Orthodox believers will remain unfazed by this, and one may also assume that many followers of the Roman Catholic church will be equally unimpressed, but nevertheless a recent Vatican announcement about “consecrating” Russia and Ukraine on March 25 (while some derision is allowed) should not be taken lightly.

To be precise, it may and should be taken lightly only in the religious sense, but it ought to be treated with all due seriousness and respect where it counts for the Vatican, politically. Coming in close coordination with the initiation of the brutal campaign to annihilate Russia politically, morally, and economically, Bergoglio’s move, while dressed up in religious garb, is a secular power play and geopolitics, pure and simple.

The consecration is inextricably bound up with an alleged appearance of the Virgin Mary to shepherds in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, essentially replicated, following a similar pattern, many decades later in Medjugorje, Bosnia. This is not the place to analyse the Fatima event in great detail. It suffices to say that it was extremely controversial from the start.

The thrust of the Fatima “vision” was that the subsequent fate of the world mystically depended on the “consecration of Russia” to the heart of Virgin Mary, because otherwise “Russia’s errors” would spread throughout the world. At the time that the request for Russia’s consecration was allegedly made from on high, the Bolshevik revolution was in its initial stages and the reference to “errors” which its victory might propagate globally made some sense, not just to Roman Catholics, but to people of other backgrounds as well.

The time frame and context in which the consecration request was originally made (1917) for the purpose of impeding the spread of “Russia’s errors” is extremely important for assessing the true nature and the probable motives behind Bergoglio’s current initiative to finally bring it about, and in this particular geopolitical situation.

The Bolshevik revolution succeeded in putting Russia under Communist and atheist control, and the simultaneous formation of the Communist International, precisely for the purpose of spreading the errors that concerned the Blessed Virgin, obviously should have created a clear and present threat that ought immediately to have triggered the requested consecration, assuming that the Vatican seriously believed in the authenticity of Fatima narrative.

Instead, the Vatican was engaged during most of the 1920s in pursuing an accommodation with the very Soviet regime that the heavenly mediatrix was warning against. It was offering its implicit acquiescence in return for a free hand to annex the battered remnant of the persecuted Russian Orthodox Church and to freely propagate Roman Catholic dogma to the Russian masses.

The accommodation ultimately fell through, and the Vatican took up a militantly anti-communist and anti-Soviet position. Various Popes subsequently did make what appear to have been half-hearted and procedurally defective attempts to fulfil the Fatima consecration mandate, but in the end the consensus of most Roman Catholic authorities was that they were improperly executed (“botched,” deliberately or not) and therefore were invalid and without effect by Roman Catholic canonical standards.

In the wake of the “aggiornamento” and Vatican II, not pushing the consecration issue too insistently made political sense. While on one hand church conservatives had to be kept at bay with some noises indicating openness to carry out the Virgin’s mandate, practical political considerations (always foremost in Vatican’s calculations) favoured building influence within the Eastern bloc in order to more easily undermine it in concert with the Western powers (the Reagan – John Paul pact). Those considerations dictated that grossly provocative gestures such as were allegedly demanded at Fatima be temporarily shelved.

And so they were, except for some harmless PR games that were played with reference to the content of the “third secret” and speculation over the possible substitution of Sister Lucia, one of the original Fatima children, by another cloistered Portuguese nun more amenable to the current Vatican party line in the post-Conciliar period.

Fast forward to 2022. Outwardly, it should have come as a surprise that the until recently side-lined Fatima matter suddenly became so urgent and central in the mind of the holy father. Why the rush to fast-track a ritual that for slightly over one hundred years has lain on the Vatican’s back burner without any visible prejudice to Russia, the Ukraine, or the rest of the world?

It does not take a rocket scientist to answer that question. There is no religious urgency whatsoever. The overwhelming majority of Christians in Russia and the Ukraine are Eastern Orthodox and Vatican, Roman Catholic mumbo-jumbo is not even on their radar. It does not concern or affect them in the least. A legitimate side question, of course, is what gives the Pope and the Vatican the right to “consecrate” millions of souls who are not even affiliated with them? Would it not be polite to at least ask for their consent? It is probably late at this point to organize a consecration referendum in the lucky candidate countries because March 25 is too close, but the sheer arrogance of designating subjects for religious ritual without their consent is indeed stunning. And typical, one is tempted to add.

There is just one coherent explanation for Bergoglio’s rush to “consecrate.” It is the currently raging Ukrainian crisis and the Vatican’s determination to demonstrate urbi et orbi its political alignment with the West’s general assault on Russia. It is a signal of the Vatican’s determination at last, over a century later, the moment finally having become ripe, to openly join the collective, political West in extirpating “Russia’s errors,” and if possible annihilating Russia itself.

A double irony is apparent in this charade which will soon be perpetrated by a largely spent, but still formidable, global political force masquerading as a religious institution.

First, in 1917 “Russia’s errors” may have been a genuine issue (in reality those were the false doctrines of Russia’s new rulers, rather than the beliefs of the Russian Orthodox people) and those doctrines were indeed execrable not just from the standpoint of traditional Roman Catholic teaching but of all decent people everywhere. But those are errors that contemporary Russia rejects completely, having adopted instead many of the values that at the time that the Fatima Virgin allegedly spoke the Roman Catholic church technically still stood for but which it has since opportunistically discarded. That fact alone gives the lie to Bergoglio’s theatrical pretensions.

The other blatant irony is that it is the collective West, with the Vatican as its spiritual core, which owes the world an accounting for the innumerable errors that have become its dominant creed. If a ritual of consecration is necessary to disperse the errors which threaten the stability of the moral order, Bergoglio would do better to reformat the event he has scheduled for March 25. He should forget Russia and the Ukraine and, if he must, make the collective West, including the European Union and NATO, the object of his error busting consecration.

The show set by the Vatican for March 25 is not a religious exercise in any proper sense of that word. It will be stage managed by the man who during his relatively brief pontificate has hollowed out even the vestiges of his church’s traditional teaching that he found at the time of his investiture. Whether that man even believes in God is not an unreasonable question. He has far fewer divisions today than his predecessor had at the time Stalin impishly popped his famous question, but like a gambler who goes va banque he is betting all his dwindling assets on the unconditional victory of Russia’s enemies and symbolically demonstrating his allegiance to them.

He is hoping for a piece of the action in the ignominious world order that is being designed by the ungodly coalition of which his fallen institution has become an integral member. Unfortunately for him, he may have overplayed his hand and met his match. Smart money is betting that when rewards for services rendered are distributed, and the Roman pontiff has even fewer divisions than are now under his command, he will be dumped as unceremoniously as over the centuries he himself had dumped the Lord whose earthly vicar he insolently claimed to be.

You cannot make this up:

Priests and pastoral workers in Germany defied the Vatican Monday by conducting blessing ceremonies attended by same-sex couples.

Organizers held a day of protest on May 10 in response to the Vatican’s recent declaration that the Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions.

The ceremonies, known as “Segnungsgottesdienste für Liebende,” or “blessing services for lovers,” were promoted using the hashtag “#liebegewinnt” (“love wins”). Organizers said that the services were open to all couples, including — and in particular — those of the same sex.

CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported that ceremonies took place in around 80 cities in Germany as well in Zürich, Switzerland’s largest city.

More:

In the Augustinian Church in Würzburg too all couples — expressly including same-sex couples — were invited to “come and get” the individual blessing in a backroom, after the service.

Ahem! More:

The order of service varied from place to place. A participant who attended the blessing ceremony in Cologne told CNA Deutsch that the ceremony was like a “political event.” The event was led by a female pastoral counselor in liturgical robes, who explained that she had already quit her church service.

After some political statements, the Gospel was read aloud, followed by a speech. Finally, the song “Imagine” by John Lennon was played.

Perfect, just perfect: the anthem of Boomer atheism, performed by rebel clerics and laity of a dying church, to celebrate the blessing of gay partnerships. And you watch: nothing will be done to the priests and lay leaders who participated in this.

UPDATE: Whaddaya know, Douthat just posted a column about this situation, putting it in wider context. Excerpts:

Though the US has separation of church and state, we have long been accustomed to American Christianity being consonant with American patriotism. But close Christian observers of American life have wondered for the last couple of decades — at least in my experience — if and when the day will come when being a faithful Christian will require one to oppose the US government and the American system. As America de-Christianizes, what was once unthinkable by conservative Christians is now fast moving from the fringes to the mainstream of our thinking.

Catholic World Report has published a blockbuster interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, formerly the head of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal office (before the more liberal Pope Francis dismissed him), in which Müller has shocking but important things to say about this. The cardinal said:

“Now the U.S., with its conglomerated political, media and economic power, stands at the head of the most subtly brutal campaign to de-Christianize Western culture in the last one hundred years.”

That quote comes from a response the cardinal gave when asked for his view on Joe Biden presenting himself as a faithful Catholic, despite his long record of being in favor of unrestricted abortion:

Cardinal Müller: There are good Catholics even in the highest Vatican positions who, in their blind anti-Trump sentiments, put up with everything or play down what is now being unleashed in the U.S.A. against Christians and all people of good will.

Now the United States, with its conglomerated political, media and economic power, stands at the head of the most subtly brutal campaign to de-Christianize Western culture in the last one hundred years. They play down the lives of millions of children, who now fall victim to the worldwide, organized abortion campaign under the euphemism of “right to reproductive health”, by referring to Trump’s character faults.

An otherwise highly respected confrere reproached me, saying that I must not fixate on abortion. For now that Trump has been voted out, this eliminates the much greater danger that that madman might push the nuclear button. I am convinced, however, that individual and social ethics has priority over politics. It crosses a line when faith and morals are reckoned by a political calculus. I cannot support a pro-abortion politician just because he builds public housing, as though I had to put up with what is absolutely evil on account of something relatively good.

More:

Kath.net: Given the pro-abortion positions of the new President, can and should American Catholics simply and obligingly go along with his calls for “unity” and the healing of wounds?

Cardinal Müller: Reconciliation is the gift that God has given us through Jesus Christ. Precisely for Christians in politics this should also be a standard for their speech and actions. But an ideological rift in society is not overcome when one side marginalizes, criminalizes and destroys the other, so that in the end all institutions from the media to the international firms are now ruled only by representatives of the capital-socialist mainstream.

In the United States, as in Spain now, the Catholic schools, hospitals and other non-profit institutions supported with public funding are being compelled to implement immoral policies; if they refuse they are closed. Even the most naive must be able to tell by now whether the talk about reconciliation in society was meant seriously or was only a propaganda trick.

The very same ones who talk about it at the top of their lungs should examine themselves critically about their own contribution to the division. The slogan, “If you won’t be my pal, I’ll smash in your skull,” is not the right path to reconciliation and mutual respect.

Read the whole thing.

Cardinal Müller is right about the phony reconciliation offered by the Left. It’s typically, “Submit to us, and then you will have peace.” This is why conservatives who object to whatever progressives say is the next radical change they want to make to society stand condemned as aggressors in the culture war. It’s not aggression if you’re defending yourself!

That said, what the Left is pushing for, and is getting, in an American version of the French policy of laïcité — a hard secularism that pushes religion hard to the margins of public life. The only kind of Christianity that is going to be tolerated is Joe Biden’s kind: the sort that doesn’t contradict anything that secular progressives want. There’s a reason why our media, which heretofore furrowed its collective brow over the religious beliefs of Trump administration appointees, are falling all over themselves to highlight Biden’s Catholicism. They know Biden is tame. And they know that Biden gives cover to the anti-Christian policies that they advocate.

We are losing — and having taken from us — the sanctity of life. It’s not only abortion. It’s genetic engineering too.

We are losing — and having taken from us — the truth that male and female are innately part of what it means to be human. That humanness is a given, made in the image of God. We are being told that we can create ourselves.

We are losing — and having taken from us — the truth that sex is part of the cosmic order, and inseparable from Christian anthropology (that is, the Biblical view of what a human being is).

We are losing — and having taken from us — the transcendental dimension of life. The sure confidence that there is something beyond this life, and that we will be judged in the next life by how we lived in this one. Instead, we are taught that today is the only thing that matters, and that satisfying the sovereign Self is the greatest good.

We are losing — and having taken from us — the ideal that all men are created in the image of God, and that means schemes to divide us along racial lines are dehumanizing.

There is no question that we are losing Christianity in the West. Europe is virtually a museum of the faith, and we in the US are headed in the same direction. (It is quite frustrating to me that so many of my fellow conservative Christians have long poured their passions into politics, even as the faith itself crumbles within the churches.) But we are not going to get the paradise that seculars expect. As the historian Tom Holland documents so vividly in his great book Dominion, most of the things that secular liberals love about Western civilization are products of Christianity.

What Cardinal Müller means, I think, is that all the major power-holders in the United States are equally committed to creating a world in which all are “liberated” from the chains of tradition, of religion, of biology, of history, of national feeling, and are turned into a herd of consuming individuals eager to be controlled by elites. They want Brave New World. The “subtle brutality” of which the German cardinal speaks is what I mean by “soft totalitarianism.” They aren’t going to smash the windows of your shop or burn it down, as the Nazis did. They are just going to make it impossible for Christian dissenters to do business.

Here’s a pertinent example. Catholic World Report, which published the Müller interview, has been suspended from Twitter since January 23, for posting a link to a news brief on Rachel Levine, the transgender Biden nominee to a position in the federal health department. From a story CWR just posted on the situation, the tweet that got CWR in trouble:

You cannot say that Rachel Levine is biologically male on Twitter, without being suspended on grounds of “hate”. CWR can have it’s Twitter account back if it deletes the tweet above. CWR reports:

It seems evident that Twitter’s focus is the descriptive of Levine as “a biological man identifying as a transgender woman…”

Since Levine is “transgendered”, it’s curious why Twitter would think it harmful or hateful to note what Levine is “trans-gendering” from or to.

Twitter is clearly indicating that unless CWR and other outlets jump through arbitrary and constantly-changing rhetorical and ideological hoops, they cannot use Twitter. Just as bad, Twitter is implicitly making CWR admit to hateful or bigoted language, even though such was never the case. Not only is such an approach subjective in nature, it is an overtly biased, unfair, and discriminatory approach that both stifles free speech and undermines CWR’s right to report on current events.

“Subtly brutal”: you have to live by lies if you want to participate on Twitter. Imagine a magazine, especially one with an online presence, trying to do so without being able to promote your work on Twitter. Maybe Facebook will do the same thing. CWR called Levine what Levine is: a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman. That neutral description is called “hate” by Twitter. Soon it will be impossible to say what is factually true without losing the ability to participate in the online marketplace. Because people will need to feed their families, they will live by lies. Soon enough, people will forget what it was to be a man, or a woman.

This is a small thing, maybe, but it’s what Cardinal Müller was talking about. So Christians in the near future — and even now — are going to be asking ourselves what kind of social order, and country, are we expected to defend? This is why I wrote Live Not By Lies — and why I hope you will read it, and not just read it, but do something about what’s happening.

theamericanconservative.com

Both Republicans and Democrats have done it, swimming in a current that stretches far back in history.

Casey CHALK

Faith, and particularly Catholicism, played a prominent role in Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, which culminated in an election victory speech in which Biden quoted from Ecclesiastes and the saccharine 1970s Catholic hymn “On Eagle’s Wings.” The August Democratic National Convention that selected Biden as its presidential candidate in turn featured a panoply of paeans to Biden’s Catholic faith. Former Ohio governor John Kasich, former first lady Michelle Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former president Barack Obama all characterized Biden’s religious beliefs as a motivation and guide for his political career. One suspects they are not talking about his submission to the Nicene Creed.

Rather, as both the Democratic Party and liberal legacy media have constantly reminded us, Biden is a “decent” man who will provide “comfort and solace” to an American nation suffering through a pandemic, economic crisis, and heightened racial tensions. His Catholic faith, we are told, influences his opinions on core Democratic Party policies such as sustainable energy, welcoming immigrants, improving racial equity, and curbing gun violence. However, they also assure us, that same Catholic faith does not influence his position on abortion, sexuality, or religious liberty. In other words, Catholicism has been exploited as a tool of statecraft: essential to Biden’s politics when politically advantageous and discarded when it is not.

Of course, the selective appropriation of the Christian religion for secular political gain is nothing new. Indeed, as scholars Scott Hahn and Jeffrey Morrow argue in their recent book Modern Biblical Criticism as a Tool of Statecraft (1700-1900)—a sequel to Hahn’s and Benjamin Wiker’s Politicizing the Bible (covering 1300-1700)—this is part of a larger program by the state to wrest control of biblical interpretation and theology from ecclesial authorities. Indeed, what began in the Late Medieval Period as a call for reform to combat ecclesial corruption was soon craftily exploited by secular governments to consolidate and build their own political power.

Hahn’s and Morrow’s story focuses primarily on developments in the English and German Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment period, though it’s worth briefly considering a few salient points from the first volume. Beginning in the 13th and 14th centuries, figures like Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, and John Wycliffe began urging secular authorities to exercise power over ecclesial authorities. Such men even suggested that governments give biblical “experts” authority that would supersede that of popes and councils.

This proto-Erastianism was further endorsed by Martin Luther, who called upon the German nobility to save the German church from a distant and corrupt Roman papacy. In England, meanwhile, the court of Henry VIII, influenced by Marsilius, Wycliffe, and Luther, used Protestant reforms as an excuse to consolidate royal authority, dissolving monasteries, seizing church land, and declaring the crown head of the English church. The post-Reformation era in turn witnessed further consolidation of secular power over the church, as secular authorities gladly accepted new roles as guardians and patrons of state churches, each replacing the hierarchical church as the sine qua non unifying principle of Christendom.

A further development occurred when German universities in the 18th century came under the patronage of the state. Under this model, the academy, including those studying the Bible and theology, became extensions of the state and its own secular agenda. Scholars increasingly felt compelled to tacitly—or explicitly—support the nation-states that their universities served. As the post-Enlightenment academy became more aggressively secular and suspicious of traditional Christian teaching and the Catholic Church, theology and biblical scholarship were employed to provide a secular history of the world and Scripture better aligned with narratives that served the regime’s interests and ambitions.

Biblical scholar Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791), for example, supported the legal right of the Prussian state to define doctrine. German Protestant scholars and clergy like Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918) and Heinrich Holtzmann (1832-1910) in turn supported Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf movement in the 1870s Prussian Empire to exert control over the Catholic Church, including its clergy, property, and educational institutions. By the end of that decade, 1,800 Catholic priests had been either incarcerated or exiled, and about 16 million marks’ worth of Catholic church property had been seized by the state. One sees in the German academy’s support for Kulturkampf a foreshadowing of the same complicity manifested by many intellectuals and academics in 1930s and 1940s Nazi Germany.

The secularization process in biblical scholarship sought to retain a shell of religiosity in its belief that piety was still useful for inculcating civic virtue. Yet the concurrent effort to “demythologize” the Bible and interpret it solely as a work of historical fiction fostered a further privatization of religious commitments, neutralizing the influence of beliefs deemed problematic to the state’s domination of the public square. What remained of “faith” were only generic exhortations to be good, such as Kant’s categorical imperative. And in that, we can see its fruits in the diluted “nice guy” Catholicism of Joe Biden that is acceptable, even exploitable, by the Democratic Party.

The contemporary political co-opting of Christianity provides a useful cover to pursue policies that dictate to religious communities what they can and cannot believe. Adoption agencies that refuse to place children with LGBTQ parents, organizations that refuse to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, and educational institutions that don’t subscribe to woke ideology provide recent examples of what “unacceptable” beliefs require state intervention and coercion. In effect, ruling parties can act as pseudo-magisteria, defining what counts as acceptable religious belief and practice in society and using coercive state authority to punish dissent.

Of course, it’s not as if the Democrats have a monopoly on the manipulation of religious belief for political gain. See, for example, the June 1 decision by President Trump to follow the dispersal of unruly protesters with a photo-op holding a Bible outside the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. This from a man who has spent more time studying the female body than the Good Book (his favorite book of the Bible, he once declared, is “Two Corinthians”).

With such contemporary examples, it’s clear the prolific scholar Scott Hahn still has work to do—this latest book only brings us to the beginning of the 20th century. A volume discussing how this co-opting of religious scholarship plays out in an American context, for example, would be most welcome. Indeed, as the first two decades of the 21st century demonstrate, there is plenty of material to make this “politicizing the Bible” series into a trilogy.

theamericanconservative.com

Donald Trump, who has publicly criticized Francis, has not interfered as his surrogates, who include former White House strategist Steve Bannon; Cardinal Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States; and others have conspired with the powerful fascist-oriented Opus Dei sect of the church to undermine Francis’s authority. Trump’s eyes and ears inside the Vatican – US ambassador to the Holy See Callista Bisek Gingrich – is the wife of Newt Gingrich, the former Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives, a convert to Catholicism, and a major Trump political ally.

Francis, a former bar bouncer in a tough working-class neighborhood of Buenos Aires, has not been a shrinking violet whe       n it comes to fighting back against his right-wing enemies. Francis’s Italian parents were escaping Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule when they emigrated to Argentina. For Francis, defending the church against the fascist Opus Dei and its allies is a battle worth fighting.

Francis’s enemies have taken a page from the Trump political book. Francis vowed to clean up the church of pedophile priests but he has been charged by his right-wing enemies, including Vigano, Burke, Bannon, Opus Dei, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, and from behind the scenes – Benedict – of tolerating pedophiles and homosexuals in the church. This is the same sort of gaslighting to which Americans have become all-too-accustomed under Trump.

In order to limit Cardinal Burke’s international reach, Francis suspended him from the post of patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), an autonomous international charity entity in Rome that issues its own passports and maintains diplomatic relations with 107 countries and maintains permanent observer status at the United Nations. In 2017, Francis came to the assistance of the Grand Chancellor of the SMOM, Albrecht von Boeselager, after discovering that Burke and Opus Dei were conspiring to oust Boeselager, a member of a German royal house, as Grand Chancellor. Burke and the rightists wanted to sack Boeselager for distributing condoms to people in Myanmar. Francis suspended Burke and appointed Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu as the Pope’s special envoy to the SMOM. Francis is now assured that with Boeselager and Becciu as his eyes and ears inside the SMOM, the rightists and Opus Dei are checkmated when it comes to using the diplomatic offices of the SMOM for their own purposes. Francis also banned the right-wing Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate from conducting public masses in Latin. As far as limiting the power of the rightists inside the Vatican City State, Francis appointed Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga from Honduras as his enforcer to rid the Vatican hierarchy of the pro-Benedict faction, as well as pedophile enablers and financial fraudsters, money launderers, and embezzlers.

Francis told the Italian newspaper “La Repubblica” that Roman Catholic officials have often been “narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers,” adding, “the court [the Vatican curia] is the leprosy of the papacy.”

On October 1, 2019, Francis ordered Vatican police to seize documents, computers, and portable electronic devices from the Vatican Secretary of State and the Financial Information Authority, the latter the financial watchdog of the Vatican. In addition to these two offices, Francis has also placed the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), the so-called “Vatican Bank,” under increased supervision and control. The IOR has been misused in the past for a number of covert operations, including the funding of several right-wing Central Intelligence Agency-linked terrorist groups and death squads in Latin America, particularly the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA), or “Triple A.”

Francis was also instrumental in denying to Bannon and Burke the use of a 13^th century monastery, the Certosa di Trisulti in Collepardo in central Italy, as a training academy for neo-fascist political operatives from around the world. Bannon’s Brussels-based international “neo-fascisti” grouping, called “The Movement,” had made a deal with a group connected to Burke, the Institute of Human Dignity, or Dignitatis Humana Institute, to lease the 800-room monastery for political training. Burke is the president of the institute’s board of advisers, which provides a direct link between Burke and Bannon. Eleven Cardinals, all opponents of Francis, are on the board of advisers, including Walter Brandmuller; Edwin O’Brien, former Archbishop for the US Military Services and a proponent of the “Just War”; Robert Sarah, the former Archbishop of Conakry, Guinea and an opponent of large scale immigration; Peter Turkson of Ghana; Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, Sri Lanka; including US military intervention in Syria; and Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, a former Bishop of Kong Kong and leading opponent of China’s policies. Benjamin Harnwell, a noted conservative British Catholic, is the President of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. Bannon is both a member of the Board of Trustees and a patron of the institute.

Bannon called the proposed school the Academy for the Judaeo-Christian West. The Institute of Human Dignity and its British connections has led many to believe that it is also politically connected to the increasingly powerful Catholic wing of the British Conservative Party. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was baptized Catholic and the Speaker of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is affiliated with right-wing Catholic circles.

From the outset, Francis understood that the Bannon training academy would bot only be targeting progressive forces around the world but also his papacy. It was fortuitous for Francis that Nicola Zingaretti, the president of the Lazio region, in which the monastery is located, condemned the lease by Bannon’s group. Zingaretti is a member of the left-wing faction of the Democratic Party, which includes former Christian Democrats and Socialists.

The coup de grace against the fascist academy came in May of this year when it was discovered that the 19-year lease guarantor, a person purporting to be an official of the Jyske Bank of Gibraltar, had forged the lease guarantee letter. On May 31, 2019, the Italian Ministry of Heritage annulled the lease. The forged letter and the financial fraud concerns that led Francis to order files seized from the IOR and the Vatican Secretariat of State are indications that the Catholic right-wing, including Opus Dei, are not conceding defeat but are doubling down using any means necessary, even if they are illegal.

There is little doubt in Rome that Pope Francis and his allies were working as hard as they could to ensure that after the fall of the coalition government of the far-right League or “Lega” and the populist Five Star Movement, Lega leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini would not be able to form a new government. Instead, the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement formed a center-left coalition and Salvini was relegated to the opposition. It has been reported in Rome that Francis appointed Cardinal Pietro Parolin as a special envoy to combat the influences of the neo-fascists in Italy and throughout the European Union. And Francis has picked up an important ally in Forza Italia, the party of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, now a member of the European Parliament.

Bannon, Burke, and their allies gambled on winning control of an ancient monastery, the SMOM, and the Italian government. Pope Francis saw their bid and raised it. Francis’s royal flush has sent the neo-fascisti forces of Opus Dei, Bannon, and Salvini into a much-weakened opposition. The moral of the story for the fascisti is to never underestimate a one-time bar bouncer. Francis has been as effective in ousting the far-right from their perches of power in Rome as he once was in ejecting unruly drunks from bars in Buenos Aires.

Blackwater mercenary company founder Erik Prince and the self-appointed leader of Fascist International, Steve Bannon, have joined forces and dusted off the old discredited neo-conservative theory of “Clash of Civilizations,” to threaten global stability with religious and ethnic nationalism.

One of the more important revelations in former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the 2016 election is the close working relationship Bannon established with Prince. Sensing fertile political ground for their far-right beliefs, Bannon and Prince have established, under the aegis of their professed Catholicism, a movement that threatens both the current pope and the European Union.

The Clash of Civilizations was the main tenet of Harvard University’s Samuel P. Huntington. Huntington also defended the pro-fascist Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Mexico and the military dictatorship of Brazil. Huntington was also a champion of South Africa’s apartheid state and advocated its “reform” rather than its abolishment. Huntington’s approaches to Latin American immigration into the United States serves a basis for the draconian anti-immigration policies of Donald Trump and his “immigration czar,” Stephen Miller. Huntington saw Europe and Western Europe, including Croatia and Slovenia, along with Australia and New Zealand as a “core civilization” against the rest of the world. Huntington made it a point to exclude from the core civilization the Christian Orthodox nations of the Balkans, including Greece, as well as Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and Armenia.

To advance political domination by far-right political parties and politicians, Bannon has been busy establishing a training academy for far-right wing Christian zealots at the Trisulti Charterhouse in Collepardo in central Italy. Bannon has admitted that he is following George Soros’s global playbook. Instead of a neo-liberal global network, like that of Soros, Bannon is creating a far-right political movement in Europe that will extend its tentacles around the world, primarily in Huntington’s “core civilization” countries plus Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. With his political group, called “The Movement” in operation in Brussels and targeting upcoming European Parliament elections, Bannon has taken advantage of a schism within the Roman Catholic Church to convincing those opposed to Pope Francis I to permit him to set up shop in the 13^th century monastery in Collepardo.

Bannon is clearly setting the stage for a revised “clash of civilizations” between Judeo-Christianity and the rest of the world. Fascism is seen as the preferred political system for the Western “core.”

Bannon’s colleague in the 2016 Trump campaign, Michael Ledeen, the notorious neo-conservative, wrote a book in 1972 that promotes the fascist political philosophy. Titled “Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936,” Ledeen describes in glowing terms Mussolini’s efforts to create an international Fascist movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. According to an interview Ledeen gave to the neo-con “National Review” in 2002, the Ledeen Doctrine boils down to the following credo: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” Mussolini’s template has largely been adopted by Bannon, who, still has, along with arch neo-con national security adviser John Bolton, still have Trump’s ear on foreign policy.

Bannon is attempting to purge the nexus of his Judeo-Christian core civilization of perceived enemies, who include Vatican loyalists of Pope Francis. Bannon – in cooperation with the extremely conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke and former Pope Benedict XVI – has been waging a political jihad against Pope Francis. Bannon believes the current pontiff to be a dangerous liberal and a “Cultural Marxist,” who supported many of President Barack Obama’s policies. Bannon and a right-wing Catholic group close to Burke, the Institute of Human Dignity, or Dignitatis Humana Institute, which runs Bannon’s new headquarters at the Trisulti Abbey, opposes Francis’s goal of avoiding a “clash of civilizations” between Christianity and Islam.

Bannon, in cooperation with Cardinal Raymond Burke and former Pope Benedict XVI, has been waging a war against Pope Francis I. Bannon sees Francis as a dangerous liberal and a “Cultural Marxist,” who supported President Barack Obama’s policies. Bannon and a right-wing Catholic group close to Burke, the Institute of Human Dignity, or “Dignitatis Humana Institute,’ which owns Bannon’s new headquarters at the Trisulti Abbey, opposes Francis’s goal of avoiding a “clash of civilizations,” particularly one between Christianity and Islam.

Bannon’s financial firm, Bannon & Company, is investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, believed by many financial experts to be a giant scam. Cryptocurrencies are favored by neo-Nazis and fascists to fund their activities without the worry of financial surveillance from bank regulators and financial intelligence agencies. Bannon, as a former Goldman Sachs executive, understands how to avoid financial network roadblocks.

One of the mandatory studies at Bannon’s academy for neo-Nazis will most certainly be on the works and thoughts of Julius Evola (1898-1974), a far-right Italian philosopher, who provided the inspiration for several fascist terrorist attacks in Italy during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, including the deadly Bologna central rail station bombing in 1980. Bannon is a promoter of Evola’s doctrine, which is known as Traditionalism. The followers of Evola are called the “Children of the Sun” and they include adherents of two leading neo-Nazi parties in Europe: Golden Dawn in Greece and Jobbik in Hungary. Other Traditionalist philosophers, all of whom dabbled in Indo-European Aryan occultism and, to varying degrees, embraced fascism in the interwar years, include Romanian Mircea Eliade (1907-1986), French/Egyptian René Guénon (1886-1951), and Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Ananda Coomaraswamy (1887-1947).

US neo-Nazi leader and “alt-right” term creator, Richard Spencer, a college friend of Trump’s anti-immigration czar, Stephen Miller, is also a follower of Evola. Evola’s writings were an inspiration to Benito Mussolini Fascist movement and Heinrich Himmler’s Schutzstaffel (SS). Evola even visited SS headquarters in Germany to proselytize his philosophy of fascism to the SS rank and file.

Bannon’s and Prince’s intertwined political finances were exposed during the 2016 presidential campaign. Prince donated some $150,000 to the pro-Trump PAC “Make America Number 1 in 2016.” In turn, the PAC funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Cambridge Analytica and Glittering Steel, a video production company. Bannon co-founded both companies. Bannon was also buoyed by generous funding from hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. Currently, with a seemingly endless supply of funds, Bannon is waging a far-right insurgency in Europe involving neo-Nazi, fascist, and right-wing Catholic organizations close to Opus Dei.

Erik Prince abandoned the conservative Calvinism of his auto parts-manufacturing wealthy father to embrace Catholicism, Opus Dei, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta – based in Rome and a rival-laden headache for Pope Francis – and the Legionnaires of Christ. Opus Dei was founded by Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928 as a pro-fascist and pro-Francisco Franco answer to the more liberal-minded Jesuits. It is noteworthy that Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pontiff, is currently experiencing a virtual civil war within the catholic Church and Vatican hierarchy, spurred on by the likes of Bannon, Prince, former Pope Benedict, and other right-wing members of the College of Cardinals.

Bannon, Prince, and other far-rightists are now attempting to impose on their followers and fellow-travelers the same sort of “groupthink” Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels applied to Germany. In his seminal work, Yale University professor Irving Janis summed up “groupthink,” particularly how groups can, conversely to bringing out the best in people, also bring out the worst. Janis’s 1982 book, “Groupthink,” describes the phenomenon by quoting 19^th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.” Europe’s current fascination and widespread support for political parties that were largely banned and shunned after the Nazi defeat in 1945 have created an environment where Bannon, Prince, and their collaborators find ready audiences for their extremism. In such climates, a strategy of tension permits a clash of civilizations, which is nirvana for the neo-cons and extreme right.

The recent deadly Christchurch mosque attacks appear to have been the first act in a strategy of tensions conflict being waged by the far-right. The Easter Sunday bombings of churches in Negombo, Batticaloa, and Colombo, Sri Lanka, as well as three five-star hotels in Colombo – killing well over 300 people, were reportedly claimed by a hitherto unknown group called the National Thowheed Jamath or National Monotheism Organization. Sri Lanka’s government alleged the attacks were in retaliation for the Christchurch mosque bombings. Some things are known about the group claiming it carried out the attacks in Sri Lanka. It is not connected operationally to either the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, although the Islamic State made unverifiable claims of responsibility. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that New Zealand’s intelligence has no indication that the Sri Lanka attacks were in retaliation for the Sri Lanka attacks. It should be noted that New Zealand, as a member of the FIVE EYES signals intelligence alliance, has access to countless communications intercepts.

While flames leaped from Paris’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral on April 15, a fire broke out at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. In the weeks preceding the Notre Dame fire, vandals broke into Notre-Dame-des-enfants in Nîmes, France and smeared excrement on the crucifix and walls of the church. In March, a fire broke out at another famous Paris church, Saint-Sulpice. In February, a fire broke out in Lavaur Cathedral in Lavaur, France. That fire was preceded by vandalism of Saint Nicolas in Houilles and Saint Nicolas in Maisons-Laffitte in Yvelines.

Arson also destroyed three African-American churches in Opelousas, Louisiana. The son of a sheriff’s deputy was arrested for arson. Louisiana has recently been the scene of renewed activities by Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups.

All of the incidents – in New Zealand, Sri Lanka, France, and Louisiana – those confirmed as terrorism and those for which the jury is still out, should be viewed through the lens of the strategy of tensions and a final showdown between Christianity and Islam advanced by Bannon, Prince, and their supporters in Brussels and the Trisulti monastery.

The world has seen this particular play before. From the late 1960s to the 1980s, over two thousand people died in terrorist attacks blamed mainly on left-wing terrorists, including the Italian Red Brigades and West German Red Army Faction. The victims included the former Christian Democratic Prime Minister of Italy, Aldo Moro. The deadliest attack was the bombing of the Bologna rail station in 1980. Originally, there was an attempt to blame all the attacks, mostly bombings, on the left-wing groups. In fact, most of the attacks were carried out by neo-fascist groups hoping to have the Communists blamed. Inquiry commissions later determined that the neo-fascists and far-left groups all had links to the Central Intelligence Agency – which once employed Erik Prince’s Blackwater as a contractor – and the intelligence services of NATO members. It was the late Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, who revealed the name of the sinister association of NATO spies and false flag terrorists: Gladio.

The images of the inferno atop the Notre-Dame de Paris, have exploded all over social media and left many looking for meaning be it spiritual or political. Christianity (except certain forms of Protestantism) tells man that he has free will, and with that free will comes much diversity of opinion, which we can see in how people interpret a fire burning as a symbol of one of the great pillars of Western Civilization turning to cinder. So let’s take a look at some common interpretations of this event that has shocked the world.

Europe’s 9/11

As of this moment there is no official indication that the fire at the cathedral was arson, however tossing a cigarette onto scaffolding or a wooden roof doesn’t start fires like these. Try lighting a log with a cigarette some time, it won’t go well, which makes it hard to believe that there is no human factor involved be it negligence or malice. Since vandalism at “hundreds of French churches” has been occurring recently there is certainly precedent to be suspicious of this as an act of extreme vandalism or terrorism.

However, even if it were proven to be terrorism France is unlikely to go on some sort Bush 2.0 quest to kill people who sort of look like the guilty parties on 9/11. In the wake of the end of the Cold War the US had to find a purpose as the sole hyperpower. The horrific deaths of 3000+ people in the Twin Towers oriented the missionless US towards a War on Terrorism. It is unlikely that France has the ability or desire to go on a crusade abroad as a means to justify itself as something valuable, especially in its current vassal status within the framework of the EU. It seems very unlikely that mostly passive France will follow in America’s gigantic footsteps.

False Flag Yellow Vest Removal Service

Some online theories point to this public tragedy as a way to get French protestors to take off their yellow vests, feel both very French and very sad, to make them go home and shut up as the country and culture continue to be trampled upon by the ruling elite. When we talk about False Flags we get into the area of wild conspiracy theories which can be very dangerous. The main thing that needs to be said is that even if this were some sort of False Flag then it will not work. This tragedy is far more likely to get the yellow vesters riled up with patriotic fury caused by the destruction of their sacred symbol rather than make them want to sing Kumbaya together in the streets with immigrants who despise them.

This event will play a role in the narrative of the Yellow Vest protests but it will not somehow magically cause them to spontaneously disperse and go home.

A Museum of Cultural Masochism or a Swimming Pool

There is supposedly a deleted Tweet going around from France 24 English saying that Macron wants to rebuild Notre Dame “in a way consistent with our modern diverse nation”, which even if completely fabricated seems like something that could be on the table given the EU elite’s stern consensus that Cultural Masochism is the greatest joy in life. It is very possible that the Cathedral will be rebuilt to service a function not related to Christianity, or be done in a way to spite Christianity as it is the #1 enemy of anyone who is down with the Postmodern world we are entering (or have already entered into). Seeing the cathedral rebuilt as a mosque would be very diverse, tolerant and sensitive and fall inline perfectly with an SJW set of sensibilities.

A less scandalous and more practical possibility is the “swimming pool” option which is what happened to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow when it was detonated in the 1930’s to make way for a massive construction plan that never happened. The flooded hole that was left of it was turned into a swimming pool out of convenience. A similar fate of being transformed into pointless some mall or art gallery could befall Notre-Dame de Paris. This is most likely event to occur as throughout the hardcore Liberal “Heartland” of the EU, churches are often being converted into anything at all that could be dreamed up by local bureaucrats.

God is Buried or is He?

Nietzsche was right when he said that “God is dead” in the context of his times in Western Europe and after two World Wars and a Sexual Revolution, there is really nothing left of Catholic France. Especially with a Pope who seems to be more like a Progressive activist than the Vicar of Christ on Earth. Thus, some on the internet see the burning of the Church like some sort of Viking funeral signalling the end of Christian France reacting both with glee and sorrow.

Although this could be true and it is very possible that Christianity in the West will die out within a few generations given current trends, more and more Europeans are coming to the consensus that “Only Christianity can save Europe”. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, and Europe can clearly see that losing the faith that held it together and allowed it to prosper over century upon century isn’t going so well. Watching Christianity directly go up in flames could become the symbol necessary for Europe’s well fed pacified Christians to get uppity. Without doubt this event will be used in their political propaganda as “proof” of something.

In Conclusion

As the Internet explodes over this issue we can see many different things in a burning Notre Dame. Some see the death of Christianity, others see its coming resurrection. Some see a False Flag or a repeat of the fall of Christ the Savior in Moscow (which was later rebuilt by a now unbelievably thriving Orthodox Russia). Many even see a French 9/11 where all the hopeless millions could do was watch while it burned and the roof caved in, which will lead to a call for action.

The key thing to understand from a philosophical perspective is that we can view this event from any angle that we wish, and from a political perspective we can use this event to push any narrative that we desire and the fire at the Notre-Dame de Paris will be used to push narratives for years to come this is the one thing we can be absolutely certain of.

Donald Trump’s intermittent political “Svengali,” Stephen Bannon, has set about providing a support umbrella to a growing neo-Nazi and fascist alliance that he calls “The Movement.” Ironically, Bannon, who claims to lead a populist cause against globalism, is using globalist tactics to coordinate his goal of bringing to power and sustaining far-right governments in Europe, the Americas, the Pacific Rim, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Undoubtedly, Bannon is using the experience he acquired as an executive for the extremely globalist Wall Street firm, Goldman Sachs, to push his worldwide far-right political agenda.

Bannon has established a secretariat for The Movement in Brussels and a training academy for a far-right army of political leaders and activists at the Trisulti Charterhouse, an 800-year old Roman Catholic Cistercian Order monastery in central Italy. Bannon aims to create a right-wing version of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which is an organization that supports neo-liberalism and corporatism around the world.

From his newly-acquired headquarters in Trisulti, Bannon, who claims to be Catholic, has declared war on Pope Francis I. In an interview with NBC News on the grounds of the Vatican, Bannon declared that Francis’s “liberalism” was destroying the Catholic Church and he blamed the pontiff for the plague of pedophilia that has befallen Catholicism.

In fact, it is Bannon who has been linked to pedophilic activities, including the use of a rental house in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida – leased by him and his former wife, Diane Clohesy – that was the scene of the alleged production of methamphetamines and pornographic films. The famed underwater cinematographer Lawrence Curtis, who rented the home after the Bannons moved out, told Shareblue Media that “the house was used to film pornography, had a constant flow of men, women — and even children — at the house and that blatant drug use was occurring at all hours of the night and day.”

Bannon’s previous stint as vice chairman of the Hong Kong-based video gaming company, International Gaming Entertainment (IGE), had connections to a Hollywood pedophile ring involving principals of IGE and another company, Digital Entertainment Network (DEN).

Using the typical gaslighting tactics employed by the Trump administration – projecting on to enemies accusations made against them – Bannon appears to have enlisted the support of former Pope Benedict XVI, who has remained silent in retirement after being forced from the papacy in the church’s pedophilia scandal, to attack Pope Francis.

In a recent letter, his first public pronouncement since stepping down as Pope in 2013, Benedict issued forth from his secluded apartment on the grounds of the Vatican a litany of conservative Catholic attacks against “liberalism” in the church. Benedict’s points were suspiciously like those of Bannon, who happened to be in Rome when the former pope penned his letter.

Benedict blamed liberal tendencies in the Catholic Church for pedophilia problems, not the code of silence employed by himself and his fellow archbishopric right-wingers who presided over pedophile priests being transferred from diocese to diocese to avoid civil criminal prosecution. Benedict’s blaming the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of Pope John XXIII and the 1960’s “sexual revolution” for all the church’s present woes is pure “Bannonism,” the type of far-right codswallop usually found in the ruminations of Internet hate sites like Breitbart News, for which Bannon was served as editor.

It was Benedict’s pre-papal stint as the powerful chief of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that allowed major figures in the church, including Australian Cardinal George Pell – now imprisoned in Australia after his conviction for pedophilia – to get away with protecting pedophile priests from criminal prosecution. Church officials in the United States, Chile, Ireland and other countries conspired with Benedict in what was, perhaps, one of the largest criminal conspiracies in history.

Pope Francis has, unlike Benedict, taken a much firmer stance against pedophilia plaguing the priesthood. For example, Francis recently stripped the politically-influential former Archbishop of Washington, DC, Theodore McCarrick, of both his cardinal status and priesthood. McCarrick has powerful friends in right-wing circles, including the pro-fascist Catholic order, Opus Dei, which counts the former Blackwater mercenary firm’s founder, Erik Prince, among its supporters in the Washington area. Prince’s sister is Betsy DeVos, the Education Secretary for Donald Trump.

Bannon’s Movement, with its secretariat in Brussels, is under the aegis of Mischaël Modrikamen, leader of the Belgian People’s Party, a right-wing Zionist-oriented Walloonian party that is allied with right-wing parties in Flanders, Italy, Hungary, France, the Netherlands, Austria, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, and Spain. It would appear, at first glance, that Modrikamen, who is Jewish, would have nothing to do with neo-Nazi grand alliances. The interwar years of the 1930s are replete with examples of cooperation between Zionists and Nazis, including, for example, the “Transfer Agreement” between the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Palästina Treuhandstelle (Palestine Trustee Office or Haavara), the Anglo-Palestine Bank, and Adolf Hitler that saw Germany grant permission and exit visas for German Jews to emigrate to Palestine in return for cash transfers into Nazi coffers. Other areas of cooperation were seen in Hollywood, where Jewish movie moguls agreed, for a period during the 1930s, to tamp down anti-Nazi motion pictures that were deemed offensive to the Third Reich.

Modrikamen helped introduce Bannon to like-minded fascists, who prefer the loaded title of “populists,” around Europe. For Bannon, setting up a training academy for fascist cadres is a major milestone for his global right-wing crusade. Bannon plans to teach future fascist leaders a history of the world that is focused on white European “Judeo-Christian” superiority over other religions and peoples, particularly Islam and Muslims. It is such a fractured view of history that prompted deadly terrorist attacks by Bannon’s fellow-travelers in Oslo in 2011; Charleston, South Carolina in 2015; Quebec City, Canada and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017; Annapolis, Maryland in 2018; and Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019.

Bannon may have stepped over the legal limits in his attacks on Pope Francis from Vatican and Italian soil. The Holy See is a recognized nation-state by the United States and Francis is its internationally-recognized head of state. The US accredited US ambassador to the Vatican is Callista Gingrich, the wife of Republican former US House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich. Bannon’s involvement as a private citizen in what amounts to a blatant attempt to create a political rift within the Vatican hierarchy and the overthrow of the Holy See’s head of state is a violation of the Logan Act of 1799, a law that forbids private US citizens from making foreign policy, without authorization, on behalf of the United States government.

The Logan Act is very clear:

“Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Bannon is also in clear violation of the US Neutrality Act, which forbids American citizens from participating in hostile acts against nations with which the United States is at peace.

Bannon cannot have it both ways. If Soros, Bannon’s nemesis, has been guilty of violating the Logan and Neutrality Acts, so, too, has Bannon.

Bannon appears to be comfortable in his new surroundings of the Trisulti monastery. However, based on his flagrant violation of US law, Bannon should, instead, be enjoying the confines of a US Bureau of Prisons cell in the United States.

The modern world is remarkably blasé and hypocritical when is comes to who gets killed, whether by shooting, by sword, or by other means. This is especially true of the bien pensants of the globalist order, who from their perch high atop their moral Mount Olympus are more than happy to set the lumpen straight on when and how killing is good or bad.

For example, government, media, and think tank mouthpieces of the western establishment are quick to scream that the designated Hitler-of-the-month – Milosevic, Hussein, Kaddafi, Assad – is “killing his own people” and that it’s a humanitarian duty for the so-called “international community” to engaging in killing to put a stop to it. On the other hand, cuddly Saudi “reformer” Mohammad bin Salman kills lots and lots of innocent civilians in Yemen – though admittedly, not his “own” people – with lavish help from the same governments that in other contexts favor humanitarian killing. (With friends like Mohammad, who needs Yemenis?)

Or consider abortion. Every right-thinking sophisticate knows that innocent unborn children are expendable and that it is a mark of a country’s respect for women’s rights to dismiss their lives as worthless (predictably, this video was pulled down). (Also worthless are some children with medical issues like little Alfie Evans, condemned to death by the enlightened conscience of British medicine and jurisprudence; or elderly and others now considered candidates for euthanasia.) That’s why once-Catholic Ireland felt the need in a recent referendum to modify protective language in its constitution so they could be like the rest of the chic free-thinking countries in the European Union, which at the moment still excludes Poland and Malta. (Most of Latin America, including perpetual American bêtes noires Venezuela and Nicaragua, has strongly protective laws. An exception is Cuba, which approximates the US policy of abortion at any time in pregnancy for any or no reason.)

But when it comes to killing, the hot topic these days is capital punishment in view of Pope Francis’ recent pronouncement that seemed to change his confession’s teaching on the subject. The previous Catechism of the Catholic Church (Paragraph 2267) promulgated by Pope John Paul II held that “traditional teaching of the church does not does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.” That section now has been modified to read:

“Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.

“Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.

“Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.

“Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”

One could argue with the rationale for the change. Few who affirm the moral acceptability of capital punishment would suggest that that the “dignity of the person is lost” because of “the commission of very serious crimes.” Quite the contrary, some would argue, on very high authority indeed, that it is precisely because of human dignity with its divine origin that death is the proper consequence of murder: “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” (Genesis 9:6) As Aaron Wolf of Chronicles magazine observes: “Capital punishment is necessary to preserve the dignity of man, the honor (marred by sin yet still present) bestowed upon man which distinguishes him from the gibbon and the orangutan and the shrimp and the house cat.  Certain crimes against God’s image-bearers have mortal consequences.”

Lest one suppose this is a standard laid down only for ancient Israel (though, given to Noah, it preceded the Old Covenant and applied to all postdeluvian humanity), note that the Apostle Paul laid out the godly duty of secular rulers to enact justice by violent means: “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. … if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” (Romans 13:3-4)

There’s also a sharp debate on the consequences of the Pope’s making the change itself and whether it means other seemingly long-settled teachings are up for redefinition, including on matters like homosexuality. As Rod Dreher of The American Conservative comments:

“So, today, there is no ‘if’ about it: Pope Francis has said flat-out that the death penalty is immoral, and has ordered the Catechism to be written to reflect this new teaching. … It seems to me that the Pope has crossed a bright line. He is denying, for the first time in nearly two millennia of Catholic teaching, and in direct contradiction to the Fathers of the Church, that the state has the right to impose capital punishment. That’s a meaningful difference from saying that the state has that right, but shouldn’t use it.

“Even if you disfavor the death penalty, understand what this means: this Pope has claimed forthrightly that the Catholic Church taught error, but now, at long last, he has set the Church straight. [ … ]

“Catholic friends keep saying to me how much they hope that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches can end our thousand-year schism, and reunite. I would love for that to happen myself, but I keep telling them that even if the Orthodox set aside the historical prejudices that stand in the way, there is no way that Orthodoxy is going to take the chance of reunion with the Latin church that is so unstable, liturgically and doctrinally.”

However, there are those in the Orthodox Church (as well as in mainstream Protestant denominations, most of which have long supported abolition of capital punishment, along withvarious non-Christian groups) who are thrilled with Francis’ change and who call for following his lead.  Notable is Jim Forest, a principled and passionate advocate for the unborn, the disabled, and the imprisoned, as well as a committed opponent of war as international secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, writing recently in support of the new Roman Catholic position and advocating its adoption by Orthodoxy (“POPE FRANCIS’S CHALLENGE TO ALL CHRISTIANS: END THE DEATH PENALTY”).

There are at least three things wrong with Forest’s article:

First, its placement in Public Orthodoxy, the publication of the “Orthodox Christian Studies Center” of Fordham University is problematic. Along with The Wheel and Orthodoxy in Dialogue, Public Orthodoxy seems little more than a vehicle for revisionist academics to stir ecclesial discord and advocate the importation into Orthodoxy of moral pathologies that have wrought havoc among the western confessions and in society at large. (See “A Two-Pronged Attack on Orthodoxy and Russia.”) It’s a questionable venue for someone of Forest’s quality.

Second, Forest cites the views of a number of early Christian authorities in a manner that implies they said what they did not say. St. Hippolytus of Rome, St. Basil the Great, St. John of Kronstadt, and Athenagoras of Athens – these, like many others throughout the ages, have spoken in favor of mercy, of inducing repentance by the wrongdoer, and of the terrible gravity of taking human life under any circumstances, even accidentally or in self-defense. That attitude is reflected in historic Orthodoxy’s hesitance to inflict death on criminals (as compared to Western Europe, where in some countries mere thieves were hanged until the 19th century, notably in England). In Byzantium this meant mitigating the many capital offenses in Roman law and even sparing the lives of those guilty of crimes of state, substituting corporal mutilation as a more humane and Christian alternative (“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and …  if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, … for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Matthew 5:29-30). Similarly, until the Bolshevik orgy of slaughter (of course, that wasn’t capital punishment but the “supreme measure” of “social prophylaxis”!) Imperial Russia made sparing use of the death penalty even for murder, as illustrated in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment by Rodion Raskolnikov’s eight-year sentence for a double murder – something that would unheard of in Europe or America. But mercy and forbearance are quite different from claiming that the death penalty is wrong in and of itself and impermissible in all circumstances, which, as Forest must be aware, no Ecumenical or Regional Synod has ever decreed, nor (to this writer’s knowledge) has any Church Father ever taught. Certainly one may personally adhere to an abolitionist view just as one can be an absolute pacifist, but it cannot be claimed that is the Church’s position.

Third, misleading references to two important historical episodes refute Forest’s own argument. Forest cites the action of St. Nicholas of Myra in rushing to the defense of three men condemned to be beheaded by an official, Eustathios, where the holy hierarch “took the sword from the executioner’s hands and threw it to the ground, then ordered that the condemned men be freed,” forcing Eustathios’s repentance. He also describes how the fierce convert from paganism, Saint Prince Vladimir, Enlightener of Rus’, became so meek a Christian that he ceased putting anyone to death.

With respect to St. Nicholas, Forest omits (no doubt inadvertently, since he mentions it elsewhere) one key fact: that the three men were innocent. Hence, not only were they spared death by the saint’s intervention but all punishment. This account is hardly a basis for arguing that those guilty of terrible crimes should never be executed.

The reference to Saint Prince Vladimir is even more inapt, and Forest has neglected to give us the rest of the story. As related in The Primary Chronicle (or Tale of Bygone Years, Повесть временных лет):

“While Vladimir was thus dwelling in the fear of God, the number of bandits increased, and the bishops, calling to his attention the multiplication of robbers, inquired why he did not punish them. The Prince answered that he feared the sin entailed. They replied that he was appointed of God for the chastisement of malefaction and for the practice of mercy toward the righteous, so that it was entirely fitting for him to punish a robber condignly, but only after due process of law. Vladimir accordingly abolished wergild and set out to punish the brigands.”

Plainly, the very priests sent from Constantinople to nurture the sprouts of the Christian faith in Vladimir’s newly planted land told him in no uncertain terms that the sword on his hip wasn’t just a fashion statement. It was Vladimir’s job as prince, they admonished him, to go out and use deadly force as justly as he could within the limits of human fallibility, whatever the hazards to his own soul. (The reference to wergild is significant. Even Vladimir-baptized-Basil seemed to prefer the Germanic custom of paying restitution for harm, including even taking a life; he was counseled otherwise by Christian catechists who knew their Saint Paul.)

Contra Forest, and with due respect to Pope Francis, the historic, scriptural, patristic teaching that balances clemency with justice was summarized by the Moscow Patriarchate in its Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church: “IX. Crime, punishment, reformation” – as posted on Forest’s website, where it is inaccurately claimed that “the death penalty is condemned”:

“The death penalty as a special punishment was recognised in the Old Testament. There are no indications to the need to abolish it in the New Testament or in the Tradition or in the historical legacy of the Orthodox Church either. At the same time, the Church has often assumed the duty of interceding before the secular authority for those condemned to death, asking it show mercy for them and commute their punishment. Moreover, under Christian moral influence, the negative attitude to the death penalty has been cultivated in people’s consciousness. Thus, in the period from the mid-18^th century to the 1905 Revolution in Russia, it was applied on very rare occasions. For the Orthodox church consciousness, the life of a person does not end with his bodily death, therefore the Church continues her care for those condemned to capital punishment.

“The abolition of death penalty would give more opportunities for pastoral work with those who have stumbled and for the latter to repent. It is also evident that punishment by death cannot be reformatory; it also makes misjudgement irreparable and provokes ambiguous feelings among people. Today many states have either abolished the death penalty by law or stopped practicing it. Keeping in mind that mercy toward a fallen man is always more preferable than revenge, the Church welcomes these steps by state authorities. At the same time, she believes that the decision to abolish or not to apply death penalty should be made by society freely, considering the rate of crime and the state of law-enforcement and judiciary, and even more so, the need to protect the life of its well-intentioned members.”

It should be noted that while the Russian Federation has observed a moratorium on capital punishment since 1996, the law still remains on the books. If that changes in the future, either by abolishing the death penalty entirely or by reinstating its use, it should be, as the Social Concept states, a matter to be determined by society freely in light of all the issues involved put into proper context. The same is true for other countries, whether or not they are Orthodox or even Christian.

More people receive their morality from the Roman Catholic Church than from any other (or from any scientific basis); and, so, it is remarkable that this sort of exploitation is allowed to continue on, for decade after decade, and the pews not to be emptied-out by these and other ongoing church-scandals. However, if those congregants will then go to different denominations, will the results be any different? Many, if not most, faiths (especially the most conservative ones) have been revealed to be equally exploitative and tolerant of exploitation. Obviously, the problem here isn’t only the Roman Catholic Church. It goes far deeper than that. Throwing stones from glass houses against glass houses can’t help anyone but will only make things worse for everybody. The problem here is the supremacist culture, which exists everywhere, and which oppresses everywhere.

It is reflected in the politics of every nation; and it is especially reflected in the essentially lawless “Wild West” that constitutes the relations between nations — the field where wars and mass-killing, and military invasions and occupations, occur and are accepted by the perpetrator-countries, the invading and occupying nations, as if there were some sort of ‘right’ to perpetrate such things, for example, as was the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 on the part of the invading and occupying nations.

The deeper problem is that there is no right by anyone to invade anywhere. There is no right that any clergy-person has to deceive or violently to force any person to do anything, and there also is no right that any nation has to rape another.

My July 19th article, “Vladimir Putin’s Basic Disagreement with The West” presented that “disagreement” as being between Putin’s commitment to the idea that only the residents in a given land-area can ever rightfully have sovereignty there, versus The West’s commitment to the idea that foreigners can have a right — maybe even a higher right — to sovereignty over that land. 

Two representatives of the view that controls in The West were quoted there, at length, in defense of the asserted right of foreigners to control a government: Cecil Rhodes during the 1800s, and George Soros during the 21^st Century. 

These two supporters of what is commonly called “imperialism” used different words, but the only difference that I have been able to perceive in their respective actual messages is the far higher racist specificity in Rhodes’s expression of it than in Soros’s expression of it. However, in either case, international conquest can be viewed as being good, so long as it’s being done by the right people, against the wrong people. Though Soros is more vague than Rhodes was, as to whom ‘the right people’ are, both writers, clearly, support supremacism — support invaders’ rights to invade and occupy a land, in some instances, however vaguely defined those instances of that supremacism of rights might be.

Sometimes, the personal types of exploitation and the international types of exploitation merge together. Here’s a recent example:

On July 12^th was publicly announced that,

Four common law Sheriffs who were assaulted by Vatican officers acting under the orders of Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, have filed a criminal lawsuit in European courts that names Bergoglio [Pope Francis] and eleven other officials [of not only the Vatican but also several other prominent Christian denominations, and even some alleged gangsters] as participants in a “monstrous criminal conspiracy”.

The claim was filed on July 11 in the International Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels and in the civil court of an undisclosed European nation. Subpoenas were issued the same day to Pope Francis and eleven other men, all of whom are named as defendants in the lawsuit and as active members and participants in “a centuries-old Catholic child sacrificial cult known as the Ninth Circle”.

It also stated:

In related news, a secret conclave of the Vatican Curia, or College of Cardinals, continues to debate who will replace Jorge Bergoglio as the Bishop of Rome. According to a source in the Vatican, the conclave has been in session since July 5 and is deadlocked in their choice of a successor to the controversy-plagued Bergoglio.

Perhaps the legal position of The West regarding supremacism, or imperialism, is about to be tested in The West. 

Following here will be the full public announcement, but it is going to be preceded by key portions of the evidentiary basis upon which the traditional position — still dominant in The West — is being now challenged, and the current Roman Catholic Pope might need to be soon defrocked and replaced:

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murderbydecree.com/files/MurderByDecree.pdf

387 pages

Murder by Decree: The Crime of Genocide in Canada

A Counter Report to the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”

Issued by the International Tribunal for the Disappeared of Canada

In conjunction with previous Citizen Commissions of Inquiry 

March 1, 2016

Toronto and Brussels

Published by the ITDC under the provisions of the Common Cause Public Copyright Agreement

Copyright 2016 The International Tribunal for the Disappeared of Canada (ITDC)

Synopsis of this Report

1. Our research has established that the crimes and murders committed against children in the Canadian Indian residential school system between 1889 and 1996 were legally authorized, sanctioned and protected by every level of government, church and police in Canada. All the evidence indicates that these crimes constituted calculated mass murder under the guise of religion and education, and represented a deliberate campaign of depopulation aimed primarily at western Canadian aboriginal nations and designed to strike at their weakest link: their children. By every legal and international standard and definition, this crime amounted to deliberate genocide.

2. The primary agents responsible for this genocide were the Canadian federal government and the Crown of England, the Vatican, and Roman Catholic, Anglican and United churches of Canada.

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https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Decree-Genocide-Reconciliation-Commission/dp/1530145619

[self-published at CreateSpace, by the author, Kevin Daniel Annett, hiddenfromhistory1@gmail.com, Canada Nobel Peace Prize Nominee (2013, 2014, 2015) Community minister, human rights consultant and Special Adviser to The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) – Award winning documentary film maker (Unrepentant, 2007) and author* Education: B.A. (Anthropology), University of British Columbia (UBC), 1983; M.A. (Political Science), UBC, 1986; M.Div. (Master of Divinity), Vancouver School of Theology, 1990 Ordained as clergyman into United Church of Canada, 1990.]

Murder by Decree is an uncensored record of the planned extermination of indigenous children in Canada’s murderous “Indian residential schools”. It is issued as a corrective Counter Report to the miscarriage of justice by Church and State known as the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (TRC). Based on eyewitness testimonies and archival documentation deliberately suppressed or ignored by the TRC, Murder by Decree proves that the genocide of indigenous people began as a religion-led campaign and continues to be a deliberate governmental policy in Canada. This Counter Report reveals these startling facts: Over half of Indian residential school children began dying the very first year these church-run facilities were opened — This huge mortality rate continued unabated for over a half century because of deliberate practices of germ warfare according to a prescribed monthly “death quota” — Evidence of these crimes and their intentional nature has been continually destroyed by the RCMP and the Catholic, Anglican and United Church since at least 1960 — The same genocide continues today, is aimed at indigenous women and children, and is driven by foreign corporate interests hungry for native lands and resources.

Murder by Decree is issued by The International Tribunal for the Disappeared of Canada (ITDC), an international coalition of jurists and human rights groups. The ITDC was formed in December, 2015 to investigate the disappearance of people in Canada, prosecute those responsible and prevent a further whitewash by Canada of its Crimes against Humanity. This report is an answer to these crimes and an urgent summons to the world and to all Canadians to live no longer under genocidal regimes. Published by the ITDC Central Offices in Brussels and Toronto. For more information: disappearedofcanada@gmail.com

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523905778/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

Unrelenting, paperback, February 14, 2016

5.0 out of 5 stars

Fantastic read.

May 13, 2018

Format: Paperback

Fantastic read….I went to Canada shocked at what Reverend Annett exposed and found the truth…any tourist can find out these truths by speaking to the Canadian aboriginals themselves. They will show you where the children are buried under apple trees in the orchards all over Canada. A Hells Angel biker revealed to me he went to Pictons for a Rave party to discover the RCMP bringing the victims in…he mentioned their names as Dave and Steve(n). He mentioned snuff porno being produced at Pictons farm and how it WAS A FAMILY OPERATION INVOLVING BOTH PICTON BROTHERS AND THEIR FATHER WITH THE COMPLICITY OF THE RCMP, VANCOUVER POLICE CHIEF, SENIOR POLITICIANS, etc. Any tourist can find out the same, speaking to the Canadian aboriginals sincerely. The public doesn't want to know.

——

https://itccs.org

The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State

Thursday, July 12, 2018

0700 hrs GMT

Brussels and Rome:

Four common law Sheriffs who were assaulted by Vatican officers acting under the orders of Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, have filed a criminal lawsuit in European courts that names Bergoglio and eleven other officials as participants in a “monstrous criminal conspiracy”.

The claim was filed on July 11 in the International Common Law Court of Justice in Brussels and in the civil court of an undisclosed European nation. Subpoenas were issued the same day to Pope Francis and eleven other men, all of whom are named as defendants in the lawsuit and as active members and participants in “a centuries-old Catholic child sacrificial cult known as the Ninth Circle”.

The defendants are also named as co-conspirators in the disappearance of eight children from Catholic facilities in Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.

Besides Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, the named defendants in the lawsuit are:

– Elio di Rupo, former Prime Minister of Belgium

– Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State

– Cardinal Sean Brady, former head Catholic prelate of Ireland

– Count Georges Jacobs, Belgian Catholic businessman, head of UCB Biopharmaceuticals and Director of the Cercle Lorraine or “Club van Lotharinge” Brussels

– Count Luc Jacques Bertrand, Belgian Jesuit banker, Director of the Cercle Lorraine

– Paul De Keersmaeker, Belgian Catholic businessman, former European Union Parliamentarian, member of the Cercle Lorraine

– Kees van Korlaar, Criminal underworld member of “Ndrangheta”, Belgian businessman, member of the Cercle Lorraine

– Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Catholic Prelate of Dublin diocese

– Bishop Charles Morerod, Catholic Prelate of Geneva

– Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary, World Council of Churches

– Bishop Mark MacDonald, Prelate, Anglican Church in Canada and North American Executive Officer of the World Council of Churches

These twelve subpoenaed defendants have thirty days to respond to the Summons and appear in person or through their lawyers in Court Examination for Discovery proceedings.

In related news, a secret conclave of the Vatican Curia, or College of Cardinals, continues to debate who will replace Jorge Bergoglio as the Bishop of Rome. According to a source in the Vatican, the conclave has been in session since July 5 and is deadlocked in their choice of a successor to the controversy-plagued Bergoglio.

According to the source, “Either (former Pope Benedict) Joseph Ratzinger will be given the Papal crown again or more likely, an African Cardinal will be chosen, probably Arinze of Nigeria or Napier of South Africa. What is certain is that Bergoglio is finished. It’s just a matter of time.”

Further updates of the court case against Jorge Bergoglio and the other named defendants will be forthcoming, including on Here We Stand, this Sunday at 3 pm pacific, 6 pm eastern, 11 pm GMT at www.bbsradio.com/herewestand.

Note: The complete background to this news release can be found at www.itccs.org and its June 22, June 24 and July 5 postings. 

Issued by the ITCCS Central Directorate, 12 July, 2018 

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www.bbsradio.com/herewestand

Romans 11:5: “There is a remnant, chosen by grace.”

Matthew 10:34: “I bring not peace but a sword of judgement.”

——

I looked further to find information on “the Ninth Circle,” and one interesting article on it is this, dated 10 December 2014:

http://www.evilyoshida.com/thread-8248.html

The 9^th Circle: Child Sex/Sacrifice Cult Initiation

“The Ninth Circle Satanic Cult, a child sacrifice group composed of global elites, appears to be routinely raping, torturing and murdering children” it was announced yesterday by the ITCCS. Recent court filings against the international child kidnapping ring go to court April 7.

Named as chief defendants for the Brussels Common Law Court trial were Pope Francis, Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Pachon and Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Among possible Ninth Circle Satanic Cult members named by witnesses who would testify at the trial were former popes Joseph Ratzinger and John Paul II, UK High Court Justice Judge Fulford and members of the British Royal Family.

“Queen Elizabeth had direct involvement in the kidnapping and death of aboriginal children and Royal Family members appeared to regularly participate in Ninth Circle Satanic Cult rituals at the Mohawk Indian School in Brantford Ontario Canada” yesterday’s announcement proclaimed.

According to two affidavits filed in court, not only did different witnesses see Ninth Circle Satanic Cult members commit murder, but [the affidavits] claimed the brutal killings of innocent children continued today, some in sub-basement vaults.

The international court was set to consider:

· Testimonies of two former Mohawk School inmates who both say they were present at the Ninth Circle Satanic Cult murder of a 5-6 year-old girl at the Mohawk Indian School in Branton Ontario Canada. …

——

What all of these phenomena share in common is the supremacist origin of our common culture. What they all violate is this: Whereas everyone is unequal in abilities to achieve in this or that type of task, everyone is equal in rights. Any type of supremacism denies that fact. The word for the result is “injustice.”