Islamic State: ‘As for virgins, there is nothing wrong with marrying them and owning them’ thumbnail

Islamic State: ‘As for virgins, there is nothing wrong with marrying them and owning them’

By Jihad Watch

Where did the Islamic State (ISIS) get this idea? Surely they’re misunderstanding Islam, right? Wrong.

The Qur’an teaches that Infidel women can be lawfully taken for sexual use (cf. its allowance for a man to take “captives of the right hand,” 4:3, 4:24, 23:1-6, 33:50, 70:30).

“Anti-Islamic State (ISIS) Outlet Publishes ISIS Internal Document Discussing Measures Taken To Deal With ‘Female Slaves’ Who Suffer From AIDS In Group’s Mozambique Province – Pro-ISIS Outlet Asserts Authenticity Of Document,” MEMRI, August 17, 2023:

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

On August 16, 2023, the anti-ISIS channel on the Al-Qaeda-operated Rocket.Chat server, “The Channel To Expose The Worshippers Of Al-Baghdadi And Al-Hashemi,” published what it claimed to be an internal circular issued by the Al-Karrar Office, which is part of the Islamic State (ISIS) General Directorate of Provinces.[1]

The document, which dates to January 9, 2022, was acknowledged by a pro-ISIS Telegram outlet and indicates that ISIS fighters in Mozambique are contracting AIDS from their wives and slaves.

From Al-Karrar Office To Mozambique Governor

Addressing the Wali (“Governor”) of the Islamic State Mozambique Province, the Arabic document features responses from ISIS leadership to religious questions sent by the wali and were originally sent to ISIS leadership in non-Arabic language. It reads: “To: the honorable Sheikh Al-Fadil, Wali of the State of Mozambique, may Allah Almighty protect him….

AIDS Prevalence Among ISIS Members

Another page of the circular indicates that some ISIS fighters in Mozambique and their wives have contracted the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS/HIV). The document further indicates the group in Mozambique is enslaving women and give them away to fighters as a reward.

Discussing the measures taken by the Mozambique Province to deal with AIDS cases among its fighters and residents within the territory it controls, the document reads: “We conducted [medical] tests on people and found out that some have AIDS. The [ISIS] court decided that if AIDS is found in one of the spouses, then it must be found in the other. So, the court decided to separate the spouses for a period of three months before taking the test again. If the [new] test gives a positive result for one of the spouses, the marriage then is invalidated. [However] the woman should still observe the three-month waiting period [that follows divorce according to Islamic laws]. After that she can remarry someone else who has contracted the disease.”

The wali pointed out in his question that the above ruling has not yet been put into implementation and that he is waiting for a reply from the ISIS leadership.

Discussing slaves suffering from AIDS, he said: “Likewise, we are waiting for the [medical] tests for female slaves, therefore we have not divided them up among the brothers yet.”

Everyone Should Take AIDS Tests

In its response, the ISIS leadership explained: “It seems, and Allah knows best, that this disease has come to you through the women you enslave, so it is necessary to examine them before dividing them up among the brothers. [The tests] should also apply to immigrant brothers, sisters if you are able to do so, and the division of slaves should be delayed until you are completely sure that they are free of these diseases.”

“Slaves With AIDS Should Be Offered For Ransom Or Killed If They Refuse To Become Muslims”

The response further explains that the enslaved women should be asked to convert to Islam, and if they refuse “they should be killed.”

“Those who convert to Islam and are confirmed free of the disease can be given [to ISIS members].”

It also said that female slaves who contracted AIDS and agreed to convert to Islam can be let free in return for a ransom.

As for female slaves who have the disease, who refuse to convert to Islam, and no ransom is paid for them, the directive from the ISIS leadership said that “they should be killed.”

It noted non-virgin women should all take tests before they are given away as slaves to ISIS members.

“As for virgins, their matter is different, and there is nothing wrong with marrying them and owning them,” it said.

The final page of the document shows the seal of General Directorate of Provinces Al-Karrar office….

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Some Subversive Thoughts on Racism thumbnail

Some Subversive Thoughts on Racism

By The Catholic Thing

Msgr. Charles Fink wonders how much of what is deemed racism in our society is really only a matter of feeling more at home among those with whom we are most familiar.  

My grandfather was what might be called an old-world gentleman.  He dressed in a shirt and tie for work, even into old age when he was running a small family business on his own, at a desk in the unfinished basement of his Bronx home.  I don’t remember ever hearing him swear or raise his voice in anger.  He was unfailingly courteous and kind but by no means perfect, one of his flaws being a mild form of prejudice that manifested itself in his referring to members of other races with words like “darkies” or “chinks,” usually with an almost embarrassed smile, never derisively.  Nevertheless, by contemporary standards, he was a racist.

But here is a fascinating fact about my grandfather.  A lifelong practicing Episcopalian, who was a lay preacher in his church in the Bronx, he remained an active member of the congregation as the church’s neighborhood changed and the largely white congregation became predominately black. And when his funeral service was conducted in this church, one after another of the almost entirely black attendees approached me to offer their condolences and to say, “Your grandfather was a real gentleman.”

What to make of this?  Does my grandfather deserve to be lumped in with Ku Klux Klansmen?  Were all the black congregants of that parish duped by a charlatan and hypocrite?  Could it be that because of nature, nurture, and God knows what else, my grandfather had prejudices but, being a Christian and fundamentally decent man, didn’t allow those prejudices to determine his interactions with others?

Before I was a Catholic priest, I served in the military as an infantryman in Vietnam.  Two black boys (we were nearly all boys) from Tennessee helped break me in when I reported for duty in my unit.  Two months later, wounded in an ambush, I was rescued and evacuated with the help of a strapping, athletic black soldier over six feet tall and a stocky Puerto Rican who threw me over his shoulder and carried me to safety.  Color didn’t matter in the field.  We were, as the saying goes, “a band of brothers.”

Nevertheless, when we returned to our main base on rare occasions, and were able to get to the enlisted men’s club for some downtime, the blacks and the whites seemed automatically to separate and sit among their own.  I’ve found the same pattern repeated as a priest at clergy conference meals.  Black priests from all over the world, now serving in our diocese, most often in largely white parishes with white fellow clergy, everyone getting along, gravitate to tables of all black priests.

I asked a wonderful and much-loved priest from Ghana if he thought there was anything racist about this.  He laughed and said something like, “Of course not.  People just naturally feel comfortable with those most like themselves in race and national origin.”

I wonder how much of what is deemed racism in our society is really only a matter of feeling more at home among those with whom we are most familiar.  And even if, as in the case of my grandfather, there is more to it than that, is the bias always so egregious that it deserves to be called out, lumped in with truly hateful bigotry, and the offending person’s character assassinated by being tagged racist or, as has become increasingly prevalent, phobic in one way or another?

If I walk through a high-crime neighborhood, day or night, am I a racist for being more nervous than if I were walking around the block in my parish or hometown?  If we replaced our police with Robocops, programming them to be maximally protective of all our neighborhoods, would they be programmed identically irrespective of where they were to patrol?  Aren’t we all, in fact, constantly receiving, analyzing, and interpreting data and adjusting our behavior accordingly?  Why else do we have intelligence?  Isn’t that what something like defensive driving or alertness to our surroundings on a subway platform is all about?

Dr. Jordan Peterson has become both enormously popular and intensely controversial, I believe for much the same reason.  He has a keen sense of the subtlety, complexity, and mystery of reality and of human nature in particular and is at pains to help others navigate the often treacherous currents of life so that they may flourish and get along.  He is admired by those of us who appreciate his knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and evident compassion.  He is despised by those who prefer the simplicity of name-calling and putting everyone into neat little dismissive boxes.

The Peterson path has the potential to lead to a measure of harmony and peace, the other to endless division and antipathy.  It shouldn’t take a genius or a saint to judge which is the better course.  My grandfather, mildly prejudiced though he was, managed to get along with nearly everyone.  All it took was some courtesy and the basic Christian decency that didn’t allow his own natural preferences and prejudices to be the chief determining factor in how he treated others.

Master story-teller and devout Catholic, J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to his son, Michael, wrote: “remembering my own sins and follies, [I] realize that men’s hearts are not as often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.” 

A little more of Tolkien’s humility and charity would go a long way to healing our broken society and helping us live as neighbors instead of enemies.

AUTHOR

Msgr. Charles Fink

Msgr. Charles Fink (a new contributor) has been a priest for 47 years in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. He is a former pastor and seminary spiritual director, living in retirement from administrative duties at Notre Dame Parish in New Hyde Park, NY.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their

How To De-Queer Your Public School District thumbnail

How To De-Queer Your Public School District

By Dr. Rich Swier

“Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” — Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.


Over time public schools in America have taken total control of the weapon called public education and have aimed it at parents and their children. It is now time for parents to take back control of public education and aim it at those who are bent on indoctrinating their children rather than teaching them reading, writing and arithmetic.

America’s educators must stop teaching our children what to think and focus on teaching our child how to think as free individuals.

If we don’t do this now then we will lose future generations and thereby lose our Constitutional Republic.

Today our public schools have been infiltrated by those pushing the LGBTQ, aka Queer, agenda in our classrooms. Parents are seeing pornographic books like “The Little Black – Queer In the 21st Century” in public school libraries and media centers, nationwide. Public schools have formed gay clubs such as the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Kevin Jennings is the founder of GLSEN and he also established, under the Obama administration, Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in Elementary and High Schools. Jennings is himself gay.

Jennings wrote the foreword for a book entitled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling, which includes an essay that indicates that “‘queerly raised’ children are agents” who should employ “strategies of adaptation, negotiation, resistance, and subversion,” to others.

America’s Education Watch reported this about Kevin Jennings and GLSEN,

Parents who don’t ask the questions will be very surprised at the literature, books and information being used to educate their children about sex – all sex and at an early age.

Behind GLSEN’s promotion of “tolerance” and “safety,” however, are the sordid realities of what GLSEN actually supports. Just about every type of sexual practice imaginable is “celebrated” and even graphically described in first-person stories by students in GLSEN’s recommended literature.

GLSEN also supports gender distortion through cross-dressing, even in books recommended for elementary school children.

Criminal, underage sexual contact between adults and minors is a frequent, casual theme in these materials.

Planned Parenthood, a long-time GLSEN ally, brought enough kits for everyone at the 2005 event and laid them out on their table for all to take. Massachusetts News reported, “Out of approximately 650 attendees, about 400 of those were students.” 250 adults at a Planned Parenthood event out of 650 attendees? So I guess the wolf was supervising the event!

Watch this video about Obama’s “Safe Schools” czar Kevin Jennings who is a member of The North American Man/Boy Love Association or NAMBLA:

Most recently a Oklahoma Public School District promoted Dr. Shane Murnan, the 52-year-old principal of John Glenn Elementary School in southwestern Oklahoma City, who parades himself around as a “drag queen” named Shantel Mandalay, and was even crowned as this year’s Miss Oklahoma FFI, a drag queen event and has an arrest record for child pornography.

Today any parent who questions their public school board’s policies and politics have even been labeled as “domestic terrorists” by the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.

QUESTION: How can parents fight back and win?

De-Queer Public Schools

It is imperative that law abiding citizens take action to De-Queer our public school.

QUESTION: How can parents, grandparents and ordinary citizens De-Queer their public school district?

The answer is simple, make the School Boards, Superintendents, teachers and administrator follow the laws of the land.

What public school boards have done is deprived parents of their right under the color of law which is punishable under 18 USC § 242.

Those who, via public school policies, are in violation of the law can be brought to justice for their high crimes and misdemeanors.

This can be done by any citizen by simply asking their local District or State Attorney to empanel a Grand Jury to look into these violations of law and if found culpable then that person or persons, from the school board to the classroom, can be arrested, tried and if convicted fined and imprisoned.

Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law 18 USC § 242 reads:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

How to Take Action to Empanel a Grand Jury

We are providing the following letter with attachment that may, if you wish, be sent to any District or State Attorney by any parent or concerned citizen to De-Queer their public schools.

DRAFT LETTER:


LETTER HEAD

Date

FROM:      Name

Address

City, State Zip Code

TO:             District/State Attorney

Address

City, State Zip Code

RE: Request to empanel a Grand Jury to investigate and indict members of the __________ School Board, Superintendent, administration and teachers of High Crimes and Misdemeanors

Dear District/State Attorney _______,

Before entering your current office, you took the following oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution and Government of the United States.

This letter is to apprise you of egregious violations against the U.S. Constitution of the United States of America by the _________ School Board, Superintendent, administration and teachers of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

These violations include the crime of deprivation of rights under color of law as outlined in 18 USC § 242 which reads:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

We have attached a document that provides information on your authority and evidence sufficient to empanel a grand jury to convene and determine if it is reasonable to prosecute each of these criminal acts, including deprivation of rights under law of parents.

We ask that you do your duty to restore equal justice under the law and reinstate the American people’s confidence in the justice and judicial systems, by arresting and prosecuting these offenders, in what amounts to an unprecedented coup d’état and pernicious attack upon our Republic, the several States and the American People.

Kindly, advise your intentions.

Sincerely,

-Signed-

Appendix A: Attorney Brief – Constitutional Enforcement under The Supreme Law of The Land


It is now time for parents to control their of their child’s, or children’s, education.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier, Ed.D. All rights reserved.

Miss Iraq Blasts Biden for Funding Anti-Semites thumbnail

Miss Iraq Blasts Biden for Funding Anti-Semites

By The Geller Report

Even Miss Iraq …..

‘Shame on you, Biden’ – Miss Iraq blasts US funding of Palestinian Authority

Sarah Idan, former Miss Iraq, takes aim at the Biden administration and Saudi Arabia over funding of Palestinian Authority, after Mahmoud Abbas launches into antisemitic rant on Holocaust.

By World Israel News Staff September 8, 2023:

Former Miss Iraq Sarah Idan took aim at the Biden administration and other governments funding the Palestinian Authority, after footage went viral this week of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ antisemitic tirade.

On Wednesday, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released a video of Abbas’ address during a Fatah party meeting last month, during which the PA leader pushed the canard that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazar converts and are thus “not Semites.”

The PA chairman also denied that Jews were singled out during the Holocaust because of Nazi racial theories, and instead posited that Hitler targeted Jews merely because of their “social role,” accusing European Jews of harming the social fabric of Germany with “usury” and other irresponsible behavior.

Abbas went on to accuse Israel, the US, and Britain of orchestrating attacks on Sephardic Jews in Arab countries after 1948, in order to encourage immigration to the new State of Israel.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden regime quietly rescinds Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights thumbnail

Biden regime quietly rescinds Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Golan Heights

By Jihad Watch

As always, the Biden regime gives aid and comfort to America’s enemies and works against its friends.

Biden Backdoors Israel in the U.N., Rescinding Trump’s Recognition of Sovereignty over the Golan

by Tony Badran, The Tablet, September 6, 2023:

…Nowhere is the split between formal U.S. policy and the stealth agendas being implemented by U.S. policymakers more glaring and toxic than in the Middle East. This is true because the core of U.S. Middle East policy is the de facto alliance with Iran promoted by the Obama administration and enshrined in the JCPOA. Obama’s revisionist approach to Iran has in essence left the U.S. with two Mideast policies—one enshrined in our alliances and understandings with historic U.S. allies, and the other centered on dumping our commitments to our allies in order to appease Iran. Only one of these is truly U.S. regional policy, of course—the policy that seeks to establish Iran as the center of a new Middle East. As a result, American commitments now serve to gaslight our allies into going along by encouraging them to imagine that, sooner or later, things will go back to normal.

The focus of the split in U.S. policy and of gaslighting our allies is the Lebanese pseudo state run by Hezbollah, the terror army controlled by Iran. By dealing with “Lebanon,” the U.S. can help forward the objectives of its Iranian partner without ever dealing directly with Iran—and thereby can continue gaslighting its allies to the extent that they would prefer to believe that the U.S. is still their partner.

The latest act in the Biden administration’s Middle Eastern Kabuki theater is the use of Lebanon to rescind America’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. No formal announcement of this major policy shift was made, of course. Instead, it was buried in the fine print of the U.N. Security Council’s reauthorization of UNIFIL, the force that ostensibly secures Lebanon’s border with Israel. In a reprise of Barack Obama’s passage of Security Council Resolution 2334 in the final days of his second term, Team Obama-Biden on Aug. 31 again used the route of the Security Council to abandon a formal American commitment and implement a new policy with extreme repercussions for Israel’s security….

This past June, the administration took measures to reaffirm Obama’s UNSCR 2334 legacy, issuing new guidance to government agencies ending scientific and technological cooperation with Israel “in geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after 1967.”…

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

From Cradle to Jihadi thumbnail

From Cradle to Jihadi

By Amil Imani

Every child who arrives into this world is a helpless infant at the mercy of others, not only to be fed, cleaned, and protected but also to be informed about the bewildering life we face. The parents, caretakers, and immediate family can teach the newborn only what they know and believe in themselves, which was handed down to them by the adults who raised them.

The development of a newborn in any family is influenced by many factors, among them how hands-on the parents are, how religious they are, and how they manage him to make him a good person, but also a person better than they are.

From its inception, Islam discovered the crucial secret of getting to the young mind early by adhering to the dictum: instruction in early childhood is akin to carving in a rock. Similarly goes the Jesuit saying: “Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man.” The immense importance of getting early to the young mind is also emphasized by non-religious doctrines as diverse as the Freudian psychoanalytic theory and Watsonian behavioral psychology.

Thus, millions of infants annually end up in the care of people who themselves are imbued with a pathological Islamist belief system rooted in the mores and practices of the primitives of the Arabian Peninsula.

From very early on, the young child is indoctrinated in the belief that there is an omniscient, ever-vigilant Allah who observes everything a person does and even everything he contemplates. Nothing whatsoever escapes this omnipresent, all-knowing being. Allah keeps tabs and bestows incredibly desirable rewards if one behaves as told while dispensing unimaginably tortuous punishment if one strays.

The very young Muslim begins with questions at every step, with fears and hopes entangled with the need to survive and thrive. He is curious to know who he is. What is this world all about? What is he supposed to do, and how? Where is he headed? People die. Where do they go? And on and on. The information booths available to him in the fairground of life provide answers that may help relieve his innate existential anxiety. Here, the Islamic religion plays a critical role and holds great appeal. Muhammad’s religion offers a surefire answer for those willing to take it on faith.

These are precisely the kind of people Western countries, including the United States, have brought from the 7th century to 21st-century America and settled across the land without any consideration for the safety and security of the American people. What did they expect would happen once they rejected the West and declared jihad against all infidels? In no time at all, America, the greatest superpower on the planet, loses its power from within to these future jihadists, and out of fear of the racist label, Americans look the other way and remain silent.

Islam is a powerful magnet for the masses who are unable to deal with the uncertainties of life and death on their own. It is from this population, many already thoroughly indoctrinated from birth, that most die-hard jihadists emerge.

According to his religion, it is the bargain the jihadist makes. He surrenders totally to the religion of surrender in exchange for blanket security. Islam gives him all the answers he seeks for dealing with this world and promises him a lush and eternal paradise of Allah once he leaves it. It’s a bargain that some buy-in whole and some in part. Some refuse it and seek other means of dealing with their questions and unrelenting existential anxiety.

It is foolish to underestimate the dangers of Islamic mental manipulation. All Muslims share an Islamic cognitive repertoire with considerable variations. As with any population distribution, a significant majority forms the middle while minorities populate the extremes. Islamic apologists and many Muslims point to the middle as true Islam, thereby disassociating themselves from the two extremes and may even denounce those extremes as not being Muslims.

At one extreme are the nominal Muslims. These Muslims adhere loosely to the Islamic precepts and practices that ordinarily pose little threat to non-Muslims and may even reject some aspects of the religion.

At the other extreme are the die-hard fanatical jihadists, who present severe threats to non-Muslims, the so-called moderate Muslims (Muslims in name only), and the nominal Muslims.

Nothing is out of bounds to this extremist group in furthering its cause. Dissimulation, deception, and all manner of violence are their Quran-sanctioned tools. As part of their scheme, this evil group has adopted highly effective strategies for subjugating the West, its people, and its culture. In keeping with their supremacist racist cult, their god, Allah, is proclaimed the greatest god — Allah-o-Akbar. Yet, in English, one hears only the deceptive translation: God is great, and not the actual Arabic; Allah is the greatest.

History documents the pivotal role of small groups, even individuals, in precipitating monumentally important events. It is the energized, dedicated militant minority that often sparks movements and directs the course of human events. And it is the minority of Muslims, militant and highly motivated soldiers of Allah, are on the march to defeat the non-believing world and establish the Islamic caliphate.

©2023. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

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A crisis of parenting is the root cause of America’s rapid secularization thumbnail

A crisis of parenting is the root cause of America’s rapid secularization

By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

Not long ago, I asked a young tradesman to quote on a job. We’ll call him Bruno. We began talking and I mentioned that I was a Catholic. “Religion,” he said, “that’s a good thing.” I asked what his was and he told me that he was a Muslim.

“But,” Bruno added. “I wasn’t always a Muslim.” Tell me about it, I said. He explained:

“When I was in fifth class, some kid on the playground asked me what my religion was. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I said, I’m Australian. No, you moron, the other kid said, what God do you believe in? Um, same God as everyone else, Bruno replied. And when he went home, he asked his mother, Mum, what religion are we?’ She said, ‘well, we’re Turkish, so I guess we’re Muslim.”

And that was the beginning of Bruno’s religious journey.

For most kids, though, it would have ended then and there on the playground. More and more children are growing up without any religious affiliation. Being Australian is apparently about as much religion as they can stomach.

And it is their outlook, rather than adolescent rebellion against parental faith that is driving the drift away from God, according to a study by Lyman StoneStone is a Lutheran demographer who works with the highly-regarded  Institute for Family Studies.

In Western countries like Australia, secularization, or its twin, deChristianization, is definitely a thing. Churches are being turned into restaurants or Airbnbs. Attendance at church services is declining. The percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation (“nones”) in Gallup surveys has risen from close to zero in the 1950s to nearly 30 percent.

There are various explanations for this slide into secularism. The most obvious is that secular parents are raising secular kids. But Stone points to a survey which showed that the share of parents in the 1990s who were raising their children with no religion held steady at 7 percent. But the proportion of children who said they had no religion kept rising anyway.

“Kids born in the 1990s didn’t lose their faith as adults; they had already lost it in childhood. There is little to no change in belief in God for 1990s kids between ages 18-20 and 28-30. In other words, the decline in religiosity we’ve seen across America in the 2000s and 2010s, and especially among young people, isn’t driven by a loss of faith among adults in that period. It appears to be driven by a failure by parents to pass on the faith in the 1990s and 2000s.”

According to the polls, secularisation in America is galloping ahead. Is this because everyone is becoming more godless? No, says Stone: largely it’s because of generational replacement. Year by year unchurched Millennials born in the 1990s form a larger and larger proportion of the population.

Is it because the millennials’ religion was beaten up in a cage fight with science? No. Stone writes: “The arguments that persuade children to believe things are not necessarily rationally coherent or compelling, and by the time people are old enough to fully absorb the content of religious debates (their 20s), they tend not to change religion.”

The drift away from religious belief happened when the children were very young, before they became interested in listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s YouTube videos. Stone says:

“… loss of religion is about childhood socialization. School environments that prioritize career and never present religious vocation as an option, neighborhoods where churches are zoned out, churches preaching more political sermons than about the challenges of family and adolescence, the explosion of youth pornography usage, social media connecting young children to the social worlds of older children in a totally unsupervised platform, and so forth. The reality is that the last 30 years have seen a dramatic diminution of parental influence in general as kids spend more of their life in child care settings, at school, and online. This shift has protected them from some damaging influences (teens today do less drugs and have less premarital sex) but has also reduced the reach of some good influences (churches, parents).”

Stone is blunt: the parents of Millennials “were uniquely unsuccessful at passing on their faith to their children [emphasis added]. As a result, huge shares of young adults today had at least nominally religious upbringings, lost confidence in that religion sometime before age 22 and often before age 15, and now form a large mass of today’s nonreligious adults.”

This observation doesn’t tell us why these parents failed. There are at least two reasons.

First, parents were unprepared for cultural change in schools and the secularising influence of media. They thought that the kids would be all right if they copied the way their parents had raised them. They aspired to be “good enough” parents, but “good enough” left their children unprotected.

Second, as Stone points out, they didn’t copy their parents. “They divorced at higher rates, gave their kids more screen time, let their children spend their whole childhood in almost totally secularized schools, and were far less likely to take their kids to church regularly. If the parents of the 1980s to 2000s had in fact discipled their children as well as their parents discipled them, churches today would likely have more young people.”

If Lyman Stone is correct, America’s secularisation is due, not to a crisis of faith, but to a crisis of parenting.

Nothing is irreversible, as my Muslim friend’s experience demonstrates. But religious parents who don’t teach their toddlers to take God seriously are unlikely to have adult children who share their values.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL COOK

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

SAINT DAO MINH QUAN AND THE TRIUNE GOD thumbnail

SAINT DAO MINH QUAN AND THE TRIUNE GOD

By Third Republic of Vietnam, LLC

What is the mystery of THE TRIUNE GOD? It is a mystery that signifies that there is only one God but with three distinct yet inseparable Persons, three distinct roles, yet still one God. The Triune God and their roles are GOD THE FATHER as the CREATOR, GOD THE SON as the SAVIOR, and GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT as the SANCTIFIER.

Here we can see that GOD THE FATHER created from nothingness, darkness, and depths. Let’s take a look at Him, at our Holy IMPERIAL DUKE PRESIDENT DAO MINH QUAN, who gave birth to neo-democracy and then ventured out into the desolate desert with no people, only the cold wind and hot sand, have persevered and persevered for more than twenty (20) years of meditation to enlighten the Third Republic of the Republic of Vietnam in order to confront the communist evil power to rescue Vietnam and stabilize the world.

Moving on to the second Person, GOD THE SON as the Savior. We know that JESUS CHRIST suffered humiliation, mockery, and death on the cross for the sake of His love for humanity, sacrificing Himself to redeem us. Similarly, let’s look at our Revered and Holy IMPERIAL DUKE PRESIDENT DAO MINH QUAN, who sacrificed his family, wife, children, possessions, and his precious youth to live in seclusion in the Adelanto desert for meditation, and who authored the strategy “Uphold the Truth to Eliminate Communism” to save the homeland from falsehood, and engage in numerous large and small tasks, all of which demonstrated his sacrificial nature. He too was ridiculed by traitors as Jesus was mocked by the Pharisees and asked the Procurator Pilate to crucify Him.

But in the end, He embodies the role of the third Person, GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT, as the SANCTIFIER. Sanctification is about becoming Holy. Therefore, at this moment, you are being trained within the FCC, important with Teachings by the Holy IMPERIAL DUKE PRESIDENT DAO MINH QUAN, which first and foremost require you to become a truthful serving the country and humanity.

Through the aforementioned perspectives, we can perceive the similarity between Holy IMPERIAL DUKE PRESIDENT DAO MINH QUAN and the mystery of the THREE DIVINE PERSONS, THE TRIUNE GOD. While we might not fully comprehend it, we can assert that the Three Divine Persons are unified in the aspects of creation, redemption (sacrifice), and sanctification. These aspects all pertain to the “Special Characteristics” of LOVE. We can also see in Holy IMPERIAL DUKE PRESIDENT DAO MINH QUAN these resembles to the “Special Characteristics,” as well as his role in redeeming Vietnam and assisting his fellow beings, which prompted more evident.

Written under the inspiration of a descendant of the Tran family

Smuggler with ties to the Islamic State helped migrants get into U.S. thumbnail

Smuggler with ties to the Islamic State helped migrants get into U.S.

By Jihad Watch

What could possibly go wrong? It’s a religion of peace!

FBI investigating immigrants inside U.S. after smuggler with ISIS ties helped them get past border

by Nicholas Ballasy, Just The News, September 2, 2023:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is ramping up investigations of more than 12 immigrants inside the U.S. after a smuggler with ISIS ties helped them travel to the U.S. border and seek asylum to gain entry to the country.

“There was no indication—and remains no indication—that any of the individuals facilitated by this network have a connection to a foreign terrorist organization or are engaged in plotting a terrorist attack in the United States,” said National Security Council spokesman Adrienne Watson on Wednesday….

According to CNN’s report, immigrants from Uzbekistan had requested asylum at the border and and there was “no information in any of the intelligence community’s databases that raised any red flags and the people were all released into the US pending a court date. ”

Later on, the FBI identified a human smuggling network that assisted foreigners to travel to U.S. and that included “at least one individual” had ties to ISIS.

Watson explained that Department of Homeland security officials started detaining, vetting and speeding up the removal of other immigrants encountered at the southern border who “fit the profile associated with individuals who were facilitated by this network.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the situation on Wednesday at the White House press briefing….

Jean-Pierre said there is currently “no sign that anyone moved by the smuggling network has terrorism connections.”…

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has still not informed the House Judiciary Committee about the status or location of those immigrants encountered at the border who may suspected terrorist ties….

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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Germany: Muslim migrant stabs ex in neck, sends bloody pic to his mom, who tells him not to bother with the infidel

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Exposed: Best Buy’s Discrimination Against Christians thumbnail

Exposed: Best Buy’s Discrimination Against Christians

By O’Keefe Media Group

We have a crucial update on the Best Buy whistleblower case that has been making waves across the nation. Enis Sujak, the man who courageously exposed Best Buy’s blatant discrimination, has been officially terminated by the company.

The Backstory

For those who missed our initial coverage, Sujak provided OMG with recordings and internal documents that revealed Best Buy’s double standards. While LGBTQ symbols were deemed work-appropriate, Christian symbols were not. Sujak’s request to hold a Bible study was denied, and he was told he couldn’t display Christian symbols or verses in the same manner as LGBTQ symbols. Additionally, Best Buy offered a management training program with “Racial Requirements,” excluding white employees.

OMG EXCLUSIVE: Second whistleblower reveals that @BestBuy discriminates against religions. Geek Squad member has audio proof that the company refuses to allow Christian employees to display crosses while requiring them to attend LGBTQ workshops. pic.twitter.com/t6DDJG7Lo6

— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) August 10, 2023

Legal Action Underway

Enis Sujak is now represented by constitutional attorney Mike Yoder. In a statement to OMG, Yoder said, “We are in the process of filing an EEOC complaint against Best Buy for discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, national origin, and race. If resolution is unsuccessful, we will proceed with a lawsuit in federal court.”

Best Buy’s Response

Despite the damning evidence, Best Buy is doubling down. They claim that Sujak was the one creating a hostile work environment. This is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, and it is clear Yoder will not let it stand.

Enis Sujak Speaks Out

Enis Sujak, whose family fled religious persecution in Serbia, has shared his personal story with us. He states that he has been targeted for standing against workplace discrimination and for exercising his Christian beliefs. Sujak has vowed not to back down and to fight for his rights, with the support of attorney Mike Yoder.

Support Free Speech

You can support the legal defense of whistleblowers like Enis by making a tax deductible donation to Private Citizen a 501c3 non-profit legal defense fund. Private citizen is partnering with O’Keefe Media Group as a 501c3 to support legal efforts for those citizen journalists and whistleblowers whose 1st amendment rights are being violated.

Stay Tuned

OMG will continue to provide updates on this developing story. It’s time to take a stand against the hypocrisy and discrimination that are becoming all too common in today’s America.

©2023. O’Keffe Media Group. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Best Buy Whistleblower Reveals Audio of Company’s Religious Discrimination and Preference for LGBTQ Community

Catholic Church beatifies heroic Polish family who sheltered their Jewish neighbours thumbnail

Catholic Church beatifies heroic Polish family who sheltered their Jewish neighbours

By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

1944: in a year of atrocities, March 24 was an unremarkable day. In Rome, 335 civilians and political prisoners died in the Ardeatine massacre. A few thousand more were probably gassed in death camps. The murder of 17 people — eight Jews and a Polish family of nine in the small village of Markowa — was just a drop of blood in an ocean of savagery.

However, this particular event is being memorialised as a triumph of human nobility and Christian holiness. On September 10 the Catholic Church will beatify the whole Ulma family. The father and mother, Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma, had already been included in Israel’s Vad Yeshem memorial of the “Righteous among the Nations” for protecting Jewish neighbours at the cost of their own lives.

It is the first time that the Catholic Church has officially recognised the holiness of a whole family: Jozef and Wiktoria, 8-year-old Stanisława, 6-year-old Barbara, 5-year-old Wladysław, 4-year-old Franciszek, 3-year-old Antoni, 1½ -year-old Maria and the unnamed child in Wiktoria’s womb.

The Ulma family

What little we know about their deaths is well-documented.

After the Nazis invaded Poland, helping a Jew was punishable with death, a policy which was enforced ruthlessly.

About 4500 people lived in Markowa, 120 of them Jews. The Ulma family lived on a small farm on the outskirts of the town. Jozef was a well-known local figure. He was a progressive farmer who kept bees and bred silkworms. He was also a photographer whose evocative images give some idea of life at that time. He was also the first in Markowa to have electricity, having built a windmill to power light globes. He and his wife were deeply religious.

In the summer of 1942, a number of local Jews were shot in Markowa. Some of the survivors asked Jozef to hide them – a man called Szall with his four sons, and Layka and Gołda Goldman, and a little girl, probably Layka’s daughter. The refugees lived in the attic and helped with the farm work.

Somehow, they survived like this for two years. Unfortunately, a Polish policeman working with the Germans had stolen money entrusted to him by Mr Szall. Eventually he betrayed them to cancel the debt.

Before dawn on the morning of March 24, a detachment of five German soldiers and several Polish police arrived at the farm. They shot the Jews first, then Jozef and Wiktoria. The children were shrieking and the soldiers shot them as well. Wiktoria went into labour after being shot and her child was half-delivered when she was flung into a grave. The soldiers looted the farm and ordered men from the village to bury them.

Joseph Kokott

The policeman who betrayed the Ulmas was shot by the Polish resistance a few months later. The officer in charge was identified in Germany in the 1960s but died before his case went to trial. One of the soldiers, a Czech Volksdeutscher from Sudetenland named Joseph Kokott killed three or four of the children. He was tried in 1957 and died in prison in 1980. A photo of him in uniform shows a clean-cut, handsome Justin Bieber-ish young man with wavy blond hair. None of the others were ever brought to justice.

What inspired Jozef and Wiktoria to risk their lives? We don’t know exactly. They left no letters; they made no courtroom speeches; they had no time to shape eloquent deathbed testimonies. But those who knew them said that their lives were imbued with Christian faith. The priest who prepared the documentation for the beatification said:

“I would like to put at the centre the attitude of everyday faithfulness and obedience to God. This is especially striking when it comes to the Ulma Family. It was the foundation of their lives. They were beautiful, very wise, mature people. For them, a given word had great value, if they made a promise to someone, it was absolutely sacred.”

Perhaps the Ulma family should be named patron saint of Gen X. Its slogans are love yourself, forgive yourself, affirm yourself, pamper yourself, accept yourself. The Ulmas represent the antithesis of this narcissism. In their world, “self” was a four-letter word. They lived first for God, and then for each other, for their children and for their neighbours.

What would the West look like without Christianity?  Not like Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma, for sure. But it might look strikingly like Joseph Kokott.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL COOK

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator

EDTORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Russian And Ukrainian Reactions To The Pope’s Statements About ‘The Enlightened Russian Empire’ And ‘The Great Mother Russia’ thumbnail

Russian And Ukrainian Reactions To The Pope’s Statements About ‘The Enlightened Russian Empire’ And ‘The Great Mother Russia’

By Middle East Media Research Institute

On August 25, 2023, during a video call with participants at the Russian Youth Day in St. Petersburg, Pope Francis said: “You are heirs of the great Russia, the great Russia of the saints, of kings, the great Russia of Peter the Great, of Catherine II, that great, enlightened Russian empire, of so much culture, so much humanity. Never set aside this legacy. You are heirs of the great Mother Russia, so go forward and thanks for your way of being and for your mode of being Russians.”[1]

Though Russians praised the Popes’ statements, the criticism it brought in Ukraine led to the Holy See Press Office issuing a press release, stating: “In the words of greeting addressed to several young Russian Catholics a few days ago, as is clear from the context in which he pronounced them, the Pope intended to encourage young people to preserve and promote what is positive in Russia’s great cultural and spiritual heritage, and certainly not to exalt imperialistic logics and governmental personalities, cited to indicate certain historical periods of reference.”


Following are reactions from Russia and from Ukraine to the Pope’s statements:

Russian Reactions

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zakharova: Moscow “Highly Appreciates The Vatican’s Balanced Line”

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “[Moscow] highly appreciates the Vatican’s balanced line on the Ukrainian conflict and the efforts of the Holy See and Pope Francis personally aimed at a peaceful settlement, which unfortunately are openly rejected by the Kiev regime.”[2]

Kremlin Spokesman Peskov: “The Pope Knows Russian History”

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The Pope knows Russian history, and that is very good. [Our history] is quite deep; its roots go very deep,” Peskov said, noting that this heritage is not limited to 18th-century sovereigns Peter I and Catherine II, but “is much older.”

Ukrainian Reactions

Ukrainian FM Nikolenko: “It Is Very Unfortunate That Russian Great-Power Ideas… Are Voiced By The Pope”

Ukrainian media outlet Nv.ua wrote about Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko’s reaction: “[Nikolenko] recalled that it is precisely this kind of imperialist propaganda, ‘spiritual bonds’[3] and the ‘need’ to save ‘great Mother Russia’ that the Kremlin uses to justify the murder of thousands of Ukrainian men and women and the destruction of hundreds of Ukrainian towns and villages. ‘It is very unfortunate that Russian great-power ideas, which are in fact the cause of Russia’s chronic aggressiveness, are consciously or unconsciously coming from the mouth of the Pope, whose mission, in our understanding, is to open the eyes of Russian young people to the destructive course of the current Russian leadership,’ Nikolenko noted.”[4]

Pravda.com.ua: Vatican News Removed The Pope’s “Particular Passage”

Ukrainian media outlet Pravda.com.ua wrote: “Interestingly, Vatican News, the information portal of the Holy See, has posted the text of the Pope’s address on its website, but this particular passage is missing. However, a video of part of the Pope’s address containing this quote is available online.

“The Pope’s words were immediately criticized also by the Ukrainian media and Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, stated that Pope Francis’s statements ‘inspire the neo-colonial ambitions of the aggressor country.’”[5]

Head Of The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: Pope Francis’ Statements “Inspire The Neo-Colonial Ambitions Of The Aggressor Country”

Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, stated that Pope Francis’s statements “inspire the neo-colonial ambitions of the aggressor country:” “The examples given by the Holy Father actually contradict his teachings on peace, since he has always condemned any form of manifestation of imperialism in the modern world and warned of the dangers of extreme nationalism, stressing that it is the cause of the ‘third world war in segments.”[6]

Ukrainian Top Manager Dmytro Shymkiv: The Pope “Is A Sort Of An Embodiment Of The Global South”

Ukrainian top manager Dmytro Shymkiv, former deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration in 2014-2018, stated: “[The Pope] is a sort of an embodiment of the Global South, which is fascinated with Russia, this is incomprehensible fact to me… The Global South has always been against empires. Even weirder is their fascination with modern Russia, which epitomizes the lowest of the low, the worst imperialist example.”[7]

Radio Host Dmitro Tuzov: Pope Francis Is “Morally Co-Responsible For The Genocide Of Russians Against Ukrainians”

Ukraine’s NV Radio host Dmitro Tuzov said that after such words on part of the pontiff, he perceives Pope Francis to be “morally co-responsible for the genocide of Russians against Ukrainians:” “The current Pope Francis is fueling Russian chauvinism and supporting Russian Nazism and Russian propaganda narratives about the ‘greatness of Russia’ during a time of war and killings of our fellow citizens… This very damn ‘greatness’ has already led to the most global catastrophe of our time – the war unleashed by Russian Nazis against peaceful Ukraine that threatens no one,” Tuzov also added that Pope Francis serving as the head of the Vatican, “inspires Russians to commit new crimes in Ukraine.”

Former Minister Of Education: Is The Pope “Uneducated” And “Irresponsible”?

Former Minister of Education of Ukraine and ex-president of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Serhiy Kvit said: “Is the Pope simply uneducated and irresponsible, or the initiator of a radical change in values in the Vatican?”

European Solidarity Party Deputy Sofia Fedyna: The Pope’s Statement Is A “Manifestation Of Cynicism”

European Solidarity party deputy Sofia Fedyna stated: “Commenting on the words of the pontiff, I believe that talking about the greatness and humanity of Peter I during a teleconference with St. Petersburg comes as a very particular manifestation of cynicism, because Peter I built this city on the bones of Ukrainians. It is also cynical to talk about the greatness and humanity of Catherine II, when under her rule the status of a serf was de facto no different from that of a slave. In order to speak of the Moscovia Federation[8] as a ‘country of educated culture and great humanity’ one must somehow surprisingly ‘forget’ about the 12 wars unleashed by Muscovy since 1991 alone, and about the hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed in defiance of the commandment ‘thou shalt not kill.’”[9]

SOURCES:

[1] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10775, Head Of The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: Pope Francis’ Statements ‘Inspire The Neo-Colonial Ambitions Of The Aggressor Country’, August 30, 2023.

[2] Tass.com/politics/1666865, August 29, 2023

[3] “Spiritual staples” is a common expression, meaning the values that bind Russia together into a unified country. This expression has been used by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

[4] Nv.ua/ukraine/events/papa-rimskiy-vozmutil-ukrainu-slovami-o-velikoy-rossii-ekaterine-i-petre-reakciya-novosti-ukrainy-50349661.html,
August 29, 2023.

[5] Pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/08/28/7417468/, August 28, 2023.

[6] See MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 10775, Head Of The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church: Pope Francis’ Statements ‘Inspire The Neo-Colonial Ambitions Of The Aggressor Country’, August 30, 2023.

[7] Nv.ua/ukraine/events/papa-rimskiy-vozmutil-ukrainu-slovami-o-velikoy-rossii-ekaterine-i-petre-reakciya-novosti-ukrainy-50349661.html,
August 29, 2023.

[8] Derogatory term for the Russian Federation.

[9] Nv.ua/ukraine/events/papa-rimskiy-vozmutil-ukrainu-slovami-o-velikoy-rossii-ekaterine-i-petre-reakciya-novosti-ukrainy-50349661.html,
August 29, 2023.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Shouting at the Radio thumbnail

Shouting at the Radio

By The Catholic Thing

David Carlin: Our contemporary liberal progressives may be unaware of their kinship with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other mass murderers. Nonetheless the kinship exists.


The only time I listen to the radio nowadays is when I’m in my car; and, since being retired, I’m not often in my car, it turns out that I don’t often hear the radio.  When I do, I like to listen to one or two National Public Radio stations that I can get.  NPR of course has a politically liberal orientation, and I, despite strongly disliking Donald Trump, am a political conservative.  As a result, NPR often grates on me.  So what?  I like to hear what the other side is saying.

In any event, the other day I had to make a visit to the supermarket, and while driving there and driving home I was listening to a talk show on the Boston NPR station.  A man phoned in and said that he deplored extremists, both left and right.  He seemed to think that the two were equally bad.

The host, an archetypal Boston-Cambridge liberal, agreed with the caller that political extremism is bad, but he informed the caller that he was badly mistaken when he equated left and right extremism.  Right extremism, which by supporting such a wicked man as Donald Trump, is a profound threat to American democracy.  By contrast, left extremism – if there is such a thing – is no more than a minor nuisance.

My late father, despite residing only 40 or 50 miles from Fenway Park, was a devoted New York Yankees fan.  He acquired this addiction when, as a teenager in the 1920s (the heyday of Babe Ruth), he spent a summer in New York with his father, a bricklayer who found work in the city during its pre-Depression construction boom.  So strong was my father’s lifelong attachment to the Yankees that he was greatly irritated whenever anybody suggested that Ted Williams should be considered the equal of Babe Ruth as a hitter.  Williams, my father held, was not worthy to lace the Babe’s baseball shoes.

Decades later, when Casey Stengel managed the Yankees, my father always relished a chance to see the Yankees on TV, a chance that didn’t come along very often in the pre-cable TV days.  He watched with a critical eye.  And when Stengel made a managerial bad decision, my father would sometimes shout at the TV, “Fire Stengel!”  He never asked the TV to fire Mickey or Whitey or Yogi.  It was always Casey.

Well, I was strongly tempted to mimic my father the other day and shout at the radio when I heard the Boston-Cambridge liberal tell us that the grand extremism of the right is a thousand times worse than the petty extremism of the left.  I didn’t shout, but if I had, it would have been along these lines.  “Wrong!  The extremism of the left is far, far worse than the extremism of the right, and that’s why I prefer associating with the nitwits of the right than with the far more dangerous nitwits of the left.”

As I see things, the American left, including the self-satisfied liberals of Boston and Cambridge, are out to destroy the ancient moral-intellectual basis of our Western civilization, a basis that has in large measure been religious (more specifically, Christian or Judeo-Christian), and replace it with a post-Christian basis; more specifically, an atheistic basis.

In the course of human history, many civilizations have risen, flourished for a while, and then fallen.  Arnold Toynbee’s A Study of History, which gives accounts of many of these fallen civilizations, is no longer fashionable, as it was 70 or 80 years ago, but it is still well worth reading.  And so I suppose we have to expect that our Christian civilization was bound to fall eventually – even though Toynbee himself thought there was some chance of its lasting indefinitely.

You cannot be blamed if, like the liberals of Boston, Cambridge, Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, Austin, and many other places, you want to destroy an old civilization and replace it with a new – provided the old is bad and the new is good, or at least clearly better than the old.

But that raises a double question: Is our old Judeo-Christian civilization that bad, and will our proposed new atheistic civilization be an improvement?

The old Christian civilization, which took two great historic forms, one Catholic and the other Protestant, was not only a great thing in itself, but it was the “mother” of almost every good idea and institution that marks the modern world – science, technology, education, law, government, human rights, etc.  This older civilization even gave birth to its great modern enemy, which may be called secular (or atheistic) humanism.

Our American world at the moment – I mean the first half of the 21st century – is an incoherent mix of Christianity and atheism.  My estimate is that the mix is still predominantly Christian; I’d say two-thirds Christian and one-third atheistic.  But the atheistic element is growing rapidly while the Christian element is shrinking.  Atheistic humanism is dynamic, Christianity mostly inert.  My expectation is that America will be a predominantly atheistic society well before the end of the current century.

In the first half of the last century, atheistic humanism made a great attempt to conquer the world in the form of Communism. It seized control of Russia, China, and many other nations.  This attempt has largely (but not entirely) failed.  Today atheistic humanism is making another great attempt, this time in America.  But not in the form of Communism, but in a form that likes to call itself “progressivism.”  Some progressives prefer the softer word “liberalism.”

I don’t say that the liberals/progressives of Boston and Cambridge understand their kinship with Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other mass murderers.  Nonetheless, the kinship exists. They don’t even understand that they are champions of mass murder (aka abortion).  Most of all, they don’t understand what Dostoyevsky said, “If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted.”

You may also enjoy:

Michael Pakaluk’s Simple, Binding Gifts

Elizabeth A. Mitchell’s “So You Can Remember”

AUTHOR

David Carlin

David Carlin is a retired professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in AmericaThree Sexual Revolutions: Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, and most recently Atheistic Humanism, the Democratic Party, and the Catholic Church.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Biden’s Terror Funding Just Killed an Israeli Preschool Teacher thumbnail

Biden’s Terror Funding Just Killed an Israeli Preschool Teacher

By Jihad Watch

Terror deaths fell every year under Trump and rose every year under Biden.


Last year, Biden met with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and boasted that, “I reversed the policies of my predecessor and resumed aid to the Palestinians — more than a half a billion dollars in 2021.”

Batsheva Nigri, a preschool teacher, was riding in a car with her six-year-old daughter when Islamic terrorists from the Palestinian Authority’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cut them off and riddled the car with 22 bullets. Batsheva’s six-year-old daughter watched her mother die.

The Palestinian Authority’s terror group hailed the murder of a 42-year-old preschool teacher as a “natural response to the crimes of the occupation” and as revenge for Denis Michael Rohan, a non-Jewish Australian tourist, starting a fire in the Al Aqsa occupation mosque in 1969.

Those who knew the preschool teacher described her as a woman with a “heart of gold” to whom “all the children were like her children.” Hamas and Islamic Jihad however claimed that her murder glorifies Allah.

Monday’s murder comes after an Israeli father and son were shot to death on the Sabbath. They’re among a growing list of terror victims this year ranging in age from a 6-year-old boy run down on a Jerusalem street to an 82-year-old woman who was killed while trying to get her disabled husband to safety when a rocket hit their building.

The twenty-six terror victims are a sharp increase from the only 3 deaths in 2020 when the Trump administration’s cutoff of aid to the terrorists occupying parts of Israel took effect.

The number of terror victims fell every year Trump was in office, from 15 in 2017, to 12 in 2018, 10 in 2019 and then only 3 in 2020. And the number of terror victims shot up every year Biden was in office from 17 in 2021, to 31 in 2022, and there is every sign that 2023 will top that.

Twice as many Israelis were killed in one month of Biden than in one year of Trump.

It’s only August and already 26 Israelis have been killed by Islamic terrorists. Last year at this time 18 Israelis had been killed by terrorists making for a 40% increase in 2023.

What made all the difference? As Rep. Ilhan Omar once said, “It’s all about the ‘benjamins’”.

In 2018, Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, named after an Iraq War veteran who was stabbed to death by a terrorist in Jerusalem, which cut off most aid to the Palestinian Authority. In 2019, President Trump went even further with a nearly total cutoff of aid to the Palestinian Authority. Biden not only restored aid, he sharply increased the flow of cash to the terrorists.

Biden’s half a billion dollars helped fuel a massive surge in Islamic terrorism. While the money is officially listed as humanitarian aid, injecting money into terror zones funds terrorism.

The Palestinian Authority maintains a ‘pay-to-slay’ program which pays salaries to terrorists based on the lengths of their prison sentences. That means successful killers can earn $3,000 a month in a part of the world where the average salary is around $700 a month. It’s five times more profitable to be a terrorist than a teacher.

That’s the price of Batsheva’s life and that is what the Biden administration has been paying for.

The Biden administration is well aware that the Palestinian Authority funds terrorism. While Biden and Secretary of State Blinken refused to raise the issue with terror leader Mahmoud Abbas, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf claimed, “we are working to bring pay-to-slay to an end.” Instead the United States is funding pay-to-slay.

And worse.

Recent documents reveal that the State Department applied for an OFAC license which exempts it from Global Terrorist Sanctions Regulations in order to provide foreign aid.

A government sanctions exemption document warned that, “we assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups.”

The Biden administration knows that it’s funding terrorism. It is not only aware of it but it actually applied for an exemption in order to be able to continue funding terrorists… including Hamas.

Batsheva’s murder, like that of the 74 terror victims killed under Biden, was paid for directly and indirectly through foreign aid to terrorists and sanctions relief on Iran’s terror regime. These policies were not undertaken in ignorance, the OFAC documents provide clear evidence that the Biden administration had been warned that it was funding terrorism and that people would die.

That’s why the number of Israelis continues to climb every year that Biden has been in office.

After 7 Israelis, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed in a Sabbath terrorist attack outside a synagogue in January 2023, Secretary of State Blinken met with Mahmoud Abbas and promised another $50 million to UNRWA which acts as the employment agency for Hamas. Earlier that same month, the Biden administration warned Israel to turn over $39 million in tax revenues to terrorists rather than providing that money to help terror victims rebuild their lives.

In August, with 4 Israelis already murdered, the Biden administration demanded that Republicans stop blocking $75 million in “humanitarian aid” to the UN agency. Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Michael McCaul are determined to block that aid until Secretary of State Blinken certifies that UNRWA “is not affiliated with U.S. designated foreign terrorist organizations”. And yet the Biden administration can’t seem to even manage to clear that lowest of legal bars.

In Batsheva’s hometown of Efrat, which the Biden administration considers an “illegal settlement” despite being referenced numerous times in the bible, the children have lost a teacher and a friend.

The murdered preschool teacher had been on the way to “prepare the kindergarten for the start of the year.” A woman who worked with her described how “every time I entered the kindergarten, she welcomed me with a beaming smile that always accompanied her. The children were everything to her, she always hugged them and gave what she could to the children, the staff, the parents.”

Batsheva did not have to die. None of the 26 already killed this year did. The 3 dead in 2020 show what’s possible. The Biden administration is knowingly funding the murder of the innocent.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Should a Catholic School be Teaching Social Emotional Learning? thumbnail

Should a Catholic School be Teaching Social Emotional Learning?

By John Droz, Jr.

Does the New Testament discuss children determining their sexual identity?


I’ll skip naming names here, to protect the innocent (if there are any).

Let’s say that a Left-Leaning national organization, approaches a K-12 Catholic School, and gives them a very polished sales pitch about how they can help this school institute a program for each grade level on Social Emotional Learning (SEL).

Their spiel includes such assertions as: a) SEL is a hot commodity, as they have signed up many schools already, b) SEL is consistent with the school’s values, c) SEL can be introduced without taking up more class time, by simply having it replace some already scheduled religion time, d) there will be no “consequential” cost for this new SEL classroom material (e.g., see here for sample annual cost), e) etc.

Are any of those claims true and/or make sense? IMO the answer for each is: a) This is more proof that Critical Thinking is at dangerously low levels. FYI, if your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you too? b) This is totally false. c) It makes no sense to reduce religion education time in a Catholic school. It makes even less sense to substitute secular ideology for religion time! d) The real cost is not in dollars, but in what is being put into the heads of innocent students.

Please read my prior short Substack Commentary on SEL, and my answers should now make sense. Pay particular attention to this superior Report by Moms for Liberty.

So if your Catholic K-12 School says that they are considering adding SEL to the curriculum (or if they have already surreptitiously done it), I would suggest politely asking these questions:

1 – Exactly what specific additional religious values will the new SEL material be adding that are not part of the existing religious curriculum?

2 – Does the school advocate less emphasis on academic accomplishment and more on Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)?

3 – Will the SEL program involve any discussions of sex with our children (e.g., regarding sexual identity)?

4 – Why would a Catholic School replace teaching the New Testament, etc. with material concocted to promote a secular non-Christian religion?

SEL is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A sample endorsement of SEL is: “In a world where emotional intelligence is critical for lifelong happiness, successful careers, and healthier relationships, SEL gives students a framework for developing these skills.”

But WAIT! Isn’t that the main reason that parents are paying a premium to send their children to a Catholic School? That School’s public position should be: “In a world where critical thinking and strong religious values are essential for lifelong happiness, successful careers, and healthier relationships, this school gives students a solid Judeo-Christian framework for developing these skills.”

A more honest assessment of some SEL goals is found in this study, which says that the field of SEL aims to prepare students for not only engaged but also critical citizenship (i.e., collectivism, productive interactionism). In layman’s terms, it means that SEL is designed to inspire children to be social revolutionaries. Is that a goal of Catholic education?

The number one objective of K-12 education (Catholic and otherwise) should be to produce graduates who have the ability and interest in doing Critical Thinking. On the other hand, one of the primary goals of SEL is to groom children to be compliant future global citizens who do not question authority and who go along with the consensus. This is the exact opposite of teaching Critical Thinking.


Catholics believe that we are engaged in a cataclysmic war between Good and Evil. These opposing forces are led by Jesus Christ and the Devil. We can visualize Jesus, but the Devil is another matter: a fire-breathing demon with a pitchfork, etc? In actuality, the Devil knows no one would embrace such a threatening character, so he shows up as a smiling, helpful, Ph.D. saying: Let me have access to the souls of your children. It will only be two hours a week, and they will be happier and less anxious. Trust me!

There is no bigger victory that Satan can have, than a Catholic School voluntarily turning over access to the souls of children in their care, by agreeing to reduce time spent on Jesus and substituting material from a secular (i.e., atheistic) organization.

My commentaries here are about Critical Thinking, and the only way that parents, teachers, administrators, and clergy of a Catholic School would allow such a travesty to happen, would be due to a profound deficiency in Critical Thinking by all parties involved.

Note 1 — Who am I to comment on Catholic education? First, I’m a product of Catholic education: I had Sisters of St Joseph in grammar school, Xavarian Brothers in high school, and Jesuits in college (Boston College). It was excellent! Second, I’ve been on Catholic School boards for over ten years — even though we had no children in the schools. Third, I’ve extensively studied K-12 education and what needs to be done (e.g., see my Education Report). Fourth, I’m a Critical Thinker.

Note 2 — Most everything here applies to public schools, charter schools, religious schools of other denominations, and home schools.

Note 3 — If you’d like to do additional research on SEL, here are some good materials: Report: Social Emotional Learning — K–12 Education as New Age Nanny State… Report: Social Emotional Learning — Don’t Be Fooled By The Title… Article: The Trouble with Social Emotional Learning Article: The Latest Big Education Fad, Social-Emotional Learning, Is As Bad As It Sounds… Short video: Social Emotional Learning explained w James Lindsay… Longer Video: Social Emotional Learning | James Lindsay (Here he explains the connection of Communism with SEL.)

©2023. John Droz, Jr. All rights reserved.

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Is Our Government ‘Adequate’ for Today’s Citizenry?

By The Catholic Thing

John M. Grondelski: If America becomes too secular, can our system of government – one “made for a moral and religious people” – survive?


In a recent column, “God and Caesar Today,” I raised the question of whether the Christian division of “things of Caesar” and “things of God” still made sense.  We live in a time when Caesar (at least in his “democratic” versions) professes to be agnostic about God.  It’s also a time when growing numbers of people couldn’t tell you where the idea of “God and Caesar” comes from.  So when we Christians talk about “rendering” each his due, we are speaking a language Caesar and his minions no longer understand. The issue is whether we are talking to or past each other.

Closely allied to that question is whether the citizenry we have can make sense of our system of government.  Writing to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798, John Adams made his famous observation that “[o]ur Constitution was made for a moral and religious People.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Adams could assume our Constitution was made for religious people because, 18th-century Enlightenment thought notwithstanding, a critical mass of American thought still coasted along on remnants of faith and morals that ultimately came from Catholicism.  But like many other revolutionaries who claimed to be just reformers, the Founders assumed (wrongly) that the theological adjustments they made would not affect the rest of the order in which they operated.  Removing the God of Creation and Redemption and replacing Him with the real absence of Deism is not going to give you the robust God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus.

That one cannot tinker “over here” without affecting “over there” was already evident with Luther.  He abandoned a real order of being and good in favor of nominalism. In that perspective, there was nothing intrinsically “good” or “evil” about “good” or “evil.”  They were merely commands that reflect God’s omnipotent will.  God goes from a Creator of reality to a divine labeler: truth is good, lying is bad.

But when people’s faith in God wanes, less-than-omnipotent men usually step into the void and, in this case, took over the divine labeling function.  From there the trip to moral relativism (and its dictatorship) is faster than you can say “intersectional gender binary safe space!”

And when the God of Providence goes on an extended vacation, leaving a windup clockmaker’s universe behind, who misses Him after a while?  It’s not God leading history; history suddenly has its own “arc” that “bends” (consciously? semi-consciously? unconsciously?) towards “justice” (meaning whatever cause du jour you want to stick that name on).

Justice William Douglas observed in Zorach v. Clauson that “[we] are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”  But what if those institutions that presuppose God are administered by and serve people who are not religious?  Does that Constitution still even make sense?

Let me offer an observation.  One way in which the American Constitution has historically been considered a masterpiece is in its checks and balances.  In many ways, the system was designed to hinder rather than help doing things.  If things were to get done, they would take time, deliberation, and effort to build consensus across a variety of interests and a diversity of principles and representation, not all of which were reducible to “one man, one vote.”

Arguably, the genius of Constitutional checks and balances had a religious origin: the doctrine of Original Sin.  The Founders wanted to check what people could do because they were aware that people are more prone to do evil rather than good, to be selfish rather than selfless.  The occasional Deist enlightenment thinker like Jefferson might have warmed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s illusions that civilization, not sin, warps man.  But the mainstream Founders – especially those who took their Protestantism seriously – held to a more realistic (albeit pessimistic) vision of human possibilities after the Fall.

In our day, when Original Sin is regarded as a religious superstition, history is on automatic pilot, and all dogs and people go to heaven, do checks and balances still make sense?

Are they not, rather, vestiges of “privilege” (especially for dead white American males) frustrating all the “good” things government could do if “minority rule” were not restraining it?

Is the idea that consensus has to be built not only by headcount but across geography and geographical differences, with all their local interests (the reason both the U.S. Senate and Electoral College exist) just another artifact frustrating equality and majority rule?

Is the very idea of a written Constitution that constrains what people can do today by measuring it against powers and limits devised by people long dead alien to democracy – especially when those limits are interpreted not according to current predilections but on the basis of what they meant when people put them once-upon-a-time into force?

Christianity believes in a past, present, and future.  The past – the time of the Old and New Testaments – is normative for measuring the present and sets the trajectory for the future.  But does “passing on what you have received” make sense to a generation almost irretrievably mired in the immediate present?

Can our Constitution and the system of government it frames – one that “presupposes a moral and religious People” – survive if and when Nones acquire a critical mass?

The Founders’ generation extended the life of the religious remnants informing their culture by supporting at least some amalgam of “civil religion” that looked like mainstream, nondenominational Protestantism.  That “religion” is now gone, as is the Protestant Mainline.  For various reasons, as many observers have noted, the “Catholic Moment” that might have filled that vacuum never arrived.

While there still may be time to return to these issues, the warning light is on, and the car is cruising on fumes.  Current religious trends are not encouraging. If the near total secularization of our people occurs, can our system of government – one “wholly inadequate” to a non-religious people – survive?

We may soon find ourselves testing that possibility.


You may also enjoy:

Robert Royal’s We’ve Got Issues – and They’re Cosmic

Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s How to Make America Great


AUTHOR

John M. Grondelski

John Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is a former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All views herein are exclusively his.

RELATED ARTICLE: White House And Dark Money NGO Hype Hate Crisis To Demand Censorship

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.  © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

St. Augustine’s Two Trees thumbnail

St. Augustine’s Two Trees

By The Catholic Thing

What’s to be learned from a man who died 1600 years ago, in a time and place so different from our own that it takes a serious effort – of imagination as well as study — to understand what he was all about?


Today is the Feast of St. Augustine – and also my late mother’s birthday. I don’t think she ever read a word of Augustine’s, but she may have caught wind of St. Monica’s tears over her young son (as recounted in Confessions) . . . and made the connection to her own son’s adolescent waverings. In any case, when you read Augustine, it’s almost impossible not to see parallels with your own life, and in a deeply personal way. Aquinas is primarily the great master of the mind, Augustine the passionate guide to the heart.

The very first page of Confessions, of course, contains his much-quoted line: fecisti nos ad te et inquietem est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te (“You made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”) You can read that as simply a pious expression, and no harm. (When I teach Augustine, though, I warn students not to assume they already know what “heart” signifies here.) If you read on, you get a profound exposition – amidst a story of worldly temptations and ambitions, intellectual and spiritual confusions, as powerful then as they are now – of what those seemingly simple words mean.

Social commentators sometimes talk about how “the world has lost its story,” meaning we no longer know why we exist as persons or societies. At bottom, the story we’ve lost is the Biblical view of history. As a result, the stories we substituted for it – enlightenment, national greatness, economic progress, even science – which depended on there being a sense and direction to life, no longer have any real substance.

And it shows. Desperate attempts at establishing “identity” by latching on to race and gender “communities,” or engaging in environmental or political crusades, are in the end, modern manifestations of unquiet hearts.

In a way, even a massive work like City of God, written to refute the charge that Rome’s abandoning of the pagan gods for Christianity led to its sacking in 410 by the Visigoths, reflects Augustine’s belief that our confidence in our own powers, independent of God, to establish perfect justice on earth is just another delusion we hope will quiet our restlessness.

Augustine’s Confessions first narrates what it’s like to lose the world’s true story and flail around.  He weaves much philosophy and theology – and astute psychology – into the drama of his own life and conversion, which involved some of the great figures of his time – prominent philosophers, religious leaders, politicians, St. Ambrose, even the Roman emperor, many friends and ordinary folk.

But his personal story finally makes sense only when he recovers the larger story, a natural subject for fiction writers. Louis de Wohl, half a century ago, wrote a still-interesting novel about Augustine, The Restless Flame. And the young Augustine’s concubine, unnamed in Confessions, has received imaginative treatment in Suzanne Wolfe’s The Confessions of X.

Fr. Aidan Nichols O. P., with a humility rare among great scholars, bluntly admits, “With the possible exception of Cicero, more is known about Saint Augustine than about any other figure from Antiquity. We know far too much about him for that knowledge to be readily manageable.”

Yet Nichols, in The Singing Masters: Church Fathers from Greek East and Latin West, manages marvelously. (In our own modest way at TCT Courses, we’ve tried to give you manageable introductions to Confessions and City of God.)

Still, what’s to be learned from a man who died 1600 years ago, in a time and place so different from our own that it takes a serious effort – of imagination as well as study – just to begin to understand what he was all about?

Well, perhaps the first thing is that despite all those differences there’s much that speaks, with sharp immediacy, to us because – pace the proud progressives of all ages –  many human things don’t change.

Fr. Nichols sums it up as a tale of “two trees.”

The first, the pear tree that Augustine and his teenage posse stole fruit from, early in Confessions, not because they were hungry, or the pears were good (they weren’t), but out of casual perversity. The deepest refutation of what we now call being “woke” is the classical and Christian belief that human hearts, all human hearts including the most “woke,” waver between good and – to use the tight term – evil.

In the ancient world, people were so aware of evil that a religion developed – Manichaesim – that posited two gods, one good and one evil. Augustine spent around a decade embroiled in this false faith until he thought his way through – and out. But many others did not. Fr. Nichols says, “The fullest set of Manichee writings are in Chinese, testifying that the ‘Religion of Light’ spread quite as far eastward as it did westward. From Algeria to China, it was Christianity’s main competitor until the rise of Islam.”

The pear tree, like the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, tells a deep story.  Ultimately, it isn’t society, or economic conditions, or your family that explain your bad behavior, because any imperfections to be found among them stem from the same human source: restless hearts attracted to good and evil.

But there’s another tree in the story. At the moment of his conversion, “I flung myself down, how, I know not, under a certain fig-tree,” says Augustine. (Bk. VIII) Fr. Nichols notices what many of us might overlook: that the second tree is a fig tree, and it was from fig leaves that Adam and Eve fashioned themselves coverings after they sinned and felt naked.

Augustine no doubt had this in mind.  And so what’s about to happen is precisely a reversal of the direction that we took that fatal day in Eden.

Which happens every time someone is converted – turns in the right direction, recovers the world’s story, which is also our own personal story, and finds peace of heart.

You may also enjoy:

Benedict XVI’s St. Augustine’s strong hope

James Matthew Wilson’s Augustine’s True Story

AUTHOR

Robert Royal

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thingand president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orginfo@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Phase Out Military Aid to Israel by 2028 thumbnail

Vivek Ramaswamy Wants to Phase Out Military Aid to Israel by 2028

By Jihad Watch

Among the Republican candidates for President whom you likely had not heard of until the recent debate in Milwaukee is the Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy, a near-billionaire biotech entrepreneur and investor who has never held elective office. He has strong positions on domestic policy, but in foreign policy he has focused almost entirely on reducing American dependence on China. He has expressed a desire to learn “the truth about 9/11,” which could indicate that he thinks there has been a cover-up, leading some to fear he is a conspiracy theorist. Though a Hindu, he has never shown the slightest interest in the history and present condition of Hindus in southeast Asiaincluding the mass murder of 80 million Hindus by Muslims, nor in the continued aggression by Muslims against Hindus, both in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in India itself. He has had no comment, for example, on the Muslims who attacked and drove out 350,000 Hindus from Kashmir — the “Kashmiri pandits” — in recent decades.

Ramaswamy considers himself to be “pro-Israel.” He supports former President Trump’s moving of the American Embassy to Jerusalem. At Yale Law School, Ramaswamy belonged to Shabtai, which he has described as a “Jewish intellectual group.” On the other hand, he drew attention for criticizing a bill signed by Florida governor Ron DeSantis that penalizes antisemitic harassment.

Ramaswamy has been in the news for proposing that American military aid to Israel be cut off within five years. He is not anti-Israel, he reminds his critics, but thinks that by then Israel will no longer need such aid because it will have integrated into the region. “6 Jewish facts about GOP hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, who proposes cut to Israel funding,” by Andrew Lapin, Times of Israel, August 23, 2023:

In June, while campaigning in New Hampshire, Ramaswamy suggested that he would be open to ending aid to Israel as “part of a broader disengagement with the Middle East.” He later walked back those comments. But last week, he told actor and podcaster Russell Brand that he does, in fact, want to end US aid to Israel in 2028, the year when the current US commitment to provide $3.8 billion annually to Israel expires.

Ramaswamy said that decision would come as Israel receives recognition from more countries in the Middle East. Israel has signed normalization deals with several states in the region in recent years, a framework called the Abraham Accords, and is now pursuing a treaty with Saudi Arabia. Ramaswamy told the Jewish News Syndicate that he’d also like to spearhead Israeli accords with Indonesia and Oman.

Come 2028, that additional aid won’t be necessary in order to still have the kind of stability that we’d actually have in the Middle East by having Israel more integrated in with its partners,” he said on a show Brand hosts on the video platform Rumble.

More of his thoughts on ending aid to Israel by 2028 can be found here: “Republican Jewish Group Pushes Back on Ramaswamy’s Stance Against Israel Aid,” by Alana Goodman, Washington Free Beacon, August 22, 2023:

Republican Jewish leaders pushed back on Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s proposal to cut off military aid to Israel within five years, arguing that “such a move would very decidedly not be in America’s best interest.”

Matthew Brooks, the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, in a letter on Monday praised Ramaswamy as a “strong and passionate supporter of Israel” but urged him to rethink his stance against U.S. military aid to the Jewish state.

In light of your overall support for a strong U.S.-Israel alliance, I believe that a closer look at the issue of U.S. aid will convince you that now is not the time to end an aid program that provides so much benefit to our nation, strengthens our key strategic ally Israel, and contributes to the stability of the Middle East,” Brooks wrote.

The letter comes as Ramaswamy has climbed in the polls, prompting new scrutiny on his foreign policy positions….Ramaswamy reiterated his position to the Washington Free Beacon, arguing that the aid will be unnecessary after he successfully negotiates new peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors during the first year of his presidency.

Ramaswamy’s success as a businessman has gone to his head. Now he is putting himself forward as a wonderworker, able to “successfully negotiate new peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors.” Presumably he also means bringing about a permanent “peace” between Israel and the Palestinians. How does he propose to end the Palestinian jihad against the Jewish state? And when he talks about how he will negotiate “new peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” what does he mean? Israel already has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. But there is no chance that Syria will ever sign a peace treaty with Israel, a country that it has been at war with since 1948, especially since the Golan Heights have been annexed as part of Israel in 1981. And if in 2028, Lebanon is still under the control of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, it will not agree to a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Nor will Iraq, where Iran-backed militias now dominate the country, be willing to “normalize ties” with Israel and sign a peace treaty. Ramaswamy, a self-made billionaire, has convinced himself that he is uniquely qualified to achieve an Israel-Arab peace, thereby obviating the need for American military aid to Israel.

AUTHOR

HUGH FITZGERALD

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Pro-jihad media outlet calls for beheading of Qur’an burner, invokes Muhammad calling for massacre of his critics

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin: Man Was Made In God’s Image, But The West Aims To Replace Him With ‘Transgenders’, ‘Biomechanoids’ thumbnail

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin: Man Was Made In God’s Image, But The West Aims To Replace Him With ‘Transgenders’, ‘Biomechanoids’

By Middle East Media Research Institute

At an August 15, 2023 speech at the 2023 Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS), Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin said that mankind was created in God’s image, but that the West aims to replace God with “transgenders” and “biomechanoids.” Criticizing senior EU diplomat Josep Borrell, Naryshkin said that Europe is “unpleasant” and “scary” for people who are “spiritually and physically” healthy because “perversions of all kinds have multiplied there.”


Sergey Naryshkin: “Man was created in God’s image and after His likeness. Meanwhile, Westerners are striving to replace him with all kinds of transgenders and biomechanoids. The colleagues have already mentioned today the odious phrase said by the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who compared Europe to a flourishing garden, and the rest of the world to a jungle.

“So, I would like to open the leading European diplomat’s eyes to the fact that a spiritually and physically healthy person actually finds it unpleasant – and sometimes even scary – to come to Europe, since so many perversions of all sorts have multiplied there.”

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column with video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Faith in Jesus Christ Alone’: How Americans Agreed Christianity Is Core to Conservatism thumbnail

‘Faith in Jesus Christ Alone’: How Americans Agreed Christianity Is Core to Conservatism

By Family Research Council

In the years leading up to the birth of the nation we know as America, political discourse was exercised in pubs, in the pages of newspapers, in the town square, and on the steps outside courthouses. The patriots who forged America would define and refine together what liberty means and what responsibilities are carried with it, how men are governed and by what authority, and what a nation is and what it means to be an American.

Today, that same patriotic spirit that burns in the hearts of conservatives articulates itself largely on social media. On Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and even on less mainstream sites like Gab or former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, conservatives carry on the work of their forefathers and clarify ideologies, debate traditions, and ask what it means to be an American conservative. Just as early American patriots made their voices heard in the streets of Boston, Philadelphia, and Annapolis, so American conservatives made their voices heard on Twitter last week, resoundingly declaring that Christianity is core to conservatism.

Lizzie Marbach, a former Trump 2020 campaign staffer and current Ohio pro-life advocate, tweeted last week, “There’s no hope for any of us outside of having faith in Jesus Christ alone.” The tweet itself garnered a moderate amount of notice and many social media users agreed with Marbach, who was essentially repeating longstanding (and, honestly, pretty basic) Christian doctrine. And then along came Max Miller. The Republican congressman from Ohio and former Trump staffer reposted his fellow former Trump staffer’s tweet with his own derisive commentary, saying, “This is one of the most bigoted tweets I have ever seen. Delete it, Lizzie. Religious freedom in the United States applies to every religion. You have gone too far.”

First of all, it is important to note that Marbach is not a sitting legislator, nor even a government employee. Her tweet did not advocate, endorse, or even remotely suggest the suppression or persecution of any religious group or set of religious beliefs. This makes Miller’s comments all the more infuriatingly ironic: while claiming to support “religious freedom,” a sitting U.S. congressman told an American citizen to delete her profession of one of the most fundamental doctrines of her faith — a faith shared, by the way, by an estimated 70% of Americans.

Miller, who describes himself on Twitter as a “proud Jew,” was instantly ridiculed, shamed, and flatly contradicted by conservatives. Political commentator and podcast host Matt Walsh asked, “Do your constituents know that you consider basic Christian teaching to be ‘bigoted’? They do now I guess. Good luck in the next election!” Journalist Jack Posobiec, senior editor at Human Events, posted a meme reading, “[T]he best time to delete this tweet was immediately after sending it, the second best time is now.” Media personality and former GOP congressional candidate Lauren Witzke quipped, “Mask off moment.” Countless others commented simple variations of “Christ is King.”

Miller went further than merely airing his ignorance, though; he complained to Marbach’s employer, Ohio Right to Life, where his wife is a board member, and she was fired from her position as communications director. Ohio Right to Life stressed that Marbach wasn’t fired due to “any single event,” but even the ol’ post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy might be a bit of a stretch in application to this particular scenario.

In 2020, President Trump famously said, “It’s called ‘we do a little trolling.’” Well, trolling works. After the torrent of purely-digital backlash from Americans, Miller was forced to apologize. He said, “I posted something earlier that conveyed a message I did not intend. I will not try to hide my mistake or run from it. I sincerely apologize to Lizzie and to everyone who read my post.” Now, whether the apology was sincere or simply a PR necessity in the wake of denigrating the beliefs of over two thirds of Americans is not yet clear, though it’s worth noting that Miller did not delete his tweet calling expression of Christian thought “bigoted” and ordering an American Christian to “delete” her tweet, nor has he apologized for his role in having Marbach fired.

In fact, Marbach herself showed Miller just how “bigoted” and threatening Christians are by publicly forgiving him. She tweeted, “Max, I accept your apology 100%. However the truth is that it is not me from whom you need forgiveness, but God himself. I genuinely pray you seek him and find salvation!” She also posted the text of Matthew 18:21-35, in which Christ tells the parable of the unforgiving servant and instructs His disciples to forgive others not just seven times but “seventy-seven times.”

Aside from Miller’s appalling behavior and lackluster attempt at an apology, this episode demonstrates the commitment of conservatives to Christian ideals. Those who do not identify as Christian — atheists and agnostics, even some of Miller’s fellow Jews, were among his detractors — but as conservatives recognize the inherent truth that, without Christianity, there is nothing to conserve. The entirety of the conservative movement is founded upon distinctly Christian principles, traditions, and culture: liberty, order, virtue, duty, sacrifice, and all those noble ideals Americans have fought, bled, and died for over the past 250 years. These ideals were practiced, preached, preserved, clarified, and dogmatized by Christianity.

While nations and empires have risen and fallen, while the Roman republic decayed into tyranny, while kingdoms and races warred across medieval Europe, while European powers pioneered new lands, while the dream called America was realized, while bloody revolutions felled and founded new cultures and governments, while world wars raged, and even now into the present age, Christianity has stood strong, lovingly maintaining the doctrines laid out 2,000 years ago by a Carpenter from Nazareth, Who was also told, “Delete it,” in the parlance of the day, and lost far more than just His job.

Just as American patriots once agreed on what liberty is while sitting around their drinks in pubs, just as they once proclaimed what they knew to be true in the pages of their newspapers and gazettes, just as they once shouted their common beliefs in the streets, so too have today’s American patriots, speaking in today’s town square, agreed that conservatives must not condemn or denigrate Christianity but embrace it.

Hopefully, today’s patriots will continue following in the footsteps of their forefathers and will not be content with pub-table conversations, printed words, and marching in the streets, but will speak at the ballot box too and elect representatives who respect and even share their beliefs, the beliefs that this nation was built upon.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


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