Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister 

15 mar 19

The Society of Jesus Adrift. The Indictment of a Great Jesuit

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“It seems that I am in good Company….” This is how an exultant Antonio Spadaro hailed via Twitter the release of “Confesiones de jesuitas,” the expanded new edition of a book published back in 2003 with the title “31 jesuitas se confiesan,” in which he too now appears together with 37 other confreres, including several of the highest rank, living and dead, from Avery Dulles to Carlo Maria Martini, from Roberto Tucci to Tomás Spidlik, from Jon Sobrino to Robert F. Taft, from Adolfo Nicolás to Arturo Sosa Abascal, the last two generals of the Society of Jesus.

The book’s editors, Catalans Valentí Gómez-Oliver and Josep M. Benítez-Riera, write in the preface that what prompted the updating of this collection of testimonies was the election of the first Jesuit pope in history. The asked each of the interviewees to “confess” his personal life experience for the sake of composing a sort of collective self-portrait of the Society of Jesus, coming up to today with Jorge Mario Bergoglio at the apex of the Church.

But take care. “Confesiones de jesuitas” is far from being a celebratory book. Fr. Spadaro must not have realized this, seeing how he exulted at finding himself in the midst of a Company that by no means turns out to be so “good,” according to the judgment of some of its own confreres.

It is enough to read, to understand this, the “confession” of Xavier Tilliette, from France, who died at the age of almost one hundred on December 10 of 2018 and was hailed the next day in “L’Osservatore Romano” as “not only a thoroughbred philosopher and theologian, but a true Jesuit.”

Tilliette had no rival as a scholar of the German philosopher Schelling, to whom he dedicated a monumental book that is still unsurpassed. But his research ranged farther, on the border between faith and reason, gaining him the admiration and friendship of giants of Catholic thought of the 20th century like Gaston Fessard, Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Hans Urs von Balthasar, the first three also Jesuits. And entirely worth reading is the emotional remembrance dedicated to him in “L’Osservatore Romano” by his confrere Jacques Servais, a disciple of von Balthasar and author of the most important theological interview of Joseph Ratzinger after his resignation from the papacy.

So then, here is what Tilliette writes – among much else – in his “confession.”

To begin, these words of his act as a title for what follows:

“My religious vocation in the Society of Jesus was precocious, and practically never wavered. Only in the last decades, in the face of changes that made its original traits unrecognizable, it was put to a hard test and questions arose for me: on the exercise of the vows, on poverty and obedience, on the function of the superiors, on the future of the Society.”

One of the pivotal moments was 1968, when Tilliette was living in Paris, precisely while he was dedicating soul and body to his monumental study on Schelling and while one of his most well-known Jesuit confreres, Michel de Certeau – whom years later Pope Francis would call “the greatest theologian for today” but whom de Lubac branded as a “Joachimite” infatuated with a presumed golden age with no institutional Church anymore – was instead exalting the revolt as a moment of total liberation:

“I had a very bad experience of the crisis of May 1968, from which I immediately distanced myself. The enthusiasm of a Michel de Certeau seemed entirely out of place to me. One was witnessing the sacking of this venerable institution, the university, and in recoil a crumbling of the Society from which it has not recovered.”

This is how Tilliette describes this “crumbling,”in a Society of Jesus become unrecognizable to him and to many of his confreres:

“In parallel with the sudden tumult of 1968 and without relation to it, there took place the methodical transformation of the Church following the Council. But the increase of freedom that stemmed from this had disastrous consequences for the scholasticates of the Society. On that occasion I also had a very bad experience of the evolution or transformation of our way of life. The rebellion of the scholasticates seemed absurd to me. I remained convinced that the Society had steadier nerves and an inner strength capable of overcoming the crisis without giving in on anything essential. But the result was not what I hoped. Thanks to God, the spirit was saved, but the body of the spirit, the letter, suffered in a lasting form. It is a hard trial, that which was inflicted on the Jesuits of my generation, of the previous generation, and of the following one. It may be a lack of flexibility, a lack of adaptation, but these no longer recognize themselves in the relaxed lifestyle that was established, they no longer recognize themselves in the order that in previous times welcomed them. The general congregations took note of the changes that were produced in behaviors, of the desire for independence among their members, of the permissiveness that comes from civil society and has spread among us. They set aside the treasure of the rules, the priority of priorities is no longer the communal religious life, which ended up in pieces, but the preoccupation with justice and the predilection for the poor. Wonderful ideas, that however run the risk of deteriorating into mere words and being unrealizable for the most part.”

As one revealing moment in the crisis of the Society, Tilliette identifies what happened after the death of Cardinal Jean Daniélou, at the Paris home of a prostitute whom he had led to the brink of conversion:

“Something broke in me after the death of Cardinal Daniélou, when calumny was circulating even among the ranks of the Society and the attitude of the superiors was awkward and mediocre. Instead of flying to the aid of an assassinated confrere, there was a conflagration of base vendettas. It was then that I doubted my order, its discernment, its capacity for solidarity. I fell from the height of my ideal, like Mallarmé. Before my entrance and at the time of my formation, I had a very high ideal of the Society, of its esprit de corps, of its solidarity.”

As a professor of philosophy, first at the Jesuit institutes of formation, then at the Institut Catholique of Paris, and finally at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Tilliette says he had also seen evaporate in the Society the primacy of the “intellectuals”:

“I spent my existence as a Jesuit in the traditional positions of college director and professor, of magazine editor and writer, of university professor. I took on these austere tasks convinced that Jesuit humanism is primordial and that intellectuals are the apples of the Society’s eye. Instead it seems that today it is no longer so and that the preference is given to directly apostolic ministries. I think that a virtue is being made of necessity: the scanty recruitment does not permit the maintenance of a high level of studies and superiors do not have subjects available to fill openings as little by little these become open. From this point of view, the future of the Society is rather dark. Houses are being closed and the elderly are being placed in residences staffed with medical personnel. Without a doubt there is no other solution. But we would like it if this inevitable retreat would not be accompanied by customary euphoric discourses, which are reminiscent of wartime proclamations of defeat.”

Summing it up, the picture that Tilliette sketches on contemporary society is dark, partly through the silence of the “superiors”:

“Having come to the age at which the shadows stretch across the road, I feel the duty to confess a disappointment that I share with many. I have changed infinitely less than the vital context that surrounds me, and it is a suffering to feel out of sync, anti-modern, and, worse, complicit, since the influence of the surrounding environment is too strong. I do not want to blame anyone, but at certain moments there has been a lack of resolute words on the part of the superiors. The materialist mentality reigns and extends itself without being contrasted by the collective conscience. God is absent from hearts. The innocent and the victim are worth less than the guilty. A society that moves heaven and earth against the death penalty and, at the same time, justifies and promotes free abortion, is at the lowest point of the scale of perversion.”

But the conclusion remains trustful in any case, because what matters more than belonging to the Society is service to the Church:

“Our age, one of the darkest in history, nonetheless sees the blossoming of sublime sacrifices, heroism, examples of holiness. There comes the desire to repeat with Gertrud von le Fort after the first world war: only in disaster and in universal ruin does the Church stand firm. The holy Catholic Church, like a lighthouse on the hill. Which remains intact in its divine essence even when our sins have stained its noble face. My early education instilled in me love and respect for the Church, its sacraments, its liturgy, the refuge of mercy, of prayer and of knowledge that it offers to the people of the world. The life of the saints, the example of Fr. de Lubac, the assiduous reading of Claudel taught me to venerate the Church, to subordinate membership in the Society to the service of the Church and of the pope, for which it was created and which remains its reason for being. Not the Society as such, but some Jesuits of all ages must make a serious examination of conscience. Mine is certainly not reassuring, and I teach myself a lesson every day. But I do not believe that I have intentionally sinned against the light.”Condividi:

National Survey Results: What We Learned About Latin Mass Attendees

FEB 24, 2019

New Leadership in Baltimore and Boston

Stephen P. White

THE CATHOLIC THING

THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 2019

Last November, at the insistence of the Vatican, the USCCB postponed voting on several action items intended to address the abuse crisis and, in particular, the failure of the bishops to hold themselves or each other accountable. One of those action items was the establishment of standards of conduct and accountability for bishops. The second was the establishment of a special commission to review complaints against bishops who violate those standards of conduct.

While they did not vote on either item, the bishops did discuss them at length. Those discussions revealed a genuine desire to take concrete steps toward accountability for bishops, but they also revealed substantive disagreement within the conference about the best way to do that.

In particular, the bishops disagreed about the proposal for a special commission for handling complaints against bishops, which would have established a sort of national lay-review board, analogous to those that handle accusations against priests at the diocesan level. Even if the Vatican had not preempted a conference vote, it’s far from clear that the proposal would have passed.

There was another item on the agenda in November which received less attention at the time, but which has been back in the news recently: the establishment of an independent, third-party reporting mechanism for fielding complaints against bishops. Because the bishops did not adopt a code of conduct for themselves, and since no national review board was established to which a national third-party system might report, the proposal seemed moot after the November meeting.

But in January, Archbishop William Lori announced that he was putting in place a third-party reporting system to handle any complaints that might be lodged against bishops in his own archdiocese of Baltimore. The Archdiocese of Baltimore already contracts with an independent firm to handle reports of misconduct at the archdiocesan level – anything from financial mismanagement and fraud to sexual harassment and abuse at parishes or schools – and the same whistleblower system will simply be expanded to handle complaints against bishops.

Complaints made through the system are sent to the archdiocesan review board. In the future, if those complaints implicate a bishop in the archdiocese, the report will also be forwarded to the nuncio in Washington, DC and, if necessary, to law-enforcement officials.

Now, just this week, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston announced that his archdiocese would be putting in place a similar program for bishops’ accountability using the same third-party system. As in Baltimore, the Boston system will use an existing reporting infrastructure to handle allegations against bishops, which can then be sent to the nuncio or law enforcement.

(The system being used in both Boston and Baltimore is called EthicsPoint, developed by a company called NAVEX Global, which is used to handle whistleblower complaints for major companies around the world.)

It’s one thing for the USCCB to discuss plans for implementing mechanisms of accountability for bishops. It’s another thing for the archbishop of a major archdiocese to put them in place. It’s yet another thing for the President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to take these steps in his own archdiocese.

If Archbishop Lori deserves credit for taking this action before any of his brother bishops, Cardinal O’Malley following suit sends a strong signal to any other bishops who might still be worried about pursuing reforms that might be perceived as stepping on Roman toes. Expect more dioceses to follow suit.

The system being put in place in Baltimore and Boston, of course, isn’t a panacea. Lay-review boards don’t have the authority to conduct a full investigation of a bishop, let alone remove him. Diocesan review boards have no such power over priests, either, but rely instead on the voluntary cooperation of their diocese and bishop.

Still, it would be hard for, say, the nuncio, to ignore a complaint submitted to him against a bishop from that own bishop’s lay-review board. This is especially true because, unlike some cases where individual reports have been made to a nuncio or other Vatican official, only to vanish into the black box of the Roman bureaucracy, diocesan review boards publish annual reports.

There’s something to be said for individual dioceses taking it upon themselves to establish accountability for bishops. And there’s something to be said for trying different approaches in different dioceses to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ve written before that we can already see hints that the use of existing lay-review boards to investigate and report on bishops has been tried successfully in ad hoc fashion in places like New York and Los Angeles.

But there’s also a downside to piecemeal reforms: we could easily end up with a patchwork of accountability mechanisms that vary widely from diocese to diocese. If the current crisis is one of credibility, then wild inconsistencies between dioceses could exacerbate that problem rather than fix it. That, of course, is not an argument for one-size-fits-all national solutions, either. It’s simply to point out that at a time of crisis, consistency matters.

Finally, it’s worth remembering that reporting mechanisms and systems of accountability, while important, do nothing to address the root of the crisis, which is fundamentally a crisis of fidelity. In January, Pope Francis made this point to the American bishops:

Loss of credibility calls for a specific approach, since it cannot be regained by issuing stern decrees or by simply creating new committees or improving flow charts, as if we were in charge of a department of human resources. That kind of vision ends up reducing the mission of the bishop and that of the Church to a mere administrative or organizational function in the “evangelization business.” Let us be clear: many of those things are necessary yet insufficient, since they cannot grasp and deal with reality in its complexity; ultimately, they risk reducing everything to an organizational problem.

To that, I say amen . . . while also praying more bishops follow the lead of their brothers in Baltimore and Boston.

*Image: Cardinal O’Malley greets Pope Francis during the Holy Father’s 2015 visit to the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, DC.  [CNS photo/Paul Haring]

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MARCH 14, 2019

What Newman Can Tell Us About the Cardinal Pell Verdict

FR. GEORGE W. RUTLER

The scene in the London courtroom in 1852 might have been out of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, with the defendant in simple clerical black standing in the dock before the bewigged representatives of ancient justice. But one of the judges, John Coleridge, a great-nephew of the poet, saw behind the stooped figure of John Henry Newman the shade of Armada and the ghosts of spies from Douai. So the trial of Newman was about more than the slander of which he was accused. As a scion of Oxford himself, Coleridge, whose own wife Jane Fortescue Seymour had painted a portrait of Newman, resented that the Oxford Movement had been chipping away at the claim of the Established Church to apostolic validity and, worse, that it had become a halfway house to Rome.

Lord Campbell, who was the presiding judge, had authored the Libel Act of 1843: “If any person shall consciously publish any defamatory libel, knowing the same to be false, every such person, being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned in the common gaol or house of correction for any term not exceeding two years, and to pay such fine as the court shall award.”

Newman had been arraigned under these provisions, for in a series of lectures on “The Present Position of Catholics in England” he had attracted large audiences, many of literary and political note, in an entertaining display of unfamiliar logic and eloquence during which he had delicately exposed the indelicacies of a defrocked Dominican friar of Naples: “…a profligate under a cowl … ravening after sin.” One court reporter described the man: “He is a plain-featured, middle-sized man, about fifty years of age, and his face is strongly Italian. His forehead is low and receding, his nose prominent, the mouth and the muscles around it full of resolution and courage. He wears a black wig, the hair of which is perfectly straight, and being close shaved, this wig gives to his appearance a certain air of the conventicle. Yet he retains many traces of the Roman Catholic priest, especially in his bearing, enunciation, and features, which have a sort of stealthy grace about them. His eyes are deep-set and lustrous, and with his black hair, dark complexion, and somber, demure aspect, leaves an impression on the mind of the observer by no means agreeable, and not readily to be forgotten.”

Gaetano Achilli, having fled the outraged fathers of various Italian maidens, justified his exploits by what he asserted was a correction of the Petrine claims, and hired himself to an English No-Popery society called the Evangelical Alliance. The slowly emerging Catholic populace in England was inured to attacks by the crude and sophisticated alike, but it was intolerable that audiences were listening to the charmingly accented English of a Neapolitan friar who, having left a long line of defilements in his wake, including the rape of a 15-year-old girl in his church’s sacristy on Good Friday, should melodramatically describe Rome as the Whore of Babylon. He was forced to flee Malta, after at least eighteen sexual offenses. His seductiveness took other forms, to the point of flattering the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Lord Palmerston, for his stilted Italian, which was fashionable in the age of the poetical Brownings, though inferior to the Italian of Newman’s mercurial friend Gladstone. Cultural attitudes were stirred even more by the hysteria following the restoration of the Catholic episcopate to the United Kingdom in 1850, and Cardinal Wiseman did not help things with his florid letter celebrating the fact “From Out the Flaminian Gate.” In the mind of the Anglican Archbishop of York, Thomas Musgrave, this was “Rome’s ever wakeful ambition plotting for our captivity and ruin.”

The Achilli Trial, as it came to be known, was one of the judicial dramas of the age. It would have had prime time on today’s television. It began on June 21 in 1852 and lasted five days. One thinks of what the sensitive personality of Newman, whose whole life was consecrated to the “Kindly Light” of truth and whose youthful and aged boast was that he had never sinned against it, endured during the trial. Yet, he was more than Stoic because he was not a pagan Greek bowing to the cruel fate, but was more luminously a son of serene truth. On the night of his conviction for libel against Achilli, secured after a neglectful Cardinal Wiseman had mislaid corroborative letters, he wrote unperturbed to a correspondent: “I could not help being amused at poor Coleridge’s prose…. I think he wished to impress me, I trust I behaved respectfully, but he must have seen that I was as perfectly unconcerned as if I had been in my own room. I have not been the but of slander for 20 years for nothing.”

Lord Chief Justice John Campbell (left) and Lord Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn

Newman’s legal team were some of the finest barristers in the land, headed by the colorful Sir Alexander Cockburn. He would serve as Lord Chief Justice from 1875 to 1880, though Queen Victoria refused him a peerage because of his louche private life.

Newman had been subjected to the condescension of Coleridge who lamented Newman’s “deterioration” from the heights of Protestantism. In his personal diary, Coleridge wrote: “Perhaps I have been so much accustomed to hear Newman’s excellence talked of that I have received an exaggerated opinion of him. But I have a feeling that there was something almost out of place in my not merely pronouncing sentence on him, but in a way lecturing him.… Besides, in truth Newman is an over-praised man, he is made an idol of.”

Newman was found guilty by the Queen’s Bench and even The Times observed in the shocked aftermath: “We consider … that a great blow has been given to the administration of justice in this country, and Roman Catholics will have henceforth only too good reason for asserting, that there is no justice for them in cases tending to arouse the Protestant feelings of judges and juries.” In the annals of jurisprudence, the Achilli Trial helped to establish the bounds of the statutory defense of truth under the 1843 Libel Act.

It was a Pyrrhic victory for the Queen’s Court, and a moral victory for Newman, as he had to pay nominal fine of £100, while not having to be kept in custody. Court costs nonetheless, were nearly the equivalent of two million dollars today, and donations from home and abroad were a proclamation of universal Catholic solidarity. Newman would save letters from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, towns in the Midwest, and San Francisco. The year after the trial, Newman published his immortal “Lectures on the Idea of a University” and inscribed the volume:

In grateful never-dying remembrance
of his many friends and benefactors,
Living and dead,
At home and abroad,
In Great Britain, Ireland, France,
In Belgium, Germany, Poland, Italy, and Malta,
In North America, and other countries,
Who, by their resolute prayers and penances,
And by their generous stubborn efforts
And by their munificent alms,
Have broken for him the stress
Of a great anxiety

On November 26, Newman wrote reflectively to his sister Jemima: “I consider that the Judges did me a far greater injury than the Jury, for they made me incur the expense, and the long proceeding. I believe they are now much annoyed at the Verdict—but I cannot help saying that educated men and judges have more to answer for when they do wrong, than a vulgar, prejudiced jury.”

It is hard to read those lines without consciousness of those many who now support the attestations of George Cardinal Pell as he stands in the vortex of a cultural tempest malignant in motive and design, preparing to appeal his conviction and sentence of six years in custody, handed down on March 13. Theirs is the assurance from the apostolic fathers familiar with indictments and assaults, that those who endure will by their humiliations produce an abundant harvest. Anti-Catholic hysteria, not unlike that which preceded Newman’s trial, animated charges against Cardinal Pell, indicting him for alleged profane acts witnessed by no one, and which would have seemed impossible under the circumstances. Etymologists have traced the term “kangaroo court” to makeshift jurisprudence in the United States at the hands of an Australian immigrant at the time of the 1849 gold rush, but Australia is the homeland of the marsupial. Cardinal Pell stood against politically correct policies such as contraception, abortion, the Gnostic revision of sexuality, and attempts to teach anthropogenic climate change theories as dogma. These are not welcome opinions in the courts of secular correctness.  He also began with unprecedented vigor, not typical in Rome, the task of cleaning the Augean stable of Vatican finances.

The situation now is different from 1852 because George Pell was accused and back then John Henry Newman was at first the accuser. But both subjects have claim to impeccable integrity, as victims of justice miscarried. In the nineteenth century, Gaetano Achilli fled with his ruined reputation to the United States, having abandoned an acknowledged wife and son, and threatening suicide after some time in a utopian “free love” community in Oneida, New York. His grave has no mark for his end is unknown; This year, by divine grace and mortal assent, Newman will be raised to the altars.

From a higher bar of consummate justice, Newman has the last word:

“What is good, endures; what is evil, comes to naught. As time goes on, the memory will simply pass away from me of whatever has been done in the course of these proceedings, in hostility to me or in insult, whether on the part of those who invoked, or those who administered the law; but the intimate sense will never fade away, will possess me more and more, of the true and tender Providence which has always watched over me for good, and of the power of that religion which is not degenerate from its ancient glory, of zeal or God, and of compassion towards the oppressed.”

(Photo credit: Alexey Gotovskiy/CNA)

Tagged as Anti-Catholicism, Clergy Sexual Abuse, George Cardinal Pell, government waste / corruption, John Henry Newman106

By Fr. George W. Rutler

Fr. George W. Rutler is pastor of St. Michael’s church in New York City. He is the author of many books including Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Combat 1942-1943 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press) and Hints of Heaven (Sophia Institute Press). His latest books are He Spoke To Us (Ignatius, 2016); The Stories of Hymns (EWTN Publishing, 2017); and Calm in Chaos (Ignatius, 2018).

VIDEO: Nick Sandmann’s Lawyers Release Scorching New Video Eviscerating CNN, Washington Post

By Michael Stanley – March 14, 2019

L. Lin Wood, P.C., the law firm that’s representing Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who has had his reputation thoroughly obliterated by the mainstream media’s coverage of a supposed confrontation he had with a Native American activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial earlier this year, has released a scorching video against CNN and the Washington Post.

Earlier this week, Sandmann’s legal team filed a whopping $275 million lawsuit against CNN for false attacks made against their client in January.

The video the team released focuses much of its content on the danger posed by mainstream media outlets that are biased in their coverage when they are more concerned with pushing a narrative than telling the facts.take our poll – story continues below

• some snippets of what’s said in the video:

“Last January, 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann was falsely targeted, attacked, vilified, and threatened. The Washington Post, owned by the richest man in the world, led the print media’s false attacks against Nicholas’ reputation. CNN led the broadcast media’s charge against Nicholas. Both recklessly spread lies about a minor to advance their own financial and political agendas.”

“Despite raw video debunking the false narrative, the Post and CNN doubled down on their reckless lies. Lies that will forever haunt and endanger the life of an innocent young man. Lies that further divided our nation.”

“How long will we allow these media giants to tear at the fabric of our lives to further their own agendas? Will they ever be held accountable? Yes, they will.Nicholas Sandman has taken a stand for himself and for you by filing major lawsuits against CNN and the Washington Post. Nicholas and his legal team will not be stopped until these Goliath corporations are held accountable for their lack of journalistic integrity. Until then, no one’s reputation is safe.”

The last bit in the video is where the real heavy hit comes, as Lin Wood delivers this verbal one-two punch:

“If you took the time to look at the full context of what happened that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. If they can get away with this against a 16-year-old boy then we’re all at risk. There has to be change.”

This is a powerful message and a very true warning to every American. The news media has grown out of control in their desire to vilify conservatives. They are willing to play as dirty as they can to push the narratives they want in order to achieve their agenda.

Hopefully these lawsuits from Sandmann will spark others who have been tarnished by the media to stand up for themselves against these left-wing propaganda machines.

Source: Daily Wire

THE SKINNY ON DOLAN

Lies, concealments and deceptions.

March 14, 2019  1

P

T

Well, it’s that time of year again. Saint Patrick’s Day is this weekend, and in the archdiocese of New York, that means it’s time to commiserate over Cdl. Dolan’s betrayal of the Faith.

You’ll remember how His Eminence, when confronted by Church Militant about the scandal hecreated with his behind-the-scenes pushing for the OUT@NBCUniversal gay group to be allowed to march in the parade back in 2015, had his comms guy get us forcibly shoved out of the way.

For the fifth year in a row, active homosexuals will march in a parade ostensibly occurring to honor the patron saint of Ireland, as well as New York.

Dolan has since then continued to careen completely off the rails, even going so far last month as to give New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo a pass on signing the most egregious abortion law in world history.

The list of Dolan’s betrayal of the Faith is so long, one Vortex couldn’t enumerate them all. In fact, sodeeply bothered about his reign in New York are people in the chancery and archdiocese that we can’t handle all the tips and “inside info” that comes into the studio here.

Dolan is a living, breathing example of all that is wrong in the hierarchy and has been long before Pope Francis was elected. Heck, not too long ago, even his brother cardinal, Sean O’Malley of Boston, ratted him out to the papal nuncio for covering for an abusive predator priest. And speaking of that specific area, Dolan has created a scandal within his own clergy that takes even their breath away.

He, at this very moment, is covering for more than a half-dozen priests in the archdiocese who his own investigator has recommended be removed immediately — this according to multiple sources in New York who are outraged that he would actively do this.

A quick background: In the wake of the McCarrick news last June — and then the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the ensuing cascade of various state attorneys general opening up investigations — the New York attorney general announced a deep probe of all dioceses in New York.

That announcement prompted Dolan to make a big PR move and go out in September and hire Barbara Jones, a former federal judge, to lead an independent investigation into archdiocesan handling of sex abuse.

At the splashy press conference, Dolan said:

I’ve given you a lot to do, judge, but I need your help if I am going to respond to my people’s plea for accountability, transparency and action. … I look forward to receiving your recommendations and your insights, and I pledge that I will take them all with utmost seriousness.

Well, not so much. Sources all over the archdiocese are fuming mad at Dolan because Jones’ report to him is now being ignored by him. Sources tell Church Militant that Jones identified more than half a dozen active priests she says need to go immediately, and Dolan is deliberately sitting on the info.

Each year, almost every diocese in the country does priest personnel assignment changes in the June/July timeframe. At that time, some pastorships expire and some priests are reassigned, with pastors usually becoming the new pastor at a new parish.

Our sources tell Church Militant that Dolan is quietly letting the terms of the potentially dangerous pastors just expire, and then, very quietly, he will just not assign them, thereby deliberately violating his public pledge for “accountability, transparency and action.”

Too many of the senior leadership in the United States are simply politicians who simply lie, wordsmith, parse their words, split legal hairs so as to deceive — and it’s disgusting.

Totally unsurprisingly, neither Dolan — the man who pledges transparency — nor his communications director, Joe Zwilling, have responded to Church Militant’s inquiries. Heck, the “transparent and accountable” Dolan hasn’t even announced publicly that the report is completed.

And, are you sitting down for this one? Our sources inform us that he is keeping completely out of the public realm that the final bill for the report was $500,000.

A half-million bucks for a report paid for by New York Catholics that he has decided to keep from those same New York Catholics and essentially ignore or at best delay taking any action on because it would look bad for him that potential predator clergy are currently ministering in his archdiocese.

How do people in the archdiocese — lay staff with children — sleep at night, going home knowing that they are a party to all this?

Church Militant has been saying for years now that the rot is far greater than most realize. In fact, it’s so deep that until this generation of bishops is simply gone — and whoever they have promoted have also died — nothing short of direct divine intervention is gonna affect change.

As a final note, Dolan is putting the heavy squeeze on pastors throughout the archdiocese to shake down the faithful for $200 million, even sending out what amounts to polite “demand letters” telling individual Catholic parishioners that he and his team have calculated that they can afford to give such and such amount, always in the multiple thousands of dollars — often times reaching into the tens of thousands of dollars.

What New York Catholics will not see or hear amidst all the usual Dolan bluster is he spent a half million of that money for a report he is ignoring.

You knew back then in 2015, when Dolan campaigned hard behind the scenes to permit active gay marriage supporting homosexuals into the parade, that he has no concern for the Faith and that it was just a matter of time until everything got exposed.

Dolan — and the senior leadership of the U.S. Church — is in desperate need of prayers because with the vast bulk of their time on earth already completed, it will not be long before they each have to stand before Jesus Christ the Judge and be declared guilty of treason.

There’ll be no parades, no fawning media, no governor to rub elbows with so as to act important — nothing. There will be no defense. What a frightening, terrifying thought.

You don’t have too many St. Patrick’s Days left, Your Eminence. You better pull your own Viganò before the clock runs out.

Jeff Jacoby

Why the ‘excellent’ Electoral College is well worth keepingby Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe March 13, 2019 http://www.jeffjacoby.com/22452/why-the-excellent-electoral-college-is-well-worth        THE FOES of the Electoral College are back in the news.Late last month, Colorado legislators voted to make their state the 13th (including the District of Columbia) to join the National Popular Vote compact, which is designed to circumvent the Electoral College by having states to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who wins the most popular votes nationwide.US presidents are elected not in one national plebiscite, but through separate elections in each state. The Electoral College system forces candidates to appeal across regions and demographic groups, and not to simply to court their most loyal supporters in specific states and communities.By its terms, the arrangement only takes effect when it has been adopted by enough states to reach 270 electoral votes, the total needed to win the White House. The Colorado bill, which still requires the signature of Governor Jared Polis, brings the number to 181. That would increase to 184 if Delaware joins the compact, as its state senate voted to do last week.Complaints about the Electoral College are an old story. The National Archives says there have been more than 700 attempts to scrap or modify the Electoral College. None has succeeded, obviously, and it is virtually certain that the popular-vote compact won’t either. For one thing, it is unconstitutional — the Electoral College can be changed only by amending the Constitution. Even if that weren’t an obstacle, a majority of legislatures will never sign on to a plan designed to undermine their own voters.The standard indictment against the Electoral College is that it’s anti-democratic. It is, of course: The framers of the Constitution devised it deliberately as a check on direct democracy, one of many such checks and balances — think of the power they entrusted to unelected Supreme Court justices, or to a Senate in which states, not people, are equal. Again and again, the Founders went to great lengths to thwart blind majority rule, not wanting important national decisions to be driven by unbridled public emotion, populist demagoguery, or the passions of the mob. The direct election of the president, argued Elbridge Gerry as the Constitution was being drafted in the summer of 1787, could lead to “radically vicious” outcomes. Hence the interposition of an Electoral College, which ensures that presidents are elected not in one national plebiscite, but through elections within each state to choose electors.Thanks to the Electoral College, it isn’t enough for presidential candidates merely to pile up votes in the few states where they are most popular. In order to win, they must demonstrate appeal across numerous states. And because electoral votes have almost always been awarded on a winner-take-all basis, candidates have a powerful incentive to focus in particular on “swing” states — they work extra-hard to carry states where the public is closely divided, because the reward for doing so is significant.The standard indictment of the Electoral College is that it’s antidemocratic. But that’s a feature, not a bug: The framers of the Constitution devised it deliberately as a check on direct democracy, one of many such checks built into our system of government. Again and again, they went to great lengths to thwart blind majority rule, not wanting crucial national decisions to be driven by unbridled public emotion, populist demagoguery, or the passions of the mob.The ticket that racks up the most votes nationwide nearly always wins a majority of the Electoral College. But twice in the last two decades, the popular-vote winner lost the electoral vote. Both times a Republican ended up in the White House, which explains why so many Democrats are now on the warpath against the Electoral College. All the states that have voted to join the National Popular Vote compact are solid blue states; except for Colorado, none has voted Republican in a presidential election for at least 30 years. Had the compact been in force in recent elections, the candidates those states supported — Al Gore in 2000, Hillary Clinton in 2016 — would have become president. The popular-vote pact would have ratified the choice made by most voters in those states.But in 2004, when the popular vote was won by George W. Bush, 12 of the states in the compact voted for John Kerry. Enforcing the compact then would have meant overturning the will of the voters in those states. Critics of the Electoral College denounce it as undemocratic — but what could be less democratic than state legislatures deliberately nullifying the choice of a majority of their state’s voters?For a nation like ours — ideologically quarrelsome, geographically vast, socially diverse — the advantages of the Electoral College far outweigh its drawbacks. It guarantees that no one can become president without demonstrating an appeal that crosses state, regional, and communal lines. It makes victory all but impossible for candidates who write off whole constituencies of Americans — Mitt Romney’s “47 percent,” Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” — even if those candidates are intensely popular in a few specific states or within a few narrow demographic slices. Above all, it balances federalism with democracy: It preserves the central role of the states in American life without sacrificing the principle of one-person, one-vote.With good reason, Alexander Hamilton pronounced the Electoral College system an “excellent” arrangement. With good reason it has endured for 225 years. Presidents come and presidents go, but the Constitution’s system for choosing them is here to stay.(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).– ## —

Settimo Cielodi Sandro Magister 

11 mar 19

After the Cardinals Pell and Barbarin Verdicts. Church Under Siege, Stunned

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In Australia, Cardinal George Pell (see photo) has ended up in prison. In France, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, has been given a suspended sentence of six months in jail. And it is not out of the question that other prominent cardinals and bishops could soon end up under the judgment of secular tribunals, charged with having committed or “covered up” sexual abuse against minors.

For the Catholic Church, this opens questions of noteworthy gravity, in the face of which it is showing that it is by no means confident that it knows what to do.

In particular, the following three questions.

1. A SPECIAL TRIBUNAL TO TRY THE POPE?

Both Pell and Barbarin have been found guilty on the basis of questionable proofs, both in a second trial after the first had ended without a guilty verdict. For Barbarin, even the prosecutor had asked for acquittal. Both say they are innocent, and have asked for an appeal ruling.

Meanwhile, however, within the Church, the former was prohibited, when the trial was still underway, from the exercise of his public ministry and from contact with minors. And a few days ago the latter announced his resignation, certain that the pope would accept it.

In Pell’s case, it has been communicated that the congregation for the doctrine of the faith will open a canonical process. And it is likely that the same thing will happen with Barbarin.

But what kind of process? And how? Along general lines, concerning bishops presumed guilty or negligent in matters of abuse, Pope Francis published in June of 2016 an apostolic letter, “Come una madre amorevole,” in which – as he explained afterward at the press conference on the way back from Ireland on August 26 2018 – “it was said that for trying bishops it would be good to set up a special tribunal,” one for all. Soon, however, Francis himself maintained “that this was not practicable,” and opted to resort to a jury set up for each case. As in the case – he presented by way of example – of Guam archbishop Anthony Sablon Apuron, convicted at first instance by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith but whose appeal has been taken in charge by Francis himself, with the assistance of a commission of canonists.

In all this the procedures continue in any case to be uncertain. Last November Francis forbade the episcopal conference of the United States to put to a vote the creation of an independent organism of laymen charged with conducting the first hearing on bishops under investigation. But the alternative solution upheld by Cardinal Blase Cupich and through him by the pope, that is of assigning the first investigation to the metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of the defendant, is also far from being codified, in spite of the fact that it was presented again by Cupich himself at the Vatican summit of February 21-24, dedicated precisely to how to combat the plague of sexual abuse.

Against Cupich’s proposal it is objected, among other things, that entrusting the first investigation to the metropolitan – or to another bishop – of the province of the defendant risks putting the judgment back into the hands of clerics who often belong to the same coterie and therefore are tempted to assist each other.

But there’s more. If there is uncertainty on how to proceed with regard to a bishop presumed to be guilty or negligent, what is to be done when the one under accusation is the pope himself?

In effect this is what is happening. Pope Francis has not yet responded to those who – like former nuncio in the United States Carlo Maria Viganò – have accused him of supporting and promoting to the end then-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, in spite of the fact that his multiple abuses were known to him. And he continues to keep quiet more than six months after having promised journalists at the press conference on the way back from Ireland, on August 26 2018: “Study, and then I will speak.”

Meanwhile, weighing even more on Francis is the case of Argentine bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta, his friend and spiritual son since he was undersecretary of the Argentine episcopal conference, promoted as bishop of Orán in the summer of 2013, who later resigned for unspecified “reasons of health” in the summer of 2017 but was promptly elevated by the pope, in December of that same year, to the Vatican post custom-made for him of “assessor” of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, in spite of the fact that very detailed charges of bad behavior by Zanchetta had been sent by churchmen of the diocese of Orán to the competent authorities, in Argentina and Rome, on several occasions from 2015 to 2017.

On this too Francis is keeping quiet. The only decision that has been made known is that on Zanchetta there has been ordered from Rome a preliminary investigation in Argentina.

And if this investigation, reported back to Rome, should confirm the responsibility of Pope Francis, it will remain to be seen how the imperative of a fair trial might be reconciled with the norms of canon law, which at canon 1404 establishes that “the First See is judged by no one,” but at § 2 of canon 1405 specifies that “a judge cannot review an act… by the Roman Pontiff without his prior mandate.”

2. A REGULAR OR “ADMINISTRATIVE” CANONICAL PROCESS?

In the case of McCarrick, last February 15 the congregation for the doctrine of the faith ruled for his reduction to the lay state, at the end of a penal process of the administrative type, meaning simplified and abbreviated.

The congregation almost always proceeds like this, by the extrajudicial route, in the thousands of cases that come under its jurisdiction in matters of abuse. With McCarrick, this made it possible to arrive rapidly at the sentence of reduction to the lay state, before the summit convened at the Vatican from February 21 to 24. But this brought along with it – perhaps deliberately – a grave disadvantage: the impossibility of reconstructing in a judicial setting the network of complicity and of favors, up to the highest levels of the hierarchy, that McCarrick enjoyed for years, from those who nevertheless knew of his misdeeds.

Not to mention the incomprehensible delay in the publication of everything that turns out to be documented, concerning McCarrick, “in the archives of the dicasteries and offices of the Holy See.” The announcement of the publication of these documents, as also of the results of the preliminary investigation that had led to his removal from the college of cardinals, was made last October 6. And the following day Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the congregation for bishops, confirmed in a letter to the former nuncio Viganò that McCarrick had in effect been under confidential “restrictions,” since 2006, against traveling and appearing in public, “because of rumors around his behavior,” restrictions that he had never obeyed. But since October 6 more than five months have gone by, and still the dossier has not been published as announced.

So then, what procedure will be adopted by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith in the canonical process against Cardinal Pell?

Given that the congregation will wait in any case, before issuing its own ruling, for the result of the appeal process requested by Pell in Australia, the preliminary hearing of which is set for June 5-6, one must keep in mind that which the Holy See customarily does in cases of this kind, that is when it proceeds by the administrative route after a secular tribunal has already issued its verdict.

In cases of this kind, the Holy See is accustomed to take as its basis for judgment the findings of the secular tribunal. And therefore, if in the potential process of appeal the Australian verdict is again for conviction, this will usually be followed by an ecclesiastical conviction as well, with the reduction of Pell to the lay state.

This is why it is likely that Pell’s attorneys will insist that the Holy See not adopt an administrative procedure for their client, but a regular canonical process, more unshackled from the results of the Australian trial. In other words, more autonomous, more free, more sovereign.

3. EXONERATION OR CONVICTION, BOTH AT A STEEP PRICE

And what will happen when the Holy See has issued its ruling on the Pell case?

If it is of conviction, on a par with what may be decided by the Australian appeals court, it is taken for granted that there will be applause from secular public opinion, as also from the champions of “zero tolerance” within the Church.

But protests will also be raised by those who will point out in this a defeat of the elementary rights to a fair trial, seeing the inconsistency of the accusations, as also a ruinous act of submission by the Church to the secular powers.

If instead the sentence is of acquittal, contrary to the one that may be decided by the Australian court, there will be those who will admire the autonomy – and the courage – of the Church in evaluating the effective absence of proofs in support of the accusations and in deciding as a result.

But there will certainly be heated reactions on the part not only of secular public opinion, but also of those sectors of the Church that in any case judge as irredeemable the bishop who may have been simply accused of “covering up” abuse,  no matter if he is later acquitted in court.

This, for example, is what has been written in black and white with regard to Cardinal Barbarin by former magistrate of the interdiocesan tribunal of Lyon Pierre Vignon, who publicly called for his resignation last summer, before the second trial against him had been completed and after a first trial had ended with acquittal:

“I have been asked repeatedly how I would react if the cardinal were to be declared innocent by the tribunal. The reply is very simple. The conscience of a Christian need not wait for the sentence of a tribunal to know what must be done. If Cardinal Batbarin is not convicted, in any case he is no longer the person who can present himself before victims.”

And this is also the message of the film “Grâce à Dieu,” the subject and target of which is none other than Cardinal Barbarin, released shortly before the tribunal of Lyon was to issue its sentence.

Returning to the case of Cardinal Pell, there are some who are even afraidthat the Australian government – under the pressure of public opinion – could interpret an ecclesiastical acquittal of the cardinal as an implicit condemnation of the judicial system of Australia, and as a result break off relations with the Holy See and push for its expulsion from the association of sovereign states.

Whether this dramatic outcome proves true or not, they are times of siege, these, for the Church.Condividi:

•  11 marzo 2019
•  English

CARDINAL PELL SENTENCED TO SIX YEARS IN PRISON

NEWS:WORLD NEWS

by Stephen Wynne  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  March 12, 2019    133 Comments

Australian judge: Prelate’s ‘moral culpability’ is ‘high’

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MELBOURNE, Victoria (ChurchMilitant.com) – Three months after a jury found Cdl. George Pell guilty of sexually assaulting two boys, Australia’s leading prelate is heading to prison.

Inside a packed Melbourne courtroom Wednesday morning, Chief Justice Peter Kidd sentenced Cdl. Pell to six years in prison, while setting eligibility for parole at three years and eight months.

Justice Kidd said that by categorically denying the charges against him, Pell showed “no evidence of remorse or contrition” that would justify a reduction in punishment. In passing sentence, he acknowledged that the cardinal “may not live to be released from prison.”

Kidd began his nearly 90-minute address from the bench by denouncing the “witchhunt” to which Cdl. Pell had been subjected since accusations of abuse first sentenced against him. He went on to review in graphic detail the specific acts of abuse for which Pell was found guilty.

Condemning the cardinal for a grave “breach of trust and abuse of power,” Kidd described Pell as “a serious sexual offender” whose “brazenness” was brought on by an inflated “sense of power.” As a result of the sentence, Pell will be listed as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.

The cardinal plans to appeal Justice Kidd’s ruling. 

Pell was found guilty in December of sexually assaulting two boys in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1996.

According to the prosecution, after celebrating Mass one day in 1996, Cdl. Pell veered from his usual practice of greeting parishioners on their way out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Instead, he headed unaccompanied to the church sacristy where he discovered two choirboys who had separated themselves from their peers to indulge in altar wine. Catching them red-handed, prosecutors suggested, Pell decided to sexually assault the boys.

The cardinal has vigorously denied the allegations.Another red flag, Pell supporters note, is the fact that the reputation of Victoria Police has been sullied by charges of corruption.Tweet

Pell’s conviction provoked an outcry among many faithful Catholics, who insist the allegations against him are completely without merit. Supporters note that in 1996, the cardinal was actively involved in creating a response to the clerical sexual abuse crisis in Australia — despite criticism from some of the country’s bishops that he should wait — precisely because he thought the issue was so important.

They also point to the fact that during that period, Pell became a target of gay protesters owing to his outspoken criticism of homosexuality. 

Defenders also slam what they say is a suspicious lack of support for the cardinal inside the Vatican, in spite of the fact he is the third highest-ranking cleric in Rome.

Appointed prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy in 2014, Pell was brought in ostensibly to clean up Vatican finances, exercising oversight over the Holy See’s properties and personnel. But his proposed reforms — which included demands for greater transparency — were met with hostility.

According to Vatican expert Edward Pentin, the “Old Guard” resisted reform out of fears it would reveal their corruption.

Supporters continue to voice outrage over the fact that while serial sexual predator Theodore McCarrick is allowed to live out the remainder of his life in freedom at a central Kansas friary, Pell is locked away in solitary confinement. Pell, they insist, is no McCarrick.

“The allegations against him are absolutely unbelievable, it’s impossible,” said Cdl. Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, earlier this month. “It’s without proof, against all evidence. If there’s no proof, you cannot condemn a person to 50 years in a fortress.”

In a March 1 article for the National Catholic Register, Fr. Raymond de Souza echoed Müller, arguing the prosecution’s scenario beggars belief:

This [alleged assault] he accomplished immediately after Mass, with the sacristy door open, despite having all his vestments on and with the reasonable expectation that the sacristan, the master of ceremonies, the servers or concelebrants might come in and out or even pass by the open door, as would be customary after Mass. Meanwhile, there were dozens and dozens of people in the cathedral, praying or milling about. The whole affair took place within six minutes, after which the boys went off to choir practice and never spoke about it to anyone for 20 years, not even to each other. Indeed, one of the boys, who died of a heroin overdose in 2014, explicitly told his mother before he died that he had never been sexually abused.

“Ask any priest of a normal-sized parish — let alone a cathedral — if it would be possible to rape choirboys in the sacristy immediately after Mass,” de Souza challenged. 

“Sixty seconds — let alone six minutes — would not pass without someone, or several people, coming in and out, or at least passing by the open door,” he added. “Ask any priest if he is customarily alone in the sacristy immediately after Mass, while there are still people in the church and the sanctuary has not yet been cleared.”

Another red flag, Pell supporters note, is the fact that the reputation of Victoria Police has been sullied by charges of corruption. According to a Victoria High Court, state law enforcement have “corrupted” prosecutions and “debased fundamental principles of the criminal-justice system.” 

In December, Premier Daniel Andrews announced the launch of a government inquiry into police wrongdoing and cover-up. 

Pell’s supporters argue the cardinal’s case is an outgrowth of this same police corruption. 

“The prosecution of Cardinal Pell has been a monstrous miscarriage of justice, a religious persecution carried out by prosecutorial means,” Fr. de Souza argued earlier this month. “The process that led to the convictions was, from the start, a sustained and calculated strategy to corrupt the criminal-justice system toward politically motivated ends.”

In a March 12 follow-up, de Souza pointed out: 

It has long been known, and now can be publicly reported, that the police in Victoria (Cardinal Pell’s home state in Australia) were out to get Cardinal Pell long before there were any complaints about him. They had set up a task force, “Operation Tethering,” in 2013 to search for charges against Cardinal Pell before any such complaints had ever been made to police.

They took out advertisements soliciting stories of sexual abuse at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral before any such complaints had been received. The Victoria police had their man and just needed to produce a victim and a complaint.

De Souza’s charge echoes an August 2016 piece in the journal Quadrant. In an article titled “The Relentless Pursuit of Pell,” Australian journalist Christopher Akehurst addressed the ongoing frenzy surrounding the cardinal.

“Who’s out to get George Pell?” Akehurst asked. “It looks as though someone is. … Is anyone orchestrating this ongoing pursuit?”

He also pondered what part Victoria Police had to play in the cardinal’s persecution:

In persisting with its investigation into Pell, secretly until someone leaked it, Victoria Police is in part demonstrating that a lot of thick coppers have signed up to the prevailing orthodoxy that Catholic priests must have some guilty sexual secret because celibacy, so out of tune with the mores of our age, denies them a “normal” outlet for their physical desires.

Akehurst concluded his article with an ominous takeaway: 

Pell is a thorn in the side of the leftish-minded within and without the Roman Catholic Church. I have heard people who wouldn’t know what a cardinal was sounding off against him. He is an orthodox Catholic who is not fuzzy or wishy-washy in expounding his faith. He has the additional stigma of being skeptical about man’s role in climate change. All in all, he’s out of step with the prevailing ethos of moral relativism. He has to be brought down.

Letter to ‘King” James! BRAVO!!    

 LeBron James calls President Trump a “Bum” and thinks that Obama was the best. His fans listen to him because he has a talent for basketball and buying big mansions. The letter writer below, a sports journalist, tells the truth and that truth applies to most celebrities on the left.

A GREAT Letter to Lebron James from former Houston news reporter Hal Lundgren. It’s a must read, and definitely should be distributed. Post it, send it. Whatever. People really need to know these things.        

August 6, 2018      

Mr. Lebron James     

The Los Angeles Lakers     

2275 E. Mariposa Ave.     

El Segundo, CA 90245     

Dear Mr. James,

No one in my circles discusses French Modernist artists. That comforts me. Such a conversation would expose me as an illiterate on French Modernism, just as I am an illiterate on how to cook.     When I know nothing of subjects, my mouth stays closed.

That’s at least one difference in us. You are an economics illiterate. You prove it often. The dishonest “reporters” who cover you want to be your buddy.       They won’t embarrass you by being honest journalists and treating your words as economics illiteracy.

When you call Trump “a bum,” none of them will tell you that statistics rank him as one of our best presidents for black Americans. His tax cuts and freeing us from absurd regulations have resulted in — after only 18 months — the lowest unemployment numbers ever for Hispanic and black Americans, and one of the lowest numbers for women.   

DURING THOSE 18 MONTHS, TRUMP’S POLICIES CREATED ABOUT FOUR TIMES OF THE MANUFACTURING JOBS CREATED DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S LAST 18 MONTHS. Remember when Obama mistakenly told us “Our lost manufacturing jobs are not coming back.” Maybe manufacturing job growth depends on a president who knows what he’s doing.   

As a professional journalist, I cringe at some of Trump’s buffoonery, like repeating sentences and wearing us out with “great,” “fantastic” and other empty adjectives. He is often coarse. He was not my candidate. But there’s no question his policies have helped many more minority Americans than Obama. It’s not even close.

Today, he’s working to free many black and Hispanic prisoners who, in his opinion, have been in prison too long for relatively minor offenses. Are you aware of that effort?    

You need to look up Gross Domestic Product, adjusted for inflation, and learn what it means to everyday Americans. Learn what one GDP point means to employment, and see how Trump has kept the number climbing.    

Your buddy Obama? In addition to being our worst foreign affairs president and worst military commander-in-chief, his economic numbers all deserved an “F.” He is our ONLY eight-year president who failed to give us at least one 3% or higher year of adjusted GDP growth. EVERY other president achieved at least one year of 4.28% or higher growth. Aided by Vietnam spending, Johnson had an 8.48 year. The best peacetime year — 7.83 — belonged to Reagan. and Obama couldn’t even score a 3!!! Look it up.        

You say you would speak to Obama but not Trump? How tragically uninformed you are. Obama had BY FAR the worst debt accumulation record of all our presidents. His economic blunders added about $9 trillion to our debt. NO OTHER PRESIDENT EVEN CAME CLOSE. That indebtedness will fall to you and your children.        

Poor families suffered most. Obama’s awful job numbers forced a record number of people to take food stamps. Black household income under Obama fell steeply as black unemployment rose. Look that up, too.        

But the worst part of what Trump inherited is that Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, thought bribes and sweet talk were the best ways to deal with North Korea. As the North Koreans neared being able to wipe out Los Angeles with a nuclear-tipped missile, Trump became the first president to stand up boldly to the rogue nation. Notice North Korea, because of Trump, has stopped launching missiles over Japan? Notice North Korea has released political prisoners? Notice North Korea has begun to return remains of U.S. Service members? Absent sturdy spines, Clinton, Bush and Obama could not approach those major achievements.

     Obama naively bribed the planet’s worst terrorist nation, Iran, with what was supposed to become a $150 billion handout. Did Obama not know many of those U.S. Tax dollars would help fund Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism? Of course he did. He just didn’t care.        

Remember the $800 billion of your and everyone else’s tax dollars in his early stimulus for “shovel-ready jobs.” Most of those tax dollars went to political cronies. He handed $500 million to Solyndra, a solar company run by boosters. The company soon went bankrupt. Our half-billion in tax money vanished with it.     Trump is often obnoxious, but people with courage can have that hangup. Obama always talked big, then feebly stood by when Putin infringed on Ukraine and annexed Crimea.        

But Obama’s most cowardly move came when he warned Assad not to cross “the red line” in Syria. When Obama’s warning was ignored, which Assad knew would happen, Obama did nothing. Does that make him a “bum?”         It makes me sad that you, as someone with a national voice would be so ignorant of economics, and also presidential decisions. I encourage you to do more reading and thinking as you watch the nation’s GDP numbers rise and minority employment rise.           

* Read about “Right To Try,” which frees terminally ill people to sign a lawsuit waiver and take an experimental drug that might not be approved for many years. Democrats fought this sensible plan for years because it would cost them donations.          * Read about a Navy Obama left to Trump that struggled with about half its carrier aircraft unsafe to fly.     * Read about Trump’s giving the VA the right to fire any employee who neglects or abuses a patient.         * Read about Trump’s courage in challenging, actually demanding that, NATO partners to pay their fair share rather than keep mooching off the U.S.     You might also read the wisdom of two of the world’s brightest people, black intellectuals Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter Williams. They have written many books. Sowell and Williams’ integrity, remarkable insights and clarity of expression cause their common sense to soar off the page to readers       

  Or, you could ignore vital Trump decisions and remain an illiterate on both presidential achievement and economics. If you disdain knowledge and keep calling Trump or any other U.S. president a bum, people will begin to wonder who’s the real bum.

 Sincerely,   

Hal Lundgren    

Now this took some backbone to write—and he did his research.  All that is said in this letter is verifiable but alas the people who should really read this letter will probably never see it and will blindly go on thinking and believing whatever pulp news is fed to them and will still vote for the so called “free stuff” until the money runs out and reality hits them in the face and their pocketbook.  We have fallen to a level I never believed possible—so sad!!     ******************************************