Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
'SPIRIT OF ANTI-CHRIST' IS BEST DEFINED NOT AS SECULAR SPIRIT BUT ONE FULL OF HATRED
From SpiritDaily.com
We are out of balance when we focus too much on evil, at the same time that we are in peril when we ignore it.
There is but one recourse: the Holy Spirit.
At Christmastime, we think (or should think) of Christ; in our time we are also forced to ponder the opposite spirit (for the spirit of anti-christ is rising).
Just what is the "spirit of anti-christ"? How, in our special times, is it manifesting? How do we detect it?
More than anything, the spirit of anti-christ is in those who show direct vitriol toward religion and specifically Catholicism and Christianity. Simply put, it is truculence aimed directly at Jesus.
Day after day, this time of year -- as a new "tradition" -- there are stories about the Infant kidnapped from a Nativity here, or a Nativity disallowed there, or a statue of Jesus found hanging. There are the anti-Catholic jokes. There is the bias. There are universities where they won't even allow Santa! The spirit of anti-christ is the spirit of militant secular humanism, and finds its extreme in satanism.
Anti-christ is most manifest in atheism but is not confined to non-believers. Those of religious faith who bristle at the mention of Christ are obviously of this spirit -- or at least influenced by it. Direct animosity toward Christians (as seen currently and urgently in India) is what would balloon into a challenge unlike any seen since the early-century martyrs.
It is one thing to see the rise of homosexual rights; it is another to watch gay demonstrators with signs that display stark anti-Christian hatred.
That spirit extends across sexual, economic, and cultural boundaries.
In Mexico, Playboy magazine came out with a cover depicting a nude model but for a Virgin-like veil (on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which of course is centered in Mexico). That is the spirit of anti-christ because it went beyond the prurient and into the realm of the blasphemous, which spells hatred. Anti-christ is the spirit of lust where Christianity is the spirit of love. Catholics are disdained by certain writers in magazines like Time while a hard-core pornographer is exalted as a nice old man when he dies. The spirit of anti-christ reverses everything, so that good is evil and evil is good. It spells the word "live" backwards.
"Want proof that hate is driving this assault?" asks a group that fights Catholic bigotry. "The head of the ACLU in New Hampshire, Claire Ebel, advises that if crèches are allowed in parks, it is permissible 'for a display of satanic ritual.' And this hatred of Christmas is not exclusive to the U.S. In England, Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary called Christmas 'evil' in a recent sermon. No wonder they are banning words like 'bishop,' 'chapel,' 'monk' and 'nun' from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. And all of this is being endorsed, if not promoted, by self-hating Christians."
Scientists in America and politicians in the new, unified Europe, especially, are hankering for the day when they will be able to exert a coordinated purge of Jesus. They are refashioning nature. They are redefining spirit. The confessional has been replaced by the couch of the psychiatrist. At the same time, there is an unprecedented eruption of those claiming to see peculiar images of Jesus.
Is Heaven countering the attempt to purge Him? Is it hinting at a coming large manifestation? "An unusual phenomenon occurred at my kitchen sink," wrote Antoinette Santangelo of Cedar Knoll, New Jersey. "On this day, before I left my house at one o'clock in the afternoon, I filled my one-year-old grandson's bottle with milk at the sink. I rushed out without noticing that I had dropped a 'clump of milk' on the ledge of the front of the sink, discovering it only upon my return four hours later. Since I had left a pot in the sink, I set out to wash it; however, before I could do so, I felt a strong force pushing me back from the sink. I wondered why this was so strong. After the strong force subsided, I attempted to wash the pot.
"It was then that I noticed the small drop of milk on the front of the sink. Upon closer examination, I was filled with emotion to see the suffering Face of Jesus on this drop of milk. [The next morning] after Mass I showed my father the picture and he immediately saw the image of Jesus' Face clearly and asked if he could follow me home so he could see the sink and picture in the drop of milk. He found it incredible and believed when he saw was truly the face of Jesus."
It is difficult to discern: are these reports -- so numerous -- pareidolia (the imagining of images into natural, coincidental formations), some other type of deception, or signs from Heaven to offset the attempts at stripping Christian supernaturality from the public square? Why does it happen so often -- with the same frequency as statue beheadings, Nativity controversies, and satanic graffiti?
It is a question this hour -- this late hour, at this late time of the year. "Earlier today, a bus taking members of a heavy-metal band, the Red Shore, veered off the Pacific Highway north of Sydney," wrote a viewer at this time precisely a year ago. "The bus rolled several times and slammed into a tree, killing the lead vocalist and one of the road crew. They were on their way to a performance at Sydney University in a double-header with a U.S. 'death-metal' outfit call 'All Shall Perish.' They had called their tour, 'Christmas Carnage.'
"Sadly, this title has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy."
Coincidence speaks to us. It heralds. It tries to warn. In the quiet of night, in the silence, we take it to the Infant.
Pope's Christmas Greeting Says We Must "Protect the Human Being against Self-Destruction" of Sexual Aberration
By John-Henry Westen
VATICAN CITY, December 22, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During his exchange of Christmas greetings with the Roman Curia this morning, Pope Benedict XVI noted that the Church "cannot and should not limit herself to transmitting just the message of salvation to her faithful." It must also he said "protect the human being against self-destruction" - a destruction which comes from a warped understanding of marriage and human sexuality.
"It is necessary to have something like an ecology of the human being, understood in the proper manner," said the Pope. "It is not a surpassed metaphysics when Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected."
Unless we "listen to the language of creation" he said, we end up with "destruction of the work of God." The Pope suggested that the gender ideology which seeks to redefine the sexes to allow for homosexuality, transgenderism and such things are examples of mankind separating himself "from creation and the Creator." With such attempts to decide for himself, mankind "lives against the truth and the Spirit of the Creator."
Appealing to concern for the environment to heighten awareness of the gravity of the matter, Pope Benedict said, "Yes, the tropical rainforests deserve our protection, but man, as a creature is no less deserving" of protection. Rather than a limit of our freedom, the Pope emphasized that it was a condition of that freedom.
Quoting great theologians of the past, the Pope called marriage "between one man and one woman for life" the "sacrament of creation" and urged his listeners to reread the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. It was the intention of its author Pope Paul VI, he said, to defend against treating sexual love as a commodity.
At the conclusion of his address, the Pope returned to the theme of being in harmony with creation and the Creator. "The Holy Spirit grants us joy," he said, "This joy is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with oneself, which is only possible if one is in harmony with God and His creation".
Note: There aren't words suitable for the disgust and disappointment that this continues year after year. One has to wonder if the movie reviews are written on behalf of the bishops or for their entertainment. If homosexuality is of no moral concern to the bishops, we probably need new bishops to shepherd the Catholic flock. Movie Reviewer for Catholic Bishops' Conference Praises Homosexualist Film - Again Despite movie's scenes of males kissing each other, nudity, and promotion of gay "lifestyle", movie not rated "Morally Offensive"
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman WASHINGTON, D.C., December 2, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Harry Forbes, the head movie and television reviewer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has issued a review praising the movie "Milk." (See text of the review at http://www.usccb.org/movies/m/milk.shtml)
The movie, which exalts the first openly homosexual man elected to public office in U.S. history, Harvey Milk, contains scenes of "male kissing and nongraphic encounters, rear male nudity, murder, suicide, and some rough language, crude expressions and profanity" by Forbes' own admission.
Despite such material, and despite the movie's blatant glorification of the homosexual rights agenda, it is not rated "Morally Offensive" (O), but only receives a rating of "L", for "Limited Adult Audience." Furthermore, in his review Forbes in no way objects to or cautions viewers about the content of the film, instead offering nothing but words of praise.
Harvey Milk, a homosexual rights activist who ran a camera shop with his male lover in San Francisco's Castro District, was elected to San Francisco's city council as a supervisor in 1977. He was assassinated shortly thereafter, along with the city's mayor, by another supervisor who was enraged that several supervisors were blocking his reappointment by the mayor. The murders had no apparent relationship with Milk's homosexual proclivities.
Milk soon became a folk hero among the Castro District's growing population of sodomites and a symbol of San Francisco’s successful homosexualist movement. A little over thirty years later, San Francisco is the scene of public nudity and sex acts in the open air during its annual "gay pride" parade, one of the largest such parades in the world.
Forbes, who heads the USCCB's Office for Film and Broadcasting, calls the movie "a solid biographical drama about San Francisco supervisor and gay rights activist Harvey Milk." He also speaks approvingly of the movie's strong emphasis on the Catholic faith of Milk's assassin, Dan White. "Penn is especially fine, and Brolin is scarily intense as the Catholic White. (We're shown a lengthy baptism of White's baby, with Milk ironically the only invited outsider.)," writes Forbes.
Forbes has written other reviews praising films that promote and glorify homosexual behavior and attack the Catholic faith, including "Brokeback Mountain," which is about a sodomite relationship between two cowboys, and "The Golden Compass," which is atheistic and vilifies Christianity.
The official website of the USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting (http://www.usccb.org/movies/current.shtml) contains numerous reviews praising movies that portray sexual immorality, nudity, and dirty jokes, and rarely deems such films "Morally Offensive" or cautions viewers about the content.
Despite repeated protests from Catholic laity, the USCCB continues to allow Forbes to write reviews on the organization's behalf.
In a written statement to LifeSiteNews, Human Life International President Fr. Thomas Euteneuer angrily denounced Forbes' latest pro-homosexualist review.
"Moral outrage is the only response to someone like Harry Forbes who consistently trashes Catholic values in his movie reviews and gets away with it," wrote Euteneuer. "We are accustomed to pagans celebrating their values and letting lots of immorality slide with a wink and a nod, but when the official movie reviewer for the US Catholic Bishops Conference does it time and time again with no consequences, we have no credible moral compass with which to evaluate the content of movies any more."
"In his recent review of the homosexual promo flick, Milk, Forbes seems to think that 'male kissing…rear male nudity, murder, suicide, some rough language, crude expressions and profanity' merit something less than total condemnation from our Catholic point of view. Let’s face it: Forbes is simply an icon of the false Catholics in America who are accelerating the degradation of our civilization because they refuse to be 'salt and light' to preserve us from this very same darkness."
Contact Information:
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 3211 4th Street, N.E. Washington DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3000
Cardinal Francis George, President of the USCCB Archdiocese of Chicago 155 East Superior Street Chicago, Illinois, 60611 312-751-5382 Fax: 312-751-5381
USCCB Office for Film and Broadcasting 1011 First Avenue, 13th Floor New York, NY 10022 (212) 644-1880
December 1, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - I couldn't believe the e-mail that I recently received from a pro-life friend living in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She told me about a letter written by a nun to the archdiocese.
My friend told me she was "disturbed" to read this letter. She said, "I cannot fathom how a religious sister could not only advocate abortion, but also place her pathetic, misguided ideas into print! What a disgrace! And why would our archdiocesan newspaper even print such garbage?" The Milwaukee archdiocese published this letter in its newspaper, The Catholic Herald http://www.chnonline.org/:
"GOD IS PRO-CHOICE
"Even though Catholic bishops are already pressing President-elect Barack Obama on the issue of abortion, it is time they begin to realize that 54% of Catholics who voted for him do not agree with the bishops telling people how to vote.
"Obama may be pro-choice, but so is God. God gave everyone a free will and he does not pressure people into using that free will to do what is right. Obama promised to do what he can to prevent abortion. What more need he do when so many other pressures to make changes are upon him?
"Yes, abortion is the killing of an innocent life. So is war and violent killing on the street. I have often seen many starving babies in hospitals in Honduras and witnessed their pain. In these cases, abortion might have been the lesser of two evils, and even the most merciful alternative.
"I challenge our bishops to dwell more on unjust economic issues that both create and perpetuate the need for children to die of starvation, and for women to choose abortion. It would be better to aim at eliminating poverty rather than focus only on abortion. Poverty in our country and the world at large is a disgrace that cries to heaven for vengeance.
"Sr. Arlene Welding, SSSF; Campellsport, WI"
Well, I am as upset by this as anyone who reads it should be, and, on several levels, it contributes to the ongoing confusion that reigns within Catholic circles across this nation. The first and perhaps most obvious problem with this nun's letter is that she is clearly not only pro-abortion but feels fine attributing her views to God, the Author of Life!
To suggest to the readers of a Catholic newspaper that the Catholic bishops are out of line for standing up for the innocent preborn child is ludicrous. But it certainly is not as ludicrous as her comments about the number of Catholics who voted for Barack Obama, as opposed to the opinions bishops might have on the direct murder of preborn children by abortion!
To equate the direct murder of a preborn baby with the "lesser of two evils," thus suggesting that some preborn children would be better off dead than to have to be born into poverty, is about as misguided and ill-conceived a notion as I have ever seen in print. It tops many of the comments I have seen from pro-abortion leaders.
It is astounding to me that a Catholic newspaper would print such garbage and expect silence from all those in the Catholic community who know the truth, defend the truth, and expect to read the truth in a newspaper labeled Catholic! So here is an assignment for you.
First: contact Sister Arlene Welding's religious congregation and demand an apology from them for her public dissent from the truth of Catholic magisterial teaching.
School Sisters of St. Francis http://www.sssf.org/ Central Offices of the U.S. Province 1501 S. Layton Boulevard Milwaukee, WI 53215
You can also e-mail, though I think letters are best.
The e-mail address is generalate@sssf.org. The phone number is (414) 384-4105
Second, please contact the Executive Editor/General Manager of the archdiocesan newspaper and let him know how shocked you were to read this screed in his newspaper.
Brian T. Olszewski The Catholic Herald 3501 S. Lake Dr. Milwaukee, WI 53235-0913 The phone number is (414) 769-3466 Mr. Olszewski's e-mail address is olszewskib@archmil.org.
Finally, it would be a very good idea to send copies of your e-mails and/or your letters to the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, whom I honestly believe would be as shocked as you and I about what was published in his newspaper.
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan 3501 S. Lake Dr. P.O. Box 070912 Milwaukee, WI 53207-0912 Phone: (414) 769-3497 Email: archbishopdolan@archmil.org
May you find peace of mind and joy of soul by writing your messages, and feel comfort in knowing that no matter how clearly wrong some things are, even when labeled Catholic, they are all a part of living in a world steeped in the culture of death. Be of good heart, for we are assured of God's love, regardless of the muck in our midst.
