{"id":10946,"date":"2021-01-23T11:44:54","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T16:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/?p=10946"},"modified":"2021-02-11T11:58:28","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T16:58:28","slug":"kolbe-report-1-23-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/kolbe-report-1-23-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Kolbe Report 1\/23\/21"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-10946-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Newsletter1.23.21.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Newsletter1.23.21.mp3\">https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Newsletter1.23.21.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Newsletter1.23.21.mp3\" download=\"Kolbe Report 1-23-21\">Download MP3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,<\/p>\n<p>Glory to Jesus Christ!<\/p>\n<p>In previous newsletters we have argued that most of the confusion and diabolical disorientation in the Catholic world has resulted from collective amnesia in regard to the sacred history of Genesis and the misunderstanding of our relationship to God and of our true position in time and space that rests upon that foundation.\u00a0 In the current, unprecedented crisis of faith, it is easy to become discouraged, but if we study the history of God\u2019s dealings with His people, we will be able to have a much better understanding of the current confusion, how it can affect even good and well-intentioned leaders, and how we can protect ourselves and others within our sphere of influence from the sources of that confusion.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most difficult things for faithful Catholics to understand now and in the recent past is how even good and holy leaders could fail to recognize and eradicate certain errors that flourish whenever the sacred history of Genesis is forgotten, mythologized or called into question.\u00a0 We will see that once collective amnesia in regard to Genesis takes hold, even good leaders can fail to remove the rot that erodes the foundations of the faith and the morality of their people.\u00a0 Moreover, in an atmosphere of collective amnesia, even good leaders can fail to eradicate the sources of evil in their midst for long periods of time, because they have literally lost their living connection with \u201cthe beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Lessons from the Old Testament<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When we read the history of the kings of the Old Testament, we see that most of them failed miserably to fulfill their responsibilities as leaders of God\u2019s holy people.\u00a0 Yet even the few who tried to honor God during their reigns mostly failed to restore the memory of the sacred history of Genesis or to remove the idolatry that resulted from that forgetfulness.\u00a0 The commandment to keep the Sabbath holy is the only commandment that begins with an exhortation to \u201cremember\u201d: \u201cRemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy\u201d (<em>Exodus<\/em> 20:8).\u00a0 This is because \u201cthe Sabbath was made for man\u201d (<em>Mark <\/em>2:27) \u201cin the beginning,\u201d when God had completed the supernatural work of creation.\u00a0 Thus, there is no way that man could deduce the nature, meaning, and purpose of the Sabbath by studying nature or by the use of his own unaided reason.\u00a0 Man can only know the sacred significance of the seventh day by remembering what God revealed first to Adam and then to Moses about how He created the world.<\/p>\n<p>But what is so catastrophic about failing to \u201cremember the Sabbath day\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10949 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/sabbath_rest.png?resize=347%2C509&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"347\" height=\"509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/sabbath_rest.png?w=347&amp;ssl=1 347w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/sabbath_rest.png?resize=205%2C300&amp;ssl=1 205w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 347px) 100vw, 347px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In a previous newsletter we saw that the Kings of the House of David forgot the Sabbath and the whole sacred history of Genesis for more than 75 years, from the reign of King Ahaz to the reign of King Josiah.\u00a0 By forgetting God\u2019s revelation of how He created the world and our first parents, the civil and religious leaders of the people lost the bulwark that God had given them against pagan idolatry and sexual immorality.\u00a0 The historical books of the Bible record a litany of horrors that proliferated in Judah.\u00a0 Idolatry, homosexuality, and prostitution spread like a plague over the land, even in the sacred precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem.\u00a0 The practice of idolatry flourished above all in what the Bible calls \u201cthe high places,\u201d where priests and laity who had forgotten the Mosaic account of the creation of the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day of the Hexameron began to worship them as gods.<\/p>\n<p>After several generations, these practices became so routine that they co-existed with the worship of the true God which continued to be offered in the Jerusalem Temple.\u00a0 Forgetfulness of Genesis led to a general failure to \u201ckeep holy the Sabbath,\u201d so that priests and people lost the physical reminder of the six-day creation and the Creation-Providence distinction that the Sabbath had given their ancestors every single week, as they ceased their mundane activities and recalled the perfection of God\u2019s creative work in the beginning and their total dependence upon Him.\u00a0 In this atmosphere of collective amnesia, even the few good kings of Judah could not restore the memory of Genesis or eradicate the \u201chigh places\u201d where the people worshipped the sun, the moon and the stars, having forgotten\u2014or having never been taught!\u2014that these luminaries were all created on the fourth day of the Hexameron.\u00a0 In a history of Asa, one of the few good kings of Judah, we read:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\" \"><p>King Asa instituted reform; he removed the male shrine prostitutes, cut down Asherah poles, and even deposed his grandmother from her position as queen mother because of her involvement with Asherah worship (1 Kings 15:12\u201313; 2 Chronicles 14:3, 16). Asa also commanded his people to follow the Lord (2 Chronicles 14:4). First Kings 15:14 says, \u201cAlthough he did not remove the high places, Asa\u2019s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life\u201d (see also 2 Chronicles 15:17).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Is it not remarkable that the inspired, inerrant Word of God tells us that King Asa was \u201cfully committed to the Lord all his life,\u201d yet \u201che did not remove the high places\u201d?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Collective Amnesia Continues for Centuries<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Roughly 250 years after the reign of King Asa, the greatest of the reformer kings of Judah, King Josiah, earnestly attempted to \u201cremove the high places\u201d and to restore the foundations of the Faith.\u00a0 However, in spite of Josiah\u2019s efforts to reform his kingdom and to restore the memory of the sacred history of Genesis, the Scriptures indicate that the collective amnesia of the religious leadership in regard to Genesis continued unabated during the Exile in Babylon.\u00a0 One indication of this can be found in the account of the righteous married woman Susanna in the Book of Daniel which describes how two of the corrupt \u201celders\u201d or leaders of the people attempted unsuccessfully to force Susanna to commit adultery with them and then used their authority to condemn her to death for the very crime that she had refused to commit.\u00a0 Daniel comments that Susanna had learned the Law of God from her parents (<em>Daniel <\/em>13:3).\u00a0 However, the elders whose role it was to teach and uphold the Law seem to have forgotten it entirely.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10947 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/daniel.jpg?resize=363%2C264&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"363\" height=\"264\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/daniel.jpg?w=363&amp;ssl=1 363w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/daniel.jpg?resize=300%2C218&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 363px) 100vw, 363px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That this collective amnesia in regard to Genesis continued for the entire period of the Exile finds confirmation in the fact that when the Persian King Cyrus gave Ezra and Nehemiah permission to return to Judah and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, their public reading of the Law\u2014Genesis and the rest of the first five books of the Bible\u2014was met with the same shock of unfamiliarity as the reading of the Law by King Josiah more than a hundred years before (<em>2 Esdras-Nehemiah <\/em>8).\u00a0 It is also significant that the primary sin for which the people of Judah were moved to repentance by the reading of the Law was the sin of mixed marriage, a reminder that the forgetfulness of the sacred history of Genesis always leads to sins against marriage, sexual morality, and right religious worship as prescribed in the Third Commandment.<\/p>\n<p>More than two hundred years after the return of Ezra and Nehemiah, the restoration of right worship in the Temple continued under the holy High Priest Onias (cf. <em>2 Maccabees<\/em> 3:1), but it is significant that the enemies of God\u2019s People once again targeted the Sabbath with their campaign to substitute the pagan cult of sports for the worship of God.\u00a0 The violation of the Sabbath led directly to the forced introduction of idolatrous worship in the Temple and throughout the Holy Land under Antiochus Epiphanes, which inspired Judas Maccabeus and his brothers to rise up against the forces of Antiochus, to cleanse the Temple, and to restore the observance of the Law and the Sabbath through the land.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The Maccabees and Genesis<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just as the righteous Susanna received instruction in Genesis and the Law from her righteous parents and not, apparently, from the elders of her people, so the Hebrews who participated\u00a0 in the Maccabean rising against the forerunners of Antichrist handed on the sacred history of Genesis and the Law to their children.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit saw fit to highlight this fact by preserving the account of the holy mother of the seven Maccabean martyrs in the Second Book of Maccabees in which the sacred history of Genesis figures prominently in the mother\u2019s preparation of her son for martyrdom.\u00a0\u00a0 She tells him:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\" \"><p>I know not how you were formed in my womb: for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws (2 Mac 7:22-23) . . . I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also.\u00a0 \u00a0So thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren (2 Mac 7:28-29).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With this testimony, the mother of the seven Maccabean martyrs confirmed that she had handed on the testimony of Genesis, as confirmed in the Third Commandment of the Law, that God is the Creator of all things and that He has created them all from nothing, either immediately, like the angels and the light of the First Day of Creation, or mediately, like the body of Adam from the slime of the Earth, but in every case by His own divine power and not through any kind of natural process.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10950 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Ciseri_Antonio_-_Das_Martyrium_der_sieben_Makkabaer_-_1863.jpg?resize=275%2C479&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Ciseri_Antonio_-_Das_Martyrium_der_sieben_Makkabaer_-_1863.jpg?w=275&amp;ssl=1 275w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Ciseri_Antonio_-_Das_Martyrium_der_sieben_Makkabaer_-_1863.jpg?resize=172%2C300&amp;ssl=1 172w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>By contrast, at this time, throughout the Greek-speaking world whose boundaries had been so far extended by Alexander the Great, the evolutionary ideas of Greek philosophers, like Anaximander and Epicurus, had already conditioned many Greek intellectuals to believe in the evolution of all things from primitive matter, through millions of years of the same kinds of material processes that they could observe in the natural world.\u00a0 Yet the defenders of the true Faith of Abraham and Moses stood firm on the foundation of the sacred history of Genesis.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Collective Amnesia Regarding Genesis in the Time of Jesus<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some of the most moving words in all of Holy Scripture appear in the first chapter of St. John\u2019s Gospel where he says of Our Lord Jesus Christ, that:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\" \"><p>He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but the world knew Him not (John 1:5).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is truly remarkable that while the Mosaic law was studied and upheld by various groups of religious leaders and teachers who placed radically different interpretations on the Law of Moses at the time of Jesus, not a single one of their questions or statements on the Law as recorded in the Gospels contains a reference to Genesis.\u00a0\u00a0 This is all the more remarkable in that Our Lord\u2019s responses to their questions about the Law frequently refer back to the sacred history of Genesis as the foundation, especially, of the right understanding of marriage and sexual morality.\u00a0 For example, when asked if a man can divorce his wife for any cause\u2014according to one school of interpretation of the Law of Moses\u2014Our Lord refers His audience back to the Mosaic account of the divine institution of marriage \u201c in the beginning\u201d (<em>Matthew <\/em>19:3-6).\u00a0 This shocking contrast between the Genesis-based teaching of Our Lord and\u00a0 the collective amnesia of the religious leaders of his day in regard to Genesis underscores the fact that this motif recurs as a central element of every major crisis of faith, both under the Old Law and under the New.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Good Popes and \u201cHigh Places\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We have seen that in an atmosphere of \u201ccollective amnesia\u201d regarding Genesis even a good king who was \u201cfully committed to the Lord all his life\u201d could fail to \u201cremove the high places\u201d where his people exalted creatures above the Creator.\u00a0 What, then, can we say of the good Popes of the last 150 years who have likewise failed to uphold the supremacy of theology and the sacred history of Genesis over fallible human natural science?\u00a0 Could we not say that they \u201cinstituted reform\u201d but \u201cdid not remove the high places\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, St. Padre Pio was given a private revelation that the deceased pontiff had been taken to Heaven.\u00a0 And there is no doubt that Pope Pius XII served the Church faithfully and strove to fulfill God\u2019s Will throughout his life.\u00a0 Yet Pope Pius XII failed to \u201cremove the high places\u201d by welcoming the speculations of Monsignor Georges Lemaitre in cosmology and failing to uphold the traditional distinction between the complete supernatural work of creation in the beginning, and the order of providence, or natural order, which only began when the work of creation was finished [link to video on \u201cCreation and Providence\u201d].\u00a0 According to Monsignor Lemaitre\u2019s Big Bang cosmology, the supernatural work of creation was reduced to the creation of a few chemical elements and some natural laws at the beginning of the universe, after which Big Bang cosmologists envisioned a natural development of life and of all living things.\u00a0 (Of course, many, but not all!\u2014Catholic promoters of Big Bang cosmology allow for divine intervention at the moment when a human soul was allegedly inserted into the conception of an evolved sub-human primate, but that is a far cry from the direct creation of all of the different kinds of creatures for man at the beginning of time!)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-10948 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=401%2C552&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"401\" height=\"552\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=744%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 744w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=218%2C300&amp;ssl=1 218w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=768%2C1058&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=1115%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1115w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?resize=600%2C826&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/pius_xii.jpg?w=1169&amp;ssl=1 1169w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 401px) 100vw, 401px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The genuine holiness and good intentions of Pope Pius XII notwithstanding, his endorsement of a naturalistic account of the origins of the universe had disastrous consequences for the Church and helped to pave the way for the full-blown \u201cdiabolical disorientation\u201d of today.\u00a0 In 1907, in <em>Pascendi, <\/em>Pope St. Pius X had warned that \u201cmodernism\u201d was \u201cthe synthesis of all heresies\u201d and that \u201cevolution\u201d was \u201cthe principal doctrine of the modernists.\u201d\u00a0 By encouraging the elevation of fallible human speculation in natural science above the sacred history of Genesis as it had been understood in the Church from the beginning, Pope Pius XII effectively invited the modernists to renew their assault on the foundations of the Faith in earnest.\u00a0 And they were not slow to seize the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>If God\u2019s revelation of how He created all things in the beginning\u2014as it had been understand in His Church from the beginning\u2014could be corrected and replaced by a fallible <a href=\"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/cosmology-thermodynamics-and-the-christian-doctrine-of-creation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">now-bankrupt<\/a> scientific hypothesis, then what was to stop modernist Catholic intellectuals from invoking \"science\" to justify sodomy, usury, contraception, transgenderism or any number of other abominations? Fr. James Martin, S.J., is typical of Catholic contemporary intellectuals who call fundamental doctrines of faith and morals into question in the name of \"evolution\" and \"science.\"\u00a0 Yet the sad reality is that by failing to \u201cremove the high places\u201d where fallible human science was exalted above Divine Revelation, Pope Pius XII paved the way for Fr. Martin and his disciples to spread their diabolical disorientation.<\/p>\n<p>In a future newsletter we will dig even deeper into the past to discover that the first failures to \"remove the high places\" actually took place in the eighteenth century.\u00a0 For the time being, let us hold fast to the faith \"once delivered to the saints,\" firmly founded on the literal historical truth of Genesis.\u00a0 Then, like the Maccabees of old, and Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, we will be able to stand firm and immovable, until the promised Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary ushers in an era of peace and the reign of Christ the King throughout the world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Hugh Owen<\/p>\n<p>P.S. As the diabolical disorientation of our times intensifies, the grace of God is being poured out superabundantly on those who open their hearts and minds to Him.\u00a0 We continue to receive testimonies from all over the world from priests and lay people who are using the Foundations Restored DVD series to solidify or restore the foundations of the Faith, as did the parents of Susanna and the Maccabean Martyrs, mentioned above.\u00a0 From A.M. B. in Sweden we received the following testimony:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\" \"><p>My name is A.M.B. and I\u2019m from Sweden. I am a housewife with four small boys that I would have loved to homeschool but since it is strictly forbidden in Sweden we are forced to send them to school. We are doing our best to take care of their education anyway and I was so happy to come in contact with your work so that I have been able to give them the creationist explanation of origins.<\/p>\n<p>Reading and listening to your works has completely changed my life. I used to have a very vague understanding of creation before with many question marks concerning for example humans, apes and dinosaurs in relation to the Bible\u2019s account of creation. The joy I have been experiencing when I realized that Genesis is completely true is one of the greatest in my life. What a loving Father God really is! Now my husband and I are so happy to be able to give these truths to our boys as well so that they don\u2019t have to grow up with the lies of evolution.<\/p>\n<p>But I would also like to spread these truths to the rest of our parish. I have bought your wonderful series \u201cFoundation Restored\u201d and would love to form a small study group in our home.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you have not viewed or obtained the DVD series, please go to the Foundations Restored website <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foundationsrestored.com\">www.foundationsrestored.com<\/a> as soon as possible and order the physical DVDs or the on-line streaming version so that your family, friends and neighbors can say with A.M.B. and her family in Sweden, \u201c<em>What a loving Father God really is!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Download MP3 Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center, Glory to Jesus Christ! In previous newsletters we have argued that most of the confusion and diabolical disorientation in the Catholic world &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[341],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}