Stephen K. Ray's Blog, page 63

From Drugs and the Gay Lifestyle to a Good Man

Published on Crisis Magazine website, written by Paul Chaloux

With so much darkness surrounding us, it’s sometimes hard to see how God is working in the world. Garrett Johnson’s story demonstrates that God is still active, reaching out to even the most fallen who have chosen to embrace darkness and addiction.

It begins with young Garrett, as a six-year-old, being taunted with the words, “You are gay.”

Garrett didn’t understand what that meant at the time, and he was certainly not sexualized at age 6; but the taunting persisted throughout his childhood and into adolescence, coming from many different sources.

It happened so often that Garrett began to believe it and to think the easiest path forward was to embrace the title. At one point in his youth, a girl he had a crush on convinced him to put on a wig and a dress. He mistook her laughter for approval and walked home in this attire, which made his father angry.

Garrett had a good relationship with his father in his early life, but as he approached his teen years, tension developed and their relationship soured because Garrett was so undisciplined. Due to his own difficult upbringing, his father didn’t have the tools to bring Garrett under control.

Out of frustration, his father pushed many of those he loved away, including Garrett. He learned from his father’s behavior that the way to deal with people who hurt you is to hurt them back. This hurting included leveraging his mother’s love to hurt his parent’s relationship.

Once, when they were playfully wrestling, he purposely kneed his father in the groin. This opened the rift with his father even more, as you might expect. After this split, Garrett saw only the worst in his father.

He saw every act of love as somehow an example of his father’s self-centeredness, and he took every opportunity to harm his father. As his relationship with his dad continued to deteriorate, he grew closer to his mom, who seemed to reflect his tender, kind side. He began to see himself as more like a woman than a man.

For the whole article, click HERE.

Garrett Johnson’s website and YouTube Channel

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So it begins! UN pushes Religious Communities to “fully comply” – empowering LGBT+

UN to push religious communities to ‘fully comply’ with human rights law to ’empower’ LGBT+ people

“The United Nations announced plans to release a report in June regarding “perceived contradictions” between “the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB)” and “sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI).”

“The report aims to push governments to “fully comply” with international human rights law to “protect and empower” the participation of LGBT+ people in religious communities, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

“The U.N. requested calls for input from all interested governments, religious leaders, academics, activists, and human rights organizations regarding “perceived points of tension” between FoRB and SOGI.” (From The Blaze)

So, we who hold to traditional views of sex and marriage (as held by mankind since the beginning), and who hold to the teaching of Scripture and the Church, will be accused of being haters and of hate speech. It we fail to approve and even to celebrate this perverse lifestyle will expose us to retaliation and legal persecution.

It will someday soon be illegal to read aloud in public or even in a church this passage from the Bible found in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,

Romans 1:26 “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;

Romans 1:27   and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

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Fantastic Movie for Whole Family – “Lion”

We recently watched a FANTASTIC movie about adoption, love, redemption and family while on the plane. Funny thing, we discover most of our good movies on airplanes.

A movie from India. It is worthy of an evening with popcorn and a box of Kleenex..

I think everyone will agree it would be good for the kids too. Redemption, hope, family…

Oh, it is entitled “Lion” which you don’t find out its meaning until the end. Enjoy!

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The Rage of Feral Children – disaster caused by fatherless young people

Published in Crisis Magazine, author Austin Ruse

No Church. No country. These gaping absences have produced a rage among young people that explains a great deal about our present national trauma. This is one of the fascinating theses in Mary Eberstadt’s masterful new book, Adam and Eve After the Pill, Revisited.

Don’t let the title fool you. This is not merely an updating or reworking of her 2012 book of roughly the same name. This is a fresh and deeply insightful look at the pathologies the sexual revolution hath wrought. Among them, envy and wrath among young men and women who have been cheated out of life’s true wealth: family relationships.

Eberstadt says, “Deprived of father, Father, and patria, a critical mass of mankind has become dysfunctional on a scale not seen before.” She argues that much of the violence we witnessed in the summer of 2020 can be chalked up to fatherlessness.

We knew this already—for instance, that the epidemic of fatherlessness has caused the murder rate in the cities to bloom like poison plants gone mad. Eberstadt points out that much of the violence has been based on envy.

She describes the “feral children of Portland.” For decades, Portland has opened its doors to runaway teens and thus grew tribes of “teen hobos” organized into toxic “street families.” Toss into this mix that these kids are not anchored in religious faith and have come to hate their country. No father. No Father. No patria. No wonder Portland burned. No wonder Portland is a dystopian nightmare that its citizens are abandoning.

Man is not made to be alone, nor is he made to live only with a “street family” or what some call a “chosen family.” A street family is no family at all. And so, we have the specter of child mobs entering the suburbs to attack homes that fly the American flag. They attack these homes not for the flag but for the family inside. Do you remember the fad of gangs of kids attacking families eating dinner in restaurants? This is the wrath of feral children turned against those who have what they have lost or never had.

I recommend the whole insightful article HERE

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Healing Mass on EWTN for the Order of Malta, I am the play-by-play announcer :-)

Today at around 3 PM Eastern, the healing Mass here in Phoenix, Arizona begins. I will be one of the two play-by-play announcers, discussing healing and the sacraments and anointing along the way.

You can watch it live on YouTube at rtmp://a.rtmp.youtube.com/live2

You can you can write in your prayer requests at PrayWithMalta.com.

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Archbishop Aquila responds to the liberal confusion of Cardinal McElroy on True and False Inclusivity

I spent a week in January with Archbishop Aquila as we were both speakers on the Good News Marriage Cruise. As always he was brilliant, approachable, and godly. I told him I wished we had 100 more like him and our country would be a different place. This is a erudite and timely message from the good Archbishop to counteract much of the garbage being taught by too many bishops today.

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Radical Inclusion Requires Radical Love, by Archbishop Samuel Aquila, Feb. 1, 2023The Church needs the courage, and love, to be clear in inviting people to leave their sin. What Jesus offers is better than what the world offers the person in sin, and his grace and power is sufficient to free anyone from the slavery to sin.

I have written of my concerns in the past with the German Synodal Process, as well as concerns with other bishops and cardinals and their take on the process. They essentially ignore the oft repeated words of Pope Francis, that in the synodal process there must be a deep listening to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth and charity that keeps us firmly attached to Jesus Christ. Pope Francis has made it clear that the synod on synodality is not about changing long standing Church teaching and is not a democratic or parliamentary process.

In a recent article, my brother bishop, Cardinal Robert McElroy, laid out a vision of the church in the context of synodality calling for “radical inclusion”. According to His Eminence, the Church “contains structures and cultures of exclusion.” He then goes on to speak about categories of people who are systematically excluded from the life of the Church. He speaks about a need for “radical inclusion” that invites all the baptized to participate fully in the life of the Church regardless of his or her relationship with the Church and Jesus Christ.

There is much that could be addressed, but I would like to focus on putting Jesus Christ first and the joy that flows from adhering to the Gospel. Staying attached to Jesus Christ the “vine” is essential, for the Lord tells us, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Similarly, the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, “Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before him Jesus endured the cross…” (Hb 12:1b–2 emphasis mine).

Cardinal McElroy’s reflection paints the Church as an institution that harms due to its incapacity to welcome everyone into full participation in the life of the Church. According to His Eminence, the Church categorically discriminates, but did not Jesus himself put demands on his disciples which distinguished them from those who did not respond to the radical and costly call of the Gospel?

Indeed, in the encounter with the rich young man (cf. Mk 10:17–22), Jesus demands radical discipleship from the young man, and he lets him refuse and walk away. Furthermore, Jesus lays out the cost of discipleship as denying oneself, and even family, for the sake of the Gospel (cf. Lk 9:23–26; Mt 16:24–25; Lk 14:25–27). And, just as he was not received by everyone, he reminded his disciples as he sent them out if people did not receive the message of the Gospel to simply “shake the dust from your feet” (Mt 10:14), not wishing them ill but turning them over to the Lord.

Finally, many disciples left Jesus because of his teaching on the Bread of Life, (cf. Jn 6:66) and he goes even so far as to ask the apostles if they want to leave (cf. Jn 6:67). Jesus never waters down his teaching, nor does he appeal to conscience; he gives testimony to the truth (cf. Jn 18:37). The call Jesus gives is radical, and it goes out to everyone, but is not received by everyone because of the cost of discipleship.

The presentation given by some bishops and cardinals sadly fails to preach the radicality of the Gospel and obscures the true eternal love of the Father for the sinner.

For the rest of the article, click HERE

Amy Welborn’s comments

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Pictures of the Presentation of Our Lord

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord.  I put up a few pictures of what I think it may have looked like.

The presentation of a new son, was mandated in the Old Testament because after the exodus God had required the firstborn son to be dedicated to Him. But since the tribe of Levi had become the priests dedicated to God, parents could “redeem” their firstborn son, “buy him back from God”, so to speak. The price of redemption was 5 shekels, about two week’s wages.

Numbers 18:15-16  The firstborn of man you shall redeem, and the firstborn of unclean animals you shall redeem. And their redemption price (at a month old you shall redeem them) you shall fix at five shekels in silver.

It was also required of the mother to purify herself after giving birth for either a son or a daughter. Of course, this was not a purification from sin but was a ritual, ceremonial cleansing after the “flow of blood.”

Leviticus 12:6-7   And when the days of her purifying are completed, whether for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering, and he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. Then she shall be clean from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, either male or female.

Mary was no more offering sacrifices for sin than Jesus was washed from sin at his baptism. It was a ritual cleanliness and was required at the birth of any child.

These are two of my favorite paintings of the Presentation. Notice in the top one that Joseph even has the two turtledoves in a cage to offer as the sacrifice. You can barely see the birds’ beak and eyes through the weaving.

At the Temple the Prophet Simeon declared Mary’s soul would also be pierced. That took place later at the crucifixion. Imagine a 15-year-old girl hearing those ominous words and trying to process that message!

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Africans attend Mass more than anyone else – Nigeria 94% weekly

CATHOLIC MASS ATTENDANCE BY COUNTRY

According to new data compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, Nigeria and Kenya have the highest proportion of Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more, with Nigeria as the clear leader. Ninety-four percent of Catholics in Nigeria say they attend Mass at least weekly. In the United States, that number is 17%.  READ  

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My Interview with Dr. Gavin Ashenden, former Anglican priest and Chaplain to the Queen of England

Let me introduce a new friend of mine. He is a new convert from Anglican to Catholic. His associates just can’t figure out why he did that.

We met over e-mail and I found him brilliant, humorous, devout and a great communicator with predictable British wit. It was a delightful interview. I hope you enjoy it.

Gavin Ashenden

Gavin Roy Pelham Ashenden (born 3 June 1954) is a British Catholic layman, author and commentator, and Associate Editor of the Catholic Herald. Formerly a priest of the Church of England, and subsequently a continuing Anglican bishop. He was appointed Chaplain to the Queen from 2008 until his resignation in 2017.

From his website:Catholic Herald Podcast 34: Steve Ray’s Personal Pilgrimage January 27, 2023 at 9:53 am

“This week Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Steve Ray, the acclaimed American author of Crossing The Tiber and Upon This Rock, among other titles, and a man hailed as one of the most effective Catholic apologists of the present generation.

In this 34th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Mr Ray recalls how he left the Baptist faith of his youth to become a dedicated and highly-motivated Catholic after, like St John Henry Newman, he studied the writings of such Fathers as Ss Irenaeus of Lyon, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna and recognised that their sub-Apostolic faith was the same as that professed by the Catholic Church.

Mr Ray also offers some insight into new and emerging contemporary crises in the history of the Church and shares some opinions about what the future may hold.”

Click here to listen

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Nefarious Corruption at Pfizer?

EXPOSÉ: PFIZER MULLS MUTATING COVID IN LAB  A new undercover video exposé from Project Veritas allegedly captures a high-ranking Pfizer official saying the company has considered deliberately mutating COVID-19 in a lab in order to create effective vaccines in advance, declaring that COVID will be a “cash cow” for years, and claiming federal regulators go easy on Pfizer in hopes of getting jobs later.  READ  

From CatholicVote’s The Loop

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