexus has installed its own version of the Faith in many subtle ways. The result is that the Faith has become so watered-down and indistinguishable from any other social-help organization that Catholics simply do not identify as Catholics in any meaningful way, and have become the worst of all religious adherents: lukewarm and indifferent.

www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/110408

Maria said...

THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN POSTED PRIOR TO PART I AND II!


Matt C. Abbott April 8, 2011

MICHAEL VORIS PERSECUTED; SINGIN' THE BLUES IN MOTOWN

By Matt C. Abbott

Sorry!

www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/110408


Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com is becoming persona non grata among the Church establishment. A talk he was scheduled to give on the property of the Diocese of Scranton has been canceled by the diocese, which posted the following statement on its website:


'The Diocese of Scranton has determined that Mr. Voris will not be allowed to speak in a Diocesan or parish facility. After these engagements were scheduled, the Diocese became aware of concerns about this individual's views regarding other religious groups. In videos posted on the Internet, Mr. Voris makes comments that certainly can be interpreted as being insensitive to people of other faiths. The Catholic Church teaches us to respect all people, regardless of their faith tradition. Although the Diocese shares Mr. Voris' support of efforts to protect human life, his extreme positions on other faiths are not appropriate and therefore the Diocese cannot host him.'


Ah, yes — that "insensitive" Michael Voris. Interestingly, last year the bishop permitted a pro-abortion, pro-unnatural vice American University employee, Sara Bendoraitis, to speak at the University of Scranton. (Source) But, hey, she's not insensitive like Voris. I get it.

However, the real culprit in this situation is the Archdiocese of Detroit, where RealCatholicTV.com is located. The archdiocese has been trying to quietly destroy Voris' credibility for some time. In fact, one archdiocesan official reportedly referred to Voris as a "nutcase." Why, you ask? The article below, provided to me by a reliable source who's familiar with the archdiocese, should give you a big hint. (I've done some editing for prudential reasons.)

Welcome to the new springtime, folks.

Joseph D'Hippolito said...

Note to Mark Shea:

If somebody is "fomenting anger against the bishops" and those bishops are effectively apostate, isn't that a good thing? ;)

Word verification: swati

Right on Mark's bee-hind. :D

Anonymous said...

Joe

Don't confuse him with facts.

Veronica

Maria said...

Joe: HA!