Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, October 7

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

WEEKLY BRIEF
 BE VIGILANT, NOT SHOCKED. SATAN USUALLY APPEARS AS A DECEIVER. THEN THE ULTIMATE LONER REMINDS US HE WAS A MURDERER FROM THE BEGINNING.
A great evil is loosed upon our land. He prowls the world seeking the ruin of souls. He is real. He was a murderer and a liar from the beginning. He has no religious affiliation.  After great acts of evil, we turn to prayer. Our prayers are meant to align us with the Father God who protects us and has shaped us in His image as guardians of life. The Bible teaches that the nations are fundamental protective covenants to safeguard the peoples of the earth in an orderly way from evil.
A culture of life is a culture of protection. Let us return our nation to honoring God's Name. Let us build among American men a deeper political consciousness that we are a protective brotherhood of fathers as fellow citizens. Our brotherhood knows no class or color. This brotherhood is formalized and led by our officers in local and state police forces. We never know when or where we may be called upon to come together against the predator wolf. Let us be attentive. Let us heed the example of the protectors who limited the horror of the Las Vegas shooting by their bravery. The protective response was by citizens and first responders alike. The armed police response was effective and rapid. It was the worst of times that showed the best of men.
 God created man and woman to bring forth life in the sanctuary of the Garden. He made men to be sons of God as a brotherhood of protective warriors to rule the earth by expelling the Evil One. Those who forever  decry "senseless violence" seem oblivious to human history.  The Earth is a battlefield. God named his chosen nation,  "one who struggles." There was a brotherhood in Las Vegas that limited the evil that was wrought. We honor this protective brotherhood every time we reverence our flag. In this battle we must depend, as the President said, on our love for one another.  Let us strengthen the ordered loves of religion, nation and family. Let us reject the counterfeit loves that are the work of the Evil One. Our lives depend on it.  

I. AMERICAN POLITICS

A BILL TO WITHDRAW US SUPPORT FOR SAUDI BOMBING OF YEMEN: Two Republicans, Two Democrats - an American coalition. A review of consequences of US involvement in supporting Saudi Arabia. When the hysteria clears on Russian involvement in US elections, we might all turn our collective mind to the foreign government which has most confused and influenced our foreign policy since 9/11. Exposing and ending US collusion in the Saudi war against the Houthi Shiites of Yemen may wake us to the larger evil we have allowed these last decades. We should not expect Bushes, Clintons or McCains to help explain, but honest antiwar Democrats and the new generation of lawmakers who are Iraq veterans could play pivotal roles. There is a far better case for an honest declaration of war against the Saudis than embracing these "allies" who have so grievously betrayed us and caused the deaths of our countrymen.  The leading sponsor of global terrorism is not Iran. It is the Saudi Royal family and their state goal of protecting the Wahhabi brand of Salafist ideology.

IF JUDGE MOORE GOES TO WASHINGTON: Then there will be a trumpet for God.

PRESIDENT TRUMP AND NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR MCMASTER - CONTRAST AND COMPARE: At National Interest.

ROBERT MERRY ON DAVID BROOKS: The NY Times columnist (Brooks) was hired as a voice of conservatism. His criticism of Trump betrays a Hillary-like disdain for American nationalists. He presents his arguments in a much more refined and intellectual manner but he does not understand the religious, territorial, masculine character of American economic nationalism.

II. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

GETTING OUR SHOOTINGS STRAIGHT
For the first time since the shooting of the Republican Congressman  in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 14, 2017, we have a real report of what happened. Bryan Porter is the elected attorney of the Commonwealth of the City of Alexandria. His report was to determine if there was justified use of lethal force by police officers. Reviewing the details of the shootings serves another important purpose. It is required reading for law enforcement to help them think through responses to similar situations in the future. Reconstructing details as accurately as possible is even more important than Monday morning reviewing game films. From the beginning  there seemed big chunks of the story which were unclear. Even more maddening it seemed there were no reporters curious about the details of the hunt and kill. Just the mechanics of Capitol special agents with handguns bringing down a rifleman with several hundred yards of open space between them should have driven some reporter to seek the details of such heroism. "Lesbian Capitol policewoman saves homophobic Republican" was one storyline. The Alexandria police chief did hold a news conference five days later  since three of his officers played pivotal roles in the event. A primary purpose of that conference however was to defend the female Alexandria officer who never fired a shot. This full report is no exoneration of the lady. People speak of Flight or Fight responses to danger. There is also Freeze which appears the best description in her case.
    It turns out a young white male officer who used a rifle disabled the shooter enough with his second shot that the assailant discarded his rifle for a handgun. That helped the special agent and other Alexandria police officer who were approaching him while firing their own handguns.  The black male special agent (Bailey) showed the most raw courage in the whole episode in drawing the shooter toward him with his first burst of ten handgun shots that drew the shooter from his perch at third base to come toward the agent. (The Alexandria police chief erroneously credited this act of bravery to both special agents which would be akin to saying all the apostles were arrested with Christ in Gethsemane.) Special Agent Bailey shot over 25 shots. It was his handgun against the rifle that pulled the social justice shooter away from shooting white Congressmen in favor of eliminating that pesky black guy who was spoiling the turkey shoot. One of Bailey's later shots hit the shooter in the chest. The police rifleman (Ofc Jensen) shot a third bullet which "neutralized" the shooter. The older Alexandria officer (Kolbe) and SA Bailey then handcuffed the assailant who died soon after.  The white Alexandria female officer who approached the shooter from a different angle never fired a shot. The lesbian special agent heroine hid behind her car through the entire episode but left her foot dangling and was shot in the ankle. She got off nine shots. One hates to bring a binary lens to this tale but  the three male officers involved all worked together effectively to hunt and kill the predator. The older white officer (Kolbe) had the presence of mind to alert the two incoming officers not to drive right into the situation allowing the vantage point of the rifleman (Jensen) that led to the death of the leftist assailant. So much of hunting is vantage point. From the first call to the Alexandria police force to the "neutralization" of the shooter was less than 10 minutes. This lifesaving unbelievably rapid and effective response of the local policemen was barely mentioned in almost all the "reporting" of the event. Go back and read any ten stories a day after the events and then compare it to what happened. There is a reason people talk about fake news.  



THE MORMON APOSTOLIC QUORUM: The Mormons have been highly successful in maintaining masculine fraternity and patriarchy.Their authoritative ruling body reiterate again the impossibility of "gay" marriage.

HUGH HEFNER (1926-2017) THE INDOORS MAN DOTH PASS: He made stripping females a matter of fame not shame. With those who daily take the name of God in vain and those who sanctioned flag burning he inverted our honor code by desecrating what was sacred. Playboys and feminists had no love for each other but they desecrated the same holy goods. Reversing the sexual revolution is the great religious task before us as a people if we are to reform our nation. The Chinese faced a similar dilemma in clearing the ruins of their own cultural revolution. Russ Douthat's excellent obituary. At the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik can't help but praise a man so instrumental in erecting the culture of his own magazine and social class.

PROFESSOR JORDAN PETERSON: A terrific psychological thinker who understands the fundamental categories of Christianity better than most theologians and pastors. Very accessible to that big group of well-intentioned young people who are not Christian because they think religion is intellectually dishonest.

JORDAN PETERSON INTERVIEWS CAMILLE PAGLIA: She says the graduate schools were taken over by careerists. The real revolutionaries of the sixties stayed out of school she says or destroyed themselves with drugs. Post-modernism she asserts is a fraud and has nothing to do with the communal movement of the sixties.

LEPANTO AND TOURS: This week in October, two great battles were fought to defend Europe from Islamic invasions of existential proportions. In AD 732, Islamic forces attempted to complete their invasion of western Europe (Spain had already been taken) by expanding north into France. Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, held them off in a stunning victory at Tours on October 10. On this day in 1571, a great naval battle at Lepanto witnessed a vastly outnumbered Catholic fleet destroying an Islamic fleet set to invade the Catholic nations of the northern Mediterranean. Due to Marian intercession, October 7 became known as the feast of Our Lady of Victory - now called Our Lady of the Rosary. The lesson from these battles is that Christian nations  must respond to warring Islam with acts of war. However while the sword is aimed at jihadists, the great majority of praying Muslims should be approached in a more fraternal way. This is Archbishop Fulton Sheen's insight:

Missionaries in the future will, more and more, see that their apostolate among the Muslims will be successful in the measure that they preach Our Lady of Fatima. Mary is the advent of Christ, bringing Christ to the people before Christ Himself is born. In any apologetic endeavor, it is always best to start with that which people already accept. Because the Muslims have a devotion to Mary, our missionaries should be satisfied merely to expand and to develop that devotion, with the full realization that Our Blessed Lady will carry the Muslims the rest of the way to her Divine Son. She is forever a 'traitor' in the sense that she will not accept any devotion for herself, but will always bring anyone who is devoted to her to her Divine Son. As those who lose devotion to her lose belief in the Divinity of Christ, so those who intensify devotion to her gradually acquire that belief.
…It now remains to use another approach, namely, that of taking the forty-first chapter of the Koran, and showing them that it was taken out of the Gospel of Luke, that Mary could not be, even in their own eyes, the most blessed of all the women of Heaven if she had not also borne One Who was the Savior of the world. If Judith and Esther of the Old Testament were prefigures of Mary, then it may very well be that Fatima herself was a postfigure of Mary! The Muslims should be prepared to acknowledge that, if Fatima must give way in honor to the Blessed Mother, it is because she is different from all the other mothers of the world and that without Christ she would be nothing.

(from "The World’s First Love" by Bishop Sheen)

III. R&G ROUND UP

SUNRISE SUNSET - NOBEL PRIZE: The circadian rhythms are essential links between man and nature. Every night Catholics pray in Night Prayer: "Protect us, Lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep; that awake, we may keep watch with Christ and asleep, rest in His peace."

FATHER THOMAS JOSEPH WHITE OP: An interview about his new book The Light of Christ. We cannot love what we do not know. Dogmas are teachings. They are signposts to reality. They make us more in touch with reality, not less.

KNIGHTS OF ST. TARCISIUS: A fraternity of young Catholic men, bound together by devotion to the Eucharist and their bishop. The Knights of St. Tarcisius was started in Kansas City by our own A. Joseph Lynch. The Archdiocesan newspaper is covering the program's rapid growth.