A working strategy to rid the Catholic Priesthood of Predator Wolves and Pretender Shepherds.

                                                                                                         Beheading of John the Baptist, 2018
Pray.

Fast every Friday.

We urge priests not to discuss these matters from pulpits during Mass where there are children. Discuss the betrayal and the reform away from the sanctuary and liturgy. Hold meetings for adults only and sometimes for men only. Usually what is said from the pulpit is too much for kids to hear and not enough for adults who want to know the real truth. Parents need to explain this to their children in the way they know best for each child.
Every bishop in every diocese should appoint a Promoter of Justice (a cleric) who will investigate active and retired clergy for fitness of the office. He will be aided in his work by laymen who can investigate and hunt. Any priest who has committed sodomy as a priest will be immediately suspended from presenting himself as a priest or performing any sacraments. The act itself divorces him from the fraternal communion of priests. The act itself desacralizes him so he can never again approach the priest's side of the Eucharistic altar. He has irrevocably desecrated the Father-Son bond which he sacramentally represents. Proceedings (tribunal or petitions) for a formal degradation from the clerical state and loss of all benefices (pensions, health benefits, and special housing) should follow as soon as possible. Pedophilia and incest should be considered as crimes in the same category.

Jesus cleanses the priesthood. Pope Francis and his brother bishops must do likewise.

Every Religious Superior should initiate a mechanism to examine the fitness of all in their charge and expel any members without benefices who have engaged in sodomy or pedophilia.

The bishop of every diocese shall determine if religious orders are carrying out their purification in an honest manner. If they are not, the religious order will be suppressed in that diocese. The internal authority of the religious orders is to be respected. Obstinate Corruption will lead to a Public Shaming Exile of the order or house from the diocesan jurisdiction. Someone from the diocese will be assigned the duty of informing on the group wherever they go.

A Committee of Inquisition should  be appointed by the NCCB to investigate and process complaints against all bishops. This committee will aggressively inquire and not act on a complaint only initiative. The committee will employ lay men who can investigate and hunt. Complaints against local Promoters of Justice and bishops frustrating local reforms will also be investigated by this committee. This committee will be an investigative body that will recommend to a ruling bishop which bishops or priests should resign or be degraded. If the accused bishop does not resign, all information will be sent to the Vatican requesting  removal. Any acts of sodomy or promotion of sodomites will lead to a recommendation to Rome that the bishop also  undergo degradation of episcopal and priestly office with all benefices (health, pension and housing)  stripped as well.

Any deacon, priest or bishop who claims, admits to or has claimed to hold a homosexual inclination will be considered to have an impediment to the office. The local bishop will prevent him from any further exercise of his office and any clerical act. If homosexuals are not to be admitted to the seminary, then they cannot corrupt a religious community or diocesan presbytery either. They certainly should not be allowed to enter a conclave of cardinals to elect a Pope. It should be a major priority of Rome and others to thoroughly investigate the present consistory of cardinals to insure no psychological homosexuals or sodomites participate in the next conclave.  
The homosexual priest must be laicized because the very term is an oxymoron. Homosexual priests should never be sent to hospitals to confuse the sick and dying. Promoters of Justice or the Bishop’s Committee will send these cases to the proper Vatican office for laicization and /or degradation. 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 it doesn't go away with a good confession.

Let us not be confused by those who say every reform must come from the Vatican. That is a recipe for paralysis by swamping. Only the Pope can remove a recalcitrant bishop but anyone-an investigative reporter, a grand jury, an honest laymen, a Promoter of Justice, a hired P.I., a bishop's committee of inquiry...  can investigate. People closest to home can investigate best. Think the subsidiary principle of detectives. It is also true that clerics closest to home have the most to hide and obfuscate--think coverups and false flags. Local investigation can uncover the deepest roots of corruption. It also can be manipulated by the local clique to yield the most poison fruit. Investigate and Be Wary. Keep pushing until we get a real Shepherd who safeguards the Eucharist by purifying a local priesthood in some diocese to show the way. This will be one of the great fruits of the Vatican II
teachings on the Eucharist and Episcopacy.
Any bishop whose personality is incapable of his oversight duties should resign as a bishop. If public evidence and pressure does not lead him to resign, the Committee will determine if his resignation shall be requested. If the bishop refuses their request, the Committee will forward their recommendation and findings to Rome.  They will also consider the degradation of his episcopal and/or priestly office and recommend the punishment to Rome if fitting. There are many bishops and priests who have committed spectacular sins of omission. They can show why they should not resign by fearless investigation and pruning of local cabals of unfaithful priests and corrupt bishops.  Sometime a military commander must resign after a lost battle. Many times a poor commander becomes a good leader by learning from his errors (often grievous errors). The chastened soldier becomes the best warrior of all. In terms of "what I have failed to do..", all bishops in their oversight (episkopos) office share in guilt. However, we must leave room for a converted Paul to add to the flock by tenfold those he betrayed. If sodomites reform, they must do so outside the priesthood.

None of these reforms will work if the promoters of justice in each diocese and the Committee of Inquisition are not headed by men HUNGERING for justice. The reformers must not be afraid of the sodomites or oblivious to their network. The infidelity is not simply sodomy and the widespread psychological emasculation that comes from living at peace with such a degradation of fatherhood and fraternity. Atheism and agnosticism are widespread. Satanism is present. Reformers must be wary of those with "experience in treating priest abusers".  It was because predators took over the oversight  committees, set up the revenue generating cottage industries of counseling and seminar giving, and became the expert priest psychologists that the Satanic deception lived so long. The St. Luke’s Institute and priestly formation gang in Washington DC should not be asked to head any clean up squads. There is no policy nor procedure that can survive the corruption of key personnel. To fight the principalities and powers we will need a different kind of man in the episcopacy.  That is why we must respond to the Holy Father’s strategy of beginning by prayer and fasting.  If many bishops and priests  do not resign; if some bishops do not radically repent and reform; if new men do not rise in leadership as bishops; then we will know there has been no reform.

                                               What We Are Not Going To Do

We are not going to change the hierarchical all male nature of the priesthood. We are not going to interpose lay committees inside the apostolic priestly chain of command. We are not going to lose our heads while all about us are losing theirs and blaming it on us. We are not going to label Vatican II a work of Satan; we are not going to apologize for the Novus Ordo. We are not going to demand that Pope Francis resign. It is not patriarchy-the rule of fathers that is the problem. It is not synods of bishops talking man to man that will confuse us. It is not wearing collars and cassocks  and using titles and last names that is clericalism. Apostolic priestly fraternity is the antidote to clericalism.
If we let many voices of many bishops speak, we will hear heresy promoted as progress and filth posing as light. Of course we will. Large numbers of our clergy are corrupted-- especially by the gender ideology of feminism and homosexuality. Let them make their case--get their names. Debate them --don't' stop them from speaking. Act like men against the males who know not manhood. The Pope who speaks freely and encourages parrhesia is our leader in this Spiritual combat. Honest men, good men who have been repelled by the demise of the Church they love are in grievous error that the Pope is their foe.  It is the incestuous corruption of fatherhood and brotherhood that is our foe.  It is the clericalism of men in their luxurious apartments, dining at fancy restaurants, cultivating the rich and famous, treating a young man as a sex toy and not a son--that is clericalism and indeed it is our foe. It has been our foe since Judas used the common purse for his own entertainment. What twisting of good men's minds could make so many reject the evil of clericalism? Was it because it was the language of Pope Francis? What twisting of the mind could say the one Pope who brought the Perverted American Emperor-Cardinal down should resign because he knew there was evil but did not nail the predator soon enough? Shall we apply some fitting punishment to the Pope before him? Francis, "the dictator Pope", was able to take down a satanic figure who mocked his predecessors as papal impotents. Shall we clamor that he resign or encourage more boldness?  Shall we give him an anvil for his hammer or pull away his standing place? Is to know something and not act right away the same as "a cover-up"?   Why are so many good men so confused? Let us love each other in an orderly way. Let us not join the modern mob of modernism. Their chants have poisoned several centuries: Kill the King, Strangle the Prince with the bowels of the last Priest, Murder the Czar, change the regime, impeach the President, reject the Patriarchy...and now the Pope.
 The Pope and the Sacrifice of the Mass(in its many beautiful forms) are the solution. Priestly identity is the solution. Patriarchy and Fraternity are the solutions. These sacred forms of male love are the ontological realities that tie us to the Trinity. Let us reform and reassert what has been deformed and desacralized. For in God's plan, it is the sacred brotherhood who is to expel the Evil One and baptize the nations.
                            A Few Necessary Duties for Rome, Most for Local Dioceses, 
                                              Religious Orders and Bishop Conferences

Only Rome can depose a recalcitrant bishop and formally laicize and assign degradation as punishments to clerics. Only Rome can establish an instrument of inquiry to ensure no man who has committed sodomy, pedophilia or incest will enter the consistory of cardinals to elect the next Pope. {Oct 2018 UPDATE: A lay committee has formed to begin an investigation of all cardinals eligible for the next consistory. While the group appears to have an animus against Pope Francis, its laser focus on the electors is brilliant. Any papal committee of inquiry to purify the Cardinals should be very interested in their work and will benefit from their initiative}. But the instigator of every reform will be the Holy Spirit acting locally among laymen and priests and bishops who seek to end homosexual clericalism and renew the apostolic priesthood. Bishops, priests and laymen should form informal local juntas, councils, brotherhoods, adelphos meals and prayer meetings to make clear a new public relationship of brotherhood is rising to cleanse the Church (and the nation) of Satan’s demonic gender ideology.  The predators and pretenders will infiltrate these reform mechanisms in certain religious orders and dioceses. We are no longer surprised by the masquerade. There are many lights to shine upon them. Their time has passed. Our  different forms of informal brotherhoods(some public; some to become public) will expose them.

Sodomy and abortion—these twin assaults on Fatherhood and Motherhood are deeply intertwined. Just as Abortion “by the act” incurs excommunication so clerical sodomy “by the act” should incur excommunication and degradation of the priestly office. Abortion is the ultimate domestic violence in which the loving nurturing womb of the mother becomes its opposite. Sodomy is spiritual incest by a Priest-Father in which he substitutes the grotesque violence of a bodily pollution for the fatherly embrace and example that draws a son into shared manhood. These acts are so horrific there will come time we will barely speak of them for fear of conjuring them as realities even in our minds. This is the nature of the deepest taboos and abominations which are so central to the maintenance of purity codes and the safeguarding of the sacred.   If the sacred brotherhood of fathers is not reformed, the loving purity of virgins and protective ferocity of mothers will not flourish. Our Catholic ties run deep -we are integrated like no other social organism. We are the Body of Christ sealed together in the sacraments. That is why there is so much trust among us. That is why the betrayal was greatest wherever we were most dominate as a culture.

The Second Vatican Council First Exacerbated, then Exposed a Corruption Already Present. Now the true Spirt of Vatican II--the Holy Spirit-- will Reform the Masculine Fraternity of the Apostolic Priesthood, Renew the Eucharistic Rule of Bishops, and Restore the Patriarchy of God.   

We hear the cries of the innocent. As Pope Francis said, their pain will not go away; their cries have been heard. The great fraternal renewal promised at the global Pentecost of Fathers at the Second Vatican Council has been stymied long enough. Satan had his day of interpretation. Men squabbled about their own theories. Now it is the Great and Holy Conspirator’s turn. It was the Holy  Spirit conspiring with Christ who led Him into the desert to confront the Evil One after the Father  manifested the Son at His Baptism. May the same Spirit lead us into battle against the Liar who so confused the Churchmen and our daughters after the Spiritual Awakening of Vatican Two.  May the Sons of the Spirit and the Men of Galilee answer the Holy Father’s call and combat this demonic evil as a united Church. Pope Francis has ordered us to do this as a People. Where will new men come from to clean the temple?  Maybe a particular diocese or small country or religious house will produce a hundred men who will all be called as bishops to lead the reform. Jesus seemed quite partial to the fishing region of Galilee. Strong men will rise up where communities of men flourish. Where strong brotherhoods form, strong men available for universal service will emerge.
The ordered fraternity of the church is so needed at this time of opportunity for peace among nations  after the wars of the 20th century. The internal confusion caused by the Judas Kiss against the Alpha Male  is preventing us from our ecclesial mission as a light to the nations.  Allying with Orthodox Russia, entering a new China looking for its mission, helping Christian America revoke the sexual revolution, supporting the resurgence of Christian nations in atheist Europe, giving liturgical structure to the Christian explosion in Africa, aiding the renaissance of Catholic nations in Latin America --all of these opportunities need a masculine far seeing authoritative approach to international relations. This was the episcopal dream of John XXIII. A renewed brotherhood of nation men inspired by the Spirit could leaven the countries squared off against each other with nuclear weapons in their holsters. Could the Council reconcile Joseph and his brothers or would Cain once again strike at Abel?  This time he is armed with more than a club.  Caring for the environment, feeding the poor, securing stable communities who can integrate the immigrants,  finding  land and labor for the poor, providing the ordered loves of Church, nation and family--these are kingdom  building  tasks of Christ's Church. They are left eclipsed  because the shepherds pastured themselves with unspeakable vileness. May our outward seeking pontiffs turn an authoritative gaze back inward to right the ship so She may sail the seas. A purified priesthood is necessary for the Church to carry out her sacral role-to make Christ present in the Eucharist, to forgive sins, to cast our Satan, to baptize the nations, to preach the Good News that God has become man and mankind can be reunited with God.

The Lord will hear the call of the lowly and lift them up. He will scatter the proud in their conceit and cast down the mighty from their thrones. Let us join the one Holy Conspiracy that gives Life and Light. Rise up O men of God! Bring in the day of brotherhood and end the night of wrong.

DMPence

From the opening statement of the council: "This very councilor congress of ours so impressive in the diversity of races, nations, and languages—does it not bear witness to a community of brotherly love and shine as a visible sign of it? We are giving witness that all men are brothers whatever their race or nation." 

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday August 25

By Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

THE POPE'S MAGNIFICAT - TO LIFT UP THE LOWLY AND CAST DOWN THE MIGHTY: PRAYER AND FASTING TO PREPARE THE CHURCH FOR COMBAT AND EXORCISM.

     
Responding to the American bishops' McCarrick coverup and the  recent grand jury report in Pennsylvania, Pope Francis wrote a powerful letter to Catholics as the People of God. He said it is inconceivable that we will right this wrong unless we act together in solidarity against these sins. He builds the letter on the Marian  Canticle which he prays every evening. His soul cries out to the Lord who "hast cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly."  He says we as "an ecclesial community" have "abandoned the little ones".. "but their outcry was more powerful than all the efforts to silence it." "We have realized that these wounds never disappear and they require us to condemn these atrocities and join forces to uproot this culture of death; these wounds never go away."  He calls on us to stand at the Cross of the Suffering Christ with Mary. We stand by the suffering ones and unite with them in prayer and fasting. Together in solidarity we shall respond to the "suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience, perpetuated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons."  "No effort must be spared to create a culture to prevent such situations from happening but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated." We must "fight all forms of corruption especially spiritual corruption-the latter is a comfortable and self satisfied form of  blindness.

Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self centeredness, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."  "To see things as the Lord sees them will take conversion of heart. Prayer and penance will help. ... I invite the entire holy faithful people of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord's  command.
"To say no to abuse is to say an emphatic "no" to  all forms of clericalism."  "We, as a Church, must acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame,  the atrocities perpetuated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with watching over and caring for the vulnerable."
He concludes: "May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them."

The Pope is enlisting us in a battle against the culture of death that has spread  filth over the priesthood. He asks us to pray and fast so we can cast out those demons that only can be exorcized by prayer and fasting. He tells us the hunger from fasting will whet our appetites for justice for these little ones WHO WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT BEFELL THEM. We must not forget either.  May the hunger of serious fasts help sustain our memories.  All of us as the holy people have to act together and in our different capacities to rid the Church of the consecrated persons and clerics who perpetrated these crimes and then covered them up. The Pope is not saying we are all guilty. He is saying we are all needed to purge the diabolical  consecrated and clerics from Holy Mother Church.  The deep homosexual infiltration of religious orders and chanceries throughout the Church must be confronted and excised. Egotistical homosexual clericalism must go. The Apostolic Fraternity of protective shepherds must reappear. The laity must keep clear these distinctions and make them clear in public. We have many resources to drive the Catholic narrative. A priest is our advocate before God. A homosexual predator is the agent of Satan. Who shall we blame for the abuse of the little ones? Right now they are both wearing Roman collars. Let the separation begin.

WHEN THE POPE SAYS "CLERICALISM"

Strangely enough there are some "conservatives" who object to the Pope blaming clericalism for the corruption before us. The predators do not present themselves as gay rights activists. They hide in chanceries and religious congregations. That is clericalism.  When Ted McCarrick made sure that holding the office of bishop would exclude a man from the Dallas Charter investigations-- that was clericalism.  Whenever one uses the collar for personal privilege and license instead of presenting the cassock and collar of priestly mission, that is clericalism. The antidote to clericalism is a strong priestly identity in dress, in title, in prayer, in personality and in sacred actions. The Pope often describes clericalism as an insular comfortable careerism which robs the priesthood of its spiritual dynamic. With Ezekial he says ,"My flock have become prey, food for every beast of the field because there was no shepherd, nor did my shepherd search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock. "  Is he not describing the lifestyle of the rich and famous-the McCarricks, the Weaklands and the Wuerls--the homosexual dandys who love the high life of restaurants and cufflinks? They pasture themselves while the sheep were left to wild beasts. That is clericalism.
 The Pope also sees the sexual confusion about  women's ordination as a type of clericalism. Here is his response to a query about women becoming cardinals.
"I don't know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not 'clericalized'. Whoever thinks of women as cardinals, suffers a bit from clericalism."

ABOUT CLERICALISM BY CHURCH HISTORIAN JAMES HITCHCOCK
"None of this is understandable without recognizing a fact which has been systematically obscured for three decades—the post-conciliar Church is more clerical than it used to be, not less.

"In many ways the clericalism of the pre-conciliar Church was tempered by the very legalism which liberals denounce—priests and bishops had authority which was carefully circumscribed by Canon Law, and they were not free, for the most part, to act capriciously. In the 'open,' anti-legalistic Church, however, clergy are often free to impose their own theologies, their own liturgies, their own moralities, their own ecclesiologies, on defenseless parishes, since there is no effective way by which the authenticity of renewal can be judged, nor any effective way by which priests can be made to conform to Church law. The Church is also more clerical now because a large number of lay people have in effect been inducted into the ranks of the clergy, as diocesan or parish bureaucrats."

THE CHURCH DOES NOT NEED A CHANGE OF POLICIES...

We need new men.  A culture of life is a culture of protection. Replace the homosexual clericalism that produced a culture of death with the Apostolic fraternity of fathers who will sustain a culture of life. Today the Church remembers the great French King, St. Louis. One of America's Mississippi River  towns is named after the great saint-the just and holy ruler. It a good day to reflect on his example and the role of Authority and Rulers in safeguarding political and ecclesial community.   

I. POPE FRANCIS, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND US CLERICAL SEX ABUSE

LETTER FROM BISHOP MORLINO OF MADISON: The first bishop to explicitly name the problem. Two elements are missing in this excellent letter. One there is no clear statement that acts of sodomy consensual or otherwise lead to loss of the priestly office and request from Rome that there be rite of degradation from the office and loss of all benefices (pensions). The bishop's approach is still one of "bring me complaints" rather than the appointment of a Promoter of Justice who will investigate and aggressively seek out where the wrong doers are hiding. Detectives do not wait for phone calls but they like tips. They go out and investigate. As Ezekiel says, they go out looking for their lost and scattered sheep. Where is the desire to know the truth? (see McElroy below) The episkopos must turn his office into a much more aggressive agent for justice regarding a pressing duty - the spiritual integrity of his priesthood. His letter is an excellent beginning. May 100 bishops "try to top him." There is room to grow. Morlino is a curious fellow. Morlino was on faculty of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit 1990-99. Bishop Nienstedt was rector there for the first 7 of his years. Morlino is a "conservative bishop" on the advisory board for the NAPA Institute who featured Nienstedt after he was run out of Minneapolis-St Paul. Nienstedt's modus operandi in St Paul was as a vocal anti-gay marriage activist who courted seminarians on the side. Did Bishop Morlino warn the NAPA folks that their favorite Mass celebrant was not quite the kind of fisher of men that Christ was calling?

McELROY RESPONDS TO THE DECEASED RICHARD SIPE - HE IS THE EPITOME OF BISHOP AS PASSIVE JURIST NOT AGGRESSIVE PROSECUTOR: Bishop McElroy sat down several times with ex-priest abuse investigator Richard Sipe discussing abuse claims against living bishops. McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, and on the promotion fast track as a network insider cut off all contact after Sipe served him a registered letter (under the guise of large donor) complaining that he was stonewalling. Sipe did this to document his nonchalance. Nothing so typifies the lack of spiritual oversight in our blinder bishops. If a complaint can't show beyond a shadow of a doubt without witnesses who openly testify - then the bishop refuses to consider the problem. He doesn't go seek evidence through his own channels which are much more extensive than any complainant. He quits looking. No search for truth here. NO DESIRE TO CATCH THE BAD GUY AND SAVE THE INNOCENT. Everybody is innocent till proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he is guilty. That is a principle in American citizen justice. It is not the standard in military trials, corporation human resource policies and most definitely not the rules of Church clerical discipline - not at all... not any way. But that is the standard of the radical libertarian "Show Me" bishops.

ROBERT GEORGE MISSES THE POINT: Like his friend, Richard Neuhaus, Professor George is peculiarly blind to how sodomy is a different crime than fornication.  The sexless conservatives who think all of this as a fidelity problem have not led us well in creating a culture of protection to safeguard life and innocence. Cultures of protection are not just long articles about the dignity of stem cells. They are also clarion calls to men to be protectors of the nation and women to be virgins and mothers. Such sexual differentiation has never been a strong suit of the First Things project. It is a new day and somehow the voice of Robbie George no longer seems  the voice of gravitas.   

GEORGE WEIGEL REALLY MISSES THE POINT: Weigel in First Things focusing on the immorality of acts and suggesting if people had jut read his last two books more carefully, we'd all be in a better place. First Things is a great forum, but Robbie George and George Weigel are like Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz in the Republican primary against Donald Trump. They are being swept away by events and it is becoming clear that leadership from such men in the past produced a huge part of the mess we are in. Many of us learned a lot from the First Things writers but it is abundantly clear that their understanding of the priestly scandal and MASCULINE ANTHROPOLOGY was and is a fatal flaw. Rod Dreher at American Conservative has been invaluable in helping us take all this in. He sees the many layers of complicity in this crime. His take on Weigel and further reporting on the glaring failure of First Things neocons to emotionally understand the horror of abuse and the depravity of homosexual clerics. He shares insights from Damon Linker. We also note their lack of anger as an emotional response toward the clerical elite. Neuhaus only showed anger toward the writers who criticized bishops by name. You are weakening the bishops he would yell. That is called clericalism and it was/is a huge problem.

INSIDE THE SEMINARY CLOSET: One guy's story

HOW SEMINARIES MAKE GOOD MEN TAME - A KEY TO THE CULTURE OF COMPLICITY: Insightful psychological profile of the damage done to heterosexual men by living in the homosexualized environment of most seminaries. By a young priest Athanasius Fornwalt.

RAYMOND ARROYO AND CARDINAL BURKE: There are many interesting questions in this interview and a chilling clip of Fr Rosica and Cardinal Wuerl lamenting disappointment with "their mutual friend" Cardinal McCarrick. For people who think that Cardinal Burke is the face of reform or straight talk, it is very informative to watch this whole interview. In asking is there a problem with "episcopal leadership" Burke says he doesn't know, he "has never studied that." Burke is against the local bishops establishing investigative committees to deal with bishop misbehavior. He says that should only be done by Rome. {We need many fronts to open up. It is our job as laity and priests to serve up the facts--from hundreds of dioceses and within hundreds of religious congregations. Ted McCarrick was outed by a local investigative committee. Raymond Arroyo has picked up Burke's nonsense that only the pope can investigate bishops. If we accepted that Cardinal McCarrick would still be yukking it up with the other men in red. There are many ways to investigate including journalism and grand juries.  Only the Pope can depose Bishops--that is right and just indeed.  Laity, priests, diocesan promoters of justice and some new American Bishops Inquisition Committee are needed to investigate and tell the truth about the rot in our clerics and religious orders. Cardinal Burke's legalism and pinched notion of truth telling is a recipe for inaction by swamping.}    

As Arroyo set up Burke to say there is a homosexual network in many dioceses throughout the world, Cardinal Burke demurs again. He dilutes the problem  saying there has been a general apostasy in the church about sexual morality allowing consensual sexual acts outside of marriage. When asked about his service on the Congregation of Bishops which selects bishops for the Pope to consecrate, he said the procedures were fine. He is right about that. He never pointed out the next obvious conclusion.  If the bishops on the committee are corrupt they will pick corrupt bishops... just as the lavender mafia does. Burke served from 2008-2013 when Pope Francis removed him. Cardinal Wuerl was appointed in his place.  In this interview there were definitely Canon Law nuggets from the lawyer. But the inability of Cardinal Burke to face the homosexual corruption of fraternity and fatherhood in the living body of the priesthood is a glaring deficit. The fact that he has been the "leading voice of orthodoxy" with this little detail missing in his analysis is no small part of the problem in Catholic dialogue in America. It has been easier for him to say the Pope is flirting with apostasy then McCarrick, Weakland Bernadine and Wuerl are sodomites desacralizing the priesthood.

Here is a much better set of short responses to a good print interviewer by Cardinal Burke. It seems Burke's friends  wanted to give him a chance the day after the EWTN interview to add what he previously left out when relying on his own instincts. The questions are pointed enough that he didn't have to rely on his own instincts. His answers are excellent. No one yet has asked Cardinal Burke  about the one recent case put in his lap - Guam's homosexual predator Bishop Apuron. Pope Francis was a much firmer ruler in the McCarrick case than Cardinal Burke. The wrong judge was sent to the Guam. The little ones in Guam are still abandoned and the clericalism that led Burke to protect Apuron lives on.

THE TRIBULATION - A GREAT DECEPTION BEFALLS THE CHURCH: Brant Pitre on the Destruction of the Temple and Pierasmos (The tribulation)

II. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

SOUTH AFRICA - SEIZING THE LAND, PURGING THE WHITES: Looking a lot like Zimbabwe.

THE TERRITORIAL STATE PERSISTS IN THE MIDEAST: Iraq and Syria are real political entities.

END THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN: Robert Merry at American Conservative makes a case. Military buildup in Afghanistan stays below the public radar.

VENEZUELA: The Church must be the template for societal reorganization. What is the state of the hierarchy there? The Church in the Crisis.

FEMALE ACTIVIST UP FOR EXECUTION IN SAUDI ARABIA: She is Shia and that won't excite the American press like driving bans do. But it is his accelerated campaign of killing Shia that is the real problem with the liberalizing Crown Prince Salman. That is what Yemen is about, the suppression of Bahrain and the draconian measures holding the Shia populated eastern oil provinces in check. It is also at the heart of the Saudi resistance to the Shiite majority states of Iraq and Iran. What an irony that America is still being urged by the Sunni salafists who attacked us on 911 to make war against their most effective enemies--Shiite Muslim countries that have recently won  their status as nation-states.    

The Apostolic Priesthood: Icon of the Trinity and Template for the Nations. Ordering the Loves of Men

                                       

David Pence on the true meaning of the Male Priesthood:



The Fatherhood of God is a reality older than matter, space, or time. Christ taught us to pray for patriarchy: that the rule of the Father "be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Christ commanded his apostles to love one another as He loved them and as His Father loved Him. The priestly bond of love is not loving another as one loves himself. The priests are to love their brother priests as Christ has loved His Apostles, and as His Father had loved Him. It is a outward looking mission-soaked love. The Father loves His Son into a mission and Christ loves his apostles into that same mission. This really is a new order of love. It is the New Covenant of the male priesthood and Eucharistic Church.  It is a living extension of the Father -Son relationship at the heart of the Trinity.

The patriarchal fraternity of the priesthood is a "communion" of masculine-ordered love. This brotherhood of fathers is to be particularly protective toward that ancient biblical formulation of the needy -- "widows and orphans." The fatherless have always been victimized, so a band of brothers pledge their loyalty to the Father and their protective strength to the vulnerable. It is a mission that appeals to a manly heart.

As the Council fathers said a half century ago: "This very councilor congress of ours so impressive in the diversity of races, nations, and languages—does it not bear witness to a community of brotherly love and shine as a visible sign of it? We are giving witness that all men are brothers whatever their race or nation." When Christ first ordained the apostles He sacramentally instituted a new ontological reality through which humanity would be restored to God the Father.

Brotherhoods are blood oaths; priests drink the blood of the covenant. Eleven of the first apostles were martyred. Brotherhoods are outer circles around an interior femininity that is cherished, and so the priest guards the tabernacle housing the Sacred Presence. The Apostles guarded Mary the tabernacle who housed the Sacred Presence as well. Brotherhoods look outward toward a mission and thus the Church is not complete until humanity is drawn into the brotherly lattice.

Christianity is a communion built on loves, starting with the Trinitarian love of the Father for the Son animated by the Spirit. Sex differences are central to the human covenants of loving. This is expressed in the Catholic sacramental order of an all-male priesthood and male-female marriage. The sacramental order institutes the ecclesial community on a sacral and sexual order of love.

The first son of man was Cain. Called to fraternity, he answered with fratricide. He killed his brother out of envy. Brotherhood was reconstituted when Joseph forgave his envious brothers who had cast him in a pit to die. His loving forgiveness reconciled them with him under his father (Jacob/Israel). The nation of Israel was a reconciled brotherhood bound by a common law and land with a covenant sealed by every male in circumcision. Brotherhoods are meant to fight some foe. Danger and Conflict can be exhilarating to brothers in combat. It is why men always love football and sometimes love war. God made men to take joy in group combat because He has assigned us a combat role in the Divine Economy. We have a particular Hobbit like role in the expulsion of the Evil One. We are  lesser beings than him in faculties but through obedience to the Father and with the help of the angels, we will defeat him in battle.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was sent to reconcile all men with His Father and drive the Evil One from his dominion on earth. Christ was born of the most perfect manifestation of Israel -- the singular blossom -- the Virgin Mother. Christ dethroned Satan by His obedience on the cross and overcame death by His resurrection. He reconciled men to the Father by establishing a sacred brotherhood with the authority to cast out demons, forgive sins and share His real presence in the Sacrifice of the Mass. The patriarchal fraternity of the Father, the Son, and the Apostles is the template for the Church and the nations. These are the living foundation stones of the Kingdom of God. This ordered masculine love, this brotherhood of fathers sharing the Sonship of Christ has been attacked, exiled, tortured and executed through the ages -- from the first apostles to the 16th-century victims of the Protestant revolt to the thousands killed by the 20th-century atheists. Those attacks from the outside murdered many priests but never shattered the priesthood.

A deeper threat to the ordered love of the masculine public comes as Judas came. He betrayed from within and betrayed with a kiss. He was a Liar and a Murderer. He betrayed with a counterfeit love. As incest destroys the family from within and affects every member by destroying the equilibrium of the whole, so male homosexuality is an abomination against the Father and the Son, the brother and the brother. Like the sin of Ham, the act is too repellent to describe but the effects are generational. Murder kills a priest but the incestuous presence cripples the priesthood by fracturing group fraternity. This heinous sin against a victim should certainly be a capital crime in a just society. The victim we know NEVER forgets. In the spiritual realm this act by force or by consent is a desecration of the priestly office. The collared predator or the giggling boyfriend has committed a sacrilege against the  Fatherhood of God. He has perverted consecrated brotherly love with a counterfeit desire that cripples the priesthood as a functioning and sacramental  communal body. The outward sign of an orderly coherent communal body acting in love and speaking in truth disappears under the filth.
We hear the protest--"but homosexuality is not a sin, just the act". It is true that homosexuality is not a sin. It is a mental illness. If the priesthood is the highest form of ordered masculine love than homosexuality is the deepest form of disordered male attachment. It strikes at the core of priestly identity. This mental illness has made the current priesthood a crazy uncle instead of  a loving father. It is a fundamental psychological impediment to incorporation in the sacral brotherhood...and it doesn't go away after a good confession.
The great fraternities of Ignatius, Benedict, Dominic and Francis have been deeply polluted. The consecrated brotherhoods that spread the gospel through the world have turned in on themselves.  Almost every house forms a diabolical black hole sucking resources and young men into lives of dissipation and selfishness. They still feed on the capital of their predecessors and have great wealth and institutional social status to divide among themselves. A homosexual clericalism of deceit and death has replaced the priestly fraternity of ordered love which Christ ordained as the foundation stones of the culture of life.  The degradation of these central fraternal institutions (the orders and the dioceses) in Christian culture has devastating effects within the Christian countries. Look at Catholic Europe. Look at American Christianity. Consider the moral collapse of the political home of the American Catholic working man--the Democratic Party. See the  impotence and incoherence of Catholic political life in Latin American nations. All of these necessary and noble political bodies have suffered from the disappearance of the sacral brotherhood of fathers in consecrated and clerical life. When the light of the nations is eclipsed, the nations go groping in the dark.

The Apostolic love that Christ ordained the night before He died and confirmed at Pentecost conforms the souls of priests in the communion of the Father and his Son. It is a powerful love that transformed a fallen Empire into the nations of Europe. Brotherhood transcends the sin of racism and the toxin of class hatred. It can serve again today as a template of the territorial public fraternity of shared duties and love which forms the nations. Humanity is restored as a species to the household of the Father through fraternal love. That public love is expressed in the global priestly Church and the territorial nations from Israel to Korea, to Russia, to the Americas. It is a love that can heal the sick, forgive sins, protect the weak, cast out demons, and draw men, women and children into the Body of Christ. How we need this holy union! How we despise those who have betrayed it!

The love of brothers under the father -- the patriarchal fraternity of the priesthood -- is expressed in every monastery with an abbot and his monks. It is made local and territorial through every bishop and his diocesan priests. It is Peter and the Apostles still alive in the Pope and his bishops. May this powerful love draw humanity together in the ordained and orderly love which is our destiny as a species. May the Church be a Mother because her priests are once again a brotherhood of fathers. May they conform to Christ the High Priest and carry out the Will of His Father.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, August 18

By Dr. David Pence 

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

CARDINAL WUERL AND CARDINAL BURKE

TWO FACES OF FATHERHOOD BETRAYED

God will raise up new priests and bishops to reform the American episcopacy. The Church in America needs new men in positions of authority.... not lay oversight of our Apostolic fraternity. Do not look to either of the pretenders above to evoke the masculine fraternity and fatherhood needed in the office of bishop. The huge homosexual network of clergy that Donald Wuerl built up in Pittsburgh is just coming to light and should result in his public degradation from office. This should include loss of all pensions and support from the Church.  A promoter of justice in Pittsburgh and the other dioceses in Pennsylvania is needed to investigate the ruling clergy there.

For Cardinal Burke who has distracted the faithful from the real sacrilege of the Eucharist by homosexual bishops and clergy, his time of honor and adulation should come to an end by the fawning anti-Pope Francis commentators in the Catholic intelligentsia. His disgraceful sham court performance judging homosexual predator Bishop Apuron of Guam to be "guilty of some accusations" and sentenced to "privation of office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam" is essentially moving the predator elsewhere. Not a word from his media fan club. Apuron had already been removed from his office by Pope Francis within a month of the charges surfacing.
Pope Francis sacked that predator just as he swiftly dealt with McCarrick. Burke came on the scene in judicial robes, employed a few technical rules of law he learned at the OJ Simpson trial, and got the monster out of town just ahead of a righteous lynch mob.
Raymond Burke and the liturgical  "Daughters of Trent" and the EWTN "neoCatholics" who have cheered his defiant  "orthodoxy" have had their era of misdirection and distraction in sowing the weeds of false divisions in the Church. We have a Pope who is not perfect but he is the Pope who is finally establishing rule amidst the hierarchy in the manly fraternal spirit of Vatican II.
Vatican II was a stunning display of the public fraternal church in Christ under the Father. It was an authoritative witness of the patriarchal  fraternity that unites men across color, class, and language barriers in the Body of  Christ. It was a reaffirmation of the Bishop as the Eucharistic leader of the local church. It will be public fatherly brotherhoods  that will expose and remove the wealthy episcopal bureaucrat and his sodomite ruling clique. It will be masculine brotherhoods in the tradition of  Benedict, Francis, Dominic and Ignatius who will clean the filth from the major male religious orders.  Our daughters have been raped and our sons humiliated. The true men of Galilee among  our priests and Bishops  must expose the scarlet pretenders and investigate the lavender networks in their ranks. Bishops and religious superiors who can not exercise their ruling offices should resign so that new bishops and promoters of justice will do their fatherly duties of protection, investigation, and punishment. Rise up, O men of God. Repent and Live.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

POPE FRANCIS: DO NOT ADMIT HOMOSEXUALS TO SEMINARY
The Pope is not Fr Jim Martin on this issue. He is better on this than almost all the superiors of male religious orders. He is better than at least half of the diocesan seminary admittance committees.  Almost all male religious superiors have said they admit homosexuals if they promise chastity and have  "affective maturity. " Seminary directors and religious congregations of the last 40 years have been in rebellion against the monastic tradition and clear directives of the popes. Let us seriously ask, "Should religious orders who allow homosexuals in their orders be allowed to recruit at World Youth Day?" They aren't after children. They want older teen males. This is a chicken hawk's dream--an International Signing Day for new recruits.  If homosexuals are not be in the seminary, how can we tolerate them in our religious orders and the episcopacy?

ARE CONSENUAL ADULT ACTS A VIOLATION OF CANON CODE? Ed Peters gives a very good history. Peters is a canon lawyer. Any act of sodomy by a cleric should "by the act" remove him from the priestly state. (This would be a similar type of excommunicative penalty  that the Church imposes on women who procure an abortion.) No subsequent sacramental act by a father who committed sodomy would be valid. This should be clarified in canon law though, as Peters shows, treating priestly sodomy as a notorious and deposable crime is nothing new.

CARDINAL SODANO, DEAN OF THE CARDINALS - POSTER BOY OF COVERUP: It is ironic that opposition to Sodano's role in favoring the rich and connected against the local bishop is one of the situations that made Archbishop Bergoglio befriend "progressive bishops" on matters of decentralization against this most corrupt keeper of the centralized powers of the Papacy under John Paul II. There is no cleric close to Pope Francis who remotely rivals the evil done by Cardinal Sodano under John Paul II or the sinister machinations of Cardinal Levada (CDF) under Pope Benedict.  This excellent historical journalism comes from Crux news agency with writers from the "liberal tribe" and conservative sponsors from the "orthodox tribe." Crux may become just the space in which a truly Catholic Logos is spoken and lived most clearly.

BISHOP BARRON GETS ONE RIGHT AND TWO WRONG: First, what Bishop Barron gets RIGHT:

"When I was going through school, the devil was presented to us as a myth, a literary device, a symbolic manner of signaling the presence of evil in the world. I will admit to internalizing this view and largely losing my sense of the devil as a real spiritual person. What shook my agnosticism in regard to the evil one was the clerical sex abuse scandal of the nineties and the early aughts. I say this because that awful crisis just seemed too thought-through, too well-coordinated, to be simply the result of chance or wicked human choice. The devil is characterized as “the enemy of the human race” and particularly the enemy of the Church. I challenge anyone to come up with a more devastatingly effective strategy for attacking the mystical body of Christ than the abuse of children and young people by priests. This sin had countless direct victims of course, but it also crippled the Church financially, undercut vocations, caused people to lose confidence in Christianity, dramatically compromised attempts at evangelization, etc., etc. It was a diabolical masterpiece."

And what what Bishop Barron gets WRONG:

"The second negative strategy is the riding of ideological hobby horses. So lots of commentators—left, center, and right—have chimed in to say that the real cause of the McCarrick disaster is, take your pick, the ignoring of Humanae vitae, priestly celibacy, rampant homosexuality in the Church, the mistreatment of homosexuals, the sexual revolution, etc. Mind you, I’m not saying for a moment that these aren’t important considerations and that some of the suggestions might not have real merit. But I am saying that launching into a consideration of these matters that we have been debating for decades and that will certainly not admit of an easy adjudication amounts right now to a distraction."

It is Satan who has infiltrated the priesthood. He has not done this through celibacy or artificial birth control  but homosexuality by priests and bishops. It is not a distraction to say the problem in the episcopacy and priesthood has nothing o do with marriage and everything to do with incestuous relations among males. The fact that  we have been "debating that for decades" is the triumph of the Deceiver. He's been a Liar from the beginning and that includes "for decades". Homosexuality in seminaries like Mundelein, homosexual advocacy at the Los Angeles Religious Education Conference, and rampant homosexuality throughout the Los Angeles chancery and presbyterate are not distractions from understanding Theodore McCarrick. That is the line of the old Deceiver.

Bishop Barron has never been strong on the necessity of punishment or the masculine fraternity of the priesthood. In one of his books he said Jesus picked "twelve people" to be his apostles. It is hard to understand fatherhood, filiation, and fraternity if you were raised in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Bishop Barron will be an amazing ally and spokesman once he is knocked off his horse and sees more clearly. He is an honest man - He can learn.

The good bishop is also dead wrong to appeal to the Pope to set up an investigation committee. The bishops can investigate themselves. If a bishop doesn't resign when confronted with misdeeds from his fellow bishops, then an act of papal authority will be required. The corruption in the dioceses and bishop conferences is too widespread to ask Rome for investigative initiatives. This is what subsidiary and collegiality and synods are all about. Laymen and honest bishops and priests have to be sure that the investigative committees are headed by the right bishop and staffed with an army of competent lay investigators. If a bishop cannot openly confront the "gaying" of the episcopacy, the religious male orders, chanceries, and presbyterates of our dioceses; then he cannot lead the investigation. Bishop Barron has correctly named the Enemy - it is Satan. For now he has withdrawn his name from any committee to investigate by repeating the monstrous conclusions of the John Jay feminist study.

CARDINAL CUPICH GETS A LOT WRONG: From America Magazine:

When asked if the church needed new structures to report sexual misconduct not involving children, Cardinal Cupich said, “Yes, I believe that’s the case.”

“If there was a misstep in this, so that people did not have the means by which they could put forward a complaint with objectivity and security, [knowing] that it would be acted on, then we need to put [that] in place,” Cardinal Cupich said.

But, he said, there is no need to “invent any new machinery” in order to adopt policies for reporting such allegations. “An H.R. department would know how to help us do that, and we should learn from those best practices,” the cardinal said.

In the weeks since allegations were made against Archbishop McCarrick, some commentators and clergy have suggested that allowing gay men to be priests has created a culture ripe for the kind of abuse Archbishop McCarrick is alleged to have committed.

But Cardinal Cupich said he “would be very careful” in accepting that conclusion, noting that similar claims made during the height of the child sexual abuse crisis in the 2000s were refuted by an independent 2011 report compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“I really believe that the issue here is more about a culture of clericalism in which some who are ordained feel they are privileged and therefore protected so that they can do what they want,” Cardinal Cupich said.

“People, whether heterosexual or homosexual, need to live by the Gospel,” he said, adding that he “would not want to reduce this simply to the fact that there are some priests who are homosexual.” I think that is a diversion that gets away from the clericalism that’s much deeper as a part of this problem,” he said.

A DOMINICAN WITH THE BEST ESSAY ON WHAT IS THE PROBLEM AND WHAT IS THE SOLUTION: Dominic Legge OP tells the truth.

WHAT ABORTION IS TO MOTHERHOOD, SODOMY IS TO THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST: "Since abortion is the purposeful murder of an innocent, unborn child, the Church indeed imposes the most severe penalty of excommunication for this heinous action. A person who successfully procures an abortion receives this penalty automatically (Code of Canon Law, #1398). Unlike some offenses that require the competent authority to impose the penalty of excommunication (technically termed ferendae sententiae), the penalty here is automatic (technically termed latae sententia)."

We would advocate that Canon law should stipulate that sodomy should latae sententia make a cleric unable to perform any of the duties of the clerical state and remove him from the apostolic sacral brotherhood...by the act itself.

IF YOU THINK STRONG MEN ARE A PROBLEM... Wait till you see the evil of weak men.

TAYLOR MARSHALL THREE REASONS FOR SCANDAL: 1)loss of faith; 2)Homosexuality in priesthood and Episcopacy; 3)Megadioceses.

PATRICK ARCHIBOLD ON DEFEND CARDINAL WUERL WEBSITE: So a website defending the reputation of Cardinal Wuerl appeared. The domain was registered August 8th by MarkMonitor.com, a reputation and brand defense firm. We wonder who is paying for that? (ED NOTE: The website was withdrawn shortly after this expository article)

DONALD WUERL AND EPISCOPAL SODOMY: A short video.

NEWARK HOMOSEXUAL SUBCULTURE IN PRIESTHOOD: This is excellent reporting and can be done with 3 or 4 sources from any diocese. There is usually one level of flagrant homosexuality that "everybody knows about". Then the stories get more and more depraved and are known by fewer and fewer.

FROM SPELLMAN TO WRIGHT TO McCARRICK--A SORDID TRADITION
of American homosexual clerics

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ISLAMIST PARTIES IN NORTH AFRICA: Good review of parties and movements in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt.

INDONESIA ELECTION: Islam and Economic Nationalism.

ERDOGAN ON TURKEY-US RELATIONS: His NY Times essay.

III. R&G ROUND UP

GAY PRIDE AND CORPORATE POWER: The culture of bounded obligations vs materialist consumerism.

LOOKING AROUND - AMERICA IN THE WORLD: A growing list of enemies says Buchanan.

DEEP WEB: YouTube is the new talk radio and it is neither leftist nor feminist.

THE COLD WAR - WHAT WAS IT? Historian Andrew Roberts gives a very concise well visualized (Prager U) story of the Cold War which he says could be called the Third World War. His telling: Democracy, freedom, and capitalism of the West vs. totalitarian Communism of the Sovietized Russia. He then cites Reagan, Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II as the ultimate closers in an epic battle of Good vs Evil. (Mikhail Gorbachev and the muhajedeen that defeated the Red Army were missing from the credits.) This seems to us exactly the inadequate narrative of what was the Cold War that has plagued the baby boomer Presidents from "winning the peace". Was it the West and individual rights that men died for or God and country? Who wants to die for a direction?

WHO'S MORE PATRIOTIC - THE KOCH BROS OR MIDWEST FARMERS? Laura Ingraham recently contrasted the Koch brothers' opposition to Trump's trade policy with American farmers. These hardworking Midwest men have much more to lose in a trade war than the billionaire brothers refusing to support GOP candidates who agree with Trump. The Koch brothers bailed on Trump after the risk of losing pocket change, but when the farmers are asked how long they will support Trump and their nation, one farmer responded: "To the death." Who sounds more patriotic to you?

THE HERO'S JOURNEY: Originally described by Joseph Campbell, the Hero's Journey describes the process through which a story's protagonist transforms from an ordinary character into an ennobled hero. This video offers a brief description of the process as one of departure, initiation, and return, highlighting the problem that many of today's super hero movies focus so much on the initiation - fighting the villain - that they fail to depict the hero as ennobled in his return home. The great complaint against the Lord of the Rings films was that they didn't include the Scouring of the Shire - the return of the ennobled Hobbits their subsequent ordering of their local civic fraternity. The video offers today's film writers a groundbreaking film from 1999 as a much-needed example of the Hero's Journey. The movie in question was undoubtedly the greatest movie experience of my (A. Joseph Lynch) teenage years.

The Principal Arguments of AOA

The principal arguments of Anthropology of Accord are presented below. Follow the links to a table of contents page for each series:

1. Catholic Sociobiology: A New Paradigm
2. Christian Realism for American Foreign Policy
3. Masculine Anthropology and the Reform of the Catholic Priesthood
4. Profiles of the Nations (Maps on Monday)
5. One Hundred Book Reviews
6. Religion, Sex, and Politics Podcast
7. Marian Femininity vs Feminism: A Video Lecture
8. Apostolic Priesthood and Masculine Fraternity: A Video Lecture
9. Keeping Catholic Time: Living the Liturgy of Feasts and Seasons
10. American Memory and Identity: Keeping Our Civic Days Sacred
11. President Trump and American Culture
12. Defending Pope Francis by Listening to Him
13. Religion and Geopolitical Reviews

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, August 11

By Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

FROM PHIL LAWLER THEN WITH CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT - A REMINDER OF A LITURGICAL RITE OF DEGRADATION OF A BISHOP: CWR published the text of an old Catholic ritual for the "Degradation of a Bishop" (Degradatio ab ordine pontificali), which can be found in the Roman Pontifical of Pope Benedict XIV.

When he promulgated this ritual in 1862, Pope Benedict obviously felt that it was necessary. He envisioned the possibility that a bishop could disgrace himself so thoroughly, and abuse his office so blatantly, that the Holy See would have no choice but to remove him. Such a bishop would not be allowed to resign quietly "for reasons of health;" he would not be transferred to a titular see in the Sahara; he would not be "promoted" to a meaningless desk job at the Vatican. He would be stripped of his office and - the word is so beautifully expressive - "degraded."

Since CWR first published this ritual, a dozen bishops have been forced to resign, in America and other countries, after accusations of gross sexual misconduct. We have every reason to believe that more such resignations will soon be forthcoming. Isn't it a shame that their resignations were accomplished through impersonal communication - by mail and by fax - rather than with a formal liturgical ceremony?

THE RITE OF DEGRADATION OF A BISHOP

If the degradandus be an archbishop, the degrading prelate removes his pallium, saying: We deprive thee of the rights and privileges of the episcopal dignity, symbolized in this pallium, since thou hast abused them. 

Then, even if the degradandus be a mere bishop, the degrading prelate removes his mitre, saying: We strip thy head of this miter, emblem of the episcopal dignity, since thou hast befouled it by thy ill government. 

Then one of the ministers brings the Book of the Gospel to the degradandus, which the degrading prelate takes from his hands, saying: Give us back the Gospel! Since thou hast spurned the grace of God and made thyself unworthy of the office of preaching, we rightly deprive you of this office. 

Then the degrading prelate removes the ring from the finger of the degradandus, saying: Rightly do we pull off thy ring, the sign of fidelity, since thou hast made bold to rape God's own bride, the Church. 

At this time one of the ministers brings the degradandus a crosier, which the degrading prelate takes from his hands, saying: Thy shepherd's staff we take from thee, that thou shalt be powerless henceforward to exercise that office of correction, which thou hast brought to disarray. 

Then the ministers take off the gloves of the degradandus, and the degrading prelate lightly scrapes thumbs and hands with a knife blade or a shard of glass, saying: We hereby deprive thee, to the extent of our powers, of the grace of spiritual blessing and of sacramental anointing, that thou shouldst forfeit the office of sanctifying and of blessing, and their effects. 

With the same knife blade or shard the degrading prelate lightly scrapes the head of the degradandus, saying: We utterly erase and eradicate the consecration, blessing and anointing bestowed upon thee, and we put thee out of the episcopal order, whence thou returnest unclothed. 

The ministers remove the shoes from the degradandus Thus ends the ceremony.

The wording of the ritual assumes that only one bishop will be shorn of office. But have no fear; the language could easily be adapted to accommodate several degradandi at one time. The US bishops have shown their willingness (one might even say, their unseemly eagerness) to defrock any priest who has been guilty of sexual abuse. But the new American policy does not apply to bishops. The old ritual offers a remedy for this omission. Back in 1862, I wonder what a bishop would have had to do, to find himself called to Rome for degradation? More to the point, what would it take today?

JESUITS AND THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR OF MOTHER THERESA'S ORDER: One of the worst and a lot of high ranking Jesuits looking the other way. The fetid sea - Austin Ruse on the gaying of the priesthood.

CARDINAL BURKE AND BISHOP APURON OF GUAM: Something smells very bad in this ambiguous wrist slap and exit from a civic territory that wants to punish this serial homosexual predator. If "conservative Catholics" think we need more prelates like Cardinal Burke, they should look at this very weird story. One of the chief accusers was not allowed to have his lawyer present and thus refused to testify. This intrigue is about high finances and revolting sexual predation. 

BEWARE THE CONSERVATIVE ORTHODOX SIDE OF THE HOMOSEXUAL CLERGY
A word of advice to young conservatives about psychological and practicing homosexuals. The enemies within the gates are not always practitioners of the dark art. There are men who live alone internally-but they live the snide, sarcastic, catty, prissy side of the psychological homosexual. How they love the internet and opportunities to publish statements of dogmatic principles. How they love condemning the acts of married heterosexuals. How they despise open give and take. How they avoid man to man dialogue and debate.   As we look to restore fraternity and patriarchy to the priesthood and to Catholic men throughout the nations, here are four "conservative heroes" whose malformed personalities are more likely to misdirect than lead us:  Cardinal "Gay Ray" (his seminary nickname) Burke; Father Robert Sirico of Acton Institute; John Zulsdorf of Fr. Z blog; Bishop John Nienstedt - arch foe of "gay marriage" in St Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese. Our only statement at this time is that these men are peculiarly narcissicist and spectacularly unable to initiate and sustain the direct brotherly discussion of the Satanic cult in our midst. It will take a certain set of personalities to break through the homosexual subculture infecting the Apostolic fraternity. These four are not the Galilean fishermen we need.

BISHOP JOHN NIENSTEDT SURFACES AS A REFORMER:
 The bad joke of homosexual clergy playing the orthodox card. 
 Wealthy friends at Napa Institute have been tricked by  predator Nienstedt-the "orthodox bishop" who groomed young male special friends while vociferously opposing gay marriage in Minnesota.   

PUNISHMENT THAT FITS THE  CRIME: A Pope from the past faces Sodomy. He didn't see his era as a time to condemn capital punishment.

THE HORROR IN CHILE
If you are ever tempted to call homosexuality "gay" consider the ring of predators who took over the Chilean priesthood. A journalist reflects-"not just the Anglos."

PART OF THE SOLUTION
The peasants march to Baltimore.  Michael Voris says we will know there is true reform when bishops   a) admit there has been a huge infiltration of clergy by predator and complicit homosexuals; b) effect  many resignations of those in homosexual cult and those who have allowed it.  He is right to emphasize  these as the central requests/demands of the laity. We do not agree with Voris that Bishop Wuerl's suggestion that the American bishops set up  a bishop committee to investigate American bishops is an insulting and bad idea. It is an excellent and necessary reform(see below).

DO NOT INTERRUPT THE CHAIN OF COMMAND: When US military men were being harassed by feminist Senators from New York to appoint  a civilian commission to act on all complaints of sexual harassment in the military, the officers were adamant in their refusal.  The men correctly reminded the ladies trying to set up a National Human Resources Department that a military body must retain a chain of command. If the military leaders are corrupt, they must be removed.  But the corruption of officers cannot lead to the destruction of the chain of command needed to order men into battle. Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington DC is at the heart of the American homosexual infiltration of our priesthood. He has been frightened into making a good proposal which we should not oppose because it comes from the mouth of Donna.  A bishops' committee to investigate bishops. Absolutely correct, Cardinal Wuerl.  We need a bishop led inquisition of the bishops.  Be sure you are not on it.
The role of the laity is to keep reporting and telling the truth to insure the right bishops are on this inquisition board and the wrong ones aren't. The problem we face is that of Abraham pleading for Sodom--can we find ten or five or three bishops who are just? The answer to this dilemma is not to make a committee of laymen--it is to effect enough resignations until we have a critical mass of credible bishops. The Church cannot proclaim to the nations the witnessed truth of Christ's resurrection from the dead, the biological truth of the brotherhood of men and fraternity of nations, or the theological truth of the Fatherhood of God... unless we are credible witnesses. Nothing will so enhance the Church' ability to draw all men to the Body of Christ as our demonstrating an ability to root out the corrupting lies of Satan and the gender confusion of the sexual revolution. The Patriarchal Fraternity of the Second Vatican Council must cast out the Satanic spirit of the sixties. 
The investigative committee of the bishops can have a few bishops and a hundred strong laymen on it with PI and police experience. Lay expertise, detective personalities and Episcopal authority--that cooperative division of labor will begin the Inquisition. This optimal use of all our talents respects the chain of command. The head is still the head while the feet and arms do their tasks. An apostolic church by definition exercises a continuous chain of command. The commission will make reports to the bishops and eventually to the Congregation of Bishops and the Pope. They can propose resignations and they will get plenty of them.  Only the Papal office and his assignees can rid of us of men who resist after the truth becomes clear. If Judas does not resign, the Pope will do what Jesus did and wash the traitor out of the brotherhood. 
 Laymen in the media have a huge role in casting a very wide net of witnesses and stories to shed light on the rot in every diocese in our nation. The predators hate the light. Laymen should quit trying to silence Jesuit James Martin and debate him in the open light. We need to hear in public, bishops and priests say "homosexual clergy" "homosexual bishops" and "homosexual chancery network for career advancement." None of this should be done  in Sunday homilies where our kids are present. Call a meeting for adults only downstairs and talk straight. There is huge role for the laity as prophets and truth tellers. But we do not have the authority of a diocesan bishop, or an investigative arm of the National Conference of Bishops, or of the Pope. And we don't want it. We are not students taking over the administration building on campus.  The patriarchal fraternity of a hierarchal all-male priesthood is not the problem. It is the solution.  We are looking for Elliot Ness not Mother Theresa. We are looking for the Men of Galilee to replace a male figure skating team.  God will raise up such men. Most of them will be priests and bishops ordained in the Spirit to carry out their Apostolic mission.  

II. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

GOOD MAN WITH A PERMIT TO CARRY: The kids lived, the shooter was shot.

TOXIC MASCULINITY: A very good looking lady in a short video says that ain't the problem.

DUTERTE AND THE DEATH PENALTY: While Pope Francis bans the death penalty, Duterte of the Philippines understands it's use as a just means of establishing civic authority and protection. He recently threatened summary execution of corrupt police officials - can anyone doubt the efficacy of his plan?

III. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

RUSSIA AND ITALY: Cultural ties that bind - Christian convergence will soon destroy the anti-Russia narrative and Italians are in the forefront.

ETHIOPIA AND ERITREA - PEACE? ETHIOPIA'S NEW PRIME MINISTER ABIY AHMED: Ethiopia is the sixth largest landlocked country in world. Ethiopia's new Muslim and Oromo prime minister is 41 year old Abiy Ahmed. AOA on horn of Africa - start with map and demographics. On ethnic and religious groups in Ethiopia. Peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia? Is Abiy Ahmed Africa's Gorbachev?

AMERICAN LAND USE: An excellent series of maps telling the tale.

A CANADIAN LOOKS AT SOMALILAND: The British northern Somalis charted a very different course than Somalia of the South. Some history.

CANADA AND THE SAUDIS
It is good to see the Kingdom and the increasingly isolated MbS exposed but this fight over female drivers shows the vacuousness of Canadian foreign policy as much as the laws of Wahhabi Islam.  Is the "issue " of female drivers really more pressing than the saudi bombing of Yemen's Shiites?  

WHO'S MORE PATRIOTIC - THE KOCH BROS OR MIDWEST FARMERS? Laura Ingraham recently contrasted the Koch brothers' opposition to Trump's trade policy with American farmers. These hardworking Midwest men have much more to lose in a trade war than the billionaire brothers refusing to support GOP candidates who agree with Trump. The Koch brothers bailed on Trump after the risk of losing pocket change, but when the farmers are asked how long they will support Trump and their nation, one farmer responded: "To the death." Who sounds more patriotic to you?