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Cardinal Sarah: “We Christians Need the Spirit of the Vendeans!”

Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, last weekend visited the Vendée in France in order to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Diocese of Luçon. On Saturday, 12 August, the cardinal gave an especially stirring homily in Puy du Fou in which he both honored the Vendeans and their courageously sustained heroism, and also then called upon the Christians of today to live in the “spirit of the Vendeans.”

In his homily, Cardinal Sarah explicitly compared the spirit of atheism at the time of the Vendeans with the spirit of relativism that we widely encounter today. He encouraged those Frenchmen of the l’Association du Puy du Fou who currently and loyally keep alive the memory of the Vendeans and himself made a rallying call of resistance, saying: “Your work is necessary! Because our time seems to be numb.” He continued, saying:

In the face of the dictatorship of relativism, in the face of thought terrorism which – once more – wants to tear God out of the hearts of the children, we need to find again the freshness of spirit, the joyful and ardent simplicity of these saints and of these martyrs.

When describing the Vendeans, Cardinal Sarah pointed out that they promptly revolted when the French Revolution “wanted to deprive them of their priests.” “A whole people stood up,” he explained. “In the face of cannons, these poor people only had their sticks!” Sarah added: “In the face of terrorist columns, they only had their rosary, their prayer and the Sacred Heart sewed upon their chest!” According to Sarah, the Vendeans knew very well that they would be “crushed” by the “planned and methodical wave of terror.” “They nevertheless, while singing, offered their sacrifice to Our Lord.” However, added the prefect, true history shows that “the Vendean peasants finally triumphed.” Because of their own sacrifice, he said, “the ideology of the lie” has not been able to reign as a master.”Thanks to the Vendeans,” added Cardinal Sarah, “the Revolution had to tear off its mask and show its face of hate, the hate of God and of the Faith.” “Thanks to the Vendeans, the priests did not become servile slaves of the totalitarian state; they were able to remain free servants of Christ and of the Church.”

Cardinal Sarah also praised the Vendeans for their trust in God, their confidence. Even though the boat “took water from all sides,” he explained, the Vendeans “did not fear” because they knew that their unique homeland will be “the Heart of Jesus.”

It is here that Cardinal Sarah called upon the faithful to take heart and to be inspired today by the spirit of the Vendeans:

My brothers, we Christians need this spirit of the Vendeans! We need this example! Like them, we need to leave our sowing and our furrows in order to fight – not for mere human interests, but for God! Who still today will rise up for God? Who will dare to confront the modern persecutors of the Church? Who will have the courage to rise up without weapons except the rosary and the Sacred Heart in order to face the death columns of our time which are relativism, indifferentism, and the disdain for God?

Cardinal Sarah then added to this inspiring speech, so full of zeal: “My brothers, like our brother Vendeans of former times, we are today called to witness, that is to say, to be a martyrdom!” He piercingly asked the Frenchmen: “When will you rise up with the peaceful weapons of prayer and of charity in order to defend the Faith?” The cardinal also reminded us that “we all are spiritually sons of the Vendean martyrs!” In his eyes, we all need their courage. “When it comes to God, no compromise is possible! The honor of God is not up for discussion!”

Moreover, Sarah mentioned “the love for the priest” and the “lesson of humanity” as aspects of the example of the Vendeans, “to know how to confront hatred without resentment and without bitterness,” adding: “Only love is the conqueror of the powers of death!” Cardinal Sarah also pointed out that spirit of self-sacrifice and of “joyful generosity” – which was lived so well by the Vendeans – is especially lived and cultivated in a family. That is what the “ideologues of the revolution” want to destroy, according to him. Here, Cardinal Sarah explicitly mentions the “gender ideology” and the “disdain for fertility and fidelity” as the “new slogans of this revolution.” The families, just as the Vendeans at the time, are to be “exterminated.” “One is systematically planning their disappearance.” The modern revolutionaries “are concerned about the generosity of large families.” “Christian families incarnated everything they hate.” In this context, Cardinal Sarah mentioned the situation in his own home continent of Africa. These revolutionaries, he explained, “are ready to let loose on Africa new infernal columns in order to pressure the families and to impose sterilization, abortion, and contraception. Africa, like the Vendée, will resist!”

Cardinal Sarah concludes his ardent call to resistance with the following words:

From now on, in the heart of each family, of every Christian, of every man of good will, there has to rise up an interior Vendean! […] Let us pray that a powerful and joyful interior Vendée may rise in the Church and in the world! Amen!

While visiting the Vendée, Cardinal Sarah also prayed at the tomb of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Monfort – the Saint who himself helped to evangelize more deeply the Catholic region of the Vendée, along with St. John Eudes.

75 thoughts on “Cardinal Sarah: “We Christians Need the Spirit of the Vendeans!””

  1. But the Vendeans fought with weapons as well, as Jean Meyer and his disciples have shown! Catholics have always known that sometimes reason and faith require the use of force and weapons! The Vendeans were defeated, but Napoleon admired them and then restored them! The Cristeros fought a holy fight, unequal, of peasants against the government of Mexico and its instigator from the USA, and unexpectedly won the war! Yes, the Cristeros among which we count many saints fought with weapons and they won! Never has the Catholic faith being pacifist! it has been judicious and prudent and it has been meek and peaceful, but strong and ready to use force when the use of force is the prudent answer to a challenge!

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    • I thought of that as well as I read, they weren’t just sitting around going “you meanie republicans, you drowned our priests on a barge in the loire, I’ll pray for you”. They knew after people got massacred that the games were over and prayers yes but also backed by rifle action.

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    • The Vendeans weren’t defeated, the French government gave up trying to defeat them and pacified them by sending money and helping to rebuild their churches. The Vendeans did not achieve the counterrevolution..yet.

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    • Unfortunately, what Cardinal Sarah is to be next is to become the Former Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

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    • Cardinal Sarah has disappointed me recently with his “reform of the reform but not reform of the reform but mutual enrichment” talk. As good and faithful of a man as he seems to be, he would likely be another Benedict XVI… While that may have sufficed in previous centuries, I think we need a far more courageous pope. I’m not sure that any Cardinal really fits the requirement, but someone along the lines of Cardinal Burke would be my choice.

      Actually, if I could put in my vote for anyone it would be Bishop Schneider, but the chances of an auxiliary bishop being elected are practically non-existent.

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      • I understand.

        If you note, I asked my daughter to, “pray”, but I did not exactly say who to pray for as our next pope. So many popes have wanted to please so many in their charity. Yet, the world
        tugged at their sleeves and they assumed God would understand if they ” gave in” just a little, for the sake of charity.

        Yes, we need a pope with a heart of gold and a spine of steel, and the second factor must come forth; without it, there is no real heart of gold, in my opinion.

        Pray!

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      • I was also at the begining very supportive to Cardinal Sarah, but it looks like in this battle he has choosen the “strategy” not evey person can accept. Not because it is wrong, but because some among us are simply called to speak out.

        Bishop Schneider would be my first choice as well for he truly has strong faith, thorough knowledge and great personality to lead the Universal Church. I believe that Bishop Schneider understands better than anyone else not only the problems with modernism but with communism as well. It is a hugh mistake (or should I say the sin of omission?) of the Pope Francis that he didn’t promote Bishop Schneider into Cardinal.

        Otherwise, there is also another personality among our faithful prelats who already has “formal conditions” to become the Pope: it is Ignatius Joseph III Yonan, the Patriarch of Antioch and all the East of the Syriac.

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  2. ” Citizen, we’ve been examining your internet footprint and we see that you appear to have a problem with marriage between people of the same sex. Your papers, please! We believe your writing constitutes clear evidence of a hate crime. Kindly accompany us to the Bureau of Public Order. We’d like to discuss this matter further with you.”

    It’s coming for us folks, sooner or later. Personally, I take my inspiration from Los Cristeros in Mexico in the early part of the 20th century. May their motto of resistance become ours….“Viva Cristo Rey!!”

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  3. We can always look to Cardinal Sarah for encouraging words. Words especially needed at the present moment when the Catholic Church itself has in many respects sold out to the “ideologues of the revolution” of Vatican II, e.g., Pope Francis calling for a “reassessment” of Humanae Vitae.

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    • He has encouraging words, very much so. But I wish he do some encouraging actions. Join the remaining Dubia Cardinals, for example, and try to counter El Bergoglio in other ways, more directly. Sure, he’d be fired. But then he can join the SSPX (or the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest). But I think he’s angling to be the next pope, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he took the name “John Paul III”. (Of course, the powers that be wouldn’t let him get elected.)

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      • I agree Raghn Crow. Cardinal Sarah like Cardinal Burke seems to have been emasculated by Pope Francis. Lots of carefully chosen words but little action. Both of these Cardinals have lost credibility. What does the red hat stand for again?? Evidently, not much.

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        • Whenever I read comments like this, and the one above, I have to ask the question: Just what is it that you’d like Cardinal Sarah and Cardinal Burke to DO?

          I think what you really want is for both these Cardinals to start talking like Mundabor, or Ann Barnhardt – neither of these bloggers spare the horses when running off at the mouth. Is that what Burke and Sarah could do to please you? How soon would they keep the vast credibility they now enjoy?

          From my knowledge, every time these Cardinals speak they speak plain, clear, truth. Both of them are all over the world giving conference talks, saying Holy Masses, and generally encouraging the Faithful. The fact that they are both diplomatic, charitable, and careful in what they say causes frustration for us. We want action! So again, what should they DO?

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          • Publicly call Bergoglio what he is – a rank heretic. And then start the process of ousting him, or die in the attempt. I like Michael am tired out of the pussy-footing around. The Catholic blogosphere is just as bad, this site included.

          • What should they do? Cardinal Burke should follow through on his dubia plan by following the dubia procedure of exposing the Pope’s heresy. Cardinal Sarah should say what he means when he speaks of “resistance”. For example, what is it we are resisting, how should we resist, etc. We can read into what he says as resisting the Pope or something else. I would like one of the Cardinals to fall on his sword for resisting the Pope. Then he would be a hero–a potential saint.

            In the secular world we have James Damore from Google getting fired for speaking out about “diversity” driven culture. After that he has carried his message far and wide. I would hope at least one Cardinal would have the courage to do the same thing. The fact that one doesn’t is devastating to our faith as it indicated they value their own position over the truth.

          • I’m sure the good cardinals are praying fervently, fasting, even wearing hair shirts (and I’m not mocking; they might be). But I would suspect that most of all they’re not acting because they know if they do what they have to do, as Michael describes above, then they damage the next pope. They’re thinking “political damage” and “damage control”; that taking “El Bergo” down will — sort of like what happened to Republicans after Bill Clinton’s impeachment — damage the Magisterium Catholic position, and in effect, produce a George W. Bush, a guy continually mocked and derided throughout his tenure. They’re reasoning that the next pope would have a pall cast over him, ESPECIALLY if he’s a “conservative” Magisterium-type JPII “come again”.

            Cardinal Sarah, for one, is clearly angling to be elected the next pope, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he took the name “John Paul III”. (If he took the name Benedict XVII he’d meet Caesar’s fate as he walked toward the loggia. Same if he took the name “Pius XIII”.

            I’ve been rereading this site’s excellent articles and came across “Revolution in Tiara and Cope from last year (and 2015) and it really is ASTOUNDING the lengths the “Deep Modernist State” back at Vat 2 went to in order to create the “Vatican II Church”. Just incredible. They worked like Trojans (or devils) at endless length to pull every lever, punch every button, jerk every string, to bring about the Revolution in the Church that they did. They have NO INTENTION of letting go. They won’t “go quietly into that good night.” You don’t go to those lengths, that level of effort, unless you’re ALL IN.

            And Burke and Sarah know that too, my friends. They’re the French Army in 1940 and they don’t even have a Maginot Line.

            That’s the level of problem we’re facing.

            Raghn

          • Well said Raghn. I’m hoping for a well directed divine intervention that would help correct a few of the present problems such as lack of faith, emphasis on the secular interests of Man and de-emphasis on God, the undermining of Catholic doctrine, etc.

          • You speak for me, too, Michael. I pray for that as well. But then, think of the Copts. Or the Assyrian Christians. They’ve been languishing under the foot of that crazed Moon-goddess cult for 1400 years now (isn’t “Allah” much more like Kali or Ishtar than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?). There’s been no miracle to deliver them, yet, they survive, much as the Jews have, because once God makes a covenant, He never, ever breaks it.

            But part of me fears that that, indeed, will be something more like our fate. Time will tell the tale.

            Raghn

          • We don’t have to worry about splitting the Church but these Cardinals do. So easy for us to say do this, or say that. The results might be something we regret. Slowly, slowly, more and more will be influenced by the peace and charity with which these two men speak the Truth. We have become just like Protestants: action! action! There is no room for God anymore.

            Does He not hear, does He not see? God Himself allows those who do evil to flourish – for HIS reasons – can we be so different? I read St. Francis de Sales a lot. Once there was a man who was violently angry with him and Francis said to him: “if you were to gouge out one of my eyes, I would look at you in charity with the remaining one.”

            Being at each other’s throats is not the answer. So much animosity among us. Can’t we be generous with others who think differently in the Traditional community on-line? Why are we so quick to criticize? There is Truth. There is a way to speak this Truth – with love.

          • I really don’t see a lot of animosity among ourselves. It is most expressed toward our failing Church and that is a very good reason for animosity. We should be angry. Christ was angry with the faux religious leaders of His time. We must tell the truth not cover it up in the interests of “getting along”. You say, “There is a way to speak this Truth – with love.” I say, we have found it.

          • “Christ was angry with the faux religious leaders of His time.” They didn’t become “faux ” until the Old Covenant ended with the death of Our Lord on the Cross. Even Our Lord, the Author of the Law, submitted to the Law. Otherwise, good points.

          • Dear Margaret, the “Old Covenant” is actually FIVE Covenants God made in Salvation History. (Well, a perfect Seven altogether, including the first, the Covenant with Creation and the last, the New Covenant He made with Himself.) The Church has historically taught that the Fourth of these, the Covenant with Moses, was cancelled or superseded. Well, none of them can be cancelled but each one is “superseded” in the sense of not being removed, but rather transformed and fulfilled as the foundation of the Covenant built on top of it. Please let me explain.

            Of all the traditional Church teachings I’ve ever studied, this is the one that is “misguided” a bit, or clarified. ALL the Seven Covenants are of a piece, from the very first one, the one God made when He created the world and “rested” or made holy on the Seventh Day, the Covenant with Creation, to the final Covenant, the one He made with Himself in the New Covenant (the Eucharist IS that Covenant, the means by which we are transformed in our nature (something Protestantism has always denied: i.e., Luther’s “Simul Justus et Peccator.”) wherein we “take on Christ” and “become new men in Christ”, they all fit together in one structure, the tower of salvation, each one fulfilled and transformed by the one above it.

            The other Covenants post-Creation could NOT be “cancelled” any more than the original Creation one (or the created world would cease): we are STILL working out the Covenant made with Adam and Eve, (though Our Lord fulfilled it in the sense that He did, indeed, crush the serpent’s head, and the serpent bit His heel, i.e., crucified Him) and no one expects the world to perish in a flood (the Covenant with Noah) and of course Abraham must always be “our father in faith” because we need to be Jews, i.e., inheritors by blood of the promises made to Abraham that all the world would be blessed through his descendants, descendants who would come via Sarah, his true wife. This is why St. Paul writes throughout his copious volumes about “taking on Christ” and “becoming new men” and being grafted onto the true vine, and so on, and why he calls the Church the new Israel or synagogue of God: because through the Most Holy Eucharist, we receive not only Our Lord Christ’s divine nature, beginning what the Orthodox call Theosis, the divinization of us, our “transformation in Christ” (“We have received the spirit of Sonship to cry ‘Abba’, Father!”), but also Jesus’ human blood too (because the Dual Nature of Christ cannot be separated; the Blessed Mother is not the mother of a nature, but of a Person) which He inherited through His Mother (who, thus, through the Most Holy Eucharist, becomes OUR Mother too, quite literally).

            We ARE Jews, spiritual Jews, but also by blood via the Holy Eucharist, grafted on to the vine. THAT’S the New Covenant, the fulfillment of all the “Old” Covenants. Each Covenant is like a layer of bricks, fulfilled and expanded by the new Covenant brick layer built on top. For example, the Fifth (post-Creation) Covenant was the one God made with David, that the kingship of Israel would never pass from David’s descendants. Jesus Christ IS that Descendant and He is King Forever. No Churchman in 2000 years would dream of saying THAT Covenant was cancelled. But Cancel the Fourth Covenant and the Fifth has to fall, just as a tower would if you would took out one layer of bricks. (Which of course couldn’t be done anyway, not without knocking the whole to thing to pieces).

            Raghn

            PS: It is my understanding the JPII knew this very well and wrote about it but I’ve not the references at hand. The Modernist Church has well and truly buried him, but at least it waited till he died; it has buried Josef Ratzinger alive.

          • But Barbara (and celestine), the Church is already split. The Modernists began to crack it apart with ice picks when they seized control of the Second Vatican Council (as told here on this blog by many excellent articles) and it was manifestly apparent when so many of the theologians and clergy rejected Humanae Vitae. So crazed was the Modernist response to that essential document that Paul 6 became a Prisoner of Zenda in the Vatican. He never wrote another encyclical. And JP2’s natural and deep Polish piety was never allowed to manifest itself in liturgy, as Dr. Peter Kwasniewski relates in his new book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness, on page 11, in footnote 20: Modernist liturgical Novus Ordu gurus like Piero Marini “planned out” JP’s liturgies and “limited the effective manifestation” of Wojtyla’s deep faith.

            You write, “Does He not hear, does He not see? God Himself allows those who do evil to flourish – for HIS reasons – can we be so different?” What about the Copts? The Assyrian Christians? How long do we wait? And sure, that great saint, Francis de Sales, is actually very important to study! But what if the angry man he mentioned was going to gouge out the eye of a neighbor of St. Francis, or a child’s? Would Francis then have stood back and looked at him with charity?

            The Modernists in the Church have in effect “gouged out the spiritual eyes” of the Faithful, as it were. I’ve spent years trying to explain to Vatican II Catholics, family and friends, the beauty, power, and oh so great importance of the TLM, and it’s just like trying to explain the color blue to the blind. That blindness is not the fault of the sightless, but those who made them so.

            Raghn

          • In regards to the soldiers of Christ, There are saints and then there are saints in the making. Its easy for any of us to say Cardinal Burke and Sarah should do x,y and z to counter this great apostacy but they, who have more and better knowledge of the situation and all those who are effected by it, imho have a better understanding as to what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Surely they are being bugged and monitored and surely their friends are probably under the threat of blackmail and surely they receive messages threatening death and surely their enemies wish to entrap them in false allegations of theft, sodomy, fornication and the like and surely they are doing things for the good of the Church we simply don’t know about. They know this is a game of chess, as it was in the time of young David when under the command of King Saul. I place faith in them knowing that for a good portion of their life, at least in Cardinal Sarah’s case, lived under dictators that wished them dead. Yet, they continued forth with the Truth. I think we need to recognize that the saints of today won’t necessarily appear as how we wish them to appear

          • Thanks Eric. Excellent points. I was just calling the way I see it. Obviously, I can be entirely mistaken. Mine is mostly a cry for somebody to do something. Divine intervention would help a lot.

          • What’s the Scripture about the wisdom of man being pure folly to God? I suspect these good men are inclined to please God more than men.

  4. ” Obedience is the servant of the faith; faith is not the servant of obedience.”

    – St. Thomas Aquinas ( ?)

    In charity there is patience; prudence guides; but for each there is a bottom line.

    Reply
    • Citing the writer Henty is a very poor advertisement for any analysis of the history of the Vendee. He specialised in the kind of heroic Imperial balderdash that ended in the 1970s with Michael Palin’s ‘Ripping Yarns’ programme “Crossing the Andes by Frog”. Why oh why is the Traditionalist web space so lacking in scholarship?

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      • And why, oh why is the Traditionalist web space so lacking in charity? Could you not point out the error by also pointing towards a better source of information? We may not all be scholars but most of us are willing to embrace more truthful sources. So, hows about it?

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        • Lacking in charity? Just what are you talking about? Citing Henty is like depending on Yves Dupont’s “Catholic Prophecy” for dependable information on … Catholic prophecy.

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          • It’s a great book and and those are the words of Desmond Birch in his book “Trial, Tribulation, and Triumph”. Birch is one of the greatest living writers on Catholic Eschatology.
            Nostra damus and use of ellipses aside, it’s STILL a great entry point to Catholic Prophecy and written by a faithful Catholic who called Vatican II exactly for what it was in 1969, so don’t knock it.

          • I have to knock it because it’s rubbish. Not only is Nostradamus in there as are a whole host of unattributed or sourceless prophecies but he actually re-arranges some prophecies to support his Traditionalist cause. We do not need that kind of deceit but must uphold an academic standard above any reproach.

          • False not rubbish. His use of ellipses and Nostradamus are well known and though can potentially be misleading, are not when viewed 48 years after being written. “Supporting his traditionalist cause”? LOL, You say that as if he were wrong. The novus ordo is imploding, it’s in auto demo mode and traditional Catholicism is growing at a rate that’s hard to calculate.
            Desmond Birch wrote the most highly regarded book on Catholic prophecy so his opinion of the work needless to say carries much more weight than yours. Where is your scholarly book on Catholic prophecy? I’d love to read it if I haven’t already.

          • I am a Traditionalist. But I do not need to defend everything that has a Traditionalist label, simply because it carries that label. If one cannot call out shoddy scholarship (or in the case of this book little to no scholarship), then we will persuade nobody. Du Pont tried to do a service, but a service needs to be done well or not at all. Your defence is risible. In fact, it’s just an irrelevant rant.

          • Again, please provide the link to where I can purchase your scholarly tome on Catholic Prophecy, I’d love to read it. Your dismissal of DuPont’s work is meaningless.

          • The SSPX and a whole host of commentators. Whether I maintain anonymity or call myself John – what relevance does it have? None.

          • An expert’s opinion on the book has relevance, Anonymous internet guy’s opinion is WORTHLESS.

          • Do your own research on the critiques of the book. I am not here to trawl through internet links for you. There are plenty of them, you will have no trouble finding them.

          • I did several searches using google using various refined searches and nothing came up. Why am I not surprised that “anonymous internet guy” makes claims that can’t be verified.

      • Dear “290501101330”– I’ve actually read it, and it corresponds sufficiently to mainstream accounts to constitute a decent and easily graspable version of many of the essential issues and events. My article is not an academic paper for a historical journal– which obviously requires different primary and secondary sources, and not the likes of Mr. Henty– but a basic and popular introduction to a war which most people have never even heard about. “Why oh why is the Traditionalist web space so lacking in scholarship?” Cite your sources, and not just my article, which had a particular non-academic purpose and intention.

        Cheers.

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        • Fair enough point. My own is that the Traditionalist space is full of the type of material you are honest enough to say yours is, and far too little of the other type.

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  5. Dear Mr. Skojec, a laborer deserves his pay and that must include you. That being said, would it be possible to inquire a little? With regard to the monthly support you are seeking ($20,000) may one ask how this is calculated? Web hosting costs are not great; Skype and other tools mean phone bills are a thing of the past. I know that you have to eat, but is $20,000 not a generous stipend for your work? I guess I’m asking for a little accountability. Thanks for any answer.

    Reply
  6. Cardinal Sarah is responsible the Church’s administration of the Sacraments. When is he going to heed his own teaching and speak bravely to what the Church is doing with AL? What does he fear?

    Reply

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