HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

HOLY THURSDAY: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood so He might dwell among us

[first published April 17, 2014]

An explanation of feet-washing at the birth of the Christian priesthood by Dr. Pence:

On the night before He died, Christ formed the foundation of the Church by a new command of ordered love. This commandment was not the general order that each of us is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He issued a more particular command to His chosen apostles: to love one another “as I have loved you.”  Christ 'transmitted to the apostles the Kingdom received from His Father' (Pope John Paul II on the Birth of the Church, August 1989).

This newly ordered love of an elected group of men with the power to forgive sins, cast out demons, and heal the sick shapes the sacred fraternity of the priesthood and the Church. This sealed-character relationship with Christ that is fully realized in bishops, and shared by priests and deacons, is the sacred bond from which Christ’s earthly presence in the Eucharist is made real. The Kingdom of God is now present as the new Adam and His sons are incorporated as priests into the communal love of the Trinity.

Just as the Levitical priesthood was born in a bloody battle, so the new priesthood was ordained in a struggle. It was essential that the priestly bond be shaped by the deep love of Father and Son, the filial fraternity of Sons and brothers -- not polluted by incestuous counterfeit or betrayed by avarice for gold or fractured by arrogant pride.  This priestly bond was prepared to receive the 'generation of the Church by Christ's redemptive death' [JP II], as well as the two comings of the Holy Spirit: sealing their power to forgive sins on Easter night, and sweeping them into the public manifestation of their mission on Pentecost Sunday.

Before the priestly prayer was said and the newly ordered love covenant was established, Judas was expelled from the room – discreetly but definitively.  And before that, the necessity to wash the priestly bond clean of the Evil One was demonstrated by Christ in the washing of the feet.   Peter (like so many of his clerical successors today) saw the Lord on his knees as an act of humility and service. He was having none of it. But Jesus corrected him: “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

The washing itself was not an act of self-negation, but an authoritative act by Christ establishing a new priesthood which would sanctify and rule his Church.  Christ’s action was foreshadowed by the priestly consecration when “Moses brought Aaron and his sons and washed them with water” (Leviticus 8:6 and Exodus 30:17-21). After Christ entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, one of his first acts was the cleansing of the Temple. On Holy Thursday, He would wash the new priests of the new Temple. This same order of consecration is described in Numbers when Moses first consecrates the altar, and then "takes the Levites from the Israelites and purifies them" with "the water of remission."

Christ’s washing was a casting out of the Evil One who was polluting the collegial body of the new priesthood (“for He knew who should betray Him.”)  Priestly acts of exorcism, healing and forgiveness of sins are spiritual acts of authority -- as was the Lord’s washing of his apostles. Thomas Aquinas saw the command to “do as I have done” in the washing of the feet as a command to laymen to forgive one another's trespasses.  For prelates, Aquinas saw this as an order to sacramentally forgive sins.  Every act of forgiving sins is an expulsion of one Spirit of authority for the sweeter yoke of another.  It takes authority to set the captives free.  Every baptism is an exorcism. The water that lifted the Ark left many others drowned; and the Red Sea which split for the Jews closed on Pharaoh’s army. If Christ had to rid himself of one of his own – numbered among the Twelve – why should his followers be spared the same troubling duty?  “If I your Master washed your feet, you should wash one another’s feet.”  This was a priestly purification command, which preceded the Love command. It was a bestowal of authority and the assignment of a duty. The Eastern Liturgy prayer of that night puts it this way: “When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …”

Christians who have no apostolic priesthood can be excused for misinterpreting the foot-washing command as a general ordinance (see Foot-washing Baptists).  English monarchs can be admired as they pass out money to the poor, inspired by the King of kings on His knees (see Maundy money). Many early Christian communities integrated foot-washing as a favored part of Eucharistic liturgy – a sort of kiss of peace with an added touch of humility – (see Saint Ambrose, d. 397). All these practices are understandable.  For Christ was indeed a servant leader. He preached it often; thus, to match His persistent general teaching with that particular iconic moment seems irresistible.

But Jesus personally handed his apostles the Body and Blood, and no one dwells on His being a waiter! Likewise, when he separated his apostles from the power of the Evil One, we shouldn’t over-interpret His bended knee.

The love which will save us from the Evil One is the powerful sacramentally-ordered love of Christ and his purified apostles. Christian love is an ordered love, and the washing of the apostles’ feet manifests the authoritative love of a High Priest instituting a new ordinance.   We must insist that priestly ordination, the power to cast out sin, and the necessity of apostolic fraternal correction which constituted the substance of Christ’s act not be lost in the Zeitgeist.  We are not recounting this story to soothe priestless Protestants or feckless feminists.

The spotless purity of the Marian Church can only be safeguarded by a protective authority ready to cleanse and do battle.  Wherever Christ appears too publicly, He will be attacked.  Saint Joseph had little time to coo with the baby Jesus before He was leading His sacred charges into the dangers of a nighttime flight.  So, before Christ entrusted His presence with the new priesthood, he burnished some of them and expelled others.  The shirking of duty by Peter, the uncertain voice of Thomas, the cowardice of all the others must be confessed, repented, and reformed. The perfidy of Judas had to be washed away and expelled.

"The Lord will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire." (Isaiah 4:4). It was Irenaeus who recalled these words when he beheld the new Moses washing the feet of Aaron and his sons. When Irenaeus reflected on the washing of feet at the Last Supper, he did not see a Christ adding service hours to His resume.  He saw “the Word Himself ‘…washing away the filth of the daughters of Zion,’ when He washed the disciples' feet with His own hands. For He who washed the feet of the disciples sanctified the entire body, and rendered it clean.”
(Irenaeus, Book IV Chapter 22, Against Heresies)

The reintegration of the washing of the feet in the Holy Thursday liturgy is a very recent event (1955). It is not surprising that we are still learning the deep significance of this ancient ritual. It may be that it would be better placed in the morning Chrism Mass centered on the bishop and his priests.  For many, the male-only character of the foot-washing seems an affront – but so is a Church built on a male priesthood, the Real Presence of Christ, and a sacramental form of confession.  The flattened de-sacralized spirit of modernity and the congregationalist mentality of Protestants can make no peace with the authoritative masculine fraternity that Christ instituted on Holy Thursday to maintain His Living Presence among us.  Rather than inviting the ladies and grade-school girls to join in the foot-washing festivities, let us more deeply reflect on what we have received and render a more profound account of this pivotal event in the life of Christ and the Church.



UPDATE: In 2016, Pope Francis allowed the washing of women's feet in this ritual. Because he understands this as a sign of service, he sees no reason to exclude women and in his own practice has included non-Christians as well. This is entirely consistent with the symbol of service interpretation. Our comments when he made the announcement are here.  

Mapping Holy Week

By A. Joseph Lynch

The above map (click to enlarge) depicts the city of Jerusalem as it was at the time of Jesus. Although most of us are familiar with the events of Holy Week (from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday), most have not been introduced to the spatial and geographic dimensions of Holy Week. This is in some ways true even for those who have made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For example, the walls of the "Old City" today are not the walls that stood 2,000 years ago. The walls from the time of Jesus were destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70 and those that stand today were built by the Kurdish Sunni Muslim, Saladin, during the time of the Crusades. Because of this, the location of the Upper Room (site of the Last Supper and Pentecost) is now located outside the Old City walls despite the fact that it was within the walls at the time of Jesus. (To put the Jerusalem  story in the national context, see our Mapping Israel: from Joshua to Jesus.)

On Palm Sunday, Jesus made his way to Jerusalem along the road from Bethany and Jericho, over the Mount of Olives (see the east, or right, side of the map). According to Matthew 21, Jesus rode both an ass and a colt as he made his way over the terrain and into the city via the Golden Gate (see Matthew 21:1-11). Taylor Marshall suspects that Christ rode the ass, more capable of crossing rugged terrain, over the Mount of Olives and the colt as he rode into the city. He sees in the former an image of Israel under the yoke of the Law of Moses and young colt as a sign of the Gentiles to which Christ will send the Church. It is highly likely that Jesus would have passed by the Garden of Gethsemane on his way down the mountain. Luke records that as Jerusalem came into full view, he foresaw its eventual destruction by the Romans and wept over its failure to accept the coming of the Messiah (see Luke 19:41-44). Below is an image the author took of Jerusalem from the church now standing to mark the place of Jesus' weeping.

From the site of which Christ wept over Jerusalem. The gold-topped Dome of the Rock today sits on the place the Temple once stood. Immediately below this picture is the Kidron Valley dividing Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. Nearby towards the base of the valley is Gethsemane.

As Jesus crossed the base of the Kidron Valley and approached the Golden Gate at the foot of the Temple Mount, he was met by many proclaiming "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" (Matthew 21:9). From here Jesus entered into the Temple where the Synoptic Gospels tell us he overturned the money tables and cleansed the Temple of the those making it a "den of robbers." Some allegorically note that as we prepare to receive the Eucharistic Christ into our bodies - the temples of the Holy Spirit - we proclaim the same words as those at the city gates and await the arrival of the King to cleanse our souls of venial sin through the reception of Holy Communion.

From Palm Sunday we advance to Holy Thursday. The Last Supper took place in the Upper Room, which is named for the guest room that stood above the site of King David's tomb. The site today is revered by both Jews and Christians as the former, segregated by gender, flock to visit the tomb of David while the latter climb the stairs up to the place where the Last Supper and Pentecost took place. The significance of this place to both religions is also why Christians have not turned the site into a church. Nevertheless, this area became the Church's first chancery of sorts as it is where the Apostles originally governed and, just across the street, the place where Mary is said to have entered her Dormition and Assumption. That site is marked today by the Church of the Dormition, visible in the Jerusalem cityscape image above and blown up in the image to the right. Note in the picture that the medieval walls of Jerusalem place the area outside the Old City, but in the time of Christ the walls would have extended much further south.

As Jesus, Peter, James, and John departed from the Upper Room for Gethsemane, they may very well have passed the house of Caiaphas. This house included areas to hold prisoners and it would be here that Jesus would have been taken after his betrayal by Judas. Remains of stairs (see left) from the first century have been found and preserved descending on the north side of Caiaphas' house on a path towards the Kidron Valley and Gethsemane below. A few feet from these stairs is the courtyard where Peter denied Jesus three times. Pilgrims today can visit both sites, and go inside the house of Caiaphas and enter into what scholars believe was the pit-like prison into which Jesus was interred the night of Holy Thursday after his pseudo-trail before the Sanhedrin.

While there is little debate over where Good Friday ended, there is some debate today over exactly where some of the earlier events of Good Friday took place. Crusaders believed that Jesus was taken to the Antonia Fortress located at the northwestern corner of the Temple. The fortress, however, was built to stand over the Temple to keep guard against an potential religiously-induced anti-Herodian or anti-Roman riots among the Jews on Temple grounds. By locating this place as where Jesus went  before Pilate, the crusaders left their mark on the location for pilgrims following the Stations of the Cross within the city. It seems that early Christians - and modern scholars - look to a different location for the trial. On the west side Jerusalem (see map at top) is found both the Praetorium (where Pilate lived) and Herod's Palace. As the Gospels note multiple trials taking place during the day between Herod and Pilate, it seems to make more sense that Jesus was not taken back and forth from one side of town to the other but rather shuttled back and forth from two parts of the same general location. If this is the historical case, it would mean that the path set down by the Crusaders for the Stations of the Cross were inaccurate while the western path used by early Christians was the correct one.

The site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher today marks the place where the Crucifixion and burial of Christ took place. At the time of Christ it would have been located just outside the city walls on the northwest part of Jerusalem. Calvary - or Golgotha, the place of the Skull (of Goliath)  - was the location for public executions. In some traditions this site was the burial place of Adam as well.  The execution sites were near the city gates so travelers and inhabitants would see the punishment for capital crimes. As the site of frequent deaths, it is unsurprising that burial grounds where located nearby. In fact, so close were they to Calvary that the tomb of Jesus is preserved within the same Church that houses Calvary. Within the walls of that Church, the pivotal moments of salvation history took place in which the eternal Son of God won man redemption through His suffering, death, and resurrection. Forty days later - Ascension Thursday - Christ would end his time on earth where this article's story began: the Mount of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem. Here Jesus commissioned the Apostles to baptize the nations. From there they went back to the Upper Room with Mary, praying for the next ten days until the Holy Spirit descended upon them on Pentecost Sunday bringing about the corporate body of Christ, the Church.

Keeping Catholic Time: Living the Liturgy of Feasts and Seasons

1. Advent and the Three Comings of Christ
2. Dec 3: St Francis Xavier:  Completing the Body of Christ in the East
3. December 8: The Immaculate Conception
4. December 12: Queen of Mexico, Our Lady of the Americas
5. Father and Sons Defending the Sacred: The Real Hanukkah Lesson
6. Christmas: Mortals Shout the Mighty Chorus…
7. December 28: The Feast of the Holy Innocents
8. January 1: Consecrating masculine fraternity - the formalized covenant of circumcision 
9. January 6: The Feast of the Epiphany and the true Age of Enlightenment
10. Baptism of Christ - Theophany
11. Baptism of Jesus
12. January 28: St Thomas Aquinas - Priest and Scholar
13. Candlemas: A Light to the Nations
14. February 22: The Chair of Peter
15. March 19: St Joseph Husband and Protector
16. March 25: Lady Day
17. Ash Wednesday: Inquisitions and Penitentiaries
18. Holy Week
19. Holy Thursday: He who cleansed the temple, now cleansed the priesthood
20. Good Friday: The Anthropology of Sacrifice
21. Holy Saturday: Christ the Conqueror of Hell
22. Easter: A nation delivered from slavery; a species restored to life
23. Divine Mercy Sunday: On that day are open…
24. Good Shepherd Sunday: The Shepherd - Protector or Nursemaid?
25. May 1: St. Joseph the Worker: Shopcraft and Soulcraft
26. May 13: Our Lady of Fatima - The promise of the Rosary and Christian Russia
27. Ascension Thursday: Thus, began man’s participation…
28. Pentecost: Holy Spirit, Apostolic Church, Humanity and the Trinity
29. Mary, Mother of the Church
30. Solemnity of the Holy Trinity
31. Corpus Christi: Lessons from Nature and History
32. From Personal Piety to Social Kingship: the ordered loves of the Sacred Heart
33. June 3: Ugandan martyrs, pray for us
34. June 29: Solemnity of St Peter and Paul - What is an Apostolic Church?
35. July 11: Memorial of St Benedict
36. July 31: Memorial of St Ignatius of Loyola
37. August 4: St John Vianney
38. August 5: Dedication of the Basilica of Mary
39. August 6: Feast of the Transfiguration
40. August 8: Memorial of St Dominic
41. August 15: Feast of the Assumption - Breaking the Glass Ceiling
42. August 22: Queenship of Mary: Ruling from the Inside
43. August 25: St Louis : Authority and the Ruler
44. September 14: The Triumph of the Cross
45. September 29: Feast of the Archangels
46. October 4: The Feast of St. Francis
47. October 7: Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
48. October 12: Mary, Columbus, and Catholic America
49. October 15: Theresa of Avila Virgin and Doctor
50. All Saints Day: Four Men in Full
51. All Souls Day: Remember, Venerate, Pray
52. November 9: Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
53. November 18: Dedication of Sts. Peter and Paul Basilica
54. November 30: St. Andrew and the Holy Monks of St Athos
55. Bend the knee to Christ the King

Religion, Nations, and Geopolitical Review: Saturday May 4

                                                by A. Joseph Lynch and Dr. David Pence

                                                                   

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

PRIVILEGED OR PERSECUTED? Are Christians Privileged or Persecuted? This  perceptive essay by Ross Douthat of the NYTimes reminds us that Christianity really isn't the West and the people who know this best are non-Western Christians who keep getting killed. Our essay answers: Global Christianity and the West are not the same. The faces of Christian persecution. In this Religious War - the two authority centers of Salafist Sunnis are 1) the caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and ISIS. (They have been seriously degraded by losing their territorial claim of authority. Sunni caliphs are not supposed to be occult.) 2) the Wahhabi cleric/Saudi royal clan Guardians of the Holy Places-Mecca and Medina. The funding and ideology of the most murderous brand of the Hanbali school comes from here and will not cease until this regime is broken. Their greatest rivals for authority are Shiite led states (Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon), other national Sunni governments not at war with Shiites (like Qatar and Turkey), and Hashemite rivals for  religious legitimacy (Jordan's King Hussein)

DARKNESS DESCENDS ON GOMORRAH: A Christian essay for our times by RV Young.

EVELYN WAUGH, THE HOMOSEXUAL TRADITIONALIST: Bemoaning Vatican II as a source of evil.

CARDINAL DONALD WUERL: Building a case against one of the slickest most destructive clerics in America. Donald Wuerl, thy name is clericalism.

SCHOLARS ACCUSE POPE FRANCIS OF HERESY AND MORE: An open letter to bishops.
62 page document. A story from LifeSite News. The compilation of bad people around Pope Francis is a good and helpful summary. The charges of heresy are ridiculous. They reveal the deeply anti Catholic propositional spirit of elite Western intellectualism. The global Church has a great opportunity for clerical reform and fraternal witness to the nations after the bloodbath of the 20th century. Catholic priests and laymen must become a template for the nations of public fraternity and protection. But it's hard to see the diocese and parish in front of you and the nations beyond when you are so consumed with resentment toward the Father. This latest screed is pathetic at one level and deeply troubling at another. Is it sad or bizarre that so many intellectual Catholics are  using modern communication technology to project public personas as papal scolds.  Is this Catholic witness or hundreds of Martin Luthers "speaking truth to power" by blog posts? The Accusers started with gay ray burke  and the "Dubia." The conversation turned decisively to "get Pope Francis" when the venomous vigano used a spectacular bilingual PR manifesto of accusations against Pope Francis. This was to reverse Italian stories about Vigano's failure to deal with McCarrick when he was papal nuncio in America. It also veiled Vigano's disgraceful shutting down of diocesan priests and auxiliary bishops investigating high flying homosexual Archbishop John Nienstedt.  Vigano exposed a great deal of truth about the "homosexual parish" at the heart of Vatican governance.  But like the master deceiver, he used that truth telling to divert attention from his own multiple sins to start a movement to shoot at Pope Francis.  Many decent "conservative catholics" took the bait and have spent months of their own heads and hearts undermining the Holy Father. All of this has strengthened the hand of those who see Vatican Two as a demonic catastrophe, the Novus Ordo as false worship  and Pope Francis as a heretic. Truly this is the work of Satan.

GETTING CHRISM MASS WRONG IN CHILE: Welcoming Judas on the day Our Lord washed him out. Holy Thursday Chrism Mass should be a diocesan cleansing of the Apostolic Priesthood as it was when Christ ordered his apostles to do what He had done. It was not a command to pile up service hours but to exercise the office of the High Priest in expelling traitor clerics.

“When Thy glorious disciples were enlightened at the washing of their feet before the supper, then the impious Judas was darkened …” FROM EASTERN HOLY THURSDAY LITURGY

II. PRESIDENT TRUMP AND AMERICA

MIND BEHIND PROTECTIONISM: Economic Nationalism, Frederick List and Breaking the Free Trade Economist Monopoly.

AMERICA'S CHURCHES AND HOMOSEXUALITY:  A conference of the United Methodist Church held homosexual practice incompatible with Christianity and said no to homosexual ministers - their high court agrees. The Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, and the Methodists are the three largest church groups in America. All judge homosexuality as a serious violation of natural law, biblical teaching, and church discipline. The "churches" of the elite and university professors from Unitarians to Episcopalians see gender differences as oppressive and homosexuality as a form of love. As always the theories and theology of the upper classes dominate the educational establishment and mainstream media. Remember the culture war really is a debate about God and what are the fundamentals of our civic religion. What shall we protect at home and abroad? In this corner we have : Drug Use, Profanity, Pornography, Sodomy and Abortion. In this corner we have: Religious worship, prayer, national interracial brotherhoods, marriage, feminine coverings and virginity.

III. THE NATIONS

VENEZUELA: Juan Guaido called for a military uprising and didn't get one this week. He seems like a Latin Beto O'Rourke--not enough substance to contend for serious political rule. Boris Yeltsin is the last man we saw stand unarmed against a military and change their loyalties.  He did it as a staunch Russian nationalist in the twilight of the USSR.  Before that we saw the worker Lech Walesa who was really acting as a Catholic Polish nationalist. Guadio does not seem deep enough as a nationalist or a religious man to navigate the currents needed in this time of disintegration. When we see groups praying they are praying for Maduro more often than Guaido.  Maduro is discredited but the military men who have not deserted him know what Guaido may soon learn--if you shoot at the King, be sure you kill him.   A profile of the northern Bolivarian countries of South America including Venezuela (pop-30 million)  and Bolivar-the Liberator. Some current history on the collapse of the economy.

EAST TIMOR: A Catholic profile of Asia's most Christian nation who won  independence from their huge Muslim neighbor, Indonesia. They are the most Catholic nation in the world. Their Portuguese language and Catholic faith and the rise of their martial arts clubs made assimilation in Muslim Indonesia impossible and their national independence(2002) possible.  There is a deep disconnect here because of a deficit in Catholic theology and social teaching that will consecrate the young male Maccabees who helped win national independence and Church freedom, but now are spiritually adrift and civically outlawed.

THE TRUCE OF GOD: 989AD-1300AD The Church limited the victims and times for war.

LIBYA: The alliances behind the eastern-western clash.

RUSSIA: From an excellent website Russia Matters, is a short review of career US Diplomat William Burns book - The Back Channel. In it, he shows how he warned Condoleeza Rice and George W. Bush that trying to integrate Georgia and Ukraine into NATO would lead to serious Russian intervention in those countries. An interview with Burns and Graham Allison on Diplomacy.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

PAT BUCHANAN ON SANDERS AND THE DIVINATION OF DEMOCRACY: "Under the Sanders reform, if someone murders you, he is still entitled to an absentee ballot. The right to vote is apparently more sacred than the right to life. Truly, this is the divination of democracy."

MARTIN BUBER: The Jewish philosopher and theologian (1878-1965 Born in Austria: Died in Israel) on the I-Thou relationship with God and fellow humans:  "At the heart of Buber’s theology was his theory of dialogue—the idea that what matters is not understanding God in abstract, intellectual terms but, rather, entering into a relationship with Him. Such a relationship, he believed, is possible only when we establish genuine relationships with one another. “Whoever goes forth to his You with his whole being and carries to it all the being of the world, finds Him whom one cannot seek,” he wrote. (The New Yorker, April 29, 2019). Buber contrasted this interpersonal dialogue with I-it relations. Trinitarian Christians were much more receptive to Buber than Jewish thinkers who were always skeptical. There was much to be skeptical about but the title of his book pierces to the heart of religious life. I And Thou was published in 1970.

THE MALE MILITIA: The basic American political agreement is a covenant by the adult males that we will protect our country beginning with participating in our local unit of polity and accepting the officer corps of our local policing agency. A modest proposal on local mandatory militias which we don't advocate because we think this relationship among adult American men  already exists in common law and American custom.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, January 30

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

POPE VISITS SYNAGOGUE IN ROME - A JEWISH PLEA FOR THE FEAST OF THE CIRCUMCISION: One of our favorite feast days in which Christ was enrolled in the Jewish nation gets a plug at Pope Francis' Rome synagogue visit from a Jewish elder brother.

POPE ALLOWS WOMEN IN THE FOOT-WASHING: Meanwhile the Pope shows he is no longer taking marching orders from his loyal and cheering sons at AOA. He says, as did Pope Benedict before him, that the foot washing on Holy Thursday is a sign of universal service. If that is true, then washing men and women (as well as non-believers) would make lots of sense as a sign of the missionary Church serving all of humanity.

We have made a much less recognized argument that the foot washing was a priestly apostolic act aimed at washing clean a Satan infected priesthood. We think the ritual should return to the Chrism Mass and be centered on bishops and their priests.This ritual is very old, but its reintroduction into the Holy Thursday liturgy is recent (1955) -- and significant theological discussion of its meaning is surprisingly scant. The Pope is following the example of Peter who also thought it was an act of service and tried to forbid Christ from washing him. The best theological-scriptural argument we have seen that Christ's washing of the apostles' feet was an exorcism of the priesthood, not a sign of universal service, can be found here. This disagreement with our Holy Father about the primary meaning of the ritual is no disrespect to him. Many parishes and priests have opened the foot-washing to males and females, though the 1955 instructions was clear about men. Most of those insistent that the washing be male-only have never made a convincing argument that the gesture is about something other than humble service. Pope Francis is bringing the gesture in line with the present teaching.

It turns out that the previous rules of the ritual were carrying a truth which our present teachings have not yet discovered. We all live in a day that the anthropological arguments for the masculine character of the priesthood and the distinct corporate duties and identity of men are quite weak. In fact, one might venture that suppressing the ancient feast of the Circumcision (which is a male-only incorporation into a national bond) and missing the masculine priestly character of the foot-washing stem from a similar blind spot.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

EGYPT - A NON-ELECTED PRESIDENT, BUT HE OFFERS RELIGIOUS RECONCILIATION: He overthrew an elected Islamist government. He courageously defends and befriends the Christian Copts. Is Egyptian President Abdel el-Sisi the Sunni ally we must cultivate? Is religious liberty more crucial than democratic elections?

PAKISTAN - FORCES WITHIN FOR REFORM: Pakistan is different than Saudi Arabia. Can it divorce itself from the Salafist movement that runs its intelligence and military? Can they break the Saudi alliance? Pakistan is 5 to 15 percent Shia, so the Salafist movement promises civil war if instituted at home.

PEW 2009 REPORT ON SHIA AND SUNNI MUSLIMS BY COUNTRY: 1.6 billion Muslims. What are the big four (each with over 100 million believers)? Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh.

IN LEBANON TWO COMPETING CHRISTIAN FACTIONS HAVE ALLIED UNDER ONE CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT WHO ALSO WOULD BE FAVORED BY SHIITES: The next battleground against Salafist Sunnis will be Lebanon, and Christians there do not see Hezbollah as their enemy. A new Christian alliance paves the way for a Shiite-Christian alliance. To understand the coming fight for Lebanon, we must understand there is a battle  among Sunnis for the soul of Sunni Islam. Meanwhile Christians and Shiites must unite to oppose Salafist Sunni groups and ally with Sunnis who are not salafist. The US is unfortunately propping up the two governments who institutionally support the terrorist/jihadist type Sunnis. Those States are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

IN SUDAN THE RISE OF SALAFIST GROUP MEANS TROUBLE FOR SHIITES: Sudan's  new line against Shiites -nothing to do with their old ally Iran.

ISIS MAGAZINE - A WHOLE ISSUE TO WIPING OUT THE SHIA; A LESSON HERE FOR CHRISTIANS ABOUT OUR NATURAL ALLIES? The latest issue of ISIS magazine is centered on the Rafidah - eliminating the Shia. All the multiculturalism courses we have taken, and no one can see that one branch of Sunnis,the Salafists, is waging a religious war against a religion called Shia Islam! There is no significant branch of Shia Islam that calls for the purification of Islam by eliminating the Sunni non-believers.

SOUTHERN SUDAN - BREAKING APART BY MEN, TRIBE AND LAND: Christianity and a new national identity are not as deeply embedded as the older loyalties that split the country again. Southern Sudan (12 million population Christian and animist) became independent from Sudan (population 33 million Islamic and Arab) in 2011. The South Sudanese Civil War began in December 2013. It is drawn along tribal fault lines.

III. AMERICAN POLITICS

DONALD TRUMP AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY ON REV. KING DAY: A quote from Trump's speech:

“We are going to protect Christianity. I don’t have to be politically correct. From Two Corinthians: 'Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' Isn't that the one you like - isn't that the one? I love it. We are going to protect Christianity and if you look at what is going on around the world; you look at Syria ,where if you are a Christian, they are chopping off heads. You look at the different places and Christianity is under siege. I’m a Protestant, Presbyterian to be exact and very proud of it and we have to protect because bad things are happening. Very bad things are happening and I don’t know what it is. We don’t band together maybe. And frankly other religions are banding together and using it… here we have, if you look at this country its gotta be 70%, 75% , some people say even more. The power we have to band together, we have to unify. We have to really in a very large version what they have done at Liberty. Somehow we have to unify… Liberty has banded together and created one of the great universities…"

Entire one hour video of speech: Religion comments are at the 19:00 to 21:00 minute mark.

BE A NATIONALIST, NOT A CONSERVATIVE: Advice from an old conservative, Sam Francis, twenty years ago in a Chronicles article to Pat Buchanan seems to be the campaign strategy of Donald Trump. The key loyalties of men are Religion, Nation, and Family. The Trump campaign appeals to corporate identities as Americans and Christians. He is not running as the best Christian, but as the candidate who will defend Christians the best (and we mean the Christians being beheaded, not those disputing insurance coverage policies).

R&G ROUNDUP: SOLZHENITSYN AND THE UNIVERSITY

TO RESET RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA, REMEMBER THE LESSONS OF ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN: Excepts from the 'CWR' article, Revisiting Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's warnings to the West:

"Following writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky and N.M. Karamzin, the Russian conservative tends to interpret modern history as a struggle between those who would preserve Russia’s spiritual integrity and those who would impose Western culture upon the motherland. It is no coincidence that the most frenzied and destructive characters in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Brothers Karamazov, and Demons are those most intoxicated with trendy European ideas. Nor is it a coincidence that in his Memoir On Ancient and Modern Russia Karamzin, fervent monarchist though he was, ventured to make a negative evaluation of the celebrated Peter the Great [died in 1725 at the age of 52]. “We became citizens of the world,” said Karamzin regarding Peter’s campaign to Westernize his empire, “but ceased in certain respects to be the citizens of Russia.” To Karamzin the Europhile sovereign’s heavy-handed attempt “to transform Russia into Holland” reflected more zeal than prudence. 

Solzhenitsyn went further and openly detested the reformist tsar, for he doubted that Peter had really appreciated anything about Western culture aside from its most superficial trappings: wealth, glamour, gunpowder. The Petrine program had caused Russian elites to abandon their roots, and had even set the stage for Bolshevism. How could those incapable of relating to their own people hope to understand those of faraway lands?"

AND WHEN WE WONDER WHY IT IS SO HARD TO EXTRACT THE FEMINIST IMPLANT, HE EXPLAINED IN HIS HARVARD COMMENCEMENT (1978):

"Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently prevents independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life."

THE UNIVERSITY AND THE ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE - HUBRIS OR WORSHIP: An essay on the organization of the disciplines and the overweening hubris of the modern empiricists by a young Villanova teacher of literature and religion, James Matthew Wilson. In Practicing Catholics, Educational Reform we make a similar argument that the Catholic school is centered on worship, and then organizes the disciplines of study. The Catholic University should breathe a very different spirit than the German research university. That mighty institution of Germanic intellectual hubris crowned the atheistic enlightenment, and prepared the way for the militarization of that hubris in German empire and Reich.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 15

WEEKLY BRIEF

The President and the Pope: The Hammers Seek Their Anvils

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

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

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

II. THE NATIONS R&G ROUND UP

IS PRESIDENT TRUMP GOING NEOCON ON SYRIA? Pat Buchanan.

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

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

THE MORMONS ARE NOT CAPITALIST GLOBALISTS: Their communal roots.

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

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

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

Dear Mr. Brennan,

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

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

You were for a short while an intelligence analyst.

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

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

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

...

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

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

Sam Faddis

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, April 11

by David Pence 



A NUCLEAR AGREEMENT REINTEGRATES NATIONS OF THE NORTH FROM FRANCE TO CHINA WITH IRAN

Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia, and China were the other countries (besides US and Iran) who agreed to a regulatory plan for Iran's nuclear program on Holy Thursday April 2, 2015. If the US Senate blocks the agreement, those other countries will not continue economic sanctions against Iran. Those countries share a security interest with Iran as well. All of them are fighting their own variants of the Salafist Sunni jihadist movement, in the same way as the Shia state of Iran does in fighting ISIS. A resumption of arms sales from Russia to Iran is one beginning of many new relations which will reintegrate Iran in the intercourse of nations.   
  
Significant elements of Israeli security veterans have not agreed with the Netanyahu "nihilist" approach to negotiations with Iran.

Iran is a Shiite country in a sea of Sunnis. The purification movement that is leading to a renewal of Shia/Sunni war is coming from one faction of Sunnis, not all Sunnis and not the Shia. This agreement on a framework has already removed the pariah status of Iran. We are going to start hearing "their side of the story" from the nations they reconciled with over the last months. Israel has been Iran's  sworn enemy since a religious people overthrew the Shah and organized their society around that religion. Israel has nuclear weapons, as does Pakistan, which is working closely with Iran's other avowed enemy -- the Sunni monarchy and the Wahhabi clerics of Saudi Arabia. Which of us, if we were the rulers of Iran, would not consider a nuclear weapon a needed defense in such a neighborhood?  



IN NIGERIA, THE MUSLIM BEATS THE CHRISTIAN; AND THAT WILL HELP STOP BOKO HARAM AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION

In an April 2015 election Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim from the North, defeated Goodluck Jonathan by several million votes  in Nigeria's Presidential  election. Nigeria is the largest of the African nations (175 million), and divided into oil-rich Christian southern states and northern Muslim states where Boko Haram has thrived in the last years. The election of an austere Muslim may be very good news for the country as it clearly needed new leadership to provide basic security as well as clean up rampant corruption. The former military leader is no fan of Boko Haram and civil disorder.

Here is a good short review of communal loyalties and Nigeria. Many Chrisian-majority districts voted for the new president as many Nigerians believe their country can be a model for how Muslims and Christians can live together in an orderly civic society.

It is great failure of today's emasculated Catholic culture that huge populations of the Christian world which need a much more robust protective and fraternal understanding of the nation are not creating personalities who can rule.  Muslims, leftists, and economic secularists all seem to better prepare men to exercise the authority needed to rule a state. We must remember the real meaning of that beatitude about the development of civic order: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.



SAUDI ARABIA UNLEASHES THEIR AIR FORCE -- THEY PASS OVER AL QAEDA AND TARGET SHIA HOUTHIS FIGHTING AQAP IN YEMEN

The multi-monarch coalition which the Sauds have assembled to bomb the Houthis of Yemen is a formidable force against an ancient tribe which has a long history of autonomy fights in Yemen. It is a major escalation by the Sauds in actually organizing a strike force which they have not done against the two worst Salafist opponents of the US: the Islamic State in Iraq/Syria and AQAP in Yemen. It is cartoon history to label this Saudi intervention as an innocent play to keep the bad wolf of Iran out of the Arabian Pennisula. This Saudi intervention marks another front in the war that will oppose any armed Shia, Jewish, or Christian state in the House of Islam as defined by the Wahhabi-Salafist school of Sunni Muslims. Here is the Saudi argument.

A good recap of Saudi Arabia/Yemen conflict in maps.

The US has joined this attack against Yemen's Kurds, while the enemies of the Houthis know where to find them to maximize damage: ISIS in Yemen.

Should the US really ally with the Saudis crossing a national border to suppress a form of Islamic worship they despise?

Just to remind us how "our ally Saudi Arabia" treats freedom of religion for Christians: Grand Mufti on Christian churches.

The Saudi-Sunni tie to nuclear weapons is through their alliance with Pakistan.



ANOTHER FAILURE TO PROTECT IN AFRICA -- MUSLIM SOMALIA CROSSES INTO CHRISTIAN KENYA

On Holy Thursday of 2015 members of al Shabab (the Youth-a Salafist Sunni extremist movement) crossed 120 miles outside their Somalian border to kill 150 Christian college students at Gerissa University in eastern Kenya.

Early in the history of Al Qaeda there was criticism by Muslim scholars that too many Muslims were being killed in terrorist attacks. This diminshed their religious legitimacy. The radical Sunni variant in Somalia (al Shabab) has corrected that indiscriminate killing by separating, then killing, Christians in Holy Week. Somalia is a country of 10 million, with 99% Sunni and 83% of Somalian ethnic origin. Kenya (44 million population: 83% Christian 11% Muslim with 3/4 Sunni) and Ethiopia (94 million population: 63% Christian and 34% Muslim) are their western neighbors.



IN INDIANA, MIKE PENCE PLAYS PILATE AS THE MOB SEEKS BLOOD

Elijah told the Israelites they could no longer limp along serving two masters: the Living God or Baal. The reason the Indiana Legislature passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was to protect Christians from undue involvement in three new civil-rights areas that Catholics consider a desacralization of nature: sodomy, contraception, and abortion. When asked if this act might involve discrimination against gays, a very level-headed and good man (Governor Michael Pence) became the stuttering Pilate. The only honest answer to that query is to say "yes" -- it would give Christians a chance to raise a religious defense if they were being asked to cooperate in some significant manner with an immoral act. This act would not have been enacted if there was not some deep disagreement about what is holy and what is an abomination in America. The capitulation of the political leadership to the corporations and gay activists is understandable. Until religious leaders begin to talk in a very different language about these sexual taboos, we cannot expect civic leaders to recover the language that reminds us sacred Selma was never intended to be a bridge to Sodom.

Religion and Geopolitics Review: Saturday, April 25

by David Pence



IRAN, THE BOMB, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Do sanctions and blockade lead to peace or human rights? Consider this article about an Iranian dissident who supports both Nuclear Deal and Human Rights. He reminds us what most Americans do not appreciate as deeply as Iranians. Iran has been at war with the US and Israel since the 1979 revolution. Slogans such as Death to America! and Death to Israel! do not state  the theology of Iran, but their state of war. "Kill the Hun" and "Destroy the Japs" is how we said it in America when we were at war with those two countries. The religious revolution in Iran drastically altered the landscape of alliances for both  Israel and the US in the Mideast. It has been hard to reconfigure these relations even though Sunni extremism has recast the region in the last decade.


SAUDI ARABIA BOMBS THE SHIA OF YEMEN

The New York Times reports the obvious displeasure of the Iraq government with the Saudi bombing of the Shia Houthis of Yemen. The military response of the Saudis to ISIL  in Iraq and AQAP in Yemen is miniscule compared to the ferocity of the bombings and blockade against the Houthis. The real enemies of the Sauds are  Shia insurgencies -- the target was not the nation state of Iran but the communal religious enemy of Wahhabis: the Shia. The greatest danger from various Salafi Sunni movements  to the US homeland comes from Al Qaeda of the Arabian Pennisula.  Why don't the Saudis bomb those enemies of ours instead of the Shia Houthis?  The Saudi bombing in fact has greatly aided AQAP. The foreign minister of Iraq (the government that was elected after the US overthrow of the secularist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein) asks the same question. The bombs were dropped. Shia were killed. For a moment the bombing had stopped. Then bombing resumed. Food shortages and access to necessities brought in by sea are as pressing a problem for Yemen Houthis who have armed themselves to protect themselves in this war-torn land. Armed Shia are considered a threat to Wahhabi Muslims even if they are in their own land. The strangest scenario is the clueless American press asking about Iranian arms while watching in plain daylight Saudi airplanes (fueled and directed by American intelligence) bombing the cities of their religious foes battling AQAP in another country.

Pat Buchanan provides a good summary of the opposing forces in Yemen.


ON TO ROME ACROSS THE SEA

The death of a thousand migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy is another cruel reminder that the NATO bombing campaign against the Libyan state in 2011 didn't quite end the way NATO explains at their site on NATO and Libya.  One video ends with pictures of women and children waving peace signs and a text declaring: "By the end of 2011, Libya was a free country." The reality of Libya is mindful of the 1970 era right after the 'peace and love summers' in San Francisco, when bikers and thugs took over the hippies' neighborhood. The lesson remains. Order is necessary for liberty; and the killing of a dictator must be followed by the construction of a state, or he will be replaced by a hundred pirates and a thousand petty tyrants.  

Looking at a map of the Mediterranean we see the Roman target that Hannibal saw from Carthage (present day Tunis in Tunisia). We see the land across the sea that present-day migrants from the failed states of northern Africa pray for. Finally, we are reminded of the strategic role of Malta as a small island between warring empires. On to Rome! is an ISIL phrase that resonates -- may the Knights of Malta intervene again.


EAST AFRICA: SMALL MOVEMENTS IN FAILED SMALL ISLAMIC STATES TORMENT CHRISTIAN MEN FROM LARGE ENFEEBLED CHRISTIAN STATES

Ethiopia has been Christian since the first century. Christianity became a state religion in the same century as Constantine's Rome (330 AD). Ethiopia is 90 million strong (two-third Christian, the rest Muslim). On April 20, 2015, the nation watched an ISIL video of 30 Christian countrymen beheaded in Libya (6 million; 97% Sunni Islam) because they would not deny Christ. Every man killed could have saved his life by renouncing Our Lord. Two weeks earlier on Holy Thursday the Christian country of Kenya (45 million;  65% Christian) had a university border town attacked by four Islamic fighters of Somalian al Shabab. There were 150 Christian students killed on Holy Thursday -- some at a Holy Week prayer service, others separated from Muslim students in dormitories and classrooms. Somalia, the coastal country home of al Shabaab, is 99% Muslim with a population of 10 million.  The fleeing Christians of Quaroqish needed armed Christian protection as ISIL advanced.  A good summary of the last several weeks and a question for American Christians.


FIGHTING LIKE A GIRL

There is something about the new way of war: sanctions against whole populations;  high flying unmanned drones killing a man in his home and village; an aversion to boots on the ground; a behind-the-glass theme that I will kill for my country but not die. War by regulations favors bureaucrats, not special forces; thus the ladies of the European Union have opened up yet another front against the Russians.


AS RELIGION DECLINES IN EUROPE, PAGAN NATIONALISM RISES AS THE NEW COMMUNAL IDENTITY.  ATHEISTIC EUROPEAN  BUREAUCRACY CAN DAMAGE ENEMIES, LESS ABLE TO FOSTER LOYALTY

'Ummah' is an important Arabic concept for nation or community. It is a missing  word and concept in all too many "realist" schools of foreign policy. Here it applies to Scotland, and shows us that the loss of religion in Europe is going to be filled by some kind of Ummah -- most likely a hyper-nationalism undisciplined by the universal moderating tendencies of religion.This is what happend as atheistic Communism threatened Europe in the 1920's and 30's, and Adolph Hitler argued that only a return to a hardy racial pagan warrior past could save Germany from the revenge of the Western powers and the perfidy of the Bolsheviks. Today in every country in Europe, the banner of nationalism has been ceded to the irreligious. Is the political party SNP the new Church of Scotland?


FINDING THE RIGHT VOCABULARY IN RESTORING CHRISTIAN  CULTURE IN AMERICA

Prophetic religion, not civil rights, is what ended Jim Crow in the American South.  Only when the nature of the debate became biblically grounded (not rights-oriented) did a Spirit-led movement triumph. Our cultural dilemna today is that once again we need to reframe the debate to rekindle the Spirit. Jennifer Morse makes a compelling argument why religious liberty is not the right flag.  Christianity vs the Sexual Revolution is a better hill to take. Austin Ruse aims his hammer at the same nail when he writes that men don't march for natural law.


WHAT WE COULD LEARN FROM CHINA IN FOREIGN POLICY

China has its own jihadist warriors coming from the Turkic Muslim Uighurs in the western province of Xinjiang. Controlling this area depends on making allies with the foreign neighbor who could shut down the rebels or be their refuge. The pivotal  country is Sunni Pakistan with their nuclear weapons, and their own dilemma of Salafist agitation against the state. China supplied some military aid (as always, the type of aid which Pakistan can point against perennial rival India). The preponderance of China's aid, however, will build infrastucture helping Pakistan as a country and strengthening claims of the state to serve their population. The Chinese are contributing real wealth that underlies the stability of their allied states as they complete another Silk Road project -- this time Pakistan. When the Chinese think infrastucture, they think big at home as well as abroad.    


DEATH OF CARDINAL GEORGE OF CHICAGO AND RESIGNATION OF ARCHBISHOP FINN OF KANSAS CITY

On April 17, 2015, Cardinal Francis George died. He was installed as eighth archbishop of Chicago in 1997 to fill a vacancy left by the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin (November 1996). He was the first native Chicagoan to assume the office. These two reflections on his life by Father Barron and George Weigel tell us many good things about him. This criticism documents a failure to rule and protect.  Cardinal George had an authentic kind of humility and a desire to to restore a "simply Catholic" culture. Many pictures of him are in a reflective mode depicting him as great intellectual.  He did not see himself that way. The much more consequential Chicago prelate was his predecessor, Cardinal Bernadin. Cardinal George was not a strong enough man to reform the deep-seated corruption and lavenderizing of the Chicago priesthood. In civic matters, he did not understand the most rudimentary of political institutions.  He once said:

“Instead of a world living in peace because it is without religion, why not imagine a world without nation states?… 

“Few there are, however, who would venture to ask if there might be a better way for humanity to organize itself for the sake of the common good. Few, that is, beyond a prophetic voice like that of Dorothy Day, speaking acerbically about ‘Holy Mother the State’..."

Cardinal George was the poster man of the exhausted bishop. His intellectual orthodoxy remained in the realm of ideas. He never enacted the orthopraxy of the protective shepherd. He threw up his hands to the world of men, nations, and war. When he had hiring powers and unopposed leadership he improved institutions like Mundelein Seminary. Some of his writing and a few of his quotes were trenchant. But he was no ruler of men. When he faced a predator like Father Dan McCormack, he ran away like the hireling -- and the wolf devoured his black male sheep. That was his most publicized failure to protect, but it was not an exception. He has left Chicago Catholics, and particularly young males, in the care of one of the nation's most deeply compromised presbyterates. He goes now to face the Good Shepherd. It is not clear he will rest in peace.

Archbishop Robert Finn resigned on April 20 as archbishop of St Joseph/Kansas City . We had urged the same in 2012. This article from the National Catholic Reporter recalls a lot of painful details.