Liberal Christianity and religious cultural conservatism have a common flaw - Thomas Pink

I saw this the other day and it was just another reminder how me give lip service to the truth, but set up false ideas like American exceptionalism and idea worship truely in place of actual dogma

The talk radio mafia, pushers of the American Civil Religion

Christianity is an unconditional allegiance; and it involves membership of a Church which, though she exists in a world of political communities and nations, co-exists with these as contingent realities that are merely passing. Our allegiance as Christians to any of these merely passing realities can only be conditional; and it must be conditional, in particular, on the extent of their respect for Christianity and the mission of the Church.

But then that same Anglicanism wrapped itself up in a passing political and cultural identity, and defended itself in terms only intelligible in the context of that identity.

The particular time or place of one’s youth and childhood is always vividly one’s own. Equally it is irrecoverable, and impossible fully to communicate to others. It is a place to which one can never return, and it cannot provide a common life. But Christianity provides, through the Church, a common life that is eternal – to which one must arrive through a history, but not to remain in that history. This common life appeals to memory but cannot remain locked up in the vividness of a particular remembered past, not that of an individual, or even of a nation.

There is a religiose form of cultural conservatism that ignores this, and that seeks to defend Christianity as, in effect, a local human tradition. It can take Anglican form, and celebrate a national idyll of prayer book and common law, or it can equally well take a more superficially Catholic form, and celebrate Christianity as the essence of a European culture. But this is limiting and presumptuous.

The Christian life is supernatural. It divinises the human. Cultural conservatism parading as religion does the reverse. In this respect it curiously resembles Christianity in overtly liberal form. Like liberal Christianity, cultural nostalgia reduces to the human what should be divine.

You can read the rest HERE

Ripperger contra Feser/Swetland on Islam

I know, your probably getting tired of me posting Fr. Ripperger stuff... but I dont have that much time to do posts right now so this will have to do, plus its timely.

Take a listen to the following recording from Fr. Ripperger on the matter of Islam being a peaceful religion and them worshiping the same God as us. Go to the 58 min 50 second mark

Oh and it looks like Cardinal Burke agrees: HERE

***Must Read*** First Of Its Kind Research on the Guadalupe Tilma and the end of Islam: Walid Shoebat

 Many are familiar with the Guadalupe Tilma, its unexplained miraculous nature, the symbolism that converted millions from the culture of death in Mexico at the time and so much more. But few have noticed the connection between the Guadalupe Tilma and how it relates to Islam. Venerable Fulton Sheen did dedicate a chapter in his fantastic text "The World's First Love" to this matter, but its depth was limited by his own understanding of Arabic culture. Just recently Walid Shoebat (who is a recent convert to the Catholic Faith, crediting it to the Tilma often) undertook an amazing in depth study into the tilma, studying its link to Islam and what he found was quite frankly amazing.

Just to wet the taste buds I will past a short excerpt below (and will put the full link that is a must read, though long), but its like chipping a piece of ice from the iceberg that compromises his thorough study on the matter. Please share far and wide and pray for the Muslims that they be converted!

"If a scholar in the Arabic carefully examined how Guada is pronounced in Spanish and how Lupe is pronounced in Arabic it gives an entirely new meaning. Firstly, the “G” is silent (Wadda) and the “p” is always pronounced as “b” (Lubba) since there is no “p” in Arabic. So if you ask any Arab, “say Waddalupe,” he will say “Waddalubba” or “Wadi Al-Lubb”. Try it. If we stick with the pronunciation Wadd it also means “love” and Lubb means “heart”. This packs much for Arab linguists since Arabic is an ancient rich language and these words put together packs a whole theological meaning that opposes Islam completely.

Besides the emphases in Arabic that Wadd means “love” it also means “desired” while “Lubb” is “gem” “heart” or to be more specific “core”. For example, the ‘lubb‘ of the atom is its nucleus. The ‘lubb” of the earth is its core. The ‘lubb‘ of the fruit is its core seeds. The “lubb” is literally “heart” and Lubba is “Her heart” or “Her core”.

Lubba also means “her neck,” but not just any part of a woman’s neck, Arabic is very meticulous. In Arabic it is precisely where a woman places the necklace on her neck. So if a Muslim would specifically look at the lubba in the image, he will find a brooch with a black cross which recalls the agony of the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross for the salvation of all mankind. Black here is significant of death and is the attire of sorrow which women dress for forty days. Lubb in Arabic is also wasitat al-qilada (see #4), which signifies “the jewel,” “the purest and best from all,” and a symbol of sanctity. Wasitat also means the intermediary as the cross here is the bridge between man and God. This “heart” symbolism is clear from the Arabic. But this is not only in the Arabic naming. The experts on Guadalupe would agree that besides what we discovered here that in the image the: “Sacred Heart as we depict it with flames above it. Only in Guadalupe and Fatima apparitions have this sign on the hand appeared which shows they are related.” On a side note, Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter) is another subject matter for another research, for it says that St. Mary is the true Fatima and not Muhammad’s daughter whom the Shiite adore as Christians would adore St. Mary.

So what happens when we combine the two words wadda and lubba?

There is more to the Arabic than we explained here. While the root wadd and lubb are significant, wadda and lubba are even more significant since the ‘a’ in the end pertains to a woman (her). Wadda-Lubba in Arabic becomes a packed message. It could mean “love is the desire of her heart”.

Yet if we use wadd in its most common usage it literally pertains to a male deity which means “the god of love”. But what we have here is wadda which strictly means her god of love. Wadd is also regarding someone most precious to a woman, a husband or an only son or firstborn. Adding lubba, the construct becomes rich: Her God of love is in Her core (heart) and is her only son. The use of lubb (core) is no accident. It is no wonder why in Italian the word core is literally heart and in Spanish corazon is also heart: the core. In other words, the message becomes clear that the desired one, this God of love Who is desired, Who is most precious to her, her jewel, this male Son Deity, is in her inner core or what she contains in her inner being Who constitutes love who is also God Himself. Therefore She is pregnant with God.

In essence Wadda-Lubba (Guadalupe) has a response to Islam. This “Wadd” (love) is Christ Who was in the Womb of Mary and is why Christians say “blessed is the fruit of your womb (lubb), Jesus.” In her womb (lubb) always resides the seed and it is this “fruit of Her womb” that is this blessed one.

Adding the image to the name, the construct is remarkably parallel with Christian theology. She is Queen and is the loving Mother and Christ is her Heart and is Her love and He (Jesus) is the very essence of love and He is Her desire as The Father’s only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary. There are no better Semitic words to use than these two Wadda and Lubba to construct such a message. Anyone objecting that two words (there are actually 4 words adding the “a” at the end) construct such meaning need to only examine Arabic dictionaries and see that what we gave here can be found in the Arabic rich Al-Balagha (eloquence of Arabic). In Arabic, just the word lion has 346 names. It is no wonder as to why the Arabic language is used in concordances of the Bible, where the Semitic languages, including Arabic, add richness to the meaning.

The premise I set here is not without merit. What scholar of Islam and Arabic can deny that from Arabia’s pre-Islamic times and even in Islamic theology, Wadd was proclaimed as a title of God. We have in Islam Allah as “Al-Waddud” (the loving). Wadd is “love” and is also “God” and wadud/waddud is loving and Al-wadud is the loving God which anyone can look up in the 99 names (see #47) on how Muslims define God.

Allah in pre-Islamic Arabia was named “Wadd-the moon god which stood at the head of the Minaean Pantheon: Allat, Uzza and Manat were the three daughters of Allah for this Wadd” (Hitti, 2002, pp. 97-98). Allah was called Wadd in Mecca itself.

It is not that the name Wadd is evil, Wadd (unlike Allah) is not simply a name but a meaning while Allah is a name. What is evil was the corruption of it by attributing the God of Love (Wadd) to an idol. Scripture for example has no problem with the title “morning star” but God objects that Lucifer attributed such a title to himself, for Christ has a similar title. The devil is depicted as a lion (that devours) and so is Christ depicted as a lion, but He is “the lion of the tribe of Judah” Who devours God’s enemies just as the serpent of Moses devoured pharaoh’s serpents. Therefore, a serpent is not always a bad thing, for Moses instructed the Israelites to look upon the bronze serpent.

What the other message from our Lady’s image is the rejection of the moon-god. She proclaims that the God of love (Wadd) is not Allah, but is in the core (lubb) of St. Mary. In other words, the construct says that it was God (Wadd) Who was in Mary’s core (lubb). This message refutes the Quran’s claim:

“they disbelieved when they said: ‘Christ, the son of Mary, is indeed God'”–Quran 5:72

The message from our Lady is “no,” God The Son, her “Wadd” (love) the Creator of heaven and earth is in Her “lubb” (core, womb) and is also Her Heart (the Heart of Mary). This signifies Jesus Christ’s physical heart as the representation of His divine love for humanity."

The whole study can be found HERE, and is well worth your time

Parallel of Putin and Franco

Now I know many people think Gen. Franco of Spain was not a good guy, but for purposes here I just wanted to note an interesting development and the similarity.

Both Putin and Franco are seen by many as tyrants, but it looks like Putin is following the same path as Franco in looking to restore the Romanov monarchy in Russia. As to what role it would have that cannot be said yet, but it is a worthwhile development that would have lasting and perhaps good consequences.

It is also interesting in terms of how it might be related to the Fatima prophecy as well as the prophecies of Vladimair Solovyov on the Russian reunion with Peter in the future. (Note: Solovyov was Russian Orthodox so its a bit odd he would think such was to come)

"Absent from Western reports of ‘re-Stalinization’ is the evidence for a much wider shift in Russians’ views on their country’s history. Particularly striking has been the rehabilitation of the pre-revolutionary regime. The same survey that showed an increase in favorable perceptions of Stalin also revealed that since 1999 the number of Russians believing the reign of Nicholas II (1894-1917), Russia’s last tsar, ‘brought more good than bad’ had risen from 18% to 30%. Also, the number believing the 1917 Revolution to have been a good thing fell from 27% in 1999 to 19% in 2016, while those believing it to have been for the worse rose from 38% to 48%...

Unthinkable 25 years before, in 2013 an obelisk originally erected in 1914 outside the Kremlin walls was cleansed of its Soviet-era transformation into a monument to the workers’ struggle, and rededicated to its original commemoration of the Romanov tercentenary (1613-1913), Imperial Russia’s last great national celebration...

Putin, he says, 'isn't interested in being remembered as some kind of Communist Party general secretary. He thinks of himself as a Russian De Gaulle or a Franco', head of a self-consciously 'transitional regime' aimed at restoring a semi-traditional political and social order...

That may even include the monarchy...

'The return of the Romanovs would be part of his historical role, a way of knitting the country's history together again, of declaring that at last the revolution is over.'...

He claims he was once present when Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the firebrand nationalist that heads Russia's Liberal National Democratic Party, compared Putin to Franco in Putin's presence. The Russian president didn't object.
Of Putin's three 'favorite' philosophers (Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolai Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin) it's Ilyin who is thought to have exercised the greatest influence over Putin's understanding of Russia's political and spiritual history..."

The whole article is worth reading and you can look at it HERE

Update: Fr. Chad Ripperger on the status of the SSPX and Traditionalist Issues

A while back I had made a post in regards to what Fr. Ripperger thought of the SSPX.  It was quite dated, and having come across a video recorded in 2015 I figured I would make it available here.

Also he addresses his concerns that many in the traditionalist movement are often prey to become modernists themselves. Fast forward to the 1 hour 26 minute and 30 second mark to hear the topic

New Fr. Ripperger videos on Magisterial Authority, the binding power of tradition, the liturgy, etc...

So before Steve throws them up on Sensus Fidelium, here are some new video's from Father Ripperger. I have also put together a list, along with the first video, that shows the topics and the time it appears at. Do enjoy, and say three Hail Mary's for Father and his Order which you can find in the "Learn the Faith" tab above

As I get more time I will crate similar lists for the other videos

Second Update: Fr. Ripperger; Update from Feser: Msgr Swetland finds no place at the Inn for Robert Spencer and Jihad Watch

In the files of novelty for the masses a new file was just created, booked and filed away.  Monsignor Swetland of EWTN fame and the head of Donnelly college, was recently in a debate with Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch (himself a Melkite - Eastern Catholic).

The whole article can be had HERE


"Msgr. Swetland contends that statements of recent Popes to the effect that Islam is a religion of peace fall into the category of teachings to which Catholics must give “religious assent,” as per the quotation below from the Second Vatican Council document Lumen Gentium.

If Msgr. Swetland is correct, then I am, as he puts it, “a dissenter from the papal magisterium.” So also, then, would be millions of other Catholics, including Catholics from the Middle East who have borne the brunt of Muslim persecution of Christians and know what Islam teaches, such as the gentleman from Lebanon who phoned in to the Mariani Show during my discussion with Msgr. Swetland. If Msgr. Swetland is correct, then Catholics must affirm that Islam is a religion of peace as part and parcel of being Catholic, and the Catholic Church will be requiring that its faithful affirm the truth of what is an obvious and egregious falsehood, as I demonstrated here and in many other places.

If Msgr. Swetland is correct, and it is Church teaching that all Catholics must accept that Islam is a religion of peace, then the Catholic hierarchy will have demonstrated that it does not have the authority or reliability in discerning and transmitting the truth that it claims to have; Papal claims to speak in the name of Christ will be eviscerated; and the Catholic Church as a whole exposed as a fraud...

It is very important for all believers that the authentic teaching of the Church be clear so that we may know the truth and attempt to live it to the full. I submit that there is a serious difference between the repeated magisterial teachings of the Church and the teaching of Robert Spencer in this area. For the sake of all, this situation needs to be clarified. "



Quite the interesting time for Msgr Swetland to be touting the Religion of Peace Dogma in the name of the Church.  It was just last week that Abp Pozzo noted once again (cause Ratzinger had said this before) that the documents related to inter religious and ecumenical relations are not dogmatic, but pastoral letters which could never be bound on the Church as a whole because they are novel and do not relate to a matter of faith or morals. One Peter Five did a sum of this the other day which you can find HERE.

I seem to remember that every time traditional Catholic teachings that dealt with matters in relation to Jews or Muslims we are told constantly that we must approach it in the light of Nostra Aetate, as if a one size fits all definition fits reality.

Perhaps Msgr Swetland can spend a sabbatical in Iraq and Syria with his brother priests to experience non heretical Orthodox Islam?  Just saying... but conservative Catholicism and EWTN approved?!

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An excellent follow up from the Thomist Edward Feser HERE

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Fr. Chad Ripperger also addressed this question and the question about whether Allah is the same God we as Christians worship in the following talk at the 58 min 50 second mark about.  His response is different than Edward Feser who is also a Thomist on the latter issue: