Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: Saturday Feb 2

by A. Joseph Lynch and Dr. David Pence

                                                                   

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

TRANSLATED  BOOK ON ANNIBALE BUGNINI - REFORMER OF THE LITURGY: Written by Yves Chiron reviewed by Conor Dugan.

US Dioceses Filing Bankruptcy Jan 2019

THE PSYCHOLOGIST WHOM POPE FRANCIS USES FOR PRIESTS/BISHOPS SUSPECTED OF HOMOSEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR: Excerpt from NCRegister's Edward Pentin reporting in an article about Vatican knowledge of Argentine Bishop Zanchetta:

Father Arana’s Involvement

But a further question has emerged concerning reports that the Pope sent Bishop Zanchetta to Jesuit Father German Arana in 2017. Francis has sent at least three bishops with psychiatric problems to Father Arana, who is based in Madrid, for counseling.

They include Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who resigned last year as bishop of the Diocese of Osorno following accusations of covering up for notorious abuser Father Fernando Karadima, and Honduran Bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, who resigned last year as auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa following allegations of sexually abusing seminarians and financial misconduct.

Father Arana is the Pope’s “psychologist and Jesuit adviser,” an informed source told the Register. “He sends to him all those who have problems, especially with homosexuality.”

{Ed: A defining trait of a virile culture is the clarity and strength of its prohibitions - the taboos that guard the sacred. The failing therapeutic culture is characterized by a proclivity to medicalize both sin and crime.}

ON THE POPE AND BISHOPS: Not getting it done by William Kilpatrick.

POPE FRANCIS ON PLANE FROM PANAMA (JAN 28, 2019): "I tell young people what they have to do in life they have to do by walking and using the three languages: head, heart and hands. Three harmonious languages, so that they do what they feel and what they think, think what they feel and what they do, feel what they think and what they do. I don’t know how to take stock of the [papal] mission. With all this I go to prayer and stay there before the Lord, sometimes I fall asleep, but I entrust him with the things I have lived in the mission and ask him to confirm in faith through me. This is how I conceive the pope’s mission and how I live it."

ON CELIBACY: For the Latin rite, I am reminded of a phrase of St. Paul VI: “I prefer to give my life before changing the law of celibacy.” This came to me and I want to say it because it is a courageous phrase. In a moment more difficult than this — it was in the years 1968-1970. Personally, I think that celibacy is a gift to the Church. Secondly, I would say that I do not agree with permitting optional celibacy, no. There remains only some possibility for very far places. I think of the Pacific islands, when there is a pastoral necessity, the pastor should think of the faithful.

A FEMALE REPORTER ASKS FOR MERCY IN UNDERSTANDING THE SUFFERING OF WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS: Pope Francis: "The message of mercy is for everyone. Also for the human person who is in gestation. It is for everyone. After this failure, there is mercy as well. But a difficult mercy because the problem is not in giving forgiveness. The problem is to accompany a woman who has become aware of (what it means to have had) an abortion. These are terrible tragedies. Once I heard a doctor talking about a theory that a cell of the newly conceived fetus goes to the marrow of the mother and there is also a physical memory. This is a theory, but to say, a woman when she thinks about what she did… but I tell you the truth, you have to be in the confessional and you have to give comfort there, you can’t say anything. That is why I have opened up the power (for priests) to absolve abortion out of mercy, because many times, but always, they have to meet with their child. I advise many times when they call, they have this anguish: “Your child is in heaven, talk to him. Sing to him the lullaby that you have not sung… you have not been able to sing to him”. And there is a way for the mother to reconcile with her child. With God there is already forgiveness, God always forgives. But mercy also, that you elaborate this. The tragedy of abortion, to understand it well, one must be in a confessional. Terrible."

WHICH SIDE IN VENEZUELA? I support in this moment all of the Venezuelan people – it is a people that is suffering – including those who are one side and the other. All of the people are suffering. If I entered to say, “listen to these countries,” or “listen to these others who say this,” I would be putting myself in a role I don’t know. It would be a pastoral imprudence on my side, and it would do damage. peaceful solution. What is it that scares me? The shedding of blood. And there I also ask greatness to help, to those who can help and resolve the problem.

ON IMMIGRATION: Then, the words that I use to express myself… is to receive, to have a heart willing to receive, to welcome, to accompany, to help grow and integrate. And I also say: the ruler must use prudence because prudence is the ruler’s most proper virtue. I said that in my last flight. With these words, yes. It is a tough equation. It comes to my mind the example of Sweden, a country that back in the 1970’s has received many, many immigrants due to a situation of dictatorship in Latin American countries and managed to integrate all the people who migrated. But the Swedish have said a few years ago that they should take this process more slowly so they can finish it, and this is the prudence of the rulers.

But it is true that it’s important to think realistically. Then there’s another important aspect, something we should all consider: one way of helping migrants is to offer help to the countries where they come from.

A NOBLE NATION LOVING LIFE: I thank you so much for you work. I would just like to say a thing about Panama. I felt a new feeling. I know Latin America but not Panama. And this word came to me: Panama is a noble nation. I found nobility. This I wish to say, and I want to say another thing that I said when I came back from Colombia, speaking of the experience in Cartagena and the other cities, a thing that we don’t see in Europe, that is, the pride, in this case of the Panamanians. You lift up the children and they say to you, “this is my victory,” “this is my future,” “this is my pride.” This in the midst of the demographic winter we’re living in Europe. In Italy, below zero. It has to make us think. What is my pride? Tourism? The villa (home)? The dog? Or lifting up a child? Thanks! Pray for me, I need it.

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE NATIONS

WHY TRUMP WON: The Somewheres vs the Anywheres. A 5-minute video on populist conservatism and why Trump won by ex-Prime Minister of Canada on Prager U.

WILLIE AND KAMALA - ITS NOT EASY TO GET TO THE TOP IF YOU ARE A WOMAN: 84 y/o Willie Brown remembers launching Kamala - so what?

THREAT ASSESSMENT - THIS IS NOT A NATIONALIST ASSESSMENT OF OUR THREATS OR OUR SOLUTIONS:

Christopher Wray of FBI; Gina Haspel of CIA; Dan Coats, DNI.

The Threat Assessment Report and the oral testimony of the principle security officers to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Jan 2, 2019, was depressingly incoherent in strategy, embarrassingly incomplete in substance but clearly anti-Trumpian in tone. The fable continues that Russia is a threat to our elections (CIA). The yellow peril of China is introduced as our greatest long term threat (FBI). Iran is not building nukes (CIA) and North Korea is not stopping its nuclear program. ISIS was touted as a huge worldwide organization with thousands of fighters left in Iraq and Syria. There was no distinction between the religious ideology of Salafist Wahhabism which can mutate anywhere and the ISIS territorial model of a caliphate which has been crushed. The religious illiteracy which has plagued our response to 9/11 from the beginning persists. There was not a word in the little paragraph on Saudi Arabia suggesting that the Saudi-Wahhabi control of Mecca and Medina may be the primary source of the Hanbali Salafist ideology which motivates worldwide jihadists.

The major threats outlined included (written summary document ) a major ideological battle with China modeling an authoritarian capitalist model vs democracy, human rights and the rule of law. They reported Russia and China are "more aligned than anytime since the 1950's."  They said nations will exploit the weakening of western institutions and growing tendency of nations to support "isolationism." They noted that our foes will exploit the questioning of "liberal democracy". The greatest threat to religious liberty appeared to be the Chinese in relation to the Muslim Uyghurs. Climate change remained a threat. And while defining ISIS as a major international actor the report said it was necessary to redirect resources from the "worldwide threat of terrorism" to work against the larger actors (Russia and China?) who threaten us. There was no indication that both of those countries have significant threats from Islamic jihadists and could be co belligerents with us.

Their threat assessment in the "Western Hemisphere" did not mention the pivotal multinational coalition declaring the Maduro election in Venezuela illegal. There is not a word about illegal immigration. Anti US autocrats were seen as threats but the largest country in South America - Brazil WAS NOT MENTIONED. The significance of a newly elected religious nationalist who is friendly to the US (and especially to President Trump) didn't make a big impression on these strategic thinkers. The writers of  the document seem well versed in the bromides of American media and western intelligence agencies. They seem divorced from the physical reality of nations and the life and death significance of religion. This is a real problem which one man cannot fix alone.

Comey, Brennan and Clapper are gone. The deep state remains. It is not all powerful - it is ever present in its careerism but incestuously small in its grasp of events. There seems no comprehension that the Trump nationalist agenda of meeting with leaders of large influential nation-men  can  break up the most dangerous scenario of all: Russia and China leading African nations allied with Sunni Turkey and Shiite Iran vs the globalist West led ideologically by feminist Sweden and militarily by a dispirited NATO. If Haspel, Coats, and Wray are now considered "the adults in the room", the baby boomer project of first coarsening, then feminizing, and finally infantilizing American public discourse has been completed.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY OF FEDERALIST GETS THIS STORY RIGHT: The most important threat to the US is the deepening alliance of Russia and China. Unlike the exhausted policies of the Security establishment, President Trump has a nationalist approach to this strategic catastrophe including a true reset with Russia. President Trump has reversed the disastrous trade policies with China. He seeks honest competition but not enmity with China.

TRUMP VS SPY CHIEFS - WHO IS RIGHT? Pat Buchanan.

FREE TRADE WITH CHINA: The Brits used it in the 1800's to sell Opium to China. 10% of Chinese males were addicted in 1900. The drug flow now comes from the other direction with Fentanyl from China.

UAE AND THE LADY SPY - IS IT SPYING IF THEY ARE OUR "ALLIES?" The real world of espionage isn't that Russian.

III. THE NATIONS

ON CHINA - NOTES FROM WASHINGTON POST ISHAAN THAROOR: DAVOS, Switzerland — On Wednesday in Davos, there was a telling moment involving a senior Chinese official. At a panel on how “global orders fail,” Fang Xinghai, the vice chairman of the Chinese government’s main securities regulator, offered his assessment of the state of politics in the West.

“You have to realize that democracy is not working very well,” Fang said. “You need political reforms in your countries.” He added that he meant this “with sincerity.” Fang’s remarks drew collegial chuckles from the Davos crowd but left behind a lingering unease. On one hand, it’s not unusual for an emissary of authoritarian Beijing to deflect criticism by pointing out the weaknesses of political systems elsewhere. On the other hand, it seemed blindingly obvious that Fang was right.   ...

Yet at Davos, China seemed far more an opportunity than a boogeyman. No major conversation on trade, climate change or new technologies seemed worth having without reference to Chinese perspectives or practices. ...

“This year, China is really the country everyone is talking about,” Karin von Hippel, the head of the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Today’s WorldView. “China is a growing power and is obviously a threat in some ways, but at the same time, it’s so big and will be so powerful that we can’t treat China as an enemy. We all have to figure out ways to work with it.”

FROM KISHORE MAHBUBANI AT HARPERS MAGAZINE: What China Threat? How the United States and China can avoid war. “However, if China is to be America’s number-one strategic priority, as it should be, the obvious question is whether America can be as strategically disciplined as China and give up its futile wars in the Islamic world and its unnecessary vilification of Russia.”

WHILE THE US ARMS THE SAUDIS, CHINA BUILDS INFRASTRUCTURE IN AFRICA: Railroads and Rapid Transit projects in Ethiopia and Kenya.

EUROPEAN INTELLECTUALS LAMENT THE DISINTEGRATION OF EUROPE - 30 JOIN IN MANIFESTO: "Abstractions such as "soul" or "identity" often only exist in the minds of demagogues". "European patriots" urged to fight for Europe against nationalism.

THE WEST HAS BECOME GENDER EQUALITY AND FEMINISM - SWEDEN LEADS THE WAY: Sweden's Feminist Foreign Policy. This is the nonsense that has kept the US from a nationalist foreign policy which would make alliances with the nations who dominate their respective regions: Russia, China, India, Japan, Turkey and Brazil.

IN PHILIPPINES, A CATHOLIC CHURCH BOMBED BY ISLAMIC SUNNI JIHADISTS. IN NEW YORK INFANTICIDE IS LEGALIZED: Be glad that Duterte is President and not Cardinal Dolan whose response to Gov. Cuomo signing the ghoulish New York abortion law is that excommunication would be inappropriate. We need protectors in authority in every nation and diocese. Duterte will respond to the Church murder as an authority. Dolan won't. The Cathedral Attack is probably a response to a new initiative in establishing a new partially autonomous Muslim majority district. The terrorists do not really want Muslims in charge of the regional government -they would put an end to the anarchic Salafists who oppose established civic authorities in favor of a caliphate. President Duterte is a strong supporter of the autonomous district for the Muslim majority area.

REFERENDUM FOR BANGSAMORO AUTONOMOUS REGION OVERWHELMINGLY YES:
The Philippines have a population of 100 million. 10% are Muslim and half live in the southern section of the island of Mindanao and 3 adjacent islands. Those regions have voted for self rule as the BAR. President Duterte is from the Mindanao Island and has relatives on both sides of the long Moro conflict that has claimed 6,000 lives in the last 20 years. The so-called madman president has made more progress on this inter-religious boundary than all of his more respectable predecessors. Muslims in the Philippines belong to the Shafii School of Sunni Islam and are not ideologically jihadist.

The Catholic Philippines and their Muslim Neighbors-Indonesia (250mill) and Malaya (30mill)

Philippines 100 million (10 million Muslim)

WAHHABISM OF THE SEA VS. WAHHABISM OF THE SAND: Religious-political differences between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. More on Qatar - hedging their bets.

SAUDI RADICALIZATION OF SUNNIS IN INDIA: Good overview.

A COMMON WORD BETWEEN US AND YOU: In October 2016, 38 Muslim scholars joined by 138 scholars a year later published a statement suggesting that love of God and love of neighbor should provide the basis of dialogue between Muslims and Christians. The Common Word project is very similar to the "concentric circles" approach of the Catholic Church which Vatican II presented to Christians, monotheists, religious men and all men of good will for the unity of mankind.

MADURO AND HIS MILITARY IN VENEZUELA: If they stick together... by Pat Buchanan. (ED -We think it is more likely that ambitious military men will see the writing on the wall and possibly take a base or a city as a move against the legitimacy of Maduro. The Church should establish sanctuary to help tip the balance. The more the balance is tipped and Maduro sees he needs an exit, the greater chance to reduce bloodshed.)

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE ANDA - MONGOL SWORN BROTHERS: Genghis Khan(reigned 1206-1227) said: "Man's greatest good fortune is to chase and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married women weeping and wailing, [and] ride his [horse]." Taking many men's wives, fully 8% (16 million) of men living today within the realm of his empire are his descendants. What made his conquests possible was the anda oath taking between warring Mongol tribes. The anda, once taken, ritually made men brothers under the rule of their leader, Genghis Khan. This ritual overcame tribal barriers, bound men together and to their commander, and helped establish a military brotherhood of over 1.2 million men. Texts of the anda ritual refer to the brotherhood oath binding the men together for life by establishing bonds of brotherly love between them. Through this oath the Mongols came to rule over nine million square miles.

BRYAN SINGER: Bohemian Rhapsody is up for an Oscar. Director Bryan Singer is why Christ never opposed Capital Punishment. A profile from The Atlantic.

VINCE LOMBARDI - QUOTES BY AND ABOUT: The leader lives for the group...

RENE GIRARD AND COVINGTON BY DREHER AND BARON: Dreher; Baron. Rene Girard is primarily known for his theories on mimetic desire and group scapegoating. In these links though the most interesting Girardian ideas discussed by Dreher are about the anti-Christ imitating Christ-taking some Christian trait and "doing it better than Christ". That is a trenchant portrayal of our victim culture, our open borders madness, and diversity's fascination with the "Other." Most leftist faults are extremes of Christian thought. Girard again very helpfully sees they soon become the "alternate totalitarians." Chesterton said "the modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad." He thought there were no more dangerous ideologues than those who separated the virtues - such as truth seeking or pity - and unleashed them to wreck havoc in isolation.

Girard is a French intellectual who later in life found that the "anthropological message of
Christianity was true". Hence he became a Christian. He is a Frenchman born in 1923 but died in America in 2015. What his role was as a male of fighting age in the liberation of Paris in August of 1944 is not clear. He spent most of his post-WWII life in the US. What is clear is that his "great religious insight" is that Christianity is a religion of nonviolence. Reducing Christianity to nonviolence sounds very much like the face of a modern pacifist, anti-Christ. There is in Girard no serious theory of building the kingdom, the authoritative role of Church or nation, and the necessity of physically and spiritually defeating and exorcizing the Devil. Girard is a great favorite of Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron is very nonviolent, very nice, and often perceptive. However he is seriously "masculine anthropology challenged" (a new term for a widespread reality). The discussion of Girard was triggered by the scapegoating of the Covington Catholic boys. Bishop Barron thought the internet went demonic though he says, "my intention is not to adjudicate the matter which remains at best ambiguous, even in regard to the basic facts." It is easier to call the internet demonic than stand face-to-face against a liar. The bishop decries an electronic system while Nicholas Sandmann is face-to-face real life with the liar. An aggressor grown-up, a teenage male, and a nonviolent bishop unwilling to defend the teen from the aggressive adult: have we seen this movie before?

MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS ON BISHOP BARRON: An unflattering not entirely fair profile but enough truth to read. Learn about Bishop Barron and Mr. Winters.

FROM MINNEAPOLIS: Newly elected Representative, Ilhan Omar, has now taken down her contribution to the dialogue. This is not misunderstanding the first video. It is utter fabrication.