Racism Rage-Bait Watchtower Standalone Narrative & Verification Rubric

Adapted from the Generalized Media Watchtower Framework (CotoBuzz, August 12, 2026) and the Systemic Humanism diagnosis (CotoBuzz, August 31, 2023).

This framework abandons surface political framing, partisan talking points, and emotional vignettes. It is an elevated outpost for evaluating claims, clips, headlines, and institutional reports that use race, racism, hate, or bigotry as the load-bearing label. It tests long-term incentives, definitional honesty, information routing, and metric accountability before a moral verdict is allowed to stand.

It does not deny that personal malice, organizational bias, or structural injustice can be real. It refuses to let the clickbait economy collapse those three things into one monetizable word.

Why a specialized watchtower

Digital platforms profit by amplifying conflict, outrage, and tribalism. When “racist,” “hate speech,” or “systemic racism” is used as a low-barrier engagement trigger, three failures follow.

Dilution and moral fatigue. Heavy labels applied to minor infractions, misunderstandings, or sensational headlines lose diagnostic precision. Audiences grow numb. Unambiguous hatred and real institutional injustice are then met with cynicism.

Ego-drama as a commodity. Algorithms reward manufacture and exaggeration of racial friction. Genuine suffering is grouped with clickbait, public empathy drops, and harm is trivialized.

Polarized dismissal. Conflating personal vice, organizational bias, and structural inequality under one outrage headline produces defensive tribalism. Valid claims that need legal, social, or spiritual remedies get rejected as culture-war bait.

The watchtower’s job is to keep those failures from deciding the case in advance.

Three diagnoses, not one slogan

Every item under review is sorted into one primary diagnosis before it is scored. Mixed cases are allowed. A single blanket label is not.

What must be shown

What does not qualify

Hate and vice

A specific actor, a specific act, inward or outward malice directed at a person because of race or ethnicity

Disagreement, awkwardness, statistical disparity alone, or a bad headline

Structural bias claim

A named institution, a rule or practice, a measurable disparate mechanism, and a causal path that survives controls

A single incident extrapolated to “the system,” or activist summary standing in for the docket

Systemic humanism

Incentive to power, status, money, or tribal identity that uses race language as the instrument

Proof that race is irrelevant. Humanism can ride on real grievance

Hans Urs von Balthasar’s distinction applies: an ego-drama revolves around the self; a theo-drama revolves around God. Rage-bait is an industrialized ego-drama. It is not a synonym for “nothing happened.”

Operating rule

Score the artifact, not the tribe. A report, post, sermon, NGO brief, official statement, or viral clip is the unit of analysis. Apply the same four domains and the same weights regardless of which group is accused or accusing.

Scripture sets the ethic of the rubric, not a party line.

Precision before verdict: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17). False witness is forbidden (Exodus 20:16).

Proportional diagnosis: personal vice (Matthew 15:19) is not the same weight as institutional exploitation (James 5:4).

Fruit over outrage: test everything and hold fast what is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Genuine love abhors evil without joining the outrage cycle (Romans 12:9, 12:21).

One standard: heavenly wisdom is impartial (James 3:17). “I belong to Paul” and “I belong to Apollos” are fleshly rivalry, not discernment (1 Corinthians 3:1–9). Unity is a bond of peace, not a bond of narrative (Ephesians 4:1–6).

Domain 1 — Diagnostic Precision & Semantic Sincerity (25%)

Tests whether race labels have boundaries, sequence, and proportion. Vague moral epithets are not evidence.

1.1 Definition bounds (pass/fail)

Requirement. Every use of racist, systemic racism, hate, bigotry, white supremacy, or equivalent must carry explicit criteria: actor, act, target, mechanism, and the evidence that meets the criteria.

Failure. Subjective epithets with no metric (“racist dog whistle,” “coded,” “experts agree this is hate,” “violence of silence”) used as conclusions rather than hypotheses.

1.2 Structural complexity index (50% of domain)

Requirement. Claims appear in a direct sequence an unassisted reader can index: incident, context, comparator, mechanism, limit.

Failure. A minor or unverified claim nested inside a long historic indictment so that implication replaces causation. Juxtaposition is not a mechanism.

1.3 Scope-creep insulation (50% of domain)

Requirement. Hard boundaries. An isolated interpersonal offense is not automatically a structural trend. A disparity is not automatically a discriminatory rule.

Failure. Open clauses that grant permanence without data (“this is what America is,” “the system working as designed,” “and countless other industries face the same crisis”).

1.4 Proportionality check (recorded, not separately weighted)

Classify the weight of the claim before sharing it.

Weight

Examples

Required response

Personal vice

Insult, exclusion, slur, envy, pride

Name the act. Do not nationalize it

Organizational bias

A firm, school, agency, or union rule with a traceable racial mechanism

Demand the rule, the numbers, and the controls

Structural injustice

Law, policy, or entrenched practice that predictably harms a class

Primary docket, comparators, sunset review

Rage-bait label

Moral epithet on a trivial, clipped, or ambiguous event

Quarantine. Do not amplify

Domain 2 — Information Routing & Middleman Insulation (25%)

Tracks whether the reader can reach the event, or only an interpreter.

2.1 Sourcing proximity (35% of domain)

Requirement. Major factual assertions rest on firsthand material: full video, unedited audio, police or court records, the actual policy text, on-the-record statements.

Failure. “Officials familiar with the matter,” activist affidavits standing in for the tape, or a 15-second clip whose surrounding minute is unavailable.

2.2 Middleman narrative insulation (35% of domain)

Requirement. Raw data is separated from interpretation by advocacy NGOs, partisan experts, DEI offices, or aligned news desks. Funding, mandate, and method are visible.

Failure. A middleman dictates the conclusion. The SPLC-style designation, the university equity office summary, or the viral account is treated as the fact.

2.3 Correction clawback (30% of domain)

Requirement. If the first racial frame is later false or incomplete, the outlet appends a prominent correction and alerts the audience that amplified the original.

Failure. Quiet edits, deleted posts, or a correction that never travels as far as the outrage.

Rapid red-flag scans (legacy-media pattern, used before full scoring)

Scan

Rage-bait signature

Coordinated semantic sloganeering

The same charged racial phrase appears across outlets in the same news cycle with no new evidence

Invisible sponsor

Coverage protects a funder, party, platform, or NGO by omitting who benefits from the racial frame

Problem-reaction-solution loop

Anxiety is induced, then a pre-packaged centralized remedy is presented as the only adult response

Moral outcasting

Dissent is answered with racist/bigot/denier labels instead of the docket

Domain 3 — Metric Verification & Accountability Controls (25%)

Replaces self-reported moral consensus with records.

3.1 Primary dossier standard (45% of domain)

Requirement. Verification uses raw records: incident reports, full recordings, policy text, demographic baselines, charging data, employment or admissions files where lawfully public.

Failure. Secondary summaries, corporate press releases, model outputs, or “studies show” without the table.

3.2 Symmetric scrutiny (35% of domain)

Requirement. Skepticism scales with power, not with narrative convenience. Institutions, platforms, parties, and advocacy brands receive at least as much scrutiny as private individuals.

Failure. Intense framing of a small actor while a government agency, university, platform, or corporation receives polite unverified quotation. Also failure: excusing cruelty from “our side.”

3.3 Sunset triggers (20% of domain)

Requirement. Breaking racial claims carry a time stamp and a mandatory update when the docket, autopsy, audit, or comparable data arrives.

Failure. A speculative racial motive remains the permanent headline after contrary evidence.

Minimum evidence set before a structural claim may stand

Named institution and named rule or practice.

Baseline rates and at least one relevant comparator.

A mechanism that survives obvious non-racial controls (class, crime rates, qualification, geography, family structure, behavior).

A stated limit: what the claim does not prove.

A date after which the claim must be re-audited.

Absence of this set does not prove innocence. It proves the structural label is not yet earned.

Domain 4 — Discernment Preservation & Agency Moats (25%)

Guards the reader against being discipled by the outrage loop.

4.1 Algorithmic Skinner-box inoculation (pass/fail)

Requirement. Distribution does not depend on rage, panic, or tribal compliance triggers. Headline matches the evidenced claim.

Failure. Inflammatory racial headline, autoplay outrage clip, or engagement loop that rations the full record. Ask what fruit the piece produces: patience, kindness, self-control (Galatians 5:22–23) or enmity, strife, fits of anger, dissensions (Galatians 5:19–21).

4.2 Local narrative autonomy (50% of domain)

Requirement. Local reporters and congregations may reject a syndicated racial script without losing access or standing.

Failure. Top-down narrative packages that force every incident into one racial orthodoxy as a condition of employment or fellowship.

4.3 Human-centric agency (50% of domain)

Requirement. Challenges are answered by people, with reasons and records, not by opaque moderation that hides the dispute.

Failure. Shadow bans, machine labels of “hate,” or comment filters that insulate the narrative from cross-examination.

Consumption audit (reader-side, not scored against the outlet)

Time discipled by algorithmic outrage versus Scripture, prayer, and local community (Proverbs 4:23; Romans 12:2).

Pause before share. Hear the other side (Proverbs 18:13, 18:17).

Single standard of truth regardless of political or cultural affiliation (Exodus 20:16; James 3:17).

Scoring

Each domain is 0–25. Pass/fail items cap the domain at 12 if failed. Total is 0–100.

Score

Classification

Action

90–100

Sovereign Standard

Consume and archive. Labels match evidence, agency is preserved, corrections are real

70–89

Horizontal Vulnerability

Reject as settled verdict. Cross-examine gaps, middlemen, and missing comparators

0–69

Rage-Bait Subversion

Do not amplify. The piece is a closed loop: racial epithet in, institutional or tribal compliance out

Worked score sheet

Domain

Score (0–25)

Notes

1. Diagnostic precision

Bounds, sequence, scope, proportion

2. Information routing

Proximity, middleman, clawback

3. Metric verification

Dossier, symmetry, sunset

4. Discernment and agency

Rage loop, local autonomy, human appeal

Total

Classification

Primary diagnosis (check one, note secondary): Hate and vice / Structural bias claim / Systemic humanism / Insufficient evidence.

Biblical counter-moves (response, not a fifth score)

The watchtower classifies. These moves govern what a reader does next. Fighting hate with hate is forbidden.

Overcome evil with active good. Love enemies and pray for persecutors (Matthew 5:44). Do not be overcome by evil; overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). Hatred stirs strife; love covers offenses (Proverbs 10:12).

Guard the heart. Hatred of a brother is treated with the severity of murder (1 John 3:15). Claiming to love God while hating a brother is a lie (1 John 4:20). Put away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice (Ephesians 4:31).

Hate the evil, love the person. Love the Lord and hate evil (Psalm 97:10). God’s opposition is to destructive acts — lying, arrogance, shedding innocent blood (Proverbs 6:16–19) — not to image-bearers as such.

Refuse apathy. Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, plead the cause of the vulnerable (Isaiah 1:17). Neutrality toward real harm is not discernment.

Refuse party baptism. Planter and waterer are nothing; God gives growth (1 Corinthians 3:5–9). Keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace: one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:1–6). Race rage-bait that sorts the church into owners of Paul or Apollos is flesh, not maturity.

One-page field card

Name the artifact and the exact label it uses.

Assign a primary diagnosis: vice, structural claim, humanism, or not yet knowable.

Demand the five-item evidence set before any structural label stands.

Run the four red-flag scans.

Score four domains. If under 70, do not share as fact.

Test the fruit. If the piece mainly produces strife, it fails even if a fact inside it is true.

If harm is real, act locally and proportionally. Do not outsource justice to the outrage market.

Relation to the parent framework

The Generalized Media Watchtower remains the broad hygiene rubric: structural architecture, information routing, metric verification, and agency moats, scored as Sovereign Standard, Horizontal Vulnerability, or Blue Book Subversion. This document is the specialized instrument for one failure mode — racial rage-bait — just as the legacy-media watchtower is the specialized instrument for coordinated PR narratives. Use the red-flag scans first. Use this score sheet when race is the load-bearing moral term. Use the generalized rubric when the same piece also needs a general integrity score.

Source posts: Generalized Media Watchtower Framework, cotobuzz.blogspot.com, 12 August 2026; It’s Not Systemic Racism. It’s Systemic Humanism, cotobuzz.blogspot.com, 31 August 2023.

The Abolition of the Black Man

Elizabeth Warren and a number of Black so-called pastors, better described as race-hustlers have promoted the killing  of
80 million babies, mostly black and brown

The complete destruction of the African-American nuclear family

80% of African-American children live in fatherless homes with obvious subsequent social ills

But not unlike Palestinian children, whom no Arab country can be bribed to take them

Note:  Out of 4 million slaves in 1860, Republicans owned fewer than 100,  virtually all the slaves in the country were owned by Democrats. This fact alone, absolves the US for slavery and puts the blame squarely where it belongs, on the Democratic Party. Any talks of reparations must deal with this fact.

They manage to monetize hate and division so that 90% of African Americans vote for Democrats- the same progressive policies that's keeping them in the plantation.

Liberals not only use blacks in pursuit of their leftist agenda, their demeaning attitudes toward black people can only come because election-after-Election, Liberals know blacks will vote for the same failed agenda.

Democrats have managed to advance the separation of Church and State. To the persecution of the Church by the State.   Persecution of Catholics by FBI, for example.

CIA Officials celebrate the death of Pat Robertson

But it's not just the FBI.  @DemocraticWins were using a Woke Bishop's 'powerful' words to indict president Trump, while Nancy Pelosi is lamenting she hadn't reached the bottom of the bottomless human depravity pit:  

The late Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says we can choose to live an Ego-Drama, where everything we do revolves around ourselves and no one else; we write the script, we produce it and we star in it. Or we can live a Theo-Drama where  everything we do revolves around God. He writes the script.  He produces it.  We are merely a supporting cast.

Human depravity is clearly not only a result of the Ego-Drama but the demonic. As Bishop Robert Barron writes: "What are the signs of the demonic?  "What are the ways the demonic appears? Look at the names the Bible gives the devils, called in the Greek δῐᾰ́βολος (diabolos), diablo in Spanish, and le diable in French; διαβάλλειν (diaballein) means “to cast apart,” “to throw apart,” “to scatter.” The great sign of the demonic is scattering. God is a great gathering force. Whenever things come together, when a community forms, that is a sign of the Holy Spirit. The scattering power is a sign of the darker powers. When families get scattered, when business organizations, communities, and cultures get divided, that comes from the demonic." Bishop Barron
Surely they all know theBiden Administration launched a war on patriotism, war on Christianity, war on life, war on religious texts buyers, MAGA merchandise buyers, and fishing gear buyers?

Clearly, Israel and Christians have been under attack from all sides. Including The Biden White House, Chuck Schumer, DOJ, FBI, Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, The SQUAD, NYT, MSM and the  Antisemitic, AntiCatholic Democrat coalition

Chuck advocates the overthrow of the Netanyahu Government.

Pat Murray, Elizabeth Warren and a number of so-called Black pastors, better described as race-hustlers have promoted the killing of 80 million babies, since Roe v Wade, mostly black and brown

The complete destruction of the African-American nuclear family

80% of African-American children live in fatherless homes with obvious subsequent social ills


But not unlike Palestinian children, whom no Arab country can be bribed to take them.They manage to monetize hate and division so that 90% of African Americans vote for Democrats- the same progressive policies that's keeping them in the plantation.

Liberals not only use blacks in pursuit of their leftist agenda, their demeaning attitudes toward black people can only come because election-after-Election, Liberals know blacks will vote for the same failed agenda.


Or as CS Lewis puts it: "In order to understand fully what Man's power over Nature, , and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, insofar as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors. This modifies the picture which is sometimes painted as a progressive emancipation from tradition and a progressive control of natural processes resulting in a continual increase of human power. In reality, of course, if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are patients of that power. They are weaker not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands, we have preordained how they are to use them. And if as is certain, the age which had thus attained maximum power over posterity were also the age most emancipated from tradition, it would be engaged in reducing the power of its predecessors almost as drastically as that if it's successors. And we must remember that, quite apart from this, the later generation comes -- the nearer it lives to that date, at which the species becomes extinct - the less power it will have in the forward direction, because it's subjects will be so few.

Sixty one years agoAt  The Great March on Washington, held in DC August 28, 1963,  Dr.  Martin Luther KingJr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered the first MAGA speech, his historic "I Have A Dream" speech in which he called for an endto racism and racial segregation.   I Have a Dream, is quintessentially American: inspired by the Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address.

Five years later, progressives got MLK Jr out of their way, turning his dream into a nightmare: racism has morphed into DEI, the Abortion Industrial Complex  has enabled the Black Genocide, the disintegration of the African-American nuclear family and  a fatherlesssness crisis. 

A new Documentary exposes how the FBI tried to destroy MLK with wiretaps and blackmail - ultimately he was assassinated.   His family believes James Earl Ray was framed.  Most recently, On the National Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of the Unborn Children, atheists like New York Times, McClatchy Media, @katiecouric  and Democrat Coalition,@DemocraticWins are using a Woke Bishop's 'powerful' words to indict president Trump, while Nancy Pelosi is laments she hasn't reach the bottom of the bottomless human depravity pit.Surely they all know the Biden Administration launched a war on patriotism, war on Christianity, war on life, war on religious texts buyers, MAGA merchandise buyers, and fishing gear buyers.  Clearly. Israel and Christians have been under attack from all sides. Including The Biden White House, Chuck Schumer, DOJ, FBI, Hakeem Jeffries, AOC, The SQUAD, NYT, MSM and the  Antisemitic, AntiCatholic Democrat coalition

MLK Jr. death cleared the way for the uber progressive Warren Court's Decision that found that teaching children about wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety,  fear of the Lord., charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control and  chastity was too radical. Then hell broke lose 

Using analysis tools like the Ishikawa Cause-Effect Diagram, the Pareto Rule, Security Professionals' Attack Tree and or Occam's Razor, they all suggest that after the uber progressive  Warren SCOTUS  (1963) decision, we have had A mental health crisis. Infanticide turned into Black Genocide. African American nuclear family has joined the Sea Turtles in the extinct list. 80% of AA kids are raised in fatherless homes. Replaced faith-based Gleaning with SNAP. AIDS epidemic. Opiod crisis. We have a fatherlesssness crisis. A Girlhood Crisis. A Trans Crisis.
Obesity crisis

NYT's Modern Fat Romance

The October 2, 2024 of the NYT's Modern Love, explores obesity and romance: ‘For me, the hardest was walking into a party with our friends, where I was like, I don’t want to be the fat couple.’

Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, is defined as excess in eating and drinking

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the holy Spirit; whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by others. - Romans 14:17

The NIH says the obesity epidemic is because people are responding to the forces in their environment, rather than lacking in willpower and self-control.62(pS141)

Likewise, the Fentanyl crisis, according to Yale Medicine, driving overdose deaths is because fentanyl is easy to manufacture, it is easy to ship around the country - not willpower and self-control.

WHO'S Bertolote argues that the mental health crisis is due to a lack of clear and widely accepted definition of mental health as a discipline was. - not willpower and self-control

Gone are the days of personal responsibility. The NYT, NIH, Yale Medicine, WHO et al, seem to have graduated from Stanford University Professor Nir Halevy's class on how to blame others:

To be fat, an addict  a mental health patient, straight or LGBT is not about shaming. It's not about boasting. After all, we are made in the image of God. Human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society. This notion is well-supported by Sacred Scriptures;

• Genesis 1:26-31: God created man and woman in his image.
• Deuteronomy 10:17-19: God loves the orphan, the widow, and the stranger.
• Psalms 139:13-16: God formed each of us and knows us intimately.
• Proverbs 22:2: The Lord is the maker of both rich and poor.
• Luke 10:25-37: The good Samaritan recognized the dignity in the other and cared for his life.
• John 4:1-42: Jesus broke with societal and religious customs to honor the dignity of the Samaritan woman.
• Romans 12: 9-18: Love one another, contribute to the needs of others, live peaceably with all.
• 1 Corinthians 3:16: You are holy, for you are God’s temple and God dwells in you.
• Galatians 3:27-28; All Christians are one in Christ Jesus.
• James 2:1-8: Honor the poor.
• 1 John 3: 1-2: See what love the Father has for us, that we should be called Children of God.
• 1 John 4:7-12: Let us love one another because love is from

We all have free will. (CCC 1732) As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.   The late Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says we can choose to live an Ego-Drama, where everything we do revolves around ourselves and no one else; we write the script, we produce it and we star in it. Or we can live a Theo-Drama where  everything we do revolves around God. He writes the script.  He produces it.  We are merely a supporting cast.

Human failings are not only a result of the Ego-Drama but the demonic. As Bishop Robert Barron writes: “What are the signs of the demonic?  “What are the ways the demonic appears? Look at the names the Bible gives the devils, called in the Greek δῐᾰ́βολος (diabolos), diablo in Spanish, and le diable in French; διαβάλλειν (diaballein) means “to cast apart,” “to throw apart,” “to scatter.” The great sign of the demonic is scattering. God is a great gathering force. Whenever things come together, when a community forms, that is a sign of the Holy Spirit. The scattering power is a sign of the darker powers. When families get scattered, when business organizations, communities, and cultures get divided, that comes from the demonic.”

Using analysis tools like the Ishikawa Diagram, the Pareto Rule, Security Professionals' Attack Tree and or Occams Razor, they all suggest that after the uber progressive Warren SCOTUS (1963) 

decided that teaching children about wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety,  fear of the Lord., charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control and  chastity was too radical, and all hell broke lose.  A decade later Roe v Wade followed: California became No 1 Global Fentanyl Consumption, No 1 Child Exploitation, 43rd in education, we have had a mental health crisis. Infanticide turned into Black Genocide. African American nuclear family is in the extinct list, we have had an AIDS epidemic,  Opiod crisis, a fatherlesssness crisis,

a Trans Crisis, an Obesity crisis, and so on.

Its not about weight, wealth, addiction or sexual preferences. It's about personal responsibility. The best part is that when we feel we need help, expensive therapy is not required. There's always someone who can intercede for us is intercession in difficult or seemingly impossible challenges: for example, Saint Jude. He was on of the original twelve Apostles of Jesus and the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. Venerated by millions of people worldwide, he is believed to have miraculous powers, and his intercession is often sought for difficult or seemingly impossible. Then there is Dymphna is known as the patroness of nervous disorders and mental disease, depression and incest, but she is not the only saint who can help the faithful in times of mental anguish. Those looking for saintly intercession can choose from a pantheon of holy helpers.

Got Pride?

We are all free to believe whatever we want. We are free to believe in God or the Albigensian Heresy. We are free to choose how we live our lives. We all must face the consequences

Pride is euphemism for See How Far We Can Go Mocking Christians

While there are different worldviews: Hindu sees the human person as a soul trapped in a body. The Buddhist sees the person as neither a body nor a soul. The atheist views the person as a body without a soul





The Christian view is that humans are bodies and souls, created in the image and likeness of God. Every human being has a unique and rational soul that animates his human body, whether in the womb, outside the womb or in a jail cell.

The Church (CCC 355 ) Teaches

"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them."218 Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is "in the image of God"; (II) in his own nature he unites the spiritual and material worlds; (III) he is created "male and female"; (IV) God established him in his friendship.

56 Of all visible creatures only man is "able to know and love his creator".219 He is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake",220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God's own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

What made you establish man in so great a dignity? Certainly the incalculable love by which you have looked on your creature in yourself! You are taken with love for her; for by love indeed you created her, by love you have given her a being capable of tasting your eternal Good.221

357 Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love.

We are all free to believe whatever we want. We are free to believe in God or the Albigensian Heresy. We are free to choose how we live our lives. The late Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar says we can choose to live an Ego-Drama, where everything we do revolves around ourselves and no one else; we write the script, we produce it and we star in it. Or we can live a Theo-Drama where everything we do revolves around God. While we are free to choose, we make choices and choices make us: we must face the consequences.

The Church understands that we are all sinners in need of a savior (Rom 5:12-21). We are inheritors of original sin and all its consequences, and by actual sin we distance ourselves from God. We can’t save ourselves, but we don’t need to: Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins. The Catholic Church teaches that salvation comes through Jesus alone (Acts 4:12), since he is the “one mediator between God and man” (1 Tm 2:5-6).

Sacred Scriptures say life is short, death is real, Hell is hot, eternity is long, and Jesus saves! Everyone made in God's image. Everyone is broken. Everyone is created for love.

According to Pope Francis, making a list of which sinners are welcome in the church and which sinners are not goes against the teaching of the Gospel. ""The son of God wants us to understand that he doesn't want a select group, an elite,"  "Then maybe someone gets 'smuggled in'? But at that point, God takes care of it and indicates the path" forward.

"When they ask me, 'But can these people who are in such an inappropriate moral situation also enter?'" the pope said, "I assure them, 'Everyone. The Lord said it.'""

As Father Mike Schmitz says, everyone has desires that are not good. We are all broke. Those who identify as gay or trans, have dignity. Those who experience same-sex attraction are worthwhile. Those who are grappling with their sexuality as part of the family, that is, part of the human family, and if they are Christian, they are part of the family of God. If you are same-sex attracted person, you belong to the Catholic Church.


While the unwelcome LGBT rhetoric is close to the one articulated by the Head Of Hizbullah’s Shari’a Council in Lebanon -He wants to kill gay people, because he is afraid of being infected by them - The Major League Basebal, including the Los Angeles Dodgers Mocking The Catholic Faith is just as despicable. Let’s not forget the full on attack on Christianity by Corporate America, including Bud Light, the City of Portland,  NorthFace, the US Navy and so on, as the White House, DOJ, FBI and Main Stream Media are in lock step to promote the Christo-Fascist, America Is Racist narratives

Then, there are the Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony organizers who were compelled to apologize after Christians slammed spectacle for woke parody of the Last Supper -with a marketing heart, not a contrite one.

Just as the NAACP and the FBI see Catholics as potential domestic terrorists, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and 19 GOP state attorneys general are demanding answers from the FBI and Justice Department and threatening legal action after a leaked internal FBI memo revealed that the agency had efforts underway to identify and treat Catholics as “potential terrorists.” “Anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering in the FBI, and the Bureau is treating Catholics as potential terrorists because of their beliefs,” the AGs wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland


According to Prophet Ezekiel (36:25)
" I will sprinkle clean water over you to make you clean; from all your impurities and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them.


A heart transplant as the one described by the Prophet Ezekiel cannot be legislated or surgically handled. God is the only one who can change hearts. The love that raised Christ from the dead can raise these broken hearts, including those who denigrate the LGBT community and
those mocking the Christian faith.

Saint Philip Neri's Food for the Soul 4Q2024

The long journey to personal holiness starts but with a single daily prayer - paraphrasing Saint Philip Neri

Pno

Philip Romolo Neri, sometimes referred to as the Second Apostle of Rome after Saint Peter, was an Italian Catholic priest who founded the Congregation of the Oratory, a society of secular clergy dedicated to pastoral care and charitable work. Neri's spiritual mission emphasized personal holiness and direct service to others, particularly through the education of young people and care for the poor and sick. His work played a significant role in the Counter-Reformation


Saint Philip Neri was known as “Saint of Joy,” for his cheerfulness and sense of humor as well as his profound insights in the confessional and his mentoring of young people through friendship. While he left few written documents, his friends and disciples fortunately collected his sayings and wrote them down; these were translated into English by Fr. F.W. Faber of the London Oratory, a contemporary of Saint John Newman’s. The Oxford Oratory has just published a new edition of The Maxims and Sayings of St Philip Neri.

Fr Faber writes: The purpose of the maxims cannot be better described than in the words of the Italian editor: “It was the aim and study of the holy father, Philip Neri, to introduce among Christians a daily spiritual repast. His children, who have drunk of the spirit of their holy father, have always sought to cultivate this custom of a spiritual repast among devout persons; and among the plans which they have tried, and the practices they have introduced, one, gentle reader, is a collection of the sayings and doings of the Saint, distributed into the number of the days of the year, to the end that every one might have each day, either a maxim to meditate upon, or a virtue to copy. The method of using these sayings and doings, is to read only one of them each day, and that the one set apart for the current day, (for to read more would not be food but curiosity,) and then to regulate the actions of the day by that maxim or example. I am sure that by doing this you will reap an abundant harvest, especially if to the maxim or example you add some particular devotion to the Saint who was the author of it. I think it useless to make any long commendation of this practice; but it is well you should know that by the daily suggestion of such truths, the fruit which the saint obtained in Rome was immense; and so also will it be in your soul if you practise it in a true spirit of devotion. Farewell.” F.W. FABER.


As prescribed by Saint Neri, I shall endeavor to post one maxim per day starting with the one for September 27.

December

31. The hour is finished - we may say the same of the year; but the time to do good is not finished yet.

30. All created things are show the goodness of the Creator: the sun scatters its light, the fire its heat; the tree throws out its arms, which are its branches, and reaches to us the fruit it bears: water, and air, and all nature express the liberality of the Creator, and we, who are his lively image, do not represent him, but through our degenerate manners deny Him in deeds while we are confessing Him with our mouths.

29. Not to know how to deny our soul its own wishes, is to foment a very hot-bed of vices.

The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God — it is not "produced" by the parents — and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235


The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.239

28. Let young men be cheerful, and indulge in the recreations proper to their age, provided they keep out of the way of sin.

Sadly, the Wholesome Entertainment Industry is in the endangered list.

27. To one who really loves God, there is nothing more harassing or burdensome than life.

26. Besides pardoning those who persecute us, we ought to feel pity for the delusion they are laboring under.

25. Let us reflect that the Word left heaven, and stooped to become man for us.

24. It is as a general rule a bad sign when a man has not a particular feeling of devotion on the chief feasts of the year.

23. God makes all his own the soul that is wholly given to him.

We make choices- choices make us.

22. We must give ourselves to God altogether.

Choose Whom You'll Serve

Theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar suggested we can follow one of two paths: The ego-drama path, or the theo-drama path. In the ego-drama, we write, produce and start in the drama. In the theo-drama, we are merely s upporting cast in a drama written and produced by God.

21. How patiently Christ, the King and Lord of heaven and earth, bore with the apostles, enduring at their hands many incivilities and misbeliefs, they being but poor and rough fishermen! How much more ought we to bear with our neighbour, if he treats us with incivility.

1 Peter 2:13

20. In the persecutions which bad men excite against piety and devotion, we must keep our eyes on God, whom we serve, and on the testimony of a good conscience.

“We spring up in greater numbers the more we are mown down by you: the blood of the Christians is the seed of a new life. Tertullian 

Persecution in Japan

Persecution in Korea

Saint Anthony of Padua

Persecution in India

Persecution in USA

19. If a soul could altogether abstain from venial sins, the greatest pain it could have would be to be detained in this life, so great would its desire be of union with God.

18. He who does not think on the benefits he receives from God in this life, and on those greater ones his mercy has prepared in that other life of bliss, does not nourish love to God, but chills and freezes it.

17. Our enemy the devil, who fights with us in order to vanquish us, seeks to disunite us in our houses, and to breed quarrels, dislikes, contests, and rivalries, because while we are fighting with each other, he comes and conquers us, and makes us more securely his own.

16. A person must be ready to endure, when through a virtuous motive he is mortified by others, and even when God permits him to be in bad odour with others, and regarded and driven away as an infected sheep.

15. Certain little voluntary attachments of self-love must be cut through, and then we must dig round them, and then remove the earth, till we get down deep enough to find the place where they are rooted and interlaced together.

14. When a man has to buy anything, he ought not to do so because he is moved by an attachment to the thing, but from want and necessity; for it will never do to buy attachments.

13. If we do make such vows, it is best to make them conditionally: for example, “I make a vow to have two masses said on S. Lucy’s day, with this bargain, If I can, If I do not forget it, because if I do not remember it I do not wish to be bound.”

12. Penitents should never make vows without the advice of their spiritual fathers

11. The mole is a blind rat, which always stays in the ground; it eats earth, and hollows it out, but is never satisfied with it: so is the avaricious man or woman.

10. In sickness we ought to ask God to give us patience, because it often happens, that when a man gets well, he not only does not do the good he proposed to do when he was sick, but he multiplies his sins and his ingratitude.

9. The sick man may desire to get well, provided he seals his desire always with an “If it please God,” “If it is good for my soul;” for we can do many good things in health, which sickness hinders us from doing.

8. If the servant of God would fain walk with more security through so many snares scattered in every place, he should have our Blessed Lady as his mediatrix with her Son.

7. The Holy Spirit says of prelates and pastors, He who hears and obeys his superiors, hears and obeys Me, and he who despises them, despises and disobeys Me.

6. We ought to make no account of an immodest person, notwithstanding that he may possess other virtues.

5. Penitents ought not to go to confession for temporal ends, to get alms and the like

4. He who communicates often, as he ought to do, brings forth good fruit, the fruit of humility, the fruit of patience, the fruit of all the virtues.

3. Give me ten men really detached from the world, and I have the heart to believe I could convert the world with them.

2. When we go to confession, we ought to persuade ourselves to find Jesus Christ in the person of our confessor.

1. Frequent confession is the cause of great good to the soul, because it purifies it, heals it, and confirms it in the service of God: we ought not therefore to omit confession on our fixed days for any business whatsoever; but go to confession first, and to business afterwards, and the first will help the last.

November

30. We must seek Christ where Christ is not, that is, in crosses and tribulations, in which truly He is not now, but we shall find Him in glory by this road.

29. It is a great perfection in a heart when it is discreet and does not overstep the limits of convenience and what is befitting.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2488-89) on gossip 

The right to the communication of the truth is not unconditional. Everyone must conform his life to the gospel precept of fraternal love. This requires us in concrete situations to judge whether or not it is appropriate to reveal the truth to someone who asks for it.

Charity and respect for the truth should dictate the response to every request for information or communication. The good and safety of others, respect for privacy, and the common good are sufficient reasons for being silent about what ought not be known or for making use of a discreet language. The duty to avoid scandal often commands strict discretion. No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it.

28. In order to acquire prudence, and to make a good judgment, we must have lived long and been intimate with many people.

The opposite of what Simon and Garfunkel sing about in I'm a Rock.

27. As to temptations, some are mastered by flying from them, some by resisting them, and some by despising them.

26. In temptations of the flesh, a Christian ought to have immediate recourse to God, make the sign of the cross over his heart three times, and say, “Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

25. The way which God takes with the souls that love him, by allowing them to be tempted and to fall into tribulations, is a true espousal between Himself and them.

24. He is perfect in the school of Christ who despises being despised, rejoices in self-contempt, and accounts himself to be very nothingness.

23. Among the things we ought to ask of God, is perseverance in well-doing and in serving the Lord; because, if we only have patience, and persevere in the good life we have begun to lead, we shall acquire a most eminent degree of spirituality.

II. The Value of Trials and Temptation

Perseverance in Trial.

 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and he will be given it. James Chapter 1

22. There is nothing more dangerous in the spiritual life, than to wish to rule ourselves after our own way of thinking.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. - Proverbs 14:12

21. The vocation to the religious life is one of the great benefits which the Mother of God obtains from her Son for those who are devoted to her.

Mary had a unique vocation – to bring Jesus into her world. This is the essence of Mary, to be a Christ-bearer to her neighbors and family in the ordinary circumstances of her life. This is the Mary we can understand. We don't need a beautiful sculptured image of a woman dressed in extravagant medieval robes

20. When seculars have once chosen their secular state, let them persevere in it, and in the devout exercises which they have begun, and in their works of charity, and they shall have contentment at their death.

19. Patience is necessary for the servant of God, and we must not be distressed at trouble, but wait for consolation.

18. Never make a noise of any sort in church, except for the greatest necessity

17. Resignation is all in all to the sick man; he ought to say to God, “Lord, if You want me, here I am, although I have never done any good: do with me what You will.”

16. To be entirely conformed and resigned to the Divine Will, is truly a road in which we cannot get wrong, and is the only road which leads us to taste and enjoy that peace which sensual and earthly men know nothing of.

"Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” - Luke 10:20

15. When the soul lies resignedly in the hands of God, and is contented with the divine pleasure, it is in good hands, and has the best security that good will happen to it

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, on your own intelligence do not rely;
In all your ways be mindful of him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes,
fear the LORD and turn away from evil;
This will mean health for your flesh
and vigor for your bones. Proverbs 3:5

14. But a man ought not to seek for these sweetnesses and sensible devotions forcibly, for he will be easily deluded by the devil, and will run a risk of injuring his health.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord [Jesus] will kill with the breath of his mouth and render powerless by the manifestation of his coming,e
9the one whose coming springs from the power of Satan in every mighty deed and in signs and wonders that lie, and in every wicked deceit for those who are perishing because they have not accepted the love of truth so that they may be saved. Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie,
12that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned. 2 Thessalonians 2

Or Phmn 7:20:  

Therefore, although I have the full right in Christ
to order you to do what is proper,
I rather urge you out of love,
being as I am, Paul, an old man,
and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus.
I urge you on behalf of my child Onesimus,
whose father I have become in my imprisonment,
who was once useless to you but is now useful to both you and me.
I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.

13. The man who loves God with a true heart, and prizes him above all things, sometimes sheds floods of tears at prayer, and has in abundance of favours and spiritual feelings coming upon him with such vehemence, that he is forced to cry out, “Lord! let me be quiet!”

12. Tribulations, if we bear them patiently for the love of God, appear bitter at first, but they grow sweet, when one gets accustomed to the taste.

11. It is an old custom with the servants of God always to have some little prayers ready, and to be darting them up to heaven frequently during the day, lifting their minds to God from out of the filth of this world. He who adopts this plan will get great fruit with little pains.

10. We ought to pray God importunately to increase in us every day the light and heat of his goodness.

9. The old patriarchs possessed riches, and had wives and children, but they lived without defiling their affections with these things, although they possessed them, because they only allowed themselves the use of them, and were ready to abandon them in whatever way the Majesty of God might require of them.

8. The relics of the saints ought to be venerated, and we may laudably keep them in our room; but it is not well, unless for some grave occasion, to wear them on our persons, because it will often happen then that they are not treated with all the respect which is becoming.

7. What we know of the virtues of the saints is the least part of them

6. He who really wishes to become a saint must never defend himself, except in a few rare cases, but always acknowledge himself in fault, even when what is alleged against him is untrue.

5. The sanctity of a man lies in the breadth of three fingers, (the forehead,) that is to say, in mortifying the understanding, which would fain reason upon things.  

Refer to September 18 for mortification 

4. Where there is no great mortification there is no great sanctity. Refer to September 18 

3. Let the young man look after the flesh, and the old man after avarice, and we shall all be saints together.

2. In order to enter Paradise we must be well justified and well purified.

1. The great thing is to become saints.

According to the US Catholic Bishops website:  All Christians are called to be saints. Saints are persons in heaven (officially canonized or not), who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation

OCTOBER 

October 31. We ought always to be afraid, and never put any confidence in ourselves; for the devil assaults us on a sudden, and darkens our understanding; and he who does not live in fear is overcome in a moment, because he has not the help of the Lord.

30. Idleness is a pestilence to a Christian man; we ought always therefore to be doing something, especially when we are alone in our rooms, lest the devil should come in and catch us idle.

The slack hand impoverishes,but the busy hand brings riches.

5A son who gathers in summer is a credit; a son who slumbers during harvest, a disgrace. Proverbs 10: 4

29. Nothing helps a man more than prayer

Padre Pio and the power of prayer

28. Let us throw ourselves into the arms of God, and be sure that if He wishes anything of us, He will make us good for all He desires us to do for Him.

27. Scruples ought to be most carefully avoided, as they disquiet the mind, and make a man melancholy.

 

26. Poverty and tribulations are given us by God as trials of our fidelity and virtue, as well as to enrich us with more real and lasting riches in heaven.

How to end poverty. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, 2021 Nobel laureates in economics, contend that “the true ingredients of persistent economic growth”—development of the sort that pulls people out of poverty and raises living standards across the board— “remain mysterious.”

25. When a man has a tribulation sent him from God, and is impatient, we may say to him, “You are not worthy that God should visit you; you do not deserve so great a good.”

In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1

“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise

35like a trap. For that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth.

36Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man. Luke 21

24. When a man falls into any bodily infirmity, he must lie and think, and say, “God has sent me this sickness, because He wishes something of me; I must therefore make up my mind to change my life and become better.”

Mark 5:20- [5:20] As for you, your sins are forgiven: literally, “O man, your sins are forgiven you.” The connection between the forgiveness of sins and the cure of the paralytic reflects the belief of first-century Palestine (based on the Old Testament: Ex 20:5; Dt 5:9) that sickness and infirmity are the result of sin, one’s own or that of one’s ancestors (see also Lk 13:2; Jn 5:14; 9:2).

23. When a man knows how to break down his own will and to deny his soul what it desires, he has got a good degree in virtue

22. There is nothing more displeasing to God, than our being inflated with self-esteem.

21. According to the rules of the fathers and ancient monks, whoever wishes to advance in perfection must hold the world in no reputation.

ie, Matt Chapter 19 - The Rich Young Man.

 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 12:13 The Rich Man

20. As for those who run after visions, dreams, and the like, we must lay hold of them by the feet and pull them to the ground by force, lest they should fall into the devil’s net.

19. He who desires ecstasies and visions does not know what he is desiring.

18. The perfection of a Christian consists in knowing how to mortify himself for the love of Christ.

17. We must accept our own death and that of our relations when God shall send it to us, and not desire it at any other time; for it is sometimes necessary that it should happen at that particular moment for the good of our own and their souls.

16. We ought to hate no one, for God never comes where there is no love of our neighbors.

15. To him who truly loves God, nothing more displeasing can happen than the lack of occasion to suffer for Him.

14. At communion we ought to ask for the remedy of the vice to which we feel ourselves most inclined.

13. It is a most useful thing, when we see another doing any spiritual good to his neighbor, to seek by prayer to have a part in that same good which the Lord is working by the hand of another.

12. We ought not ordinarily to believe prophecies or to desire them, because it is possible there may be many deceits and snares of the devil therein.

2 Peter Chapter 1

11. The devil, who is a most haughty spirit, is never more completely mastered than by humility of heart, and a simple, clear, undisguised manifestation of our sins and temptations to our confessor.

10. To make ourselves disaffected to the things of the world, it is a good thing to think seriously of the end of them, saying to ourselves, “And then? And then?”

9. In saying the Pater Noster, we ought to reflect that we have God for our Father in heaven, and so go on making a sort of meditation of it word by word.

8. Fathers and mothers of families should bring up their children virtuously, looking at them rather as God’s children than their own; and to count life and health, and all they possess, as loans which they hold of God.

7. He who wishes to go to Paradise must be an honest man and a good Christian, and not give heed to dreams.

6. Let us learn here below to give God the confession of praise which we ought to hope to give Him in heaven above.

5. Let us despise gold, silver, jewels, and all that the blind and cheated world vainly and ignorantly prizes

4. We ought to desire to be in such a condition as to want sixpence, and not be able to get it.

3. To speak of ourselves without cause, saying, “I have said,” “I have done,” incapacitates us for receiving spiritual consolations.

2. We must continually pray to God for the conversion of sinners, thinking of the joy there is in heaven both to God and the angels in the conversion of each separate sinner.

1. In passing from a bad state to a good one there is no need of counsel, but in passing from a good one to a better, time, counsel, and prayer must go to the decision.

September

30. The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.

September 29. Let us think, if we only got to heaven, what a sweet and easy thing it will be there to be always saying with the angels and the saints, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.


September 28. We should not be quick at correcting others, but rather to think of ourselves first.

September 27. Men of rank ought to dress like their equals, and be accompanied by servants, as their state requires, but modesty should go along with it all.