Que descanse en paz, querido Abuelo

Ramón Eulalio Piferrer Catalá
July 14, 1926 - May 27, 2008

Que en paz descanse, querido Abuelo. Te quiero con todo mi corazon ahora y para siempre. Tú me enseñastes como vivir feliz. Tú me mostraste tu verdadera fe en Dios. Ahora entre en la felicidad y la gloria del Señor, quien tanto amaste durante tu bellísima vida, donde no hay sufrimiento, solo alegría, no hay muerte, solo juventud.

Ps 129
DE PROFÚNDIS CLAMÁVI ad te Dómine;
Dómine exáudi vocem meam.

Fiant aures tuae intendéntes
In vocem deprecatiónis meae.

Si iniquitátes observáveris Dómine:
Dómine quis sustinébit?
Quia apud te propitiátio est
Et, propter legem tuam sustínui te, Dómine.

Sustínuit ánima mea in verbum eius;
Sperávit ánima mea in Dómino...

Condoms in Place of Food

What in the name of...Do these people have no shame? Where is the humanity?

UN sends condoms to starving people in Myanmar
Bangkok, May. 23, 2008 (CWNews.com) - In answer to the grave humanitarian crisis among cyclone victims in Myanmar, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is sending nearly 250,000 condoms.

"We don't want regular use of contraception disrupted," a spokesman for the UNFPA told reporters. The UN agency is also providing oral and injected contraceptives.

More than 2 million people in Myanmar face an urgent need for food, clothing, medication, and shelter.

So, people are starving to death by the tens of thousands but, God forbid they start having unprotected sex! Because when people are dropping like flies from starvation all they want to do is have sex, right? This is despicable! Where is the humanity? This is lunacy. I just can't conjure up the words to describe this depravity.

PS (May 25) On the lighter side, after some thinking, I realize that the UN probably mistakenly delivered condoms instead of something else due to a linguistic error that I myself have committed. See, France handles a large amount of UN activity as do Anglophones. Once when I was in Paris I commented that the food was so delicious and that it undoubtedly had very few préservatifs, to which my colleague began laughing at me. Little did I know that this false cognate actually is the French word for CONDOMS. So I said that my food had very few condoms in it. The word I was looking for was conservateurs for preservatives. Surely, this mix-up would explain why the UN so erroneously shipped such a massive quantity of condoms to Myanmar instead of preservatives to help their food stocks last longer. Yep, that's right... (I had to lighten up such a grim piece of news).

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

Few things make me as happy as a good poem, especially a poem by Robert Frost. However, I'm posting here the poem "If" by Kipling because it is a beautiful poem and has many good lessons in it. Enjoy!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Open Letter from a Concerned Parishioner

If you have not yet read my post of today, "Lunatics on Parade", please read it before reading this post as it explains the duress by which I am driven to write this letter.

This is the text of a letter which I have just finished to the pastor of the church in my town where I go to confess often. I have ceased attending Mass there due to heretical activities in blatant disobedience to the Bishop and the Church. I have not yet submitted it to the church but will do so soon.

May 20, 2008

Dear Father,

I am writing to you regarding a matter of great concern which I have witnessed occurring in St. Augustine’s parish for some time and about which I have put off writing for many months.

Father, as a very devoted Catholic and parishioner I am always troubled by circumstances in the church environment which hamper the devotion and respect for Church teachings demanded in a Catholic parish. While I have noticed many illicit activities of varying gravity through the years, I will limit myself to one right now, namely, the activities of the Women’s Book Group, which has proven affiliations with groups and individuals either in dubious standing with the Church or who have been fully excommunicated by virtue of their actions. On a similar note, I wish to address a grave error published in the bulletin of May 11, 2008 which I hope will be rectified.

1) The Women’s Book Group has expressed time and time again controversial feminist tendencies as well as overt declarations of support for female ordination- both grave violations of Church teaching. While I fully respect the right for any group to engage in study of books that will further appreciation for their particular callings in God’s plan, the outright endorsement of contrarian beliefs which challenge the teaching authority of the Church should not be supported by a parish of the Roman Catholic Church.

2) This group has also been actively affiliated with illicit groups and has invited speakers teaching positions directly contrary to Church teaching. As indicated, in a manner indicative of scandal, in the bulletin of 11 May, the group has direct connections to the Wild Iris Bookstore in Gainesville and even receives discounts from this store. The very publishing of this fact in the bulletin, which could, by virtue of mere curiosity, expose unsuspecting parishioners to the seriously immoral materials of this store, is remorsefully scandalous. If you are not aware, Father, this store is reputed, as evidenced by its website, to actively promote New Age, feminist and female divinity, LGBTQ- in a word- gravely sinful doctrines.

The current book selection of the group, written by Richard R Gaillardetz, is titled By What Authority? A Primer on Scripture, the Magisterium, and the Sense of the Faithful. As indicated by the title and by further research, the book is an attack on the primacy of the Magisterium with regard to the deposit of faith, written by a confessed critic of the Church.

The group has also invited Robert McClory, an errant priest openly critical of the male celibate priesthood as well as an affiliate of Call to Action, yet another organization devoted to opposing established and unflinching Church teachings.

3) On March 29, 2008, according to the website of Bridget Mary, an illicit female “priest” in Florida, members of the Women’s Book Group attended a “mass” celebrated illicitly by the aforementioned, who belongs to a group called the Roman Catholic Womenpriests, whose original members have been summarily excommunicated latae sententiae for grave disobedience to a Vatican order to cease heretical activities.

4) In the bulletin of May 11, 2008, however much I lament having to refer to this fact yet again, was published a prayer which features a deceptively placed line which seriously contradicts the theological position of the Church regarding the nature of God. The prayer begins with, “God, our Father and Mother” and ends with, “May God, who is mother as well as father bless you”. For the average Sunday schooler for whom this entry was intended this error would be virtually unnoticeable and thus poses a very grave perversion of Church teaching with respect to a vulnerable audience. This fact is repeated throughout the Catechism of the Catholic Church, particularly in sections 238 through 242 on the nature of God the Father. It is regrettable, to say the least, that such a fact was willingly overlooked as indicated by its repetition!

Father, I do not feel that I need to continue listing the reasons why this issue is of deep concern to me and many of my fellow parishioners. There should be no reason whatsoever for this group to continue meeting as an official part of St Augustine’s parish without any significant change in their behavior and renunciation of past affiliations. They, and any other groups preaching doctrines in overt contradiction to established teachings, have no right to be acting under the auspices of a Catholic church in good standing with the diocese. Likewise should there not be any reason for the church to allow blatant errors regarding authorized theological positions of the Church to be published in so public a medium as the church bulletin, where it poses the risk of confusing the ignorant and imparting incorrect teachings to the faithful.

Father Gillespie, I write this to you out of filial respect and concern as a parishioner of St. Augustine’s in good standing with the Church. I would greatly appreciate a response from you regarding this issue as I am unaware of whatever measures may be in place to prevent such serious problems from continuing. I pray that you will address these very important points soon and I patiently await your gracious response.

I am,

Yours in Christ,
Anthony M. Piferrer

Here is a link regarding why God is our Father and not our Mother. Click here.

Let the Crusade begin!

Lunatics on Parade

Thus far I have prided myself on fairly professionally-toned entries and aurally-palatable verbage becoming of a level-headed college upperclassman. I will thus take the liberty to suspend this trend this once, and likely not for the last time, because I'm just fuming right now. First off, kudos to my friend Jon Knox for his recent entries on the feminist invasion of the Catholic Church. They're my springboard.

What is with these feminazis, these liberals? Why, for goodness sake, can't they just live and let live? Everything has been turned into a parade, a mockery! First they began by infiltrating society, then they moved to destroy the family, and now they've turned their sights on the moral and intellectual pillar and heart of Western civilization: the Roman Catholic Church. Let's face it, nobody out there is remaining as steadfast with what has really held up Western civilization for the past two millennia as the Catholic Church in these, I daresay, apocalyptic times. Family values, a sense of reverence for authority, religious fervor, tradition, etc. The list goes on. Why can't these feminazis just go off to some island somewhere and make their heretical fantasies come true there where no one can see them?

I'm going to spell this out really clearly for all of the rebels out there right now. God has revealed Himself to us as the FATHER, that is, as a MALE figure. Jesus was not black, nor oppressed by racist Romans, nor, heaven forbid, a female! And here is the pill that you either swallow or leave on the plate and go join some hippy Protestant church: if you do not agree with Catholic teaching, you are not a Roman Catholic, nor a Roman Catholic in good standing; you are a Protestant, perhaps an apostate, but definitely a heretic! So keep your heresy out of my beloved Church! You can not support abortion at all and call yourself a Catholic, much less a Christian. You can not support feminism (feminazism) and call yourself a Catholic. You can not hold the delusion that the Eucharist is a symbol, rather than the true substance and Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, and call yourself a Catholic. You can not pick and choose your favorite teachings that fit your pre-chosen agenda and call yourself a Catholic. You can not support homosexual "marriage" and call yourself a Catholic. You can not support destructive genetic research and call yourself a Catholic. Really, this is quite simple. You're either in or you're out. You can't have your arm in Heaven and your leg in Hell.

I'm having a lot of trouble containing myself. This is a masquerade, really, this parade of feminazis who think that they have been so gravely wronged, that the big bad Roman Catholic Church has deprived them of the right to become priestesses. I really think that these people live the most dismal lives ever experienced in the span of human history. There's no other explanation for why they'd hitch a ride on the lunatic fringe bandwagon and adopt the illusion that they're oppressed just to make themselves feel like they're righteous, like they're one with the early Church leaders who were truly persecuted.

These people make a mockery out of everything we have ever held dear. And here we have to take their crap, watch them destroy our Church traditions and Western civilization? If it were up to me they'd all be excommunicated by now and I'd already be propping the stake up in front of the church. They sicken me! They're the most deluded people in the history of humanity and yet they parade as the progressive and enlightened of our time! What in the world is going on here. Does anyone see what is going on here???

The Rock and Roll Morality

I am writing in great humility with regard to the writing of a great thinker of our past half-century in such a way as to render this text as a commentary more so than an actual personal production of real creative ingenuity. In fact, so humbled am I by the profundity of what I would like to discuss here that I feel a greater temptation to adulate the author rather than to dare comment at all. I will simply leave the commentary to the reader’s own spiritual turnings and disturbances.

At present I am reading a book which I have longed to read for quite some time called The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, as stated on the back cover, an argument that “the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis.” Thus far he has touched on a multitude of topics and approaches, from relativism to religion to music, the great works of literature, etc. The list is already endless.

Anyways, today I read the chapter titled, “Music”, and was stunned by the fluidity and coherence of Bloom’s argument and observation on our current moral state and how it pertains to our obsession with music. He states that the entire nature of music, as well as its purpose, has changed. If I may sum it up in my own (potentially incorrect) terms, where music was once a means of conveying meaning, a message, and only acutely a form of expression, music as it is manifest in its most popular form today- rock- is now mostly a means of expression with the end of creating an effect, a feeling, and a predominantly physical sense of pleasure.

Before I quote Bloom, I will ask, “Why does this matter?” It matters because music and our relationship to it are intimately tied, as Bloom argues, to our spiritual condition. This should come as no surprise to a Catholic, who knows the centrality of music to the liturgy. And yet, the flux which our musical and, consequently, moral expression has undergone has been virtually overlooked and its effect and reflection of our moral state for the most part ignored. What does all this have to do with “sex, drugs, and rock and roll?”

“Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.” (73)

“In alliance with some real art and a lot of pseudo-art, an enormous industry cultivates the taste for the orgiastic state of feeling connected with sex, providing a constant flood of fresh material for voracious appetites. Never was there an art form directed so exclusively to children.” (73-4)

This fosters a sense of rebellion against authority, that rebellion so emblematic of the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was the 1960’s.

“The inevitable corollary of such sexual interest is rebellion against the parental authority that represses it. Selfishness thus becomes indignation and then transforms itself into morality. The sexual revolution must overthrow all the forces of domination, the enemies of nature and happiness. From love comes hate, masquerading as social reform. A worldview is balanced on the sexual fulcrum. What were once unconscious or half-conscious childish resentments become the new Scripture. And then comes the longing for the classless, prejudice-free, conflictless, universal society that necessarily results from liberated consciousness—“We Are the World,” a pubescent version of Alle Menschen werden Brüder, the fulfillment of which has been inhibited by the political equivalents of Mom and Dad. These are the three great lyrical themes: sex, hate and a swarmy, hypocritical version of brotherly love. Such polluted sources issue in a muddy stream where only monsters can swim. A glance at the videos that project images on the wall of Plato’s cave since MTV took it over suffices to prove this. Hitler’s image recurs frequently enough in exciting contexts to give one pause. Nothing noble, sublime, profound, delicate, tasteful or even decent can find a place in such tableaux. There is room only for the intense, changing, crude and immediate, which Tocqueville warned us would be the character of democratic art, combined with a pervasiveness, importance and content beyond Tocqueville’s wildest imagination.

Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

This description may seem exaggerated, but only because some would prefer to regard it as such…” (74-75)

Bloom introduces a moral sociopolitical aspect to his critique of the new musical phenomenon a few pages later:

“It is interesting to note that the Left, which prides itself on its critical approach to ‘late capitalism’ and is unrelenting and unsparing in its analysis of our other cultural phenomena, has in general given rock music a free ride. Abstracting from the capitalist element in which it flourishes, they regard it as a people’s art, coming from beneath the bourgeoisie’s layers of cultural repression. Its antinomianism and its longing for a world without constraint might seem to be the clarion of the proletarian revolution, and Marxists certainly do see that rock music dissolves the beliefs and morals necessary for liberal society and would approve of it for that alone. But the harmony between the young intellectual Left and rock is probably profounder than that. Herbert Marcuse appealed to university students in the sixties with a combination of Marx and Freud. In Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man he promised that the overcoming of capitalism and its false consciousness will result in a society where the greatest satisfactions are sexual, a sort that the bourgeois moralist Freud called polymorphous and infantile. Rock music touches the same chord in the young. Free sexual expression, anarchism, mining of the irrational unconscious and giving it free rein are what they have in common. The high intellectual life…and the low rock world are partners in the same entertainment enterprise. They must both be interpreted as parts of the cultural fabric of late capitalism. Their success comes from the bourgeois’ need to feel that he is not bourgeois, to have undangerous experiments with the unlimited. He is willing to pay dearly for them. The Left is better interpreted by Nietzsche than by Marx. The critical theory of late capitalism is at once late capitalism’s subtlest and crudest expression. Anti-bourgeois ire is the opiate of the Last Man.” (77-8)

The Beauty of Family Values

I ran into this really cute video on YouTube made back in the day as a tool to teach kids to appreciate their parents. Although it seems like something that hearkens back to a better time, these are values that have been treasured for generations and that should be held for many more to come.



Appreciating Your Parents - Honoring Your Father and Mother

All that is necessary in life is family and faith in God and His Church; all else is secondary.