Running Off At The Keyboard

A QUESTION CAME UP IN A PRIVATE DEBATE

which I'm hoping Justin or Lee can answer if either of them check in here (or anyone else who might know).

In Eastern Orthodoxy is it considered to be a possibility that even Satan can be saved?

MATT C. ABBOTT REPORTS

on the March for Women's Lives, giving the story a unique slant as he describes Fr.Reynolds continuous blessing of the marchers, and their reaction to him, making the source of their venom rather obvious. If the Church has been feminized, this is a place for strong men, men who will stand in defense of Christ and babies...and Catholic priests who are doing what faith demands in the midst of most unpleasant circumstances. What a model, and what a challenge!

PICTURES

of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels at the Traditional Roman Catholicism website. These are the pictures the official sources never show, and if you take a look, you'll see why!

More cathedral pictures. This time the doors are featured, and the official explanation of the little squares at the cathedral website is linked. There you will find:

Beginning at the bottom of the inner doors, Graham has sculpted in relief a grapevine, symbolizing the Church. Folded in the grapevine are 40 ancient symbols that represent pre-Christian images from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. The images include the eagle, griffin, goose, Southwest Indian Flying Serpent, bee, hand, ostrich, dove, Chinese turtle, Samoan kava bowl, the Native American Chumash man, the dolphin, the Tree of Jesse, Tai Chi, and many others. The number 40 is a mystical number in Scripture from 40 years of the Israelites wandering in the desert, Jesus' 40 days in the desert, and His ascension 40 days after Easter, among others.

Numerology played an important part in the design of the doors in abstract connotations. He considers the most important being 3 for the Trinity in the triangle shape and 4 for the Gospels, and their combination equaling 7, also an important number in Scripture.

Numerology??

I see that the bee is depicted on the door as well as in the garden beehive children's playground equipment. Tom Worrel explains the Masonic symbolism of the beehive to Mill Valley Masonic Lodge.

There are many other animal symbols listed on the description of the doors, including a few serpents. Are we seeing depictions of pantheism?

The beehive is a Masonic symbol. I don't ever recall seeing it as a Christian symbol.

More pictures.

Be sure to look at this thread in the discussion, where you will find more pictures and this description of the basement of the cathedral:

But here's what's really interesting... there's this stairway near the back of the Cathedral that leads down. It's the Mausoleum, which is located in a whole basement level directly under the main body of the Cathedral. When you descend these stairs, everything changes; art, architecture and all, to what's traditional. Everything goes Trad.

This is supersignificant. Where I attend the traditional Mass, it's not unknown that the bishop has allowed us to have our traditional Mass in a mausoleum on purpose. Some of us are very aware of the In[s]ult which was intended by the choice of our location. Personal friends have overheard conversations among prelates who were saying that we were offered this location because we are "the walking dead of the Roman Catholic Church". Personally, the insult doesn't have the desired effect with me... I take it as a compliment. I can explain that.

BUT: what I was not aware of before this trip to Los Angeles and to this Cathedral is our insult was not just a local thought or expression. It's part of the very architectural layout of an entire Cathedral in another city. Call it a universal insult. What they have down is to architecturally and symbolically push Traditional Catholicism out and down. "Outside the Church" main body, and down with the dead, buried under main body of a New Church. It's almost analogous to how new cities were built upon the ruins of old cities. In fact, that's why I call this The Catacombs, which is what I call my mausoleum-based traditional Mass. Traditional Catholicism is not outside the Church and in the catacombs. That's what makes that last picture of St. Vibiana's relics below so interesting and fitting; I'll explain why in another post.

The concept suggested seems to fit the the symbols as the pictures show. Sort of a church within a church. The basement pictures are certainly different from the upstairs. The upstairs looks like something Edward Sovik would be pleased with. Very temporary. Very much able to be rearranged for something else. Not much of permanence there.

The tabernacle. Pushed off into some obscure corner, naturally. There is a picture in the floor of the tabernacle when it's open, and a picture of the picture in the website. The open tabernacle looks like a pod. Eyes, a nose, and a sort of mouth. Kind of like the statues on Easter Island. Cripe!


Thanks to a reader for sending the link.

CARDINAL OPPOSING CARDINAL ?

From LifeSite news:

ROME, April 30, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - As recorded by a large number of the world's media, the Vatican's leading prelate on the Sacraments, Cardinal Francis Arinze, declared unequivocally last week that unambiguously pro-abortion politicians should be denied Holy Communion. Arinze said such a politician "is not fit" to receive communion. "If they should not receive, then they should not be given," he said.

However, in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter (NCR), Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick attempted to deny Cardinal Arinze's statements meant what he said and what everyone has understood they meant.

NCR's John Allen asked Cardinal McCarrick, "Last week, Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said that a politician who is unambiguously pro-abortion should be denied communion. Is he right?"

Go to the website to get the answer. Here's a clue:

Apart from attempting to strip words from the mouth of the Vatican Cardinal, Cardinal McCarrick also failed to note that the Vatican's document he refers to as embodying what Cardinal Arinze "wanted to say" also references cannon law 915 which in turn says that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion."

Yup! Cardinal opposing Cardinal. One of them isn't speaking for Christ.

Meanwhile New Jersey has a newly appointed Cardinal with guts:

CAMDEN, April 30, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Governor James E. McGreevey, a divorced Catholic who supports abortion, will be refused communion when he approaches the altar at Mass on Sunday according to his bishop, the newly installed Joseph Galante. The bishop cited a number of reasons for his decision, his first public act as bishop of Camden New Jersey. First noted was that the governor is divorced and has remarried without receiving an annulment from the Church. The bishop also said that the governor supports abortion and embryonic stem cell research, the latter item being a major part of the research industry in New Jersey.

And in the same article Nanci Pelosi assures us that:

"I fully intend to receive Communion, one way or another. That's very important to me."

Which gives me visions of a woman fighting a prelate over a little white Host, in front of an entire congregation that may or may not support either one of them. Can we assume words will be exchanged? Loudly? Followed by actions? It would make a heck of a headline: "Congresswoman rips Host out of Cardinal's hand, demanding her rights to a quarter ounce of flesh."

It's getting interesting out there!

* * * * *

LifeSite is particularly interesting today. There is also an article about the reduction in AIDS as a result of Uganda's resorting to an abstinence program.

April 30, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The African nation of Uganda, until recently suffering one of the worst cases of post-colonial political corruption and social misery, has surpassed all expectations in its AIDS program based on abstinence and social cohesion. Uganda has decreased its rate of AIDS by as much as 75% in some demographics, an unprecedented success in the story of African AIDS combat. Reiterating a study published by the British Medical Journal earlier this month, a group of Cambridge University researchers have attributed the success of the Ugandan program to a later age of first sexual activity and a reduction in sexual promiscuity.

"The outcome was equivalent to a highly effective vaccine", the researchers say.

ODD REPORT FROM JOHN ALLEN ON POSSIBLE NEW SAINT

This is an old report from Nov. 29, 2002. You will find the following announcement at the very bottom of the website, last entry. From the website:

Finally, there is a push on in Italy to canonize a Capuchin known as Frate Indovino, who died recently at 87, and whose name roughly translates into English as 'Brother Fortuneteller.' His claim to fame was an annual calendar he published for almost 60 years, beginning in 1946, which sold some six million copies each year. It featured uncannily accurate predictions of the future. Most concern when to plant seeds or prepare the harvest, but they were occasionally more sweeping. Frate Indovino claims, for example, to have foreseen the fall of the Berlin Wall. How? He studied star cycles in an observatory near Florence, in addition to drawing on a 14th century monk known as 'Black Spider' who developed a theory about the sun's influence on the atmosphere. In other words, he used astrology, though each prediction was verified by an inner voice that he recognized as his guardian angel. Frate Indovino was thus, to invoke a theological label, a model of syncretism, blending elements of pre-Christian folk religiosity focused on the stars with traditional Catholic spirituality. It's fascinating that nobody in authority seems troubled by this, in a moment in which fear of syncretism involving Christianity and Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is the Vatican's top doctrinal concern. But, as I have repeatedly said in other contexts, if you're looking for a perfectly consistent religion, the Catholic Church isn't for you.

(emphasis mine) Would anyone care to explain this? Astrology? Brother Fortuneteller? "Inner voices"? Canonization? This is John Allen's column, not some wierd conspiracy theorist's column.

An add for the calendar.

A bio and award for the monk from the Path to Peace Foundation.

Apart from those websites, everything else that came up in Google when I asked for "Frate Indovino" in English was in Italian.

Using his real name--Rev. Fr. Mariangelo da Cerqueto, OFM-Cap--doesn't bring up anything other than the Path to Peace Foundation and this very brief mention.

EXORCIST ON CALL

From the Star Tribune:

In a small room, well away from the street so that no one hears the screams, Father Gabriele Amorth does battle with Satan. He is a busy man.

As the Vatican's top exorcist, Amorth performs the mysterious, ancient ritual dozens of times a week. A confused world engulfed in tragedy and chaos is turning increasingly to black magic, the occult and fortune-telling, he said, proof that the devil and his handmaidens are having a field day.

"These customs open the door to evil spirits and to demonic possessions," Amorth said. "Exorcism is God's true miracle."

BIBLE AS HATE SPEECH LEGISLATION IN CANADA

Envoy Encore has the story at WorldNetDaily linked. From the website:

Canada's upper house passed a controversial bill yesterday opposed by religious believers and free-speech advocates who say it will criminalize public expression against homosexual behavior.

The bill, passed 59-11 by the Senate, adds sexual orientation as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate-crimes legislation, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

NOW THAT THE ABUSE REPORT IS OUT

a second wave of abuse victims is beginning to roll into shore. The new investigation into the death of Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl has given confidence to 10 new victims according to this article at WTOL-TV in Toledo.


Blog Credit to CruxNews.

OUR FEARLESS LEADERSHIP

Another story of a faithful orthodox priest attempting to do a good job of running his parish, interferred with by his bishop:

As Fr. Murr wrote in his resignation letter, for example, "....On the most recent administration of Archdiocese's standardized religion test last June, approximately 66% of our students failed. The major reason for this, I determined, was that several of our teachers were not committed to teaching the Catholic faith. One of our teachers, for example, was taking her students to non-Catholic religious services on Sunday mornings. Others have refused to teach those doctrines of the Catholic faith with which they disagree. To rectify these problems, I appointed a new Director of Religious Education for the school this year, but the teachers who were hostile to Catholic doctrine disrupted his classes, belittled him in front of his students, instructed their students to ignore him, and even spread slanderous reports about him. I thus determined that the employment of these teachers would not be renewed for the coming academic year, and on April 1, I informed these teachers accordingly....

"On Friday afternoon, Msgr. Thomas Gilleece, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese informed me without further explanation that, by order of the Cardinal, I was to renew the employment of the principal, the vice principal, and all the affected teachers. Since I could not in good conscience as a pastor charged with the care of souls comply with this order, I promptly resigned...."

Fr. Murr's resignation, in turn, prompted the resignation of the entire parish council, which had supported Fr. Murr in all his actions regarding the school.

The article also speaks of serious financial mismanagement in the school. In fact this article has to be read to be believed! What is Cardinal Egan thinking!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

The next four links came via reader's email:

FR. WILSON ON "REDEMPTIONIS SACRAMENTUM"

at Free Republic:

What strikes me most is the absence of any sense of crisis, beautifully captured in section four of the Preamble, the unintentionally hilarious quote from the Holy Father: "Certainly the liturgical reform inaugurated by the Council has greatly contributed to a more conscious, active, and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar on the part of the Faithful" (Ecclesia de Eucharistia). There is a disconcerting disconnect from the observable situation evident in that sentence.

LOL Oh yes! Ya gotta love a priest who is willing to be truthful rather than politically correct!

WHERE ARE GOD'S WARRIORS AND WILD MEN?

asks Doug Giles. Well, Doug, I suspect the feminists have locked them in the chicken coop and thrown away the key.

When you recover from the "Ewwwwwwwws," here's the start of the article:

Have you ever asked yourself, "Self ... why do churches today look more like the lingerie department at Wal-Mart, than a battalion of men poised to plunder the powers of darkness?" Why do men avoid going to church, and what can be done about it?

Certainly, the lack of men in church is not at all difficult to see. Just open your eyes any Sunday morning and go to church. Then, count the number of ladies in the pews, and the number of men. The result: you�re slapped in the face with the Jose Cuervo-like reality that men are avoiding church like Michael Jackson avoids reality.

VATICAN SAYS NO TO CHURCHES USED AS MOSQUES

That's what the headline says. By the time I got to the end of the article, my confidence had evaporated. There seems to be a lot of walking around the mulberry bush here.

POLAND JOINS EU TOMORROW

Here is an article from Zenit titled "Poles Cautioned on Eve of Entry Into European Union" (you have to click the April 28 link at Zenit, and then click the article title) After centuries of struggle to maintain Polish identity, the Poles are now being instructed to "regard this step 'with confidence,' without fearing 'the loss of our national identity and sovereignty'."

CATHOLIC PSYCHIC SISTERS

From the website:

Rose & Bernadette Schwab are World Renowned Clairvoyant Psychic Sisters who are of the Catholic faith and do professional individual clairvoyant psychic consulting with many near death experiences, one of which was drowning at the ages of 6 & 8, that gave them their clairvoyance. They come from a long and old line of six generation of women psychics. Being born with their gifts, developing them, and fine tuning them with high accuracy they have been using them all their lives, expanding their business to many fields of expertise. Business Women, Visionaries, Artists, Authors, Professional World Renowned Psychics & Professional Business Consultants rolled into one. Undaunted by the medial practitioner's & specialist's diagnosis of her condition from accidents on the job, that left her bedridden, in a wheel chair and his belief that Rose would not live long if she didn't drastically change her life, circumstance and income, since Rose could no longer purse her career as an attorney and psychologist. Rose pushed herself beyond normal limitations to over come the limitating parts of her condition, becoming one of the worlds top professional psychics, and business consultants today who is well accepted and respected for her work/expertise in many fields.

SR. MARGARET ANN PAHL

Murder scene desscribed in an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

NewsNet5 reports on old evidence that may be important in the case.

A long story on evidence from the Toledo Blade.

MORE ON THE SPREAD OF GNOSTICISM IN THE CHURCH

BENEDICTINE MONASTERY BOOK NOOK

Take a look at this resource list. Morton Kelsey is cited 13 times and John Sanford 7 times.

* * * * *

RETURN TO THE WHOLE by Ann K. Elliott

This website speaks favorably of this new trend in the Church. From the website:

The Twentieth Century Synthesis of Psychology and Spirituality

As early as mid Twentieth Century the fresh new wind of the Holy Spirit was clearly discernible throughout the land. Charismatic "renewal" communities were springing up across all denominational lines. In place of statements of belief they offered an experience of the Holy Spirit. Faith was coming alive in a new and living way. For some the experience of the Holy Spirit was also a call to individuation, a call that recognized the need for going deeper into the psyche where soul healing was needed in order to free one to discover and follow her or his own individual path. In this manner spiritual renewal and depth psychology found themselves joined together. And out of this synthesis the Christian implications of Jung's work gained credibility, particularly in the work of authors such as Morton Kelsey and John Sanford who were able to relate Jungian concepts to New Testament teachings. Both recognized Jung's map of the unconscious as familiar New Testament territory and concurred with Fritz Kunkel's assessment of the New Testament as "the great text-book of depth-psychology." The winds of change were stirring on still another front, around the thought of Jesuit priest/scientist Teilhard de Chardin. Silenced by the hierarchical authority to whom he had vowed obedience, his writings were not published until after his death in 1955. Writing in terms that were at once scientific and mystical, Teilhard's legacy to the Twentieth Century church was a contemporary language in which to recast the ongoing redemptive work of the Risen Christ. For a decade or so interest in Teilhard spread like wild fire. Then, perhaps because much of his writing was not easy reading, popular interest waned, but not before his thought and his vision of the Cosmic Christ had made their imprint on the collective mind of the times.

* * * * *

From Christian Research Ministries, Philemon The Demon: Spirit Guide of Carl Jung. It's a picture. Take a look.

* * * * *

From Western Kentucky University, "The Enigmatic Origins of the Jung Cult." From the website:

Jung's official autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections tells of Jung's visionary journeys of December 1913. But, according to Noll (TAC, 122-25) it omits the most important part of Jung's prescription: an experience of god through self-deification. Jung induced an altered state of consciousness and entered what he describes as the Land of the Dead. He met an old man named Elijah and a blind young girl named Salome. The initial descent was followed by a second. This time he saw Elijah on a rocky ridge, a ring of boulders, maybe a "Druidic sacred place." The old man went inside and climbed upon an altar--the wall grew larger while the altar and Elijah began to shrink. Jung noticed a tiny woman, who turned out to be Salome. He also saw a miniature snake and a house. The walls kept growing. Jung was descending into the underworld. Salome became interested in him; she assumed he could cure her blindness. "She began to worship me. I said, ?Why do you worship me?' She replied, ?You are Christ.' Jung protested but Salome persisted.

This paper does not list Kelsey or Sanford but does mention Noll's book and discusses the milieux from which Jung developed his theories.

* * * * *

From a pro-Jung website:

In a low period of his life, Jung began a self-experiment. He transcribed his inner experiences in words and illustrations in The Red Book. One image from his imagination was an old man named Philemon. Jung and Philemon had long helpful conversations with Philemon having a superior insight, like a wise teacher. This process of dialog became known as active imagination.

In other words, C. G. Jung channeled at least some of his material.

* * * * *

Looking for Kelsey within the Charismatic Movement brought up this Aldersgate Renewal Ministries website. I believe this one is a United Methodist website. From the website:

Characteristic enthusiasm distinguished the August 6-9 Aldersgate '81 in Indianapolis, Indiana, sponsored by the charismatic UM Renewal Services Fellowship (UMRSF). The 1500 participants responded to the warning of Dr. Morton Kelsey, Notre Dame University, about the lukewarm church attender who has been "immunized against the Gospel and never says 'wow.' We've lost our wowing capacity."

* * * * *

Another website, Biblical Discernment Ministries--this one discusses John Wimber & The Vineyard. Wimber is the founder of Toronto (Blessing) Airport Church. From the website:

Wimber insisted that Scripture must be the basis for all belief and practice. In reality, the experiences themselves were to him validation enough that they were from God, unless they came in the name of an overtly occult philosophy (i.e., mind science, T.M. est, psychic healing, or some other movement). As long as they came in the name of Jesus, or were perpetuated by one who called himself a Christian, they were accepted by Wimber, even if they originated in New Age occultism or, at best, Roman Catholic mysticism.

Influences

In order to properly understand Wimber's metamorphosis from that of a hard-line dispensationalist to an ecumenical, charismatic "apostle" and healing practitioner, one must understand the influences upon his beliefs.

Morton Kelsey's name popped up frequently in Wimber's teachings, and Wimber had even dedicated a seminar series to him. One wonders how one who claimed to be an apostle of Jesus could give credibility to someone who equated the ministry of Jesus with that of a shaman -- a witch doctor.

Wimber evidently hoped to justify his learning from Kelsey by saying that he didn't agree with some of his teachings. But there is no justification for "learning from" someone who equated Jesus with a witch doctor, or His divine ability to know with "extra-sensory perception." Kelsey's errors extended far beyond this blasphemous teaching. Anyone with a modicum of Holy Spirit discernment wouldn't touch Kelsey's writings with a ten-foot pole, let alone dedicate a teaching to him.

Under a subheading "Roman Catholic Influences" you will find:

Additionally, Wimber wrote for the Catholic charismatic publication, New Covenant (June, 1988). His article, "Why I Love Mary," didn't affirm the Catholic dogmas of Mary's sinlessness, her perpetual virginity, or her assumption into heaven. But neither did it offer any refutation of them. Knowing the Catholic belief in Mary as "the Mother of God," and the unbiblical doctrines that attend her veneration, such an article left the impression that Wimber had no problem with the Catholic approach to Mary. (Moreover, in his ecumenical fervor, Wimber publicly apologized to the Archbishop of Los Angeles on behalf of all Protestants.)

The founder of Toronto Blessing referred to the teachings of Notre Dame's Dr. Morton Kelsey. Hmmm. Pentecostalism spread from Duchesne University to Notre Dame almost immediately after its original incursion into Roman Catholicism at Duchesne.

Looks like more than a little influence of C. G. Jung has penetrated the Roman Catholic Church!

THE JUNG CULT: ORIGINS OF A CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT

by Richard Noll (Princeton University Press, 1994) - A review at Christian Research Institute

From the website:

In the early years of this century, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) became the second-in-command in Sigmund Freud?s psychoanalytic movement. In 1913 Jung broke with Freud and established his own movement, called analytic psychology.

Although Freud?s importance in the history of psychology has been much greater than Jung?s, in recent decades the former?s influence has declined while the latter?s has grown. Jung?s increasing influence is most noticeable in the broader culture. Best-selling authors who promote Jungian ideas include the late Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth), Thomas Moore (The Care of the Soul), and Clarissa Pinkola Est?s (Women Who Run with the Wolves).

In my judgment, no single individual has done more to shape the contemporary New Age movement than Jung. And Jung has also won acceptance from many professing orthodox Christians, some of whom are popularizers of his ideas (e.g., J. Gordon Melton, Morton Kelsey, and John Sanford). His profound influence on the inner healing movement is documented in Don Matzat?s Inner Healing: Deliverance or Deception? (Harvest House, 1987).

Because of Jung's extreme importance today, the publication of Richard Noll's The Jung Cult was a major literary event. It won a prize as the best book of 1994 on psychology from the Association of American Publishers. Noll, 36, is a clinical psychologist who recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the history of science at Harvard University. The book?s central thesis is that the movement that Jung initiated is much closer in nature to a neopagan (Aryan) cult than the scientific psychiatric discipline that it has always claimed to be. It is not just religious but a religion.

Noll affirms that Jung increasingly guided his movement away from the trappings of a scientific discipline, shaping it instead into a ?charismatic movement? or cult of personality built around himself. Jung's true esoteric message was made available mystery-cult style only to initiates who had undergone one hundred hours of analysis and had obtained Jung's personal permission. Since Jung's death it has been passed down to the present generation of initiates by a "body of priest-analysts."

The "Fin de Siecle": In Search of the Historical Jung. Convinced that the Jung portrayed in Jungian literature is not historically reliable but rather the well-crafted image of a cultic leader preserved by his cult, Noll set out to uncover the historical Jung. To do so, it was necessary for him to comprehensively analyze the vast intellectual milieu that gave rise to Jungian psychology. He has done an amazing job.

Noll asserts that none of the extant biographies of Jung place him within the historical context of the fin de siecle ("end of the [nineteenth] century"), a period in European history that Jung himself claimed "contains the origin of all my ideas" (p. 26). It was a time of "cultural ferment and generational collision in which opposing forces of rationality and irrationality, of social progress and hereditary degeneration, of positivism and occultism, scraped together like great tectonic plates and set off earthquakes and aftershocks that culminated in the Great War and its subsequent revolutions and putsches . . . ." No one better represented the fin de siecle period than philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the prophet of modernity and irrationalism. And, Noll affirms, no one exerted a greater influence over Jung than Nietzsche.

Both Kelsey and Sanford are cited on the St. Paul and Minneapolis Catholic newspaper, "Catholic Spirit", website which lists books on "Dreams and spirituality"

Cross+Word Christian Resources comments on Kelsey and Sanford in an online paper by Lynn and Sarah Leslie, originally published in "The christian Conscience." The title of the paper, "Resurrecting Pagan Rites, Part 3: The New Gnostics." From the website:

David Hunt, in his two books, "The Seduction of Christianity" (1985) and "Beyond Seduction" (1987), first chronicled the influence of Carl Jung's ideas in the modern church. He wrote of Agnes Sanford whose visualization techniques are founded in shamanistic practices of the occult and who expressed pantheistic beliefs similar to those held by Carl Jung. Her ideas influenced a number of well-known Christian leaders such as Francis MacNutt, Barbara Shlemon, Tommy Tyson, Herman Riffler, Leanne Payne, John and Paula Sandford, Richard Foster, and Morton Kelsey. Morton T. Kelsey, according to Hunt, continues to bring the teachings of Carl Jung and Agnes Sanford to the church today, albeit cloaked in seductive Christian-sounding garb. According to Hunt, Kelsey "and Agnes's son `Jack' (John Sanford) went to Zurich, Switzerland, to study at the C.G. Jung Institute and returned thoroughgoing Jungians. Their numerous books since then have expanded upon Jung's teachings, dressing them up in Christian terms and passing them off to an unsuspecting church." (p. 208 "Beyond Seduction")

Why would these Christians be tempted by the ideas of Jung? The answer, we believe, lies in a common root belief system - Gnosticism. With the current rise of this old heresy in the Church, it is not surprising there is a concurrent rise in popularity of Jung's ideas. While Jung's beliefs may seem harmless at first, in fact even beneficial or therapeutic, there is a vast lurking darkness that threatens to overshadow the Gospel of Jesus Christ and replace it with mysticism.

From "Inner Healing" Vol. 9:4:

The problem is exacerbated when we discover the source of inner healing teaching. Carl Gustav Jung the famous Swiss psychologist taught that there is within each of us a collective unconsciousness. Jung had a spirit guide called "Philemon" and he claimed that he was bringing up images from the "collective unconscious". Agnes Sanford was much influenced by Jung's ideas (which came from evil spirits) and "Christianized" them, introducing visualization and inner healing to an unsuspecting church. Her son Jack studied at the C.J. Jung Institute in Zurich with Morton Kelsey, a charismatic. Hunt and McMahon gave detailed proof of the occult practices and strange teaching of people such as Agnes Sanford, Morton Kelsey, John and Paula Sandford, Richard Foster, and other teachers of inner healing and visual-ization. Can inner healing be anything but satanic deception which is being made respectable by certain church leaders?

TWIN CITIES READING MATERIAL

As you can see at the website, this is the official paper of St. Paul and Minneapolis, called "The Catholic Spirit."

Now look at this website. Here in the "default page articles" page of "The Catholic Spirit" website is a list of reading materials on "dreams and spirituality." This is the booklist:

- Gayle Delaney - "Breakthrough Dreaming: How to Tap the Power of Your 24-Hour Mind," "Living Your Dreams."

- Morton Kelsey - "Gods, Dreams and Revelation: A Christian Interpretation of Dreams," "Dreams: A Way to Listen to God."

- John Sanford - "Dreams: God's Forgotten Language," and "Dreams and Healing."

- Jeremy Taylor - "Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill: Using Dreams to Tap the Wisdom of the Unconscious."

- "The Herder Dictionary of Symbols," translated by Boris Matthews. (A nice introduction for those interested in learning about the meaning and origin of common symbols, whether they appear in dreams or not.)

Need I say it? This is not Catholic. This is occult.

In an effort to verify that the books are occult, I've turned to these websites in researching Morton Kelsey, whom a reader pointed to in a comments box attached to my post on "Pentecostalism and C. G. Jung" put up yesterday.

- Professor Robert A. Hatch, University of Florida - "Pseudo - Science & the Occult"

On this list is Kelsey, Morton T. Tongue Speaking: An Experience in Spiritual Experience. Garden City, New York: 1964

Excerpts from Synesius of Cyrene Concerning Dreams" Material at this website is translated from the appendix of God, Dreams, and Revelation: A Christian Interpretation of Dreams by Morton T. Kelsey. From the website:

Some men despise dreams and seek an art of divination above the common herd. But is not a man wise, precisely because he gains a greater share out of things common to all? It is the greatest good to look upon God by the imagination, for the imaginative spirit is the most widely shared organ of sensation, the first body of the soul. About it nature has constructed all of the functions of the brain. Sense-perception through the outer organs remains only animal in character, no perception at all, until it comes into contact with the imagination. This is the divine faculty which sees with its whole spirit and has power over all the remaining senses.

And...

The imaginings of dreams, however, are similar to other life for which our soul prepares. The envelope of soul-matter is in turn god, demon of every sort, and phantom. Within it the soul enters a struggle to fulfill its own contract with the life of the universe, to descend to the regions ruled by the elements of matter, and to bring back up to the spheres what it has snatched from the extremes of fire and air. The imaginative spirit lives in all this enormous interval of space, and is able to accompany the soul as it rises, even until it reaches the highest point.

And...

Obscurity is common to all forms of divination. Dreams should not be dismissed for this reason. Rather we should seek this branch of knowledge which is within us and is the special possession of the soul of each of us. For the soul holds the forms of things that come into being, only producing what is befitting, and reflecting as in a mirror the image by which a person grasps those things that remain there.

The C. G. Jung Page lists one of Kelsey's books under the heading "Symbolic Life and Dreams":

God, Dreams, and Revelation, by Morton T. Kelsey. (Orig. title: Dreams: The Dark Speech of the Spirit. New York: Doubleday, 1968.) Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, rev. 1974p (264 + x, inci. 8-p. bibl.).

Thanking Jungian analysts for first opening his mind and heart to the significance of dreams, Kelsey aims to show that the main strand of Christian tradition up to modern times views the dream as one way of God's speaking. He traces historical attitudes toward dreams, looking at the Hebrews, Greeks, and other ancient peoples and examines the dreams and visions of the first Christians and the dreams of the "victorious" Christian church. He also discusses how psychologists explore the dream and ends with the modern Christian interpretation of dreams.

This website lists Kelsey as well. Carl Jung, Neo-Gnosticism, & The MBTI, an Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada website where you will find:

4. How Much Influence does Jungian Neo-Gnosticism have on the Church? There are key individuals promoting the Jungian gospel to the Church, such as Morton Kelsey, John Sanford(not John & Paula Sandford), Thomas Moore, Joseph Campbell, and Bishop John Spong. Thomas Moore, a former Roman Catholic monk, is widely popular with a new generation of soul-seekers, through his best-seller: Care of the Soul. John Sanford, the son of the late Agnes Sanford, is an Episcopal Priest and Jungian analyst, with several books promoting the Jungian way. Morton Kelsey is another Episcopal Priest who has subtly woven the Jungian gospel through virtually every one of his books, specially those aimed for the Charismatic renewal constituency. Satinover describes Kelsey as having "made a career of such compromise", noting that Kelsey has now proceeded in his latest book Sacrament of Sexuality to approve of the normalization of homosexuality.

LATEST NEWS OF SR. MARGARET ANN PAHL

From The Kansas City Star:

Three other people have said they also were abused by priests in rituals, said Catherine Hoolahan, an attorney who represents about a dozen people with abuse lawsuits against the Toledo Diocese. They all mentioned similar occurrences, she said, but she would not provide details.

Not all those who made the claims have filed lawsuits, and none of the allegations were against Robinson, she said.

Hoolahan said the victims, both men and women, could not recall how many priests abused them.

"Remember, they were children," she said. "They were scared to death, but they remember a bunch - a large number."...

Louis Schlesinger, a forensic psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, said people committing ritual crimes seek sexual gratification by posing their victims in certain ways or by making them say certain things or act in a certain way.

It is also common for a sexual offender to kill one of his victims but not the others, he said.

But Kenneth Lanning, a former FBI agent who studied hundreds of cases of alleged satanic abuse, said he found no documented examples of organized group ritual abuse.

AUTHENTIC JEWS MUST BE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST

according to the Jewish author, Roy Schoeman, of Salvation is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History from Abraham to the Second Coming as reported in Culture Wars. From the website:

Since in rejecting Christ, the Jews rejected Moses as well, they were in some sense of the word, no longer Jews, i.e., followers of Moses. The Jews who accepted Christ as the Messiah were the heirs of Moses. One of those Jews was Peter, upon whom the Church was based. Those who entered the Church were now the real followers of Moses, even if they were Gentiles, i.e., from outside the preferred ethnic group of the Chosen People. This raises an interesting question in turn: If then those who follow Christ are the real followers of Moses, who then are the group of people who claim to be the Jews?

Revelations 3:9 answers that question by calling "those who call themselves Jews but are liars" the "synagogue of Satan." In other words, the group which was called by God to prepare the way for the Messiah, rejected the Messiah and in doing that, became over the course of the ensuing centuries, a group that defined itself as anti-Christian. God did not reject the Jews; the Jews rejected God.

Schoeman deals with the first half of the equation but not the second. Since the Catholic Church is now Israel, Jews can only find their completion as Jews by becoming Catholics. This much is in Schoeman's book. The converse of that statement, however, does not get expressed. The Jews who reject Christ now prepare the way for the coming of the anti-Christ every bit as much as the faithful Jews prepared the way for the coming of the real Christ. The Jews, because of their favored position and because of their rejection of Christ, now have a special role to play in the mystery of iniquity and its history on earth.

If salvation comes from the Jews who prepared the way for Christ and accepted him when he came, what comes from the Jews who rejected Christ? The answer is clear: what comes from this group is the opposite of salvation, namely, the work of Satan culminating in the arrival of the Antichrist. The answer is not only clear; there is no other possible answer to this question.

It's an interesting and logical conclusion. It is not the message we hear from Rome.

Thanks to a reader for sending it in.

WAR ON CHRISTIANS IN EASTERN INDONESIA

as reported by WorldNet Daily:

Muslim militants in eastern Indonesia burned down several hundred homes in an overnight attack on a mainly Christian area where 26 people were killed in three days of fighting.

The attacks on Christians in Maluku province, once known as the Spice Islands, continues with no end in sight, according to the Washington, D.C.-based human rights group International Christian Concern.

Laskar Jihad warriors On Monday, several hundred homes of Christians were burned down in the Tanah Lapang Kecil and Batugantung neighborhoods of Ambon, the provincial capital.

The attack began at about 3 a.m. and continued into the afternoon hours until all of the homes were destroyed, ICC said.

According to news reports, government buildings have been abandoned and taken over by unidentified snipers using the rooftops to scout victims, including several policemen who have been killed in the past few days.

Maluku, which has been about half Christian and half Muslim, came under attack between 1999 and 2002 from a radical Islamic group called Laskar Jihad, or Army of Holy Warriors, which aimed to make Indonesia an Islamic state.

Blog credit to Spirit Daily

UPDATE ON NEW CHURCH IN PITTSBURGH

WPXI.com reports:

A controversial new Catholic church in Sewickley will hold services for the first time this weekend....

Parishioners are being warned by the Catholic Diocese they are excommunicated if they willingly follow Hausen.


Blogger Credit Spirit Daily

PROBLEM

In the past Blogger has always solved coding problems for me. Apparently they have decided not to do that any longer.

Yesterday when I imported the hit counter and Atom feed, and changed the color and the order of the side margin links, I also accidentally eliminated paragraphing from the body of each blog.

Today I've been able to code the paragraph breaks separately each time I wanted a new paragraph. It's a pain. Plus, there is no way to go back to all the posts in the archive which no longer have paragraphs, and put them in.

I don't know how to fix it. Does anyone else?

EMAIL FROM LEE PENN

Milwaukee Catholic Herald - April 22, 2004

Here is a story that could also be titled, "Incoherence at the top: sub rosa chaos at the Vatican."

Money quote:

"Only from afar does the Vatican look like the Stepford Wives (dressing alike, thinking alike, acting alike). ... It's not an organization, it's a bureaucracy, rarely of one mind."

Allen gave the example of the tensions between the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Office of Liturgical Celebration for the Supreme Pontiff regarding liturgical dance.

"The Congregation of Divine Worship is much more conservative, sober, Romanesque," Allen said. "The Office of Liturgical Celebration doesn't buy that at all. Their liturgies are more modern, dynamic, expressive." He joked that the liturgical office staff "try to set a record for how many liturgical rules they can break in one papal Mass. These things usually have dance numbers that rival 'Cats'."

If the Divine Liturgy, the "eucharistic sacrifice," is "the source and summit of the Christian life" (Lumen Gentium, sec. 11) such leadership from Rome explains the withering of the Catholic Faith within the Catholic Church.

Lee

GRAVE ROBBING IN NEWARK

From WorldWide Religious News:

A 61-year-old woman accused of being a high priestess in the Palo Mayombe religion is charged with directing followers to steal human remains from Newark cemeteries for use in the sect's rituals. Miriam Mirabal's trial began Wednesday in Superior Court in Newark. The Cuban immigrant is charged in a seven-count indictment with burglary, theft and conspiracy stemming from grave desecrations at the Mount Pleasant and Holy Sepulchre cemeteries.

NEW CATECHISM TO BE READY EARLY NEXT YEAR

according to a story at Independent Catholic News

It's expected to be shorter and written in a question and answer style. It also is expected to be faithful to the current CCC. One tends to wonder, though, when it is being shortened, just what doctrines are going to be eliminated? Might it be some of those passages that have been called "ambiguous"? Will the ambiguities be eliminated? And if they are, which side of these doctrines will be kept? May we not find ourselves faced with a whole new religion when this catechism is published!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

PENTECOSTALISM AND C. G. JUNG

The issue has arisen as to whether C. G. Jung has influenced the Charismatic Movement in the Catholic Church. In researching that, these articles surfaced.

Tongue Speaking: From God or Man? by Jimmy Jividen, author of Glossolalia from God or Man?

He concludes this article with: "Logical considerations indicate that contemporary "tongue speaking" is not merely innocent baby talk, but dangerous delusions of the devil. It is not from God but from man."

In the article he also notes: "The phenomenon has long been studied in psychology. C. G. Jung says that "spirit communications are generally nothing else than very commonplace manifestation of the personal unconscious" [Bernard Martin, Healing for You (Richmond, John Knox Press, 1965), p. 99]. It is often completely unconnected with religion. [F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality (New Hyde Park, N. Y. University Books, Inc. 1961), pp. 36-73 contain case histories of S. Freud and P. Janet showing this]. It is to be compared to automatic writing. The phenomenon is found in cases of mental illnesses such as hysteria, catalepsy and personality disintegration. [George Barton Cutten, op. cit. pp. 157-160]."

Next, a chapter out of Jungian and Catholic? by James and Tyra Arraj, has some interesting insight.

They indicate that in the Catholic Charismatic movement a "central place is given to the baptism in the Holy Spirit", though "Catholic Charismatics do not identify the baptism in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues" yet "there is a strong connection between the two," and "praying in tongues is the normal and expected sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit." Sort of a "you did but you didn't" explanation, I guess.

They indicate that according to the Ranaghans, one man spoke in tongues while he was asleep. That precludes any conscious input into the phenomenon.

These authors believe that glossolalia is a working of the unconscious rather than a gift of God. They claim, "It is this insistence on divine or demonic origins and a failure to take the unconscious seriously that often mars the Charismatic movement....we end up taking for the work of God what is the work of our own psyches. It is much more reasonable to accept the Charismatic experience as something intimately united to the unconscious..."

What happens to the Charismatic Movement if tongue speaking is believed to be of human origin rather than divine? If it is central, as the authors claim, does the Movement fall apart when God is eliminated from the equation?

The authors go on to recount the experiences of Fr. Ralph Di Orio, "one of the best known Catholic Charismatic healers." Fr. Di Orio is quoted as saying: "...during a Charismatic service, I am completely out of character. It is not I. Something is in me...There is a Spirit of God functioning through me...some of you will feel electricity going through you right out of my body."

Ok, now we're into dangerous territory. How can there be a guarantee of divine influence here when so many people are claiming that the influence involved is demonic? Is it reasonable to abandon ourselves to such an outside influence?

CCC 2117: All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others--even if this were for the sake of restoring their health--are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion."...Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

The quotation of Fr. Di Orio continues:

Another phenomenon which continuously and constantly occurs during our services is the 'slaying in the spirit'...Some of you will be falling down, or entering a state of divine spiritual ecstasy...During a service, I enter a state of being that is neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, but a mixture of the two. In this trancellike state...

Fr. Di Orio admits to being in a "trancelike state." So do occultists and channelers. In fact this is essential for channelers. He indicates that at the beginning "I was confused by what was happening to me."

In the author's discussion of being "slain in the spirit" they report:

Those who fall report "a sense of a special presence of God, a feeling of euphoria and peace" and are conscious, or sometimes only partially conscious, or unconscious, and a few experience various sorts of visions and voices and "in some cases, the subject bursts into tears, cries out or laughs uncontrollably." After the experience, "most people state that they feel spiritually, emotionally and physically refreshed" though some experience fear and confusion...

This is the same experience reported of Toronto Blessing. Even Cardinal Suenens has a problem with this manifestation. The article indicates: "He finds no foundation for this experience in the Scriptures and quotes John of the Cross on the danger of all these palpable phenomena in the spiritual life. In fact, the very tangible nature of this falling argues, in Cardinal Suenens' mind, against it being a direct working of the Holy Spirit Who 'works neither in human tumult nor on an assembly line' and 'by delicate spiritual touches rather than by physical manifestations.' "

Obviously we have a problem since this "slain in the spirit" concept is common. The authors believe the same cautions should be applied to all phenomena. They go on to add: When this [healthy critical reserve] is not done the Charismatic movement, in a strange and paradoxical way, joins hands with their foes, the proponents of a radical Jungian spirituality.

Since this healthy critical reserve does seem to be absent in the Charismatic Movement, this seems to place the movement into the category of "radical Jungian spirituality." I hasten to add that Jung was an occultist. Which brings me back to the material quoted yesterday describing the different outcomes of similar phenomena when different explanations are applied.

Next I turned to a paper adapted from the book, The Serpent & the Cross," by Alan Morrison.

Morrison lists four "founding fathers of the psychology of the New Gnosticism" as Franz Mesmer, Gustav Fechner, Wilhelm Reich and Carl Jung. He then refers to:

...the pervasive influence of the mind-sciences on many disturbing elements within the present-day professing Christian Church which are masquerading as genuine phenomena of Christian spirituality--especially those churches which describe themselves as 'Charismatic' or 'Pentecostal'. We will show that these developments have far more in common with the ancient sorcery of the pagan cults than with historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity. We are speaking of such influences as 'Visualisation' (otherwise known as 'Imaging' or 'Imagineering'), spirit invocation, verbal incantations, faith-healing, techniques of trance-inducement, and exorcistic ritualism. These have not only provided the perfect interdenominational, ecumenical focal point among professing Christian churches, but they have also unwittingly introduced many Christians to the realms of interfaith syncretism and the corresponding generation of mystical experiences. One can wholly understand the existence of these developments in non-Christian circles, for they have Satan as their master (1 Jn.5:19b)...

Morrison provides a quotation which places at least a portion of the movement in the Jungian School. He says:

Inner Healing and Healing of the Memories are a mixture of hypnotherapy and unadulterated idolatry practised on gullible people who are seeking a quick and easy answer to their struggles with sin by any means available. Its origin is not in the Word of God, but in the psychological theories of men who are inspired by the occult tradition. This is frankly admitted in an article on 'Pentecostal and Charismatic Spirituality' in the authoritative 'Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements', which states:

Quote:
'One sector of the Charismatic movement, a sector that could be called "The Jungian School" (Agnes Sanford popularised the approach) takes dreams very seriously and finds in the intricate psychological writings of Carl Jung a theoretical basis (Kelsey, 1964, 1968). Inner Healing was an understandable development that emerged out of that school'.

Morrison also makes this comparison:

Let us remind ourselves once more of the occultist's position on this whole process of the magical use of the imagination. Earlier, we learned that Alice Bailey's 'inner guide', the Ascended Master Djwal Khul, had written through her: 'The clue to all this esoteric work demanded by Shambhala is to be found in the development of the Art of Visualisation'. One of the prime reasons why occultists wish to develop the capacity and power of their imaginations is so that they can effect extraordinary changes in their lives, the lives of others and in their circumstantial environments through powerful visualisation of the desired change.

He recounts the work of Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho, pastor of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul, Korea:

Dr. Cho is highly admired by many in the West because of the size of his congregation and most especially because he has come to symbolize the Charismatic Movement's ideal of 'renewal' and revival in the Church. In Pentecostal-Charismatic circles it is anathema to speak badly of this Korean leader, who is held up as the paragon of an 'anointed and Spirit-filled ministry'. However, a simple perusal of his books reveals a theology which has been 'ripped off' from some primary teachings of the New Gnosticism.

Can we say that we are "in over our heads" yet?

Lastly I turned to James Likoudis's paper on "The Pentecostalism Controversy." He says:

A Russian Orthodox monk drawing upon the riches of the Eastern monastic tradition bluntly declares the Pentecostalist movement to be attributed to spiritual deception ? "prelest"...Nor does our Russian Orthodox theologian hesitate to declare Pentecostalism to be "in complete contradiction of Orthodox tradition and prophecy":

Quote
Can any ... sober Christian possibly confuse these dangerous psychic games with the gifts of the Holy Spirit? There is nothing whatever Christian, nothing whatever spiritual here in the least. This is the realm, rather, of psychic mechanisms which can be set in operation by means of definite psychological or physical techniques, and "speaking in tongues" would seem to occupy a key role as a kind of "trigger" in this realm. In any case, it certainly bears no resemblance whatever to the spiritual gift described in the New Testament and, if anything, it is much closer to shamanistic "speaking in tongues" as practiced in primitive religions, where the shaman or witch doctor has a regular technique for going into a trance and then giving a message to or from a "god" in a tongue he has not learned.... (This) comparison with shamanism will not seem terribly far-fetched, especially if we understand that primitive shamanism is but a particular expression of a "religious" phenomenon which, far from being foreign to the modern West, actually plays a significant role in the lives of some contemporary "Christians": mediumism.

In closing I'd like to quote a poster on the Una Voce email list who gave me her permission to do so:

Years ago I went to a conference on why we were losing so many Catholics to Fundamentalism. At the conference someone related that a language scholar who knew Aramaic witnessed one of these mass "slayings in the Spirit" with speaking in tongues. What was incomprehensible babble to the assembled Charismatics he recognized as Aramaic--and those who thought they were being visited by the Holy Spirit were actually cursing God in the ancient language of the Gospels!

NEWS FROM PLANET ZIRCON

A Universal Syncretistic Catholic Church is formed in the Pittsburgh Diocese, by a disgruntled priest who is a recovering alcoholic. The article describing it is uninteresting except for this coment:

"What they call (their higher power) is inconsequential. The word 'God' is more of a verb than a noun - we do 'God' when we do selfless love."

"God" as verb. This guy doesn't want to be god, he wants to entirely dispense with the notion while still claiming to be a priest, in the service of whom, I have no idea. Novel. It means, I guess, that I could ask, "Shall we do god together over lunch?" I wonder how good he is at doing resurrection?


Blogger credit, Seattle Catholic


CarrieTomko@aol.com

CHAOS MAGICK.....

The art of destabilizing an environment in order to provoke change.

Thre is a very curious article at a website called Executive Intelligence Review, apparently a Lyndon Larouche organization, (I know, I know) that discusses the terrorist period in Italy and compares it to the situation in Spain. Oddly enough, Licio Gelli is mentioned in the article. This is the article's conclusion:

Here ends our reconstruction of the networks which have destabilized Italy in the years of the Strategy of Tension, up to the current day. By no means is it complete or perfect. We hope, however, that it gives the reader, especially the younger ones who were born after those turbulent years, an active and not academic knowledge of that historical phase, in order to draw the lessons for changing the present and the future.


CarrieTomko@aol.com

TOMORROW I will try again to put the paragraphs back into this blog. I don't know why they disappeared. It may have had something to do with adding the hit counter to the template. Sigh. CarrieTomko@aol.com

THE MURDER INVESTIGATION has led to Fr. Robinson being put on leave of absence. Bishop Leonard Blair of the Toledo Diocese visited Fr. Robinson in jail to deliver the news of his leave. WTOL-TV Toledo, indicates: Before his visit to the jail, Bishop Leonard Blair spoke to Dan Bumpus of News 11. Speaking of the murder charge faced by Father Robinson, Bishop Blair said, "I'm completely shocked and deeply troubled that one of our priests could be accused of such a thing." He went on to add, "Obviously the police and the prosecutor have determined there is new or compelling evidence to make this charge." In a statement today, Bishop Blair also said the church had been investigating Robinson for other allegations not connected to the murder case. But last December, the church's investigation was slowed when prosecutors told the diocese "not to contact Father Robinson" because the murder case had been reopened. This is the first indication I've seen that Fr. Robinson was under diocesan investigation. An expert in blood transfer patterns talks about the accuracy of the evidence in this WTOL-TV article. CarrieTomko@aol.com

REVIVAL OR WITCHCRAFT ? Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum have written a book, Salem Possessed, which suggests the possibility that the witchcraft trials in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, might have been prevented if in the early days of the phenomenon a different explanation for it had been given. They open their account with a story of what happened in 1692: It began in obscurity, with cautious experiments in fortune telling....late in 1691, young people were being "led away with little sorceries." Fearful of the future, they began to cast spells and to practice "conjuration with sieves and keys, and peas, and nails, and horseshoes."...The concern came to focus on the point where curiosity about future love merged with curiosity about future status: the nature of their own marriage, "what trade their sweethearts should be of." One of the girls devised a primitive crystal ball--the white of an egg suspended in a glass--and received a chilling answer: in the glass there floated "a specter in the likeness of a coffin." What had begun as fearful curiosity was turning to sharp panic. The magic they had tried to harness was beginning, instead, to ride them: visibly, dramatically, ominously. (p. 1-2) Incidents began with the daughter [ of the local minister], age 9, and her 11-year-old cousin. The "evil hand" was suggested as a source for the trouble. Afflictions spread from these two girls to seven or eight other girls as well. Some young married women were also affected. Manifestations of affliction included strange and ridiculous behavior and one suffered a convulsion fit, her limbs being twisted several ways and very stiff. However, the book claims that It [was] not at all clear that the girls' affliction was initially unpleasant or, indeed, that they experienced it as an "affliction" at all. Unquestionably it could be harrowing enough once witchcraft became the accepted diagnosis, but the little evidence available...before the agreed-upon explanation had been arrived at, makes the girls' behavior seem more exhilarated than tormented, more liberating than oppressive. One of the early published accounts of the outbreak...described the girls' initial manifestations as "getting into holes, and creeping under chairs and stools...[with] sundry odd postures and antic gestures, [and] uttering foolish, ridiculous speeches which neither they themselves nor any other could make sense of." Had [the minister] Samuel Parris, and his parishioners chosen to place a different interpretation on it, the "witchcraft episode" might have taken an entirely different form. This, in fact, is what almost happened, miles away from Salem Village, in another witchcraft case of 1692; that of Mercy Short. Mercy was a seventeen-year-old Boston servant girl who in June 1692 was sent by her mistress on an errand to the Boston town jail, where many accused Salem witches happened to be held pending their trials. When one of them...asked Mercy for tobacco, the girl, belying her name, threw a handful of wood shavings in the face of [one of the accused]...[who soon after this] began to exhibit the strange physical behavior that people had by now come to think of as proof of bewitchment. Cotton Mather, as her minister...spent much time with her, offering spiritual counsel and maintaining a detailed record of her behavior. Mather's notes make clear that what Mercy experienced was far from unmitigated torment. At times, in fact "[h]er tortures were turned into frolics, and she became as extravagant as a wildcat,": her speech "excessively witty" and far beyond her "ordinary capacity." On other occasions, she delivered long religious homilies and moral exhortations. Although it was generally agreed that Mercy was bewitched, what is interesting is that Mather directed the episode into quite another channel. He treated it not as an occasion for securing witchcraft accusations but as an opportunity for the religious edification of the community.... The entire Mercy Short episode, in fact, suggests nothing so much as the early stages of what would become, a generation later, a looming feature of the American social landscape: a religious revival.(p. 24-26) The authors go on to state: In salem Village, the afflicted girls occasionally displayed an inclination to ascribe their supernatural visitations to a divine rather than a demonic source.....as for the "foolish, ridiculous speeches which neither they themselves nor any other could understand," do they not suggest, in inchoate form, the Pentecostal gift of tongues which would figure so prominently in later revival outbreaks?...How would the girls [in Salem] have responded if their ministers, their neighbors, or their families had interpreted their behavior as the initial stages of a hopeful religious awakening? The parallel is underscored if we turn a full 180 degrees and examine, from the perspective of 1692, the first mass outbreak of religious anxiety which actually was interpreted as a revival: the so-called "Little Awakening" which began in the western Massachusetts town of Northampton in 1734. Here, as in Salem Village, a group of people in the town began, unexpectedly and simultaneously, to experience condition of extreme anxiety. They underwent "great terrors" and "distresses" which threw them into "a kind of struggle and tumult" and finally brought them to "the borders of despair." Nineteen-year-old Abigail Hutchinson felt such "exceeding terror" that "her very flesh trembled"; for others the terror took such vivid forms as that of a "dreadful furnace" yawning before their eyes. Even a four-year-old girl, Phebe Bartlet, took to secreting herself in a closet for long periods each day, weeping and moaning. As in Salem Village, some people of Northampton began to whisper ominously that "certain distempers" were in the air....And, again as in Salem Village, the episode eventually culminated in violent death: not executions, this time, but suicide....after two months of terror and sleepless nights, Joseph Hawley slit his throat and died.... In Northampton in 1735 as in Salem Village a generation earlier, the young played a central role. In both episodes, the catalyst was a group of young people who had taken to spending long hours together, away from their homes. In Salem Village, these gatherings began as fortune-telling sessions and soon took a scary turn; in Northampton, they started as "frolics" but were soon transformed, under the influence of the town's young minister, Jonathan Edwards (later to become the greatest theologian of his era), into occasions for prayer and worship. In both places, too, the preoccupations of these youthful meetings soon spread to the community as a whle, and became the overriding topic of conversation. In Salem Village, the afflicted girls dominated the packed gatherings where the accused were examined. In Northampton, church services and household routines alike were disrupted by crying and weeping, again with the younger generation taking the lead. (p. 27-28) But the differences are as significant as the similarities, for when all is said and done, the fact remains that Northampton experienced not a witchcraft outbreak, but a religious revival....Edwards chose to interpret the entire episode not as demonic, but as a "remarkable pouring out of the spirit of God." Under his guidance, most of the sufferers passed through their terrors to a "calm of spirit" and the "joyful surprise" of discovering Christ afresh... The crucial difference between the two episodes is the interpretation which the adult leadership of each community placed upon physical and emotional states which in themselves were strikingly similar. In Northampton they were viewed as a divine and hopeful light; in Salem Village they were seized upon as sinister and demonic. While the "afflicted girls" of 1692 often showed signs of shifting their fantasies to Christ, describing angelic messengers and glorious visions, their cues were not "picked up" by the adults, and the girls invariably lapsed back into reports of agonies and sufferings. In ech of these communities, in other words, the behavior of groups of young people (whatever may have produced it) served as a kind of Rorschach test into which adults read their own concerns and expectations. (p. 29-30) The book goes on from there to unpack the social interactions of Salem Village during the time of the witchcraft trials, showing in the process, that social relationships had a strong influence on the eventual outcome. There is no more discussion of the sources of the manifestations. If the same manifestations can lead to either a religious revival or witchcraft trials, doesn't that say something about the manifestations themselves and the religious revival that followed them on one occasion? We have been told that Lucifer can appear as an angel of light. We also know that when one of the good angels appears to man, no destructive manifestations follow. There are examples of angels appearing to humans in both the Old Testament and the New. Not once are strange languages, fear and terror, or other psychological manifestations mentioned. Those who encounter heavenly angels do not fall into catalytic trances. However, there is evidence in the New Testament that those who suffer evil spirits do exhibit strange manifestations until Christ casts out devils that inhabit them. What then, does this tell us about Pentecostalism? * * * * * UPDATE The question has arisen, what did Mercy Short do that might have brought on manifestations? Let me quote the entire passage concerning her including the portions I left out of the quote above. Had Samuel Parris [Salem Village minister] and his parishioners chosen to place a different interpretation on it, the "witchcraft episode" might have taken an entirely different form. This, in fact, is what almost happened, miles away from Salem Village, in another witchcraft case of 1692: that of Mercy Short. Mercy was a seventeen-year-old Boston servant girl who in June 1692 was sent by her mistress on an errand to the Boston town jail, where many accused Salem witches happened to be held pending their trials. When one of them, Sarah Good, asked Mercy for tobacco, the girl, belying her name, threw a handful of wood shavings in the prisoner's face and cried: "That's tobacco good enough for you!" Soon after, Mercy Short began to exhibit the strange physical behavior that people had by now come to think of as proof of bewitchment. Cotton Mather, as her minister, was interested in Mercy's case from the beginning, and through the winter of 1692-93 he spent much time with her, offering spiritual counsel and maintaining a detailed record of her behavior. Mather's notes make clear that what Mercy experienced was far from unmitigated torment. At times, in fact, "[h]er tortures were turned into frolics, and she became as extravagant as a wildcat," her speech "excessively witty" and far beyond her "ordinary capacity." [see footnote below] On other occasions, she delivered long religious homilies and moral exhortations. Although it was generally agreed that Mercy was bewitched, what is interesting is that Mather directed the episode into quite another channel. He treated it not as an occasion for securing witchcraft accusations but as an opportunity for the religious edification of the community. As word of Mercy's condition spread, her room became a gathering place, first for pious members of Mather's congregation and then for local young people. These boys and girls, who had already organized weekly prayer services apart from the adults, "now adjourned their meetings...unto the Haunted Chamber." With Mather's encouragement, as many as fifty of them would crowd into the room, praying and singing psalms (sometimes until dawn) and occasionally themselves displaying unusual physical manifestations. At one point during the winter of 1692-93 they assembled every night for nearly a month." The entire Mercy Short episode, in fact, suggests nothing so much as the early stages of what would become, a generation later, a looming feature of the American social landscape: a religious revival. Mather himself made the point: "[T]he souls of many especially of the rising generation," he wrote, "have been thereby awakened unto some acquaintance with religion." Nor was this "awakening" simply a Matherian conceit; in his diary the minister recorded that "some scores of young people" (including Mercy herself) had joined his church after being "awakened by the picture of Hell exhibited in her sufferings." Such a mass movement toward church membership, coming on a tide of shared religious experiences, had been almost unknown up to that time in New England and indicates how close the town of Boston may have been, that winter of 1692-93, to a full-scale revival. When viewed not simply as freakish final splutters in the centuries-old cycle of witchcraft alarms, but as overtures to the revival movement, both the Boston and the Salem Village episodes emerge in a fresh light and take on a new interest. With a slight shift in the mix of social ingredients, both communities could have fostered scenes of mass religious questing in 1692. In Salem Village, the afflicted girls occasionally displayed an inclination to ascribe their supernatural visitations to a divine rather than a demonic source. On April 1, according to Deodat Lawson's first-hand account, Mercy Lewis "saw in her fit a white man, and [she] was with him in a glorious place, which had no candles nor sun, yet was full of light and brightness, where was a great multitude in white glittering robes." Similar heavenly visions, Lawson noted, appeared to the other girls as well. And as for the "foolish, ridiculous speeches which neither they themselves nor any others could understand," do they not suggest, in inchoate form, the Pentecostal gift of tongues which would figure so prominently in later revival outbreaks? footnote: Mather observed similar behavior in Martha Goodwin, whom he took into his house for observation in 1688. During what he called her "frolics," which sometimes lasted all day, Martha would appear to be in a state verging on ecstasy, moving about rapidly and talking constantly, "never wickedly, but always wittily, beyond herself." Mather, Memorable Providence, p. 19. Sarah Good, accused of witchcraft in Salem Village, was imprisoned in Boston. The book offers this explanation of the charges against her: But rumors had already coursed through Salem Village, and not everybody was content with such a passive response. At the suggestion of one young Village matron named Mary Sibley, a witch cake--rye meal mixed with the urine of the afflicted girls--was baked by Tituba and John Indian, a West Indian slave couple in Parris's household. The cake was then fed to a dog, evidently in the belief that if the girls were bewitched, the animal would experience torments similar to their own. A few weeks later, Parris denounced Mary Sibley from the pulpit for suggesting such a "diabolical" stratagem. By this time, more than a month had elapsed since the girls' strange behavior began, and still no legal action had been taken. By this time, too, the afflictions were beginning to spread ("plague-like," as [the minister] Parris later put it) beyond the minister's house; soon they would come to affect about seven or eight other girls as well, ranging in age from twelve to nineteen, and including three from the household of Thomas Putnam, Jr. For a time, even several young married women became afflicted. At last the troubled Village resorted to the law. On February 29, 1692, warrants went out for the arrest of Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba herself. (p. 2-3) It isn't altogether clear that the women accused of witchcraft had actually done anything at all apart from this incident with the witch cake. The girls who displayed manifestations were never charged with witchcraft, though it appears that if anyone were guilty, it would have been they who had played fortune telling games. The theme of the book is that those who were hung, and others who were arrested and later released, were chosen as the likely witches based not upon what they had done, but rather upon their particular social standing within the Village. That standing is rather too complicated to explain here, but the premise is interesting. This spreading of manifestations simply by touch is also evident in the history of Pentecostalism. In fact, the laying on of hands is directly related to this method of transfer. In his book The Century of the Holy Spirit, Vinson Synan indicates a charge of witchcraft was made against the Azusa Street Revival, which was essentially the beginning of Pentecostalism in America. He says: The majority of the institutional holiness movement, which had been so instrumental in praying for a new Pentecost, came out vehemently against the revival. The leader of the Pentecostal Union Church, Bishop Alma White, accused the Azusa Street Revival of worshiping the devil while promoting and practicing witchcraft and sexual immorality. These charges were published in a book with the arresting title Demon Tongues. Many of the holiness periodicals were quick to caution people that this could be a satanic counterfeit of what they were looking for, and within a short time began to say that the "tongues movement" was of the devil. One holiness leader went so far as to call it the "last vomit of Satan." (p. 54) It seems to me that is a rather serious charge considering that the holiness movement was the forerunner of the Pentecostal movement. Synan describes the Azusa St. service: Many eyewitnesses gave other accounts, however. "I felt a pulling sensation. I couldn't have turned away if I wanted to." This was how one eye-witness, A. C. Valdez, described his first visit to the mission. He further relates that as he and his mother walked into the building a chill wind touched them, and they were suddenly trembling, in Los Angeles in the summer. Looking around, Valdez noticed that everyone was trembling and he felt as if he was surrounded by God.... At one meeting, which was termed "typical" by a member of the congregation, early in the service an elder opened with the following statement of instruction and warning: "We have no planned program, nor are we afraid of anarchy or crooked spirits. God the Holy Spirit is able to control and protect His work. If any strange manifestations come, trust the Holy Spirit, keep in prayer, and you will see the word of wisdom go forth, a rebuke, an exhortation that will close the door on the enemy and show the victory won. God can use any member of the body, and He often gives the more abundant honor to the weaker members. (p. 56-57) According to Synan some groups that spoke in tongues even denied the Trinity. Incidentally, here are the two books I've referred to in this blog: Salem Possessed The Century of the Holy Spirit CarrieTomko@aol.com

I HAVE A REQUEST My blog lacks a site meter. I have no way of knowing how many hits I get, and am wondering if this is something I should continue or if it is a waste of effort. Some readers have posted comments or emailed me, so I know some of you. Perhaps I know all of you? In any case, if you read my blog and want it to continue, would you send me an email saying that? Thanks. CarrieTomko@aol.com

Some of you know Fr. Rob Johansen from the blog effort to keep Terri Schiavo alive. He has an article up on the Crisis Magazine website from the May 2003 issue, which is titled "What's Wrong with our Seminaries?" from which the following quotes are taken: Apart from the tedium and consequent disinterest in Scripture that such total reliance on the historical-critical method engenders, the other problem with it is that it�s virtually useless for training priests to preach meaningfully from the Scriptures. The historical-critical method is certainly helpful for understanding the background and context of a Scripture passage, but it�s powerless to answer the questions in the minds of the average Catholic in the pew: How does this scripture relate to my life as a Catholic, and how does it nourish my faith? The historical-critical approach is even more inimical to penetrating the mysteries of the Faith themselves. To do that, one needs the Fathers and the spiritual senses, and that�s precisely what our seminarians aren�t getting. While this deficiency may not be the sole cause of the poor preaching many Catholics experience today, it certainly doesn�t help. I can understand Protestant ministerial formation relying solely on this. What I can't understand is why Catholic formation processes would do it as well. How did we ever get here? The Jesus Seminar approach to theology, one would think, would be the last approach considered in Catholic seminary. Don't get me wrong, I find Bible stories set in the historical context fascinating. But this method has a very poor track record for upholding the faith, so the need to balance it with other methods is essential. In general, the quality of spiritual formation in our seminaries is good and getting better. The atmosphere of experimentation and �do-it-yourself� liturgy that characterized the 1970s and 1980s has largely evaporated. Francis Cardinal George�s efforts at Mundelein Seminary and Bishop Vigneron�s at Sacred Heart have been well reported; both institutions now boast more reverent liturgies. That is encouraging, and hopefully accurate. And here is another encouraging statement: While some pundits have suggested that the solution to the �problem� of celibacy is to drop the discipline, such ideas are not popular in the seminaries. According to Bishop Vigneron, he and the seminary rectors of his acquaintance have a �firm conviction� about the positive meaning and value of priestly celibacy. He adds that he�s convinced �that the challenge of the pope to embrace celibate chastity and his invitation to build that on the theology of the body is right.� Furthermore, he perceives that seminarians have the right intentions regarding celibacy. �They want to grow in the virtue,� he said. Bishop Boyea is likewise convinced that today�s seminarians are with the Church on celibacy. �They want to embrace it,� he says. �And they want to learn what that means�. The key is this: This is the way Christ lived, and we want to do the same. The reason for celibacy is to want to live like Christ.� We must have willing seminarians. But we also must have willing teachers of these seminarians or they will not hold on to their good moral values for long. The following does not bode well for future moral giants in the priesthood: All but two dioceses in this country have had some sort of brush with scandal. Such a widespread phenomenon suggests a systemic failure of spectacular proportions. There. Someone has said it. A "failure of spectacular proportions." Yes indeed. And it really is important that everyone acknowledge that. It's unfortunate that so few priests have tainted so many good ones by association. The stories we are hearing are simply outrageous. The hierarchy isn't screaming "foul" so the laity has taken up the cause. Perhaps when they finally realize where the laity stands on these issues, they will come along with us? And I so much want to believe this: First, the perception of most seminary rectors, faculty, and students is that there�s no longer a widespread homosexual subculture in our seminaries (at least in most of them). The efforts at cleaning up this problem�prompted by several incidents in the 1980s�began more than a decade ago and have been largely successful. but lack the ability to trust seminary rectors after what has been uncovered. He closes the article with this: Of course, the most encouraging signs are the seminarians themselves. They�re men overwhelmingly loyal to the Church, on fire with the Spirit, and eager to give of themselves. They need and deserve seminary formation that will strengthen these qualities and prepare them for the sacrifices they�ll be called to make. CarrieTomko@aol.com

GEORGE NEUMAYR COMMENTS AT THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR A few choice lines: Minus the convoluted bias, the headline would read: Catholic Democrats Exploit Faith While Rejecting It. The successors of the Apostles have been sternly warned not to inconvenience Terry McAuliffe's Sunday. (by refusing Communion for this Chairman of the Democratic National Committee) ...the American bishops will likely dodge the issue until after the election. The bishops have established a time-buying task force to study "how to deal with Catholic elected officials who vote against church doctrine," which is headed up by a labor-activist cardinal traditionally in the tank for the Dems, Theodore McCarrick. He has already signaled that he won't confront Kerry. "The McCarrick guidelines may not be ready until after the election," the Times reports. How convenient! Kerry called for the meeting [with McCarrick] to ensure that the pliant cardinal would keep the lid on the boiling pot of lay Catholic outrage. Unknown at the time, there was an added element of chutzpah to the meeting: At the very moment Kerry was chatting with the cardinal, his campaign team was preparing to roll out a pro-abortion advertising blitz. It appeared on television stations nationwide this week. Sensing that the bishops are Democrats before they are Catholics, Kerry and McAuliffe are exploiting... Nice. Murder and minimum wage are weighted the same in this analysis. The bishops, by using their office to tout their left-wing political views, have made this Democratic gambit possible. Had the bishops restricted themselves to teaching the Catholic faith, there wouldn't be this confusion for the Democrats to manipulate. So if we get a Democrat who presides when abortion is made legal, do we blame the bishops? Neumayr ends with this stinger: It would be an appropriate finale to decades of calamitous Catholic leadership if the most anti-Catholic presidency in American history is occupied by a Catholic. Blog credit to a reader. CarrieTomko@aol.com

BRIDGE SCENE IN "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST" On April 14 (scroll down to "The Book of Enoch") I posted a quotation from The History of Magic by Eliphas Levi and asked if anyone could tell me if it matched the bridge scene in the movie. Thomas Hurley mentions this scene in his weblog: A number of scenes, which I believe come from the account of the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich, seemed to me to add little or nothing to the story: Jesus being pushed off a bridge on the way to be tried by the Jewish leaders It was mentioned in other blogs as well. Here is the quote from Levi's book: "It came to pass in this manner that Seth beheld the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, incorporated together after such a manner that they formed but a single tree" - signifying the harmony of science and religion in the transcendental Kabalah. "And the angel gave him three seeds containing the vital power of the said tree." The reference is here to the Kabalistic triad. "When Adam died, Seth, in obedience to the directions of the angel, placed the three seeds in the mouth of his father, as a token of eternal life. The samplings which spring up from these, became the Burning Bush, in the midst of which God communicated to Moses his Eternal Name...signifying He Who is and is to come. Moses plucked a triple branch of the sacred bush and used it as his miraculous wand. Although separated from its root, the branch continued to live and blossom, and it was subsequently preserved in the Ark. King David planted the branch on Mount Zion and Solomon took wood from each section of the triple trunk to make the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which were placed at the entrance of the Temple. They were covered with bronze, and the third section was inserted at the threshold of the chief gate. It was a talisman which hindered things unclean from entering within. But certain nefarious Levites removed during the night this obstacle to their unholy freedom and cast it, loaded with stones, to the bottom of the Temple reservoir. From this time forward an angel of God troubled the waters of the pool, imparting to them a miraculous value, so that men might be distracted from seeking the tree of Solomon in its depths. In the days of Jesus Christ the pool was cleansed and the Jews, finding the beam of wood, which in their eyes seemed useless, carried the latter outside the town and threw it across the brook Cedron. It was over this bridge that our Saviour passed after his arrest at night in the Garden of Olives. His executioners cast him from it into the water; and then in their haste to prepare the instrument-in-chief of His passion, they took the beam with them, which was made of three kinds of wood, and formed the cross therewith." (p. 57) A blog reader found a copy of The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Anne Catherine Emmerich where this quote appears: The porocession proceeded at a good pace; when they left the road which runs between the Garden of Olives and that of Gethsemani, they turned to the right, and soon reached a bridge which was thrown over the Torrent of Cedron. When Jesus went to the Garden of Olives with the Apostles, he did not cross this bridge, but went by a private path which ran through the Valley of Josaphat, and led to another bridge more to the south. The bridge over which the soldiers led Jesus was long, being thrown over not only the torrent, which was very large in this part, but likewise over the valley, which extends a considerable distance to the right and to the left, and is much lower than the bed of the river. I saw our Lord fall twice before he reached the bridge, and these falls were caused entirely by the barbarous manner in which the soldiers dragged him; but when they were half over the bridge they gave full vent to their brutal inclinations, and struck Jesus with such violence that they threw him off the bridge into the water, and scornfully recommended him to quench his thirst there. If God had not preserved him he must have been killed by this fall; he fell first on his knee, and then on his face, but saved himself a little by stretching out his hands, which although so tightly bound before, were loosened, I know not whether by miracle, or whether the soldiers had cut the cords before they thru him into the water. The marks of his feet, his elbows, and his fingers were miraculously impressed on the rock on which he fell, and these impressions were afterwards shown for the veneration of Christians. These stones were less hard than the unbelieving hearts of the wicked men who surrounded Jesus, and bore witness at this terrible moment to the Divine Power which had touched them. I had not seen Jesus take anything to quench the thirst which had consumed him ever since his agony in the garden, but he drank when he fell into the Cedron, and I heard him repeat these words from the prophetic Psalm, "In his thirst he will drink water from the torrent" (Psalm cvii). The archers still held the ends of the ropes with which Jesus was bound, but it would have been difficult to drag him out of the water on that side, on account of a wall which was built on the shore; they turned back and dragged him quite through the Cedron to the shore, and then made him cross the bridge a second time, accompanying their every action with insults, blasphemies, and blows. His long woolen garment, which was quite soaked through adhered to his legs, impeded every movement and rendered it almost impossible for him to walk, and when he reached the end of the bridge he fell quite down. They pulled him up again in the most cruel manner, struck him with cords, and fastened the ends of his wet garment to the belt, abusing him at the same time in the most cowardly manner. It was not quite midnight when I saw the four archers inhumanly dragging Jesus over a narrow path, which was choked up with stones, fragments of rock, thistles, and thorns, on the opposite shore of the Cedron. Six brutal Pharisees walked as close to our Lord as they could, struck him constantly with thick pointed sticks, and seeing that his bare and bleeding feet were torn by the stones and briars, exclaimed scornfully: "His precursor, John the Baptist, has certainly not prepared a good path for him here;" or, "The words of Malachy, 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face, to prepare the way before thee,' do not exactly apply now." Every jest uttered by these men incited the archers to greater cruelty. (p. 135-136) The Cedron is mentioned in the Douay Rheims, the Bible which was in use when Anne Catherine Emmerich was living. (If that link doesn't work, try this one): When Jesus had said these things, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where there was a garden, into which he entered with his disciples. (S. John, Chap. XVIII, Verse 1) (John 18:1) And the whole valley of dead bodies and of ashes, and all the country of death, even to the torrent Cedron, and the corner of the horse gate towards the east, the Holy of the Lord: it shall not be plucked up, and it shall not be destroyed any more for ever. (Jeremias Chap. XXXI, Verse 40) (Jeremiah 31:40) For on what day soever thou shalt go out, and shalt pass over the brook Cedron, know that thou shalt be put to death; thy blood shall be upon thy own head. (III Kings, Chap. II, Verse 37) (There is no third book of Kings in newer Bibles.) A reference to drinking from the torrent: He shall drink of the torrent in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head. (Psalms CIX 7) (Psalms 109:7) Newer Bibles refer to the "Kidron." The Kidron is described in Easton's Bible Dictionary: = Kedron = Cedron, turbid, the winter torrent which flows through the Valley of Jehoshaphat, on the eastern side of Jerusalem, between the city and the Mount of Olives. This valley is known in Scripture only by the name "the brook Kidron." There is a picture of this valley here. Thanks for the great detective work! CarrieTomko@aol.com