Category: News

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 1/25/20

Posted on by Tom

Welcome to our roundup of this week’s news!

The term, “born again,” has become trivialized and has lost its Biblical meaning in American society. Twenty-eight percent of American Catholics now claim to be “born again,” although they unabashedly believe in salvation by merit as their church teaches.

We’re seeing a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the United States and Europe. Pope Francis condemns the hatred, but the Roman Catholic church had a very long history of fomenting anti-Semitism. An upcoming Throwback Thursday installment will address this irony.

What “good news” does a Catholic evangelizer have to share? That a person must constantly avail themselves of the sacraments and obey the Ten Commandments perfectly (impossible!) in order to hopefully merit Heaven? That’s not good news, folks! That’s very bad news because no one is able to merit their salvation. Jesus Christ is the answer, not the Catholic religious treadmill. Some deluded souls are attracted to the pomp and ritualism of the RCC, but that doesn’t save.

Buffalo Catholic bishop and abuse-enabler, Richard Malone, was finally forced to resign last month, but the nearby Buffalo diocese is headed for bankruptcy due to the mounting claims filed there by survivors of priest abuse. The Rochester diocese filed for bankruptcy in September. It’s ironic that the bishop assigned to investigate Malone’s wrongdoings, Nicholas Di Marzio, is now being investigated himself by the Vatican for sexual abuse.

The German Catholic bishops are some of the most liberal/progressive in the RCC. Conservative Catholics are worried that the “German synodal process” that’s underway, spearheaded by the bishops and progressive laity, will introduce reforms that are too liberal even for pope Francis.

Many branches of Lutheranism veered into Bible-denying modernism/liberal apostasy generations ago and have no compunctions about linking up with Rome.

Doomsday eschatologist, Jack Van Impe, was once a very popular figure in independent fundamental Baptist circles. He ended up embracing Rome. I’m currently drafting a separate post about Van Impe.

While this article refers to a church in the apostate United Methodist denomination, there’s mounting discrimination against senior members at non-denominational hipster mega churches where skin-tight skinny jeans (on men no less) with holes in the knees and $100 swag haircuts are de rigueur.

Our humble city of Rochester N.Y., the former “Imaging Capital of the World,” doesn’t have much to boast about these days with the demise of Kodak and Xerox, but we do get more snow than any other city in the U.S. due to our unique location near Lake Erie and on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 1/18/20

Posted on by Tom

The Catholic church boasts that it gave the world the Bible, but history reveals that it kept the Bible from the laity for as long as possible until brave Reformers and the printing press put the Bible into the hands of plowboys. I was a Roman Catholic for 27 years and in my 12 years of Catholic schooling, I was never once encouraged to own a Bible and read it. The RCC now makes half-hearted endorsements of Bible reading as a concession to the influence of evangelical “Bible-bangers” (as militant Catholic apologists refer to us), but Catholic Bibles are full of notes that try to keep the reader in line with official church teaching. Catholicism claims to reverence the Bible, but has supplanted God’s Word with its man-made “sacred traditions.”

Catholics in Karnataka, India figure that if their Hindu neighbors can let cows roam freely through the neighborhood, they can build a 114-foot tall statue of Jesus! In all seriousness, this proposed statue is good example of how Catholicism focuses on the temporal/physical rather than the spiritual. See my review here of a book detailing the dispute over a Catholic statue in 19th-century Connecticut.

The Catholic media was in a tizzy this week when it was revealed that pope-emeritus Benedict XVI undermined pope Francis by co-authoring a new book with conservative cardinal, Robert Sarah, which calls for the continuation of the rule of mandatory celibacy for priests. Francis is currently weighing whether he will allow married men to be priests in remote regions such the Amazon Basin. This is a good example of how the RCC is increasingly splitting into traditional/doctrinal vs. progressive/pragmatic camps.

Conservative Catholics were mortified when communion rails and kneelers were removed from churches after Vatican II and supplicants were allowed to receive the consecrated Jesus wafer in the hand while standing up. They view this laxness as irreverence and even desecration. But what about after the Jesus wafer is consumed, digested, and particles are expelled and end up in the public sewer system? Isn’t that some serious desecration? Oh, that’s right. Catholic clerics and apologists assert that wafer Jesus remains in the guise of bread particles/molecules for only about 15:00 minutes after consumption and conveniently de-transubstantiates and returns to Heaven before the situation starts getting really nasty.

Pragmatic Catholics recognize pope Francis is taking the church down a different path, but conservatives, like cardinal Burke, insist their version of Catholicism is the only authentic form. Yet, the popes of 100-years ago would have known nothing of contemporary Catholicism’s concessions to interfaith rapprochement and ecumenism.

Roman Catholicism officially teaches that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation but there’s now so many loopholes, with the church deeming that EVERYONE can merit salvation, that it’s increasingly viewed as a “just in case” tradition/formality rather than a necessity. It’s certain that Francis, like all Catholic progressives, doesn’t personally view baptism as a hard-stop requirement for salvation, but he can’t afford to further alienate conservatives.

Protestants in 19th-century America didn’t like the idea of their tax dollars funding private Catholic schools and passed Blaine Amendments to their state constitutions prohibiting the notion. Of course, they were fine with public schools teaching/reinforcing quasi-Protestant, civil religion. The state should stay totally out of religion and not one penny of my tax dollars should go to supporting Roman Catholic schools.

The entire east side of nearby Buffalo was once almost-solidly Polish-American, but the Poles began the migration to the suburbs following WWII, leaving behind their massive Catholic church edifices built by their parents and grandparents. Some still operate, barely, but three mentioned in this article have been transformed into mosques and one into a Buddhist temple. Some see this as tragic, but the Gospel was never preached inside of these four former-churches or any other Catholic churches.

Truth!

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 1/11/20

Posted on by Tom

Welcome, my friends, to this week’s news roundup!

The announcement that the United Methodist Church is going to split over the LGBT affirmation question made national news this past week. The UMC drifted into Bible-denying modernism long ago. All of the old mainline Protestant denominations have pretty much succumb to the “inclusivity” ideology and it’s seeping into nominal evangelical churches as well.

Courting Islam is one of pope Francis’ highest priorities. Last year, he signed the “On Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” accord with Grand Imam, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, which states that “pluralism and the diversity of religions…are willed by God in His wisdom.”

The German bishops are among the most progressive in the Catholic church. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the establishment of joint Catholic-Lutheran parishes in Germany within the next decade.

The local Rochester Catholic diocese filed for bankruptcy back in September in reaction to the large number of legal claims after the passage of the 2019 NYS Child Victims Act. Twenty U.S. dioceses have filed bankruptcy to date and many more are considering the option in order to “protect their assets” from the victims of priests and the prelates who enabled them.

I’m not a big fiction reader, but this novel about abuse in the Catholic church caught my attention and I placed a hold at our local library. It’s interesting that this review appears in the (progressive) Jesuit’s national magazine. You won’t find a review of this book at EWTN.

Roman Catholics in various parts of the world go bonkers over their local icons. Some of the participants in these “celebrations” are “whipped into a frenzy” of religious hysteria. All of this is blatant fetishism.

Francis Chan was once viewed as a solidly trained (Master’s Seminary) evangelical pastor who also had a bit of an edge. Over time, Chan’s hipster edginess has overwhelmed his orthodoxy and he now cavorts with NAR charlatans and has recently made some ill-informed and ecumenically-friendly statements about Roman Catholicism and transubstantiation. Run don’t walk from Chan and his heterodoxy.

The removal of U.S. cardinal, Ted McCarrick, in June 2018 due to sexual abuse was the beginning of the scandal tsunami that has racked Catholicism ever since. McCarrick had previously “greased the palms” of popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI and several other prelates with some very hefty “gifts.” Was the money an attempt to discourage inquiries into his “indiscretions”? More to follow on this smoking gun.

Leave it to the Babylon Bee to take society’s preposterousness to its illogical extreme.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 1/4/20

Posted on by Tom

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup of news stories from this past week! I hope everyone had a nice first week of the new year!

Both John Paul II and Mother Teresa (photo above) were “religious rock stars” and were expeditiously canonized as “saints” by the Roman Catholic church, yet both enabled sexual predator priests. How does that work?

The aim of the Roman Catholic church throughout this eighteen-year, pedophile priest scandal has been to minimize its complicity. When compelled by public prosecutors to submit lists of abusive priests, the church tendered half-lists.

The Catholic church historically sought to advance itself into new cultures via syncretism; the amalgamation of the indigenous natives’ pagan religion and Roman Catholicism. It’s only a short leap from paganism’s good luck amulets, ritualistic sacrifice, and praying to the dead to Catholicism’s good luck sacramentals, sacrifice of the mass, and praying to saints.

Catholic bishops live like kings in 10,000 square foot mansions. See my previous post about the palatial digs of Rochester’s former bishop, James E. Kearney, here.

Exhorting people to put away their smart phones and interact with people face-to-face would be good advice if it didn’t come from the pope. Francis has participated in his church’s cover-up of predatory priests (see here) and, most importantly, he propagates his church’s false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit. What good is cellphone etiquette compared to a Christ-less eternity in hell?

This past October, the Catholic church rolled out the “Click-to-pray eRosary,” an attempt to modernize the age-old, legalistic religious practice and introduce it to young tekkies. The results have been less-than-stellar. The rosary is so wrong on so many levels (e.g., rote prayer, prayers to Mary, reinforcing salvation-by-merit).

This article reveals Vatican staff is having a tough time dealing with the cases of abusive priests that have reached tsunami-like proportions. The size of the Vatican’s investigative staff is a clear indicator of the church’s indifference.

This past Wednesday, I posted a video (see here) showing pope Francis violently slapping away the grasping hands of an Asian woman who was clearly haranguing him about something. Some have speculated that the woman is Chinese and was scolding the pope for his accommodations to the Chinese communist government in the 2018 “Provisional Agreement” between the Vatican and Beijing. That’s a VERY interesting theory. As of yet, I have not seen a published translation of the woman’s words, which were clearly audible. Few Western Catholics are aware of how Francis pragmatically threw Chinese Catholics under the bus by making startling concessions to the communist government.

Wait a minute! From my own first-hand experiences, I believe this may actually be a true story rather than a satire!

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 12/28/19

Posted on by Tom

Catholics believe that “holy water,” water that’s been blessed by a priest, possesses magical/supernatural properties that benefit all who come in contact with it. Down in Cow Island, Louisiana, a crop duster plane was recently used to spray 100 gallons of holy water on the community. Argh! Such blatant superstition. Catholics will eagerly jump through hoops in this and similar examples, trying to merit their salvation, but resist the simple Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

Pope Francis’ conservative Catholic critics are becoming increasingly frustrated with the progressive pontiff and his doctrine-bending reforms, with some even denouncing him as a heretic. Francis is careful to never confront his “rigid” conservative critics directly, but often takes swipes at them in carefully couched language as he did in his Christmas sermon.

For centuries, the Roman Catholic church has taught that Mary is “Mediatrix of all graces.” The RCC teaches that ALL of God’s graces needed for salvation flow through Mary (see (Lumen Gentium, 62, from the Second Vatican Council). In addition, it’s widely accepted among many Catholic clerics and laity that Mary is also “Co-Redeemer” in conjunction with Jesus Christ. For decades, pious Mariolaters have zealously petitioned the church to make this teaching official, but there was resistance because of ecumenical considerations. Pope Francis recently weighed-in on the movement to crown Mary as Co-redeemer/Co-redemptrix, calling it “foolishness,” providing even more grist for conservative Catholics in their simmering rebellion against the pope.

This week, the pope advised a group of Italian high-school students to not to try to convert “non-Christians,” because, after all, everyone is a “child of God.” I’ll have more to say on this in an upcoming post.

This week, Christianity Today magazine published an editorial supporting the impeachment of President Trump and calling for his removal from office, which caused a ruckus among politically conservative-minded evangelicals. I generally avoid commenting on politics, but I couldn’t resist this controversy. What’s most interesting to me is that the opposing camps in this debate are both very ecumenical, but for entirely different reasons. The folks at CT and their readers generally place a high priority on (c)hristian “unity” and eagerly embrace Roman Catholics as Christians despite the fact that the RCC unabashedly teaches works salvation. The folks on the other extreme (e.g., Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Richard Land, etc.) are eager to unite with any and all politically conservative religious folks in the ongoing culture wars in the misguided effort to “reclaim America for Jesus” and aren’t particular about denominational dog tags. Of course, political alliances always lead to religious accommodations, compromises, and betrayals of the Gospel as we saw with Chuck Colson’s “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) project.

Were you able to use Christmas as an opportunity to share the Gospel with the lost? My wife sent out Christmas cards and wrote a rather unconventional-for-Christmas Bible verse inside: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” – 1 Timothy 1:15

Yes, Babylon Bee, society is going topsy turvy! “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 12/21/19

Posted on by Tom

Welcome to our roundup of news stories for this week!

Above is an interesting article from a Catholic source on how the Santa Claus character was popularized in the U.S. by political cartoonist, Thomas Nast (see illustration above). The article smears Nast as an “anti-Catholic” for his fanciful illustrations that targeted Roman Catholicism, but the popes of that era were actually quite outspoken in their opposition to democratic forms of government and freedom of religion (see pope Pius IX’s “Syllabus of Errors“). Christians have different views on the celebration of Christmas, but the popularization of the Santa Claus mythos was regrettable.

I fully support this lawsuit against the pope by former-victims of abusive priests. For centuries, the Catholic hierarchy at the highest level was aware of the systematic abuse. Not only did the popes do nothing, they enabled the abuse by encouraging bishops to transfer abusers from one parish to another. In addition to the physical/psychological abuse, the RCC has abused all of its members spiritually by teaching a false gospel of sacramental grace and merit. Oh, is the pope JUST NOW ending the “secrecy rule” on child sex abuse after twenty+ years of monstrous headlines?????

This article says the median length of a sermon/homily at a Catholic mass is 14 minutes, but I experienced much shorter ones, myself, when I was a Catholic. The main purpose of the mass is the alleged transformation of bread wafers and wine into Jesus by the priest followed by the offering of Jesus on the altar as a re-sacrifice for sin (so anti-Biblical!). The short homily ties in with the previous reading of a short Gospel passage. In the homily, the priests generally challenge the congregants to be more disciplined/determined in meriting their salvation. Catholics are duty bound to attend Sunday mass under threat of mortal sin. Most are already bored silly with the rote liturgical rigmarole and a long-winded homily would just add to the resentment.

The Roman church teaches its priests actually transform bread wafers and wine into Jesus’ actual body and blood (although a recent poll revealed that only one-third of Catholics actually believe this). The theft of a tabernacle with faux Jesus wafers inside is the ultimate desecration in the minds of credulous Catholics.

I don’t become outraged when I see articles like this one. Unbelievers will act like scoffing unbelievers. But why don’t we see similar comedies with Muhammad as the slapstick buffoon?

Bethel and the entire NAR movement is so dangerous and destructive. Run, don’t walk, from this pseudo-Christian abomination.

Conservative and traditionalist Catholics are so frustrated with progressive, doctrine-bending, pope Francis that a few are even discussing the possibility of schism. But most are willing to hang in there with the hope that the next pope returns the church to the doctrinal conservatism of John Paul II. This conservative journalist is already fretting about the next pope being Francis II. Missing in this ideological tug-of-war within the RCC is the genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

Leave it to the Babylon Bee to tell it like it is.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 12/14/19

Posted on by Tom

Welcome, my friends, to this week’s edition of the news roundup!

Please excuse the egg on my face. Last weekend, I erroneously reported that archbishop, Fulton J. Sheen’s “beatification” (the step prior to canonization) was still scheduled for December 21st. I’ve since understood that the ceremony has been put on hold because of suspicions that Sheen may have covered-up for predatory abusive priests during his tenure as the bishop of Rochester. With his flamboyant clerical finery and dramatic verbal elocution, Sheen was quite a “dandy” to behold back in the day. But the message he conveyed was a false gospel of sacramental grace and merit.

Is there an existence more burdensome than that of a Catholic priest? They live a life of enforced loneliness with no family and they’re now the object of quiet hostility because many in the public assume they’re all pedophiles. They have to juggle two or three parishes because of the dwindling number of pew sitters and priests. Finally, they’re peddling a joyless false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit that leads no one to Heaven. Ach, what a sorry existence. Say a prayer today for Catholic priests, that some will repent of their sin and of leading people into deadly spiritual error and will accept Jesus Christ as their Savior by faith alone and come out of Catholicism.

Catholic bishop of nearby Buffalo, Richard Malone, recently resigned his office due to rising indignation over his role in covering up for abusive priests within the Buffalo diocese. Catholics in the pews will still be on the hook for Malone’s $2K/month spending allowance (to be adjusted for inflation every year) on top of free housing, food, transportation, and medical care.

This article reports that only 10% of donations to the Roman church’s so-called Peter’s Pence collection actually go to charitable works. A disgraceful sham.

For centuries, Roman Catholic teaching was that divorced-and-remarried members could not receive the consecrated Jesus wafer because they were living in a “state of mortal sin.” Pope Francis underhandedly lifted that ban via a couple of footnotes in his 2016 “Amoris Laetitia” encyclical. Conservative and traditionalist Catholics screamed, “FOUL!” and even, “HERESY!,” but the change is gradually and unceremoniously being incorporated.

Yes, they do. Catholics, of course, argue that they are NOT worshiping their wooden and stone statues, but that these representations are for them merely conduits to the associated spiritual beings they praise and pray to (i.e. worship) such as Mary and the saints. The pagan religionists described in the Old and New Testaments likewise did not believe that the idols they manufactured with their hands were the actual false deities, but also believed they were conduits/channels.

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople aka Dimitrios Arhondonis recently stated that reunion between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church is “now inevitable.” There’s still a lot of ecclesiastical sectarianism to overcome, but Rome is steadily advancing its ecumenical agenda.

Fifty or sixty years ago, most Americans would have heartily agreed that this country was a “Christian nation.” However, the reality even back then was that the vast majority of souls who self-identified as Christian were only nominal Christians at best. Some may pine for the prerogatives of yesteryear, but it’s become increasingly clearer in our diverse nation that our democratic government should not endorse one religion over another. This is hard for many to stomach because, for 400 years, beginning with the Puritans, it was pounded into pewsitters’ heads from the pulpits that America was a “Christian nation” and in a special, covenant relationship with God. The fight to retain America’s status as a “Christian nation” has prompted many believers to imprudently yoke with like-minded folks belonging to anti-Gospel sects (Roman Catholics, Mormons, etc.). The result? The Kingdom of God and the Gospel are being betrayed in favor of temporal cultural/political concerns.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 12/7/19

Posted on by Tom

Thirteen-long-months after being outed on “60 Minutes” as a serial enabler of abusive priests by his whistle-blowing, former-secretary, Richard Malone (photo above) FINALLY resigned as Catholic bishop of the diocese of nearby Buffalo, New York. Pope Francis claims “no tolerance” for abuse or cover-up, but this inexcusably long delay showed it’s still business as usual. Many Buffalonian Catholics were outraged over this Malone fiasco to the point of questioning their membership in the Roman church. I pray the Lord uses this ongoing scandal tsunami in the RCC to cause MANY to question their allegiance to their church and its false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit and to lead them to the Good News! of salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.

With its rule of mandatory clerical celibacy, the RCC both attracted and fostered deviancy, and pedophilia became institutionalized. After centuries of secrecy, cover-up, and disavowal, the chickens have now come home to roost. But keep in mind the millions of children who were abused along the way.

Catholic media pioneer, archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (d. 1979), is scheduled to be “beatified” two weeks from today. In Catholicism, beatification is the step in the canonization process just prior to sainthood. But just as I surmised last Saturday, Rochester Catholic bishop, Salvatore Matano, attempted to delay the beatification because there are reports that Sheen may have (i.e. probably) covered-up for abusive priests during his tenure as bishop of Rochester from 1966 to 1969, behavior hardly becoming of a “saint.” This could get ugly for the RCC. Keep digging, investigative reporters!

This purported shard of Jesus’ manger is as bogus as a three dollar bill. Catholics cling to the physical – alleged relics and other amulets – and ignore the spiritual truths of the Gospel.

Pragmatic pope Francis made a “deal with the devil” by cooperating with the Chinese communist government and recognizing the bishops of the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which existed in schism with Rome until the conclusion of the controversial Vatican-China agreement struck last year. This situation in China is one of several reasons why conservative Catholics consider pope Francis dangerous and even heretical.

Last week, a conservative Catholic priest refused to give communion to a female judge involved in a same-sex marriage, energizing both sides in the ongoing debate over LGBTers and the church. Progressive Jesuit, James Martin, continues his church-wide crusade for full acceptance of practicing LGBTers, with the sanction of pope Francis.

This article reports that, “just 8% of U.S. Catholics say they are ‘very close’ with the clergy of their church.” Who can blame Catholics for wanting to keep their distance from their celibate priests given the headlines over the last twenty years?

Nancy Pelosi, like all Roman Catholics, is in denial about her depraved sinful state. I was a Catholic for 27 years and I hated a lot of people. As a student and altar boy at Catholic grammar school and then as a student at Catholic high school, I also witnessed a lot of hatred from the nuns, priests, brothers, and from my classmates as well. It’s all a sham.

Leave it to the Babylon Bee to tell it like it is.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 11/30/19

Posted on by Tom

As part of his progressive agenda, Francis will soon be adding sins against the ecology to the Catholic catechism. Catholics are taught they must successfully obey the Ten Commandments and church rules in order to possibly merit Heaven. Christians are certainly commanded to be good stewards of the Lord’s gifts, which include this planet and its resources, but Catholics are not stewards/servants because they are not trusting in Jesus Christ as there Savior by faith alone. Instead, they are seeking to establish their own righteousness (Romans 10:3). How will Francis roll out his guidelines on ecological sins? Will throwing gum wrappers on the street be a “venial” sin and disposing of four old tires in the woods a “mortal” sin?

After months of pleading from outraged Buffalo parishioners, pope Francis finally relented and tapped bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn to look into allegations that bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo had repeatedly covered-up for abusive priests. But a former altar boy has recently sued DiMarzio himself for abuse. Responding to the allegations against DiMarzio, the pope stated that he wants the matter “cleared up quickly.” Throughout this double-decade of scandal, the RCC has consistently put its predatory priests and bishops first and victims last by seeking the “quick fix.”

The Catholic church teaches that at mass its priests transform bread wafers and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ and that the congregants receive special graces by consuming the Jesus wafer that help them merit their salvation. But recent research (see here) reveals that only 31% of Catholics believe priests actually change bread wafers and wine into Jesus, an amazing statistic! Whether they believe in transubstantiation or not, these lost Catholics are attempting to merit their salvation rather than trusting in Jesus Christ as their Savior by faith alone.

Pope Francis guilefully lifted the ban on communion for remarried divorcees via two footnotes in his 2016 Amoris Laetitia encyclical, leaving it up to the discretion of the administering priest. As liberal bishops and priests continue to roll out Francis’ novel teaching, conservatives and traditionalists rant and rail.

Christians should not be concerned about society’s approval. The Gospel will offend. However, much of society’s aversion is due to some evangelicals’ outspoken support of President Trump and Republican politics (see Jerry Falwell, Jr., Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, etc.) rather than for proclaiming the Gospel.

We are so blessed to have God’s Word, the Bible, but society is more concerned with the trendiest shows available from Netflix or HBO.

The Babylon Bee takes the culture’s irrational crusades to their illogical conclusion.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 11/23/19

Posted on by Tom

Back in May, a New York appeals court settled the decades-old tug-of-war between the Catholic dioceses of New York City and Peoria, Illinois (the winner) over the rights to the cadaver of former archbishop, Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), allowing the Vatican to finally place the former apologist and media pioneer on the fast track to canonization. The Vatican canonizes popular candidates quickly in order to exploit their celebrity. In 1966, cardinal Francis Spellman ignominiously assigned Sheen to the bishopric of our humble city of Rochester, N.Y. as punishment for defying his authority. Sheen quit in disgust in 1969, but in those three years, pedophile priests were undoubtedly shuffled around from one parish to another within the diocese by the future “saint.”

Speaking of Rochester, the local Catholic diocese filed for bankruptcy back on September 12th due to the rising number of lawsuits filed by victims of pedophile priests in conjunction with New York State’s newly passed Child Victim Act. The diocese is now suing its insurers because they’re rightly balking at paying settlements to victims when the diocese knowingly covered-up for/enabled its abusive priests.

Down the Thruway, Buffalo’s Catholic bishop, Richard Malone, still retains his office thirteen months after being outed as a serial abuse-enabler by the investigative journalism television show, “60 Minutes.” Pope Francis tapped the bishop of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio, to make the perfunctory inquiries, but DiMarzio himself is now being accused of sexual abuse by a former altar boy. Pope Francis promised “concrete action” regarding clerical abuse and cover-up, but it’s still the good ol’ men-who-stalk-boys club.

Austrian, Alexander Tschugguel, is the current darling of conservative Catholics for stealing and attempting to destroy the Pacahamama fertility goddess idols that received great attention at the recent Vatican Amazon Synod, including being blessed by pope Francis. The irony is that conservative-traditional Catholicism is bursting at the seams with icon/idol worship.

I’m expecting this will be the last news item I’ll be posting about Kanye West. If you haven’t seen the 21-minute video clip of Kanye’s regrettable appearance at Osteen’s heretical prosperity gospel “church,” you can view it here.

Pope Francis certainly views all blood-bought, born-again Gospel Christians who know God’s Word and separate from deadly Roman error as “fundamentalists.” The irony is that in his remarks cited in this article, the pope was probably making reference to his own conservative and traditionalist Catholic members who, unlike him, take their religion’s thick catalog of rules and regulations very seriously.

Leonardo Di Chirico regularly writes informative articles on Catholicism for Evangelical Focus magazine. The bogus Assumption of Mary doctrine was defined as a dogma of the Roman church by pope Pius XII on 1 November 1950, meaning all Catholics are obliged to believe it under threat of mortal sin.

Did I say I wasn’t going to write anything more about Kanye? Blame it on the Babylon Bee!