SteveB retweeted
Well, another Cardinal has come out with a, shall we say, puzzling take on evangelization.
A few years ago, Cardinal Américo Aguiar, at the time auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, said that he and the other organizers of World Youth Day in his hometown had no interest in converting anyone to Christ.
Now Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco of Algeria has opined that “the Church is not there to convert” and “Christians should approach other religions through fraternity rather than seeking conversions.”
Excuse me, but…what?
Last time I checked, the Founder said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Sure sounds like conversion to me.
When St. Paul came to Corinth or Athens or Thessalonica, his purpose was not to listen or to form a discussion group but rather to declare an unnerving message: the euangelion (glad tidings) that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.
So impassioned is he for this work that he says, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:22); and “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16)!
Moreover, the entire thrust of the Second Vatican Council was toward bringing the Light of Christ to the peoples of the world (Lumen Gentium). And this missionary élan has given rise in the last few decades to the idea of a “new evangelization,” which is to say, a fresh declaration of the Lordship of Christ.
Quite obviously, no one thinks that this work of evangelization should be done in a brow-beating, overbearing, or disrespectful manner (proselytization), but for God’s sake, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
If I really thought that the Church does not exist to bring people to Christ, then I would resign and get an honest job.
SteveB retweeted
🚨 NORTH CAROLINA!
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Whether you VOTE early, absentee, by mail, or in-person, Republicans must SWAMP the Radical Left Dumocrats with massive turnout! In North Carolina, you can cast your early Vote, in-person, all the way through October 31st. SO IMPORTANT — PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE. MAGA! President DONALD J. TRUMP
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SteveB retweeted
TO THE GREAT PEOPLE OF NORTH CAROLINA, GET OUT AND VOTE FOR:
– Michael Whatley for U.S. Senate
– Laurie Buckhout for U.S. Congress (NC-01)
– Greg Murphy for U.S. Congress (NC-03)
– Virginia Foxx for U.S. Congress (NC-05)
– Addison McDowell for U.S. Congress (NC-06)
– David Rouzer for U.S. Congress (NC-07)
– Mark Harris for U.S. Congress (NC-08)
– Richard Hudson for U.S. Congress (NC-09)
– Pat Harrigan for U.S. Congress (NC-10)
– Jennifer Balkcom for U.S. Congress (NC-11)
– Brad Knott for U.S. Congress (NC-13)
– Tim Moore for U.S. Congress (NC-14)
These Great Patriots have my Complete and Total Endorsement — They will never let you down! President DONALD J. TRUMP
swampthevoteusa.com/north-ca…
SteveB retweeted
Who’s ready for some real talk on Social Security?
Here it is: you didn’t “pay in” to Social Security, there’s no deposit account with “your” money in it, and every single dime of Social Security taxes you’ve paid in your entire life went directly to someone else or was frittered away by Congress.
For many decades after the program was created, there was more money collected in Social Security taxes paid in than money spent on benefits. This was due to the demographics of the country at the time: in 1950 there were 16 workers paying Social Security taxes for every 1 recipient of benefits, whereas today there are fewer than 3 workers per beneficiary.
So obviously, all that extra money collected for decades when there were more taxes collected than benefits paid was set aside and invested, right? LOL. If only.
Instead of setting all that extra money aside and protecting it for future beneficiaries, Congress spent it. Every last penny. Every dollar that has been collected in Social Security taxes has been spent. What Congress did instead of saving money was create a massive IOU which it dishonestly called the Social Security Trust Fund. Except there’s no trust and there’s no fund. It’s just a gigantic IOU, like in Dumb and Dumber. There’s no numbered account with money in it waiting to be withdrawn.
Where does this leave us? Beginning around 2020, payroll taxes collected were no longer sufficient to pay for current Social Security benefits, so money had to printed or borrowed from elsewhere. As more and more money has to be borrowed to pay current benefits, the Social Security Trust Fund balance is reduced.
Once it reaches zero—and right now that is expected to happen within the next 10 years—the government is legally prohibited from paying out more in benefits than it collects in Social Security payroll taxes each year. And that will mean an instant cut in Social Security benefits of around 20 percent. By the year 2100, expected benefits will be just 65 percent of promised benefits.
As of today, a 75-year-old who worked for 50 years and earned the median salary will have paid close to $100,000 in Social Security payroll taxes over his life. Based on average life expectancy of another 12 years, he will collected more than $500,000 in Social Security benefits, and those payments will come not from a savings account somewhere, but from taxes paid by his children and grandchildren. But when it comes time for the people paying directly for his Social Security checks to receive their benefits, they won’t get nearly as much as he gets, because the Trust Fund will be bankrupt.
The people paying for the Social Security benefits of Baby Boomers today will pay significantly more into the system than the Boomers ever did, but will receive a fraction of the eventual payout.
Does that seem fair? In light of those facts, is it really accurate to say you “earned” that Social Security payment? Of course it isn’t. Social Security is welfare for American retirees. And it’s a welfare system that is not only a total waste of money designed to give Congress an even bigger budget to fritter away (if you invested your Social Security taxes, your lump sum at retirement would be 5x higher than your expected lifetime benefits from Social Security), it’s also deeply immoral.
Because of the current demographics in the country, Social Security takes money from workers today so it can give retirees 3-5x more than they ever paid in AND will pay out significantly less when it’s time for the people currently paying into the system to collect their own benefits.
Boomers receive 3-5x more than they paid in, while their grandchildren will receive 35 percent less than what they were promised. They originally called this the New Deal when it was created, but it’s a raw deal for everyone currently being forced to pay into it.
So let’s stop with the pretense that Social Security is anything other than a poorly designed welfare scheme for retirees.
SteveB retweeted
In an age dominated by technology, in which efficiency and profit often take precedence, it is so important that we continue to cultivate a spirit of contemplation and allow time and space for beauty. Such an attitude will greatly help humanity, especially young people, to discover the ability of art to uplift and reveal the depths of the human spirit and our openness to the divine. Contemplation presents a marvelous opportunity to encounter the God who is Beauty.
SteveB retweeted
Here in Lourdes, the city of the sick and of hope, I appeal to the entire healthcare community to remember the profound meaning of your vocation, which is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person. Be passionate servants of life! No one ever has the right to decide the life of any person. Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death! #ApostolicJourney #France vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
SteveB retweeted
The following official Catholic teachings have never been revoked, and are often grouped together by laypeople under the title of INTEGRALISM…
1. All public authority comes from God, not from the multitude as its first source.
Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1885), nn. 3–4, 18; Denzinger-Hünermann 3168, 3170.
CCC 1899–1901.
2. Church and State are two distinct “perfect societies,” each supreme in its own order.
The Church’s end is supernatural; the State’s is the temporal common good. They are not one body and not rivals.
Immortale Dei nn. 10–14; DH 3168–3169.
CCC 2245.
3. The two powers must be in concord, not in principled separation.
Separation of Church and State as a doctrine is condemned when it means the State owes God no public duty.
Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors (1864), prop. 55.
Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (1832).
Leo XIII, Immortale Dei n. 21; Libertas (1888) n. 18; DH 3170, 3172.
4. The State has duties toward the true religion.
It may not treat all religions as equal in principle, nor act as if God had not revealed Himself.
Immortale Dei nn. 6, 35; Libertas nn. 21–22.
Syllabus, props. 77–79.
CCC 2105: “the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ.”
5. Christ is King of nations as well as of persons.
Civil society is under His social kingship. Laws and public life ought to acknowledge that.
Pius XI, Quas Primas (1925), especially nn. 18–24, 32–33.
CCC 2105 (explicitly ties this duty to “the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies”).
6. The end of political authority is the common good.
Not majority will, market preference, or state self-interest.
Gaudium et Spes 26; CCC 1905–1912, 1921; Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church 164–170.
7. Subsidiarity.
Higher authority must not swallow what persons, families, and lower communities can do.
Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931) n. 79.
John Paul II, Centesimus Annus 48.
CCC 1883–1885; Compendium 185–191.
8. Solidarity and the dignity of the person.
These bound every political program. Collectivism and atomized liberalism are both rejected.
CCC 1878–1885, 1928–1942, 2425; Compendium 160.
9. The Church is not a political party and is not the State.
She judges political acts when fundamental rights or the salvation of souls require it. She does not administer the civil power.
CCC 2244–2246; Gaudium et Spes 76.
10. Religious liberty is civil immunity from coercion, not a moral right to error.
No one may be forced against conscience. That does not cancel the duty to seek and honor the true faith, privately and publicly, within the limits of the common good.
Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae 1–2 (must be read with DH 1’s claim of continuity).
CCC 2104–2109.
SteveB retweeted
The madness is endless.
🚨Overnight in Charlotte:
Gun shot victim from car meetup at Ballantyne Corporate Place. Approximately 50 cars.
@WSOC @JoeBrunoWSOC9
SteveB retweeted
"The Pope decided this in papal encyclical" does not—can not—override Scripture and Tradition.
In Catholic theology, Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium work together, but the Magisterium is *subordinate* to Scripture and Tradition, as it not part of Revelation, but instead interprets it. Authentic magisterial teachings serve Scripture and Tradition, and cannot contradict them.
And for those who think this is just some antiquated pre-Vatican II theology, it's straight from the Council itself:
"This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed." (Dei Verbum 10)
So, when a papal encyclical clearly contradicts Scripture and Tradition, as Francis's teaching on the death penalty did, Catholics can safely dismiss it as "inadmissible" due to that contradiction.
SteveB retweeted
This is the worst advice I’ve ever heard
Let me explain to you who most doctors are. Medical school selects for lemmings. The rule followers. The studious ones who put their heads down and did everything right. The dorks who were afraid of getting in trouble.
How does that play out?
Everything is “by the books”, you do what you are told by your professor or your attending, and then your administrative overlord or the insurance company paying you, and then you do that thing for the rest of your career without really questioning it. You have top cover by following the consensus, you can do no wrong by treating the lowest common population denominator.
Most doctors read a headline or a guideline and just commit that to memory rather than understanding how data, research, and consensus is actually derived.
There is a HIGH cost for questioning the status quo in medicine. If you question what the book says, or how we came to certain conclusions, or just ask WHY, you are punished and ostracized, not celebrated for the discourse and discussion.
So, why then, would we bring abstract and rapidly changing information to a group of stale thinkers who are bred to toe the line?
They will merely chastise you for questioning their authority and not have enough time to engage in dialogue with you about important topics you are curious about.
I’ve been a primary care doc my whole career. My dad was a PCP for 50 years. I have many many friends and colleagues who I love and respect that are PCPs. It’s not their fault. The system really just doesn’t put people in these roles who are critical thinkers and will expose the grift for what it really is. They will forever be the muppets who have been surreptitiously co-opted by big pharma to be their lifelong peddlers.
Many props to all those on the front lines who are trying to help people every day
But. This is still the worst advice I’ve ever heard. And Dr Mike is a major dumbdumb
SteveB retweeted
James Engstrom, who was born in 2010, had a true knot in his umbilical cord that tightened during labor and cut off his oxygen supply, resulting in his stillbirth. His parents asked for the intercession of Fulton J. Sheen, and after remaining without a pulse for 61 minutes, the baby started breathing, which doctors said was not explainable by medical science. The Vatican-approved miracle fulfills one of the requirements for the beatification of Sheen.
SteveB retweeted
Gay. Everyone is gay now. Men are gay. Women are gay. Nobody is horny. Nobody is in love. It’s just mental illness with occasional sex.
Crippling anxiety. Checklists. Nobody is having fun. No joie de vivre. No passion. No eroticism.
People think they’re being serious when they do this interrogation thing but it’s just fear. You can find out everything you need to know about somebody by just doing things together. Have fun. Make plans that go awry. You have to actually live in the moment though.
You know when it’s really easy to lie? In an interview. And it’s just so boring. Everyone is so boring.
You can do this all your own way but you have to do things. Go do things! Drag your friends out. Throw parties. Talk to strangers. Hit on people. Ask for phone numbers. Slide into DMs. Fly across the country. Set up your friends.
In every city thousands of people go out every weekend because they want something to happen and nothing is happening. Go make something happen.
dating for me has turned into this:
“hey, nice to meet you. i have a controversial opinion about life, family, etc. is that too much?”
then i say things that only someone who puts family, God + marriage first would say
for the rest of the night, i slowly raise the ante just to see where their line is
at some point its not a date anymore
its an alignment test + if they flinch, i already have my answer
SteveB retweeted
Much how “normal” ranges for men do not take into consideration the symptoms being experienced this is even more dismissed in the community in women.
There are, of course, some physicians (usually gyns facile with this) but it’s usually dismissed.
Testosterone can be safely supplemented in women. But it must be done intelligently so and with respect to the fact every woman will respond a bit differently as the much more hormonally sensitive half of the species.
“Overdoing it” can have very different consequences for women than for men who can shrug it off without much issue.
Start low. Go slow. Test and talk. It usually does not take much but it can also be described as significantly life improving.
SteveB retweeted
That’s right. My closing attorney gave me a big lecture about the original consumer finance protection bureau. Because they capped fees as a percentage of sales price, it basically drove all of the attorneys out of closing homes with mortgages under $150k (it cost more to close the house then they could make so they started denying the business).
So the sub $200k market went strictly to cash buyers . And starter homes disappeared partially because of bad regulation.
SteveB retweeted
I remember sampling new local churches after I decided to leave the Methodist Church. The one where people were the most well-dressed and most serious was the black Baptist church in a poor area of town. The most casually-dressed and unserious was the local Catholic parish.
The poor deserve a rich liturgy, and so the best way to be in solidarity with them is to give them beautiful churches with beautiful, reverent liturgies.
Ironically, often bishops do this by accident by casting TLMs into the poorest neighborhoods in an effort to ghettoize them.
Cardinal Cupich on 'Dilexi te': the Liturgy as a place of solidarity with the poor
vaticannews.va/en/vatican-ci…
