Cardinal Tobin: ‘The church is moving on the question of same-sex couples’ ​

VILLANOVA, Pennsylvania, April 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic Church is “moving” on the issue of couples living in homosexual relationships, a prominent Francis-appointed U.S. cardinal said.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin said that LGBT-identifying persons’ place in the Church is not an easy subject for some Church leaders, but they must contend with it.

“I think it’s a very difficult question,” Tobin said in response to a question on the firing of LGBT individuals from Catholic institutions while speaking at Villanova University last Thursday.

“The Church is moving on the question of same-sex couples,” Tobin said, although not as swiftly as some would like.

St. Peter Damian, an 11th century Italian Catholic reformer and Doctor of the Church, described homosexuality in his famous Book of Gomorrah as a “diabolical” corruption of God’s plan for sexuality between a man and a woman.​ Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, the Church teaches that homosexual acts are “acts of grave depravity” and are “intrinsically disordered” since they are “contrary to the natural law” in that they “close the sexual act to the gift of life.” “Under no circumstances can they be approved,” States the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The cardinal’s opening address of last week’s Villanova conference centered on the fifth anniversary of the Francis pontificate. It was covered in a report from Jesuit-run America Magazine.

Read the rest here.

And now for something a little lighter

The Jack Benny Show from January 28, 1951. Old time radio show starring the cheapest man in the world as well as, Don Wilson, Mary Livingston (Benny), Phil Harris, Dennis Day and Rochester (Eddie Anderson).

Click here.

Fr. Peter Heers On the Essential Identity of Ecumenism and Phyletism

As Fr. Seraphim Rose once wrote, the difference between Orthodoxy and heterodoxy is most apparent in that the Orthodox Church (in Her Saints) is able to discern the spirits. Moreover, discernment of the methods of the fallen spirits is a requirement in the formation of Christology and Ecclesiology. As the Evangelist John writes, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

Insomuch, therefore, as one is purified from the passions and illumined by the Spirit of God, so much is his spiritual vision open and discernment acquired. This gift of discernment, the greatest of the virtues, presupposes initiation into the death, resurrection and life in Christ which is lived within His Body, the Church. That few Orthodox Christians possess a good measure of this gift is a testament to the inroads of the spirit of anti-Christ, which, by another name, is secularism. The end of the worldly spirit is the denial of the theanthropic nature of the Christ and His Body, “the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” before the ascent of the man of iniquity, the Antichrist. This temptation is coming upon the world primarily through the spread of the ecclesiological heresy known as ecumenism.

Ecumenism and Secularism

Ecumenism as an ecclesiological heresy and denial of the Truth of the Body of Christ, and as a methodological distortion of The Way of Christ, has been born and bred within a secularized “Christianity.” As we said, secularism is first and foremost the spirit of antichrist, which is “already in the world,” namely, “every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.” This refers not only to that “Christianity” which expressly denies the divinity of our Lord, the various contemporary “Arianisms,” but every spirit which denies that the Jesus Christ is come – that is, has come and remains – in the flesh, in His Body, the One Church.
Ecumenism as a unification movement ironically seeks to overcome the scandal of division by denying the “scandal of the particular” – the Incarnation. Instead of crucifying their intellect on the cross of this scandal – that Christ entered and continues within history in a particular time and place, being mysteriologically-incarnationally ‘here’ and not ‘there’ – the uninitiated and rationalist followers of Jesus seek a theanthropic Body in their image: “divided in time,” in search of a fullness which they imply exists only on the heavenly plane. They see the Church as divided on the historical plane, as limited by the heavy hand of history. They see as Church identifiers not primarily the exclusive marks of oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity taken together, but rather the externals which “already unite,” such as the water of baptism (whether sprinkled, poured or immersed), the rites of the Liturgy, the belief in Christ’s divinity or the common text of Holy Scripture. It matters little that such externals, and indeed much more, were possessed by ancient heretics such as the Monophysites or Iconoclasts and were never seen as sufficient to produce any sort of “partial communion” or “already existing unity.” Neither does it seem to faze them that “the demons believe and tremble” and thus “unity in belief in Christ’s divinity” would necessarily include the demons.

Read the rest here.

See also this short video on The Meaning of Repentance and the Reign of God within us.

Roberto Pertici: THE END OF “ROMAN CATHOLICISM?”

1. At this point in the pontificate of Francis, I believe it can be reasonably maintained that this marks the twilight of that imposing historical reality which can be defined as “Roman Catholicism.”

This does not mean, properly understood, that the Catholic Church is coming to an end, but that what is fading is the way in which it has historically structured and represented itself in recent centuries.

It seems evident to me, in fact, that this is the plan being deliberately pursued by the “brain trust” that has clustered around Francis: a plan understood both as an extreme response to the crisis in relations between the Church and the modern world, and as a precondition for a renewed ecumenical course together with the other Christian confessions, especially the Protestant.

*

2. By “Roman Catholicism” I mean that grand historical, theological, and juridical construction which has its origin in the Hellenization (in terms of the philosophical aspect” and Romanization (in terms of the political-juridical aspect) of primitive Christianity and is based on the primacy of the successors of Peter, as emerges from the crisis of the late ancient world and from the theoretical systematization of the Gregorian age (“Dictatus Papae”).

Over the subsequent centuries, the Church also established its own internal legal system, canon law, looking to Roman law as its model. And this juridical element contributed to gradually shaping a complex hierarchical organization with precise internal norms that regulate the life both of the “bureaucracy of celibates” (an expression of Carl Schmitt) that manages it and of the laity who are part of it.

The other decisive moment of formation of “Roman Catholicism” is, finally, the ecclesiology elaborated by the council of Trent, which reiterates the centrality of ecclesiastical mediation in view of salvation, in contrast with the Lutheran theses of the “universal priesthood,” and therefore establishes the hierarchical, united, and centralized character of the Church; its right to supervise and, if need be, to condemn positions that are in contrast with the orthodox formulation of the truths of faith; its role in the administration of the sacraments.

This ecclesiology finds its seal in the dogma of pontifical infallibility proclaimed by Vatican Council I, put to the test eighty years later in the dogmatic affirmation of the Assumption of Mary into heaven (1950), which together with the previous dogmatic proclamation of her Immaculate Conception (1854) also reiterates the centrality of Marian devotion.

It would be reductive, however, if we were to limit ourselves to what has been said so far. Because there also exists - or better, existed - a widespread “Catholic mindset,” made up of the following:

- a cultural attitude based on a realism with regard to human nature that is sometimes disenchanted and willing to “understand all” as a precondition for “forgiving all”;
- a non-ascetic spirituality that is understanding toward certain material aspects of life, and not inclined to disdain them;
- engagement in everyday charity toward the humble and needy, without the need to idealize them or almost make new idols of them;
- a willingness also to represent itself in its own magnificence, and therefore not deaf to the evidence of beauty and of the arts, as testimony to a supreme Beauty toward which the Christian must tend;
- a subtle examination of the most inward movements of the heart, of the interior struggle between good and evil, of the dialectic between “temptations” and the response of conscience.

Read the rest here.
HT Dr. Tighe

Good News

Lung Cancer patients who are treated with a form of imunotherapy in conjunction with the standard chemotherapy are seeing drastically improved long term survival rates according to a recent study. This is extremely good news since Lung Cancer has historically been among the most lethal of the various common and semi-common carcinomas.

Sad news...

R Lee Ermy of Full Metal Jacket fame has reposed at 74. His was supposed to be a supporting role but his performance was so great that he ended up stealing the show. Many did not realize at the time that he had actually been a USMC DI at Paris Island back in the day.

Art Bell- Before Alex Jones, Bell was the king of late night radio specializing in the weird and fringe. My late Godfather was a big fan.  He recently passed at 72.

Former First (and Second) Lady Barbara Bush is reported to be in poor and declining health at 92. A family spokesman says she has decided to forgo further medical treatment.

I'm back...

Time for a little catching up.

Christ is risen!

Wishing everyone the joy of the Feast!

For those interested...

Great Saturday Service of the Annunciation (appx 4 hrs)
https://youtu.be/Xw9_2Y6TOro

Great Saturday Reading of the Acts (appx 2 hrs)
https://youtu.be/pSl88CMOUGM

Great Saturday. Midnight Office with the Canon of Great Saturday (appx ½ hr)
https://youtu.be/HinoiwJFGZk

THE GLORIOUS RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. PASCHA. Paschal Procession of the Cross, Matins, Hours and Liturgy (appx 3.5 hrs)
https://youtu.be/JZU50Rj_uE4

Paschal Vespers (appx 40 mins)
https://youtu.be/uFuv4J6elOM

Holy Week

There will be little or no blogging until Pascha. I wish each of you a blessed end to the Fast and a joyous Feast.

Happy Easter

To those celebrating today, I wish you every joy.

The West Cannibalizes Itself

What civilization has ever sought to repudiate its own culture and traditions as we do today?

Some 13 European thinkers issued an intellectual protest late last year against the assault on the Western heritage that has been raging on the Continent and in Britain for years. They called their 11-page document “The Paris Statement” and gave it a title: “A Europe We Can Believe In.” The Europe they believe in, write the 13 signatories (well-known in Europe, less so in America), is under threat of destruction from the forces of globalization, multiculturalism, and the EU managerial class, as well as growing anti-Christian prejudice.

“These lands are our home,” says the Statement, “we have no other. Home is a place where things are familiar, and where we are recognized, however far we have wandered. This is the real Europe, our precious and irreplaceable civilization.” 

The Statement has received a smattering of attention in the European media—broadcast television in Poland and the Netherlands; major newspapers in Germany, France, Spain, and Poland; national weekly magazines in Poland and Hungary; and opinion web sites in the UK, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain. But mostly it is an intellectual statement written for and consumed largely by other intellectuals.

And of course the assault on the Western heritage from within is a potent phenomenon in Europe, fostered by nearly the entire elite structure of the civilization. Thus it isn’t clear what a few highly accomplished intellectuals, however eloquent or anguished, can do to stem the erosion of the civilizational identity. But we are witnessing the emergence of some powerful political currents within the general European population, manifest in increasingly populist voting patterns in France, Germany, Austria, and elsewhere. Hence the Paris Statement could become a significant intellectual underpinning for Europeans who are increasingly concerned about the direction of things in their homeland. 

The threat to Europe, says the Statement, comes from “a false understanding” of what Europe is and represents. This “false Europe” is the product of people who are “orphans by choice,” glorifying their vision “as the forerunner of a universal community that is neither universal nor a community.” Believing that history is on their side, these patrons of the false Europe have become “haughty and disdainful, unable to acknowledge the defects in the post-national, post-cultural world they are constructing.” The false Europe, says the statement, is “utopian and tyrannical.”

The true Europe, on the other hand, encompasses a number of fundamental elements—a body of law that applies to all yet is limited in its demands; a shared understanding of political and cultural traditions and a fealty to those traditions; an appreciation of the nation state as “the political form that joins peoplehood with sovereignty”; a shared regard for the role of the Classical tradition in shaping the Western mind; and an understanding of Christianity as the religious bulwark of the civilization.

Now, write the signatories, “all this is slipping away. As the patrons of the false Europe construct their faux Christendom of universal human rights, we are losing our home.”

Read the rest here.

Pope Francis Denies the Existence of Hell

[Scalfari:] Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?

[Francis:] "They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls."

HT: Rorate Caeli 

For the record: The Holy See has issued a rather vague statement cautioning that the interview was not official and that the Pope may not have been quoted accurately. My take is that if the Pope had been misquoted on something like this the Vatican would have said so point blank. Your mileage may vary.

While everyone watches Stormy Daniels, a real crisis looms

At the risk of being a terrible bore, today I return to the topic of the United States’ out-of-control spending and threatening debt. No less than five of the country’s most distinguished economic leaders sounded the alarm in The Post on Tuesday. Michael J. Boskin, John H. Cochrane, John F. Cogan, George P. Shultz and John B. Taylor warned in their Post Opinions essay, “A debt crisis is on the horizon,” that “even if economic growth continues uninterrupted, current tax and spending patterns imply that annual deficits will steadily increase, approaching the $1 trillion mark in two years and steadily rising thereafter as far as the eye can see.” Unfortunately, these distinguished gentlemen don’t use exclamation points or useful words and phrases such as “panic!” or “apocalypse!” or “the economic sky is falling!” or “America is heading off a cliff!” Similarly, Fred Hiatt wrote in The Post last month that the sheer volume of spending from Congress “imperils America.” Well, the fact is that the topic of the national debt traditionally has little connection to porn stars and Playboy Bunnies, and it doesn’t lead directly to President Trump’s immediate demise, so it fails to become an obsession with the media. But the reality of what Boskin, Hiatt and the others say could not be more clear or more serious. Just 10 years ago, our debt was $9.4 trillion. Today, it is $21 trillion. Of that, more than $15 trillion is held by the public. And according to the experts, the public’s debt burden could quickly rise to $20 trillion in just five years. If that happens and interest rates rise to 5 percent —1.5 percentage points higher than that which the Trump administration predicts — the aforementioned economists say “the interest cost alone on the projected $20 trillion of public debt would total $1 trillion per year.” That is more than America’s current $654 billion defense budget.

Our political process is failing us. Even worse, it is failing our kids. We are digging a financial hole that they will have to live in. We cannot borrow our way to prosperity. Debt makes us weaker, not stronger. It is our perceived strength that makes others like China choose to lend us money. But the more debt we accumulate, the weaker we become. The debt that we offer looks less secure and will likely cost more. This problem will spiral out of control. There will be a crash. Still, few are even talking about it.

Read the rest here.

This country is heading towards a brick wall at about 80 mph. I don't know how long before we hit the wall, but when we do, it's going to be ugly.

Poll: Vast Majority of Californians Oppose Sanctuary Cities

Californians are overwhelmingly opposed to sanctuary city immigration policies, according to a poll commissioned by UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies (IGS). As a caveat, the director of IGS notes 99.5 percent of participants in the poll were citizens, and the survey was only conducted in English.

Between Aug. 11 and Aug. 26, Survey Sampling International conducted the poll on behalf of UC Berkeley, sampling 1,098 respondents. Of those polled, 74 percent said local authorities should not be allowed to ignore federal detainer requests. The other 26 percent supported the sanctuary city policy of preventing local police and sheriff’s officials from honoring immigration holds.

The poll results indicate Californians across the political spectrum and among all major ethnic groups oppose sanctuary city policies. The policy of ignoring federal detainer requests was opposed by 73 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Republicans and 71 percent of independents, according to UC Berkley.

Additionally, 65 percent of Latinos, 75 percent of Asian and African Americans and 80 percent of whites opposed sanctuary city policies.

Read the rest here.

In other news the California AG is threatening to arrest the Orange County Sheriff for aiding ICE. The Sheriff's office recently joined a Federal lawsuit against California over a series of laws aimed at obstructing Federal  immigration enforcement and announced that they are publicly posting the anticipated release dates for all inmates.

Chutzpah

Chutzpah: (Definition) When one of the most liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court complains about the Court overturning centuries of established law and precedent to create a hitherto unknown constitutional right by judicial fiat.

Congress’s “One Spending Bill to Rule Them All” is a Debt-Fueled Disgrace

The latest federal budget puts the lie once and for all to Republican promises of fiscal restraint.

The “one bill to rule them all,” 2,232-page, gargantuan, swamp-beast omnibus emerged from the smoke-filled bowels of congressional leadership earlier this week and passed both House and Senate mere hours after it was unveiled. The legislation spends $1.3 trillion in taxpayer dollars, busts the budget caps imposed back in 2011, and will lead to trillions of spending each and every year, ad infinitum, with interest payments on the massive federal debt to outpace the cost of the military and the cost of Medicaid in just eight short years. But at least we don’t have to worry about a government shutdown—in 2018, that is.

For nearly two decades now, we’ve watched this charade. Despite Republican promises of fiscal responsibility, they continue to spend like drunken sailors on holiday. That our elected leaders chose to blow this much money without even the pretense of having read the bill is both shocking and disgusting. And yet most of us remain complacent and continue about our daily routines. We barely blink as Congress binges on $1.3 trillion in unpaid-for federal spending. Not that long ago, a bill hammered out in secret caused the House to revolt against then-speaker John Boehner. Yet today’s secretly negotiated package fails to crack even the front page, as we’re treated instead to the minute details of Trump’s alleged affair with a Playboy model. This is our American version of bread and circuses, paid for on credit.

Read the rest here.

Ruins of previously unknown monastery accidentally found in Georgian forest

Story with lots of cool photos. They don't even know it's name.

If you absolutely must have a war...

This, or something very similar, is how it should be done.

The second-most dangerous American

Because John Bolton is five things President Trump is not — intelligent, educated, principled, articulate and experienced — and because of Bolton’s West Wing proximity to a president responsive to the most recent thought he has heard emanating from cable television or an employee, Bolton will soon be the second-most dangerous American. On April 9, he will be the first national security adviser who, upon taking up residence down the hall from the Oval Office, will be suggesting that the United States should seriously consider embarking on war crimes. 

The first two charges against the major Nazi war criminals in the 1945-1946 Nuremberg trials concerned waging aggressive war. Emboldened by the success, as he still sees it, of America’s Iraq adventure that began 15 years ago this month, Bolton, for whom a trade war with many friends and foes is insufficiently stimulating, favors real wars against North Korea and Iran. Both have odious regimes, but neither can credibly be said to be threatening an imminent attack against the United States.

Nevertheless, Bolton thinks bombing both might make the world safer. What could go wrong?

Much is made of the fact that Bolton is implacably hostile to strongman Vladimir Putin, whom the U.S. president, a weak person’s idea of a strong person, admires. And of the fact that the president has repeatedly execrated the invasion of Iraq that Bolton advocated. So, today among the uneducable, furrowed brows express puzzlement: How can the president square his convictions with Bolton’s? Let’s say this one more time: Trump. Has. No. Convictions. 

Read the rest here.

Facebook

Long time readers of this blog will know that the only form of social media that I use, is this blog. That means I am not, and have never been on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. I have always viewed them as an engraved invitation to invasion of privacy and I consider Facebook in particular to be quite sinister. Recent events have certainly done nothing to alter that view.

For those who might want to leave Facebook, the process is actually not easy. However there are a number of tutorial videos that are available on YouTube.

A word of caution... I understand that some people store a lot of stuff on their Facebook account, some of which may be important or hold sentimental value etc. You should download a copy of all your data from Facebook before deleting your account. Once your account is actually deleted, as opposed to deactivated, everything that was on it will be gone and you won't be able to get it back. Also be aware that Facebook changed the procedures for account deletion in late 2017, so you will want to use a recent tutorial.

Good luck.

Take me out to the ballgame, take me out to the crowd...

Yankees vs Red Sox April 14th, 1931 starring Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mayor Jimmy "Beau James" Walker and thousands of people dressed better than most people are today for church. Appx 15 minutes with original sound.

'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe

So says The Guardian with a certain amount of barely concealed glee. But what they are willfully ignoring is the rise of Islam. Whatever future may be in store for Europe, it is not going to be liberal secularism.

California's population decline continues despite strong economy

The state ranks near the top in cost of living which is driving out lower and middle class families. And with the highest taxes in the country even those who can afford to live there are looking for greener pastures, or at least a state that doesn't treat them as human ATMs for politicians constantly looking for more money.

Details.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Romanian court tells man he is not alive

In a case reminiscent of a Kafka novel, a Romanian court has ruled that a 63-year-old man is dead despite what would appear to be convincing evidence to the contrary: the man himself appearing alive and well in court.

Constantin Reliu asked the court in the town of Barlad to overturn a death certificate obtained by his wife after he had spent more than a decade in Turkey, during which time he was out of contact with his family. The court told him he was too late, and would have to remain officially deceased.

“I am officially dead, although I’m alive,” a bemused Reliu told local media outlets. “I have no income and because I am listed dead, I can’t do anything.”
Reliu left Romania for Turkey in 1992, apparently to seek employment. He last returned to the country in 1999, and appears to have cut off all contact with his family. After years of silence from her estranged husband, Reliu’s wife obtained a backdated death certificate for him.

The Romanian daily Adevarul said Reliu’s wife had argued in court that having heard nothing from her husband since 1999, she had assumed he had died in an earthquake while in Turkey. The paper said Reliu believes she sought the death certificate in order to annul the marriage and allow her to remarry.

Read the rest here.

The Attempted Murder of Sergei Skripal: How do we stop an out of control Putin?

By now, it really should not come as much of a surprise that yet another Russian has been attacked in Britain. Opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin have been showing up dead in and around London for more than a decade. In some cases, the trail clearly leads back to Moscow, as with the use of such gruesome chemical agents as polonium (Alexander Litvinenko in 2006) or, in the most recent incident, a nerve agent (Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who both survived the poisoning but remain in serious condition). In other cases, the evidence is subtler (e.g., Boris Berezovsky, found dead under suspicious circumstances in 2013).

While Britain is not the only place where those who have run afoul of Putin have died, a troublingly high number of such deaths have happened there. We can quickly dispense with the blathering of Russian officials about the latest case as just that: blathering. Putin’s public policy plan for this type of thing can be summed up as, “Lie bigger, lie harder. Sooner or later, the West will forget.”

It’s a plan that often works.

Read the rest here.

There was a time when this sort of thing would have been treated as an act of war. Alas, in an age where the perpetrator of what looks like a campaign of targeted assassinations has his finger on the launch button for a lot of nukes that is probably not a realistic course of action. But this really cannot be tolerated. The question is, does the West have the intestinal fortitude to collectively stand up to this murderous thug? I hope I am wrong, but my gut tells me not to hold my breath.

Now broadcasting on station KULT

Scientology has its own TV channel.

The Feds are suing California over their sanctuary laws

And about time. There has not been a lot that this administration has given me cause to cheer over, but they do seem to be serious about getting a handle on illegal immigration. And of course the open border advocates have all suddenly discovered states rights. Except they really haven't.

Here's the deal. California is part of a union governed by a contract between members. Members have broad discretion in most things, but there are areas where everybody agreed to cede authority to the central government in order to ensure mutual protection and avoid chaos. One of those areas is immigration. If a state (hello California) wants to set a statewide maximum speed limit of 30 mph, tax every gallon of gas and every cup of soda at $5 a pop and outlaw smoking statewide, well that's their business. I think they would be nuts. But again it's their call. But passing laws clearly aimed at obstructing Federal laws, is not.

California is in breach of its obligations to the other 49 states. Worse they are deliberating acting in a way that might endanger not only their own people and property, but the people and property of the other states as well as the economic well being of the union as a whole. And this needs to stop.

Quote of the day...

Tradition is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

-G.K. Chesterton

For whom does this bell toll?

 A village church in Germany recently discovered that one of its three bells has a dark past. It is inscribed with a swastika and an inscription that roughly translates as "Everything for the Fatherland  Adolf Hitler."

The church is described as Protestant which I am sort of assuming means Lutheran. After a rather heated debate that has drawn global interest (and commentary) they appear to have decided to leave the bell alone for now although there are plans to add some kind of plaque.

I am not unsympathetic to the conflicting views. After the war, first the Allies and then both East (Communist) and West Germany went on something of a campaign to eradicate monuments and buildings that it was feared might serve as some kind of rallying point for Nazi sympathizers. Laws were passed that forbade the public display of Nazi symbols and salutes. While a few structures with ties to the Third Reich survive, most were demolished or at least had any symbols stripped away.

But it has been almost three quarters of a century since the end of the war and many Germans are wondering if it isn't time to approach their past with out the kind of fear that, justifiably IMO, motivated their parents and grandparents to eradicate almost all physical reminders of that evil regime.

The options considered in this case were to leave the bell alone, move it to some kind of museum or simply melt it down. While I understand the emotional argument in favor of destroying the bell, I think its historical value would make some kind of preservation desirable. But as a Christian (forget Orthodox for the moment), I cannot conceive worshiping in a church with a Nazi bell ringing. It just beggars the imagination. The swastika along with the hammer and sickle are the two political symbols that I most closely associate with the demonic. To me it simply has no place in a church.

Three words...

Oddly Democrats have shown a great fondness for them over the last year or so.

Obstruction of justice

Wilbur Ross wants to turn the moon into a gas station

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Thursday the future of commercial space projects depends on colonizing the moon.

"I think a lot depends upon how successful we are in turning the moon into a kind of gas station for outer space," Ross told "Squawk Box." "The plan is to break down the ice [there] into hydrogen and oxygen, use those as the fuel propellant."

Rockets would not need as much thrust leaving Earth if they only had to get to the moon, he said. "Then at the moon, you have very low gravity so you don't need so much thrust to go from the moon to Mars, for example, or another asteroid."

Ross, a former private-equity investor with more than 55 years experience, has emerged as the point man for promoting commercial space projects. President Donald Trump has previously emphasized federal efforts to spur private space projects.

The Trump administration is also pushing to get Americans back to the moon. Additionally, the administration announced plans earlier this month to have private entities take over operations in low Earth orbit from the International Space Station.

Read the rest here.

Uh oh...

From here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

Fr. Hunwicke asks...

How to respond to a Pope who is demanding assent to something clearly contrary to the Catholic Faith.

See here for the discussion.

Here is my answer... If I were a convicted Roman Catholic and confronted with a Pope who was, at the least, a material heretic intent on subverting the Deposit of the Faith my answer would be that you resist. You follow the lead of the great French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. That is to say you commemorate him at mass, you pray for him ceaselessly, you obey him in all matters not contrary to the faith (also excluding changes to immemorial discipline intended to undermine Catholic Faith), and in all other matters you ignore him until he either repents or God calls him to judgement.That may in some instances require some adjustment in your relationship with your local ordinary. Consider Byzantine Rite parishes or the SSPX. The bottom line is you do what you need to do.

As an Orthodox Christian obviously my answer is in fact different, but that's my advice to Catholics who aren't ready to consider other possibilities. And for the record, I also agree with Fr. H in his rejection of sedevacantism. A Catholic cannot logically subscribe to that without accepting that Rome has fallen. Once you cross that bridge the game is over.

If you want an idea of what kids are getting taught in college today...

Read...

The patriarchal race to colonize Mars is just another example of male entitlement

I could never make this up even if I had a gift for satire. The sheer bone-crushing level of narcissism on the part of people who produce this kind of fertilizer defies words.

R I P

The Rev Billy Graham has reposed. I was not always a fan of his, and it goes without saying that I do not agree with his theology, but he was certainly one of the great figures of American Protestantism. Memory eternal.

On the eve of the Great Fast...

Please forgive me for any injury I have caused, especially through this blog.

Five Killed at Russian Orthodox Church

Five women were shot dead in an apparent Islamist attack on an Orthodox church in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday.

Details.

Memory eternal.

Expanding the Military Budget Is Wasteful and Unnecessary

Gordon Adams comments on the massive giveaway to the Pentagon:

The United States is back to defense spending, in constant dollars, that is higher than the peak spending levels under Ronald Reagan [bold mine-DL]. Only in 2010, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was defense spending higher.

Support for expanding an already bloated, excessive military budget is broad and bipartisan, but it is also profoundly misguided. For one thing, much of this spending has had and will have little or nothing to do with actually defending the United States or its allies, and most of it isn’t necessary for that purpose. The U.S. spends this much on a military this large in order to police and attack other parts of the world, and the only reason to increase that spending for an even larger military is to do more of those things. We should call it military spending or hegemony spending or imperial spending, but we should stop the bad habit of referring to it as spending on defense.

There is no security threat comparable to the Soviet Union today that would begin to justify spending more than at the height of the Reagan build-up. Reagan’s splurging on the military was also excessive, but he could at least point to a major rival that posed a serious threat as the reason for doing it. Threats to the U.S. today are not remotely on the same scale and don’t require anything like the same outlays on the military. We are frittering away resources on a much more expensive military at a time when we don’t need one and can’t afford one. Jacking up military spending at the same time as cutting taxes makes the new expenditure that much more irresponsible, and compounding the fiscal irresponsibility is the fact that there is no good reason to do it.
Adams notes that the surge in military spending is happening only because the military is demanding it and our representatives and president have no interest in rejecting that demand:

Read the rest here.

Quote of the day,,,

"The modern world demands we approve that which it should not even dare ask us to tolerate."

-Nicolás Gómez Dávila

Well I just can't please everybody

Pope Francis: “I don’t read websites that accuse me of heresy”

California discovers the complexity of creating a single payer health care system

California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon may have expected to torpedo the idea of a statewide single-payer healthcare system for the long term last June, when he blocked a Senate bill on the issue from even receiving a hearing in his house.

He was wrong, of course. His shelving of the Senate bill created a political uproar (including the threat of a recall effort), forcing him to create a special committee to examine the possibility of achieving universal health coverage in the state. On Monday and Wednesday, the Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage held its final hearings.

The panel ended up where it started, with the recognition that the project is hellishly complex and politically daunting but still worthwhile — yet can't happen overnight. "I'm anxious to see what it is that we can actually be working on this year," committee Co-Chair Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg) said toward the end of Wednesday's seven-hour session. "Some of the logistics and the challenges we have to deal with are multiyear challenges."

Little has changed since last year, when a measure sponsored by the California Nurses Assn., SB 562, passed the Senate in June and was killed by Rendon (D-Paramount) in the Assembly. The same bill, aimed at universal coverage for all residents of the state, including undocumented immigrants, is the subject of the select committee's hearings and the template for statewide reform.

Backers of the Healthy California program envisioned by the bill feel as if they're in a race with federal officials intent on dismantling healthcare reforms attained with the Affordable Care Act, and even those dating from the 1960s with enactment of Medicare and Medicaid.

In just the last few weeks, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has approved adding a work requirement to Medicaid in Kentucky and begun considering a plan to place lifetime limits on Medicaid benefits — profound changes in a program traditionally aimed at bringing healthcare to needy families.

The Republican-controlled Congress effectively repealed the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. That is likely to drive up premiums for unsubsidized middle-income insurance buyers and has prompted California and other states to consider implementing such a mandate on their own. (Idaho is moving distinctly in the opposite direction from California, proposing to allow "state-based health plans" that allow insurers to discriminate against applicants with pre-existing conditions.

Read the rest here.

The G.O.P. Is Flirting With Fiscal Disaster

In August 2015, the leading Washington budget watchdog predicted that the federal deficit would total about $600 billion the next year.

Now, just about two and a half years later, the projected gap for 2019 has grown to $1.2 trillion, in large part because of a boisterous round of tax cuts and spending increases. And if history is any guide, when the books close, the final number will be higher.

That amounts to a shortfall that will rival the deficits of a decade ago, when the economy was struggling to recover from the financial crisis and ensuing recession.

But while fiscal stimulus to restore economic growth has merit, staggering deficits in the ninth year of a recovery, with unemployment down to 4.1 percent, make no sense.

In addition to piling more debt onto the current $20 trillion of outstanding obligations, today’s mounting gap between revenues and expenses is already contributing to higher interest rates and the shakiness in the stock market.

Leading the charge into rising amounts of red ink have been the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

Yes, blame for what is likely to be $15 trillion of added debt over the next 10 years should be placed squarely on the self-proclaimed party of fiscal responsibility.

“The level of national debt is dangerous and unacceptable,” the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said in 2016. Referring to President Obama’s stimulus program, he added, “We borrowed $1 trillion and nobody could find that it did much of anything.”

That was then and this is now.

Read the rest here.

Unreality and Incoherence Reign at the Vatican

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, it was fashionable for Progressive and left-wing intellectuals to travel to the Soviet Union to find out what was “really” going on in the world’s first great experiment in communism. “The entire British intelligentsia,” the editor of the left-leaning New Statesman Kingsley Martin breathlessly exclaimed in 1932, “has been to Russia.”

The vast majority came back wide-eyed and deeply impressed by what they had seen. Following his visit to Russia in 1919, for example, the American progressive journalist Lincoln Steffens famously wrote, “I have seen the future, and it works.”

There were, however, realities about Soviet communism which few such individuals ever got around to mentioning. They rarely referred to, for instance, the Bolsheviks’ destruction of freedom; the cults of personality surrounding Lenin and then Stalin; the regime’s use of systematic terrorism against real but mostly imaginary opponents; the dynamiting of churches; the herding of peasants into collective farms; the murder of thousands of Orthodox and other Christian clergy; the Great Famine that killed millions in the Ukraine; the show-trials, purges and executions; the labor camps; and the relentless propaganda which assured everyone that everything was fine and that any problems were the work of saboteurs, kulaks, class-traitors, Czarist reactionaries, evil Western capitalists, and British Intelligence.

I was reminded of all this recently when reading a strange interview of Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo. He is the Argentine-born and Vatican-based long-time Chancellor of what are called the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Having recently visited China, the bishop described the one-party communist state as “extraordinary.”

Why extraordinary, you might ask? Well, according to Bishop Sanchez, China has “no shanty-towns” and “young people don’t take drugs.” Moreover, he said, China takes climate change so much more seriously than most other nations. That’s hard to square with China’s relentless emphasis on economic growth. But, above all, the bishop exclaimed, “those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.”

Read the rest here.
HT: Fr. Z

Antifa’s Handbook: A Primer on Violent Illiberalism

Keith Ellison, the deputy director of the Democratic National Committee and congressman from Minnesota, recently ignited a Twitter firestorm when he tweeted out a picture of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, a book, he declared, that would “strike fear in the heart of” Donald Trump. Upon reading Antifa, it’s easy to see why the tweet generated so much controversy.

Since its release last August, the handbook, by Dartmouth lecturer Mark Bray, has garnered attention as one of the few windows available into the mind of the newly prominent Antifa movement. Bray makes clear from the beginning that the book isn’t an attempt at a neutral rehashing of facts, but rather “is an unabashedly partisan call to arms” for the purpose of equipping activists “with the history and theory necessary to defeat the resurgent Far Right.” He articulates clearly the revolutionary ideology of the far left and defends using violence in its service, from street brawls to kidnappings to assassinations. For those who do not desire to see the world reborn in the flames of global anti-capitalist revolution, the popularity of The Anti-Fascist Handbook should prove alarming.

Antifa’s somewhat obvious immediate goal is the eradication of (what Bray considers to be) fascism. However, conveniently for Antifa, Bray argues that anti-fascist action is not merely limited to academic and historical definitions of fascism. Instead, “anti-fascism is an illiberal politics of social revolutionism applied to fighting the Far Right, not only literal fascists.” This meaning speaks to the broader end of the revolutionary left that Bray sees Antifa as a part of. This end, Bray explains, is the total destruction of the current capitalist order via a violent “international popular uprising.”

Read the rest here.

Benedict XVI: ‘I am on a pilgrimage Home’

The Pope Emeritus has written to an Italian newspaper to say he is “on a pilgrimage Home” in this “final period of my life”.

In a nine-line letter to Corriere della Serra, Benedict XVI thanks the paper’s readers for their concern, and assures them he is surrounded “by a love and a goodness that I could not have imagined”.

“I was moved that so many readers of your newspaper want to know how I am spending this last period of my life,” he said.

“I can only say in this regard that, in the slow decline of physical strengths, inwardly I am on a pilgrimage Home,” he added, capitalising the Italian word ‘Casa’.

Read the rest here.

May his remaining days be filled with peace and love.

America's States Of (Fiscal) Siege

America's states and municipalities should be awash in good budget news. Unemployment remains below 5%, inflation is tame, and the stock market rose more than 20% in 2017 — the ninth year of a bull market. Yet many local governments faced intense struggles last year to balance their books.

Localities have confronted unrelenting fiscal pressure since 2008, a result of the  weakest recovery since World War II of tax revenues combined with ever-escalating costs. Many states and localities have had to rewrite budget books in ways that leave taxpayers paying more — and receiving less.

"U.S. states have entered a new era characterized by chronic budget stress," the financial analyst Gabriel Petek, a managing director in the U.S. Public Finance group at S&P Global Ratings, wrote last April.
 
President Trump has promised $1 trillion in infrastructure spending that could provide some help to localities, but what governments across the country really need is a return to economic growth rates of 3% or higher.

Tax reform passed in December looks like it will help but states and cities will also need to become more efficient and innovative in delivering basic services, or else face a future of tax hikes and service cuts to keep up with their mounting bills.

Local governments got a sense that something might be different starting in 2009, when state tax revenues, hammered by the steep recession, collapsed by nearly 9% — only the second time in the postwar era that state revenues had declined from one year to the next.

Then revenues slumped again in 2010, by 4% this time, leaving governments tens of billions of dollars short of where they'd been just two years earlier.

Read the rest here.

The Donald's Parade (no not Disney World)

Apparently the narcissist in chief was much impressed with the military show staged by the French on Bastille Day and now he wants one too. And so the order has been given. My personal suspicion is that it's less the French he wants to upstage than the dictator of North Korea who is also fond of public displays of military power and pomp. The irony of course is that this martial spectacle will presumably be reviewed by the draft dodging patriarch of a family, from which to the best of my knowledge, no one has served in uniform... ever.

And the hits just keep on coming

China is the best implementer of Catholic social doctrine,’ says Vatican bishop

Words fail.
HT: Leroy Huizenga via email.

Orthodox Religion, Unorthodox Medicine: The Rise of Romania’s Christian Doctors

A new breed of Romanian doctors wants to place faith at the heart of their practice, alarming those who believe religion and medicine do not mix.

Cardiologist Ciprian Fisca barely got any sleep on last night’s shift, and his next one starts early tomorrow morning.

But right now, eight hours before he returns to hospital, there is nowhere he would rather be than in the kitchen of a religious retreat, deep in rural Transylvania, peeling horse-radishes.

The 27-year-old is volunteering his services as a kitchen-hand in the isolated retreat of St John the Evangelist, helping the priests with tomorrow’s meal. Among the small group assisting with the catering are a pharmacy student and Ciprian’s younger sister, who hopes to study medicine herself.

The retreat consists of a modest church surrounded by modern-looking buildings currently under construction, including a canteen, conference centre and accommodation facilities.

The transformation of this remote site hints at the revival of the Romanian Orthodox Church, flexing its muscles after half a century of communist dictatorship.

Once associated with the elderly and the rural poor, the Church now attracts educated youth in the cities, including a conspicuous following of doctors and medical students.

Read the rest here.

German Cardinal Gives OK for Priests to Bless Homosexual Couples

The wheels are starting to come off in the Roman Church.

Details.

The Red Moon

“I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon”. -Lyndon B Johnson

I knew it!

The real breakfast of champions

Cold pizza, microwaved pizza, store-bought frozen pizza... It doesn't matter what kind of pie is on your plate this morning - it's probably a healthier breakfast than a bowl of cereal.

If you're considering eating pizza for breakfast, there's a good chance you're wildly hungover. Or maybe you're just feeling plain old lazy. You might feel like a piece of trash for eating America's favorite greasy food before 10 a.m., but you really shouldn't.

It's got protein. It's got carbs. It might even have vegetables. That hot slice of cheesy goodness is a balanced breakfast if we've ever seen one.

And heck, if Beyonce can eat cupcakes after SoulCycle, you can eat pizza before 10 a.m.

Plus, you're making a better choice than most moms are when they feed their kids cereal for breakfast. Why? America's cereal options are nutritionally bleak - there's rarely protein, healthy fats, or anything but spoonfuls of sugar in cereal these days. And with cheese gaining momentum as the next hit superfood, you can bet pizza is winning this nutritional war.

To make sure we aren't steering you towards your greasy, heart-clogged demise, we double-checked with a dietitian.

Read the rest here.

Are Republicans Ready to Join a Third Party?

WASHINGTON — Want to know what a lot of Republicans have been thinking about in the days leading up to Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address to a Republican-controlled Congress?

A new party.

At think-tank conference tables, over coffee at the Senate Chef and at the incessant book parties on the Washington social circuit, disaffected Republicans are wondering whether, if they came up with a truly great candidate, they could jump-start a new party, just as the original Republicans did in the 1850s.

And if surveys have any truth to them, plenty of Americans are ready to join them. A September Gallup poll found 61 percent of American voters support the idea of a third major political party, the highest level of support Gallup had ever recorded. Young voters seem especially eager to junk the two-party system; NBC reported in November that 71 percent of millennials want another choice.

In a world in which Alabama voters elected a Democratic senator, all kinds of previously unimaginable possibilities make a new kind of sense. A third-party presidency in 2020 is no less likely today than the prospect of Donald Trump’s election appeared to be two years ago.

A viable third-party candidate — say, someone with credibility inside one of the parties who bolts from it — would have appeal to voters across the spectrum. There are many Republicans wary of a second term for Mr. Trump, and yet right now they are entirely reliant on the Democrats to deliver a winning centrist candidate out of a primary process that almost made Bernie Sanders their 2016 nominee. A contest between Mr. Trump and a liberal Democratic candidate like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would leave the middle up for grabs. And a big contingent of politically orphaned political strategists, academics and donors would be ready to lend support.

Read the rest here.

Supreme Court Vacancies?

Democrats are biting nails over the possibility of multiple vacancies on the Supreme Court. It is widely expected that Justice Kennedy, the court's lone (left leaning) centrist, will step down at the end of the current term. Assuming this is true, President Trump will have the opportunity to replace him before the next Congress is seated. Which depending on the election this fall, could see the Senate shift to Democratic control.

That's bad enough for liberals as Kennedy has been the swing vote for a lot of very controversial decisions that went their way. But what is keeping them awake at night is the possibility that one, or even two of the court's more liberal justices might also stand down. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and has been dealing with serious health issues for years. She is often seen falling asleep in public, sometimes while on the bench. The other possible vacancy is Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Just 63, she has been struggling with diabetes and is rumored to be having difficulty remaining focused in her work. Court watchers have suggested that she appears to have aged dramatically over the last year.

My personal opinion is that neither of these liberal icons will stand down this year unless they just can't do the job anymore. With Trump in the White House I suspect that they would rather die in office than voluntarily give him the opportunity to name their successor. But Trump has the better part of three years remaining in his term of office and that is a long time for two judges with serious medical conditions, and one in her mid 80's. It seems likely that Trump will have the opportunity to name at least one more justice, and possibly as many as three.

This is why Democrats are desperate to regain control of the Senate. If the two liberal justices can hang on one more year and the Democrats flip the Senate then Trump will be severely constrained in his ability to get conservative nominees confirmed. After what the GOP did to Obama's nominee, which Democrats are still seething over, my guess is that the only man Trump would have any chance of getting confirmed would be Merrick Garland.

New York City in 1929

Film footage with sound taken by an early Movietone film crew of street scenes in New York City in 1929.

Trump says he wants to talk to the special prosecutor under oath...

What could possibly go wrong? If I were his lawyer I'd tell him to watch this video (I think I may have posted it before on here). Then I'd tell him that if he agrees to so much as discuss last night's ball game with Mueller that I would resign and he would need to get another lawyer.

Quote of the day...

“An impeccable argument can rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful. We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits.”

-Pope Francis
Source

Disgusting

Another Bible thumping huckster praying [pun intended] on the credulous. Some people simply have no shame.

Details.

Unreformable Ireland? The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland

What makes Ireland so interesting for Reformation studies is that it stands out as the classic exception to the general rule of ciuis regio, eius religio. Despite the endeavours of successive monarchs to extend the English Reformation to Ireland since 1534, by the end of the sixteenth century the number of Irish Protestants was reckoned by contemporaries at between 40 and 120 individuals. In Dublin, the capital of Ireland, only twenty Irish householders attended Protestant church services, and only four of those would receive communion by Protestant rites. By any criteria the failure of the Reformation in Ireland was comprehensive and absolute.

Because the failure of the Reformation in Ireland was so overwhelming it had long seemed inevitable, and historians had generally seen no need to try to explain it before Brendan Bradshaw’s exploratory essay, “Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland,” was published in 1978. However, that article prompted Nicholas Canny’s rejoinder of the following year: “Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: une question mal posée?” Not only did Canny declare the question as misconceived, he presented a new paradigm for Irish Reformation studies. He claimed that until the 1590s the Reformation in Ireland was characterized by a “quiescent phase” during which the Irish were not bothered about the theological debates that concerned Christians elsewhere in Europe. He asserted that throughout that period they were as liable to be absorbed into the Protestant Church of Ireland as to be lost forever to the Counter Reformation. He argued that the Reformation was rejected at the fin de siècle, not for any religious reasons but because it came to be seen as merely another facet of an English government program for Ireland that was characterized by despotism, militarism, and Anglicization. Tellingly, though, it was not made clear how political alienation from English governance could suddenly have inspired a general commitment to Counter-Reformation Catholicism after more than six decades of supposed religious indifference. 

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Turkish Chemist Claims Noah Had Nuclear-Powered Ark, Called Son on Cellphone

A Turkish academic who claims to “speak for science” said that Noah used a cellphone to call his son before the Flood and powered the Ark with a nuclear reactor. The latest bizarre pseudoscience out of Turkey comes a year after the Turkish government claimed that the patriarch Abraham’s father built Göbekli Tepe and a couple of years after Turkey’s strongman president claimed that Muslim explorers built a mosque in Cuba long before Columbus visited the island. Such claims are part of a growing religious fundamentalism in the Turkish state, where the secularism of Ataturk has eroded in recent years in favor of Pres. Erdoğan’s policy of Islamization.

​Yavuz Örnek, 59, teaches marine science at Istanbul University. He was educated in Turkey and here in upstate New York (but of course) at Syracuse University. He is a specialist in organic chemistry and studies algae, but he is also an outspoken opponent of women’s rights, claiming that families break down when women are free and that gender equality must be bad because “the Jews” advocate for it. Speaking on the state-run TRT 1 television network on Saturday, Örnek outlined his strange claims about Noah’s Ark.

“There were huge 300 to 400-meter high waves and his [the Prophet Noah’s] son was many kilometers away. The Quran says Noah spoke with his son. But how did they manage to communicate? Was it a miracle? It could be. But we believe he communicated with his son via cell phone,” Örnek said, according to a translation published in the Hürriyet Daily News.

The passage Örnek refers to appears in Qur’an 11:42-43: “And the ark swam with them between waves like mountains: and Noah called up to his son, who was separated from him, saying, Embark with us, my son, and stay not with the unbelievers. He answered, I will get on a mountain, which will secure me from the water. Noah replied, There is no security this day from the decree of God, except for him on whom he shall have mercy. And a wave passed between them, and he became one of those who were drowned” (trans. George Sale). As you can see, there is no indication in the text that Noah’s son was kilometers away; rather, the plain reading is that Noah passed him in the Ark and called to him as the ship sailed by him.

Read the rest here.

Who needs coffee...

When you wake up to this on your cell phone?

EXTREME ALERT
BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII
SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER
THIS IS NOT A DRILL

Somebody needs to get their @$$ run up a flagpole for this one. 

Immigration

There is talk of some grand bargain that would resolve the status of millions of illegal aliens in the country. I smell an amnesty sell out. I hope I am wrong but let's just say that when talking about politicians my trust level is pretty close to zero. So is there anything that might move me to accept some kind of broad amnesty?

Yes.

The one thing that will forever remain an impediment to effectively limiting illegal immigration is birthright citizenship. It's enshrined in the 14th amendment in language that is, unfortunately, at least as clear as that of the 2nd amendment, which means we can't get rid of it without another constitutional amendment. And that is impossible without bipartisan agreement in both houses.

So here are my terms for supporting some kind of broad amnesty.

* Secure the border with Mexico. I don't care about a wall, but the border needs to be secured.
* End chain immigration.
* End the Green Card lottery. If we are going to legalize and absorb as many as ten + million illegals, well we just don't have any room for the others who played by the rules and waited for their turn. Sorry, you got screwed by the fence jumpers and their allies.
*Pass and send to the states for ratification an amendment abolishing birthright citizenship. If it can get out of Congress it will get ratified. There are plenty of states that will do it and fast. The number of states that will oppose ratification are high in population but few in number. California and New York each only count once.
*Require background checks and back taxes to be paid by those being granted residency.

If the Democrats can swallow those terms I can swallow an amnesty bill. That's a long term win in the fight against illegal immigration.

Mail call

Now and then I get emails from inquirers and others seeking advice on various issues. I'm not sure why, as I'm not a priest. But setting that aside I try to help if I think I can.  Which brings me to an email from Ben (not their real name) who is in a situation that I very much fear is not all that unusual these days.

Ben is a small 'o' orthodox Roman Catholic who resides in a diocese (he didn't specify but I can take a guess) with what he describes as a pretty bad bishop who is promoting things that are simply a no no for serious Catholics as well as we Orthodox. Ben used the "H" word in describing him and I'm not going to argue the point. The parish he grew up in and was married in sounds like it has become Episcopalian in all but name. Last summer the priest there gave a homily that was the last straw and Ben realized that remaining there was no longer an option for him or his family.

So they started shopping for a new spiritual home and landed in an Orthodox parish where they have been welcomed with open arms and they are very happy. He and Mrs. Ben love the church, and the liturgy and are very happy with the priest.

I will bet you know what's coming.

The problem is that Ben is not ready to swim the Bosporus. There is much that he admires about Orthodoxy but he is still a Catholic deep down. And of course while he and his family have been warmly welcomed, they can't commune the Holy Mysteries which he, rightly IMO, believes is a problem.

His options vis a vis his own church are limited. There is a fairly conservative parish that is about 90 minutes away. But he would still be within the diocese with a bishop that Ben is convinced is a flat out heretic.

My best advice is to see if there is an Eastern Byzantine* Rite Catholic parish within a reasonable distance. Your mileage may vary, but the Eastern Rites used to be fairly safe compared to a lot of the really dreadful stuff going on in some corners of the Roman Rite. Failing that I would look for a traditional (Tridentine Rite) parish. If necessary, I'd consider a parish under the Society of St. Pius X. Their exact relationship with Rome is not clear. A friend described it as one characterized by strategic ambiguity which seems to suit both sides. To be clear the SSPX has had some issues in the past, but I think they got rid of the more hardcore wing nuts when they expelled Bishop Williamson. Recently the Red Pope granted them faculties for hearing confessions and their Masses are considered valid by the Holy See. For some, in the current emergency in the Catholic Church, the SSPX may well be the safest port in which to ride out the storm.

As for the conservative parish that is an hour and a half away, if all else fails I'd maybe do that once a month, which would permit the reception of confession and holy communion. But I am really reluctant here because that parish is under a bishop that is a heretic. Here I must note my Orthodox side is showing through. In Orthodoxy our connection to the broader Church is through the Holy Mysteries of the Altar which among other things, requires submission to a canonical Orthodox bishop. And to be blunt, if hypothetically my bishop were to be doing/promoting the kind of things that Ben's is, I'd be gone. Which is to say I would never set foot in, much less commune in any parish under their jurisdiction.

The one obvious solution is conversion. But again Ben doesn't sound ready to go there and I for one consider his reluctance to be a sign of spiritual maturity. Conversion should never be done lightly. And as I have noted in the past, it is better to remain in schism from the Church then to enter, only to leave later on. Everything I have heard suggests that this is a chronic problem.

So with my rather lame advice out of the way I am going to open this up in case someone else can offer something a little better. However, I do want to caution that comments need to be constructive and charitable. Any that IMO fail that standard will be quickly dispatched to the cyber trash bin.

* Per the suggestion of Dr. Bill Tighe who worries that some of the non-Byzantine sui iuris churches have been "reformed" in unhealthy ways.

Fr. John Whiteford Reviews David B Hart's Translation of the New Testament

You may read it here. If you would prefer just the executive summary... (WARNING: Spoiler Alert)...

It sucks.

From the "you can't make this up" file

SANTA CLARITA, Calf. (WFLA) — While the rest of us were debating where to abandon our trees, one woman decided to take hers back for a refund.

So come January, the woman wanted her money back for her once lively Christmas tree because it was now dead.

Customers at the Costco in the suburbs of Los Angeles were blown away, and one man couldn’t help but post the rest of the details on Facebook.

Read the rest here.

100 Years Ago

From the front page of the New York Tribune, January 8th 1918.

Christ is born (again)!

The Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Nativity of Christ from St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church in Washington DC (in English).

Just a reminder...

Summer really is coming.

How Europe Built Its Own Funeral Pyre, Then Leapt In

Mass immigration, guilt and a continent on the brink of ‘societal catastrophe.’

The single most significant issue of our time is not North Korea’s drive to develop long-range nuclear missiles. It is not the threat posed to Europe by the Russian land power or the threat posed to America’s Asian dominance by Chinese sea power. It is not Iran’s growing Mideast influence, nor the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. elections and possible “collusion” by the Trump campaign.

No, the defining issue of our day is mass immigration into the nations of Western heritage. This growing inflow threatens to remake those nations and overwhelm their cultural identity. This is the issue that played the largest role in getting Donald Trump elected. It drove Britain’s Brexit vote. It is roiling the European continent, mounting tensions inside the EU and driving a wedge between the elites of those nations and their general populations.

Indeed, the central battlefront in the immigration wars is Europe, which accepted a trickle of immigrants in the immediate postwar era due to labor shortages. But over the years the trickle became a stream, then a growing river, and finally a torrent—to the extent that ethnic Britons are now a minority in their own capital city, refugee flows into Germany went from 48,589 in 2010 to 1.5 million in 2015, and Italy, a key entry point, received at one point an average of 6,500 new arrivals a day.

Throughout all this, the European elites celebrated the change and imposed a kind of thought enforcement regime against those who raised questions. The in-migration was initially hailed as an economic boon; then as a necessary corrective to an aging population; then as a means of spicing up society through “diversity”; and finally as a fait accompli, an unstoppable wave wrought by the world’s gathering globalization. Besides, argued the elites, the new arrivals would all become assimilated into the European culture eventually, so what’s the problem? Meanwhile, public opinion surveys over decades showed that large majorities of Europeans harbored powerful misgivings about these changes.

As British journalist and author Douglas Murray writes, “Promised throughout their lifetimes that the changes were temporary, that the changes were not real, or that the changes did not signify anything, Europeans discovered that in the lifespan of people now alive they would become minorities in their own countries.”

Murray, associate editor of the Spectator in London, is the author of a compact volume exploring this phenomenon. It is called The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, and it was published six months ago by Bloomsbury. The tone is measured but unflinching. The picture he paints of the European future is bleak.

Read the rest here.

David Stockman: Unhinged, Part 1- The GOP's Fiscal Madness

Pulled: I am blanking this post as the linked article has been moved behind a paywall. Apologies. It was quite good.

Catholic Bishops of Kazakhstan Implicitly Rebuke Pope Francis

His name may not have been mentioned but there can be no doubt who this was directed towards.