Alphonse Ratisbonne came here as a hardened Jew. The Virgin appeared to him just as you see her. He fell down a Jew and rose a Christian.  

The Blessed Mother and the Church

According to traditional Catholic theology, there is an intimate and profound relationship between the Blessed Mother and the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ. By the will of God, the universal mediation of Mary is ordinarily necessary for the salvation and sanctification of men, just as the mediation of the Church is also necessary. And, if the Church has been entrusted with the task of guarding and spreading the truths of the faith in their integrity and purity, the Blessed Mother has been given the mission of fighting and conquering the devil, the supreme inspirer and advocate of all errors and heresies.^[1]

New From Remnant TV...

With America apparently ready for a homosexual president and a Frist Gentleman in the White House, Michael Matt discusses the downward moral spiral of Western Civilization since the close of the Second Vatican Council.

Of all the conservative commentators, only Rush Limbaugh—a guy with stage 4 lung cancer—is willing to discuss even the possibility that Mayor Pete’s marital status might present a political obstacle. If Limbaugh is homophobic now, says Mr. Matt, well then Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were raging homophobes just a few years ago.

THE POST-SYNODAL “apostolic exhortation” Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon) (QA) has finally appeared.  QA says a great deal about very little. It is largely composed of blathering about four “dreams” to be realized (social, cultural, ecological and ecclesial), the obsessive theme of “inculturation,” and the glories of the Amazon, along with assorted ecological observations having no relation to papal authority, including references to the Amazon’s “dazzling diversity of woodlands” which “serves as a great filter of carbon dioxide, which helps avoid the warming of the earth.” And let not the faithful not forget that “the good functioning of ecosystems also requires fungi, algae, worms, insects, reptiles and an innumerable variety of microorganisms…” There are also a number of ludicrous quotations from poetic paeans to the Amazon jungle, including this gem: