Category Archives: Speeches and Sermons

Great Speech by Jim Caviezel

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Jim Caviezel Inspiring Testimony | new | Chicago SLS18 surprise

Jim Caviezel on suffering, freedom, and faith: “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom exists not to do what you like but in having the right to do what you ought. That is the freedom I wish for you: freedom from sin, freedom from your weaknesses, freedom from the slavery that sin makes out of all of us. That is the freedom that is worth dying for.”

“Paul, Apostle of Christ” opens in theaters worldwide on March 28, 2018. The sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” which will be called “The Resurrection” is in the works.

The Student Leadership Summit 2018 (SLS 18) is an annual conference that brings together thousands of college students from throughout the nation to teach and encourage students to live the Gospel message. SLS 2018 took place in Chicago, IL on January 2-6, 2018. It was presented by FOCUS, a Catholic outreach whose mission is to share the gospel with college students. FOCUS missionaries invite students into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and accompany them as they pursue lives of virtue and excellence.

Oct. 7 and the Battle of Lapanto

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The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy:

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Friends,

Again and again it must be stated that the universal ‘big lie’ of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Churches is that war, violence and enmity are activities in which Christians can participate and still be following Jesus and doing the will of God as Jesus reveals that will to humanity. To plant and perpetuate this blatant falsehood in the minds of Christians from birth to death has been one of the specific objectives of all the Christian Churches and their leaderships for the last 1700 years. Not one of the mainline institutional Churches that exists today or that has existed for most of the last 1700 years could exists as it exists without the use and justification of violence and enmity in the name of Jesus. Yet, there is not a scintilla of evidence in the Gospels for anything other than that Jesus by word and deed rejected, without reservation, violence and enmity as His Way and as the Way for those whom He chose to be His disciples. Nevertheless, around the world on a daily basis, in tens of thousands of Catholic, Orthodox ad Protestant niches, this anti-Gospel word goes out, “Violence, war and enmity are compatible with the teaching of Jesus.”

On Saturday, October 7, 2017, the designated worldwide Feast Day of Our Lady of the Rosary in the Roman Catholic Church, I happened into one of these anti-Gospel proclamation niches. Attending Mass that day I heard the priest in the pulpit fill the minds of the Christians in the congregation with a mishmash of historical facts, embedded Catholic fables and outright theological untruth, the purpose of which was to promulgate the idea that God and Mary were on the Catholic side, supporting the Catholic killers in a homicidal political-economic-religious naval battle against Islam i.e. the Battle of Lapanto on October 7, 1571.

The priest began by stating the historical fact that Pope Saint Pius V sent and blessed the Holy League Navy, the Catholic Navy, which included the Papal Navy, out to destroy the Muslim navy in the Gulf of Lapanto. Although greatly outnumbered he said, (the actual number was 280 ships to 212) the Catholics won the battle, which Pope Saint Pius V attributed to the Rosary being prayed in Rome for a victory. Pope Saint Pius V—who before becoming Pope had worked himself up to being the Inquisitor General of the Roman Catholic Church—declared October 7 to be the Feast Day of Our Lady of Victories because of her part in bringing a homicidal victory to the Catholic Holy League. After his death the next Pope changed the name of the feast to Our Lady of the Rosary, which it remains to this day. However the change of name did not change the message that the leaders of the Church—to this very day—universally communicate to Catholics about the meaning of the feast, namely, prayers to Mary, especially the Rosary, can procured a victory by homicidal violence over an enemy. And by simple logical extension, praying to Mary can obtain a violent victory over the enemies of Poland, France, Italy, Russia, the United States, etc.

Yet, the official teaching of the Church which is never mentioned in such homilies is “While the characteristics of the shalom of the Old Testament are present in the New Testament tradition, all discussion of war and peace in the New Testament must be seen within the context of the unique revelation of God that is Jesus Christ and of the reign of God which Jesus proclaimed and inaugurated. There is no notion of God who will lead the people in an historical victory over its enemies in the New Testament.” (The Challenge of Peace: A Pastoral Letter on War and Peace, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1983, §39, 40).

There is not a speck of violence and/or enmity in Mary in Gospels. Mary is an explicit witness to the truth that Jesus proclaims. Her last public words in the Gospels are, “Do whatever He tells you.” There cannot be an inkling of dissonance between the what the Mary of the Gospels sees and teaches as the will of God and what the Jesus of the Gospels sees and teaches as the will of God—and Jesus sees and teaches by word and deed a Way of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies as the Will and Way of God.

Mary is not God. She can only intercede with God through her Son, Jesus, who is the Incarnation of God. It is absurdity in the extreme to teach that the Nonviolent Mary of the Gospels will intercede with her Nonviolent Son of the Gospels to help one partisan homicidal groups kill and maim more human beings than another homicidal group that it calls “the enemy,” and thereby win a glorious homicidal and “historical victory over its enemies.” Such an understanding of Jesus and Mary and their relationship to each other and to each and every son and daughter of the “Father of all” is loathsome and revolting.

The fact that the rulers of the various Churches in every nation and in every ethnic group permit, and indeed foster, around the globe in the lives of ordinary Christians such a monstrous belief about Mary deserves universal publicity and universal condemnation from the top down and from the bottom up. If there is to be a Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and I think there should be, remove it from the October 7th date, where it can be and is subverted into a piece of Marian military jingoism. Place it on a date where only the Christlike holiness, peace, love, trust and universal compassion—of the Mother of a Son murdered by state and religious rulers and the Mother of a Son Resurrected in love, by love and for love—shine forth the truth and glory of God.

Failure to take this definitive step of totally separating the Marian Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary from October 7 and the Battle of Lapanto will for certain result in solidifying the status quo. The Nonviolent Mother of the Nonviolent Jesus will continue worldwide to be invoked, not to help one love his or her enemies as Jesus loved His enemies, but rather to help one kill his or her enemies more efficiently than his or her enemies can kill. Bishops, priests, ministers and religious educators will continue to propagate, Mary Slayer of Muslim, e.g. in pre-school to adult pious books, magazines, sermons, Catholic art, Church windows, etc. And, as happened in the little niche of Christianity I was in on October 7, 2017, the relation will be drawn between invoking Mary for a victory at the Battle of Lapanto—which the priest erroneously claimed saved the Church—and fighting ISIS today!

Here is an example of one of the tens of thousands of Catholic niches glorifying the Battle of Lapanto and Mary Slayer of Muslim. This is a stained glass window immediately to the right of the main alter at the Papal designated Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. Mary with the Baby Jesus presides over the Battle of Lapant in the upper left corner.

Bishop Barron’s Clever Dismissal

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The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy:

Friends,

This eight minute video presentation by Bishop Robert Barron is an example of the clever dismissal of Jesus’ teaching of Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies, which the average Catholic is subjected to ceaselessly in thousands of different ways by the violence justifying institutional Church through its senior personnel and its various avenues of communication. It is a example of the traditional ecclesiastical tactic of damning Gospel Nonviolence by faint praise, saying—in stark opposition to Jesus’ “new commandment”—that all sane minded, realistic Christians certainly do not want all Christians to be nonviolent, although it is nice to have a few Christians around who follow that Way in order to remind us what heaven will be like.

https://youtu.be/Y-0z2m_NtS8

In this video Cardinal George and Bishop Barron have strayed a long way from what  Jesus teaches in the Gospels. Their statements equating celibacy with Gospel Nonviolence are erroneous and meant to teach the majority of Christians to ignore Jesus’ teaching of nonviolence, while they give it a backhanded tribute.

To undo some of their obfuscation it must be stated without equivocation that celibacy is not the will of God as revealed by Jesus in the Gospels, but Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies is. Celibacy is an option within the will of God as revealed by Jesus. Violence and enmity— the quintessential components of every war—are explicitly rejected as options within the will of God as revealed by Jesus, who is God Incarnate. Contrary to Bishop Barron’s talk rejecting Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels Nonviolent Love of friends and enemies in imitation of Jesus is not an option granted to any Christian by Jesus. The analogy of Barron and George comparing celibacy with Jesus’ teaching on nonviolence is an invalid, self-serving, misleading and anti-evangelical effort. It appears to be the work not of two learned Christians who do not know that Nonviolent Love is a teaching of Jesus applicable to all Christians at all times, but rather the work of two highly educated Christians who do not want to know and/or to admit it, and who want to proselytize others into following a non-existing just war Jesus as they follow a never existing just war Jesus—as if there were spiritual safety in numbers.

Their duplicitousness in proselytizing is chilling because while comparing nonviolence in the Church to celibacy in the Church and simultaneously effusively praising both, their statements in the minds of most Catholics, marginalize to the position of useful Catholic gadflies, those who proclaim Jesus’ teaching of Nonviolence Love of friends and enemies. Their statements are intended to obscure or undermine the fact that those who proclaim Gospel Nonviolence are proclaiming, not an optional Church discipline, but rather an essential dimension of God, of Divine Love, of that power, the only power, which in truth saves. As the Catholic Biblical scholar, the late Rev. John L. McKenzie, wrote in his book The Power and the Wisdom (Imprimatur, 1966), “The power which destroys all other powers is the power of love, the love of God revealed and active in Jesus Christ. God revealed in Jesus that He loves man and will deliver him through love and through nothing else… Jesus presents in His words and life not only a good way of doing things, not only an ideal to be executed whenever it is convenient, but the only way of doing what He did.”

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

P.S. Daniel Berrigan, S.J. in following the Way of Nonviolence was not following Gandhi, Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day as Robert Barron claims. He was following Jesus. There is an infinite difference between following the Creator and following another creature like yourself.

Russians and Us

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John F. Kennedy’s Commencement Address, June, 6, 2013:

“Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home…

Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims–such as the allegation that “American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars.”

Truly, as it was written long ago: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements–to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning–a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.”

American Exceptionalism

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In our manifesto, we write: When we champion the United States as “the greatest country on Earth,” we overlook the dark side of American history: American exceptionalism provides the rich soil in which militarism takes root. Militarism creates a convenient blind spot for the terrible costs of war. At its most bold, it dares and encourages young people to sacrifice their lives, and possibly their souls, at the unholy altar of the State.

 

Here it is from the horse’s mouth: Why America is Exceptional by Hillary Clinton

There’s always been something special about the United States of America. President Abraham Lincoln called us the “last, best hope of earth.” President Ronald Reagan said we are a “shining city on a hill.” And Robert Kennedy called us a great, unselfish, compassionate country.

I couldn’t agree more.

If there’s one core belief that has guided and inspired me every step of my career in public service, it’s this: the U.S. is an exceptional nation. And when you add up all our advantages, it’s clear we’re indispensable too—a nation all others look to for leadership.

America is indispensable in part because we have the greatest military in history, with the best troops, training and technology. And it’s essential we do everything we can to support our men and women in uniform, and our veterans.

America is also indispensable because of our network of alliances, built up with decades of diplomacy. Russia and China can’t begin to compare. Our allies amplify our power, aid our defense and stand with us in good times and bad, like when NATO declared 9/11 to be an attack against all its members. Walking away from our alliances now would be a dangerous mistake.

America is indispensable because we have the largest, most dynamic economy in the world. Our workers can out­innovate and out­compete anyone in the world. And our entrepreneurs start exciting new businesses every day.

Most of all, America is ­indispensable—and exceptional—because of our values. As Secretary of State, I was proud to represent our country’s commitment to freedom, equality and opportunity. The world looks to us to stand up for human rights, LGBT rights, religious and ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities and people everywhere who yearn for peace. We challenge ourselves and other nations to do better. It’s why so many people from around the world want to become Americans too.

But with all of these advantages comes ­responsibility—we need to continue leading the world. Because when America fails to lead, we leave a vacuum that lets extremism take root, emboldens our adversaries and discourages our friends.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that people from other places don’t also feel deep national pride—and other countries also have a responsibility to step up and help solve global problems. But America has an unparalleled ability to be a force for peace, progress and prosperity around the world. And when we do, we make our own country safer and stronger.

So let’s never stop doing good and being great. Let’s keep America exceptional.

Catholic Military Chaplaincy

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The above video was produced by the Catholic News Service. Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy is interviewed therein. While he provided over an hour of commentary, only a few soundbites were included. Below is an introduction to an independent taping of the same thing that was provided to the Catholic News Service. You can hear Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy’s thoughts in three parts.

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The Christian Military Chaplaincy: An Orwellian Ministry.
Part One 
A Ministry of the Ministry of Truth
by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

Friends,

July 29, 2016 is the anniversary of the U.S. Military Chaplaincy. There will be, indeed there already has been, a parade of kudos in the Catholic and Christian press legitimating and glorifying the Catholic and Christian U.S. Military Chaplaincy. A few months ago Catholic News Service asked me to speak on camera about the Catholic Military Chaplaincy as a piece of an eight part series it was creating. What I had to say lasted for over an hour. a small segment of which was used in Part V of the series which I sent to you recently in Fast Food Helping Twenty-One. Since I knew extensive editing would be done to what I had to say, two days later in exactly the same location that the CNS interview took place I restated my position on the Christian Military Chaplaincy almost verbatim on another camera. CNS, I guess, owns the original reflection I made for it. But if that presentation and the presentation I made two days later were placed side by side there would not be a jot of significant difference.

I have broken the hour plus presentation into three logically-ordered, consecutive parts under the general title The Christian Military Chaplaincy: An Orwellian Ministry.

Over the next three days, one per day will our Fast Food Helping. Since each segment is about thirty minutes I am sending one per day in both video and audio-only format via Dropbox. This is the only way the video and audio format could be transmitted together and still be received on a normal computer. I am sending the audio only, an mp3, along with the video because at a length of thirty minutes you may prefer to put the presentation on your iPhone etc. and listen to it in some other place, e.g., bus, car, plane, walking, etc., than in front of a computer screen. To open the Dropbox and access both formats simultaneously, just click on the URL below. Then click on mp3 for audio only or mv4 for video only. If you have any problems with the Dropbox let me know.

I have also attached an Christian Military Chaplaincy Part Three. The caveat here is that this is a transcript of a verbal presentation and will not read like an essay. But, it is totally accurate.

I hope this is helpful to you in some way in fathoming the depth of the false witness to the teaching of Jesus on violence and enmity in the Gospels, which the U.S. Military Chaplaincy presents to Christians and to the non-Christian public in general with the backing of tens of millions of dollars each year from the U.S. government.

Do send a video, audio or print copy—or all three— to your Bishop, priest, minister and to any military chaplain you may know.

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The only question worth asking

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John Dominic Crossan (b.1934) is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity and former Catholic priest, who has written twenty-eight books both scholarly and popular. Crossan is a major scholar in contemporary historical Jesus research. He earned his Doctor of Divinity in 1959 at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the Irish national seminary. He then completed two more years of study in biblical languages at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. In 1965 Crossan began two additional years of study (in archaeology) at the Ecole Biblique in Jordanian East Jerusalem. In the fall of 1969 he joined the faculty of De Paul University, where he taught for twenty-six years until retiring in 1995. Crossan also served as president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research in 1978–1979, and as president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2012.

“Is the God of the Christian Bible violent or nonviolent? It is really the only question worth asking.”—John Dominic Crossan

This video is 16 minutes long.

Walking the Way of Nonviolence: Is the God of the Christian Bible Violent? from University Congregational UCC, S on Vimeo.

 

Assassination and the Holy Spirit

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The following was written by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy.

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Friends,

This Sunday morning at St. Edith Stein Catholic Church in Brockton, MA, I heard one of the most abominable Pentecost sermons that I have ever been subjected to in my seventy-five years of Sunday Masses. The homilist, an ordained deacon of the Archdiocese of Boston, explained Pentecost to the congregation by telling an extended story on how the Holy Spirit guided Pope Pius XII to participate in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. Pius XII was more than likely in cahoots with people who were trying to whack Adolph Hitler—whom he helped to become Chancellor—because he was in ongoing contact with Wild Bill Donovan and his OSS (the precursor of the CIA) during WWII, as his successor Pope John Paul II was in constant contact, maneuvering and contriving with the CIA through ongoing blacked-out fights between Washington and Rome by Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, and Knight of Malta, William Casey. (Any wonder why China refuses to let the Roman Catholic Church operate freely within its borders and keeps a close eye on the other Western Christian Churches? It is not Jesus it is worried about!). But such has been the history of Popes and the papacy for over a thousand years to this very day: political intrigue, espionage, war, the overthrow of governments, spying, moles, assassinations, propaganda, block opts, etc. In fact it is hard to imagine how anyone could be elected Pope today that did not have the CIA’s informal Imprimatur, as in times past the selection of a Pope had to be formally approved of by various European political powers.

Be that as it may, there is nothing in a Pope’s or the Vatican’s political cloak and dagger activities that is of the Holy Spirit, that is informed by the Holy Spirit, that is guided by the Holy Spirit or that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, if the Holy Spirit that is being spoken of is the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Word (Logos) of God Incarnate and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. There can be no contradiction between the Holy Spirit embodied in the Nonviolent Jesus of the Gospels who teaches by words and deed as the revealed will of the Father a Way of Nonviolent Love of all, friends and enemies, under all circumstances and the Holy Spirit of the Third Person of Holy Trinity of which each Christian is a temple and who lives in the Body of Christ, the Church, guiding and empowering it to live the Truth and fulfill the Commission it was given by Jesus (MT 28:19).

It is to fill a congregation with craziness and untruth to even suggest that the Holy Spirit guided anyone, including a Pope, to be an assassin in total logical contradiction of the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One, are simple; there is no contradiction within the Holy Trinity; there cannot be any contradiction within the Holy Trinity, amongst the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy is the same for each, is each, and the definitive, infallible truth regarding what that Holiness is revealed in Jesus. The God Jesus reveals to humanity is not an absurdist, revealing one thing as truth on Monday and the opposite of it as truth on Tuesday. What Jesus reveals about the Holiness of God is and must be the same on Monday, Tuesday and forever for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “Heaven and earth may pass away, but my words will not pass away,” says Jesus Christ.

What this deacon did to a captive audience from the pulpit at Mass this Sunday morning is being done Sunday after Sunday from pulpits across the U.S. with the approval of the Catholic Bishops, namely, the mad, illogical and clever militarizing of the minds of Christian under the auspices of “putting on the mind of Christ.” So, let me leave the final words on this evil—and it is evil because it is deception whether realized or not—to Pope Benedict XVI from is University of Regensburg address:

“Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: ‘It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about such matters—but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss’… In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, and the logosbecame flesh in Jesus, says the Evangelist. The truly divine God is the God who has revealed Himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. It continues to be the love, agape, of the God who is logos. Not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God.”

Tyrannicide, like the mass homicidal slaughter of war, like burning Jews and heretics at the stake, contradicts the Person and teaching of Jesus, the Logos (Word) of God Incarnate—and by necessity logically contradicts any notion of Natural Law Morality of which the Logos of God, Jesus, is the Author. The Author of the Sermon on the Mount and the Author of the Natural Law are the One and the same Logos of God and therefore cannot be in logical contradiction of each other.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy