Vol 9 Issue 28 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward KrierJuly 16, 2016 ~ Our Lady of Mount Carmel, opn!
1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (77)
2. Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
3. Saint Speratus and Companions
4. Christ in the Home (51)
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
What does money buy? Enslavement to the state.
President Gerald Ford stated in Rockford, IL, March 11, 1976:
“People say why don’t you do this, why don’t you expand that program, why don’t you spend more Federal money?…
I don’t think they have understood one of the fundamentals . . .
I look them in the eye and I say, ‘Do you realize that a government big enough to give us everything we want is a government big enough to take from us everything we have?'”
I took the quote from American Minute with Bill Federer but I want to use this same principle to money. It is necessary that our parents know what their children are being taught in public school regarding “transgender”, “transgendered” and “same gender attraction” and what money buys.
Children are being told that some boys are born in girls’ bodies and some girls are born in boys’ bodies. As they grow they become aware that they feel more comfortable doing the things normally assigned to the opposite gender, such as cross dressing. What actually starts as fantasy, that is imagining what it would be like, soon becomes a desire and, unless suppressed or re-directed, becomes convincing. When such boys are allowed to interact only with girls or girls only with boys or when such children are a single child it is easier to be confused as to expectations when there are no strong pulls to one or the other gender, that is, brothers or sisters who demand that their sibling act their gender. Usually, then, these children conform and are able to live reality, as the gender of their body. Without those stimulations, the drives are weakened in the formative years and the hormones are not released in normal levels. You may ask why I bring this out, but it is necessary to understand that, after all these centuries, normal families in normal parental and sibling relationships did not seem to be producing a statistically stable supply of transgenders, that is, there is not the prevalence witnessed today. Transgender has developed into two economic factors, neither of which is paid for by themselves but has put the burden on the normal citizen: Accommodation of the transgender by publicly paid organizations and the treating of transgenders (who do suffer pathologically) by psychiatrists who see a market (and insurance must pay for, passing the cost on to its other members) and a growing industry involved in the transgendering process (hormone blockers, testosterone and estrogen therapy, and surgical gender change) which costs tens of thousands of dollars monthly and, again, is passed on to the insurance members—the same as those contracting HIV by perverted acts having their expensive medical costs paid by normal hard-working citizens. The pharmaceutical companies and doctors are a large portion of the economy and have a big piece of the pie in transgendering. The public school system is the propaganda machine of the state to indoctrinate the children (remember all school text books must be state approved and all curricula by teachers must meet state guidelines—Federal guidelines, too, in order to receive Federal funding.) The Federal Government has mandated that schools do not discriminate and that students (assisted by anti-Christian pro-perversity organizations such as SPLC and GLSEN) be taught that they should be whatever they want. Translated: children are told that they can be whatever they want according to their fantasy and parents and society are obliged to support them. Therefore, boys who want to pretend to be girls are told they will receive whatever they want to fulfill their fantasy and that they can claim all the rights a girl has (such as use of the girls’ facilities) and girls who want to pretend to be boys can do the same (such as use of the boys’ facilities). We know, of course, that it is usually the boy who goes into the girl’s place because he still has that natural attraction and is now freed of restraint.
That doesn’t mean we are not patient with people suffering this dysphoria of gender identity and understand they are unbalanced; it does mean that we must still help them be what they are (a biological male or female) and not let them be what they are not in any sense. Again, it is not a new problem, look how many centuries man has existed and never did you see the Church persecute them—rather she supported them by her patience and love and assisting them to pass through life as the way God made them. It doesn’t mean that we deny they are suffering, but that their suffering cannot be alleviated merely by agreeing with their lie and allowing them to do something that is contrary to the laws of God, be it His natural laws or His moral laws.
It is the same with same gender attraction, a curiosity or fantasy that is indulged and becomes a vice.
What does money buy? A fulfillment of a fantasy for a very few—but with others paying the price. And, the cost includes deprivation of freedom for all to justify the price.
As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit. —The Editor
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Baptism
Means of Salvation
Sacrament of Baptism
1917 Code of Canon Law
The above are requirements without which one is does not establish a spiritual relationship as a sponsor. The following are also requirements or prohibitions of a sponsor that can be dispensed with good reason or at least do not invalidate the relationship.
Canon 766
In order that one be licitly admitted as sponsor, he ought:
1.° To have attained the age of fourteen, unless it seems otherwise to the minister for a just cause;
2.° Not be excommunicated because of a notorious delict or excluded from legitimate acts or infamous by infamy of law, although not without a sentence, or be interdicted or otherwise publicly a criminal or infamous by infamy of fact;
3.° To know the rudiments of the faith;
4.° Not be a novice or professed as a religious, unless necessity urges and then with the express approval of the Superior at least of that place;
5.° Not be constituted in sacred orders, unless he has received the express permission of his own Ordinary.
According to Canon 765, the use of proxies for sponsorship does not change liceity as the conditions must exist in the principal. Also, women immodestly dressed are to be excluded from the office of sponsor in baptism and confirmation. (Cf. Canon Law Digest I: 344; See c. 363; AAS 22-26, IX: Girls and women who are immodestly dressed are to be refused Holy Communion and excluded from the office of sponsor in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation; and in proper cases are even to be excluded from the church.
Canon 767
In doubt as to whether or not one can be validly or licitly admitted to the role of sponsor, the pastor, if time allows, shall consult the Ordinary.
Canon 768
From baptism a spiritual relationship is contracted only between the one baptizing, the one being baptized, and the sponsor.
Ayrinhac gives this presentation to better understand the historical development and return to sponsorship as originally instituted:
Christians from the beginning looked upon those from whom they had received the sacrament of regeneration or new birth as their spiritual fathers. Clement of Alexandria and other early writers often speak of this relationship. Little by little this spiritual paternity was extended to others who had cooperated in the administration of baptism, particularly the sponsors, called also for this reason patrini, To the paternity was added the compaternity or commaternity, direct or indirect, that is, the relationship between the sponsors and the parents of the baptized person or between the baptized person and the husband and wife of the sponsor; then the confraternity or relationship between the baptized person and the children of the spiritual father or mother.
In the course of time the Church gave a legal character to these spiritual relationships by recognizing them as impediments of marriage in much the same manner as blood relationships. The Code of Justinian prohibits marriage between the baptized person and a sponsor on the ground that nothing can so much call out fatherly affection and the just prohibition of marriage as a bond of this kind by means of which, through the action of God, their souls are united to each other.
In order to reduce the number of marriage impediments, the Council of Trent abolished indirect compaternity and spiritual fraternity, retaining only spiritual paternity and direct compaternity.
The present law has abolished also compaternity. Spiritual relationship exists now only between the baptized person and the minister or the sponsor. (50-51)
In the Canon Law Digest (I, 344), there is presented to the Code Commission whether the spiritual relationship understood previous to the New Code of direct compaternity (parents and godparents as united spiritually as co-parents and also, therefore, forbidding marriage in this relationship. They gave the following answer:
The Code Commission was asked: Whether a spiritual relationship contracted before the day of Pentecost, 1918, and falling outside the limits now defined by the new Code in c. 768, thenceforth from the aforesaid day of Pentecost ceases as regards all its effects, or only ceases to be an impediment to marriage (cc. 768, 1079).
Reply. In the negative to the first part; in the affirmative to the second. (AAS 10-346; Cod. Com., 3 June, 1918, n. 8.; Periodica, 10-151 (Vermeersch); Jus Pontificium, 1922-53.
That is, there was still the spiritual bond as co-parents, but there was no longer the impediment to marriage.
Once again, also, if the sponsor acts by proxy there is no spiritual relationship unless the sponsor both meets the requirements to be sponsor and the person acting as proxy must physically have contact with the child at the moment of baptism or as the child is lifted from the font (baptism by immersion) the proxy must receive the child from the minister of baptism (cf. Canon 765; AAS 18-43.).
Also, Canon Law Digest (V, 409) states: Formal Adherents to Heretical Sect do not contract impediment of spiritual relationship. (See c. 1079; Holy Office, 28 May, 1958.)
Canon 769
It is for sponsors, having taken up their duties, to regard as a spiritual son the one committed to them, and in those things that look to Christian upbringing, to take diligent care that he acts throughout life in the way that they promised him to be in the future by solemn ceremony.
There is already, referenced several times, the Instruction on Sponsors provided under Canon 765 (cf. AAS 18-43.) that provides the responsibilities of sponsors. Ayrinhac gives this background to Canon 769:
In a sermon formerly attributed to St. Augustine the preacher admonishes “all men and women who have stood for children at baptism to recognize that they are sureties to God for those whom they have received from the font; you must urge them,” he adds, “to preserve chastity, love, justice, charity, and above all things teach them the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the first rudiments of the Christian religion.” Old Rituals contain similar instructions for sponsors. They must watch over their spiritual children and see that they do what they promised in baptism. A Ritual of Autun recommends that they guard them particularly against the danger of fire and water till the age of seven and teach them the Pater and Credo. Synodal Statutes of the diocese of Avignon in the fourteenth century have an unusual provision; they forbid godfathers to make presents to the child, the mother, the godmother, or the nurse, because the contrary practice had rendered the office of sponsor so onerous that it had become difficult to find anyone willing to assume the burden, and as a result not a few children had died without baptism. (Martene, 1. c., art. xvi, n. 15, 16.)
The obligations of sponsors remain essentially the same now as of old. According to the Code, it is their duty by virtue of their office to look upon their spiritual children as their perpetual charges, to instruct them carefully in their religion, and see to it that all through their life they live up to the promises made in their name on the solemn occasion of their baptism.
This duty of sponsors is a grave one, but it binds them only secondarily, in case the parents would neglect the Christian education of the children. In a Catholic community sponsors may ordinarily presume that parents will comply with the obligation which devolves primarily upon them. (51-52)
CHAPTER 5
On the time and place for conferring baptism
Canon 770
Infants should be baptized as soon as possible; pastors and preachers should frequently stress with the faithful the gravity of their obligation.
The Canon Law Digest (V, 409) adds this recent document affecting this Canon:
A warning (Monitum) of the Holy Office:
In certain places the practice has grown of postponing the conferring of baptism for mistaken reasons of convenience or of a liturgical character. Such postponement draws support from certain opinions, devoid however of any solid foundation, regarding the eternal destiny of infants who die without baptism.
Accordingly this Supreme Sacred Congregation, with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, warns the faithful that infants are to be baptized as soon as possible, according to the prescription of canon 770. Pastors and preachers are exhorted to urge the fulfilment of this obligation.
Given at Rome from the Holy Office, the 18th of February, 1958. (AAS 50-114; Holy Office, Monitum 18 Feb., 1958. Annotations, Commentarium. pro Religiosis, 37 (1958)—4 (Gil).)
Canon 771
Private baptism, in urgent necessity, is to be administered at any time and in any place.
Canon 772
Of course solemn baptism can be administered on any day; it is fitting, however, that the baptism of adults, according to the most ancient rites of the Church, be conferred, if this can be conveniently done, during the vigil of Easter and Pentecost, especially in metropolitan or cathedral churches.
Canon 773
The proper place for the administration of solemn baptism is the baptistery of a church or public oratory.
The physical church building is a sacred place where the sacred ceremonies of the Church become separated from the profane. To transfer the sacred ceremonies into a profane space tends to desacralize the ceremony and to make God subject to the world instead of the world subject to God. The Canon Law Digest places restrictions to necessity and with approval of local ordinary to discourage abuse:
Code Resists Tendency to Laicize Ecclesiastical Ceremonies. The Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments cited canons 773 and 1109 as exemplifying the purpose of the Code to resist the tendency on the part of the faithful to laicize the ceremonies of the Church. . . .
In a Reply (Romana et Aliarum, 3 May, 1926) the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments concluded its answer as follows:
- Finally, there is yet another very weighty argument. All are aware that there is a certain tendency and propensity among the faithful to withdraw from sacred places even the most sacred ceremonies of the Church. We all know that even since the promulgation of the Code, the faithful in many places wish to continue the custom which has arisen through abuse, namely, that of allowing infants to be baptized at home, marriages to be contracted in a room of the house, and other such rites to be performed outside the church. It is a sort of attempt to laicize—if that word may be permitted—the ceremonies of the Church. Being unable entirely to destroy them, wicked men strive at least to rob them of their accidental sanctity; and the faithful passively acquiesce. The Code has tried vigorously to resist the weakness (cf. cc. 773, 1109, §§ 1 and 2), and, let us hope, with success. Hence, such cases are not to be multiplied, but restricted as far as possible.
Aloysius Capotosti, Bishop of Terme,
Secretary.
[AAS 18-388; S. C. Sacr., Reply, Romana et Aliarum, 3 May, 1926; Periodica, 15-160 (Vermeersch); J.P., 1926-136.]
(To be continued)
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Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Benedict Baur, O.S.B.
Love and justice
- “When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it.” He loves the city of His people. “If thou also hadst known, and that in this day, the things that are to thy peace. . . . And entering into the temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein. . . . And He was teaching daily in the temple” (Gospel). Here we witness merciful love and love punishing and judging. The liturgy wants to impress deeply upon our minds that the Lord will come to judge the living and the dead. The love with which He wants to save and redeem us, “the living,” is a love of justice.
- Jesus loves Jerusalem. He rides solemnly into the city, and many of its inhabitants cordially welcome Him today. He is well aware, however, that today’s “hosanna” will be followed within a few days by the cry, “Crucify Him.” He knows that the Jews are going to condemn Him to death during these days, and that even before a week has passed He will hang on the cross on the heights of Calvary, rejected and murdered by the people He has loved so much. He weeps, not only over the things that are to happen to Him in Jerusalem, but also over the poor city, which is destined to be destroyed. Less than forty years hence it will be in ruins. It has made itself unworthy; it is no longer the Holy City with its magnificent temple, the house of God. Even now it is planning the murder of the Lord. “How often would I have gathered together thy children, . . . and thou wouldest not” (Matt. 23:37). Jesus shed tears because Jerusalem has rejected and refused the grace of God; it will therefore be rejected by God. It has let itself be deceived by its hope and desire of obtaining earthly splendor and glory.
Jesus judges. “Entering into the temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying to them: It is written, My house is the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (Gospel). Christ loves, and because He loves, He judges, for genuine love is a judging love. When the sun appears, it drives away all obscurity and darkness, and all things can be recognized in their real contours. So it is with love. Wherever it appears, egoism in all its forms and camouflages is clearly recognized. Where divine love appears, it delves down into the most hidden impulses and thoughts of men, condemning all that is obscure, dark, unrefined, and impure in man’s heart. If the presence of a very noble and truly affectionate man makes us aware of our own egoism and want of charity, how much more must that be the case when Christ appears with His divine love? Is not each word He speaks to us a judgment, a judgment delving into our most secret impulses and thoughts? Then the soul cannot help judging itself from His point of view. The more lovingly the Lord approaches a soul, the more thoroughly He makes His light permeate it in order to purify that soul from everything that is unholy and may impair its peace and salvation. His love condemns everything that is unjust, egoistic, and opposed to God. Permeating the soul, this love makes it recognize clearly all the powers of destruction working within it, and reject everything that is unholy and displeasing to God.
- God’s love cannot be separated from His justice; for only one who loves judges us truly and works sincerely and efficaciously for
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