The End of Identity Liberalism?

...But the fixation on diversity in our schools and in the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life. At a very young age our children are being encouraged to talk about their individual identities, even before they have them. By the time they reach college many assume that diversity discourse exhausts political discourse, and have shockingly little to say about such perennial questions as class, war, the economy and the common good. In large part this is because of high school history curriculums, which anachronistically project the identity politics of today back onto the past, creating a distorted picture of the major forces and individuals that shaped our country. (The achievements of women’s rights movements, for instance, were real and important, but you cannot understand them if you do not first understand the founding fathers’ achievement in establishing a system of government based on the guarantee of rights.)

When young people arrive at college they are encouraged to keep this focus on themselves by student groups, faculty members and also administrators whose full-time job is to deal with — and heighten the significance of — “diversity issues.” Fox News and other conservative media outlets make great sport of mocking the “campus craziness” that surrounds such issues, and more often than not they are right to. Which only plays into the hands of populist demagogues who want to delegitimize learning in the eyes of those who have never set foot on a campus. How to explain to the average voter the supposed moral urgency of giving college students the right to choose the designated gender pronouns to be used when addressing them? How not to laugh along with those voters at the story of a University of Michigan prankster who wrote in “His Majesty”?

This campus-diversity consciousness has over the years filtered into the liberal media, and not subtly. Affirmative action for women and minorities at America’s newspapers and broadcasters has been an extraordinary social achievement — and has even changed, quite literally, the face of right-wing media, as journalists like Megyn Kelly and Laura Ingraham have gained prominence. But it also appears to have encouraged the assumption, especially among younger journalists and editors, that simply by focusing on identity they have done their jobs.

Recently I performed a little experiment during a sabbatical in France: For a full year I read only European publications, not American ones. My thought was to try seeing the world as European readers did. But it was far more instructive to return home and realize how the lens of identity has transformed American reporting in recent years. How often, for example, the laziest story in American journalism — about the “first X to do Y” — is told and retold. Fascination with the identity drama has even affected foreign reporting, which is in distressingly short supply. However interesting it may be to read, say, about the fate of transgender people in Egypt, it contributes nothing to educating Americans about the powerful political and religious currents that will determine Egypt’s future, and indirectly, our own. No major news outlet in Europe would think of adopting such a focus.

Read the rest here.

The latest from Rome

Whether by coincidence or otherwise, on US election day, Pope Francis welcomed one of Hillary Clinton’s political soulmates — albeit well to the left of the Democrat candidate — to the Vatican.

Emma Bonino, 68, is a former Italian Foreign Minister, abortionist and abortion activist, founder of the Transnational Radical Party that embraces notions of one world government and a board member of George Soros’s Global Foundation.

She is also, in Francis’s words, “among the great ones of today’s Italy’’ for her work as a refugee advocate, especially for Africans.

Fallout from the US election has drawn several civil wars — political and theological — being waged at the highest levels of the Vatican to boiling point. In a complex chess game, one has even drawn Francis into public conflict with a group of four cardinals.

Barack Obama’s departure and Clinton’s defeat prompted Rome-based professor and Vatican commentator Roberto de Mattei to describe Francis this week as “the only point of reference for the international left’’, especially over climate policy and open borders. The pope is doing little to play down that impression. In a newly published book-length interview, he was asked whether he favoured a Marxist society: “It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians’’.

At a Vatican Mass for prison inmates last week, one of the pope’s personal altar servers was a young Muslim, in jail for sexual offences and stalking. He brought his prayer rug. A week earlier, greeting leaders of “grassroots’’ movements (promoting various green, “human rights’’ and anti-development causes) who met at the Vatican from five continents, Francis denounced “the basic terrorism that derives from the global control of money’’ and promised “I make your cry mine’’.

He has also lent support and encouragement to the left wing presidents of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela.

Read the rest here.
Emphasis mine.

Additionally Vaticanist Giuseppe Nardi is reporting that the “Theological Hypothesis of a Heretical Pope by the Brazilian jurist Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira is making the rounds in the Vatican, an Italian translation of which was published by Marco Solfanelli last June and which is being studied attentively by theologians and prelates in Rome."

This latter is translated into English by NovusOrdoWatch. Caution: This is an openly sede-vecantist website. Consider the source.

Potentially Alarming News from Alexandria

The Patriarchate of Alexandria is to "restore the female diaconate." What does this mean? Are we discussing the return of the "deaconess" (an obsolete and purely lay office) or is this an attempt to promote heresy via the pseudo-ordination of women to one of the three ranks of Holy Orders?

HT: Dr. Tighe

Asked and Answered

In the previous post concerning the current Pope I asked "Is there no one with courage in the Roman Church to call this man out?"

Apparently there is. Cardinal Burke has become sufficiently alarmed by at least one of his recent pronouncements to raise the possibility of a formal "correction" of the Pope by Catholic hierarchs.

HT: Dr. Tighe

ANAXIOS!

“It it has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians..."

-Pope Francis (from here)

I'm done with restraint in expressing my views of this heretic. Communism occupies the exact same spot on the moral plane as Nazism. This Pope just spit on the graves of millions of martyrs.

Forget the Orthodox. How about the Catholics of Spain, Poland, Hungary, what used to be Czechoslovakia and Ukraine, especially the Greek Rite Catholics? "Scandalous" does not even begin to describe this pontificate. Where are the bishops and cardinals? Is there no one with courage in the Roman Church to call this man out? Is there no one who is willing to confront this man and demand for the good of their church his immediate abdication?

This is who to blame for Trump

A lefty gets it, or at least some of it. I think I agree with about 80% of this (though I might choose a more civil way of expressing it).  On which note... caution: language

Furious Liberals Demand Changes in the Democratic Party

The Republican civil war was supposed to start this week.

Instead, a ferocious struggle has erupted on the left over the smoldering remains of the Democratic Party.

Liberals are seething over the election and talking about launching a Tea Party-style revolt. They say it’s the only way to keep Washington Democrats connected to the grassroots and to avoid a repeat of the 2016 electoral disaster, which blindsided party elites.

Progressives believe the Democratic establishment is responsible for inflicting Donald Trump upon the nation, blaming a staid corporate wing of the party for nominating Hillary Clinton and ignoring the Working Class voters that propelled Trump to victory.
Liberals interviewed by The Hill want to see establishment Democrats targeted in primaries, and the “Clinton-corporate wing” of the party rooted out for good.

The fight will begin over picking a new leader for the Democratic National Committee.

Progressives are itching to see the national apparatus reduced to rubble and rebuilt from scratch, with one of their own installed at the top.

And there is talk among some progressives, like Bill Clinton’s former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, about splitting from the Democratic Party entirely if they don’t get the changes they seek.

Read the rest here.

Memo to the political left...

Yes, he is going to be your president, just like Barrack Obama was mine.

All of this hysteria is going to backfire. and it is only serving to reinforce the opinions of the vast majority of people that voted for Trump about the weirdos on the far left. But more importantly is that it is certain to alienate moderates. The huge numbers of people who tend to lean a little right or a little left but basically hover near the political center, are going to look at all the moonbats, the rioting, the crybaby college students climbing street lamps and waving red flags and recoil with disgust. This demonizing of Donald Trump is only going to lay the foundation for his future success. When you reduce someone to a caricature and they don’t live up to your horror story predictions, they end up looking remarkably good.

I haven’t seen this many lefties lined up for the fainting couch since 1980. Back then, based on what we were being told on the news and in countless editorials, it would be nothing less than a miracle of God if the world was not reduced to nuclear ash within six months of Ronald Reagan becoming president. Now we have people talking about putting him on Mt. Rushmore.

Some thoughts on Merrick Garland

The Supreme Court Justice who wasn't. Merrick Garland is not a man I would have appointed to the Supreme Court. But he was light years better than what I expected from a President Clinton and at the time I thought rejecting his nomination was a political mistake. I was wrong.

That said, I feel rather badly for the man. Everything I have heard about him suggests he is basically a decent guy who was used as a pawn by the Obama Administration and got caught in the middle of a Washington power war. And while I am glad he is not sitting on the SCOTUS I will also admit that I do think he kinda got the shaft. The man was treated with what I believe could be called calculated rudeness by Republicans and I don't think he deserved that.

If I could presume to make a suggestion to a president-elect that I did not vote for, this is a great opportunity to score some points in the magnanimity department. No, I don't think Donald should renominate him to the top court. But there are lots of plum (and prestigious) jobs that are still purely political appointments and understood to be essentially the President's prerogative to give to whom he wants. Why not offer him the post as US Ambassador to the Czech Republic or Portugal or somewhere else (not Mongolia or some remote island state in the Pacific)? It doesn't have to be London or Paris but a post that is seen as a sincere expression of appreciation for the man's service and a tacit apology for his rough treatment over the last year.

Such a move would be certain to be seen as extending an olive branch while showing  Mr. Trump's better side.

The Dreaded Filibuster

On Tuesday morning Democrats, anticipating Republican obstruction of President Clinton's nominees to the Supreme Court among other things, were in deep discussions over how to kill the Senate Filibuster. For some reason that is no longer a topic of discussion on that side of the aisle. However, the future of the filibuster has just as suddenly become something of a topic among Republicans.

Oh the irony.

Pope: Pontifical Academy for Life members no longer required to sign pro-life declaration

ROME, Italy, November 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Members of the Pontifical Academy for Life will no longer be required to sign a declaration that they uphold the Church’s pro-life teachings.

In new statutes for the Vatican body promulgated on November 4, Pope Francis has also expanded its mandate to include a focus on the environment.

Pope Francis approved the statutes last month, the Vatican website announced.

Previous statutes were issued in 2004 and enumerate the “specific tasks” (§2) of the Academy in three points: to “study questions and issues connected with the promotion and defense of human life from an interdisciplinary perspective,” to “educate in a culture of life,” and to “inform the Church and the public […] about the most relevant results of its study and research activities.”

In the new statutes, §3 has received an addition: whereas the paragraph previously stated that research of a scientific character must “be directed towards the promotion and defense of human life,” the new paragraph reads:

Read the rest here.

Dewey Defeats Truman

The cover of New York Magazine

George Will Reflects on the Upsides and Dangers of the GOP's Electoral Triumph

At dawn Tuesday in West Quoddy Head, Maine, the easternmost point of the United States, it was certain that by midnight in Cape Wrangell, Alaska, the westernmost fringe, there would be a loser who deserved to lose and a winner who did not deserve to win. The surprise is that Barack Obama must have immediately seen his legacy, a compound of stylistic and substantive arrogance, disappearing, as though written on water in ink of vapor.

His health-care reform has contributed to three Democratic drubbings. The 2010 and 2014 wave elections, like scythes in a wheat field, decapitated a rising generation of potential party leaders. Then came Tuesday’s earthquake, which followed shocking increases of Obamacare’s prices. This law has been as historic as Obama thinks, but not as he thinks: It might be the last gasp of progressivism’s hubris expressed in continent-wide social engineering imposed from the continent’s Eastern edge. Hillary Clinton’s proposed solution to Obamacare’s accelerating unraveling was a “public option”: intensified government manipulation to correct the consequences of government manipulation of health care’s 18 percent of the economy. Her campaign’s other defining proposal, “free” tuition in public higher education, insulted the intelligence of voters aware that “free” means “paid for by others, including you.”

Obama’s foreign policy legacy, aside from mounting chaos worldwide, was the Iran nuclear agreement. By precedent and constitutional norms, this should have been a treaty submitted to the Senate. Instead, disdainfully and characteristically, he produced it as an executive agreement. Because the agreement lacks legitimizing ratification by senators, the president-elect will feel uninhibited concerning his promise to repudiate it.

The simultaneous sickness of both parties surely reveals a crisis of the U.S. regime. The GOP was easily captured, and then quickly normalized, by history’s most unpleasant and unprepared candidate, whose campaign was a Niagara of mendacities. And the world’s oldest party contrived to nominate someone who lost to him.

To an electorate clamoring for disruptive change, Democrats offered a candidate as familiar as faded wallpaper. The party produced no plausible alternative to her joyless, stained embodiment of arrogant entitlement. And she promised to intensify the progressive mentality. “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep it”? Actually, you can’t even keep your light bulbs.

Read the rest here.

OMG

The President-Elect of the United States

Pope Francis Receives Italy's Foremost Abortionist

As day at last dawns on the Westernmost regions of the United States of America, her people face a stark choice: while neither candidate has a positive track record on abortion, one promises to be the most pro-abortion, anti-life president in the nation’s 240-year history, while the other makes a newly-minted promise to defend life. The decision made today in the elections of the waning but still-most-powerful nation on earth will have ripple effects throughout the remainder of our lifetimes.

It is on this momentous occasion that Pope Francis, an astute master of symbolic gestures, has chosen to meet with Emma Bonino, Italy’s most famous (and unrepentant) promoter of abortion — and his personal friend. If you are unfamiliar with the name, Bonino is a radical politician and former abortionist who claims to have performed as many as 10,000 abortions in a single year. As Hilary White wrote earlier this year...

Read the rest here.

ANAXIOS!

This man is a scandal and by far the worst Pope in half a millennium. Arguably longer. If there was a worse Pope in the last 500 years I can't name him. For all their corruption, the Borgias were in the end, merely corrupt. Would Alexander VI have received, for any money, someone who boasted of murdering 10,000 unborn children in a single year?

Election Day

Nikolai Tolstoy: Consider a Monarchy, America

Southmoor, England — As a foreigner with dual British and Russian citizenship, it is not for me to comment at length on the merits of the rival candidates for the presidency of the United States. But it seems uncontroversial to say that neither appears to be a Washington or a Lincoln, and that the elective presidency is coming under increasingly critical examination.

That their head of state should be elected by the people is, I imagine, the innate view of almost all American citizens. But at this unquiet hour, they might well wonder whether — for all the wisdom of the founding fathers — their republican system of government is actually leading them toward that promised “more perfect union.”

After all, our American cousins have only to direct their gaze toward their northern neighbor to find, in contented Canada, a nation that has for its head of state a hereditary monarch. That example alone demonstrates that democracy is perfectly compatible with constitutional monarchy.

Indeed, the modern history of Europe has shown that those countries fortunate enough to enjoy a king or queen as head of state tend to be more stable and better governed than most of the Continent’s republican states. By the same token, demagogic dictators have proved unremittingly hostile to monarchy because the institution represents a dangerously venerated alternative to their ambitions.

Reflecting in 1945 on what had led to the rise of Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill wrote: “This war would never have come unless, under American and modernizing pressure, we had driven the Hapsburgs out of Austria and Hungary and the Hohenzollerns out of Germany.”

“By making these vacuums,” he went on, “we gave the opening for the Hitlerite monster to crawl out of its sewer on to the vacant thrones.”

Read the rest here.

Yes, I'm a monarchist. But I am not naive. A monarchy in the United States is a non-starter. Monarchies don't work well in countries that are not homogeneous. We lack any kind of history or shared national culture that would make a monarchy a viable option. And then there is the question of who would we put on our throne?

Archivists asked Virginians for any family papers from the Civil War...

They expected a few hundred. They got tens of thousands.

The opening line still hurts across the years.

“Dear Mother — I am here a prisoner of war & mortally wounded.”
John Winn Moseley was writing home from the Gettysburg battlefield on July 4, 1863. He was a 30-year-old Confederate from Alabama being cared for by his Yankee captors.

“I can live but a few hours more at farthest,” he wrote. “I was shot fifty-yards of the enemy’s line. They have been extremely kind to me.”

Moseley died the next day. His letter — on delicate blue paper, stained with what might be blood — made it to his mother in Buckingham County, Va., and the family kept it ever after. Now it has come to light in a trove of Civil War documents that the State Library of Virginia discovered in a surprisingly straightforward way: It asked state residents to bring them out of their homes.

From 2010 until last year, as Virginia observed the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, archivists traveled the state in an “Antiques Roadshow” style campaign to unearth the past. Organizers had thought the effort might produce a few hundred new items. They were a little off. It flushed out more than 33,000 pages of letters, diaries, documents and photographs that the library scanned and has made available for study online.

Read the rest here.

In case anyone has an extra half million or so lying around...

Henry Flagler's private rail car is for sale.

How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth

Next week, if all goes well, someone will win the presidency. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Will the losing side believe the results? Will the bulk of Americans recognize the legitimacy of the new president? And will we all be able to clean up the piles of lies, hoaxes and other dung that have been hurled so freely in this hyper-charged, fact-free election?

Much of that remains unclear, because the internet is distorting our collective grasp on the truth. Polls show that many of us have burrowed into our own echo chambers of information. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 81 percent of respondents said that partisans not only differed about policies, but also about “basic facts.”

For years, technologists and other utopians have argued that online news would be a boon to democracy. That has not been the case.

More than a decade ago, as a young reporter covering the intersection of technology and politics, I noticed the opposite. The internet was filled with 9/11 truthers, and partisans who believed against all evidence that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election from John Kerry, or that Barack Obama was a foreign-born Muslim. (He was born in Hawaii and is a practicing Christian.)

Read the rest here. 

HT: T-19

120 Years Ago: McKinley Wins!

UPRISING OF A GREAT PEOPLE: Anarchy and Repudiation Trampled Under Foot

-The headline of the New York Tribune (November 4, 1896)

A Rare Win for Religious Liberty in Canada

An appeals court in Canada has ruled that an evangelical Christian law school cannot be denied accreditation because it officially opposes homosexuality.

A five-judge panel from the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday that denying Trinity Western University's law school accreditation was a religious liberty violation.

In a unanimous decision, the five judges concluded that the Law Society of British Columbia was "unreasonable" in denying accreditation to TWU for its position against homosexuality.

"In our view, the detrimental impact of the Law Society decision on TWU's right to religious freedom is severe. The legal education of TWU graduates would not be recognized by the Law Society and they could not apply to practise law in this province. TWU's religious freedom rights as an institution are also significantly impacted by the decision," concluded the Court of Appeal.
 
A Canadian-based Christian university, TWU has found itself in legal battles in multiple Canadian provinces over its theologically conservative stance on sexual ethics.

At specific issue is the university's Community Covenant, which requires students and faculty to "voluntarily abstain" from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman."

Read the rest here.

THE CUBS WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

Lord, you can take me whenever you are ready.

Pope proposes ‘new beatitudes for a new age’

MALMO, Sweden, November 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis posed a new list of beatitudes for modern Christians today during his Mass at the end of the papal trip to Sweden for the Protestant Reformation’s fifth centenary. Among the issues he promoted through the list were his high-profile concerns for the environment and ecumenism.

The pope’s “new beatitudes for saints of a new age,” as the U.S. Bishops’ Catholic News Service dubbed them, came during his All Saints Day Mass homily at an open-air stadium in Malmo, during which he also invoked Sweden’s most celebrated saint to highlight the ecumenical purpose of his trip.

Though widely taken by media in the sense described by Catholic News Service, the pope’s prepared text for the homily does not describe as “new beatitudes.” However, Vatican Radio’s own report on the homily refers to them similarly as the pope’s “suggested list of modern Beatitudes.”

The beatitudes are “in some sense the Christian’s identity card,” he told those present at the Mass, and they “identify us as followers of Jesus.”

Read the rest here.

Jesus clearly forgot these. I'm sure He appreciates the Pope's editing.

Clinton Campaign Was Fed Debate Questions in Advance

I am shocked! Shocked to discover that the Clintons were being fed debate questions in advance. The Clintons have a long history of abiding by the absolutely highest ethical standards. By the way I am also selling a bridge at a bargain basement price. Please contact me for details.

Catholics and Lutherans pledge to work for inter-communion

At the conclusion of a historic ecumenical celebration in Lund, Sweden, Pope Francis and the general-secretary of the world's Lutheran churches agreed to work together for a shared Eucharist.

Pope Francis and the global Lutheran leader have jointly pledged to remove the obstacles to full unity between their Churches, leading eventually to shared Eucharist.

They made the commitment in a joint statement signed before a congregation of Catholic and Lutheran leaders at the conclusion of a joint service in Lund, Sweden, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation.

The statement was signed by Pope Francis and Bishop Munib Younan, who is president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), which was founded in Lund in 1947. After they finished signing, the congregation stood for a long round of applause as the two leaders hugged each other.

The two leaders appeared to single out married couples where one partner is Catholic and the other Lutheran. “Many members of our communities yearn to receive the Eucharist at one table, as the concrete expression of full unity,” they noted.

“We experience the pain of those who share their whole lives, but cannot share God’s redeeming presence at the Eucharistic table,” they said, adding: “We acknowledge our joint pastoral responsibility to respond to the spiritual thirst and hunger of our people to be one in Christ.”

“We long for this wound in the Body of Christ to be healed,” they continued. “This is the goal of our ecumenical endeavors, which we wish to advance, also by renewing our commitment to theological dialogue.”

Read the rest here.

WOW!

The Cubbies hang on in a nail biter to win their first World Series game at  Wrigley Field in 71 years. Game 6 is on Tuesday. The Cubs are not dead yet.

The Latest From Lutheran Satire

One of the better ones IMHO.

Australia Ratchets Up Anti-Illegal Immigration Policy

CANBERRA, Australia - Australia on Sunday announced plans to ratchet up its tough policy against refugees by banning any asylum seeker who attempts to reach its shores by boat from ever visiting the country.

A previous government introduced a policy on July 19, 2013, banning refugees who arrive by boat from Indonesian ports after that date from ever being resettled in Australia.

Under legislation to be introduced to Parliament next week, thousands of asylum seekers who have returned to their homelands in the Middle East, Africa and Asia would be banned for life from ever traveling to Australia as tourists, to do business or as an Australian’s spouse, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said.

“You need the clearest of clear messages,” Turnbull told reporters.

“This is a battle of will between the Australian people, represented by their government, and these criminal gangs of people smugglers. You should not under estimate the scale of the threat,” he added.

Read the rest here.

This is an excellent idea.

Revesting the Incorrupt Relics of King St. Stefan Milutin of Serbia

Color Home Movies of San Francisco on the Eve of World War II

Starring classic cars (and planes) and lots of well dressed people wearing hats.

Pope Francis Purges Congregation for Liturgy- installs liberals

In a stunning move, Pope Francis has replaced all of the members of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, the body in charge of liturgical questions.

It is routine for the Roman Pontiff to appoint a few new members to each Vatican congregation, rotating out members who have served for several years. But on October 28 the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has appointed 27 new members to the Congregation for Divine Worship, completely transforming the membership of that body.

The new appointments give a distinctly more liberal character—as well as a more international complexion—to the congregation. The changes seem likely to curtail the work of Cardinal Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation, who has been a leading proponent of more reverent liturgy and of “the reform of the reform.”

Among the prominent new members of the congregation will be Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, the prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, and Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Probably the most controversial new appointment is that of Archbishop Piero Marini, who clashed frequently with liturgical conservatives during the years when he served as master of ceremonies for papal liturgies under St. John Paul II. The only American prelate named to the congregation is Bishop Arthur Serratelli of Paterson, New Jersey, who chairs the US bishops’ committee on liturgy.

The more conservative prelates who have been removed from the congregation include Cardinals Raymond Burke, Angelo Scola, George Pell, Marc Ouellet, Angelo Bagnasco, and Malcolm Ranjith.

Source.

Report: Two Bishops Abducted in Syria in 2013 Are Alive

Prayers that this is true.

Jury Nullification

Like it or loathe it, jury nullification still pops up in our country's legal system from time to time. And tonight a jury in Oregon just gave the Bronx salute to the United States Government.

Heaven Forbid

Heaven Forbid over at Gabriel Sanchez's blog is a good read. It contains some pointed criticisms of Orthodoxy, especially American Orthodoxy, with which I really can't disagree. At least not very strongly. Orthodoxy is balkanized with all sorts of confusion on various, usually pastoral, issues. In too many cases it still has the unfortunate odor of being an ethnic social club. But on the upside, blatant heresy is not commonly preached in its churches. This is sadly not the case in the Roman Catholic Church.

From time to time I get emails from people thinking of swimming the Bosporus in the hopes of escaping the crisis (is there anyone who can seriously deny the existence of a major crisis?) in the Roman Catholic Church. My advice is to take a deep breath. Too many are looking for some mythical slightly Byzantine version of the pre-Vatican II RCC with great liturgy but without a Communist and almost certainly heretical Pope. That is not what we are.

We have many of the same problems that Catholics do, and a few that are kinda unique to us. Corrupt clergy, poisonous church politics, in some cases an unwillingness by clergy to preach an uncompromising position on some of the hot button issues of the modern age, and the pervasive issue of ethnophyletism. But as Gabriel noted, overt heresy is not (usually) on the menu, though I have been seeing a few worrying signs.

All of which brings us back to the great aphorism that the grass is always greener over the septic tank.

Does this mean I don't want Catholics (or anyone else) to convert? No! I want EVERYONE to become Orthodox. But I want them to do it for the right reasons and with their eyes wide open. It took me 25 years before I finally took the plunge. In my ten years in the Church I have made a few observations about converts. Only about half are still Orthodox after three years. And that is a serious problem because apostasy is much worse than schism or heresy. It is far better that you stay outside the Church than join, only to leave later on.

Beyond which, see this post.

Justice Stevens (ret.) On Growing Up a Chicago Cubs Fan

...Stevens first visited Wrigley Field as a nine-year-old during the 1929 World Series pitting the Cubs against the Philadelphia Athletics.

“I had listened to the Cubs games all summer on the radio,” Stevens said. “There was Hal Totten for WMAQ, and Pat Flanagan for WBBM. He broadcast the out-of-town games, pretending he was an actual spectator.”

A young Ronald Reagan took a similar approach as a broadcaster in Iowa, as it was common during that era for announcers to take play-by-play developments off a ticker tape and relate them as if they were present.

At that first game of the 1929 series, Stevens and his father sat behind home plate, where the future justice was thrilled to see Cubs greats such as Hack Wilson and Charlie Grimm. And when Philadelphia manager Connie Mack started a veteran pitcher, Howard Ehmke, instead of his younger, fastball aces, Stevens thought the Cubs would have an easy game. Instead, Ehmke struck out 13 straight Cubs and the A’s won the game, 3-1.

“That was a tragedy for a young fan,” Stevens said. (It should really go without saying that the Cubs lost that series, four games to one.)

Stevens never tires of discussing his most famous brush with baseball—the 1932 World Series between the Cubs and the New York Yankees, when Yankees great Babe Ruth hit his much-debated “called shot.” The short version is that during the fifth inning of Game 3, Ruth pointed to center field, then hit the next pitch out of the park.

As Stevens has explained, Ruth was jawing with a pitcher in the Cubs dugout, Guy Bush, evidently over the Cubs’ decision not to give a full World Series bonus share to Mark Koenig, a former Yankee teammate of Ruth’s who was with the Cubs in 1932. Stevens once told an interviewer that he clearly remembered Ruth and Bush engaging in a “colloquy” on the issue (“colloquy” not being a common term for trash talking on the baseball diamond).

Describing the events to me, Stevens said, “You probably remember, they were in an argument as to whether Mark Koenig was entitled to a full share for the World Series.” (I’m pretty sure he meant that I recall the historical accounts, not that I was also there in 1932.)

“What was Ruth’s motive, no one knows for sure,” said Stevens, who was a 12-year-old sitting behind the Cubs dugout on the third-base line during that game. “He did point at the scoreboard, and then hit the ball out of the park the next pitch. But I think he was in an argument with Guy Bush at the time. And I didn’t know if he wanted to hit the pitch there or he wanted to hit Guy Bush.”

Stevens kept a scorecard from that 1932 game at Wrigley Field in his chambers, among other Cubs memorabilia. He was still serving in the U.S. Navy as a codebreaker in 1945 when the Cubs last appeared in a World Series.

Read the rest here.

I recall watching a show on Prohibition where Justice Stevens was being interviewed and he told some very colorful stories about growing up in Chicago during the Roaring 20's and the Depression.

Jennifer Rubin: It's time for sane Republicans to leave the GOP

Read it here.

I am pretty much done with the GOP. (For the record I haven't been a registered Republican since 2012.) Unfortunately there is not much out there that fits my own views. At one time I took a hard look at the Modern Whig Party, but they are too wishy washy on some important issues for my comfort. That, and any party with the word "Whig" in its name tends to trigger my gag reflex.

I guess the best that I can say is that it is looking like a good year to be a monarchist. Maybe I should just refuse to vote in the future as a matter of principle.

It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without defilement you gave birth to God the Word. True Theotokos we magnify you!

Jack Chick is dead

He passed over at the age of 92.
 
Kyrie eleison.

What Will You Do When the Persecution Comes?

I know there are plenty of Catholics who are, in one way or another, looking forward to the relentless institutional persecution that is coming our way unless we surrender the One Thing Needful to the secular left, and that is the family-destroying and state-feeding beast called the Sexual Revolution, with its seven heads and ten horns and the harlot squatting atop it. As I see it, these Catholics belong to four groups.

The Persecutor
First are the Persecutors. These people hate the Church, and that is why they remain ostensible members of it. They desire from within to punish the Church for what they perceive to be her sins, which these days have nothing to do with her teachings on the Trinity or the nature of Christ, but with sex—so tawdry are our heresies. O Arius, Arius, would that we had such as you for our enemy! The Persecutor has unbridled contempt for Pope John Paul II, the too-lenient father whom the Persecutor, like a spoiled brat, portrays as a tyrant, and for Benedict XVI, whose broad-ranging and penetrating intellect makes the Persecutor feel puny by comparison.

In all conflicts between the State and the Church, the Persecutor will not only side with the State; he will be glad to lead the charge. He will, to give one recent example from Connecticut, push a bill designed to subject the governance of Catholic parishes to state oversight. He will, to give a current example from New York, attempt to compel Catholic crisis pregnancy centers to refer women to the nearest abortorium. He will be eager to threaten Catholic schools with loss of government funds if they remain Catholic—if, for instance, they think it is not a good idea to sponsor groups committed to Sodom, and let them massage the minds of children. But why do I use the generic masculine pronoun here? She—she will want to compel Catholic interns to assist in abortions, or even to perform one; she will want to compel Catholic parishes to allow their grounds and their halls to be used for the celebration of pseudogamy. Religious freedom? The Persecutor respects neither God nor the conscience of man...

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

I have received word via Bill Tighe's email group that the author, Tony Esolen, has been getting a lot of abuse over this at the school where he works. Liberals are of course the most illiberal and intolerant people around. Prayers would be appreciated.

The Chicago Cubs Are Going to the World Series

Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) on Monasticism and Relations with the Roman Catholic Church

The outstanding Swiss theologian and patrologist Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel (Bunge) has met with the brethren of the Dormition Kiev Caves Lavra. The meeting took place on October 18 as part of Archimandrite Gabriel’s pilgrimage to the Holy places of Ukraine, reports Lavra.ua.

The distinguished guest was introduced by Archimandrite Amvrosy (Makar), rector of the Church of St. Ambrose of Milan in the Italian city of Milan. The priest told the brethren about the life of Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel, his thirty-six years of ascetic life in the mountains of Switzerland and that today he is abbot of the Monastery of the Exaltation of the Cross in Lugano (southern Switzerland), and author of a number of books on monasticism, and pastor to many spiritual children.

The talk began with questions on Fr. Gabriel’s life in the mountains. The schema-archimandrite related how he got acquainted with the Orthodox tradition and Orthodox monasticism.

“My first contact with Orthodoxy was in 1961 in Greece. By that time I had already joined a Benedictine monastery and nearly half our brethren followed the Eastern liturgical tradition. That monastery wanted to become a bridge between the East and the West. I studied a great deal and read the writings of the holy fathers. With the blessing of my confessor I became a hermit in the ‘80s and I still live in a skete which is located 900 meters (c. 2952.76 feet) above sea level. I tried to imitate the fathers of olden times in my life. I wrote and published books to inspire Western people—all of us need to return to our roots. From the very beginning I realized that the West was separated from the East. Even many hierarchs of the Roman Catholic Church referred to the teachings of the fathers of the Eastern Church, but, nevertheless, the Roman Church went its own way,” said Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel.

In 2010 Fr. Gabriel (Bunge) was received into the Orthodox Church, but, according to him, in spirit he had always been Orthodox before and had always wanted to partake in the holy sacraments of the Orthodox Church.

“I stood with one foot in the East, the other in the West. For many years I longed to visit the Kiev Caves Lavra, and to venerate the Kiev Caves fathers, and to pray to them. Once in some antique shop I bought a cross with particles of relics of twelve Kiev Caves saints in it. Their names were written there. The cross dated back to 1791. It is a mystery how that cross ended up in the West, but the relics which it contained were of no particular value for the shop staff. Now that cross stands on my table and I pray to the Kiev Caves fathers every day. And today I am very happy and delighted to have this opportunity to visit the Kiev Caves Lavra,” he continued.

Answering the question on the prospects of the reunification of the Eastern and Western Churches, Fr. Gabriel emphasized that “there is no theological sense in the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics must return back to the Church. My teacher and professor who later became Pope Benedict XVI understood many things but did nothing. The Orthodox Church has preserved the Liturgy and the monastic tradition, while the Roman Catholic Church is currently moving towards Protestantism rather than returning to Orthodoxy. The real problem of this division is not in the differences—it is in the incompatibility. The Greek and Roman cultures in the first millennium were different yet compatible with each other.”

The theologian also drew the brethren’s attention to the vital topic of the place of monasticism in the modern world: “Modern people want monks to answer their spiritual questions, not national and political ones. Monks are separated from this world and they live their own lives which are different from the life in the world. Such life enables them to gain wisdom which is not of this world—and this is precisely what people are waiting for. Many come to me too and expect me to answer their questions. And I have to tell them what they need to do and what not to do.”

Speaking on whether modern monasticism should take the anchoretic or cenobitic path, Schema-Archimandrite Gabriel explained: “Monasticism began not with the cenobitic tradition. The first monks were anchorites, but they always had a teacher. Both paths are good. It all depends on the calling from God in each case. The Church has a place for everybody! And the Lord saves us not individually, but all together!”

At the end of the meeting assistant abbot of the Kiev Caves Lavra Archimandrite Anthony thanked Fr. Gabriel for his visit and for answering the topical questions and conveyed to him greetings from the monastery’s abbot, Metropolitan Paul. After that a general picture was taken to remember the meeting.

Source.

Pope in Sweden could break ground on inter-communion, bishop says

The English bishop William Kenney is a key figure in the official Catholic-Lutheran dialogue, and will be with Pope Francis in Sweden at the end of the month. He believes unity is a matter of decades away, and it's possible that Francis may use the trip to make a gesture on inter-communion.

To describe English bishop William Kenney as an “auxiliary of Birmingham” doesn’t capture the depth and range of his longstanding roles in pan-European church bodies - for two terms, for example, he was president of Caritas Europe, and he played a key role in organizing relief efforts for former Soviet countries following the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Next week he will be part of a small, inner core at the joint Catholic-Lutheran commemoration of the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation for which Francis will be going to Sweden. It’s the first visit by any pope to Scandinavia since John Paul II’s 1989 visit, which Kenney, incidentally, coordinated.

A fluent Swedish-speaker who spent 37 years in Sweden, Kenney  - who also speaks good German -  has long been involved with ecumenical dialogues at the inter-Nordic level, especially in the formal dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans. In 2013 he was appointed by the Holy See as co-chair of the international dialogue between the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Recently he sat down with Crux in London to talk through the background to the event, the dialogue that’s expected to take place, and what Pope Francis might do or say to take it to a new level...

Read the rest here.

Hiking in Bear Country

You are gonna want to click on and enlarge this to read the sign.

The Latest Electoral Map

Source.
Click on image to expand view.

For those who will be watching the elections returns, keep an eye on Georgia. This is a culturally and politically conservative state that in any normal election year would be a safe state for the GOP. While the odds still suggest it will fall into the Republican column, it is not a given. If Georgia turns into a surprise win for Clinton it could be an early indicator that Trump is not just going to lose (all but certain), but that he is gong to lose badly. It would mean a lot of Republicans are staying home or at least not supporting the top of the ticket. That could spell serious trouble down ticket and endanger the GOP's control of Congress.

'EU is Impossible to do Deals With'- Canada Gives Up After 7 Years of Negotiations

The EU is "impossible" to do deals with, the Canadian government said as a major trade agreement appeared to be on the brink of collapse.

In a sign of how difficult Britain's Brexit negotiations will be, the Canadians walked out of talks on Friday after a major trade deal was put on hold because of a tiny region in Belgium.

The region of Wallonia, population 3.5 million, is blocking the Canada-EU trade deal, which was due to be signed next week after seven years of talks.

Under the Belgian political system, major international deals need to be signed off by regional parliaments.

Wallonian farmers are opposed to the deal because they fear that the country will be flooded with cheap agricultural imports.

It raises the prospect of a tiny region like Wallonia attempting to block whatever deal Britain emerges with during Brexit talks.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada's international trade minister, said: "It's become evident for me, for Canada, that the European Union isn't capable now to have an international treaty even with a country that has very European values like Canada. And even with a country so nice, with a lot of patience like Canada."

She added: "I've worked very, very hard, but I think it's impossible. "We have decided to return home. I am very sad. It is emotional for me."

Read the rest here.

‘Lions Hunting Zebras’: Wells Fargo Bankers Preying on their Customers

Mexican immigrants who speak little English. Older adults with memory problems. College students opening their first bank accounts. Small-business owners with several lines of credit.

These were some of the customers whom bankers at Wells Fargo, trying to meet steep sales goals and avoid being fired, targeted for unauthorized or unnecessary accounts, according to legal filings and statements from former bank employees.

“The analogy I use was that it was like lions hunting zebras,” said Kevin Pham, a former Wells Fargo employee in San Jose, Calif., who saw it happening at the branch where he worked. “They would look for the weakest, the ones that would put up the least resistance.”

Read the rest here. 

Banks are the enemy. The big ones need to be broken up under the various anti-trust laws and the people running them need to be jailed if it can be proven that this kind of behavior occurred under their watch. And it is way past time to put the Glass Steagall Act back on the books. Enough is enough!

Scandals

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo receives Pat. Athenagoras award

Convicted felon Bp. Demetri returning to ministry in the US 

I don't like using the blog as a scandal sheet, but sometimes you gotta say this isn't right.

 

Chicago’s new cardinal embodies the Pope Francis idea of a bishop

Poor Chicago. You would think they have enough problems and that sooner or later they might catch a break. Apparently not.

Read the story here.

The Second Waltz (Shostakovich)

Demetrios Tselengidis: On the Surpassing Value of the Spiritual Unity of the Church, Its Brutal Abuse in Crete and the Identification of the Church with its Administration

The well-known and respected Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Theological School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Demetrios Tselengidis, has issued an important and timely three part analysis of the Cretan Council and the ecclesiological problems and issues surrounding it. The letter was sent to all of the hierarchs of the Church of Greece at the end of August and has been included in the recent publication dedicated to the "Council" of Crete, which we mentioned in an earlier post...

Read the letter here.

Archbishop Chaput: About Those Unthinking, Backward Catholics

Back in 2008, in the weeks leading up to the Obama-McCain presidential election, two young men visited me in Denver.  They were from Catholics United, a group describing itself as committed to social justice issues.  They voiced great concern at the manipulative skill of Catholic agents for the Republican Party.  And they hoped my brother bishops and I would resist identifying the Church with single-issue and partisan (read: abortion) politics.

It was an interesting experience.  Both men were obvious flacks for the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party — creatures of a political machine, not men of the Church; less concerned with Catholic teaching than with its influence.  And presumably (for them) bishops were dumb enough to be used as tools, or at least prevented from helping the other side.  Yet these two young men not only equaled but surpassed their Republican cousins in the talents of servile partisan hustling.  Thanks to their work, and activists like them, American Catholics helped to elect an administration that has been the most stubbornly unfriendly to religious believers, institutions, concerns and liberty in generations.

I never saw either young man again.  The cultural damage done by the current White House has – apparently — made courting America’s bishops unnecessary.

But bad can always get worse.  I’m thinking, of course, of the contemptuously anti-Catholic emails exchanged among members of the Clinton Democratic presidential campaign team and released this week by WikiLeaks. A sample:  Sandy Newman, president of Voices for Progress, emailed John Podesta, now the head of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, to ask about whether “the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage” could be the tinder for a revolution. “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages [sic] dictatorship,” Newman writes.

Of course, Newman added, “this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and priests who count on it for their maintenance.” Still, he wondered, how would one “plant the seeds of a revolution”? John Podesta replied that “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this . . . likewise Catholics United” (emphasis added).

Another Clinton-related email, from John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, mocks Catholics in the so-called conservative movement, especially converts: “They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.” In a follow-up, he adds “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what . . . they’re talking about.”

On the evening these WikiLeaks emails were released, I received the following angry email myself, this one from a nationally respected (non-Catholic) attorney experienced in Church-state affairs:

“I was deeply offended by the [Clinton team] emails, which are some of the worst bigotry by a political machine I have seen.  [A] Church has an absolute right to protect itself when under attack as a faith and Church by civil political forces. That certainly applies here . . .

 “Over the last eight years there has been strong evidence that the current administration, with which these people share values, has been very hostile to religious organizations.  Now there is clear proof that this approach is deliberate and will accelerate if these actors have any continuing, let alone louder, say in government. 

 “These bigots are actively strategizing how to shape Catholicism not to be Catholic or consistent with Jesus’ teachings, but to be the ‘religion’ they want.  They are, at the very core, trying to turn religion to their secular view of right and wrong consistent with their politics.  This is fundamentally why the Founders left England and demanded that government not have any voice in religion.  Look where we are now.  We have political actors trying to orchestrate a coup to destroy Catholic values, and they even analogize their takeover to a coup in the Middle East, which amplifies their bigotry and hatred of the Church.  I had hoped I would never see this day — a day like so many dark days in Eastern Europe that led to the death of my [Protestant minister] great grandfather at the hands of communists who also hated and wanted to destroy religion.”

Of course it would be wonderful for the Clinton campaign to repudiate the content of these ugly WikiLeaks emails. All of us backward-thinking Catholics who actually believe what Scripture and the Church teach would be so very grateful.

In the meantime, a friend describes the choice facing voters in November this way: A vulgar, boorish lout and disrespecter of women, with a serious impulse control problem; or a scheming, robotic liar with a lifelong appetite for power and an entourage riddled with anti-Catholic bigots.

In a nation where “choice” is now the unofficial state religion, the menu for dinner is remarkably small.

Source (Reposted in its entirety with permission)

Concerning Burning

The burning of books is objectionable on principle. Indeed, whenever I hear of books being burnt, I always think of the famous quote by Heinrich Heine, who was born a Jew but converted to Christianity, and who died 1856. He said, “Where they burn books, in the end they will burn people.” (There is a fine irony in his far-sighted wisdom, since his books were among the many consigned to the flames by the Nazis in the 1930s.) The reason that book-burning is objectionable is that consigning something to the flames means not just its destruction, but in many circumstances its renunciation, and asserts its total lack of value. And pretty much all books have value—even the books the contents of which we disagree with. We may disagree with the ideas some books contain, but the idea of a book itself—that is, offering ideas from one person to another—is valuable and good, for all books involve sharing and dialogue, and all human dialogue has value.

In the same way that burning books is bad, burning people is bad also. Put another way, cremation is not a part of our Christian Tradition. Asserting this flies in the face of much modern North American culture, where cremation is rapidly becoming the preferred method of dealing with the bodies of the dead, but Orthodoxy continues to make this assertion nonetheless. As far as the historic practice of the Church is concerned, cremation involves the burning of people.

Modern secular culture denies this. It says that people—human persons—are to be sharply differentiated from their bodies, so that cremation burns not the person, but the body of the person. The person—the real person—is identified with the soul, and this soul resides in the body in the same sort of way that a letter resides in an envelope. In the case of letters and envelopes, the envelope has no real and lasting function apart from the safe delivery of the letter, and after the letter is received, the envelope may be thrown away. After all, it is the letter which is of value, and it is the letter which we keep. In the same way, modern secularism holds that the soul is the real person, and the body only the temporary container or vehicle for the soul. When the soul departs from the body at death, the body has no more lasting value than the envelope has after the letter is removed. Both may be thrown away, or burned.

Read the rest here.

Amazing Color Home Movies of New York During the 1940's

Elliot Abrams on the scandalous UN vote denying Jewish (and Christian) connections to Jerusalem

There is little to be added to the scorn rightfully shown in the United States and in Israel (which has cut all ties to UNESCO) toward the UNESCO vote this week that in essence wipes out Jewish and Christian history in Jerusalem by referring to it only in Muslim terminology.

UNESCO’s own director general, Irina Bokova, criticized the vote, saying, “Jerusalem is the sacred city of the three monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam. To deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site.”

Read the rest here.

In case there was any doubt

The Episcopalians are still wallowing in pagan apostasy.

A Quick Note

I apologize for the silence but I have been somewhat busy lately. On top of that I am fighting a cold that has been trying to turn into the flu. I realize that I have a backlog of emails but I just groan every time I even look at my computer these days. Hopefully I will get caught up by the end of the week.

On TV Tonight

So I have just been told over on another blog that Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) at about the same time that every other channel will be showing the 2016 version. I believe I will watch the fictional one.

The other may give me nightmares.

Dodging a Bullet

So I'm sitting here in the southwest corner of the Sunshine State under overcast skies with a stiff breeze pondering what might have been, and how very lucky we have been (so far). My part of the state was never in the projected danger zone so the worst I have had to deal with has been a sharp uptick in traffic and large crowds of temporary evacuees from the other side of the state. To whom I say welcome and enjoy your stay.

But all of this brings to mind those who proudly declared they would not evacuate despite being told they were potentially in the path of a category 4 hurricane. I'm going to hazard an educated guess that most of these morons have never been in anything close to a major hurricane in their lives. No rational person with a clue about the real danger of something as powerful as Matthew was when I went to bed last night (sustained winds of 140 mph) would deliberately put themselves in front of one. It's rather akin to being told there is a Great White Shark swimming just off the beach and going in for a dip anyways. Maybe the hurricane will miss you. And maybe the shark has moved on or isn't hungry.

Okay, I will concede an exception for those seeking a novel method for self murder. Suicide by hurricane would provide an interesting topic for gossip among neighbors and relatives.

But I doubt that was the intent here. In many cases this was just for bragging rights.  My guess is that a lot of these folks will be found in their favorite watering hole this weekend telling everyone within earshot about how they rode out Hurricane Matthew and that it was no big deal.

Except they didn't.

That's because Hurricane Matthew has thus far not hit land in the United States (Deo gratias). If it had hit land as a cat 4, anyone in it's immediate path along the coast would would have been fortunate to survive. And if they did, my guess is that whatever tales they told would have begun with something along the lines of "what a  bleeping idiot I was!" (I don't think they would use the word bleeping.)

The worst thing is that this dodged bullet is likely to reinforce the bone crushing stupidity exhibited by these people and encourage others to do the same the next time we have a dangerous storm rolling in our direction. And there will be a next time. Florida is geographically pretty much a natural bulls-eye for hurricanes. That we have not had a big hit in more than a decade is a small miracle that I fear has also given a false sense of security to many. More than two million have moved here since the last hurricane (including yours truly) and most probably lack an appreciation for just how devastating a bad one can be. Last night Matthew was more or less the same size and power as the Great Hurricane of 1900.

There are times I think everyone who wants to live within ten miles of the Atlantic coast south of Cape Hatteras, or anywhere at all along the Gulf of Mexico should be required to watch this or something similar.

The Pope in Georgia: Showing Respect Without Ecumenical Compromise

From Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 Pope Francis visited the ancient Orthodox nation of Georgia, celebrating Mass in a Tbilisi stadium on Saturday, Oct. 1 for the capital’s small Catholic population.
Hierarchs of the Georgian Orthodox Church were noticeably absent.

As it should be.

The media is variously reporting the absence of any official Georgian Orthodox delegation as a “shun,” a “snub,” and that the Pope was met “with disregard.” That such headlines are false and inflammatory is obvious in that the pope visited the nation by the invitation of the president and His Holiness Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II himself, who greeted him at the airport and met with him in an official capacity.

Moreover, the pope was welcomed to the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta where he exchanged speeches with His Holiness in the presence of a number of hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful.
What we see is that, in fact, the pope was met with the same respect given to any visiting dignitary. The pope himself, upon his departure, expressed his gratitude at being so warmly received. But His Holiness Ilia II also respectfully maintained his own integrity and that of the Orthodox faith and Church, given to us by Christ through His Apostles.

At Saturday’s Mass, Pope Francis declared: ““We should work together. We should respect each other and pray together. This is ecumenism.”

It is precisely this ecumenism that the Georgian Orthodox Church understands, and rightfully rejects, not out of any hatred or chauvinism, but the righteous desire to preserve intact the deposit of faith entrusted to the hierarchs and all the faithful.

The Church and its faithful are guided by the dictum “lex orandi, lex credendi”—the rule of prayer is the rule of faith—that is, the Church believes what it prays, and prays what it believes, and therefore, unity of faith is an obvious and necessary presupposition for unity in prayer.

The absence of unity of faith between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic confession is obvious, and so should be the absence of unity in prayer. Mutual respect is not enough to bind us together in Christ, for respect that disregards truth is no respect at all, and it certainly is not love.

In his Oct. 1 speech at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, the pope invoked the holy Apostle Paul, saying, “Those baptized in Christ, as Saint Paul teaches, have been clothed in Christ. Thus… we are called to be 'one in Christ Jesus' and to avoid putting first disharmony and divisions between the baptized, because what unites us is much more than what divides us.”

In the eyes of the media, the Georgian Orthodox Church’s seeming rejection of the ideal of unity and harmony is a “shun” and a “snub,” but what Pope Francis failed to mention, and which, naturally, the secular media fails to understand, but which those of an Orthodox consciousness can never forget, is that St. Paul spoke not merely of unity in baptism, but rather of One Lord, one faith, one baptism, which bind us together in one body, and one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4, 5). Baptisms not of one faith are indeed not one baptism. Baptism is unto union with the Body of Christ, and therefore, naturally, cannot happen outside of that Body of Christ.
In a statement on the Georgian Patriarchate’s website, the Church reminded the faithful that: “As long as there are dogmatic differences between our churches, Orthodox believers will not participate in their prayers,” which is entirely in keeping with the God-breathed universal canonical Tradition of the Church.

Canon 10 of the Holy Apostles reads: “If one who is not in communion prays together, even at home, let him be excommunicated,” and Canon 45: “A Bishop, or a Presbyter, or a Deacon that only prays together with heretics, should be excommunicated; if he has permitted them to perform anything as Clergymen, let him be defrocked.” Thus, we can see that His Holiness preserved his own good standing in the Church and the resilient witness of the Orthodox faith. Many later canons confirm and expound upon the norms laid down here.

For his part, the Catholic pontiff overlooked the vital dogmatic differences, insisting at his Tbilisi Papal Mass that Catholics ought never to proselytize the Orthodox, which would be “a grave sin against ecumenism,” in light of his belief that Orthodox and Catholics are brothers and sisters in the faith.

For the Orthodox, it would be precisely the notion that we must never seek to bring Catholics into the saving enclosure of the Orthodox Church that would be a sin, and a grave one at that, wholly lacking in love.

The Pope was met with respect and dignity, but not as a right-believing bishop of the true Church. He was neither invited to homilize during any Orthodox divine service, nor to bless the Orthodox faithful, nor was he seated upon any episcopal throne, nor was the liturgical Kiss of Peace exchanged—actions which would only wound the Orthodox conscience of the faithful, causing confusion and anger.

As a wise and discerning shepherd, Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II maintained a balance between respect for his guest and respect for his own flock and Church, and his own ordination, with all its ensuing responsibilities, setting an example for Orthodox-Catholic interactions, and giving voice to the Orthodox truth in his own speech at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral:

“True faith, humbleness and our traditions—these are the ancient treasures that we preserve and will continue to do so in future. We greet you again and confess that our unity is in the true faith. Only true faith and love will open the path towards our communion.”

-Jesse Dominick

Source

Is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Orthodox?

Go here and discuss.

Hungarian Referendum on EU Refugee Quotas: "No!" in a landslide

Hungary has voted emphatically against accepting EU migrant quotas, exit polls suggest, in a cry of defiance against Brussels that is likely to cement the country’s status as the leader of a “counter-revolution” against the bloc’s central powers.

As many as 95 per cent of voters voted “No” to the quotas in Sunday’s referendum, though there were fears last night the result could be declared invalid due to a low turnout.

One opinion poll by the Nézőpont Institute put turnout at just 42%, while a Hungarian government source it was unlikely to have been higher than 45%.

The referendum was the brainchild of Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, who cast the “No” vote as being in defence of the country’s sovereignty and independence.

Read the rest here.

Pope Presses Orthodox Agenda in Georgia Despite Resistance

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Pope Francis' efforts to improve relations with the Georgian Orthodox Church suffered a setback Saturday after the patriarchate decided at the last minute not to send an official delegation to his Mass and reminded the Orthodox faithful they cannot participate in Catholic services.

Francis still pressed on with his agenda, insisting that Catholics must never try to convert Orthodox and bowing in prayer alongside the Orthodox patriarch after they both lit a candle in the Orthodox cathedral.

Francis called for the historical divisions that have "lacerated" Christianity to be healed through patience, trust and dialogue.

"We are called to be one in Jesus Christ and to avoid putting disharmony and divisions between the baptized first, because what unites us is much more than what divides us," he told Patriarch Ilia, amid the Aramaic chants and hypnotic bells tolling at the cathedral in the spiritual capital of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Saturday's developments on the second and final day of Francis' visit to Georgia reflected the "one step forward, two steps back" progress that often accompanies the Vatican's outreach to the Orthodox Church, which split from the Catholic Church [cough cough A/O] over 1,000 years ago over issues including the primacy of the pope.

Read the rest here.

Britain Prepares First Steps in BREXIT

Theresa May will on Sunday announce she will repeal the 1972 European Communities Act in a move that will formally begin the process of making Britain’s Parliament sovereign once again.

Addressing the Conservative Party Conference for the first time as leader, Mrs May will declare that her government will begin work to end the legislation that gives European Union law supremacy in Britain.

In its place, a new “Great Repeal Bill” will be introduced in Parliament as  early as next year to put power for the nation’s laws back into the hands of MPs and peers.

The announcement is Mrs May’s first firm commitment on Brexit since becoming Prime Minister in July and marks a major step on the road to ending the country’s EU membership.

Read the rest here.