In Rome, Bergoglio was up to his usual annual Christmas insults to the Roman Curia. This is what Novus Ordo Watch, the sedevacantist website, called the "annual spanking".
It is hard to imagine that there is any other organisation in the world which would tolerate a leader who does not believe in its mission statement and spends most of his time demoralising his subordinates all-the-while praising the competitors. Yet that is what we have in Bergoglio. In a sense, I suppose this serves to prove that the Church is not of human hands, for had it been, it would have collapsed into oblivion ages ago. Perhaps Bergoglio serves a positive purpose then, after all.
It is good nonetheless to see opposition towards Bergoglio spreading over much of the Church, and while it is true that it has not become entirely mainstream yet, we have a lot of people feeling emboldened enough to poke fun of Bergoglio assuming a context which would only have been knowable by a small group of faithful some 2 months ago. The satire I have particularly in mind is a cartoon version of Raymond Arroyo interviewing Bergoglio. It's hit-count is not astronomical at this time of writing, but I would expect it to grow. The youtube channel itself seems set up specifically to combat modernists and it is telling that the 2 first videos feature Bergoglio.
There is also no hint of the creators being traditionalists, so we can assume that criticism of Bergoglio, disregard for his false humility and realisation of his hubris has spread far and wide. As I often say, it is only neo-Catholics who don't seem to see it, as both modernists and the secular world clearly are of the opinion that Bergoglio is one of them.
Some kind of good news, of sorts, in Egypt, also was brought to my attention. These have to do with a pop singer who was sentenced to jail over lewd acts in a music video, which included sucking a banana in a sexually suggestive way, presumably - I could only get through a section of the music video, and this was the non-banana part. Her director was also sentenced to prison. She got 2 years. I highly doubt that she will spend that much time in prison, but it's important to note the was sentenced to prison for corrupting public morals. Many will point to this and see nothing but Islamic subjugation but the fact of the matter is that public decency is a cause worth fighting for and if the Muslims are doing it then we should applaud them for it. If the Western world had punished celebrities who corrupted public morality we would hardly be in the mess in which we currently find ourselves.
Over at the U.N., Trump and the U.S. were reprimanded by both the U.N. Security Council - which the U.S. naturally vetoed as the only member voting against - and then at the U.N. General Assembly after the U.S. had vetoed as the sole dissenter. The issue was condemning Trump for recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and proclaiming that the U.S. embassy would be moved there, in direct contravention of international law, which I have been led to believe, considers Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territory. It's interesting that despite all their overt threats, the U.S. only managed to get 8 states on its side - most of them "micro-states" , including the occupying country, of course - in a vote it lost 128-9, with 34 abstentions, if memory serves me right.
We had Nikki Haley, a woman with a Ph. D in hillbilly studies according to Russia Today's show host Peter Lavelle, threatening that she would be taking notes and reporting who voted against them, with Donald Trump chiming in that the U.S. would stop sending aid money to countries which voted against them, and Haley again saying that since the U.S. pays most of the money they deserve respect. I shall briefly point out here that the U.S. gets more money from the U.S. than any other nation on account of all the diplomatic missions stationed in New Yor, as well as the fact that if all you have is "I'll kick you in the courtyard later" and "I pay more than you so I am always right", you really do prove that you have no leg to stand on. I very much applaud the members of the U.N. which took the U.S. to task on this.
Some felt that Britain betrayed America in voting against them in the U.N. Security Council. This should alert any Brit as to how Americans see the U.K. - as nothing more than a poodle to whatever policy the U.S. laps up.
One man who got a filip from this was Erdogan, who is desperately trying to position himself as the leader of the Muslim world. He warned Muslims that "Muslims may lose Mecca if they fail to hold on to Jerusalem". Frankly, I doubt that much will come of t his move, as Trump must well know. The Arab countries are far too tied down to American policy and far too duplicitous to make any demands against the U.S. on this. Although the decision bodes badly for Trump's morality, as a political decision it was quite shrewd - no tangible downside and many upsides, domestically at least. At least it ends the facade that the U.S. was an impartial mediator in the Middle-Eastern conflicts.
Truth be told, Donald Trump's foreign policy to date has been nothing short of disastrous. It would be much better if he only stuck to domestic policy - where he has an almost flawless score, a 95% rate by my count - and withdrew from international meddling altogether. In fact, that is the very platform on which he ran!
One good bright spot from the U.S. was the head of their ministry...
