VICAR OF SIN: VIRTUE IS BUILT UPON “OPEN-MINDEDNESS” AND THE “WISDOM THAT CAN LEARN FROM MISTAKES,” A GIFT THAT COMES FROM THE HOLY SPIRIT.
DESANTIS MOBILIZES FLORIDA STATE GUARD TO WARD OFF EXPECTED WAVE OF HAITIAN MIGRANTS
WEST POINT REMOVES THE WORDS ‘DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY’ FROM ITS MISSION STATEMENT
VICAR OF HATE PIGEONHOLES CATHOLICS WHO REJECT HIS VALIDITY AS SAD LITTLE PEOPLE, POPPING UP LIKE MUSHROOMS, WHO INTERPRET EVERY LITTLE THING IN THEIR OWN WAY. “I FEEL SORRY FOR THEM”
WORRIED BORGIAPOPE FRANCIS SMEARS AND DEGRADES CATHOLIC MEDIA HE CAN’T CONTROL
FRANCIS’S DECADENT CHRISTENDOM: EUROPEAN BIRTHS COLLAPSE, PARTICULARLY AFTER THE VAXX
‘FALL-GUY FRANCISCARDINAL BECCIU’S BROTHER ANTONIO EXPECTED TO BE CHARGED IN SARDINIA FOR EMBEZZLEMENT ALONG WITH BISHOP, LOCAL CARITAS CHIEF
Hi Frank – I agree with you on Matt’s Mt. Kilimanjaro climb. It seems like a cheeky stunt. It reminds of when Taylor Marshall “ran for president.” It probably doesn’t do any harm, but what good does it do? Michael Matt has done more for the trad movement than I ever will. However, he doesn’t see that we are never going to “restore” the Church. That is dead and gone. As Malachi Martin said, “we are going to entombment before we get to resurrection.” It seems to me that the Church is going to collapse. Or as Cardinal Manning said, “it will appear to have been washed from the face of the earth.” And all that will be left will be us, the remnant. From it the Church will begin to rebuild. But that is a long way off, perhaps hundreds of years. If you try to bring that up with Matt and most trads., you get called a defeatist or a sede vacantist. You don’t want to “unite the clans.” It’s very frustrating.
Climbing Kilimanjaro seems a little lame. Why not parachute onto the dome of St. Peter’s and unfurl a banner which says “Definitely Pope!”?
Yes, statistics show that travel is #1 on people’s bucket list. But who’s to deny that Matt’s morphing into Rick Steves is another thing entirely? No doubt, the former already had celebrity status, given the videos of his tours and pilgrimages around France, broadcast reports from Munich, Akita, and Vatican City, and of course the annual “Roman Forum” filming from Gardone Riviera.
But, let’s face it, Lake Garda is tame and the Dolomites are small potatoes compared to the “mystic” Lake Challa and Kilimanjaro, highest mountain in Africa and known to the Maasai as the “House of God.” In their dialect, ‘kilima’ means mountain and ‘ndjaro’ means Great Spirit. Moreover, the Maasai revere the highest peak, Kibo, as the tomb of King Menelik, exalted son of Solomon and Sheba and conqueror of all Kenya and Tanganyika. But climbers beware: Its 20,000 foot elevation is the maximum height at which animals and humans can breathe before dying.
Years ago, I published a book on Hemingway’s “African Stories.” His “Snows of Kilimanjaro” was written to commemorate some sort of “fifth dimension” which he experienced in the African highlands. Not unlike the quest for a personal holy grail, Hemingway believed he could find new vitality, a restoration of hope and inspiration . He had wished to come to terms with what he felt was “the death of God” in a gangrenous modern world. Both in his story and in real life, as he was ailing and airlifted from Arusha, Hemingway saw Kilimanjaro’s incredibly majestic. blindingly bright snow-capped dome. It seemed suspended in space high above the clouds and icy fog. Not hard for anyone to imagine, he thought he had gone to heaven.
Perhaps what poet and naturalist Vivienne de Watteville wrote about Kilimanjaro is a life lesson and warning, not just to celebrities but to all of us: “The difficulty is not in the actual climbing. Success depends not on skill but on the ability to withstand the high altitude. One must attempt it promptly and on time before the risk of the rains setting in.”