Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola -- 'Militia est vita hominis in terra' (Man's life on earth is a warfare)

[first published July 31, 2014]


"Everything that Jesus did, from His crying as a Babe in the cradle to His getting tired and falling asleep, to His agony in the Garden, all of that is a pattern for us to imitate."

Father John Hardon, the Jesuit who died in 2000, explains that the Person of Christ is the first attribute of the spirituality of Saint Ignatius: "Man's virtues are God's attributes."

                    

The founder of the Jesuits -- unlike his Protestant contemporaries -- understood the true dignity of human freedom. Take a look at Father Hardon's fine essay.
                                 

"Take Lord and receive all my liberty... To Thee, Oh Lord, I return it. All is Thine... Give me Thy Love and Thy Grace for this is sufficient for me."         (Saint Ignatius of Loyola)

The First Jesuit Pope is Pope Francis. Many modern day Jesuits have betrayed the masculine personality of Ignatius and ignored the Evil One who Ignatius was always careful to discern and oppose. This has confused many conservative Catholics about Pope Francis. Pope Francis is not James Martin. The Pope  is not playing to the spirit of this age. Quite the contrary, Pope Francis is bringing a much needed dimension to the papal office which has been sorely lacking for over half a century. If John Paul gave priests the words of a Prophet and Benedict XVI taught the clergy to reverence the liturgy as a  priest, we believe Pope Francis will bring the king's ruling function to the priesthood and episcopacy. We believe the Pope has been misunderstood by his intellectual critics of the global North. A series of our defenses of the first Jesuit Pope.    

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, APRIL 9

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

BY A. JOSEPH LYNCH

WAR IN UKRAINE IN VIDEO

WAR IN UKRAINE UPDATE

ZELENSKY DEFENDS WAR CRIMINALS

We continue our coverage of Ukraine this week with more videos from Religion, Sex, and Politics. Please feel free to watch the videos below to learn more about the events of the week.

Our first video offers our readers an update on Ukraine, specifically examining the battlefield situation, the economic war, and the geopolitics of Asia reorienting to Moscow and Beijing. 

Our second video offers a shocking clip of Ukraine's president, Zelensky, defending the Nazi Azov Battalion after an untold number of civilians state the unit's many war crimes in Mariupol.

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, MARCH 26

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

BY A. JOSEPH LYNCH

WAR IN UKRAINE IN VIDEO

A CONSECRATION OF RUSSIA?

THE DENAZIFICATION OF RUSSIA

DID UKRAINE WANT WAR WITH RUSSIA?

AN AMERICAN MERCENARY'S PERSPECTIVE

IS UKRAINE TURNING ITS KIDS INTO NEO-NAZIS

We continue our coverage of Ukraine this week with more videos from Religion, Sex, and Politics. Please feel free to watch the videos below to learn more about the events of the week.

Our first video examines Pope Francis' ill-considered consecration of Russia to the immaculate heart of Mary. Thought the Vatican holds this was done in relation to Fatima in 1984, traditional Catholics argue wrongly that this consecration is the "real" one. 

Our second video explains why Russia speaks of the "denazification" of Ukraine and the history behind the neo-Nazi movement in the country.

In our third video we examine the possibility that - according to Ukrainian leaders - Ukraine might have sought war with Russia. 

Our last two videos this week involve shocking footage from a US mercenary who fled Ukraine as a "trap" for foreign soldiers along with video clips pertaining to the neo-Nazi movement in Ukraine.

 

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

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

BY A. JOSEPH LYNCH

WAR IN UKRAINE IN VIDEO

CIVILIZATIONAL CONFLICT (EXTENDED)

THE RUSSIAN WAY OF WAR

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX PERSPECTIVE

We continue our coverage of Ukraine this week with more videos from Religion, Sex, and Politics. Please feel free to watch the videos below to learn more about the events of the week.

Our first video is an extended take on the battle over Ukraine as a civilizational conflict.

Our second video explains why Russia's military strategy is so different from what we see in the way the US wages war.

UPDATE: Our third video regards the perspective of the Russian Orthodox Church on the conflict.

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: SATURDAY, MARCH 5

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

BY A. JOSEPH LYNCH

WAR IN UKRAINE IN VIDEO

CIVILIZATIONAL CONFLICT 

OVERVIEW OF THE WAR

MAPPING THE WAR ON THE GROUND

Anthropology of Accord is hard at work tracking the ongoing war in Ukraine in hopes of providing you both with good coverage and also with the information you need to understand the conflict. This week we recommend you watch some of the video content we've produced at Religion, Sex, and Politics. Please feel free to watch the videos below to learn more about the events of the week.

Our first video explains the conflict within the intellectual framework put forward by Samuel Huntington in 1996. This war, we argue, is part of the clash of civilizations. Thus while the atheist West characterizes the war in terms of ideology, we with Huntington see the war itself as a conflict within the Orthodox world on the one hand while at the same time being a point of contact and conflict between Orthodox Russia and the atheist West. Ukraine, in other words, sits along a civilizational fault line - and we are now witnessing an earthquake after years of pressure building underneath. The video below also provides some necessary historical context for the events of recent days. All very worth watching.

Our second video examines the war itself. It focuses on the events that led to the war, how Russia is strategically and politically carrying out the war, and what responses we've seen in the world since the war's outbreak.

And finally we have a short map video that explains Russia's strategy on the ground, the military progress it's made, and what we could expect to see in the days ahead.