U.S. 2017 presidential inauguration

Make The Church Great Again!

Having commented on Donald Trump's speech and what modifications might have been done to it to make it suitable for a papal speech, I determined it would be good to present the whole speech. The previous entry becomes the working draft, with this a more coherent full speech.

I tried to keep the modifications to an absolute minimum so as to keep the essence of the speech intact. At first I thought a search-and-replace might do, but I realised that there was far too much which would make little sense if done that way. The modified parts are in red.

 

Fellow faithful, and people of the world: thank you. 

WE,  members of the Church militant , are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild Christ's Kingdom and to restore its promise for all of our people.

Together, we will determine the course of the world for years to come and the eternal destiny of many

We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Today’s ceremony,  has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one pontificate to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from the halls of the corrupt Vatican schemers and back to the faithful.

For far too long a group of malicious apostates has run wild in the halls of power in Christ's Church while the faithful have borne the cost.

[Indifference flourished, and the people did not enjoy spiritual benefits of the sacramental life.

The unscrupulous clerics - spiritual wolves - prospered, the vocations dried up left the faith and the seminaries, convents and monasteries closed.

Ecumaniacs protected themselves but not the faithful placed under their charge.

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in Rome, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across the Church".

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across the world.

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the Catholic Church, is  Christ's Church.

What truly matters is not who sits at the throne of St. Peter, but whether he serves Christ the Soverign King

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day when Christ became the ruler of His Church again.
The forgotten men and women of our Church will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction:  the Church exists to lead it's members to Heaven.
Christians want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. 

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of nations; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our nations of so much unrealized potential. 

This Catholic carnage stops right here and stops right now.

We are one Church – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all true Christians

For many decades, we have swelled the ranks of ecclesial communities at the expense of our own;
Subsidized the non-Catholic population while allowing for the very sad depletion of our infrastructure;
We have defended other religions' false teachings while refusing to defend our own true one and spent hours upon hours praising them while our catechesis has fallen into disrepair , decay and disuse.

We have made other faiths and atheists smug while the spritual wealth, strength and confidence of the Church has disappeared over the horizon.

One by one, churches shuttered and left our landscape, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of faithful-turned-unfaithful left behind.  [One by one, churches shuttered and left our shores, with not even a though about the millions upon millions of faithful-turned-unfaithful left behind]

The wealth of Catholic intellectual life has been ripped from our halls and thrown down the drain.

But that is the past. And now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power.

From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land.

From this moment on, it’s going to be Christ First.

Every decision  on liturgy, on Church discipline, on the Church's relationship with the world will be made to benefit the faithful and their families.

We must protect our churches from the bulldozers, our liturgy, teachings and the moral law from corruption. Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength. []

I will fight for you with every breath in my body – and I will never, ever let you down.

Church will start

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Make The Church Great Again! An analysis on how a political speech could be used by a restorationist pope.

By now most of us have heard of Donald J. Trump's inauguration speech. It was relatively short so there is no good reason why anybody wishing to have an opinion on it should not take the time to watch it and for reference it has been linked below.

What I want to do today is try and use Donald Trump's speech with reference to the Church. Imagine we had a Catholic Pope who actually cared about the reign of Christ and His Holy Church!

[...Yada yada yada...] fellow Americans, and people of the world: thank you. [Fellow faithful]

WE, the citizens of America , are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people. ["We, members of the Church militant" instead of citizens, and Christ's Kingdom instead of country, all people's instead of "all of our people"]

Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come. [Just the "course of the world for years to come and into eternity"]

We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done.

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to [...Yada yada yada...] for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent. [(They have not been magnificent but this part is irrelevant to the Pope's speech.)]

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one Administration to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People. ["From the halls of the corrupt Vatican schemers and back to the faithful". Administration would have to be changed into pontificate, but otherwise solid.]

For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. [For far too long a group of malicious apostates has run wild in the halls of power in Christ's Church while the faithful have borne the cost.]

Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. [Indifference flourished, and the people did not enjoy spiritual benefits]

Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed. [The unscrupulous spiritual wolves prospered, the vocations dried up left the faith and the seminaries, convents and monasteries closed.]

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. [Ecumaniacs protected themselves but not the faithful placed under their charge]

Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land. ["Our nation's Capital" changes to Rome, "our land" changes to "the Church"]

That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. [America changes to "the world"]

This is your day. This is your celebration.

And this, the United States of America, is your country. [The Catholic Church, is  Christ's Church]

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. [Not who sits at the throne of St. Peter, but whether he serves Christ the Soverign King]

January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. [The day when Christ became the ruler of His Church again]
The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

Everyone is listening to you now.

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens. [That the Church exists to lead it's members to Heaven]
Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families, and good jobs for themselves. [From Americans to Christians, otherwise okay.]

These are the just and reasonable demands of a righteous public.

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. ["Our nation" changes to nations, our country changes to "our Church"]

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. [Catholic carnage]

We are one nation – and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams; and their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny. [One Church]

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans. [To all true Christians]

For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry; [We have swelled the ranks of ecclesial communities at the expense of our own]
Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military; [Subsidized the non-Catholic population while allowing for the very sad depletion of our infrastructure]
We've defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;  And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. [We have defended other religions' false

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Boast not for to morrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth

That is from Proverbs 21:1

Boast not for to morrow, for thou knowest not what the day to come may bring forth

Tomorrow indeed is the inauguration day for Donald J. Trump, the president-elect of the United States of America. He won against all the odds, given how many people were against him. The good thing is that virtually all the people that a just man would want aginst him were actually against Trump, so those who did not trust the man certainly had the witness of his enemiest.

Given that I came out so strongly in favour of Trump, and the fact that I have described him as the best presidential candidate in the U.S. in 60 years, since Dwight Eisenhower that is, one might be surprised at my choice of title verse. There is good reason for that though.

The most worrying tendency with regards to Trump, a trait he exhibited even during the campaign, is his inexplicably harsh rhetoric against Iran. That is simply uncalled for as Iran is more or less the most peaceful state in the Middle East, barring Lebanon. It is a state which is rather predictable, and whose major enemies are also the major enemies of the Christians in the region. I do take Trump at face value when he says that the days of military intervention are over, and I hope that his rhetoric is in major part done to placate the zionists. That, however, brings me to the second part of what is worrying about him.

His support for Israel and the zionist agenda is very troublesome. While I have little doubt that Trump is smart enough to realise that a war against Iran would have very dire consequences, I am not so sure the zionists and the warmongers in his cabinet realise that. A Christian has no business taking the side of Israel over that of any other country in the region, a fact which would become obvious to evangelicals if they only took some time to study authentic Christianity, in particular the works of St. Paul. Whereas his Christianity can be questioned, I do not question the bloodthirst of the zionists and the neo-cons who hitch on to the zionist cause (although frankly it is difficult to know which is the tail and which is the dog on that particular beast) and I am afraid that if nothing else, Trump's excessively harsh rhetoric on Iran might embolden the zionists into a military confrontation with Iran, one which would make the misadventures of the past 20 years seem like child's play.

With those 2 misgivings out of the way, I must admit that for the first time in very long there is an authentic hope for peace. We have become used to the U.S. being on the wrong side of virtually every conflict over the last 20 years or so. In fact, if one knew nothing of the sides in any conflict, one only needed to ask which side the U.S. was supporting and more often than not, one would rightly conclude that they were the bad guys. With Trump there is hope that the U.S. might actually stop killing people abroad. I doubt it will stop entirely, but there is a good chance that it will be scaled back.

I am not particularly worried about Trump's tough rhetoric against China. He will know as well as anybody that China is not a military threat towards the U.S., so any conflict between the two will be in the form of a trade war. He will also know that the U.S. is no match for China in the only area which could see the two countries in conflict -South East Asia - and if he doesn't then surely the sensible cabinet and advisors that he has put together will be only too happy to let him know that. I am sure that his plan for "Make America Great Again" does not involve getting a very bloody nose in an area of the world of little value to his country in terms of nationaly security, so we can count on the U.S. and China to de-escalate any tensions long before any threat of military confrontation.

There is much that can be said about Trump's amicable attitude towards Russia, with the most obvious comment being that it is simple common sense. There is no good reason why the U.S. and Russia should ever have been enemies since the fall of the U.S.S.R., save for keeping the congressional-military-industrial complex well funded. On this point one must believe that Donald Trump is genuine because there were no political points whatsoever to gain from this move, given the anti-Russian rhetoric in his country.

It is probably the case that Trump realised the folly of this attitude, and decided that it is smarter to make Russia an ally instead of an enemy, especially given the fact that the only real threat to the U.S. is China, and the U.S. faces only destruction if it attempts to confront both those countries. Russia and China, of course, are allies, and Russia also has a lot of untapped potential so for a businessman developing trade relations with Russia only makes sense.

As for domestic policies, surely the war against the Catholic Church from the political front is over, for now. That only leaves the war against the Church from the Church's own hierarchy!

Given that the abortionists took such a hard line against Trump, and the fact that Trump is not one to back down from a fight, we can suspect that he will take the fight to them, which is good for all concerned. The media also seems set to continue its assault against him, and we can be happy for that as the media is likely to lose most of any credibility that it has left, especially given that the man has decided to side-step the media where possible and attack the media when necessary.

So...

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