EWTN’S FIRING OF SHEA AND SIMCHA WAS POLITICAL

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People are writing and speculating about the firing of Mark Shea and Simcha Fischer at EWTN’s National Catholic Register.  Many are happy about it.  I don’t know if too many are unhappy.  Perhaps.  Some see a change on the horizon.  Where?

Shea and Fisher served a purpose.  They were instigators and they were tasked with muddling the heads of faithful Catholics, especially to promote leftist political issues.  Lies and anger were some of their tools.  EWTN didn’t work with them out of loyalty and indulgence.  They wanted them there for as long as they had them.  They wanted the muddled heads.

Many imagine that the National Catholic Reporter or America Magazine might become a new outlet for these two writers, but that would be surprising.  There is an affinity, but not an enough of an ideological match.  More importantly they don’t have the required skill set.  FrancisChurch, from its top to its parish pastor has, unfortunately, a very effeminate homosexual quality and character.  It’s slippery.  Writers on the left are quite talented, capable and extremely careful.  They can be furious like Michael Sean Winters or Fr. Thomas Rosica, but in this they are much more like snakes than bulldogs.  They know when to come in and go out from under their rocks.  Crux’s John Allen is a highly talented and intelligent writer who sees exactly which way the wind is blowing, but he manages to maintain an air of honesty while applying very little of it.  He and others like him are persuasive, and masters at turning and twirling readers so they’re pointed off course.  Think Elizabeth Scalia and everyone at the New York Times.

A lack of persuasion is the cardinal sin for which American Catholic’s Donald McClarey faults Shea and Fisher.  Boniface says it’s that they were loose cannons off stage.  Both very true.  Mr. Armaticus thinks an unCatholic, liberal EWTN is a money-losing proposition.  I don’t agree.  There is always money in modern times for people who help to wreck the Church.  I don’t think they were fired for any of these reasons.  I think it was politics.

Politics was the reason Shea and Fisher were retained for years.  Politics was their purpose and they knew it.  They did their jobs.  It’s just that EWTN is no longer in the market for their unique (odd) services.  Why?

Well, as Wikileaks has been the latest to demonstrate, Francis – I mean the idea of a Francis as pope – is about politics (Did you think it was about Christ and his saving mission?) and the Catholic media do seem to be bending along the Francis lines.

Others have paid for it, and those payers expect Francis and his Church to turn the ‘catholic’ vote.  Shea and Fisher were just helping, but I guess EWTN has now decided they don’t want their help that much.  Has FrancisChurch jumped the shark?  Is it in fact having the opposite effect on voters?

I’m often too optimistic.  I don’t follow sports.  I know life is, in a sense, a game, but since it really isn’t, I prefer not to look at it that way.  But I’m not convinced Trump is losing right now.  I think he probably will ultimately lose because the entire establishment is lined up against him and they will mount and count the votes, but I believe he’s actually quite popular.

When Trump dinged the Francis on his U.S. Border stunt, it teased out the Pope’s monstrous hubris and contempt for decent people.  Normal people really don’t like the hyped Francis program.  They don’t like Hillary.  They don’t like people like Shea and Fisher.  You can’t just make normal decent people, sacramental Catholics who live their faith in other words ‘conservatives’ into liberals, even if you foist a Francis onto Peter’s chair.

The actual operation of the Church has always relied upon benevolent power and suffered without it.  If Trump is on the way to becoming president, my guess is it will have a certain good effect upon the Church.   Maybe for some reason EWTN now wants to anticipate that hopeful day with a remaining shred of respect.  Maybe Shea is right.  It was about Trump.

 

When Will Those Latin Mass Catholics Evangelize, I’m Talkin’ Evangelize?

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Msgr. Pope, and the now mainline National Catholic Register, jumped the shark with last week’s attack on the Ancient Mass.  Isn’t it too soon to pretend that the new FrancisChurch of Mercy is ‘revitalizing’ the faith and making it ‘vibrant’?  Unless they were paid for it, few people have been silly enough to sashay through these stupid doors they’re flinging open everywhere.  So, cue the Register: time to attack the pitiful ‘closed-in’ group of pharisees they occasionally permit to commute to a faithful Mass.

It’s not that the ancient Mass is bad, it’s just that the people are so lazy about evangelizing!  When are they going to do that FrancisJazz?  Do they even have MercyDoors?

It’s really so sad and discouraging to see these brilliant men, who’ve given their lives to Christ, play the miserable fall guy in this NuChurch of ugly.

Evangelization matters. Effectively handing on the faith to the next generation matters. Attending Mass regularly and supporting the work of the Church matters. Vocations matter. Sacrificially offering our time, talent, and treasure matters. These truths matter throughout the Church and in every different setting.

You know what else matters? Faith.  Faith matters.  The only thing driving the FrancisChurch hierarchy is money –  government money, powerful money, UN money, but not faith.  The kind of ‘evangelizing’ that Monsignor is talking about requires well-placed speakers, television screens, professional groomers, and loud empty-headed sentimental preening.  You have to pay for that kind of thing (nobody is going to cough up their contributions) and they have plenty of money for that.  They have plenty of destroyer money.

The point of FrancisChurch is to crush Catholicism and turn it into some government department of ‘love’.  Why did Cardinal Dolan decide to sell-off half the churches in Manhattan before Francis even got his mercy going?  Because he, and Mayor de Blasio, and Obama are implementing the plan.  Not to sound conspiratorial, but all things happen according to a plan, and people who rule over you have one.  It’s not about dying parishes and lazy Catholics.  It’s about no Catholics and no parishes.

Those mostly elderly, who are stalwart enough to continue to attend the Paul VI Mass despite the fact it was designed to repulse Catholics, need to be handled.  Now is the time.  They can’t go to Mass if there are no churches.

Why are there no priests in FrancisChurch?  Because they don’t want any, and can you imagine giving your lives and obedience to men like these bishops and their boys?  Honestly?

One of our parishes generously offers a Solemn High Mass once a month on Sunday afternoon, a Mass that I myself have celebrated for over 25 years. But we have gone from seeing the church almost full, to two-thirds full, to now only about one-third full.

Explanations abound among the traditional Catholics I speak to about the lack of growth in attendance at the Traditional Latin Mass. Some say that it is because more options are now available. But one of the promises was that if parishes would just offer the Traditional Latin Mass each parish would be filled again. Others say there are parking issues, or that the Mass times are not convenient, or that the Masses are too far away. But these things were all true 20 years ago when the Solemn Mass was thriving.

Every other Sunday my family drives thirty miles to the Latin Mass at 2pm.  I hate going to Church at 2pm on Sunday.  Everyone does.  But I have no choice.  My local pastor says almost all the weekend Masses and he’s a twisted ball of liberal self-loathing.  His Mass is nothing like Catholic.  It’s just third-rate entertainment with an evil message.  I HAVE to drive to the Latin Mass, but I don’t WANT to.

Holy Mass is not supposed to be something you want to do.  It’s something you must do for the love of God and the good of your soul.  If they don’t offer it anywhere, and tell people to go for Heaven’s sake, of course it won’t grow.

Everyone at the Latin Mass I attend is in the same boat.  Our problem is that we’re Catholic.  It’s a beautiful Mass.  It’s like Heaven not Hell, and from what I see attendance is growing and growing, but not for long I’m sure.  As the FrancisChurch noose tightens, men like Msgr. Pope, who seem to have spent years repelling faithful Mass-goers, will rise to the occasion and swing a hammer at them yet again.

If only all the Latin Mass churches could just conveniently burn down like they do in Blase Cupich’s Chicago!

 

 

Register Fires Pat Archbold: EWTN Formally Joins FrancisChurch

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Some call this 'Christian Unity'

Some call this ‘Christian Unity’

Pat Archbold has been fired from the National Catholic Register.

Ever since Francis became Pope the media world has become a frightening virtual reality. First the Register started apologizing for the Pope’s anti-Catholic attacks. Then they started attacking Catholics themselves. Last month they joined two dissident rags in a liberal political move which backfired, of course, in their faces. Now this. They release their best and most powerful writer; perhaps the only one that didn’t need the job and could still tell the truth.

I got to write for the Register for five years and now I don’t anymore. It was never gonna be a lifetime appointment. Any money I receive from writing is essentially inconsequential to my family as I have always had another primary career. I got into writing because I love my faith and the Church. It is that simple. I always just wanted to write what I thought about what was happening in the culture and in the Church and I wanted to say it the way I wanted to say it.

The sad thing is that this is EWTN’s most faithful outlet. Remember how amazing and miraculous that network once was?

For a while that was understood, accepted, and even appreciated by the Register. For the past 2 years, that has increasingly not been the case. That shouldn’t be a surprise to many. There was no sense in me changing since my reasons and need for writing had not changed. But obviously some things changed, as we all know. I knew what I was doing and I understood well the current mood. I didn’t change because I didn’t want to. But it is their newspaper and they get to choose what they want to pay for and publish. That obviously was no longer my writing.

In a strange way, I am relieved. It feels more honest now. No more me jumping through hoops and worrying about every word or topic choice. And I am sure some folks who had to deal with me during an increasingly tense process are equally glad to be rid of me.

He did have to jump through the hoops for a couple years. The problem is he couldn’t stop his message from getting out.

The Christian example here is in Archbold’s consistency.  He didn’t bend.  They did. “There was no sense in me changing since my reasons and need for writing had not changed.” Pat was writing out of love for Christ and the Church, NOT for money, so he had no need or desire to compromise!

My question is, “Why is the entire planet, including all the Catholic press, being paid to do Francis-Hype?”  Is perhaps the entire planet up to something holy and that’s why they care so much about the Church?