Cancel Culture and Deficiencies in Church Hierarchy - Some Thoughts

 As we reach the end of the year, a lot has been on my mind regarding the state of our Church.  One major incident that caught my attention and motivated me to write this was the laicizing of a very prominent Catholic priest, Fr. Frank Pavone.  Fr. Pavone is the key leader in the Priests for Life organization, and he has perhaps done more for the sanctity of life than anyone I know.   Also, during the whole COVID mess and the subsequent weeks I was unable to attend Mass regularly due to lack of transportation (I have things to say about that too later, believe me!) Fr. Frank was a lifesaver - I watched his Masses on YouTube and he was a tremendous blessing to me.  He had very sound and inspiring homilies, and there was a comfort I got just watching him celebrate Mass.  However, there are recent events that robbed many of us - including Fr. Frank - of that, and I will give a brief synopsis of that now followed by some commentary. 

Fr. Frank Pavone

At the end of November, the Vatican laicized (let's be honest - they defrocked him!) Fr. Frank due to a couple of issues.  First, it entailed a comment on social media, where Fr. Frank replied in anger to someone supporting our inept President, Joe Biden, by saying "G** d**** Biden" or something to that effect.  The second had to do with him displaying an aborted baby on a table in his study to make a point about how damaging abortion is, and he was accused of putting a dead baby on an altar.  Fr. Frank soundly responded to these by noting that although he did take the Lord's name in vain, he confessed and repented of it and acknowledged he had a moment of weakness.  As for the aborted baby, it was not on an altar, but rather a sort of utility table in his office, and he also did provide the child with a proper burial and thus nothing technically was desecrated. Those are the facts that led to the decision to laicize him due to a charge of "blasphemy" and also something to do with defiance of his Ordinary Bishop. There are problems with this though, and I want to address those now. 

I want to take first the issue of Fr. Frank's use of the "GD" phrase.  Was it blasphemy?  I don't think so honestly.  Was it wrong? Yes, it was, but Fr. Frank also acknowledged that and took the appropriate steps to rectify it.   Also, Fr. Frank has not been opaque with what he did - he was very open and up-front about the whole thing, and that should be appreciated.  However, here's the rub on that.  Who in this world hasn't on occasion said or done something wrong??  Romans 3:23 reminds us that all of us have sinned and fallen short, and a guy with a collar is no exception - he is still a human being who, like the rest of us, relies on supernatural grace to elevate, heal, and perfect his concupiscent nature, which by the way we all have - read Genesis 3 again.  And, in all honesty, I have myself uttered some very volatile words in a moment of anger too - I have dropped an F-bomb or two on occasion, and I tend to beat the living crap out of my computer when it malfunctions, and I would not honestly repeat some of the names that I call it in my head!  And, like Fr. Frank, I have to also repent of that, and I do so in the proper way.  Bottom line is, while it in no way justifies the action, I believe that Fr. Frank handled himself properly and well, and therefore if Jesus forgives him, so should we.  In accusing him as they did, the bishops who sanctioned him over it forgot a very integral part of sacramental theology - once something is confessed and forgiven, grace has been imparted and the Blood of Christ covers the sin.  If the bishops (and I am speaking in particular of Bishop Zurek in Amarillo, who was Fr. Pavone's Ordinary and had a vendetta against him) cannot acknowledge the grace afforded by their own office, then that means they are bringing damnation upon themselves - remember, Bishop Zurek, the words of Jesus - He told us that if we are unable to forgive, He will not forgive us.  So, Bishop, perhaps Dante's prophetic words in The Inferno apply to you - one day, your skull will pave the path to hell unless you repent of your unforgiveness.  I have a feeling that Dante knew what he was talking about, considering how many bureaucrats and political hacks there are right now in the hierarchy of our Church - it is a scandal.  Not to mention the sex perverts that they let run rampant in parishes and seminaries.  It is sick, and it is a reason so many people are leaving the Church for either Evangelical Protestant groups or more traditionalist movements like the SSPX.  Thank you, Bishops, for doing Satan's job for him.  A special shout-out to some of our more notorious bishops and Cardinals that enable evil - you know the ones: Cupich, Gregory, Zurek, and so many others.  These guys are the ones who should be laicized, along with their wingmen such as "Father" James Martin and that priest who molested 9 nuns as well as that other pervert in a collar in Louisiana who desecrated an altar with strippers.  Yet, for some reason, those guys get to run amok while faithful priests like Fr. Frank and Fr. James Altman get cancelled by the hierarchy.  In looking at what is going on, I am reminded of some prophetic things I read from some saints and visionaries in regard to the Church, so let me share those now.  

I want to recommend a book to you that is vital to read, especially in these days - it is Desmond Birch, Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph: Before, During, and After Antichrist (Santa Barbara: Queenship Publishing, 1996).  I know Dr. Birch personally, and he has done a magnificent job in presenting Catholic eschatology in a comprehensive light.  The book is huge (636 pages including the index) and it also is not something you want to do as leisure reading, but rather it provides a ready reference to different things.  In looking up some information about the Great Apostasy, I came across this on page 434 - a sample list of traditional teachings of the Church regarding eschatology.  The second thing on that list was this - a great apostasy or religious defection.  If you pair this with the fourth item on the list - the conversion of the Jews after the "fulness of the Gentiles" - here is the scenario.  Quoting Scripture from II Thessalonians 2:3-5, these are events that precede the Tribulation and the emergence of the Antichrist (Birch, 446). It also follows an Age of Peace, which in Catholic tradition is called the reign of a great Catholic Monarch, but Protestant Dispensationalists flip it on its ear in calling it the Millenium and place it after the Tribulation.  Now, here is where we have a dilemma.  First the Gospel has not yet been preached to all the world, a prerequisite of the Age of Peace.   Second, the Age of Peace has not arrived yet, so what is going on now??  I would have to do more research on this, but I would wager that there are two Great Apostasies, and if that be the case, we are facing one of those now.  Never in the history of the Church has there been so many proverbial tares in the wheatfield, and the tares seem to be overcoming the wheat at this point (see my previous articles on that topic).  In the highest echelons of the Church hierarchy, there are weeds - nasty, evil weeds.  And those weeds are not happy with the wheat that is trying to grow, and thus they want to suck the life out of it and take over the whole field.  This is a huge reason why Fr. Frank gets punished harshly for something that he should not be punished for, while openly heretical "priests" like James Martin, the "Rainbow Jesuit," can go prancing around at "gay pride" parades like a drunk ballerina and he gets rewarded.  It is also why exposing the evils of abortion in a very graphic way as Fr. Frank did is a greater sin to the hierarchs than a pervert like "Uncle Teddy" McCarrick having a Grinder account is.  It is a scandal in the truest sense.  A lot more background could be given on this, but I would recommend two other books for that which can be read at your leisure.  The first is Taylor Marshall, Infiltration (Manchester, NH:  Crisis Publications, 2019), and the second is Michael Rose, Goodbye Good Men (Washington, DC:  Regnery Publishing, 2002).  Both of these books shed light on some of the scandalous behavior of the hierarchy in the Church, ranging from promoting "wokeness" to denying the priesthood to more worthy candidates in preference to degenerates who abuse others sexually.  Therefore, while it is tragic what happened to Fr. Frank (and the fact they did this to him just before Christmas, and now his father passed away - please keep him in your prayers), it also should not be surprising.  This is a fruit of apostasy, and not the root - that runs much deeper.  

The second thing addresses Fr. Frank's placing an aborted baby on the table in his video.  As I understand it, the table he used for this was just a utility table in his office and not a sanctified altar, and although he has celebrated Masses on it, the table is in this case just that - a table.  And, while more "sensitive" people may have found this extreme, I must remind those same individuals that sometimes-extreme actions are necessary due to the gravity of the situation being addressed.  And, if people are offended by what Fr. Frank did, I would challenge them to read some of the lives of the saints, in particular a class of saints in the Eastern Christian tradition called the Yurodivi ("Holy Fools").  The antics of some of these types of saints could easily be dismissed as mental illness - they did some pretty crazy things!  Yet. God used them.  One of them I recall reading about actually slaughtered a goat or something and went to the Russian Czar and threw it on the table in front of him.   This particular czar was not a nice guy and had been massacring people even during the season of Lent.  So, the saint's message to the Czar was simply this - if you are unrepentant about killing innocent people, then go ahead and eat meat during Lent because you are basically going to hell anyway! The lesson was that unless Lenten fasts were taken in the right attitude - contrition and repentance - they were of little use in the larger picture of the salvation of one's soul. It took an extreme action to get the lesson across.  Fr. Frank was not near as extreme as that, or even as some of the Doctors of the Church - remember when St. Athanasius basically smacked the heretic Arius upside the head, and I believe even the beloved St. Nicholas threw some punches at heretics too (which means the character of Santa Claus in the 1988 film Ernest Saves Christmas was probably more authentic than many because one scene has him popping a movie director in the nose for making a movie terrorizing kids).  And, in a culture like ours that has become more jaded and secularized, perhaps a little extremity is necessary because no one listens to reason much anymore.  If you try to reason with the opposition, they will cancel you and ruin you, so more aggressive measures may be warranted.  So, in essence, I do not believe that Fr. Frank did anything wrong with the aborted baby, especially since he also took the effort to provide the little one with a proper burial.  Some have even argued that because the relics of the martyrs are often found in altars, it may have perhaps been justified to have a modern martyr - an aborted child - on display in a holy place too.  I mean, it is a hell of a lot better than occultists do with their human sacrifices - you know, like the ancient Aztecs who ripped beating hearts out of people and then danced around in their flayed skin until it rotted off, but oh, that is OK because it is "cultural appreciation."  The devaluing of human life is an abomination, and Fr. Frank was making people aware of that.  The fact that people were more concerned about a baby on an altar (which was not actually an altar) than they are with the fact that an abortionist murdered that baby speaks volumes too.  And what is worse is that our bishops are either too stupid or too desensitized themselves to get the message.  I think it is time for new bishops. 

To learn more about Fr. Frank's situation, it is best that you learn it from him yourself, so I encourage you to visit his site, www.frfrankpavone.com, and there you will find documentation and other items that will make you more aware of his position.  In the meantime, too, pray for him and other cancelled priests, because they need our support right now.  Thank you for allowing me to share. 

Navigating Rough Waters

 For many of us, 2022 was a rough year, a sort of climax of the previous two years with the pandemic and everything.  What often accompanies that is a feeling of uncertainty about the future, and it is only natural to feel that way.  Keeping this in mind, I wanted to do an end-of-year devotional reflection on that to help others if possible. 

The Bible, as far as I have seen, does not really address an allegory of rapids, but it does talk a lot about stormy seas, and the same idea is conveyed.  Isaiah 43:2, for instance, says "When you face stormy seas I will be there with you with endurance and calm; you will not be engulfed in raging rivers."  A raging river and a turbulent sea represent the same allegory - the storms we face in life.  In the case of a raging river though, there may not be a storm, but rather some treacherous rapids and waterfalls to navigate, and that requires a lot of quick thinking.  Using this verse, I want to talk a little about that. 

The above picture is of Blackwater Falls, which is about 14 miles northeast of my hometown in West Virginia. It is a local tourist attraction, and it is beautiful to look at from a distance.  But, trying to take a boat over those falls would be an act of suicidal stupidity, in that the rocks in that river would break every bone in someone's body if they fell - the likelihood of surviving such an accident would be very low.  As water approaches a waterfall like Blackwater Falls, it creates eddies and rapids that can cause a navigator to lose control of a small boat easily, and thus one is at the mercy of the falls.  However, if one is skilled enough to do it, there is a way to circumvent the danger, and that is by navigating to a nearby riverbank or looking for a channel to navigate in before approaching dangerous currents that would sweep a boat right over those falls.  A channel could be a small creek that flows into the river and would be possibly a detour around the more turbulent waters of the falls, and although the boat may not fit into such a small stream, it would provide a way to descend the elevation the falls flow off of and it would save lives.  It would take somewhat more effort obviously, but it could be done.  There is a very rich lesson in this for us if we know how to see it, especially when we are going through turbulent circumstances in our own lives.  

One important aspect of being able to navigate turbulent waters is to have an experienced person who knows how to find the safe channels and steer out of the currents so we don't get swept over the falls.  As noted in Isaiah 43:2 as shown above, we have that as faithful followers of Christ - we have Christ Himself to guide us.  As a matter of fact, guidance is one of three promises of favor that God gives us in Scripture, and those are as listed:

1. Provision (Philippians 4:19)

2. Protection (Ephesians 6, James 4:7, Psalm 91:4-5)

3. Guidance (Psalm 119:105, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 1:5-6)

All of these are interconnected, and they are not promises directly related to the Atonement (there are only two of those I am aware of, salvation and healing) but they are promises given to those who walk in God's grace.  And, although not to be taken to the extremes that some "Word of Faith" TV preachers do for the wrong reasons, they are still promises regardless and we can stand on those.  More than provision and protection though, guidance is the one that should be sought the most, as the others tend to fall in place once we have proper direction.  That can be hard, and I want to address a couple of things about that which I relate to personally. 

One huge problem is time - God transcends time and space, but we are confined to it.  So, when a bill comes due and money is short, we don't have the luxury of time to pay when we feel like it.  And, if you tell your creditors that you are "waiting on the Lord" to give you the money, they will probably recommend you for the loony bin!  That is an example of turbulent waters, and at that point is when we really need God to navigate us so we don't go over the waterfall.  And, that can be scary!  God has the tendency of waiting until the last minute sometimes to give us breakthroughs, and that can be emotionally taxing. But, as he said in Romans 8:28, God works all things together for good, and that warrants trust in his judgment.  In reality, that is easier said than done, but I have learned there are two important lessons in this we need to apply in order to make it easier:

1. Stay focused on what your current responsibilities are.

2. As God has brought you this far, it is only fitting to trust him in this too. 

A second issue I have faced is trying to actually hear God's voice. In times of adversity and challenges, a lot is going on in our heads, and clarity is important to navigate properly.  But, the dilemma is this - God is often a "still small voice," (I Kings 19:11) but he is also not the author of confusion (I Corinthians 14:33).  The challenge I have faced in my own experience is trying to reconcile those two things, and that can be tough!  In many situations, there is no room for error or bad judgment, so you face the dilemma of which "voice" is the voice of God, and how do you get him to turn up the volume so you don't miss it?  In that, we then start to ask for certain things, such as some sign God is hearing us or that he is giving us clearer direction.  This takes a number of forms, such as the example of Gideon with the fleece, or seeing some proof that God is in the situation, much like St. Thomas needed at the Lord's resurrection.  I cannot say whether doing that is right or wrong, because I have done my own seeking like that too, but sometimes it is what we have to work with, and therefore I think God will understand that we are trying to do the right thing.  And, in many cases, he has actually answered me with the direction I needed in that way.  And, there are other times where you will get angry and impatient with God - I can testify for a fact that I have had more than one heated exchange with our Lord over things when I just got to the end of my proverbial rope.  Of course, you do feel bad about it later and if you are consistent in your faith, you will repent of that and I believe God is big enough to handle that - he knows human limitations too and I do not believe he faults us for those even if we can end up being really nasty with him (and I am not too proud to say I have been there too!).  The good thing is that we are not alone - remember Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32?  Jacob had to wrestle with God to get the blessing he needed, and some of us have been there too.  The thing that actually sets the Bible apart from other religious texts is its divine authorship, and the fact that part of that is that often the heroes are shown as pure human beings with normal emotions and limitations - there are no "super-beings" in Scripture outside of Jesus Christ, and Scripture is written in that way to show us that we are not alone.  So, the ultimate gift of guidance is the Scriptures themselves, but sometimes we just need a little more personal guidance that relates specifically to our own circumstances, and God knows that too.  

Navigating rough water requires God's guidance - we need to look to him as our Navigator to steer us into a safe channel to avoid the waterfall, and if we do so, he will be faithful to take care of us and our needs.  Guidance is the foremost need we all truly possess, and in the lesson of the boat on the rough river approaching a waterfall, we learn we have no choice but to rely on God's guidance.  May we always see God as our Navigator, and also listen for clarity of his voice.  Thank you, and have a blessed holiday season.