News Item: : Stigmatizing the Target Group - And Then Some!
(Category: Torch of The Faith News)
Posted by admin
Saturday 11 February 2017 - 12:52:21

The good Cardinal Raymond Burke: His Eminence has just been the subject of a brutally vicious attack in the Washington Post; and a more sophisticated hit-piece involving Antonio Spadaro S.J. in the New York Times...

I remember the late Cardinal Francis George of Chicago warning, some years back, that violent persecutions of the Church are frequently preceded by co-ordinated attacks in the media.

The late Cardinal's caution finds something of an echo in the talks and writings of Fr. Joseph Esper, from the Archdiocese of Detroit.

In light of Sacred Scripture, Tradition, approved prophecy and sociological research, Fr. Esper posits that the Catholic Church, and other communities identifying as Christian, are moving ever-closer to a time of distressing persecution.

He does not speak of these things merely to instill fear into his audience, but to help Christians to prepare their minds and hearts in the love of Jesus Christ, in order to be His faithful witnesses.

Drawing on sociological research into the Nazi persecution of the Jews, Fr. Esper delineates various stages which generally unfold when any sociological group is targeted for persecution.

These stages include:-

1. Stigmatizing the Target Group.

2. Marginalizing its Role in Society.

3. Villifying it for alleged crimes or conduct - which can include vicious attacks and blame for a society's problems.

4. Criminalization - with restrictions placed on its activities; and eventually on its very existence.

5. Outright persecution.

Fr. Esper stresses that these various stages are not to be thought of as hermetically sealed blocks, but rather as fluid movements, where events can represent different stages occuring at one and the same time.

Who can fail to be reminded of these things when reading a sophisticated hit-piece against Cardinal Raymond Burke in this week's New York Times?

It is spooky to observe the involvement of ''Francis' mouthpiece'' Fr. Antonio Spadaro S.J. in that article; especially now that the Jesuit America magazine heralds Spadaro with the headline, Pope Francis says Italian Jesuit review has given a faithful reading of his papacy.

Hey, not bad for a man who thinks that 2+2=5...

Still, that New York Times hit-piece both pales into insignifance, and finds its wider context, when reading the simply brutal attack on Cardinal Burke that was featured in the Washington Post. I'd say this reached a heady level 3 on Fr. Esper's rankings.

Emma-Kate Symons, a Washington-based journalist and former Paris correspondent, has been given space to print what can only be described as a spiritually and culturally dangerous attack.

Actually, it just sounds completely unhinged!

Take for example: ''How Pope Francis can cleanse the far-right rot from the Catholic Church... Pope Francis needs to take tougher action against the United States' most influential Catholic in Rome, Cardinal Raymond ''Breitbart'' Burke. The renegade cleric is not only undermining Francis' reformist, compassionate papacy, and gospel teaching as it applies to refugees and Muslims, but the rebel prince of the Church is also using his position within the walls of the Vatican to legitimize extremist forces that want to bring down Western liberal democracy, Stephen K. Bannon-style. Simply put, the Vatican is facing a political war between the modernizing Pope Francis and a conservative wing that wants to reassert white Christian dominance... Burke is unrepentant and even defiant, continuing to preside over a far-right, neo-fascist-normalizing cheer squad out of the Holy See.''

A ''neo-fascist-normalizing cheer-squad''? ''Bring down Western liberal democracy''? Cardinal Burke? Good grief, who is this Symons gal?

It should be obvious from that level of rhetoric, and the fact that it has been published in a paper with the reputation and reach of the Washington Post, just where we are up to now in terms of the opening up of anti-Catholic persecution, and its social acceptability.

These subtle, and not-so-subtle, attempts by media outlets to link Cardinal Burke to President Trump surely tie-in to the matters we discussed a few days ago about the firmly anti-Trump stance taken by both Cardinal Vincent Nichols and his team-mate Mr. Justin Welby, here in England. 

Some time around 2008, I was standing in our back garden in the bungalow we were then renting in Wales. As I stood there drinking in the fresh air and beautiful countryside that surrounded us, I had a sudden and disturbing realization.

I was at that time reflecting on the elevation of the Modernistic Vincent Nichols to the Archdiocese of Westminster; even though this man had run a scandalous sex-ed programme for young kids in his schools, and covered for the pro-abortion former-MP Clare Short over the heads of complaining Catholic parents, so that she could attend an education event in his diocese.

Then, too, I thought about the ''reception'' of the publicly unrepentant pro-homosexuality/pro-abortion/pro-unjust war Tony Blair into the Catholic Church.

In relation to this last point, I considered also the strangely defensive reaction of various episcopal leaders, when faithful Catholics and pro-life organizations had sincerely voiced their concerns.

Blair and his ''Catholic'' defenders were making it seem to the Church and the wider society that there was a culturally acceptable Catholicism that went along with the mores of post-modernity. Indeed, it actively encouraged these mores. In light of that, orthodox Catholics suddenly appeared to many ''in'' the Church, and more especially to those outside of it, to be a bunch of hardline extremists.

Such a picture was given credence when the notorious Austen Ivereigh flippantly depicted orthodox Catholics, via the mainstream media, as ''Taliban Catholics''. 

In the garden in Wales that day, it hit me with all the gravity of a falling anvil that, when the inevitable persecution of Christians comes, some of our episcopal leaders will not only not defend us; but they will actually join in actively with the persecution!

About a year after this, I read Richard Wurmbrand's book, Tortured for Christ. Although I do not normally feature Protestant writers here, I mention Wurmbrand today because he understood, from first hand experience, the Communist infiltration of the churches; and how many episcopal leaders turned out to be Communist soldiers when the gloves were off against Christians in Communist Romania and elsewhere.

Like the Catholic Bella Dodd and others, Mr. Wurmbrand tried to warn that Communism had not really gone away; and that the subversion of church bodies by Communists represented a real, present and growing danger. 

We've already spoken in some depth about the invitation of Communistic Culture of Death speakers to the Vatican in the days of Francis.

This week such scandals increased exponentially when it became clear that the Vatican has even welcomed Communist China's Huang Jiefu to a conference on organ trafficking.

Even though this fellow has supposedly worked to overcome the dehumanizing Chinese practice of transplanting the organs of prisoners, as though they were so many expendable human organ banks, his attendance has shocked many because, in spite of his positive claims that the practice would be halted in 2015, it is not at all clear that the practice has stopped.

As reported in the Guardian this week, informed observers are concerned that Huang's attendance in Rome could also be used by the Communist leadership of China to give a sense of legitimacy to its evil organ trafficking practices.

The point here is that Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo has brushed off the concerns that have been raised by faithful Catholics and other cultural observers. This casual approach has become typical of Sorondo about various scandalous Vatican invite-lists in the days of Pope Francis.

On top of all of this, LifeSiteNews is also reporting that the Canadian Prairie Messenger, published by the Benedictine monks of St. Peter's Abbey in Saskatchewan, has vilified the Knights of Columbus for being ''anti-abortion'', rather than ''pro-life'' in a broader Pope Francis care-for-the-environment type way!

Summary

Orthodox Catholics have now endured several decades of persecution from those who have infiltrated the Church; and from the many ''useful idiots'' who further such persecution without really realizing who they serve.

What is new is that the enemies within the Church are now quite openly joining forces with the enemies without.

And their rhetoric is becoming distinctly more harsh and unreasonable. To us, that looks as dangerous as it looks co-ordinated... I mean, can any of us really imagine the mainstream media siding with any of the previous popes against faithful Catholics?

Like Fr. Esper, I do not highlight all these things to distress our readers. However, I think we all need to draw closer to Christ and His Holy Mother, so that they will give us the grace we need each day. The daily Rosary is an essential practice.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Holy Spirit saith to the Church (Revelation 2:29).   

---

This news item is from Torch of The Faith
( http://www.torchofthefaith.com/news.php?extend.1551 )