US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a 20% reduction in the number of four-star generals

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday ordered the active-duty military to reduce its number of four-star generals and flag officers by 20% in order to improve efficiency.

In a memo, Hegseth announced that the measure would be followed by a second round of reductions of 10% among top officers across all branches of the armed forces, including the National Guard.

The reductions come in addition to the dismissal of more than half a dozen top generals since January, as the administration of US President Donald Trump is trimming excess spending from the federal budget through its newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Announcing the cuts, Hegseth said they would eliminate “redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership” and were intended to free the military from “unnecessary bureaucratic layers.”

“More generals and admirals do not lead to more success,” Hegseth said in a video posted on X.

“This is not a slash and burn exercise meant to punish high ranking officers; nothing could be further from the truth,” he added.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth has promoted efforts to eliminate programs and leadership that were put in place to “support diversity in the ranks.” He has sought to remove transgender service members, and has launched broad changes to enforce a single fitness standard for all combat roles.

The policy is part of Trump’s broader White House effort to eliminate several of the Biden administration’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government and the military.

Earlier this year, Trump fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, the second African-American commander ever to occupy the post. Brown publicly supported the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement back in 2020.

As of May 2025, the US military has about 653 active-duty generals and flag officers across all branches, including all ranks, according to data from Southwest Journal. Of those, 44 are four-star generals and flag officers, according to Hegseth.

The US Army has the highest number of generals, with 231, including 11 four-star generals.

Despite the ongoing campaign to cut federal spending, the White House has approved a record defense budget of around $1 trillion, up from the current $894 billion.

China, the world’s second biggest defense spender, has allocated $256 billion for defense in 2025, while the third largest, Russia, has budgeted $157 billion.

 When Pope Francis, in the most humble and visible way possible, broke the tradition of wearing the papal Mozzetta when His Holiness greeted the throngs of pilgrims for the first time in Saint Peter’s Square, most  did not appreciate the humbleness of this act of simplicity and a stripped down papacy, from a Mercedes to a tiny two cylinder Fiat. 

Now we know.

What the pope wears when we see him for the first time will tell us much too. UGH!

From the room of tears, we see that there is a Mozzetta for the new pope to wear, if His Humbleness chooses to wear it. Will he? That is the question!

Between uncontrolled migration, propagandistic ideology and self-suffocating green agenda, the EU has only itself to blame for its decline

The European Union, that grand and failing dream of technocrats, is dying. Its decline is not sudden or dramatic but a slow unraveling, a bureaucratic collapse in which every policy designed to sustain it only hastens its demise.

It starves itself on the thin gruel of ideology – open borders dissolving nations into contested spaces, green mandates suffocating industry under the weight of unattainable standards, and a moralizing anti-Russian fervor that has left it isolated and energy-dependent. Once, Europe was the center of empires, the birthplace of civilizations that shaped the world. Now, it is a patient refusing medicine, convinced that its sickness is a form of enlightenment, that its weakness is a new kind of strength. The architects of this experiment still speak in the language of unity, but the cracks in the foundation are too deep to ignore.

Immigration was the first act of self-destruction, the point at which Western Europe’s ruling class severed itself from the people it claimed to govern. The elites, intoxicated by the rhetoric of multicultural utopia, flung open the gates without consideration for cohesion, for identity, for the simple reality that societies require more than abstract ideals to function. Cities have fractured into enclaves where parallel societies thrive, where police hesitate to patrol, where the native-born learn to navigate their own streets with caution. The promise was harmony, a blending of cultures into something vibrant and new. The reality is a quiet disintegration, a thousand unspoken tensions simmering beneath the surface. Politicians continue to preach the virtues of “diversity,” but the people – those who remember what it was like to have a shared history, a common language – are beginning to revolt. The backlash is no longer confined to the fringe. It is entering the mainstream, and the establishment trembles at what it has unleashed.

Then came the green delirium, the second pillar of Western Europe’s self-annihilation. Factories shutter under the weight of environmental regulations, farmers take to the streets in protest, and the middle class is squeezed between rising energy costs and stagnant wages. The climate must be saved, the leaders insist, even if the cost is economic ruin. Germany, once the industrial powerhouse of the continent, dismantles its nuclear infrastructure in favor of unreliable wind and solar power, only to return to coal when the weather turns unfavorable. There is a madness in this, a kind of collective hysteria where dogma overrides pragmatism, where the pursuit of moral purity blinds the ruling class to the suffering of ordinary citizens.

The rest of the world watches, perplexed, as the EU willingly cripples itself for a cause that demands global cooperation – cooperation that is nowhere to be found. China builds coal plants, America drills for oil, India prioritizes growth over emissions, and the EU alone marches towards austerity, convinced that its sacrifice will inspire others. It will not.

And Russia – the great miscalculation, the strategic blunder that may yet prove fatal. Europe had a choice: to engage with Moscow as a partner, to integrate it into a stable continental order, or to treat it as an eternal adversary. It chose the latter, aligning itself fully with Washington’s confrontational stance, severing ties that had once provided cheap energy and economic stability. The pipelines are silent now, the ruble flows eastward, and Western Europe buys its gas at inflated prices from distant suppliers, enriching middlemen while its own industries struggle. Russia, spurned and sanctioned, turns to China, to India, to those willing to treat it as something other than a pariah. The Eurasian landmass is reconfiguring itself, and Europe is not at the center. The EU is on the outside, looking in, a spectator to its own irrelevance. The Atlanticists in Brussels believed they could serve two masters: their own people and Washington’s geopolitical whims. They were wrong.

In this unfolding drama, America and Russia emerge as twin pillars of Western civilization – different in temperament but united in their commitment to preserving sovereign nations against globalist dissolution. America, the last defender of the West’s entrepreneurial spirit and individual liberty, stands firm against the forces that would destroy borders and identities. Russia, keeper of traditional values and Christian heritage, guards against the cultural nihilism consuming Europe. Both understand that civilizations must defend themselves or perish; neither suffers the death wish that afflicts the Western European elites.

And of Western Europe? It is a ghost at the feast, clutching its empty wineglass, muttering about “norms” and “values” as the world moves on without it. The European elites still cling to their illusions, still believe in the power of rhetoric over reality. They speak of “strategic autonomy” while marching in lockstep with Washington’s wars, of “diversity” while their own cities become battlegrounds of competing identities, of “democracy” while silencing dissent with bureaucratic machinery and media censorship.

The voters sense the decay. They rebel – in France, where Marine Le Pen’s supporters grow by the day; in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni’s government rejects the EU’s dictates on immigration; in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán openly defies the liberal orthodoxy. Yet the machine grinds on, dismissing every protest as populism, every objection as fascism. The disconnect between rulers and ruled has never been wider. The elites, ensconced in their Brussels bubble, continue to govern as if the people are an inconvenience, as if democracy means compliance rather than choice. The social contract is broken, and the backlash will only intensify.

There is a cancer in Europe, and it is not the right or the left. It is the very idea that a civilization can exist without roots, that a people can be stripped of its history and still remain coherent. The EU was built on the assumption that identity was an accident, that men were interchangeable economic units, that borders were relics of a barbaric past. Now the experiment is failing. The young flee – to America, to Asia, anywhere with opportunity and dynamism. The old huddle in their apartments, watching as their neighborhoods change beyond recognition. The politicians, insulated by privilege, continue to lecture about “tolerance” and “progress,” oblivious to the rage building beneath them.

The great realignment is already underway. The Atlantic widens; the Eurasian landmass stirs. America and Russia, for all their rivalry, understand power in a way Western Europe has forgotten. They build, they fight, they act decisively. The EU deconstructs, hesitates, agonizes over moral dilemmas while others seize the future. The 21st century will belong to those who can face it without illusions, who can say “we” and mean something concrete, who can defend their interests without apology. Western Europe, as it exists today, is incapable of this.

Perhaps the EU will linger for years yet, a hollowed-out institution shuffling through summits and issuing directives that fewer and fewer obey. But the spirit is gone. The people feel it. The world sees it. Historians will look back on this era as the funeral of liberalism – a slow, self-inflicted demise by a thousand well-intentioned cuts. The creators of this collapse will not be remembered as visionaries but as fools, as men and women who prized ideology over survival.

And when the last bureaucrat turns out the lights in Brussels, who will mourn? Not the workers whose livelihoods vanished for the sake of carbon targets. Not the parents afraid to let their children play in streets that no longer feel like home. Not the nations that surrendered their sovereignty to a project that demanded their deconstruction. Only the living corpses of the elites will remain, muttering to each other in the ruins, still convinced of their own righteousness.

But righteousness is not enough. The world has always belonged to those who are willing to fight for it – and Old Europe has forgotten how to fight.

The leader of the Christian Democratic Union party had unexpectedly fallen short of the 316-vote threshold earlier on Tuesday

Friedrich Merz has been elected as German chancellor following a second Bundestag vote on Tuesday. The leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had initially fallen six votes short of the required 316-vote threshold earlier in the day, but hours later rallied conservatives and allies in the country’s parliament to win 325 votes.

The situation is unprecedented in Germany’s post-war history, as no prospective chancellor had previously failed to be voted through by the Bundestag at the first try after securing a coalition agreement.

Merz faced opposition from 289 MPs, many of them from the Left and Green parties, who voted against the 69-year-old.

The second vote took place after four factions agreed to alter parliamentary procedures to avoid delays. According to Politico, urgent closed-door meetings were held in between the votes.

Addressing lawmakers before the second round of voting, CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn told them that “all of Europe, perhaps even the entire world, is watching this second round of voting.”

“I appeal to everyone to be aware of this special responsibility,” he said, as quoted by broadcaster ARD.

Commenting on Merz’s initial failure, one of the leaders of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party faction in the Bundestag, Bernd Baumann, said: “Mr. Merz, you have failed. This is a historic defeat, the likes of which have never been seen in this Bundestag before.”

Green Party politician Renate Kuenast spoke of a “massive loss of authority” for the incoming chancellor, as quoted by broadcaster ZDF.

Left Party parliamentary leader Christian Goerke characterized the situation as a “crushing defeat” for Merz, attributing it to a “truly poor coalition agreement [between the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats] that fails to address the major problems facing this country.”

Germany’s previous three-way ruling coalition led by the SPD fell apart last November amid internal disputes on spending. The new CDU-SPD coalition has pledged to continue key elements of former Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s agenda, including support for Ukraine and unlocking a constitutional debt brake to further boost the military budget.

The move follows the university’s rejection of US government demands for policy changes

The administration of US President Donald Trump has blocked new federal research grants to Harvard University, saying the school must meet a list of White House demands first.

The decision marks the latest escalation in a broader clash between the administration and top US universities over their response to pro-Palestinian protests. Since taking office, Trump has ramped up pressure on campuses to tackle alleged anti-Semitism and roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

In a letter posted on Tuesday on X, Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon accused Harvard of “serious failures” in anti-Semitism, racial discrimination, academic rigor, and viewpoint diversity.

“Harvard University has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system,” McMahon wrote, adding that it “should no longer seek” federal funding “since none will be provided.” 

The letter said Harvard would need to enter talks with the government and show it had complied with the administration’s demands to regain eligibility for new grants.

Harvard responded on Tuesday, saying it “will continue to defend against illegal government overreach.”

Dear @Harvard: pic.twitter.com/XmMimXfkX0

Trump has targeted Harvard over claims of anti-Semitism tied to pro-Palestinian protests, which erupted after Israel’s offensive in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas attack. More than 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the local health ministry. The protests intensified as Washington continued supplying weapons to Israel.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has launched a review of nearly $9 billion in federal funds for Harvard and demanded the university ban DEI programs, restrict pro-Palestinian groups, and prohibit masks at protests.

Harvard rejected the demands, accusing the White House of trying to “control” its campus. It sued the administration over the suspension of around $2.3 billion in funding and pledged to combat discrimination internally.

In its lawsuit, the university warned the cuts could have “real-life consequences” for students and researchers and could jeopardize medical and scientific work.

READ MORE: Trump freezes over $2bn in Harvard funding over ‘non-compliance’

Harvard has a $53 billion endowment – America’s largest – but much of it is restricted for specific purposes such as financial aid and scholarships.

The Trump administration has also suspended federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Princeton, Cornell, and Northwestern.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

This story is of particular importance because Marge (MV is the name used by the court) has been approved for euthanasia again. Raikin writes:

Raikin further explains the dilemma:

The Canadian law provides no avenue for the judge to prevent a euthanasia death. Rankin reports:

A court challenge was launched based on the part of the law that allows euthanasia for people who are not terminally ill. Rankin states:

Rankin explains that even if the disability organizations are successful in their court challenge, that it won't happen in time to save the autistic woman. 

The father spent more than $150,000 on the court case and his daughter has been approved for euthanasia again.

Articles on this story:

• Euthanasia Prevention Coalition gains intervention standing in Calgary court case (Link).
• Calgary autistic woman is a victim of the "right to die" movement (Link).
  
• Great news: Judge prevents euthanasia death of Calgary autistic woman (Link). 
• Father of a 27-year-old autistic woman appeals court ruling in euthanasia decision (Link).
  

The story, both on Ukraine and Iran, is that President Trump wants a “deal” – and both deals are available – yet he seems nonetheless to have boxed himself in. Trump presents his Administration as being something rougher, meaner, and far less sentimental. It aspires to emerge, apparently, as also something more centralized, coercive, and radical.

In domestic policy, there may be some truth to this categorisation of the Trumpian ethos. In foreign policy, however, Trump tergiversates. The reason is not clear, but the fact of it clouds his prospects in the three areas vital to his “peace-maker” aspiration – Ukraine, Iran, and Gaza.

Whilst it is true that Trump’s true mandate derived from rampant economic and social discontent, rather than from his claims to be a peacemaker – yet the two key foreign policy ends remain important to maintaining momentum forward.

One possible answer is that in foreign negotiations, the President needs a grounded and experienced team to support him. And he does not have that.

In advance of sending his Envoy Witkoff to talk to President Putin, General Kellogg, it seems, presented Trump with a Versailles-type Armistice proposal: A vision of Russia on the ropes (i.e. the plan was cast in terms more appropriate to Russian capitulation). Kellogg’s proposal implied also that Trump would be doing Putin a “big favour” – by condescending to offer him a ladder down which to climb from his perch up the Ukraine “tree.” And this was exactly the line Trump took in January:

Having stated that Russia had lost one million men (in the war), Trump then went on to say that “Putin is destroying Russia by not making a deal.” He further claimed that Russia’s economy was in “ruins,” and most notably, said that he would consider sanctioning or tariffing Russia. In a subsequent Truth Social post, he wrote, “I’m going to do Russia – whose Economy is failing – and President Putin, a very big FAVOR.”

The President – duly briefed by his team – may have imagined that he would offer Putin a unilateral ceasefire and, hey presto, would have a quick deal to his credit.

All the premises on which the Kellogg plan was based (Russia’s vulnerability to sanctions, huge losses of men, and a stalemated war) were false. Did no one on Trump’s team then do any due diligence on the Kellogg strategy? It seems (lazily) to have taken the Korean war as its template, without due consideration of whether it be appropriate, or not.

In the Korean instance, the ceasefire along a Conflict Line preceded political considerations, which came only later. And which remain ongoing – and unresolved – until today.

By launching premature demands for an immediate ceasefire during talks with Russian officials in Riyadh, Trump invited rejection. Firstly, because the Trump Team had no concrete plan for how to implement a ceasefire, simply presuming rather that all such details could be settled post-hoc. In short, it was presented to Trump as a “quick win.”

Only it wasn’t.

The outcome was fore-ordained – the ceasefire was declined. It should not have been allowed to happen, given competent staff work. Had none of Trump’s team been listening since 14 June of last year when Putin very clearly outlined MFA the Russian position on a ceasefire? And which has been repeated regularly ever since. Apparently not.

Yet even so, when Trump’s Envoy, Witkoff, returned from a long meeting with President Putin to report on the latter’s personal, detailed explanation of why a political framework must precede any ceasefire (unlike Korea), Witkoff’s account reportedly was met with the flat retort that “the Ukrainians would never agree” from General Kellogg.

End of discussion, apparently. No decision taken.

Several more flights to Moscow have not altered the basic situation. Moscow awaits evidence that Trump is able to consolidate his position and can take charge of the situation. But until then, Moscow stands ready to facilitate a “rapprochement of positionality” – but will not approve a unilateral ceasefire. (And nor will Zelensky).

The puzzle here is why Trump doesn’t cut off US weapons and intelligence flows to Kiev, and tell the Europeans to butt out of Trump’s way? Does Kiev have some form of veto power? Does Team Trump not understand that the Europeans simply hope to disrupt Trump’s aim to normalise relations with Russia? They must do.

It seems that the “debate” (if you can call it that) in the Trump Team largely excluded real life factors. It took place at some high normative level, where certain facts and truths are simply assumed.

Maybe the Sunk Costs phenomenon weighed heavily – the longer you continue with a course of action (no matter how stupid), the less willing you are to change it. Changing it would be interpreted as acknowledging error – and acknowledging error is the first stage to losing power.

And there is a parallel with the talks with Iran.

Trump has a vision for a negotiated settlement with Iran that would achieve his objective of “no Iranian nuclear weapon” – though the aim itself, is something of a tautology given that the US intelligence community already has determined that Iran has NO nuclear weapon.

How do you stop something that is not occurring? Well, “intent” is an enormously difficult concept to ring-fence. So, the Team heads back to basics: to the original Rand Organisation’s firm doctrine that there exists no qualitative difference between peaceful and weapon-linked enrichment of uranium. So, no enrichment should be permitted.

Only Iran does have enrichment – thanks to the Obama concession as part of the JCPOA, which allowed it, subject to limitations.

Many ideas are floating around about how to square this circle – of Iran’s refusal to relinquish enrichment versus Trump’s “no capacity” to weaponise dictum. None of the ideas is new: Importing into Iran enriched feedstock; exporting Iran’s highly enriched uranium to Russia (something already done as part of the JCPOA), and having Russia build Iran’s nuclear energy capacity to power its industry. The problem is that Russia is already doing that too. It has one plant already up, and another in construction.

Israel naturally has its own proposals too: Root out all Iranian enrichment infrastructure and missile delivery capacity.

Only Iran will never agree to this.

So, the choice is either a jacked-up inspection and technical surveillance system in a JCPOA-like accord (which will not make either Israel or the pro-Israel Institutional leadership happy). Or military action.

Which takes us back to the Trump Team and the internecine divisions within the Pentagon.

Pete Hegseth sent the following message to Iran, posted on his social media account:

“We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing. You know very well what the US Military is capable of – and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.”

Plainly, Hegseth is frustrated. As Larry Johnson has noted:

The Trump team has been labouring under [another] false assumption that the Biden folks did not make a serious effort to destroy the Houthis’ arsenal of missiles and drones. The Trumpers believed that they could bomb the Houthis into submission. Instead, the US is demonstrating to all countries in the region the limits of its naval and air power … Despite more than 600 bombing sorties, the Houthis continue to launch missiles and drones at US ships in the Red Sea and targets inside Israel.

So, Team Trump has waded firstly into one conflict (Yemen), and secondly, into a complex negotiation with Iran, again seemingly without doing its homework on Yemen. Is this down to group think again:

“In a situation of uncertainty like the present, solidarity comes to be seen as an end in itself, and nobody wants to be accused of “weakening the West” or “strengthening Iran.” If you have to be wrong, best be wrong in the company of as many others as possible.”

Will Israel let this pass? It is beavering away with General Kurilla (the US General in command at CENTCOM) in the bunker under the Israeli Defence Department – preparing plans for a joint attack on Iran. Israel appears very keen on his work.

Yet, the fundamental impediment to achieving an accord with Iran is more crucial – in that, as presently construed, the US approach to the negotiations breaks all the rules about how to initiate a weapons-limitation treaty.

On the one hand, there is Israel with a triad of nuclear weapons systems and delivery capacities: from submarines, aircraft and by missile. Israel has also threatened the use of nuclear weapons – recently in Gaza and earlier during the first Iraq war, in response to Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile capacity.

The missing principle here is any modicum of reciprocity. Iran is said to threaten Israel – and Israel regularly threatens Iran. And Israel, of course, wants Iran neutered and disarmed and insists itself be untouched (no NPT, no IAEA inspections, no acknowledgment).

The arms-limitation treaties initiated by JF Kennedy with Khruschev derived from the successful reciprocal negotiation by which the US withdrew its missiles from Turkey before Russia removed its own missiles from Cuba.

It must be clear to Trump and Witkoff that such a lopsided proposal as theirs for Iran bears no relation to geo-political realities – and is therefore likely to fail (sooner or later). Team Trump thus, is cornering itself into military action against Iran – which they will then own.

Trump does not want that; Iran does not want that. So, has this been adequately thought through? Has the Yemen experience been taken fully into account? Has the Trump Team mooted some off-ramp?

One creative way out of the dilemma – and which might restore at least some semblance to a classical arms limitation treaty exercise – would be for Trump to air the notion that now is time for Israel to enter the NPT and to have its weapons inspected by the IAEA.

Will Trump do that? No.

It then becomes obvious why.

This Trump transformation of America was intended to be rebuilt as America First.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

The EU and NATO are promoting Russophobia in the style of Goebbels’ propaganda, Sergey Shoigu has said

Moscow must crush Nazism, which has resurfaced in the West in recent years, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu has said.

On Tuesday, ahead of the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War – Russia’s term for the 1941-1945 Soviet war against Nazi Germany – Shoigu emphasized the “enormous price” paid by the USSR in defeating Nazi Germany.

“The multinational people of Russia have learned well the lessons of the Great Patriotic War against fascism,” Shoigu wrote in Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The secretary served as defense minister from 2012 to 2024. He mentioned nearly 27 million combat deaths and 6.5 million additional deaths from starvation and disease during the war against the Nazis.

“Today we are obliged to do everything to defeat the resurrected Nazism,” Shoigu stressed. This imperative has “determined one of the main goals” of Moscow’s Ukraine campaign.

“The European elites, who are being incited and patronized by London and Paris, continue to make loud statements about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia... NATO and the EU have launched programs aimed at preparing the collective West for a direct military conflict with Russia,” he said.

Those “aggressive steps” by the West “are being justified by Russophobic fabrications – in the best traditions of Goebbels’ propaganda,” the security chief stressed, referring to Joseph Goebbels, who was Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister from 1933 to 1945.

“In order to avoid a repetition of the horrors of the war years, there is an urgent necessity to protect the country from a variety of external and internal threats” by further boosting the military, developing the economy and investing in science and education, he said.

READ MORE: ‘Real de-Nazification’ would include all Europe – Medvedev

In late April, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Security Council, also insisted that “a real de-Nazification is required. Nazism needs to be rooted out not only in Ukraine, but in all of Europe.”

The foreign policy of the United States is in the hands of the least capable, most uninformed, and most reckless morons the American education system has yet produced, and their successors, if any, will be worse.

American aggression toward the world is hidden under a euphemism:  “national defense.”  In past years before  euphemisms took over from reality, the Secretary of Defense was known as the Secretary of War.

Washington conducted wars against Mexico. Against the Confederate States of America.  Against the native American Indians. Against Spain from whom Washington seized Cuba and the Philippines. Against varied Central and South American countries–remember US Marine Commander Smedley Butler, twice decorated with America’s highest honor, who said that he and his US Marines were the enforcement squad in Latin America for the United Fruit Company and the New York Banks who were exploiting Latin America to the hilt, backed up by the bayonets of the US Marine Corps.

The name of the War Department changed, but we went on to wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Caribbean, overthrowing various countries in central and South America.  Then in Africa where leaders and governments were overthrown.  Then in Yugoslavia.  Then in the Middle East where Washington eliminated Israel’s opponents for Israel. Then in South Ossetia against Russia.  Then in Ukraine again against Russia. And now the US has wars pending against Iran and China, while continuing the one against Russia by shifting the burden to Europe.

In no way is this “national defense.”  

We are witnessing the continuation of Washington’s policy of hegemony.  Washington negotiates with Russia, China, Iran, for one purpose only. To present them with “peace agreements” that they cannot possibly accept in order for Washington to say it tried for peace, but Russia, China, and Iran refused the peace offers.

The “peace offers” amount to the surrender of sovereignty of Russia, China, and Iran. They have to conform their policies to Washington’s instructions.  Iran has to dismantle its national defense and destroy its conventional missiles.  Iran can’t sell any oil to China or anyone else. Iran can’t enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Russia can’t have all of its conquests of the Russian territories in Ukraine.  Ukraine won’t be demilitarized. Russia will be punished with more sanctions if Putin doesn’t agree to a ceasefire before he knows what the deal is.  Ukraine can have de facto NATO membership with a mutual security clause with the West. China can’t continue succeeding economically more than America. Far from renouncing the Paul Wolfowitz Doctrine of American Hegemony, President Trump espouses it.

America is not as strong as Washington thinks it is.  Actually, America is very weak, as is every Western country, not merely militarily, but also emotionally, spiritually. Generations of denunciation of Western Civilization by Western universities have created populations unsure of who they are.  The damage universities have done to the belief system is extensive.  In America’s coming wars with China, Iran, and Russia, what are the American youths dying for except Israel and the profits of the armaments industries?

Why should Americans die for Ukraine and Israel and the profits of armaments industries?  No one asks or answers this question.

…

How can an American believe in himself when he is endlessly told that he is the source of all evil, all oppression? The indoctrination of white kids against their race begins in early education with critical race theory and aversive racism. Can Washington’s war propagandists create larger monsters out of Putin, Xi, and Iran than Western Universities have created out of white people?

So, here is the situation:  On the one hand the neoconservatives and the America First Liberals tell Americans that they are ordained for rule.  On the other hand the Democrats and the left tell Americans that they are hopeless racists who have to be displaced.

The Trump regime is creating a war scenario that America cannot win. Let’s just consider one of the many possible developments.  Washington withdraws from the war in Ukraine, leaving it to Europe, but before Washington can engage China, Netanyahu sics his American puppet on Iran.  Iran, unlike Putin, decides to fight. There go the American aircraft carriers in the region. There go the American bases in the Middle East. Iran’s Russian supplied air defense systems eliminates a large percentage of the American Air Force. America is handed a resounding military defeat.  Out come the nuclear weapons.

Putin’s inability to make decisions is aiding and abetting Washington’s self destruction. Putin says that Russia stands alone against the West which is attempting to finish off Russia by breaking the Federation into a number of smaller countries, as Washington did to the Soviet Union, creating Ukraine for the first time in its history as an independent state, one now only 30 years old, a Washington creation.

Does Putin understand that the peace negotiations are a fraud intentionally designed to fail?  What is actually going on is that America’s intended wars with Russia and China are being sequenced, because the US lacks the strength to take on all its chosen opponents simultaneously. 

Washington’s war against Russia in Ukraine is being turned over to Europe under the pretense of a US/EU split.  As neither Zelensky nor Putin can accept Trump’s terms, Trump can extract America from the conflict by walking away, leaving the continuation of the conflict to the  EU. The American establishment will continue to make money from this conflict by selling the weapons to the Europeans and make more money by ramping up war with China.  

The conditions Trump requires of Iran are so unrealistic as to indicate a total lack of seriousness. They amount to stripping Iran of all possibility of existence as a sovereign nation. Trumps’ announcement of US sanctions on every country that buys oil from Iran is mindless.  Washington is trying to cut China off from oil like FDR did Japan, thus leading to the war that FDR wanted.  Trump has either made a deal with the American establishment or his government has.

Look at the picture with a clear eye.  

What and how is Russia endangering the West that justifies war to suppress the threat?  Russia has threatened no Western country and has done nothing but to plead for a mutual security agreement with the West, which the West has refused.

What actions have Iran taken against the West?  None.  Iran is in the crosshairs  because Iran supports Israel’s last remaining enemies, the small group of Houthis in small Yemen and the decapitated Hezbollah militia in small Lebanon.  Washington eliminated for Israel at the cost of American lives and money Israel’s enemies in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.  The Arab world is no more. America wiped it out for Israel.

As Norman Podhoretz made clear in the Jewish journal Commentary, the purpose of America’s 21st century’s wars in the Middle East is to overthrow Arab states in the way of Greater Israel.  And Washington complied.  Today the only remaining Arab state is Saudi Arabia, and not long ago an Israeli minister added half of Saudi Arabia to the map of Greater Israel. Israel now occupies part of Syria and says it is there to stay.  This week Israel announced that the total conquest of Palestine was under way.

The first quarter of the 21st Century has been Israel’s.  Israel’s American puppet has destroyed for Israel, at the expense of American lives and money, Israel’s Arab enemies.  Now Netanyahu is going to sic his dumbshit puppets in Washington on Iran.

Reprinted with permission from PaulCraigRoberts.org.

The Planned Parenthood clinic of Omaha, Nebraska, is experiencing a staffing crisis that abortion advocates claim is the result of corporate executives’ indifference, a Nebraska newsroom reported May 1.

The Flatwater Free Press reported that the clinic’s recent struggles have included burnout, insufficient training, unionization of Planned Parenthood North Central States employees, and high turnover. Training challenges led to a stay on rapid tests for two sexually transmitted diseases, according to the news outlet. All the factors have led to breaks with standard procedures while abortions are performed. The last licensed nurse trained to assist with abortions resigned from the clinic in April.

The Omaha clinic is also under major construction at the moment, resulting in chaos and requests to temporarily close the clinic or limit abortions and other services. However, management ignored the requests, prompting more employees to quit.

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Melissa Forsyth, who formerly served as the senior director of health centers for Planned Parenthood North Central States, said that while construction and turnover are factors in the staffing crisis, the issue runs deeper.

“… I think when it all comes down to it … I don’t think they [employees] felt heard. I don’t think they felt respected in their work,” she said, according to the Flatwater Free Press. “And you do that for so long that you eventually just decide to move on.”

The Flatwater Free Press added that Planned Parenthood’s management claims employees were never pressured to break protocol, arguing that Nebraska’s systemic health care challenges caused the staffing shortage.

Management is also blaming the state’s pro-life legislation. Nebraska currently protects life in most cases after 12 weeks of pregnancy. State legislators are also considering a bill that would require abortion facilities to cremate or bury the bodies of aborted babies.

“We are working within and against these trends to build structures that will expand care long term,” Planned Parenthood North Central States spokesperson Erin Heisler Wagner stated, according to the Flatwater Free Press. “It is not easy work, and we will experience ups and downs, but we are committed to providing care to our patients and doing whatever it takes to make that happen.”

However, the issues aren’t isolated to Nebraska, the Flatwater Free Press reported. Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation are struggling to retain employees. The New York Times recently found that most of the abortion giant’s funds are used for paying legal and political expenses.

Nonetheless, a shortage of abortion employees means more unborn lives saved. According to the Flatwater Free Press, employees at the Omaha facility said at the beginning of May that only three abortions had been performed since mid-March, down from multiple abortions per week in January.

LifeNews Note: Hannah Hiester writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.

The post Nebraska Planned Parenthood is Falling Apart, Babies Saved From Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.

The US president has claimed that America won both World Wars, prompting a backlash from Russia

US President Donald Trump has announced plans to designate days commemorating America’s victory in the First World War and Second World War as national holidays.

The proposal, first floated last week, is part of Trump’s call to “start celebrating our victories again,” although Russia dismissed his claim that the US won WWII as “nonsense.”

In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump claimed that America “won two World Wars, but we never took credit for it,” unlike other Allied nations around the world, which are celebrating “the Victory we had in World War II.”

He went on to reiterate that “the Victory was only accomplished because of us,” adding that “without the United States, the War would have been won by other Countries, and what a different World it would be.”

Trump stated that he would establish a national holiday “in celebration of the victories of World War I, marked by the Armistice on November 11, 1918, and World War II, with Victory Day on May 8, 1945.”

Last week Trump asserted that the US “did more than any other country, by far” to win World War II, claiming “nobody was close to us in strength, bravery, or military brilliance” in either war.

Trump’s claims that America played the leading role in defeating Nazi Germany sparked controversy. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of his country’s Security Council, dismissed the remarks as “pretentious nonsense,” emphasizing the Soviet Union’s sacrifice of 27 million lives in the war.

General Lord Dannatt, former chief of the UK General Staff, called Trump’s remarks “extraordinary” and accused him of “rewriting history.”

Nazi Germany officially surrendered to the Allies on May 8, 1945, after Soviet forces captured Berlin. The surrender took effect after midnight Moscow time. While the US observes May 8 as Victory in Europe Day, Russia commemorates the occasion on May 9.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged Russia’s gratitude for US support during World War II but maintained that the Soviet Union would have defeated Nazi Germany without it. He noted that the Lend-Lease program provided valuable aid, such as vehicles, aircraft, ammunition, and tanks, which helped make a difficult task more manageable.

The Lend-Lease program was a US initiative that supplied Allied nations with military equipment, food, and raw materials. According to Peskov, the Soviet Union received aid valued at around $200 billion in today’s terms. However, the support wasn’t free. Russia, as the USSR’s successor, only completed repayment in 2006.

A Paris court has ordered suspended prison terms and fines for the cyberbullying of Thomas Jolly, who staged the infamous Last Supper parody

Seven people have been sentenced in France for the cyberbullying of Thomas Jolly – the artistic director of the LGBTQ-themed opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Last year’s games opened with a controversial spectacle that included what was perceived as a recreation of Leonardo DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’ featuring drag queens, homosexuals, transsexuals and a pro-obesity activist in the role of Christ.

The show was condemned by Christians across the world, as well as Muslims, many of whom expressed their frustration on social media. Several days after the event, the production company behind the ceremony, Paname 2024, complained that its employees were getting harassed online and had received death threats.

Jolly, who has insisted that the scene was not inspired by the ‘Last Supper’, also filed a complaint claiming was the target of “homophobic and anti-semitic threats and insults.”

In October, French authorities arrested seven people, including one woman, who were accused of writing hateful messages targeting Jolly that included posts like “degenerate Jew,” “slut,” “God will not forget you” and “you will pay for having disrespected our Lord Jesus Christ.”

On Monday, the Paris Criminal Court found the seven individuals guilty of “repeated death threats, cyberbullying and aggravated insults based on sexual orientation or real or supposed religious affiliation” against Jolly.

The court imposed suspended fines of €2,000 to €3,000 ($2,260-$3,395) and suspended prison sentences of two to four months and ordered the defendants to pay one euro in damages to the artistic director. 

The seven defendants, aged between 22 and 79, will also have to complete a five-day citizenship course, the court ruled. The X accounts of two of the accused individuals will also be suspended for six months.

Their posts came amid a wave of backlash to the Olympic opening ceremony from the Christian world, with the Bishops’ Conference of France claiming that it “mocked and ridiculed” the faith. The Vatican also said it was “saddened” by the ceremony and that it offended many Christians and believers of other religions.

The Russian Orthodox Church stated at the time that the performance represented a “counterculture of godlessness” that has emerged in the center of Europe. The head of the church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, also said it was evidence of the “de-cultivation” of moral values and the “downward trajectory of the spiritual-cultural component of Western civilization.”

The outcry over the event ultimately forced the International Olympic Committee to apologize and delete the video of the opening ceremony from online streaming platforms.

Will America Survive?

Paul Craig Roberts

The foreign policy of the United States is in the hands of the least capable, most uninformed, and most reckless morons the American education system has yet produced, and their successors, if any, will be worse.

American aggression toward the world is hidden under a euphemism:  “national defense.”  In past years before  euphemisms took over from reality, the Secretary of Defense was known as the Secretary of War.

Washington conducted wars against Mexico. Against the Confederate States of America.  Against the native American Indians. Against Spain from whom Washington seized Cuba and the Philippines. Against varied Central and South American countries–remember US Marine Commander Smedley Butler, twice decorated with America’s highest honor, who said that he and his US Marines were the enforcement squad in Latin America for the United Fruit Company and the New York Banks who were exploiting Latin America to the hilt, backed up by the bayonets of the US Marine Corps.

The name of the War Department changed, but we went on to wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Caribbean, overthrowing various countries in central and South America.  Then in Africa where leaders and governments were overthrown.  Then in Yugoslavia.  Then in the Middle East where Washington eliminated Israel’s opponents for Israel. Then in South Ossetia against Russia.  Then in Ukraine again against Russia. And now the US has wars pending against Iran and China, while continuing the one against Russia by shifting the burden to Europe.

In no way is this “national defense.”  

We are witnessing the continuation of Washington’s policy of hegemony.  Washington negotiates with Russia, China, Iran, for one purpose only. To present them with “peace agreements” that they cannot possibly accept in order for Washington to say it tried for peace, but Russia, China, and Iran refused the peace offers.

The “peace offers” amount to the surrender of sovereignty of Russia, China, and Iran. They have to conform their policies to Washington’s instructions.  Iran has to dismantle its national defense and destroy its conventional missiles.  Iran can’t sell any oil to China or anyone else. Iran can’t enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. Russia can’t have all of its conquests of the Russian territories in Ukraine.  Ukraine won’t be demilitarized. Russia will be punished with more sanctions if Putin doesn’t agree to a ceasefire before he knows what the deal is.  Ukraine can have de facto NATO membership with a mutual security clause with the West. China can’t continue succeeding economically more than America. Far from renouncing the Paul Wolfowitz Doctrine of American Hegemony, President Trump espouses it.

America is not as strong as Washington thinks it is.  Actually, America is very weak, as is every Western country, not merely militarily, but also emotionally, spiritually. Generations of denunciation of Western Civilization by Western universities have created populations unsure of who they are.  The damage universities have done to the belief system is extensive.  In America’s coming wars with China, Iran, and Russia, what are the American youths dying for except Israel and the profits of the armaments industries?

Why should Americans die for Ukraine and Israel and the profits of armaments industries?  No one asks or answers this question.

The relationship between men and women and between ethnic citizens and their tyrannical Western governments are severed perhaps beyond repair. The belief system throughout the Western World has been dismantled by decades of White Liberal and Jewish propaganda that the West, all of it, is racist, misogynist, homophobic, and anti-semitic and must make amends by accepting second class citizenship for oppressive white heterosexuals–the “Trump Deplorables,” an ethnic and gender class that in Jean Raspail’s novel, The Camp of the Saints,  is eliminated from the earth by its own loss of belief in itself.

How can an American believe in himself when he is endlessly told that he is the source of all evil, all oppression? The indoctrination of white kids against their race begins in early education with critical race theory and aversive racism. Can Washington’s war propagandists create larger monsters out of Putin, Xi, and Iran than Western Universities have created out of white people?

So, here is the situation:  On the one hand the neoconservatives and the America First Liberals tell Americans that they are ordained for rule.  On the other hand the Democrats and the left tell Americans that they are hopeless racists who have to be displaced.

The Trump regime is creating a war scenario that America cannot win. Let’s just consider one of the many possible developments.  Washington withdraws from the war in Ukraine, leaving it to Europe, but before Washington can engage China, Netanyahu sics his American puppet on Iran.  Iran, unlike Putin, decides to fight. There go the American aircraft carriers in the region. There go the American bases in the Middle East. Iran’s Russian supplied air defense systems eliminates a large percentage of the American Air Force. America is handed a resounding military defeat.  Out come the nuclear weapons.

Putin’s inability to make decisions is aiding and abetting Washington’s self destruction. Putin says that Russia stands alone against the West which is attempting to finish off Russia by breaking the Federation into a number of smaller countries, as Washington did to the Soviet Union, creating Ukraine for the first time in its history as an independent state, one now only 30 years old, a Washington creation.

Does Putin understand that the peace negotiations are a fraud intentionally designed to fail?  What is actually going on is that America’s intended wars with Russia and China are being sequenced, because the US lacks the strength to take on all its chosen opponents simultaneously. 

Washington’s war against Russia in Ukraine is being turned over to Europe under the pretense of a US/EU split.  As neither Zelensky nor Putin can accept Trump’s terms, Trump can extract America from the conflict by walking away, leaving the continuation of the conflict to the  EU. The American establishment will continue to make money from this conflict by selling the weapons to the Europeans and make more money by ramping up war with China.  

The conditions Trump requires of Iran are so unrealistic as to indicate a total lack of seriousness. They amount to stripping Iran of all possibility of existence as a sovereignty nation. Trumps’ announcement of US sanctions on every country that buys oil from Iran is mindless.  Washington is trying to cut China off from oil like FDR did Japan, thus leading to the war that FDR wanted.  Trump has either made a deal with the American establishment or his government has.

Look at the picture with a clear eye.  

What and how is Russia endangering the West that justifies war to suppress the threat?  Russia has threatened no Western country and has done nothing but to plead for a mutual security agreement with the West, which the West has refused.

What actions have Iran taken against the West?  None.  Iran is in the crosshairs  because Iran supports Israel’s last remaining enemies, the small group of Houthis in small Yemen and the decapitated Hezbollah militia in small Lebanon.  Washington eliminated for Israel at the cost of American lives and money Israel’s enemies in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.  The Arab world is no more. America wiped it out for Israel.

As Norman Podhoretz made clear in the Jewish journal Commentary, the purpose of America’s 21st century’s wars in the Middle East is to overthrow Arab states in the way of Greater Israel.  And Washington complied.  Today the only remaining Arab state is Saudi Arabia, and not long ago an Israeli minister added half of Saudi Arabia to the map of Greater Israel. Israel now occupies part of Syria and says it is there to stay.  This week Israel announced that the total conquest of Palestine was under way.

The first quarter of the 21st Century has been Israel’s.  Israel’s American puppet has destroyed for Israel, at the expense of American lives and money, Israel’s Arab enemies.  Now Netanyahu is going to sic his dumbshit puppets in Washington on Iran.

The Death of Palestine

Israel approves full ‘conquest’ of Gaza 

The reported plan includes the forced relocation of Palestinians and occupation of the territory

https://www.rt.com/news/616801-israel-plan-gaza-conquest/  

Each day between now and the May 7 conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over the years. There’s also certainly no guarantee one of these candidates will emerge wearing white; as an old bit of Roman wisdom has it, “He who enters a conclave as a pope exits as a cardinal.” These are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome right now, at least ensuring they will get a look. Knowing who these men are also suggests issues and qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

ROME – At times there can be an odd dynamic to a papal election, almost like a tape delay, according to which candidates get their real bite at the apple in the conclave after the one in which they attracted the most attention.

Such was the case for Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, who was a hot pick in 2005 and the runner-up in that conclave, yet he didn’t get elected until eight years later following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

The reason for the tape delay is often simple: age. When a candidate first bursts into prominence, they’re often judged too young, in the sense that their papacy would be too long. By the time another few years have passed they’re often right in the wheelhouse, with the ironic result that their chances go up even as conventional wisdom says their moment has already passed.

If there’s a potential contender for whom the same tape delay dynamic might play out today, it could well be 79-year-old Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who was widely mentioned as a possibility in 2013 but has somewhat flown below radar this time around.

Should his fellow cardinals decide to dust off Filoni’s résumé, they’d be reminded of a major selling point that came up twelve years ago: “The pope who didn’t blink when bombs fell on Baghdad.”

The reference is to April 2003, when Filoni was serving as the papal ambassador in Iraq. At a time when other diplomats fled for safety, as well as U.N. officials and journalists, Filoni refused to leave, saying he couldn’t abandon the local Catholic community and other suffering Iraqis.

“If a pastor flees in moments of difficulty,” he said later, “the sheep are lost.”

Filoni remained in the country for the aftermath of the war, as Christians found themselves primary targets amid rising chaos. He refused to adopt special security measures, wanting to face the same risks as locals who didn’t have access to guards and armored vehicles. He said his aim was to be seen “as an Iraqi, by the Iraqis”. To this day, the pectoral cross he wears is a gift given to him by the Iraqi Muslim community for not abandoning them in their darkest hour.

That choice almost cost him dearly in February 2006, when a car bomb went off outside the nunciature, demolishing a garden wall and smashing window panes, but luckily leaving no one hurt. Afterward, a Muslim contractor showed up with 30 workers to repair the damage out of respect for the solidarity Filoni had shown.

Born in Taranto, Italy, in 1946, Filoni’s seminary studies coincided with the period of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), and his episcopal motto is Lumen gentium Christus, recalling the council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church.

In a 2012 interview, Filoni said one of the ways he survived the upheaval of the 1970s, when he was doing graduate study, was by living in a parish rather than a college. As a result, he said, he kept contact with the practical concerns of real people instead of getting caught up in ideological debates.

Filoni earned doctorates in both philosophy and canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University. He also has a degree from Rome’s Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali, a prestigious secular institution, where he studied “techniques of public opinion”, specialising in journalism.

He entered the Vatican’s diplomatic service and was posted to a series of increasingly challenging assignments. He served in Sri Lanka from 1982 to 1983; Iran from 1983 to 1985, shortly after the Khomeini revolution; Brazil from 1989 to 1992; Hong Kong from 1992 to 2001, where he opened a “study mission” on mainland China; Jordan and Iraq from 2001 to 2006; and the Philippines from 2006 to 2007.

These were hardly pleasure cruises. Filoni was in Tehran during the bloodiest period of the Iran/Iraq war and in China for the upheaval caused by the reforms of Deng Xiaoping.

Filoni is especially well-versed on China, given his decade in Hong Kong and his fascination with the country and its people, though he doesn’t carry any of the baggage for the controversial deal with China regarding the appointment of bishops struck under Pope Francis.

From June 2007 to May 2011, Filoni held the all-important job of sostituto, or “substitute”, effectively the pope’s chief of staff. That aspect of his background is a mixed blessing because it means Filoni was on the scene for a couple of the more spectacular implosions of Benedict’s papacy, including the cause célèbre surrounding a Holocaust-denying traditionalist bishop in 2009 and the surreal Boffo affair in early 2010. On the other hand, most people blame Benedict’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, for those miscues, and give Filoni credit for trying to ameliorate them as best he could.

From 2011 to 2019, Filoni headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, giving him a broad sense of the situation of the Church in the developing world. Since 2019 he’s served as the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, putting him once again in touch with the Church in the Middle East. In 2021, Filoni accompanied Pope Francis on his pastoral visit to Iraq.

The case for Filoni?

Many cardinals have said they want a pope with global vision, especially someone who can embrace the two-thirds of the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world today who live outside the West. Arguably, nobody among the 133 electors has broader life experience and understanding of the diverse situations around the world than Filoni.

In addition, his long Vatican experience creates a reasonable hope that he knows where the bodies are buried and could get its operations in order. At the very least, he wouldn’t require much on-the-job training in terms of how the place works.

In an era of deep geopolitical uncertainty, Filoni may strike many cardinals as a safe pair of hands, someone with the diplomatic background and personal experience to be able to play on the world stage and not be out of his depth.

In general, Filoni could strike electors as a choice for broad continuity with the geopolitical and social agenda of the Francis papacy, but greater personal stability and reserve – which, frankly, might be a very attractive option.

The case against?

The mere fact of being a diplomat might count against Filoni with some electors, motivated by the motto “less diplomacy and more doctrine”. Concerns in this camp may be augmented by the fact that on most of the contested issues in internal Catholic life, from the blessing of persons in same-sex unions to women deacons and beyond, Filoni really doesn’t have a clear track record.

It’s also true that aside from a few brief stints in parishes as a young priest, he has little pastoral experience and has never run a diocese. Some cardinals regard such in-the-trenches seasoning as a prerequisite, on the assumption that it’s hard to understand today’s pastoral realities if you’ve never actually served as a pastor.

Perhaps most basically, while no one questions Filoni’s courage or integrity, there are reservations about his charisma. Some see him as a relatively grey figure, better suited to a behind-the-scenes roles than being the front man. Sceptics wonder if he would really have the capacity to inspire and to move people that’s obviously desirable in an Evangelist-in-Chief.

For all those reasons, Filoni probably has to be considered a long shot. But every now and then, long shots do come through … and for a man who once braved American bombs, very little at this point probably would rattle him much.

Photo: Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Pope Francis’ special envoy to Iraq, leads a mass for Easter celebrations, attended by Iraqi Christians who fled the violence in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, on April 4, 2015 in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. (Photo by Safin HAMID / AFP) 

The post ‘Papabile’ of the Day: Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the diplomat who braved Baghdad first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post ‘Papabile’ of the Day: Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the diplomat who braved Baghdad appeared first on Catholic Herald.

While the sede of St. Peter remains officially vacante for the next couple of days at least, it’s a unique moment to reflect very frankly on the painful pontificate of Francis without fear of being labeled a sedevacantist. In a recent op-ed for OnePeterFive, Danielle Heckenkamp urged Catholics not to “focus on the confusion and the errors of the past twelve years” and to instead marvel that God’s…

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