Torch of The Faith Celebrates 7 Years - Thanks be to God and to All of our Readers!

Torch of The Faith News on Wednesday 22 July 2015 - 18:23:11 | by admin

This picture with Our Lady of Fatima was taken 7 years ago this summer. It marked the launch of Torch of The Faith during the ''2008 Day of Reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary'' at Pantasaph Franciscan Friary, in North Wales.

How did it all come about?

Although we have shared much of this here before, we think that it bears retelling on the apostolate's 7th anniversary. We think this because the experiences recounted below give the lie to those working hard to subvert the doctrinal teachings and pastoral practice of the Church. Why? Because, by God's grace and mercy, we are a Catholic married couple who practice the Faith and have received healing and new life in Christ from the sacraments and moral teachings of the Catholic Church.

An important stage in the pre-history of Torch of The Faith happened when we were a young engaged couple, preparing for marriage, back in 2002.

Alan was working as a PR/Education Officer for a large, pro-life charity and this work enabled both of us to encounter the scale of the attack on the Culture of Life in the fields of education, law and media. Travelling to speak at universities, schools and youth groups helped us to witness first-hand the collapse of Catholic education into religious and moral relativism. Sometimes the teachers in the Catholic schools were the most resistant to the pro-life message. The research we did in those years helped us to understand more about our own cultural (de)formation and how we had come to think and act as we had, growing up in the era that we did. 

We were shocked - though no longer surprised - when we attended the compulsory marriage-preparation course in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, and the long-term catechists began to express dissent from the Magisterium. They even went so far as to impart false teaching - about sex-outside-of-marriage, contraception, divorce/re-'marriage' and homosexuality - to the gathering of young engaged couples on the course.

We were horrified to see that, even in the very place where the Culture of Life should have been most clearly and enthusiastically promoted, the Church's moral teaching was being subverted and undermined.

Worse than that, we were vilified and belittled for standing up for the Truth. The most disturbing experience we had that day occurred when Angeline questioned why Jesus Christ had not been mentioned all day long. The lead catechist replied: ''You might be comfortable with that name dear, but others here may prefer to speak of a transcendental reality.''

Around this time, Alan had to resign on conscience from his education job for three key reasons: He was instructed by his line manager to stop speaking about God in his presentations - even when in Catholic schools - as this was deemed to be 'exclusive language'; he had discovered the relativistic nature of the Rogerian non-directive counselling being used in the crisis pregnancy work; the team had begun to take a morally relative approach to condoms and sex-outside of marriage.

Going Stateside

Getting nowhere in our desire to promote the true teachings of the Church - Christ's teachings which had changed our lives - we began a 30-day prayer to St. Joseph early in 2004. Remarkably, this led to us selling our home and heading off to America for two years so that Alan could study for the MA in Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Ohio.

Autumn 2005: On Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio.

When we left for America, we consecrated all the works, prayers, joys and sufferings of our overseas experience for the reconversion of England.

We learned a lot in America about authentic Christian community and about the centuries-old philosophical and theological roots of the present crisis in the Church and the Culture of Death in society.

We also met many orthodox priests, families and young people who loved the Church and were developing ways to reach out and spread the Faith through their gifts in art, dance, film-making, healthcare, literature and music. Through them - and by keeping up with the Catholic/cultural news from dear old Blighty via Fr. Tim Finegan's blog - we recognised the value of using electronic media to provide an on-line witness to the Faith.

All of this, rather than the widespread dissolving of the Gospel into religious and ethical indifferentism, is what we understood by the term New Evangelization. That this was also the understanding of the priests and other students was evidenced by the fact that around 20 converts were received into the Catholic Church on campus - and at least one baby was saved from abortion by student-led prayer vigils in Pittsburgh - during the two years that we were there.

At the time, Fr. Terence Henry T.O.R. was in charge of the university and we were totally fired up by his speech at the graduation ceremony in 2006. We returned to England with loving fire in our hearts to evangelize in our own country, by drawing on the enthusiasm, prayer, learning and ideas picked up at Steubenville.

Back to earth with a bump...

We were disappointed the very first morning home when we turned on local radio to hear that the beautiful St. Peter's Church, the oldest Catholic church in the city of Liverpool, had been sold as a night-club with the sacred art and sanctuary area left in place as a themed backdrop. This was just the beginning. A few years later, this venue hosted a dance festival featuring scantily-clad women with fake vampire blood dripping from their mouths. As the first couple of years back in the UK passed, we realized that Britain had slipped rapidly away from God and the Natural and Divine Law. It was as though a tipping point had been passed.

We wanted very much to do our bit for souls, for true marriage and for the Culture of Life. However, having tried to do so in a couple of dioceses, it seemed that official channels were dominated and blocked by entrenched dissenters who had the backing of powerful modernist ecclesiastics.

Planting an Acorn for God 

At this point, our late friend Fr. Mike Williams told us to simply bypass the official channels and to begin working to promote the Faith at the grassroots level. This fitted an image we kept getting about planting a small acorn for God. 

These concepts encouraged us as we founded Torch of The Faith and began by selling orthodox books, CDs and DVDs from a stand at the above-mentioned day of reparation, in the grounds of Pantasaph Friary. Two months later, on the Feast of St. Pope Pius X, we launched the website to provide an orthodox on-line presence and to advertise our work. The title 'Torch of The Faith' was inspired by a homily of Fr. Hugh Allen O.Praem, during a Traditional Latin Mass, when he preached about St. Dominic Savio's prophetic vision of England being set free from the fog of error by the burning torch of the Catholic Faith.

Alan's parents, Ken and Doreen, became our greatest supporters here in England. Pretty soon, we were off travelling to give catechetical presentations all over England and Wales.

The Acorn Grows

For a while Torch of The Faith was run as a proper business and by 2012, combined with lectures and marking for Maryvale, it almost became a financially viable apostolate.

Between 2008 - 2012, we worked with a dozen priests and numerous lay people to provide orthodox catechesis to hundreds of lay people; and had contributed to the formation of dozens of parish catechists.

The main focus of our work was always to impart the true teachings of the Church in relation to chastity, marriage and the related pro-life issues. All of our presentations were: Trinitarian-Christocentric; rooted in Sacred Scripture and Tradition; expressed the four dimensions of Doctrine, Liturgy, Prayer and Morality; aimed at faithfulness to both God and man in a single loving attitude; and hoped to draw others into the new life in Christ for the salvation and sanctification of their immortal souls.

In addition to teaching about the Real Presence, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the lives of key saints, we also gave pre-marriage catechesis to around 40 engaged couples and spoke about chastity, marriage and pro-life to several RCIA groups, a group of university students and a small group of teenagers with their parents. When we spoke about marriage, we offered free copies of Patrick McCrystal's helpful book Who is at the Centre of Your Marriage - The Pill or Jesus Christ? We were also blessed to be able to spend 8 months helping to prepare 10 young children for their First Confession and First Holy Communion; plus a few more months preparing three young adults for their Confession and Confirmation.

A Last Redoubt or a Bridgehead from which to advance?

Since 2012, we have not been in much of a position to offer any presentations and have stopped running the apostolate as a business. That was the year that Alan's dad Ken was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently passed from this life. In 2014, Doreen suffered a couple of mini strokes, followed by a serious stroke, and since then we have been providing 24/7 care for her at home. In this time, it seems that we have been pruned right back.

With all that has happened in relation to the Rome Synod and with all the attacks on true marriage in society, it has felt at times as though we have withdrawn to the website as a kind of 'Last Redoubt' from which we can still keep on fighting for the Faith! More positively, it might be thought of as a Bridgehead from which to make future advances.

Although it can seem at times like there is so much bad news, we wish to encourage all of our readers as we celebrate the 7th anniversary of Torch of The Faith. In the end, everything comes down to God's grace. We have ourselves been converted, healed and given new life by Jesus and by the sacraments and moral teachings of Christ's Church. This is essentially the good news that we have always aimed to share.

The true teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church are both life-changing and life-giving. They are beautiful. This is because they are Jesus Christ's own teachings. These teachings are the remedy for isolation, selfishness and sin. They are the conduit for grace and true love. We testify that Jesus Christ and the constant teachings of the Magisterium of His Church have given us much real love, joy and peace in our marriage. They have also helped us to carry the various crosses which have come our way. We pray that they will do the same for you; and that the Rome Synod this October will faithfully affirm, defend and promote those true teachings as a light of true love in a sin-darkened world.

By the way - that's not our house!!!

We conclude by thanking God for all that He has given to us and by thanking you all for kindly reading each day. May God's enemies be converted, may chastity and true marriage be restored and may Christ's peace be with you all.

And as we often say: Keep the Faith!

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Leftist Mayors Meet in Rome - Francis Calls Them the Conscience of Humanity?!!!

Torch of The Faith News on Wednesday 22 July 2015 - 09:41:55 | by admin

Conscience of Humanity?

Pope Francis met and spoke with the 50 leftist mayors from all around the world yesterday to discuss climate change. During the meeting, he told the mayors: ''You are the conscience of humanity.''

Leaving aside the theological impossibility of this hyperbolic statement, it is a remarkable way for anyone purporting to be a Catholic to describe a group that includes the supporters and enablers of both abortion and homosexual 'marriage'.

Last Friday, we randomly picked seven names from the Vatican's invitation list to these 50 leftist mayors. After a little further research, we discovered that every single one of the ones that we studied were using their positions of power to strongly promote the homosexualist agenda in their home cities.

So consistent were the leftist ideologies of this cross-section of the mayors, and so intrigued were we that they were all so well known to insiders at the Vatican, that we openly pondered whether a new model of global governance might not be emerging; one based upon the ancient system of the Roman empire controlling outlying areas via local imperial governors placed over key cities. This would certainly make sense in relation to the Francis-era welcome given in Rome to advocates of a one-world-government and population control; and, indeed, in light of President of the European Council, Herman Achille Von Rumpuy's suggestion that Global Government had begun in 2009.

How else may one understand Francis' suggestion that these mayors are the conscience of humanity?

An Erring Conscience?

Elizabeth Yore, the renowned international child rights lawyer, has exposed the ideological slant of a few more of the invited mayors at Pewsitter. She points out that all 8 of the mayors travelling in to Rome from the United States of America are Democrats. No Republican mayors or governors were invited.

Whilst the Democrats might be sympathetic to the ideas of climate change and sustainable development, they are certainly not in sympathy with the Catholic Church's moral teachings.

Elizabeth Yore explains that Jerry Brown, Governor of California, opposed a Bill that would have banned same-sex 'marriage' and signed into law one of the most radical abortion laws in America. She notes that San Francisco's mayor Ed Lee is a proponent of abortion and that mayors Hodges (Minneapolis), Hales (Portland), Liccardo (San Jose) and Landrieu (New Orleans) are all pro-abortion/pro-homosexuality leaders. Finally, Elizabeth Yore highlights the fact that New York's Mayor De Blasio is a long-time supporter of the Marxist Sandanistas in Nicaragua (remember our recent article about liberation theology and the KGB?) and has even 'officiated' at a homosexual ceremony.

And these are the people that Francis calls the conscience of humanity?

That blasphemous and ugly 'hammer and sickle' monstrosity is looking more like a double cross every day.   

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Obianuju Ekeocha to Speak at SPUC Crosby and District AGM

Torch of The Faith News on Tuesday 21 July 2015 - 10:56:51 | by admin

Talking of SPUC, it is great to hear that Obianuju Ekeocha will be the guest speaker at the SPUC Crosby and District AGM, on Merseyside, later this week. Obianuju is an African woman who has been working in the UK for seven years as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist. 

Obianuju is the founder of Culture of Life Africa, an initiative dedicated to promoting the Culture of Life through the dissemination of good information, sensitisation and education. She has been featured on EWTN Radio, Ave Maria Radio, Sacred Heart Radio and BBC TV and Radio shows, discussing the urgent need for an authentic Culture of Life to be built up in Africa. Obianuju has also written many articles, including her ''Open Letter to Melinda Gates''. Many websites, including the website of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity, have featured her articles.

We were encouraged and impressed when Obianuju emerged as an articulate defender of the true teachings of the Church - and of the dignity of the African people and cultures - from the Kasperian onslaughts at the Rome Synod last October. Obianuju's ''Respectuful Open Letter to a Synod Father - Please Listen to the African Synod Fathers'' is worth reading as an example of charitable humility, erudition and orthodoxy.

At the SPUC Crosby and District AGM, Obianuju will aim to demonstrate how the kind of pro-life activism done by local groups, at the grassroots level, is very much related to what she does at the level of global advocacy. As the opponents on the side of abortion are driving a powerful campaign that dares to embrace both the global and the grassroots, so too does the pro-life movement need to develop strategies, with an ever deepening desire to abolish abortion from every society.

Please pray for this week's visit of Obianuju and for the ongoing work of the local SPUC group. We were married in their local parish of St. Helen and members of the group have been very kind to us along the way. They also do a lot of hard work to raise awareness of pro-life issues/fund raising towards national pro-life campaigns.   

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Another British Summer - Another Euthanasia Bill to Resist...

Torch of The Faith News on Monday 20 July 2015 - 16:17:35 | by admin

On Saturday, the Traditional Calendar celebrated St. Camillus de Lellis, the Italian founder of an order dedicated to caring for the sick and dying. So successful was his community in this vocation, that it soon gained the popular nick-name of 'The Fathers of a Happy Death'.

Of course, this 'happy death' expressed the classical meaning of the good/holy death; that unique gift which Jesus Christ has given to human history through His Paschal mystery and the sacraments of His Catholic Church. In the language of Classical Greece, eu referred to the good, whilst thanos meant death. This is what makes the present-day subversion of the meaning of euthanasia so tragic. As with so many other things from the ancient world, the Church preserved, elevated and purified that which was good and handed it on to posterity. From the earliest days, the Catholic Church has cared for the poor, sick and vulnerable: an important indicator of the veracity of Her claims to absolute Truth is the unarguable fact that no other institution in human history has cared for so many people, in so many cultures, or for such a long period of time, as the Catholic Church has done; and continues to do.

The real 'death with dignity' is to receive love and care from one's fellows. The truly 'happy death' refers to the person who dies in the state of grace and, ideally, fortified with the Sacraments and sacramentals of Holy Church. As St. Camillus used to teach: ''Think well. Speak well. Do well. These three things, through the mercy of God, will make a man go to Heaven.''

Fully six years before his own young death at the age of just 42, my late and great friend, Fr. Mike Williams taught: ''Stay in the state of grace. Remain in God's friendship. I have dealt with so much young and unprovided for death in my work as a hospital chaplain. You never know the moment that God will take you.'' By God's grace and providence, though young, Fr. Mike died in the loving embrace of the Church, his family and friends. 

These expressions of the objective truth are far removed from the post-modern notions of euthanasia. In reality, these latter understandings use euphemisms to dress up the merciless killing of the vulnerable and the perfidious idea of 'assisted suicide' as acts of kindness. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We do not eradicate suffering, by eradicating those who suffer. 

On the feast of St. Camillus last summer, we noted the remarkable irony - perhaps it was another sign of spiritual warfare - that his feast was also the chosen date for Lord Falconer's deadly euthanasia Bill to be debated in the House of Lords. In the end, this Bill ran out of time in the last Parliament. Lord Falconer has introduced the Bill again, but its future is not certain.

However, Rob Marris MP has introduced into the House of Commons, a Bill which is broadly in line with the Falconer Bill. We urge readers to pray against this new attack on the dying, elderly, sick and vulnerable in our society.

The Marris Bill will have a Second Reading and Vote on the 11th September. However, as Parliament breaks tomorrow, 21st July, for the summer recess, it is important for pro-lifers to urgently ask their MPs to put that September-date in their diaries now and turn up to vote against the Bill.

Even if tomorrow's date is missed, it is still important to contact MPs right up until 11th September.

We highly recommend the Lives Worth Living booklet and the Don't Let Our Doctors Become Killers leaflet (pictured above). Both of these have been carefully put together by SPUC to alert MPs and other people of the dangers of the Marris Bill. FREE copies of the booklet and flyer can be obtained to distribute to other people by calling SPUC HQ (020 7091 7091) to place an order. The inside back cover of the booklet contains a simple guide for a letter to an MP

Please pray against this evil Bill each day from today. Readers in the UK are urged to also contact your MP as soon as possible and call on them to vote against the Marris Bill on 11th September.

St. Camillus de Lellis - Pray for us! 

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Acknowledging Jesus as the True Sovereign and King

Torch of The Faith News on Sunday 19 July 2015 - 12:28:50 | by admin

We've mentioned the late Fr. Crawley-Boevey's apostolate of reparation a couple of times before. He promoted the practice of Holy Hours as expressions of longing for greater intimacy with Jesus, as living works of atonement for our own sins and to repair for the ingratitude and easy-going ways of luke-warm Catholics.

When he was a young man, St. Pope Pius X approved of Fr. Mateo's apostolate and commanded him to devote his life to this magnificent work. Both of these holy men were prophetic witnesses who, already in their own lifetimes, understood the dangers posed by a society that was moving onto an atheistic and man-centred trajectory. They were prophetic witnesses. As such, they both did all they could to promote the Universal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Had they been heeded, events in the Church and society would have turned out very differently.

In his book 20 Holy Hours, Fr. Mateo expresses the following litany of prayer in chapter XV.

O Jesus, in the presence of Mary the Immaculate Queen and of the angels who adore You in the Sacred Host, in the face of Heaven and also of this ungrateful and thankless world, we acknowledge You, Jesus, as the only Sovereign and King, the only source of authority, of all virtue and beauty.

Therefore on bended knees and in the spirit of social reparation, we say to You: We do not acknowledge a social order without God or against God. You are the foundation of the social order, Jesus!

We do not recognize the laws of any progress without God or against God. The law of true progress is Your Law, Jesus!

We do not recognize the Utopias of a civilization without God or against God. The source of civilization is Your Gospel, Jesus!

We do not recognize justice without God or against God. You are eternal Justice, Jesus!

We do not recognize any brotherhood without God or against God. You are the only brotherhood, Jesus!

We do not recognize any truth without God or against God. You are essential Truth, Jesus.

We do not recognize love without God or against God. You are uncreated Love, Jesus. 

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Here is an example of a Holy Cross - May Christ give you His peace this day

Torch of The Faith News on Saturday 18 July 2015 - 11:12:11 | by admin

Summer 2005: Angie in the Dodge Stratus in Monument Valley, Utah. Many of the famous Western movies were filmed here, such as: Stagecoach; Billy the Kid; Fort Apache; My Darling Clementine; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; The Searchers; How the West was Won; and Back to the Future Part III. Angie was very patient that day, because I whistled Ennio Morricone's theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the whole time we were in the area!

It is ten years ago this summer since we made a road-trip pilgrimage across America and back in a low-slung and sporty Dodge Stratus; praying at some of the important Catholic sites which have figured in the nation's dramatic history as we went.

We recently featured the Miraculous Staircase of St. Joseph in the Loretto Chapel in Sante Fe, New Mexico: Constructed in 1878, the pretty chapel was the first Gothic church to have been built in the mission territory west of the Mississippi River. Did St. Joseph himself build the stairs as an answer to the holy nuns' novena?

About 25 miles to the north-east of the recently-featured Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, is the historical village of Chimayo.

Chimayo is known as the 'Lourdes of America' because of the miracles attributed to Our Lord Jesus Christ at the famous Santuario de Chimayo. Whilst this area was initially colonized by the Spanish in 1610 - some Spanish artisans who still live in the area can trace their familial lineage back to the 1700's - Chimayo's shrine was first built as a private chapel for the Abeyta family in 1814. The present construction came a couple of years after that in 1816.

The chapel has been maintained by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe since 1929. It is now run under Archdiocesan authority, by priests of the Congregation of the Sons of the Holy Family. They offer Holy Mass, provide pastoral care and look after the upkeep of the building, with its fine adobe walls, and historical Spanish retablos and santos.

Speaking of such cultural influences, it is important to remember that the Catholic civilization of imperial Spain brought the Catholic Faith and the many benefits of ordered civilization to the mission lands of the New World. Without denying that negative elements did exist due to human sinfulness and limitations, it was a tactic of the freemasonic revolutionaries in the 19th-Century to overplay these aspects in places like Latin America in order to undermine and displace the Catholic Church. 

If you look closely at the above picture, you might just glimpse Angie shading from the desert heat at the shrine's outer gateway!

Oral tradition lies at the heart of the Chimayo story in relation to the mysteries of the Miraculous Crucifix on the decorative High Altar. Generations of locals have received and passed on the story about Don Bernardo Abeyta, a member of a penitential society, praying and perfoming penances around the local hills one Good Friday evening.

Don Abeyta is said to have seen a light springing from one of the hills near to the Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) River. When he got to the spot, the light was coming from the ground and Don Abeyta began to dig with his bare hands. He soon unearthed a large, wooden Crucifix. Leaving it there, he went to gather local men to come and make acts of veneration before the holy image. The local Catholic priest, Fr. Sebastian Alvarez, was notified and he led a procession to the site.

The priest held the Crucifix and led the joyful procession all the way back to the church. As the people prayed, he inserted the Crucifix into a niche on the Altar. However, the next morning the Crucifix had gone. It was found once more on the slope of the hill. After three church processions, disappearances and discoveries at the hill, it was decided that a chapel should be built on the site of the finding; and hence the Chimayo shrine was constructed.

There is a variant on this oral tradition which suggests that a Guatemalen priest, who arrived with the first wave of settlers, was preaching to the Indians in the pueblos with a large Crucifix. Some of the Indians killed him and the settlers buried him. According to this account, the Santa Cruz River flooded in 1810 and unearthed both the Crucifix and the body of the murdered priest. Local people are reputed to have shouted: ''Look, the Father from Esquipulas!'' This could explain the fact that the Holy Cross at Chimayo is also known as the Crucifix of Nuestro Senor de Esquipulas. In any case, the Abeyta family asked Fr. Alvarez to obtain the bishop's permission for a chapel at the site, to give God the glory under the protection of the Crucifix of Esquipulas. 

There is a side-room next to the main chapel which contains the ''el pocito'' (the little well). This is believed to be the site where the Crucifix was first found and may have been the original 1814 chapel. For many decades pilgrims have taken the 'tierra bendita'' - or ''blessed earth'' - from here, after people began to experience miraculous healings at the site. Although, unlike Lourdes in France, the Catholic Church has not officially approved any of these miracles, there are numerous crutches, walking sticks and wheelchairs hanging as signs of healing and thanksgiving near to the shrine. To this day, people come and take the 'holy dirt' from the well. There is a legend that the well continues to fill up with dirt as pilgrims take it away, but the Chimayo website suggests that the present priests gather this from nearby hills each day and bless some for the well.

Be that as it may, we wish to focus on the Holy Cross of Jesus itself.

The focus of the chapel is the Tabernacle at the centre of the east-facing High Altar. This depicts a beautiful golden image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Above this is the Holy Crucifix of Esquipulas. As the photograph shows, above this is an image of the Holy Face of Jesus.

We know from the 19th-Century private revelations received by Sr. Mary of St. Peter, that Our Blessed Lord has promised to finally defeat Communism through this devotion of the Holy Face.

The Crucifix at Chimayo is truly a Holy Cross. The time that we spent kneeling at the simple hand-carved and painted altar-rails is remembered as one of the most peaceful times we have shared together on this earth.

How beautiful it was to kneel together so close to the flickering red sanctuary-lamp and see the Sacred Heart image there before us; reminding us of Christ Truly Present in the Blessed Sacrament. How marvellous to gaze up to the Crucifix and be reminded of how much Jesus loves each of us. How He invites us to repentance, to be nourished by Him in Holy Communion and to rest on His Sacred Heart. Grace was so thick in the air at that place that it seemed you could feel it alighting on your eye-lashes.

Those precious moments before that Holy Cross have much to teach us in these difficult times. Sometimes, we can think that we must battle on under our own strength, whilst society, and even parts of the Church, disintegrate into atheistic secularism. If our hearts do not rest in Christ, then even our wearing of the Brown Scapulars, praying of the Rosaries and getting to Holy Mass can all seem like busy activities that we must ''do'' for God.

The Holy Cross of Chimayo, and the two oral traditions, remind us that it is not so much what we do, but Who Christ IS and what He has done and is doing that really matters. In the desert, resting at the foot of the Cross, we again found the waters of life.

True prayer is abandonment to Divine Providence. Christ invites us to sit at His feet, to rest on His Heart and to drink in His grace. The best way to fight the evils of these times, is not by agitation, but through contemplation. Yes, we must work and make a stand for truth and so on. But above all, we need to dwell in the deep waters of His peace, grace and love.

We offer the above image for readers to enter into that wonderful presence and to receive from His Love. It may be helpful to think over Our Lord's words in Matthew 11:28: ''Come to Me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you.''

Dear readers of Torch of The Faith: This is what a Holy Cross looks like. 

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Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver

Torch of The Faith News on Friday 17 July 2015 - 19:43:47 | by admin

Perhaps we will conclude that the point has been made, regarding the common thread connecting so many of these chosen mayors, with Vancouver's mayor Gregor Robertson. Here he is, riding in a float during the 2010 Vancouver Pride Parade.

The mayor generally takes part each year in the annual 'pride' march in Vancouver. In 2011, he even wore a rainbow shirt. The following year, a group of naked men, from an obscenely named group, took part in the march through the centre of Vancouver. At the time, LifeSiteNews asked the mayor's office for a response. The office replied that the mayor had not received any complaints about public nudity, but hailed the event as, ''a remarkable celebration of equality, diversity, and the contributions of Vancouver's LGBTTQ community.''

Perhaps Pope Francis and Archbishop Sanchez Sorondo would be well advised to heed Our Lady of Quito's warnings for these times. In particular her warning about, ''the spirit of impurity that will saturate the atmosphere in those times. Like a filthy ocean it will inundate the streets, squares and public spaces with an astonishing liberty. There will be almost no virgin souls in the world... How the Church will suffer on that occasion the lack of a Prelate and Father to watch over them with paternal love, gentleness, strength and prudence.''

When the witness of Sacred Scripture, and the approved messages from Akita, Fatima and Quito are all taken into account, there is a kind of global warming that might end up being brought down on all of us due to present events. In all three of these approved Marian apparitions, Our Lady warned of fire falling from Heaven. At Quito, She specifically announced: ''Without virginity, fire from Heaven will be needed to purify these lands.'' The only thing we can really say in conclusion is: REPENT! 

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And Manchester's Mayor Tony Lloyd

Torch of The Faith News on Friday 17 July 2015 - 19:21:57 | by admin

Another of the mayors attending the UN-Vatican conference is Manchester's Tony Lloyd. He is seen here processing with the Greater Manchester Police in the 2013 Manchester 'pride festival'.

Mr. Lloyd has said, ''Manchester Pride is one of the world's leading LGBT festivals... The fact that police play such a pivotal role - with more police taking part in the parade than in any other Pride event in the world - shows just how far we have come in this country, and should give hope to those who live under oppressive regimes elsewhere.''

Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony.  

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And the Mayor of Sau Paulo in Brazil

Torch of The Faith News on Friday 17 July 2015 - 17:09:33 | by admin

Please forgive the inclusion of this image: it is used to demonstrate that Mayor Fernando Haddad, of Sau Paulo in Brazil, is another strong promoter of homosexualist 'pride'. He too, is another of the 50 leftist mayors to have been invited to the UN-Vatican conference on climate change later this month.

During the month of June, a number of Catholic observers reported that the Sau Paulo 'pride march', in Mayor Haddad's city, attracted crowds of up to 2 million people. They exposed the fact that this massive event had been laced with shocking scenes of blasphemous and anti-Catholic profanities.

One of the most infamous of these was the mock crucifixion of a 'male to female transsexual' dressed to look like Jesus on a cross. Other parades featured similarly horrific blasphemies, such as naked men smashing sacred images to the ground. Some of the blasphemous attacks are too evil for us to even speak of here. 

Whilst researching the inclusion of these mayors at the Vatican, we discovered that there is a World Council of Mayors on Climate Change.

The events, personalities, organizations and agendas surrounding the launch of Laudato Si, give pause to wonder whether a new model of global governance is emerging, which draws on the ancient Roman model of installing local Roman governors to implement the imperial rule, with control over local military, police, religious and civic order. Most people did not even blink when the first President of the European Council, Herman Achille Von Rumpuy, announced in 2009 that, that year marked the beginning of Global Government. If the Roman Imperial model is being reimplemented, then it seems that this is not the only thing which is being borrowed from ancient Rome.

It is certainly interesting that Cardinal H.E. Manning of Westminster, that great advocate of papal authority and power, warned, as long ago as 1861, that Rome would apostasize from the Faith, drive away the Vicar of Christ and return to her ancient paganism. 

Still, as Manning would have taught - we must Keep the Faith!

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And one more of the leftist mayors - Gustavo Petro of Bogota

Torch of The Faith News on Friday 17 July 2015 - 11:11:31 | by admin

We've time for just one more of the 50 leftist mayors selected from around the world for the Vatican-UN climate-change conference.

This is Gustavo Petro of Bogota. In one sense the above quote says more than enough about Petro's radically leftist ideology and vision for the future.

It is also worth knowing that he is a former member of the revolutionary armed-group M-19. Having been a member in his youth, he eventually helped to disarm and integrate the movement into smoother relations with government members, prior to joining civic leadership himself.

He has long been a vocal promoter of the homosexualist agenda and, in April 2012, Petro launched a group described as the 'LGBTI Affairs Branch' in Bogota. He has an LBGT Advisory Council to implement 'anti-discriminatory' policies and make 'bold policy in the field of education'.

Look, we've only glanced at 4 of the 50 mayors and it is clear what is happening here. This Vatican-UN (or should that be UN-Vatican?) list certainly looks to have picked out a pretty consistent bunch from around the world. Any rational person would have to ask how the Vatican team planning these events had such intimate knowledge of all these players from disparate parts of the globe.

Sadly, many people do not realize that the green and homosexualist agendas can be easily used to catch up, develop and steer populist movements to further Communistic moves for total control of societies. If you study history, you will see that this has always been the way the Soviets worked in the past. Too many people have had their intellects darkened and their wills weakened by constant mortal sin, coupled to a general atmosphere of disinformation and atheism, to put together the pieces of what is happening around them. As such, they can become easily manipulated to further the bigger plans of other people.

Extreme sexual licence is only being used as a temporary measure to gradually erode the intellect and the will of the people to resist evil and to realize that they are losing their authentic liberty. The technique has been used from ancient Rome through to the propaganda techniques developed by the Soviet Communists and the National Socialists. Only Jesus Christ and a Christian society founded upon Him can help truly human flourishing. 

The unfolding agenda is very troublesome. We must pray for Christ's enemies. Above all, wear the Brown Scapular, Pray the Rosary, Make frequent worthy Holy Communions and ask Jesus and Our Lady for the graces needed to keep the Faith and preserve your family.

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