THE WORLD WATCHES IN REAL-TIME LEVELS OF DESTRUCTION NOT SEEN SINCE WORLD WAR II

Posted on November 2, 2023 by abyssum

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Who Are The Innocent?

Posted on October 28, 2023 by abyssum

Who Are The Innocent?

By: Bill Schoettler

October 19, 2023

Today things seem to be significantly different. The emotional sensibilities of each individual are parsed and magnified out of proportion to their real significance. What happens when a child gets hurt and the teacher or parent makes a big fuss over it? The child quickly realizes how to milk the experience and comes to expect the same attention, even to seek similar attention again and again. When nobody is around to see the fall, the boo-boo, and nobody comes running over to ask about the injury the “hurt” oftentimes disappears shortly thereafter and is forgotten. The difference…how attention plays out on the personal scale of the individual. Certainly, a variable subject dependent on personality and experience.

Similarly, adults and even political parties and nations react the same way. A classic example can be drawn from the current hotspot in the Middle East. An explosion occurred in a Hamas hospital in Gaza. The Hamas contingent was quick to blame Israel for “targeting” a hospital filled with children and injured persons, condemning any who would aim explosives at such a target.

Stop here, don’t even go to the issue of whether it was an errant Hamas rocket that caused the explosion, or an Israeli rocket deliberately aimed.

It was less than a week before, Hamas without any justification whatsoever entered Israel by storming the border, and began a campaign of shooting, killing, raping, looting, and kidnapping Israeli citizens and other legitimate occupants of Israel. All this was not only easily verified by news outlets but even used as boasting propaganda by Hamas videos widely distributed over the internet.

Now ask yourself what kind of mindset would it take to conduct such operations on a wide scale and to brag about it?

Now back to the hospital bombing. Hamas quickly jumped in with virtuous proclamations that Israel deliberately targeted a hospital. And much of the world immediately accepted this interpretation and joined in vociferous condemnation of Israel. Where is there a difference between Hamas trespassing on any vestige of humanly acceptable conduct when it wantonly attacked Israel and the apparent Israel attack on the Palestinian hospital? At best, even assuming that Israel had deliberately targeted the hospital, the carnage toll was measurably less, and on any scale of legitimate outrage for unacceptable human conduct, was Hamas’ attack of lesser, similar, or greater outrage than Israel’s rocket attack?

Now if Israel were to regularly target hospitals, schools, or any other “unacceptable-in-wartime-targets” in Gaza, a worldwide public outcry might be justified. I say “might” because of the unquestionable history of Palestinian attacks against Israel. But that is not the case, nor has it ever been the case. Furthermore, Hamas has notoriously placed artillery, rockets, and military equipment storage facilities next to or within those “unacceptable-in-wartime-targets” and then screamed bloody murder when Israel would retaliate against legitimate military targets from which rockets were fired.

Add to the above are the well-publicized efforts of Hamas to prevent Palestinian citizens from leaving Gaza after Israel warned of impending strikes and suggested those non-military citizens might wish to leave the targeted areas. Hamas is not just barricading those seeking to flee, it is actually killing those who try to leave. Such is the mindset of the people who now scream “atrocity” against Israel.

The question should be, who is guilty?

Who Are The Innocent?

By: Bill Schoettler

October 19, 2023

Stop here, don’t even go to the issue of whether it was an errant Hamas rocket that caused the explosion, or an Israeli rocket deliberately aimed.

Now ask yourself what kind of mindset would it take to conduct such operations on a wide scale and to brag about it?

The question should be, who is guilty?

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WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN THAT WHEN THEY SOW THE WIND WITH HATE THEY OR THEIR CHILDREN WILL REAP THE WHIRLWIND OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

Posted on October 28, 2023 by abyssum

The Politics of Hate and Destruction

By: Judd Garrett

Objectivity is the Objective

October 19, 2023

Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir once said,

“We can forgive them [Muslims] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with them when they love their children more than they hate us.”

And that is the crux of the problem in the Middle East. Too many Muslims hate the Jews more than they love themselves and their own families. That is what prompted the radical Islamists to attack Israel last week. That is what prompted them to blow up their own civilian hospital and blame it on Israel. That is what prompted them to hijack commercial airplanes and fly them into American buildings killing 3,000 innocents. They are driven by hate.

Not only are they driven by hate, they lack the capacity to love, not even the ability to love others, but to love themselves to the point that they would understand that peace is preferable to war. War destroys everyone and everything that it touches. They do not care that when they kill others they are actually killing themselves because many times they intentionally kill themselves as part of the process of killing others. A suicide bombing is in fact, a suicide, not only of the individual, but of the entire culture, the entire religion.

That is why Jesus commanded his followers to “love your enemies”. That is a stark contrast to what we are witnessing from these radical Muslims toward Israel and the West who are hell-bent on murdering every one of their enemies. But we do not need the Muslims to love us, we would merely take mutual indifference. The teachings of Jesus are a challenge in this situation. “Love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” are tall orders when your enemy is beheading babies, raping women, and slaughtering grandmothers? How do we love that? How do we turn the other cheek to that? Maybe the first step is to learn not to hate, even those who hate you so that your loved ones do not become consumed and destroyed by your hate.

This struggle in the Middle East reminds me of the famous story of King Solomon. One day, two mothers living in the same house, each with an infant son, came to Solomon. One of their babies had been smothered in the night, and each mother claimed the remaining boy as her own. In response, Solomon called for a sword and ordered the baby to be cut in two, each woman to receive half. The first mother agreed with the ruling, stating, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; cut him!” But the other mother begged Solomon, “Give the baby to her, by no means kill him!”Solomon declared the second mother the true mother, as a mother would even give up her baby if that was necessary to save his life, and he awarded her custody.

The radical Muslims are like the first mother. They would rather see the entire world destroyed than share it with someone other than themselves. And that’s the mentality of suicide bombings, a willingness to destroy themselves to destroy their enemies.

And that is the mentality that shows up with the modern left in America. The left hates the right so much that they are willing to destroy America to destroy their enemies on the right. Look at what they are doing to Trump. A Russian collusion investigation based on fabricated partisan talking points and lies to the FISA court, two politicized impeachments to prevent him from running for office, four politicized indictments that could throw him in prison for life, judges preventing him from speaking on the campaign trail, government forced censorship on social media. Nothing Donald Trump has ever suggested doing would have done even a fraction of the damage to this country that everything the left has already done to stop him has. The left has set the precedent that it is okay to lie to the courts to get your opponent, to silence and arrest your political opponents, and to weaponize the DOJ against their opposition. The left is willing to blow up the entire system to prevent Donald Trump from holding office again. They are political suicide bombers.

But it is not exclusive to Trump, that is the way they govern. Every one of the policies of Joe Biden and the left-open borders, record deficits, hyper-inflation, out-of-control crime and lawlessness, rampant homelessness, proliferation of drugs, energy dependence, constant race-baiting, promotion of gender confusion, sexualization of children, destruction of the family, government censorship, weaponizing the DOJ against political opponents, giving $6 billion to a terrorist state, fraudulent elections – brings America closer to destruction, but helps the left maintain its stranglehold on power over this soon-to-be destroyed country. Each one of their policies is like the sword slicing America in half. Like the first mother, the left would rather see America killed, than have their opponents preside over a healthy, thriving America, just as the Muslims would rather see their Holy Lands turned into rubble than share them with the Jews.

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The old immigration once enriched America, but our new version is destroying it.

Posted on October 27, 2023 by abyssum

Premodern Diversity Vs.

Civilizational Unity

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

October 26, 2023

Few Romans in the late decades of their 5th-century AD empire celebrated their newfound “diversity” of marauding Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals.

These tribes en masse had crossed the unsecured Rhine and Danube borders to harvest Roman bounty without a care about what had created it.

Their agendas were focused on destroying the civilization they overran rather than peacefully integrating into and perpetuating the Empire.

Ironically, Rome’s prior greatness had been due to the extension of citizenship to diverse people throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia.

Millions had been assimilated, integrated, and intermarried and often superseded the original Italians of the early Roman Republic. Such fractious diversity led to unity around the idea of Rome.

New citizens learned to enjoy the advantages of habeas corpus, sophisticated roads, aqueducts, and public architecture, and the security offered by the legions.

The unity of these diverse peoples fused into a single culture that empowered Rome. In contrast, the later disunity of hundreds of thousands of tribal people flooding into and dividing Rome doomed it.

To meet the challenge of a multiracial society, the only viable pathway to a stable civilization of racially and ethnically different people is a single, shared culture.

Some nations can find collective success as a single homogenous people like Japan or Switzerland.

Or equally, but with more difficulty, nations can prosper with heterodox peoples—but only if united by a single, inclusive culture as the American melting pot once attested.

But a baleful third option—a multicultural society of diverse, unassimilated, and often rival tribes—historically is a prescription for collective suicide.

We are beginning to see just that in America, as it sheds the melting pot, and adopts the salad bowl of unassimilated and warring tribes.

The U.S. is now seeing a rise in violent racially and religiously motivated hate crimes.

The border is nonexistent.

Millions of unlawful immigrants mock their hosts by their brazen illegal entrance.

They will receive little civic education to become Americans. But they will learn that unassimilated tribalism wins them influence and advantages.

In contrast, America was once a rare historical example of a multiracial, but single-culture democracy that actually worked.

Multigenerational Americans were often energized by keeping up with new hard-working immigrants determined to have a shot at success in a free society long denied them at home.

Other large nations have tried such a democratic multiracial experiment—most notably Brazil and India. But both are still plagued by tribal feuding and serial violence.

What once worked for America, but now is forgotten were a few precepts essential for a multiracial constitutional state wedded to generous immigration.

One, America is enriched at its cultural periphery by the food, fashion, art, music, and literature of immigrants.

But it would be destroyed if such diversity extended to its core. No one wants Middle-East norms regarding gays or emancipated women.

No one prefers Mexican jurisprudence to our courts.

No one here wants the dictatorship of Venezuela or the totalitarianism of communist China.

Two, people vote with their feet to emigrate to America. They flee their native culture and government to enjoy their antitheses in America.

But remember—no sane immigrant would flee Mexico, Gaza, or Zimbabwe only to wish to implant in their new homes the very culture and norms that drove them out from their old.

If they did that to their new home, it would then become as unattractive to them as what they fled.

Three, tribalism wrecks nations.

Just compare what happened in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, or Iraq.

Anytime one ethnic, racial, or religious group refuses to surrender its prime identity in exchange for a shared sense of self, other tribes for their survival will do the same.

All then rebrand their superficial appearance as essential not incidental to who they are.

And like nuclear proliferation that sees other nations go nuclear once a neighboring power gains the bomb, so too the tribalism of one group inevitably leads only to more tribalism of others. The result is endless Hobbesian strife.

Four, immigration must be measured, so that newcomers can be manageably assimilated and integrated rather than left to form rival tribal cliques.

Five, it must be legal. Otherwise, the idea of citizenship is reduced to mere residency, while the legal applicant is rendered a fool for his adherence to the law.

Six, it must be meritocratic, so immigrants come with English and skills and do not burden their hosts.

And last, it must be diverse. Only that way, can all groups abroad have equal access to the American dream.

A diversity of immigrants also ensures that no one particular ethnic or political tribe seeks to use immigration to further divide the nation.

In sum, the old immigration once enriched America, but our new version is destroying it.

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COULD CARDINAL PIETRO PAROLIN BECOME OUR NEXT POPE?

Posted on October 19, 2023 by abyssum

“The Holy See is looking for contacts; let’s not lose hope.”—Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, in remarks yesterday to the Italian news agency ANSA regarding the tragic and very tense situation on the Holy Land (link) ”According to sources close to the assembly [the Synod on Synodality now meeting in Rome], Parolin made a ‘strong and clear’ intervention during the synod meeting — which is not open to the public — urging that participants emphasize fidelity to divine revelation, as interpreted by the Church’s magisterium, in the course of their conversations.” —JD Flynn, in an article published last night on The Pillar (text below) (link). Note: Flynn asserts that this was said by Parolin in the Synod session, but the Synod sessions are closed and so it has not been otherwise officially confirmed that Parolin actually said these words…. We will try to confirm this in coming days…. *** Letter #142, 2023, Tuesday, October 17: Cardinal Parolin As the tragic violence in the Holy Land continues to take many lives, the Pope’s right-hand man, the Vatican Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, 69, is seeking to keep lines of contact open so that the Vatican may help to bring peace. For his part, Pope Francis yesterday called for renewed prayers and diplomatic efforts for peace, and designated October 27 as a world day of prayer and fasting for peace in the Holy Land. (link) As this occurs, some onlookers are seeing in Parolin, who has been Secretary of State throughout most of the pontificate of Pope Francis, a possible successor to Francis. Here below is an article from The Pillarwhich sets forth some of the reasons for this new attention on the Italian cardinal as a possible future Pope, and includes the revelation of Parolin’s (alleged) remarks to the present Synod in support of preserving intact traditional Catholic doctrine—RM *** First, a piece from the Italian news agency Ansa (link) Parolin, “The Holy See is looking for contacts; let’s not lose hope” ”We must have hope that such a tragic moment can be overcome” ANSA Italian news agency VATICAN CITY, October 18, 2023, 9.54pm By the ANSA editorial team ”We are looking for contacts, on both sides,” said Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, speaking of the diplomatic action by the Holy See for the conflict in the Middle East. The cardinal specified that he was referring to the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. ”As Saint Paul said, it is necessary ‘spes contra spem‘ hope against hope”], we must hope when there is no longer hope. When there are reasons to hope it is easy, not like in this case, but we must have hope that we can overcome this tragic moment,” he told ANSA (…) “I reiterate our strong condemnation of the terrible attacks and hostage-taking by Hamas. Our thoughts and prayers are with the hostages and their families and I join the Pope in calling for their immediate release,” he said during the inauguration of the office of a World Jewish Center (for the World Jewish Congress) in via della Conciliazione. “Acts of violence and terrorism do nothing to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, they only bring great suffering to innocents.” Speaking about the event with the international Jewish community, Parolin spoke of an “important evening for dialogue between Christians and Jews” which “shows the bond which unites us as children of the same God.” *** Second, a piece from the Italian magazine Domani (“Tomorrow”) (link): War in Israel, Parolin returns to the center of Vatican diplomacy (by Francesco Peloso, Domani) — While the crisis in the Middle East flares up after the massacre at the Anglican hospital of al-Ahli in Gaza, the Holy See tries not to lose its compass by following a double path: that of prayer for peace and of the appeals to the international community addressed by the Pope, and the diplomatic one entrusted to Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Who repeated an almost forgotten concept in these days of war: that is, that the basis for the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must pass through the “two peoples, two states” formula and that we must start again from there if we want to build peace between the two peoples.  World War On the other hand, this time the Vatican cannot be wrong: at stake is the future of the Holy Land where the Christian communities have been profoundly affected by the flight of many families due to conflicts, religious extremism, poverty and lack of prospects for younger people. And then the new conflict seems to prefigure the scenario evoked several times in recent years by Pope Francis of a third world war fought piecemeal. That is, on various fronts that could, sooner or later, come together. In a similar context, the Vatican Secretary of State Parolin has taken back the stage and now seems to lead the Vatican diplomacy which was partially confused after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. This time, in any case, the Vatican’s position does not lend itself to misunderstanding. At the end of yesterday’s general audience, Francis appealed to the international community to “do everything possible to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza where, he said, “the situation is desperate”. Then he added a dramatic reminder to believers: “Let the weapons be silent! Let the cry of peace of the people, of the people, of the children be heard! Brothers and sisters, war does not solve any problem, it only sows death and destruction, increases hatred and multiplies revenge. War erases the future. I exhort believers to take only one side in this conflict: that of peace; but not in words, with prayer, with total dedication.” For next October 27, the Pope has announced a day of prayer and fasting for peace. Dialogue between the parties Parolin, to explain the position of the Church of Rome in the crisis that the Middle East is experiencing, was also interviewed by Nunzia De Girolamo, in the program Avanti Popolo, on Rai 3. On the occasion he reiterated the condemnation “total” of the attack carried out by Hamas against Israel. ”The Holy See has always had a very precise line,” Parolin said when speaking of the conflict. “Peace in the Holy Land can only come from the recognition of the rights of both peoples. For us this has always meant supporting the formula of two states living according to internationally recognized borders, in peace and in good relations. This peace and this solution can only be achieved through direct dialogue between the two parties, supported, supported and encouraged by the international community.” A position that denies legitimacy both to those who, like Hamas, want to transform the Palestinian cause into a sort of Armageddon to destroy Israel, and to those who, in the Netanyahu government, have promoted racist and xenophobic policies against the Palestinians in recent years. Parolin also listed what the Holy See’s priorities are in the new war: “I believe that first of all we need to limit the damage. The hostage problem is a fundamental point to resolve, and international mediation should help to dismantle and reduce the tension somewhat. It’s difficult at the moment, I don’t know if there are negotiations underway to take them out… “Another point to underline,” he said, “is to recognize Israel’s right to self-defense, but it must meet ethical criteria, for example, it must absolutely avoid the death of innocent people. International humanitarian law must be respected. This is what the Holy Father asked, and this is what the UN also asked.” *** Third, a piece by J.D. Flynn entitled “Could Parolin be pope?” published at 9 pm last night by The Pillar (link) ANALYSIS Could Parolin be pope? By JD Flynn October 18, 2023 As the synod on synodality proceeds at the Vatican, bishops and lay participants have reportedly weighed in on a variety of ways by which the synod might propose changes to Catholic doctrine, or that elements of Catholic teaching be at least reexamined and deemphasized, in response to the pope’s call to see the Church become more “synodal” — and more welcoming to Catholics disaffected from the Church. But while reports pile up of participants with views at odds with Catholic teaching, sources have told The Pillar that one voice in the synod has been a loud advocate for a vision of synodality that places Catholic doctrine at its center: Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Given his ordinary reputation for diplomatic reserve, the notion that Parolin has been outspoken at the synod might come as a surprise. And it comes at an unusual time for the cardinal — as Parolin seems both privately and publicly to be moving from Pope Francis’ inner circle. Whatever his intervention might mean for the synod, the more interesting question might be about another Vatican assembly — what could an outspoken Pietro Parolin mean for the next papal conclave? — As the Francis papacy moves past its ten-year mark, Vatican-watchers have begun to discuss in earnest how the election of the pope’s successor might play out. More quietly, cardinals and bishops have begun to have the same kinds of conversations. There is an emerging school of thought that after three “foreign” popes, the College of Cardinals might be eager to elect an Italian to the position again, for the stability in office that would seem to imply. Further, the Italian block of cardinals might have outsize influence in the next conclave, because the Italians know each other, while a large number of the College of Cardinals, those appointed from far-flung corners of the globe, have had few opportunities to come together, let alone to form opinions of each other. Among the Italians, the three most obvious choices are Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the cardinal vicar of Rome; Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the archbishop of Bologna, and Parolin, who has been Francis’ Secretary of State since 2014. It’s not clear that there is a front-runner. De Donatis has been plagued in recent months by the public backlash against his defense of disgraced Jesuit Marko Rupnik. Zuppi, president of the Italian bishops’ conference, has been given charge of Francis’ signature diplomatic project, the pope’s efforts to secure a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. But at the same time, the cardinal has been frequently criticized for a perceived doctrinal “flexibility” that makes it hard to know where he stands. Meanwhile, while Parolin remains the second-most influential officeholder in the Church — at least on paper — it seems clear that his stock with Pope Francis has fallen in recent years. In late 2020, the Secretariat of State was stripped of its assets and investment portfolio, together worth billions of euros, in light of the charges of criminal financial misconduct in the secretariat. More recently, Parolin’s diplomatic staff were “frozen out” of the drafting process of this month’s papal exhortation, Laudate deum, despite their work with international leaders on the subject of climate change. At the same time, Pope Francis tapped another figure — Zuppi— to lead his efforts to aid in a Ukrainian-Russian peace process. It is remarkable to diplomacy watchers that the pontiff would task someone other than his secretary of state with the Church’s highest-profile diplomatic effort. Since the pope made that appointment, according to diplomatic sources, some Vatican ambassadors have begun to regard Zuppi as the kind-of de facto secretary of state, a rival to the influence and position of Parolin. But if Parolin is seen as increasingly out-of-favor with Francis, that shouldn’t be taken as a sign that a cadre of cardinals won’t favor him in the next conclave — or that Zuppi’s popularity with the pope will necessarily translate into support. On that front, Parolin’s reported intervention at the synod could work in his favor. [Note: Here follows the reported statement by Parolin to the Synod.—RM] According to sources close to the assembly, Parolin made a “strong and clear” intervention during the synod meeting — which is not open to the public — urging that participants emphasize fidelity to divine revelation, as interpreted by the Church’s magisterium, in the course of their conversations. The cardinal’s remarks left an impression on members of the assembly, sources told The Pillar. To some Vatican-watchers, that might come as a surprise. Parolin is more well-known these days for diplomatic remarks, even controversial ones, than for theological excursus. But that reputation comes with the kind of ecclesiastical career he’s had. Since his 1980 ordination to the priesthood, Parolin has been a career Vatican diplomat — in Nigeria, Mexico, Venezuela, and in the halls of the Secretariat of State, Parolin’s agenda has been the pope’s agenda, over the course of three successive pontificates. Little is known publicly about the cardinal’s own theological commitments or perspectives — Parolin has never even been a pastor, with a record of parish bulletin notices or homilies to perhaps give insight into how he thinks about the Church. With a strong showing at the synod — especially for the stability of doctrinal orthodoxy — Parolin might show to a group of cardinals that he has a number of favorable attributes for a pope: He knows how the Vatican works, he has experience with the Church around the globe, and — given his intervention — he apparently has no desire to see prolonged debate over settled doctrinal issues. Taken together, it is possible that Parolin might be seen by some cardinals as an excellent follow-up to the Francis papacy.— Of course, Parolin has a lot to overcome. When it comes to weighing up what cardinals look for in a prospective pope, Parolin could be argued to face a double handicap. . At 69 years old, he might be younger than some conclave voters might like, if they are looking for a short “reset” pontificate to follow the lengthy and often controversial reign of Francis. On the other hand, Parolin is also a cancer survivor who has faced lingering questions about his health, even as he gets on with one of the most demanding jobs in the Church, short of actually being pope — those looking for a steady, longer-term candidate might worry that he’d be coming to the job already tired out. There are questions about his day job, too. Senior officials from his secretariat are facing trial right now for serious financial corruption, and several have alleged that Parolin was either aware of their activity, or negligent in his oversight. Further, his detractors say, Parolin has been a key player in a much-criticized agreement with Beijing, and that the cardinal has embraced a realpolitik strategy that puts pragmatics over Providence. But friends of the cardinal say consistently that Parolin is a “man of the Church” — doctrinally orthodox, pastorally astute, and eager for evangelization. Both, of course, can be true. And it is unclear how much of the Beijing deal is Parolin’s own doing, and how much is driven by a desire of Pope Francis to see regularized the situation of the Church in China. In either case, Parolin has not been shy in recent months about the limitations of the deal, and of the way it’s been interpreted in Beijing. And whatever the cardinal’s role in the Vatican financial scandal actually is, it is possible that cardinal-electors will overlook it, or fail to understand it even, because of the complexity of the case, and the way it’s been prosecuted. So could Parolin become pope? It seems increasingly likely. Does he want to be pope? No one who does would ever admit it. Would he be what cardinal electors expect? That’s hard to say. A Vatican secretary of state has not been elected pope since Pius XII in 1939. It remains to be seen whether a future conclave will think the time has come for another. [End, piece by JD Flynn of The Pillar]

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The overt support for Hamas killers by the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd on the administration of many of the universities in the United States exposes to America the real moral and intellectual rot in our institutions of “higher” learning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted on October 16, 2023 by abyssum

Hamas and Amoral Clarity

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

October 12, 2023

One unexpected blowback from the medieval Hamas’s barbaric murdering of hundreds of Israeli civilians is the revelation of current global amorality.

More than 20 Harvard University identity politics groups pledged their support to the Hamas murderers—to the utter silence for days of Harvard President Claudine Gay.

Americans knew higher education practiced racist admission policies. It has long promoted racially segregated dorms and graduations. And de facto it has destroyed the First Amendment.

But the overt support for Hamas killers by the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd on a lot of campuses exposes to Americans the real moral and intellectual rot in higher education.

Democratic Socialist members of the new woke Democrat Party openly expressed ecstatic support for Hamas’s bloodwork.

Their biggest fears were not dead fellow Americans or hostages, or some 1,000 butchered Jewish civilians. Instead, they were fearful that righteous Israeli retaliation might destroy the Hamas death machine.

Palestinians for years fooled naïfs in Europe and the Obama and Biden administrations into sending billions of dollars into Gaza.

These monies were channeled to tunnel into Israel, to obtain a huge rocket arsenal, and to craft plans to wipe out Jews.

The Biden administration has blood on its hands.

As soon as Biden took power, he resumed massive subsidies to radical Palestinians, canceled by the prior Trump administration.

He ignored warnings from his own State Department that such fungible money would soon fuel Hamas terrorism.

His administration dropped sanctions against Iran, ensuring that Tehran would enjoy a multi-billion-dollar windfall to be distributed to Israel’s existential enemies—another fact well-known to the Biden administration.

If the Biden administration had announced overtly that it was rabidly anti-Israel, it would be hard to imagine anything it could have done differently from its present nihilist behavior.

Biden and company quickly restarted the defunct Iran appeasement deal—a leftover from the anti-Israeli Obama administration. No surprise, they appointed radical pro-Iranian activist Robert Malley to head the negotiations.

Malley allegedly has leaked American classified documents to Iranian officials and is under investigation by the FBI. He did his best to place pro-Iranian, anti-American activists into the high echelons of the U.S. government.

Biden was intent on forcing South Korea to release to Iran $6 billion in sanctioned frozen money.

That expectation of cash ensured Iran would be reimbursed for its present terrorist arming spree.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken shamefully tweeted that Israel should settle for an immediate ceasefire. No wonder he soon withdrew his unhinged posting.

That idiocy would be the moral equivalent of an American ally in December 1941 urging the U.S. to seek negotiations with imperial Japan after its surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor—to avoid a “cycle of violence.”

The Biden team has drained strategic arms stockpiles in Israel, designed to help the Jewish state in extremis.

It recklessly abandoned a multibillion-dollar arms trove in Kabul, some of which reportedly made its way from Taliban killers to Hamas murderers.

Once the mass murdering started, the amoral clarity of our “allies” was stunning.

NATO partner Turkey openly sided with the killers. It —along with Blinken—called for a cease-fire—at the moment the Hamas death squads had finished, and Israel was ready to hold Hamas to account.

Qatar, where the U.S. Central Command is based, proved little more than a Hamas front.

It offers sanctuary to the architects of Hamas killing. And Qatar ensures a safe financial pipeline to Hamas from Iran and the radical Arab world.

Some of the most vehement current supporters of the Hamas death squads were immigrants to America from the Middle East.

Oddly, they apparently had fled just such illiberal Middle Eastern regimes to reach a tolerant, democratic, and secure United States.

Yet they now endorse the Hamas butchering of Jewish civilians. Its savagery is aimed at executing, raping, and beheading Jews, and then mutilating their bodies.

Hamas hopes to shock the Israeli government into voluntarily committing suicide—in line with the ancient Hamas agenda to destroy the Jewish state.

Strangely, this reign of death has become a touchstone, an acid test of sorts that has revealed the utter amorality of enemies abroad and quite dangerous people at home.

It is past time that Americans deal with the medieval world that was revealed this week rather than keep dreaming in the fantasy world of our government.

Americans need to stop illegal immigration and restore their southern border while ceasing all immigration from unhinged, hostile nations.

The military must return to its deterrent role and fire its woke commissariat.

Our leaders must accept that in the last three years of the Biden administration, serial American appeasement abroad, disunity at home, and social chaos have encouraged an entire host of enemies —China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Middle East illiberal regimes, and former friends like Turkey and Qatar.

And our enemies dream of doing to us what we just saw in Israel.

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HERE IS A KEY THAT COULD POSSIBLY UNLOCK THE MYSTERY OF HOW THE MAFIA GREW TO HAVE SUCH AN INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Posted on October 9, 2023 by abyssum

Priest: St. Gallen Mafia prelates were named by suspected Freemason Cardinal Baggio

‘All those bishops and cardinals who formed the [Saint] Gallen group were named by Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio,’ Father Charles Murr said, referring to one of the cardinals who in 1974 was accused by two other cardinals of being a freemason.

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Mon Oct 9, 2023 – 11:51 am EDT

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BeyondWords

(LifeSiteNews) – Father Charles Murr drew a link between Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, who is accused of being a freemason, and the formation of the Saint Gallen group. Speaking on LifeSite’s October 6 Faith & Reason show, he claimed that “all those bishops and cardinals who formed the [Saint] Gallen group were named by Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio.” Murr is a book author, close friend of Pope Pius XII’s housekeeper Mother Pascalina, and an insider to the 1978 Vatican investigation into ecclesial freemasonry.

This comment, which was not further explained, makes more sense in light of Murr’s own 2022 book Murder in the 33rd Degree: the Vatican Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry. Murr was a close friend of Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, who had been tasked by the Pope to investigate the problem of freemasonry within the Vatican hierarchy and thus is privy to some of these internal findings and debates. He describes in his book how in 1974 two cardinals – Dino Staffa and Silvio Oddi – presented Pope Paul VI with documentation about two Vatican cardinals. These two men, Sebastiano Baggio and Annibale Bugnini, were “accused” by Oddi and Staffa “with proof in hand,” for being “active Freemasons.”

https://player.manage.broadcastcloud.tv/1ee646d0-7ba0-6586-9636-8b4f3d83b026/default?autoplay=false&debug=false&direct=false

Cardinal Baggio was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops, from 1973 until 1984 and as such had great influence over which clergymen were chosen as bishops, and often subsequently cardinals.

My friend and colleague at LifeSite, Liz Yore, has done her own research in this matter and found out the following with regard of several members of the Saint Gallen Group. She wrote to me:

There are St. Gallen Group members who were appointed bishops when Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, known Freemason, was head of the Congregation for Bishops from 1973-1984.

The list of the St. Gallen Group can be found on Wikipedia, and here are listed those bishops who were picked during the time of Cardinal Baggio:

Cardinal Carlo Martini: 1980
Cardinal Ted McCarrick: 1977
Cardinal Godfried Danneels: 1977
Cardinal Karl Lehmann: 1983
Cardinal Achille Silvestrini: 1979
Cardinal Murphy O’Connor: 1977
Bishop Liubomyr Huzar: 1977
Cardinal Jose Policarpo: 1978

We could add that Cardinal Basil Hume, who was a key member of the early Saint Gallen Group, was also made a bishop, in 1976, under the reign of Cardinal Baggio.

Both Hume and Martini were leading members of the progressive wing of the Catholic Church in Europe; they consecutively headed the influential Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) from 1979 until 1993 when Pope John Paul II removed Cardinal Carlo Martini as the head of the CCEE because they were trying to set up parallel structures to Rome and thus undermined the authority of the Pope in Europe. They were already then pushing for the progressivist agenda. Father Ivo Fürer – the man who was later made bishop and who then organized in a more formal way the meetings of the Saint Gallen group from 1996 on until 2006 – during his episcopacy in Saint Gallen, Switzerland, was also the secretary of the CCEE, from 1975 until 1995, for 20 years. He stated that Martini’s book Night Conversations with Cardinal Martini pretty much summed up the positions of the Saint Gallen Group. That same cardinal was praised multiple times by Pope Francis. Pope Francis is an explicit disciple of Cardinal Martini.

For example, not long after his papal election, Francis praised Martini in public, calling him “prophetic,” “a father for the whole Church,” and a “man of discernment and of peace.” He also once said: “I’d like to remind you that Carlo Maria Martini also came from that [Jesuit] order, someone who is very dear to me and also to you.”

The close connection between Martini and Fürer can be seen in Fürer’s own words.

“We came together for regular private St. Gallen meetings with friends [‘St. Galler Freundschaftstreffen’] which Martini and I organized,” the Swiss bishop explained. “We invited bishops from different countries who suited us. Each time, we were between eight and ten persons and freely discussed all Church matters.”

Martini once also commented on these meetings in Sankt Gallen. Fürer quoted Martini as saying that “there is no other meeting in the Church where one can speak so freely and so personally as in St. Gallen.”

“Much of what we discussed at these meetings,” the Swiss bishop concluded, “Martini worked into the book Night Conversations with Cardinal Martini.”

In 2018, Fürer published his own memoirs, Church in Changing Times (Kirche im Wandel der Zeit, published by Theologischer Verlag Zürich). In this book, he describes how he, together with Cardinal Martini, engaged in an intense battle with Pope John Paul II about which direction the Catholic Church in Europe should be taking.

The German journalist Julius Müller-Meiningen wrote in depth about the Saint Gallen group, back in 2015. He then quoted Cardinal Walter Kasper, another members of the Sankt Gallen group, who claimed: “What Francis now tries to implement corresponds to a high degree to the thoughts that we [at the Saint Gallen group] had at the time.” And the journalist adds: “The members of the former round table [Saint Gallen Group] have today a determining influence upon the agenda of the Catholic Church.”

Without going into the details on how the Saint Gallen group helped get Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) elected pope in 2013 – after their earlier failed attempt at stopping Joseph Ratzinger’s papal election in 2005 – it is worth mentioning here that it was Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, one of the Baggio-appointed bishops and member of the Saint Gallen group, who is largely known to have played a key role in the election of Pope Francis.

Several of these Saint Gallen bishops had written to Jorge Bergoglio – who met the Saint Gallen group when being made cardinal at the same 2001 consistory as Sankt Gallen members Cardinals Kasper, Murphy-O’Connor, Audrys Juozas Bačkis, and Karl Lehmann – a postcard from Rome right ahead of the 2005 conclave with the words: “We are here in the spirit of St. Gallen.”

That means that by 2005, Jorge Bergoglio was aware of that group and their larger plans. The conclave of 2005 had Jorge Bergoglio already leading right after Ratzinger, but it was due to a leak to the media and the revelations about the activities of that Saint Gallen group that his election seems to have been thwarted.

All this could mean that Pope Francis was collaborating and finally elected into the papacy by a group of modernist bishops and cardinals who were themselves picked by a man who was a Freemason.

Several of the key members of that Sankt Gallen group – Silvestrini, Danneels, and Martini – have been explicitly mentioned in various media as possible freemasons.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a few years before he became Pope, once told a colleague of mine, Dr. Robert Moynihan, what he thought of the dangerous role of Freemasonry in the Church.

“I asked the Cardinal,” Moynihan reported back in 2020, “where the greatest danger to the authentic Catholic faith lies. ‘Is it in our own selves, our own sins and weaknesses. Is this what is the greatest danger to the Church or is it something else, some external enemy?’”

Moynihan continued: “He looked at me directly in the eyes and then after a moment’s pause, as if he were reflecting, he said: ‘It is Freemasonry.’”

So much more research needs to be done. But Father Murr’s comments and recent revelations can lead the way.

Let us quote here again from his book on Freemasonry in the Vatican:

Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops since 1973, decided who would and who would not become a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He chose these episcopal candidates from the pool of half a million priests throughout the world. [….] If, as Staffa and Oddi alleged, Sebatiano Baggio was the “Freemason Ambassador to the Holy See,” the havoc he was in a position to wreak upon the universal Church could cause irreparable damage. The bishops who had been nominated on his watch reflected Baggio’s own liberal ideological views.

And, as Father Murr reports, a subsequent investigation in 1978 of the claims of Oddi and Staffa against Baggio and his involvement with Freemasonry were authenticated and confirmed by Archbishop Giovanni Benelli. But neither Pope Paul VI nor Pope John Paul II took serious steps against Baggio.

Murr then also quotes Cardinal Gagnon, who was unsuccessful in trying to convince Pope Paul VI that he had to take action against Cardinal Baggio. Gagnon is quoted as saying: “The gravity of allowing Sebastiano Baggio, Cardinal and Freemason, to continue as Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Bishops was simply and completely intolerable.”

In a sense, we are living still with the consequences of that papal laxity toward ecclesial freemasons, as it seems.

Could it thus be that Pope Francis has been essentially elected by a groups of cardinals and bishops who were picked by a Freemason cardinal, thus now serving an agenda that stems out of freemasonic ideologies?

FOLLOW MAIKE

Dr. Maike Hickson was born and raised in Germany. She holds a PhD from the University of Hannover, Germany, after having written in Switzerland her doctoral dissertation on the history of Swiss intellectuals before and during World War II. She now lives in the U.S. and is married to Dr. Robert Hickson, and they have been blessed with two beautiful children. She is a happy housewife who likes to write articles when time permits.

Dr. Hickson published in 2014 a Festschrift, a collection of some thirty essays written by thoughtful authors in honor of her husband upon his 70th birthday, which is entitled A Catholic Witness in Our Time.

Hickson has closely followed the papacy of Pope Francis and the developments in the Catholic Church in Germany, and she has been writing articles on religion and politics for U.S. and European publications and websites such as LifeSiteNews, OnePeterFive, The Wanderer, Rorate Caeli, Catholicism.org, Catholic Family News, Christian Order, Notizie Pro-Vita, Corrispondenza Romana, Katholisches.info, Der Dreizehnte, Zeit-Fragen, and Westfalen-Blatt.

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CARDINAL BURKE SUBMITS NEW DUBIA

Posted on October 7, 2023 by abyssum

CARDINAL BURKE SUBMITS NEW DUBIA TO JORGE BERGOLIO

D U BI A

1 Dubium about the claim that we should reinterpret Divine Revelation according to the cultural and anthropological changes in vogue.

After the statements of some Bishops, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, it is asked whether in the Church Divine Revelation should be reinterpreted according to the cultural changes of our time and according to the new anthropological vision that these changes promote; or whether Divine Revelation is binding forever, immutable and therefore not to be contradicted, according to the dictum of the Second Vatican Council, that to God who reveals is due “the obedience of faith”(Dei Verbum 5); that what is revealed for the salvation of all must remain “in their entirety, throughout the ages” and alive, and be “transmitted to all generations” (7); and that the progress of understanding does not imply any change in the truth of things and words, because faith has been “handed on … once and for all” (8), and the Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but teaches only what has been handed on (10).

According to Divine Revelation, confirmed in Sacred Scripture, which the Church “at the divine command with the help of the Holy Spirit, … listens to devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully ” (Dei Verbum 10): “In the beginning” God created man in his own image, male and female he created them and blessed them, that they might be fruitful (cf. Gen. 1, 27-28), whereby the Apostle Paul teaches that to deny sexual difference is the consequence of the denial of the Creator (Rom 1, 24-32). It is asked: Can the Church derogate from this “principle,”

objectively sinful such as same-sex unions, without betraying revealed doctrine?

3 Dubium about the assertion that synodality is a “constitutive element of the Church” (Apostolic Constitution Episcopalis Communio 6), so that the Church would, by its very nature, be synodal.

Given that the Synod of Bishops does not represent the College of Bishops but is merely a consultative organ of the Pope, since the Bishops, as witnesses of the faith, cannot delegate their confession of the truth, it is asked whether synodality can be the supreme regulative criterion of the permanent government of the Church without distorting her constitutive order willed by her Founder, whereby the supreme and full authority of the Church is exercised both by the Pope by virtue of his office and by the College of Bishops together with its head the Roman Pontiff (Lumen Gentium 22).

After the statements of some prelates, which have been neither corrected nor retracted, according to which, with Vatican II, the theology of the Church and the meaning of the Mass has changed, it is asked whether the dictum of the Second Vatican Council is still valid, that “[the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood] differ essentially and

2 Dubium about the claim that the widespread practice of the blessing of same-sex unions would be in accord with Revelation and the Magisterium (CCC 2357).

considering it,

contrary to what Veritatis Splendor 103 taught, as a mere ideal, and accepting as a “possible

good”

situations,

4 Dubium about pastors’ and theologians’ support for the theory that “the theology of the Church has changed” and therefore that priestly ordination can be conferred on women.

not only in degree” (Lumen Gentium 10) and that presbyters by virtue of the “sacred power of Order, that of offering sacrifice and forgiving sins” (Presbyterorum Ordinis 2), act in the name and in the person of Christ the Mediator, through Whom the spiritual sacrifice of the faithful is made perfect. It is furthermore asked whether the teaching of St. John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, which teaches as a truth to be definitively held the impossibility of conferring priestly ordination on women, is still valid, so that this teaching is no longer subject to change nor to the free discussion of pastors or theologians.

5 Dubium about the statement “forgiveness is a human right” and the Holy Father’s insistence on the duty to absolve everyone and always, so that repentance would not be a necessary condition for sacramental absolution.

It is asked whether the teaching of the Council of Trent, according to which the contrition of the penitent, which consists in detesting the sin committed with the intention of sinning no more (Session XIV, Chapter IV: DH 1676), is necessary for the validity of sacramental confession, is still in force, so that the priest must postpone absolution when it is clear that this condition is not fulfilled.

Vatican City, 10 July 2023

Walter Card. BRANDMÜLLER Raymond Leo Card. BURKE Juan Card. SANDOVAL ÍÑIGUEZ Robert Card. SARAH
Joseph Card. ZEN ZE-KIUN, S.D.B.

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“We must ask ourselves if the 2013 (papal) election was in some way invalidated by a lack of consent”

Posted on October 2, 2023 by abyssum

“In this speech I will not try to give answers, but to pose a question that can no longer be postponed...” —Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, in an address scheduled to be delivered by video link to a Catholic conference meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania yesterday, October 1. However, on his website, Archbishop Viganò writes (link): “This address was prepared in order to be given at the Catholic Identity Conference [October 1, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA]. However, at the last minute, it was ‘deleted’ from the roster. It is unfortunate that, in the current climate of fear within the Church, the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints is no longer tolerated. Let us pray for the unity of the Church, that unity which can only be grounded in the Truth, who is Jesus Christ.” ”We must ask ourselves if the 2013 (papal) election was in some way invalidated by a lack of consent; that is, if the one elected wanted to become Pope of the Catholic Church or rather head of what he calls ‘our synodal church’ – which has nothing to do with the Church of Christ precisely because it stands as something other than it.” —Ibid. ”I believe… that his (Pope Francis‘s) acceptance of the papacy is invalidated, because he considers the papacy something other than what it is, like a spouse who gets married in church but excludes the specific purposes of marriage from his intention, thus making the marriage null and void precisely due to his lack of consent.” —Ibid. ”I would like us to take seriously, very seriously, the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means (of) fraud, and that he intended to abuse the authority of the Roman Pontiff in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter and his Successors to do: confirm the faithful in the Catholic Faith, feeding and governing the Flock of the Lord, preaching the Gospel to the nations.” —Ibid. ”This situation is humanly irremediable, because the forces at play are immense and because the corruption of Authority cannot be healed by those who are subject to it. We must take note that the metastasis of this ‘pontificate’ originates from the conciliar cancer, from that Vatican II which created the ideological, doctrinal, and disciplinary bases that inevitably had to lead to this point. But how many of my confreres, who also recognize the gravity of the current crisis, have the ability to recognize this causal link between the conciliar revolution and its extreme consequences with Bergoglio?” —Ibid. Letter #132, 2023, Monday, October 2: Viganò For several years, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 82 — who has come to believe that many of Pope Francis‘ actions and decisions have been harmful to orthodox Church life and doctrine — has been seeking an argument to propose to the Church by which the legitimacy of Pope Francis‘s authority to lead the Church (because it is uncontested Church teaching that the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Peter, does in fact haveunchallenged and universal authority over the Church) might be brought into question. Now Viganò has set forth, for the first time, a new argument that seems to be the product of some five years of reflection on the complex present situation of the Church, in a world which itself is in rapid transition in so many areas of human life, a world in which various very powerful elites wish the Church to lend her own full support to a complex and in some areas questionable secular agenda called the “great reset.” (link) In this context, Viganò prepared and videotaped a talk not only highly critical of Pope Francis (Viganò has been highly critical of Francis for five years now, since his first Testimony dated August 22, 2018, link, in which he called on Francis to resign his office) but which goes beyond his previous critiques to argue that Pope Francis‘s 2013 acceptance of his election may have been invalid due to a defect in the consent Jorge Mario Bergoglio gave to the College of Cardinals at the moment he was elected as the successor to Pope Benedict XVI on the evening of March 13, 2013. Viganò was to deliver this new talk to a conference of conservative Catholics in the United States: the Catholic Identity Conference, sponsored by The Remant newspaper, meeting in Pittsburg this past weekend (September 30 and October 1st, 2023, link), but his delivery of the talk was canceled at the last minute, he writes on his web site (link). In his prepared talk, Viganò made a series of assertions about the actions and decisions of Pope Francis which Viganò judges to be arbitrary, objectionable and in stark contrast with the lofty duty of the papal office to protect the orthodox teaching of the faith. Viganò then critiqued an argument made by Bishop Athanasius Schneider that the acceptance of Bergoglio’s election by the universal Church means that there is no way to challenge the validity of his election. He writes: “Bishop Athanasius Schneider maintains that any irregularities that may have occurred in the 2013 Conclave have in any case been healed in radice by the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been recognized as Pope by the Cardinal Electors, by the Episcopate, and by the majority of the faithful. Practically speaking, the argument is that, regardless of the events that may have led to the election of a pope – with or without external meddling in it – the Church, practically speaking, places a time limit beyond which it is not possible to challenge an election if the person elected is accepted by the Christian people.” It is at this point that Viganò develops his new argument: that when Francis accepted his election on March 123, 2013, he did so (Viganò argues) not to carry out the papal mandate to preserve and protect Church teaching, but to change that teaching in a radical way. He says: “We must ask ourselves if the 2013 election was in some way invalidated by a lack of consent; that is, if the one elected wanted to become Pope of the Catholic Church or rather head of what he calls ‘our synodal church’ – which has nothing to do with the Church of Christ precisely because it stands as something other than it.” And this is Viganò’s conclusion: “So here I am, throwing the proverbial stone into the pond. I would like us to take seriously, very seriously, the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means (of) fraud, and that he intended to abuse the authority of the Roman Pontiff in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter and his Successors to do: confirm the faithful in the Catholic Faith, feeding and governing the Flock of the Lord, preaching the Gospel to the nations.” Here is the full text of his talk below, already published on the internet at Catholic Identity Conference’s site (link) and in Italy on Marco Tosatti‘s multi-lingual website (link). Note: Below is a link to a video of Viganò delivering the talk in English, so you can see the archbishop delivering the talk by clicking on that video link.—RM

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 October 2, 2023 Marco Tosatti Dear friends and foes of Stilum Curiae, we offer for your attention this important video by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, in which the former apostolic nuncio to the United States takes stock of the current situation in the Church, and in particular the figure, role and standing of Jorge Mario Bergoglio on his election to the papacy. (link)§§§Archbishop Carlo Maria ViganòVITIUM CONSENSUS [“A defect in consent”]Catholic Identity ConferencePittsburg – October 1st, 2023 “A fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos.Numquid colligunt de spinis uvas aut de tribulis ficus?Sic omnis arbor bona fructus bonos facit; mala autem arbor fructus malos facit. Non potest arbor bona fructus malos facere, neque arbor mala fructus bonos facere. Omnis arbor quæ non facit fructum bonum exciditur et in ignem mittitur. Igitur ex fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos.” “By their fruits you will know them.Does anyone pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?Just so, every good tree bears good fruit; and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”–Matthew 7:16-20 Allow me to greet and thank the organizers of the Catholic Identity Conference and all who are taking part. In a moment of great confusion it is important to clarify what is happening, even by comparing different positions. That’s why I am grateful to my friend Michael Matt for giving me the opportunity to share some thoughts with you. In this speech I will not try to give answers, but to pose a question that can no longer be postponed, so that we Bishops, the clergy, and the faithful can look clearly at the very serious apostasy present as a completely unprecedented fact, one that cannot be resolved, in my opinion, by resorting to our usual categories of judgment and action. The Evidence of the “Bergoglio Problem” The proliferation of declarations and behaviors completely foreign to what is expected of a Pope – and indeed in contrast with the Faith and Morality of which the Papacy is the guardian – has led many of the faithful and an increasingly large number of Bishops to take note of something that until some time ago seemed unheard of: the Throne of Peter is occupied by a person who abuses his power, using it for the opposite purpose to that for which Our Lord instituted it. Some say that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is manifestly heretical in doctrinal questions, others that he is tyrannical in matters of government, still others consider his election invalid because of the multiple anomalies of the resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of the one who took his place. These opinions – more or less supported by evidence or the result of speculations that cannot always be shared – nevertheless confirm a reality that is now incontestable. And it is this reality, in my opinion, that constitutes a common starting point in trying to remedy the disconcerting, scandalous presence of a Pope who presents himself with ostentatious arrogance as inimicus Ecclesiæ [“an enemy of the Church”] and who acts and speaks as such. An enemy who, precisely because he occupies the Throne of Peter and abuses papal authority, is capable of inflicting a terrible and disastrous blow, such as no external enemy in the entire history of the Church has ever been able to cause. The worst persecutors of Christians, the fiercest adherents of the Masonic Lodges, and the most unrestrained heresiarchs have never before succeeded, in such a short time and with such effectiveness, in devastating the Lord’s vineyard, scandalizing the faithful, disgusting the Ministers, discrediting its authority and authoritativeness before the world, and demolishing the Magisterium, Faith, Morals, Liturgy, and discipline. Inimicus Ecclesiæ [“an enemy of the Church”], not only with respect to the members of the Mystical Body – which he despises, ridicules (he never ceases to launch poisonous epithets against it), persecutes, and strikes; but also with respect to the Head of the Mystical Body, Jesus Christ: whose authority is exercised by Bergoglio no longer in a vicarious way, which would therefore be in necessary and dutiful consistency with the Depositum Fidei, but rather in a self-referential and thus tyrannical way. The authority of the Roman Pontiff is in fact derived from the Supreme Authority of Christ, in which it participates, always within the boundaries and scope of the goals which the Divine Founder has established once and for all, and which no human power can change. The evidence of Bergoglio’s alienity to the office he holds is certainly a painful and very serious fact; but becoming aware of this reality is the indispensable premise for remedying an unsustainable and disastrous situation. Agere Sequitur Esse (“Action follows being”) [Note: meaning that how one acts or what one does follows from what or who one is…] In these 10 years of his “pontificate” we have seen Bergoglio do everything that would never be expected of a Pope, and vice-versa everything that a heresiarch or an apostate would do. There have been occasions when these actions have appeared manifestly provocative, as if by his utterances or certain acts of government he deliberately wanted to arouse the indignation of the ecclesial body and urge priests and faithful to react by giving them the pretext to declare them schismatic. But this typical strategy of the worst Jesuitism is now uncovered, because the whole operation has been conducted with too much arrogance and in areas on which not even moderate Catholics are willing to compromise. The sexual scandals of the clergy, and in particular the response of the Holy See to the scourge of moral corruption of Cardinals and Bishops, have shown a shameful disparity of treatment between those who belong to Bergoglio’s so-called “magic circle” and those he considers adversaries. The recent case of Marko Rupnik is evidence of one who exercises power like a despot, legibus solutus [Note: The formula princeps legibus solutus (Latin “The prince is not bound by the laws”) is a paroemia, an axiom taken from Roman law, concerning the powers of princes, particularly the right to legislate, from the high Middle Ages onwards] who considers himself free to act without being accountable for any of his actions. It often happens that the consequences of the decisions taken personally by the Argentine are then passed on to his subordinates, who find themselves accused and discredited for choices which are not theirs. I think of the case of the London building in which officials of the Secretariat of State were involved, while the contract of sale bears the august chirograph. I think of the shameful handling of the Rupnik case, which in addition to having rehabilitated a criminal responsible for horrendous crimes, in contempt of the numerous victims, has also discredited the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ladaria. I am thinking of the McCarrick case, which with the farce of a secret administrative procedure was hastily liquidated without any compensation to the victims, and declared res judicata unappealable. And the list goes on and on. It remains evident that the unfortunates who willingly or unwillingly collaborate with Bergoglio find themselves thrown overboard as soon as the press discovers the Vatican scandals. Many are noticing this cynical utilitarian behavior, which in fact brings them to decline appointments and promotions precisely so as not to find themselves in the uncomfortable role of scapegoat. Breaking Down the Wall of Silence The silence of the Episcopate in the face of the Bergoglian nonsense confirms that the self-referential authoritarianism of the Jesuit Bergoglio has found servile obedience in almost all the Bishops, terrified by the idea of being made the object of the retaliation of the vengeful and despotic satrap of Santa Marta. Some diocesan bishops are beginning to no longer tolerate his devastating action, which undermines the authority and authoritativeness of the whole Church. Bishop Joseph Strickland, for example, has commendably reiterated immutable doctrinal truths that the Synod on Synodality in the coming months is preparing to demolish. And Cardinal Gerard Ludwig Müller has rightly recalled that the Lord did not give power to the Pope to “bully” good bishops. Something therefore is beginning to change: alignments are taking shape, and we see on the one hand Bergoglio’s “synodal church” – which he emblematically calls “our church” – and on the other hand what remains of the Catholic Church, towards which he does not fail to reiterate his absolute extraneousness. The Sanatio in Radice [“healing at the root”] of the Irregularities at the 2013 Conclave Bishop Athanasius Schneider maintains that any irregularities that may have occurred in the 2013 Conclave have in any case been healed in radice by the fact that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been recognized as Pope by the Cardinal Electors, by the Episcopate, and by the majority of the faithful. Practically speaking, the argument is that, regardless of the events that may have led to the election of a pope – with or without external meddling in it – the Church, practically speaking, places a time limit beyond which it is not possible to challenge an election if the person elected is accepted by the Christian people. But this thesis is called into question by historical precedent. In 1378, after the election of Pope Urban VI, the majority of Cardinals, Prelates and the people recognized Clement VII as pope, even though he was in reality an antipope. Thirteen out of sixteen cardinals questioned the validity of the election of Pope Urban due to the threat of violence from the Roman people against the Sacred College, and even Urban’s few supporters immediately retracted their election, convoking a new Conclave at Fondi which elected the antipope Clement VII. Even Saint Vincent Ferrer was convinced that Clement was the real pope, while Saint Catherine of Siena sided with Urban. If universal consensus were an indefectibly valid argument for a pope’s legitimacy, Clement would have had the right to be considered the true pope, rather than Urban. Antipope Clement was defeated by Urban VI’s army in the battle of Marino in 1379 and transferred his See to Avignon, leading to the Western Schism, which lasted thirty-nine years. Thus we see that the universal acceptance argument does not withstand the test of history. Bishop Schneider’s Via Tutior Bishop Athanasius Schneider reminds us that the via tutior, or surer way, consists in not obeying a heretical Pope, without necessarily having to consider him ipso facto fallen from his office as separated from the Church and therefore no longer capable of being at its head, as St. Robert Bellarmine believes. But even this solution – which at least recognizes that Bergoglio is a heretic – does not seem decisive to me, since the obedience that the faithful can deny him is only marginal compared to all the acts of government and magisterium that he has carried out and continues to perform without his subjects being able to do anything about them. Of course, one can organize the clandestine celebration of the Catholic Mass, but what can a priest or a layman do when a subversive group of Bishops maneuvered by Bergoglio is preparing to introduce unacceptable doctrinal changes through the Synod on Synodality? And what can they do when in their parishes a deaconess blesses the “wedding” of two sodomites? Certainly disobeying the illegitimate orders of a heretical or apostate Superior is a duty sub gravi, since obedience to God comes before obedience to men, and because the virtue of Obedience is hierarchically subordinated to the theological virtue of Faith. But the resulting damage to the ecclesial body is not prevented by an action of simple resistance: the root of the question must be resolved. The Defect of Consent in the Assumption of the Papacy Thus, taking notice of the fact that Bergoglio is a heretic – and Amoris Lætitia or his declaration of the intrinsic immorality of capital punishment would be enough to prove it – we must ask ourselves if the 2013 election was in some way invalidated by a lack of consent; that is, if the one elected wanted to become Pope of the Catholic Church or rather head of what he calls “our synodal church” – which has nothing to do with the Church of Christ precisely because it stands as something other than it. In my opinion, this lack of consent can also be seen in Bergoglio’s behavior, which is ostentatiously and consistently anti-Catholic and heterogeneous with respect to the very essence of the Papacy. There is no action of this man that does not blatantly have the air of rupture with respect to the practice and the Magisterium of the Church, and to this are added the positions taken that are anything but inclusive towards the faithful who do not intend to accept arbitrary innovations, or worse, full-blown heresies. The fundamental question hinges on understanding the subversive plan of the deep church, which, using the methods denounced at the time by St. Pius X with regard to the Modernists, has organized itself to carry out a coup d’état within the Church and bring the prophet of the Antichrist to the Throne of Peter. The mens rea in infiltrating the Hierarchy and ascending its ranks is evident, just as it is evident that the plans of the ultra-progressive faction could not stop in the fact of Benedict XVI, whom they considered too conservative, and whom they hated above all because he dared to promulgate the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. And so Benedict XVI was pressured to resign, and immediately there was ready the unknown Archbishop of Buenos Aires. On October 11, 2013, in a conference at Villanova University (here), then-Cardinal McCarrick, Bergoglio’s longtime friend, revealed that Bergoglio’s election was strongly desired by a “very influential Italian gentleman,” an emissary of the deep state to the deep church: those who work in the Curia know well who is called “the gentleman” par excellence and what his links are with the power on both sides of the Tiber [the Vatican and the Italian Government], and they also know his embarrassing penchants that explain his close connections to the Vatican homosexual lobby. It is also significant that McCarrick said he was convinced that Bergoglio would “change the Papacy within four years,” confirming the malicious intention to tamper with the divine and unreformable institution of the Church. Seeing Bergoglio participate in an event sponsored by the Clinton Foundation, after other no less scandalous endorsements from the globalist elite, confirms his role as bankruptcy liquidator of the Church, with the purpose of substituting the constitution of that Religion of Humanity that will serve as the handmaid of the synarchy of the New World Order. Ecumenism, ecology, vaccinism, immigrationism, LGBTQ+ and gender ideology, and other instances of the globalist religion are appropriated by Bergoglio, not only through an action of ostentatious and proud support for the proponents of the 2030 Agenda, but also by means of the systematic demolition of everything that opposes it in the Magisterium, and the ruthless persecution of those who express even prudent perplexities. So: Bergoglio is a heretic and blatantly hostile to the Church of Christ. To carry out the task assigned to him by the deep church, he concealed his most extreme positions, so as to find a sufficient number of votes in the Conclave. To ensure total obedience, those who hatched the plan made sure that he was widely blackmailable, as always happens. And once elected, Bergoglio was able to show himself for what he is and begin the demolition of the Church and the Papacy. But is it possible for a pope destroy the papacy that he himself embodies and represents? Is it possible for a pope devastate the Church that the Lord has entrusted to him to defend? And again: if a cardinal’s participation in the Conclave is intended to be malicious, if it intends a subversive act against the Church, if the aim is to commit a crime, then even if the procedures and norms of the election are apparently respected, there is undoubtedly a mens rea. And this criminal intention emerges from the cunning by which the cardinals who were accomplices to the plot collaborated in deceiving the cardinals who voted in good faith. I wonder, then: are we not in the presence of a defect of consent that affects the validity of the election? Without saying that the very co-presence of a renouncing pope and a reigning pope is already in itself an element that leads us to believe that they had a false concept of the essence of the papacy, considered to be a role that can be shared with others. Let us not forget that the distinction between munus and ministerium is arbitrary and that there cannot be a Pope who dedicates himself to the “ministry of prayer” and another one who governs. Christ is one; the Church is one; and there is only one Successor of Peter: a body with two heads is a monstrum that is repugnant to nature even before the divine constitution of the Church. Possible Objections Some may object: But even if Bergoglio acted with malice, he still accepted what the Cardinals offered him: his election as Bishop of Rome and therefore as Roman Pontiff. And so he assumed office and must be considered to be the Pope. I believe instead that his acceptance of the papacy is invalidated, because he considers the papacy something other than what it is, like a spouse who gets married in church but excludes the specific purposes of marriage from his intention, thus making the marriage null and void precisely due to his lack of consent. Not only that: what conspirator who acts maliciously in order to ascend to an office would be so naive as to explain to those who must elect him that he intends to become Pope in order to carry out the orders of the enemies of God and the Church? “Good morning. I am Jorge Mario Bergoglio and I intend to destroy the Church by getting elected Pope. Will you vote for me?” The mens rea lies precisely in the use of deception, dissimulation, lies, the delegitimization of annoying opponents, and the elimination of dangerous ones. And the proof that Bergoglio intended to carry out the criminal plan of the globalist elite is right before our eyes: all the desired goals of the emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s right-hand man, have been or are being carried out, from the adoption of gender equality as a premise for the female priesthood to LGBTQ+ inclusion, from the acceptance of gender theory to the participation in the Agenda 2030 on climate change, from the condemnation of “proselytism” to the exaltation of immigration as a method of ethnic replacement. And at the same time, there is the removal and condemnation of the other Church, the “pre-conciliar” one, composed of rigid intolerant people, starting with Our Lord, as Antonio Spadaro blasphemously wrote. And with the cancel culture applied to Faith and Morals, there is also the elimination of the Mass that intrinsically belongs to that Church, which Bergoglio considers to be in conflict with the “new ecclesiology,” to the point of prohibiting it as incompatible with the “synodal church.” So here I am, throwing the proverbial stone into the pond. I would like us to take seriously, very seriously, the possibility that Bergoglio intended to obtain the election by means (of) fraud, and that he intended to abuse the authority of the Roman Pontiff in order to do the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ gave a mandate to Saint Peter and his Successors to do: confirm the faithful in the Catholic Faith, feeding and governing the Flock of the Lord, preaching the Gospel to the nations. All the acts of Bergoglio’s governance and magisterium – since his first appearance on the Vatican Loggia, when he introduced himself with his disturbing “Buonasera” – has unraveled in a direction diametrically opposed to the Petrine mandate: he has adulterated and continues to adulterate the Depositum Fidei, he has created confusion and misled the faithful, he has dispersed the flock, he has declared that he considers the evangelization of peoples to be “a solemn nonsense,” and he systematically abuses the power of the Holy Keys to loose what cannot be loosed and to bind what cannot be bound. This situation is humanly irremediable, because the forces at play are immense and because the corruption of Authority cannot be healed by those who are subject to it. We must take note that the metastasis of this “pontificate” originates from the conciliar cancer, from that Vatican II which created the ideological, doctrinal, and disciplinary bases that inevitably had to lead to this point. But how many of my confreres, who also recognize the gravity of the current crisis, have the ability to recognize this causal link between the conciliar revolution and its extreme consequences with Bergoglio? Conclusion If this passio Ecclesiæ [Note: “passion of the Church”] is a prelude to the end times, it is our duty to prepare ourselves spiritually for moments of great tribulation and of true and proper persecution. But it will be precisely by retracing the Via Dolorosa of the Cross that the ecclesial body will be able to purify itself from the filth that disfigures it and merit the supernatural help that Providence reserves for the Church in times of trial: where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Finally, allow me to remind you that the Exsurge Domine Association I founded aims to give spiritual and material help to priests and religious brothers and sisters who are persecuted by the Bergoglian church because of their fidelity to Tradition. If you would like to make a donation towards the realization of our projects, you may do so at the Association’s website – www.exsurgedomine.org – or by sending a text message: Text 502027 to 1-855-575-7888 (for USA & Canada). Laudetur Jesus Christus. [“Praised be Jesus Christ.”] [End, Viganò’s October 1 talk]

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Posted on September 25, 2023 by abyssum

The Origins of the Biden Disaster.

By: Victor Davis Hanson

Part One – September 22, 2023

In a much-heralded Washington Post column, David Ignatius recently called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris not to run again.

But to justify such a Draconian call, he first reviewed their tenures and concluded of Joe, “In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.” Consider the logic: the more successful a president is, the quicker he must get out of office.

If Ignatius believed that assessment, he would not be calling for Joe to step aside. While Joe has deteriorated a great deal cognitively since his January 2021 debut, even before his inauguration he was unfit physically and mentally for the job—a fact of course known to liberals like Ignatius and others.

So the subtext of this new ridiculous argument that a successful Joe must suddenly depart is essentially the following:

In 2020, Joe Biden was health-wise unfit to become president. The Left backed him, however, by persuading virtually the entire field of 2020 primary candidates to step aside—given his competitors, many of whom had polled well ahead of Joe and won primaries, were deemed either too socialist (Sanders), too shrill and off-putting (Warren), too sanctimonious and insufferable (Buttigieg), too nutty (Spartacus-Booker), and too boring, condescending, and effusively rich (Bloomberg) to ever get elected.

A previously inert Joe was then coronated as the only hope left by the leftwing donor class. And in lockstep, the Democratic minority base was then persuaded (quid-pro-quo-ed) to back the heretofore losing Biden.

Suddenly Joe won the primary in South Carolina. Or as a giddy NPR said of his late February 2020 South Carolina victory:

The 77-year-old former vice president has now notched an expected yet much-needed victory in the South Carolina primary, according to The Associated Press’s projection. Just days ago, the press and the pundits had declared his candidacy dead. (emphasis added) “Now, thanks to all of you—the heart of the Democratic Party—we just won and we’ve won big because of you, and we are very much alive,” an energized Biden said at an event with supporters in Columbia, S.C.

Super Tuesday wipeouts followed as the field had parted for Joe. A soon-to-be-nominated by acclamation Joe was deemed fit enough to run a 19th-century surrogate campaign from his basement, as he stayed under the pretext of COVID-19. All the prior primary jabs that Biden was a racist, a sexist assaulter, and a near-senile ossified figure were dropped.

The Left took it from there (as outlined later in Molly Ball’s 2021 Time essay). The lawyers had by late summer already changed the voting laws to ensure in key states that 60-70 percent or so of the electorate would not vote on Election Day, even as the rejection rate of mail-in and early ballots was to plunge.

The rioters on the streets were modulating their violence on directions from the DNC—or so Molly Ball later wrote in a Time triumphalist essay.

The deep state did its part by hiring out Twitter and Facebook to suppress unwelcome news. An utterly corrupt FBI suppressed the Hunter Biden bombshell laptop.

Mark Zuckerberg readied his $419 million to warp the conduct of the voting in key precincts.

On the eve of the first debate, the even more corrupt retired “51 intelligence authorities” of the discredited deep state swore that Hunter’s laptop was likely (cf. the weaselly “all the hallmarks of”) “Russian disinformation.”

Note that our present Secretary of State Antony Blinken apparently cooked up that ruse by calling former interim CIA head Mike Morell to round up the usual flunkies and toadies, eager for some sort of perch in the Biden deep state. The dozens who complied proved it was an easy round-up, given the supply of corrupt distinguished “authorities” ready to ruin their reputations to promote an abject lie was larger even than the demand.

In the ensuing debate, Trump pounced on the bombshell laptop and its explicit reference to the “big guy” and the “ten percent” rake-off that went to Joe on deals, as Hunter whined to his daughter in texts that he had had to fork over half his illicit winnings to his dad Joe. No matter: the supposedly vampirish Trump was held at bay, as Biden held out his crucifix studded with FBI and CIA saints.

The media did its part by ensuring the country that Trump was vilified daily as a Putin puppet despite the implosion of the “Russian inclusion”yarn and the first impeachment psychodrama, cooked up by the now widely discredited Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella.

The media and corporate boardroom also spread the disinformation that Trump was not to be credited for a role in getting the vaccinations before the election. (Pfizer’s planned pre-election announcement of an imminent two-shot vaccination rollout was delayed on spec, until after the election to ensure Trump was not credited with Operation Warp Speed). And we were off to the Biden races.

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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP

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WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN THAT WHEN THEY SOW THE WIND WITH HATE THEY OR THEIR CHILDREN WILL REAP THE WHIRLWIND OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

The old immigration once enriched America, but our new version is destroying it.

COULD CARDINAL PIETRO PAROLIN BECOME OUR NEXT POPE?

The overt support for Hamas killers by the diversity, equity, and inclusion crowd on the administration of many of the universities in the United States exposes to America the real moral and intellectual rot in our institutions of “higher” learning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HERE IS A KEY THAT COULD POSSIBLY UNLOCK THE MYSTERY OF HOW THE MAFIA GREW TO HAVE SUCH AN INFLUENCE ON THE CHURCH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Priest: St. Gallen Mafia prelates were named by suspected Freemason Cardinal Baggio

CARDINAL BURKE SUBMITS NEW DUBIA

CARDINAL BURKE SUBMITS NEW DUBIA TO JORGE BERGOLIO

“We must ask ourselves if the 2013 (papal) election was in some way invalidated by a lack of consent”

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