I'm not ashamed to publish this email regarding Tesco and Gay Pride

But I'm not going to watch the videos. Even if children are being exposed to this sort of evil (and I know they are) I don't want to watch it myself - I saw a bit of one from another website and found it offensive and disturbing - spiritually! But if you are not aware that this sort of thing happens, then maybe you should take a look. Ensure, however, you pray before, during, and after to Our Lady conceived without sin that she might keep your body pure and your soul holy, to St Michael the Archangel to safeguard you against evil, and to your Guardian Angel.

Since making the Conscecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary last Lent and since being in this remote part of the world, I have found it a great grace to have been protected from this sort of stuff for so long. There are those called to fight the battles, and this part of the world is not without them, but there is great wisdom - if I may venture to suggest - in keeping a wall around one's mind, one's heart, one's will, one's passions, and have Our Lady keep you as an enclosed garden. I think I have reached the stage in life where I do not need to see the evil to be able to know it exists.

Parents need all the support they can get to keep their children protected also.

(Since publishing and after a comment from Damask Rose, I took a look at the three videos. I had to stop the reading of the poem: not only blasphemous but pornographic. And the others just made me think: what has London come to? There is nothing benign in this at all: it is in-your-face exhibitionism.)


Parents: exercise your discretion.

Dear Friends

I am writing again to Tesco about its links with London and World Pride.  Complaint has thus far been futile.

By Tesco leading this year’s London Pride, with Tesco staff carrying the rainbow flag and promising money and resources for next year ---  providing a “safe, relaxed and chilled out place with family-friendly entertainment and activities aimed at younger children” --- it may attract the Pink pound, but badly damages its public image.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060559/Outrage-Tesco-backs-gay-festival--drops-support-cancer-charity-event.html

The public will soon need to accept not just homosexuality but an increasingly extreme range of sexual orientations. The main resistance to this pressure to conform comes from Christians who, apart from losing their jobs, having their businesses shut down, being dragged through the courts and threatened with physical violence, are being held up for public ridicule.

It seems that Tesco is already experimenting with this tactic. The Head of Research and Development at Tesco.com, Nick Lansely, did a dramatic reading of  James Kirkup’s “The Love That Dares to Speak its Name”, videoed and posted it on Youtube.

It is a description of a necrophilial (an ‘orientation’) soldier having sex with/on the crucified body of Christ. [WARNING EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE; but remember before you avert your eyes, judging by what  our children are already exposed to in schools, this, in time, is what they will be led to accept.]

“The Love That Dares to Speak its Name”

http://annoy.com/history/doc.html?DocumentID=100045

Nick Lansely, Head of R&D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG7lf2tlkKk

Nick Lansley, reading the Blasphemous poem on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=0mGBJsTJDbs

Nick Lansley is on the team of Out at Tesco that organised Tesco’s leading this year’s London Pride 2011

http://home.outattesco.com/newsletter/index.php?page=newsletter-manua

Nick Lansley is clearly visible at the 2-minute mark on this Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HOYJhMSZjA

Nick was also on hand to record an event held in June 2008, when the National Secular Society (NSS) gathered in a London restaurant to celebrate the repeal of the Blasphemy Laws. Here Sir Ian McKellen OBE gave a spirited rendition of the above poem and boasted of ripping pages from the Bible – something he proudly confesses to doing whenever he finds one in a hotel room. At the bottom of the NSS web site we read:  “Nick Lansley recorded the event.” http://www.secularism.org.uk/bbbpartyreport.html

Had McKellen distributed cartoons of the dead body of Mohammed being sodomised, whilst tearing pages out of the Q’ran all hell would have been let loose - globally. 

Why is it that Christian employees and customers don’t have the same human right to feel that they are victims of incitement to religious hatred as are Muslims? Why are Muslims protected from such hatred by Tesco and Sir Trevor Phillips, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and yet the sensibilities of Christians can be openly mocked and trampled on?

Why can Nick be publicly identified with promoting Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual and Transsexual (LGBT) rights whilst  simultaneously encouraging what many people of faith (and others) would consider profoundly blasphemous --- even an incitement to religious hatred?

Other Tesco employees, especially Christians cannot make a critical remark of the LGBT for fear of being sacked. I received this recently from a concerned Tesco employee:

“Let me open by apologizing for my going through the absurd necessity of using a fake email address – my employer (Tesco) has been known to take action against members of staff who are identified as making any remarks online which could be considered derogatory. (This is advice handed out by our union, USDAW – never, ever mention Tesco on Facebook, Twitter, etc). I simply cannot run the risk that my real name would be associated with the comments I am about to make. (which is not meant to question your personal integrity, it is simply a risk I cannot take).”

Tesco should be in the business of providing essential goods and services. Homosexuality is not a state of being like being black; it is an emotional and psychological disorder. When a black woman goes to sleep she is no less black than when she is awake. There is nothing that a black woman can do to make herself either less or more black. On the other hand a homosexual is only homosexual when his imagination leads his emotions, desirers, actions, habits and character to become homosexual.  This orientation can either become stronger or weaker. Movement into and out of homosexuality can and does travel in both directions. But it seems that this travel is only allowed in one direction: from heterosexuality to homosexuality – never the reverse.

In 2 Peter2 it describes how God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. It says that “He  rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless, for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard.” Are we prepared to be distressed or do we wish to bury our heads in the sand?

Please write to Tesco letting them know your views and intentions:

richard.broadbent@tesco.com: Chairman of Tesco

philip.clarke@tesco.com: International and IT Director

richard.brasher@tesco.com: Commercial and Marketing Director

Andrew.higginson@tesco.com: Chief Executive of Retailing Services and Group Strategy

cr.enquiries@uk.tesco.com

customer.service@tesco.co.uk

ceo.customerservice@tesco.co.uk

I am

Yours in Jesus Christ

David Skinner

http://www.notashamed.org.uk/

Father Stefano Gobbi dies

Father Stefano Gobbi, founder of the Marian Movement for Priests and author of a book of locutions said to be messages from Our Lady to priests, died yesterday, Solemnity of Ss Peter and Paul, at 3pm, the Hour of Mercy.

Let us pray for the eternal repose of his soul.

More information at Spirit Daily.

Our Lady of Controversy

The Amazon website has become a bit like a blog in its comments concerning this book, the cover of which is a very offensive parody of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a rather butch looking woman in boxing gloves with her private parts covered by flowers. I haven't read the book so cannot comment on its contents but, along with one of the reviewers on Amazon's site, on this occasion it may be justifiable to judge a book by its cover.

Another reviewer writes: "As one lesbian writer says, 'it is our virgen too.'"

A number of people have closed their Amazon accounts in protest.

I shall renew my love for the Virgen of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas. Mother of the Civilisation of Love, Star of the New Evangelisation. Our Lady of Guadalupe is an image of femininity if ever there was one.

Priests appointed to Our Lady of Good Help shrine, Champion, WI

The diocese of Green Bay, WI has recently announced that the Fathers of Mercy will assume pastoral care of the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help as from July 7th:

Two Fathers of Mercy from Auburn, Ky., will begin serving on July 7, 2011, at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in Champion, Bishop David Ricken announced. One priest will serve as the Shrine's rector and the other as chaplain.


The two priests will serve pilgrims to the Shrine by offering Masses, hearing confessions, and performing other priestly duties as needed.

Read more at the diocesan website.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, Champion (New Franken), WI

The image of Our Lady of Good Help in the crypt beneath the chapel on the
site of the two trees by which Our Lady appeared to Adele.

On my recent vacation, the first "shrine" of the day was the Packers' Lambeau Field stadium (or atrium) in Green Bay and the second was the National Shrine of St Joseph in De Pere. The day ended with a visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Good Help in New Franken, Wisconsin, in the diocese of Green Bay. I was accompanied by Father John Doerfler, currently the Rector of the shrine who edits the shrine's newsletter.

View of the chapel and shrine centre from the road.

If you are hoping for something to "see", you will be disappointed. You could drive by and miss it completely. But this shrine honours the appearances of Our Lady to a young Belgian immigrant women named Adele Brise in 1859.

Adele's grave beside the church.

Our Lady appeared to Adele on three occasions. On the first, it was simply an apparition of a lady dressed all in white standing between two trees.

Remains of the trees found preserved under the 1880 chapel.

On the following Sunday, October 9th, the lady appeared again as Adele, her sister and a neighbour were on their way to Mass. On the third occasion Adele saw the lady clothed in dazzling white with a yellow sash around her waist and a crown of stars upon her head. Following the advice of her confessor Adele asked the lady: "In God's name who are you and what do you want of me?"

The lady replied:

I am the Queen of Heaven ... Gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation ... Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the Cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you do do. Go and fear nothing. I will help you.

The lady raised her hands as if calling down a blessing from Heaven and vanished, leaving Adele overwhelmed and prostrate on the ground.

The chapel as it appeared in 1885.

So Adele set to work and attempted to catechise children by calling from house to house up and down the Green Bay Peninsula, travelling as much as 50 miles on foot whatever the prevailing weather conditions.

The chapel today.

Eventually other young women joined her and founded St Mary's Boarding Academy near the site of the apparitions.

Processional statue given to Adele from Holy Cross Church,
still used for processions today. The large reliquiary contains
wood from the trees where the Blessed Mother appeared to
Adele in 1859. The smaller reliquiary contains a relic of Mary's veil.

Following a formal investigation, Green Bay's diocesan Bishop, the Most Reverend David Ricken, published a decree giving official approval of the apparitions. The decree was dated 8th December 2010, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. In it the bishop stated:

I declare with moral certainty and in accord with the norms of the Church that the events, apparitions and locutions given to Adele Brise in October of 1859 do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful.

It was a privilege for me to be able to pray at this site and to offer the Holy Mass for the intentions of many people who had asked me to remember them there.

PRAYER TO OUR LADY OF GOOD HELP

Our Lady of Good Help, Mother of GOD, Mother of Jesus, and Mother of the Church, it is with confidence in Thy tender mercy that we place our petitions before Thee as intercessor to Thy Divine Son. Resting our hope confidently in Thy Immaculate Heart to obtain for us that which will give glory to Thine only-begotten Son, we thank Thee.

O Queen of Heaven, as Thou didst ask Sister Adele to teach the children the holy catechism, so also teach us how to make the Heart of Jesus reign and triumph in us and around us, as it has reigned and triumphed in Thee. Reign over us, dearest Queen, that we may be Thine in prosperity and in adversity, in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness, in life and in death. Amen.

(Please report favours received through the intercession of Our Lady of Good Help to the Shrine.)

For further information visit the shrine website.

Cool licence plate and bumper sticker on a car outside the chapel.

UPDATE: Priests appointed to care for the shrine.

Day of Prayer for China

Our Lady of She-Shan (found at Public Vigil)

May 24th, feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, is kept by the Church as a day of prayer for China but, according to Catholic News Agency, the Chinese government is reacting by restricting access to the Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan and canceling the celebration of Mass.

Rome, Italy, May 24, 2011 / 05:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Prayers are being said around the globe today for the Church in China, but the Chinese government is reacting by restricting access to the Shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan and canceling the celebration of Mass.

May 24 marks the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, a day specially set aside by Pope Benedict XVI for remembering the plight of Chinese Catholics.

"For us, for our community, I can say the Pope is like a father who loves his children,” said Father Pietro Cui, the priest in charge of the Pastoral Care of Chinese Catholics in Italy.

“The Holy Father made a special appeal for the people of China and we must thank him for that because it’s very important, also that the world may know that this day is important for all Catholics,” he told CNA May 24.

Our Lady of China (found at Public Vigil)

The day has particular significance for Chinese Catholics as it occasion when many traditionally make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan in Shanghai. Various media reports, though, suggest that the Chinese government set up security checkpoints around the shrine to prevent pilgrims from visiting - a fact confirmed by Fr. Cui.

“The sanctuary of Our Lady of Sheshan is very important to us. She is our Madonna, the Madonna of China. I've heard that pilgrims are not very free to go to Sheshan. I've heard of problems today, though.” Those problems also seem to exist in other parts of China too.

Fr. Cui said that in the north of China Catholics are “not very free to celebrate Mass.” Although he described the restrictions on the Church as “normal” for locals, Fr. Cui said that he spoke with some families on the phone who said that today “there is no Holy Mass because the government says they can’t.”

At present, the Chinese government only allows the state-controlled “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” to operate freely within the country. The Association does not acknowledge the authority of the Pope. It’s estimated there are some 6 million such Catholics in China although millions more are worshiping outside the official church.

Hence the call of the Pope for prayer as explained today by his spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J.

“The Pope’s latest appeal to all the faithful for the Day of Prayer for the Church in China, on May 24th, should be understood for what it is meant to be: that is, above all, an appeal for prayer. The Pope believes in the power of prayer and invites us to be ‘confident that, through prayer we can do something very real’ for the Church in China.”

Canon Law Conference at Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Crosse, Wisconsin

Last year I attended a Canon Law Conference at this beautiful shrine. It was probably the best Canon Law conference I have attended. I have just received information about this year's and very hope to attend... once I know what I shall be doing (more later...)

2011 Canon Law Conference: August 9-10

Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

La Crosse, Wisconsin

Host

Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke

Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura

Founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Topics

Procedural Law, the Theory of Property in Canon Law, Natural Law vs. Positive Civil Law,

Penal Law, Fundamental Rights in Canon Law, and Matrimonial Law

Speakers

Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, Reverend John J. Coughlin, O.F.M.,

Dr. Charles E. Rice and Dr. Edward Peters

Cost

Early Registration Fee (Before July 15): $250.00

Registration Fee (After July 15): $325.00

Cost includes six formal presentations, question and answer sessions following each presentation,

continental breakfast and lunch both days,

and dinner on August 9 with special guests and a panel discussion.

Online Registration

Online registration will be available in the coming weeks at

www.guadalupeshrine.org/canonlaw.asp

Contact

Eugene J. Diamond

Director of Communications and Development

ediamond@shrineofourlady.com

(608) 782-5440

The Laity sometimes know more than theologians says Pope Benedict

Particularly during my time at St Simon's South Ashford, I learnt to learn from the faith of the Faithful.

They taught me love for the Divine Mercy which led me to facilitate their requests for the weekly public celebration of the Chaplet with a period of Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and to lead it myself. This enriched greatly my own spiritual life.

The commitment of some parishioners to a Legion of Mary prayer group and their perseverance in meeting in spite of the apparent lack of fruit was a time of rich sowing. Now they have started visiting families to say the Rosary, and the families have themselves asked to meet with other families in the church for Rosary. Last Monday, the evening before my departure, I was overjoyed to see a lovely group of families and young children who had gathered at church for this. This led all the more to the sadness I felt on leaving. But on the other hand I rejoiced to see this wonderful example of the lay apostolate.

It was also from lay people that I acquired a love for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass which I now celebrate as occasion provides.

These are just a few examples.

Pope Benedict spoke today about how Blessed Duns Scotus found the way to overcome the objections that theologians had to the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption, even though the faithful had no problem accepting this teaching.

Zenit today informs us:

Regarding Scotus' pivotal role in understanding the Immaculate Conception, the Pope said this: "In Duns Scotus' times, the majority of theologians offered an objection that seemed insurmountable to the doctrine that Most Holy Mary was free from original sin from the first instant of her conception. In fact, the universality of the redemption wrought by Christ, at first glance, might seem compromised by such an affirmation, as if Mary had no need of Christ and of his redemption. Because of this theologians were opposed to this thesis."

The Pontiff recounted how Scotus developed an argument that Pope Pius IX would go on to use in 1854 when he solemnly defined the dogma.

"And this argument," Benedict XVI said, "is that of the 'preventive redemption,' according to which the Immaculate Conception represents the masterpiece of the redemption wrought by Christ, because in fact the power of his love and of his mediation obtained that the Mother be preserved from original sin. Hence Mary is totally redeemed by Christ, but already before her conception."

The Holy Father said that:

"faith in the Immaculate Conception or in the bodily assumption of the Virgin was already present in the People of God, while theology had not yet found the key to interpret it in the totality of the doctrine of the faith. Thus the People of God precede theologians and all this thanks to that supernatural 'sensus fidei,' namely, that capacity infused by the Holy Spirit, which qualifies us to embrace the reality of the faith, with humility of heart and mind.

"In this sense, the People of God is 'magisterium that precedes,' and that later must be deepened and intellectually accepted by theology."

He expressed his hope that theologians will always be able to

"listen to this source of faith and have the humility and simplicity of little ones!"

I'm sure there will some smart-aleck who will extend this interpretation to posit a church that only proclaims doctrines/teachings that are accepted by the laity. So they will say that since Humanae Vitae has not been accepted by a large majority of Catholics, Pope Paul's teaching cannot be considered dogmatic. Or they will refer to Newman's teaching on conscience and twist it to putting the authority of conscience above that of the authentic magisterium of the Church. But any faithful Catholic will know that this is not what the Pope means. For another characteristic that marks out the "little ones" of the lay faithful is their instinctive trust and confidence in and faithfullness to the teachings of the Pope.

Annual crowning of Our Lady

We always crown our statue of Our Lady after the morning Mass on the first Sunday in May and hold a procession outside the church. However, due to very inclement weather, we had a shortened procession for the children which went out one door of the church and back in through another but remaining under the cover of our cloistered path. Our paparazza Maureen A was on hand and took a couple of snaps:

This year, for the first time, the crown was made of real flowers and will be renewed regularly during May. Grateful thanks to the Shamoon family for arranging this with a local florist.

"The Virgin Mary can test everyone's assumptions"

I rarely buy a newspaper, principally because I never sit down to read one. But I picked up a free copy of The Times before boarding my flight to New York at Heathrow airport yesterday. And I was glad I did.

Catherine Fox, a novelist brought up in the Baptist Tradition, wrote a very appropriate piece on Our Lady to coincide with the feast of the Assumption. She writes:

My understanding of Mary is more instinctive and visceral, coming through the experience of motherhood. My first brush with it came the Christmas after my first son was born. He was premature, and at four months old, still tiny. As the choir sang “Hush, do not wake the infant king. Soon will come sorrow with the morning, soon will come bitter grief and weeping: sing lullaby”, I found myself crying. Tears splashed on his head as I realised that for all the ferocity of maternal love, I could not protect him from bitter grief and weeping. Later, as he and then his younger brother were growing up, I could no longer bear the Passion narratives, and showed my sons up on the Good Friday March of Witness, weeping when the Gospel accounts, dulled by childhood familiarity, sprang hideously to life. Mary, at the foot of the Cross. How could she stand there? How could she stand anywhere else?

You can read it here. Why not leave a comment.