(Image via the Daily Disaster List) Today’s list of little shakes, up to nine thirty this morning, includes a not-so-little one. I have found that you can feel anything over 3.0 and in fact you can even hear them coming towards you, like waves, from the epicentre. I’ve learned that, on the whole, you can’t feel anything under 2.5; over 4.5 you can get structural damage; at 5.5 you’re running for the door while the dishes leap off the shelves around you; over 6.

What about them? Why should I or anyone defend people who are unwilling to defend themselves or their own interests or the interests of the Church? I have it from a good source that at exactly the same moment the enemies of the Faith were conspiring with the Supreme Pontiff and the Secretary of State to destroy the order of which he was a head, Fra. Matthew, a good and decent man, went shooting.

I’m heading home. Back to the Shire, for me and the Kitty Crew. I got a call from my realtor in Norcia saying that the city engineers have cleared my house as safe for occupation. Or at least, the middle floor flat is, which is the one I live in. I think the upstairs flat will have to be repaired. In any case, I’m going back to Norcia on or around February 15th.

From our friend Rowel and his family in Perugia, “Hello Hillary There are many peoples gives a donation… I think there are many friends of you there, could you tell thank you for donations …” It seems we have resolved his immediate needs, and things are getting back on an even footing. A most sincere thank you to all who generously helped. ~ And in other news, I’m in Germany, house and cat sitting for a friend for ten days, to have some quiet and to enjoy the snow.

As I think I’ve been saying… Maltese bishop threatens priests will be suspended a divinis for refusing communion to divorced/remarried {.featured.title} This is the purge these people have been orchestrating for 50 years. It comes down to a metaphorical gun to their heads – abandon the Faith, desecrate the Holy Eucharist or you’re out. This is Francismercy. Let’s review, shall we? – “This is their time to get rid of us.

Well, I was rather rudely snapped back to the here and now this morning as reports poured into my various inboxes about the latest round of earthquakes. This, ladies and gents, is what a “swarm” looks like.   I recently commented on FB that the pattern the quakes have shown, with one really big one followed by a month or more of diminishing “scosse” then another huge jump, seems not to be over.

Michael Matt, my good friend. ~

Don’t hold back, Father… tell us what you really think This is papal positivism with a vengeance: the very pontiff who constantly berates traditional Catholics for “seeing everything in black and white” is now being turned into a Superpope whose authority trumps that of all his predecessors if he chooses to call white what they called black. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the inimitable Fr. Brian “the honeybadger” Harrison:

Fr. Ripperger, in 2001, had it figured out: Because neo-conservatives reject the “extrinsic and intrinsic tradition,” in judging orthodoxy, “whatever comes out of the Vatican regardless of its authoritative weight, is to be held, even if it contradicts what was taught with comparable authority in the past.“ …psychologically the neo-conservatives have been left in a position in which the extrinsic and intrinsic tradition are no longer included in the norms of judging whether something is orthodox or not.

  If you don’t know anything about the history of philosophy for the last 250 years, you will not be able to understand what is going on in the Catholic Church right now. This is from Fr. Ripperger on the distinction we must now make between “conservative” and “Traditionalist” Catholicism (published in Christian Order in 2001). Where did it come from? Why do even “conservatives” hate the very notion of tradition?