It was a relatively slow news week, with now new theme dominating. Furthermore, many of the articles I read seemed to have been written the week before, further underlining my claim.
The Diocese of Harrisburg released the names of over 70 priests accused of sexual abuse, some of it dating from the 1940s. None of them are in active ministry, and the average comes out at about 1 priest per year over 70 years, which is certainly far from an overwhelming number. However, it is still sickening that these priests seem not to have undergone disciplinary measures, and perhaps worse still that it took the McCarrick scandal for this to come out. I am also split regarding the wisdom of releasing names from people accused of sexual abuse, when the men involved are dead and cannot defend themselves. Something about it rings entirely hollow and insincere.
Not tired of current homosexual scandals, Bergoglio decided to appoint a high-ranking Vatican official who is suspected of being a sodomite himself . As I have mentioned before, we are well within ourselves to ask whether Bergoglio is not himself a sodomite. In fact, I would argue that at this point we are almost duty-bound to assume that he is. Normal decent folks do not surround themselves with sodomites unless they are partial to their lifestype. One of his closest aides, Maradiaga, had to defend himself from accusations of misconduct after it transpired that one of his closest aides had been sexually harassing seminarians. This is the man often referred to as the 'vice pope', on account of being so close to Bergoglio.
In The Moment Before the Storm, Steve Skojec tells us that there is an eerie feeling about the Church, as if something big is about to burst out, and the hierarchy seems utterly oblivious to the anger bubbling up amongst the faithful. There have been indications of this anger coming to the surface, but as I do not hang out with people in the Novus Ordo, I dare not comment on whether he has his finger on the pulse regarding that.
The Bergoglian attempt to teach that the death penalty is "inadmissible" continued to attract attention. It is difficult to make sense of the piece written by Fr. Allan McDonald, who argued that by stating that there are no exceptions allowed with regards to the death penalty, it will be easier to make the case that there are no exceptions allowed for abortion. He is against the change, and naturally against the killing of unborn children. However, his statement does not seem to me to make much sense, since most of those people care not about what the pope says anyway. Furthermore, he misrepresents the teaching on capital punishment: The Church's teaching is not that the death penalty is an exception to the absolute prohibition of murder, but rather that it is a fulfillment of the command that we should protect life. Mundabor had no problem calling Bergoglio's attempt "formal heresy", or making a coherent case as to why this is necessarily so.
Social media censorship continues to gather pace. I am not on social media, so I care not for what they do. I do remember over 10 years ago saying that the West is much more likely to end up like China than China is likely to end up like 'the West' - whatever 'West' means - and I have largely been proven correct. We now have NATO through the Atlantic Council deciding what is acceptable on facebook, and who deserves censure.
This week the censoring agents came for Alex Jones, the US's premier conspiracy theorist . I have watched a lot of his stuff, and I like that he is mostly anti-war, although I must admit that he was much better before Trump was president, as he could focus on completely opposing U.S. imperialist murderous policies, as opposed to defending his man against legitimate criticism, or deflecting that criticism to others. After they were done with Alex Jones, they decided to ban a Venezuelan news site. Expect this kind of censorship to continue and widen in scope!
On Alex Jones, I must admit that I still have not figured out whether he is a legitimate opposition figure or false opposition. If he is legitimate, then it is likely that he sold out a while back, as he now never mentions Israel as being the problem in the Middle East, and especially in the Syrian conflict. This he did do earlier in his career. He is very much onboard with the anti-Iraninan propaganda, presumably because Trump spouts it. I can only presume that when he uses the word "globalist" he means "zionist" and that the man is smart enough to know that there are people you are not allowed to criticise, which is why he cannot criticise the zionists head-on. Either way, the man is insincere in not pointing out Israel's complicity in the creation of Islamist groups in the region, and in launching war after war after war. He seems to have no trouble mentioning Saudi Arabia, so at least we can conclude that it's not the Saudis who he fears, and therefore that it's not the Saudis...
With so much bad news going around it is rarely that I get a chance to lead with a positive story, so when one comes along I sometimes feel duty-bound to start with it. That is certainly the case this week. It deals with family, and introduces what turned out to be a rather family-centric entry.
Given the general malaise in the Western world in general and in what can loosely be termed as Latin Rite countries, it should surprise few that the good news come from outside the Western world, from good old Mother Russia. You see, they have what must be the coolest award in the world in Russia titled "The Order of Parental Glory" and it is given to the father and mother who have raised large families well. If my understanding of the award is correct, we have different winners from different regions of Russia, which presumably is why some families will be much smaller than others. Most of the families will have 8 or more children.
This year's award presentation is embedded below:
whereas last year's, the first I watched, is to be found below:
Before I proceed I would like you to pause for a bit, and realise just how far ahead Russia is compared to all Western countries when it comes to social cohesion and the promotion of decent societal values.
In the West, and especially since the Second Vatican Council, there has been a well-funded drive to destroy any vestiges of commonality, of common values, of ancestral heritage, of natural existence, of natural law and of course of Christianity in favour of individualism, multiculturalism, mutli-religiosity, atheism and the idea that each and every one ought to decide what is good for himself, and that the state cannot get involved in promoting what is good, unless one can put monetary value on it - and not even that, if what is good monetarily gets in the way of the sexual revolution or zionism, or seems to evoke Christian values.
Can you imagine such an award in Sweden, with the king presenting large families with awards based on the fact that the parents have managed to stay together, conceive , bring to term and raise a large number of children? I certainly can't. For one, the awards hall would probably be full of Somali families (more on that later), with the odd Laestadians, and perhaps one traditional Catholic family once every few years (although I doubt Catholics would ever qualify). Secondly, it wouldn't be long before the king bowed to pressure from feminists and homosexualists to include single women with multiple children from multiple sperm donors (which is what men have been reduced to in Sweden), and of course, sodomites with their artificially-conceived children. Soon afterwards, it would probably devolve to parents with 1-2 children, and perhaps even none, as there would also be pressure to show that marriage has nothing to do with children. It would probably not be long before zoo animals would qualify, and they would probably be more deserving that most of the other recipients.
Swedish society is simply messed up and there is no way in which the king, however inclined he may be, would get away with promoting families, unless it was pseudo-families with the award quickly turning into one big depravity fest, more depraved for every year.
Could you imagine Donald Trump doing it in the U.S.? I can't, for he would probably be accused of one phobia or another, of wanting to destroy the planet with humans, of wanting to chain women to kitchen sinks, of taking his cue directly from Putin with the 'logic' that since Putin encourages large families in Russia, an encouragement of large families in the U.S. is somehow doing Putin's bidding. In fact, the only reason I could see this possibly ever happening is because Donald Trump seems to enjoy nothing more than annoying and agitating leftists, so the jury is out on whether Trump would do this given that it aligns with one of his few passions. That, of course, assumes that Donald Trump would even want to promote family life, a contentious point at best.
In any case, where we can imagine him doing it or not, we ought to be able to count on the condemnation of much of academia and the mass media, given how decadent these institutions have become. By this time, it ought to be certain that a number of Catholic bishops would probably get in the act of condemning it, and maybe even the pope - or whatever Bergoglio is.
Neither can one realistically expect the queen of England or the president of France to do such things, for the very same reasons I have outlined above. The less said about the president of Germany the better. Both Poland and Italy seem to have governments which are willing and even working towards raising the birth rate, but I cannot envision either of their political rulers doing such a thing.
So now we can see just what a wonderful - in the true sense of the word - thing it is when the political ruler of a country gets in front of everyone and declares "We are going to promote the family, and we are going to promote large families!" None of that breeding-like-rabbits and great irresponsibilities talk that Bergoglio has thrown about at the mention of large families.
For all of Russia's ills - and the highest abortion rate in the world has to count as the very worst - it is still a nation of old, with a ruler who is expected to look out for the best interests of the country, not only for the short-term so as to ensure his re-election,...
