***Scholastic Publishing Targets Our Kids
If you have children you’re familiar with the publishing giant Scholastic Inc, the largest publisher and distributor of children’s books in the world. Most schools, including Catholic ones, participate in scholastic’s program sending home their monthly brochure for book orders. And then there are the school book fairs. It’s big business for Scholastic and fund-raising for the schools. But Scholastic has become a major player in the culture war working for the enemy. The company recently sent 10,000 copies of the book George, penned by self-described “queer activist” Alex Gino,to schools and libraries around the country. LifeSiteNews says, “Gino creates a sympathetic conflict to draw the young reader in by telling of a class play on Charlotte's Web. The book reads, ‘George really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she [meaning George] can't even try out for the part...because she [George] is a boy.’” The book aims at elementary kids from 3rd to 7th grade. Note how Gino uses the word “she” to embed the idea that a boy is really a girl, a genetic impossibility. Gino also promotes the transgender message at Scholastic Book Fairs. He states, "My hope is that it be in every library in the country, that kids be able to get their hands on it."
***Reaching 6 Million Children a Week! What better way to undermine a culture than to brainwash the little ones. George is just one of Scholastic’s gender-bending and LGBTQ-promoting books. American Family Association affiliate One Million Moms says the company, “features morally toxic reading lists for children, such as: "Books for Two-Mommy Families," "Great books for Two-Dad Families," and "6 Picture Books About Transgender Children." They urge a boycott. Certainly no parochial school should participate any longer in Scholastic book fairs or send home their monthly catalogue! What responsible pastor or parent would help to corrupt the littlest lambs in the flock?
***Another Jebbie Georgetown Scandal!
Is anyone surprised when Georgetown commits another scandal? The latest is gender housing open only to LGBTQ-identifying students. [Imagine the parties, but have your barf bag ready.] Grace Smith, co-chair of the LGBTQ student government inclusivity policy team chortled on Facebook that the approval was “A really big deal at a Jesuit University….This means that students will now begin to have a unique residential space dedicated to exploring and understanding themselves and others in relation to gender and sexuality. Congratulations to everyone who made this dream a reality.” Sounds more like a nightmare and one more victory for the evil one. Sexual disorder reigns at Georgetown. The campus lost its Catholic identity long ago. Sadly, it isn’t the only one. Check out the Newman Guide to Catholic Colleges to see which Catholic colleges and universities are faithful to Church teaching. Sadly, you won’t find a Jesuit school on the list. And in fact, the Jesuits are in free fall. According to Catholichierarchy.org, the high water mark for all religious men was 1966 with 36,038. The high water mark for priests was 1973 with 20,908. By 2016 numbers had shrunk to 16,378 religious and 11,785 priests. That’s almost a 50% loss in less than 50 years. And the average age of North American Jesuits 65. Not a very encouraging picture for the sons of St. Ignatius. But then he’s rolling over in his grave over what they’re doing to poison the young and destroy the faith. Pray for the Jesuits, but don’t let them have your children!
***War over Amoris Laetitia (AL) cont. You could call it the never-ending story! The pope and his accomplices continue to sow confusion and spread the falsehood that couples in gravely sinful relationships: adultery, cohabitation, etc. may nonetheless receive the sacraments in particular situations. Faithful bishops respond by calling for correction and clarification. In a statement issued on the Feast of the Holy Family, three bishops of Kazakhstan, Archbishop-Bishop emeritus Jan Pawel Lenga, Archbishop Tomash Peta, and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, ORC, defended the indissolubility of marriage. Their Profession of the Immutable Truths about Sacramental Marriage states unequivocally that the norms as being interpreted will lead to the approval of divorce in the life of the Church. The bishops wrote in part:
According to the doctrine of the Church, only the sacramental matrimonial bond constitutes a domestic church (see Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 11). The admission of so-called “divorced and remarried” faithful to Holy Communion, which is the highest expression of the unity of Christ the Spouse with His Church, means in practice a way of approving or legitimizing divorce, and in this meaning a kind of introduction of divorce in the life of the Church.
The mentioned pastoral norms are revealed in practice and in time as a means of spreading the “plague of divorce” (an expression used by the Second Vatican Council, see Gaudium et spes, 47). It is a matter of spreading the “plague of divorce” even in the life of the Church, when the Church, instead, because of her unconditional fidelity to the doctrine of Christ, should be a bulwark and an unmistakable sign of contradiction against the plague of divorce which is every day more rampant in civil society.
Unequivocally and without admitting any exception Our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ solemnly reaffirmed God’s will regarding the absolute prohibition of divorce. An approval or legitimation of the violation of the sacredness of the marriage bond, even indirectly through the mentioned new sacramental discipline, seriously contradicts God’s express will and His commandment.This practice therefore represents a substantial alteration of the two thousand-year-old sacramental discipline of the Church. Furthermore, a substantially altered discipline will eventually lead to an alteration in the corresponding doctrine.
Which is exactly what liberal Catholics want and they now have a pope who is undermining the faith with a direct assault on marriage.
***The Devil’s Three-Pronged Strategy…
The devil is clever. The goal was the destruction of marriage and the family, but he didn’t make a frontal attack. His first assault was the sexual revolution and contraception. He used lust to seduce individuals by emphasizing pleasure without commitment. Then he attacked the baby who is meant to be the “word (of love) made flesh” in marriage, but is an obstacle to the pleasure principle of the hook-up culture. Now, we have the direct assault on marriage. In civil society the strategy is legitimizing same-sex unions. In the Church it’s legitimizing divorce and remarriage, a direct attack on the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage.
***AL=Atomic Bomb Against the Family!
If AL is allowed to stand it will inflict irreparable damage on the family. Catholic doctrine on marriage will be changed in practice even if the law remains on the books. And just like abortion for extreme cases was the camel’s nose in the tent that led to abortion on demand in civil society, AL’s specific situations will soon become Eucharist-on-demand for every disordered relationship among Catholics. Liberals will say, “Who are we to judge?” Well…the bishops of Kazakhstan make it clear that Christ Himself is Judge and no man may change His perennial teaching expressed through His Church.
We owe these bishops a message of thanks and it is good to see other bishops joining and signing the statement as well. Two Italian bishops joined in early January, former apostolic nuncio of the U.S. Archbishop Carlo Vigano and Archbishop Emeritus Luigi Negri, and Cardinal Janis Pujats, Archbishop Metropolitan of Riga, Latvia has since added his support. Last summer the bishops of Poland also made it clear that Communion was forbidden for those in invalid marriages. Meanwhile the war between progressive bishops and those who defend Church orthodoxy continues. Can formal schism be far off if this continues?
***Or is the “Bizarre Schism” Here Now?
In a 2016 interview with French internet TV Libertes, Bishop Schneider said:
A certain type of schism already exists in the Church …we are witnessing today a bizarre form of schism. Externally, numerous ecclesiastics safeguard formal unity with the pope, at times for the good of their own careers or out of a kind of papolatry. And at the same time they have broken ties with Christ, the Truth, and with Christ, the true Head of the Church. On the other hand there are ecclesiastics…denounced as schismatics despite the fact that they live in canonical peace with the pope, and remain faithful to Christ, the Truth… assiduously promoting His Gospel of Truth. It is evident that those who are internally the true schismatics, in relation to Christ, make use of calumnies for the sole purpose of silencing the voice of truth by absurdly projecting their own state of internal schism on those ecclesiastics who, regardless of praise or rebuke, defend the divine truths.
In fact, as sacred Scripture says, the word of Divine Truth is not bound. Even if a number of high ranking officials in the Church today temporarily obscure the truth of the doctrine of marriage and its perennial discipline, this doctrine and discipline will always remain unchangeable in the Church because the Church is not a human foundation, but a divine one….
My questioning of Amoris Laetitia…concerns the very concrete question of admitting so-called “remarried” divorcés to Holy Communion…. Once the objective is attained, even if limited to so called exceptional cases of discernment, the door is opened to introducing the gospel of divorce, the gospel without the sixth commandment. And this will no longer be the Gospel of Jesus, but an anti-gospel, a gospel according to this world, even if such a gospel be cosmetically embellished with terms such as “mercy”, “maternal solicitude” or “accompaniment”.
When the world is in chaos turn to voices of truth. Also look back in history. Some things never change. The turmoil after WW I left a fractured world similar to our time. Read the encyclicals of Pope Pius XI. They are short, easy to understand, and speak to the challenges of today. See especially Quas Primas (The Kingship of Christ), Ubi Arcano (On the Peace of Christ in His Kingdom), and Mit Brennenden Sorge (On the Church and the German Reich). All are available online and none is longer than 15 pages of single space type. What great Lenten reading! Use it to arm yourself for the battle.