Archive for the ‘Church doctrine’ Category

Overslept today after putting in some extra time at work and I have to go in early today as well so no time to post so here are some very quick thoughts.


A Quick reminder, remember when the media was united in declaring the Tea Party and the various Tea Party protest a bunch dangerous violent agitators?

You can count the number of Tea Party events over the year that became riots d on the fingers of one hand, in fact you can likely do so on the thumb of one hand or no hands


I think the Nancy Pelosi Salon story combined with the news concerning city gyms in SF offer the best single chance for her GOP challenger in decades.

People don’t like be played for fools and even leftists know that if they punish her on election day they’ll get the seat back fairly quick.


When I was younger I was always amazed at the rise of the Nazi’s in Germany and the Communists in Russia (although less so the latter given serfdom and the Czars). After watching the left over the last several months and the reaction of the public I am much less amazed.

The smartest thing our enemies ever did was to go after our colleges. People are so much easier to buy.


If I was the Pope I would order a coordinated set of Eucharistic Processions led by the local Bishops or Cardinals of sees in October in Reparation for sins. I’d Choose Saturday October 17 the feast day of St. Ignatius.

Either we believe in the Power of Christ in the Eucharist or we don’t, if we do let’s not be shy about it.


Finally a reminder that tomorrow’s Podcast will be at 11 AM rather than at 3 PM.

This is because the Trump Economy is so bad that I have to work on my day off along with going in early yesterday and today to keep up with all the work we don’t have because the Trump economy is so bad

The monastic cell door creaked as the white gloved hand opened it. Yolanda saw a hooded figure kneeling in prayer before an image of the Divine Mercy, As they entered a voice ancient & weak seeped from his cowl.

“Has the angel of death finally remembered me? I am ready”

“I bring not death friend Anastasius” replied the stranger, “but a penitent seeking absolution.”

The priest turned smiling melting away years, his eyes alight: “It has been many decades since I’ve confessed a hero.” Yolanda watched awestruck as new life seemed to gush into the holy venerable face. “Come child.”


Previously, the answer. Next, a confusing price.

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

Bishop Fulton J Sheen

One of the things you notice when you read old histories and biographies is that until about the 70’s the United States was a deeply Christian country with a deeply Christian culture. Even if one was not a Christian an educated person knew Christian scripture as a basis of Western Civilization, understood what Christians believe and would recognize Christian cultural & scriptural reference with no problem.

Since the left in general and the Democrat party in particular has become largely secular or hostile to Christianity this memory and knowledge is pretty much gone. What’s replaced it is a parody of what the secular left believes Christianity to be based on certain Protestant sects (there are thousands of them) which are generally parodied in film and TV.

This has led to the rather comical (to an even fairly catechized Christian, particularly Catholics ) where members of the left denounce Christians for including people in our numbers who have “gasped” sinned!

This has gotten even worse in the Trump years as we have seen the rise of what I call the #wokepharisee on twitter, particularly among certain accounts which claim to be run by self proclaimed Catholics loudly listing Donald Trump’s past sins and stating that no faithful Catholic can support one who has committed such sins.

Forgetting the insanity of so called “Christians” rushing to support the party of abortion (a grave mortal sin) and apparently forgetting that the entire premise of Christianity is that Jesus Christ suffered and was Crucified to redeem man from our sins, there is a long scriptural history of God using the least likely people to advance his will.

Looking at this list

  • Moses: murderer
  • David adulterer AND murderer
  • Peter proclaimed himself “a sinful man” before Christ called him and denied him three times after.
  • Matthew was a money changer and considered a traitor to his race
  • Mary Magdalene so evil that she had seven demons in her before Christ cast them out
  • St. Paul not only persecuted the Church but held the coats of those murdering the 1st Christian martyr

It seems rather silly to say that Donald Trump isn’t worth the title “Christian” nor worth the support of any other Christian.

The real comedy however comes from the self righteous proclamations which instantly reminds any Christian remotely familiar with the new testament of this speech

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector.I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’

Luke 18:11-12

Can’t you just see this rewritten for today?

The Woke NeverTrump Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – racist, sexist, judgmental or even like that Donald Trump supporter. I denounce Trump’s sins daily, am completely tolerant of all non-Christians and watch my carbon footprint like a hawk

That they can not see this parallel proves that Screwtape hit the nail on this head with this piece of advice to his nephew wormwood:

All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question “If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?” You may ask whether it is possible to keep such an obvious thought from occurring even to a human mind. It is, Wormwood, it is! Handle him properly and it simply won’t come into his head.

C.S. Lewis the Screwtape Letters #2

It’s gotten so ridiculous that I’ve actually had a self proclaimed “Christian” publicly request that I take him off a twitter prayer list I have because he didn’t want the prayers of a Trump supporter. That a person supposedly of faith could make such a request is so comical that the one liners write themselves.

For any Christian it’s axiomatic that “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10) but for the NeverTrump Woke Pharisee Ignorance of Christianity in general & Scripture seems a requirement for membership.

Pearl Monument torn down, from Wikipedia

Not that long ago, the military sent me to Bahrain to work a particular mission. While I was there, I learned about the political differences between the King of Bahrain (a Sunni) and the majority Shia population on the small island nation. Protests against the King were somewhat common, and I would get text notifications if one flared up. The protests weren’t aimed at America (a nice change), but we were always advised to stay away from them because the mob mentality might make us a target of convenience.

Mobs make people stupid by allowing people to offload their decision making, and thus responsibility, onto the mob. The danger is that someone with a strong personality will use the mob’s power towards their own end. What starts as a peaceful demonstration can end in violence. That’s what happened in Bahrain, climaxing in 2011 with the demonstration near the Pearl Monument and its subsequent destruction by the government.

The scary part about mobs is that the people pulling the strings typically don’t have a peaceful end state. President Trump understands this and pointed it out in 2017 that tearing down statues to appease the mob isn’t going to work. Plenty of people ridiculed him, including Slate:

“So Trump’s comparison there is dumb. It doesn’t really even make any sense. And the notion that there’s some slippery slope is dumb.”

-Slate article, 2017

Doesn’t look so dumb now. It’s one thing for a city government to remove a Confederate statue or the federal government to rename a base. I’d be happy renaming Fort Gordon to something else, since General John Gordon seemed more capable of getting shot than being an effective general, and was probably a KKK member. There’s a system for doing that, so we should use that. We don’t need a mob for these things.

Worse, this mob mentality isn’t going to end anytime soon. We’re now seeing Catholic churches targeted in California. My wife alerted me to an FSSP parish in San Diego, where the address was being posted in order to mobilize a protest. The right to peacefully protest is a good thing. It allows things like praying outside a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic. But it should be fairly obvious from the above Instagram picture, which makes plenty of assumptions on the church members, that the point isn’t to be peaceful, but rather intimidate people from attending church. Think about it, would YOU walk through a throng of angry protestors to attend Mass?

Mob leaders want people to submit to mob control. Worse still, when mob leadership adheres to Antifa ideaology, it will violently attack any authority that opposes it. This includes Church authority, especially Catholic teachings.

Prediction: we’re going to see attempts by the mob to link Catholicism to slavery, Trump, COVID-19, and whatever else comes to mind in order to justify defacing and tearing buildings down. This, despite a decent Church history of opposing slavery, even having a Pope that was a former slave. Remember that actual history doesn’t matter to the mob.

The question we have to start asking Catholics now is: are you prepared to wade through a mob to attend Mass? Will you tolerate a mob defacing or tearing down your Church? Because the mob is coming for Jesus. Which side will you be on when it arrives?

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.