The Demographics They Are A'changin

My take on last Sunday's reading from Mark centered around the question of belief versus unbelief. Recent surveys of the U.S. population seem to indicate that unbelief is winning.

From Crisis Magazine, a conservative Roman Catholic site, came a review of the data which found, 

"...about two-thirds of U.S. Catholics believing that Catholic politicians who supported abortion should be welcome to receive Communion and an astonishing 78% who said the same thing about those that actively support homosexuality."

Clearly, there is a lack of belief in Roman Catholic doctrine. 

How about basic Christian teaching?

"To measure moral acceptance of homosexuality, the NSFG (National Survey of Family Growth) asked respondents if they agreed or disagreed with the statement, 'Sexual relations between two adults of the same sex are all right.' As Figure 1 shows, there has been a profound increase in agreement with this statement among Catholics of both genders between 15 and 27 years of age. This position now commands a super majority among young professing Catholics. Only “Nones” are more liberal. Moreover, these Catholics are barely distinguishable from Mainline Protestants, whose denominations have mostly officially accepted homosexuality, gay clergy, and same-sex marriage."

There is much more data in the report including an increase in young women experimenting with homosexuality. 

Over at the Christian Post, we see a report of a survey that shows the younger generations have little faith and little appreciation of Jesus' teachings.

"For example, nearly half of all boomers believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior, compared to only 26% of Gen X and 16% of millennials."

"90% of boomers believe you treat others as you want them to treat you, while less than half of millennials agree."

28% of boomers stated they either don’t know, don’t care or don’t believe God exists compared to 43% of millennials...*

64% of boomers believe Satan is a real and influential, compared to and 44% of millennials.*

 *reworded for clarity

Is it any wonder that we are seeing young people turning to homosexuality, gang membership, violence, and criminal behavior when they are not raised to believe in the biblical Jesus?

Parents, teachers, and the Church all share responsibility for the sad state of affairs revealed by these surveys. 

Yes, the scoffers and unbelievers will always be with us, but the tide seems to have turned in their favor.

Belief or Unbelief? That is the question

 In this Sunday's reading from Mark 5:21-43, Jesus unintentionally heals the bleeding woman and intentionally raises a dead girl,

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

In both of these miracles, faith plays a central role. The faith of the woman with a hemorrhage, the faith of the leader of the synagogue, and the lack of faith in the people who laughed at Jesus. 

How many people today laugh at the suggestion that these miracles really happened?

How can we help them in their unbelief? 

Or is that Jesus' job?

The U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops and the Politicians

Recently, there was a little blip in the news feed that raised some eyebrows. Word was that the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops were considering withholding the Eucharist from unrepentant pro-abortion politicians. It was a very little blip because last weekend President Biden was pictured leaving Mass having partaken of the Holy Sacrament.

We need to take a deeper dive into what really went on with the Roman Catholic bishops, and what does the future hold for those who, because of their notorious and unrepentant sins, present themselves for Holy Communion.

This piece at Crisis Magazine is quite revealing, and it should reassure the Joe Bidens and Nancy Pelosis of the world that nothing is going to happen in their life times.

"We are at a time of grave crisis for the Catholic Church in America—steep declines in attendance, lost moral authority, and significant public scandal regarding pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians, just to name a few issues. So in the midst of this mess, what were our shepherds, the successors to the Apostles, doing when they (virtually) gathered together last week? Well, debating for almost an hour how long they should be allowed to debate, for one. Perhaps nothing sums up better the incoherence and irrelevance that is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)."

Only an hour debating how long to debate? Anglicans Indabad for a week.

"From June 16-18, the USCCB held its semi-annual meeting to discuss various topics, including a potential draft of a document on 'Eucharistic coherence'"...

"Eucharistic coherence" sounds like something that belongs in the Revised Revisionist Dictionary. When the Episcopal organization's bishops came up with something like that, I called it, "Episcobabble". I guess we have to call this Cathobabble.

"...This recently-invented buzzword refers to the debate over whether pro-abortion 'Catholic' politicians should be allowed to receive the Eucharist. In the words of Bishop Thomas Olmstead, 'Eucharistic coherence means that our ‘Amen’ at Holy Communion includes not only the recognition of the Real Presence but also a communion bound together by embracing and living Christ’s entire teaching handed down to us through the Church.' In other words, is it consistent—and therefore coherent—for someone who publicly and obstinately rejects Church teaching on some matter to receive the Sacrament par excellence of that same Church?"

Wouldn't it be easier to use the term "orthodox understanding" of the Eucharist? I guess bishops have to invent new terms.

Since they are not very frank, don't expect any action from these bishops,

"...Even though the proposal for a 'Eucharistic coherence' draft document passed overwhelmingly, it’s hard not to see the whole debate as full of sound and fury; signifying nothing. After all, Archbishop Cordileone, whom many consider the strongest proponent for withholding the Eucharist from pro-abortion politicians, admitted to me in a recent Crisis Point podcast that he was still in the “dialogue” stage with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about her reception of the Eucharist (Pelosi is a member of Cordileone’s archdiocese). 

If after nine years at the helm in San Francisco—and decades of enthusiastic pro-abortion advocacy by Pelosi—Archbishop Cordileone is still allowing Pelosi to receive the Eucharist, then what really will another document produced by the USCCB bureaucracy do? It’s easy to see why most Catholics tune out this ecclesial body."

Bingo!

Men without spines.

Don't Rock The Boat

In this Sunday's reading from Mark 4:35-41, Jesus calms a storm, saving his followers,

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

One of the best sermons I ever heard was during a Mere Anglicanism conference. The subject was Mark 4:35-41. To summarize the sermon, many of the disciples were fishermen who knew how to handle a boat in a storm. They probably tried everything they could to save themselves before giving up and going to Jesus for help. Aren't we just like them? 

Pride Kills... Nickelodeon Gets Slimed

In a piece at the Daily Wire highlighting great pride shown by Nickelodeon as they insert the LGBTQ+ agenda into their children's programming we learn that their ratings have plummeted. 

"Since July of 2017, Nickelodeon’s viewership has dropped from 1.3 million average viewers per week to a June of 2021 average of only 372,000."

What could possibly be the reason for such a fall from grace?

In the last two weeks, both Nickelodeon and its preschool-targeted network, Nick Jr., have released videos championing “trans,” “queer,” and “pansexual” inclusion. One video that sparked mass outrage depicted a cartoon version of drag queen Nina West singing about various LGBTQIA groups “[loving] each other so proudly” on “Blues Clues and You,” a show for two- to five-year olds. That same video showed a female-to-male transgender beaver who appeared to have post-operative surgical scars on its chest. 

Oh, no... that couldn't have anything to do with it...

In a separate live action video Nickelodeon posted to YouTube last week, West explains the meanings behind various LGBTQ Pride flags through a song. These latest videos come after the network began overtly celebrating “Pride” month several years ago and implied in 2020 that its most popular character, SpongeBob SquarePants, is gay.

Nah, nothing there...

The company also recently announced that its reboot of “Rugrats,” a popular series that originally ran throughout the 1990s to 2004, will feature a single lesbian mom. Natalie Morales, the actress who plays the character, commented, “I think it’s just so great because examples of living your life happily and healthily as an out queer person is just such a beacon for young queer people who may not have examples of that.”

Well, maybe.

I have to give credit to all those heterosexual parents who do see something wrong with such attempts to brainwash our children and who have tuned Nickelodeon out. When you push slime on kids, you get slimed yourself.

Yep, pride, one of the deadly sins, does kill... television networks and YouTube channels.

 

Wither the Mustard Shrub/Tree?

 This Sunday's reading from Mark 4:26-34 contains two of Jesus' parables about the kingdom of God,

He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

He also said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

When travelling through India, I was amazed to drive past mile after mile of mustard fields in bloom. The local markets had plentiful mustard oil for sale which is harder to find here in the U.S. 

I can see that Christianity started as a tiny but powerful seed, but is Christendom or the Church the kingdom of God? 

If we think of them as separate entities,  then "Christendom" was not, and looking at the history and current states of the Church, I think the answer is "no" on that too. 

There are and have been too many diseased limbs upon which the birds have tried to nest. 

Branching of the mustard shrub is a natural part of its growth.

Pruning of dead limbs, and of limbs that are growing in the wrong direction or rubbing another is something that the farmer must do in order to have a healthy and fruitful, flowering plant.

God's kingdom is hard to explain in human words. It is even harder to imagine, and that is why Jesus spoke in parables and why we still puzzle over them.

Abortion Pill Reversal Rx: Docs in the Hot Seat

The fact that there is an antidote to the "abortion pill" for women who regret having taken the abortion pill is not common knowledge. It looks like the National Health Service in England is trying to make sure that it remains little known and little used as they clamp down on physicians who prescribe the antidote. The following cases illustrate the issue.

First from LifeNews,

Pro-life doctors in the United Kingdom are being punished for helping women save their unborn babies through the abortion pill reversal procedure.

The pro-abortion group open Democracy rejoiced this week after its undercover investigation into UK doctors providing abortion pill reversal procedures resulted in one doctor being investigated and placed on “interim conditions” at work.

According to the group, the UK General Medical Council prohibited Dr. Eileen Reilly from practicing medicine without supervision at a hearing in May. It also is conducting an investigation to determine whether further discipline is warranted.

Reilly is being punished because she offers abortion pill reversal treatments to mothers who regret their abortions and want to save their babies’ lives. An OB-GYN, she said she offers the life-saving treatment outside her regular job, and UK doctors have helped about 100 women and babies thus far.

The abortion pill reversal protocol has saved more than 2,000 babies’ lives across the world since its invention. An updated application of a treatment used for decades to prevent miscarriage, it reverses the effects of the first abortion drug with doses of progesterone.

And from the DailyMail comes this report,

An NHS doctor has been banned from trying to save the babies of women who regret starting controversial 'pills-by-post' abortions introduced because of the pandemic.

Since GP surgeries and clinics closed in lockdown, women have been able to carry out terminations at home by swallowing two powerful pills over 48 hours.

But hospital consultant Dermot Kearney has treated dozens of women who changed their minds after taking the first pill by prescribing a sex hormone which he claims reverses its effects. 

Research and medical experts indicate that the treatment is safe and effective. The American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports it, and even a prestigious Yale School of Medicine doctor told the New York Times that the treatment “makes biological sense,” and he would recommend it to his own daughter.

Dr. Kearney, who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, says the anguished women turned to him in desperation after the NHS provided no solution to their predicament, and he believes his interventions may have saved dozens of babies.

Hooray for Dr. Eileen Reilly and Dr. Dermot Kearney for doing what all physicians are supposed to do, saving lives. 

Physicians at the NHS have forsaken their oath to Medicine and instead have sworn allegiance to Molech.

The NHS has as its Medical Director, Professor Stephen Powis. He is also Professor of Renal Medicine at University College London.

Previously he was Medical Director (and latterly Group Chief Medical Officer) of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust from 2006 to 2018. Professor Powis was also a member of the governing body of Merton Clinical Commissioning Group for five years and a Director of Healthcare Services Laboratories LLP. He is a past chairman of the Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board Specialty Advisory Committee for Renal Medicine and a former board member of Medical Education England. He was Director of Postgraduate Medical and Dental Education for UCL Partners from 2010-13. He is a past treasurer and trustee of the British Transplantation Society and a former member of the UK Transplant Kidney Pancreas Advisory Group.

A certain political party in the past used doctors to do its dirty work as well.

God help us.

 

We Are Family,

In today's reading from Mark 3:20-35, Jesus first fends off heckling scribes, and then pushes back on his earthly family

and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’

 We don't know how Mary felt about Jesus' reply, but we do know that we can be part of his family too, if we sit at his feet and follow his commandments.

Biden's War On Christianity

This news from The Blaze provides more evidence that our supposedly devout Catholic President Biden cares not for Christian moral values, 

"A federal judge this week rejected a Christian college's request to bypass new rules under the Biden administration that force religious schools to open their dormitories — including shared bedrooms and shower spaces — to members of the opposite sex.

Judge Roseann Ketchmark issued the ruling Wednesday denying the College of the Ozarks a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, which would have provided temporary protection for the school while its federal court case is pending.

The school filed a lawsuit in April arguing that the Biden administration was forcing religious schools to violate their beliefs by opening up female dormitories to biological males, and vice-versa, under subject of punitive damages, six-figure fines, and attorneys' fees.

After President Joe Biden issued an executive order titled, 'Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation' in January, the Department of Housing and Urban Development put forward a directive in line with the administration's new interpretation of 'sex.'

The directive holds that entities covered by the Fair Housing Act cannot discriminate against someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Meaning that a transgender person who is biologically male but identifies as a female must be permitted to share dormitory spaces such as bedrooms, bathrooms, and showers with female students..."

"The College of the Ozarks is a private, Christian, liberal arts college in Point Lookout, Missouri, that since its founding more than a century ago has held to a belief that biological sex is assigned by God and is unchangeable."

 There is no doubt that Christians are being led into the new Colosseum to be fed to executive orders and nameless bureaucrats while President Biden fiddles. 

Meanwhile, his Pope turns a blind eye.