This website is the home site of my criminal reformation apostolate; here you can find details about the Lampstand Foundation which I founded as a 501c (3) nonprofit corporation in Sacramento, California in 2003.

I have written twelve books, one being about Lampstand and each one of the other eleven being  a response to a likely objection to Catholicism that will be encountered when doing ministry to professional criminals; and for links to all of the Lampstand books which are available—free to members—and at Amazon, go to http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=david+h+lukenbill

I also maintain a daily blog, The Catholic Eye, https://catholiceye.wordpress.com/

Lampstand also keeps track of rehabilitative programs that fail, and the one or two that appear to work, with the findings available at https://catholiceye.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/evaluation-of-reentry-programs-3/

The work connected to the apostolate is listed under the home page categories (to your left) which I will be expanding as needed.

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The Lampstand Foundation E-Letter:

No. 156, January 16, 2020

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Marxism & Catholic Progressives

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An excellent description in a wonderful book I am reading and the reason I refer so much to Marxism/Communism/Socialism is that they are the biggest enemies of the Church and through their inspired movement, Liberation Theology, have entered the Church, and unless you can discuss them intelligently, you will have poor luck with converting criminals:

An excerpt.

“Fr. Messineo moreover lucidly described the drift towards Marxism in Catholic progressives:

“Not least among the features that characterize modern progressivism is its remarkable sympathy towards communism and Marxism in general. It is led to this not only by the irenicism that was mentioned earlier, and the resulting desire to enter into conversation with all the modern currents of thought, but also by an at least partially positive evaluation of the Marxist ideology. The eye of the progressive is invariably turned toward the left, because in the approaches of the currents that are aligned on that side, due to a visual handicap (deformazione) that has been confirmed in his mind, he believes that he is discovering contacts and resemblances with the approaches of his own religious creed and of his moral and social convictions.

“With regard to communism, the progressive deplores the materialistic substratum of the ideology on which its logically consistent atheism is based, but, having made this reservation to is indispensible in order to salvage the Christian faith, he accepts its postulates and makes them his own, not ruling out a possible collaboration in order to carry them out. Communism, he asserts, is from now on a force, a movement in history, a mainspring propelling modern society, and therefore it is necessary to value it for what it is and to reconcile Christian thinking with it. The Manichaean division, as it is called, between a world that is entirely bad and a world in which only good is to be found, must be overcome through mutual understanding, so as not to place ourselves outside the cycle of history and in order to smooth differences with peacemaking. The encounter is possible, he adds, around the nucleus of Christian values that communism also supposedly conveys, although they are deformed by its ideological superstructures.

“Therefore the progressive is the man of détente, a convinced supporter of the outstretched hand, a promoter of dialogue with Marxist currents of thought, when he is not an outright follower or supporter thereof, without however adhering to them as a fellow traveler, on account of some remaining split between his vision of the world and the one propagated by communism. Sometimes he does not dare to press on to those limits, but, while he rejects communism as such, in front of which he finds a barrier set up by the explicit teaching of the Church, he does not hesitate to regard other Marxist currents of thought as welcome allies, with which he would gladly walk together on the political and social plane.

“The strange thing is that, while progressivism claims to overcome the Manichaean distinction between communism, Marxism, and Christianity, by way of understanding and coexistence based on détente, it introduces this selfsame irreconcilable opposition between Christianity and those currents of thought that it brands with the contemptuous name of the reactionary right. In its view the principle of evil has been concentrated in the right, a dark pit of reactionary forces lying in ambush, into which he throws, with an irrevocable judgment, whatever is contrary to progressive ideas and tendencies.” (pp. 70-71)

Roberto de Mattei. (2012). The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story. (Translated by Patrick T. Brannan, S.J., Michael J. Miller, and Kenneth D. Whitehead, Edited by Michael J. Miller). Loreto Publications; Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire.

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David H. Lukenbill, President, The Lampstand Foundation

Post Office Box 254794   Sacramento, CA 95865-4794

Website: https://davidhlukenbill.wordpress.com/

Blog: www.cathliceye.wordpress.com

E-Mail: Dlukenbill@msn.com

With Peter to Christ through Mary