Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: Saturday April 13

                                                   by A. Joseph Lynch and Dr. David Pence

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

APURON UPDATE: Watching Apuron of Guam. The mystery of Apuron continues - final judgment made.

POPE BENEDICT'S RESPONSE TO PAPAL SYNOD ON ABUSE: An egregious event - the collapse of all normative standards in sexuality - a mental breakdown from 1960-1980. Homosexual cliques in seminaries corrupted the character and authority of priests. A theology unmoored from the Real Presence lost the bond with God needed for authority in teaching morality. A people and era living without God - the ultimate cause of the crisis. The Sacramental Church is still where the real presence of Christ is found. Do not heed the Devil and try a new Church apart from the one where Christ still abides. A Thank You to Pope Francis - Benedict essay in response to Synod .

FAITH OF MY FATHER: A Catholic son remembers his Catholic Father  -Christopher Scalia on Anthony Scalia.

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

STEVE BANNON: Steve Bannon talk - the Trump campaign was built on: a) Limit immigration; b) Bring manufacturing jobs from China back to America; c) Pull out of wars in Afghanistan and Syria. Other takeaways: We don't have allies. We are financing protectorates. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are the leading intellectuals of dismantling the administrative state - maybe not so much cultural conservatives. America has been deindustrialized. Fixing immigration and restoring manufacturing jobs helps American black and Hispanic underclass. Civic Nationalism is about citizens not color groups. Best present American sociologist is Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance. Our great geopolitical war is with China, Iran, and Turkey controlling the Eurasian land mass. China is our biggest enemy. The election of President Trump was Divine Providence. This is the Fourth Turning (First three: Revolution, Civil War, Depression/WWII). Bannon also made it on Raymond Arroyo show. He understands economic nationalism much better than he understands the Catholic religion. The Institute he is starting in Europe is about "the West" and "Judaeo-Christian values". Not quite a rebinding of men to  Christianity and the living God in whose names the European nations were founded.  Bannon is also part of a group who sees China as an "existential threat " to America and thus joins neocons everywhere in bashing the ongoing Catholic-China dialogue so central to the Pope Francis initiative in bringing the Gospel to Asia. Bannon has a historical timeline and world map in his head--he is always worth listening to and often deserving of refutation.    

THE SPYING ON THE PRESIDENT, OUR SECURITY OFFICIALS AND THE BRITS - TOGETHER AGAINST TRUMP: The FBI and London.

III. THE NATIONS

ON RUSSIA: French born Russian American journalist Vladimir Pozny on the deteriorating nature of relations with Russia. Two first points. There is an unhealthy lack of fear of nuclear war. Boris Yeltsin was in favor of dissolving the Soviet Union so he would be the primary leader because he was President of Russia. Pozny sees US policy after the Cold War as being punitive and based on the "Wolfowitz Doctrine." That policy was to never allow a country to become a serious foe or threat to the US. He documents the promise of Secretary of State Baker to President Gorbachev that NATO would not expand east. He also reminds us of George Kennan opposition to expansion of NATO. To Mr. Pozny, this fatal decision made in the second term of Bill Clinton was the beginning of the new Cold War.  He says from 1990 to 2007 there was no Russian aggression. On the US side there was a) expansion of NATO; b) the bombing of Yugoslavia March 24, 1999 to June 1999 and c) the "liberation" of Kosovo from Serbia (NATO led war 1999 and Declaration of Independence 2008). The first political act of Putin was to apply for membership in NATO and then the European Union. A terrific historical talk about Russia and her mission.

POLAND, RUSSIA, AND A CRASH OVER KATYN FOREST: One of the great tragedies in Christian international politics is the abiding division between Poland and Russia preventing reconciliation to establish a new Christian order after the bloody 20th century. Part of the abiding animosity of Poles for the Soviet Union was the slaughter of Polish leaders in the Katyn Forest in 1940. A Polish president and many leaders of his government died in a plane crash over Russian airspace as they went to commemorate the event in 2010. Ever since a conspiracy accusation against the Russians has kept the leadership of both countries away from what should be a natural regathering of European nations under God against the soulless formulations of the atheist West. There is a real theocentric Europe of nations including Poland and Russia. May the real crime of the Soviet anti-nationalists at Katyn not be eclipsed by another Russian conspiracy hoax.

IRAN HAS FLOODING: Help them out or throw an anchor? Pope Francis responds.  Meanwhile the US seems to be  Declaring war on Iran ..and nobody blinked. Isn't this a more important issue to debate than President Trump's taxes?

BRAZIL: ...is the most interesting country politically in South America. The new minister of foreign affairs, Ernesto Araujo is a foe of post-modernism and globalism. He argues it is not Enlightenment values but stronger commitments to religion and nation that will lift Brazil. The most famous intellectual who has supported and helped define the Bolsonaro Presidency is Olavo de Carvahlo who lives in the US. (His webpage - looking for English). Politics is not about values. It is people and power. Don't say we should hate the sin not the sinner. The hate doesn't matter but definitely PUNISH THE SINNER (English subtitles). There is a hierarchy of goods and the first good in Christianity is to love God.

CHINA AND HER ETHNICS: The Russian who is Chinese - Race in China.

LEE KUAN YEW INTERVIEWED BY CHARLIE ROSE: We miss the great thinker and the serious interviewer. Here are some important takeaways but the whole interview is excellent.  America is more embracing of other races than Europe. The US-China relationship is the most important relationship in the 21st century. George H.W. Bush was very important in opening China in the US. The next generation of Chinese will speak English as their second language - not Russian. They will think differently and seek a role in the world, not unipolarity. There are 76 million people in Communist Party. There are different rules for them. The Communist Party incorporates any talented non party members who rise in different fields. The biggest surprises in his(Yew) years of public leadership: Two - 1) the fall of the Soviet Union and 2) the adaptation of the Chinese to free markets. The Chinese do not want to be honorary members of the West. They are a distinctive culture  5000 years old and know it. Henry Kissinger remembers Lee Kuan Yew. The two most important foreign policy thinkers of the last 50 years. They both speak English very well but one is an Asian nationalist and the other is a German-Jewish American who understand the world of nations. Both men are internationalists which is very different than globalists. They see nations as the primary civilizational actors shaping  history.  

ISRAEL, NETANYAHU, AND THE PRINCIPLE OF VICTORY: It is absolutely correct for Israel to reject the notion of Palestine as a nation inside their nation. There is no life inside of Israel for a two state solution - now someone has to tell Europe and America. There is no substitute for victory in this debate - there is a nation of Israel with a right to exist and there is no imagined nation of Palestine. Isn't it peculiar that the only nation the globalists are really in love with is one that doesn't exist? Jordan is the Arab nation that rose from the Palestine Mandate of the British. The recognition of Jerusalem as a capital and the Golan Heights as an honestly won defensible border is part of Israeli sovereignty which nationalists must assert. The great clarity of the speech and sensibilities of Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's Prime Minister is in his definition of Israel as a territorial nation. He is a great teacher with maps and his book on Israel's place among the nations is a stunning intellectual work of geographic and historical clarity.

The danger of Netanyahu to the United States is his disregard for the national integrity of neighboring nations. The idea that Israel can determine the foreign policy and alliances of Syria, Iran, and Lebanon is not a nationalist principle but its opposite. US support for the territorial integrity of Israel cannot be extended to support their alliance with Saudi Arabia in opposing the legitimate Shiite states (Iraq and Iran) and Shiite citizens (Hezbollah in Lebanon) throughout the region. Netanyahu's greatest fault reinforces Trump's greatest blindspot just as their refreshing masculine nationalisms buttress each other. Netanyahu tied his opponent in the Israeli election for number of seats in the Knesset but Netanyahu has small nationalist parties to ally with so he will form a new government. He is a historic figure with only David Ben-Gurion serving more terms as head of the government. A major strength which he emphasized was his ability to maintain good relations with both the US and Russia. Israel is our ally but Bibi is not our Secretary of State and their foreign policy goals are not our goals.

SAUDI ARABIA: The King (not the Crown Prince) is traveling to anoint Hiftar in Libya and assure Arabs that Jerusalem as a capital and the Golan Heights as a secured border is not Israel's. He is not getting rid of his son, just giving him room to breathe while the old King lays down important markers. The Israel alliance with Saudi Arabia is a short term gain against Iran but a disaster long term. God always warned Israel to trust Him not the foreign prince. Israel has elected their King David - now they need a prophet Nathan to restore the nation to the Living God and peace with their neighbors. The Saudi monarchy is like the Shah of Iran in 1978---not a good horse to hitch one's wagon. The religious movement that is slowly taking  control in Libya, disrupted Iraq for years with anti Shiite violence after the fall of Saddam Hussein, fomented Book Haram and Al-Shabaab in Africa, initiated the founding of al Qaeda and ISIS and inspired the 911 attack on America are the Salafist Sunni clerics of the tiny Hanbali legal school. They are based in Mecca and Medina protected by the century old Saudi-Wahabbi  coalition which is being bolstered(not reformed) by King Salman and his reckless Crown Prince son.

LIBYA: Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi by a Hillary Clinton inspired NATO bombing campaign, Libya has been in a civil war. President Obama calls Libya his greatest regret. Mrs. Clinton looks on the NATO bombing of a North African nation the same way her husband sees the NATO bombing of an Orthodox country (Serbia). These were necessary military acts showing the seriousness of the Clintons in charge. Mrs Clinton's role in Libya was  only overshadowed by the French President at the time.
The Libyan population is in the coastal north with older ethnic loyalties deeply embedded along an east/west divide (Tripoli in the west and Cyrene in the East) in the country of 6.5 million. Almost 2 million of the population may be foreign born but while in and out migration is extremely important, it is not reliably measured. 80% of the population lives in the big coastal cities along the Mediterranean. Northern African countries are called the Maghreb (West of Egypt) Arabs sharing the Sunni Islamic traditions. Their ethnic origins are as much Berber as Arabic. The most coherent governing movement in post Gaddafi Libya is backed by the Sunnis countries with overwhelming institutional weight. They are sometimes called the Madkhalis after a Saudi cleric. They are "quietist Salafists" that are anything but quiet. Unlike ISIS or al Qaeda, these Salafists are anti-revolutionary and urge Muslims to generally obey existing governmental authorities. (This mirrors the Saudi culture of very strict Wahhabi clerics who leave police and military to the  ruling royal clans--a sultan and mosque division of authority) In Libya, who shall rule militarily is a contested role. The eastern militias (where Benghazi and Cyrene are major cities) led by Khalifa Hiftar backed by Saudis, Egyptians, and UAE are informed by the new quietist brand of Salafism and recently attacked the Tripoli coalitions in the western portion of the country. US personnel are once again caught in a crossfire in a battle our religiously illiterate experts cannot explain.

CHINA: A clear and present danger? Is this really how we want to treat humanity's oldest civilization?

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

MODESTY: A reason for the practice. and Purity by von Hildebrand.

MAYOR PETER BUTTGIEG (pronounced butt-guy-gee) AND THE RELIGIOUS LEFT: Let us hope the mayor from South Bend rises as a contender in the Democratic Party. It will help the public conversation. The conversation we need is about religion, sex, and politics but it must be a real conversation. It must be grounded in the reality of God, anatomy and biology. If there is any gift President Trump brought to public discourse it was to encourage men to stop being afraid to tell the truth. There is no area in which the truth is so seldom told as the intersection of mainline American religion and the sexual revolution. This has led to giddiness over a homosexual white guy running as "the normal candidate" and disdain for Patriarchal Christianity and American nationalism as hate groups. The traditional public forms of interracial community and order needed to protect and provide for women children, orphans, and the poor have been demonized for their all male character.  Meanwhile a private form of male union which once "dare not speak its name" is lauded as a source of respectability. Homosexuality is considered some weird new baptismal font that washes a  white man clean to don the leadership of the Democratic Party.  Did anyone run this by Andrew Jackson or John Kennedy.  Mayor Pete is not really a member of the religious left (like Pope Francis can be accused of). Mayor Buttgieg is part of the sexual left that is humanist, not theocentric, homosexual not nationalist in male character and feminist, not virginal or maternal in female character. This article about the "religious left" is missing the much larger phenomenon of why there is no real American religious left anymore. The sexual revolution took over mainline Christianity and Judaism long ago. In fact it is the homosexual priests, the atheist rabbis, and the feminist Protestant ministers who gave us the sexual revolution. It wasn't the miners, electricians, and hard hats who came up with Barney Frank and Hillary Clinton replacing Mayor Daley and Robert Kennedy.  The sexual revolution rose from the churches and the atheist Jewish left. Their cover was the real civil rights movement for interracial justice.  The loss of God as the ordering personal reality of American public life is what gave us the sexual confusion of the sexual revolution. To restore our nation we must talk about the sexual order that reflects the sacral order. The clear speaking mayor from South Bend may help us have the conversation we need if Christian men are willing to speak clearly back to him. We will have to discuss reproductive tracts and the digestive system. We will have to bring up that national category error that confuses the heroism at a bridge in Selma with the debauchery at an Inn called Stonehall. Welcome Mayor Pete, can we talk?

CANDACE OWENS RIVETING TESTIMONY TO CONGRESS: Her grandpa knows real white nationalism. And she knew ANTIFA.

GREAT TEACHERS: Teachers like - the great composer-songwriter Stephen Sondheim.

TRYING TO KEEP THE WORLD OF MATTER ONLY -  HAWKING, BLACK HOLES, AND THE MULTIVERSE: A nice reflection on some of the recent philosophical gyrations of physicists.