952 Kelly Rd., Mt. Jackson, VA 22842
"For me You have created the skies scattered with stars...and all the beautiful things on earth."
St. Maximilian Kolbe
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Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Glory to Jesus Christ!
I have just returned from a whirlwind seminar tour of the Northwest, including venues in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia. To be approved to speak in one of the dioceses, I had to have a background check and prove that I had completed a three-and-a-half hour on-line "child safety" program. The content of the class brought home to me the way that a naturalistic outlook has come to dominate the way that the leaders of our Catholic institutions approach medical and social problems. Since this naturalistic outlook flows directly from an abandonment of the traditional understanding of creation in favor of an evolution-based world-view, I would like to share some of my observations and reflections on the training I received.
The Church is a “Perfect Society”
Although the focus of the entire training was the protection of children from sexual abuse, the only reference to God and to the spiritual dimension of the cause and cure of child sexual abuse was provided by the “facilitator” in his opening and closing prayer. The rest of the training focused on the nature of child sexual abuse, how it is carried out, and what can be done to prevent it. The steps to prevent abuse mainly involved external actions that could be taken, but almost nothing was said about God and about the spiritual means that He has provided through His Church to protect children from physical, moral and spiritual harm. According to the traditional teaching of the Church, beautifully articulated by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, the Church is a “perfect society.” This does not mean that all the members of the Church are morally perfect. It means that the Church Herself, through her Sacred Liturgy, her Sacraments, her defined doctrines, her hierarchical structure, and her Saints, possesses everything that She needs to provide for the spiritual needs of her children. She does not need the help of the state.
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However, when one looks at the Church through a naturalistic lens, it becomes difficult to think of Her as a “perfect society.” Similarly, when one thinks of the origin of man and the universe as something that can be explained in purely naturalistic terms, it is hard not to think of human beings as mere animals. And when one believes in the evolution of the human body from lower life-forms, the very foundations of the natural law are eroded if not destroyed. This is because the direct creation of Adam and Eve testifies to the divine complementary design of man’s and woman’s bodies and exposes homosexual relations as sins against nature. The denial of direct creation leads to a rejection of the very notion of a stable human nature and a natural law.
By teaching that it is a “myth” that homosexuals are more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexuals—whatever the statistics may say—the program exposed one of the fatal flaws in its approach to the scourge of child sexual abuse. I say this because the natural law and the constant teaching of the Church agree that only sexual relations open to life in the context of a life-long marriage between one man and one woman are holy and pleasing to God. Any other kind of sexual activity is disordered—and homosexual relations are doubly disordered because they are directly contrary to nature. By failing to teach clearly the sinfulness of any use of sexuality outside of a life-long marriage between one man and one woman open to life, the program makes it impossible to equip children and adults with the truth that they need to protect themselves against assaults on their purity from within or without. By failing to clearly teach that homosexuality is wrong, the program seems to suggest that sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman open to life is not a serious evil, unless it involves adults manipulating or forcing children to engage in it. This is a grave error. In reality, clear teaching on the evil of all sexual activity outside of life-long marriage open to life constitutes an essential part of the foundation that every Catholic young person needs to maintain his purity.
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The Saints Lead Us to Safety
The importance of such teaching can be seen in the lives of young saints who died for purity, like St. Maria Goretti or Blessed Laura Vicuna. St. Maria’s primary concern when she resisted the sexual advances of her cousin Alessandro was not to offend God—not only on her part, but also to keep Alessandro from offending God. As she lay dying of the multiple stab wounds inflicted upon her by her cousin, she remained focused on obtaining God’s forgiveness for him and his conversion. Blessed Laura Vicuna incurred the wrath of her mother’s live-in boyfriend because she knew that her mother’s relationship with him was so offensive to God. Blessed Laura felt this so keenly that she asked her confessor for permission to offer her life for her mother’s conversion.
These young people did not need elaborate programs to protect their purity. They needed to know the unadulterated truth of the Church’s teaching on sin, grace, and Holy Marriage, and they needed the sacraments and the habit of prayer to be able to maintain themselves in the state of grace. When efforts to protect children from sexual abuse are divorced from a complete, coherent and consistent catechesis, especially in regard to the direct, divine institution of Holy Marriage and the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, the roots of sexual sin will never be eradicated from our communities. The failure to hand on the Church’s teaching on holy marriage is reflected in opinion polls which show that the vast majority of Catholics in the United States see nothing wrong with practicing birth control, with fornication before marriage, or even (by smaller majorities) with “same-sex marriage.” Those who hold such views cannot understand or communicate the horror of separating sexuality from holy marriage or the unitive from the procreative dimension of the marital union.
Another elephant in the room during my child safety training was the failure of our Church leadership to defend the marriage bond. Our facilitator mentioned “live-in boyfriends” as being statistically more likely to sexually abuse children than husbands and fathers of intact families. What he did not mention was the way in which the annulment on demand culture in most Catholic dioceses in the United States has contributed to the destruction of families and to an explosion in the number of “live-in” boyfriends (and girlfriends) in the wake of that destruction. In many of our dioceses, a dissatisfied spouse can separate from his or her wife or husband without the canonically required permission of the local Bishop and the abandoned spouse will usually be told that his spouse may divorce him in civil court before the diocesan Marriage Tribunal will make a determination on the validity of their sacramental marriage. As Bai Macfarlane demonstrates on her website “Mary’s Advocates,” a faithful adherence to the Church’s canon law, in light of the Church’s traditional teaching on Holy Marriage, would greatly reduce the number of “live-in” boyfriends (and girlfriends) who have access to vulnerable Catholic children.
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Rose Window in Notre Dame Cathedral
Complete Catechesis and the Restoration of Catholic Culture
Only a complete traditional catechesis for adults and children can correct the false beliefs and attitudes that allow an anti-culture of sexual sin to spread, victimizing children and vulnerable adults. On that foundation of truth, an authentic Catholic culture of life will flourish, with its traditional standards of modesty, its emphasis on courtship (rather than dating), and its cultivation of the good, the true and the beautiful in the arts, especially music, which do so much to maintain an atmosphere of purity in the home, in the school, and throughout society. In such an atmosphere, Catholics young and old will be re-sensitized to the reality of the supernatural and preternatural realms. Children will learn to continually invoke the prayers and protection of Our Lady, St. Joseph, their Guardian Angels and the Saints, especially their patron saints. Families will make good use of the sacramentals blessed by the Church, especially exorcised Holy Water, the Holy Rosary, Holy Icons, the Brown Scapular, the Miraculous Medal, and the St. Benedict’s Medal. Parents and children alike will learn once again how to put on “the whole armor of God” and to put the demons to flight—especially those directly involved in orchestrating the plague of child sexual abuse. And, lest anyone think that this kind of culture is no longer viable, I can testify that it actually exists in a number of traditional Catholic parishes, such as Our Lady of Lourdes Traditional Latin Mass Personal Parish in Park Hills, Kentucky.
The lives of the saints are filled with testimonies to the protective power of sacramentals too numerous to mention, but I will end with one famous account from the life of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. A young lady went to confession to the Cure of Ars, and before she began her confession, Saint John Vianney said to her, “Remember a few days ago in the ballroom a good-looking young man who danced with all the girls but you? And you felt ashamed? And remember you saw sparks coming off his feet when he left? Know that it was the devil in human form, and the only reason he didn’t dance with you is because you were wearing the Scapular. Thank the Blessed Mother for that.” Of course, blessed sacramentals do not obviate the need for prudence on the part of parents, teachers, and guardians, but they do confer a powerful grace of protection upon all who use them devoutly. How many children might have been saved from victimization by sexual predators if they had been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, enrolled in the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and clothed with blessed sacramentals!
Through the prayers of the Mother of God, of St. Joseph, and of all the Saints, especially St. Maria Goretti and Blessed Laura Vicuna, may the Holy Ghost grant to all Catholics a complete knowledge of the Faith, a self-forgetting Love for God and neighbor, and a willingness to embrace death rather than sin.
Yours in Christ through the Immaculata in union with St. Joseph,
Hugh Owen
P.S. In recent years, we have had many requests from all over the world for materials suitable for children or for the whole family. Pamela Acker's booklet “Wonderful Are Thy Works”: A Parents’ Guide to Natural Science Education is now available in print and in PDF format. We are also happy to announce Our World Created and Redeemed: A Family Treasury of Poems in print and PDF format which uses original poetry and holy icons to show some of the amazing parallels between the divine work of Creation and the divine work of Redemption. We hope and pray that the words and holy images in this book will strengthen your faith that Our Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Redeemer but also the Creator of the world—and that, just as He perfectly completed the work of Redemption by dying on the Cross for us, so did He create a perfectly beautiful, complete and harmonious universe for us in the beginning. By calling this to mind, we can renew our faith in the traditional teaching of the Church that death, deformity and disease had no place in the “first perfection of the universe, ” but are the consequences of sin. Through Holy Baptism and the other Sacraments, Our Risen Lord invites us to become new creations in Him so that we can become His "poems" (Ephesians 2:10), His living icons, in this world. This, in turn, should convince us that nothing in our life is unimportant. Every thought, word and action that we offer up to God in union with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary hastens the Triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and the Social Reign of Christ Our King throughout the world.
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Wonderful Are Thy Works: A Parents' Guide to Natural Science Education
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Wonderful Are Thy Works: A Parents’ Guide to Natural Science Education |
By: Pamela Acker
There are several fundamental problems with modern science education. The omnipresent information about evolution is just one of these, which is an overt symptom of more foundational philosophical misunderstandings. Ultimately, whether or not evolution occurred is an historical question, not a scientific one. It has only come to be treated as a scientific issue because of a profound misunderstanding of what science is and how it works; and that misunderstanding is cemented in the public imagination by the way that we teach science to students. In this little book biologist Pamela Acker discusses two of the fundamental problems that relate to K-12 science education, and lays out an alternative framework that parents can use to direct their approach to provide a sound science education that will inoculate their children against the primary scientific errors of our day.
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"Wonderful Are Thy Works": A Parents' Guide to Natural Science Education - eBook PDF
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Wonderful Are Thy Works: A Parents’ Guide to Natural Science Education - eBook PDF |
By: Pamela Acker
There are several fundamental problems with modern science education. The omnipresent information about evolution is just one of these, which is an overt symptom of more foundational philosophical misunderstandings. Ultimately, whether or not evolution occurred is an historical question, not a scientific one. It has only come to be treated as a scientific issue because of a profound misunderstanding of what science is and how it works; and that misunderstanding is cemented in the public imagination by the way that we teach science to students. In this little book biologist Pamela Acker discusses two of the fundamental problems that relate to K-12 science education, and lays out an alternative framework that parents can use to direct their approach to provide a sound science education that will inoculate their children against the primary scientific errors of our day.
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Our World Created and Redeemed
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Wonderful Are Thy Works: A Parents’ Guide to Natural Science Education |
By: Hugh Owen
Our World Created and Redeemed: A Family Treasury of Poems uses original poetry and holy icons to show some of the amazing parallels between the divine work of Creation and the divine work of Redemption. We hope and pray that the words and holy images in this book will strengthen your faith that Our Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Redeemer but also the Creator of the world—and that, just as He perfectly completed the work of Redemption by dying on the Cross for us, so did He create a perfectly beautiful, complete and harmonious universe for us in the beginning. By calling this to mind, we can renew our faith in the traditional teaching of the Church that death, deformity and disease had no place in the “first perfection of the universe, ” but are the consequences of sin. Through Holy Baptism and the other Sacraments, Our Risen Lord invites us to become new creations in Him so that we can become His “poems” (Ephesians 2:10), His living icons, in this world. This, in turn, should convince us that nothing in our life is unimportant. Every thought, word and action that we offer up to God in union with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary hastens the Triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and the Social Reign of Christ Our King throughout the world.
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Our World Created and Redeemed - eBook PDF
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Wonderful Are Thy Works: A Parents’ Guide to Natural Science Education - eBook PDF |
By: Hugh Owen
Our World Created and Redeemed: A Family Treasury of Poems uses original poetry and holy icons to show some of the amazing parallels between the divine work of Creation and the divine work of Redemption. We hope and pray that the words and holy images in this book will strengthen your faith that Our Lord Jesus Christ is not only the Redeemer but also the Creator of the world—and that, just as He perfectly completed the work of Redemption by dying on the Cross for us, so did He create a perfectly beautiful, complete and harmonious universe for us in the beginning. By calling this to mind, we can renew our faith in the traditional teaching of the Church that death, deformity and disease had no place in the “first perfection of the universe, ” but are the consequences of sin. Through Holy Baptism and the other Sacraments, Our Risen Lord invites us to become new creations in Him so that we can become His “poems” (Ephesians 2:10), His living icons, in this world. This, in turn, should convince us that nothing in our life is unimportant. Every thought, word and action that we offer up to God in union with the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary hastens the Triumph of Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and the Social Reign of Christ Our King throughout the world.
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Latest Products from the Kolbe Center: |
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Genesis Through the Eyes of the Saints - MP3 Audiobook
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Genesis Through the Eyes of the Saints - MP3 Audiobook |
Genesis through the Eyes of the Saints shows how the private revelations of the greatest mystical saints of the Catholic Church regarding creation and the early history of mankind agree perfectly with God’s revelation to Moses in Genesis 1-11, while the private revelations of modern-day theistic evolutionists like Fr. Teilhard de Chardin pervert and contradict that fundamental doctrine.
IMPRIMATUR: Bishop Cornelius K. arap Korir, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Eldoret, Kenya.
Granted on the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, September 8, 2016.
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My Journey into the Light of God's Love - E-Book (PDF)
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My Journey into the Light of God's Love - E-Book (PDF) |
This is true story, based on the life of a devout Iranian Muslim girl who had every ambition to do great things in the world. This beautiful journey has its beginning in Iran, at a time of revolutions and the fall of the monarchy, and ends up in the seemingly strange culture of the West, in London, England. This young woman, who was determined to keep the Islamic faith she had so devoutly practiced from her early years, fell in love, which changed everything. Resolute to convert her new love, in a search for truth and a deeper knowledge of God, she stumbled upon something beautiful, something which rings out with Truth - something she could not ignore. |
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Creation, Evolution and Catholicism - E-Book (PDF)
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Creation, Evolution and Catholicism – E-Book (PDF) |
Mr. Tom McFadden has been defending the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation and exposing the destructive effects of evolutionary indoctrination on Catholics for several decades. In his book Creation, Evolution and Catholicism, Mr. McFadden explains the essential role that evolutionism has played in the erosion and destruction of the Faith of millions of Catholics. He then shows how the restoration of the traditional doctrine of creation can stop the mass exodus of young Catholics out of the Church.
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The Genesis Documents - E-Book (PDF)
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The Genesis Documents - E-Book (PDF) |
In The Genesis Documents IT specialist Mike Gladieux has produced one of the most comprehensive and thoroughly-researched commentaries on Genesis 1-11 in modern times. In a work of about 500 pages, Mike draws upon the insights of the greatest commentators on Genesis in Hebrew, Latin and Greek, including virtually every Church Father and Doctor whose writings on Genesis have been preserved. In the process, Mike makes a very strong case that much of the sacred history of Genesis was redacted by Moses from information recorded on clay tablets by the patriarchs who preceded him. No one who reads The Genesis Documents with an open mind will be able to take seriously the widespread view that Genesis 1-11 belongs to the genre of poetry or myth rather than sober history.
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VACCINATION: A Catholic Perspective
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VACCINATION: A Catholic Perspective - MP3 Audiobook
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VACCINATION: A Catholic Perspective |
In Vaccination: A Catholic Perspective, Biologist Pamela Acker provides a balanced examination of the whole subject of vaccination from a Catholic perspective which will allow Catholic leaders from the Pope and the Bishops down to parents and teachers to make an informed judgment on proposals to mandate vaccinations for the novel coronavirus or for other infectious diseases. The author is ideally qualified to undertake this task. A devout Catholic with a master's degree in Biology from the Catholic University of America, Pamela worked in the field of vaccine development and has the right combination of knowledge and experience to evaluate the scientific basis for vaccination as currently practiced. In her book, Miss Acker takes the reader through the history of vaccination while giving a comprehensive introduction to the marvels of the divinely-designed human immune system. Drawing upon the latest research in the field, Miss Acker elucidates the many problematic aspects of vaccination as currently practiced and explains how they flow out of a materialistic, mechanistic, evolution-based understanding of the human person which tends to see man as a collection of parts rather than as a divinely-designed body-soul composite. With powerful examples she shows how the evolution-based approach to the study of disease has had disastrous consequences for scientific and medical research and has supported the maintenance of inadequate criteria for evaluating the efficacy and the dangers of vaccination as currently practiced. |
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