Ignoring endemic wrongdoing and telling yourself you did it in the name of social diversity is not tolerance, but omission. It may not be within your rights to prevent someone from pursuing an act of wrongdoing, but it is within your power to try to dissuade them.

Liberalism or Fanaticism?

How incoherent and incongruent the modern world would have us be. On one hand, we are called to accept our differences. On the other hand, we are called into the norm even when it is not our own.

Today we are called to celebrate our disparities and forget our cherished values. We are called to forgo religion, family and honoured tradition in exchange for some sort of magical “freedom” proposed by liberalism, anthropocentrism, consumerism and science.

We are told that traditional belief systems and values are ignorant and blind and inflexible and do us no good. We are called to destroy the old wisdoms and seek out modern “enlightenment”. Where exactly? In equally intolerant extremisms like blind patriotism, rampant materialism and scientific fanaticism. Some even seek renewal in even older and more primitive concepts, like animism, polytheism & even witchcraf.

These "freedoms" are no more than prisons of a different kind. Through them, modern liberals would lead us against concience in a straight path to disaster. If we were to follow what so called “liberals” would have us do, we would be prisoners to fear and slaves to lust in but an instant of madness and sociological chaos.

By their rule, freedom is to promote pornography, but not monogamy; to forgo traditional wedlock, but endorse gay marriage; to welcome free sex, but not celibacy; to seek myriad partners, but not infidelity; to accept abortion of children, but not their punishment when it is due; we are to accept working women, but not women who wish to be mothers and housewives. It is completely inconsistent. It doesn't make sense. Where is the freedom? Where is the celebration of disparities? It doesn't exist.

This only makes sense in the light of an agenda. One based on applied proven socio-economic dynamics through marketing and social communications techniques. This is an agenda of greed and manipulation that would have us exchange fulfillment and happiness for material pleasures that result in renewable sales. Yes, it is about money. Not yours or mine, someone else's.

Think of it: An empty heart spends more money in search of solace. An empty womb can work more to generate riches and then spend them. An empty soul can seek filling in wealth and hedonism. If you take away something that rewards people, then people look for a substitute.

Religion, family, moral conduct and other such supposedly "obsolete" concepts are indeed very fulfilling on their own right. They were created after centuries of the same sorts of "freedoms" as are now proposed as something new.

As self nurturing sources of fulfilment, they are not commercially interesting because they don't directly generate continuous purchases. Hence, we are made to break with them and then we are offered alternatives that provide only ephemeral fulfilment. These substitutes are better not for you, but for the people that market them.

Next time someone tells you you're a fool for being true to your beliefs and your heritage, think of this. Think of the motive behind the banner. Then perhaps you may hold firm to timeless values you know are good.

Is Happiness Your Right?

People say they "have a right to be happy", but happiness isn't a birthright. Happiness is an objective to be achieved through wisdom and hard work.
Before you say that wisdom is contrary to happiness and that "ignorance is bliss", a statement with which I do fully agree, please be reminded that wisdom is not the same as knowledge.

According to Wikipedia: Wisdom is a deep understanding and realizing of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to choose or act to consistently produce the optimum results with a minimum of time and energy. Wisdom is the ability to optimally (effectively and efficiently) apply perceptions and knowledge and so produce the desired results. Wisdom is comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action. Synonyms include: sagacity, discernment, or insight. Wisdom often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the "passions") so that one's principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one's actions.

Again according to Wikipedia: Knowledge is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as (i) expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject; (ii) what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information; or (iii) awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. (...) The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate.

Hence, knowledge is but the birth of wisdom, and ignorance is not the opposite of widsom, though it is the opposite of knowledge. Thus, while happiness abhores knowledge, it requires wisdom.

Philosophy has no place in the courts of princes and the chambers of government, for in philosophy austerity is greater than greed. Wise council on deaf ears but profits the councillor his own death.

Meanwhile the people suffer. Most men of power ignore the fact that it is greater in dignity to be poor and rule over a rich people than to be rich and rule over the needy.

We are More

Human life is not a "commodity" and human dignity is not a "convenience". We must remind ourselves that we are more than the sum of our belongings.

It brings me much dismay to see the way people sell themselves cheaply nowadays. Girls exchanging modesty and dignity for a few moments of popularity and fame, men defiling their self esteem and tarnishing their honour for the sake of a few extra bucks.

Irresponsible behaviour has become the norm in our Society. We are watching the corruption of our children and applauding it. We are decaying into sodomy and animalism and relishing in it. We are killing our unborn hopes and revelling in their blood. We are all of us responsible for our own downfall.

It is time we strive to bring conscience back to our midst. It is time we teach our children to bear themselves honourably and with dignity so that they may set an example worth following for our grandchildren.

Transportation Issues of the 21st Century

If you still think your car is useful to you, try driving through Sao Paulo traffic for an afternoon. It took me 3 hours to travel a distance of only 25Km.

Honestly, we should go back to the transportation model of the 19th Century: Horses, chariots & trains. I warrant a horse's fuel is as biodegradable and sustainable as what comes out of its tail pipe.

Besides, there will be no worrying about drunken driving... Your horse will not crash onto another because you're drunk!

The Church is the Church

When the Catholic Church reinforced today that the ordination of women will continue not to be acceptable by raising the gravity of the offence, it meant to answer the continued pressure from groups not always of the Church, chiefly but not only in the United States of America, for the ordination of women.

It had nothing to do with the pedophile scandals that were made very public in the recent past, and which received prompt and decisive attention from the Vatican, and which continue to be resolved in as constructive and practical a manner as is possible.

However, the media (and those who have a personal agenda against the Catholic Church) choses to focus on the equation of the punishment for the ordination of women to the crime of violation of children.

In any case, if you so choose to focus on this side-effect of the Church's response to the public call for the ordination of women, you must first understand that - unlike civil law - Canon Law does not have a whole lot of prescribable punishments. Once you have grasp of this, you must then understand that the whole issue has to do with the Norms and that these Norms have to do with delicts(offenses)by the clergy such as:

1. Against the faith (Heresy, Schism) [art 2]
2 Against the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist (desecration etc) [art 3]
3. Agains the Sacrament of Confession (soliciting in the confessional, breaking the sacramental seal of confidence)[art4]
4. Against the Sacrament of Ordination (attempted ordination of women which does not go against a discipline of the church - like priestly celibacy - but against a Sacrament in itself - Holy Order - which the church has no power to change [art 5].
5. Against morals (offences against the 6th commandment commited against a minor below 18 by a cleric, acquisition and distribution of child porn by a cleric) [art 6]

The Church has always been clear about the gravity of attempted ordination of a woman. What new is the raising of the gravity of the offenses in Art 6 to the level of Articles 2-5 which are offenses which strike at the essence of the Church itself. This was done to put an end to the continued pressure for a more "democratic" system of ordaining both men and women.

The point is made frequently throughout History; often with confidence in change. There is a common assumption in modern democracies that the Catholic Church's persistance on an exclusively male priesthood is an anomaly, which endures only because a Polish pope has, in the 1990s, refused to move with the times. This is ignorance, plain and simple.

Historically, female priesthood has been favoured and never more so than in the Classical World. When Christ ordained His first priests, nearly 2,000 years ago, this was so. Virtually all the pagan religions of His day had priestesses, and it would have been unsurprising and natural for Him to elect women for this task. In light of His excellent potential candidates. From the Virgin Mary, His own Mother, who stood with Him even as He suffered on the cross, to Mary Magdalene or the women of Bethany, Jesus Christ did not have to go far to choose a priestess if he wanted one. Instead, He chose only men, and He remained immovable on this. From those twelve men that he trained a direct line of apostolic succession has given the Catholic Church the bishops and priests it has today.

In the Church's previous official statement on this matter, Pope John Paul II, using his full authority as the successor of Peter, states categorically that the Church cannot (not will not, but cannot)ordain women, now or ever. The Catechism of the Catholic Church sets it out clearly, quoting the decree Inter insigniores:

Only a baptized man receives sacred ordination. The Lord Jesus chose men to form the college of the twelve apostles, and the apostles did the same when they chose collaborators to succeed them in their ministry. The college of bishops, with whom the priests are united in the priesthood, makes the college of the twelve an ever-present and ever-active reality until Christ's return. The Church recognizes herself to be bound by this choice made by the Lord Himself. For this reason the ordination of women is not possible.

We must always remember the Catholic Church is NOT a democracy and never can be. It has a holy duty to defend and divulge its Faith, as it was handed by God. If you don't accept this, you shouldn't even be concerned with what the Church does with its laws, rules and regulations. I can understand Catholics debating the issue, what I cannot abide is all the non-Catholics complaining about what the Church chooses to do with Canon Law.

The Catholic Church must construe its internal regiments as it sees fit. Whether you want to belong to the Catholic Church and share Its views is your own to decide.