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Incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said he could ditch his predecessor’s policy and give Kiev long-range Taurus missiles

Germany has announced a new package of military aid for Ukraine, which includes armored vehicles, air-defense rockets, and howitzers, among other weaponry. Earlier this month, incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz indicated that he might break Berlin’s self-imposed taboo on providing Kiev with long-range rockets – a remark that drew a stern warning from Moscow.

On Thursday, the German government published an updated list of arms and military equipment it has shipped to Ukraine.

According to the statement, “in total, the Federal Republic of Germany has so far provided or committed for future years military assistance with a value of approximately 28 billion euro,” with around €5.2 billion ($5.9 billion) worth of supplies coming from the German military’s own stocks.

Additionally, “more than 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers have received military training in Germany” since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Berlin estimated.

The latest batch encompasses a number of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAP), ammunition for Leopard 2 tanks as well as Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and missiles for IRIS-T SLM air-defense systems.

Berlin also supplied Kiev with several Zuzana 2 self-propelled howitzers, 155mm and 122mm artillery rounds, reconnaissance and strike drones, as well as man-portable anti-tank weapons and assault rifles.

At a meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group in Brussels, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced plans to donate military equipment to Ukraine in 2025. The donation will include four IRIS-T air defense systems, 300 guided missiles, 100 ground surveillance radars, 100,000 artillery rounds, 300 reconnaissance drones, 25 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, 15 Leopard 1A5 tanks, and 120 portable anti-aircraft missile systems.

Speaking to outlet ARD last Sunday, Merz, who is expected to be officially named chancellor on May 6, hinted that he could deliver Taurus missiles to Ukraine. The Taurus has a range of 500km.

Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz has repeatedly turned down Kiev’s requests for the rockets, arguing that they could lead to a dangerous escalation of the conflict.

Matthias Miersch, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is currently in the process of forming a coalition government with Merz’s Christian Democrats, expressed hope on Wednesday that the incoming chancellor, “once fully informed by [intelligence] agencies, will reassess the issue clearly.”

In response to Merz’s remark, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that any cruise missile attack on Russian facilities or critical transport infrastructure requiring Bundeswehr assistance would be seen as direct German involvement in military operations.

Pope Francis has dissolved the conservative Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), an international Catholic lay community that also includes about a hundred priests. Once again, the actual or perceived failure of individuals in the intra-Church directional conflict provided the lever for the welcome dismantling of the opposing side on a completely different level. The dissolution of the Sodalitium cannot be understood without considering the open properties that remain in Latin America.

The dissolution was announced yesterday by the Vatican Press Office and also disseminated by the secular media with obvious satisfaction. The reason given was the failure of the founder, who is accused of severe sexual abuse, although no formal proceedings, let alone a conviction, have taken place in any secular or ecclesiastical court.

What is being concealed: The dissolution decisively resolved a decades-long power struggle in the Church in Latin America, as the Sodalitium represented a counter-movement to Marxist liberation theology.

The Vatican Press Office published the decree of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, which, however, bears no date, leading to initial assumptions that it was dated yesterday. In fact, the dissolution had already taken place on March 29th, a few days after Francis' return from the Gemelli Clinic to the Vatican. This was announced yesterday by the Sodalitium itself.

The dissolution followed years of investigations involving serious abuse allegations against the founder, as well as alleged financial irregularities within the community. The wording of the statement released yesterday is as follows:

"Upon conclusion of an investigation ordered by Pope Francis on July 5, 2023, to verify the validity of the accusations of various responsibilities attributed to Mr. Luis Fernando Figari and numerous other members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, it was decided to dissolve the Societies of Apostolic Life of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae and the Marian Fraternity of Reconciliation, as well as the Associations of the Faithful of the Handmaids of the Plan of God and the Movement of Christian Life.

The corresponding decrees of dissolution, issued by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life and expressly confirmed by the Holy Father, have recently been notified."

The SCV was founded in Peru in 1971 as a movement for spiritual renewal within the Catholic Church. It developed into an international community with a broad global presence. Over the years, however, increasing concern grew regarding the internal practices of the community. At least, that is the generally vague portrayal.

In reality, the matter goes deeper, with two levels to be distinguished: the Sodalitium and its significance for the Church in Latin America, and the personal actions of its founder.

The Background

Let's take a step back. During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological and geopolitical battleground between the two power blocs. The Soviet Union at that time sought to lead the decolonization movement and thereby expand its influence. This was particularly true for Africa and Asia. In Latin America, while not the primary focus, communist propaganda attempted to introduce such elements, but the main issues were stark social disparities and, in particular, a major adversary, the USA, which, since the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904, claimed the entire American continent as its sphere of interest and exercised dominance there.

Thus, political forces that had sympathized with European fascism or even National Socialism before 1945, primarily as a chance to break free from US encirclement, switched to the communist side after 1945, as the Soviet Union alone seemed a promising counterplayer to the USA. This phenomenon also occurred within the Catholic Church. A particularly well-known example of this shift is the Brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara, but Pope Francis himself, albeit in the wake of a lingering movement, is personally involved through his sympathies for Peronism.

Within the Church, against the backdrop of these political and social conflicts, Marxist-influenced liberation theology emerged, aiming to unite Christianity and socialism. Peru was a core region: There, in 1971, the Dominican Gustavo Gutierrez gave the movement, which had been active since the early 1960s, its powerful name: Liberation Theology.

In the same year, also in Peru, Luis Fernando Figari, a layman strongly motivated by personal faith, founded the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), which, in contrast to the Marxist liberation theologians, sought to provide less a political but more a religious response. Social and political answers had to arise from personal conversion, the conviction held, which is why everyone had to start with themselves.

Peru had been ruled since a military coup in 1968 by General Juan Velasco Alvarado. As the leader of the Peruvian Revolution, he pursued a decidedly left-wing course. Velasco took a critical stance against the USA and sought closer ties with both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. In his numerous fundamental reforms, Velasco was supported by liberation theologians. The Church in Peru was deeply divided by the overall developments.

The founding of the SCV, like Opus Dei, met the needs of many Catholics aligned with the traditional order. Thus, the SCV was not only a movement of spiritual renewal but, from the beginning, if not directly, a counter-movement to liberation theology.

While liberation theology found great and often favorable media support in Western Europe, the SCV remained largely unnoticed for a long time but was perceived in Latin America as a conservative bulwark against leftist subversion of the Church – by both sides.

The conservative orientation in Catholic doctrine, the emphasis on the hierarchical structure within the Sodalitium, the recognition of ecclesiastical authority, the strong spiritual focus, the rejection of leftist ideologies and revolutionary aspirations, and the defense of Catholic identity made the SCV one of several conservative magnets in Latin America. Thus, the Sodalitium became a Catholic reference point and attracted numerous young men seeking a clear Catholic identity in contrast to the spreading progressive tendencies in the Church. The SCV maintained schools in several countries and had direct influence on at least one university founded by it in Peru. In 2002, Figari was appointed Consultor of the Pontifical Council for the Laity by Pope John Paul II.

With the election of Pope Francis, liberation theology circles in Latin America saw the opportunity to decide the decades-long power struggles in their favor. This primarily included the suppression or complete elimination of disliked communities, such as Opus Dei, the SCV, the Instituto del Verbo Encarnado, and the Heralds of the Gospel, to name a few.

Pope Francis himself comes from Latin America and is very familiar with the conditions there. Above all, he supports the fight against markedly conservative communities out of his own conviction.

The Scandal and the Dismantling

Around 2010, internal allegations of psychological and homosexual abuse by Figari against young men of the Sodalitium reportedly became known. Publicly, this happened only several years later. Figari continues to deny the allegations. In 2010, at the age of 70, he resigned from the leadership of the SCV, of which he had been the Superior General since 1971. Outwardly, the resignation was presented as a voluntary withdrawal; internally, it is said, there was pressure due to unspecified allegations. Thus, his figure remained untouched within the community for the time being. He no longer had formal influence but continued to enjoy great respect and thus informal influence over the community's houses.

In 2011, the General Chapter elected the former Vicar General Eduardo Regal Villa as the new Superior General. Like his predecessor, Regal is also a layman. Although the SCV also includes priests, it is fundamentally a lay movement, which is why the leadership of the community was also in lay hands. During Regal's tenure, the abuse allegations against Figari intensified and likely led to Regal's resignation.

In 2012, Alessandro Moroni Llabrés was elected as the new Superior General.

In 2015, the book "Mitad monjes, mitad soldados" ("Half Monks, Half Soldiers") by former SCV member Pedro Salinas, in collaboration with a Peruvian journalist, was published. He accused Figari of psychological violence during his time as Superior General and claimed, albeit vaguely, to have been a victim of psychological and physical abuse himself in the 1980s. He reported homosexual abuse, which he accused Figari and some others of, from hearsay.

The Peruvian Public Prosecutor's Office initiated preliminary investigations, which were archived in 2017 because they were substantially insufficient or already time-barred, but above all because no victims came forward. Subsequently, five alleged victims filed a criminal complaint for forming a criminal association and kidnapping, which is why another prosecutor reopened the investigation in 2018 amid polemics against his colleague who had archived the case. The politicized media accompaniment apparently played the largest role, suggesting that there was a cover-up even in the judiciary. However, the new investigations, despite being pursued for eight years, also had to be archived without result in 2024.

Pope Francis, however, had initiated ecclesiastical investigations in parallel in 2015.

In 2015, Pope Francis sent Bishop Fortunato Pablo Urcey, Prelate of Chota in Peru, as Apostolic Visitor.

In 2016, the Sodalitium declared that an internal investigation had confirmed the allegation of sexual abuse and that Figari was therefore declared persona non grata. Based on the visitation report, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith imposed sanctions on Figari for sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and unethical behavior. Figari emphasized his innocence and spoke of a campaign to discredit his person and the Sodalitium.

In 2017, the SCV leadership declared that it accepted the Roman judgment and that Figari was no longer a member of the Sodalitium, as he had lost all rights and duties as a member. Based on the aforementioned conviction, the Roman Congregation for Religious imposed a series of penalties on Figari: he was expelled from the community, he had to lead a life of penance and seclusion in an assigned place (Rome); he was no longer allowed to return to Peru and he was not allowed to have contact with the community. Figari complied with the measures.

In 2018, Pope Francis sent Msgr. Noel Londoño, Bishop of Jericó in Colombia, as Papal Commissioner with full powers to lead, supervise, and reform the SCV, although the community's leadership formally remained in office, but the final decision on all matters rested with Londoño. Figari's appeals against the Roman measures were rejected.

In 2019, a new Superior General was elected: José David Correa González took office.

In 2022, the homo-activist and Pope's friend Juan Carlos Cruz, inexplicably a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, demanded the dissolution of the Sodalitium. This move fueled doubts about the motives of the papal actions in the SCV case.

In 2024, the Vatican expelled ten members from the SCV. Some were accused of abuse of various kinds, especially psychological. Mainly, the Vatican decision stated, the individuals had contributed to maintaining Figari's "system" and its cover-up. Figari himself was also expelled, as, according to the justification, there had been no formally legally valid expulsion decree until then. Emeritus Archbishop José Antonio Eguren of Piura was also expelled. No guilt is discernible in the case of other expelled individuals. The accusation that they had "endangered the credibility and integrity of the Church" is very broadly worded. The fact is that there were efforts to save the SCV, not least to prevent the ecclesiastical balance from tilting further to the left. An appeal against the expulsions was prohibited by Francis.

In 2025, the Sodalitium and all affiliated associations were dissolved.

Necessity or Revenge?

Figari had resigned in 2010, his influence had been minimal since 2012 and non-existent since 2016. He has not been in the community for almost ten years. Therefore, the question arises whether the dismantling of the Sodalitium is really a necessary and appropriate measure. The repression applied since 2015 is seen by secular and ecclesiastical media as a "turning point in the Church's handling of internal abuse scandals" and demonstrates "the Vatican's willingness to hold even influential members accountable." However, this interpretation is precisely where the reading falters. The fact is that under Francis, a strict selection takes place in the fight against abuse: abuse is actively and unilaterally fought, then all the more loudly, when it can be used to eliminate conservative intra-Church opponents. Were revenge thoughts ultimately the real driving force behind the Roman interventions against the SCV?

The purge that Francis has carried out in Latin America is considerable. A look at the four conservative communities mentioned above paints a clear picture. Opus Dei was made compliant through some targeted measures (withdrawal of the legal status for the Work of God and the episcopal dignity of the Superior General) and massively weakened in Peru by the retirement of Cardinal Cipriani Thorne; the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was dissolved, and the Instituto del Verbo Encarnado and the Heralds of the Gospel were placed under Apostolic Commissars. The accusations that were taken as the occasion (or pretext?) vary greatly. What these communities have in common, however, is that there are old, open scores to settle and that they stand in the way of the Bergoglian agenda.

Since 2024, the Vatican has prohibited the Sodalitium from holding its planned General Chapter and conducting new elections. Thus, Correa remained in office as Superior General until the canonical dissolution, but was under the constant supervision of the papal commissar, who was somewhat euphemistically called a delegate. Since the appointment of the commissar , no significant decisions could be made in the SCV without Vatican approval.

Summary

In the long shadows of the ecclesiastical directional conflict, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was an uncomfortable thorn for many – conservative, loyal to the Pope, committed to doctrine, hierarchical. For the representatives of a progressive theology, not least in the circle of Pope Francis, it was a thorn in their side. The lever for an open dismantling was apparently provided by one of their own: Luis Fernando Figari, founder and charismatic leader. His alleged moral failure ultimately became the target that had been sought for years and, through the election of Francis, could be used against the SCV from above with the full papal authority. Thus, the alleged misconduct of the individual became a triumph of the opposing side over an entire community – not through persuasive power, but through the weakness of the opponent. The conservative side did not fall behind due to a loss of arguments, but due to actual and alleged personal failure.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: SCV/VaticanMedia/MiL (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

After 38 days in the Gemelli hospital and two weeks in the seclusion of Santa Marta, Pope Francis has been shown in public again since last Sunday. Following his surprising appearance at the Angelus on Sunday and the associated passing through the Holy Door, Francis was pushed through St. Peter's Basilica yesterday. 

Surprisingly, the head of the Church appeared for the first time without the white robes of the Pope. Had the Pope of gestures already put them aside? But the gestures didn't stop there.

Yesterday at 1 p.m., Francis was surprisingly pushed through St. Peter's Basilica. He greeted some people who happened to be there. During this appearance, he was not wearing the white robes of the Pope. He or any other Pope before him had never been seen like this. Had he become the Jesuit he was before again? He had never given up the black trousers; they were always visible under the white robes, as were the black shoes he had also worn as a Jesuit. The papal robes were placed over them, an always somewhat strange-looking combination that gave the impression of being put on top, as one sometimes perceives with mixed feelings with some religious.

Why such an appearance yesterday? Was there no time to put on the white robes? Why not?

Let's ask the question the other way around. What did Francis have so urgent or pressing to do? Francis was taken to the so-called Altar of Pius X (1904–1914), which means nothing other than the tomb of this holy Pope, with whom Francis actually has very little connection. Pius X is the terror of all progressives, as one tends to call the modernists of that time today. The holy Pope from Veneto actively fought against this intellectual current in the Church. At the same time, Francis also visited the recently restored tombs of Paul III (1534–1549) and Urban VIII (1623–1644).

So what was Francis doing in St. Peter's Basilica? Such visits have not been previously reported of him. We can note, if one wants to find a common denominator, that he visited three tombs. A signal? The three tombs are located in very different parts of St. Peter's Basilica. However, the Popes buried there do not seem to have been a substantive goal, as no common thread can be discerned, certainly not really related to Francis:

Paul III was a Pope of the Catholic renewal after the Protestant schisms. He convened the Council of Trent in 1545 and recognized the newly founded Jesuit order in 1540. Which would be a connection.

Urban VIII was a Pope of Baroque splendor, to whom significant nepotism is attributed and who mainly acted as a patron. Under him, the trial against Galileo Galilei took place, about which Black Legends, spread by enemies of the Church, persist in the collective consciousness to this day.

Pius X, the saint among those mentioned, was distinguished by deep piety and popular spirituality. His main area, for which he is noted in church history, was above all the aforementioned fight against modernism.

Francis asked the security personnel accompanying him to call the two restorers who were finishing work on the restored tombs to him, in order to shake their hands and thank them for their work.

Does the Jesuit order represent a connecting link between the three Popes? This cannot be confirmed either. While Paul III promoted and recognized this then very young order, Urban VIII had a rather ambivalent relationship with it, as he was confronted with conflicts between the Jesuits and other orders and European monarchies. Pius X, on the other hand, had a positive attitude towards the order, which was restored in 1814, which he supported as a defender of tradition as well as in education and mission. That was a long time ago.

It is still unknown whether Francis has meanwhile taken down the Rupnik picture in his study in Santa Marta. Yesterday, the Superior General of the Jesuit order, Father Arturo Sosa, commented on the work of the former Jesuit and artist priest Marko Ivan Rupnik, who is accused of multiple serious abuses, at the seat of the foreign press in Rome. General Sosa said that there is "no uniform rule" for dealing with Rupnik's works. The Jesuit from Venezuela literally said:

Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Jesuit order, gave a press conference in Rome yesterday.

"I don't think there is a uniform rule for everything, but it depends on how much it really hurts someone."

The question of how to deal with Rupnik's oeuvre is therefore a question of whether someone demands its removal or not, with Sosa adding restrictively that "not a single person should make such a decision [of covering or removing]". Rather, it is the "community" that must "enter into a collective decision-making process."

The former Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had already established Rupnik's excommunication in the past, but it was miraculously not executed due to higher intervention. Under public pressure, Francis finally ordered a renewed investigation into the case, which has been dragging on without result for almost two years.

The reaction of General Sosa to possible further charges was somewhat strange, as he said: "We are not afraid. If there are complaints, they are welcome." So far, around 30 complaints in the Rupnik case have been received by the order.

However, Rupnik is no longer a member of the Jesuit order, as Sosa emphasized. He was excluded in June 2023 precisely because he did not cooperate with the "healing process." The Society of Jesus, in agreement with the victims, is trying to find "ways of healing," which requires an individual response, because every wound is different.

How Francis deals with Rupnik's legacy could soon become apparent as soon as new pictures from his study are published. What is to be said about yesterday's and the previous appearance, including the brief reception for King Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and his wife Camilla? Apparently, these are first attempts, in the course of recovery, to sound out a public action by the Pope. Above all, however, the impression is that Francis is to be shown to the public in order to prove his ability to act, which has recently been strongly doubted. Whether this is actually the case remains to be seen. Francis also showed great difficulty speaking yesterday.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Video/Facebook/X (Screenshots)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Ordinarily, of course, it is wrong to inflict bodily harm on someone.  But not always.  It can be permissible and sometimes even obligatory to do so – for example, in self-defense or in punishment of a crime.  It is not inflicting bodily harm per se that is bad, but rather inflicting it on someone who does not deserve it.  The difference between the guilty and the innocent is crucial.  Bank robbers shooting at police and the police who fire back at them are inflicting the same sort of harm on each other, but they are not morally on a par.  The robbers are doing something evil but the police are doing something good, namely defending themselves and others from the evildoing of the robbers.

Something analogous can be said about the harm we inflict with words.  Ordinarily we should avoid this, but not always.  Sometimes a person deserves such harm, and in some cases we do good by inflicting it.  Thus Aquinas writes:

Just as it is lawful to strike a person, or damnify him in his belongings for the purpose of correction, so too, for the purpose of correction, may one say a mocking word to a person whom one has to correct.  It is thus that our Lord called the disciples “foolish,” and the Apostle called the Galatians “senseless.”  Yet, as Augustine says (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 19), “seldom and only when it is very necessary should we have recourse to invectives, and then so as to urge God's service, not our own.” (Summa Theologiae II-II.72.2)

Naturally, there are some harms we inflict through words that are never permissible.  For example, calumny involves damaging someone’s reputation by spreading falsehoods about him.  This is always and intrinsically wrong.  But there are harmful words of other kinds that are not always and intrinsically wrong. 

Two kinds in particular are especially relevant to public debate about matters of politics, philosophy, theology, and the like.  There are, first of all, public insults and mockery of the kind that may decrease the honor or esteem in which another person is held.  And second, there is the public dissemination of truths about another person that tend to damage his reputation.  When insults and mockery of the sort in question are not deserved, they amount to what moral theologians call the sin of contumely.   When such damage to a person’s reputation is not deserved, it amounts to what is called the sin of detraction. 

Needless to say, the sins of contumely and detraction are extremely common in public debate – perhaps more common today than ever before, given the rise of the internet.  But sometimes a person may deserve to be spoken of in ways that dishonor him or damage his reputation, and sometimes the public good may even be served by such speech.  In these cases, such harmful words do not amount to contumely or detraction, any more than a policemen’s killing a bank robber who shoots at him amounts to murder.

Hence, in his treatment of detraction, Aquinas holds that “if it is for the sake of something good or necessary that someone utters words by which someone else’s reputation is diminished, then, as long as the right circumstances are preserved, this is not a sin and cannot be called detraction” (Summa Theologiae II-II.73.2, Freddoso translation).  For example, “it is not detraction to reveal someone’s hidden sin by denouncing him for the sake of his improvement or by accusing him for the sake of the good of public justice.”  Similarly, moral theologians John McHugh and Charles Callan note that “the public good is to be preferred to a false reputation, for the public welfare is the ground for the right to such reputation, the subject himself being unworthy of the good name he bears” (Moral Theology, Volume II, p. 243).  Hence, there is nothing wrong with revealing someone’s criminal behavior to authorities or to those who might be harmed by it, or with warning consumers of fraudulent business practices.

In general, though a good person has an absolute right to a good reputation, there is no absolute right to such a reputation among those who do not deserve it.  As McHugh and Callan write:

The right to a false reputation is a relative and limited right, one which ceases when the common good on which it rests no longer supports it (e.g. when it cannot be maintained without injustice).  Moreover, there is no right to an extraordinary reputation, if it is based on false premises, for the common good does not require such a right, and hence it is not detraction to show that the renown of an individual for superior skill or success is built up on advertising alone or merely on uninformed rumor. (p. 225)

For example, it is not detraction to point out that a commentator well-known for his opinions about some topic (political, scientific, philosophical, theological, or whatever) in fact is not competent to speak about it and that his views have little value.  Even if this damages his reputation, there is no sin of detraction, because no one has a right to a reputation for some excellence that in fact he lacks.  It can even be obligatory for those who do have the relevant expertise to call attention to such a person’s incompetence, lest those who don’t know any better are misled by him.

Similarly, as Aquinas says in the first passage from the Summa quoted above, it is not always sinful, and indeed can even be necessary, to deploy insult or mockery.  McHugh and Callan note that “those are not guilty of contumely who speak words that are not honorable to persons deserving of reproof” (p. 211).  Naturally, people who deserve it would include those who are themselves guilty of detraction or contumely.  McHugh and Callan hold that in self-defense against such verbal attacks, “it is lawful to deny the charge, or by retort to turn the tables on the assailant” (p. 216). 

It is true that in some cases it can be virtuous simply to remain humbly silent in the face of detraction or contumely.  But this is not always necessary or advisable.  McHugh and Callan write:

One should repel contumely when there are good and sufficient reasons for this course, and hence Our Lord… refuted those who decried Him as a blasphemer, or glutton, or demoniac, or political disturber…

The good of the offender, in order that his boldness be subdued and that he be deterred from such injuries in the future, is a sufficient reason.  Hence the words of Proverbs (xxvi. 5) that one should answer a fool, lest he think himself wise.

The good of others is another reason, in order that they be not demoralized by the vilification of one whom they have looked up to as an example and guide, especially if silence will appear to be a sign of weakness or carelessness or guilt.  Hence, St. Gregory says that preachers should answer detractors, lest the Word of God be without fruit.

The good of self is a third reason for replying to contumely, for to enjoy the respect and esteem of others helps many a good person to act worthily of the opinion in which he is held, and it restrains many a sinner from descending to worse things than those of which he is guilty. (pp. 215-16)

It is no surprise, then, that scripture and Church history are full of saints who deployed verbal attacks when engaging with their enemies.  Elijah mocked the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:27).  St. John the Baptist called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7).  Christ Himself condemned the scribes and Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs” whose false outward piety disguised an inner “filthiness” (Matthew 23:27).  St. Paul pilloried Elymas the magician as a “son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy” (Acts 13:10).  St. Jerome was well-known for his invective.  St. Thomas More criticized Martin Luther with vituperation so extreme that some of it could not be quoted in a family publication.  And so on.

Of course, by no means does this entail that “anything goes.”  Again, calumny is absolutely ruled out, no matter who the target is.  And even when deployed against wrongdoers, verbal attacks that are excessive or motivated by a vengeful spirit rather than defense of the good would amount to detraction or contumely and thus be sinful.  The point, though, is that it would be a mistake to suppose that those who fight invective with invective are necessarily no better than those they are responding to.  That would be like supposing that police who return fire at bank robbers are no better than the bank robbers.  It ignores the crucial distinctions between the guilty and the innocent, and between the aggressor and the defender.

It can be especially appropriate to employ insulting and otherwise harsh language when dealing with those who both promote bad ideas and are themselves gratuitously abusive in their dealings with others.  And that is not merely because they deserve such tit-for-tat.  It is because a softer approach is often simply ineffective in countering their errors.  Sometimes a bully will not be stopped by anything but a punch in the nose.  And when the bullying takes the form of invective, the punch in the nose should take the same form.

Consider the New Atheist movement, now pretty much dead but once very influential.  As I showed in my book The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, the arguments of New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris were laughably sophomoric.  But they were presented with supreme self-confidence, and dripped with condescension and contempt for the religious thinkers who were their targets.  Hence, though the New Atheism’s intellectual content was extremely thin, its polemical style gave it a rhetorical force that could be intimidating to many. 

When responding to such polemics, it is insufficient politely to point out fallacies and errors of fact.  For it isn’t the intellectual quality of the arguments that is doing the main work in the first place, but rather the aggressive and self-assured tone.  To leave that unrebutted is to leave the façade largely intact.  No matter how carefully you explain why an argument is no good, many readers will still retain the impression that if it is presented with such arrogant self-confidence, it must have something going for it.  A weak case can convince many simply on the strength of the unearned prestige of the person presenting it.  Hence that prestige must be lowered by deploying against it the same sort of rhetoric that created it. 

Note that this does not involve any ad hominem fallacy.  An ad hominem fallacy involves attacking a person instead of attacking some claim or argument the person made, while at the same time pretending that one has thereby refuted the claim or argument itself.  That is not what I am talking about.  Of course one must, first and foremost, refute the claims and arguments themselves.  What I am saying is that in addition to doing that, one must sometimes attack the credibility of the person, when that credibility is illusory but will lead his listeners wrongly to take his views seriously.  (I say more here about what an ad hominem fallacy is and what it is not.)

Hence, my approach in The Last Superstition was to deploy against the New Atheists superior intellectual firepower coupled with equal and opposite rhetorical force.  I have over the years dealt with various other sophists, blowhards, and bullies in the same fashion.  I make no apologies for that, because such treatment is justifiable in light of the principles I’ve been setting out here.  But by no means do I, or would I, take this approach with others with whom I disagree.  Mostly it’s uncalled for and unnecessary.

Occasionally I’m nevertheless accused of being too frequently aggressive in style.  That this is not true is something for which there is some objective evidence.  Of the fourteen books I’ve written, co-written, or edited, exactly one is written in the polemical style in question – namely, The Last Superstition.  Of the over 250 articles I’ve published (academic and popular articles, book reviews and the like), only about 15% are in that style.  I’ve also written well over 1500 blog posts, and while it would take more time than I’m willing to spend to determine the percentage of polemical articles among them, I’d wager that it’s about the same.

In any event, usually the people who fling the accusation are themselves routinely vituperative, or are fans of some vituperative writer to whom I’ve responded in kind.  Though the “sticks and stones” cliché isn’t true, another well-known saying certainly is: Those who like to dish it out often can’t take it.

Previous open threads archived here.

And so, with dreary predictability, Pope Francis has “set his sights” on the Traditional Latin Mass, which is experiencing tremendous growth among young people. Francis is reportedly moving in for the kill, lest this rebirth of traditional Roman Catholicism become unstoppable (which it is in any event, no matter how Francis — or anyone else — tries to impede it[1]).

The Roman rumor mill is abuzz with reliable insider reports that a document in the final stages of preparation will effectively reverse Summorum Pontificum and return at least diocesan priests who celebrate the traditional Mass to the pre-Summorum status quo in which they would need episcopal permission — an “indult” — to celebrate the received and approved rite of Mass in the Western Church, whose canon is of apostolic origin. This even though, as Benedict declared more than thirteen years ago, the Latin Mass was “never abrogated” and “in principle, was always permitted.”

As for communities such as the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, devoted exclusively to the traditional Mass and Sacraments, the reports are that they will, at best, be confined to their existing apostolates and surveilled to ensure their compliance with “the Council” — meaning that super-dogma of endless reform in which everything goes, except what is traditional.

Francis, age 84, will reportedly place the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Abp. Roche, age 71 — notoriously hostile to the Latin liturgical tradition — “in charge of the operation of the Traditional Mass and the Ecclesia Dei communities.” Anticipating the coming purge of the Latin Mass, the 74-year-old Archbishop of Dijon, France, Ronald Minnerath, has just expelled the Priestly Fraternity from his archdiocese, after 23 years of offering the traditional Mass at a church that is “likely the most frequented parish in town.”

As no less than The Economist observed back in 2012, before the Church was afflicted with a Pope who cares more about climate change than the salvation of souls, the Latin Mass revival that Pope Benedict sparked in 2007 with Summorum is primarily a movement of young people — so much so that The Economist quipped “it’s trendy to be a traditionalist.”

But Francis will have none of that, even though he depicted “young people” as prophetic voices for our time during the ridiculous Synod on Young People in 2018. Apparently, the young are prophets only when they say what Francis and his fellow octogenarians and septuagenarians want to hear. And what they want to hear is that they have not invested their entire careers in a “renewal” that is in fact a total disaster that has emptied the pews, the seminaries and the convents of the New Mass establishment while traditionalist orders and communities thrive.

As Father Pio Pace has put it: “This attack on the liberty of a little number of faithful when, elsewhere, everything seems to be permitted and allowed, would seem incomprehensible.” But then, the “ecclesial renewal” as a whole is incomprehensible — a veritable “auto-demolition” of the Church, as even Paul VI admitted (without also admitting his own decisive role in a senseless project of destruction whose results are self-evident today).

As one anonymous priest has observed (as reported by The Guardian): “The Church processed into the Second Vatican Council in cloth of gold and watered silk, and shambled out of the other end in drip-dry horse blankets and polyester.” The young people who still practice the Faith know a cheap imitation when they see it. What they want is the real thing.

The young are indeed the future of the Church, not the feeble old revolutionaries who cling to their delusion of an ecclesial springtime and, even as they stand on the cusp of eternity, are still trying to stamp out signs of regrowth amid the ecclesial winter their immense folly has created. The Church of the future is the Church of all time. The young want what is timeless. That timeless Church is no Church for stubborn old men.

[1] It is eminently appropriate to recall those words of Sacred Scripture uttered by Gamaliel when the Sanhedrin wished to execute the Apostles for witnessing to Christ “Refrain from [putting to death] these men, and let them alone; for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; But if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest perhaps you be found even to fight against God” (Acts 5:38-39).

No Easter this year, either!

According to America magazine, a liberal Jesuit broadsheet disguised as a respectable “review”, Pope Francis has been “distancing” himself from the CDF’s (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) recent statement negating the idea of “blessings” for sodomy labeled “gay marriage.” America cites Francis’s Angelus address of March 21, wherein — for the umpteenth time — he declares that preaching the Gospel means “sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples; not with theoretical condemnations but with gestures of love.” What these “seeds of love” are supposed to be is less than clear, but the phrase happens to be the title of a retro-hippie rock song by the band Tears for Fears. And what but retro-hippies are the octogenarian clerics who cling to the memories of Vatican II like the secular hippies who cling to vinyl record collections in their attics?

But I don’t see Francis “distancing” himself from what the CDF has declared. Ever the wily politician, he must sense that if the Church were to permit “blessings” for “unions” based on sodomy, whatever remains of the Church’s moral capital would be squandered. Then there would be nothing left to invest for the causes most dear to this Pope: not just militant environmentalism and its demand for “ecological conversion,” but now also militant Covidianism and its demand for the Great Reset that Francis is now openly promoting with voluptuous abandon, including its “sacramentals”: the Sacred Mask, the Sacred Jab and the Holy Lockdown. 

There is no shame in a little adultery, a little breaking of the “rule,” as Francis infamously declared in ¶ 305 of Amoris Læatitia, “A subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values’, or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin.” Yes, you can keep sinning if your situation is such that otherwise you would commit more sin. Utter moral nonsense, of course. But there is plenty of shame and no excuse — no “concrete situation” that exempts you from the “rule” — if you will not wear the Sacred Mask and take the Sacred Jab. Quoth Francis:

• “Some of the protests during the coronavirus have brought to the fore an angry spirit of victimhood, but this time among people who are victims only in their own imagination: those who claim, for example, that being forced to wear a mask is an unwarranted imposition by the state, yet who forget or do not care about those who cannot rely, for example, on social security or who have lost their jobs.”

• “I believe that ethically everyone must take the vaccine. It is an ethical option, because you play your health, your life, but you also play the lives of others.”

That Francis himself wears a mask only for ceremonial purposes and is more often seen without one, as even America observes, is beside the point: The point is the principle of submission to the State by the masses, which the Sacred Mask (like the Nazi armband) represents. Which is why Francis also demands submission to the Holy Lockdowns that have probably caused many of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 by forcing people indoors, where viruses are commonly transmitted, and imprisoning the infected residents of nursing homes where they are cut off from all contact with loved ones as they spread the virus to all the residents, resulting in a “silent massacre” of the elderly. Not to mention the destruction of countless livelihoods, widespread depression, suicides, and who knows how many preventable deaths on account of deferred medical exams and treatment while COVID mania coopted the entire medical system. 

In my last column I noted that I have not paid much attention to what Francis has to say of late because he has little, if anything, to say about the integrity of Faith — which it is the Pope’s responsibility to defend — but a great deal to say about matters beyond his competence which are none of this business, including masks, vaccines and lockdowns. Because of which Francis, ever obedient to the secular state, declares that the Vatican will be closed to the faithful for the second Easter in a row. In this pontificate, the highest good is not giving glory to God on the highest Holy Day of the liturgical year, but rather avoiding, out of superstitious fear, a virus with an infection survival rate of 99.98%. (By the way, in Italy, population 60,000,000, there were a grand total of 297 deaths attributed, however loosely, to the virus as of March 21.)

So, there we have it: the first en-viral-mentalist papacy in the history of the Church. Another unprecedented sign of the unprecedented crisis in both Church and State.