Saturday, April 23, 2016

PASSING 10,000 TODAY


9 comments:

  1. Let's hope that some of these views are from people who want to educate themselves about the crisis in our church and can finally understand the damage that's been caused by the NCW.

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    1. If I may, I would like to change the narrative. The damage was not caused by the NCW, but by Archbishop Apuron to whom authority over the NCW was given per its Statute. The damage is Apuron, Apuron, Apuron.

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  2. Apuron takes direction from the NCW leadership, so they're still part of the problem. However, I don't think all the blame can be put on Apuron's shoulders. Look at Pius, Edivaldo, Camacho, Cristobal, Quitugua... and the list goes on. Look at what the "responsibles" have done. I can personally attest to the fact that some of these "responsbiles" have lied to achieve their own agenda. Collectively, the NCW, and more specifically the NCW leadership, has done MUCH damage to our church.

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    1. True Becky, you are right.
      I guess what Tim is putting forward, is that if it had not been for Tony and his sinful ways, the NCW would have never gained a foothold on this island.
      Even after they did, he had the option to come clean, apologize to his victims and the Catholic Community at large.

      Do the right thing, face the consequences of his actions and confess in front of God, to ensure himself a place a the right hand of the father.
      Hell that option is still here.

      But Tony, chose to hide, to run away, to facilitate and abet the take over by the NCW.
      Without Tony, they could have never succeeded.

      His sins, his failure to face the music, his cowardice afterward are all at the core of the issues of this Archdiocese, including but not exclusively limited to the NCW misdeeds.

      Of course that does not temper in any way the sins of the NCW and their crooked leaders, but without the Archbishop, they would never have been able to reach this level.

      I hope you understand my meaning, I do not wish to offend you in any way.
      God Bless you for all you do.

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    2. Not offended. I know what point Tim and you were trying to make. Ultimately, Apuron is responsible for all these misdeeds because as the spiritual leader of our church, he has it within his power to put an end to it all. I just wanted to point out that the others are just as culpable.

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    3. Thanks, Becky. Please don't take the following personally. Your thoughts moved me to expound on a problem that I have expounded on several times on this blog.

      ****

      Actually, this is an opportunity to review what I have said several times on this blog: that the NCW is NOT the problem. The problem is what let the NCW root itself in the first place. This is why I get frightened when I hear people say they want their Church back or they just want the NCW out or even they just want Apuron to go.

      Five years before the NCW set foot on this island the Church we say we “want back” was permitting as many as 600 abortions per year or 20% of pregnancies (Sen. Elizabeth Arriola on the Floor of the Legislature, 1990, quoted in Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology, pg. 372). We would learn later that an average of 2/3 of those abortions were of Chamorro babies.

      In 1984, the year Apuron was made a bishop, it was noted in the Journal of Biosocial Science (16:231-239 Cambridge University Press) that Guam’s birth rate was in steep decline because of “the defection of Guam Roman Catholic women from the traditional teaching of their Church on the subject of birth control.”

      And then there’s the fact that Guam had (or has):

      the highest divorce rate in the world (4.7 divorces per 1000 population, 2010 Guam Statistical Yearbook vs Russia 4.5 per 1000, 2011 United Nations Demographic Yearbook)

      the 14th highest suicide rate in the world and a rate 1.2 times the national average (2011 World Health Organization and A Profile of Suicide on Guam, September 2011)

      a 20% higher out of wedlock birth rate (60%) compared to the rest of the nation (40.8%, CDC 2010) Note: Guam stopped reporting “illegitimate” births in 2005. 60% is based on the average between 2000 and 2005).

      double the teen birthrate compared to the rest of the nation (Guam PDN, 6/25/13)

      a rape rate (94.4 per 100,000 (2011 Yearbook: 151 reported rapes) which is nearly triple the national average of 29.8. (U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012, Table 314)

      a child abuse rate double the national average (Guam child maltreatment rate of 76.81 per 1000 children based on 2012 CPS report and 2010 census vs 41.2 per 1000 children national average as per Table 3-2, Child Maltreatment 2011, Children’s Bureau, U.S. DPHHS)

      Because “as the Church goes so goes the world,” we cannot blame anything or anyone but ourselves. This is TRUE because there is no other entity on earth which has been given all the grace and power to bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth other than the Church Christ established. We have all that is needed.

      Church leaders are fond of blaming secularization, technology, television…whatever is handy, but this is a cop out of the worst degree. We now know that we ourselves were permitting what Pope Benedict called “the filth in the Church” long before there was “filth” on TV.

      (continued)

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    4. (continued from above)

      Likewise, we have been permitting liturgical abuses not far removed from the NCW practices. How is it that our “guitar” masses are all that different from the NCW’s flea market liturgies? How is that receiving communion in the hand while standing (an indult at best) is all that different from the way the Kiko’s receive theirs (in the hand while standing)? How is that Catholics who attend Saturday night Mass exclusively (also an indult) are all that different from the Saturday night only Kiko liturgy?

      So you’re right. It’s not just Apuron’s fault. It’s ours. We ignored the liturgical directives (or more probably, never bothered to learn them - directives that still require Latin as the primary liturgical language and Gregorian Chant as the form of liturgical music that has “pride of place.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium). We looked the other way at rape, incest, abortion, divorce, child abuse. We chose not to report the rape of our children (even by some clergy) because we were afraid or ashamed.

      Someone earlier mentioned the destruction of the sanctuary at St. Jude’s, turning it into about as close to a Kiko “worship space” as you can get in a church with a traditional design. This wasn’t done by the Kiko’s, nor was the “church in the round” that is Santa Barbara and which closely resembles Kiko’s “worship space” at his Domus Galileae, but preceded it by 30 years.

      Kiko’s “worship spaces” have no tabernacles where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and many of ours don’t either (though I am glad to see that some are being restored). And even where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the main body of the church, hardly anyone acknowledges the Real Presence with a genuflection. Just watch next time you go to Mass.

      And I haven’t even touched on the mass exodus of Catholics from Mass and the Sacraments that was already a fixed reality in our Church before Pius the Putrid showed up. In fact, what attracted Pius the Putrid (other than a severely compromised bishop who he could control) was a church that was already rotting from within. The Kikos are attracted to dying churches because they are easy pickings, and so we were, starting with a group of soul-less clergy.

      So let’s hope. Let’s hope because we can. And we can (hope) because we have the promise of Jesus Christ that he will be with us till the end of time. He is there, but we must return to him. We must return to him through the Sacraments (particularly confession), through RIGHT WORSHIP where Christ is the CENTER and not “the community,” through new habits that are ancient: Sunday morning worship (expect when impossible which is why the Saturday night Mass was permitted in the first place), and communion kneeling and on the tongue (which is still the universal norm of the Church, and for good reason), through taking control of the salvation of our own children instead of dumping them off at some program, through personal holiness and prayer, through a rejection of artificial contraception, adulterous unions (aka “irregular marriages”), and the sex saturation of our children via the media we permit into our homes.

      I wonder if anyone has ever given any thought that Apuron and the Kikos are simply a modern day version of the curse of evil leadership and exile God would permit as judgement upon the ancient Israelites when they wandered from Him?

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  3. These are all things that I've heard you say before. I have to admit, when I first heard you say (years ago) that it's our fault that all these things have been allowed to happen, I disagreed with you. But you planted that seed of thought that was filed in the back of my mind. Since then, I've noticed multiple instances of what we've done as a church when we don't follow what's liturgically correct.

    When I see the comments from some people, it's glaringly apparent that they've fallen so far from the faith. There is much apathy, ignorance, and naiveté out there. So I tell them to educate themselves which is why I'm hopeful for the increased numbers on your blog.

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    1. Thank you, Becky. But of course none of this is my opinion. The facts are demonstrable, and we have only to look to the Bible to see what happens to God's people when they fall away from right worship. The apathy, ignorance, and naivete "out there", as you say, is a direct result of turning the liturgy into a celebration of self.

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