SACKING ROME - FROM THE INSIDE

By Tim Rohr

I recently opined on this blog about why I believed it took so long to get the Vatican to act on the Apuron case, and why, when the Vatican did act, it had to create a legal apparatus to address clerical sex abuse by a bishop. 

The Vatican had to do this because the usual offenders were almost always priests and they were dealt with by their bishops. But who deals with an offending bishop? At the time, no one. Which is why Apuron became infamous for whispering "no one can get me" to people he thought were his confidants. 

As we know, it was only due to pounding public pressure (more than a year of pickets, almost daily news stories, the millions of views of this blog, and ultimately the enactment of a law which enabled victims to sue the archdiocese) which brought the Vatican to Guam in the person of Cardinal Raymond Burke in February 2017. 

A year later, March 2018, Pope Francis removed Apuron as Archbishop of Agana and prohibited him from physically returning to Guam. 

It can be assumed that before the Pope forcibly removed Apuron that he most likely asked Apuron to resign. The Pope - at the advice of his legal counselors - most likely wanted Apuron to resign because by forcibly removing him, the Pope, in effect, would be acting in the capacity of an employer and thus opening the door for institutional liability to the Vatican.

Prior to the Apuron affair, popes have removed bishops from their dioceses, but it appears to have always been via a request to resign (and probably promises of a cushy Rome pad and other perks). 

In Apuron's case, we can assume that he refused to resign due to the support of the second most powerful person in the Vatican at the time, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who was the Neocats' inside guy. 

The Neocats had a lot to lose if Apuron fell. So they propped him up and created conspiracy stories. (One such conspiracy was led by "Tim Rohr and Associates," and it's still "a thing.")

Given the pressure from Filoni and the legal realities of liability, the pope most likely did not want to remove Apuron. And the fact that he did anyway, is a sort of silent witness to just how serious Apuron's crimes were, especially after the pope himself denied Apuron's later appeal. 

Nevertheless, removing Apuron opened the door for lawyers to paint the Vatican as an employer, and we've seen several lawsuits here in Guam naming The Holy See (the Vatican) as a Defendant. 

But probably because Guam is a distant and small diocese, and because Apuron's crimes were so heinous, there is little support to sue the Vatican. Most people are very thankful that the pope stepped in.

However, the same is not true in Tyler, Texas where the pope has forcibly removed a bishop from his diocese and named no crime. And according to Catholic writer John Zmirak, the pope has really stepped in it this time.

During the clerical sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the Holy See deftly escaped direct criminal liability in US courts — for potentially hundreds of billions — by arguing, amongst other things, that a pope doesn’t have the power to remove a bishop against his will.

This was necessary to demonstrate that bishops aren’t employees of the Vatican. Many years later and [Francis ] has just done precisely that by sacking the holy Bishop Strickland.

Read more at: Pope Francis May Have Just Accidentally Saved My Church … by Bankrupting it.

POPE: "CARDINAL BURKE IS MY ENEMY"

 

“Cardinal Burke is my enemy, so I take away his apartment and his salary,” the pope had said at the Nov. 20 meeting, according to Bussola’s undisclosed Vatican source. 

FULL STORY

THE BISHOP STRICKLAND THING BRINGS BACK MEMORIES

The facts surrounding Pope Francis' removal of Bishop Strickland as Bishop of Tyler, Texas reminds me of Apuron's removal of Msgr. James Benavente as Rector of the Cathedral in 2014.

---Bishop Strickland Not Given a Copy of the "Charges" Despite His Multiple Requests---

"I was read a list of the reasons I was being removed.  I would make these reasons available to you if possible; however, I was not given a copy of this list at that time, and I have not been able as of yet to obtain a copy despite my requests."

In similar fashion, Msgr. James, in July 2014, was hauled in before Apuron, David the Tall, and The Adrian, read a list of charges, and told to get out of the Cathedral. Like Bishop Strickland, Msgr. James asked for a copy of the charges that were read to him but was denied. (For more on that story, see APURON V BENAVENTE.)

What is it with these guys (including, now, the pope)? Don't they know that secrecy around something so public breeds scandal? And that breeding scandal is a sin? And possibly a mortal sin? If they have real charges against a cleric then go ahead and nail the list to the door of every church.

Ultimately, while Apuron would not give Msgr. James a copy of the charges, he would later give a copy to the media. In my opinion, that was Apuron's fatal mistake, and here's why. 

Apuron's removal of Msgr. James happened well before the allegations of Apuron's sex abuse of minors. Apuron's public attack on Msgr. James awoke a guy living in San Francisco named John Toves. And that's when all hell broke loose. It's pretty much all documented in the series titled ORCHESTRATED and later rehashed in HIGH DRAMA IN THE AOA.

Following is a copy of Bishop Strickland's letter dated Nov. 27, 2023:

An Open Letter to the Faithful from Bishop Joseph E. Strickland:

As I am sure you have heard by now, I have been removed as Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler.  I was asked to meet with the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, and in that meeting I was read a list of the reasons I was being removed.  I would make these reasons available to you if possible; however, I was not given a copy of this list at that time, and I have not been able as of yet to obtain a copy despite my requests.

In the reasons that were read to me, no mention was made of administrative problems or mismanagement of the diocese as the reasons for my removal.  The reasons given seemed to be related, for the most part, to my speaking the Truth of our Catholic faith, and to my warnings against anything that threatened that Truth (including things that were being brought up at the Synod on Synodality).  Also, mention was made of my not walking alongside my brother bishops as I defended the Church and her unchangeable teachings, and of my not implementing the motu propoio Traditionis custodes, which were I to have implemented, would have required me to leave part of my flock unfed and untended.  As a shepherd and protector of my Diocese, I could not take actions which I knew with certainty would injure part of my flock and deprive them of the spiritual goods which Christ entrusted to His Church.  I stand by my actions as they were necessary to protect my flock and to defend the Sacred Deposit of Faith. 

This is the time for everything now covered to be uncovered, and everything now hidden to be made clear.  In fact, it was in a time when things were being hidden regarding disgraced now-former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Church sex abuse scandal that it seems I first entered the Vatican’s radar. My main crime, then as now, seems to always have been about bringing to light that which others wanted to remain hidden.  Sadly, it now seems that it is Truth Himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ, that many desire to be hidden.

Although I am now without a diocese, I am still a bishop of the Church and therefore a successor of the apostles, and I must continue to speak Truth even if it requires my very life.  I want to say this to all of you today – DO NOT ever, ever leave the Church!  She is the Bride of Christ!  She is now undergoing her Passion, and you must resolve to stand resolutely at the cross!  It is important to attend Mass every Sunday and as often as possible, to spend time in adoration, to pray the Rosary daily, to go to confession regularly, and to call always upon the saints for assistance!  I urge you to persevere that you might say in the end, “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith.”  

May Almighty God bless you, and may our Holy and Blessed Mother intercede for you and point you always to her Divine Son Jesus as we enter this Advent season.

I remain your humble father and servant,

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland 

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: DID DARWIN GET IT RIGHT?

By Tim Rohr

I email subscribe to the History Channel's "This Day in History" newsletter and today there was this:

“Origin of Species” is published

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s theory argued that organisms gradually evolve through a process he called “natural selection.” In natural selection, organisms with genetic variations that suit their environment tend to propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack the variation, thus influencing the overall genetic makeup of the species. CONTINUED

The post brought to mind a column I had written for our local Catholic paper 23 years ago. It was titled HOW HENRY VIII GAVE US RU-486, which, despite, its weird title, was centered on the common Genesis v Evolution debate. 

I had never had a problem with the theory of evolution, and from what I knew then, my Catholic Church - at least per John Paul II - was okay with it. However, in the year 2000, and when I wrote the aforesaid column, I had come across a book titled Did Darwin Get It Right-Catholics and the Theory of Evolution by George Sim Johnston. 

Johnston's questions blew my mind and led to my writing of the column HOW HENRY VIII GAVE US RU-486. 

Even though I was a weekly columnist for the local Catholic paper, the then-editor refused to run the column. I remember arguing with him on my cell phone sitting in a parking lot at Kings Restaurant. 

I don't remember what the objection was, and within a few months both him and I were fired by "the chancery" (another story I may tell someday), but I uploaded my story to my blog and forgot about it...until now. 

It's worth a read, but much more, a better read is "Did Darwin Get It Right?

THE WORLD WILL HATE YOU

By Tim Rohr

STORY: Pope Francis bonds with transgender women invited to Vatican luncheon: ‘I send the pope a big kiss!’

I'm not even going to get into the transgender thing here, nor the reported words and actions of the ever elusive pope. Instead, the more important thing is this (emphases added);

“Carla Segovia, a 46-year-old Argentine sex worker, said for transgender women like herself, being a godparent is the closest thing she will ever get to having a child of her own. She said that the new norms made her feel more comfortable about maybe one day returning fully to the faith that she was baptized in but fell away from after coming out as trans...This norm from Pope Francis brings me closer to finding that absolute serenity,’ she said, which she feels is necessary to be fully reconciled with the faith..."

That Ms. Segovia believes she has to feel "comfortable" and find "absolute serenity" before she can feel "fully reconciled with the faith," is not the fault of Ms. Segovia. It is the fault of decades (post-Vatican 2) of Catholic pastors elevating the idea of a "welcoming church" above The Cross of Jesus Christ because it is easier for them to do and ultimately makes them happy with themselves. 

And all of which is in absolute contradiction with Jesus himself who told us: The World will hate you." (Jn. 15: 18-25)

THOUGHTS OF MY FATHER - ON HIS 91ST BIRTHDAY

By Tim Rohr

On this day, on what was probably a cold November day in 1932, my dad was born in a farmhouse on Mudbrook Road outside of Massillon, Ohio. He was the 11th of 14 children, 11 of whom would make it to adulthood. 

It was called Mudbrook Road because a mud brook crossed under the road and dead-ended in a pond on my grandfather's farm. 

My dad grew up in a tough depression-stressed time, and like all of his siblings, was put to work on the farm as soon as he was useful.

He attended St. Mary's Parish School in Massillon where behind the church is a cemetery with about a third of the headstones bearing the name "Rohr." 

He attended Jacksonville High School, down at the end of Mudbrook Rd., where he was a standout Jacksonville Tiger halfback. 

After high school he joined the Navy, was stationed in San Diego, and served in the Korean War, during which time he met my mom. Eight children came from that union beginning with me. 

My dad was the first generation in a long line of both sides of his family to leave farming and move into the industrial world. And the move was complicated by moving from a quiet, stable, German farm family life to the noise, hustle, unstable, and anonymous big city life of a place called Los Angeles. 

It was a tough world. Dad only had a high school education in an age when a college degree meant a lot. However he could outwork anyone and everyone and he did. 

From my youth, I remember when he was a milkman, delivered newspapers, hand dug and installed sewer lines, tore down houses, built houses, moved houses, climbed power poles for Southern California Edison, and ultimately became an ironworker (placing rebar) for many of the freeways that crisscross Los Angeles today.

In the mid 1970's he started his own rebar company with my brother and I as his only workers. I won't say employees because he never actually hired us. He couldn't afford to do that. But he'd give us 10 bucks here and there - and sometimes buy us lunch. 

Later, as his business grew and Dad established a rebar fabrication yard, my brother and I became employees and then my youngest brother, Chris, joined the team. (Chris owns and runs Rohr Steel today - a very successful and very busy operation.)

Those were very hard years. My dad wasn't one to drink and party with the guys who handed out contracts. And the farm boy in him caused him to take many handshake deals that led to damaging losses. But he pressed on. 

Becoming a father doesn't come with a manual - something I was to become acutely aware of when raising my own 11 (children). So he made his mistakes (as I have). 

I never begrudged my dad his mistakes. Working next to him in smoggy LA ditches for several years taught me how to work and how to bleed without complaining, but more so, how to respect my father. 

He accumulated more than a million dollars in wealth before he died in 2014. Not bad for an Ohio farm boy who never made it past high school at the end of Mudbrook Road.

AN OPEN DOOR FOR DEMONS

By Tim Rohr

Anonymous on November 22, 2023 at 1:36 PM asks:

Michael Voris of Church Militant has fallen. Thoughts? 

Following is my reply:

I was an early supporter and premium subscriber of Voris and what was initially called RealCatholicTV (later Church Militant). 

On local radio and press, I was essentially doing the same thing as Voris - pointing out the unbelievable that was happening in our Church, though in my case, it was mostly about our local Church.



However, after awhile, I noticed that Voris’ best people appeared to be leaving, so I sensed something was wrong. More so though, I was growing tired of the constant negative - even though I was doing some of that myself. 

Plus, I didn’t like what appeared to be a rather ridiculous looking toupee that seemed to be purposely unkempt to hide that it was a toupee. (I don't know if it was or not, but if it wasn't, he should have at least combed his hair.)

So after a few years, I dropped my premium membership but still listened to him from time to time, though as time went on, I sort of felt that he was growing ever more radical to keep an audience. 

Then at one point, he did a whole segment on his homosexuality and past homosexual relations. It was well done actually. Voris' "coming out" was noted in a recent AP story: 

In 2016, Voris acknowledged that when he was younger, he had for years been involved in “live-in relationships with homosexual men” and multiple other sexual relationships with men and women, actions he later abhorred as “extremely sinful.”

In the same AP story, Voris is reported to have said: “I need to conquer these demons,” he said, adding that they are “like spiritual terror” to him. 

Given Voris' present resignation from Church Militant and the other stuff he's involved in, I can only assume that his homosexual past and passions have come back to haunt him. 

Homosexual or heterosexual, whichever: unless one is married to a person of the opposite sex and the nuptial act is absolutely open to new life (a baby), then sexual acts of any kind are mortally sinful. That’s the Catholic teaching anyway, though you won’t hear it much. 

So I don’t know about Voris. And per the AP story, he’s not talking. My guess is that like Fr. Corapi, Fr. Frank Pavonne, and so many others - including a number of EWTN personalities, pride and fame is an open door for demons.

SO THIS GUY WON - DON'T CRY FOR MY ARGENTINA

By Tim Rohr

This past September, I authored a post titled: THE MOST POPULAR MAN IN ARGENTINA COMMENTS ON ABORTION AND THE POPE.

It's worth a read (or a re-read) now that Javier Milei is the new President of Argentina. 

As a side note, just about every story you can google about him turns up the words "right wing," "far-right," or something of the sort. 

It's sort of funny. This dude, a TV personality, looks more like a leftover hippie straight out of 1966 than anyone from the stereotyped "Right." 

Meanwhile, on a serious note. If Argentina is willing to elect a man who is willing to stand up to Pope Francis and the Far-Lefts of the world and speak so clearly against abortion, then there's a message there.  

 

GOOD NIGHT GUAHAN

By Tim Rohr

Should you read the previous post, wherein is linked the recent Guam Supreme Court opinion upholding our governor's baby-killing agenda, you will see, particularly in Justice Carbullido's concurrence (beginning on Pg. 30), that both my amicus curia and my oral argument counted for at least a small part of a big loss.

Link to my Amicus Curiae and the text of my Oral Argument - and also a video recording of my argument.

Functionally, I was the only "layman" participating in the whole fiasco"

"Amicus Curiae Timothy J. Rohr, appearing pro se" 

I certainly don't take the Guam Supreme Court's "slap-down" personally. And why I call it a "fiasco," I will save for later, because for now, I want to tell you...

Why I don't care

Now, that may seem odd to some. 

Since around 2008 I have been at the forefront of pro-life/anti-abortion legislation, and as just mentioned, I was the only layman to try to stop our abortion-rabid governor's grotesque use of the Guam Supreme Court to back up her vile baby-killing agenda.

And that's why I don't care if "I" - or more generally - "our side," lost.

The fact is that Lou Leon Guerrero's baby-killing agenda is not a hidden agenda. In fact, this is what makes LLG unique amongst almost all political pro-aborts. 

Most of those other baby-haters try never to broach the issue and only do so when pressed. However, LLG, for more than three decades, has been PROUDLY front and center in this war to kill Guam babies - and more and more Guam babies.

Oh yes, certainly under the usual guise of "reproductive health" etc., but the stats show that the radical majority of babies who never get to breath Guam's air are WANTED dead (and not ALIVE) by mothers who identify their ethnicity as Chamorro/CHamoru.

LINK to Reports

It's a staggering, head-shaking reality when we inform ourselves that the Chamorro/CHamoru has already been reduced, in Guam, to just 30% of the population. 

However, I don't shake my head. I know why these mothers want their children dead. 

And it has nothing to do with not being able to afford "another mouth to feed," or whatever. Heck, unmarried mothers have more access to government programs and benefices than married mothers. So money ain't the issue.

The real driver of Guam's abortion culture

The real driver of Guam's abortion culture is the same driver of the horrific clergy sex abuse scandal - which is now 14 times per capita the size of the Archdiocese of Boston's - which led to the Academy Award winning movie: "Spotlight." 

As an aside, given that "Spotlight" won an Academy Award, Guam's story, if it ever made the movies, would darn well sweep the awards given that our story is much more prolific, brutal, and demonically infested by our being even more "Catholic" than Boston. 

What I mean is that the real problem is a greasy sexual under-culture in Guam that is rife with incest of every kind and which is protected by "the family" protecting "the family." 

Abortion is necessary because without it we would all know about Uncle Bill, or Father so-and so, or the next door neighbor. 

Don't feel bad Guam. You are not alone. 

Destruction of the evidence (the baby) is the real reason behind abortion rights everywhere. It's just that most of "everywhere," at least in the U.S., does not parade a Madonna through its streets on December 8 after electing viciously baby-killing pro-abortion politicians the month before.  

But we do. 

And there will be a price to be paid...in the end.

But back to why "I don't care." 

Well, of course I do. 

I care about every brutal, mutilating death of every helpless, innocent, defenseless, human being, which is the very definition of a child in the womb. They can't scream (audibly anyway), and they can't run.

They can only be stabbed to death, burned to death, cut into little pieces, or (via partial birth abortion) be delivered whole and entire with their brains sucked out through a hole in the back of their almost delivered heads.

LINK

And if Guam, or more specifically, the CHamoru, want to self exterminate via the doctrines of the likes of Lou Leon Guerrero and Michael Bevacqua, then another culture, another ethnicity, another people, another nation...will takes its place - after you kill your own. 

Good Night Guahan. You elected this.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN - FROM THE GUAM SUPREME COURT - AND DAY OF THE DEAD...LAW

By Tim Rohr

This past October 31, the Guam Supreme Court issued an opinion agreeing with our pro-abort governor that "Belle's law" is of no force and it is okay to keep killing our own.

There will be more comment on this opinion to come. But for now, here is what the Guam Supreme Court opined:

JUDGEMENT

OPINION 

Also, the Guam Daily Post had an interesting title to its story on said opinion:

Adelup: Supreme Court decision holds abortion ban as 'dead law'

The Office of the Governor said the decision holds the ban as "dead law."

ALL WANT TO TELL ME STORIES THEY NEVER TOLD

By Tim Rohr

Theodore McCarrick (born 1930), ordered in 2018 by Pope Francis to a life of prayer and penance.[1] Found guilty of sexual crimes against adults and minors and abuse of power, he was dismissed from the clergy in February 2019.[2] He is the most senior church official in modern times to be laicized and is the first cardinal laicized for sexual misconduct.

Today, I happened to meet up with a friend on regular business. We spoke a bit about the business at hand. However, he soon asked me if I was in a hurry. As my following appointment had been rescheduled, I said "no." 

Given the very public role I played in exposing the worst clergy sex abuse, per capita, in the western world (Guam's), it is not uncommon for friends, or sometimes strangers, to say "have you got a few minutes?"

All want to tell me stories they never told. And it's pretty much the same story. 

"Father so and so..." And it gets really graphic - grotesquely graphic - from there. 

Since a law was enacted in 2016 in Guam giving victims of sex abuse, clergy or otherwise, to sue both their perpetrators and certain institutions, many, many victims have come forward to tell their stories to attorneys. 

Almost all of those victims, in their public filings, hid behind their initials. 

Given that I was intimately involved with the first victims who put their names and faces to their accusations (of Apuron) before there was a law to protect them, I did not like subsequent victims hiding behind mere initials.

But the conversation with my friend today helped me to better understand. 

The real reason these victims hid behind their initials was not out of any fear of repercussions from the accused, nor even public embarrassment, but fear from their own families, especially their parents.

The usual narrative is that parents were so respectful of The Church and the clergy that child victims knew they would not be believed. And indeed, that was the testimony of the few that we publicly heard from: that their perpetrators said "nobody will believe you."

But my friend, today, a local boy who grew to manhood in Guam in the 50's and 60's, and specifically a Catholic "boy" during the reigns of Bishops Baumgartner and Flores, under whose episcopates most of the legally-alleged clerical abuses occurred, helped me understand.

The real issue - if not the real culprit - was "a culture" which curried favor with elites (especially clergy) at the expense of their own children. 

In other words (at least per my friend), these parents KNEW there was "a problem" with their fave priests. 

But because having a priest (or a nun) in the family or being in anyway closely associated with a priest or a nun was such an elevation of status in local culture, it was a grave sin - not against God's law - but against "the law of family status" to admit or permit the mere mention of any clerical or religious peccadillo.

Sorry, if that's too esoteric. Here it is in shorter form.

Status, in Guam Spanish and post-Spanish culture, was radically elevated by either having one's own family members admitted to the states of clergy or religious (monks and nuns), or being closely associated with anyone who was (a clergy or religious), and wherein such status accrued to the family name. 

You don't have to think too hard to figure how this false sense of status played into the figurative - and sometimes real - slap down of children who dared tell their parents what Father or Sister so-and-so had done to them. 

To be continued...maybe.

POPE FRANCIS REMAINS FIRM...ON FREEMASONRY

By Tim Rohr

Pope Francis remains firm - at least on some things, and one of those things is the Catholic Church's firm, unwavering teaching (for now) on Freemasonry.

It's weird, given that Francis appears to be at the root of changing church teaching on everything from blessing same-sex unions to ordaining women-priests. 

And it's even weirder given that the following re-affirmation condemning Freemasonry came through the newly appointed Prefect for the Congregation of the Faith - a known "softie" if not an outright anti-anything traditional.

Yet, here is what Pope (make a mess) Francis has solidly declared via his newly-appointed "softie" Prefect:

Vatican confirms Catholics still forbidden to join Masonic lodges

Responding to a question from a Filipino Bishop, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Francis, reaffirms the incompatibility between the Catholic Faith and joining Masonic lodges.

By Vatican News

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a document signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Victor Fernandéz, and approved by Pope Francis, has reaffirmed that Catholics are forbidden from joining Freemasonry.

The Dicastery responded on Wednesday to a question from Bishop Julito Cortes, Bishop of Dumanguete in the Philippines.

“After explaining with concern the situation in his diocese, due to the continuous increase in the number of members of Freemasonry, [Bishop Cortes] asked for suggestions on how to adequately deal with this reality from a pastoral point of view, while also taking into account the doctrinal implications” of the situation.

The dicastery’s response makes clear the importance of involving the Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, “notifying them that it would be necessary to implement a coordinated strategy among the individual bishops that would involve two approaches.”

The first approach addresses the question on the doctrinal level: the dicastery reiterates that “active membership in Freemasonry by a member of the faithful is prohibited, because of the irreconcilability between Catholic doctrine and Freemasonry (cf. the 1983 Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Masonic Associations), and the Guidelines published by the Bishops’ Conference in 2003.”

Therefore, the note explains, “those who formally and knowingly are members of Masonic lodges and have embraced Masonic principles fall under the provisions of the above-mentioned Declaration. These measures also apply to any clerics enrolled in Freemasonry.”

The second approach concerns the pastoral response: the dicastery suggests that the Philippine bishops undertake “a popular catechesis in all parishes on the reasons for the irreconcilability between the Catholic faith and Freemasonry.” The bishops of the Philippines are also asked to consider whether they should make a public pronouncement on this topic.

The November 1983 declaration was published shortly before the new Code of Canon Law entered into force. The 1983 CIC replaced the Code of Canon Law published in 1917; among the new features noted – by some with satisfaction, by others with concern – was the absence of an explicit condemnation of Freemasonry and excommunication for those affiliated with it. Both had been present in the earlier Code. The Declaration, signed by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the Secretary of the Congregation, Archbishop Jérôme Hamer, and approved by John Paul II, reiterated that Catholics affiliated with Masonic lodges are “in a state of grave sin.” 

APURON...JUDAS...AND WHAT ELSE IS THERE?

By Tim Rohr

CRISIS MAGAZINE has published a very heart-tugging opinion piece titled "Bishop Strickland Becomes a Victim for the Church He Loves."

The author begins by describing an event, wherein, as a child, the author was audibly raped via a payphone, and then compares that experience to being "raped" as an adult by a similar loss of innocence in the Cardinal McCarrick case...and by extension, the recent attack by Pope Francis on Bishop Strickland of Tyler, Texas.

I do not share the author's sentiments given that by age 17 - or so - I had learned not to revere any man with a Roman collar. 

I could go on and on as to "why" - including my own experience of an attempted seduction by "a pastor," however, I do not care to - though I will share a link to this story.

As an aside, the McCarrick affair has mega-personal meaning for me, and here's why:

+++++

At the time the McCarrick affair was exposed (August 2018), Pope Francis was "reconsidering" the March 18 DECISION by the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) which found a certain Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron GUILTY of stuff. 

It's all "Vatican-speak," which is the equivalent of "political speak" and designed to make us wonder. 

In the grand scheme of things, despite the horrors perpetrated by Apuron and many of his clerical cohorts under the very-ignoring noses of many of the children's own parents (a question yet to be asked or answered), Guam's "little problem," even though per capita it is the largest clergy sex abuse problem in the western world, Guam hardly registers on the Vatican-world radar, and I do not know if it ever will be. 

A tiny beach bungalow on the other side of the world

At the time the McCarrick story broke I was harboring in a tiny beach bungalow in the Virgin Islands -  pursuant to a legal agreement to "visit" my two youngest children on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix where they had been functionally kidnapped and sequestered more than a year earlier.

I won't go into my personal drama here, but at the time, I was very aware that my "attack" on Guam's Archbishop Apuron would have major personal repercussions - and the loss of my family - and particularly my children - was one of them.

And while I felt somewhat exonerated in March 2018 after Apuron was found guilty of everything I had exposed here in JW (with the help of a very few), the reality was that Apuron's "army" went into attack mode and I was publicly crucified as a wife beater and child molester of my own children for the better part of the early weeks of May 2018. 

The bottom line for me...as I've stated many times - even publicly - is:

I will not leave Jesus because of Judas.

And it should be for you too:

Despite it all, Rohr said he is still a believer. “My faith wasn’t in Archbishop Apuron or father so-and-so,” he said. “You don’t leave Jesus because of Judas.” - Guam Daily Post, Aug. 19, 2019

Jesus, being God and the second person of the Blessed Trinity, knew who he chose when he chose Judas to be on of The Twelve. 

I don't want to get into the deeper "think" of all that, but my limited take is that Jesus chose a Judas for such a time as our own, when (some of) our own descendants of the apostles would betray us. 

So what!

Go to the cross with Jesus anyway. What else is there?

By Tim Rohr

My column this month for the Guam Daily Post.

View from the Gallery

Laughing at death and the devil

I know Halloween has passed, but since this is a monthly column and I only get to submit one column a month, some of the stuff I’ll be writing about will have already happened - like Halloween.

For several years now, there has been an effort mostly among fundamentalist Christians, but also amongst some Catholics to paint Halloween as "the Devil’s Holiday" or “Hell-i-day,” as some call it.

CONTINUED

BISHOP STRICKLAND - AND GOING DOWN IN FLAMES ISN'T THE WAY

By Tim Rohr

BREAKING: Pope Francis personally removes America’s Bishop Joseph Strickland

Story at LIFESITE NEWS

Some key excerpts from the story:

In removing Bishop Strickland from the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, Pope Francis has canceled one of the most faithful, forthright and vocal bishops in the United States.

Bishop Strickland had been formally asked to resign by Pope Francis, in a request that came via the papal nuncio Cardinal Cristophe Pierre. Strickland declined this request, but now – upon the direct order of the Pope – is vacating his diocesan see.

a bishop’s ‘privation’ of office as being possible only in the face of guilt for ecclesiastical crimes (say, canonically illegal actions in regard to ecclesiastical property, contra cc. 1377 or 1389).”

Last year, Pope Francis removed Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, another outspoken advocate of Catholic teaching, from the Diocese of Arecibo, Puerto Rico, without explanation, reportedly due to his support for conscience objections to COVID jab mandates.

Bishop Strickland, 65, is well known among LifeSite readers for his unequivocal defense of Catholic teaching, teaching that is often cast in confusion by papal statements or messages.

Also, there is some worthwhile YouTube commentary here @thecatholicman. 

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It may surprise some, but I am, for now, going to take a contrarian view. And here it is:

The pope could never have touched Bishop Strickland had Strickland confined his "faithful, forthright" Catholic teaching to his diocese, the sheep for which he is canonically the shepherd. 

Every bishop is a direct apostolic descendant, and so long as said bishop shepherds his own flock within the prescripts of revelation and magisterially defined dogma and doctrine, no one, not even a wayward pope, can harm him. 

Strickland's "achilles heel" is that he went beyond his flock, and, via social media (mostly Twitter), addressed the rest of the Catholic World - over which he had (and has) no apostolic authority. 

Strickland personally demonstrated his willingness to go "out of bounds" when he personally showed up at a protest of the L.A. Dodgers game in protest of "pride night," during which the so-called "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" were honored by the Dodgers, and whereat Strickland delivered an address  condemning the "Sisters." 

Strickland's appearance in LA (not his diocese) made him a hero to Catholic conservatives and otherwise orthodox faithful; however, Strickland, in "strick (land)" legal terms, was out of his jurisdiction. 

Strickland would have been completely within his jurisdiction if he had remained home in Tyler, Texas - of which he is the Ordinary - and delivered the same address. 

I like Strickland, and as a deeply conservative Catholic, I want guys like Strickland to prevail. But...they MUST know how to do it. 

And going down in flames isn't the way. Maybe more later. 

MARY AND THE MOSLEMS

By Tim Rohr

"Mary and the Moslems" is the title of a chapter in a 1952 book by the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. In this chapter Sheen wrote:

...at the present hour, the Moslems are beginning to rise again. If Moslemism is a heresy, as Hiliaire Belloc believes it to be, it is the only heresy that has never declined. Others have had a moment of vigor, then gone into doctrinal decay at the death of the leader, and finally evaporated in a vague social movement. Moslemism, on the contrary, has only had its first phase. There was never a time in which it declined, either in numbers, or in the devotion of its followers.

READ FURTHER 

NOTE: The "strange icon" pictured here is copied from another article about Mary and her influence in Islam which was published by my former alma mater, of which I am usually not a fan. 

TAMMY PETERSON - WIFE OF JORDAN PETERSON - BECOMING CATHOLIC

FULL STORY HERE 

MY FAMILY STORIES: FOURTH STORY: CHRISTMAS-1986

By Tim Rohr

It's not Christmas yet, but we're getting there. 

And as FB likes to do, it throws up photos and memories unexpectedly, and so came up this photo of our first child,  Timmy, dated December 24, 1986. 

Not sure why he doesn't have a shirt on. It was cold there. So it must have been inside. Or maybe it's just dated wrong.

But anyway, the pic and the date reminds me of a short story about our "first Christmas." 

We were pretty darn broke in those days. We had moved to St. Augustine, FL, a few months earlier where I taught at a Catholic high school and we were surviving on a bare minimum. 

My wife, Leone, had taken a job at local bakery and somehow we pieced life together with our young son who we affectionally called "Timultaneous" after the the famed creation of Paul Keens Douglas, a fantastic Trinidadian comedian and storyteller. 

Well, Christmas Eve came along and we couldn't afford a Christmas tree, not even a fake one. So I cut down a Christmas tree-looking little fir growing in my neighbor's yard and rustled it into our pathetic little duplex. 

I don't think we had money for any lights - just enough for tinsel and tin foil to cover the window so our neighbor couldn't see where his tree went.

I know I have pics of that little tree somewhere, but can't find them. So you'll just have to believe me.

Merry early Christmas :) 

PERTINENT FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL V GAZA

On his personal blog, Frenchie has posted an article full of facts about the current Israeli-Gaza conflict that you won't easily find anywhere else. 

A PARADIGM SHIFT FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

Also, you may want to read a decent entry about the conflict from Wikipedia.

The Gaza–Israel conflict is a localized part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The conflict originated with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Following the withdrawal, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, and a civil war between Hamas and Fatah in 2007 culminated in Hamas gaining control over Gaza.[13][14] In response to Hamas's takeover, Egypt and Israel imposed an extensive blockade of the Gaza Strip that devastated Gaza's economy.[15] International rights groups have decried the blockade as a form of collective punishment,[16] while Israel defended it as necessary to prevent weapons and dual-use goods from entering the territory.[17][18] Since 2006, Hamas and Israel have fought five wars, the most recent in 2023.[19]

FIREWORKS OVER FIREWORKS...

....between Jose Martinez and Senator Chris Duenas. Nov. 1. On ThePoint.GU It starts at  1:55:36.

For the record, Jose Martinez said this after Sen. Duenas said Senator Fisher was his "favorite legal counsel"...

"I can never ally myself with Senator Fisher, no matter how smart he is, because he allies himself with terminating babies, and he’s okay with that, no matter what the circumstances. Anything else he says after that is suspect. And I’ve got to say, we’ve got to make our GOP stronger. We have to be better than this. We have to support, when sound measures going on and leave the politics of infighting behind the curtain and not on the floor. That’s all I’ve got to say" 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER JACKSON

By Tim Rohr

Again, taking a little detour from the usual JW stuff and sharing here a thing I left on my Facebook page .

"Looking back, I think we were a bit naive. At the beginning, I don't think anybody had any idea how difficult or complicated it would be. We somehow went into it thinking we could do it. And then we've stumbled along just taking each day at a time." - Peter Jackson 

I believe that this is how all big things are accomplished: stumble along taking each day at a time. The thing is to start and figure it out from there. 

This is contrary to the advice of most pop "self-help" gurus who market their goal-setting and plan-prepping in so many books and seminars. 

Of course, most of those guys really never did anything other than write books and do seminars. Real doers are people like Peter Jackson. They start with a vision and stumble along from there. 

This is similar to Donald Trump's business strategy as he sets out in his book "The Art of the Deal." Trump said he doesn't use a planner. He prefers to show up at the office, sit at a bare desk, and see what happens. 

I like that. And I do that. The trick though is to have and maintain the vision: to "feel the burn!"  😀

Anyway, as we all know - that troublesome saying: "Life happens while we're making other plans." So might as well see what "Life" has in mind. 

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Link to the FB post with the full article about Peter Jackson

LES CHIENS ABOIENT, LA CARAVANE PASSE!

By Tim Rohr

Here is an interview with an African bishop after the end of the Synod on Synodality.

I personally found the report of the interview, as presented by Vatican correspondent, Edward Pentin, very interesting given that Pentin chose to end his report with the African bishop relating a reportedly African maxim in French:

Les chiens aboient, la caravane passe.

Translation: "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

CONTINUED at my Catholic Blog here.  

MEANWHILE, AFRICA RISES

By Tim Rohr

In a recent post (yesterday, actually) I re-reported what the NY Times was reporting about the conclusion of Pope Francis' weird Synod on Synodality.

In short, the conclusion was a massive DUD - at least for the progressives, given that said Synod, after a three-year build up, held their best hope ever for the (Catholic) Church to change its teaching on all things "sacred" to them: everything from homosexual relations to the ordination of women.

However...!

However, not reported by the Times is probably the REAL REASON Francis backed down from his much-trumpeted synodal agenda: simple math, or more specifically, demographic math.

It's no secret that the Catholic Faith, if not all of Christianity, has been waning in The West for a very long time. 

True, the decline of the Christian Faith in The West can be blamed on everything from modernity to the exposition of the the rot of Catholic clergy sex abuse. 

However, the real bottom line for The West is that we just aren't reproducing - not just converts, but babies, children - the next generation.

Western Christian churches are not so much empty because of scandals or watered-down doctrine, but because western clergy, including many Catholic clergy, since the 1960's, have embraced and have quietly allowed for - if not promoted -  artificial contraception.

Whether one is for or against contraception, the fact is: Nature doesn't care. 

Contraception means less children and a smaller future for whoever embraces it - while cultures which eschew it, continue to "be fruitful and multiply."

This is why some experts believe Europe will be mostly Muslim by 2050 (and the U.S. mostly Latino). 

Europe will not be Muslim by Jihad. There is no need. Christians, mostly white, European Christians, are simply contracepting themselves out of existence. 

But back to the Synod and its conclusion. 

Just a few days before said conclusion of the Synod, the Catholic News Agency posted:

Vatican statistics: Africa had biggest increase in Catholics, while numbers fell in Europe

This isn't news and it isn't new. This has been going on for decades. 

In fact, the most powerful person in the universal Catholic Church, probably much to Francis' consternation, is a Black Man, a Black African Man, a certain Cardinal Robert Sarah - who many thought would be the next pope after Benedict quit The Chair in 2013.

After Benedict quit, Sarah was sidelined, and Francis was elected under suspicious circumstances - which is why some, if not many, question the legitimacy of his papacy.

Upon his election - in almost Banana Republic style - Francis would be quick to get rid of his most powerful adversaries: the likes of Sarah (who, at the time was Prefect of the very powerful Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and (Cardinal Raymond) Burke (who, at the time was Prefect for the Apostolic Signatura - the "Supreme Court" of the Vatican) from the papal halls of power.

But, as the saying goes, "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature." And, in fact, it's not only "not nice to fool Mother Nature," it's impossible. As the great-late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said: 

"God will forgive, man may forgive, but Nature never forgives." 

In short, and by way of analogy, a habitual drunkard, may, at the end of his life, repent for his drunkenness. And while he may find forgiveness from God and his wife (if he still has one), he will not find forgiveness from Nature. 

It will kill him anyway.

For nearly 70 years, Europe, followed by the rest of The West, has been preaching, teaching, and providing for a chemically, surgically, and mechanically "spaded" population...and mostly limitless access to abortion in case any of that fails. 

Meanwhile, Africans, Muslims, (and in The West) Latin Americans, continue to do what Nature manufactured them to do: reproduce...which is what all of Nature seeks to do unless it is "chemically, surgically, or mechanically" impeded by "bright" human beings. 

Certainly there are the concerns relative to the "quality of life" of those children who make it through the womb. But Nature cares nothing for that. In the end, "quality of life" will find its own measure: there will be no quality of anything if there is not life to work with. 

In the End

In the end, at least for Francis and his Synod, the reality is that the progressives of The West are old and soon to be dead - leaving, via their own decree, a just-as-dead lack of progeny. 

Meanwhile, Africa will rise...and probably already has.

THE SYNOD AND THE FLOOR OF HELL

By Tim Rohr

Well, it appears the Synod on Synodality is over. And while the final session was a monthlong meeting (this month), the whole process took three years and caused a serious ruckus in the Catholic Church (the Church) from all sides. 

However, in the end, at least as the New York Times reports, Francis has "kicked the can down the road."

Note: As this post concerns mostly "Catholic stuff," the full post is continued at my "Catholic blog: "TheMassNeverEnds.com"

FR. SEAMUS O'FLYNN...RIP. PLEASE PRAY FOR ME.

By Tim Rohr

Fr. Seamus O'Flynn. 

Could there ever be a more Irish or Catholic name than "Fr. Seamus O'Flynn?"

Fortunately, for me, and my then-small family, in 1986, there was not. 

Fr. Seamus literally kept me, my young wife, and my then-one year old son, from starving.

If memory serves me, I first met Fr. Seamus on a hot Florida day in August 1986. 

Fr. Seamus was then serving as the administrator of a Catholic high school in St. Augustine, Florida: St. Joseph's Academy. 

I had been hired to teach music at St. Joseph's, not by Fr. Seamus - who was the Administrator, but by the school's principal, whose name I choose not to share for this story. 

Sometime in August of 1986, my wife and I and our young son arrived in St. Augustine after a 3000 mile trip across the states in a 1972 Datsun pickup with a camper shell on the back and a bunch of camping stuff. 

In fact, at the time I first met with Fr. Seamus, my wife, son, and I were "camping out" in a nearby St. Augustine campground - cuz we had no place else to go. And just in case you've never had to camp out in August in Florida - just know it is heat and mosquito hell. 

But we had no choice. 

We were clean out of money and could only afford the $10 a night campground and hoped that the $2 chicken we had bought at the local Publix (grocery story) would keep us alive until my first paycheck. 

Ah, youth...when you don't think you are going to die!

Fortunately - and I don't remember how - I ended up in Fr. Seamus' office for an interview a few days after our landing in St. Augustine. 

I don't know if he liked me or I liked him, but we hit it off immediately. And while I didn't intend to tell him of my financial hardship, one way or another it came out. 

Fr. Seamus took out a $50 from his pocket and handed it to me. Given that I had spent my last $2 on what was left of a chicken at Publix, $50 was a veritable gift from Heaven. What's more, Fr. Seamus saw to it that I got an advance on my first paycheck which allowed us to move into a small apartment - even if we did not have the extra to turn on the power.

(As a BTW, our "small apartment" had to be about 10 miles from town given that "the town" was then still seriously racially segregated - another story.)

With whatever was left, I bought a roll of screen and nailed it over the front and back doors. We were living next to "the woods," and if you know what "the woods" are in Florida in August, you know it's not nice: lots of bugs and critters that crave human flesh. 

I had a phenomenal year at St. Joseph's Academy in St. Augustine, Florida (1986-1987). I was the band teacher, the religion teacher, and the drama teacher with a very successful production of the musical Godspell. And today, some of those same students - and fellow teachers - are still my friends. 

However, sometime in the Spring of 1987, I received a letter from a friend who was a teacher in Guam inviting me to teach at a school named St. John's. 

At the time, I was still sad about leaving the Virgin Islands where I had taught for four years before moving on to St. Augustine. So I said "yes!" I'll do it. 

I still remember the exact scenario when Fr. Seamus learned of my decision to leave St. Joseph's and move to Guam. He came to see me. He said: 

"I would ask you if there is anything I can do to make you stay here with us but I am sensing that your call to Guam is a call from God, so I won't intervene."

Our first years in Guam were their own "hell" - a story I may tell another day, but Guam became our home. 

And 11 kids, and, as of today, 37 years later, I and two of my sons are still here...and probably will be till the end. 

Thank you Fr. Seamus. I am quite sure you are a saint. Please pray for me.