In Isaiah 6, the prophet says:
In the year that king Ozias died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and elevated: and his train filled the temple … And I said: Woe is me, because I have held my peace; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people that hath unclean lips, and I have seen with my eyes the King the Lord of hosts. And one of the seraphims flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar. And he touched my mouth, and said: Behold this hath touched thy lips, and thy iniquities shall be taken away, and thy sin shall be cleansed.
At the outset of his prophetic ministry, Isaiah saw God seated upon a throne wearing a royal garment. Clearly, his vision was of none other than God made man; i.e., he saw the Risen Lord, Christ the King.
Furthermore, in seeing an altar, the place of sacrifice, he witnessed the Heavenly liturgy.
Isaiah was familiar with the Temple sacrifice in Jerusalem, a sacrifice that had to be repeated over and over again with each passing year. He knew, in other words, that the sacrifice offered on Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of holy days for the People Israel – had no ability to atone for the sins of man in any lasting sense; it could not truly cleanse.
As Isaiah wrote, the people were about to be exiled in Babylon rendering them unable to offer even this imperfect sacrifice, and yet Isaiah saw in his vision that a greater Sacrifice was coming; one so worthy that it takes place even in Heaven, and this Sacrifice is capable of taking away man’s iniquity.
Having witnessed the Risen Lord, the King of kings, God in the flesh, Isaiah knew of what he spoke when he would later say, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son” (Isa 7:14).
He had seen the One of whom he wrote, “And they shall call him mighty king, wonder counselor, God with us” (Isa 9:6).
And he knew of Whom he wrote when he foretold of the Suffering Servant, the blameless One by whose stripes we are healed (Isa 53).
Indeed, St. John the Evangelist, whose Gospel is replete with affirmations of the divinity of Christ, confirms that Isaiah “saw His glory and spoke of Him” (cf John 12:41).
Continuing in Isaiah 6:
And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me. And he said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people: Hearing, hear, and understand not: and see the vision, and know it not. Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes: lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted and I heal them. And I said: How long, O Lord? And he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.
Know that God did not arbitrarily seal the ears and shut the eyes of His people; rather, it was the wickedness of the people themselves that had rendered them unable to hear and to see. This condition was of their own making, and so it was according to the demands of perfect justice.
In surveying the landscape in the Church in our day, we see much the same thing as nary a day goes by without one of our bishops, often even the Bishop of Rome, giving us very good reason to wonder if any of them have ears to hear or eyes to see the glory of Christ the King.
And we too might well ask as Isaiah did ask, How long, O Lord?
The answer, one shudders to admit, is ever the same:
Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.
This is a hard truth to accept, and yet we can be certain that the demands of justice are such that humanity will likely be brought to its collective knees before understanding returns to the hearts of God’s people, that they may be converted and healed.
Do I mean to suggest that the deaf and the blind of our day are in a bed of their own, personal making?
Not necessarily; for we know that the Lord Our God is a mighty and jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him. (cf Ex 20:5)
The Fathers of Vatican Council II, in conducting the affairs of that poisonous pastoral exercise that took place roughly three generations ago, treated Christ the King as a persona non grata; ignoring His Sovereign rights and speaking as though His truth is but one more opinion among many. The popes and the bishops in union with them have carried on similar fashion ever since.
As I wrote in the previous post, at the heart of the crisis in the Church today is the virtual dethronement of Jesus Christ and the near singular focus of our churchmen – most especially the pope – on the supposed glory of humankind.
No one knows precisely how or when the Lord will redress this terrible offense against Him, but one thing seems entirely certain, the status quo is unlikely to hold for much longer.
Psalm 101:
Because he hath looked forth from his high sanctuary: from heaven the Lord hath looked upon the earth.
[21] That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain: [22] That they may declare the name of the Lord in Sion: and his praise in Jerusalem; [23] When the people assemble together, and kings, to serve the Lord.
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…[26] In the beginning, O Lord, thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands. [27] They shall perish but thou remainest: and all of them shall grow old like a garment: And as a vesture thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed.
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[28] But thou art always the selfsame, and thy years shall not fail. [29] The children of thy servants shall continue: and their seed shall be directed for ever.
I have always been awestruck by the scene in the 10 commandments when after having received the 10 commandments on Mt Sanai, Moses arrives at the camp. There he found revelry even from his own family members though forced. The time for decision had arrived. To choose between the law of God and the idolatry of man. Black and white it was, clear as a bell. This or that, here or there, now or never. In the advancement of human nature a new level of existence was being offered to the people in God’s Law. That was again offered through Christ to once again rise to another level, that of grace. That was it, we had it all. Down through the ages that scene has been repeated again and again. To choose. I think it is coming again soon. My guess would be in October when the Synod is held and something will be decided that will make the difference for doubt and certainty in the faith. This Synod has to produce something for the radical hierarchy will not wait for another 2 years. Like Moses, like Christ, and so many throughout our history, someone will step up and draw that proverbial line in the sand. Maybe a cardinal, or a bishop, maybe even a retired pope, will call the bluff at last of Vatican II. The Church is ripe for reformation. It will be our call to faith that will begin the process once again.
Louie: On another note, the scandalous first interview that the pope did with Scalfari that the Vatican finally took down off the Vatican website….that suddenly reappeared back on the website this week……has now been taken down AGAIN. Good Lord, what is going on at the Vatican?
Chris Ferrera from The Remnant:
“Well, the same interview suddenly reappeared on the Vatican website this week, in both English and Italian, and was included once again among the Pope’s speeches. But, after this stupefying development was noted by Antonio Socci and the Mundabor and Chiesa et Postconcilio blog sites, the “interview” was removed again, and the link provided by these bloggers now redirects searchers to the Vatican home page.
As Socci asked before the interview was taken down for the second time: “What is going on at the Vatican?” What indeed?”
Dear rcaamo. I have tried to make this point before. Effectively the synod has already happened. The expectation has already been set regarding communion for the divorced and remarried. And whether the synod approves this or not priests and bishops will begin to act as if it had been approved. Most likely the synod will come up with some sort of “pastoral” language that says ‘no’ but is vague enough that it can also be interpreted in practice as saying ‘yes’. (Let your no be no and yes be yes comes to mind.) But no matter what is said or done at the synod and no matter what Bergoglio says or does afterwards, the change is already here. So the time to decide whose side we are on is already past. And those who appear to be still hovering on the fence have actually already made their decisions.
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Yes, perhaps some will find on the occasion of the synod some reason to change their mind and to abandon their comfortable lives and to follow Christ. But I don’t expect this to happen in any great numbers. Most will, like the rich young man, cling to their earthly possessions and find a hundred excuses not to follow Christ. For they love man more than they love God. And so they cling to the church of man rather than following the Cross and coming into the full glory of the Church of God.
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And once one sacrament has been sacrificed on the altar of the church of man, the others will soon follow. This is the goal of the humanists/atheists and it also appears to be the goal of the current occupant of the Seat of Peter. At least as Louie says, Bergoglio puts his cards on the table where we can all see them. The decision then is up to us and it becomes more difficult to say that “I did not know”. This is not ignorance, this is willful denial.
We came across this “remarkably prophetic” writing of Steve Skojec some time ago, and what you and rcaamo wrote here, brought it to mind again.
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He apparently had really had it with the battering of one bad revelation after another, and pointed his readers to take a little side-trip with the Saints. He doesn’t advocate abandoning the cause of speaking out in truth, but it’s well worth listening to the good advice he gives through one Saint who took a look at Rome and went away for a while:
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http://blog.steveskojec.com/2014/05/27/misalignment/
They were hoping that no one would notice this time.
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But just like with the Chicago Cubs, they’ll have to wait til next year.
Thanks for that assessment, Matthew. I guess I am still naïve enough to think that there is some principle of order that follows some logical progression of what can be accepted as legal and authorized. If Vatican II and all the following pronouncements prove anything, it is that one can trust the extremists to find a way to spin out any interpretation. It follows the new understanding of communication when Clinton said it depends on what “is” is. We have come far from yes/yes and no/no Just like the Bishop of Bridgeport said back in the 70s, do what you want and if I do not like it I will tell you. Carte Blanche! Whatever happened to epistemology?
On a related topic, has anyone looked at the
Vatican Web site from a tablet computer (such as an iPad)?
For those who have not, here is a multiple choice questionnaire regarding what I find on the front page.
The Web address at the top includes the word “mobile”. Do you think this is prefixed with:
a) vaticana
b) chiesa
c) francesco?
Below this are seven (alternating) pictures. Do you think these seven pictures are of:
a) a selection of popes
b) our Lord, the Mother of God, angels or saints
c) Jorge Bergoglio?
Below this is a table of information. Do you think this table is headed:
a) “Church teaching”
b) “Papal encyclicals”
c) “Pope Francis”?
At the top left is a drop-down menu. Do you think this menu is headed:
a) “Supreme pontiffs”
b) “Prayers of the Church”
c) “Pope Francis”?
Bonus challenge. Each of the seven pictures shows one word from what reads like the Vatican’s list of corporate values. If you click on these values, do you find:
a) a quote from Sacred Scripture;
b) a quote from a saint;
c) … (OK, I think you know where this is going.)
It’s more than ironic that Louie poste a photo of a ruin representing the Church, and you look at the news headlines today and see nothing but ruins in Gaza and the ruins of a Malasian airliner shot down by a surface to air missile over the Ukraine-Russian border-(carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew) with 100s of bodies strewn on the ground amid smoking engine parts. Our Lady said it would come to this,– nations being annihilated– unless the Holy Father consecrates Russia to her Immaculate Heart. Got to go- say today’s rosary.
Mr Verrecchio,
I have been reading you for the last few months and have finally registered. When I see problems in the Church, as you folks point out, I feel as if my mother has cancer. Thank you. Tradition is the best medicine when things are uncertain. Hope to join discussion some time, especially since I’ve been blocked off Mr Shea’s site!
-Mike
Hi Mike,
Welcome. You should find Louie a “bit” more tolerant. 🙂
Dear rcaamo. What we have here is a PR campaign — or I actually prefer to think of it as a psychological warfare campaig, but since most people are more comfortable and familar with the idea of a PR campaign, I’ll go with that. There really is very little difference between the two in practice.
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In a PR campaign the goal is set at the beginning and the idea is to create many publicity events that create momentum so that by the time the actual culminating event takes place the goal is already achieved. It is the same approach that is used to introduce a new product into the market. The product in this case is a “new and improved” catholic church.This year’s model could be called Vatican 2.x which features “more innovation” and “more flexibility” and is 50% “more merciful” than the previous model. All the cool kids are buying it!
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The key to a successful PR campaign is to control the media. “Perception is reality” as they say. Actually perception becomes reality in a successful PR campaign. If you read the media reports about the church and bergoglio the perception is that there has already been a seismic shift under bergoglio’s watch at the helm of RCC Inc.
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Laltely when I go to a “conservative” website like CNA (Catholic News Agency) or the National Catholic Register, I can’t tell any difference from a “liberal” (heterodox) site like National Catholic Reporter. The headlines at CNA are all about the latest papal statements which all have liberal/heterodox themes. “Perception is reality” and the perception is that the church has shifited to become “more liberal” and “less dogmatic” — as if this was possible.
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The synod is just the big event when the new product is finally officially introduced to the public — in this case the faithful.
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It all reminds me of an old stalinist-style dictatorship with a rubber-stamp congress.
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Ratzinger refered to the “council of the media” and in a sense he was right, but there was only one councll and in Oktober there will be only one synod. The media’s synod is not separate from the actual synod. If the bishops at the actual synod want to burst the media bubble then they are perfectly capable of doing it — but do they want to put a stop to bergoglio’s PR campaign? Or are most of them silently cheering him on?
Dear Michael Leon,
Your PR campaign analogy seems to fit the observable facts pretty well. Extending it a bit might also explain why our Pope would give a second interview to a 90-some year old atheist, whom the Vatican basically claimed totally botched the first one by using damaging misquotes drawn from memory, blamed on a total absence of note-taking.
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What should concern us if that’s the case, is how far they are willing to go to grasp at plausible deniability, and how unconcerned they are at how obvious it is that they are doing that and can’t be trusted.
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Lucky for us, God has already outlined His plans to take control at some point, despite their see-through sheep’s clothing. Unfortunately for them, if they don’t straighten up and fly right, eventually they will pay a dreadful price.
We continue to pray for them, and for all of us.
And will the disoriented Catholics with public platforms say: “This is the most misunderstood synod ever!”??
To have been blocked from that site suggests you know and ascribe to the One True Faith!
How crass. How perverse. Cult of personality/celebrity. Lord, preserve us!
Over on Father Z’s blog (who by the way, rarely allows my comments to appear,….. but I forgive him 🙂 ), Voice of America writes about Holy Innocents in New York.
Link here:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/07/voice-of-america-on-holy-innocents-in-manhattan-a-vibrant-catholic-community/.
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Money quote: “VOA was established in WWII to provide accurate information for the peoples oppressed by tyrannical regimes trapped behind enemy lines. VOA really ramped up during the Cold War, to bring a message of freedom and news to those who suffered under Communism.”
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Just replace Communism with the Homo-lobby, and “the shoe fits.”
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St. Michael Archangel, ora pro nobis.
“The Fathers of Vatican Council II, in conducting the affairs of that poisonous pastoral exercise that took place roughly three generations ago, treated Christ the King as a persona non grata; ignoring His Sovereign rights and speaking as though His truth is but one more opinion among many.”
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That ‘poisonous pastoral exercise’ is the ‘spirit of Vatican II’, it is King Darius to whom Catholics are now required to bow down to and pledge an oath. The spirit of VII is an antichrist spirit if ever there was one – sort of like nerve gas.
I guess it’s a good thing that Bergoglio is nothing so subtle as nerve gas, he’s more like an ecclesiastical skunk whose stink glands are on permanent spray.
heh,heh,heh–very good, dear Lynda
my dear salvemur,
for the umpteenth time, you caused me to spit out my Puerto Rican coffee. One Ave for my eldest, please?
dear Mike,
It’s an honor to meet you, I wish I had the guts to be blocked from one of the big S.’s. Press on, Catholic soldier.
Know that Holy Mother Church suffers from no malady. She is whole, undefiled, unwavering and exuberantly healthy. It is the covert dissenters and outright heretics and apostates that miserably scatter. God love you.
Skunks even have black boots too.
Ave’s for sure; and for the poors souls onboard the ‘next’ malaysian airline to ‘disappear’.
And now for something completely different (sorry Mr. V.), but on a past post, a column written about the Irish 800 babies buried in the septic tank. The author is from that other mainstream protestant sect, namely atheist Marxism. However, he suffers from bouts of intellectual honesty. (Probably has not been instructed in Hegelian dialectical thinking. But I digress….
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Link here: http://lxoa.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/brendan-oneill-the-tuam-tank-another-myth-about-evil-ireland/.
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Money quote (one of many):
“Clearly this isn’t about news anymore; it isn’t a desire for facts or truth that elevated the crazed claims about Tuam up the agenda; rather, a mishmash of anti-Catholic prejudice, Irish self-hatred and the modern thirst for horror stories involving children turned Tuam into one of the worst reported stories of 2014 so far.”
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And another one:
“Whenever the exaggerations and myths about Ireland’s past are exposed, the same thing is said: okay, these might have been lies but they were good lies, because they got people talking about the history of Catholic abuse in Ireland.”
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And…..
“How many ‘good lies’ have to be told about Ireland’s past before they just become lies? If as many myths were spread about by a government in relation to a war or something, there would be outrage, demands for an inquiry; why is it okay, then, to promote half-truths, non-facts and embellishments about the Irish Catholic Church?”
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I just can’t let go….
“Was the Ireland of yesteryear a sometimes harsh and unpleasant place? Yes. Did the Catholic Church mistreat some of the women and children in its care? Undoubtedly. But the unhealthy obsession over the past 10 years with raking over Ireland’s past has little to do with confirming such facts and instead has become a kind of grotesque moral sport, providing kicks to the anti-Catholic brigade and fuel to the historical self-flagellation that now passes for public life in Ireland.”
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Anyways, well worth the read.
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Wonder if some honest soul searching can spread among some of the atheist Marxist with respect of the reconquista…..?
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Or among the Catholic hippie hierarchy…… ?
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Perish the thought!
Dear S. Armaticus. We Catholics eat babies too — do’n-ch’no. It’s the continuation of the Black Legend spread by the protestant English monarchy against their arch-rivals the Catholic Kings of Spain. While at the same time the English were committing genocide in Ireland, drawing and quartering and putting heads on spikes. How very protestant. But we’ll just ignore all that in the history books….
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Our very own bergoglio also likes to promote the Black Legend. He’s going off to Caserta on July 28 to apologize for our Catholic past. How very protestant…
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-35317/
Dear S. Armaticus. I took a quick look at that article you highlighted. I would not be so quick to assume that this is really intended to be a denial as it claims to be. The number ‘800’ was repeated 17 times. Here are some examples.
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the Tuam 800 dead babies story
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Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead
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800 skeletons of babies found inside tank
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not possible that all 800 dead babies are in this tank
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alleged pit of 800 dead babies in a tank
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headlines about 800 dead children having been found in a septic tank
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Yes, yes, 800 babies might not have been found in a septic tank
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Do you see what he is doing here? He is writing a piece that pretends to be sympathetic to the Catholic Church while drilling into the mind of the reader the very image that he pretends to be discrediting. What the reader will walk away with is the image of an atrocity. This is diabolical. This is the using the ancient practices of witchcraft to control the mind of the unsuspecting victim, but refined through careful pyschological research. This is propaganda. It is not very subtle once you see through the mind-controlling trick that is employed. This is a favorite trick of hollywood in which they claim to portray a story with a moral that violence is bad, but the whole movie is full of violence. Read the article again and tell me if I am wrong. I think you will see my point. It is simply unnecessary to repeat over-and-over again the number 800 in order to get his “alleged” point across. His real point is to reinforce this black myth at a time when most people have begun to forget about it.
Dear ML,
I will take a victory where I can get it!
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If an atheist Marxist writes about the Catholic Church being libeled, it must be so patently obvious, that it won’t pass “the smell test” (excuse the metaphor) on his side of the barricade. His observations are “spot on”, as they would say across the Irish Sea.
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Besides, “who am I to judge”?
Dear Michael and S.Armaticus,
The official definition of what you describe here is a propaganda technique called, (believe it or not)
Ad nauseam –This argument approach uses tireless repetition of an idea. An idea, especially a simple slogan, that is repeated enough times, may begin to be taken as the truth. This approach works best when media sources are limited or controlled by the propagator.
We are indeed seeing the devastated vineyard–as the holy Dietrich von Hildebrand saw years ago.
I also got blocked from the hateful Shea…and I think I only posted twice as I kind of backed into one of his articles. Do not normally read him; he just likes to argue and be hateful.
Has anyone seen the latest from M. Voris? It’s a pathetic attempt to explain away the confusion sown by the Holy Father…I disagreed (and dropped membership) with his “hands off the Pope” diatribe, but this has slunk to new lows…he is now as confusing as Pope Francis!
Dear Indignus, 796 children died at the orphanage during its years of existence from about 1925 to 1961. The children’s deaths were properly recorded as well as the relevant cause of death (except possibly in the case of one child). There was a lower death rate at this orphanage than in many others. They died, mainly of contagious illnesses, not unusual among a vulnerable group housed in large numbers in close proximity.
When I read the text of it first, on another blog, I thought it was brilliant satire, and it had me in stitches! Unbelievable. It leaves me speechless that a person of normal intelligence could say that. It is a parody of Catholicism. God help us! So many once-intelligent people appear to have had a self-inflicted lobotomy in respect of objective actions and statements by Pope Francis.
The new Vatican Spokesman honed his skills years ago:
http://youtu.be/TrXhxmQJSS0?list=RDTrXhxmQJSS0
Can’t BELIEVE Michael Voris is now ranting about other people reacting to the outrageous things this Pope has been saying and doing!.
We thought FOR SURE this past month would be the straw- that- would- break the- camel’s- back moment on his AGONIZING vow of SILENCE on all things Pope Francis. But instead we get told to :
“Just chill out and wait for the actual facts or correct translation or appropriate clarification?”
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Oh, for cryin’ out loud! The clarifications are worse than the original statements.
We take back everything we have said in the last few months about Mike Voris damaging his journalistic integrity. If he can’t see what is going on after all THIS time, he must SUCH a BAD judge of character, that HE ACTUALLY BELIEVES ALL IS WELL! and so his journalistic integrity has nothing at allto do with it.
What could be worse than that, for a self-appointed night- watchman?
We’ve had 16 months of continual “facts” now! Surreal.
Yes, I saw that this morning. Well actually only part of it. I couldn’t listen for long. And indeed, Mr. Voris is becoming more and more ridiculous. Talk about having your head in the sand. I don’t watch The Vortex at all anymore. Too bad because some of his stuff was good.