February 22: The Feast of the Chair of Peter. Pope Francis and the leadership lessons of Lincoln

Chair of St Peter. A wooden chair given to a Pope by an Emperor in 875 AD. Gilded in bronze in 1647. 

On the birthday of America's founding patriarch (see Feb 22 below), the Church dedicates a Feast Day to celebrate a Chair given as a gift from an Emperor to a Pope.  We are meant to contemplate this symbol of authority and the Petrine office. Community demands Authority. Pope John Paul II asked all Christians to  suggest how this office should be lived to bring Christian Unity. Pope Francis has called together all the heads of Bishop Conferences and heads of religious orders to a summit in Rome "to listen to the cries of the little ones." A major theme of the Pope for episcopal and priestly reform is the necessity of synodal governance of the Church.(His address on 50th anniversary of Bishop Synods)  He called the February 2019 gathering to show the Church in a synodal form addressing abuse of minors. He is at all times keeping in mind the bishops of the Orthodox tradition and the need for unity with them so the Church can "breathe with two lungs". He has strongly resisted the American desire to insert lay people into Church governance. He has called the Apostles together to confront the pain of the victims and assert their every bishop and bishop's conference must go back to their home territories and show mercy by ruling justly. His gathering of the leaders is to insure that the sins of some do not diminish the authority of the Apostolic whole. His war against clericalism is not a war against the sacral Apostolic character of priestly identity. Unlike his predecessors, Pope Francis has shown any individual can be stripped of his rank to purify the priestly bond. The dramatic reduction of Theodore McCarrick the big spending, high flying American to the lay state is a vivid reminder that the old days of gentle whispers are over. The communal whole is greater than the wealthy maverick.

In this conference he is pointedly not addressing  homosexuality in the priesthood as a root cause of the crisis. This does not mean other bishops and free flowing press conferences cannot forcefully make the connections. Rather the Pope is mustering the authorities in the ecclesial form of the corporate brotherhood in prayer and parrhesia(fearless speech).  This is the antidote to the lobbyists, the magnified little men behind the curtains of media, the secret intriguers who fill the chanceries and Curia, the "homosexual parish" that shapes Catholic clericalism. He draws bishops together as he expects them to assemble their priests---in public, face-to-face, man-to-man encounters of fraternity under the Father. He has always emphasized that in synodal gatherings the bishops meet with (cum) the Pope and under (sub) the Pope. The problem with the Church is not an all male clergy. It is an emasculated clergy that has lost its sacral identity as a fraternity of fathers.

 Pope Francis knows the clerical rot is deep and he will need many new men and groups of men rising within the  diocesan and national gatherings of the ordained. He sees the synod in the Church the way he sees fraternity among the world religions and the nations. Fatherhood and brotherhood are the antidotes to spiritual incest. These are built in the many communal forms of the priesthood and episcopacy.  The Holy Father always starts with the whole before the part. He has written about this for decades (see The Mind of Pope Francis) 

President Abraham Lincoln faced the division of the American nation as he assumed the Presidency in 1860. Slavery was the fundamental sin which could not be reconciled with the Declaration of Independence though it was allowed in the Constitution. Many abolitionists demanded he build his campaign and Presidency on condemning the evil of slavery. But Lincoln understood he must hold together the Union or he would never have the authority to end slavery. He built his Presidency and  his Second Inaugural on expanding the civic brotherhood upon which the nation was founded.   The Pope is acting like Lincoln and many of us critics (self included) are playing the abolitionist. We should pause to see the whole and respect the Chair. ( There may be a lesson from the world of motorcycling explained in Matthew Crawford's book on The World Outside Your Head. He says when you are walking, you keep your eyes on a hazard ahead to avoid it. But if you are on a high speed motorcycle you must deliberately keep your focus on the clear road ahead not the hazard. )From the beginning of his papacy the Pope has said he will not focus on "contraception, gay marriage and abortion". He is not an individual writing a blog entry.  He is on a very fast and dangerous motorcycle, directing a global Church. His vision and words must inspire millions of poor fathers trying to find work in the megacities before placating hundreds of western elites debating their abominable perversions.

Another Man who understood the Authority of His Chair

All those who have taken this crisis as an opportunity to strike at the liturgy of the Novus Ordo, the validity of the Second Vatican Council, and the papacy of Pope Francis should consider the whole. They are in very dangerous waters playing the Accuser in trying to discredit the true agents of the Holy Spirit. They do the Accuser's work more efficiently than enemies who display no veneer of "faithful Catholics' to fool the faithful. They recoil with righteous indignation when they and their fraudulent clerical heroes (Vigano and Burke) are exposed for helping the Serpent who wants a headless Church. Those two same Chief Pharisees were quick to accuse the women in adultery after the Papal Amoris document but were not so authoritarian as they let two notorious homosexual bishops (Nienstedt and Apuron) slip through their perfumed hands of mercy. So stringent with the lady in the back pew with her kids; so gentle and accompanying with the predator clerics. Those polluted priests have done much more to desacralize the Eucharist from the priest side of the altar than any lady reaching through the crowd to touch Christ's garment. As Pope Francis says, there is something of the Black Mass with the predator priests. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." It is not the Novus Ordo that desacralizes the Mass. That is another smokescreen from diabolos. It is the Nienstedts and Apurons and McCarricks and Spellmans. It is not the sins of the laity which threaten our liturgical life--it is the priestly pollution.

 
The "traddies" and "resistance" should be mindful. Their momentary  media bubble is a glass house built on sand. As the traffic generated by their hysteria recedes, they will have time to remember the first rule of regicide. Be sure you kill the  king, if you are going to shoot at him.
For those of us who want to help the Father clean the filth we must reassert the whole with Pope Francis.  Vatican II is "rereading of the Gospels in a concrete historical situation." The event of Vatican II and especially the liturgical reform is the biblical answer to modernity not the fruit of modernism.  The renewed Church of Vatican II will be composed of synodal brotherhoods not the hidden clerical cliques of chancery, Curia, and "the lavender parish".

 One principal storyline of the Francis papacy is restoring the Papacy  as Shepherd-Ruler after the papacies of the philosopher-prophet and the theologian-priest. The journey Pope Francis is walking with us cannot be interrupted for you tube monologues contrasting two American queens like Raymond Burke and James Martin. We must think much bigger to think with Francis who is not the provincial that American neoconservatives label him.

It is not only the Church but the nations which constitute Christendom and humanity. Pope Francis understands the Church must go 'to the periphery" to baptize the nations or the Church forfeits her mission. Pope Francis is calling together the Apostolic Church as a Synodal fraternity to reform herself and function as a template for humanity. He is leading the biblical People of God amidst the nations. He is showing us the public fruits of Vatican Two are still maturing while the twisted fruits of hidden clericalism are rotting.  Following the true Spirit of the Second Vatican Council, he has initiated his unique diplomacy of fraternity to Confucian China and Islam. He answered the beheading of the Coptic martyrs on the shores of the Mediterranean with public Mass on the sands of Arabia. Synodal brotherhood in the Church and fraternity amidst the religions and nations of mankind may just be the wholistic approach that will best isolate the lavender Judas in the Vatican and the  salafist Cain in Mecca. Let us pray for Our Holy Father on this feast day and honor that Holy Chair.  He has a large plan and we can all agree he has not yet  found his General Grant.  

Feb 22: The Feast of the Chair of Peter. Pope Francis and the leadership lessons of Lincoln

Chair of St Peter. A wooden chair given to a Pope by an Emperor in 875 AD. Gilded in bronze in 1647. 

On the birthday of America's founding patriarch (see Feb 22 below), the Church dedicates a Feast Day to celebrate a Chair given as a gift from an Emperor to a Pope.  We are meant to contemplate this symbol of authority and the Petrine office. Community demands Authority. Pope John Paul II asked all Christians to  suggest how this office should be lived to bring Christian Unity. Pope Francis has called together all the heads of Bishop Conferences and heads of religious orders to a summit in Rome "to listen to the cries of the little ones." A major theme of the Pope for episcopal and priestly reform is the necessity of synodal governance of the Church.(His address on 50th anniversary of Bishop Synods)  He called the February 2019 gathering to show the Church in a synodal form addressing abuse of minors. He is at all times keeping in mind the bishops of the Orthodox tradition and the need for unity with them so the Church can "breathe with two lungs". He has strongly resisted the American desire to insert lay people into Church governance. He has called the Apostles together to confront the pain of the victims and assert their every bishop and bishop's conference must go back to their home territories and show mercy by ruling justly. His gathering of the leaders is to insure that the sins of some do not diminish the authority of the Apostolic whole. His war against clericalism is not a war against the sacral Apostolic character of priestly identity. Unlike his predecessors, Pope Francis has shown any individual can be stripped of his rank to purify the priestly bond. The dramatic reduction of Theodore McCarrick the big spending, high flying American to the lay state is a vivid reminder that the old days of gentle whispers are over. The communal whole is greater than the wealthy maverick.

In this conference he is pointedly not addressing  homosexuality in the priesthood as a root cause of the crisis. This does not mean other bishops and free flowing press conferences cannot forcefully make the connections. Rather the Pope is mustering the authorities in the ecclesial form of the corporate brotherhood in prayer and parrhesia(fearless speech).  This is the antidote to the lobbyists, the magnified little men behind the curtains of media, the secret intriguers who fill the chanceries and Curia, the "homosexual parish" that shapes Catholic clericalism. He draws bishops together as he expects them to assemble their priests---in public, face-to-face, man-to-man encounters of fraternity under the Father. He has always emphasized that in synodal gatherings the bishops meet with (cum) the Pope and under (sub) the Pope. The problem with the Church is not an all male clergy. It is an emasculated clergy that has lost its sacral identity as a fraternity of fathers.

 Pope Francis knows the clerical rot is deep and he will need many new men and groups of men rising within the  diocesan and national gatherings of the ordained. He sees the synod in the Church the way he sees fraternity among the world religions and the nations. Fatherhood and brotherhood are the antidotes to spiritual incest. These are built in the many communal forms of the priesthood and episcopacy.  The Holy Father always starts with the whole before the part. He has written about this for decades (see The Mind of Pope Francis) 

President Abraham Lincoln faced the division of the American nation as he assumed the Presidency in 1860. Slavery was the fundamental sin which could not be reconciled with the Declaration of Independence though it was allowed in the Constitution. Many abolitionists demanded he build his campaign and Presidency on condemning the evil of slavery. But Lincoln understood he must hold together the Union or he would never have the authority to end slavery. He built his Presidency and  his Second Inaugural on expanding the civic brotherhood upon which the nation was founded.   The Pope is acting like Lincoln and many of us critics (self included) are playing the abolitionist. We should pause to see the whole and respect the Chair. ( There may be a lesson from the world of motorcycling explained in Matthew Crawford's book on The World Outside Your Head. He says when you are walking, you keep your eyes on a hazard ahead to avoid it. But if you are on a high speed motorcycle you must deliberately keep your focus on the clear road ahead not the hazard. )From the beginning of his papacy the Pope has said he will not focus on "contraception, gay marriage and abortion". He is not an individual writing a blog entry.  He is on a very fast and dangerous motorcycle, directing a global Church. His vision and words must inspire millions of poor fathers trying to find work in the megacities before placating hundreds of western elites debating their abominable perversions.

Another Man who understood the Authority of His Chair

All those who have taken this crisis as an opportunity to strike at the liturgy of the Novus Ordo, the validity of the Second Vatican Council, and the papacy of Pope Francis should consider the whole. They are in very dangerous waters playing the Accuser in trying to discredit the true agents of the Holy Spirit. They do the Accuser's work more efficiently than enemies who display no veneer of "faithful Catholics' to fool the faithful. They recoil with righteous indignation when they and their fraudulent clerical heroes (Vigano and Burke) are exposed for helping the Serpent who wants a headless Church. Those two same Chief Pharisees were quick to accuse the women in adultery after the Papal Amoris document but were not so authoritarian as they let two notorious homosexual bishops (Nienstedt and Apuron) slip through their perfumed hands of mercy. So stringent with the lady in the back pew with her kids; so gentle and accompanying with the predator clerics. Those polluted priests have done much more to desacralize the Eucharist from the priest side of the altar than any lady reaching through the crowd to touch Christ's garment. As Pope Francis says, there is something of the Black Mass with the predator priests. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." It is not the Novus Ordo that desacralizes the Mass. That is another smokescreen from diabolos. It is the Nienstedts and Apurons and McCarricks and Spellmans. It is not the sins of the laity which threaten our liturgical life--it is the priestly pollution.

 
The "traddies" and "resistance" should be mindful. Their momentary  media bubble is a glass house built on sand. As the traffic generated by their hysteria recedes, they will have time to remember the first rule of regicide. Be sure you kill the  king, if you are going to shoot at him.
For those of us who want to help the Father clean the filth we must reassert the whole with Pope Francis.  Vatican II is "rereading of the Gospels in a concrete historical situation." The event of Vatican II and especially the liturgical reform is the biblical answer to modernity not the fruit of modernism.  The renewed Church of Vatican II will be composed of synodal brotherhoods not the hidden clerical cliques of chancery, Curia, and "the lavender parish".

 One principal storyline of the Francis papacy is restoring the Papacy  as Shepherd-Ruler after the papacies of the philosopher-prophet and the theologian-priest. The journey Pope Francis is walking with us cannot be interrupted for you tube monologues contrasting two American queens like Raymond Burke and James Martin. We must think much bigger to think with Francis who is not the provincial that American neoconservatives label him.

It is not only the Church but the nations which constitute Christendom and humanity. Pope Francis understands the Church must go 'to the periphery" to baptize the nations or the Church forfeits her mission. Pope Francis is calling together the Apostolic Church as a Synodal fraternity to reform herself and function as a template for humanity. He is leading the biblical People of God amidst the nations. He is showing us the public fruits of Vatican Two are still maturing while the twisted fruits of hidden clericalism are rotting.  Following the true Spirit of the Second Vatican Council, he has initiated his unique diplomacy of fraternity to Confucian China and Islam. He answered the beheading of the Coptic martyrs on the shores of the Mediterranean with public Mass on the sands of Arabia. Synodal brotherhood in the Church and fraternity amidst the religions and nations of mankind may just be the wholistic approach that will best isolate the lavender Judas in the Vatican and the  salafist Cain in Mecca. Let us pray for Our Holy Father on this feast day and honor that Holy Chair.  He has a large plan and we can all agree he has not yet  found his General Grant.  

Religion, Nations and Geopolitics Review: Saturday Oct 20

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

The Reckonings: The Pope and Homosexual Clergy,

The President and the Wahhabi Sauds

The relentless criticism from the left of President Trump and from the Catholic right against Pope Francis are assaults on the unity of both our country and the Church. This does not mean that both men do not have fundamental long standing problems which they must address to strengthen both Church and Country. Their deepest simmering problems surfaced in living technicolor this week.

Pope Francis must face the central cause of the sexual abuse scandal-the deep infiltration and corruption of the Catholic priesthood by homosexuals. (UPDATE DECEMBER 2018 HIS CLEAREST STATEMENT ON HOMOSEXUALS IN PRIESTHOOD)

Archbishop Vigano's "third testimony"(see below) sent on the feast of the North American Jesuit martyrs is the clearest case yet for overcoming the "silence " on this issue. That silence has crippled reform for decades. We still believe Archbishop Vigano is gravely mistaken about Pope Francis rehabilitating Cardinal McCarrick. Vigano also is directly responsible for an inadequate response to "the homosexual conservative" John Nienstedt continuing to act as a bishop and priest in good standing. At the same time there is no living priest or bishop who has so forthrightly named the beast that stalks our sanctuaries. For this, all of us, including the Pope, must be grateful for the Vigano testimonies. This last testimony refrained from asking the pope to resign and adopted a much more filial posture to the pontiff.  That did not mean he wasn't sharply critical. The Pope has asked for parrhesia . Vigano complied.

 The Archbishop is making it easier for others (including the Pope) to clamor for justice by ruling any act of sodomy by a priest must engender an automatic loss of the office and clerical state. (AOA Strategy for Reform). This betrayal of sacral fatherhood is exactly analogous to the offense of abortion against femininity and motherhood. The Church punishes the woman with excommunication. There is no trial. She is excommunicated by the act itself-latae sententiae.  A similar clarity in canon law can manifest to  corrupted modern man what depravity toward the sacral fatherhood is sodomy. Are we not amazed that there is a large body of "conservatives" and "liberals" who do not consider adult consensual acts of sodomy by priests, bishops, monks or cardinals to be a "grave delict?"   If we need a focus for the Catholic conversation about the worldwide clergy corruption, this would nicely center the conversation. A clarified interpretation of the present law or an explicit canon  would both reaffirm the sacrality of the priesthood and make clear the depravity of that twisted act. If we hear this is "scapegoating gay priests", let us remember the scapegoat is one goat who is exiled for the group. There are thousands of homosexual priests--they are not scapegoats. They are the moneychangers who overran the temple... they must be driven out.

The Eucharist is a joining of humanity in the Son's sacrificial love of the Father through the liturgical action of a male Catholic priest.  Sodomy is a sin against the fundamental male love of father for son, son for father and brothers for one another under Our Father. Properly ordered masculine love is the basis of ecclesial  apostolic order and public political life. Sodomy is incompatible with the male actions at the sacred altar which order the Church's public life to the Trinitarian love of the Father and Son.  This sin has nothing to do with the Sixth Commandment or marriage. It has everything to do with the desacralization of the Mass, the Apostolic priesthood and the unifying  love of the Son for the Father and all of humanity. It is a violation of the First and Fourth commandments before the Sixth.

The incessant criticisms of the conservative Catholic media against Pope Francis are not helping us come together to face the crisis. The many rifles aimed at the pope can be better aimed at the corrupted priests and bishops we can expose and banish from every diocese and country in the Catholic world. We need Pope Francis to call together the male bishops in public face to face assemblies to address this corruption. He is doing just that in his proposed February 2019 meeting of all the heads of bishop conferences. We need time to be sure there will be several bold bishops who will go there saying the homosexualization of the clergy is the number one problem that is destroying the protective brotherhood of fathers which Jesus instituted 2000 years ago. The ordered male group is the antidote to homosexual clericalism as well as organized male violence.  We have not made that argument with enough force. We do not have the many dossiers we need to expose the homosexual clergy including those men slated to enter the conclave of cardinals to pick the next pope.  This Pope is all about the synodal character of priestly life. We need such a Pope more than another theologian or philosopher.  The reconfigured public episcopal bodies must boldly begin the act of Apostolic cleansing which Christ did to Judas on the night before he died. He ordered His bishops to do as He had done! That mandate stands today.

Pope Francis has been tricked by many progressive bishops who have exploited his call for joy and mercy to cover their double lives of squalid exploitation and depraved forms of clericalism. May our holy prayerful Pope see them for who they are. He clearly has missed on Cardinal Wuerl. But let us be careful in condemning the Pope's every move. He is surrounded by bishops and officials placed there by Popes Benedict and John Paul II. They too dined with the serpent and added significantly to his penetration of priestly life during their pontificates. It was always thus with Sodom--the sin is so destructive of fraternity that it is hard to find a quorum of men who can clean the place after a certain degree of pollution.  Let us pray for the pope and ask every bishop and priest to speak clearly about the desacralized masculinity which must be purified in every diocese and every country including the Vatican to safeguard Christ's Spotless Bride once again. Like you, me, and Vigano, Pope Francis is not perfect and has been negligent. Is he Judas or Peter? If Judas, wash him out. If Peter, may he be called to repentance and more vigorous rule. Look at the wily Wuerl. Listen to the exuberant Francis. Who is Judas? Expose him and banish him. Who is Peter? Forgive him, even criticize him, but then follow him. We must help him because like the pontiffs before him, he is surrounded. But unlike them, he is leading us to a reckoning.

In a similar way, President Trump must now face his own long neglected Achilles heel. He too has embraced our enemies thinking them friends. The great nationalist has been stymied in his policies by three "allies".  First and most importantly, President Trump has gone down the George Bush path of trusting the Saudi Kingdom-home of the most radical terrorist religious movement on the globe today. The Cold War is over and our old ally-the Sauds- are now our enemy. It is they, not Iraq and not Iran, who killed our people on 9/11 two decades ago.  All Muslims do not look alike and all Muslims do not behead Christians, fly planes into office towers or cut up their own in foreign consulates. The rash Muhammed bin Salman is the worst of the anti Shiite Wahabbis to lead Saudi Arabia in decades. (These three links ( One  Two  Three) all have sections under Islam and the Mideast  of our previous documentation and significant stories about the rise of MbS as Saudi Crown Prince).
Even if some Sunni rich girls are driving and going to soccer games--MbS has been a warmonger, an interfamilial opportunist  and murderer from the beginning. Anyone who pays  a tiny bit of attention to religion and geopolitics in the region would never have been fooled by the 30 something murderer of Houthi Shiites in Yemen. Muhammed bib Salman is easing the domestic police but he has unleashed the murderous side of the Wahhabi  sect--the belief that Shiites are not Muslims and should be exterminated to purify the religion. Before MbS tried to bring down Qatar and the al Jazeera network, Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia condemned the Wahhabis of Qatar.  MbS is not reining in Saudi Wahhabism. He is sharpening their bloodiest knives while putting a smile on his outside the tent face. MbS has alienated all of his older more competent relatives. He must have the clerics and the clerics are very interested in a leader who will do real physical harm to the armed Shiite governments in the region.  MbS  is not yet  King but he wields most of the power as Crown Prince. He has rid the higher institutional positions of older more competent royals who might have been his opposition. This includes not a few men in their fifties who once were favorites of the American CIA.  To characterize the fanatical anti Shiite campaign of Wahhabi Sauds as a century old sectarian fight between Shiites and Sunnis is to call the KKK  just another group of whites in the  century long black-white divide. Yes there is a long standing Sunni-Shia divide like there has been animosity across the color line for centuries. But the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia (like the KKK) are special.

 The second ally who has undermined America and the Trump presidency is our look alike across the sea-Great Britain. British intelligence and most British politicians (pro- Brexit or not) do not want a US-Russian alliance. Employing eager anti Trump forces in both parties, Christopher Steele and many other English speaking white guys in media and British governmental services have been very successful in hiding in full view. The Russian hoax has as many British fingerprints as anti Trump Americans. They love the special Atlantic alliance of the white English speaking countries in "the West".  They hate the realignment of racial groups and civilizations which comes from nationalism and the respect of very different national cultures. A new post bipolar Cold War  nationalist policy of bandwagoning strong nations would reconfigure the relations of nations with a huge loss in status for white English speaking Britain. An alliance of  the strong nation men of Russia, of China, of Japan, and of Brazil makes a very different world than the globalists of the West managed by Angela Merkel, Theresa May and Hillary Clinton/Nikki Haley talk-alikes. This is an insight the English accented Fox News commentators may get last.

The Israelis too have played their great ally. They have escalated their anti Iran propaganda and  enlisted our country in a war against the strongest military force in the region which has destroyed ISIS and opposed our real terrorist enemies- the salafist Wahhabis. The Israelis have never seen the purification Wahhabis as a principal enemy.  ISIS hasn't shot at them and they haven't shot at ISIS. The Israeli have looked at the Muslim vs Muslim war as an opportunity to weaken their greatest enemy-Iran.  Because of this, America and Israel have fundamentally different views and strategies in the Mideast and Afghanistan. The Wahhabi Sunnis from the Hanbali school of Islam are still unpunished for 911. They are by far the greatest worldwide sponsors of terrorism (al Qaeda, ISIS, the Syrian civil war, Boko Haram, the Ughurs of China and Chechynans of Russia are all Sunni radicals not Iranian Shiites.) Israel has taken advantage of our Senators' general ignorance of religion and foreign policy. The huge Israeli lobby in Washington (and the considerable think tank and lobbying efforts of the Saudis) have pointed American weapons at Iran instead of where the hijackers came from. We cannot blame Israel for having their own interests. We can blame our political leaders for not differentiating Israel's enemies and foreign policy from our own. "America First" does not mean, "Whatever Israel Wants." A good nationalist favors an undivided Israeli capital in Jerusalem not an auxiliary branch in Washington DC.

The pathetic ignorance of our real national interests in the Mideast  is the problem in foreign policy that President Trump came to fix.  He said we have to find out "what the hell is going on with the Muslims. Where does this hate come from?"  Well ,we are still too religiously ignorant to understand  the story and punish our real enemies. We still don't understand Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Hate.
Nations are maneuvering for their interests (especially Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Brits ) while we are played for fools. What China did in economics, the Saudis, Israelis and Brits did in our foreign policy and post election paralysis.  We must empty our governing halls of the feminists and careerists who have sacrificed the nation for their own status pods in the swamp. Most of them are not evil just incredibly limited in dealing with much stronger and more serious men of other countries. Those men  are acting for their nation states against careerists who are only acting for their survival in office. So far it has been no contest. President Trump wants a nationalist foreign policy but he is surrounded by military men and Republican security experts who were marinated in the globalist interventionist world view. Journalists and senators should provide a counter narrative to help him realign our forces not blame him for the mess he did not make.

We must break with the Saudis who are our enemies. Our opposition to them is for sins more grave than their gruesome murder of a man they consider a traitor. This is not the first  time we have seen a plane load of Saudis leave a country after a gruesome murder. It happened in September of 2001.  The plane was leaving US airspace and it wasn't one Saudi traitor with an American green card who had been killed. It was 3000 American civilians at work in New York City. Their innocent blood still calls for justice!

Will Pope Francis see the lavender mob corrupting his priesthood? Will President Trump see the salafist jihadists from Mecca and Medina trying to get us into war with Iran? Both men have vicious enemies that misinterpret their every statement. That makes it difficult to help them see their real mistakes. Pope Francis has been horrifically slow to see the homosexual infiltration in every diocese and the Vatican in the Catholic clergy. President Trump picked the wrong country-Saudi Arabia- to be our ally and the worst of all leaders-- Muhammed bin Salman-- to promise his  loyalty. Let us see if the Pope and the President  can see their mistakes and make some very necessary and fundamental corrections.

                                                                   I The Pope and the Church

The Case Against the Pope by Michael Brandon Daugherty   
 We don't agree with this rendition but he makes the clearest case for the anti Francis movement.

Pope's letter to Wuerl - An indictment of both by Rod Dreher

Networks and Double Lives: Wright, Wuerl and the Pittsburgh Oratory
Good reporting by Ken Woodward in Commonweal Magazine

Vigano's Third Testament: A much stronger focus not on resignation by the Pope but repentance by all for not facing the plague of homosexuality corrupting the Catholic priesthood. In full below:

Archbishop Vigano Responds to Cardinal Ouellet: The Third Testimony
On the Memory of the North American Martyrs
By Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano
October 19, 2018

To bear witness to corruption in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church was a painful decision for me, and remains so. But I am an old man, one who knows he must soon give an accounting to the judge for his actions and omissions, one who fears Him who can cast body and soul into hell. A judge, even in his infinite mercy, will render to every person salvation or damnation according to what he has deserved. Anticipating the dreadful question from that judge — “How could you, who had knowledge of the truth, keep silent in the midst of falsehood and depravity?” — what answer could I give?

I testified fully aware that my testimony would bring alarm and dismay to many eminent persons: Churchmen, fellow bishops, colleagues with whom I had worked and prayed. I knew many would feel wounded and betrayed. I expected that some would in their turn assail me and my motives. Most painful of all, I knew that many of the innocent faithful would be confused and disconcerted by the spectacle of a bishop’s charging colleagues and superiors with malfeasance, sexual sin, and grave neglect of duty. Yet I believe that my continued silence would put many souls at risk, and would certainly damn my own.

Having reported multiple times to my superiors, and even to the pope, the aberrant behavior of Theodore McCarrick, I could have publicly denounced the truths of which I was aware earlier.
If I have some responsibility in this delay, I repent for that. This delay was due to the gravity of the decision I was going to take, and to the long travail of my conscience. I have been accused of creating confusion and division in the Church through my testimony. To those who believe such confusion and division were negligible prior to August 2018, perhaps such a claim is plausible.

Most impartial observers, however, will have been aware of a longstanding excess of both, as is inevitable when the successor of Peter is negligent in exercising his principal mission, which is to confirm the brothers in the faith and in sound moral doctrine. When he then exacerbates the crisis by contradictory or perplexing statements about these doctrines, the confusion is worsened. "Therefore I spoke" Therefore I spoke.

For it is the conspiracy of silence that has wrought and continues to wreak great harm in the Church — harm to so many innocent souls, to young priestly vocations, to the faithful at large. With regard to my decision, which I have taken in conscience before God, I willingly accept every fraternal correction, advice, recommendation, and invitation to progress in my life of faith and love for Christ, the Church and the pope. Let me restate the key points of my testimony:

• In November 2000 the U.S. nuncio Archbishop (Gabriel) Montalvoinformed the Holy See of Cardinal McCarrick’s homosexual behavior with seminarians and priests.
• In December 2006 the new U.S. nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, informed the Holy See of Cardinal McCarrick’s homosexual behavior with yet another priest.
• In December of 2006 I myself wrote a memo to the Secretary of State Cardinal (Tarcisio) Bertone, and personally delivered it to the Substitute for General Affairs, Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, calling for the pope to bring extraordinary disciplinary measures against McCarrick to forestall future crimes and scandal. This memo received no response.
• In April 2008 an open letter to Pope Benedict by Richard Sipe was relayed by the Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal (William) Levada, to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Bertone, containing further accusations of McCarrick’s sleeping with seminarians and priests. I received this a month later, and in May 2008 I myself delivered a second memo to the then Substitute for General Affairs, Archbishop Fernando Filoni, reporting the claims against McCarrick and calling for sanctions against him. This second memo also received no response.
• In 2009 or 2010 I learned from Cardinal (Giovanni Battista) Re, prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, that Pope Benedict had ordered McCarrick to cease public ministry and begin a life of prayer and penance. The nuncio Sambi communicated the Pope’s orders to McCarrick in a voice heard down the corridor of the nunciature.
• In November 2011 Cardinal (Marc) Ouellet, the new Prefect of Bishops, repeated to me, the new nuncio to the U.S., the Pope’s restrictions on McCarrick, and I myself communicated them to McCarrick face-to-face.
• On June 21, 2013, toward the end of an official assembly of nuncios at the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke cryptic words to me criticizing the U.S. episcopacy.
• On June 23, 2013, I met Pope Francis face-to-face in his apartment to ask for clarification, and the Pope asked me, “il cardinale McCarrick, com’è (Cardinal McCarrick — what do you make of him)?”– which I can only interpret as a feigning of curiosity in order to discover whether or not I was an ally of McCarrick. I told him that McCarrick had sexually corrupted generations of priests and seminarians, and had been ordered by Pope Benedict to confine himself to a life of prayer and penance.
• Instead, McCarrick continued to enjoy the special regard of Pope Francis and was given new responsibilities and missions by him.
• McCarrick was part of a network of bishops promoting homosexuality who exploiting their favor with Pope Francis manipulated episcopal appointments so as to protect themselves from justice and to strengthen the homosexual network in the hierarchy and in the Church at large.
• Pope Francis himself has either colluded in this corruption, or, knowing what he does, is gravely negligent in failing to oppose it and uproot it.
• "I invoked God as my witness" I invoked God as my witness to the truth of my claims, and none has been shown false.
• Cardinal Ouellet has written to rebuke me for my temerity in breaking silence and leveling such grave accusations against my brothers and superiors, but in truth his remonstrance confirms me in my decision and, even more, serves to vindicate my claims, severally and as a whole.
• Cardinal Ouellet concedes that he spoke with me about McCarrick’s situation prior to my leaving for Washington to begin my post as nuncio.
• Cardinal Ouellet concedes that he communicated to me in writing the conditions and restrictions imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict.
• Cardinal Ouellet concedes that these restrictions forbade McCarrick to travel or to make public appearances.
• Cardinal Ouellet concedes that the Congregation of Bishops, in writing, first through the nuncio Sambi and then once again through me, required McCarrick to lead a life of prayer and penance. What does Cardinal Ouellet dispute?
• Cardinal Ouellet disputes the possibility that Pope Francis could have taken in important information about McCarrick on a day when he met scores of nuncios and gave each only a few moments of conversation. But this was not my testimony. My testimony is that at a second, private meeting, I informed the Pope, answering his own question about Theodore McCarrick, then Cardinal archbishop emeritus of Washington, prominent figure of the Church in the US, telling the pope that McCarrick had sexually corrupted his own seminarians and priests. No pope could forget that.
• Cardinal Ouellet disputes the existence in his archives of letters signed by Pope Benedict or Pope Francis regarding sanctions on McCarrick. But this was not my testimony. My testimony was that he has in his archives key documents – irrespective of provenance – incriminating McCarrick and documenting the measures taken in his regard, and other proofs on the cover-up regarding his situation. And I confirm this again.
• Cardinal Ouellet disputes the existence in the files of his predecessor, Cardinal Re, of “audience memos” imposing on McCarrick the restrictions already mentioned. But this was not my testimony. My testimony is that there are other documents: for instance, a note from Card. Re not ex-Audientia SS.mi, or signed by the Secretary of State or by the Substitute.
• Cardinal Ouellet disputes that it is false to present the measures taken against McCarrick as “sanctions” decreed by Pope Benedict and canceled by Pope Francis. True. They were not technically “sanctions” but provisions, “conditions and restrictions.” To quibble whether they were sanctions or provisions or something else is pure legalism. From a pastoral point of view they are exactly the same thing.

In brief, Cardinal Ouellet concedes the important claims that I did and do make, and disputes claims I don’t make and never made. There is one point on which I must absolutely refute what Cardinal Ouellet wrote. The Cardinal states that the Holy See was only aware of “rumors,” which were not enough to justify disciplinary measures against McCarrick.

I affirm to the contrary that the Holy See was aware of a variety of concrete facts, and is in possession of documentary proof, and that the responsible persons nevertheless chose not to intervene or were prevented from doing so.

Compensation by the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen to the victims of McCarrick’s sexual abuse, the letters of Fr. Ramsey, of the nuncios Montalvo in 2000 and Sambi in 2006, of Dr. Sipe in 2008, my two notes to the superiors of the Secretariat of State who described in detail the concrete allegations against McCarrick; are all these just rumors? They are official correspondence, not gossip from the sacristy.

The crimes reported were very serious, including those of attempting to give sacramental absolution to accomplices in perverse acts, with subsequent sacrilegious celebration of Mass.
These documents specify the identity of the perpetrators and their protectors, and the chronological sequence of the facts. They are kept in the appropriate archives; no extraordinary investigation is needed to recover them.

"I have noted two omissions" In the public remonstrances directed at me I have noted two omissions, two dramatic silences. The first silence regards the plight of the victims. The second regards the underlying reason why there are so many victims, namely, the corrupting influence of homosexuality in the priesthood and in the hierarchy.

As to the first, it is dismaying that, amid all the scandals and indignation, so little thought should be given to those damaged by the sexual predations of those commissioned as ministers of the gospel. This is not a matter of settling scores or sulking over the vicissitudes of ecclesiastical careers. It is not a matter of politics. It is not a matter of how church historians may evaluate this or that papacy. This is about souls. Many souls have been and are even now imperiled of their eternal salvation.
As to the second silence, this very grave crisis cannot be properly addressed and resolved unless and until we call things by their true names. This is a crisis due to the scourge of homosexuality, in its agents, in its motives, in its resistance to reform. It is no exaggeration to say that homosexuality has become a plague in the clergy, and it can only be eradicated with spiritual weapons. It is an enormous hypocrisy condemn the abusre, claim to weep for the victims, and yet refuse to denounce the root cause of so much sexual abuse: homosexuality. It is hypocrisy to refuse to acknowledge that this scourge is due to a serious crisis in the spiritual life of the clergy and to fail to take the steps necessary to remedy it.

Unquestionably there exist philandering clergy, and unquestionably they too damage their own souls, the souls of those whom they corrupt, and the Church at large. But these violations of priestly celibacy are usually confined to the individuals immediately involved. Philandering clergy usually do not recruit other philanderers, nor work to promote them, nor cover-up their misdeeds — whereas the evidence for homosexual collusion, with its deep roots that are so difficult to eradicate, is overwhelming. It is well established that homosexual predators exploit clerical privilege to their advantage.

But to claim the crisis itself to be clericalism is pure sophistry. It is to pretend that a means, anw instrument, is in fact the main motive. Denouncing homosexual corruption and the moral cowardice that allows it to flourish does not meet with congratulation in our times, not even in the highest spheres of the Church. I am not surprised that in calling attention to these plagues I am charged with disloyalty to the Holy Father and with fomenting an open and scandalous rebellion. Yet rebellion would entail urging others to topple the papacy. "I am urging no such thing" I am urging no such thing.

I pray every day for Pope Francis — more than I have ever done for the other popes. I am asking, indeed earnestly begging, the Holy Father to face up to the commitments he himself made in assuming his office as successor of Peter. He took upon himself the mission of confirming his brothers and guiding all souls in following Christ, in the spiritual combat, along the way of the cross.
Let him admit his errors, repent, show his willingness to follow the mandate given to Peter and, once converted let him confirm his brothers (Lk 22:32).

"I wish to repeat my appeal" In closing, I wish to repeat my appeal to my brother bishops and priests who know that my statements are true and who can so testify, or who have access to documents that can put the matter beyond doubt. You too are faced with a choice. You can choose to withdraw from the battle, to prop up the conspiracy of silence and avert your eyes from the spreading of corruption.
You can make excuses, compromises and justification that put off the day of reckoning. You can console yourselves with the falsehood and the delusion that it will be easier to tell the truth tomorrow, and then the following day, and so on.

On the other hand, you can choose to speak. You can trust Him who told us, “the truth will set you free.” I do not say it will be easy to decide between silence and speaking. I urge you to consider which choice– on your deathbed, and then before the just Judge — you will not regret having made.

October 19, 2018
Memory of the
North American Martyrs
+ Carlo Maria Viganò
Tit. Archbishop of Ulpiana
Apostolic Nuncio

                                                              II The President

Trump At UN September 25, 2018

Full speech - excerpts here:

"Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth.
For similar reasons, the United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.

America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

"We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same — which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.

Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again."

"The whole world is richer, humanity is better, because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world.
In each one, we see awesome promise of a people bound together by a shared past and working toward a common future.

As for Americans, we know what kind of future we want for ourselves. We know what kind of a nation America must always be.

In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty -– a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.

Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland.

The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art.
Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better.
To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.

When we do, we will find new avenues for cooperation unfolding before us. We will find new passion for peacemaking rising within us. We will find new purpose, new resolve, and new spirit flourishing all around us, and making this a more beautiful world in which to live.

So together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, and forever thankful for the grace and the goodness and the glory of God.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the nations of the world."

III. AROUND THE WORLD ROUND UP

FOREIGN POLICY - NATIONAL SECURITY VS. INCIDENCES OF OUTRAGE: Thousands of dead Shiites vs One dead journalist. Who is Jamal Khashoggi?

THE BRITISH INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY: There are three countries that over influence American foreign policy: Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Britain. This is the best review of the out-sized role Britian plays in US policy. They look like us, they sort of talk like us, but their goals ARE NOT our goals. British interests and the anti Trump Russian hoax. Russian dossier is Britishgate.

IN YEMEN THE SAUDIS KILL SHIITES, BUT THE UAE IS ESTABLISHING A BASE OF OPERATIONS AGAINST ENEMY RADICAL SUNNIS: And they use American mercenaries as part of their forces.

IRAN WAS MAJOR FORCE IN DEFEAT OF ISIS: by Scott Ritter.

A DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN: Politics is protection. Abdul Raziq was seen as the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan. The top police general in Kandahar Province, he had earned a reputation as a ruthless anti-insurgent fighter and was widely praised for bringing Kandahar and the surrounding region away from Taliban rule and under Afghan government control. On Thursday, Oct 18 the Taliban struck back.

A gunman wearing an Afghan army uniform opened fire on participants meeting with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the target of the attack claimed by the Taliban, escaped unharmed. But Abdul Raziq and two other top southern provincial officials were killed. At least three Americans were wounded as well.

American soldiers are dying in Afghanistan because our diplomats have not made peace with Iran, Pakistan, and the Afghan factions. Russia, China, and India would all help if we organized serious negotiations. We must negotiate with those who once were our enemies and we must recognize large regional powers so soldiers doing their duties and civilians leading their lives are not sacrificed to an  incoherent foreign policy. This incoherence is not caused by President Trump. He inherited it from diplomats and soldier diplomats who have not yet figured out how to live in the multi-polar world of the post Cold War.  Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat Representative from Hawaii,  and Rand Paul, a Republican Senator from Kentucky,  seem to be emerging as articulate Congressional leaders seeking a serious nationalist reappraisal of foreign policy in the Mideast and South Asia.

BOLSONARO SET TO WIN OCTOBER 28 ELECTION: The globalists and international cultural liberals are aghast. The globalists at the Economist magazine are supporting the socialist candidate. That should be a lesson. The sexual revolutionaries are screaming homophobe and misogynist. The Greens say he will deforest the Amazon. He has said he will withdraw from the climate accord. Jair Bolsonaro is recovering from the knife wound inflicted weeks ago in the campaign. He is just the God adoring, nation loving, masculine leader other Latin American countries need.  May men of his kind rise to renew the great nations of  Catholic South America.

THE ATHEISTS WHO DEFINED THE MODERN ERA: Marx taught history without Providence. Freud taught psychology without the soul. Darwin taught biology without the Creator. Einstein taught the laws of Nature without the Law Giver. Some object that Einstein was not an atheist. From 1954 Albert Einstein ”the God letter” to philosopher Erik Gutkind:

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish," Einstein writes.

Einstein was a German-born Jew who lost his religious faith at a young age and sometimes referred to himself as an agnostic. The letter reinforces his love and shared identity with Jewish people but also calls Judaism, "like all other religions ... an incarnation of the most childish superstition."

Defending the Pope: On the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Cardinal Ouellet's Blistering Response to Archbishop Vigano

The Cardinal Ouellet Open Letter                                                                            October 7, 2018

Dear brother Carlo Maria Viganò,

In your last message to the press, in which you make accusations against Pope Francis and against the Roman Curia, you invite me to tell the truth about certain facts that you interpret as signs of an endemic corruption that has infiltrated the hierarchy of the Church up to its highest levels. 

With pontifical permission, and in my capacity as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, I offer my testimony about matters concerning the Archbishop emeritus of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, and his presumed links to Pope Francis, matters that are at the center of your public accusations and your demand that the Holy Father resign. 

I write my testimony based on my personal contacts and on documents in the archives of the Congregation, currently the object of study to clarify this sad case.

Out of consideration for the good, collaborative relation we had when you were Apostolic Nuncio in Washington, allow me to say, in all honesty, that I find your current attitude incomprehensible and extremely troubling, not only because of the confusion it sows among the People of God, but because your public accusations gravely harm the reputation of the bishops, successors of the Apostles. 

I recall a time when I enjoyed your esteem and your trust, but now I see that I have been stripped in your eyes of the respect that was accorded to me, for the only reason I have remained faithful to the Holy Father’s guidance in exercising the service he has entrusted to me in the Church. 

Is not communion with the Successor of Peter an expression of our obedience to Christ who chose him and sustains him with his grace? 

My interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia,” which you criticize, is grounded in this fidelity to the living tradition, which Francis has given us another example of by recently modifying the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the question of the death penalty.

Let us address the facts. 

You said that on June 23, 2013, you provided Pope Francis with information about McCarrick in an audience he granted to you, as he also did for many pontifical representatives with whom he met for the first time that day. 

I can only imagine the amount of verbal and written information that was provided to the Holy Father on that occasion about so many persons and situations. 

I strongly doubt that the Pope had such interest in McCarrick, as you would like us to believe, given the fact that by then he was an 82-year-old Archbishop emeritus who had been without a role for seven years. 

Moreover, the written instructions given to you by the Congregation for Bishops at the beginning of your mission in 2001 did not say anything about McCarrick, except for what I mentioned to you verbally about his situation as Bishop emeritus and certain conditions and restrictions that he had to follow on account of some rumors about his past conduct.

From 30th June 2010, when I became Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, I never presented in audience the McCarrick case to Pope Benedict XVI or to Pope Francis — not until recently, after his dismissal from the College of Cardinals. 

The former Cardinal, retired in May of 2006, had been requested not to travel or to make public appearances, in order to avoid new rumors about him. 

It is false, therefore, to present those measures as “sanctions” formally imposed by Pope Benedict XVI and then invalidated by Pope Francis. 

After a review of the archives, I find that there are no documents signed by either Pope in this regard, and there are no audience notes from my predecessor, Cardinal Giovanni-Battista Re, imposing on the retired Archbishop the obligation to lead a quiet and private life with the weight normally reserved to canonical penalties. 

The reason is that back then, unlike today, there was not sufficient proof of his alleged culpability. 

Thus, the Congregation’s decision was inspired by prudence, and the letters from my predecessor and my own letters urged him, first through the Apostolic Nuncio Pietro Sambi and then through you, to lead a life of prayer and penance, for his own good and for the good of the Church. 

His case would have deserved new disciplinary measures if the Nunciature in Washington, or any other source, had provided us recent and definitive information about his behavior. 

I am of the opinion that, out of respect for the victims and given the need for justice, the inquiry currently underway in the United States and in the Roman Curia should provide a comprehensive and critical study of the procedures and the circumstances of this painful case in order to prevent something like it from ever happening in the future.

How is it possible that this man of the Church, whose incoherence has now been revealed, was promoted many times, and was nominated to such a high position as Archbishop of Washington and Cardinal? 

I am personally very surprised, and I recognize that there were failures in the selection procedures implemented in his case. 

However, and without entering here into details, it must be understood that the decisions taken by the Supreme Pontiff are based on the information available to him at the time and that they are the object of a prudential judgment which is not infallible. 

I think it is unjust to reach the conclusion that there is corruption on the part of the persons entrusted with this previous discernment process, even though in the particular case some of the concerns that were raised by testimonies should have been examined more closely. 

The Archbishop also knew how to cleverly defend himself from those concerns raised about him. 

Furthermore, the fact that there could be in the Vatican persons who practice or support sexual behavior that is contrary to the values of the Gospel, does not authorize us to make generalizations or to declare unworthy and complicit this or that individual, including the Holy Father himself. 

Should not ministers of the truth avoid above all calumny and defamation?

Dear pontifical representative emeritus, I tell you frankly that to accuse Pope Francis of having covered-up knowingly the case of an alleged sexual predator and, therefore, of being an accomplice to the corruption that afflicts the Church, to the point that he could no longer continue to carry out his reform as the first shepherd of the Church, appears to me from all viewpoints unbelievable and without any foundation. 

I cannot understand how could you have allowed yourself to be convinced of this monstrous and unsubstantiated accusation. 

Francis had nothing to do with McCarrick’s promotions to New York, Metuchen, Newark and Washington. 

He stripped him of his Cardinal’s dignity as soon as there was a credible accusation of abuse of a minor. 

For a Pope who does not hide the trust that he places in certain prelates, I never heard him refer to this so called great advisor for the pontificate for episcopal appointments in the United States. 

I can only surmise that some of those prelates are not of your preference or the preference of your friends who support your interpretation of matters. 

I think it is abhorrent, however, for you to use the clamorous sexual abuse scandal in the United States to inflict an unmerited and unheard of a blow to the moral authority of your superior, the Supreme Pontiff.

I have the privilege of having long meetings with Pope Francis every week to discuss the appointment of bishops and the problems that affect their governance. 

I know very well how he treats persons and problems: with great charity, mercy, attentiveness and seriousness, as you too have experienced. 

I think it is too sarcastic, even blasphemous, how you end your last message, purportedly appealing to spirituality while mocking the Holy Father and casting doubt about his faith. 

That cannot come from the Spirit of God.

Dear brother, how much I wish that I could help you return to communion with him who is the visible guarantor of communion in the Catholic Church. 

I understand that deceptions and sufferings have marked your path in the service to the Holy See, but you should not finish your priestly life involved in an open and scandalous rebellion that inflicts a very painful wound to the Bride of Christ, whom you pretend to serve better, while causing further division and confusion among the People of God. 

How could I answer your call except by saying: stop living clandestinely, repent of your rebelliousness, and come back to better feelings towards the Holy Father, instead of fostering hostility against him. 

How can you celebrate Mass and mention his name in the Eucharistic Prayer? 

How can you pray the Holy Rosary, or pray to Saint Michael the Archangel, or to the Mother of God, while condemning the one Our Lady protects and accompanies every day in his burdensome and courageous mission?

If the Pope was not a man of prayer; if he was attached to money; if he favored riches to the detriment of the poor; if he did not demonstrate a tireless energy to welcome all miseries and to address them through the generous comfort of his words and actions; if he did not seek to implement all possible means to announce and to communicate the joy of the Gospel to all in the Church and beyond her visible horizons; if he did not lend a hand to the families, to the abandoned elderly, to the sick in body and soul and, above all, to the youth in their search for happiness; one could prefer someone else, according to you, with a different political or diplomatic approach. 

But I cannot call into question his personal integrity, his consecration to the mission and, above all, the charisma and peace he enjoys through the grace of God and the strength of the Risen One.

Dear Viganò, in response to your unjust and unjustified attack, I can only conclude that the accusation is a political plot that lacks any real basis that could incriminate the Pope and that profoundly harms the communion of the Church. 

May God allow a prompt reparation of this flagrant injustice so that Pope Francis can continue to be recognized for who he is: a true shepherd, a resolute and compassionate father, a prophetic grace for the Church and for the world. 

May the Holy Father carry on, full of confidence and joy, the missionary reform he has begun, comforted by the prayers of the people of God and the renewed solidarity of the whole Church, together with Mary, Queen of the Holy Rosary!

Marc Cardinal Ouellet

Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops

Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, October 7th, 2018

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 15

WEEKLY BRIEF

The President and the Pope: The Hammers Seek Their Anvils

President Trump and Pope Francis are very different men. But there are striking similarities in their roles as outsiders entering social systems in which the newcomers do not fit neatly into the traditional camps.  Both men have significant enemies in the media. The entire apparatus of mainstream liberal US media is set against every action, every breath of the President who has called them "enemies of the people."  In a similar show of hostility, the large intertwined American conservative Catholic media has taken a remarkably negative posture toward Pope Francis, his appointments, his writings, what he has said and what he has failed to say. Both men have significant differences with both sides of the warring parties that carry on the public discourse of the nation and the Church.
Donald Trump went against the globalist free traders and interventionist foreign policy of almost the entire field of Republican candidates set against him. Pope Francis is a firm believer in the reality of the devil, the male only character of the priesthood and the colonial imperialism of gender ideology. He is quite unlike the modern Jesuits and the doctrinally impoverished morally compromised "progressive" European cardinals who helped elect him.
President Trump had to surround himself with men who would be loyal  to him as President while the intelligence and policing agencies organized to destroy him. The foreign policy hawks and career military men and strong evangelical Christians understood how to fight the liberals coming to unseat Ceasar. But none of them really could articulate Trumpian economic and foreign policy nationalism. The nationalist hammer had no anvil of coherent supporters who could help him forge a nationalist policy. Two years into his Presidency, he is perched to fight two legitimate nation states Syria and Iran who should be our allies helping us get out of Afghanistan and exposing the Salafist Sunni mullahs who still hide safe and malignant in Mecca and Medina. President Trump has called out Pakistani support of jihadists, he helped demolish ISIS, but our nationalist president is now carrying out the foreign policy of two other nations: a true enemy-the Saudis and an ally who is exploiting our good will-Israel. The President needs an antiwar Democrat to help him remember  that in his   campaign he said he had a different approach to Syria than Jeb Bush. He needs a family member of the 911 victims to point him to the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia who flew out of our country the following week  uninvestigated by Robert Mueller's FBI.   He needs some religiously sophisticated  Republican Senator to remind him he was going to find out "what the hell is going on" with radical Islamic terrorism. He might start with the Hanbali legal school of Sunni Islam. They have an address.   The multi faith government of Shiite Assad, the Shiite Houthis of Yemen, and the Shiite Persians in Iran are not the right return addresses for the deadly letter delivered on 9-11-2001. . . President Trump wants to swing the hammer. Who will be his anvil?

Pope Francis needed the "progressives" to help him turn the Church's emphasis outward into the world of peoples and nations. The free market sexually pinched rich conservative ideologues, who control significant media outlets directed to faithful Catholics, despised him and his "social justice" friends from the beginning.  But it turns out that the Pope's allies are as estranged from his unique Catholic Sensibility as President Trump's allies are from nationalism.  The  "progressives" in the North and South American and European church  love to portray themselves as "Pope Francis Catholics".   It turns out they are deeply enmeshed in a collective mental illness which turns the male love of the Father for the Son and Christ for the Apostles into a perversion. How very un-Francis like indeed! Wether it was the men he picked on his own council or those he inherited within the Bishops' conferences and the Vatican... Pope Francis is discovering that overwhelmingly the progressive wing of the modern church is "the gay lobby", "the lavender mafia", "the homosexual subculture".  Not a few of his fiercest critics on the conservative side were also deeply malformed as men. The homosexual ideology comes from the Left (as Pope Francis told the bewildered Cardinal Vigano) . But the Eucharistic altar has been desecrated as well by the shrill voices shouting away the divorced woman reaching out her hand to touch the hem of Christ.
Pope Francis wanted to take the Mother ship out into the periphery, but a few years out to sea,  a storm struck and he found his cowering crew was full of cross dressing effeminate frauds. They dressed in clerics but there was no man among them. It was the sickest form of clericalism  since Judas used a friendly apostolic kiss to betray the King. Those whimpering prelates wanted no war against the devil. They asked for their pensions and were glad to run. The Pope came to make war on the Evil One but his selected crew-- each had made his separate peace.
The Pope was thinking big. He saw Russia and China awaiting a dialogue while the atheist nations of the West encircled them in preparation for war. Early on he had said he would treat homosexuality as a sin to be confessed, forgiven and forgotten. That seemed a small concern--a sin for sure but not to be singled out. He was headed into the periphery of the poor, the imprisoned, the war torn refugees. He was ready to face the war obsessed arms industry and their government clients . He would bring the field hospital out onto the battlefield. He would preach the Good News of God's Mercy.
But his plan didn't work out. It turns out homosexuality among clerics is much more than a sin. That peculiar mental illness exerts a debilitating affect not just on the man but on the collective group. That polluting dimension is not washed away by a good confession. It is no accident that the sin of Sodom did not just leave men corrupted but made the public formation of men as a synagogue or city impossible. Sodom could not produce ten men -the minyan needed for certain public formations in prayer and civic life. Incest does not just break a man, it corrodes the fraternal bond that orders the group into a coherent public body.
The Pope bypassed liturgical tradition to wash the feet of a woman prisoner on Holy Thursday. He wanted to show he would not let the church be self referential in its service.  But it turns out, he must return on Chrism Thursday to his priests. For that great Holy Thursday liturgy is not the service act of a deacon but an exorcism by the High Priest. The Pope must lead all the apostles to do as Jesus did. He must wash out Judas. Then the bishops must do as he does in their respective dioceses. Cyprian must follow and strengthen Cornelius.
The last thing Pope Francis wanted for his papacy was to turn inward on the Church herself.  But the Holy Father must carry the cross he is assigned. He cannot get the ship out to the peripheral ports with the clerical crew as constituted.  Pope Francis is a great hammer, but he needs to expel the excrement wrapped in jello that muffles his priestly anvil. The good priests and bishops are present. They await him.
       

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

THE PURIFICATION OF THE PRIESTHOOD: The Reform We Need - a Strategy. "Those who say that homosexuality itself is not a sin are absolutely correct. It is a mental illness - a significant psychological disordering of the affections. The priesthood is a brotherhood ordered in love to the Father, to the Church and to the nations of all humanity.  It is the sacramental template of public ordered masculine love. Thus this particular affectional disorder strikes at the very heart of priestly identity. This mental illness is utterly incompatible with the sacral brotherhood and doesn't go away after a good confession." The Priesthood - Icon of the Trinity and Template for the Nations

AMERICAN BISHOPS MEET WITH POPE: West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield resigns amid charges of "sexual harassment of adults".  Any questions about the gender of those adults will have to await more inquiring minds. Bransfield is from a prominent family of Philadelphia clerics. A nephew, the Rev. Sean P. Bransfield, is a judicial vicar and vice chancellor at the Cardinal’s Residence in Philadelphia. Another relative, Monsignor J. Brian Bransfield, works for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. The US bishops met with Pope Francis. Bransfield's cousin is seen in the picture.


ON MCCARRICK WHISTLEBLOWER - FR. BONIFACE RAMSEY: Fr Ramsey says the idea of a "gay network" operating inside the church is "ridiculous". To pin the crisis on homosexuality in the priesthood is "a crazy tangent". We predict Fr. Ramsey will become a favorite spokesman for a lot of media outlets and many segments of the Church who agree accusations of a gay network are ridiculous.  Fr Ramsey is leading us the wrong way. Homosexuality and clericalism are both huge problems. It will be huge distraction if we ignore either problem or if we set them against each other as if widespread homosexuality could have existed without the cover of clericalism.   Some quotes from Fr Ramsey :

“There are a significant portion of clergy that are gay, and of those, there is a significant proportion that is celibate and trying to be celibate,” he said, adding that “I don’t have a problem with people falling every now and then.”

"Anyone, especially young seminarians grappling with a life choice of celibacy, can fall, he said, adding that in his view, sexual sins are not the worst a person can commit. “I’d rather have a guy who falls every now and then than a congenital liar,” he said, adding that according to ancient writings from the Church’s Desert Fathers, sexual sins can be dealt with “more easily than the misuse of money or pride.”

DEFROCKING, LAICIZATION, SUSPENSION: A short video by Taylor Marshall.

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR VATICAN TO MEET WITH RUSSIANS: This is more important than the environment and migration. Someone tell Cardinal Cupich. The Roman-Orthodox rupture of Christianity is the primordial Christian division. Why the Parolin trip is so important. As we purify the disordered relations of men in the priesthood we must not forget the crucial work of bringing the nations together in a fraternal spirit. The Church always has a head and a heart for Christ and a head and a heart for the reconciliation of humanity under the Father. That means the Church must teach the ordered loves of politics and international relations. Especially needed are new paradigms for the US and Russia and the US and China.  Pope Francis understands this and treats the diplomatic corps of the Church as a serious evangelical enterprise. Christianity not Darwin must guide the nations. There is a huge deficit in Catholic theopolitical  thinking on the nations. A corrupted self referential deeply disordered clergy has prevented us from bringing the missionary/template of fraternity to the nations. This was one of the key missions of Vatican II and a direct order of Christ to the Apostles, "to go baptize the nations."  A fraternity of priests will  raise up the name of God and order the nations. Homosexual clericalism is busy with luxury apartments, fine dining and vacations far away from the locally recognized collar.

POPE BENEDICT  AND THE BENEDICT OPTION: A 9/11 conference in Rome discussing the "Benedict Option." A poetic endorsement by Msgr Ganswein - the keeper of the Papal House for Benedict and Francis. Very heartening how they read Dreher who has been the  outstanding reporter on the clergy scandal. This may force Mr. Dreher to reconsider his general approach to Pope Francis.

II. THE NATIONS R&G ROUND UP

IS PRESIDENT TRUMP GOING NEOCON ON SYRIA? Pat Buchanan.

INDIA HIGH COURT SAYS SODOMY A HUMAN RIGHT: The Parliament refused to do this so the secularists on the court carried out the agenda of the globalist-human rights crowd. Prediction: It won't play well in the streets. UN officials tweeted "Love Wins".   Love will win, that is true! This significant psychological aberration ahas nothing to do with love.

NATIONALISM: ...and now the Swedes. Wall Street doesn't believe in Bolsonaro but in the city streets of Brazil, the people are praying for him.

THE MORMONS ARE NOT CAPITALIST GLOBALISTS: Their communal roots.

FOREIGN COLLUSION AND THE RUSSIAN DOSSIER: What foreign government did not want an improvement of relations between Russia and the US? Would that foreign government or just a well meaning citizen from that country try to sabotage the one candidate in favor of such a huge geopolitical change?  Is there anyone deeply involved in the Russian hoax that used to work in the intelligence community for that government? Is there an English speaking country where many anti-Putin Russians tend to emigrate? Is there an English speaking country that has very bad relations with Russia and does not want to see a newly invigorated Russia as a close ally to the US? Can foreigners who are trying to disrupt our elections  speak very good English and appear as well meaning white guys? Sometimes if a whole people go crazy with hate, can they miss the obvious? It was not Russians who interfered. It was the British. Does anyone think that is a problem?

YEMEN: The best writer on Yemen is Gregory Johnson. He says ISIS and AQAP in Yemen are the weakest they have been in years, The UAE is strong and may have made a deal with them. His August, 2018 report at Just Security.

A LETTER TO JOHN BRENNAN: From a former officer in the CIA:

Dear Mr. Brennan,

I implore you to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial critic concerned only with the fate of the republic.

You were never a spy. You were never a case officer. You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad. You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence. You have never been in harm’s way. You have never heard a shot fired in anger.

You were for a short while an intelligence analyst.

In your capacity as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, while still a junior officer, you were designated to brief the President of the United States who was at that time Bill Clinton. As the presidential briefer, it was your job to read to the president each morning finished intelligence written by others based on intelligence collected by yet other individuals. Period.

While serving as presidential briefer you established a personal relationship with then President Bill Clinton. End of story.

Everything that has transpired in your professional career since has been based on your personal relationship with the former president, his wife Hillary and their key associates. Your connection to President Obama was, in fact, based on you having established yourself by the time he came to office as a reliable, highly political Democratic Party functionary.

...

Ever since this President was elected, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize him and destabilize him led by you. This has been an unprecedented; to undermine the stability of the republic and the office of the Presidency, for solely partisan political reasons. You and your patrons have been complicit in this effort and at its very heart.

You abandoned any hope of being a true intelligence professional decades ago and became a political hack. Say so.

Sam Faddis

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, August 4

By Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT & RITES OF DEGRADATION: 
 AUTHORITY, SHAME, PUNISHMENT AND COMMUNITY 

On August 2, 2018, a decree of Pope Francis from May 11 became public via the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith changing paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Church on the death penalty. Until now the Catechism framed the issue in terms of protecting society from dangerous criminals, making narrow allowance for the death penalty in cases where adequate prisons were unavailable, stating that "cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.'" Given this doctrinal starting point in the Catechism, one can hardly argue that the Pope Francis change is not an "authentic development of doctrine," as Cardinal Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asserts.

The question that should have been asked for the last two decades is whether or not access to long term prison facilities should be the deciding factor of state executions. Until Pope John Paul II, the Church's teaching on the death penalty was never a "right to life" issue or an "adequate number of prisons" issue. It was an issue related to the use of legitimate authority by a constituted State, to the rule of law, and to the requirements of justice.

According to the Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part III, 5, n. 4):

The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.

In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8).

More recently, in 1952, Pope Pius XII stated:

Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life.

Pope Francis has developed a doctrine, "rooted" in the  very recent teachings and sensibilities of  John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It is their emphasis and teaching which is very much out of step with the doctrine handed down through the centuries. It is not surprising that changes in moral doctrine about criminal law and changes in the definition of a minor in canon law (see the "Levada Loophole" scroll down to read) have occurred amidst a cohort of Catholic bishops who have spectacularly failed to punish the abominations of their fellow clerics. This particular group of men understand the private machinations needed to climb up the career ladder but they are clueless about the exercise of public authority in safeguarding communal life.

The Churchmen have handcuffed themselves when it comes to punishing the abhorrent. Let them not handcuff the nations and states of their necessary policing power to punish murderers, rapists, and traitors.

It would be better for the Church to take the handcuffs off herself. These times seem to require a restoration of the Rites for the Degradation of Clergy - ritual acts that publicly shame and eject those men in the clerical state who have brought gross shame upon themselves and the office they hold. Paralleling military rituals that shame and expel failed soldiers and officers, the rites laicized the cleric while still leaving him bound to celibacy and recitation of the Breviary. Here are some highlights from the Rite for the Degradation of a Bishop (follow the link for the full text):

"...the degradator removes the man's miter, saying: 'The miter, emblem of the pontifical dignitiy, is hereby removed from your head, because your evil administration has disgraced it.'"

"...the degradator removes the [bishop's] ring, saying: 'It is proper for us to pull off this ring, the sign of faithfulness, because you have shamelessly raped God's very own bride, the Church.'"

"...with [a] knife or glass, the degradator lightly scrapes the [bishop's] head, saying: 'We herewith completely erase the consecration, the blessing and the anointing previously bestowed upon you, and we herewith expel you from the pontifical order for which you proved yourself unfit.'"

When civil laws are broken, this public act of shaming should be followed by secular punishment. The death penalty was performed in a very similar way. Until recent times executions were as much public acts of shaming as they were legitimate and authoritative acts of justice. If you don't understand this, go pray the Stations of the Cross and reflect a little harder on the first and tenth stations. Remember Jesus never told Pilate "Just say no to capital punishment." He affirmed Pilate's  God given authority as an agent of a state sworn to order. The problem with the condemnation, shaming and execution of Our Lord is that they killed an innocent man... not that they killed a man.

Protective authoritative males - bishops and police  - are compelled by their offices to arrest and render  the abominable and heinous criminals all the shame and punishment they deserve. Catholic laymen are loyal sons of the Holy Father but we are also fathers and citizens in our civic communities. We have duties as political men to establish justice and safeguard the public order. We are confirmed adult males in the Church as well and we have duties to the widows and orphans - those without fathers and husbands - as well. As Catholic adult men we owe protection and justice to those vulnerable young males and females who were violated by the serpent wolves masquerading as soft and smiling shepherds. There is a whole cohort of bishops who do not understand the ruling function of either ecclesial or civic authorities. The weak and vulnerable have paid a horrible price for their deficit.

Pope John Paul II matured under the twin totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Pope Benedict XVI is a Bavarian Catholic who is ashamed of the German nation and state. Pope Francis lived with an Argentinan government who "disappeared", tortured and killed priests and laity alike as opponents of the regime. All three of these Popes matured as Church leaders in relation to governments that brutally betrayed the civic sword. Their personal experiences may have been traumatic but they did not make them wiser than the tradition. All three of our recent holy popes have extremely anemic views of  political authority. Pope Francis' change of the catechism is no more heresy than Pope John Paul's very similar mistake. That mistake is a serious one about the civil order. This crippling anemic view of national and state police authority is devastating Central American countries and the Phillipines where bloody battles are being waged between criminals and government authorities to determine who will establish social order. The reason so many honest men in Catholic countries turn to leftism or military dictators is because the Church authorities have failed in articulating a Christian vision of civic authority, fraternity, community and police power.

As fathers and citizens, we remind our Holy Father that there are some sins that demand execution. It is just such capital crimes that have been committed and hidden by living members of our episcopacy and priesthood. In the ecclesial order, the Pope is over them and we are under them. We are both betrayed by them. From out here in the sheepfold, the proclamation demeaning capital punishment seems not a plea for the dignity of man but a cover for the soul murderer and Satanic masquerader.  In justice, the victims of rape and sodomy must be allowed to sleep knowing their assailants are no longer among the living. Their broken souls cry out for justice. Their broken souls can barely accuse their assailants much less organize retribution and justice. Victims and servant leaders will not restore justice. A brotherhood of fathers will.

When states and ecclesiastical authorities do not exercise the sword of justice then fathers, kinsmen, and citizens will find other avenues to exact justice. But the mob always goes mad - so since the Noahidic law, just men have constructed political order. In every Mass, the Church prays for the authorities - both ecclesial and civic. She must safeguard the authorities of the political order by allowing the State its proper acts of demarcation, punishment, and the use of physical force. At the same time Churchmen must reassert the legitimate authority of the hierarchy by reinstating punishment for clerics who violate the sacramental and natural order.

The Evil One and his henchmen seem to be everywhere. But faithful bishops, priests, and laymen are in every land as well... and we have the Holy Spirit.  

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

UNCOVERING THE LAVENDER NETWORKS - AT THE TOP AND THROUGHOUT THE CHANCERIES, SEMINARIES AND BISHOP CONFERENCES: Honduras Seminary and Negligence of  Honduran Cardinal Maradiaga who is on Pope Francis Council of Cardinals - the junta he set up to clean up the Curia. AOA on Inquisitions and Penitentiaries - a serious mechanism to investigate and punish clerical evildoing.

NO LONGER A CARDINAL: For the first time in the 20 years of the exposition of the sex scandal in the Catholic clergy, a cardinal is out. Pope Francis approach to Cardinal McCarrick is unique. His place of incarceration will be signed.

A REAL BREAKTHROUGH AS AN AMERICAN BISHOP CALLS FOR  ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE COMPLICIT: Bishop Michael Walsh of Fort Worth says it is not enough to punish McCormick. Who knew and failed to act? This letter is a true breaking of ranks. We will see if he is reined in or joined in reform.

PERVERTED PRIESTS AND CHURCHMEN USING THE LANGUAGE OF LGBT: Jennifer Morse gets it exactly right.

CARDINAL O'MALLEY OF BOSTON: He recommends new Procedures and Policies.  That doesn't seem enough when fighting... Principalities and Powers.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

STOPPING WAR WITH QATAR: A new report has surfaced surrounding a planned Saudi-UAE invasion of Qatar to replace the Qatari government with Saudi-supporters, halted through intervention by former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Such an invasion could have threatened Al Udeid Air Base, where US air forces and 10,000 troops are stationed. The report also indicates that Tillerson's role could have played a part in his departure as Secretary of State. The invasion could have triggered a larger Mideast conflict - so let us give thanks that the war never came.

PAKISTAN: A crucial question is how will they redefine themselves to transcend the Saudi-US-Taliban model as a purveyor of Salafist Islam - necessary to defeat the Soviet Union but now troublesome after 9/11. There is emerging a new national identity of Pakistan as an ally of China, a potential negotiator in Afghanistan, and a non-participant in Wahhabi wars against Shiite Muslims in Iran and Yemen. Pakistan has also demonstratively opposed the Saudi isolation of Qatar. Introducing the new face of Pakistan-Imran Khan. Another profile: An Islamic society takes care of all its people.

YEMEN: Unreported and inexcusable.

ISLAMIST PARTIES IN NORTH AFRICA: A Brookings comparative report on Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt.

PHILIPPINES: Autonomy for the Muslim South - Duterte seeks peace for Bangsamoro and his nation. AOA profile of Philippines. The areas are all Muslim. How they will work out jurisdiction is open. They will not have a separate military or currency from their mother nation - the Philippines.

Above: The southwestern areas and islands of the Philippines. Note the island chain forms a geostrategic net in the waters between the Philippines and Borneo (bottom left) - the world's third largest island - twice the size of Germany - and divided by three nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei.

III. AROUND THE WORLD - NATIONS ROUND UP

THE NATIONS OF EUROPE - CHRISTIAN, SOVEREIGN, AND SEXUALLY TRADITIONAL: The remarkable understanding of Victor Orban of Hungary. This is the best single article articulating the vision of Christian European nations vs. the godless project of the atheist Enlightenment West. And it is built on a linked speech by Victor Orban of Hungary. The captive nations are captive no more and their matured insights will set us free.

RUSSIA OR SOVIET UNION? Unable to see beyond the Cold War, neocons - and the formerly anti-war Democrats - continue to conflate Russia with the Soviet Union. Having no sense of history, religion, or culture, they see Russia's "strong man" Vladimir Putin as nothing more than a "KGB thug" and communist dictator. They refuse to see post-Cold War Russia as a nation seeking continuity with its czarist past and Orthodox Christian faith (anyone who reads Putin's speech on the 1030th anniversary or Russia's conversion can see the connection). Their inability to see Russia is also largely due to their refusal to see the Cold War for what it was: religion and the nations versus an anti-national atheist superstate. 

BRITISH SPIES AND RUSSIAN STORIES: Campaigns seek information from many sources about their opponents.  Not all come from within our territorial boundaries. The Brits have their own interests. They don't want the US too close to the Russians. They don't want the Russians a major force on the mainland. British intelligence or "ex-intelligence " have been very instrumental in promoting the Trump is a Russian dupe. This story is revealing. The ex-British spy behind the Russian hacker indictment.

BRITISH LABOR PARTY AND THE JEWS OF BRITAIN: Anti Semitism, Israel, and a debate that is surfacing.

NICARAGUA, ORTEGA, AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: The hostile rift grows.

CHINA: Xi Jinping addresses Chinese corruption and religious tolerance. The dilemma of fostering a moral people on the thin gruel of Marxist materialism

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

TWO GROUPS WITH NO SENSE OF FOREIGN POLICY: The current left wing and Christians as Christians in the Republican or Democratic party.

THE REAL POLITICAL CONVERSATION IN AMERICA IS MALE, SERIOUS, AND CIVIC: What is the Dark Web - 7 minutes with Rubin. Beyond the network panels of short bursts of thought by good looking women, nerd conservatives and angry liberals - welcome to the dark web. A discussion between Mr. Rubin and the English historian Niall Ferguson.

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE? Jordan Peterson explains IQ tests. Intelligence and the problems of IQ tests. Psychology Today article arguing IQ is something real but it is not the definitive measurement of intelligence. The author reminds us of Michael Polanyi's book and idea of Personal Knowledge saying that intelligence is the ability to enter into something and know it. To "mentalize" is to enter into another's world and empathize. It is characteristic of intelligence not measured in IQ tests. Abstract reasoning is a very important characteristic of human development and success. The ability to do abstract reasoning is well-measured by IQ tests.

"BEST MARINE COMMANDER" IS FIRED FOR USING THE WORD "FAGGOT" AS AN ADJECTIVE.  AN EPITAPH FOR EPITETHS: Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Mainz has been relieved of his command.  If this injustice stands, it is a capitulation of sacral order to the sexual revolutionaries.

The general ethos of the US marines is general biological truth that men of honor defend their countries and the men who are the best at defending America are Marines. Thus "being a real man" is the appeal of Marine recruitment and the goal of Marine training. A mature man is a patriot warrior. It takes a certain kind of discipline. It takes a certain kind of man. It defines a certain kind of character. It is not for everyone... but everyone benefits when it is achieved. Marine training develops a kind of man who is deeply loyal to the Corps which is at the service of the Nation. Thus the Marines have resisted female participation in the group because they have argued that female membership undermines group cohesion. Marines love women and that's why they break up the male group. Marines love women but they deride a man if he is girly. The ethic of fraternity under a father-leader (the rule of the father is called patriarchy) is undermined by the eroticization of male relations. Fathers and Brothers have an incest code to maintain the group brotherhood. Homosexuality undermines the fraternity. It is an unthinkable taboo for a Father.

Who will defend the warrior?  Who will defend the nature of the patriarchal fraternal bonds which are at the core of Christian public life. There are words that criticize a self-centered male who is not fraternal or protective - he is a Bully, a Dick, a real Prick.  They aren't part of public dialogue but they certainly can be used in a Marines barrack. There are words that emphasize not being man enough to do the difficult group tasks needed to do - a fruit, a girly-boy, a faggot.  None of these terms are criticisms in the world of male figure skating but they are epithets in the Marines. They are not high language of public discourse but they are part of the slang of male honor codes.

The war against the Fatherhood of God and primal loyalty of countrymen is a war against the sacral male bonding that ensures the safety of the country in a dangerous world. That male bonding is forged in a crucible of insults and honor codes. Just as incest is a corruption of the familial bond, homosexuality is a corruption of the public non-spousal bond of men which makes nations and the Corps that defends them. Shall we outlaw the male public bond? Shall we corrupt it? This is a significant front in the culture war - let us see if the Marine leader has any defenders.