Catholic Identity Conference

Louie,

CIC 2013Bishop Athanasius Schneider said in a recent interview, “‘Now we are, I would say, in the fourth great crisis, in a tremendous confusion over doctrine and liturgy,” with the others being the Arian crisis, the 10th century string of immoral popes, and the years of papal exile in Avignon.

I think most readers of this space would agree with Bishop Schneider’s assessment; we are living in the midst of a great crisis in the Church, one that is often and rightly called a Catholic identity crisis.

How does a faithful Catholic respond to such a crisis? By taking steps to recapture their stolen identity.

Enter the Catholic Identity Conference 2014: The Old Evangelization: Restoring Liturgy, Mission and Catholic Tradition

I’m delighted to say that yours truly will be among the speakers at this year’s conference, and even more thrilled to say that I’ll be joined by an esteemed group of others including:

• Dr. John Rao
• Michael Matt of The Remnant
• John Vennari of Catholic Family News
• Christopher Ferrara
• James Vogel from Angelus Press
• Kenneth Wolfe of Rorate Caeli
• Michael Brendan Doughtery from The American Conservative

This is third annual Catholic Identity Conference (the image above taken at last year’s conference) and will be taking place at the Weirton Holiday Inn in Weirton, WV beginning Friday, September 12th at 6:30 pm with a celebration of the Traditional Mass, concluding on Sunday September 14th at noon.

Topics for this year’s conference include:

• “Giving the Devil His Due, the Problems with the Old Evangelization”,
• “Mass Hypocrisy: Redefining ‘Traditionalist’ in the Image and Likeness of the Neo-Catholic”
• “Modernism and the New Evangelization”,
• “The Mission of the Church vis-à-vis the Kingship of Christ as Illuminated by Pius XI in Quas Primas”
• “Vatican II-ism: How an Ideology Has Eclipsed the Faith”
• “A Cause for Hope: the Experiment of Tradition Around the World”
• “Promoting the Old Evangelization While Using a New Computer”
• “Bad Liturgical Reform and the Good God’s Response—Biblical Reasons for Hope During Tribulation”.

(Any guesses as to which is the topic of my presentation?) Honestly, with the lineup of speakers at this event, I’m looking forward as much to listening and learning as I am to speaking.

Please, share this information with your contacts and if at all possible make plans to attend.

For more information or to register click here or call (304) 723-6343.

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Comments (19)

  1. Congratulations, Louie! That was my Sicilian grandfather’s name as well as my uncle’s, and cousin’s. Good name!… Looks good, great line up. “The Mission of the Church vis-à-vis the Kingship of Christ as Illuminated by Pius XI in Quas Primas”…looks right up your alley. I will share a comment a little later. I just wanted to say it is exciting and hopeful. The best for the conference.

  2. Ditto. I say you’re speaking on The Mission of the Church etc. Let us know if we’re right? God bless~

  3. Hi Louie. I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but this story is too much up your alley to let it pass by unnoticed. By “up your alley” I mean that you have shown that you are one of the very few faithful Catholics that has had the courage to consistently seek the Truth and to expose errors — no matter what the personal consequences.

    I first learned about the story of Bergoglio’s recent meeting with televangelists at the Restore-DC-Catholicism blog here:
    http://restore-dc-catholicism.blogspot.com/2014/07/seeking-unity-with-evangelicals-but-on.html

    The money quote was:
    ***
    According to James Robison (one of the evangelical leaders in attendance), the Holy Father “challenged Catholics never try to control the Holy Spirit but yield to Him”.  
    ***

    Now evangelical protestant Brian Stiller, has added more details:
    ***
    At lunch I asked Pope Francis what his heart was for evangelism. He smiled, knowing what was behind my question. His comment was, “I’m not interested in converting Evangelicals to Catholicism. I want people to find Jesus in their own community. There are so many doctrines we will never agree on. Let’s not spend our time on those. Rather, let’s be about showing the love of Jesus.”
    ***

    The Novus Ordo Watch website (a sedevecantist site) has the details. (Do a Google search because of limitations on the number of links.)

    This is the same meeting with televangelists which produced the first papal high-five that I mentioned in a previous comment. Since then I saw that Mundabor picked up on that story.
    + + +

    Let us keep praying for this ponticate. And let us keep Louie in our prayers and ask for protection for him from the forces of evil through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Archangel St. Michael, defend us in the battle.

  6. Let me interject my two cents at this point. I am surprised that Bishop Athanasius Schneider did not mention the Protestant Reformation as another of the crises of the Church. The others came, did their damage, and vanished. Yet, after 500 years we are still suffering from the moment that Pandora was let out of that box. Once it was fashionable and supportable to read the bible and come to one’s own conclusion, the whole structure fell. Each reformer thought his was the ultimate reformation only to find a slew of followers ready to reform his corrections. Soon it became obvious that there could be no one doctrine since everybody was now able to believe as they were inspired. That moment in history brought us to where we are today, philosophically, politically, theologically, sociologically, psychologically, and continues to expand with each individual choice to take another bite out of the apple.
    I tried to find Francis’ quote about his vision of ecumenism is that all religions move in lines like the spokes of a wheel, and all of us will one day end up at the “Omega Point” to quote one theologian of “olde.” So we are all heading in the same direction and will end up in the same place, brilliant. There is really no need to change the geometry of the new ecumenism. That of course makes truth quite relative and seeming unimportant. If truth has no bearing on the present, I guess such a perspective could be considered. Much like the logic of Pelosi who said let us pass the bill in order to know what is in it. There seems to be a new spirit of let’s say we are one, share the Eucharist, and proclaim our oneness while heading to that point on the horizon when we will be one. I find it whimsical to be putting so much emphasis on ecumenism rather than on the truths of the faith.
    Finally, after these 50 plus years, I think we can agree that we are in it now for the long haul. It does seem like we are not heading in the right direction still. So what to do? I think Pope Benedict realized the exhausting impossibility of getting all the factions together at this time. That is possibly why he started the Society of Saint Peter, and attempted to resolve the Society of Pius X. I guess they thought after 20 years almost all would fall into place. At the end of 40 years VII could forge ahead with no resistance. But now after 50 years, it is clear the flow is going in the opposite direction. I offer two thoughts: first let there be a new rite in the Church which will reflect the Church before VII. It can be called the Rite of Pius V, maybe. Declare at last that VII was not an ecumenical, dogmatic council and therefore returning to its pastoral description, it is open to interpretation and debate for those who might want to take that direction. This way peace can be restored to the Church. Let the chaff and the wheat grow together. Time will sort out the rest. Any of you out there who are holding an ax, this may be a good time to swing it.

  7. Dear Michael Leon,

    Thank you for this post. Although it is definitely more bad news, it confirms beyond any doubt what, until now, were a series of strong clues, leading to this conclusion, but without this degree of certainty.
    ___
    Now we have his own, clear, admonition, that it’s not what Christ wants, but what “I want….” that matters to him. And what he wants, is opposed to the Divine will, that mankind be not left to live in confusion with bits and pieces of truth intermixed with error, but thoroughly convinced and urged by the fire of His love burning in us, to come into the fullness of Divinely revealed Truth, being fully instructed and Baptized into the Church.
    ___

  8. Dear Indignus. I have just learned more and it is worse than we could have imagined. The meeting which was held June 24 ” outside of the Pope’s official schedule ” (translation “in secret”) is the beginning of an alliance between the Vatican and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA). The WEA is a very socialist leaning organization that promotes the global climate change agenda (translation sterilization, contraception and abortion) and the UN millenia goals (translation sterilization, contraception and abortion). See article here:
    http://www.catholicregister.org/item/18459-pope-francis-reaches-out-to-evangelical-charismatic-leaders
    ***
    As a result of this initial discussion, the WEA will have three days of formal meetings with various dicasteries in Rome (including another meeting with the Pope) on fall dates to be determined.
    ***
    I’m sure the whole USCCB socialist hierarchy crowd will be very pleased. I suppose we should consider taking further discussion on this topic to the forum. Please post a link if you decide to set up a discussion there.
    —-
    If you want a true taste of what the WEA is up to read the Wikipedia page for their UN reprsentative Deborah Fikes. It is all about “sustainable energy” and other liberal/socialist issues like “human rights”. She has even spoken on the topic of “Greening the Golden Rule”. Maybe Bergoglio will consult with her for his upcoming encyclical on “the environment”. Since wasting energy is one of the greatest mortal sins according to this pope.

  10. Dear rcaamo,
    Another sad example from His holiness, of the reversal of truth.
    ___
    If all the different beliefs are spokes on a wheel, then the center is what we all had in common before Baptism, –original sin, and we Catholics are moving farther and farther apart from the other spokes, the more we adhere to the Faith and Dogma and travel to the “outer limits” of the wheel.
    ___
    All things considered, we don’t think this is going to last much longer. We could be wrong, but look at the headlines and read the book of revelations and see if you can tell the difference .Best time to be alive? ..Time of Peace? Try telling that to Africa, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Gaza-Palestine, Israel, Pakistan, Indonesia, North Korea, Japan (6.8 quake and mini tsunami at Fukushima again today) China, Russia, Ukraine….to name just some of the current “hot spots” in the news ..
    ___
    We think of this as martyrdom- rehearsal, and everything Pope Francis says as a test of how well we know our Faith, and can articulate it to anyone willing to listen while there is still time left. We’ve rehearsed emergency Baptism, and are picking out cool last words, like Viva Christo Rey! 🙂

  12. “let’s be about showing the love of Jesus” which Jesus, I would ask? I would answer, probably the one in the mirror who, on judgement day, wouldn’t be able to pick Christ the King out of the crowd if his immortal soul depended on it.

  13. p.s. from the mundabor post: ‘ A man [bergoglio] doing the exact contrary of what he is supposed to do, and calling the very core of his job description, “solemn nonsense”’.

  15. Catholic Identiy/Mission/Faith/Morals/Truth, is ‘solemn nonsense’, according to Bergoglio; but he is really just a well-trained parrot of Roncalii and his other sons and their protestant grandfathers.
    –
    What is a prelate who publicly lends his moral authority to a falsehood and misleads his flock? I would say yet another antichrist. We have a lot of them. Here’s a commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.” For Bergoglio to call a protestant a ‘brother bishop’ is to bear false witness. For a Catholic to worship with false-religionists is a sin against the first commandment (Wojtyla institutionalised Catholic worship with Baal). Begoglio, like Wojtyla, is intending once again to publicaly apologise for the Mission of Christ – what is one who is ashamed of Christ? Bergoglio calls the mission of this fathers in faith, ‘solemn nonsense’ – is this not a sin against the fourth commandment? And yet so-called ‘popes’ continue to lend their ‘immense moral authority’ to falsehoods, idolatry, denial and dishonour. And who cares? On the contrary most people, including self-identifying catholics, thinks its all just fabulous. If someone approves of another’s sins, that someone participates in them. Catholics need to relearn what Catholic truly was and still is, and identify with that.

  17. W/r/t the crises that Bishop Schneider alluded to, it would appear that all of these crises were internal, i.e ones from which the church recovered.
    ______
    As to the nature of the present crisis, it is likewise internal. All one has to do to understand it is read Pius X’s Pascendi. It’s all there in black and white.
    _____
    As to the nature of the current crisis, it is one of “subversion”. What you have is a bunch of modernist subversives (along with their Marxian “useful idiots”) who have taken over the institutions of the Church, and are trying to change it to conform with their own ideology. Bergoglio is a great example of this.
    ______
    And while I am on the subject of the bishop of Rome, maybe he is a God send, in the sense that if a “son of Benedict” ascended to the throne of St. Peter, the modernist rot within the Church would persist, while we all would be thinking that it is getting better. Instead, we got a “cranck” who is displaying “the modernist religion” and the underlying rot for all to see. And it ain’t pretty.
    _______
    As to how do we get the Bride of Christ out of this mess, the answer is quite easy, and yet very hard at the same time. What has to be done is that the Catholic Faithful have to “out administer” the modernist sect. What I mean by this is that the Church needs to conserve it’s resources, and at the same time starve the modernist sect of its resources. A good case in point is the Holy Innocents situation in NY. A Catholic parish (which is operating in the black) is being closed down by a modernist cardinal. The thinking goes that those people will go somewhere anyways, and the proceeds will flow into the modernist’s coffers from wherever these folks end up. So what’s there for a solvent Catholic parish to do in a situation like this? One thing that the parishioners could start doing is to stop giving into the general collection. What can be done instead, is to set up Church maintenance funds, funds which are earmarked for conservation works, building new alters, supporting the adjacent Catholic schools, etc. And through mechanisms like these, the Catholic faithful can “out administer” the free loaders, and beat the modernist subversives at their own game.
    ________
    To carry this argument to a logical conclusion, one could also say that every bankrupt modernist dioceses brings us one step closer to the restoration of the Bride of Christ.

  18. Thanks for the links.
     

    The following, from Fr. Ray Blake, is in my opinion the most important comment on this pontificate so far:
    http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/francis-against-orthodoxy.html
     

    Be careful when reading Blake’s comment. The quote is not from Bergoglio. It is from the journal Concilium. The author, however, of the post that Blake links to compares it to Bergoglio’s interview for Civilta Cattolica.
     

    One other note: when I click on the (Italian) link, after a short wait a Google Translate option appears automatically at the top of my browser.

  19. Michael, we started a forum under General Discussion: Uniting Religions; Dividing the World.

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