John 14:6 Psalm 46:10 Revelation 21:4 One nation, under God, INDIVISIBLE, with liberty and justice for ALL.
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An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
๐๐จ EVERYONE WAS WRONG UNTIL MARTIN CAME ALONG!
A Child's Guide to 15 Centuries of FAILED Christianity.
Jesus founded a Church.
He promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)
He promised to remain with His disciples ALWAYS, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)
He promised that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth. (John 16:13)
And then, apparently...
The whole thing fell apart.
Oops.
For fifteen hundred years, Christians baptized their children, celebrated the Eucharist, honored the saints, ordained bishops, held councils, defended the Trinity, preserved the Scriptures, and handed down the faith.
But according to certain versions of the Reformation story, somewhere along the way, the Church Jesus established became so hopelessly corrupted that somebody needed to start over.
Enter Martin Luther.
Finally! Someone who could read the Bible!
Never mind Ignatius of Antioch. Irenaeus. Justin Martyr. Augustine. Athanasius. The councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. The generations of Christians who lived, prayed, suffered, and died for Christ.
Apparently, they were all building the wrong building.
Now, to be fair, the Church absolutely needed reform in the sixteenth century. Corruption was real. Abuses were real. Some clergy were scandalous. Catholics don't have to pretend otherwise.
But there's a rather significant difference between saying:
"The Church needs reform."
And saying:
"The Church Jesus established fundamentally lost the faith and needed to be restored."
One is entirely compatible with Christ's promises.
The other raises an awkward question.
If Jesus promised to preserve His Church, how did it manage to lose the plot for fifteen centuries?
And if the answer is that the TRUE Church survived invisibly, scattered among believers who somehow maintained the authentic faith...
Well, that's a rather interesting historical claim.
Can we meet these Christians? What did they believe? Where did they worship? Who were their bishops?
Because the historical record isn't exactly silent.
The Church didn't begin in 1517.
And the Reformation didn't invent the Gospel.
๐ This is Reformation Week at Peter's Barque! Monday's song, "Masquerading as Light," explores the dangers of mistaking something that appears good for the truth itself. Wednesday's Peter's Bite tackles another question: How do we know which books actually belong in the Bible?
Because before we can argue about what Scripture teaches, we should probably establish which Scriptures we're talking about.
#Reformation #MartinLuther #ChurchHistory #CatholicApologetics #ApostolicSuccession #CatholicFaith #PetersBarque #PetersBites #ChristianHistory
Peter's Barque is a catechetical musical project by Justin West, a catechist, not a musician. The music and art are created principally through digital means, including AI-assisted production. Peter's Bites extends that project into short reflections on Christian teaching and apologetics.
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An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Hey Xers...my youngest son picks me up in the morning and off to the hospital we go. They're gonna put a balloon in me tomorrow and open-heart surgery Thursday...each and every prayer is MUCH appreciated!!!
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Second star to the right and straight on till morning Mr Chekov ๐
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
I don't know what you're facing today, but I do know this: God is still the answer. Whatever is weighing on your heart, take it to Him. You don't have to carry it alone.๐
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
California admits to a federal judge that non-citizens can vote in their elections & they do nothing to stop them. That is a violation of the constitution.
Stunning admission by California during yesterdayโs Ninth Circuit hearing.
California admitted they do nothing to check the citizenship status of voters and will count the illegal ballots of noncitizens who vote. This is why weโre seeking an emergency order. We cannot allow California to dilute legal votes in the upcoming election.
Judge: You agree that if a non-citizen votes and we donโt stop it now, that vote will be counted, correct?
California: Thatโs absolutely correct.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
People arenโt going to like this, but 2.5 BILLION abortions in 45 years... More deaths than war or cancer combined throughout all of human history. If you lose the basic value of life as a jenga piece of our culture, everything else falls apart. I know, itโs more convenient to ignore this one!
Royce White for President
If We Donโt Value Life, What Do We Value?
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Iโm still angry Trump was cheated out of 2020.
Iโm still angry Kari Lake was cheated out of Arizona.
Iโm still angry Spencer Pratt was cheated out of Los Angeles.
Most of all, Iโm angry it keeps happening and our government wonโt do anything about it.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Update: Mark is now breathing warmed oxygen and off all the other machines. As of this evening it is a go to do the lung procedure tomorrow. He will more than likely start dialysis Wednesday. Please keep him lifted up in prayer.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Abortion is not healthcare. Healthcare is the doctor who fights for both lives.
Share it.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
TOMORROW IS THE FEAST OF ST. JUDE THADDEUS
OCTOBER 28, 2026
Tomorrow, we celebrate St. Jude Thaddeus, Apostle of Jesus Christ and patron saint of desperate and hopeless cases.
In moments of trials, difficulties, and seemingly impossible situations, may his powerful intercession remind us to never lose hope and always trust in God's divine providence.
Whatever struggles we carry, let us surrender them to the Lord in prayer.
St. Jude Thaddeus, pray for us!
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
One of our staff members ordered lunch from DoorDash. The driver went to the wrong door and accidentally came into the cathedral when the office is next door. He had never been in a Catholic church. He was struck by the beauty.
He made the delivery, went home and started researching Catholicism. He just started OCIA.
Beauty attracts.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
"In his prime he stood six feet tall, weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews.
His black hair was thick and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth.
He had the look of a young indomitable centurion.
Others came out, thousands of others, long before the formal competition started, to watch the warm-up throws.
You could hear gasps at Ebbets Field and sometimes, an hour before game time, bursts of applause.
I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer.
Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny."
"The Emperor of Right Field."
Roger Kahn.
"The Reading Rifle."
"Quite simply, Furillo was a great player. Some write about his arm, the human cannon.
He was not the man you'd first ask to join you in a casual game of catch.
Or how he played the right-field wall at Ebbets Field.
That wall, a mystery of dead spots, bounces, angles and planes, was a wonder of baseball before the dream-destroyers wrecked it.
Furillo never attended high school.
Plane geometry remained a mystery to him.
But he knew every angle, every carom.
The way Furillo played the wall describes an art form."
Sammy Kahn, New York Times.
"We hated the Giants.
We just hated the uniform."
Carl Furillo.
After hitting a pair of home run's against the Giants, pitcher Sheldon Jones, hit Furillo in the head with a pitch just above the ear.
Furillo was carried off the field on a stretcher.
Doctors said there was no concussion.
That night Sheldon Jones visited Furillo in the hospital and told him that Mgr. Leo Durocher, now manager with the Giants, had ordered him to hit Carl Furillo.
1950.
The Duke of Flatbush comin' to help!
I am a devout Catholic, and I approve this message!
An Open Concern About Appearances: The Catholic Church and the Midterms
I am Catholic. I say the rosary. I go to Mass. Nothing in what follows is an accusation against the Church, the Pope, or any bishop. It is a concern about how things look from the outside, and how that appearance is landing with millions of Americans right now.
This administration created a Justice Department task force on anti-Christian bias, pardoned twenty-three pro-life prisoners, stood up a White House Faith Office and a Religious Liberty Commission, designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern over the killing of Christians, and cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood. For a Catholic writer, that record is not nothing. It is, on its face, one of the most tangible pro-life and pro-faith agendas in modern presidential history.
In January 2025, the same administration suspended the refugee and migrant service contracts that had funded the USCCB and Catholic Charities for decades. Over one hundred million dollars a year. More than ninety-five percent of some program budgets. By spring, staff were laid off. By summer, agencies were closing programs. The money did not come back.
Institutions that lose their largest funding stream tend to find their moral vocabulary sharpening in the same direction as their budgets. I am not saying that is what happened. I am saying that is what it looks like, and that appearance is not going unnoticed.
Fourteen months later, in April 2026, the public statements from the Vatican and from American bishops toward this administration grew noticeably louder and more pointed than anything seen during the first term. Catholics see it. Non-Catholics see it.
And when a bishop speaks out days before a national election against one partyโs immigration positionsโwhich are prudential disagreements open to debateโwhile remaining silent on the otherโs platform positions that contradict settled Church teaching on life, on the body, on marriage, the imbalance is impossible to miss.
I am not suggesting the Church holds a grudge, or that its silence on one side was bought. I am saying that is the appearance, and appearances are what most Americans, Catholic and not, actually see. When the institution that spent a year without its largest funding stream then directs its public voice at one party near an electionโthe very party that delivered more concrete protections for Christian life and religious liberty than perhaps any administration in living memoryโthe appearance is not of a shepherd. It is of a stakeholder.
That is the embarrassment I cannot unsee.
-- Joseph Fosco
October 27, 2026
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
In the middle of the World Series, I thought this was a good time to talk about Cleon Jones again. Fifty-seven years ago this month, Cleon caught the final out of the 1969 series to give the Mets a miraculous championship. metsinsider.mlblogs.com/cleoโฆ
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
40 years ago tonight, the @Mets won their second World Championship. You know how excruciating that post season was? They never played with a lead at home until Ray Knightโs home run in the 7th game of the World Series. Both wins at Shea against Houston in the NLCS were walk-offs, having not had an earlier lead, as was, of course, their win in World Series game 6 against the Red Sox. Remarkable. Happy Anniversary to the 1986 World Champions.
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
Any fans of the one hour episodes of Twilight Zone? What do you think of the description as "spine-tingling" series?
An Informed Populace ๐บ๐ธ๐๐ป retweeted
I am very sorry to say that Walter Koenig has passed away. I met him as a kid at a convention, he was a very nice guy, and a talented actor. He will always be remembered as Chekov on Star Trek, and Bester on Babylon 5. God bless you Walter. May you rest in peace.
Like it was yesterday!!!! #LGM
