Ecumenical Patriarch addresses Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches on preparations for the Great and Holy Council

From 22 to 27 January 2016, at the Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Chambésy, the works of the Synaxis of the Primates of the Orthodox Churches are being carried out.

At the opening of the event, His Holiness Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, delivered a speech thanking the other Primates of the Orthodox Churches, as well as the delegations, for accepting to change the place of the Synaxis from the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s residence in Istanbul, Turkey, to the Chambésy Orthodox Centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is “meant for serving the pan-Orthodox unity, and which for a long time has hosted and still hosts many inter-Orthodox and pan-Orthodox meetings”.

Next, the Ecumenical Patriarch referred to the themes that will be discussed at the Holy and Great Synod, themes that have been established at the first Presynodal Pan-Orthodox Conference of 1976, namely:

   1. The Orthodox Diaspora;
   2. Autocephaly and the way it is to be proclaimed;
   3. Autonomy and the way it is to be proclaimed;
   4. Diptychs;
   5. Common Calendar;
   6.  Impediments to marriage;
   7.  Adaptation of the fasting ordinances;
   8.  Relations of the Orthodox Churches with the whole Christian World;
   9.  The Orthodoxy and the ecumenical movement;
   10.  Contributions of the local Orthodox Churches to the promotion of the Christian ideals of peace, freedom, brotherhood and love among peoples, and elimination of racial discrimination.

Nevertheless, His Holiness noted that consensus hasn’t been reached on some themes during the meetings of the Commission for the Preparation of the Holy and Great Synod, thus asking whether the 8 themes that were validated at a Pan-Orthodox level are sufficient for the agenda of the Synod, or is it necessary to postpone the convocation of the Synod until the pan-Orthodox unanimity will be reached upon all the other themes (autocephaly, diptychs, impediments to marriage and common calendar).

The Holy and Great Synod is of direct and vital interest both for the Orthodox lay faithful, clergy and monastics, and for the rest of the Christian world

Emphasizing the fact that “the Holy and Great Synod is of direct and vital interest both for the Orthodox lay faithful, clergy and monastics, and for the rest of the Christian world”, His Holiness added that several other persons should attend to the works of the Holy and Great Synod as observers: both clergy, monastics and lay faithful of the Orthodox Church, and those of other Christian Churches or Confessions, found in dialogue with the Orthodox Church. The Ecumenical Patriarch offered as an example the fact that at the works of the Second Vatican Council, the Orthodox Church delegated persons as observers to attend the Council.

Referring to the fact that even before the meeting of the Holy and Great Synod, some “fighters for Orthodoxy” call it a robber council, the Ecumenical Patriarch asks what kind of authority will its decisions have, and which are going to be the canonical consequences in case of disobeying these decisions.

The Patriarch of Constantinople also spoke about the significance of the words consensus and unanimity. Furthermore, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew emphasized the fact that “if a synod meets under the threat of its dissolution, it had better not taken place” and referred to some Ecumenical Synods that met even when some local Churches were absent.

His Holiness addressed to other practical details: the duration of the Holy and Great Synod, and the establishment of a common secretariat of the Synod. The Ecumenical Patriarch proposed that the Pan-Orthodox Synod should be carried out for at least two weeks, and its works should be accompanied by religious manifestations.

“Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Corinthians 13: 11) were the biblical words with which His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew concluded his speech.

Source.

My Travel Adventures Continue

So I made it to Binghamton very late on Monday night after driving through a wicked lake effect snow storm that started in Cleveland and did not abate until I was just west of Elmira. Most of the way I was averaging 25mph in 70mph speed zones.

Some routine business took up most of Tuesday and I spent yesterday visiting with family while eyeing the weather forecast. Although I had hoped to be on the road back to Florida today, it now looks like I will be sitting here through Saturday. My projected driving route runs right down the East Coast/I-95 corridor, which is, of course, about to get blasted with a once every 5-10 years blizzard in the Middle Atlantic states.

Washington DC, which was paralyzed yesterday and last night by an inch of snow, is expecting between 12 and 30+ inches over the next few days.

Thanks, but I will pass.

People in Ohio and New York understand winter weather, know how to drive when you can't see asphalt through all the snow and slush, and the roads are serviced by a fleet of snow plows and salt/sand trucks. Once you get south of Pennsylvania all of that goes away.

So yeah. I am going to wait until Sunday before even thinking of heading south. Why do I feel like the star of "Escape from New York II?"

Russians Celebrating Theophany

Russians taking the traditional ice water dip on Theophany.

The Slippery Slope of Nullification

“The big deal is simply this: once you allow the government to start breaking the law, no matter how seemingly justifiable the reason, you relinquish the contract between you and the government which establishes that the government works for and obeys you, the citizen—the employer—the master." John Whitehead.

Nullification is a constitutional theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. Under this theory, States may reject, or nullify, federal laws that the States believe are beyond the federal government's constitutional powers. Under the theory of nullification, in the 1800s, states attempted to ignore Federal legislation ranging from the Alien & Sedition Acts to certain federal tariffs to the Fugitive Slave Act. The theory has never been legally upheld by federal courts.

Andrew Jackson spoke to the concept of nullification: "Nullification means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down." President Jackson never anticipated nullification on a macro basis or nullification on other than constitutional grounds. He never anticipated blatant acts of nullification by the White House, states, cities and now, universities. Universities appear to be both emboldened and encouraged by the Federal government to act as small monarchies with respect to federal and state law and to participate in the act of nullification with respect to discrimination in housing and hiring along with implementing the standard of a preponderance of evidence with respect to alleged sexual issues.

Where does nullification by government and governmental entities lead? It leads to nullification by our institutions and ultimately, perhaps to nullification in everyday life by everyday folk, the classic slippery slope. (Note the Oregon militia taking over a federal building – This is a non-governmental act of nullification.)

Nullification from the White House is easily documented whether it be actions with respect to the release of prisoners from Guantanamo, waivers under the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, or the lack of any serious attempt to protect the borders of the United States of America. Acceptance of nullification by the federal government with respect to states and cities can be seen in the federal government's refusal to direct actions against states and cities that flaunt Federal laws on drugs and/or immigration.

This leads to the slippery slope of nullification. If the Federal government can nullify, if the states can nullify, if the cities can nullify, why not other institutions such as our universities? Why cannot our universities practice segregation via ignoring the Federal Housing Act of 1968, discriminate in hiring by requiring specific racial makeup for employment, and/or severely limiting free speech? Where does nullification ultimately stop? Note every university in the country is under pressure by the federal government's Department of Education to adopt a “preponderance of the evidence" standard in terms of subjecting a life changing expulsion from the university for no more than the reasonable possibility of sexual misconduct.

At one of the fine academic institutions in the world, in early 2015, the Black Student Union demanded (1) hiring specifically Black employees for specific roles and (2) "the creation of a Black Scholar's Hall with a dedicated Housing Assistant to house first year Black students by reserving two floors in the new ............ for such purposes". These demands appear both to being accepted and being implemented by the administration at this university. (Note that neither a respectful letter requesting amplification of the ability of this university to move forward with their housing plan under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 did not result in any response nor did an e-mail request for information regarding current housing demographics. Is there de-facto housing segregation in place today?)

The requests by the Black Student Union and apparent actions by this university appear to be a nullification of federal and state laws with respect to discrimination as to fair housing and hiring statutes. While intellectually not relevant to the discussion, this university is not exactly the University of Alabama in June, 1963 with George Wallace trying to block black admissions. The University is located in a city regularly considered one of the safest cities in America; College Data reports that their student population is almost 50% Asian, almost 30% Hispanic/Latino, less than 20% Caucasian and about 2% Black.

Universities, with the federal and/or state governments as their accomplice or leader, are becoming the worst of the nullifiers. Beyond what is discussed above, nullification at the university level often results in severe limitations to free speech, limitations to reasonable justice and difficult as it is to believe in 2016, segregation.

Universities around the United States with some uniformity are now crippling the concept of free speech. Universities are changing curriculum to avoid triggering events. To be “triggered” means to have a feeling, an immediate sensation of repulsion culminating in aggrievement. Imagine trying to teach virtually anything and simultaneously being concerned about a “triggering event”. (This apparently limits history to discussions about soil cultivation over the centuries.) Universities are creating “safe zones” to prevent free speech among those who might be offended by free speech (or more likely, ideas with which they disagree). If universities limit free speech…………………

Where is the solution? It may rest with exactly the wrong people in the federal government and in many states. It is time for the Attorney General of the United States and the attorneys general in every state to wake up and do their jobs. Laws need to be enforced. The Constitution needs protection.

Source

Theophany 1916

Czar St.Nicholas II attending Theophany services with the troops.

Back (sort of) and a generally tough day

I have been at St. Sabbas monastery in Michigan for the last several days and thus somewhat out of communication. However my travels are likely to continue for at least the rest of the week. I appreciate the comments on the two preceding posts, and will try to respond in due course.

Betrayed by technology...

I departed the monastery early this afternoon hoping to make it to my next destination, Binghamton NY, before stopping for the night. I told my GPS where I wanted to go and it gave me directions which I followed though they seemed a bit odd. I assumed it knew what it was doing and maybe it was giving me a shortcut. About an hour and a half later I notice a giant sign announcing "Last Exit Before Canada!"

I will refrain from quoting my immediate reaction; we can just say it was colorful and leave it at that.

...and then my car...

None too happy I turn around and tell my now somewhat suspect electronic guide to take me to Toledo Ohio from which I figure I can point myself east. Irritated at the loss of driving time I decide to grab a very quick bite and pull off looking for fast food. Just a couple of blocks from the interstate is a BK where I get a tolerable meal. But no sooner do I start driving again then I realize I now have a flat tire!

Thank God for AAA.

It's about twelve degrees outside before the brutal windchill gets factored in and if I had to change the tire in this weather I would have just checked into a hotel and waited until spring. But AAA came through, just about the only thing that went right today.

In a half an hour give or take the guy showed up and soon the flat is in the trunk and the annoying little emergency doughnut tire is on the car.

...and then the Sabbath

As most of you will be aware, those little emergency spares are not intended for long distance driving. Thus my first priority is to get the flat actually fixed or the tire replaced as necessary.

Alas; it's Sunday and almost five in the afternoon. Incredibly it appears that in Michigan some people, or at least car mechanics, like to take Sundays off! So here I am, actually farther from my next stop then I was when I started and I am pretty much hunkered down for the night in a blessedly warm hotel room. I have an appointment for 930am to get the tire fixed. All that remains is the hope for a decent supper, and maybe a stiff bourbon before bed.

A highly suspicious news story (bogus Orthodox bishop?)

St. Rocco’s Church in Pittston reopens as St. Irene Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

PITTSTON — After being vacant for more than three years, the former St. Rocco’s Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Tompkins and West Oak streets has reopened its doors as St. Irene Russian Orthodox Outside Church of Russia.

The church plans to open more doors in the community by purchasing homes in the Greater Pittston area for parishioners in need.

Leader of the church Bishop Ramzi R. Musallam, whose orthodox name is Bishop Elias, wants the new church to have a positive impact on the community, which includes a program that provides housing in apartments and single family homes for those in need.

Read the rest at the linked site.

This so called bishop has no connection  with ROCOR and I seriously doubt he is even Orthodox. His background is pretty murky but as far as I can tell he is some kind of Catholic episcopus vagans. Why he is claiming to be affiliated with the Russian Church Abroad is a question I would like to hear an answer to.

In the meantime, see this old post.

When "Orthodox" is Not

Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, I have voted Republican in every presidential election since I first became eligible to vote in 1980. I worked in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations and in the White House for George W. Bush as a speechwriter and adviser. I have also worked for Republican presidential campaigns, although not this time around.

Despite this history, and in important ways because of it, I will not vote for Donald Trump if he wins the Republican nomination.

I should add that neither could I vote in good conscience for Hillary Clinton or any of the other Democrats running for president, since they oppose many of the things I have stood for in my career as a conservative — and, in the case of Mrs. Clinton, because I consider her an ethical wreck. If Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton were the Republican and Democratic nominees, I would prefer to vote for a responsible third-party alternative; absent that option, I would simply not cast a ballot for president. A lot of Republicans, I suspect, would do the same.

Read the rest here. 

I am not sure I have ever been able to say this about an op-ed in the New York Times but there is a first time for everything... 

I agree with every single word of this piece. Were it possible, I would add my signature to it.

Ross Douthat: A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism

 Let’s begin with a story. It’s one I’ve heard many times; it’s one I’ve told more than a few times myself. It’s a story about the Catholic Church in the second half of the twentieth century, and it goes something like this.

Once, fifty years ago, there was an ecumenical council of the Church. Its goal was to reorient Catholicism away from its nineteenth-century fortress mentality, to open a new dialogue with the modern world, to look more deeply into the Catholic past in order to prepare for the Catholic future, and to usher in an era of evangelization and renewal.

This was not intended to be a revolutionary council, and nothing in its deliberations, documents, and reforms was meant to rewrite doctrine or Protestantize the faith. But the council’s sessions coincided with an era of social upheaval and cultural revolution in the West, and the hoped-for renewal was hijacked, in many cases, by those for whom renewal meant an accommodation to the spirit of the 1960s, and the transformation of the Church along liberal Protestant lines.

Soon, two parties developed: One followed the actual documents of the council and urged the Church to maintain continuity with Catholic teaching and tradition, and the other was loyal to a “spirit of the council” that just happened to coincide with the cultural fashions that came in its wake.

The second party had its way in many Catholic institutions—seminaries and religious orders, Catholic universities and diocesan bureaucracies—for many years. The results were at best disappointing, at worst disastrous: collapsing Mass attendance, vanishing vocations, a swift erosion of Catholic identity everywhere you looked...

Read the rest here.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reflects on the question of British secession from the EU

...David Cameron did not, of course, know that the world was about to turn nasty when he first set the EU referendum in motion in early 2013, but critics are clearly right that this is a terrible time for Britain to throw a tantrum.

Even so, it is a stretch to argue that Britons should forgo their one chance to restore full parliamentary control over their laws, courts and borders, given that this referendum is surely the only chance they have to issue their verdict on 40 years of EU conduct. Alea iacta est.

Read the rest here.

Traveling again

I will be traveling for at least the next week. During this time there will be limited or no posting.

P.S. OK so I can't type.

General Warns: Military Will Face 'Great Pressure' to Lower Standards for Women in Combat to Please ‘Agenda-Driven’ in D.C.

(CNSNews.com) - Marine Gen. John Kelly, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, said at a Pentagon press briefing on Friday that he believes that future generals will face “great pressure” to lower the standards for women in combat in order to get more women into combat roles.

“My greatest fear---and we see this happen a lot over the 45 years I've been in the Armed Forces--is right now they're saying we are not going to change any standards,” said Kelly. “There will be great pressure, whether it's 12 months from now, four years from now, because the question will be asked whether we've let women into these other roles, why aren't they staying in those other roles?

“Why aren't they advancing as infantry people—persons--I guess? Why aren't they becoming, you know, more senior?” he said. “And the answer is--I think will be--if we don't change standards, it will be very, very difficult to have any numbers, any real numbers, come into the infantry, or the Rangers or the Seals, but that's their business.”

“So,” said Kelly, “I think it will be the pressure for not probably the generals that are here now, but for the generals to come, and admirals, to lower standards because that's the only way it'll work in the way that I hear some people, particularly, the agenda-driven people here in Washington--or in the land--the way they want it to work.

Read the rest here.

"Denzinger Bergolio: Suprising Contributions by Francis to the Magisterium" (Wow!)

A few minutes after eight o’clock in the evening, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica announcing to the world the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. A few weeks before, Benedict XVI had surprised everyone with his sudden resignation from the office as Bishop of Rome, Successor of St. Peter. This happening was as unexpected as “a lightening bolt in a clear sky”, as Cardinal Angelo Sodano commented in his address to the renouncing Pope directly following the shocking news.

The first appearance of the new Vicar of Christ was sufficient for all to perceive that a new era had begun, characterized by his unusual way of living and projecting the papacy. Ever since the first day of his pontificate, Francis surprised everyone by his words, as well as his gestures. This change — which some perceived as a positive breath of fresh air in the ecclesiastical circles, supposedly lacking during the last months of Benedict XVI’s reign — quickly went from perplexity to concern, then to blatant disorientation for many who perceived that the most undeniable Catholic truths were being questioned, both from within and without.

The audacity of his gestures — which some see as calculated with ominous goals — together with an ambiguous and confused way of transmitting doctrine, in contrast with the crystalline Magisterium of the previous popes, has raised concern among many sheep of the Lord’s flock. Who is Francis? What is his goal? The fervent, or even hysterical applause of those who in previous pontificates attacked the Church for its fidelity to the Truth of Christ, was coupled with an impression that something new was being transmitted. Soon an abundance of news items tried to give the faithful the idea that the Vicar of Christ would soon be applying radical changes to the deposit of the Faith, to its moral precepts and to the already bi-milennary pastoral practice … In response to the turmoil, there were only perplexing words for the faithful — not to mention directives with a ambiguous connotation that few could really understand — coupled with smiles, hugs, and gestures of approval for those who had attacked the Church earlier. Disorientation, perplexity, indignation, scruples, worries and desperation…. the faithful reacted in the most varied manners with regards to the situation created by “Hurricane Francis”.

Faced with this state of affairs, the shepherds in contact with the ‘little flock’ had to struggle to clear up the doubts of their sheep in the midst of such chaos. With this objective, there was no better recourse than the most secure source, the Magisterium of the Church. Consequently, the “Denzinger-Bergoglio” was born, bringing together a group of acquaintances — Spanish priests, who were undergoing the same difficulties, and who shared the same concerns. With the blessings of the Lord, we admit that our network of friends has grown more than we ever imagined. Amongst these are an ever-growing group of English speaking clerics – that started out from an initial core of US priests – who are behind the English DzB.

After several months, we have reached a centenary, with one hundred studies analyzing diverse affirmations of Francis, in contrast with the two thousand years of Church teaching; from the Sacred Scriptures to a total of 54 popes, 10 Councils, 25 Fathers of the Church, 15 Doctors and several fundamental Church texts, as well as the pronouncements of Roman Congregations, the Episcopal Magisterium, and various Saints.

We would like to thank our many readers and followers, as well as those who have helped us by sending documentation with less divulged affirmations of Francis, or priceless videos which are difficult to find, all of which has been useful for the consolidation of our theses. We wish to greet the many priests from around the world who belong to our network, and those who have sent words of encouragement and prayers.

So much has occurred since March 13, 2013… And we are already on the way to a second ‘centenary’….But as you can imagine, this is a slow and painstaking task. However, given the volume of our studies, and to facilitate apologetic research, we would like to commemorate the hundredth post of the “Denzinger-Bergoglio_EN” with a compilation of the studies in PDF format. Once again we especially request your collaboration, with the most valuable assistance — your prayers, but also by the promulgation of this digital book. Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam!

Read the entire work in PDF here.

Source.

Texas governor joins Marco Rubio in call for new constitutional convention

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday revealed his plans for a "convention of the states," the first in more than 200 years, as part of a larger effort to reshape the U.S. Constitution and expand states' rights.

"We are succumbing to the caprice of man that our Founders fought to escape," Abbott said in a statement followed by a speech at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. "The cure to these problems will not come from Washington, D.C. Instead, the states must lead the way."

Abbott, despite deep ties to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, has yet to endorse a candidate in the GOP's 2016 presidential primary race, but he might now have some common cause with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who in scattered comments over the past month and then more explicitly in a USA Today op-ed on Wednesday, proposed a constitutional convention as a means of "reduc(ing) the size and scope of the federal government."

Read the rest here.

Church of England fears gay rights talks could end global Anglican communion

The Church of England is braced for a de facto split in the worldwide Anglican communion next week over the issues of gay rights and same-sex marriage. Church leaders from six African countries are expected to walk out of a pivotal summit called by the archbishop of Canterbury.

Bitter divisions among Anglicans on the issue of sexuality are expected to intensify at the week-long meeting of the 38 leaders of national churches at Canterbury cathedral. Archbishops from conservative churches in Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Rwanda and Congo are likely to walk out of the summit within a day or two of its opening on Monday.

“There’s going to be a lot of drama,” said a senior C of E source. “It’s 90% likely that the six will walk out. If we get past Tuesday, we’ll be doing well.”

The meeting of Anglican primates was called by Justin Welby in a last-ditch effort to move the global church – which claims 85 million followers – beyond the issue of homosexuality in order to focus on other pressing matters such as religious violence and climate change. Welby is proposing that, in the face of intractable differences, the communion reshapes itself as a loose confederation of churches rather than adherents to a common doctrine.

But the six African churches are insisting on sanctions against the US Episcopal Church, which tipped the simmering conflict over gay rights into open hostility when it consecrated gay priest Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003.

Read the rest here.

Full Christmas Liturgy

Christmas liturgy from Christ the Savior Cathedral.

Christmas Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

BEHOLD a new and wondrous mystery.

My ears resound to the Shepherd’s song, piping no soft melody, but chanting full forth a heavenly hymn. The Angels sing. The Archangels blend their voice in harmony. The Cherubim hymn their joyful praise. The Seraphim exalt His glory. All join to praise this holy feast, beholding the Godhead here on earth, and man in heaven. He Who is above, now for our redemption dwells here below; and he that was lowly is by divine mercy raised.

Bethlehem this day resembles heaven; hearing from the stars the singing of angelic voices; and in place of the sun, enfolds within itself on every side, the Sun of justice. And ask not how: for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed; He had the power; He descended; He redeemed; all things yielded in obedience to God. This day He Who is, is Born; and He Who is, becomes what He was not. For when He was God, He became man; yet not departing from the Godhead that is His. Nor yet by any loss of divinity became He man, nor through increase became He God from man; but being the Word He became flesh, His nature, because of impassability, remaining unchanged.

And so the kings have come, and they have seen the heavenly King that has come upon the earth, not bringing with Him Angels, nor Archangels, nor Thrones, nor Dominations, nor Powers, nor Principalities, but, treading a new and solitary path, He has come forth from a spotless womb.

Since this heavenly birth cannot be described, neither does His coming amongst us in these days permit of too curious scrutiny. Though I know that a Virgin this day gave birth, and I believe that God was begotten before all time, yet the manner of this generation I have learned to venerate in silence and I accept that this is not to be probed too curiously with wordy speech.

For with God we look not for the order of nature, but rest our faith in the power of Him who works.

What shall I say to you; what shall I tell you? I behold a Mother who has brought forth; I see a Child come to this light by birth. The manner of His conception I cannot comprehend.

Nature here rested, while the Will of God labored. O ineffable grace! The Only Begotten, Who is before all ages, Who cannot be touched or be perceived, Who is simple, without body, has now put on my body, that is visible and liable to corruption. For what reason? That coming amongst us he may teach us, and teaching, lead us by the hand to the things that men cannot see. For since men believe that the eyes are more trustworthy than the ears, they doubt of that which they do not see, and so He has deigned to show Himself in bodily presence, that He may remove all doubt.

Christ, finding the holy body and soul of the Virgin, builds for Himself a living temple, and as He had willed, formed there a man from the Virgin; and, putting Him on, this day came forth; unashamed of the lowliness of our nature.

For it was to Him no lowering to put on what He Himself had made. Let that handiwork be forever glorified, which became the cloak of its own Creator. For as in the first creation of flesh, man could not be made before the clay had come into His hand, so neither could this corruptible body be glorified, until it had first become the garment of its Maker.

What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.

For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit that He may save me.

Come, then, let us observe the Feast. Truly wondrous is the whole chronicle of the Nativity. For this day the ancient slavery is ended, the devil confounded, the demons take to flight, the power of death is broken, paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed from us, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused, and spreads on every side, a heavenly way of life has been ¡in planted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and men now hold speech with angels.

Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle. He became Flesh. He did not become God. He was God. Wherefore He became flesh, so that He Whom heaven did not contain, a manger would this day receive. He was placed in a manger, so that He, by whom all things are nourished, may receive an infants food from His Virgin Mother. So, the Father of all ages, as an infant at the breast, nestles in the virginal arms, that the Magi may more easily see Him. Since this day the Magi too have come, and made a beginning of withstanding tyranny; and the heavens give glory, as the Lord is revealed by a star.

To Him, then, Who out of confusion has wrought a clear path, to Christ, to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit, we offer all praise, now and forever. Amen.

St. John Chrysostom

German women report string of sexual assaults by 'Arab and North African men'

 Police in Germany are investigating an alarming series of sexual assaults on women trying to celebrate the New Year by large groups of single men “of Arab or North African appearance”.

Authorities in the city of Cologne are to hold a crisis meeting on Tuesday after police described a group of some 1,000 men who took over the area around the main station on New Year’s Eve.

Women were robbed, groped, and had their underwear torn from their bodies, while couples had fireworks thrown at them.

Police have received 90 criminal complaints, around a quarter of them for sexual assault, including one case of rape.

Police in Hamburg say there was a series of similar incidents in the city’s Reeperbahn red-light area. Witnesses described groups of five to 15 men of who “hunted” women in the streets.

In Cologne, the attacks took place around the main station, opposite the cathedral, a traditional gathering spot to see in the New Year. 

Read the rest here.

Take a look at The Young Fogey's car

Friend of the blog The Young Fogey has posted photos of his very cool auto. We may disagree on religion and his predilection for conspiracy theories, but we are both cultural and social reactionaries trapped in the wrong time.

You may color me green with envy.

Happy New Year

May you and yours enjoy a blessed and happy new year. And please let the new year be a better one than the last.

Is Charlie Sheen in Russia?

A man in Russia’s Far East woke up in the morgue after having been declared dead, local media report. Before the incident, he had been doing vodka rounds with friends – and after the “miraculous awakening,” he went back to the party
 
The man who was mistakenly taken for dead passed out after drinking too much, local Khasanskiye Vesti newspaper reported Wednesday. However, it is not clear when exactly the incident took place. Khasanky Region is a coastal area in Russia’s Far East, which is home to some 35,000 people scattered over the territory of 4,100 square kilometers.

His friends called an ambulance and medical staff hastily declared the man dead before taking him to the morgue, according to the daily. However, the man eventually came back to his senses (somewhat) – only to find himself in a mortuary freezer.

“That night the local morgue was filled to its capacity, the bodies were not only on the shelves, but also on the floor of the freezer room, where our ‘dead’ hero was allocated,” Aleksey Stoyev, a police spokesman, told the newspaper.

“At some point, the man woke up, failing to understand where he was. It was very dark and cold. In addition his brain was foggy due to the influence of alcohol. In the darkness, he felt someone’s completely cold limbs and in fear rushed to the door. But it was locked.”

He started screaming for help and pounding on the door. His calls drew the attention of the morgue’s guard, who reported the situation to the doctors. The latter thought that the guard was imagining things, according to the local report. Nonetheless, out of cautiousness the doctors called police.

Opening the door police were met by the ‘resurrected’ man who in panic ran out of the room, according to the department of criminal investigations. Police questioned the man and released him.

Returning to the place of the party, he found his friends were still drinking, but this time commemorating him. The person who opened the door was so shocked that he fainted, Khasanskiye Vesti says. The commemoration ceremony was quickly revamped into a re-birthday party.

Source.

On this day in 1759...

Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing beer. The rest is history.

The world's political and economic order is stronger than it looks

Stefan Zweig tells us in The World of Yesterday what it feels like when the wheels really do come off the global system

Readers have scolded me gently for too much optimism over the past year, wondering why I refuse to see that the world economy is in dire trouble and that the international order is coming apart at the seams.

So for Christmas reading I have retreated to the "World of Yesterday", the poignant account of Europe's civilisational suicide in the early 20th century by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig - the top-selling author of the inter-war years.

From there it is a natural progression to Zweig's equally poignant biography of Erasmus, who saw his own tolerant Latin civilization smothered by fanatics four centuries earlier.

Zweig's description of Europe in the years leading up to 1914 is intoxicating. Everything seemed to be getting better: wealth was spreading, people were healthier, women were breaking free.

 He could travel anywhere without a passport, received with open arms in Paris, Milan or Stockholm by a fraternity of writers and artists. It was a cheerful, peaceful world that seemed almost untainted by tribal animosities.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven

In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: "You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don't believe and who don't seek the faith. I start by saying - and this is the fundamental thing - that God's mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

"Sin, even for those who have no faith, exists when people disobey their conscience."

Read the rest here.

Christ is born!

Limited Posting

As we enter the final week of the Nativity Fast there will be limited or no posting until after Christmas.

Metropolitan Hilarion celebrates Old Rite Liturgy at the Moscow Church of the Protecting Veil in Rubtsovo

On December 13, 2015, the 28th Sunday after Pentecost and the commemoration day of St. Andrew-the-First-Called, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR) and chairman of the Commission on Old Believer parishes and cooperation with the Old Believer community, celebrated Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Protecting Veil in Rubtsovo, at which the Patriarchal Center of the Old Russian Liturgical Tradition operates.

Concelebrating at the Liturgy according to the Old Rite were Archimandrite Irinarkh (Denisov), rector of the Common Faith church in the Mikhailovskaya Sloboda village, Moscow region; Igumen Kirill (Sakharov), rector of the St. Nicholas church on Bersenevka; Archpriest Georgy Krylov, rector of the church of the New Martyrs of Russia in Strogino and head of the Assumption deanery in Moscow; Archpriest Ioann Mirolyubov, head of the Patriarchal Center of the Old Russian Liturgical Tradition, a cleric of the church of the Protecting Veil in Rubtsovo and secretary of the Commission on Old Believer parishes and cooperation with the Old Believer community; Revd. Mikhail Zheltov, head of the chair of church practice sciences of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius Theological Institute of Post-Graduate Studies; Revd. Yevgeny Sarancha, a cleric of the Common Faith church in the Mikhailovskaya Sloboda village; Hieromonk Sergy (Gaponov), rector of the Common Faith church in the Maloye Murashkino village in the Nizhny Novgorod region; and clerics of the parish.

Attending the Liturgy were Vladimir Yakunin, a founder of the St. Gregory the Theologian Charity Foundation, and Leonid Sevastianov, executive director of the Foundation and member of the Supervisory Board of the Patriarchal Center of the Old Russian Liturgical Tradition.

After the Litany of Fervent Supplication Metropolitan Hilarion lifted up a prayer for peace in Ukraine and addressed the worshippers, telling them in detail about the life and ministry of St. Andrew-the-First-Called, including the story of his apostolic mission in our land. St. Andrew was "the first baptizer of the Russian people even before St. Vladimir. It was St. Andrew who sowed the seeds of Christian preaching that later bore abundant and blessed fruits," Metropolitan Hilarion said and congratulated all reverend fathers, brothers and sisters on the feast and wished them St. Andrew’s aid in their labors.

Source

Uggh

More craziness from the German Catholic Church.

Women in combat will put men at greater risk

Crickets.

This was the sound of the United States reacting to news this month that all military positions, including ground combat, will be opened to women.
 

It is axiomatic that the White House, and not just this one, makes controversial announcements when people are otherwise distracted. Usually, this means late Friday afternoons when there isn’t much time for the media to make trouble. This particular announcement came on a Thursday, the day after two vicious killers opened fire on a holiday party in San Bernardino, Calif. 

Ever since, all eyes have been on the assault and aftermath, as well as the antics of Donald Trump, while the notion of women in combat faded from the nation’s peripheral vision.

Arguments against this move are many, some of which I touched upon in a previous column that focused on women’s unequal opportunity to survive because of various physical differences. This time, I submit another crucially important but politically incorrect proposition: Men’s lives will also be put at greater risk if women are in combat.

The reasoning should be obvious. Plainly put, men tend to like women quite a lot and either will be tempted to express their attraction, and/or will want to protect their female companions.

Scoff if you must, but blame Nature.

Any combat veteran will tell you that unit cohesion is everything in battle. Common sense tells us that putting young men and women in the prime of their sexual lives together in the field, where the possibility of death is potentially imminent, is a potential — and unnecessary — gamble on unit cohesion. There is, after all, nothing like a funeral to remind the living of their mortal imperative.

Sexual tension is a most delightful distraction in civilian life. But in close quarters, where men likely would vastly outnumber the few women who qualify for combat, other human emotions — envy, jealousy and resentment — enter into a fray that’s already complicated enough.

Read the rest here.

Catholic Priest Receives & Distributes Episcopal Communion

Details at One Peter 5.

GOP preparing for contested convention

Republican officials and leading figures in the party’s establishment are preparing for the possibility of a brokered convention as businessman Donald Trump continues to sit atop the polls in the GOP presidential race.

More than 20 of them convened Monday near the Capitol for a dinner held by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, and the prospect of Trump nearing next year’s nominating convention in Cleveland with a significant number of delegates dominated the discussion, according to five people familiar with the meeting.

Weighing in on that scenario as Priebus and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) listened, several longtime Republican power brokers argued that if the controversial billionaire storms through the primaries, the party’s establishment must lay the groundwork for a floor fight in which the GOP’s mainstream wing could coalesce around an alternative, the people said.

The development represents a major shift for veteran Republican strategists, who until this month had spoken of a brokered convention only in the most hypothetical terms — and had tried to encourage a drama-free nomination by limiting debates and setting an earlier convention date.

Now, those same leaders see a floor fight as a real possibility. And so does Trump, who said in an interview last week that he, too, is preparing.

Read the rest here.

See also "What happens if Republicans have a brokered convention?"

Fundamentalist Protestants Disrupt Catholic Mass

Sandro Magister: The next synod will be on married priests

ROME, December 9, 2015 - While waiting for Pope Francis to rule on communion for the divorced and remarried, which two synods discussed and split over, there is already a glimpse of the theme of the next synodal session: married priests.

The selection of the theme is up to the pope, as happened with the past synods and will take place with the next, independently of what will be proposed by the fourteen cardinals and bishops of the council that acts as a bridge between one assembly and the next.

And that married priests will be the next topic of synodal discussion can be gathered from various indications.

Read the rest here.

Venezuela Ran out of Other People’s Money

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money to spend." -Margaret Thatcher

Venezuelans rejected socialism. They’ve run out of other people’s money; the long lines to buy basic food and toilet paper did not help either. The mainstream media has glossed over this massive defeat of President Nicolas Maduro’s socialism.  In a great St. Nick gift, his opposition took back control of the National Assembly in a landslide election on December 6, 2015

According to the National Electoral Council, the Democratic Unity coalition won 99 of the 167 seats in the National Assembly, a legislative majority, while the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela won 46 seats.  If the opposition wins 13 of the 22 remaining races, it will gain a two-thirds supermajority, possibly running a referendum to get rid of Maduro before his term expires in 2019. A simple majority could amnesty all political prisoners.
 
Of the 19 million registered voters, 74 percent showed up to cast their ballots, a huge turnout, a sign that people have grown weary and tired of sixteen years of Hugo Chavez style socialism that brought Venezuela to the brink of destruction.

Read the rest here.

Supreme Court Asks Who is to be Counted in 'One Man One Vote'

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a voting rights case that has the potential to shift political power from urban areas to rural ones, a move that would provide a big boost to Republican voters in many parts of the nation.

The case, Evenwel v. Abbott, No. 14-940, will address a question many thought had been settled long ago: What is the meaning of the principle of “one person, one vote”?

The principle, rooted in cases from the 1960s that revolutionized democratic representation in the United States, applies to the entire American political system aside from the Senate, where voters from states with small populations have vastly more voting power than those with large ones. Everywhere else, voting districts must have very close to the same populations.

But the Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on who must be counted: all residents or just eligible voters?

The difference matters, because people who are not eligible to vote — children, immigrants here legally who are not citizens, unauthorized immigrants, people disenfranchised for committing felonies, prisoners — are not spread evenly across the country. With the exception of prisoners, they tend to be concentrated in urban areas.

Their presence amplifies the voting power of people eligible to vote in urban areas, usually helping Democrats. Rural areas that lean Republican, by contrast, usually have higher percentages of residents eligible to vote.

Read the rest here.

Memory Eternal

Calls to refer to God as a woman as female bishops take up posts (Anglicanism)

It's from May, but certainly still in the works.

HT: Costly Grace

150 Years Ago Today

Slavery in the United States is abolished following the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

Emory: Faculty Thoughtcrime Tribunals

A group of black student protesters at Emory University in Atlanta issued a hysterical list of strident “demands” — their word — to the university administration, and demanded that they respond by December 4, or else. You know the drill: race radicals say “jump,” university administrators say “how high?” I have posted the students’ entire list of demands below, as well as the university’s full response. Both are extraordinary documents that deserve full reading. The students’ demands are mostly a wish list written by spoiled brats, and the university’s response is a capitulation to them.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

American universities have long been notorious for their liberal bias. But they are now rapidly evolving into bastions of radical left wing bigotry. Forget the free exchange of ideas, freedom of speech itself has been all but abolished on many campuses. Anyone failing to kowtow to the orthodoxy of the race/thought police can expect no quarter from the red guards of the modern day Cultural Revolution sweeping across the landscape of higher education.

Unconfirmed Reports: Two kidnapped bishops are dead.

I have long suspected it. If they were not, we would have gotten some kind of demand or evidence of their being alive.

Details.
HT: Blog reader JL

Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple

From Optina Monastery.

Peter Hitchens: Reflection on the British war debate

Robert E. Lee probably didn’t say ‘It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it’. But his great opponent, William Tecumseh Sherman, almost certainly did say: ’I am tired and sick of fighting –its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands and fathers. It is only those who have never heard a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded and lacerated … that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.’

And a few years afterwards, to graduates of Michigan military academy: ‘I’ve been where you are now and I know just how you feel. It’s entirely natural that there should beat in the breast of every one of you a hope and desire that some day you can use the skill you have acquired here.

'Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!’

Sherman prosecuted war with merciless vigour and is nobody’s idea of a pacifist. I suspect him of believing (as Prussia’s elite military corps did) that the only mercy in war is a swift victory by one side or the other , an unpleasant truth especially hard to stomach if yours is the side that loses.

Almost all the people I have met who knew about war held opinions similar to Sherman’s.  As a small boy, rather in love with war and its alleged glory,  and as a callow youth, amoral about violence in what I thought was a good cause, I thought them soppy and foolish. And when, without meaning to , I blundered into the edges of a couple of war zones, and heard live firing for the first time, and saw corpses after bullets had passed through them, and dirty, overcrowded hospital wards full of wounded men, and buildings which had been hit by modern munitions,  I very much took that view myself.  I am not a pacifist. I believe war is sometimes necessary, mainly in self-defence - and I absolutely support the training and maintenance of strong and usable armed forces.

But if I by some chance I were an MP, and if I were asked to support a warlike policy, I would need to hear arguments far better than those advanced in Parliament yesterday.  I am amazed at the strange enthusiasm which war still seems to produce in so many adults. I think it immature and naive.  I suppose I must just be very lucky to have known the people I knew, and seen the things I have seen.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

An excellent read.

Memory Eternal

The Archpriest Gabriel (Seamore) has reposed after a long struggle with various illnesses. I knew him as a deacon when he served at the parish through which I entered the Church. He was a good friend to myself and my Godfather William of blessed memory. Most recently he was pastor emeritus of St. George the Great Martyr parish in Hesperia CA. 

May his memory be eternal!

Archimandrite Cleopa (Ilie): The Veneration of the Theotokos According to the Bible

We Orthodox Christians honor the Theotokos Mary more than all the saints and angels of heaven for she was found worthy to give birth to Christ, the Savior of the world by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. The honor we render to the Mother of the Lord is exceptional, most honorable and most revered, for she is not only "a friend of His,” as are the other saints, but she is Most Holy (Panagia) above all the saints and all the angels.

For this the angels as much as people venerate and honor her with prayers, hymns, church services and eulogies. Similarly the Archangel Gabriel greeted her at the annunciation (Luke 1:28-29) as well as Saint Elizabeth, the mother of Saint John the Baptist (Luke 1:40-43).

The Most Holy Virgin herself prophesied through the Holy Spirit For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed; for He that is mighty has done to me great things (Luke 1:48-49). From these words we understand that the exceptional honor accorded to the Mother of the Lord is intentional and appointed by God Himself. This exceptional honor that is accorded by the Orthodox Church to the Ever-Virgin Mary forms the veneration of the Mother of the Lord.

In the framework of the veneration of the Most Holy Theotokos, we must firstly mention the great feasts of the Mother of God, which are: The Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Entry, the Annunciation, and the Dormition of the Theotokos. Then the services celebrated in the churches and the monasteries in her honor, the salutations, the canons of supplications, the hagiographic icons decorated so beautifully, especially the miraculous ones, and many other prayers through which we ask the help of the Mother of the Lord every day of our lives.

We honor the Mother of God because she is the mother who gave birth to the Son of God and the first one who intercedes for the world in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity. She helps us much more in the conquest of salvation by her holy prayers.

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis calls for full communion wiith Orthodox

In a message to the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Pope Francis wrote that “there is no longer any impediment to Eucharistic communion which cannot be overcome through prayer, the purification of hearts, dialogue and the affirmation of truth.”

The Pope’s message to the Ecumenical Patriarch was timed for November 30, the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the Constantinople see. Each year the Holy See sends a delegation to celebrate that feast with the Ecumenical Patriarch, just as the Orthodox leader sends representatives to Rome for the patronal feast of Sts. Peter and Paul on June 29. This year Cardinal Kurt Koch, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, led the Vatican delegation.

In his message Pope Francis took note of the 50th anniversary of a joint declaration signed by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I, which lifted the mutual excommunications that had been pronounced in 1054 and “consigned those painful memories to oblivion.” Church leaders today should draw inspiration from that anniversary, the Pope said.

Having restored fraternal ties, the Pope wrote, the Catholic and Orthodox churches should complete the restoration of full communion. He observed that “the symbol of the fraternal embrace finds its most profound truth in the embrace of peace exchanged in the Eucharistic celebration.”

Source.

During the Nativity Fast

 The Nativity Fast continues...

The Fast is a time of cleansing the soul and body. It is considered, and quite rightly so, that for a Christian cleansing is necessary not only for its own sake, in general, but also so that one might worthily commune of the Holy Gifts of Christ. Therefore, people are right in saying that the Fast exists so that during the Fast one may become “worthy” to receive Communion. That is true because fasting, abstinence, and asceticism are good means toward repentance. This is something that should be emphasized: fasting is not the goal of religious life, but merely a means [toward it].

However, repentance is something more than a means. If repentance is not the life in Christ itself, it is its actual well-spring, something so involved in [the goal of life in Christ], that it is as it were an integral part [of that life].

Without repentance, there can be no faith in Christ. The Gospel sermon addressed to sinful people begins with the words of the Forerunner and of the Lord Himself: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 3:2). Repentance is the elemental, archetypal religious state that turns us toward Christ.

One who does not perceive the unworthiness, defectiveness, sinfulness and weaknesses with which he satisfies himself…does not see the need for God, and blindly believes that he can get along without Him.

However, one who perceives his own sinfulness, his impotency, his helplessness and limitations, one who is sorrowed by them and wants to be renewed and become the richer for it, one who turns to God and cries out as if from the depths of a pit, “Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord. Lord hear my voice. Hear me, for I am poor and in need!” (Ps. 129:1) – such a person is on a religious path; he is no longer self-contented, but wants to rise up out of himself and turn his attention beyond the bounds of his being. Thus, fasting is beneficial towards evoking in ourselves feelings of repentance. A sense of repentance can also appear in the absence of fasting. An example would be the thief on the cross who turned to Christ and in the blink of an eye, repented. You do not need a lot of time to repent. It is possible to repent in the blink of an eye! There were times when many martyrs would come to Christ without having fasted or made any other “preparation.” It may be possible through means other than fasting to be sanctified and “be made worthy” to commune of the Holy Gifts. But it is impossible to do so without repentance. It is impossible to come to Christ dressed in filthy garments. God said, “Ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:45). The morally unclean should not, and simply cannot, approach God and see Him. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) Moreover, one cannot prepare for communion of His Holy Gifts without vesting the heart in “wedding” garments. 

Read the rest here.

Christian 'naturism' advocate appointed Bishop of Sherborne

The Church of England has appointed as Bishop of Sherborne a leading advocate of Christian nudism. On 26 Nov 2015 the Prime Minister’s Office announced the The Queen had approved the nomination of the Ven Karen Gorham, the Archdeacon of Buckingham, to the Suffragan See of Sherborne in the diocese of Salisbury in succession to the Rt Rev. Graham Kings.

The new Bishop of Sherborne, who will be consecrated in February at Westminster Abbey, has urged churches to educate their members on naturism, or nudism. “There is need for much education and openness to talk about issues of sexuality, to remove false taboos which we tend to have about our own bodies, and to define the differences between what is impure and what is godly and properly natural to us,” she wrote in “Naturism and Christianity: Are they compatible?”

Read the rest here.

You just can't make this stuff up. I have never heard of a church that swallowed the women's ordination Kool Aid and didn't go into a rapid nose dive. Of course usually the trajectory is already there, but W/O always seems to accelerate the slide into apostasy and ecclesial irrelevance.

Inquiries Stall as White House Puts Leash on U.S. Watchdogs

WASHINGTON — Justice Department watchdogs ran into an unexpected roadblock last year when they began examining the role of federal drug agents in the fatal shootings of unarmed civilians during raids in Honduras.
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The Drug Enforcement Administration balked at turning over emails from senior officials tied to the raids, according to the department’s inspector general. It took nearly a year of wrangling before the D.E.A. was willing to turn over all its records in a case that the inspector general said raised “serious questions” about agents’ use of deadly force.

The continuing Honduran inquiry is one of at least 20 investigations across the government that have been slowed, stymied or sometimes closed because of a long-simmering dispute between the Obama administration and its own watchdogs over the shrinking access of inspectors general to confidential records, according to records and interviews.
Continue reading the main story

The impasse has hampered investigations into an array of programs and abuse reports — from allegations of sexual assaults in the Peace Corps to the F.B.I.’s terrorism powers, officials said. And it has threatened to roll back more than three decades of policy giving the watchdogs unfettered access to “all records” in their investigations.

“The bottom line is that we’re no longer independent,” Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, said in an interview.

Read the rest here.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing a blessed feast to you and yours.

Europe's moral and spiritual vacuum invites acts of terrorism

...The decline of Christianity in the West has created a spiritual and moral vacuum of colossal proportions. It is this vacuum that gives Islamism momentum and nourishment.

The West simply no longer understands spirituality and has lost touch with its spiritual foundations by abandoning Christianity, now banished also from the EU Treaty. Several countries have removed Christian and all religious symbols from public spaces. By removing God they have created an empty space for evil to fill. This has been combined with morally bankrupt foreign policies that have accepted the slaughter and beheading of Christians, which is tantamount to a destruction of Europe’s own spiritual foundations to achieve geopolitical gains, the latest of which is regime change in Syria by removing the country’s democratically elected president.

The monster created by the rejection of Christianity is gaining power, as terrorism has grown from a de-christianized culture. Secularism and Islamism are two faces of the same destructive spirituality, two parasites nurturing each other. While justice and mercy combine in the virtues that spring from Christianity, the destructive justice of Islamism becomes glaringly demonic. There is no longer a spiritual counterweight of grace, forgiveness and charity, only a political counterpoint, which is clearly inadequate.

Secularism, relativism of values, materialism and democracy as a new religion (idolatry devoid of a deity) constantly prove their feeble inadequacy when facing Islamism. The post-Christian ideologies possess no core of spiritual strength - surveillance and military hardware is what they offer. It takes more to win a war. It takes moral strength. The West has lost its moral strength, amply evident in its approach to foreign policy by supporting so-called moderate terrorist groups that show little moderation when it comes to beheadings and literally eating the hearts of their victims.

Read the rest here.

French Right Wing "National Front" Surges After Attacks

AMIENS, France — After years of shouting from the sidelines of French politics about the dangers of unchecked immigration, open borders and radical Islam, Marine Le Pen had a message this week for the French establishment: I told you so.

“We tried to warn them,” the far-right leader told a crowd of hundreds of cheering supporters in this northern French city, “but we were never heard.”

But after the Nov. 13 attacks that claimed at least 130 lives in Paris and stunned the nation, Le Pen, 47, and her formerly fringe party have found themselves being listened to as never before. Long scorned by the political mainstream as a band of racist xenophobes, the far right in France — and across Europe — is increasingly setting the terms of the post-attack debate.

Read the rest here.

Elite funds prepare for reflation and a bloodbath for bonds

One by one, the giant investment funds are quietly switching out of government bonds, the most overpriced assets on the planet.

Nobody wants to be caught flat-footed if the latest surge in the global money supply finally catches fire and ignites reflation, closing the chapter on our strange Lost Decade of secular stagnation.

The Norwegian Pension Fund, the world's top sovereign wealth fund, is rotating a chunk of its $860bn of assets into property in London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, New York, San Francisco and now Tokyo and East Asia. "Every real estate investment deal we do is funded by sales of government bonds," says Yngve Slyngstad, the chief executive.

It already owns part of the Quadrant 3 building on Regent Street, and bought the Pollen Estate - along with Saville Row - from the Church Commissioners last year. But this is just a nibble. The fund is eyeing a 15pc weighting in property, an inflation-hedge if ever there was one.

The Swiss bank UBS - an even bigger player with $2 trillion under management - has issued its own gentle warning on bonds as the US Federal Reserve prepares to kick off the first global tightening cycle since 2004. UBS expects five rate rises by the end of next year, 60 points more than futures contracts, and enough to rattle debt markets still priced for an Ice Age. 

Read the rest here.

Scientology's Moscow branch to be dissolved

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court has ordered the Church of Scientology in Moscow to be dissolved.

The Moscow City Court on Monday accepted arguments from the Justice Ministry that the term Scientology is trademarked and thus cannot be considered a religious organization covered by the constitution's freedom-of-religion clause.

Prosecutors also said the church carried out activities in St. Petersburg, though it was only authorized to operate in Moscow, according to the Tass news agency.

Several books by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard are banned in Russia for "extremist" content.

A church representative said the decision would be appealed, Russian news agencies reported.

Source.

JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald and 50 years of conspiracy nonsense

A Point of View: Has the Catholic Church really changed? (BBC)

...So let's, just for the hell of it, allow our imaginations to run riot. What might a reformed Catholic Church look like? Start with small steps - allowing communion to divorced or co-habiting couples, the Church not judging gay men in loving relationships (both positions Francis himself has espoused). From there we move to a greater acceptance of homosexuality in general, even to same-sex union and families. How long before we hit celibacy and women priests? At which point there are women in the faith who would want to widen the debate, to suggest that it is the whole notion of an elevated priesthood and hierarchy that needs addressing, encouraging more democracy and community as a way to get better shepherds for the flock. 

Enter a religion defined by God's mercy and inclusion, with a strong voice on issues like market excess and climate change and where men and women shared spiritual power. In a world under attack from testosterone-driven fundamentalism - I could have written exactly those same words before the events in Paris, but somehow they mean even more now - that is a religion even I might be tempted to join. Though how many Catholics I would find sitting next to me in the pews is a big question.

Read the rest here.

An appeal

I don't usually post solicitations on here, but I am making an exception in this case. Holy Trinity has been struggling for a number of years. So if by chance you have some extra cash, please consider making a donation. Even a small one would help.

Patriarch Younan: IS cannot be defeated with air raids, the West has betrayed Christians

The head of the Syrian Catholic Church, Mar Ignace Youssif III Younan, accuses Western governments of perpetuating an "endless conflict in Syria" out of regional interests. The terrorists who use Islam as an excuse for violence “have already infiltrated Europe, supported by money from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States under the supervision of Western governments." Pope Francis "true defender of justice, is deeply pained by what is happening in Syria and Iraq."

Read the rest here.
HT: A blog reader.

The Missionary Vision of the Martyred Fr. Daniel Sysoev

By all accounts, Fr. Daniel Sysoev was a powerful and effective missionary priest. According to his missionary companion and close friend, Prof. Yuri Maximov (now Priest Giorgy Maximov.—O.C.), Fr. Daniel turned “around 500 Protestants” to Orthodoxy and personally “baptized more than 80 Muslims” in his fourteen years of ordained ministry.1 He built a church community and mission center in an immigrant district in Moscow and had great success reaching persons of various ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and social classes.2 As a direct result of his efforts, and in accordance with his express desire and sense of calling, he crowned his ministry with martyrdom, being shot in the nave of his own church on the night of November 19, 2009...


...Fundamentally, Fr. Daniel’s missionary activity found its most basic principle in an extreme faith in the reality of eternal life and eternal judgment. When viewed from the perspective of an eternal destiny, actions in this present life gain a new significance; temporal life becomes “a school” where the human being is to prepare himself for “true life,” which “begins after the Final Judgment.”5 As such, it behooves every Christian to intentionally live a life that prepares him for eternity and to continually meditate on the transitoriness of earthly life and the inevitability of facing death and judgment.

 While Jesus has “earned paradise for us” by his death on the Cross and Orthodox Christians have “receive[d] salvation as a gift through baptism,” they still need to “assimilate” its reality to themselves by living a Christian life that is characterized by continual repentance, frequent Communion, and the performance of “good deeds”, which fulfill Christ’s commandments.7 If the Christian does not busy himself with repentance and thereby assimilate the salvation of baptism to himself, he runs the risk of his post-baptismal sin becoming a sort of “second nature” which would sever him from Christ and make him “incapable of entering into eternity.”8

Following a common interpretation of the writings of St. Cyprian of Carthage, Fr. Daniel taught that, “outside the Church there is no salvation,” and anyone who does not “come into the Orthodox Church will perish forever.”9 In his view, this included anyone who was outside of the formal boundaries of the Orthodox Church, including Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Old Ritualists.10 (Indeed, so strong was his view on this subject, that he claimed that “heresy” and “schism” were the only sins that a martyric death would not “wash... away.”11)

Read the rest here.

Islam and the Closing of the Secular Mind

The  "enlightened" Western mind can no longer think seriously or coherently about religion.

Given the decidedly strange response of the Obama Administration and much of the Western commentariat to the violence sweeping the Islamic world, one temptation is to view their reaction as simple incomprehension in the face of the severe unreason that leads some people to riot and kill in a religion's name. But while the Administration's response has plenty to do with trying to defend a foreign policy that has plainly gone south, it also reflects something far more problematic: the Western secular mind's increasing inability to think seriously and coherently about religion at all.

This problem manifests itself in several ways. The first is the manner in which many secular thinkers seem to regard all religions as "basically the same." By this, they often mean either equally irrational or as promoting essentially similar values.

A moment's reflection would indicate to even the most militant atheist that this simply isn't true. Islam and Christianity, for instance, have very different understandings of who Jesus Christ is. Christians believe that he is God, the second Person of the Trinity. Muslims do not. Ergo, Islam and Christianity are not effectively the same. At their respective cores are fundamentally irreconcilable theological positions. It's also very difficult to find robust affirmations of free will outside Judaism and Christianity (at least the orthodox varieties of these two faiths).

Likewise, as any informed Muslim will tell you, Islamic theology has no real equivalent of the Christian idea of the church. The Greek word for "church" (ekklesia) literally means to be "called out." That, alongside Christ's words about the limits to Caesar's power, had immense implications for how Christians think about the state and its relationship to religion. Among other things, it means Christianity has always maintained significant distinctions between the temporal and the spiritual realms that are far less perceptible -- again, as any pious Muslim will inform you -- in Islamic theology and history.

All this, however, is a little complicated for those secular intellectuals who simply regard religion as just another lifestyle-choice rather than being essentially about people's natural desire to (1) know the truth about the transcendent and (2) live their lives in accordance with such truths.

That's why the left talks so much today about "freedom of worship" (as if your faith-decisions are akin to choosing which mall you shop at) and are trying to peddle a version of religious liberty that basically confines religious freedom to what happens inside your church, synagogue, mosque or temple on your given holy-day of the week. The notion that religious liberty is all about creating space for people to live out their beliefs consistent with others' freedom to do the same and even permits us to peacefully argue -- gasp! -- about the truth of different religions' claims seems to be beyond their grasp.

Read the rest here.
HT: The Young Fogey
Via; Dr. Tighe

New Orthodox church in Halifax opens doors at former Saint Matthias Anglican Church

Fifteen years ago, Affaf El-Jakl remembers there was talk of building a new church to accommodate the growing congregation of Saint Antonios Orthodox Church.

And on Sunday, that hope finally became reality.

“We’re in awe,” El-Jakl, president of the parish council said Sunday morning, as hundreds of parishioners filed into the sanctuary, filling it to capacity until there was only standing room and the upper balcony left to sit.

"It's not everyday a new church is built and opened."

The crowd gathered to celebrate the unveiling of the new church with the first of what would be many Sunday masses to follow, sitting in pews that originally belonged to the building when it served as Saint Matthias Anglican Church.

Read the rest here.

Andrew P. Napolitano: The President and the rule of law

Earlier this week, a federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld an injunction issued by a federal district court in Texas against the federal government, thereby preventing it from implementing President Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Critics had argued and two federal courts have now agreed that the orders effectively circumvented federal law and were essentially unconstitutional.

Though the injunction on its face restrains officials in the Department of Homeland Security, it is really a restraint on the president himself. Here is the back story.

Read the rest here.

On the Nativity Fast - the preparation of the soul

A reflection on the role of the Nativity Fast, which might seem the opposite of Christmas joy, in preparing the human heart for the true joy of encountering Christ's incarnation.

The herald of the pending miracle begins. It is the Eve of the Nativity as these words are sung. The transformation of the world, the birth of God, is but hours away, and it is through such words that the faithful are called into attentiveness and anticipation. 'Make ready, O Bethlehem!' We can see the radiant lights of of the feast just beyond the horizon, we can taste the sweetness of the miracle that took place beneath a star; and through the words sung around and within us in the Church, the great eve of the birth of God is made a reality in our present experience. We make ready, and we wait.

But this is not the first moment of preparation for the Feast. For 'forty days', with the usual adjustments to that length for Sabbaths and Sundays causing it to begin on 15 November,{Footnote}According to the Church Calendar; 28th November on the civil calendar.{/footnote} the Church has been setting herself in readiness, drawing her attention to the mystery to come, waiting in expectation. She has made use of the great joy that will arrive on Christmas day as occasion to take up the task considered by so many as opposite to joy: fasting, with all its rigour, its harshness, its discomfort. These are the steps which, for Orthodox Christians throughout the world, lead to the radiant wonder of the Nativity of Christ.

Read the rest here.

Paris terror attacks an alarm bell for liberal, borderless Europe

The attack on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket last January proved that Islamic extremists regarded themselves as at war with France. It is now clear to everyone – including some French public figures who have resisted the idea – that, as President Hollande said on Saturday, France is now at war with Islamic extremists.

Because the enemy is already within – and the eight terrorists killed in the attacks in Paris are merely the tip of the iceberg – fighting this war will be unpleasant, difficult and controversial.

The website of Le Figaro, the conservative French newspaper, proclaimed that there was “war in the heart of Paris”. It is a mood widely shared by the French people, whose attitudes have themselves been radicalised by these terrible events...

... The political implications for France will be extensive. Next month the country has regional elections, which were already being regarded as a stiff and perhaps impossible test for the weak and unsuccessful socialist government of François Hollande.

The French press has for months been forecasting that Marine Le Pen’s Front National could win two or possibly even three of the 22 regions in metropolitan France, and warning that such a result would be an electoral earthquake for the country.

Although Mme Le Pen has cleaned up her party from the overtly racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic entity it was under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen – from whom she is, as a result, estranged – she has been the only high-profile politician to warn consistently of the dangers of the large numbers of Muslims in France, and of their failure to integrate properly into French society.

Read the rest here.

On the coronation and anointing of French monarchs

Titled women of the French nobility (duchesses and countesses) could inherit land and titles from their fathers if they had no surviving male issue to succeed them, but from antiquity the throne and crown of France adhered to Salic Law, which permitted succession to the throne only through the male line and excluded all females. A central theological and ceremonial reason for why the French monarchy did not permit female succession was the highly sacramental nature of the coronation rites, in which the king exercised a quasi-sacerdotal role and held certain sacred instruments which, it was believed, women could not touch. While queens of France were customarily crowned and anointed at their husband’s accession, this was often done in a separate ceremony. While French kings were most often crowned at the Reims Cathedral. French queens were crowned most often at the St Denis Basilica.

Thus, due to the strict enforcement of Salic Law, France has never had a female monarch. Reflecting their crucial importance in dynastic marriages, however, several queens of France were the daughters of previous French kings or reigning provincial dukes whose fathers, lacking any surviving male issue, married them to the men who ultimately succeeded to the French throne as king. Numerous French queen mothers also governed as regents on behalf of their underage sons until they reached their majority.

Three examples of French queens who were themselves the daughters of French kings or powerful dukes were 1) Queen Anne de Bretagne (1477-1514), consort to King Charles VIII from 1491-98 and then after Charles’ death consort to King Louis XII from 1499 to her own death, reigned as Duchess of Brittany in her own right from 1488; Anne’s daughter Queen Claude (1499-1524), consort to Francois I (1515-24) and daughter of King Louis XII, reigned as Duchess of Brittany in her own right after her mother’s death in 1514; and Queen Marguerite (1553-1615), consort to France’s first Bourbon King Henri III de Navarre/ IV de France (1572-1599), sister to French kings Francois II, Charles IX, and Henri III, who was the daughter of King Henri II and (from 1559-89) the powerful Queen Mother and regent Catherine de Medicis.

Read the rest here.

St. Nikolai Velimirovic and St. Justin Popovic on Ecumenism

 St. Nikolai Velimirovic and St Justin Popovic share the position of the entire Orthodox Church on ecumenism. Our dialogue with non-Orthodox is the evangelical responsibility that is specific to the very nature, to the very essence of the Orthodox Church, which is the same Church that the Lord founded on Himself as eternal stone (1 Corinthians 3:11). It is our duty to bear witness to the Risen Lord to the end of the world. This mission was entrusted to the Apostles, and the Orthodox Christians do not have the right today, after two thousand years, to withdraw from it.

However, a profound interest and involvement in the ecumenical movement implies questioning and criticism of it? We should not stand silently by without pointing out the problems that arise within the ecumenical movement when, represented by certain organizations, it begins to meddle in political and national issues while the essential question—the unity of the Christian world—remains in the shadows. How can the Orthodox Church (and indeed other churches) participate in a movement which could ultimately destroy the very foundations of the Christian faith and morals?

As we have concluded that on the one hand, we do not have the right to withdraw from efforts toward ecumenical dialogue, and that on the other, we have ever rising discontent with the development of the broader ecumenical movement, the question is whether it is time to design a new model, a new formula of ecumenism which would allow us to interact with each other and collaborate in a more positive way? This does not mean that we need to, or should, abandon and forget all the important work that has already been done: convergence, better knowledge and understanding of each other impregnated with love, but having in mind and heart to make a step forward. For this new model of dialogue and collaboration we have an inexhaustible source in the works of Nikolai Velimirovic and Justin Popovic, and especially by using their severe criticism of the consideration of ecumenism as an ideology. 

Read the rest here.

Update

I am back on the right coast and settling in. With some luck I will have a regular internet connection and the various other essentials  up and running in a few days.

On the road again

My somewhat nomadic existence continues. After ten years on the left coast, I have finally had enough. For various reasons, including some family issues, I am moving back East and will be on the road within a couple of days. During the move period, which basically begins today (final packing), I won't be online much. Expect little or no posting until sometime late next week.

Kansas City Royals Win the World Series

Very depressing, but I congratulate the Royals. In truth they consistently outplayed the Mets. The better team won.