The plot thickens.....

"Fr. Miqueli felt a sense of invincibility in his life of larceny and lust, because, according to people close to the story, he witnessed a child molestation by a priest on Staten Island back around 2002 and went to the archdiocese. They told him to keep silent about it, and, according to reports, arranged for him to become pastor of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini parish on Roosevelt Island in exchange for his cooperation."

"Slave" priest had Staten Island ties

So apparently the homosexual slave priest that's been all over the tabloid headlines worked in a surprising number of Staten Island parishes (St. Sylvester's, Holy Family, St. Clare's and St. Rita's) some years ago.

I think it's safe to assume that he didn't just recently discover that he was a pervert, a thief and a megalomaniac. So is it possible that no one in these Staten Island parishes ever noticed something "off" about this guy, when it was so apparent to the parishioners of St. Frances de Chantal? Or did people speak out about this priest but his  "guardian angel" in the chancery just shifted him around from parish to parish?

R.I.P. Monsignor James Dorney

Monsignor James Dorney, the co-vicar of Staten Island (whatever that means) has passed away at age 83. We have never been an admirer of his, as a quick search of this blog will demonstrate. But I would like to relate one positive memory I have of the man. I attended Stations of the Cross at St. Peter's on a Friday night in Lent about 8 years ago. Monsignor Dorney was already feeble and bent over with whatever physical ailments were torturing him. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the meager number of people in attendance surely would have granted him any allowance to accommodate his age and weakness, Monsignor Dorney nevertheless exerted all his strength to make a full, and obviously painful, genuflection down to the floor at every station to honor his Savior, and then struggled with everything he had to raise himself again and move on the next one to do it again. That was a beautiful gesture of love and respect for our God, and I will never forget it.

May God protect us from Pope Francis

With his new streamlined annulment decree, the Pope is finally showing his hand. He intends to contradict 2000 years of Catholic dogma and negate Christ's extremely clear teaching on marriage. The openly expressed intention of these reforms will be to fast-track "millions" of new "annulments" that are, in reality, Catholic divorces. There will be no true fact-finding discernment about the validity of an individual marriage; this is a blatant fig leaf to rubber stamp civil divorces by pseudo-Catholics, as is done by the Eastern schismatics. This Pope is looking more and more like one of the anti-Christ's forerunners as spoken of in the Scriptures, and the upcoming Synod on the Family will definitely be a major- and perhaps definitive- battlefield as he seeks the downfall of the Church. The open heretics (Kasper, Cupich, Wuerl, Bode, Marx) and the abettors of abortion and child abuse (Daneels) that this Pope has hand-picked to participate in the upcoming Synod on the Family clearly demonstrate this Pope's true beliefs and his ultimate endgame: destroy the Church through the destruction of marriage. Not only will an official papal decree nullifying Christ's prohibition on divorce and remarriage destroy the family, but it will immediately undermine the supernatural claims of the Catholic Church. If the Church denies its own dogmas and starts teaching something opposite of what we have always believed, then the gates of Hell have prevailed, and no amount of sophistry, logic-chopping and obfuscation and outright denial will convince anyone otherwise.

Another humiliation. Another defeat

Late in the afternoon last Friday it was reported that the St. Francis Center for Spirituality was on the verge of being sold to a "religious organization". In addition to the secrecy surrounding this sale, as well as the euphemistic term being used for this shadowy buyer, it is speculated that an Islamic organization- perhaps the MAS (Muslim American Society) which was thwarted in its designs on the St. Margaret Mary convent- will soon be sounding the call to prayer from minarets where bells once rang to announce the Eucharistic Sacrifice. As one of the commentators on silive said, "The Catholic Church is giving up on Catholics".

Whether the mystery buyer does turn out to be a Moslem organization or a Hindu temple, a Protestant worship center or a Jewish shul, the fact remains that a sacred space of God's One True Faith- where once God's priests were trained up for His service and where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was once offered-  will now be turned over for profanation and blasphemy, with crosses torn down, statues smashed, icons trashed, and the images of God and his saints defaced and whitewashed; perhaps the fate that befell Mount Manresa would be preferable to that which is going to happen to the St. Francis Friary. And our Catholic leaders do....what?

Little Children

Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan is running for Congress to replace Michael Grimm. A

pretty standard-issue local RINO (Republican In Name Only) who supports abortion, Donovan will most likely coast to victory in the special election next week. Where this race gets interesting is in the 58 year old Donovan's announcement that he is expecting a bastard child (bastard, noun, a person born of unmarried parents; an illegitimate child) with his 44 year old, divorced concubine (concubine, noun, 1. a woman who cohabits with a man to whom she is not legally married). Donovan, a baptized Catholic whose working-class parents sacrificed to send him to Farrell High School, is now going about flaunting his sinful relationship and the child that, undoubtedly, they never planned to have. As if Donovan's disrespect and disregard for the Faith and for Marriage wasn't made manifest enough by his immoral lifestyle, he can be seen in this Facebook photo mocking sacramental Marriage by playing the part of officiant at the wedding of some friend or relative of his concubine's.

Although Donovan is unique, for a man of his age, in having such a young and attractive concubine and actually having a baby with her, his lifestyle is actually pretty common now for pseudo-Catholic Staten Islanders in their 40s, 50s and 60s. It is incredible to see these older people who were raised in strong Catholic families, grew up in a strong Catholic environment and educated in good Catholic schools putting away their spouses and shacking up with their lovers, as if they had never known the Faith or heard of anything called morality. And what's worse is that everyone here treats their behavior as if were perfectly normal and acceptable. It's one thing for twenty-somethings to be doing this, having been marinated their entire lives in degenerate media, broken homes, and public schools, but to see our elders- who had first hand experience of a better world- living like this is pathetic and disappointing. Sorry- Donovan is a dishonorable and disgraceful libertine who is living in adultery with a concubine who just happens to be another man's wife. St. John the Baptist and St. Thomas More suffered martyrdom for saying such things to kings. This lawyer, Donovan, needs to know that if even royalty are subject to the laws of God, then so are local politicians. He doesn't get my vote or my respect. 

Pseudo-Catholic Staten Islanders

The Rev. Michael Martine, former pastor of St. Joseph's in Rosebank and current pastor of Holy Rosary, recently penned an opinion piece for the Advance in which he, calmly and dispassionately, laid forth the Church's position on euthanasia. This is noteworthy first because a local Catholic priest has actually shown a bit of courage and and took a public stand on a somewhat controversial issue. That in itself is as noteworthy as Halley's Comet. But the second thing about this article to note is the vitriol expressed in the comments section of the article. It has garnered more than 200 mostly negative comments, which is even more than is usually left for those other subjects which outrage Staten Islanders the most: namely Al Sharpton and potholes. Nothing gives pseudo-Catholic Staten Islanders more apoplexy than a Catholic priest actually telling them what is right and wrong. It is true that ex-Catholics usually make the worst anti-Catholics, but it is also true that pseudo-Catholics- that basically pagan breed- so prevalent on Staten Island- who hate the Faith but inexplicably retain the identity, are a pretty nasty enemy as well.

Ted Hesburgh and Staten Island

The recent death of Father Ted Hesburgh of the University of Notre Dame elicited the usual nauseating panegyrics from the secular media. In the midst of all the encomia was a surprising article in the Staten Island Advance, written by a distant relative who revealed that Father Hesburgh had roots on Staten Island and came back often to visit after his family moved away. Contrary to the sentimental recollections recounted in the article, the truth is that Father Hesburgh was a notorious heretic who worked day and night for 40 years to undermine the Catholic Church and destroy Catholic higher education. Watch this video for more information.

Staten Island Catholics

The Advance is interested in interviewing Staten Island Catholics, whether practicing or fallen-away: click here.

I would encourage the faithful to respond to this survey so as not to let the results be skewed in favor of the bile-dripping, God-hating former Catholics so prevalent on this island.

Cardinal Quisling's collaboration

In just two days our craven, cowardly, compromising joke of a Cardinal will, by his actions, publicly give sanction to mortal sin when he will serve as Grand Marshal of a St. Patrick's Day parade that has, for the first time, allowed a homosexual group to march under its own banner. Since he took his seat here, Cardinal Dolan has made it quite clear that he fully supports the gay agenda, by doing absolutely nothing to oppose gay marriage in New York, by publicly applauding the gay pride group at St. Francis Xavier, and by sending a "Bravo!" to gay NFL player Michael Sam on the occasion of his coming out. But those actions, while appreciated and valued by the homosexual movement, were basically passive. What he will do in two days is the final bending of the knee, the public act of degradation and submissiveness. To add insult to injury, he makes the childishly specious argument that his participation is acceptable because the group is not endorsing homosexual acts but only showing pride in being homosexual. Pray for the soul of this bad shepherd and for the souls of all those he is leading to damnation.

St. Patrick's Day parade, 2015

Satan's laughing with delight

Despite the repeated reassurances of the Cardinal, Catholic parishes throughout his domain are dropping like flies. Five Staten Island parishes have received a death sentence and numerous others are being merged with other parishes in what is no doubt a preliminary move towards future closures. With an example of local Catholic culture making national news, it is no wonder. Our priests have failed; we, the laity have failed. We have gone a-whoring after false gods of material gluttony, sexual hedonism and self-worship. Is it any wonder that such a people would allow the temples of their God to fall into ruin?

Some brief histories of the doomed parishes can be found here. One of the churches slated to be shuttered dates back to the 1850s. Four of the five churches are located on the North Shore. Two are located in one-time "ethnic" neighborhoods that are now mostly black and Hispanic. One is located in a neighborhood that still has a significant Italian population. The outlier- St. John Neumann- is only a few decades old and is located mid-island. Its parishioners claim that their church is in the black and debt-free. And that got me thinking.

Why aren't we being given the actual numbers that are the basis for these decisions? Every so often, the archdiocese simply releases a list of the condemned parishes, like some commissar from Stalinist Russia. Wouldn't it help the flock to understand the decision-making process if we were shown some solid numbers that said, for example, that Parish X brings in only $10,000 a year from its 50 parishioners and has operating expenses of $100,000 and a $50,000 debt? Wouldn't it be helpful if the archdiocese further justified its decisions by citing relevant demographic data or pragmatic arguments by saying, for example, that Parish X's 50 parishioners are all over 70 years of age and the church building will be condemned unless it has hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs to its roof and foundation? Those are legitimate arguments that no reasonable person could contest. But when the archdiocese just condemns a financially successful parish like St. John Neumann to extinction, on the basis of unknown and seemingly arbitrary criteria, it makes the curious Catholic wonder just what is going on here.

Assumption in New Brighton I could believe had problems. It was a small parish, built for people who lived within walking distance of the church. It is located within a mile radius of about 4 other Catholic churches. It was built for a specific ethnic group (Italians) that have long since fled the neighborhood. But St. Mary's in Port Richmond? Whenever I've driven by that place on Sundays, it has always been overflowing with Mexicans. St. Roch's in Port Richmond was never packed when I visited but it was always moderately well-attended. Similarly, St. Mary's in Rosebank seemed to have a fair number of parishioners. What are the actual numbers that doomed these parishes? What are the arguments?

Apart from the complete lack of transparency and accountability, Cardinal Dolan is showing his usual alacrity when it comes to secular initiatives by quickly suggesting that the closed churches be used for affordable housing. This Cardinal has probably extinguished more Catholic churches than John Calvin. There is no plan to reverse this trend, no plan to evangelize, no plan to re-catechize. There is no plan and no clue at the top of this hierarchy. We are a rudderless ship without a captain.