More than three years into the Bergoglian pontificate there is no mistaking its principal line of development, which is Francis’s grand obsession: the admission of unrepentant public adulterers in “second marriages” to Holy Communion, the “Kasper proposal” he has been promoting almost from the moment of his election. To that end, Francis has relentlessly put in place a kind of moral mafia to carry out his design. Let us meet some of its soldiers.

First, meet Archbishop Vincenzo (“the Enforcer”) Paglia, head of the (now) ludicrously misnamed Pontifical Council “for the Family”:

Over a decade ago, with typical hubris, George Soros bragged, that he “is the Pope’s boss, now.” It appears that his boast became a self-fulfilling prophecy in the Francis pontificate.

The two most powerful men in the world joined forces to form a curious and troubling alliance. One of them, often referred to as the most dangerous man in the world, the other, the Vicar of Christ.

Among the many smoking guns uncovered in the Wikileaks data dump, lurks documents that should give Catholics great concern. The latest Wikileaks data dump of internal documents from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation exposes the most shocking of all his political alliances. According to the leaked Open Society Foundation documents, George Soros funds efforts to promote his radical socialist agenda of income inequality by using the bully pulpit of Pope Francis. Soros seeks to “engage the Pope on economic and racial justice issues” by lobbying the Vatican.

Bishop Zubic prays at Franklin Graham's 2014 praise festival in Pittsburgh

In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis famously, or rather infamously, accused tradition-minded Catholics of exhibiting the “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past.”

CIC Organizers Light the BLESSED BONFIRE

In the continuing efforts to restore Catholic Identity, organizers and friends of the “Catholic Identity Conference” held annually in Weirton, West Virginia (this upcoming September 9 – 11, 2016), met on a family farm earlier this summer to host a traditional Catholic bonfire commemorating the Vigil of the Birthday of Saint John the Baptist. Led by the Knights of Columbus Woodlawn Council 2161 Traditional Latin Mass Guild, numerous fervent Catholics gathered at the peaceful farm of a Traditional Latin Mass family to observe this most ancient of Catholic ceremonies.

American Mommies in Combat

Back in December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the military would open all combat jobs—from the infantry to special-operations forces—to women. In January 2016, all branches of the military were required to submit their plans to the Defense Department for the gender integration of combat units.  And just like that, America put the world on notice: We've lost our mind, lost our heart, lost our soul.

There she sat, a beautiful little child, peering into the camera with wide, almond eyes; her skin was olive-colored and her hair was a deep brown. Her eyes were tearless, which was surprising considering why this little one was being featured in a nightly news story. Her mommy was going away, you see, for a long time; and no one could tell her when her world would be restored. Blank and empty was the expression she wore on her face; she didn’t understand, she couldn’t understand.

On December 8, 1854, in the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Bl. Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Many non-Catholics mistakenly believe the Immaculate Conception refers to the virginal conception of Jesus Christ in the womb of His mother. In reality, the term refers to the conception of the Virgin Mary in the womb of her mother, St. Anne. Through the merits of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary received the singular privilege of being exempt from the universal law of sin from the moment of her conception. The dogmatic definition reads as follows: “ the most Blessed Virgin Mary … in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin".

Simone Arianne Biles was born March 14, 1997. The other night she became the 2016 Olympic individual all-around champion. But this little dynamo is no stranger to winning. She is a three-time world all-around champion, three-time world floor champion, two-time world balance beam champion, four-time US national all-around champion, and a member of the gold medal-winning American teams at the 2014, the 2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. 

More importantly from our perspective, Simone Biles is a Roman Catholic home-schooler who might have been a victim of abortion had her birth mother been someone other than Shannon Biles who suffered from drug and alcohol addiction but, rather than aborting her baby, gave Simone up for adoption.

“Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.”   - J.R.R. Tolkien

T-O-R-T-U-R-E
(What Did Jesus Say to Jeremiah Denton in the "Hanoi Hilton"?)

In his 1956 article, I Found God in Soviet Russia, concentration camp survivor John Noble writes: “I have seen Christianity under the most terrible persecution it has suffered since the days of Nero, and I have seen abundant proof that faith in Christ, the Saviour, is still alive in Russia today in the very places where the Communists have tried hardest to stamp it out, the concentration camps. It is triumphant testimony I have to give… and I am convinced it was God’s will that I be a member of that persecuted Church for several years in order to testify that God is with it and is sustaining it.” Reminiscent of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s account of how he found God in the atheistic darkness of the Gulag—a place which he defines as a direct manifestation of man's abandonment of God—this extraordinary testimony of one who lived through the worst kind of physical persecution should give us pause. For inasmuch as today’s faithful Catholics face perhaps more universal afflictions of the soul than our forefathers faced at any time in history, it is nevertheless true that we have much for which to be grateful and, for the moment, even the time and opportunity needed to fight for that which we hold most sacred and which everywhere today is under attack.

“There is some good in this world," Tolkien also writes, "and it's worth fighting for.” We’re not in prison…yet.