The strange story and rumors surrounding St. Feodor Kuzmich

I have been intrigued for years by the rumors and conspiracy theories surrounding this famous Russian saint. Was he really Czar Aleksandr I? The idea that a Russian czar might have faked his own death to live his life as a quasi-hermit makes for a very pious (and entertaining) story. But as with most conspiracy theories, I am at least slightly skeptical. The first question I ask whenever a conspiracy theory comes my way is, how many people would have had to been in on the plot, and then kept their mouths shut for the rest of their lives? Ben Franklin once famously observed that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. 

In this case, the number would have had to have been pretty high. And while a lot of rumors did start to crop up, most did not do so until quite a while after the czar's death. To the best of my knowledge none of those who attended the czar in his final days, or his funeral arrangements, ever made any statement that might have implied that things were not as they had been made to appear. I have also been on the lookout for years for a reliable source confirming the story about the Communists opening his grave, only to find it empty. Empty is also a good word for the results of that search thus far. If anyone has a reliable source for that story, please share it in the comments.

None of this is to say that I firmly disbelieve the stories. Only that hard evidence is extremely lacking and that commonsense inclines me towards a certain degree of skepticism. Unlike with some other popular conspiracy theories, such as the Kennedy assassination, or the alleged faking of the moonshot, both of which don't pass the laugh test when you consider the mountains of confirmed evidence; here there is no hard evidence on either side of the debate. And yes, there is some interesting, mostly circumstantial evidence that lends itself to the rumors. As such, while I remain skeptical, I am also keeping an open mind pending a DNA test or some other really hard proof one way or the other.

News from Rome

The revolution continues...

Report: Pope Francis Planning Radical Changes to Papal Elections

Given what he is obviously trying to do; wouldn't it have been easier to just give voting rights to all the "bishops" of the American Episcopal Church?

Story here.

High Mass for XXII Sunday After Pentecost (Orthodox Western Rite)

St. Patrick's Orthodox Church Bealeton, VA.

Good News for the Oriental (non-Chalcedonian) Orthodox

Catholic bishop asks pastors to bless same-sex couples

Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann said in the Nov. 2 letter to priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers that the blessings — which he also extended to remarried couples — could take place in churches in the Diocese of Speyer.

Read the rest here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Every Catholic in the world is in communion with this heretic. Just saying.

Gall Effrontery Temerity

Call it what you will. Today I got a spam text on behalf of the former grifter N chief complaining about political persecution and begging for money. I'm not generally a fan of coarse language but I spent ten years in the navy, so I'm not exactly unfamiliar. The response I sent back would have peeled the paint off the wall in a Marine Corps barracks.

Pope Francis calls for ‘paradigm shift’ in theology for world of today

Pope Francis has called for a “paradigm shift” in Catholic theology that takes widespread engagement with contemporary science, culture, and people’s lived experience as an essential starting point. 

Citing the need to deal with “profound cultural transformations,” the pope presented his dramatic vision for the future of Catholic theology in a new motu proprio issued earlier today.

Titled Ad Theologiam Promovendam, or “to promote theology,” the document revises the statutes of the Pontifical Academy of Theology (PATH) “to make them more suitable for the mission that our time imposes on theology.”

“Theology can only develop in a culture of dialogue and encounter between different traditions and different knowledge, between different Christian confessions and different religions, openly engaging with everyone, believers and nonbelievers,” the pope wrote in the apostolic letter. 

Read the rest here.

Past popes saw themselves as missionaries from God to a fallen world. This pope sees himself as a missionary from the world to a fallen God. 

The Return of the Bond Vigilantes

The bond market is sending a message to Washington; get your act together. 

It looks like Wall Street is no longer willing to look the other way at the habitual dysfunction and fiscal profligacy in the nation's capital. With the national debt now exceeding $33 trillion (not including unfunded future obligations) and Congress paralyzed by partisan bickering, investors are no longer prepared to lend the US Government their money at dirt cheap interest rates. The yield on the benchmark 10-year US Treasury bond has been flirting with 5% for most of the last week. That's the highest it's been since 2007. As the route in the bond market continues, with its potential to spook stock investors, the threat may go beyond the much steeper costs of borrowing by the Federal government. It is starting to effect interest rates for mortgages, car loans, credit card debt and borrowing money by businesses and state/local governments. In other words, if DC doesn't take steps to calm the bond market, it could start to affect the broader economy. 

CNBC's take.

On the other side of the debate, Warren Buffet disagrees. He thinks US government debt remains relatively risk free and current yields are attractive, especially for longer term investors. 

Casual state dinners?

The US hosted the Prime Minister of Australia at a state dinner last night and President Biden showed up dressed like an undertaker. You would think somebody in the White House would have a clue about protocol. 

The GOP: Is it time for a divorce?

End of an era: It’s time for the Republicans to break up

A reflection on the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical reforms in an ecumenical perspective

“Where to look for genuine ecumenism?” An Eastern Orthodox Perspective

This is excellent. (HT: Dr Tighe)

What is the difference between Roman Catholicism and liberal Protestantism?

At the rate things are going, I'd say about ten years. This needs to be said plainly; what Francis has unleashed in the Catholic Church, is not reform. It's revolution. 

Some good news

Communion restored between Antioch and Jerusalem

Quote of the day

“He is unquestionably mentally unstable, and he is racist, bigoted, misogynistic, xenophobic, vulgar and prone to violence. There is simply no rational argument that could lead me to vote for someone with those characteristics.”

-Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in a 2016 email to Chris Christie following Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump

Bibi Netanyahu

According to a new poll roughly 80% of Israelis hold Benajamin Netanyahu responsible for the pogrom of October 7 and the deaths of more than 1400 of their countrymen and fellow Jews. That number includes 69% of people who voted for Netanyahu's Likud party in the last election. 

Politically, Netanyahu is a dead man walking. The question is not so much will he have to resign, but rather how long will the other members of the emergency government be willing to allow him to remain PM? My guess is that as soon as the immediate crisis is passed, he will be gone. It's likely that there are already discussions taking place behind closed doors over the shape of the post Bibi political world.

Whatever one may think of his politics, I think Netanyahu is a tragic figure. This calamity will be the defining legacy of a man who dominated Israeli politics for more than a quarter century. I was going to compare him to the captain of the Titanic, but I think a better analogy might be J Bruce Ismay, the director of the White Star Line. The Titanic's captain went down with his ship. But Ismay stepped into a lifeboat at the last minute and survived, for which he was vilified and probably spent the rest of his life wishing he had died that night. Bibi may be doomed to a similar fate.

On forgiveness and the state

In times past, kings wielded the power of life and death in God's name. But with that terrible power came the duty to exercise not only justice, but also mercy. I fear this is something we have largely forgotten in the modern world.

I found this to be quite powerful. 

Israel

Whatever Israel's sins, and there are many, they cannot excuse this butchery. This was a modern-day pogrom and should be so labeled. Hamas and the Nazis are differentiated only in minor details. The former being motivated by religious fanaticism and hatred, the latter by bizarre ideals of racialism. But they both share the same objective, the extermination of all Jews within their reach. And they need to handled the same way. 

There can be no negotiation with Hamas. No matter the cost, they must be crushed. 

Putin arrests Alexei Navalny's lawyers

Fascist dictators doing what dictators do.

A reminder that freedom is under attack all over the world, not just in Israel. 

The House GOP Is a Failed State

...McCarthy’s ouster is dramatic evidence, if redundant, about the state of the modern GOP. A party that used to have an instinctual orientation toward authority and order — Democrats fall in love, went the old chestnut, while Republicans fall in line — is now animated by something akin to nihilism. The politics of contempt so skillfully exploited by Donald Trump is turned inward on hapless would-be leaders like McCarthy with no less ferocity than it is turned outward on liberals and the media.

The GOP dissenters who joined Democrats in evicting McCarthy professed to be concerned about controlling spending, and some surely are genuine about that. In the case of Gaetz, the ringleader, it is clear the dispute is primarily about personal animus, not ideology. He wanted McCarthy’s antlers on the wall of his rec room, and he got them. Needless to say, there are many Republicans who are now hunting for him.

And, yet, in the nihilistic spirit of the age, it is worth asking of these intraparty feuds: Who cares? Certainly, in McCarthy’s case, it is far from obvious that anyone should care that much. He simply never made the case for being consequential.

Read the rest here.