Hi Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, I wanted to follow up about doxo’s recently released report called: 2023 Report: Cities in Texas where Household Expenses are Highest and Lowest. The report found that, among other things, the average Texas household pays $2,110 a month for the 10 most common household bills, which is 3.1% higher than the national average of $2,046.  The data, which doxoINSIGHTS has for 247 towns and cities in Texas, also found that the average household in Corpus Christi pays $1,978 per month on the ten most common household bills.  Please let me know if I can help answer any questions about this, or help provide any other bill payment statistics.  Thanks,Indigo  ———- Forwarded message ———From: Indigo Bruno-Hopps <doxoinsights@info.doxo.com> Date: Weds, June 6, 2023 at 9:00 AM Subject: Report: Texas ranks #19 for household bill expenses; Corpus Christi residents spend $1,978 per month Hello Abyssus Abyssum Invocat, I wanted to let you know about doxo’s recently released report called: 2023 Report: Cities in Texas where Household Expenses are Highest and Lowest. Among other things, the report found that in Texas:  The average Texas household pays $2,110 a month for the 10 most common household bills.Texas’s household expenses, on average, are 3.1% higher than the national average of $2,046.Texas ranks #19 out of 50 states in terms of average monthly spending.Texas households spend 38% of their income on household bills.Annually, Texas residents pay $226 billion in household bills. doxo also has bill pay data for Corpus Christi, including:The average Corpus Christi household pays $1,978 a month, or $23,739 a year for the 10 most common household bills compared to the state average of $2,110 and the national average of $2046.Corpus Christi is the #121 most expensive city in Texas for household expenses.The household expenses in Corpus Christi, on average, are 3.3% lower than the national average of $2,046, and 6.2% lower than the state average of $2,110.Corpus Christi households spend 40% of their income on household bills.View Report: Where Texas’s Household Bills are HighestView Household Bills for Corpus Christi, TXThe data, which doxo has for Corpus Christi as well as 247 towns and cities in Texas, looks at total amount spent on bills per month in each of these cities, and also breaks down bill payments into ten different categories, including utilities, auto loans, cable bills, and more. See further details below. Average Cost of Monthly Bills in Corpus Christi: $1,978/monthBill TypeAverage Monthly Payment in Corpus ChristiMortgage$1,377Rent$1,098Auto Loans$434Utilities$331Health Insurance$174Auto Insurance$210Cable & Internet$119Mobile$88Alarm & Security$76Life Insurance$67doxo has infographic information on average monthly payments for the 10 most common household bill categories, state-level rankings, most common time and method of payment, and more. You can also browse similar infographics for more than 4,000 cities across the U.S., and all 50 states including Texas. I’m happy to help however I can: serve as a spokesperson, explain more about our data or methodology, or anything else. You can also read more about our methodology here. Thanks for your consideration, Indigo Bruno-Hopps, Insights Specialist at doxo p. 360-510-6748 indigo.brunohopps@doxo.com | doxo.com Featured in the NewsThis message was sent to rhg1923@gmail.com because we thought you’d be interested in bill pay data for .  Manage Email Preferences  ​©2023 doxo inc. All rights reserved.  411 108th Ave NE | Suite 700 | Bellevue, WA 98004

FEATURED TRANSGENDER

UK to block trans puberty blockers

Michael Cook

June 14, 2023

England’s National Health Service (NHS)  has announced significant restrictions on the use of puberty-suppressing drugs for children seeking gender-related treatments. It says that there is insufficient evidence to support the safety and clinical effectiveness of these drugs as a routine treatment option.

On Friday, NHS England said that: “outside of a research setting, puberty-suppressing hormones should not be routinely commissioned for children and adolescents who have gender incongruence/dysphoria.”

This policy change was foreshadowed in October and has now been formally implemented after a period of public comment. The new restrictions will take effect later this year.

The decision by the NHS to restrict the use of puberty blockers follows the closure of the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service in London, the only youth gender clinic in the country. The clinic faced an overwhelming surge in referrals, from 250 young people in 2011 to 5,000 in 2021.

The effectiveness of puberty blockers has been a subject of bitter debate. While a Dutch study in the 1990s showed positive effects, a British study conducted at the Tavistock clinic in 2021 found no impact on psychological tests. This raised concerns about whether the drugs truly serve their intended purpose of giving adolescents time to consider their options.

James Esses, co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists, told the Daily Telegraph: “The fact that the NHS is holding firm on their intention to prevent the use of puberty blockers outside of the context of clinical trials is seismic. This will hopefully bring an end to vulnerable children being placed down a pathway to irreversible harm.”

And David Bell, a former governor of Tavistock, said: “All the evidence shows that puberty blockers don’t help, and there is clear evidence of physical and psychological harm caused by them, so this change is in line with the evidence we have. A very large percentage of children being treated for gender dysphoria have other problems such as autism and depression, and many are upset or confused about their sexuality.”

Other countries have also taken steps to limit gender-related medical treatments for young people. Finland has started restricting access to these treatments based on evidence reviews, while Sweden has limited the use of puberty blockers and hormones to clinical trials. Health bodies in Norway and the French National Academy of Medicine have also advised caution.

Remembering the Horrors 

of D-Day

By: Victor Davis Hanson

The Patriot Post

June 8, 2023

Seventy-nine years ago this week, the Allies assaulted the Normandy beaches on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Their invasion marked the largest amphibious landing since the Persians under Xerxes invaded the Greek mainland in 480 B.C.

Nearly 160,000 American, British, and Canadian soldiers stormed five beaches of Nazi-occupied France. The plan was to liberate Western Europe after four years of occupation, push into Germany, and end the Nazi regime.

Less than a year later, the Allies from the West, and the Soviet Russians from the East, did just that, utterly destroying Hitler’s Third Reich.

Ostensibly, the assault seemed impossible even to attempt.

Germany had repulsed with heavy Canadian losses an earlier Normandy raid at Dieppe in August 1942.

The Germans also knew roughly when the Allies were coming. They placed their best general, Erwin Rommel, in charge of the Normandy defenses.

The huge D-Day force required enormous supplies of arms and provisions just to get off the beaches. Yet the Allies had no means of capturing even one port on the nearby heavily fortified French coast.

To land so many troops so quickly, the Allies would have to ensure complete naval and air supremacy.

They would have to tow over from Britain their own ports, lay their own gasoline pipeline across the English Channel, and invent novel ships and armored vehicles just to get onto and over the beaches.

More dangerous still, the invaders would ensure armor and tactical air dominance to avoid being cut off, surrounded, and annihilated once they went inland.

German Panzer units—battle-hardened troops in frightening Panther and Tiger tanks, with over three hard years of fighting experience on the Eastern Front—were confident they could annihilate in a matter of days the outnumbered lightly armed invaders.

Such a huge force required 50 miles of landing space on the beaches. That vast expanse ensured that some landing sites were less than ideal—Omaha Beach in particular.

No one quite knows how many Allied soldiers, airmen, and sailors were lost during D-Day’s 24 hours.

Some 10,000 casualties is a good guess, including nearly 4,500 dead. Well over 400 soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured every hour of the first day.

Most of the losses occurred at Omaha Beach, the riskiest landing area. Cliffs there offered perfect German lines of fire onto the landing craft below.

Concrete seawalls blocked access from the beaches. Crack German troops had recently beefed up the fortifications. Mined hedgerows blocked entry into the countryside.

A tragic paradox of D-Day was that Omaha Beach proved an ungodly nightmare, while the other four landing sites worked like clockwork with few casualties.

Nearly a quarter-million Allied soldiers were killed or wounded in “Operation Overlord” over the ensuing seven weeks of fighting in Normandy. Combined German and Allied casualties exceeded 400,000. Nearly 20,000 French civilians were killed as “collateral” damage.

The Allies did not secure Normandy until the end of July when they finally broke out into the plains of France and began racing toward Germany.

Intelligence failures, poor coordination between airborne and infantry troops, and mediocre leadership all plagued the Allies for most of June and July.

Yet the Allies pulled off the impossible by surprising the Germans, securing a beachhead, supplying that toehold in Western Europe, and then expanding the pocket into a vast 1,000-mile front that in less than a year shattered Hitler’s defenses.

How and why did the Americans on Omaha charge right off their landing craft into a hail of German machine gun and artillery fire, despite being mowed down in droves?

In a word, they “believed” in the United States.

That generation had emerged from the crushing poverty of the Great Depression to face the reality that the Axis powers wanted to destroy their civilization and their country.

They were confident in American know-how. They were convinced they fought for the right cause. They were not awed by traveling thousands of miles from home to face German technological wizardry, veterans with years of battle experience, and a ruthless martial code.

The men at Omaha did not believe America had to be perfect to be good—just far better than the alternative.

They understood, like their predecessors at Valley Forge, Gettysburg, and the Meuse-Argonne, that nothing in the United States was guaranteed.

They accepted that periodically some Americans—usually those in the prime of life with the greatest futures and the most to lose—would be asked to face certain death in nightmarish places like Omaha, in a B-17 over Berlin, or the horrid jungles in the Pacific.

The least our generation—affluent, leisured, and so often self-absorbed—can do is to remember who they were, what they did, and how much we owe them.

Mark Levin DROPS THE HAMMER on Trump’s new federal indictment:“President Trump is 76 years old. If the Department of Justice gets its way, he will die in federal prison… They don’t want to just win elections, they want to take control of this country, they want one-party rule. And they have used the Department of Justice and the FBI to get what they want.”Mark Levin is spot on.

June 10, 2023Special EditionSigns of Decay, Fears of Decline. By: Victor Davis HansonBlade of Perseus Part One – June 6, 2023We can calibrate the decline in the quality of American life by comparisons to both societies of the past and contemporary civilization elsewhere. And the result is not encouraging for Americans. I believe I may have visited 80 percent of the so-called first world countries in Europe and the Middle East, and in most of the major capitals and large cities—Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Budapest, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Nicosia, Paris, Prague, Rome, Warsaw, etc., as well as the first-, second-, and third-world non-European cities of Algiers, Amman, Ankara, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Damascus, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Kuwait City, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, and Tripoli. Over the last 40 years, I have had major surgeries in these cities, stayed in “bad areas,” lived for nearly three years abroad, and traveled to their hinterlands. I have been a journalist who visited Iraq twice during the surge of 2006–07, was in Israel during the worst of the suicide bombings, lived in Athens during the 1973 coup and 1974 war in Cyprus, and visited for two weeks Egypt just after the Yom Kippur War. I have seen firsthand the toxic work of dictators like Khadafi, the violence of the PLO, the changes in Erdogan’s Turkey, and the incompetence of socialists in Europe. And yet, I never saw in the slums of old Cairo or in the worst environs of Brussels and Naples, or amid the poverty of 1970s rural Turkey anything like what I saw in San Francisco this year and last. The undressed on Market Street and near Union Square were routinely smoking dope, injecting drugs, defecating, urinating, and in various states of pre-civilized behavior. The homeless enclaves of Los Angeles are worse. Were these scenes being filmed for The Last of Us? Beautiful office buildings were empty. Former stores were shuttered. I don’t think in the dark days of the Iraq surge, I saw routine smash-and-grab or carjacking to the extent of what routinely goes on in our major cities. I wore body armor in Iraq each day and evening when on patrols with soldiers, and felt much safer than I would after hours on the weekends in Chicago, Baltimore, Memphis, or Detroit. I was operated on for a ruptured appendix and peritonitis on a wooden table with only an ether fix in a Red Crescent clinic in Khadafi’s Libya, and yet I felt the third-world clinic care in terms of the clientele and fellow patients was less scary than what I have witnessed in ER rooms in the Central Valley of California or in Tucson or Washington, D.C. I used to define America as hyper-civilized by the courtesy and professionalism of its drivers—not far behind those in Canada, the UK, and Australia—especially in comparison to the road madness in Rome or Athens, or Cairo. But no longer. The daily fare of the Fresno Bee is a recitation of high-speed wrecks, car jackings, fatal DUIs, and hit-and-run smash-ups. When I drive rural roads in central California, I expect that one out of five cars coming in my direction will be drifting into my lane, either due to incompetence, unfamiliarity with U.S. traffic laws (27 percent of Californians were not born in the U.S.), intoxication or drug euphoria—or texting. Walking in downtown or midtown New York, or in Washington, or Seattle stinks more than I remember of the corniche in Beirut or the harbor promenade in Alexandria. I am much more likely to be accosted by an obnoxious stranger, homeless person, or would-be criminal in downtown LA, San Francisco, or Portland than in Brussels or Naples—and that is saying something given the latter two disasters. I do not think in Paris or Amman people walk into stores, rob them, and walk out with impunity, with the knowledge that clerks will be fired for reporting their thefts. Part Two –  June 7, 2023When I drive in rural California and see the shacks, trailers, and compounds of 30-40 persons living in ad hoc shelters with Romex wire and water hoses attached to a small farmhouse, I conclude that this poverty is much more a third-world scene than I remember of Tunisia, Algeria, or Turkey. Or for that matter, the countryside of northern Mexico seems less impoverished than life outside Mendota, San Joaquin, Orange Cove, or Parlier, California. I would take my chances walking at night in Kuwait City over Minneapolis and would likely find a public restroom on California’s I-5 or the 99 dirtier than its counterpart in rural Greece. Students that I have met in rural Greece were far better educated than their age counterparts in California. Spaniards in the countryside seemed to know more about America than American teens in New York or Philadelphia. Japanese or Kuwaiti exchange students I had in college were far better educated than most of my own CSU students. When I taught at Pepperdine, I explained to Chinese students why they rightly seemed afraid to drive alone into most areas of Los Angeles after hours. My point? The basics of life, especially in our major cities—health care, safety, cleanliness—have reached medieval proportions. Or to put it more accurately, there are very different Americas. A sophisticated successful suburban America maintains more or less life as unchanged from the 1970s or 1980s and remains comparable to or better than what is found in Europe. And then there are red-state rural countrysides and small towns that likewise are still civilized. But in a third of America in parts of the suburbs surrounding the major cities and the cores of almost all our major cities, life is truly third or fourth-world. The ERs are dirty, broke, and mostly exist to attend to evening gunshot wounds and other sorts of inner-city violence. Garbage piles up on sidewalks around stuffed cans and bins. It is hard to judge whether the smell of marijuana or feces is the stronger odor. I lost my wallet once in Athens and it was returned in two hours. I have lost glasses, wallet, and cell phones in my hometown of Selma and usually they were never returned or within hours I had thefts show up on my credit cards. If my car broke down on the side of a freeway, I would prefer it happened in Israel, Germany, or Portugal than in California. There are more broken appliances and wet garbage tossed along the roads of Fresno County than there are in supposedly ragtag Italy. None of this was true just 20 years ago. When I meet a teen or 20-something person today, I assume he is poorly educated and knows almost nothing about his own country, Gettysburg, World War I, or the Supreme Court. I can be assured only that he is programmed to have the correct ideas about diversity, transgenderism, or the pathologies of his country. Ignorance and arrogance are a fatal combination, especially when combined with a therapeutic society that has abandoned meritocracy and feels social acceptance and career advantage are found in trashing one’s own culture. What explains this decline, a decay so rapid that it seems surreal, fantasy-like? How did slow erosion accelerate to produce an unrecognizable country, in which nothing is secure, nothing reliable, nothing predictable anymore? Part Three –  June 9, 2023Another sign of decline is the weaponization and politicization of institutions. Decadent societies indict their former leaders upon leaving offices. Those in power sic federal agencies on their opponents. In turn, bureaucrats become agents of those in power, as if in private service—like laptop suppression, diary retrieval, performance-art raiding and arresting, or finding a presidential son’s missing gun. The Biden family may well have pulled off the greatest pay-for-play grifting scam in presidential history, one that encompassed a decade of selling access to Vice President Biden and supposedly someday President Biden. That the entire kleptocracy will likely only be prosecuted if a Republican administration returns to power is again proof of our third-worldism. The careers of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Anthony Fauci, Lois Lerner, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, and Christopher Wray were weaponized. The above either lied under oath when pressed, suppressed an email trail that exposed their culpability or worked hard to discredit or destroy a political candidate they opposed, or simply stonewalled when asked under oath for accountability. In third-world America, Matt Taibbi testifies about the abuse and politicization of federal agencies and upon return to his home finds an IRS note requesting a meeting. An Alvin Bragg finds no actionable writ of “falsifying business records” to lodge against private citizen and ex-president Trump but mysteriously does rediscover grounds for a 34-felony-count indictment on now presidential candidate Donald Trump. When the FBI shows up at school board meeting on the prompt of the teachers’ union hierarchy, or Hillary Clinton destroys with impunity thousands of email records under court subpoena, or during the Roe versus Wade controversies, the FBI starts monitoring traditional Latin-mass Catholic services, or the U.S. military begins sponsoring drag queen shows on military bases, or the President and the Homeland Security secretary condemn as guilty border patrol agents for the fantasy crime of “whipping”illegal alien border crossings as preludes to an announced “investigation,” then we know the U.S. has gone full Brazil, Lebanon, or Congo. There used to be far more accidents, crashes, mayhem, and chaos in the third world than in America because of an absence of meritocracy. Things break and never get repaired or were substandard to begin with. I once took a taxi from the airport into Tripoli, Libya, one of the world’s greatest oil exporters. We hit a pothole that swallowed our small Russian car. Then matter-of-factly we both got out to lift the rear of the tiny car out. I asked the driver how such gargantuan road holes could be possible in a nation blessed with limitless oil reserves. His answer was, “We hire our first cousins.” Translated? “We are tribal people who abhor meritocracy.” During the 1973 Greek dictatorship, my mom sent a pair of $10 Levi’s to me in Athens. They arrived at “customs” which sent me a note to pick them up. I went to the central Athens postal customs office and was told I could have them for $25! I complained to my Greek professor at the college there. She said, “Give them $5 along with the name of our college director.” I did and the next day the customs supervisor apologized but still asked for $10, which I happily handed over. So too with wokeness. The old joke that affirmative action was just desserts for the mediocre politicized English or sociology department, but would never be applied to air traffic controllers, pilots, brain surgeons, or nuclear plant operators is no longer jest. Non-meritocratic hiring now encompasses every profession. And like the Libyan taxi, we will soon see what filters down when our elite are put in positions of enormous clout and power, largely on the basis of ideological, racial, gender, or ethnic considerations. If you doubt, remember that a non-compos mentis Biden is one more fall away from Kamala Harris, selected entirely based on her race and sex, and who seems to have a vocabulary smaller than her menu of various chuckles. Her presidency really would prove that anyone at all can be president. If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato

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“The Infallible Council of Trent” & Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani “had this to teach about those, like” Francis, who may say the Mass is “divisive” or “who may… disparage” the “received & approved Rites of the Catholic Church”

June 11, 2023

Catholics: Do not succumb to Bergoglio’s gaslighting. No …

Bloggerhttps://voxcantor.blogspot.com › 2021/07 › catholics-…

Jul 20, 2021 — Session 7 Canon XIII Council of Trent “If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church customarily used in ..

The following is from the post “Merciless Mercy: On The Motu Proprio”
on the William Briggs website:

Francis, along with its prefatory letter, clearly express the intent to abolish, at least eventually, the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. The decree causes great consternation and grief to those devoted to the old Latin Mass. The growing availability of the Traditional Latin Mass under the previous two popes has now been met with a determined effort to block and eventually end it.

Because the prefatory letter and the motu proprio are both brief and readily available, I will assume that you, lector benevole, have already read them.

The stated reason for the curtailment, and planned obsolescence, of the Traditional Latin Mass is that it has turned out to be divisive.

[…]

[A comment below the post moreover said] The infallible Council of Trent had this to teach about those, like Bergoglio, who claim the Real Mass is divisive:

Session 7 Canon XIII

“If anyone shall say that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church customarily used in the solemn administration of the sacraments may be disparaged, or be omitted at pleasure by the ministers without sin, or be able to be changed by whomsoever pastor of the churches into other new rites: let him be anathema.”[https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/36712/]

Alfredo Ottaviani (29 October 1890 – 3 August 1979) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII named him cardinal in 1953. He served as secretary of the Holy Office in the Roman Curia from 1959 to 1966 when that dicastery was reorganised as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which he was pro-prefect until 1968. – Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfredo_Ottaviani]

LETTER OF THE CARDINALS

ALFREDO CARDINAL OTTAVIANI ANTONIO CARDINAL BACCI

TO HIS HOLINESS POPE PAUL VI:

St. Pius V had the Roman Missal drawn up (as the present Apostolic Constitution now recalls) as an instrument of unity among Catholics. In conformity with the injunctions of the Council of Trent, the Missal was to exclude all dangers, either to liturgical worship or to the faith itself, then threatened by the Protestant Revolt. The grave situation fully justified–and even rendered prophetic–the saintly Pontiff’s solemn warning given in 1570 at the end of the Bull promulgating his Missal:

Should anyone presume to tamper with this, let him know that he shall incur the wrath of God Almighty and His holy Apostles Peter and Paul.

[54]

When the Novus Ordo was presented at the Vatican Press Office, it was impudently asserted that conditions which prompted the decrees of the Council of Trent no longer exist. Not only do these decrees still apply today, but conditions now are infinitely worse. It was precisely to repel those snares which in every age threaten the pure Deposit of Faith, [55] that the Church, under divine inspiration, set up dogmatic definitions and doctrinal pronouncements as her defenses. These in turn immediately influenced her worship, which became the most complete monument to her faith. Trying to return this worship to the practices of Christian antiquity and recreating artificially the original spontaneity of ancient times is to engage in that “unhealthy archaeologism” Pius XII so roundly condemned. [56] It is, moreover, to dismantle all the theological ramparts erected for the protection of the rite and to take away all the beauty which enriched it for centuries. [57] And all this at one of the most critical moments–if not the most critical moment–in the Church’s history! Today, division and schism are officially acknowledged to exist not only outside the Church, but within her as well. [58] The Church’s unity is not only threatened, but has already been tragically compromised. [59] Errors against the Faith are not merely insinuated, but are–as has been likewise acknowledged–now forcibly imposed through liturgical abuses and aberrations. To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, [60] and to replace it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division–a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith–is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an incalculable error.

Corpus Domini 5 June 1969

https://ourladyoftheholyrosarychapel.com/cardinal-ottaviani%5D

Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.

Francis Notes:

– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:

“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)

Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]

– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html

– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html

– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html 

 –  LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:

The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”

–  On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:

“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”

– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:

“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.

Election Notes: 

– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]

– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html

– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1

– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1

What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1] 

Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.

Pray an Our Father now for America.

Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

On The Need To Receive The Eucharist Worthily

• JUNE 11, 2023
• MSGR. CHARLES POPE

In light of Sunday’s Feast of Corpus Christi, I would like to recall the need for the reverent and worthy reception of Holy Communion and to develop an explanation for the Church’s practice of what some call “closed Communion.”  Not everyone who uses this terminology means it pejoratively, although some do. But to some extent it is fair to say that we do have “closed Communion.” For the Catholic Church, Holy Communion is not a “come one, come all” event. It is reserved for those who, by grace, preserve union with the Church through adherence to all that the Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God. Our response of “Amen” at Holy Communion signifies our communion with these realities and our faith in the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Many today have reduced Holy Communion to a mere sign of hospitality, such that if the Church does not extend it to all we are considered unkind. There is often a mistaken notion about the nature of the Last Supper (and the Eucharist that proceeds from it) that lurks behind this misconception. Many years ago, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger articulated the misunderstanding well. I summarize the description here from his Collected Works, Vol 11, Ignatius Press pp 273-274:

Nowadays [some] New Testament scholars … say that the Eucharist … is the continuation of the meals with sinners that Jesus had held … a notion with far-reaching consequences. It would mean that the Eucharist is the sinners’ banquet, where Jesus sits at the table; [that] the Eucharist is the public gesture by which we invite everyone without exception. The logic of this is expressed in a far-reaching criticism of the Church’s Eucharist, since it implies that the Eucharist cannot be conditional on anything, not depending on denomination or even on baptism. It is necessarily an open table to which all may come to encounter the universal God …

However tempting the idea may be, it contradicts what we find in the Bible. Jesus’ Last Supper was not one of those meals he held with “publicans and sinners”. He made it subject to the basic form of the Passover, which implies that the meal was held in a family setting. Thus he kept it with his new family, with the Twelve; with those whose feet he washed, whom he had prepared by his Word and by this cleansing of absolution (John 13:10) to receive a blood relationship with him, to become one body with him.

The Eucharist is not itself the sacrament of reconciliation, but in fact it presupposes that sacrament. It is the sacrament of the reconciled, to which the Lord invites all those who have become one with him; who certainly still remain weak sinners, but yet have given their hand to him and have become part of his family.

That is why, from the beginning, the Eucharist has been preceded by a discernment … (I Corinthians 11:27 ff). The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles [the Didache] is one of the oldest writings outside the New Testament, from the beginning of the Second Century, it takes up this apostolic tradition and has the priest, just before distributing the sacrament saying: “Whoever is holy, let him approach, whoever is not, let him do penance” (Didache 10).

Thanks to Pope Benedict’s writing prior to his papacy, we can see the root of the problem: the failure to see the Eucharist for what it truly is—a sacred banquet wherein those who enjoy communion with the Lord (by His grace) partake of the sign and sacrament of that communion. Holy Communion serves to celebrate and deepen the communion already operative through the other sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Confession.

If you want to call this communion “closed,” fine, but at its heart it is more positively called a “sacrum convivium,” a sacred meal of those who share a life together (con = with or together + vivium = life).  This is not a “come one, come all” meal; it is a Holy Banquet for those who wear the wedding garment. The garment is righteousness and those who refuse to wear it are cast out (cf: Matt 22:11-12 & Rev 19:8).

Many moderns surely would prefer a “no questions asked” invitation to all who wish to come;they love this notion of unity. But to a large degree it is a contrived unity that overlooks truth (the opposite of which is falsehood, not just a different viewpoint). Yes, it overlooks the truth necessary for honest, real, and substantive unity. Such a notion of communion is shallow at best and a lie at worst. How can people approach the Eucharist, the sacrament of Holy Communion and unity, and say “Amen” when they differ with the Church over essentials such as that baptism is necessary; that there are seven sacraments; that the Pope is the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ on Earth; that homosexual acts, fornication, and adultery are gravely sinful; that women cannot be admitted to Holy Orders; that there is in fact a priesthood; that Scripture must be read in the light of the Magisterium; and on and on? Saying that there is communion in such a case is either a contrivance or a lie, but in either case it does not suffice for the “Amen” that is required at the moment of reception of Holy Communion.

Such divisions do not make for a family meal or a “sacrum convivium.” Hence, to share Holy Communion with Protestants, dissenters, and others who do not live in communion with the Church is incoherent. To paraphrase Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict), the Eucharist is not a table fellowship with publicans and other “sinners”; it is a family meal that presupposes grace and shared faith.

This, then, leads us to a second point: the need to approach the Sacrament of Holy Communion free from serious and unrepentant sin. Let’s consider some texts to show that the Church’s desire that her sons and daughters receive Holy Communion in a state free from serious sin is not only a proper requirement but a loving one. Each quote is followed by some of my own commentary in plain red text.

So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world (1 Cor 11:27-32).

St. Paul teaches that examining oneself is a prerequisite for worthy reception of the Eucharist. If not, Holy Communion has the opposite of the desired effect of union with our Lord, bringing condemnation rather than blessing. So, out of respect for Christ and for our own good, the Church requires us to be in a state of grace when we receive. We are required to abstain only when there is mortal sin. Confessions of devotion, however, are highly recommended.

[At the Last Supper the disciples asked]: “Lord, who is it [who will betray you]?” Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.” So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night (Jn 13:21-30).

It is unclear and debatable whether or not the “morsel” taken by Judas was Holy Communion (why would Jesus have dipped it?). But still, there is something of a picture of what unworthy (sacrilegious) reception of Holy Communion might cause in an extreme case.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny(Mat 5:21-26).

Note the use of the simple word “first.” Jesus teaches that we cannot approach the altar if we are filled with hate or injustice toward our brethren. Reconciliation and the restoration of unity are required prior to approaching the Sacrament of Holy Communion, lest our “Amen” be incoherent or a lie.

A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to celebrate Mass or to receive the Body of the Lord without prior sacramental confession unless a grave reason is present and there is no opportunity of confessing; in this case the person is to be mindful of the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, including the intention of confessing as soon as possible (Code of Canon Law # 916).

Note that the use of the Act of Contrition mentioned here is an exception requiring moral or physical impossibility to go to Confession beforehand and the necessity of receiving Communion immediately (such as a priest who must celebrate Mass). There are some pastoral notes that can be added here later for those who struggle with certain habitual sins that are possibly grave (e.g., masturbation). The Catechism has some notes to review that a confessor can apply to a penitent in such cases. But no Catholic should simply take it upon himself to use the exception described in Canon 916. A confessor must be consulted.

To respond to this invitation, we must prepare ourselves for so great and so holy a moment. St. Paul urges us to examine our conscience: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.” Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion (Catechism # 1385).

If anyone is holy, let him approach; if anyone is not so, let him repent. Maranatha. Amen. … But let no one eat or drink of your Eucharist, unless they have been baptized into the name of the Lord; for concerning this also the Lord has said, “Give not that which is holy to the dogs” (Didache 10, 9).

Note that the Didache was written sometime between 90 and 110 AD. Hence very early on there was an understanding that the Eucharist was not a mere “table fellowship with sinners” but rather a sacral meal that presupposed grace and communion with the Church.

Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgment regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g., excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (Ratzinger Memo to Cardinal McCarrick, # 1). Clear enough!

In all these quotes we see a tradition that is Scriptural, ancient, and clear: the Eucharist is a sacred meal that requires of us something more than just “showing up.” Indeed, there are warnings against irreverent reception, in which the Eucharist is regarded as ordinary or is treated casually.

Is the Church merely being “fussy” about Holy Communion? No more so than were St. Paul and the Holy Spirit, who inspired him to write and warn us against unworthy reception of the Eucharist. The Church is charitably exhorting us to receive the Eucharist, but also charitably warning those who are unprepared to refrain from reception. Indeed, Scripture warns that the unworthy reception of Holy Communion brings not a blessing but a condemnation. This is God’s teaching, not mine.

Perhaps an analogy can be found by noting that some people are allergic to penicillin. For them, a drug that has saved many lives can threaten their own. They are simply not able to receive it, though it is good in itself. Similarly, sinners, not by accident of birth or genetics but by choice, will find that the Eucharist, though life-giving to many, is problematic for them. In charity, the Church teaches that individuals unprepared to receive Communion should refrain from doing so until the problem can be resolved. This is charity, not cruelty or a lack of hospitality.

I have written more extensively (here) on some pastoral issues and solutions related to the Church’s stance. Questions do arise as to what is meant by mortal sin and how to handle the current problem of dissenters, those in serious sin, and those in invalid marriages or other irregular situations. Such questions and issues must be handled charitably and equitably by the Church, but not in a way that violates the principles given by Scripture and Tradition on the need for worthy reception of Holy Communion. This fundamental stance of the Church deserves to be reiterated and needs to be better taught and applied with clarity and charity:

The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 2004).

This post was originally published on Co



Of Pride and Pedophilia

Yes, they’re coming for the kids.

MICHAEL WARREN DAVISJUN 12



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Glory to Jesus Christ!

Friends, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Pat Robertson died. I’m not exactly a card-carrying member of the 700 Club, but you can’t tell the story of Christianity in America without mentioning that old war horse. May God remember him forever.

In 1993, Robertson appeared on an episode of William F. Buckley’s television program Firing Line. It was a two-hour special, a debate between two teams of four. The topic was, “Resolved: That We Need Not Fear the Religious Right”. Robertson argued for the affirmative alongside Buckley, Henry J. Hyde, and Jacob Neusner. They were opposed by Ira Glasser, Cornel West, Barry W. Lynn, and Harriett Woods. 

(If any of those names don’t ring a bell, that’s okay. I’ll introduce the relevant parties.)

The whole thing is nearly two hours long, and you really should watch it all. One particular exchange between Hyde and Lynn made my jaw hit the floor.

Henry J. Hyde was a longserving member of Congress, a conservative Catholic who lent his name to the Hyde Amendment. Reverend Barry W. Lynn is a minister in the United Church of Christ, one of the largest “mainline” Protestant denominations in the country. Until 2017, he also served as president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. 

Here’s the exchange:

HYDE:  “Is there a constitutional right to produce or to view child pornography?”

LYNN:  “The American Civil Liberties Union thinks there is.”

HYDE:  “What do you think?”

LYNN:  “What do I think?  Yeah.  I happen to have worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, and I agreed with that position.”

(…)

HYDE:  “As a leader in the field of civil rights, and as a clergyman, I just wanted to know.”

LYNN:  “As a clergyman, if you want me to condemn in the strongest words possible the people who provide and promote child pornography, I’m happy to do it.  I’m happy to use moral suasion to say that I don’t believe that people should drink alcohol in this country, and I know that makes me a very conservative person.  But I can’t tell my own children not to use drugs and alcohol if I’m using alcohol myself.”

Remember, Ira Glasser—then head of the ACLU—was debating alongside Lynn. He easily could have objected to Lynn’s characterization of his organization. Yet he chose not to.

And remember, when you legalize a category of pornography, you legalize the underlying act. You can’t pass a law saying that child-rape is legal so long as you film it and sell the footage. No: you have to make raping children itselflegal. So, that’s what Lynn and Glasser and the ACLU were really advocating for: the right for men to have sex with little boys and girls.

Folks, my motto is: “When someone tells you they’re evil, believe them.”

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Rod Dreher recently published an article on his Substack about “How cultural elites once justified pedophilia, and will do it again.” He’s right, of course. Yet we may not realize just how open these elites were about their support for pedophiles. It wasn’t just (obvious) weirdos like Allen Ginsberg and NAMBLA. It was also respectable, progressive “influencers” like Lynn and Glasser. And they did it on national television!

Part of the reason I ask that you watch the entire debate is that, earlier in the debate, Lynn repeatedly accuses Pat Robertson as trying to build a “theocracy.” He uses the word over and over again. “Theocracy.” And then, just a few moments later, not only does he defend child porn: he implicitly defends himself by suggesting it’s a mainstream view.  Hey, it’s not just me!

Now, look. Obviously, I’m not saying that all supporters of the LGBT movement are pedophiles or pro-pedophilia. I usually try to avoid this kind of throat-clearing language, but I know some conservative Christians who assume that every man with same-sex attraction is a nonce until proven innocent. That’s wrong. It goes against the basic principle of Christian charity. It drives those men away from Christ. And (not for nothing) it gives ammunition to the LGBT movement.

Here’s what I am saying: From the beginning, elite members of the gay-rights movement have also been pro-pedo. Even in the Nineties, they were a little uncomfortable talking about it publicly. So, they decided to table that part of their agenda for a while. But it never went away. They were just keeping their powder dry.

The recent push to create legal protections for MAPs (“minor-attracted persons”) didn’t fall out of the clear blue sky. They’ve been planning this for years. And what we’re seeing now is only the beginning.

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Friends, if you don’t watch the whole debate, please at least take a hard look at the good Reverend’s face. (That’s him at the top of the post.) Note the big goofy glasses, the button-collar shirt, the lax-bro flow. He looks like every small-town minister I ever met in my Yankee-Protestant youth. He’s a vision of respectabiliy, of modernation—of enlightened, pragmatic religion. And he’s about to defend kiddie porn. 

In fairness, Lynn did call it “disgusting.” That last paragraph of dialogue I quoted sure does make it sound like he watches (or watched) child porn himself, but maybe he was just having trouble getting his thoughts out. Either way, I believe that, deep down, he is (or was) disgusted. Yet, by that point in his life, he had become so enmeshed in the liberal establishment that he couldn’t say, “It should be illegal to sell videos of grown men raping little boys and girls.” He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

Barry W. Lynn sold his soul.

Mark my words. In five or ten years, there will be Christians—from all denominations—lining up to make the “Christian case” for pedophilia. That will include the clergy, even the Catholic clergy. They’ll talk about how biblical ethics have to “evolve,” how the Church needs to “update” its teachings. They’ll say that, by opposing them, we (the orthodox) are “denying that our MAP brothers and sisters are made in the image and likeness of God.”

And, of course, eight seconds after the New York Times decides that we humans have a fundamental right to rape children, everyone who disagrees will be called a “bigot.” If you’re a Christian, you’ll be accused of trying to build a “theocracy.” And so on. By now, we all know how it works. 

Yet that means that, when the time comes, we have no excuse. We can’t plead ignorance. Everyone who plays along with the pro-MAP movement will be selling his soul. 

Please, friend, don’t be one of them.



GRETA AND THE BUTTERFLY

What do Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, Willie Nelson, 

and a butterfly have in common?

By: HawkeEye

May 6, 2023

You have probably heard the concept that when a butterfly flaps its wings in some far-off place it can set off catastrophic weather events in unintended ways in unforeseen places.  This has come to be known as the butterfly effect and is an effective way to illustrate connections between seemingly unconnected events.  It shows up in everything from metaphors for human connections, the stock market, and political events, to random occurrences in just about every segment of our society. 

But where did the “Butterfly Effect” originate?  In 1961 an easygoing MIT meteorology professor named Edward Lorenz was studying weather patterns.   By just rounding off a few decimal points in a predictive weather model he changed science forever.  What Professor Lorenz proved was that tiny changes in complex calculations (any calculation really) can have massive repercussions in the final results.  This simple example gave rise to what we know today as Chaos Theory.  In Professor Lorenzo’s example, just the size, shape, and motion of a cloud in California can affect the weather in Spain.

In her novel, Fractured, Catherine McKenzie summarizes the Chaos Theory concept this way:

They say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian rainforest, it can change the weather half a world away.  Chaos theory.  What it means is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s come before it.  Every breath.  Every thought.  There is no innocent action.  Some actions end up having the force of a tempest. . . Perhaps only God knows which is which.

All I know today is that you can think that what you’ve done is only the flap of a butterfly wing, when it’s really a thunderclap.  And both can result in a hurricane.

All of this brings us to the question: “How can three unrelated people with dystopian dreams that have now morphed into dystopian nightmares, bring the world to near-total economic collapse?”

Willie Nelson

First in this chain of events is Willie Nelson.  In a noble but ill-fated attempt to help farmers in the United States, Nelson started a campaign to force the introduction of ethanol into our gasoline as an additive and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  It was the solution to help farmers in difficult times, as Willie saw it.  Farmers have millions of acres where corn and other crops can be grown, for conversion into ethanol.

At one point in this process in 2004 Nelson even formed his own company, Willie Nelson Biodiesel, Inc., to cash in on the craze selling BioWillie as the brand name.   Today even proponents of biodiesel admit that there are just as many disadvantages to this approach, including quality control, gelling at low temperatures, engine damage, relative production cost, food shortages, increased use of fertilizers, water shortages, and a lack of crop diversity.  Production uses up vast quantities of energy, and smog production from biodiesel is a problem for the environment. In a world increasingly short of water, food, and money, biodiesel seems to us to be a fool’s errand.  It has many environmentalists concerned because of the scale of the operations and unknown effects on ecosystems.  Biodiesel does meet some of its claims and extends our stocks of petroleum, but at what cost?

Without Federal subsidies, biodiesel would never have gotten off the ground, so we now have Biodiesel Tax Credits which began in 2004 and gives a $1.00 per gallon incentive to producers.  The tax credits and incentives have fluctuated over the years with swings in opinions by Congress, but currently, it is a favorite of the Department of Energy.  There are at least eighteen incentive programs to support farmers in their effort to save the planet.  We all know that once federal subsidies start and we become dependent on them, they rarely stop.

Willie had a great music career and is a humanitarian for many causes.  But his extreme generosity resulted in several run-ins with the IRS and has in the past been a proponent of marijuana use, so we know he does not always think clearly.  But with biodiesel, he set in motion a chain of catastrophic events he could never have imagined.  His noble efforts produced many ignoble results.  In the 2000 election, Willie backed Ralph Nader pulling his vote from Al Gore.  His one vote might not have made a difference, but he is an influencer.  Nader received over 97,000 votes in Florida, enough to put either Bush or Gore over the top.  Willie flapped his wings and Al Gore lost the Presidency.

Al Gore

Now into the chaos mix comes this failed Presidential candidacy of Al Gore.  After he lost his race for the White House, he retired from politics to focus on “building his fortune,” and build his fortune he did.

Gore gets some credit for waiting until he left public service to hit the wealth lottery.  If he were still in government, his skills might even eclipse the Clintons or Bidens.  When Gore retired from politics, his net worth was reported at $1.7 million.  Today it is $330 million or more.  He has ridden the climate catastrophe train to new stations, where the wealthy and powerful influence corporations, politicians, and governments to make virtue-signaling changes that affect us all. 

Gore has made some wise investments in companies like Apple, but he has also ridden his fame into lucrative speaking engagements, movies, and board rooms.  His personal carbon footprint is questionable.  It has been reported that his personal residence consumes from ten to thirty times the carbon of a normal home.  He justifies this by installing solar panels and buying those elusive carbon offsets.  But he also owns multiple residences, and his total carbon footprint would exponentially exceed most in the world.  His wealth allows him to charter private jets to fly to climate conferences where he often commands speaking fees of $200,000 or more.

Among Gore’s climate claims was a rise in sea levels of twenty feet as Greenland’s ice sheets melt.  He also forecasted a total melting of the Artic ice by 2013, and that our greenhouse gases now trap enough heat to equal 600,000 Hiroshima bombs.  If Al’s predictions had come true none of us would be reading this.  All of these predictions, movies, and speeches earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, adding credibility to his resume.

From the older, frustrated sixties crowd to young and impressionable youth, millions are now worshiping at the altar of climate change.  In true Jim Jones fashion, they stand ready to mix the Kool-Aid to save the world through our personal sacrifice.  It is not they but you that must drink the poison brew.  They are too busy flying to climate conferences and protesting to be expected to sacrifice.  Al Gore flapped his wings to make some money and created a hysteria that touched off a worldwide climate phenomenon that has now evolved into a cult. 

Greta Thunberg

One of the impressionable youths infected with the climate influenza passed along the wings of change was eight-year-old, Swedish-born, Greta Thunberg.  Greta has become a child of the world, one with clarity of thought and vision the rest of us lack.  She spoke before the U.N. at age sixteen, a privilege few will have outside the highest political class.  She regularly goes to events where she venomously scolds adults for destroying the planet.  She overlooks that our generation provides her generation with all the advantages of an advanced civilization.  Her focus is rubbing shoulders with the rich and politically powerful to drive her climate agenda forward.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Greta has Asperger Syndrome, which is often associated with social interaction difficulties, but also with a tendency to focus on one idea or topic, and her focus became climate change.  Because of her age, Aspergers, and persistence, few politicians are willing to criticize her.  Instead, they have decided to ride the train she is conducting and capitalize on the benefits of the craze.  In this way, she has politicians, even whole countries falling in line with her agenda.

So here we have a twenty-year-old with no real-world experience and who has never had a real job directing the economic fortunes of some of the world’s largest corporations and nations.  Developed countries are throwing trillions of dollars at a problem that is poorly defined with no clear mission or direction.  It is notable that China and Russia only give lip service to climate issues while they continue to build coal-fired plants, invade neighbors, and largely ignore highly publicized climate issues.

When Greta flaps her wings, we all suffer.

The Spontaneous Serendipitous Cabal

So here we have a spontaneous, serendipitous cabal composed of an aging country and western singer, a failed politician, and a child with no real-world knowledge or experience.  This happy band is now driving the world to spend trillions on a fool’s mission, and our elected officials happily go along to curry favor with younger voters.  They have the power of the media behind them because they make for good news and viewership.  What started as a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas over ethanol is now the most destructive worldwide economic and political force that we have ever seen.  

This brings us full circle, back to the original work by Edward Lorenz and the beginnings of Chaos Theory.  Just as Chaos Theory can be used to explain why distant and seemingly unconnected events can combine to produce catastrophic events like climate change, it can also be used to illustrate that there are too many variables involved with climate to accurately predict anything.  In December of 2021 in the Stanford News, Josephine Garthwaite noted that:

“But the problem of predicting specific weather beyond 10 or possibly 15 days in the future with perfect accuracy isn’t one that can be solved with more computing power or better models.  The chaotic nature of Earth’s atmosphere imposes insurmountable limits on forecasting.”

But facts fly in the face of cult fanaticism, and the climate alarmist beat goes on.  Scientists agree that weather cannot be predicted more than ten or fifteen days ahead.  The climate crowd believes we can predict it for decades, even centuries.  The one thing politicians can all agree on is that there is a lot of money following and there are a lot of voters riding the Climate Train, and they want to buy a ticket to the promised land.

The Twisted Logic of the Left

By: Bill Schoettler

June 9, 2023

It’s amazing how the Left pronounces a word with emphasis or volume and expects it to become a criminal indictment. Let’s start with an easy one. Eric Adams, that outstanding mayor of New York City has filed a lawsuit against neighboring State counties charging them with…hold your breath… “xenophobic bigotry” for refusing to accept bussed-in-illegal aliens. Now there is a term you don’t hear much, “xenophobic bigotry”.But in my entire legal career (spanning more than 50 years) I never heard those two words put together. Must be something horrible.

But when you look at the expression you have to ask… “Where’s the beef?” I mean, what’s wrong with being xenophobic (having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries)? Okay, I’ll confess to having a prejudice against people from ANY OTHER COUNTRY who enter my own country “illegally”. That is, if they sneak across the border, walk boldly across or otherwise enter my country without first making a proper application, I don’t like them. I hold the same attitude toward anyone who tries to enter my property without first asking permission. Boundaries mean something, or at least they used to. Most countries around the world feel that way about their boundaries – no entrance without proper application. So xenophobic bigotry doesn’t sound, to me at least, like such a big deal. But not so Mr. Adams.

Next, we have our beloved President talking about the attitudes toward that newly-protected class of citizens called “trans”. How large a group do we have here? Nobody knows, but the best guess is somewhere around less than 1% of the population. Breitbart News reported that Biden promised to “champion new rights for the often-contradictory demographic of varied ‘LGBT’ people, saying (here we quote Breitbart quoting Biden) ‘Our fight is far, far, from over because we have some hysterical, and I would argue prejudiced people, who are engaged in all what you see what’s going on around the country.’”

I look at this statement and am puzzled. For one thing, I consider myself a reasonably rational, reasonably educated person. Yes, I hold prejudices and preconceived opinions not based on actual experience. For example, I have long since realized that my “actual” experience (i.e., first-hand observations or actions) is certainly limited geographically. I have traveled some in my life, but there are many places I have never set foot so my understanding of such places is based on “hearsay”, on reports from others who have actually “been there, done that”. I have no desire to visit many such places, partly because of the cost, partly because of the distance, and partly because of what I have heard and read about such places. There are foods I have tried and experiences I have had which, to my mind, do not bear repeating. These attitudes are “prejudices” and I do not apologize for holding those prejudices. And yes, there are people I am not interested in meeting, talking with, or even being in their presence. More “prejudices”. You get the idea, being “prejudiced” about something is not necessarily a bad thing.  And I resent someone trying to choose for me what it is that should disturb me. 

But the Left has decided what it is that should disturb us, how we should think, reason, and act. Being white, being Republican, being a Trump supporter, being a climate-denier, having objections to “property crimes” [such as shoplifting, trespassers, burners-of-cars, and breakers-of-windows], all are condemned by the Left as being systemic terrorists, white supremacists, and existential threats to democracy. Wow! I qualify on all counts. How about you?