I am not worried about the future of the church, because I believe that the words of our Lord are true and faithful. I have staked my life on his mercy, not his justice. But the consequences for us when we fall from these are a descent into an effete, ineffective stupidity.

This is different from being simple. Many men and women who are simple are honest, loyal, strong, hardworking, frugal: they have many virtues. Intelligence is not how we are judged but instead faithfulness.

At present this stupidity is being shown among the Romans. I’m reformed, and although I have sympathy with those who choose a religious life the monasteries were shut during the reformation and most were told to wed. But now the traditional orders, with a deep respect to the rituals and practices of old, are under the thumb of a profoundly liberal Pope… and he’s looking more stupid by the day.

When it comes to traditionalists in the Church, the hits just keep on coming. We have now the regretful news that the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate will join their brethren in the deepest fog and fire of purgatory.

The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate have suffered under the draconian rule of of their imposed commissioner under the direction of His Eminence João Braz de Aviz Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life for the crime of crypto-lefebvrianism and justified by supposed internal dissent.

I regret to hear the news that that Cardinal Braz de Aviz has now placed under visitation the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate. Although, with no clear signs of internal dissent, one can assume that merely crypto-lefebvrianism is again the grounds for indictment.

I have detailed the disproportionate and draconian penalties imposed on the friars, so I will not detail them again.

I have suspected for some time that at the root of this ecclesiastical McCarthyism lies the deep suspicion of the Congregation that in the heart of every traditionalist lies a schismatic in pretend communion. I think this is amply demonstrated by Commissioner Fr. Volpi’s public letter in which he described the reason for the visitation as a “crypto-lefebvrian and definitely traditionalist drift.”

So sure are the Order’s inquisitors of the schism in the hearts of traditionalists that any measure, no matter how disproportionate, that might drive these hidden schismatics into the open is justified.

So it is that I have suspected that the penalties imposed on the FFI are designed to do exactly that, to drive some portion of the FI, no matter how small, into the arms of the SSPX so that their suspicions and actions will seem justified. See!! We told you so!! I see now that Roberto de Mattei has the same suspicion.

So far, the FI have thwarted these plans by remaining faithful and obedient, which I suppose shows how nefarious is their crypto intent. Word came this past week that some significant portion of the Friars have petitioned Rome to be released from their pontifical vows and to be placed under diocesan bishops. Dang it, why won’t these schismatics just schism already?

Twits. I don’t understand (perhaps because I am Protestant) why this is. We went through all this when the liberals tried to reform us. It did not work. What happens now in most churches — mine included — is that there is a formal service and a less formal service. In my church, the formal service is less seasonal and liturgical that the informal one: we may not use the organ and have a music group, but we use a lot of ancient prayers from the old Scots Kirk. My Anglican friends can still use the Book of Common Prayer — which I think would give the current Pope hives, because not only is the gospel shown in the liturgy but also the language is beautiful, and he’s tending towards the modern, the brutal, and the ephemeral.

Moses taught on the consequences of Apostasy, and we would do well to read these words. Including the ones about cannibalism as a sign that our society is damned. As if being besieges and starving did not tell you this. .

LEVITICUS 26:27-42

²⁷But if, despite this, you disobey me, and continue hostile to me, ²⁸I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins. ²⁹You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. ³⁰I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you. ³¹I will lay your cities waste, will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing odors. ³²I will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to settle in it shall be appalled at it. ³³And you I will scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword against you; your land shall be a desolation, and your cities a waste.

³⁴Then the land shall enjoy its sabbath years as long as it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its sabbath years. ³⁵As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it.³⁶And as for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one pursues. ³⁷They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies. ³⁸You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you. ³⁹And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities; also they shall languish because of the iniquities of their ancestors.

⁴⁰But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors, in that they committed treachery against me and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me – ⁴¹so that I, in turn, continued hostile to them and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, ⁴²then will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

Locally, we are seeing this in the secular realm. A left and racialist party (Mana) which combines socialist with race hucksters, has merged with the internet party, founded by Kim Dot Com (in part so that he can remain in NZ and have control). Kim is a bit like red bull: he does not sponsor things, he owns them.

Sue Bradford has decided to quit Mana in response to the party’s alliance with Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party.
She sent a letter of resignation to the leadership late this morning, effective immediately, saying she had lost enthusiasm for Mana and “sucking up to a German millionaire” was not her vision for the party.
“My overwhelming emotion today is sadness,” she told 3 News.
“Kim Dotcom is a gamer and it’s a big game that he’s playing, and I don’t want to become his pawn.”
Ms Bradford’s resignation means this will be the first general election in 15 years the former Green Party MP will not stand as a candidate. But she admits the alliance, known as Internet Mana, may be more attractive to others with political ambitions.
“Some people will probably lose heart and drift away, but some people will probably join because they will be excited,” says Ms Bradford
“I think it’s a big mistake that a party that prided themselves on having the least becoming part of the same party as an internet mogul.”
She plans to stay involved in politics, primarily with Auckland Action Against Poverty.
Ms Bradford’s departure is unlikely to come as a surprise, as she had previously expressed unease with the deal when it was first mooted earlier this year.
“I find it incredible that a party with the kaupapa Mana has, should be considering going into an alliance with Kim Dotcom – a man who tried to buy off the right and failed and now he seems to have turned to the left to buy the left off,” she said in March, referring to Dotcom’s donation to ACT MP John Banks’ 2010 mayoralty campaign.

I do not like Sue Bradford. She’s of the hard left: but at least she is prepared to stand by her principles, and most of the commentators on the biggest right wing blog were saying the same thing yesterday. Sue may be mistaken, but she’s not corrupt.

But this party of the left has been bought. and this is stupid.

If you follow mistaken policies you will have to deal with the consequences. A current example is the USA Federales, and this is from the Woodpile report.

The economy has failed. We’re insolvent and well into the maneuvering phase. It’s both different and the same as “the” Depression. In the 1930s, bank runs happened on the streets, this time they happened on the upper floors of financial institutions, although at the start there was a parallel run on ATMs. By all accounts it was a bloodbath. By all accounts the Federal Reserve was more helpful than their charter, or even simple ethics, allowed. Meanwhile, our creditors see us paying debt with more debt and getting close to where we can’t even meet the carrying charges and interest. And worse, we’re spiraling into a black hole of prior commitments that couldn’t be met by a galaxy of tax-paying planets. Anybody solvent is tip-toeing away, the rest are going Galt or long torches and pitchforks.

It doesn’t take esoteric lingo and arcane math to show the problem. Fourth-grade arithmetic will do. We spend more than we take in on the theory that “deficits don’t matter”. Our debt is now bigger than our income. We’re borrowing to pay our debt. Our debt can’t help do anything but deepen. Our income is shrinking. Our creditors aren’t answering the phone. The workers who still have a phone are busy networking in the underground economy. Worse, obligations are coming due that we can’t possibly pay even if we had no debt at all art-link-symbol-tiny-grey-arrow-only-rev01.gif. Put numbers to these things and you have it.

But all debts must be paid. All debts are paid. There’s no such thing as an unpaid debt. If a debtor doesn’t repay a loan, it’s the creditor who’s paid it. Don’t be misled by the complexity of the financial plumbing, our debt will be paid by somebody. That’s what the maneuvering is all about. The collapse foreseen by anxiety-ridden doomers has already happened, financial Armageddon is behind us, only the details of realization remain. Meaning who takes the bullet and who walks away whole. Always a messy and contentious procedure, this time everybody with an IQ above room temperature knows it’s coming.

Security is already walking to the gate, padlock in hand. One way or another, ready or not, this thing is going down. Then the curtain goes up on maneuvering of a different kind.

Now, we can argue over gay rights. We can argue of correct speech. We can argue over what this star wears or does not wear, or this movie or that TV show. We can and should argue about people being punished for saying facts.

But we need to look seriously at these passages. We have turned towards the siren song of tolerance and we are afraid to say what is true, but ugly. We are afraid to say that there are consequences for actions, and we may be saved and we may be, by the grace of God, to rise above the circumstances, but the debts need to be paid, the psychic scars remain, and the diseases we contracted are still with us, be they Type II Diabetes from gluttony, COPD from smoking, or Herpes Type II from Sluttery.

And if we turn from duty and the truth we end up not with the pagan virtues but with cowards. Jellyfish. Waiting for those we delegated to do what is our duty, with one hand tied behind their backs.

And that is truly stupid.
_______________________
(Kim Dot com is not Red Bull: Kim is losing court cases at present in NZ and his wife has just left him.
Red Bull does buy events and teams and they do this deliberately. They own promotions: they own or buy teams, and now make as much money from the teams promoting their brand of stimulants as they do from selling the silver cans).