OFFICIAL: Communion On Tongue Cannot Be Denied Because Of Swine Flu

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It's official. The H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus is no excuse for denying a faithful Catholic communion on the tongue. So all of these parishes and diocese that have attempted to do that are now in violation of canon law, and are in direct opposition to the Vatican. The final statements of the letter indicate the Vatican will take corrective measures with any priest or bishop who denies communion on the tongue for this reason.

If you should find yourself in a parish, where people are being denied communion on the tongue because of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) outbreak, click on the image of the letter above, print out a copy, and share it with you pastor immediately. That should be enough. However, if the matter is not quickly resolved, write a letter explaining the problem to your local bishop and CC the Vatican.

Top Catholic Cardinal Says 'No Way' To Senate Healthcare Bill

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It's a mortal sin to vote for this bill as is. The provisions for public funding of abortion and euthanasia must be removed. If any Catholic politician votes for this bill as it is, with public funding for abortion and euthanasia intact, that politician can expect disciplinary action from the Catholic Church which may include formal excommunication at the discretion of the bishop.

Let me say just two things about this.

First and foremost, it is well within the rights of ANY church, mosque or synagogue (not only the Catholic Church) to discipline its own members according to the teachings of that religious institution. In Christianity this is specifically outlined as a process involving private rebuke, exhortation and if necessary interdiction, followed by excommunication. The Catholic Church in particular safeguards the rights of it's members by permitting tribunals in which those excommunicated persons may appeal the decision of the local bishop in ecclesiastical courts going all the way up to the Vatican supreme court known as the Apostolic Signatura. So Catholic bishops are usually very reluctant to excommunicate unless they know they've got a watertight case that will withstand the appeals process. In the case of most pro-choice U.S. Catholic politicians that watertight case has already been made, as many of them are already forbidden to receive communion, yet the bishops withhold formal excommunication for now.

Sadly, there is a foolish notion in America today, promoted by many on the Left side of the political spectrum, which asserts that religious institutions (the Catholic Church in particular) have no right to discipline politicians because of the supposed "separation of church and state." They assert that because the Church is disciplining it's members in Congress, it is effectively meddling in politics. Some of these people even go so far as to suggest the Catholic Church ought to be legally punished for it's supposed "political meddling" by revoking it's tax exemption. The late Senator Ted Kennedy not only suggested it, but actually threatened it at various points during his political career. Other politicians, and members of the media elite, continue to do the same today. Such threats demonstrate a profound ignorance not only of religious procedure, but also civil rights and how the Constitution of the United States is supposed to work.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

- Article I, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution

A careful examination of this text plainly states that "congress shall pass no law." Notice it doesn't say "the church shall take no action." Clearly the prohibition is placed on government, not religious institutions. It is the government that is restrained, not the church. Basically according to this document, which is the supreme law of the land, the Church (any church or religious institution) can do whatever the hell it wants, but the government cannot create laws that restrict the activity of religious institutions. So according to the U.S. Constitution anyway, the Catholic Church can threaten to excommunicate every Catholic politician in congress, for whatever reason, and actually do it, while the congress is powerless to do anything about it. That deceased blowhard Ted Kennedy, and all his windbag relatives, can shout and threaten all they want, because in the end, that's all the power they really have.

Now the second thing I want to say is this. The U.S. Catholic Church IS engaging in some politics here. As I stated above, it is well within it's rights to do so, and this is true with any religious institution. However, it's not what most people think. The Church is not using disciplinary action as a threat to influence the outcome of congressional legislation, rather the Church is withholding disciplinary action as an incentive to influence the outcome of congressional legislation. It's the classic case of "good-cop verses bad-cop." You see the U.S. Catholic bishops (playing the role of "good-cop") are intentionally NOT complying with the directives of Rome (playing the role of "bad-cop"). For Rome has made it explicitly clear that Catholic politicians who support abortion are to be subject to interdict at the very least, and in most cases formally excommunicated. Yet the U.S. Catholic bishops (i.e. "good-cop") have been slow to implement this mandate, and that is specifically to give Catholic politicians a chance to redeem themselves. This particular health care legislation is one such example. If their strategy works, and the legislation is either amended to eliminate abortion and euthanasia, or the legislation goes down entirely, then the U.S. Catholic bishops ("good-cop") might be able to hold back the heavy hand of Rome ("bad-cop") a little longer, thus saving U.S. Catholic politicians the embarrassing scandal of formal and public excommunications. Is this playing politics? Well, yes it is, but it's nothing new. The Catholic Church has been using the EXACT SAME strategy on communist nations for decades. It was specifically used to manipulate authorities within the Soviet Union to allow for more religious freedom. The shocking revelation that the Church is now employing this exact same strategy against the United States Congress says a lot about how the Vatican views our current political alignment.

After all is said and done however, this isn't really politics as you know it. You see the Catholic Church stands nothing to gain, politically speaking, from getting congress to drop abortion and euthanasia from healthcare reform. If anything, the Church only stands to incur the wrath of liberal politicians and media elitists if they should happen to succeed. The Church knows this. Furthermore, Catholic hospitals stand to lose a ton of money on federal reimbursements they'll probably never receive from any government healthcare program on births that would have been prevented by abortions had the government been allowed to fund them. So Catholic hospitals have nothing to gain from this either. The Church knows this. No, this is not politics as you know it. It is a kind of politics completely foreign to the American way. It is politics based on a truly altruistic morality that is designed to protect the well being of the helpless. The Church is fulfilling it's mandate to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and because of this it engages in a type of politics Americans simply don't understand, and many hate with every fiber of their being. It doesn't make any sense to them you see, because it's not the American way, as it's something that can neither be bought nor paid off. How do you bribe a political-religious entity that simply will not compromise, even to it's own detriment?

GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD !!!

Saint Albert Gore
Patron of Green Fraud and Scientific Deception
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: You can't say I didn't warn you....

(Telegraph) - If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause....

read full story here

Yes "The Catholic Knight" tired to warn you. Here are some examples...

• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2008/05/environmentalists-advocate-genocide.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2008/04/global-warming-is-lie-latest-science.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2007/12/pope-condemns-al-gore.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2007/06/fred-thompson-on-global-warming.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2007/03/tribute-to-al-gore-global-warming.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2007/03/nasa-exposes-global-warming-crock.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2007/02/president-of-czech-republic-calls.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2006/12/why-global-warming-is-good.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2006/12/science-discovers-real-cause-of-global.html
• http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2006/01/save-earth-kill-plant.html

Those of us who have at least a novice understanding of science already knew this. We've been sounding the alarm for nearly a decade now. Man-made global warming is a FRAUD! If you've bought into it, you've been had, hoodwinked and suckered! Now how much money did they get out of you?

You shouldn't feel too bad though. You're in good company. These man-made, global-warming, "climate change" charlatans bamboozled princes and kings, presidents and prime ministers, senators and congressman, pastors and prelates. Yes they got the cream of the crop, while simultaneously netting the masses, pulling in billions of dollars for their "cause" while getting the world's leaders to adopt policies and sign treaties that restricted free enterprise and taxed the little guy. It helped to keep the third-world in poverty by getting the industrialized world to look for "alternative energy." Yes, citizens of the world, you've been hoodwinked. We tried to warn you. Some of you listened, but most of you would not. Now thanks to these global-warming, environmentalist Cretans a black stain has soiled the reputation of modern science. It was the biggest fraud in the history of the world! How can the people of earth ever trust the so-called "experts" again? Why should they? Why would they let themselves be taken for fools twice?

Yes, the earth did warm for a time. What the global-warming "climate change" charlatans failed to point out is that Mars and Venus were warming too, along with Jupiter and Saturn. Now last time I checked, we didn't export any gas guzzling SUVs to those celestial bodies. Could it be that the one thing they all had in common was simultaneously the same thing that was warming them? What is this mysterious common thing? Could it be the sun? Ah yes, as many good scientists pointed out, and continuously tried to warn us against the so-called "experts," was that global-warming climate change was universal throughout our solar system, that is was caused by the unusually high sunspot cycle, and there was nothing man could have done to increase it or reduce it. It's a natural phenomenon, it's happened before, and it will happen again. These same good scientists warned us against the so-called "experts" and the politicians who capitalized on their prophecies of man-made impending doom. The world has actually been cooling since 2005, but this information was suppressed by the so-called "experts" who told us they knew best. Yes, the earth has been cooling for four years now, along with Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, because the sun has just gone through it's low point in it's sunspot cycle, and we can expect the world to continue cooling for another couple years at least, before it begins warming again as the sun reaches the high point of it's sunspot cycle. That is, assuming the sun behaves in it's normal predictable way. However, history tells us that sometimes the sun has a mind of it's own, altering it's sunspot cycle for unknown reasons, and this radically effects the climate on Earth, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Of course it is only the Earth's climate that we all notice.

This is not to say that the industrialized world should not innovate to create alternative forms of energy, if anything it should for political and pollution reasons. Nobody likes smog, and the western world is way too dependent on foreign oil. Of course, the third-world needs oil, if it's ever going to rise from it's poverty stricken state, and enter the industrialized world, which it must do before it can afford to pursue methods of alternative energy. However, what this scandal reveals to us is that we are not in crisis mode. There is no crisis. The earth warms and cools based primarily on solar cycles beyond our control. These ridiculous environmental treaties and taxes are a fraud. They're designed to sucker the industrialized nations into a Marxist agenda while simultaneously fleecing them of billions of dollars - taxed via your hard earned wages that is.

In the wake of this scandal, let us turn to the words of Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical letter Caratas In Veritate, in which he urges Christians to pursue technologies and conservation in ways that protect the environment WITHOUT doing it in such a crisis mode that it deprives the poor in the developing world from much needed industrial growth. In other words, the environment is important, but not at the expense of your fellow man. It's time for people to WAKE UP and understand that the so-called "experts" on man-made global-warming climate change have their own agenda which has nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with ripping you off, at the expense of the poor.

BREAKING! Catholic Bishops Call For Civil Disobedience !!!

(Newsmax.com) - A formidable coalition of 150 Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical leaders are calling on Christians in a new manifesto to reject secular authority – and even engage in civil disobedience – if laws force them to accept abortion, same-sex marriage and other ideas that betray their religious beliefs.

On Friday, these leaders released a 4,700-word document – called the "The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience."

The document was signed by leaders ranging from evangelical leader Chuck Colson to two of the leading Catholic prelates in the U.S., Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C. and Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, and calls on Christians to engage in civil disobedience to defend their doctrines....

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It's sad that it's finally come to this. We have finally reached the point when American Christians must choose between obedience to God or obedience to American government. While the bishops, and other Christian leaders, would not specify what they meant by "civil disobedience," I think it's safe to say they didn't mean anything "unChristian."

I think some possible examples of what they might have meant was something like health care workers refusing to participate in state mandated abortions or euthanasia, even if it violates federal mandates. Catholic hospitals and medical facilities might refuse to provide contraceptives, even if it violates healthcare "reform" laws. Public school teachers might refuse to teach certain immoral curriculum, even if it gets them fired. Private businesses may refuse to acknowledge same-sex marriage, even if it violates anti-discrimination laws.

I suppose we could take it further than that. It might mean a public school teacher wearing a cross, and having a Bible or rosary on her desk, even if it supposedly "violates federal law." It might mean saying "Merry Christmas" when either the government or your employer has told you not to. It might mean continuing to call sodomy (homosexuality) a sin even when the state classifies that as a "hate speech."

Basically I think it just means being a stubborn Christian, and refusing to change, in spite of what the law says. For a law that is immoral is no law at all - on the contrary - it is lawlessness. I think this is what the bishops, and other Christian leaders, mean when they say "civil disobedience." To interpret it as anything more than that is to interpose a non-Christian message on a clearly Christian document. This stunning and timely manifesto can be viewed HERE.

I would like to take this to the next level. While the founding fathers of the United States may have been Masonic Deists, with their own agenda to usurp the Christian monarchs who once ruled this land, they would have never dreamed it would eventually come to this. In fact, I would dare say that what our federal government has already become, and threatens to become in the very near future, would be nothing short of a nightmare to them! I suspect they would run back to the king of England, and swear their unwavering allegiance to him while kneeling before his throne, if they thought it might prevent what has become of the United States today. Of course, there was no way they could have known that back then, and of course, there is no guarantee that remaining part of the British Empire would protect us from the oppression we must now face.

So I would like to propose a new idea. Should the elections of 2010 and 2012 fail to produce results that bring us back to a more constitutional form of government, then it will have become obvious that our nation has outlived it's governing document, and our government is now broken beyond repair. Few are aware that a movement has been bubbling beneath the political vitriol for decades. For years now, there has been a push for another constitutional convention. Quietly, states have been passing resolutions calling for one, and we are now only two states away from that becoming reality. The stated purpose of this constitutional convention is just to add a few amendments to the constitution itself, but we all know the federal government doesn't need a whole constitutional convention just to do that. This can be done through the normal amendment process outlined in the constitution. So there are those who suggest that something more sinister is afoot. Maybe they're right. Maybe the powers that be are planning to completely rewrite the U.S. constitution. Who knows if the conspiracy theories are correct, but after all is said and done, it may not matter. Because if a constitutional convention is held at some future date, it creates an opportunity for each state to examine the ties that bond us together into one "perfect union." It may come to the point where unity is no longer the most important thing. When you examine everything that is going on, and the unlawful "laws" various population centers in the Northeast and West Coast would like to impose on the rest of us, the time may be right to start over from scratch. The time may have come for state secession and the establishment of new nations on the North American continent. Yes, the time may have come to dissolve the Union. A constitutional convention can do this in a peaceful and orderly way. It can happen either inside the convention itself, or else it can happen through the ratification process when certain states refuse to ratify the final document.

What can emerge are groups of states that bind together to form countries, and these new countries can be built on respect for the practice of Christian religion and the morality that comes from it. Granted, this may seem radical right now, but if the upcoming elections don't produce a favorable effect in a few years, it may not seem so radical after all. In fact, it may be the only reasonable solution to governing such an rebellious and stubborn people as the citizens of the former United States.

Another Protestant Denomination Destroyed By Homosexuality

(The Washington Times) - Conservative members of America's largest Lutheran denomination announced that they are splitting from the Chicago-based Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, making it the second mainline Protestant church to undergo a major schism over the issue of homosexuality and related matters of biblical authority.

The U.S. Episcopal Church has experienced a similar split, with whole dioceses attempting to leave, new Anglican churches formed and a series of property fights in the years since the 2003 consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

On Wednesday, an 11-member steering committee of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal), meeting in New Brighton, Minn., said it cannot remain inside the 4.7-million-member ELCA after the denomination agreed at its August churchwide assembly in Minneapolis to ordain partnered gay clergy....

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Liberalism is a cancer that infects all Christian institutions (even the Catholicism and Orthodoxy), but the Protestants appear to have no immunity to it whatsoever. Their only defense is amputation. They don't cut off the infected limb, but rather cut themselves away from the entire infected body, to start over from scratch with a new denomination. Schism is their most effective defense, but with each schism their numbers decrease, and in time it stands to reason that Protestantism itself will splinter into oblivion.

Rome & Canterbury - A Tale Of Two Cities

..........

(Catholic Register) - The primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), feeling “overwhelming joy,” says he hopes to deliver a “yes” before Easter to the Holy See’s offer of Personal Ordinariates that would welcome his members into the Catholic Church.

Archbishop John Hepworth called the apostolic constitution published Nov. 9 by Pope Benedict XVI “generous at every turn” in its description of the Anglican heritage, dogmatic provisions and pastoral language. It followed the Pope’s dramatic October offer to welcome Anglicans into the Catholic Church without abandoning their prayer books or liturgical traditions.

The TAC comprises several Anglican Churches that parted with the 77-million strong Anglican Church’s Canterbury Communion over the ordination of women — some as early as 1977. The TAC, with about 400,000 members, is among the largest group of Anglicans likely to embrace the Personal Ordinariates offered by the Holy See.

Hepworth said Rome went even farther than the TAC had asked in its formal request submitted to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in October 2007. He now expects a positive response from TAC member churches....

read full story here

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(Times Online) - The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday made his most outspoken challenge to the Roman Catholic Church since the Pope invited disaffected Anglicans to switch to Rome.

Speaking before he meets Benedict XVI tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams told a conference in Rome that the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a bar to Christian unity.

“For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women,” he said.

The Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism, he said....

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Therein lies the rub, and that's why Rome will never take Canterbury seriously again. For that matter, neither will Canterbury be taken seriously by Constantinople nor Moscow. In fact, the entire Catholic and Orthodox world (consisting of 2/3 of all the world's Christians) will never regard the Anglican Communion as anything more than a PROTESTANT organization, on par with the Lutherans, Methodists and Baptists. A mitre and crosier doesn't make one a bishop, no more than using incense and liturgy makes you "catholic." Authentic Catholicism has to do with authority and succession. To be a bishop you must have authentic apostolic succession, and in order to have that, the Church must have the authority to ordain you.

Pope John Paul II made it clear, that Jesus Christ has not given the Church the authority to ordain women. There was nothing he could do about it. The matter was closed. In his 1994 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, the Holy Father reminded both Anglicans and the Bishops of the Catholic Church. "I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, not even the pope can make it okay to ordain women. The only way women can be ordained is to take it to a higher authority than the pope. I suppose that would be Jesus Christ himself. So if Jesus Christ were to return to earth, and ordain a bunch or women, then the Church would have the authority to do the same. Barring this miraculous event however, things are destined to stay exactly the way they are, and any Christian organization that takes it upon itself to ordain women, has stepped completely outside the pale of Catholic Orthodoxy. The ordination is invalid, and the organization permitting it is committing heresy.

It was the ordination of women that prompted traditional Anglicans and Episcopalians to split from the Anglican Communion back in 1977, eventually resulting in the formation of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC). Simultaneously, another group of traditionalist Anglicans in the United States sought reunion with Rome, and that was granted by Pope John Paul II back in 1980 with the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision. In 2007 the bishops of the TAC also petitioned to enter the Catholic Church as well, and in November of 2009 that request was granted (and then some) by Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus.

The moral to this story is that liberalism kills churches. It destroys them from the inside-out. While liberalism infects all churches, (including the Catholic Church), it seems that Protestant communities have no immunity to it. Their institutions appear completely incapable of defending themselves against it. Their only effective defense appears to be amputation. In other words, Protestant traditionalists must cut themselves off from the infected body and attempt to survive on their own.

In some cases, Protestant churches actually embrace liberalism. Such was the case with the Anglican Communion, and Rome has made it very clear that ecumenical reunification will be impossible with an ecclesiastical body containing female clergy. Hence the reason for Rome's generous provision to all Anglicans willing to leave the Communion and pursue membership in the Roman Catholic Church. Now there are two ways to "be Anglican." You can either be Anglican within the PROTESTANT Anglican Communion that bucks 2,000 years of Church history, tradition and authority. Or you can be Anglican within the Catholic Church, among true Anglo-Catholics who have retained their Anglican traditions and patrimony to the fullest, yet are fully incorporated into the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

More African-Americans Are Turning To Eastern Orthodoxy

Many black Christians join move to Orthodox traditions

After a lifetime in traditional black churches, Robert Aaron Mitchell discovered the sights, smells, sounds and ancient traditions of the Orthodox church.

"I discovered Orthodoxy while I was on the Internet one day back in 2001, and I was so drawn to it that I had to go attend a liturgy," Mitchell says. "I had no frame of reference for these traditions, but suddenly, I felt like this void was filling in my life. I felt like I was finally coming home."

Mitchell, 48, a project manager for AT&T in Detroit, is among a small but growing number of black Americans, many of them professionals, who are joining Orthodox churches. That's the branch of Christianity that split with Rome about 1,000 years ago and is known for colorful icons and the ethnic traditions it preserves in religious customs.

The attraction, Mitchell says, lies in discovering that for thousands of years, Africans played a vital role in the Orthodox world.

The Rev. Moses Berry, an Orthodox priest and pastor of Theotokos "Unexpected Joy" Orthodox Mission, Ash Grove, Mo., began his career as a Protestant preacher, a family tradition reaching back into the 1800s. Then, in 1983, he visited an Orthodox church in Atlanta and was so moved that he retrained to become a priest in the Orthodox Church in America. He also helped to organize the coalition of clergy, scholars and lay leaders coming to Detroit.

"Reconnecting with the Orthodox tradition connects us with the earliest Christian traditions," Berry says. "It means that, when our ancestors were brought here as slaves, they didn't arrive here with just a collection of tribal religions. They didn't all discover Christianity here. In fact, many Africans already were part of the ancient Christian church."

That was especially true for Africans with roots in the eastern part of the continent, Laike-Mariam Misikir, 50, says. An automotive engineer from Ann Arbor, Mich., Misikir is from a family of Orthodox priests that extends back many centuries in Ethiopia. In Detroit, Misikir serves as a subdeacon, assisting priests during liturgies...

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Talk about getting in touch with your roots -- wow! This is really good news, because ancient African Christianity is so rich in tradition and culture. It makes sense that African-Americans would be attracted to this. It makes a lot more sense than the 'black Muslim' movement we saw back in the 1960s. Africans were Orthodox Christian long before Islam came along. The first black Christians were baptized way back in the middle first century. (It's actually recorded in the Bible -- Acts 8:26-39.) While the first black Muslims didn't come along until six-hundred years later. In fact, many Africans were worshipping the one true God, with dignity and beauty, while northern Europeans were still worshipping the sun, moon and trees. That's just a matter of historical fact. Northern Europe wasn't evangelized by Christianity until the middle 5th century. So there is a lot of cultural recovery to be gained by African-Americans returning to their Christian roots in Africa. The dignity and beauty of the Eastern Orthodox liturgy is second to none. Only the traditional Latin mass of Catholicism comes close, and even then there is some debate. I sincerely hope this movement takes off. It would be a wonderful thing.

The Brotherhood of St Moses the Black is a pan-Orthodox nonprofit organization. Its mission is to minister to Americans the gift of Orthodoxy. In an effort to be good stewards of the manifold grace of God (I Peter 4:10), the organization presents an annual conference that targets those who have little exposure to Orthodoxy as well as the African roots of Orthodoxy. Its vision is to bring Americans closer to Jesus Christ.

Links to Orthodox Churches in the United States:

http://www.oca.org/
http://www.goarch.org/
http://www.copticchurch.net/

US Catholic Bishops Approve Final Portions Of New Liturgy Translation With Compromise

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: And it's about time!

(The Catholic Spirit) - The U.S. bishops approved the English translation and U.S. adaptations of five final sections of the Roman Missal in voting on the second day of their annual fall general assembly in Baltimore.

With overwhelming majority votes, the bishops approved translations of the proper of the saints, specific prayers to each saint in the universal liturgical calendar; the commons, general prayers for celebrating saints listed in the "Roman Martyrology"; the Roman Missal supplement; the U.S. propers, a collection of orations and formularies for feasts and memorials particular to the U.S. liturgical calendar; and U.S. adaptations to the Roman Missal....

read full story here

However, this apparent victory does not come without compromise...

(Post Gazette) - Archbishop Aymond defeated Archbishop Vigneron 126-110, suggesting that the bishops may want someone to diplomatically convince Rome to continue tweaking a new English translation of the Mass that some bishops say is so faithful to the Latin that its English is awkward and ungrammatical. Archbishop Vigneron had been defeated for the same post in 2004, by Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, who was nominated from the floor that year.

Bishop Trautman is an outspoken critic of the new Mass translations. Yesterday he lost his last battle to prevent approval of the Mass translations, but was delighted with Archbishop Aymond's election.

read full story here

How To Start An Anglican Use Catholic Parish

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: After learning that a friend is working on establishing an Anglican Use Ordinariate parish in my area, I decided to fill in my readers on how they might want to do the same if so inclined. It's very simple really. All it takes is some determination and networking.

Anglican Ordinariates are like diocese, specifically designed for the Anglican Use liturgy and the propagation of Anglican patrimony. They were established by Pope Benedict XVI in November of 2009, and built on the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision established by Pope John Paul II in 1980. Initially designed for American Episcopalians entering the Catholic Church due to social crisis within the Episcopal Church USA, Anglican Use parishes have proved to be beneficial not only to former Anglicans, but also to Roman Catholics and converts from all walks of life. The Anglican Use liturgy is more firmly rooted in English Catholic history and culture than the typical English translation of the Roman Rite currently used in Catholic parishes today.

TO START AN ANGLICAN USE ORDINARIATE PARISH....

First, you need to determine that you're not reinventing the wheel. Search your area to see if an Anglican Use parish isn't already nearby, or if somebody else isn't trying to start one. Should you discover one (or one forming), you may want to simply join that group. Anglicans (or Episcopalians), as well as any non-Catholic, can join an Anglican Use parish simply by talking to the priest, and going through the standard initiation process. Roman Catholics can join Anglican Use parishes simply by going to mass there and getting involved in the parish. Once established there, a formal transfer to the Ordinariate can be made through written request, and the local priest can help you with this process.

Second, if no Anglican Use parish is within reasonable driving distance, one can be formed in this way. Start networking to find fellow Catholics and former Anglicans (as well as other Christians) interested in starting an Anglican Use parish in your area. Use whatever networking means are at your disposal.

Third, once you have a stable group of about ten people, you can begin regular prayer meetings using the Daily Office of either the "Book of Divine Worship," or "Book of Common Prayer" (whatever is available), and notifying the Anglican Use ordinary bishop of your intent. Making contact with the Anglican Use ordinary bishop is essential if you want to eventually get a priest assigned to your area. A list of Ordinary bishops will be provided here just as soon as one becomes available. In the meantime however, you can contact the Anglican Use Society here... email: president@anglicanuse.org phone: 484-437-8703

Fourth, you may want to contact the local diocesan bishop for the Roman Rite as well, as this may help you gain access to local Catholic parishes that might be willing to host an Anglican Use parish until it's large enough to acquire your own chapel.

Fifth, continue networking and growing through aggressive evangelism of non-Catholics, and educating Roman Catholics about Anglican Use Catholicism.

That's the basic elements of it anyway. Follow these steps with perseverance and prayer. Be patient. It may take some time. Set realistic goals. You'll have an Anglican Ordinariate parish eventually. Good luck!

Church Of England Forces Anglo-Catholics To Choose Between Rome Or Canterbury

Female Anglican Bishops

(Telegraph) - Conservative Anglo-Catholics, your time is up. As my colleague Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports, the General Synod committee charged with looking after opponents of women bishops has ruled out the idea of dedicated male bishops to safeguard traditionalists.

The logic of the decision makes perfect sense to me. The C of E has the legal authority to decide whether to ordain women priests and bishops. Having acquired that authority, it voted to ordain women priests in 1992 and will now take the obvious step of raising women to the episcopate. Anglo-Catholics lost the battle to stop this happening 18 years ago; for a time they were allowed to cover their eyes and pretend that women priests had nothing to do with them, but with the arrival of the first women bishops they will have to take their hands away from their faces, look around, and make up their minds whether to go or stay. Actually, many Anglo-Catholics have quietly decided that they can accept ordained women, and have tiptoed out of Forward in Faith and into Affirming Catholicism. The C of E certainly need not worry about the disappearance of bells and smells: women are just as adept at swinging a thurible as men.

The timing of the General Synod decision, in the same week as Pope Benedict’s generous and statesmanlike Apostolic Constitution, will concentrate minds. Many traditionalists will conclude that Anglo-Catholicism itself was eventually bound to fail: for although the Church of England embraces a great deal of Catholic liturgical practice - more so now than at any time since the Reformation – it governs itself according to Protestant principles of self-determination.

The Pope’s Ordinariate will appeal greatly to those Anglo-Catholics who now understand that their movement has been destroyed by its inherent contradictions....

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Anglican Catholics or "Anglo-Catholics" in England (trapped inside the Protestant 'Church of England') are now faced with the same situation their Episcopalian brethren in America have faced for decades trapped inside The Episcopal Church USA. This is the reason why traditionalist Anglicans, both inside and outside the Protestant Anglican Communion (PAC), have been beating down the doors of St. Peter's for thirty years begging to be let in. The PAC is a contradiction. You cannot be both Catholic and Protestant at the same time. You either belong fully to one or the other. The author of the article above hit the nail on the head. You can have the smells and bells of catholicism all you want. You can even celebrate mass with enough pomp and circumstance to turn the average Roman Catholic green with envy. After all is said and done however, being "catholic" really isn't about that. After all is said and done, being truly "Catholic" is about authority, particularly how it's structured, and who gives it. From this authority flows the right to administer the sacraments, lead the congregation in worship, and catechize the faithful. It's taken traditionalist Anglicans just a little over 100 years to come to this full realization. What began as the Oxford Movement ends with a return to Rome. It was inevitable. For the authority that gave us all the priests, bishops, incense, bells and liturgy, is the same authority that said "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church."

To embrace Catholic traditions on liturgy, but refuse Catholic traditions on authority, is in itself an oxymoron. Many of the Anglo-Catholics have discovered this, and many more will do the same in the months and years ahead.

For now however, it is a time for choosing. Rome has opened it's doors wide and promised not only to preserve Anglican patrimony, but also facilitate the means for it's full propagation throughout the ages, having demonstrated with the eastern rites it's ability to do so. While Canterbury (via the Church of England and the Episcopal Church USA) has continued hell bent, down the road of modernization and liberalization -- i.e. relativism! -- now without any concessions to the traditionalists who object.

Today we see what kind of metal the Anglican Catholics are really made of. What will the disciples of John Henry Newman do? Where do they stand? Are they Catholic? Or are they Protestant? Which shall it be? The age of fence-straddling is over. To be Catholic is to embrace Catholic authority and all that it teaches. To be Protestant is to embrace Protestant authority structures, and everything that seems to go right along with them, including female bishops, homosexual clergy and gay weddings. In case you haven't noticed, the Anglicans are not the only Protestant denomination suffering from this. The same problems plague the Lutherans, Methodist and Reformed churches. It's not so much an "Anglican problem" as it is a "Protestant problem."

So what's it going to be Anglicans? Are you Catholic or aren't you?

THE RISE OF ANGLICAN CATHOLICISM !!!

Click Here To See Full Video Of Anglican Catholic Mass

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The Anglican Apostolic Constitution has been published by Rome, and a new era in Church history has begun -- the era of Anglican Catholic Renewal! Being an Evangelical convert to Catholicism myself, I spent about a year in a moderately conservative Episcopal parish before swimming the Tiber. It was the Anglican love for catholic liturgy and form that opened my eyes to the beauty of the Catholic Church just before the turn of the millennium. So 'The Catholic Knight' has a special interest in the development of this Anglican reunification with Rome.

First let me say this. The future of Anglicanism lies squarely within the Catholic Church. The Protestant Anglican Communion (PAC) and the Archbishop of Canterbury are now defunct. I call it the "Protestant" Anglican Communion (PAC) because that is exactly what it is - Protestant. Granted, many Anglicans show a love and affection for all things catholic, and they deserve full recognition for that. One could possibly say they are "catholic" only in the extreme lesser sense, because they embrace many catholic practices. However, most Anglicans reject the authority of Rome, and while that does not negate their catholicism in and of itself, their lack of valid holy orders does. Anglicans have a 'catholic' style of religion, but the national provinces of the Anglican Communion are essentially Protestant churches. Therefore, the Anglican Communion is essentially a Protestant organization. Hence I call it the "Protestant Anglican Communion" or just PAC.

Now the reason why the future of Anglicanism lies squarely in Rome and not the PAC is because the PAC has demonstrated a complete inability to police it's own provinces and protect those who object to the liberalizing trends of modernist relativism. The PAC has effectively embraced the ordination of female bishops and homosexual bishops simply by it's inability (or refusal) to jettison those diocese that engage in this practice. So what is the future of the PAC? Simply put, it's going to be more of the same - a lot more of the same! In fact, we can expect the liberalizing trends of northern provinces within the PAC to accelerate in the years ahead as more and more conservatives leave the communion for other churches, or to join the Catholic Church via the Anglican Ordinariates.

Rome will preserve Anglican tradition far better than Canterbury ever could. How do I know that? Simple, we have over a thousand years of example. The Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church have operated in union with Rome, and with nearly complete autonomy, for a millennium. When we think of Eastern Rites, our minds often default to the Eastern Orthodox, who are not currently in union with Rome. However, what many people don't know is that a lot of Eastern Catholic churches refused to break with Rome, or else they chose to reunite with Rome after the initial schism back in 1054 AD. Those churches that remain in union with Rome are virtually indistinguishable from Eastern Orthodox churches, and yet they are fully Catholic in the sense that they are in full communion with the pope. The same will be the case with the Anglican Ordinariates, and thirty years from now, when the PAC is nothing more than a liberal shell of the great Christian body it once was, Anglican Ordinariates will be growing strong and leading the way for Catholics in the English-speaking world. By that time, the Anglican Ordinariates will be more "Anglican" than the PAC, and just as "catholic" as Rome itself.

The full text of the Anglican Apostolic Constitution can be viewed on the Vatican website HERE. What I provide below are excerpts, with my own commentary....

I. §1 Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church are erected by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith within the confines of the territorial boundaries of a particular Conference of Bishops in consultation with that same Conference.

§3 Each Ordinariate possesses public juridic personality by the law itself (ipso iure); it is juridically comparable to a diocese.

Ordinariates are a lot like diocese. They will be erected by Rome itself, working together with national Catholic bishop conferences, to establish these ordinariates within their territories. They will certainly overlap existing diocese, and each ordinariate will have it's own "Ordinary" (or bishop) who will govern that ordinariate with full episcopal authority, answering directly to Rome.

§4 The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.

Effectively, you become an "Anglican Catholic" (basically a "Roman Catholic" but with an additional Anglican identity) and in full communion with the pope, if you enter the Catholic Church through an Anglican Ordinariate parish. Now in regards to regular Roman Catholics who wish to join an Anglican Ordinariate, Fr. Phillips at his Anglican Use blog does a good job addressing this issue here.

§5 The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic faith professed by members of the Ordinariate.

Just in case there was any doubt, Anglican Catholic Ordinariates are fully Catholic, in full communion with the pope of Rome, and the beliefs are 100% identical.

III. Without excluding liturgical celebrations according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariate has the faculty to celebrate the Holy Eucharist and the other Sacraments, the Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical celebrations according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See, so as to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.

The Anglican "Book of Common Prayer" has already been revised and approved by Rome under the new title of "Book of Divine Worship." A free online PDF version can be acquired HERE. It is expected that a newer revision will eventually be published after the new Ordinariates have been formed, and a general conference is convened among the new Anglican ordinary bishops to further define and propagate their traditions. Of course this new revision will have to be approved by Rome as well. The Anglican Catholic mass is in many ways similar to the traditional Roman Rite mass (extraordinary form), however it is all in traditional high English, and it includes some things that are particularly unique to Anglican tradition. It also excludes a few things which are particularly unique to Roman tradition. The same could be said for the Anglican Divine Office (or "Liturgy of the Hours").

§ 2. The Ordinary, in full observance of the discipline of celibate clergy in the Latin Church, as a rule (pro regula) will admit only celibate men to the order of presbyter. He may also petition the Roman Pontiff, as a derogation from can. 277, §1, for the admission of married men to the order of presbyter on a case by case basis, according to objective criteria approved by the Holy See.

The rule of celibacy applies identically to the Anglican Ordinariates as it does the the Byzantine Catholic Rite, and other Eastern Catholic rites. Typically celibate men are admitted as candidates for Holy Orders. However, married men (men already married that is) may apply for Holy Orders on a case by case basis. It is presumed that at least some will be admitted, however we can expect celibacy to be the common norm for Anglican Catholic priests, just as it is for Byzantine Catholic priests. There is no reason, whatsoever, to believe that this permission will lead to priests getting married, as some in the press have theorized. This tradition is 100% compatible with eastern Catholic traditions and the Roman Catholic tradition up until the Second Lateran Council in 1139 AD.

§ 5. Candidates for Holy Orders in an Ordinariate should be prepared alongside other seminarians, especially in the areas of doctrinal and pastoral formation. In order to address the particular needs of seminarians of the Ordinariate and formation in Anglican patrimony, the Ordinary may also establish seminary programs or houses of formation which would relate to existing Catholic faculties of theology.

VII. The Ordinary, with the approval of the Holy See, can erect new Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, with the right to call their members to Holy Orders, according to the norms of canon law. Institutes of Consecrated Life originating in the Anglican Communion and entering into full communion with the Catholic Church may also be placed under his jurisdiction by mutual consent.

VIII. § 1. The Ordinary, according to the norm of law, after having heard the opinion of the Diocesan Bishop of the place, may erect, with the consent of the Holy See, personal parishes for the faithful who belong to the Ordinariate.

XII. For judicial cases, the competent tribunal is that of the Diocese in which one of the parties is domiciled, unless the Ordinariate has constituted its own tribunal, in which case the tribunal of second instance is the one designated by the Ordinariate and approved by the Holy See.

Yes, you read that right! The Anglican Ordinary bishop may erect his own seminaries, institutes of consecrated life (holy orders), parishes and tribunals, all in cooperation with Rome and having heard the opinion of the Roman Rite diocesan bishop this may effect.

In effect, what we have is a "church within the Church" fully governed by the pope and the norms of canon law. Also, we have the makings of a whole new rite (or the resurgence of an old rite) within the Catholic Church, should it ever come to that at some point in the distant future. At present the status of "Ordinariate" was far more than anyone expected and is more than satisfying to the Anglicans involved. The rites and privileges they've been given within the Catholic Church are nothing short of amazing!

'The Catholic Knight' predicts this will have a profound effect on Catholics in the English-speaking world, though maybe not right away. Time will be the main factor here. Anglican Ordinariates will prove to be both liturgically traditional, and profoundly orthodox on doctrinal matters, just as they already have proved in the United States where "Anglican Use" parishes have existed for some thirty years. The effect of Anglican Ordinariates will call all Catholics to a more traditional and orthodox expression of the Catholic faith in the English-speaking world. Indeed, the creation of Anglican Ordinariate parishes will not only be attractive to Anglicans within the PAC, but also some Roman Catholics disgusted with the liberal practices and teachings typically found in many Roman Catholic parishes these days. Thus it is completely reasonable to assume that future Anglican Catholic parishes will consist of a mixture of parishioners coming from both the Anglican tradition, and regular visitors from the Roman Catholic tradition. Anglican Ordinariates in England and the United States are effectively as good as established, simply because of the presence of many Anglicans already in full-communion with the Roman Catholic Church in these areas. More nations will soon follow.
If you wish to join an Anglican Catholic parish, or would like to start one in your area, use these contacts below for more information...

Inside the United States contact: president@anglicanuse.org
Outside the United States contact: plusjohn@senet.com.au

Government Sponsored Flu Pandemic?

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The American mainstream media won't touch this. They're too busy talking about the latest developments in the Michael Jackson overdose saga. So while Americans fill their minds on junk food news, and become some of the more ill informed people in the world, Europeans are at least getting some of the story. The Catholic Knight offers this information to my readers in an attempt to keep them informed.

BREAKING - US Bishops Attempt To Force Abortion Out Of Healthcare Bill

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The following is an email from Planned Parenthood to it's supporters...

Late yesterday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met with leaders in the House of Representatives in their bid to eliminate women's access to abortion care under health care reform.

We have just received news that their efforts are working, and Representative Bart Stupak has introduced an amendment to the health care reform bill that will result in women losing health care coverage for abortion.

We urgently need you, and your friends and family, to call your representative...and ask him or her to reject the Stupak amendment that will remove abortion coverage from health care reform.

If the bishops and their anti-choice partners in the House succeed, they'll permanently alter health care in America, even taking away benefits from women that they have today. The bishops want to effectively eliminate abortion coverage in both private plans and the public option. We simply cannot stand for such a discriminatory, mean-spirited attack on women.

------- end of letter --------

So the USCCB has made some headway, now the next is up to us. This is what we need to do NOW immediately. There is no time for delay. Do this today....

Ask your Representatives to Support the Stupak-Pitts amendment

What the Stupak-Pitts Amendment Would Do

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment would remove the two major pro-abortion components from H.R. 3962: (1) The amendment would permanently prohibit the new federal government insurance program, the "public option," from paying for abortion, except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest; and (2) the amendment would permanently prohibit the use of the new federal premium subsidies ("affordability credits") to purchase private insurance plans that cover abortion (except to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest).

Note: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment explicitly allows private insurance companies to sell insurance policies that cover abortion (either abortion alone, or abortion coverage along with other coverage) to persons who pay for such policies entirely with their personal funds. Some pro-abortion groups have claimed that the Stupak-Pitts amendment would prohibit private companies from selling abortion coverage even to a person who receives no government subsidy, but this is false. - NRLC

1.) Contact your Representative and ask them to vote "YES" on the
Stupak Amendment. Contact your Members here.
or call the House switchboard at: (202) 224-3121

2.) Spread the word to 10 people.

3.) Continue to pray for our elected officials. Pray that our
nation -- founded on the inalienable right to life --
does not allow its government to fund the destruction
of human life at its most vulnerable stage.

Worst Fears Come True In Healthcare Reform Bill

(WND) - U.S. House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, is warning voters across America that the "government takeover of health care" pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., contains a "monthly abortion premium" for participants of a proposed government insurance company.

The issue of abortion funding in the Democratic plan has been contentious, with many moderate Democrats who recognize their constituents oppose mandating taxpayer funding for abortion concerned about the underlying support for the industry in the proposals.

Members of the GOP largely have opposed the health-care plan for a multitude of reasons, including abortion funding.

Today on his House blog, Boehner said the plan sets up funding for abortion-industry leaders that could include Planned Parenthood....

read full story here

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: So I wrote to my congressman and two senators about this, and I received no response from the two republicans - silence. From the one democrat senator I received a response. She said she was not aware of any legislation in this congress that planned to publicly fund abortion. I guess she thinks I'm stupid.

Since I'm obviously not represented in this congress, 'The Catholic Knight' puts a call out to my readers. Write your congressman and senators and urge them to vote "no" on this healthcare reform bill.

I fully expect the legislation to pass anyway, because the Democrat controlled congress knows they'll be thrown out in the 2010 election, so their window of opportunity for change is closing. I think they're more concerned about their legacies right now, than their own political careers, but that's just my thinking on the matter. Go ahead and send them emails, and call their local offices. At this point, what have we got to lose?

Italians Discover American Style Justice

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It looks as if our dear brothers and sisters in Italy have just learned what it means to live under an American style (Masonic inspired) justice system. In joining the European Union, (an American vision of Europe first proposed by American President Woodrow Wilson back in 1919), Italy has signed a deal with the devil, as nation's like Poland and Malta discovered earlier this decade. In exchange for free trade and collective security, the Union promises to strip all member states of their national and cultural identity, eliminate all exercise of religion on public property, and effectively turn Europe into a mirror image of the United States of America. If Italians, (or any Europeans for that matter), want to know what the future holds for them, they need look only across the Atlantic.

Tell me Italians, what are the main cultural differences between New Jersey and Oregon? How about the main cultural differences between Montana and Arizona? What's that? You don't know? Well that's probably because there really is no difference! Everything has been homogenized into one "perfect" Union. The state governments, once independent and bold, now serve as mere vassal proxies for the federal regime. The last time they so dared to assert their independence a hundred and fifty years ago, they were crushed by the Union army. Today they rattle their swords occasionally, threatening to assert their sovereignty, only to quickly cower once the federal government threatens to withhold welfare funds. The states in America are no longer countries. They could barely exist without the federal government. They wouldn't even know how. So it will soon become with the European Union. Truth be told, the American Union (USA) eliminated all traces of religion from public schools decades ago. No crucifix, or even a bare cross, would ever be seen on public property. Prayer has been banned in public schools. Students are told they cannot organize any religious events on campus and are forbiddon to openly pray at school functions. Teachers are not even permitted to keep religious books on their desks or wear religious jewelry on campus. Yes indeed, Europe is truly being molded in America's image. I wonder if Europeans like following in our footsteps. They're slowly becomming "America-east."

Today the EU courts struck down a member state's right to cultural identity and self determination. Just wait until tomorrow. You haven't seen anything yet. That's what happens when you make a deal with the devil. That's what happens when you trade your Christian identity for a Masonic pipe dream.

Lautsi v. Italy (application no. 30814/06)

CRUCIFIX IN CLASSROOMS:

CONTRARY TO PARENTS’ RIGHT TO EDUCATE THEIR CHILDREN IN LINE WITH THEIR CONVICTIONS AND TO CHILDREN’S RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education)

examined jointly with Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion)

of the European Convention on Human Rights

Under Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention, the Court awarded the applicant 5,000 euros (EUR) in respect of non-pecuniary damage...

...Decision of the Court

The presence of the crucifix – which it was impossible not to notice in the classrooms – could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion. This could be encouraging for religious pupils, but also disturbing for pupils who practised other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities. The freedom not to believe in any religion (inherent in the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Convention) was not limited to the absence of religious services or religious education: it extended to practices and symbols which expressed a belief, a religion or atheism. This freedom deserved particular protection if it was the State which expressed a belief and the individual was placed in a situation which he or she could not avoid, or could do so only through a disproportionate effort and sacrifice.

The State was to refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it. In particular, it was required to observe confessional neutrality in the context of public education, where attending classes was compulsory irrespective of religion, and where the aim should be to foster critical thinking in pupils.

The Court was unable to grasp how the display, in classrooms in State schools, of a symbol that could reasonably be associated with Catholicism (the majority religion in Italy) could serve the educational pluralism that was essential to the preservation of a “democratic society” as that was conceived by the Convention, a pluralism that was recognised by the Italian Constitutional Court.

The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities, and especially in classrooms, thus restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions, and the right of children to believe or not to believe. The Court concluded, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 taken jointly with Article 9 of the Convention....

source

Good Catholics Should Abandon The Novus Ordo Mass

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: For the last couple years, The Catholic Knight has been assisting at both the full Roman Rite and it's abbreviated form. By that I mean both the Traditional Latin Mass (extraordinary form) and the Contemporary Vernacular Mass (ordinary form), often called the "Novus Ordo" (meaning "new order") mass. I believed that as the Holy Father's liturgical reforms began to take shape, the celebration of the Novus Ordo mass in our diocese in Southern Missouri would improve. I have not seen this to be the case at all. If anything, it's gotten worse! Whenever there is an opportunity for liturgical abuse, it is taken, without exception. Whenever there is a chink in the armor of liturgical rubrics, it is exploited to the fullest, even to the point of ignoring the rubrics entirely. About three months ago I assisted a Novus Ordo mass at a nearby college wherein the priest continually stopped during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, to "explain" to the congregation what he was doing and what these things mean. About the same time, I learned that the liturgical director of our diocese has been privately requesting some priests do this. This is surly against the will of the local bishop, but so far, no action as been taken to correct the matter.

Now we have the latest abuse. Because of the swine (H1N1) flu outbreak, entire diocese across America are now being instructed by their bishops to refuse communion on the tongue. The reason given is fear of spreading the disease. However, participation in receiving the cup is still permitted. (Go figure!) In the previous 100 years prior to Vatican II, such a thing was never heard of. During the 1908 and 1918 flu epidemics, which killed literally millions of people, communion was still received on the tongue. Likewise, during the smallpox and polio outbreaks of the 1920s through 1950s, communion was still received on the tongue. The Vatican has specifically instructed all diocese throughout the world to make accommodation for communion on the tongue for all Catholics who want to receive that way, everywhere, and without exception. Yet we know that in this post-conciliar era the USCCB has been trying to buck this directive for decades, even to the point of issuing non-binding "official" documents stating that communion in the hand is the "norm" for Catholics in the United States. Thus they imply that if you receive communion on the tongue, that is somehow "abnormal." In turn, Vatican prelates have instructed Catholic Americans to ignore such ridiculous "official" statements from local bishop conferences (like the USCCB).

So my question is this. When does this illicit policy against communion on the tongue end? Does it end when the swine flu outbreak is over? What about the seasonal flu, which hasn't even started yet? Then after the seasonal flu, what comes next? Shall the bishops impose this same illicit policy during the next flu outbreak? If that's the case, why bother dropping the policy at all? Why not just keep it in force year round? Then what about other virus outbreaks? What about the threat of biological terrorism? Anthrax? Smallpox? etc. For that matter, I suppose just about any viral outbreak would qualify, since infants and the elderly die from common infections all the time. What about community acquired staff infections, or strep throat? Of course, TB is on the rise again, and is slowly reaching epidemic proportions. I suppose they'll have to ban communion on the tongue for that too. My point here is that this latest policy is just the next link in a long chain of liturgical abuses perpetuated by the USCCB and liberal clergy partial to the Novus Ordo mass.

These latest events have become the last straw for me. I have completely abandoned the Novus Ordo mass, and I am calling upon ALL faithful and orthodox Catholics to do the same. Yes, that's right. So long as Catholics continue to put up with one abuse after another, so long as we continue to tolerate it, then it will continue forever! English speaking Catholics now have three alternatives available to them...

1. The full Roman Rite (extraordinary form) in Latin,
2. The Anglican Use of the Roman Rite in English,
3. The Byzantine Rite, or some other eastern rite in full communion with Rome.

Unless of course the abbreviated form (Novus Ordo) mass happens to be celebrated correctly at your parish, which is an extreme liturgical rarity, good Catholics should seek local alternatives. Sadly, the liturgical abuses have gone on for so long throughout the United States and Canada, that most North American Catholics don't even know what a proper liturgical celebration is supposed to look like. They've never seen it! It's sad but true. Therefore 'The Catholic Knight' blog provides you with these short (4 minute) videos demonstrating a Novus Ordo mass celebrated properly, and compared to the full Roman Rite (extraordinary form) mass. Remember, the Novus Ordo mass is SUPPOSED to be an abbreviated form of the Roman Rite. Basically the rule of thumb is this. A properly celebrated Novus Ordo mass should look and sound very much like an old Roman Rite Latin mass. If it doesn't, then it's not properly celebrated...

Novus Ordo Mass - Properly Celebrated


Full Roman Rite Mass
(i.e. "Extraordinary Form")


So I have a challenge for you. If you're a Catholic reading this, and you're not sure if your parish is celebrating the mass properly, according to the directives of Rome, then my challenge is that you look around. Look in the yellow pages of your phone book, and see if you can find an Extraordinary Form, Anglican Use or Byzantine Catholic mass in your area. If you can find one -- ATTEND IT! Try it out. So long as the parish is in full communion with Rome, it really doesn't matter what form of the liturgy they are using, as long as they're doing it correctly, and there is no Church law that says you can't go there. Try it out and see what you think. If you attend any of the above listed liturgies for any length of time, you will soon get a good liturgical sense about you, and you'll know if your previous parish was celebrating the Novus Ordo properly or not. Then you can make an INFORMED decision about whether or not the liturgy is being celebrated properly in your regular parish, and if you want to go back there.

That's the best advice I can give you in the liturgical crisis we now find ourselves in. The good news is that within a decade the crisis will be near over. Most of the retro-1970s priests perpetuating the problems will be retired by then, and the new priests coming out of seminary today are overwhelmingly traditional. Within two decades the crisis will be over, and the standard celebration of mass in the English speaking world will be either the full Roman Rite (in Latin) or else the Anglican Use.

Rumors have been confirmed that the Vatican is currently working on a total revision of the Novus Ordo mass, which is supposed to bring it more in line with the full Roman Rite (extraordinary form) mass. The success of this reform will be dependent on the priests, and if they are traditional enough to celebrate it properly. It is unknown as to when this new revision of the Novus Ordo mass will be released, and it remains to be seen how well it will be celebrated by young traditional priests who overwhelming prefer the full Roman Rite in Latin. Regardless of this, the coming revised English Novus Ordo mass will meet considerable competition in the English-speaking world with the newly emerging Anglican Use liturgy under the direction of the newly emerging Anglican Ordinariates. Good Catholic Americans must prepare for this inevitability. Start getting ready now, and get yourselves out of the Novus Ordo mass (unless it's properly celebrated) as soon as possible. Start looking around, new opportunities are presenting themselves everywhere, and you can always make a formal request for the full Roman Rite, or the Anglican Use, in your local area.

Full Roman Rite Catholic Mass


Anglican Use Catholic Mass


Eastern Rite Catholic Divine Liturgy

Gay Marriage May Shut Down U.S. Catholic Diocese

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Coming soon to a diocese near you....

(CNA) - A Washington, D.C. City Council proposal to recognize same-sex “marriage” would redefine marriage and could force Catholic educational and charitable institutions to close or face lawsuits, burdensome regulation and the compromising of their faith, the Archdiocese of Washington has warned.

The proposed law, called the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009, redefines marriage as “the legally recognized union of two people.” It says a religious association or a non-profit associated with a religion shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, facilities or goods related to the solemnization, celebration or promotion of a marriage that is in violation of the entity’s religious beliefs unless the entity makes those services available to members of the general public....

read full story here