Map on Monday: KURDISTAN

The Physical Ecology, Communal Loyalties, and Geopolitics of Kurdistan

By. A. Joseph Lynch

There is an important distinction to be made between a nation and a state. Where “state” refers to the authoritative governing body over a specific people, land area with specific borders, and natural resources, a nation is the a deep union of people often characterized by a shared culture, religion, language, and ethnicity. In most cases, a nation has a state, or governing apparatus. But sometimes many nations are bound within one state, as is often the case with empires. The lands that once were governed by the empire of Austria-Hungary, for example, are today many distinct nation states. Other nations, however, have been kept from forming their own states due to stronger neighboring nation states who use their political and military strength to make sure a nation never gains an independent state. Such is the case with the Kurds.

I. The Physical Ecology of Kurdistan

Worldwide the Kurds number over 30 million living largely in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey (see map above). Kurdish hopes for a potential independent nation state are centered in what is known as Iraqi Kurdistan. This northern region of Iraq, already treated as an semi-autonomous region, is home to just over five million Kurds. The physical geography of Kurdistan is in many ways as different from the rest of Iraq as its Kurdish inhabitants. Kurdistan is situated along the Zagros Mountains (which also form much of the Iran-Iraq border), which, combined with the slightly higher latitude, makes it a much wetter and greener region than the areas to its south. Kurdistan’s mountain terrain is also home to many mineral resources: coal, copper, gold, iron, limestone, marble, and zinc. Kurdistan also has the world's largest deposit of rock sulfur. Like the rest of the region, however, Kurdistan has access to large deposits of energy reserves. In addition to the four billion barrels of proven oil reserves, it is estimated that Kurdistan has another 45 billion barrels of unproven oil reserves.

II. The Communal Loyalties of Kurdistan

The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group in the Middle East. They have a long heritage and history in the region, claiming as their own the great military commander: Saladin. Saladin defeated the medieval Crusader states and eventually ruled over lands stretching from upper Mesopotamia (modern day Kurdistan), through Syria, to Egypt, and along the Red Sea coast to Yemen. Like Saladin, the Kurds follow the largest branch of Islam called Sunni Islam. Despite belonging to the largest branch of Islam, the Kurds are a minority ethnic group distinct from the larger and stronger Arabs to the south. This has placed the Kurds outside of the pan Arabic movements that bind many of the Sunni Arab states. The Kurds also speak a form of Iranian, making them linguistically closer to their neighbors to the east. But here deeper religious divisions come to the fore: where the Kurds are Sunni, the Iranians are Shia. Looking to the north, the Kurds are both ethnically and linguistically different from the Turks, who see their minority Kurdish population as a threat. There are multiple military and governing structures that bind Kurds across the region. The Iraqi Kurds are governed semi-autonomously from Irbil under the KRG (Kurdish Regional Government), protected by the Peshmerga (a Kurdish military force numbering nearly a quarter million soldiers). They are led by the KDP’s (Kurdistan Democratic Party) Massoud Barzani. In Syria a Kurdish political party known as the PYD (Democratic Unity Party) is aligned with military forces called the People’s Protection Units (or YPG) to fight against ISIS. Complicating this is a banned Kurdish political party from Turkey known as the Kurdish Workers’ Party (or PKK) which has been at war with the Turkish government for four decades. They are left wing and one of the few fighting forces with a substantial female component(15-30%). The PKK, aligned with the PYD in Syria, and based in areas near Iraqi Kurdistan, have created a complicated geopolitical situation between Turks and Kurds.

III. The Geopolitics of Kurdistan

The physical ecology and communal loyalties as outlined above play a crucial role in Kurdistan’s geopolitics. International attention first came to the Kurds during Saddam Hussein’s chemical attacks on Kurdish lands.  The important role the Kurdish Peshmerga played in toppling the Saddam regime and years later in expelling ISIS are strong arguments for Kurdish independence. The Kurds have increased in strength, fought off a relentless attack from ISIS, captured much of the Syria-Turkish border, and are now working to conquer the ISIS capital at Raqqa, Syria (ed: accomplished 2017). The Trump Administration is now prepared to arm the Kurds directly rather than through Baghdad. Kurdish gains have impressed many on the international stage, however, they have struck fear into their neighbors who do not wish to see an independent Kurdistan. A Kurdish state exerts international pressure on countries like Iran, Turkey, and Syria to allow Kurdish borders to expand from northern Iraq into their territories where large numbers of Kurds live. Despite this threat, Iranian-Kurdish relations are good. Both share a common linguistic heritage, minority status in the Muslim world, and a common enemy in ISIS. As noted in the communal loyalties section above, Kurdish-Turkish relations are at a low. Turkish involvement in Syria, for example, has focused almost exclusively on fighting the Kurds and making sure the Kurds do not capture the Syrian-Turkish border region. In April 2017, Turkish warplanes also struck Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq. It remains to be seen what the future holds for the Kurds, but the eyes of the world will be on them in the months ahead should they successfully conquer the ISIS capital.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, October 11

Religion and Geopolitics Review this week includes:

• Hong Kong's Religious Revolutionaries
• Pakistan's Lessons for Turkey
• Turkish Inaction on ISIS Advance Dismays the U.S.
• Kasper, German Bishops, and the Church Tax

Deeply embedded in Hong Kong are Christian communities and public personalities. They are playing no small role in the September protests. While we think the Christian road to the Chinese soul is filial piety, we cannot ignore the intrinsic need of Christians for liberty to worship and love God as our first loyalty.

There is a strong analogy between the support of the nation-state Pakistan for the Taliban and the nation-state Turkey for ISIS. Eventually the support of states for an ideology which aims to replace nation states with a new caliphate is untenable. The epic model of this contradiction is Saudi Arabia. Here is a clear explanation of how both Pakistan and Turkey ride the tiger of  Islamist proxies.

Although they have officially joined the fight against ISIS, Turkish troops were massed but idle as the Syrian Kurdish town of Korbana on Turkey's boarder was besieged by ISIS. The Turks have a real military which is one of the two regional Sunni powers that could fight ISIS. According to Global Firepower (GFP) it is the eighth most powerful military in the world with 400,000 active troops and 3,600 tanks. Three reasons the Turks are so reluctant: 1) The Turks are engaged in an Islamization campaign of their own. 2) They see armed Kurds as enemy insurgents who eventually will establish a breakaway Kurdistan, and as Kurds comprise Turkey's largest ethnic minority, a newly independent Kurdistan could include part of eastern Turkey. 3) Their greatest enemy in the region is Alawite (Shiite-linked) President Assad of Syria. In the past, Turkey welcomed ISIS as a force that was fighting Assad.

The Catholic bishops of Germany are known in the American press as compassionate advocates of relaxing church rules on marriage, and communion for remarried Catholics. It may not be such a simple story.  An under-reported key to this story is the government-enforced Church tax that subsidizes the richest Catholic priesthood in Christendom. The tax, often called "Hitler's tax," was actually started a century before the Fuhrer. He continued the arrangement as part of a larger bargain (the Concordat of 1933) to get laymen out of serious political opposition groups. The German bishops have taken a very hard line on the growing number of Catholics who opt out of the 8-9 % tax. While many of the German hierarchy think divorce and remarriage should not bar one from Holy Communion, their policy toward Catholics who opt out of the state tax is not quite so forgiving. No communion, no confession, no weddings, and no acting as godparents. We thought at first all these reports were wrong, especially about penance. We can't find contradictory reports, however. It does make one wonder if the relaxation of moral teaching on marriage might be a policy to shore up the tax rolls. This is a very ugly story of shepherds who care for the shepherds far more than the sheep.

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, August 26

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

                 A STRATEGY FOR AFGHANISTAN AND AMERICAN NATIONALISM  President Trump's speech on Afghanistan signalled  a significant change in strategy. His emphasis on an alliance with India and a targeting of Pakistan's bad behavior is a long overdue correction of one the great contradictions in our South Asia policy. We have advocated the same.   His talk began with the cultural heart of his movement. Our loyalties together as Americans are a form of patriotic love best evidenced by our soldiers. This is exactly the argument of the great book on America by the Mormon teacher, Matthew Holland, Bonds of Affection. His presidency really is about love and hate and President Trump is calling us beyond party loyalties to love one another as fellow Americans. This form of public civic love was a foundation stone of early Protestant America as it has become a forgotten affection in modern globalism. The President  needs Christians to amplify this deep truth that his campaign and our country were built on.  American Nationalism is religious, territorial, and economic. It is not racism.  

Steve Bannon is out of the White House. That will strengthen both the President and Mr, Bannon. He learned plenty there and like a good artillery man, sometimes you are most effective far away from the front lines.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

RUSSIA AND VATICAN: First the Secretary of State, then the Pope?  Pope Francis believes that fraternal relations with the Orthodox Church can also foster fraternity among the nations. He and his diplomatic corps see no benefit in an exacerbation of hostility and suspicion between the western part of Europe and the eastern part as represented by Russia. For this, he is being derided in some Catholic circles as an accommodator to the Russian tyrants. This reminds them of the behavior of many Vatican officials in the Cold War. In their version of history, John Paul II put an end to all that.  

A BOOK REVIEW ESSAY ON CHRISTIANS AGAINST MODERNITY AND A WARNING ABOUT THE PAGAN RACISTS WHO ARE ALSO ANTI GLOBALISM: Benjamin Teitelbaum at LA Review of Books doesn't agree with Christians Cardinal Chaput or Rod Dreher in his review of their books but he gives coherent summaries of their arguments which they should thank him for. An Excerpt:

He (Chaput) indicates that his concern centers not on same-sex marriage per se, but rather on what it allegedly represents and perpetuates — namely, a society in which we are no longer able to orient ourselves because one of the most fundamental features of identity, gender, has been stripped of consequence. Any notion that certain features of who we are might be givens, that we could be born into one association or social role but not others, is now anathema. This drive to extinguish collectivizing instincts and practices, Chaput claims, is the logical conclusion of a democracy that lacks principles and ideals other than the absolute sovereignty of individuals. It requires citizens to disassociate from any institution or identity that could come between themselves and the state — be it a religious organization or a family — so that they can function as independent voices in democracy’s market of opinion. Furthermore, it pursues this hyper-individualism with fanatical intolerance of dissent.

Teitelbaum understands there is another anti modernist movement afoot.  It is not Christian at all but tribal and racist rejecting Christianity above all as the most global of all forces. (He has written a book on the subject Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism.) For all of us Christian nationalists it is essential we understand this racialist force especially in European politics and more specifically in France's Marie le Penn and the Norwegian terrorist/mass murderer Anders Breivik. Professor Teitelbaum is an accomplished musician and ethnomusicologist. His review is an act of intelligence and perception. Another excerpt:

Christian anti-modernists may be the most tragic participants in the anti-modernist cause, however. Both Chaput and Dreher would do well to ponder more deeply the charges coming from other anti-modernists that their religion is the real driver of globalist liberalism. Some contemporary ethnic separatists — like, for example, Alain de Benoist — name Christianity itself as the enemy of community, identity, and spirituality. Modern liberalism’s claim to universal validity, its disinterest in roots and history, its yearning for a hyper-individualism, its contempt for religion — all of these features are, according to such thinkers, elaborations of a Christian model whereby God’s word is the singular, ultimate, and final revelation, where the past is sin and the future is salvation, where all are deemed equal before God and the divisions humanity has erected within itself are illusions to be transcended. The seeds of public secularism, they would argue — following Nietzsche — were sown by Christianity’s totalizing teleological vision, and by Christ’s edict to render unto Caesar. These anti-modernists may tolerate their Christian conservative allies for the time being, but fundamentally believe that a revival of Christian faith in American life will lead back to Pride parades, open borders, and godlessness. In the end, the tribes of anti-modernism may devour each other before the tiger of liberalism breathes its last.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ISLAM AND ISLAMISM: Do all Muslims look alike? A bill to distinguish types of Islam in terms of likelihood to commit terrorist acts was DEFEATED in the US House. The vote was close. Candidate Donald Trump once advocated a moratorium on Muslim immigration until we "figure out what the hell is going on." This was an attempt to make the kind of distinctions among Muslims that we have failed to do in making allies with Saudi Arabia in the Mideast and Pakistan in South Asia. Pakistan's brand of Islam explains their hiding Osama bin Ladin and the Saudi brand of Islam explains their desire to overthrow Assad in Syria, Maliki in Iraq, the elected government in Iran and the Shia Houthis in Yemen. We are starting to discuss this question properly. Only 214 House members left to convince there are some distinctions here that need to be made. One of the most important distinctions is to appreciate these four schools of law in Sunni Islam.

A VETERAN'S HISTORY OF IRAQ - RESOLVE VS. RETREAT: Peter Hegseth tells a real truth. He leaves out how US allies(most notably Saudi Arabia) disrupted the Iraq govenmemt in formation.

KURDISTAN - THEY SEEK NATIONHOOD THE OLD FASHIONED WAY. THEY FOUGHT FOR IT: For now US disagrees and forever Turkey will object but their claim is strong.  AOA's Map on Monday of Kurdistan.

REIDEL ON SAUDI-US ARMS DEAL AS FAKE NEWS: The article  shows the Saudis and the Israelis have had a pretty good run since 911 at American arms dealers and the US Treasury. President Obama sold the kingdom $112 billion in weapons over eight years, most of which was a single, huge deal in 2012 negotiated by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. To get that deal through Congressional approval, Gates also negotiated a deal with Israel to compensate the Israelis and preserve their qualitative edge over their Arab neighbors. With the fall in oil prices, the Saudis have struggled to meet their payments since.  What is coming soon is a billion-dollars deal for more munitions for the war in Yemen. The Royal Saudi Air Force needs more munitions to continue the air bombardment of the Arab world’s poorest country.

SAUDIS IN ANOTHER BATTLE IN THEIR EASTERN PROVINCE BUT THE ENEMY IS THE SAME - THE SHIA: In the Eastern Saudi city of Awamiya, entire neighborhoods are destroyed with no breathless reports about "killing ones own people" Of course to the Wahabbis, the Shia are not part of the Umma. They are not "our own people." Isn't that a central categorical fact which helps us think clearly about the Mideast.

TO UNDERSTAND AFGHANISTAN, HOLD UP FOUR MORE CARDS: China, India Pakistan and Iran. A good perspective on Afghanistan comes from understanding the contending players determining Pakistan's place in South Asia. Both nations need a new regional multinational solution. President Trump's Afghanistan speech was insightful and very different from previous strategies. Last week we featured in R& G the Brookings Institute discussion on where to go with Afghanistan. Much of the President' s policy could have been written by them. It is extremely important and quite new that targeting Pakistan and allying with India is on the table. The role of Pakistan as the base of the Taliban is the major reason there has been such deadlock. Trump has finally targeted that. A role of India is the beginning of bringing in the other regional partners needed. Afghanistan allied with India over Pakistan is a very different ally. This huge change in emphasis seems lost in reportage on President Trump's strategic speech. There is no intention to make Afghanistan a liberal democracy but we do mean to leave a stable state. That is exactly the right idea but two nations are missing from the coalition that will be able to effect this--Iran and Russia. Remember Iran shares a long border with the Afghans.
President Trump said this policy was not his first instinct. He has learned something by being behind the desk. Another lesson to learn will be that Trump's instincts on Russia and President Obama's policies on Iran must come together to make both of these countries new allies. AOA Map and Book reviews on Pakistan. 

THE SOVIET UNION AND THE JEWS: If the revolution in 1917 had a dominate secular Jewish influence, the Purges in the 1950's took on an anti-Semitic bias of their own. This article is about "the night the poets died" in one of those killing purges. The relationship of Jews to Communism, to the Soviet Union and now to Russia is complicated and crucial. This article has a very interesting description of the anti fascist campaigns of WWII as well as the uneven reception of the founding of Israel by Jewish communists and other Soviets. This will be doubly true in the reaction of good communists after the Six Days War in 1967. It was a separating time for many Communist ethnic Russians and Soviet Jews akin to how the OJ Simpson trial exposed an emotional divide among the races in America.

THE DESTRUCTION OF STATES AND NATIONS - THE SOURCE OF REFUGEES: Sudan is a major source of the current refugees in the world today. Christians in the southern part of Sudan broke from Muslim Northerners and formed their own nation of south Sudan. Shortly after tribal rivalries erupted into a vicious civil war. A million refugees flee the tribal bloodbath and go south to Uganda. The old household of Idi Amin becomes a refuge for the homeless.

III. AMERICAN POLITICS

RUSSIAN COLLUSION WITH TRUMP, DNC HACKED, AND OTHER TALES - CHESTERTON RESPONDS: Chesterton said, “There are three ways in which a statement, especially a disputable statement can be placed before mankind. The first is to assert it by avowed authority; this is done by deities, the priests of deities, oracles, parents and guardians, and men who have “a message to their age.” The second way is to prove it by reason; this was done by the medieval schoolmen and by some of the early and comparatively forgotten men of science. It is now quite abandoned. The third method is this: when you have neither the courage to assert a thing, nor the capacity to prove it, you allude to it in a light and airy style, as if somebody else had asserted it and proved it already.” He followed that with, “this third method consists in referring to the very thing that is in dispute as if it were now beyond dispute.”

REPUBLICAN JEWS, SECULARISM, AND NEVER TRUMP: How American Jews fell in love with secularism. There is a deep truth which his search and study is approaching. However his conclusion that love of the Constitution would drive any reasonable man and especially an intelligent Jew to oppose Trump is part of the group think we have come to expect rom "social scientists". A six minute video lecture with Kenneth Wald. Rabbi Yoffie on the self-delusion of secular Jews.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

CHARLOTTESVILLE: Two hate groups to be denounced. This was done on the day of the attack by the President. The identification of white racism as the basis of nationalism is especially to be denounced by those of us who proudly say we are Christians and American nationalists. This was done by the President two days after attack. Is this really a time to blame it all on Trump. Listen to Trump's elegy on love and loyalty in an America under God. Listen to his specific condemnation of neo-Nazis, KKK and white supremacists. Maybe it is time to come together over what we love.

RALLY ORGANIZER TRIES A PRESS CONFERENCE: The mob rules and they weren't white supremacists. Excellent video of some events in Charlottesville Where were the police? A reasonable assessment of Trump's statements and the hysteria greeting him. Two sides of a very similar coin. Pat Buchanan shows his worse side. While we consider Buchanan to be one of the most astute columnists of his day, he has always been an ethnic nationalist. This is not the Christian or American brotherhood that we advocate. Spain did not conquer in the name of white supremacy but as Catholic Spain.  Pat never got the memo sent loud and clear that the Irish are not really "white people" in the old Anglo Saxon working definition that ruled the east coast establishment for a few centuries. His pen is so clear and his heart is so pure that we miss him greatly in this battle. We need his Catholic mind that in this fundamental issue he has given to the WASPS. The American nation is a Christian multi racial brotherhood covenant. Why would Catholic Buchanan not assert that? A better look at the Southern culture our nation cannot lose - why Country songs are so sad.

ANTIFA - WHO ARE THEY? Antifa by Peter Biernat. Growing violence on the left - some players and history. President Trump says people who are against taking down Robert E Lee statue are not all white supremacists and neo-Nazis. He says there is a violent "alt left." Mainstream media and neocons are livid. Here is the transcript of his remarks in answering reporters on Aug 15.

REALITY AND THE SACRED: Popular essay in the Atlantic on how America is no longer "reality based." This is largely because of people who believe in a personal God and the reality of demons and the devil. How America Went Haywire.   Our own reality checklist: 1)There is One God; 2) There are two sexes; 3) America is one nation under God with a place among other nations.  4) It is a life and death matter that we understand our place in each relationship.

SACRED THINGS: David Carlin reminds us of religion and the prohibitions that surround and protect the sacred. He quotes and then recommends that his readers read the great sociologist of religion Emile Durkheim. Here is AOA on Durkheim. Here is AOA on the greatest modern writer explaining how prohibitions order the categories of religion and life - Phillip Rieff on Charisma and the great "no".

NOT SO SACRED THINGS - AN END TO PROHIBITIONS MEET PENNSYLVANIA HEAD DOCTOR-DOCTOR RACHEL: A transgender role model for our kids.

HARVARD BANS SAME-SEX CLUBS(FRATERNITIES AND SORORITIES): Same sex couples - OK.

MALLORY MILLET (SISTER OF KATE MILLET AN EARLY 60's FEMINIST ICON) TELLS RIVETING STORY OF THE MOVEMENT AND ITS VICTIMS: A narrative that takes you there and reminds us that what we have lost was not from good intentions gone astray but bad intentions successfully implemented. Certainly the breakdown of sexual order wrought by feminism in America is at the heart of our religious ignorance and moral debasement.

PAY MOTHERS TO: ...be homemakers - let's get serious.

ERICH FROMM - A BELIEVING RABBI READS HIS BOOK ON LOVE: The great insights of Erich Fromm in his book The Art of Loving were often derived from his deep understanding of Jewish religious tradition. The reviewer here rightly wonders what the consequences will be for the next generation if they take Fromm's advice and cut themselves off from worship of the Source of all love. From's work is marred deeply by his lifelong campaign to eliminate the living personal God. Like many Jewish intellectuals, he reaped the benefits of generations transmitting a culture of study and prayer. This type of atheistic Jewish intellectual kept studying but quit praying. He then disavows God and proclaims himself a great thinker. Fromm was a prominent voice of the Frankfort school of exiled leftist Jews who advocated a godless humanism which would culturally enact the atheistic Marxist vision that the proletariat failed to produce.

CHRISTOPHER LASCH (d 1994) - ONCE A LIBERAL BUT THEN BEGAN TO SEE THE REVOLT OF THE ELITES AGAINST THE PATRIOTS:
Christopher Lasch died at age 61 (in 1994). We will review his incredible book on the  revolt of the elites soon. From WIKIFACTS:

In his last months, he worked closely with his daughter to complete The Revolt of the Elites: And the Betrayal of Democracy, published in 1994, in which he "excoriated the new meritocratic class, a group that had achieved success through the upward-mobility of education and career and that increasingly came to be defined by rootlessness, cosmopolitanism, a thin sense of obligation, and diminishing reservoirs of patriotism," and "argued that this new class 'retained many of the vices of aristocracy without its virtues.' Christopher Lasch analyzes the widening gap between the top and bottom of the social composition in the United States. For him, our epoch is determined by a social phenomenon: the revolt of the elites, in reference to The revolt of the masses (1929) of the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset. According to Lasch, the new elites, i.e. those who are in the top 20 percent in terms of income, through globalization which allows total mobility of capital, no longer live in the same world as their fellow-citizens. Globalization, according to the sociologist, has turned elites into tourists in their own countries. The de-nationalisation of business enterprise tends to produce a class who see themselves as "world citizens, but without accepting ... any of the obligations that citizenship in a polity normally implies."

Some excerpts from a 1980 interview:

What kinds of questions are people asking you these days?

Lasch - "Mostly about why I am so hard on liberals."

Why are you?

Lasch - "Because I think liberalism is an impoverished philosophy and it is causing all kinds of problems in our society."

Which liberalism is the villain? There are many varieties.

Lasch - "Think of the kind of liberalism that is currently identified with the Democratic party."

Of so recent a vintage?

Lasch - "As I interpret the history of liberalism it underwent a kind of sea change in the 1920s. Then liberals began increasingly to define their position in terms of a set of cultural values rather than any specific politics. H.L. Mencken was a leading figure in this change. He had nothing but contempt for the majority of Americans and developed the style of what I have called the civilized minority school of social criticism. It is a school that holds itself superior to the vast majority of Americans and is candidly elitist in outlook. Walter Lippmann called Mencken the most important thinker of his times. This elitist view came more and more to infect the liberalism of the Democratic party, which hasn't given a hoot for workers in decades, and especially to infect academic liberalism."

Presumably Lippmann himself was guilty of this elitism?

Lasch - "I think so."

What about the classical liberalism we associate with John Locke and John Stuart Mill?

Lasch - "I am worried about that too because it substitutes efficient organizations for virtuous citizens. People are left free to pursue their private interests so long as government is there to referee things with some modicum of fairness."

But you suspect that it is sometimes less than a modicum?

Lasch - "As it turns out, yes. It has become unmistakably clear that even a liberal social order requires a moral infrastructure - neighborhoods, families, churches and an array of institutions in which self-government actually works. No social order can get along without them."

I take it that you would not now call yourself a Marxist or even a socialist.

Lasch - "No. My faith in the explanatory power of the old ideologies began to waver in the mid-70s when my study of the family led me to question the left's program of sexual liberation, careers for women and professional child care. I saw a new form of socialization taking place as children were less subject to parental authority and more subject to the tutelage of the mass media and the so-called helping professions. I saw this inducing important changes in our understanding of personality and character, especially the decreased capacity for independent judgment, initiative and self-discipline upon which democracy had always been understood to depend. It was, broadly speaking, a crisis of authority but it included the degradation of work and the substitution of careerism for vocation, addiction for commitment and training for education. My experience as a parent exposed me to our society's indifference to everything that makes it possible for children to flourish and grow up to be responsible adults."

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

by A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF
MIDEAST TENSIONS RISING

The week proved troubling in the Middle East as tensions flared between Saudi Arabia and Iran and between Syria and Turkey.

The Turks have now crossed the northeastern border of Syria into regions held by our Kurdish allies. The move is obviously anti-Kurdish rather than pro-Syrian. The Turks have long feared Turkish Kurd rebels operating from this area and now seek to bring it under Turkish control. President Trump called the US troop withdrawal from the region a part of ending America's foreign wars. America First in this case means we cannot risk American troops and US dollars defending Kurds from Turks. While Pat Buchanan sees Trump's decision as a good call, Stratfor rightly points out that other local allies may not risk cooperating with Washington in the future if they fear the US will later abandon them.

We at AoA recognize good arguments on both sides of the debate. We must not forget, however, that we elected a nationalist president, not an isolationist president. A nationalist favors his nation first - but he also favors the sovereignty of other nations. Withdrawing American troops is the right move, but in the name of nationalism we must fight tooth and nail against nations like Turkey violating Syria's border. Some have argued that Turkey's push into Syria will force the Kurds into the arms of Syria's ruler, Assad. If this is the outcome, if Syria begins to reintegrate its citizens under its rightful ruler, then we can applaud the week's events. For the moment, much prayer for Syria is still needed.

We also invite our readers to learn more about Kurdistan and Syria in our Map on Monday articles.

This week also witnessed a missal attack on an Iranian oil tanker. Unlike the attacks on oil tankers linked to Saudi Arabia, little news coverage has been given to this attack. The attack took place in the Red Sea, not far off Saudi Arabia's western coast. Where are the calls to investigate the Saudis? Isn't it obvious who is responsible? As the Saudi-Iranian cold war gets hotter, expect more attacks such as these.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

WHERE'S THE MONEY? Church Militant investigates bad loans and lost money at the Vatican.

SYNOD FLASH BACK: Readers may notice that AoA has given little attention thus far to the Amazonian Synod now taking place in Rome. Several years ago mass conservative Catholic hysteria took place over the Synod on the Family. Church Militant, which has done some incredible journalism on Church scandals, is fiercely anti-Francis and dedicated much attention to attacking the last synod. Here is a sample of their work from the concluding week of the family synod. The hysteria then was unjustified and we suspect the same now. For the moment, we hold our judgment for the synod's conclusion and final document.

NYC BISHOP SACKED: Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of New York's Auxiliary Bishop John Jenik, who has been accused of sexually abusing a boy in the 1980s. How many other bishops are yet to be removed and how much did Cardinal Dolan know?

DEFENSELESS CHURCHES: The archbishop of La Plata in Argentina is asking Catholics not to protect their churches in the face of violent, rabidly anti-Catholic, pro-abortion feminist activists. But if reports of police inaction are true, who else should defend the Church?

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

TRUMP FIGHTS BACK: In a scathing eight-page letter, the Trump Administration blasted the impeachment proceedings as lacking "any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections." The White House will not - and ought not - cooperate in the newest foreign policy hoax perpetrated by angry intelligence officials and Democrats fearing the loss of the House in 2020.

NEVER TRUMPERS NO MORE: The new Ukraine hoax and attempted coup attempt from the House is bringing many Never Trumpers to the president's side. If the current moves from the Left are bringing back hard anti-Trump conservatives, imagine what it could be doing to independents in the center.

PHASE 1 CHINA DEAL: The president proposed a trade deal plan that involved multiple phases, each making arrangements on different areas of disagreement with harder areas saved for later phases. The phase one deal hammered out differences on intellectual property, financial services, and big agricultural purchases.

SHEPHERD SMITH DEPARTS: Fierce "Never Trumper" Shepherd Smith announced the end of his "speaking truth to power" tenure at FoxNews.

BIDEN OUTSPENT? Josh Holmes, former chief of staff to Mitch McConnell believes Biden could be outspent by 6 to 1 in a race against Trump. In addition to his gaffes, and recent Ukrainian scandals, Biden is also known as an antiquated fundraiser who cares little for the work of raising campaign contributions.

MUELLER PERJURY? Despite his under oath Congressional testimony to contrary, it appears Robert Mueller had interviewed for the open FBI Director job with Trump only days before being named Special Council to investigate the president.

WARREN - FIRED OR QUIT? Elizabeth Warren has frequently stated that she lost a teaching job because of a pregnancy. It turns out her contract was extended but she turned down the job. More from Dr. Steve Turley.

BETO THREATENS CHURCHES: Beto O'Rourke, hoping to pick up votes by moving further to the Left, is now calling on the government to rescind tax exempt status from churches and religious institutions that do not support gay marriage. Don't be surprised to see video of this in 2020 GOP commercials.

TRUMP'S UN SPEECH: We had hope to give more coverage to the speech, but for now we invite our readers to watch.

III. THE NATIONS

PHILIPPINE-RUSSIAN COOPERATION: Is the Philippines moving in Russia's direction?

ISRAELI-GULF STATE PACT? Israel is working to capitalize on tensions with Iran, attempting to forge a non-aggression pact with the region's gulf states. Will it work?

UZBEKISTAN IN 2-MINUTES: Uzbekistan's Geographic Challenge from Stratfor.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

FINGER GUN-POINTING FELONY: A 13 year old girl in a Kansas City, Kansas suburb has been charged with a felony for pointing her hand in the shape of a gun at other students. So much for banning AR-15's - soon we'll have to ban fingers, too.

STD'S IN CALIFORNIA: STD's are dramatically rising in California, with STD's being passed to babies up by staggering numbers. It is being called a healthcare failure in the state.

HUNDREDS SEEK TO DE-TRANSITION: Hundred of people who transition to another gender are re-thinking the change. They have some harrowing stories and have largely been abandoned as "traitors" to the trans cause. In other trans news, some girls have begun skipping school over new gender neutral bathrooms where boys and girls now mix.

GIRL BOY SCOUTS: In a unanimous vote, girls will now be allowed to participate in the Boy Scouts beginning in the cub program. Each den will determine if it will go co-ed or form a second den for girls. We agree with the the Girl Scouts that this is a great mistake.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: May 20

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

WEEKLY BRIEF

Saudi Arabia May 20-21; Jerusalem, Bethlehem May 22-23; Vatican, Rome May 24

President Trump is deliberately framing his first foreign trip as a kind of pilgrimage to the capitals of the three great monotheistic religions. The only way to understand the historical and geopolitical causes and solutions of this war is to talk religion and nations. This is a respectful and deeply intelligent gesture. For now President Trump seems to be doubling down with the Israel-Saudi alliance against Shiite Iran. The huge arms deals of both President Trump and Obama have encouraged the indefensible bombing campaign of the Saudis against the Houthi Shiites of Yemen. This is the signature program of King Salman's favorite son (31-yr-old Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman) who is consolidating all the protective institutions under his control, though he is second (he's not the Crown Prince) in line for succession. His militant anti-Shiite campaign is to curry favor with the Wahhabi clerics to support him in a succession battle with many older relatives with claims to the throne as well. The argument that the Houthis are Iranian proxies is a Saudi smokescreen to hide their genocidal hatred of Shiites in their homeland, in Iraq, in Iran and in Syria.   The Wahhabi Salafist form of Sunni Islam preached in the Kingdom sees the purification of Islam as depending on the destruction of any serious Shiite military power. Whenever they kill a Shiite they tell the West: "Don't look, just another Iranian proxy." The Israelis are not anti-Shiite, but they have been at war with Iran since 1979 and see them as the one nation powerful enough to be a real threat to their existence. Thus they have allied with the state sponsor of the religious purification movement that gave us 9-11.

The visit in Rome will bring new eyes to these matters. President Trump and Pope Francis have very different job descriptions and world roles. We have seen strong Peronist tendencies in both men, and expect an interesting first meeting that could lead to important Gingrichian contacts in the future. The Pope and the President are not in any way two deeply incompatible personalities suggested by so many political and religion commentators who understand neither man.

 Any religious understanding of the Islamic conflict will eventually have to hear Orthodox Russia and Shiite Iran explain "the rest of the story." The same day Trump meets with the Arabs in Riyadh, the Persians of Iran will be holding an election of their own. Rome understands there are more civilizations to be heard from. If at some point a major news network could escape from the Trumpian hysteria, there is a very complicated, very interesting but very understandable religious and political situation here that needs clear reporting and description.         

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 

THE VATICAN, RUSSIA, MIKE PENCE, FRANKLIN GRAHAM AND PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS: Christian unity, Vatican diplomacy, and the role of the Orthodox Church in the life of the Russian nation have all been concerns of Robert Moynihan for years. He is a good source. Now, it seems, Protestants like Franklin Graham and Mike Pence are learning about these connections in the post-Soviet Russia. Could it be in the 'weirder than fiction' camp that Callista Gingrich, as ambassador to the Vatican, may play a role too?

MIDEAST CHRISTIANS - A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE THEOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES THAT BEGET THE EASTERN RITES AND CHURCHES: by Martino Diez. He is scientific director of the Oasis International Foundation and researcher in Arabic Language and Literature at the Catholic University of Milan.

IN EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES MAINTAIN RELIGIOUS AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES AND APPRECIATION FOR RUSSIAN ROLE DEFENDING ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY: Pew Research reaffirms primal loyalties as reported in Christianity Today.

THE GLOBALIST LEADERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION - NO GOD, NO NATIONS, NO KIDS! "According to a new study, a quarter of European women born in the 1970s may remain childless. That trend is reflected in the fact that Europe’s most important leaders are all childless. That’s the case with the German chancellor, and with the British, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Scottish, and Luxembourg prime ministers. The newly elected president of France, Emmanuel Macron, is also childless and is likely to remain that way since the 39-year-old is married to his 64-year-old former teacher." William Kirkpatrick at Crisis magazine.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

WHICH WAY SYRIA: Kurdistan and a buffer state?

AQAP CALLS FOR SIMPLE ATTACKS INSIDE WESTERN COUNTRIES:" We don't believe in nationalism. We believe in the Ummah. You are not alone. You are acting for the Body."

THE ODD COUPLE SENATORS FROM SAUDI ARABIA ARE LINDSEY GRAHAM AND JOHN MCCAIN: McCain in Riyadh. McCain with the UAE military chief. McCain and Graham promise "a fix" of anti-Saudi law favored by 9/11 families. A left-wing expose of McCain financial ties. McCain non-profit and Saudi charity.

ISRAEL DROPPING THE WESTERN MYTH: Israelis are not Europeans with guns.

III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE FATHER, THE SON, AND A CATHOLIC MEN'S GROUP CALLED FRATERNUS: This man gets it.

GIRL SCOUTS AND CATHOLICS: Sorting out socialization strategies. We are going to raise boys and girls to become men and women. How should we do that? Who do we trust?

MINNESOTA BISHOPS, LIKE MINNESOTA DFL, STILL BEAR THEIR LAVENDER MAFIA: Bishop Hoeppner shows his colors - one of Winona's finest. Now in Crookston. Bishop Hoeppner, as Vicar General of the Winona Diocese, was part of the corrupt mostly homosexual inner circle of that diocese which has recently declared bankruptcy to pay lawsuits for the fraction of their priestly abuse cases that actually  came to litigation. A more complete story of how Bishop Hoeppner threatened an honest deacon and concealed a corrupt homosexual monsignor. Finally there is a brave priest standing with the layman against the bishop.

ANTHONY ESOLEN ON SEXUAL CONFUSION: "Consider how many of our political conflicts are predicated upon denying nature, or upon embracing the unnatural and perverse. Any farmer’s kid could tell you the difference between a cow and a bull, but we pretend for political purposes that it is all a matter of perception. Our grandparents did not have ultrasounds, so they wondered about the sex of a child before it was born. We are more sophisticated now. We wonder about it after."

STEPHEN COLBERT AND LENNY BRUCE: IS THIS FUNNY? Vulgarity as humor.

THE FATHER, THE SON, AND PILGRIM'S PROGRESS: Matthew Schmitz at First Things.

IV. ASIA ROUND UP

THE CHINESE ON "THE WHITE LEFT" -- MORAL CLARITY FROM ADULTS: From article by Chenchen Zhang:

"So what does ‘white left’ mean in the Chinese context, and what’s behind the rise of its (negative) popularity? It might not be an easy task to define the term, for as a social media buzzword and very often an instrument for ad hominem attack, it could mean different things for different people. A thread on “why well-educated elites in the west are seen as naïve 'white left' in China” on Zhihu, a question-and-answer website said to have a high percentage of active users who are professionals and intellectuals, might serve as a starting point.

The question has received more than 400 answers from Zhihu users, which include some of the most representative perceptions of the 'white left'. Although the emphasis varies, baizuo is used generally to describe those who “only care about topics such as immigration, minorities, LGBT and the environment” and “have no sense of real problems in the real world”; they are hypocritical humanitarians who advocate for peace and equality only to “satisfy their own feeling of moral superiority”; they are “obsessed with political correctness” to the extent that they “tolerate backwards Islamic values for the sake of multiculturalism”; they believe in the welfare state that “benefits only the idle and the free riders”; they are the “ignorant and arrogant westerners” who “pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.”

In an academic-style essay that was re-tweeted more than 7000 times on Weibo, a user named ‘fantasy lover Mr. Liu’ ‘reviewed’ European philosophy from Voltaire and Marx to Adorno and Foucault, concluding that the ‘white left’ as a 'spiritual epidemic' is on its way to self-destruction. He then stated that Trump’s win was only “a small victory over this spiritual epidemic of humankind”, but “western civilization is still far from its self-redemption.”

At AOA we have argued what they call the "white left" is the remnant of the WASP elite. The globalist gender ideology faction is the privileged white baby-boomer generation and their children who have broken the three fundamental loyalties: 1) to God and religion, 2) to marriage and family, and 3) to country and military brotherhood.    

The Chinese see the spiritual nature of this depravity very clearly. How much longer must we endure the "baizuo"?

SOUTH KOREA'S NEW PRESIDENT: This is a very good time for a leader in favor of dialogue as tension rises and that's what we got. Good cop, bad cop may give more movement than the strategic patience strategy. Remember President Trump also said in the right situation talking with the North Korea leader would be good. Even more important is for the Koreans to talk. The end game in Korea is the political order of a reunited Korea -- one of the last tragic national divisions of the WWII/Cold War era.

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 2

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

WEEKLY BRIEF

Natural disasters bring out the natural law. The State of Texas and America are primary communities "of loyalty and love." Our nation and our States are organized political communities. We remind anarchists and libertarians that organized agencies of the public(that would be government) reduce death tolls in tragedies. Our nation is built on a Christian people who are mandated to love our neighbor. This is a handy source of social capital in times of travail.  In the face of natural powers greater than our own works, we turn to the greatest of all powers and bond in our natural adult protective roles under Him to protect life.
President Trump is not talking much about North Korea. That is because he is going to act. What action will he take? We don't know. That is one of his cardinal principles in conducting hostilities. But after the hostile act, he will establish some limit (as he did in Syria) which will offer a path of negotiation.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

JESUIT SUPERIOR ON THE SYMBOLIC DEVIL AND OPENING CLERICAL ROLES TO WOMEN: This is more evidence that Pope Francis is not a typical modern Jesuit, though sadly Fr. Sosa is. Pope Francis has a clear and abiding sensibility of the reality of Satan. Satan is a spiritual personal reality. He is a being-a fallen angel and he has powerful legions with him. The conversations of Pope Francis are peppered with references to the demonic. Fr Sosa on the other hand is utterly a modern in treating evil as real but the devil as a symbol. Pope Francis considers any talk of women priests to be clericalism and degrading of the true role of women as virgins, mothers, and the Queen. His openness to a discussion of the early role of "woman as deaconess" is not to find a pathway to female ordination but a fuller history of women's roles in the church which now are evidenced by the vibrancy of women religious orders. The modern Jesuits like Fr Sosa and Fr Jim Martin are intellectual creatures of the desacralized culture they mimic.  They have lost grasp of the reality of the invisible - of God and Satan. This has lead to their confusion about the physical - the sacral distinctions of male and female.

JPII AND REAGAN, NOW FRANCIS AND PUTIN: The Vatican is not reading US media on the evil empire of Russia. Quite the contrary.

TURNING THE ALTAR, BENDING THE KNEE: Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison has begun celebrating the Mass ad orientem and has asked his priests to consider doing so as well. Beginning this month he asked all parishes to start giving Communion on the tongue while kneeling. This return to liturgical piety will do his diocese greater good than the more common tendency of US bishops to issue statements on Congressional legislation rather than teach, sanctify, and govern their diocese. Read the full text of the announcement, made during his Chrism Mass homily to all diocesan priests. Here is a quote:

"There are liturgies that are less than reverent, especially in the way that Communion is received. It’s hard to believe that some people actually believe that that’s the Body of Christ the way they handle it. You’d think it was an M&M... Now just to get concrete here at the end, beginning next school year, (that means beginning in the Fall of 2017) I’m going to ask that we move together towards greater reverence when receiving Holy Communion. I’m going to ask that people be encouraged to receive Communion on the tongue and kneeling. There is no question that Communion on the tongue is more reverent. And it doesn’t lend itself to a casual kind of behavior. I’m going to ask, beginning in the Fall, that our students are taught to receive Communion on the tongue."

ONE GOD, TWO SEXES - THE NASHVILLE STATEMENT. EVANGELICALS AND POPE FRANCIS TOGETHER: A beautiful, no-nonsense, scripturally-inspired celebration of God's creation. This statement of evangelicals should be endorsed by Catholics as a very Pope Francis-way of speaking. Pope Francis has treated the war against gender as a colonial project of imposing ideology on poor countries by the developed "West." He treats this aberration as fundamentally an ecological crime. It is a failure by technologically advanced moderns to treat what has been given in nature with the proper respect.
It looks like the alliance of evangelicals and Catholics which has been condemned by certain Church bureaucrats and clerics (but not Pope Francis) is alive and well in the fight to protect the gifts of Nature against the forces of gender ideology.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ONE OF THE BEST MUSLIM COMMENTATORS ON POLITICAL ISLAM IS SHADI HAMID: Reflections on Political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Hamid is a sophisticated thinker on Islam. Like most of the east coast chattering class, he is mostly wrong about Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. But he has a nuanced well studied understanding of Islam and he can teach us all some crucial distinctions.  Within the Sunni world, the monarchies of UAE and Saudi Arabia condemn the Muslim Brotherhood not for their interpretation of Islam but for their opposition to monarchs in an age of Islamic republicanism. The Brotherhood knows it can usually win elections. The monarchs know they no longer govern with the consent of their people. Military coups are often favored by the monarchs as a suppression of this popular impulse(see Egypt). Hamid teaches us to appreciate this crucial distinction. There is a significant war between "populist Islam" and the oil oligarchies. We should be careful not to label every form of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist.

TURKEY AND IRAN TWO NON-ARAB MUSLIM NATIONS: Often at odds but together in their opposition to an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds are the Serbs of the Mideast.

NO SILENCE FOR THE SAUDIS: After the terror attacks in London last June, a moment of silence was observed at a World Cup qualifying match in Australia between the Saudi Arabian and Australian soccer teams - except the Saudis decided not to observe the silence. Despite the official position of the Saudi government and the apology from the Saudi Arabian soccer federation, this is another reminder of how the general Salafist-Saudi population feels about Salafist terror.

III. PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

NORTH KOREA MISSILE OVER JAPAN: It is hard to see how this is not going to evoke a justified military response. The US wants the battle against North Korea to pit Americans as the defenders of the stability of Asian nations. A missile over Japan is the best casus belli possible. Our sensibility is that a limited and forewarned (to South Korea, China and Japan) military strike or a promise to shoot down any more missiles will be the American response. This will be very different than the last three administrations. North Korea did fire a missile over Japan in 2008 but some say that was a failed attempt for another purpose. Wikipedia turns out as a better source for the facts of the story than most news accounts. Who, what, when, where, why.

SECULARISM, RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM AND: American civic religion.

IF YOU WANT TO BE OFFENDED... George Will in a video answers the question about statue banning that Trump asked, "Where will it end?" Will helps us answer by showing logically where it should start. Oklahoma, the Washington Post, the Minnesota state seal and the city of Corpus Christi are obvious offenders he exposes.

INVESTIGATING RUSSIA - LET'S TRACE THE TRUMP DOSSIER THAT JOHN MCCAIN GAVE TO INTELLIGENCE SERVICES: It's peculiar which stories live and which stories die. It is also peculiar which stories still have real tales to tell us. Let's think. Who was using Russian  intelligence information to influence the election?

SO MUCH WATER: If you ignore the global warming inserts, this is a good explanation of major atmospheric and ocean contributors to the Texas water event.

RUSSIAN NATIONALIST AND CHRISTIAN: Excellent introduction to Ivan Ilyin.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE DEATH OF EUROPE: A lesson for America. Book alert by Chuck Chalberg.

IN OLD AGE THE BABY-BOOMERS CAN MAKE REPARATIONS, NOT RETIREMENT: De Senectute.

PROTECTIVE ALL-MALE GROUPS ARE PART OF NATURE, HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE -- WHY DO WE STUTTER SO IN DEFENDING THEM? Special forces - lies, alibis, and women graduates.

WHY WE SHOULDN'T GET RID OF FOOTBALL: An old priest tells a timeless truth.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, July 22

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

SECRETARY TO CARDINAL COCCOPALMERIO IN DRUG/HOMOSEXUAL ORGY: The secretary of 79-year-old Cardinal Coccopalmerio was arrested in a CDF-owned apartment during a "drug infused gay orgy." Coccopalmerio is a member of the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith and chief interpreter of Vatican texts. He was appointed to his offices by Pope Benedict and had recently recommended that his secretary be made a bishop. The CDF has been a notorious center for gay clergy who maintain the letter that homosexuality is a disorder, but always come up short on enforcement and are notorious for their clandestine secret cults. A homosexual Polish priest who worked at CDF was fired after publicly coming out. He wrote a blistering letter to Pope Francis that the clergy from cardinals to priests are full of homosexuals and he was fired for being honest.

The "orthodox" American Catholic press is full of laborious reasoned arguments against the new book by Jesuit James Martin advocating a more pastoral approach to the LGBTQ lobby. None of the reviewers take on the central fact in Martin's Jesuit order and every major urban center in America that there are already huge homosexual clergy subcultures who were made to feel very welcome in Catholic seminaries while greasing their trips up the career ladders in the church. Thirty years ago the homosexual seminarians were much more flamboyant in their proclivities. Now they are told to be discreet which has made their merry band of special brothers even more the insiders. How can the welcome mat for homosexuals be any more accommodating than the diocese of our nation's capital headed by Cardinal "Uncle Ted" McCarrick from 2001-2006 and now Cardinal Donald "Donna"Wuerl? (Here is a defense of Cardinal Wuerl).

This abomination has emasculated our priesthood and episcopacy. This radical desacralization of fatherhood and fraternity is the still unpunished cause of the clerical abuse scandal which disfigures the Body of Christ. When Cardinal Wuerl was asked if allowing open homosexuals throughout the US military would adversely effect the armed forces he said the Catholic Church had no position on the issue. The Church may have no official position but we are a living testament. Incest is very bad for brotherhood. The homosexual problem in the Catholic clergy is NOT a policy or doctrinal issue. It is a personnel problem, and there are no bishops right now who will face their duplicitous brothers. For two decades the Church has been explicit that homosexuals should not be allowed in the seminaries -- very explicit. What about the episcopacy? Should homosexuals be allowed to stay in that apostolic role? What is the message? Sneak through the seminaries, and there will be  plenty of wink-wink clerics who will help you up the career ladder.

VATICAN NEWSPAPER EMBARRASSING ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN POLITICS: The Fr. Spadaro article: Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: a Strange Ecumenism. Some withering reviews: by Samuel Gregg and Fr. Raymond De Sousa. The best response, however, was by a Catholic thinker who has a map in his head and measurable testosterone in his blood stream. Austin Ruse. No serious American will think the Vatican editors understand American politics. This statement about Pope Francis casts doubt about their knowledge of Francis.

"Francis wants to break the organic link between culture, politics, institution and Church."

As the pope's biographer, Austen Ivereigh, noted: this is neither the language nor the voice of Francis. The editors' lumping of the biblically inspired black civil rights movement with atheistic communism and anti-patriarchal feminism is a typical error of the left, as is their juxtaposition of exclusionary land base Old Testament thinking with "Imagine there are no borders" inclusivity of the New Testament. From the Spadaro text:

"The panorama of threats to their understanding of the American way of life have included modernist spirits, the black civil rights movement, the hippy movement, communism, feminist movements and so on. And now in our day there are the migrants and the Muslims. To maintain conflict levels, their biblical exegeses have evolved toward a decontextualized reading of the Old Testament texts about the conquering and defense of the “promised land,” rather than be guided by the incisive look, full of love, of Jesus in the Gospels."

This text is an embarrassment in which anti-American animus (especially against those benighted southern whites) is its driving force. This screed tells us nothing about America and less about Pope Francis. Apparently, the Vatican pundits missed the rather interesting fact that "Conservative Catholic intellectuals" who had supported Reagan and George Bush were ostentatiously opposed to Donald Trump and his emphasis on God, manual workers, and nationalism. They had preferred to champion natural law reasoning, creative capitalism of free trade and ideas and the promotion of western democracy. American Catholic intellectuals have misunderstood both Donald Trump and Pope Francis. This Vatican essay fails to grasp that Catholic men supported President Trump but many of the intellectual architects of the Catholic Evangelical alliance missed his message entirely. The essayists locked in their tired western mindset  also must have missed  the Pentecost memo from Pope Francis. Right there in the middle of Rome,  Pope Francis asserted even more boldly his own initiative to those crazy Christ loving Protestant brothers ( see Pentecost with the Pentecostals- a Pope Francis initiative).  The relationship of Catholic Protestant and Jew (and now Muslim) in American politics is worth a thoughtful essay from the Roman mind. We are waiting.

DECENTRALIZING THE CURIA - FRANCIS' STRATEGY: From Monday Vatican -- a perceptive weekly essay from Italian speaking Catholic News writer. The Curia is no longer the center -- it is not the top of a career ladder. A return to diocesan preeminence. This commentator is interesting.

AUTONOMOUS INDIVIDUALS MAXIMIZING PLEASURE VS. CHRISTIAN LIBERTY: A 1995 essay by Cardinal Avery Dulles.

WHY MANY CATHOLICS DON'T TRUST POPE FRANCIS: Tom Hoopes interview.

FELIPE ALOU AND CHRISTIAN ATHLETES: Catholics and Protestants and the FCA.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

"SAUDI ARABIA SUPPORT FOR TERROR DWARFS QATAR" ACTIONS: Senator Bob Corker is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

THE KURDS FOUGHT BUT WILL THEY GET A COUNTRY? From Asia News, an Independence referendum on Sept 25, 2017. (See our Map on Monday on Kurdistan.)

III. R&G ROUND UP

MONGOLIA - A YOUNG LEADER PRO-PUTIN: Mongolia with three million people is a huge landmass (18th largest country) with copper, gold, and coal resources underlying a still robust horse and herd culture. This resilient people play a buffer role between Russia and China. This election shows the success of Putin's leadership in winning allies on Russia's huge southern front.

XI JINPING AND THE RESTORATION OF CHINESE TRADITIONALISM: From Asia news.

IF A REPRESENTATIVE OF NORTH KOREA SAID HE HAD A DISK CONTAINING THE 30,000 EMAILS HILLARY CLINTON DESTROYED WOULD YOU MEET WITH HIM? An unfriendly government with valuable information - looking for the moral principle here that would preclude one from finding what was destroyed. During the campaign, candidate Trump publicly asked Russia if you can find the 30,000 emails the press will "mightily reward" you. What campaign would not meet with someone to see if the "lost has been found"?

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 16

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

STEVE BANNON AND THE BISHOPS; JIM MARTIN AND HIS JESUITS  

The complete interview of presidential advisor Steve Bannon with Charlie Rose of CBS is very worthwhile. The TV version highlighted an unpleasant side of Mr. Rose who has a well deserved  reputation as a prepared interviewer who lets his guests talk. This longer version shows Rose as a better interviewer because he allows much more uninterrupted time for Mr. Bannon to display his vigorous intelligence. On the TV version, Mr. Bannon said the American bishops had been "terrible on DACA" with their reflexive opposition to Trump's rescinding President Obama's executive order preventing children of illegal immigrants from deportation. President Trump has signaled clearly he wants immigration reform to be done by law not executive order. Only this approach will lead to a reform that can lead to citizenship for some, deportation for others, and an end to de facto open borders. Sanctuary cities and states display a depressing willingness to accept as permanent an immigrant class of humans as a labor force and recipient of public services but not fellow citizens. Bannon correctly called the American bishops self serving for favoring unrestricted Catholic immigrants as a remedy to membership problems inside the Church caused by their own sins.

The Jesuit, James Martin, continues his campaign for mainstreaming homosexuality within the Catholic Church and he is willing to play dirty with those who oppose him.  Even the vigorous opposition of Austin Ruse at Crisis magazine though has not fully named the problem represented by the likes of Jim Martin in the American Catholic Church. Normalizing homosexuality is not aimed at comforting an effeminate teen who is part of "All our Children". Martin's media blitz is meant to obfuscate the role of the  homosexual subculture within the Catholic priesthood and episcopacy that allowed the sexual abuse of teen age males from Guam to Chicago in the last century.  This includes whole provinces of Jesuits dominated by the lavender psychology. Martin's homosexual campaign is not about protecting that confused vulnerable fifteen year old. It is the strident campaign of well fed and highly placed 50 to 60 year olds who seek to protect the perch of chicken hawks who are secretly  panicking with fear at the wrath of real reform. 

The all male clergy of the Catholic Church should be a light to the nations as a public fraternity of men under God. They should be a masculine witness for the interracial brotherhood (the agreement among adult males that will socialize the young males) needed to calm our cities. They should stand as the bishops at the Second Vatican Council said for fraternity among nations as the Christian alternative to the Darwinism of perpetual war drums. Male relationships and personality structures are crucial to building public tranquility in our cities and nations.  The "pansy" is not a public man of authority and community. He is a male but he is not doing his duty as a man. That is why "pansy" is an insult that serious public men may hurl at a self indulgent deceiver. James Martin and many of his fellow Jesuits hold a personal conception of brotherly love which is incest. This is not the missionary brotherly love that Christ inaugurated with his apostles under Peter. It is not the courageous brotherly love that the martyr saints of this day (Sept 16) Cornelius and Cyprian spoke of as they were killed for the new public Kingdom of the Christian movement. Hopefully Catholic priests and laymen will learn to speak as clearly and profoundly about the corruption of the James Martin/Judas priests as Mr. Bannon speaks about the nature of the corrupt elite he is challenging.  

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? As the 500th anniversary of the Reformation draws near, a Pew Research Center survey asked Protestants what divides them from Catholics. While evangelicals score higher, a majority of Protestants can't tell the difference. (Bonus: Can you tell the difference? Take the quiz by following the link).

THE HOMOSEXUAL LOBBY IN THE CHURCH - SOME NAMES THAT KEEP RESURFACING EVEN FROM THE DEAD: A tribute to Italian Cardinal Martini from Canadian priest, Fr Rosica. Two characters to watch; one is dead. From the LA Times obituary of Cardinal Martini in 2012: "For years, Martini had been Europe's most prominent liberal cardinal, frequently voicing openness on such divisive church issues as priestly celibacy, homosexuality and the use of condoms to fight AIDS."

SECULAR JEWS AND PRACTICING CATHOLICS - IT'S GETTING UGLY: Can you be a practicing Catholic and a Judge? Some Democrats are seeing the contradiction. Dianne Feinstein was clear in the link above. Bernie Sanders went after an evangelical. Al Franken jumped the same lady Catholic judge that Feinstein attacked. In a wonderful compliment, Senator Feinstein told the Catholic woman, "The dogma lives loudly within you."  If only Christian men who believe in the brotherhood of all men and the local brotherhoods of our own nations could live so well.

SERVING MASS CAN LEAD TO PRIESTLY VOCATIONS: Fr. Scott Wallisch, Vocations Director of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, calls on archdiocesan priests and server trainers to encourage their male high school servers to join the Knights of St. Tarcisius. Founded by AoA's A. Joseph Lynch, the Knights of St. Tarcisius forms young men as servers as they pass through "four stages of knighthood... experience true Catholic fraternity... [while] discerning the priesthood."

AQUINAS ON BEAUTY: "St. Thomas Aquinas does a good job of defining beauty: for things to be beautiful, they must have the three qualities of integrity, proportion, and clarity. "Integrity means that all the parts of an object present are where they belong, while proportion means that all of the parts are in right relationship to each other. Clarity means that something has a certain brightness, effulgence, or splendor so that the object’s integrity and proportion can capture our attention."

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

9/11 FAMILIES CONTINUE THE CASE THAT ELEMENTS OF SAUDI RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT WERE SIGNIFICANT ACTORS IN ATTACK: The Wahabbi role seems undeniable.

ISIS HEADS TO THE PHILIPPINES: As the war turns against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, its commanders now call on recruits to shift forces to the Philippines. With Duterte in power, ISIS is bound to have quite the fight on its hands.

ON IRAN: Tiara Parsi, a thinker who was very influential during the Obama administration gives a more historical and nuanced view of Iran than we might hear from Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham or Democrat Robert Menendez. This is a long but worthwhile interview introducing his work.

A VERY BAD IDEA - PROPOSED POLICY TO INCREASE US WAR EFFORTS AGAINST SHIITES OF YEMEN AND BAHRAIN: This is being done to give more military flexibility in responding to Iranian aggression. There are no two places in the world where the Saudi religious persecution of Shiites is more falsely presented as a war against Iran. Many US military leaders (especially Marines) have a deep hostility toward Iran whom they blame for the 1983 killing of 241 marines in Beirut. Good men are being played. Joining the Saudis in their Wahhabi hatred against Shiites will not avenge our brothers.

IS TERRORISM THE ENEMY?
A review of terrorism and how it ends by the New Yorker's Robin Wright. A very interesting historical article but not very related to the Salafist war declared on 9/11. An ongoing problem among DC experts has been labeling this as a war against a tactic - "the war on terrorism".

ISRAEL BOMBS SYRIA: Preemptive messages.

THE TWO EIDS: The end of Ramadan and the end of the Hajj (Pilgrimage). The yearly pilgrimage (the Hajj) and the yearly fasting month of  Ramadan both end with days of feast (Eid). The Hajj is an annual  5 day period when Muslims from all over the word return to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Hajj means "to journey" and the fulfillment of this duty is one of the five pillars of Islam.  It is a time to stone the devil, and remember the willingness of Ishmael to be sacrificed to do the will of God (Islam means submission to God). The days of the Hajj end with the Eid al Adha (Feast of sacrifice).  All Muslims, even those who do not do the pilgrimage that year, celebrate the Eid.

The end of the monthly fast of Ramadan is celebrated with the Eid al Fitr (Feast of breaking the fast). The month is marked by fasting all day from food and drink (including water). Self mortification is meant  to elevate the desire for God over the wants of the flesh.  The rigorous fast is also to engender empathy with the poor and hungry whose lack of food and drink is involuntary. Fasting and almsgiving are central to the month as are the daily prayers which cultivate a public consciousness of God.

THE NEXT FRONT IN THE MIDEAST COULD BE LEBANON WITH THE MOST UNAPOLOGETIC CHRISTIANS IN THE REGION: From Rod Dreher interview of Andrew Doran policy advisor of Defense of Christians:

RD: We have seen images recently of Christians returning to their badly damaged sanctuaries in Syria and Iraq. Has the worst passed for Middle Eastern Christians?

AD: The number of Christians in Iraq and Syria has gone from over three million combined fifteen years ago to less than a million today. This happened for many reasons.  One is the radicalization of Muslims through well-funded ideologies. The most pernicious of these ideologies is Wahhabism, which Saudi Arabia has spent untold billions to export globally for decades. Everywhere I go in the Middle East, Muslims and Christians alike ask, “Why isn’t America doing something to stop the Wahhabis? Don’t you know they’re your enemy and ours?” The petrol wealth and influence of the Gulf states has thus set the Muslim world back generations, if not centuries. Most of the violence against both Middle East Christians and Americans has come from this source, though I hasten to add that Iran and its proxies are also a serious threat. 

From a strictly political point of view, what do Americans not understand about the situation Christians in the Middle East face — not just in war zones, but elsewhere?

Americans probably don’t understand the extent to which their public servants in DC really don’t care. The foreign policy establishment, like the public culture in America, has a general contempt (often masquerading as indifference) for Christians. This is ironic because the Christians are the progressives of their societies in the Middle East.

Americans would probably be shocked at how unapologetically Christian and free Lebanon is. Lebanon is the closest thing to a Western country in the Arab world, and not only because of the lifestyle and prevalence of French and English. There are monasteries in the mountains, catacombs, statues of Jesus and Mary, Christian universities, Christian politicians, and above all a confidence in Christian culture that we’re losing in the West. This has rubbed off on non-Christians in Lebanon, giving the place a very moderate feel. (There are places one usually doesn’t go, of course, but think of all the places we never go in America because they’re unsafe—and far more dangerous than anything in Lebanon.) Put simply, the Christians of Lebanon don’t have the dhimmi mentality of a hostage, contingent people that sadly characterizes so many Christians in the Middle East. When you see Lebanon, you understand why it’s worth saving. Christians in places like Egypt and elsewhere will often point out that Lebanon gives them a model for equality and hope.

The problem isn’t the American people so much as it is Washington. There’s a clear chasm between the values of the American people and their elites. It’s important not only to make a moral argument, of course. IDC and its partner organizations make a case that it’s in American interests to protect and preserve Christian and other minority communities. Americans often think that humanitarian aid is the answer, and that is needed, but we also need policies that will protect Christians. If we can get that part right, no humanitarian aid will be needed.

III. THE KOREAN PENINSULA

ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA DON'T FORGET... South Korea is an actor. Their new leftist government has already been forced to display military exercises and renewed friendship with Japan in response to North Korean missile launches. At heart though the new president Moon Jae-in wants a radical new approach to reunifying his country. Best books on North Korea.

CHINA SAYS FIRST STRIKE BY US AGAINST KOREA MEANS: China will defend militarily.

HOW CLOSE TO BOMBING NORTH KOREA WAS/IS THE US? Two thinkers we should not listen to: RALPH PETERS, JOHN BOLTON.  However, it is hard for us to see how this is going to be resolved without some kind of military action by President Trump.

THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR WITH NORTH KOREA: A long, very informed article by Evan Osnos of the New Yorker.

IV. R&G NATIONS ROUND UP

RELIGION AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS IS NOT THE SAME AS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: The office led by Shaun Casey (author of a book on The Making of a Catholic President) has been folded into another department. This is not progress.

NATIONALISM FROM KURDISTAN TO HUNGARY TO CATALONIA: Tribalism by Pat Buchanan.

BUDDHISTS CLEANSE MUSLIMS IN BURMA (MYNAMAR): White globalists lose a heroine. In Russia the Muslims protest the Burma expulsion. Russia allows a vigorous non jihadist Islamic culture. Burmese Buddhists close their "western door to Islamic expansion." Where are the protectors of Islam?

CITY STATES AND NATIONS: An author gets carried away in seeing an internet future of city states as the nations recede. The city states will not replace the nation state but they will become more autonomous regions of self governance. Consider the direct control municipalities of China.

V. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

CONSUMERS AND CENTURIONS: Is America becoming two subcultures?

NASHVILLE STATEMENT IS ABOUT ECOLOGY: Three Popes have taken the same view.

SOCIOBIOLOGY AND SEX ROLES: "The more an animal population tends toward acting together in a eusocial way, the more important are sexual differences in work roles to harmonize the common purposes of the group." The lowest form of physical life- the Bacteria- are asexual. The most developed and integrated social lives mark the eusocial organisms.  The social lives of bees and ants are built on hierarchy, sexual differentiation and parthenogenesis.