E.U.

We had news of a Colombian professor , José Galat, who was excommunicated for criticising Bergoglio and raising questions about the legitimacy of his papacy. If we leave aside the fact that the man didn't actually utter any heresy, and contrast this with the fact that heretics abound against whom nothing is done, we are still left with the issue of the bishops of Colombia effectively making something which ought to be legitimately debatable forbidden to speak about.

The fact is that we have 2 people who wear white in the Vatican. The fact is that one of them resigned under very suspicious conditions. The fact is that the other was elected under very suspicious conditions. There is also the fact that Bergoglio has issued numerous and repeated statements which are impious and heretical. Then we have the multiple prophecies which warn about false shepherds, including false popes.

It is difficult to see why somebody should be excommunicated about this when doubts about Bergoglio are perfectly legitimate, but then again it's difficult to find much of anything which makes sense in NOChurch.

I wrote about this in one of my daily comments.

Not to be left behind on the irrationality race, the U.S. political establishment issued new sanctions against Russia, Iran, Syria and North Korea, sanctions which Donald Trump signed into law this week.

Let it be clear that sanctions are considered acts of war! Let it also be clear that none of the countries here have done anything illegal, and that includes North Korea - which having pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is free to pursue nuclear weapons, and as a sovereign state has an unassailable right to develop missile technology! Let it also be clear that they were all bunched together to create the impression that there is the same sinister thread in all of them!

The sanctions on Russian in particular would seem to be nothing more than protectionist measures, something even the Europeans have realised. They claim they will take measuers against the U.S. if these sanctions harm its economic interests. We should not feel sorry for the EU, of course, given that it is not opposing the immorality of sanctions but rather that they were imposed without their involvement, denying them the chance to make sure that while harming Russia, their companies are not harmed. My understanding is that also within 2 days of these sanctions against Russia, the EU imposed other sanctions of its own against Mother Russia.

The sanctions againsty Iran seem to be even more sinister, as even Donald Trump has admitted that Iran has complied with the nuclear deal they signed some 2 years ago or so, the one good thing that the previous evil regime of the U.S. did.

I sometimes have difficulty deciding whether Trump does these things because he believes the lies he is told or because he feels helpless. Either way, he has made himself seem even more helpless as these sanctions tie his hands if he ever wanted to improve relations with Russia, who themselves have seen fit to finally expel U.S. diplomats from Russia, some 8 months after the U.S. expelled Russian diplomats from the U.S. on the same false premises. He could have refused to sign the bill, in which case it would have gone into law anyway as it was veto-proof, but at least he would have signalled his independence.

By signing them he essentially proves himself either a hostage or a stooge of the political establishment, the very swamp he vowed to drain. If he thinks that making bad compromises will help him then he is greatly deluded.

Finally, some football news and a world record transfer of €222 million. I must admit I didn't think it would happen and probably the selling club never actually thought the clause would be met. I commented on this on the day it broke, and I'll briefly restate my comments here.

Though I do not bother reading much from secular newspapers, no doubt there are those decrying the amount of money in football. The statement "they make milions while hospital nurses make much less" is not unusual, as if there are not easily-understandable explanations as to why this is the case.

All the same, if you have something against the money involved - and I must admit to being repulsed by it - just remember that it is €200 million less for ISIS and other jihadists. It is not as though the Qataris were going to use the money to fund a raft of Catholic orphanages around the globe, after all. Neither were they likely to use the money to help their poor fellow Yemeni Arabs who are being bombed to smitherines by Saudi Arabia and its Western allies. This is probably the least harmful way the were going to spend the money.

I have been travelling quite a lot over the past month, which is why I was not able to provide a weekly update. In truth, my travel began on the week starting on the Sunday of the 18th of June, but as I don't recall much of what happened that week, I'll lump that week together with the rest.

On my travels I hope to write more of in at least 2 separate posts, but the long road trip was very much enjoyable and indeed did me much spiritual good.

One of the benefits of being away was that I was in relative seclusion from the news cycle,  both the secular one and even more depressingly, the ecclesiastical one. I did manage to catch notice of a few news items, which I shall present below.

It was another bad month for what's left of Christendom as another 2 countries fell to sodomy. In Germany they passed a law recognising sodomitical unions and putting the final nail into any notion of marriage as a public good. That was sad, but not altogether surprising, given the state of the Church in Germany, as well as the general moral decline and political winds.

What was somewhat surprising to me was that Malta also fell to sodomy. This is, after all, a country which only allowed divorce some 4 years ago or something, and not with an exactly overwhelming majority, if memory serves me right. This is also a country which at the time has a more than 50% attendance at Mass. This is, however, a country which has such perverse bishops as Scicluna, of we-only-ever-need-to-listen-to-the-present-pope infamy, as well as the free-bread-for-adulterers-on-Sundays infamy. I take the chance to call it 'free bread' instead of Holy Communion because there is no reasonable chance that a bishop such as that believes in the Real Presence. I do, very much, though recognise that the sacrilege is very real because I do accept the notion that transubstantiation can occur in the Novus Ordo, given the official formula is used.

In Ireland, I was also infomed that their new sodomitical prime minister has taken charge. That was not a surprise as I had read that he was likely to be the new prime minister, but it is also striking that Ireland also only allowed divorce in the 1990s. Abortion looks very likely to follow.

In Poland, Donald Trump held a speech which was seen as much-ado-about-nothing by the Ron Paul Institute and as a ground-breaking speech by others. His optimisim for the survival of the West was not echoed by Mark Steyn though, and I do tend to agree with him that the will to survive has pretty much died out in the West. I would need more than flag-waving Poles fawning at a president who lauds them to conclude that there is enough fight to save Europe. Unfortunately, the tenacity of the Poles and some of the other mainly Catholic Eastern Europeans is more than compensated for by the suicidal tendencies of most of the other nations in the bloc.

The speech also gave me a good opportunity to note just how sad it is to see someone one thought was not a complete idiot turn out to be probably one, a person who only has a job on account of her looks, not altogether stellar either, I would hasten to add. This happened when a female commentator in response to Donald Trump's boast that he would like to see U.S. energy exports extended to such countries as Poland stated that it is nice of the president to do that, since it prevents Poland from getting it's "energy from communist countries such as Russia". This, mind you, is from a woman who seems to have been born probably not long before the fall of the Soviet Union. If one does not know that Russia is no longer a communist country, then absolutely nothing the person has to say on any issue is worth my attention, or yours either.

This was a woman on Fox News, which kind of validates the theory that the former president used to flip channels looking for new TV personalities with the sound off, just to see how good they looked on the box, without ever hearing what they had to say. It made me almost wish I had the same approach.

Vladimir Putin finally met Donald Trump, and this led to a ceasefire in parts of Syria. It's a step in the right direction, but nothing close to what the U.S. needs to do, which is at the very least to stay completely out of that war, which means in simple words to stop arming jihadists. I am not sure what else to make of the meeting as I have seen very few details of it.

Then there is the sad story of Charlie Gard, a poster boy for today's Western totalitarian state which sees no limit to its powers.

We also had Le Creep weighing in on why Africa is stuck in poverty. It is because people have 7-8 children, he says. Leaving aside that only one country in Africa has a birth rate higher than 7 - Niger - the perfect response would have been something like the following: "Well, unfortunately there is a shortage in Africa of barren women who are 25 years older than the men, so we are forced to engage in reproductive sex." That would have really put him in his place.

Now onto the Church.

I could begin no other place that with Cardinal Mũller having been relieved of his post. Evidently, there is a new policy at the Vatican of terminating posts after 5 years, and it is starting with him. According to Müller, he was called within a minute of ending his last day of his 5-year term, and was offered no explanation as to why his term was not being renewed. Well, Bergoglio is nothing if not consistent in how he handles personnel...