Politics is NOT a Dirty Word

We invite our AoA readers to watch the latest video from the Dr. Pence inspired YouTube channel Religion, Sex, and Politics. Click on the picture link below or the following link to watch the new video: Politics is NOT a Dirty Word.

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, JUNE 27

by A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

WHAT IS RELIGION? AoA's own A. Joseph Lynch has launched YouTube channel inspired by the thought of Dr. David Pence entitled Religion, Sex, and Politics. We invite our readers to watch the channel's first video: What is Religion Really About?

CHRISTIANITY UNDER SIEGE: While statues dedicated to St. Junipero Serra in Los Angeles and San Francisco were desecrated by angry mobs in California, a prominent Black Live Matter leader, Shaun King, has called for all statues, paintings, and stain glass windows of Jesus and Mary be destroyed. For the most part, the bishops are silent. Talyor Marshall chimes in on the episcopal silence.

CONDEMNING RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM: A Vatican publication is denouncing religious nationalism. The writer, a Jesuit priest from India, argues that religion and national identity should never be brought together. As is the case with all anti-nationalists, the author "straw man's" nationalism by framing it with a pejorative definition so that it can be contrasted unfavorable with patriotism.  It is clear that this Indian Catholic isn't a fan of Prime Minister Modi, whose Hindu nationalist party is the largest political party governing the world's largest democracy. More from Church Militant.

A CHAPLAIN RESIGNS: A Catholic priest and chaplain at MIT has resigned for saying that George Floyd had not lived a virtuous life. Floyd in fact had a mile long criminal record - including the home invasion of a pregnant women who he robbed at gunpoint (the gun was pressed into her pregnant belly - a threat to both her and her baby and an attack on motherhood).

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

AMERICA UNDER SIEGE: As the far Left continues to riot, the mob attacks statues of Christopher Columbus, our nation's Founding Fathers (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Scott Key), war hero and president, Andrew Jackson, pro-abolition Civil War leaders Lincoln, Grant, and Hans Christian Heg, and later leaders like Teddy Roosevelt. And because St. Louis was once a crusader, the city must be renamed to affirm Muslims. All this represents an ideological assault on America. What isn't burned down with literal fire must razed from our memory and history books so that a new America is made.

HOLLYWOOD STATUES: Ben Stiller wants the statue of Teddy Roosevelt in front of NYC's Museum of Natural History to be replaced by a statue of Robin Williams. The arrogance, narcissism, and smugness of Hollywood know no bounds. Tear down American history and replace it with monuments to themselves. Stiller and Williams co-stared in A Night at the Museum during which Robin Williams played the come-to-life statue of Roosevelt now being removed. T.R. must be rolling in his grave.

RENAMING YALE: The utter hypocrisy of the Left becomes more unbearable by the day. Conservatives have demanded consistency from the Left by demanding Yale University - named after the slave trader Elihu Yale - be renamed. The lack of consistency is not mere hypocrisy, however. As Tucker Carlson has reminded us, the Left only attacks institutions they do not control. This is why big tech, the FBI, and the US military are not under attack but the police, American history, and religion are. That's also why famous Democrats like Japanese-interning president FDR remain immune from the mob.

NO COVID TRACKING: Reports are saying that the Black Lives Matter protests are miraculously not spreading the coronavirus. The truth, however, is far less miraculous. It turns out that contact tracers, who track the whereabouts of infected patients, have been told NOT to ask if they have been to any protests. As a result, spread via protest will look much lower than it actually is. The fact that this is taking place in NYC, ground zero of the virus, is absolutely unconscionable.

NAMES AND REPARATIONS: A new poll reveals that 56% of Americans oppose renaming military bases while 73% oppose making slavery reparations to black Americans. So much of the BLM demands are unpopular among Americans - would that Republicans capitalize on that.

BIDEN'S DEMENTIA: A recent Zogby poll shows that 55% of Americans believe Joe Biden is suffering from early onset dementia. One may wonder why the Democrats would nominate a candidate such as this. It's likely they realized his election was a long shot, but if it was successful he could be easily controlled by the far Left wing of the party.

GOP WINS AGAIN: Republican Chris Jacobs won a New York state House seat on Tuesday with nearly 70% of the vote. Liberals said it would be close, but the GOP wins its latest string of victories. Meanwhile, the far Left continues to nominate and renominate extremists like AOC.

TRUMP RALLY: Liberals mocked President Trump for a smaller turn out at his Tulsa rally last week. They forget to mention that the rally netted FoxNews a new Saturday record for viewers and that anywhere from 10-13 million watched the rally online. Biden's online presence, according to the Left-leaning Atlantic, is a disaster. His live audiences are not much better. Compare Trump's rally photo to Biden - who do you think is winning?

III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

SCOTUS CAVES TO THE SEXUAL LEFT: Trump's own appointed Justice Gorsuch redefined "sex" to no longer mean gender but also homosexuality and transgenderism. No matter how much he tried to limit the ruling, there is no doubt that the impact of this will be wide-reaching. More on the story from Church Militant. Gorsuch is a textualist, not an originalist, and he used his judicial philosophy to read his opinion into the civil rights law rather than read the law as it was originally written. What America needs is not justices rooted in textualism or originalism but rather rooted first and foremost in the natural law.

"WHITE LIVES DON'T MATTER": Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a Caimbridge professor, has tweeted that "White lives don't matter" and called to "abolish whiteness." The racism of her language was clear, yet the university not only defended her, it promoted her.

ALL LIVES MATTER POLL: Rasmussen has completed a poll regarding American preferences for Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter. The results should not be surprising. A majority 59% of voters preferred All Lives Matter. Those who favored Black Lives Matter were usually wealth college educated - indoctrinated may be a better word - elites.

FED TO THE LIONS: Enamored with a the Lefist sexual libertarian "sexologist" Helmut Kentler, for thirty years the German government placed orphans in the homes of pedophiles. This thirty years war on children left the nation with countless victims of the sexual revolution run amok. 

Religion, Sex, and Politics on YouTube

A new channel, steeped in the language of AoA and Dr. David Pence, has launched on YouTube. The channel is called Religion, Sex, and Politics and we invite all our AoA readers to begin watching our weekly videos and subscribe to the channel for more updates. Below you will find our inaugural episode on Religion. Please feel free to share it with friends and family and thanks for watching.

Father's Day: Before there was time or space or matter, there was Fatherhood

Thank you, God. Thank you, Dad.

    FOUR ESSAYS FROM AOA

Fatherhood, Filiation, and Fraternity in Scripture

Patriarchal Fraternity and the original mission of Adam

John Ireland: Patriarch and Patriot 

President George Washington, All Praise the Patriarch

Originally posted June 17, 2018 by Dr. David Pence

CORPUS CHRISTI: Lessons from Nature and History

First published Thursday June 19, 2014


Dr. Pence writes on this feast day, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (a holy day of obligation in the universal Church; and a national holiday in countries such as Brazil, Portugal, and Poland) --


The feast of Corpus Christi seldom inspires dialogue with Protestants. This is unfortunate, for much more than theological formulations of justification and faith, it is the sacral priesthood’s irreplaceable role in forgiving sins and bringing the Eucharist to the faithful that divides Catholic and Protestant.  The consecrated Apostolic Priesthood and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist are indivisible truths. The faithful Protestant with a Bible in his hand, a heart for his Savior, and the name of Jesus on his lips cannot fathom that liturgical actions of the sacramental priesthood are an indispensable means to proximity with Christ. The personal faith of the Reformers has trumped the priestly works of the Papists.

In the same way as Andrew did with Peter, Catholics run to our brothers saying: “We see the Messiah. Come and be with Him; come and be with us.” We know that believing Protestants want to hear us, but it is a hard saying. They want to be close to Christ. They say He is their personal friend and Savior, and they mean it. But especially during Corpus Christi processions and Eucharistic Adoration hours, the Catholics seem so radically different.

Catholics kneel and say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God” – expressing the awe and veneration owed to the God who made heaven and earth. We join the centurion in saying that we are not worthy that Christ should enter under our roof. In the Holy Communion that immediately follows, He enters under our roof and our souls are healed in an act of incorporation beyond any act of friendship.
                       

   from "Last Communion of Saint Jerome" by Botticelli

Why don’t Catholics display the continued unrelieved intensity of a “personal relationship with Christ”?  Because we live in a different sort of emotional universe.  At times we do not dare the familiarity of friendship, as we take off our sandals with Joshua and “fall down and worship.” Other times we know the communion of theosis for which friendship is too sparse a term.  We admire the intensity of our Evangelical friends, but we should neither envy nor imitate the one-dimensional emphasis on friendship that compensates for centuries apart from the Eucharistic presence. Receiving the Lord in the Eucharist introduces a kind of interpersonal consummation, which generates an abiding peace.  This rhythmic liturgical experience of Presence is less excitable than the enthusiasm of college friends; but like marriage, it is a deeper communion.

Corpus Christi invokes an irresistible lesson from the Book of Nature as well.  Bacteria were the first forms of physical life created 3.8 billion years ago. Bacteria live as single cells or in colonies. They consist of prokaryotic cells, which have no nuclei and multiple coverings – a membrane, a cell wall, and a capsule. Around 2 billion years ago, one of the great transformations in life-forms occurred as certain bacteria lost some of their external coverings (the capsules) and merged with other bacteria to form something new: eukaryotic cells. This type of cell was larger and had a nucleus. Most importantly, the new cells had fewer coverings, and the membranes of their cells were capable of much more complex social interaction with other cells. These cells would develop over time with a capacity to “incorporate” into multi-cellular organisms.

These new eukaryotic cells would become the multi-cellular organisms of the protist, fungal, plant and animal kingdoms. [The protist kingdom is that of amoeba and algae; the ‘silly putty’ of the biological world, or the living goo from which emerges the more defined forms of plants and animals].

                                       

I have always pictured this event as the best biological analogy to the capacity of persons with spiritual souls to be incorporated in the Body of Christ. There is something about shedding an outer self to allow a deeper bonding in a new multidimensional organism that resonates. The sacraments of Initiation and Holy Orders seal our souls with indelible characters that configure us in a radically transformed mode of living. The feast of Corpus Christi calls us to consider this truth: that Christ is fully present in the Eucharist and being incorporated in Him (and participating in His Sonship) is the way members of our species are going to live forever in the Father’s household. 



UPDATE:  From a letter of J.R.R. Tolkien to his son (November 1, 1963) --

"But for me, that Church of which the Pope is its acknowledged head on earth has as its chief claim that it is the one which has (and still does) ever defended the Blessed Sacrament and given it most honor and put it as Christ clearly intended in prime place.  'Feed my sheep' was His last charge to St. Peter… It was against this that the West European revolt (or the Reformation) was really launched – 'the monstrous fable of the Mass' – and faith/works a mere red herring."

"Oculi omnium in te spirant, Domine:
 et tu das illis escam in tempore opportune."

(The eyes of all look towards you in hope, O Lord:
 and you give them their food in due season.)

"Ecce Panis Angelorum, factus cibus viatorum."

(Behold this bread of Angels
Which hath become food for us on our pilgrimage.)