Running Off At The Keyboard

THE COVENANT WITH ISRAEL is symbolized in marriage JPII said in an address at a General Audience. CarrieTomko@aol.com

CANADIAN GOVERNMENT WILL EXEMPT CHURCHES from same sex marriages according to this Beliefnet article. CarrieTomko@aol.com

EFFORTS TO ADDRESS THE SEXUAL ABUSE SCANDAL are looking like a relative failure according to this article in USA Today indicating that Roman Catholic bishops' yearlong campaign to drive sexual abuse out of the church and rebuild credibility is failing, said leaders of two groups � one supporting victims, the other advising accused priests. Both the victims group and the accused priests group are disillusioned with the policy of zero tolerance which does not appear to be working. CarrieTomko@aol.com

THE SAD CONCLUSION of an embarrassing situation for Arizona Catholics. CarrieTomko@aol.com

CATHOLIC BY THE NUMBERS Ken Jones, Author of Index of Leading Catholic Indicators, interviewed by Una Voce says that I can only agree with what Cardinal Ratzinger said: �We find ourselves faced with a progressive process of decadence. ... It is incontrovertible that this period has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church.� Since Cardinal Ratzinger made these remarks in 1984, the crisis in the Church has accelerated. In every area that is statistically verifiable � for example, the number of priests, seminarians, priestless parishes, nuns, Mass attendance, converts and annulments � the �process of decadence� is undeniable. The statistics he reports in this interview are not a surprise to any Catholic who has been around to watch this disintegration, but it's nice to have the facts in a book that can be referenced. CarrieTomko@aol.com

A READER SENT THIS STORY ABOUT CDL. MAHONY from the Los Angeles Times: Just before the United States Catholic bishops' meeting 20 years ago, I was part of a dinner with then-Bishop Roger Mahony of Stockton, Calif. In those days, he stood out as one of a new breed of bishops. Achieving stature for his support for Cesar Chavez's farm workers, he had also become a supporter of the nuclear freeze, a movement that was rattling both the Reagan administration and Cold War Democrats. Early on in the dinner, a colleague asked the bishop what had led him to adopt the stance and he replied: "One morning a year ago, I was shaving and heard Alexander Haig [then the secretary of State] declare that the U.S. just might have to lob a nuclear weapon at the Soviets to show them we were serious. I realized that he meant it and that something had to be done." As a result, Mahony had moved to the fore in an effort to make the U.S. government accountable for the morality of its words and its actions. What a difference 20 years makes. Now Cardinal Roger Mahony, having ascended to one of the most visible Catholic seats of authority, has made his name and his office synonymous with resistance to any real accountability on the part of bishops, to their flock or to the public at large. With his cross-country twin, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, this prince of the Roman church is engaged in a campaign to retain the centuries-old prerogatives that shield the Catholic hierarchy from oversight... The higher they go, the harder they fall... CarrieTomko@aol.com

MASONIC RITUAL ITEMS are displayed at the website of the Diligent Lithuanian Masonic Lodge. Click the arrow on the left of this webpage and you will get a screen with three small pictures. Click the pictures for an enlargement. In this first picture, notice there are two implements which look like a ciborium and one that looks like a chalice. These items are housed in the Museum of the Vilnius University Library, according to the website. The only explanation offered at the website is the following: The first Masonic Lodges appeared in Lithuania at the end of the XVIIIth C. They were headed by the provincial great lodge, called the Union Parfaite de Lithuanie (The Great Union of Lithuania). Certain of the professors and subordinates of the Vilnius Royal University, Lithuania's clergy, aristocracy, and artists were members of the Gorliwy Litwin Lodge. The Lodge was shut down in 1822 by decree of Czar Alexander I, its documents confiscated and taken to St. Petersburg, and its property handed over to a Vilnius Charity Society. One Grand Lodge with a lot of interesting material on their website is the Grand Lodge of British Columbia. Under the heading "Irregular freemasons" on this page in their website is a link for C. W. Leadbeater. Going to that link brings up a short bio. of Leadbeater. where this appears: February 16, 1854 - March 1, 1934 Ordained an Anglican priest in 1878, theosophist and associate of Annie Besant, Charles Webster Leadbeater was consecrated a bishop in the Liberal Catholic Church in July of 1916. He wrote, among other books, The Science of the Sacraments and Glimpses of Masonic History.... His initiation into International Co-Masonry on June 12, 1915 by James Wedgewood, his association with many of the "fringe masons" and his subsequent writings on masonic themes have led anti-masons to mistakenly assume he speaks with some masonic authority and often quote, out of context, his writings on theosophy and the occult. Co-Masonry is an extension of the Theosophical Society which was founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a strange Russian woman who wrote The Secret Doctrine. Annie Besant was one of her followers, as was Leadbeater and Alice Bailey. Co-Masonry is an extension of Grand Orient Freemasonry, according to their American website which gives the history of Co-Masonry. A couple of excerpts: American Co-Masonry traces its lineage to 1879 when twelve dissatisfied lodges separated from The Grand Orient of France and founded the Grande Lodge Symbolique de France.... Eventually, the young Order became an international Order through the efforts of pioneers of the Theosophical Society such as Brothers Annie Besant, C. Jinarajadasa, Henry Steele Olcott and others who joined their ranks. Henceforth, wherever they took Theosophy, they also introduced Co-Masonry. In 1903 the first Co-Masonic Lodge was instituted in the USA.... On April 11 of 1994, the Supreme Council of American Co-Masonry, The American Federation of Human Rights, was formed by Thirty-third Degree members of the Order. American Co-Masonry became an independent Obedience remaining with its Headquarters in Larkspur, Colorado. CarrieTomko@aol.com

ACCORDING TO THEIR JUNE 13 FRIDAY FAX Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute has uncovered the real truth behind the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which is the enforcing arm of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a document which has been ratified by every country on Earth except Somolia and the U.S. According to the Committee's interpretation of children's rights, parental involvement in their children's decision to use contraceptives is considered invasion of privacy. CarrieTomko@aol.com

WILLIAM DONOHUE, Catholic League's intrepid defender of the Catholic Church, didn't mince words in his spring 2002 interview with Beliefnet's reporter Deborah Caldwell as he points out the failings of our shepherds, saying: One of the fundamental problems with the clerics in the United States is an astounding lack of courage. They�ve gone soft. They�ve bought into the therapeutic movement. They flip-flopped 180 degrees from the rigidity of the Catholic Church of the 1950s and 60s to being kinder and gentler to such an extent that anything that was judgmental was wrong, they downplayed discussions of sin and hell. Everyone was to be loved. Anybody with a malady can be cured. We can save people. While there are obvious kernels of truth and goodness to what I�m saying here, it�s also true that if you make that the mainstay of your philosophy, where feelings triumph over reason, and where you don�t have the courage of your convictions to say this guy has to go... That kind of unmanliness is deeply ingrained in the Catholic Church. But you can find someone who is friendly and affable and at the same time accountable. I know many priests like that. There is a time to defend the Church and a time to recognize reality. Donohue seemed to have a clear vision of the need to recognize the reality of failure of our hierarchy in this interview, in spite of his usual defensive bias toward the Church. Ultimately truth must be served, as Donohue has exhibited. CarrieTomko@aol.com

KEATING'S RESIGNATION LETTER and Bishop Wilton Gregory's response are online at the Beliefnet website. CarrieTomko@aol.com

KEVIN MICHAEL GRACE senior reporter for The Report, a Canadian news magazine, wrote a column on Sept. 2, 2002 about the abuse scandal and Rod Dreher's reporting of it, that came up in a web search yesterday. He is not complimentary to the Pope, who, he says, had knowledge of Fr. Paul Shanley's doings from the first year of the pontificate but chose to protect Fr. Shanley with the help of Cardinal Medeiros as well as Cardinal Law. CarrieTomko@aol.com

FREEMASONRY Just saying the word seems to bring out the worst division in traditional Catholicism. The Masons have done their job well! How many popes have opposed Freemasonry? Yet today I find Catholics who do not think that it is a problem. Who see it as a fading club whose purpose has evaporated. To some extent they are right, because Freemasonry has gone mainstream in the New Age Movement. The occult and esoteric societies no longer hide. They are plainly visible on the web and gaining in acceptance. You will not be seeing any more of my articles in Stephen Hand's TCR website. He and I have once again reached an impasse. He believes that I am superficial in my understanding of Catholicism, an innocent with regard to the interpretation of the writings of JPII, and that I've been influenced by the integrist simplicities. He will no longer consider anything I write for his website. The booklet that brought us to this impasse is small and short. It discusses a document that fell into the hands of Pope Gregory XVI by accident. Pope Pius IX requested Cretineau-Joly to publish the material contained in these papers. Pope Pius IX guaranteed the authenticity of the document. It is contained in Msgr. George E. Dillon's book Grand Orient Freemasonry Unmasked which I read a couple of years ago and which was first published in 1950 with a Nihil Obstat and an Imprimatur. Christian Book Club of America republished it in 1999. The papers in question are called the Alta Vendita If you want a copy of John Vennari's booklet, go to this website for information. Here is an excerpt from the document taken from Vennari's booklet: Our ultimate end is that of Voltaire and of the French Revolution--the final destruction of Catholicism, and even of the Christian idea... The Pope, whoever he is, will never come to the secret societies; it is up to the secret societies to take the first step toward the Church, with the aim of conquering both of them. The task...may last several years, perhaps a century; but in our ranks the soldier dies and the struggle goes on. The document goes on to describe how the Church will be subverted, saying in part... Leave old people and those of a mature age aside; go to the youth, and if it is possible, even to the children. What do we see now in our Church? Poorly catechized youth who do not know their faith. These are the Catholics of tomorrow. The plan outlined in the Alta Vendita has been successful in supplanting the faith of the youth. Just recently there was in the news a report of the total failure of the Church in Italy to keep the youth. Everywhere we turn there are youth who, while perhaps attending church, do not hesitate to remake the moral laws of the faith to their own liking, ignoring what the official Church teaches. We have lost the youth, and in that loss we have emptied our seminaries. That is just one example of the fulfillment of the Alta Vendita. Until this morning when I took the time to read this booklet, I was not familiar with John Vennari's investigations or activities. Therefore it was with shocked surprise that I found this book that he has written on the web when I began to look into his activities after his name caused such a reaction in Stephen Hand. I will be ordering the book, because reading Msgr. Ronald Knox's book Enthusiasm caused me to question the Charismatic Movement myself. Vennari also mentioned Rudolf Steiner in his booklet on the Alta Vendita. I have investigated Steiner independently for an article I wrote on him some time ago. A very interesting coincidence. CarrieTomko@aol.com