Sunday, February 8, 2015

St. Catherine of Siena Warns Michael Voris and the Catholic Blogosphere


In January, Michael Voris did a Vortex episode entitled, "GET OUT!" in which he once again attacked the "homosexual and homosexual-friendly clergy" of the Catholic Church.  He, as is his usual custom, wasted no time in condemning those he accuses:
These weak men, these weak leaders have absolutely no right to work out their psychological illnesses and depravities through the priesthood and episcopate.

And yes, they are depravities. For a man who is a practicing homosexual, or struggling with trying to explore his identity, to do that on the Church’s watch is beyond horrible.
Voris played his usual deceptive games by talking about "gay priests" while showing films of gay pride parades which have nothing to do with any Catholic priests.  But it is a way of manipulating people into thinking that these priests he is accusing are right there in the parades.

And Voris makes his usual broad based judgments, condemning the majority of priests.  And he even tells us how we can make these same kind of prejudicial judgments:
A good deal of bishops and priests are gay or gay-friendly. Catholics need to know that.  If your priest or bishop exhibits an unusual amount of friendliness toward and/or acceptance of homosexuality—watch out!
Most of the time they won’t come right out and say it; they play it off as being compassionate and merciful. They want to slyly convince lay Catholics that there isn’t really anything that wrong.
But the truth is that large numbers of these priests have boyfriends or are sexually active —and it ain’t just priests.

To all of whom we say: have at least one bit of masculinity about yourselves and resign.

Go work out your errant psychology somewhere else. You should be working out your salvation, but since you choose to hide behind your collars and under your miters and work out your own pathologies, then get out.
Voris claims to get right inside the minds of these priests and bishops he is accusing and explains exactly what is wrong with them:
For the love of God, why do you stay in the clergy? But that question is somewhat rhetorical. We know the answer, don’t we? You don’t love God, and as a result, you want to corrupt and pervert.

You have a sick and demented vision of yourselves, and you want someone else to approve of your filth and sickness and spiritual depravity.
Michael Voris then goes on to quote from the writings of a doctor of of the Church - St. Catherine of Siena, from "The Dialogue" in which St. Catherine quotes from God the Father (Voris incorrectly says these are the words of Jesus Christ):
[T]his not only causes Me nausea, but displeases even the demons themselves, whom these miserable creatures [active homosexuals] have chosen as their lords.  For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them. . . . It is disagreeable to the demons, not because evil displeases them and they find pleasure in good, but because their nature is angelic and thus is repulsed upon seeing such an enormous sin being committed. It is true that it is the demon who hits the sinner with the poisoned arrow of lust, but when a man carries out such a sinful act, the demon leaves.
This quote is taken from The Dialogue, Mystic Body of the Holy Church, section 124, page 237 in Noffke's translation from Classics of Western Spirituality.


Yes, certainly, the sin of homosexuality is a very serious sin, and as can be seen, has always infected the clergy, even at the time of St. Catherine of Siena, who lived from 1347 to 1380.


However, in this same chapter of The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, God the Father tells us there is an even worse sin than homosexuality among the clergy.  Beginning on p. 215, St. Catherine quotes God the Father as saying:
Christ on earth, then, has the keys to the blood. If you remember, I showed you this in an image when I wanted to teach you the respect laypeople ought to have for these ministers of mine, regardless of how good or evil they may be, and how displeased I am with disrespect. . . .
These are my anointed ones, and therefore it has been said through Scripture, "Dare not touch my christs." Therefore, a person can do no worse violence than to assume the right to punish my ministers.

God the Father goes on to explain why disrespect of the ministry - and attacking them - "regardless of how good or evil they may be" is worse than any other sin - including the sin of homosexuality:
And if you should ask me why I said that this sin of those who persecute the holy Church is graver than any other sin and why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you:  Because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them but to me in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry. 
. . .
So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, BUT TO ME AND TO THIS GLORIOUS BLOOD MADE ONE THING WITH ME because of the union of divinity with humanity.  AND JUST AS THE REVERENCE IS DONE TO ME, SO ALSO IS THE IRREVERENCE, FOR I HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT YOU MUST NOT REVERENCE THEM FOR THEMSELVES, BUT FOR THE AUTHORITY I HAVE ENTRUSTED TO THEM.  Therefore, you must not sin against them, because if you do, you are really sinning not against them BUT AGAINST ME.  This I have forbidden, and I have said that is is my will that no one should touch them.

Of course, Voris and all those who follow in his footsteps will answer that these "grave sinners" among the priests and bishops must be exposed for the good of the church.  However, God the Father is not accepting this excuse:
For this reason, no one has excuse to say, "I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sin of evil pastors." Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness. They see well enough, but they pretend not to see so as to blunt the pricking of conscience. If they would look, they could see that they are persecuting not these ministers but the blood. It is me they assault, jut as it was me they reverenced.  To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me. For I have said and I say it again: No one is to touch my christs. IT IS MY RIGHT TO PUNISH THEM AND NO ONE ELSE'S.
Through St. Catherine of Siena, God the Father then gives three reasons why persecution of His christs is worse than any other sin:
The first is that what they do to my ministers they do to me.

The second is that they are violating my command, for I forbade them to touch [my christs].
. . .
The third reason this sin is more serious than any other is that it is committed deliberately and with selfish malice. They know they cannot do it in good conscience, but they do it nonetheless and sin. And it is a sin committed in perverse pride without any bodily pleasure. Indeed, both body and soul are eaten up by it. Their souls are eaten up because they are deprived of grace and chewed up by the worm of conscience. Their material possessions are consumed in the service of the devil. And their bodies die of it like animals.


Notice that God the Father says that those who persecute His christs are "in the service of the devil."  God the Father is not pulling any punches here.  He is deadly serious.  As He states to St. Catherine, He considers this sin as committed directly against Him:
So this sin is committed directly against me. It is unmitigated by any profit to the sinner or any pleasure except the sooty spite of pride -- a pride born of selfish sensuality and of that perverse slavish fear that led Pilate to kill Christ, my only-begotten Son, rather than risk losing his power. So do these behave.

All other sins are committed either through stupidity or ignorance or through the sort of malice that, though conscious of the evil being done, sins for the sake of disordered pleasure or profit. Such sinners bring harm to their own soul and offend me and their neighbors -- me because they are not praising and glorifying my name, their neighbors because they are not giving them the joy of their charity. But they are not actually persecuting me, because while they are sinning against me, it is themselves they are harming, and their sin displeases me because of the harm it does to them.

But this is a sin committed directly against me.
God the Father explains further:
Other sins have some pretext; they are committed with some excuse, with some middle ground . . . for I told you that every sin as well as every virtue is realized through your neighbors . . . If you sin against your neighbors, you sin against me through them.

But among all my creatures I have chosen these ministers of mine. They are my anointed ones, stewards of the body and blood of my only-begotten Son -- your human flesh joined with my divinity. When they consecrate they stand in the place of Christ, my Son. So you see, their sin is directed against this Word, and because it is done to him it is done to me, because we are one and the same. These wretches persecute the blood and so deprive themselves of the treasure and fruit of the blood.

Thus I consider their sin, committed not against my ministers but against me, the more serious because the persecution as well as the honor is not (nor do I consider it) owed to them but to me, that is, to this glorious blood of my Son, for we are one and the same.

Therefore, I tell you, if all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and this one sin on the other, the one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. I have shown you this so that you would have more reason to grieve that I am offended and these wretched souls damned, so that the bitter sorrow of you and my other servants by my kind mercy might dissolve the great darkness that has come over these rotten members who are cut off from the mystic body of the holy Church.
God the Father, through  St. Catherine of Siena, then directs His Words to the many thousands who follow Voris and emulate his actions:
But I find hardly anyone who will grieve over the persecution that is waged against this glorious precious blood, while there are many who persecute me constantly with the arrows of disordered love and slavish fear and self-conceit.  Blind as they are, they count as honor what is shameful, and as shame what is honorable, that is, to humble themselves before their head.

God the Father then gives a dire warning to those in engage in the practice of persecuting His christs:
Through these sins they have risen up and continue to rise up to persecute the blood. I spoke the truth when I told you that they are persecuting me. So far as their intention is concerned, they persecute me in whatever way they can. Not that I in myself can be harmed or persecuted by them, for I am like the rock that is not hurt by what is thrown at it, but glances it back at the one who threw it. Just so, the impact of the filthy sins they hurl can do me no harm, but their arrows glance back at them poisoned with guilt. This guilt deprives them of grace in this life because they lose the fruit of the blood, and in the end, unless they change their ways through heartfelt contrition and holy confession, they will come to eternal damnation, cut off from me and bound over to the devil.

They have, in fact, made a compact, they and the devil, for as soon as they have lost grace they are bound in sin with the chain of hatred for virtue and love of vice. And this chain they have put into the devil's hands with their free choice. This is what he binds them with, for in no other way could they be bound.

Look at these warnings:  "This guilt deprives them of grace in this life because they lose the fruit of the blood, and in the end, unless they change their ways through heartfelt contrition and holy confession, they will come to eternal damnation, cut off from me and bound over to the devil."  How often has Michael Voris condemned priests and bishops to hell.  Yet, here is God the Father through St. Catherine of Siena saying that this very act against priests and bishops can condemn us to hell!

God the Father says that those engaged in the practice of persecuting priests and bishops "regardless of how good or evil they may be" actually puts them in service to the devil himself:
This chain binds the persecutors of the blood one with the other, and as members bound up with the devil they have taken on the function of the devils. The devils make every effort to lead my creatures astray, to lure then away from grace and drag them down into the guilt of deadly sin so that others may share the evil that is in themselves. This is what such people do, neither more nor less. As the devil's members, they go about undermining the children of the bride of Christ, my only-begotten Son, undoing them from the bond of charity and binding them up in the wretched chain where they will be deprived of the fruit of the blood along with themselves.

The links of this chain are pride and self-importance along with the slavish fear that makes them lose grace rather than risk losing their temporal powers. So they fall into greater confusion than ever, since they have forfeited the honor of the blood. Their chain is welded with the seal of darkness, so that they do not recognize into what great trouble and wretchedness they have fallen and are making others fall. this is why they do not change their ways. They do not know themselves, but blind as they are, they take pride in their own spiritual and bodily ruin.

O dearest daughter, grieve without measure at the sight of such wretched blindness in those who, like you, have been washed in the blood, have nursed and been nourished with this blood at the breast of holy Church! Now like rebels they have pulled away from that breast out of fear and under the pretext of correcting the faults of my ministers -- something I have forbidden them to do, for I do not want [my anointed ones] touched by them.

What terror should come over you and my other servants when you hear any mention of that wretched chain of theirs! Your tongue could never describe how hateful it is to me! And worse still, they want to take cover under the cloak of my ministers' sins so as to cover up their own sins. They forget that no cloak can hide anything from my sight. They might well be able to hide from creatures, but not from me, for nothing present nor anything at all can be hidden from me. I loved you and know you before you came into being.
Michael Voris always seems to feel very free to judge and condemn Catholic priests and bishops, explaining that these men have no faith and are apostate.  God the Father now tells us why those who persecute His christs act as they do:
And this is one reason the wicked of this world do not change their ways: they do not believe in truth, by the light of living faith, that I see them. For if they believed in truth that I see them and their sins, and that every sin is punished and every good rewarded, they would not commit such evil but would turn away from what they have done and humbly ask for my mercy. And I, through my Son's blood, would be merciful to them. But they are obstinate, and so they are rejected by my goodness and because of their sins fall into the ultimate disaster of losing the light and, blind as they are, becoming persecutors of the blood. But no fault on the part of the ministers of the blood can justify such persecution.
There is no doubt that there are sinners among the clergy.  That has been the case since Judas, and it will remain true until the return of Christ.  But as the words of God the Father make clear, it is not up to any of us to judge and condemn them.  Certainly we are not obligated to agree with everything that comes out of every priest or bishop's mouth, and we don't have to agree with all of their actions.  But it is never our responsibility to stand in judgment of them.   To do so will put our own souls in mortal danger.

Michael Voris said in a recent video in which he was once again denouncing Father Baron:
The only thing that matters is: Is what he is saying correct or not, Catholic or not? 
Everyone who listens to Michael Voris and all others whose main goal in life seems to be to expose the sins of the church, such as the odious Pewsitter.com, should be asking themselves this same question.

God the Father leaves St. Catherine with this:
I have told you specifically about this sin because of the persecution of holy Church. And I tell you the same of Christianity in general: anyone who lives in deadly sin is scorning the blood and letting go of the life of grace. But much more displeasing to me and serious for themselves is the sin of those of whom I have spoken specifically.
Credit:  twitter.com

14 comments:

  1. I had to link to this in justice - it will print for tomorrow.

    Thank you very much for this!

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    1. You are very much responsible for this post, Terry. I didn't know anything about the Knoffke translation of the Dialogue until you told me about it on your blog. I checked out some samples of it and was intrigued, and so I got the book and found this.

      This translation is amazing, and I would recommend it to everyone.

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  2. Replies
    1. Thanks, Jackie. We desperately need to bring some civility to the Catholic blogosphere.

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  3. "If the faith is in imminent peril, prelates ought to be accused by their subjects, even in public." -St. Thomas Aquinas

    You're wrong about priests and gay parades. Catholic clergy are continually leading people into Hell over the issue of homosexual sins (gay sexual relationships).

    See here: http://connecticutcatholiccorner.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-will-vatican-end-catholic-parishes.html

    And here: http://connecticutcatholiccorner.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-catholic-priest-helps-people-go-to.html

    And here: http://connecticutcatholiccorner.blogspot.com/2014/10/priest-i-am-coming-out-for-gay-equality.html

    I could go on as Voris has because the examples go on and on and on.

    Heretics in the clergy are leading people to HELL and that is something EVERY Catholic should worry about and attempt to stop.

    "Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them." -Pope St. Felix III

    "The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity or rather the cowardice of the faithful."-Pope St. Pius X



    “If one yields ground on any single point of Catholic doctrine, one will later have to yield later in another, and again in another, and so on until such surrenders come to be something normal and acceptable. And when one gets used to rejecting dogma bit by bit, the final result will be the repudiation of it altogether.” - and - “What shall a Catholic do if some portion of the Church detaches itself from communion of the universal Faith? What other choice can he make if some new contagion attempts to poison, no longer a small part of the Church, but the whole Church at once, then his great concern will be to attach himself to antiquity (Tradition) which can no longer be led astray by any lying novelty.”
    quotes from St. Vincent of Lerin

    And of course Canon Law is on Voris' side too:

    "According to their knowledge, competence and prestige which they possess, [the Christian faithful] have the right and even at the times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful"
    - Canon Law 212 Section 3


    In Christ,

    Julie @ Connecticut Catholic Corner

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    Replies
    1. Julie, there are times when priests and bishops say things that we all disagree with. And there are times when they are absolutely wrong in what they say. No one is denying that.

      The point that is being made here is that God the Father - as recorded by St. Catherine of Siena - says that we as laity have no right to attack and condemn these priests as Voris does on a regular basis. Attacking priests - calling them faithless apostates headed to hell - seems to be all that Voris is about. God the Father says that these attacks are against Him personally.

      Julie, I'm not the one with whom you have an argument. You are arguing with the words of God the Father as recorded by St. Catherine of Siena. You obviously feel that the Father is not able to take care His christs, as He calls them, and that we have to step in. His response is that when you attack the clergy "regardless of how good or evil they may be", you are attacking God the Father Himself.

      These are not my words. So take it up with the Father - according to St. Catherine of Siena, He said it.

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    2. Julie, You let off an important part of Canon 212 section 3, "...without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons."
      I believe that the attacks Voris makes on our Bishops and Priests violates this part of Canon Law.
      I also believe that it is possible to stand up against the errors of the Clergy without resorting to character assassination.

      Bravo and Amen, Catholic in Brooklyn! It is good to see someone truly trapping and exposing lies and falsehoods. Keep up the good work. God Bless.

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    3. CIB, you are confused. You state what St. Catherine of Sienna said while conveniently forgetting the quote made by St. Thomas Aquinas. Logic should tell you there is something going on here that you are missing, as there is a vast difference between character assassination vs. exposing lies that are guiding people into Hell.

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  4. Michael Voris reminds me of a quotation from "Hamlet": "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." I, for me, think the worst sin destroying the society today is greed, not lust.

    I still wonder what St. Serge and St. Bacchus think of this.

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  6. Let's put Michael Voris out of business by getting the Bishops to do what they are suppose to do....be good Catholics! Isn't that better than complaining about the people who are complaining about the bad behavior of Bishops???

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    1. Michael Voris would not know what to do with himself if he could not judge and condemn Catholic hierarchy and the establishment Church.

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    2. CIB, stop holding people's hands as they walk into Hell. You would not know what to do with yourself if you could not judge and condemn those who expose evil while mistakenly believing they are involved in some sort of character assassination.

      Delete

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