Obama has significantly been referring to "freedom of worship" (rituals confined church, synagogue or mosque) rather than "freedom of religion" (religious values lived in the public square) spoken of in the US Constitution.
New-speak designed to make religion "a private affair" having no place in the workplace or in public discourse.

Why did Bush mentioned. Bush had Fr. Neuhause one of his advisors and prayed every day.

I live just East of Dallas and worked there for 15 years. I was just in that area of town recently. This really hits home to me. My heart broke to see that tragedy and evil unfold yesterday and then to watch the threat rise up again today. My prayers go out to the slain who valiantly tried to protect others. And to their families. How devistating for them and not to mention the other officers that survived. They need our prayers. The ultimate sacrifice...to lay down one's life for a friend and especially for someone you do not know. The devil has been pitting people against eachother since the beginning. Cain and Able. Nothing has changed as we live in a fallen world. We must fight evil in every way. And can start and continue with a humble heart, fervent prayer and appropiate action. God knows all. I trust Him and will do all I can to reach out to others. Evil is evil and love is love. Love overcomes evil in the end. Is it not just that simple?
Thinking and praying in Dallas.

To quote Solzhenitsyn,"Men have forgotten God."

or has God forgotten Man?

God does not forget

No. But not in a way we're going to enjoy when he gets around to giving our national sins what they deserve. Then we really will wish God "had forgotten us."

Another excellent dissection of one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of what is happening. Thank you.

Another excellent analysis of how perverse, evil and irrational the modern world has become. What is needed is an excellent analysis of what Christ is calling Catholics to do about that. A few initial thoughts on coming up with God's plan for us:

-- Don't wait for the bishops to lead or to come up with a realistic plan. They won't.

-- God's plan will include taking action that will actually cost you something. There is a reason Christ insisted that we must take up our cross and follow Him if we are to be His disciples: Because it is a cross to be hated, slandered and persecuted as He promised we would be. It is very difficult to truly follow Christ and have the world like you at the same time. (It seems that Bergoglio and a lot of our American and European bishops just don't get this.)

-- Learn how the undermining of Catholic truth led to the contemporary disaster we find ourselves in. A big factor in this undermining of the truth is the de-Christianization of Scripture scholarship, which began outside the Church in the mid-19th century, and soon infected Catholic Scripture scholarship as well. What do I mean by the de-Christianization of Scripture scholarship? It is scholarship that is permeated with the asinine notion than anything miraculous in the Scriptures must really be just a legend. Why that is asinine:

-- Christians believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.

-- We believe that Triune Supreme Being is ultimately the Author of the Scriptures, which is an account of the interaction between that supernatural Being and natural beings.

-- Such an account, unlike any other literary work, contains a record of the activity of the supernatural side of that interaction, which will of course, be supernatural. To begin the study of the Scriptures with the rejection of the reality of miraculous events is like beginning a study of the life of Babe Ruth after deciding there is no such thing as baseball. You will get it all wrong.

Christianity was formed by real, historical events -- divine interventions in human history -- which demonstrated the divine wisdom, power, goodness and love of God for His people. If the Church doesn't really believe in those interventions any more then it becomes powerless when confronted by the prince of this world, because the Church's power is really the power of God, which requires on the part of the Church faith in it, and faith in God's willingness to use it on our behalf. Then only can it be to be unleashed against the prince of this world, who reigns now because of our lack of faith. The Gospels record that Christ always mentioned faith on the part of someone when His divine power was miraculously brought forth. Faith can do that again. But as Christ asked (thinking of our times?) "But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?"

"God's plan will include taking action that will actually cost you
something. There is a reason Christ insisted that we must take up our
cross and follow Him if we are to be His disciples: Because it is a
cross to be hated, slandered and persecuted as He promised we would be.
It is very difficult to truly follow Christ and have the world like you
at the same time."

I totally agree with this comment, but to be honest here I have difficulty in distinguishing persecution for righteous sake, and being corrected when wrong. I just don't want to get into a place where I am so sure I am right, that God cannot show me when I am wrong. I am referring mostly to those gray areas not the obvious right v wrong.

You have an entirely legitimate concern.

The active life must spring from our prayer:

See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
-- Mt 18:10

Our guardian angels have an active life -- guarding us -- yet they are always contemplating God. Our activism must spring from our prayer, too.

If we despise not God's little ones by getting involved in the Pro-Life movement, it is absolutely essential that our activism always springs from our prayer. If it doesn't then we can become people who, as you put it, can't be shown by God when they are wrong. One is right about abortion being profoundly evil, but that does not give one a license to use any tactic at all to oppose it with an "the end justifies the means" mentality. Such a one will end up deserving persecution -- and maybe prosecution as well. Of course, opposing child-killing entirely righteously can (and does) lead to persecution and prosecution of the kind Christ told us to expect.

In perfect keeping with today's Daily Reading

I'm recognizing many of the essential elements dominating the politics in the EU, in Brussels. The major problem is these liberal ideas are becoming legislation and the freedom of conscience is more and more restricted.

"That Islam might have a record of turning violently political, whenever it feels threatened, would be beside the point. It also has a record of turning peacefully religious when it does not feel threatened."

I thought Islam had a record of conquering, raping and pillaging. It believes that peace is only possible when there is no disagreement. Even in times of reduced violence, to leave Islam commands the death penalty. I would say it always feels threatened and is always a political entity.

If you don't trust me just read "Islam’s Inexorable Impulse" by Matthew Hanley, posted on TCT a couple days ago.

Hopefully, the demonstrators shouting "black lives matter!" have not been involved in aborting black babies.

I read and have heard on TV that more than 60% of Planned Parenthood facilities are in or next to black neighborhoods.
60% compared to the % of blacks in the US. It's a scandal!

And Hispanic neighborhoods as well.

I can't think PP has had the same success in Hispanic neighbourhoods where the majority are Catholic and the rest are ardently Pentecostal.

Just another window into what a house of cards the progressive movement is. I firmly believe we are about to see a huge Avalanche in this country in terms of a total re-alignment. The left has sponsored and encouraged killing, murder, chaos, lawless behavior of every kind. They pit one constituency against another and co-opt both. This cannot last. The footfalls of Truth grow ever nearer..

It's just how racist Margaret Sanger wanted it.

Wishful thinking, indeed.

Wonderful insight--and sad, considering it's true. More and more, politics has usurped the religious domain. Now, when we're confronted with a tragedy like Dallas or Orlando, we concern ourselves with the means (a gun--or explosive robot!) and completely ignore the ends (racist propaganda or global jihad). After all, guns are political; philosophy and theology are not.

As another comment pointed out, this has filtered into the Church as well. We now concern ourselves with policies concerning the poor, the environment, marketing, and bureaucracy, not with the realities of Christ or becoming more holy. I sometimes feel like we're called to be saints not because this is the purpose of life but because it's a great way to spread the Catholic agenda and win more votes. Call it "the politics of the soul."

If Catholics hope to escape this universal politicization, they should probably exercise the Benedict Option: turn off the television and smartphone, and start cultivating a rigorous prayer life. It's amazing how all these other categories we have in our mind and the metaphorical file cabinet itself dissolves into nothing while God becomes everything as He is.

Saying that Islam is sometimes peaceful does not help to clearly define it as demonic. Allah is not God.

Actually, Bill, since the Quran references much of the Torah and regards Jesus as a prophet, Allah is the same God we worship. However, they have a very different view of God so in a realistic sense you are right, their perception of Allah is not a true and complete understanding of God..

God is God and our description of Him is as good as the right attributions with which we endow Him. In this respect Allah sometimes appears as no better than the god of the Aztecs -- though that god commanded bloody heart extraction rather than cutting the jugular.

It is odd -- generally, investigations into domestic terror take weeks, months, doing it properly. Yet, the media is now saying, with certainty, that this gunman "acted alone" (how can they be so sure?) and also that "we may never know" what "set him off". Why would we never know? That's very strange too. Generally government at all levels instructs us to not jump to any conclusions and wait to see what the investigation yields. He is described as a "loner" and yet he was very active on Facebook. Obviously he was reading, looking at, some things, via device and tech, as many are.

I myself will not regard this matter closed or definitively understood until the authorities fully investigate the phenomenon reported some years back in the NY Times colloquially known under different ominous terms, including, "gang-stalking" or "mob-stalking". My own take on this horrible violence and others lately is that this gunman in all likelihood had been "mob stalked" by others via his tech or through proxies close to him. What occurs typically is that there are one or two very violent individuals, usually middle aged, angry, men, who select a "target" for their own profit (sometimes this might be a spurned love interest or an acquaintance whom they just dislike for whatever reason) and then obtain access to their whole lives via technology. Then, they animate divisions among the target's circle of friends/work/important relationships to make it seem that "everyone" is against them, and this is something that no matter what the target does they cannot seem to get a grip on. It's a nightmare. The method/means here has to do with slander and taking innocent things, like someone's facebook page, and adding lies or doctoring things in order to send otherwise normal people out on some false crusade. The organizer's goal is to make the target violent on the group he has selected for the vent/wrath after this target reaches the breaking point by constant stalking from strangers and friends implying so many strange things, and/or suicide, which brings embarassment down upon the target's circle as well as tragedy. One may indeed say it has a political whiff to it, or anarchist, or satanist.

It's been a known phenomenon among US federal authorities certainly since '07, without any action, comment or investigation, even while sometimes high profile people, candidates, etc., are implicated by stalkers, or there are indications that stalkers sell the information they gain by their surveilling of a target to highest bidder, and this means that political mouthpieces and operatives will sometimes repeat or ape information or propaganda one might call it that they would otherwise not have said. They too have been terrifically duped.

This process advantages itself based upon human's propensities towards gossip, angry gossip, about others one "hates", and the idea that any activity is "ok" based upon political activism. So then you have like middle school students or grannies reading something somewhere or getting a text from somenoe purporting to be a friend that animates them to go out and stalk their neighbor in the local grocery store. The target then despairs and kills him/herself (or goes out and does what we just saw happen). People have not been taught basic ethics to go along with their politcal passions, so, they believe that it's ok to do all these things, or that it is "harmless", or that they are "entitled" to it, or even that they are "righteous" because after all, some great slander or calumny has been inserted into their ear by the profiteering activist with all the tech info at the top of the greed and food chain.

In all likelihood, these tech activists saw in this gunman a great target and had animated acts of stalking by whites against this guy. They divide and conquer. They don't care about the white supremacists who were willing to stalk this man, nor do they care about the gunman, nor certainly BLM protestors (obviously) nor police. In fact, their work is done once they get the target unhinged. Evidently this man had been nursing a situation for quite some time and was just "waiting" for word or some trigger. Somehow, someone triggered him and this is what all our illustrious medial elites and investigations need to yield. Unless perhaps they know they are complicit in all of this, in which case they just nurse their survivor's guilt and look the other way on it. Yes, chaos never favors reason, democratic process, freedom of the press. It only favors evil and we are now living its grandiose effects.

Also, this is a group that is/has been signalling that it is angry that it didn't get it's candidate, and so, being what it is, it uses only what it knows and holds dear, hate, propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, manipulating people illegally via tech and other means, all the means it has, illegal, at its disposal, to animate "revenge" the only power value it knows, works by, to cause, more chaos, hatreds, divisions. This is a group that profiteers in chaos, divisions, of established circles of friendship or politics or religious practice or education or anything really, for its own gain, and nothing else. They are like violence/choas, brokers, in essence. So they have been indicating through their illegal means for awhile that they are infiltrating BLM in order to seek its revenge and make its power/threats felt. It then manipulates known, longstanding stalked via tech targets to violence/suicide. I suspect even that the Orlando also a "lone gunman" may also have been manipulated through gay networks of friends/tech similarly. Why do authorities not simply connect up what triggered these people? They were "loners" everyone wants us to be certain of. OK, but they were on fb, they were on gay dating sites, they were involved with certain groups on the Southern Poverty Law Center's listings as "hate groups". Whatever "group" it may be, there are people who wield power over them and others, though not by the ordinary means one understands that -- i.e., public leadership, incitement, rhetoric, radicalization. No this is even more demonic. And no group is not vulnerable. People involved in hate groups and loony politics are very easy to be stalked into violence, obviously. People who are predisposed to mental health issues, to violence, who use tech a lot. But others, innocents, are just as vulnerable if not more, because they tend to be law abiding, moral, religious, trusting. So there you have it. Media says "loner" affirmatively and "we will never know". I just ask, how do they know?

Those responsible for via proxy having others explode into horrific, spectacular violence via incessant torturous stalking of them via use of their tech/secrets/foibles/ attachments, those persons (and again since it is all about threats and violence and lies it is demonic and not "political" but it operates under cover of that to get others to do their work) care not a fig for organized politics, for candidates they support or not, for the democratic process, and, most importantly, they certainly do not care one iota for BLM, their cause, or for anyone but themselves and their selfish/profitable interests. They merely use these events and policial movements or currents as cover or occurrence for their goals/gain.

In all likelihood the people who are animated to go out and do the harassment on the ground are being paid, they are a small but effective number, they are probably paid in bitcoin or favors, they are in a criminal, hazy class, possibly addicts, angry people, people desperate for money, people with a record. They are overwhelmingly male middle aged and white. They care nothing for BLM or for anyone, even the people they send out to stak and harass their targets. If their stalker is questioned as to their "source" of info or who directed them, they are long gone, they are terrifically careful. They are not interested "leadership" or "authority/accountability" far from it.

They likely sell their "intelligence/disinformation" to legit media outlets, community "activists" and political operatives. Then, once legit outlets such as these use or rely upon this "info", they "show their power", but then are long gone. Maybe they did not exist or it was a fictional name. Ask the media/political operative/legit activist to introduce you to the actual person who supplied this "info/disinfo" and they are long gone.

So long as the police look the other way and are content to say that somehow someoneo ammassed stock piles of weapons, people who are in law enforcement/security/vets, with issues, who somehow wind up feeling as though they are in reality being "attacked", not just from watching news clips but in real time, in real life, going to the local CVS or whatever it may be, going about their day, as "usual", being stalked and prodded and threatened, incessantly, to make one imagine that police will never help them, well. I don't think this will stop. There are real people at the top orchestrating this whom law enforcement could get in touch with if they wanted to. They are the serial killers of yesteryear, violent sociopaths, using politics, tech, and disinformation, people's passion for activism and their pet angry political cause to wreak mayhem, blood, and profit from these for themselves.

Sorry for the long posts but it is complex, and to decent people, unheard of and unthinkable, so I think it necessary to detail it a bit for comprehension.

So the hypothetical would be along the lines of this: someone, a flawed person, maybe with issues such as depression and difficult marriage, who again in confusion identifies with like the Green party but is nonetheless a prolife Catholic, then wakes up one day to feel strangely like they are being constantly menaced, intimidated, assaulted, property and home damaged, stalked, listened to phone/tech to humiliate (ie. medication, dr's appts, personal details) by not pro choice people but in fact by gay people. They don't understand because they have good relationships with gay friends and have never been bigoted and certainly never hated or were phobic towards gays. But there it is. So, eventually this person slips into psychosis or delusion that gay people as a political "group" are organized against them, threaten them, and are going to harm them. In a lot of people given this scenario, they will strike out -- it's human nature -- to "defend" themselves from this "attack" -- even though it's not at all gay people, in fact, gay people do not and would not do this, and, further, something such as that makes the gay community look horrible and desperate and unethical -- and so the animator of this waits for that person to commit suicide or to rant against and commit some unhinged act against a gay person or gay persons, in order to play into their narrative that this person was "evil" (although it was only their own personal revenge that targeted that person in the first place) and further that this person "hated" some group. To get those persons to stalk and harass, they tell some whoppers of slander/lies about the target to convince the people doing the proxy stalking that they are doing something righteous, just. No one informs this community or their tech networks to beware of people in do gooder clothing telling them to go out and do things that they in a million years would never dream of choosing to do on their own if they knew the full reality of things.

In Orlando, the gunman was a conflicted, "tortured soul". He was gay, but he was also radicalized and hated the US. Obviously he must have made an impression at the gay bar he frequented. Somehow people gain access to his technology and he begins to get harassed more and more, to a crescendo where he becomes completely unhinged. He believes he has to lash out. He believes he is "under attack". He is a perfect target for the demonic tech activists at the top orchestrating it because he frequents radical hate groups on his tech but at the same time he has something he might have difficulty being honest about, being gay, given his milieu, upbringing, culture...he is related to people who are involved with the State Department. It would embarass them supposedly...if all that the proxy stalkers "know" about him that they stalk him several times a day about and at night with sleep disruptions and torture were to suddenly be "used against him" somehow. So he takes matters into his own hands.

But, no one will look closely at people's technology, evidently.

And, it's important for the activist demonic tech people at the top to have a lot of violence by guns apparently, this summer. In fact, it appears very crucial, for them that these events be happening. They seem to want to even maybe throw an election -- make people feel terrifically unsafe in their own homes and circles of friendships and complexities. Remember, it's not reasonable, and it's demonic. It's been happening, to animate and inform politics since 07. Remember, their favored candidate then won out. They do not want to "go back" to the one they "rejected" and they believe that they are all powerful (they are) and they do think that they are entitled to force, by all means, and at all costs (human lives mean zero to them) their will. Don't take my word for it. Check it out.

You do realize that no matter the substance of these long posts, no one is reading them.

Excellent important article, though I could quibble on a couple points Warren is hitting on something very important and thought provoking, and perhaps that thought needs to include some new questioning about Catholicism's view of the secular state. Can a supposedly religion-neutral state ever do anything but veer in the direction the west is now going?

Word of the day: Bergoglioism. I'm gonna borrow that one! a keeper!

"Bergoglioism." I like it. Well done, Father. Including, photo-ops that push secular moral relativism. It fits.

Father Morello, God bless you and thank you for sharing your insights. Bergoglioism - I like it. If you haven't already done so try checking out a website maintained by Ann Barnhardt. I think you'll find her a kindred spirit.

Here's a cut from one of Ann's posts re: anti pope Francis:Vocem Alienorum:

Vocem Alienorum: The Voice of Antipope Francis Bergoglio Is the Voice of A Stranger,
It is now clear to me, and I feel it morally incumbent upon me given my position to publicly state that I believe Jorge Bergoglio, “Francis” to be an Antipope, never having been canonically elected, and that Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI is still the Roman Pontiff.

The sheer quantity of evidence, and the diversity of the confluent evidence sets, is now so utterly overwhelming that I believe that a person, fully informed of the dataset, would have to engage in the willful suspension of disbelief to continue to acknowledge Bergoglio as Roman Pontiff.

I will structure this essay in terms of time. We will begin with prophecy. Next we will address the “resignation” of Pope Benedict XVI Ratzinger in light of what I will refer to as the “Gänswein Thesis”. Next we will address the “election” of Bergoglio in light of the publicly confessed malfeasance of the so-called “St. Gallen Mafia”. Next we will look at a brief, incomplete list of Antipope Bergoglio’s heresies, blasphemies and antichristological actions. Finally, we will discuss what exactly this means, both for The Church as a whole, and for me personally, in the hopes that others can be, if not edified, then at least informed by my personal experience.

"The adverse effect his pontificat is having on the Church." This is a true statement. The conflicting interpretations of Amoris Laetitiae by cardinals and bishops alike is a clear sign The Church is in schism.
As far as I can see this division is now going to erupt in the liturgical life of The Church.
Cardinal Sarah's recent request to have the celebrant face the tabernacle instead of the people, which he said Pope Francis requested he do, and to have that implemented within one year; will be met with much opposition. This will cause a further rupture to any assemblece of our being One Holy Catholic
And Apostolic Church.
I believe this is a planned maneuver.
Faithful believers may rejoice now, but it will cost us.
The Church will become much smaller and very soon.

I remember giving a sermon at a cathedral, in the 1990's because the rector there invited me to say Mass. The Ordinary at the time wrote me a scathing letter since I had preached against women's ordination and gay marriage. He didn't do it in a way that clearly contradicted Catholic doctrine. He rather said that I had offended some of the congregants by my mean spirited sermon.

When I replied to the Bishop in my letter of response, I praised his defense of the Holy Catholic faith and expressly said there should be more vigilant bishops, like him, protecting the authentic doctrines of the Church. What could he do? Write me back a letter he could be sure would be sent straight to Rome?

It is my sense that now I could not write such a letter and know that Rome would back me up. I know Archbishop Cupich personally and he is no friend of traditional Catholicism nor those who are against ecclesial innovations.

Phenomenal post. One of the best I've seen here. Those who have met him, Cupich will indeed go down as having been a vile wolf in sheep's clothing.

Dear Father Morello,
Your reply is brilliant! It certainly looks to me that Pope Francis is more interested in bringing the kingdom of man on earth than on bringing the Kingdom of God, a kingdom that is not of this world. This is the reason why "Bergoglioism," as you coined, appears to be so popular with those who share this interest, the secular humanists. I recently read that Cardinal Carlo Caffarra reported that Sister Lucia dos Santos sent him a letter where she predicted that the final battle between Christ and Satan would be over marriage and the family. Pope Francis has certainly brought this battle up-front-and-center into the Church. And more and more the suspicion grows that he is not willing to support the side of Christ in this battle, as the faithful have the right to expect from any pope and they found from previous popes. I know that her prediction is private revelation, however, I find it very interesting and applicable to these days.

Dear Father Morello,
Thank you for your counsel.

News flash: There have been more than 3,500 gun deaths -- virtually all black on black -- in Chicago since Obozo took office, a figure that rises day by day. Yawn. This doesn't fit the liberal media narrative, however. Post-Dallas, we hear from Jesse Jackson that Trump and the cops are to blame, we hear from Obozo that guns are to blame and we hear from Hillary that whites are to blame. Political correctness demands that the truth must be avoided at all costs so not as to offend a large segment of the voting public.

Excellent, grump. Keep em coming.

Still enjoying a little sophomoric name-calling in my old age, I smiled at "Obozo." Indulge me:

A limerick for President Warlock Inhumane Obortion

President Barack Hussein Obama:
Evil warlock who's sayin "Oh Allah!",
But under his breath
As he plots the death
Of babes before they're rocked by their mama.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, there were sixty shootings in Chicago. One has to assume that a great number of these were black on black.

Media: Yawn.

The media focuses only when a white cop shoots a black man. In the recent instance in Minnesota, the media immediately jumped to the conclusion that a white cop had shot a black man, The governor of that poor state IMMEDIATELY, without hearing any facts, told the media that it was an instance of "racism".

But it now appears the cop was Hispanic. Oops - the media will have to omit that fact. Otherwise, they will not be able to fan the hatred that they want to engender.

In this most recent instance in Minnesota, it does appear that the cop shot a poor innocent man who was only trying to comply with the officers directions. But in almost every case before that, the media pretended this was the case when it was not.

The media seems to be trying to start a race war. Race wars are good for the media, bad for everyone else. They have been trying so very hard, mostly by lying to us. In most of these cases, a young black man made the decision to attack a cop, or was waving a gun around, or otherwise put himself in a very bad situation, one that no one with a lick of sense would do.

But we were not told the full truth. In most of these cases, the media tried to start their race war by lying and telling us the cops shot the poor kid for no reason at all. Like some malignant devil, the media fed on the sometimes- legitimate anger in the black community about policing. But they fed the anger, they purposely left facts out in an effort to turn rational concern into irrational hatred.

Over and over again, the local authorities found no reason to prosecute the police officers. Over and over again, the federal government was called in to undo the "racist" local authority's decision. Over and over again, they found no reason to prosecute.

Now, in Dallas, the media seem to have been successful in starting their long desired race war. The media have fed a mob mentality, and it seems that cops have started doing the rational thing - they do not engage in tough communities as much any more, and as a result, MORE blacks are being shot and crime rates are rising in those inner cities.

True to form, the media brought about more of what they sought to avoid, by lying to us all.

Bottom line: Trust in God but keep your powder dry,

I felt so loved when you referred to me as "gentle reader". This reference made my coffee taste a bit sweeter this morning. God bless you!
Love
The Gentle Reader

Yes, that is a nice touch. I remember Miss Manners using it and I think it was common in the New Yorker magazine back in the 1920's when things were, or at least as they seem today, a bit more upscale, respectful, and classier. If we can "dumb down" maybe we can "smarten up?"

For with the politicization of all human life in the West comes de-Christianization, and vice versa. ....there it is, that's what's going on,when people cry when someone gets killed by a bullet but yet that same person says its everyone's right to tear a baby in pieces inside a womb and yes no doubt we need HIM