Is the Attack on Iran Just?

Is America’s and Israel’s attack on Iran a just war?

According to Catholic teaching, to be justifiable a war must 

1. Be in a just cause 

2. Be a last resort 

3. Have a good probability of success 

4. Target an evil worse than war itself 

5. Be waged by legitimate government authority.

Let’s check them off one by one.

Be in a just cause.

Nominally, the war is waged to take out Iran’s nuclear and missile capacity before they develop a nuclear weapon, making them invulnerable. This seems to me just because defensive. Iran has declared its intent to destroy Israel. They have sponsored ongoing attacks by proxy forces—in effect, they are already conducting aggressive war.

Unofficially, the war is also waged to give the Iranian people an opportunity for freedom from an oppressive government.

Be a last resort.

Trump made a show of trying to negotiate an end to the missile and nuclear programs in recent weeks. The Americans claim the Iranians would not concede much.

This might have been window dressing, or a misdirection, but it does not matter. The Americans have negotiated for years, trying to get Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons. The Iranians just kept breaking the deals.

According to the Israelis, the Iranians were within weeks of having a bomb. According to the Americans, the Iranians actually boasted they already had enough enriched uranium to make eleven bombs.

So there was no longer any time left for diplomacy. It was indeed, if these reports are true, a last resort.

Have a good probability of success.

The proof of the pudding is this: the Americans and Israelis have so far indeed been spectacularly successful, in taking out the Iranian leadership, taking out the Iranian air force, taking out the Iranian navy, in just five days of sorties. Success seems in sight.

Target an evil worse than war itself.

The casualty list from this action so far is reportedly about one thousand Iranians. This must be tallied up against Iran’s record of killing about fifty thousand of their own civilians over the last month or so, the tolls from their sponsorship of terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East over the years, and the possible casualties from an eventual nuclear exchange with Israel.

Be waged by legitimate government authority. 

Obviously, Trump and Netanyahu are legitimate government authorities. Doubly legitimate in that they were democratically elected, an so have a popular mandate.

There Is a War

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The Need for an American Empire

 

The refusal by Britain to allow the US to use their air bases in the UK for the current attack on Iran, the similar refusal by the Gulf States, and the controversy over turning Diego Garcia over to Mauritius, makes a strong case for Trump that the US needs to own Greenland. As this shows us, in a crunch, simply having bases there is not enough.

Iran in Flames

 

Because I am among those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, I endorse the current Israeli and American attack on Iran. I question the morality of those who do not.

Whatever happens now, the ability of Israel to kill the Supreme Leader and 40 high officials in a first strike in broad daylight is decisive. Together with the arrest of Maduro in Venezuela, this must give any world leader pause who wants to pick a fight with the USA. It won’t be his faceless soldiers who die for him, as in older days—he will directly face the consequences. 

This has to be good news. War may now be close to unthinkable.

Given this apparent capability, from now on, the US calls the shots—perhaps without casualties on the American side. 

At least so long as nobody else has this capability. Russia proved it did not in its invasion of the Ukraine—instead of a surgical strike, it turned into brutal trench warfare. Could China do better?

Even if they could, this ability to target the top does not naturally lead to aggressive war. It would not be very useful for taking territory. It would not enable China, for example, to take Taiwan. It is obviously most effective against dictators. It won’t work agains a democracy.

As to what happens next, the Iranian drone and missile attacks on civilian targets in the Gulf states, on Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, are signs of collapse. They make no strategic sense; Iran at the moment does not need more enemies. It looks like desperation, the desperation of the suicide bomber. It is a regime in its death throes, thrashing about. They need to use those missiles somewhere quickly, or lose the chance. It is better to go out with a bang than a whimper. 

I do not assume this will provoke the participation of the Saudi or UAE air forces in the current conflict. But if it does, I believe they are formidable. I have lived in the Gulf. Every young man there dreams of becoming a pilot. And they may want to become involved, now that they have been attacked, for the sake of national honour. These are proud nations.

I do not expect the current Iranian regime of mullahs to survive this.

Brave New World

 

Where I came in...

I was early into the computer revolution—1979. I was developing software soon after. I felt then that people did not recognize the significance of the desktop computer. It seemed to me this was a technological advance comparable to the invention of movable type—an improvement in the dissemination of knowledge that led to the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Age of Exploration, European dominance of the globe, the invention of empirical science, the general recognition of human rights, the collapse of feudalism, and democracy.

Then came the Internet and the World Wide Web. This was even bigger. Now I thought we were seeing an innovation comparable to the invention of writing. An improvement in the dissemination of knowledge that brought mankind out of the Stone Age into civilization.

But we were not done. Now we have, apparently, AI, something I did not think was possible. This seems comparable in its impact to the development of language itself. Which more or less marks the rise of the human as a being above the animals.

And these three new advances are happening within one lifetime. The first three took hundreds of thousands of years.

It is no surprise that the world seems to be in tumult. How could it not be? This is the most significant period in the history of the human race.

Here’s the good news: the average human life became hugely better with the discovery of language. Human life became incomparably better with the development of writing. Human life became incomparably better with the development of printing. We can assume that these innovations in turn will make life inconceivably better.

So it seems reasonable for Elon Musk to predict a time in the near future when we will all be wealthy, by current standards, perhaps without needing to work at all. The computer revolution and the internet revolution have already made many things that used to be expensive free or almost free; consider how many costly things your smartphone has replaced. 

If so, the spectre of pension funds running out of money is not real. We will have the ability to give everyone a pension, at any age. The government deficits we worry about may be buried in rapid GDP growth.

This means, in turn, that the recent drive by governments throughout the developed world towards mass immigration is gravely short-sighted. We will soon not need more people to do the work at lower skill levels, and will not need their taxes to fund government or pensions. The only factor limiting growth will be labour, but resources. While it may not be difficult to support a larger population, the disruption to the local culture and civil order would not be worth it.

Is the Left Collapsing in Real Time?

 The left seems to be experiencing cognitive dissonance. A poet friend, politics well to the left, responded to the release of the Epstein files with these lines:

Individuality, 
Sinful seed that 
It is, discounted 
From the congress, 
Shell game intent 
Leads us towards 
Discord & murder.

He blames the Epstein pedophile cult on “individuality.” 

Individuality was obviously not a feature of these crimes. That would be, for example, Jeffrey Dahmer. This was a group—a cabal, a conspiracy. But this presumably does not fit in with the leftist world view: that the collective is good by its nature and even gets to determine good and evil; while the individual and individualism is bad.

The Epstein Hellfire Club is actually the perfect application of the left-wing postmodern idea that reality, and morality, are "social constructs." By these lights, the Little Saint James crowd had every right to decide among themselves that, for them, there was nothing wrong or immoral about pedophilia, or cannibalism, or rape, or murder. QED

In the same discussion, he then condemns globalization as “colonialism nouveau.”

This seems to be to be pulling away from the leftist line. Isn’t the left in favour of globalization? After all, Trump is famously opposed to it. And logically, they should be: it is the ultimate in collectivization. The ultimate move away from the individual.

It seems incoherent. Perhaps he is mulling things through in his own mind. He may be turning into an individual.

Lead Us Not into Translation....

 

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A Proposed American Empire

 

Trump openly wants Greenland. He says he wants Canada. 

Canada and Greenland would make the US the world’s largest country, rich in resources it can easily defend. To be honest, it makes sense, and would probably be best for all concerned. I can’t imagine why I would resist being annexed to the US.

Who else should be allowed in? What might an American Empire look like?

They should also annex Cuba. Cuba is not culturally similar. But it would be a mercy. And Cuba is a good forward base in the Caribbean. 

They should annex Guyana—rich in resources, culturally compatible, and a footprint in South America.

Other Caribbean islands do not seem worth the trouble—they would be welfare cases. Except perhaps for the Bahamas.

America should annex Singapore—culturally compatible, and a vital choke point and military base between the Middle East and Far East.

They should annex Australia and New Zealand, for their resources and simply because they are essentially the same ethnicity. Just as China lays claim to Taiwan, it makes no sense for the Anglosphere to be split into separate countries any longer, given our vastly advanced communications and transportation.

On the same principle, the US should form a union with Britain and Ireland. Together again at last. This gives them their forward base for Europe. I think Ireland would be game to come in so long as the US was the dominant partner, and not the UK. This would at the same time solve the problem of Irish reunification and the Northern Irish border. Win-win-win.

They should also annex Malta—they wanted to join the UK decades ago, and they are a strategic point in the Mediterranean. 

The invitation should be extended to the Philippines. Everyone there speaks English to some extent, they are Christian, and they generally embrace American values. Granted, they would be an economic burden, at least at first, but if America needs more population, the Philippines are an ideal source. And they are a great forward base for dealing with troubles in East Asia.

Serious consideration might be given as well to inviting Denmark—another strategic point, at the entrance to the Baltic Sea. 

I realize, of course, that most Canadians would say I am speaking treason. I say the charge is silly.

Zero Tolerance for Criticism

 

Friend Xerxes writes of a recent visit to a clinic, and notes in passing “The clinic had the usual signs posted, that they would not tolerate abusive speech or action directed at the staff.”

As this illustrates, these signs have become ubiquitous in Canada. And they make me deeply uneasy. You do not see such signs in the Philippines, or Saudi Arabia, or Korea. 

Is it because Canadians are more inclined to be rude or abusive than these other nationalities?

Of course not. Canadians are notoriously polite.

This is a power move. The entrenched civil service, what they call in the USA the Deep State, or in the UK “the blob,” is asserting their sovereign authority. Letting us know who is really in charge. They are reminding the common people of their place.

This is what fascism is, in practice. It is the government bureaucrats asserting absolute power. People do not see it, because they are blinded by Marxist theory. They imagine the struggle for power is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bureaucrats can masquerade as the supposed vanguard or defenders of the proletariat against those “greedy capitalists.” Who may be Jewish.

Canadians are far down the road to fascism, without seeming to know it. 

Whither Truth?

The priest officiating at the mass I attended this morning warned us that, according to Jesus, if we have anything against our brother, we are to leave our offering at the altar, and first go and reconcile with him.

What the gospel actually says is

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

Do you see the difference? He has inverted the meaning of the passage. 

This is characteristic of Satan’s work: he inverts the truth. And he seems to be in control of much of the modern church. As Pail VI said, the smoke of Satan has penetrated the Vatican itself. The modern church embraces sin, and condemns feelings of guilt. Hitler was right, by implication; the Jews were wrong.

A friend laments that we just can’t trust anyone any more. How do we know what we are doing is right? You can’t trust your parish priest; he might be a gay pedophile. You can’t trust the church hierarchy; she knows of McCarrick. The late Pope Francis was an apostate. If you can’t even trust the pope, what’s left?

I suggested the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

“How do we even know the Bible is reliable? The Ethiopian Bible has different books!”

Why do I think the Bible is reliable?

1. God’s existence is undeniable.

2. God is by his essential nature good.

3. A good God would not leave us without direction.

4. His “user manual” would be most obvious and in plain sight.

5. The Bible is the most universally recognized “user manual”—older and more widely endorsed than any other holy book or scripture. And by the best minds.

6. Therefore, it can be assumed to be the final authority on what is true.

By “The Bible” I mean, by the logic of the argument, the Catholic Bible, since it is the most generally accepted. But that is really neither here nor there, since the books contained in the Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, or Ethiopian bibles do not contradict one another. They can all be completely true. Other scriptures of other religions can be, and logically are, mostly true as well.

I hold the Catechism of the Catholic Church to be reliable in turn because, following the same train of logic, Jesus sets up the apostolic succession, and says “the gates of hell will not prevail against you.” So any doctrine the church universally and firmly holds must be true, secondarily to the Bible.

America Derangement Syndromw

 

Just as many Americans on the left seem to suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” I think Canadians almost all suffer from a similar malady, America Derangement Syndrome. It is not quite scapegoating—it is not that they see the USA as the source of all bad things that happen in Canada. But at the same time, they cannot, will not, see or say anything good about the US. Like Trump, America must always be treated with scorn.

In both cases it looks to me like a class thing. It is a looking down one’s nose. Leftists see Trump as boorish. Canadians see Americans the same way. In Canada, one establishes one’s own status by being particularly offended by their raucous behaviour.

Of course, the average Canadian is economically worse off than the average American. This makes the need to make a fuss over supposed breaches of good breeding that much greater—it is all one has to establish one’s own superiority. 

Canadians pay dearly for this social affectation, but I the end it holds the country together. Canada as a whole would be better off joining the US. Individual Canadians would be better off getting US citizenship. Canada exists only as a refusal to be American; it is treason, therefore, to say anything good about America.

Looked at squarely, it is absurd. Yet, on the other hand, I love the rules and the Canadian politeness. And I do find Trump unsettlingly boorish.

What Poilievre Should Say in the Next Election

Here’s my suggestion for how Poilievre should handle the Trump issue in the next election; a proposed speech.

“My friends and fellow Canadians; let us remember how lucky we are to be Canadians; to have this beautiful land as our inheritance. Just look around you. The Rocky Mountains; Niagara; the thundering Fraser; the vast prairies; the great white north; the bays and fishing grounds of the longest coastline in the world. Our ancestors handed down to us the second-largest piece of real estate in the world. A land rich in arable land, rich in minerals, rich in oil,  potash, natural gas, rich in fresh water and fish and hydro power. Our geography protects us on three sides from invasion by vast oceans. And on the fourth side--right next door to the largest and wealthiest market in the world. A pretty good place to set up shop.

 It would be hard to mess this up. But the Liberals are doing their best. We are beginning to feel the consequences. In rising costs of living, rising regional resentments, rising ethnic tensions, rising rates of violence, and economic stagnation. In the housing crisis and the health care crisis. In our weekly food bills and rent or mortgage payments, and in our rising taxes.

And their alibi is Donald Trump. It’s all Trump’s fault. A convenient scapegoat.

Trump’s an easy target. Canadians are painstakingly polite. Canadians always say sorry, and care about the feelings of others. Trump is rude. He has bad manners. He says hurtful things. This obviously rubs Canadians the wrong way.

Friends, this is simple to understand. Trump is from the boroughs of New York City, from Queens. Just as Canadians are polite, that is the way New Yorkers are. Let’s not be hoodwinked by prejudice. Trump is mostly bark, not bite. We should be sophisticated enough, with our multicultural heritage, to see this, and use it to our advantage.

We are lucky to have the United States as our neighbour. It is the key to our own prosperity. No other nation can replace the US as our chief market. And it is good to be on good terms with your customers.

And the US has been a good neighbour. Since 1815, despite the world’s longest border, they have not tried to annex us. They have not fired in anger. Compare the many wars of Europe. We have lived together in peace and prosperity, to great mutual benefit. Would you rather live in Africa or the Middle East?

Not only have they never attacked us; America has been the great protector of our own freedoms—and the liberty of the rest of the world. Along with the British parliamentary tradition, the American federal structure, their representative government, and their Bill of Rights, were largely the model for confederation, responsible government, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

They led and won the Cold War against Communism on behalf of the democracies. They were the critical factor in taking down Hitler and the Holocaust. They came to the rescue of the other democracies at the critical moment in the First World War. They have led the fight against Islamist terrorism. We have fought side by side with our American brothers many times; and do not suppose this was some favour to the Americans. Our interests, as free peoples, are the same. 

How can we even think of, say, cozying up to Beijing to spite America? A CCP guilty of genocide as we speak? A CCP that has held Canadians hostage, that tries to bully Canadian citizens here in Canada?

And a CCP that declares the right to annex Taiwan, simply because they are ethnically similar. On these grounds, the US could claim a right to annex Canada. Do we really want to ally with the annexationists and annexationism, against our friends and loyal neighbours?

The idea seems treasonous. Yet this is Carney’s clever idea.

And the Americans are just people like us. We are brothers and cousins—often literally. Many of use have spent winters in Florida or Arizona. Many have worked or studied there, most of use have visited. We all listen to Drake, and Celine Dion, and Neil Young. We all laugh to Jim Carrey, Catherine O’Hara, and Norm MacDonald. It is unnatural to be at odds with our family members and neighbours. And it is impolite. With good will, we can work out this little argument over the strength of a figurative fence.

Carney and the Liberals do not understand Trump. Or they are cynically pretending not to, to stir up panic. Don’t be fooled. Trump is using negotiating tactics. Our panic is to his advantage. We do understand him. Jamil Jivani knows JD Vance personally.

I propose we lower our elbows. That is not the Canadian way, has never been the Canadian way. We are a polite people. We are a nation that plays for the Lady Byng Trophy. What other sport but hockey has such a trophy, for gentlemanly conduct? Elbows down, my friends, elbows down. Free trade between our two nations is in the best interests of both, and so it should be easy, with good will, to come to a new agreement. We want freer trade.

Let us play to our strengths. Let us approach the United States in friendship, and seek sunny ways. Let us not be like Trump, but like Canadians."

No Left Turn

 

Rupert Lowe’s new Restore Britain Party may be bad news for the right in British politics—splitting the vote just when Reform looked poised to replace Labour in the next election. That would be the conventional assumption. But the enthusiastic response to his announcement shows how rapidly the pendulum is swinging. Farage suddenly looks moderate and mainstream. A large part of the electorate is tired of more of the same old same old and is craving real change. They feel betrayed after Brexit. They have trust issues.

We are in a revolutionary period; and the revolution devours its children.

I suspect the same dynamic lost the last Canadian election for Pierre Poilievre. Once Trump was elected to the south, Poilievre no longer seemed so transgressive. He needed to up the ante. Instead, he followed the convention of moving to the centre. That does not work in a revolutionary period. He echoed the Liberals on the Trump file, the dominant issue of the campaign. If he’s going to be just another Liberal, why not vote for the real Liberals? Why switch horses? After all, the existing cabinet have more experience, and Carney’s resume is stronger than Poilievre’s.

Trump is now the pace-setter. The key to success now on the right is to sound at least as transgressive of the established mainstream narratives as Trump. Lowe has seen that.

Poilievre no doubt fears being branded as “Maple MAGA,” given Trump’s unpopularity north of the 49th. But he will be branded this way by the Liberals and the legacy media no matter what. The only possible strategy is to embrace it. You cannot win an election being defensive. He should take a leaf from Trump’s playbook when accused of being too close to Putin. Why is it a bad thing to be able to get along with the enemy? He should play up Jamil Jivani’s friendship with JD Vance, and promise “sunny ways” to get a better deal with the Americans. 

Whether or Not It Is Clear to You ...

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On Settling Debts

 

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Jesus Is Not Just Lord

 

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Thinking the Unthinkable

 

I think we are all in a state of denial, of cognitive dissonance, over the Epstein files. And I think it is obvious why Trump resisted releasing the files. They just upset too many apple carts.

I am still telling myself it can’t really be true.

Yet it seems plain that a large swath of our elites are depraved, to about the same moral level as Adolph Hitler. It seems clear from the files that they were engaged, not only in pedophilia, but torture, murder and cannibalism. There was no sin, no moral atrocity, in which they did not glory. How frightening to think that these are, by and large, the people in charge.

I suppose we really should not be surprised. Jack Kerouac warned us: “The world is upside down, and all the cream is at the bottom.” And Jesus and the Gospels say the same; this is the message of the Beatitudes. Satan is the prince of this world. Camels and needles’ eyes.

I have in my life hobnobbed with members of high society, on the one hand, and street people on the other. In my judgement and experience, not all members of elites are evil, and not all street people are good. But I do find that street people and the very poor are sincere, while elites are not.

I am not sure what to make of this. I think this is because, in order to move safely within elite circles, you must either be constantly hiding your own depravity, or constantly hiding your awareness of the depravity around you. You must, to stay safe and out of the pedophile cannibal circuit, pretend not to see what is going on. You must pretend to be either stupid, immoral yourself, or insane. Which is already in itself a form of dishonesty.

Epstein and the Original Sin

 

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Are You Mad?

 The lesson of the Rosenhan experiment.

The Mark of Zorro Ranch

 

We will probably be hearing more from the Epstein files for years. Given three million pages, it will take some time for folks to mine it all, even if no more files are released. There will be books written, on different aspects and on the paticipastion of different figures. Already the files seem likely to topple one world leader, Kier Starmer.

A few initial comments from this seat in the peanut gallery.

I see the claim online that Epstein worshippedor ironically pretended to worship the pagan Philistine god Baal. His strange  blue and white island temple structure was referred to by some as a “Baal shrine,” and he had some bank account using “Baal” in the name.

Here I can contribute a bit of knowledge other commentators seem not to have; although it seems simple and obvious enough. This is not conclusive, because Epstein was Jewish and so knew basic Hebrew. “Baal” in Hebrew is a title, not a name. It means “lord” or “master.” A Christian praying in Hebrew would pray to “Baal.” A courtier would call his king “Baal.” We cannot tell from this what god Epstein intended, if any. He might have been referring to himself. 

My next observation at this early point is simply to note that “pedophilia” used to be represented as a problem virtually unique to the Catholic church. While it was indeed a problem in the Catholic church, there was never any reason to suppose it was more common there than elsewhere. By now we know it was at least as common in sports leagues, the Boy Scouts, the public schools. It seems to have been everywhere, at every level of society, and especially common among the loudest critics of the Catholic church.

Perhaps Catholics deserves some reparations; for all the reparations they have already paid out. Why were they charged and persecuted, including the entirely innocent laypeople in the pews, and no one else?

My third observation is deep suspicion to hear that aside from the notorious island, Epstein also owned a remote ranch in New Mexico. It was apparently here that the worst things happened.

That rings a bell.

I have long theorized that Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut was an expose.  Kubrick wanted to blow the whistle, but did not feel it was safe to say it outright. And perhaps it was not. He died unexpectedly soon after finishing that movie.

I indeed have previously pointed out that Eyes Wide Shut also did not seem to be the first time Kubrick was trying to blow the whistle on some Hellfire Club among the elites. His 1961 film Lolita was also about pedophilia. In the film, the underage Lolita is spirited away by a group of Hollywood pedophiles—to a remote ranch somewhere in the West. Perhaps New Mexico?

Here is the passage from the book:

“Curious coincidence—…took her to a dude ranch about a day’s drive from Elephant (Elphinstone). Named? Oh, some silly name — Duk Duk Ranch — you know just plain silly — but it did not matter now, anyway, because the place had vanished and disintegrated. Really, she meant, I could not imagine how utterly lush that ranch was, she meant it had everything but everything, even an indoor waterfall. 

…He was a great guy in many respects. But it was all drink and drugs. And, of course, he was a complete freak in sex matters, and his friends were his slaves. I just could not imagine (I, Humbert, could not imagine!) what they all did at Duk Duk Ranch. She refused to take part because she loved him, and he threw her out. 

‘What things?’ 

‘Oh, weird, filthy, fancy things. I mean, he had two girls and two boys, and three or four men, and the idea was for all of us to tangle in the nude while an old woman took movie pictures.’ (Sade’s Justine was twelve at the start.) 

‘What things exactly?’ 

‘Oh, things… Oh, I — really I’ — she uttered the ‘I’ as a subdued cry while she listened to the source of the ache, and for lack of words spread the five fingers of her angularly up-and-down-moving hand. No, she gave it up, she refused to go into particulars with that baby inside her. That made sense. ‘It is of no importance now,’ she said pounding a gray cushion with her fist and then lying back, belly up, on the divan. ‘Crazy things, filthy things. I said no, I’m just not going to [she used, in all insouciance really, a disgusting slang term which, in a literal French translation, would be souffler] your beastly boys, because I want only you. Well, he kicked me out.’

…  ‘Fay had tried to get back to the Ranch — and it just was not there any more — it had burned to the ground, nothing remained, just a charred heap of rubbish. It was so strange, so strange —'"

This seems an odd coincidence. Surely Kubrick, and indeed Vladimir Nabokov before him, could not have known then of Epstein’s “Zorro Ranch”? The novel was published in 1955. Epstein reportedly bought his “Zorro Ranch” only in 1991. 

But Epstein might not have been a one-off, some solitary evil mastermind. More likely he was raised and groomed to his role, plucked from obscurity, by some pre-existing group or invisible institution. He might have been following an established template. 

From 1957 to 1960, Kubrick was under contract to Kirk Douglas. By 1960, they had a bitter falling out.

Recently, following his death, the sister of Natalie Woods has publicly claimed that Douglas sexually assaulted that actress in 1955, when she was only 16.

Was this a one-off? During the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic church, we were assured that pedophilia was never one-off. Pedophiles were incurable. This was why it was culpably wrong of the church to accept claims of repentance and simply reassign accused clergy. The only solution was chemical or physical castration, we were told.

So it seems fair to assume the same of Kirk Douglas. He was presumably a serial pedophile, and a member of a pedophile ring in his day.

Probably then there was some attempt, while Kubrick was under contract, to introduce Kubrick to the ring and its activities. As with the Epstein operation, this would have been a kind of initiation, allowing for blackmail later if anyone strayed from the established path. And so Kubrick became aware of what was going on.

Kubrick broke with Douglas, as noted, in 1960. The next year he filmed Lolita—then left for England, never to return. That move to England might have been career suicide—he deliberately took himself away from all the action in Hollywood.

Perhaps out of disgust. Perhaps fearing for his safety.

An interesting timeline.

Beauty Is Our Duty

 

Today’s gospel reading:

"You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father."

This is a critical passage in the Sermon on the Mount, following immediately after the Beatitudes, in which Jesus identifies his flock, the good people of the earth. It is, therefore, the very core of the Christian message.

No sermon I have ever heard gets it right.

What does it mean to be the salt of the earth? What good deeds cause your light to shine?

Not moral deeds, like helping old ladies cross the street, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. You might think so. Everybody seems to think so. But this interpretation is not tenable. For in the same sermon, a few verses on, Jesus says 

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. ... But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6: 1-4.

Now, obviously, God is not going to contradict himself. The deeds he is speaking of doing in full view of as many as possible, letting your light shine like a city on a hill, are obviously not these deeds of righteousness. For all that it is good to do what is morally good, this is not what he is speaking of here.

What else counts as a deed?

Simple hard work? Hard manual labour? This does seem to be the meaning some take from this. But most jobs do not seem to shed light over the world, or give it more flavour. And Martha was told that Mary, in not pitching in with the housework, had chosen the better part.

What is it that gives savour to the world? What introduces taste to the world? What makes the drabness of the world seem brighter?

The obvious answer is beauty. Beauty brings grace, light, and savour to our lives.

Which is to say, Christians are commanded to produce art. By these fruits you will know them.

It is what we can do, as individuals, to genuinely improve the world. By having an attractive front garden, we are giving joy to every passerby. By painting flowers on the wall of the laundromat we operate; by singing in the choir; by composing rhymes; and, ideally, by letting our light shine as far as possible, by doing it in as public a way as we can. Unlike deeds of charity, best done in secret, in the case of art, exposing the work of beauty to as many people as we can increases the value of the deed.

Jesus is also telling us we have it in us to be artists, if we are God’s people, those described by the Beatitudes. It is significant that Jesus says “you are salt,” not, “you can be salt,” or “you should strive to be salt.” Necessarily, if you are one of God’s chosen, you have been given this gift, the ability to create beauty. 

It is your duty now to use the talents you have been given. See the parable of the talents, Matthew 25:14-30.

You should also cloth the naked, feed the hungry, and visit those in prison. This is also commanded. But this is not enough to justify our existence.  “The poor you will have always with you.”

The Secret Agenda behind "Synodality"

I increasingly sense a great awakening in the culture. Everyone turning back to Christianity and even specifically Catholicism. I see it among celebrities in my internet feeds, and I see it daily among people I encounter. There has been a general collapse of standards in the culture. Many institutions are being discredited by the increased availability of information through the Internet; the Epstein files are now delivering one more mighty blow. People are craving the eternal verities, by which men are men and women are women, and some things are sacred. That is what Christianity, an Catholicism, are there for, and all about. It is the moment for that light to shine from the mountaintops.

And it is unspeakably frustrating that, at this very apocalyptic moment, the church itself is, with Pope Francis’s “synodality,” throwing any and all its traditions into question in favour of following the “continued workings of the Holy Spirit.” No direction, just when the flock is pleading for direction. What can they be thinking?

And under Pope Francis, the Vatican began more aggressively suppressing the traditional liturgy of the church, the Latin mass. Just when people have been flocking to it, when the traditional Latin mass parishes have been the centres of growth within the Church.

 A friend of mine, prominent in the local diocese, condemns “traditionalism” outright, in favour of the “charismatic movement.” As if they are opposed. Traditionalism must be suppressed because it supposedly is intolerant of “the charismatic movement.”

THis came as a surprise to me, as I have always thought of myself as both a traditionalist and a charismatic.

Making me suspect that “charismatic movement” is being used here as some kind of euphemism, a code word for something that dare not speak its name.

In my own parish, a “Beta” course advertised as intended to deepen parishioners’ understanding of their Catholic faith turns out to be a repurposed set of “Life in the Spirit” videos, designed for a charismatic prayer group. They say nothing at all about either doctrine or liturgy, nothing about the sacraments, nothing about the Catechism, but instead stress over and over again the immediate experience of divine forgiveness, the unconditional love of God, and the need to forgive others, with no mention of repentance.

And the catechists for kids in the parish are instructed that they are to convey one message, and one message only: that God loves you.

Why this abject failure of the church hierarchy to read the room and the zeitgeist? Why this failure in the church’s evangelical mission?

I think I suddenly understand why. 

In a recent interview, I heard Milo Yiannopoulos casually claim that all Catholic bishops should be assumed to be gay.

Yiannopoulis is a controversialist; he makes wild claims. And he was himself, until recently, openly homosexual. It is my impression that gays imagine they see fellow gays everywhere.

On the other hand, he has connections, both gay and Catholic. He may well know of what he speaks.

Today, I was listening to a John Henry Westen “Faith and Reason” panel, including one priest, and one panelist remarked, without objection from the others, that probably 70% of the clerical establishment is indeed gay. Westen’s panels are traditionalist, but not sensationalist; he tries to convyr the sense of being fair and balanced.

And if this is true, doesn’t that explain everything? What if the great majority of the current church hierarchy are themselves actively gay. And they are there, in large part, perhaps primarily, for sex. For them, the actual church tradition must be a burden, and in particular a burden on their conscience. It cannot feel good to know you are a hypocrite. 

So they have a vested interest in downplaying and discounting and ideally dispensing with tradition.

 “Synodality” and “the charismatic movement” are their perfect alibis: never mind all those troubling rules and doctrines. They are going with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is alive and always working; he supersedes tradition, for he is God himself. How can that be wrong?

Fortunately for them, it is easy to conflate “listening to the Holy Spirit” with going with any of your natural urges in the moment. 

And of course, they want to stress that God loves us all unconditionally, as we are; even if this is not Biblical. That means they can continue being actively gay, consciences free. The bad guys are those who would focus on sin. Aren’t they refusing to forgive? Aren’t they denying the infinite love of God?

This all makes sense, too, of the recent history of the church.

In the crisis of faith produced by Vatican II, there was a great falling away of vocations. In that time of “free love” and “if it feels good, do it,” the seminary ranks were probably largely filled with active gays. I know this to be the case for one graduating high school classmate of mine. This generation of novitiates did not take the religion seriously; this was a party opportunity, like joining the navy or merchant marine. But the church needed priests, and was also no doubt influenced by the freewheeling atmosphere of the times.

Under Paul VI and John Paul II, the hierarchy averted their eyes.

This, however, led to the “pedophilia” scandals. The problem was never heterosexual pedophilia. It was homosexual predation on post-adolescent boys, by members of this new cadre of actively homosexual priests. But nobody could say that; it was not politically correct to blame homosexuals.

Faced with the scandals, the cardinals then elected Benedict XVI to restore order and lay down the law. In his sermon to open the conclave, he aggressively condemned pedophilia. And at around this point, according to what I was hearing at the time, the clergy was still only about 30% gay.

But the Sixties and Seventies generation was rapidly rising to become bishops and cardinals and the leaders of seminaries. Within a few years, they were able to neutralize Benedict. He told a visitor that his real authority went no farther than his office door. Finally, he felt obliged to resign, and promise to go along with whomever else the cardinals wanted to choose. The velvet mafia had tipped the balance of power.

Whether or not gay himself, Francis was chosen to take the opposite tack: to support the gay clerics in their “charismatic” approach. And so we now have “synodality” and the suppression of the Latin mass.

The good news is that this may be a generational thing. The Baby Boomer generation of clerics may have been the problem, and now they are aging out of the hierarchy and the net conclave. Granted that they will have done their best to recruit other gays into the priesthood during their tenure. But a shortage of vocations has continued to be a problem, and the seminaries have generally had to take all comers. Meaning, I hear, that young priests under 35 now are almost solidly traditionalist, reflecting the mood of the flock from which they come. Moreover, being gay is now so mainstream that gays have little incentive to become priests as some kind of cover. I hear there is a growing shortage of “progressive” priests to elevate to the hierarchy.

The Holy Spirit may indeed be moving.

The Problem with Democracy

Winston Churchill famously said that democracy was the worst possible form of government—until you consider all the others.

It is not, objectively, a good system. Most people are not wise. Realistically, leaving decisions to the average person will lead to only average results. 

Plato, Confucius, and the American Progressives argued instead for rule by experts, educated to the role. But this runs into the problem of who polices the police; a self-appointed clique with their own vested interests can take over; they can skew the standards to control membership. We see the results in the modern university, or in the PRC: not great.

In a way, democracy really just works as a check and a balance: the experts, the clerisy, inevitably actually control the levers of power. A democratic vote every few years does something to keep them in line.

But can we do better? How about some objective metric to limit the franchise? IQ tests are supposed to be pretty objective and tamper-proof; that’s one option. But it does not sound just: what about the principle of “no taxation without representation”? If a man or woman is paying taxes, they have a natural right to vote on how that money is spent.

It makes sense to use IQ testing to choose immigrants. Not education or income, as is often now done—that favors the elites from poorer countries, where many or most people cannot afford much education. This means we are not really selecting the best. Moreover, poorer countries are generally poor because of a corrupt ruling class. And using these criteria means we are importing that very corruption. IQ by contrast is a decent objective measure of future potential, and the ability to succeed and to contribute. And to vote wisely.

As for current citizens, let’s flip the script on “no taxation without representation.” There is a logical corollary: no representation without taxation. Only those whose tax returns show they are net contributors to the public accounts might get to vote. This is some measure of intelligence, and of sound judgement. 

This would also strengthen the check on the expert clique. Those whose income comes from government would not be eligible to vote by this standard. Allowing them to do so is unfair: they are in effect voting on their own performance.

There is, perhaps, also a necessary tweak to this. We have a problem of depopulation: women are not having children. And basing the vote on income gives them some further incentive to pursue career instead of childrearing. Not good. So we might add an alternative criterion for the vote: having borne or raised two or more children, without resort to public assistance. This, like paying taxes, is a contribution to society at large, and implies a commitment to it.

I suspect this might produce at least marginally better government. And this matters, not just to the quality of life of citizens, but to the future of the nation.

Faith and Reason

 

Descartes, before becoming hoarse

I have recently been accused of cynicism.

Actually, I feel recent revelations in the wider world have taught us all we have been too trusting of what we have been told by authorities of all kinds. Do I need to enumerate examples? The greater availability of information thanks to the internet is showing a lot of our trust to be misplaced: in the media, in “the science,” in the church hierarchy, in the government, in politicians, in the medical establishment, and on and on.

More generally, there is no virtue in just accepting what we have been told is true. I suspect this comes from a perversion of Luther’s concept of “salvation by faith alone.” It is obviously wrong that we are saved by belief, because there is no moral value in that. Choosing a belief is like flipping a coin. And how can we know, without examination, that this or that belief is not from the Evil One?

I embrace Descartes’s approach, Bishop Berkeley's approach, or that of the Buddha: doubt everything it is possible to doubt. This is the moral stance. For unlike arbitrary belief, it requires effort. It is heroic.

Since God is ultimate truth, we are morally obliged to seek truth to the best of our abilities. Reason and free will are of our divine essence, that which elevates us above the animal soul. Reason is the organ that permits us to seek truth, as free will is the organ that permits us to seek the good.

Not to exercise our reason to the fullest extent possible is to turn away from God, and towards some convenient idolatry.

So what is the role of faith? 

Faith is trust, not arbitrary belief. Faith is trust in God. Faith is beyond reason, but never a replacement for it.

No Easy Walk to Freedom

 

I recently shocked someone by pointing out that the ultimate goal of Buddhism is suicide.

“Wait,” she objected. “Isn’t it enlightenment?”

No, that is not Buddhist terminology. The Buddhist goal of the eightfold path is “nirvana.” Nirvana actually means extinction: like the snuffing out of a candle. Actually the opposite of enlightenment.

What you are snuffing out is the self—anatta, anatman, “no self.” 

Hence, literally, the goal is suicide.

This gets complicated when you believe in reincarnation. It is not a simple matter of shooting yourself in the head; you’ll just be born again. It takes many lifetimes to accomplish the task.

I am not sure Buddhism would be as appealing in the West if more Westerners understood this. I think too many embrace Buddhism because they imagine it is an easier path than Christianity. People (wrongly) imagine it lacks a moral code and so any pesky feelings of guilt. 

On the Impatience of Eve

A Catholic friend, whom I could characterize as a Bergoglian, that is, a follower of Pope Francis, asserts that the original sin was impatience and a failure to appreciate the full depth of God’s love. Had Eve only waited, God would have given her and Adam the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. She simply jumped the gun.

I asked at the time if he could give any scriptural support for this claim that God would have given them the fruit later. He demurred.

It makes no sense to me. If God intended all along to give them this fruit, what was the point of first withholding it? Was he training them for obedience, as you would a dog? Does God love us like a pet? Isn’t that rather insulting? It is certainly manipulative.

And what about the pronouncement by Bergoglio himself that God does not, and would never, lead us into temptation, would never tempt us? Surely prohibiting this one tree, for no particular reason but to teach obedience, would be exactly that?

Not an entirely good and loving God, then. Eve would have reason to be suspicious.

Why then did God reserve the fruit of the tree? It cannot have been so arbitrary. It must not have been only to tempt. It must somehow have been necessary.

And it was. God cannot give us free choice, cannot give us free will, without allowing wrong choices to exist. If we cannot make a wrong choice, we cannot make choices. We would indeed be no more than pets or AI bots. Not full persons.

Therefore, in the Garden, there had to be one wrong choice available. It was inevitable, and it is inevitable in the case of each of us, that we will sooner or later make a wrong choice. Eve in this was each of us. Given the ability to think of ourselves as gods in our freedom, it was inevitable, and it is inevitable to each of us, that we sooner or later turn away from God and elevate our ego instead.

It was all inevitable and in the plan.

“O Happy Fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer!”

The Epstein Revelations

 

It is oddly reassuring that the Epstein files, or millions of them, have now come out.

Appalling as some of the revelations are and will be, it is reassuring to know their real scope, and not what imagination might suggest. Nothing can top imagination and rumour. And it is especially reassuring to see that the rich and powerful were not powerful enough in the end to suppress them forever.

It gives hope for the future.

The Beatitudes, Read Carefilly

 

Jack Kerouac: posted without explanation

Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth,
who have observed his law;
seek justice, seek humility;
perhaps you may be sheltered
on the day of the LORD's anger.
But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
a people humble and lowly,
who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
the remnant of Israel.
They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies;
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue;
they shall pasture and couch their flocks
with none to disturb them.

 Zephanaiah 2:3; 3:12-13

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 
He began to teach them, saying:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven."

The Gospel reading for this Sunday mass is the absolute heart of the Christian message: the Beatitudes. Paired with a similar first reading from the Old Testament.

First question: what does “blessed” mean? Obviously not “happy” or “joyful”; for “blessed are they who mourn.” Jesus says what blessed means in the first beatitude: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And this is repeated after the last beatitude: “for your reward will be great in heaven.” They will find reward in eternity. These are the ones who will get to heaven, and be exalted in heaven.

When it comes to “Blessed are the meek,” Jesus seems to promise them instead the Earth: “for they will inherit the land [the earth].” But note the word “inherit.” That means not the present earth, but a future earth, when someone dies. This refers to the new earth at the end of time.

“See, I will create
    new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—Luke has simply “poor.” “Poor in spirit” seems to me a more plausible theological formulation than simply “poor.” I can imagine that Luke’s eyewitness source misunderstood or misremembered; it would be easy to do. After all, simply being poor is a gross materialistic measure. Some poor deserve to be poor—the welfare queens, those who are poor because they are lazy. 

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’”

Conversely, some who are wealthy did not seek wealth, but attained it as a byproduct of producing some benefit to mankind. And use it not for their own physical comfort, but to accomplish more.

By “poor in spirit,” I take something like “not motivated by money.” Such people will, usually, also be materially poor.

This is, not incidentally, an argument against the modern attitude that priority should be placed on political acts supposed to eliminate poverty. And this is common event in modern churches. This too puts too much emphasis on money. If it gets you into heaven, poverty is not a bad thing; the Franciscans seek it. It is charity that is the good thing: not because it ends poverty, but because it ennobles the soul of the giver. It is something due one’s brother.

The poor you will have always with you.

“Blessed are they who mourn.” I love to point this one out. So much for “happy happy joy joy” Christianity. If you are happy in and with this world, your mind is not in the right place. You should be yearning for heaven. Here we are living in exile, in the valley of soul-making. 

It is true that elsewhere Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord always.” But that is not “rejoice always”; that is, “keep your mind always with the Lord, to keep your spirits up.”

This has important implications for the modern psychiatric concept of “depression.” Insofar as it is used to describe a state of chronic sorrow, this is to pathologize sanity. Any sensitive and intelligent person should be sad. 

"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth."--Dostoevsky

“Blessed are the meek.” This is the most difficult beatitude, I think. “Meek” is not a great translation from the original Greek, which means something more like “restrained” or “reserved.” It does not carry the implication of timidity that “meek” does in English.

I’d take it as “those who do not seek power or attention.” This meshes well with the promised reward: they will inherit the Earth. And it parallels “blessed are the poor in spirit.” Blessed are those not motivated by money, and blessed are those not motivated by power. 

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” This puts paid to the modern idea that universal forgiveness is the core Christian message. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is the opposite of forgiving and forgetting, or of wanting to be forgiven. 

Moreover, this promises that God too is not forgiving. For they shall be satisfied.

One should not be motivated by money or power. One should be motivated by righteousness, by a sense of justice.

This is neatly followed by “blessed are the merciful.” Making the distinction between mercy and mere forgiveness. Mercy is not unqualified forgiveness of a fault. Merriam-Webster: “mercy: leniency, or restraint (as in imposing punishment) shown especially to an offender or to one subject to the power of another.”

It comes into play when one is in a position to exact punishment. One does not forgive, but exacts a milder punishment than one could enforce.

Unqualified forgiveness or unconditional love is not merciful. It is not kind. It kills the soul of the other.

“Blessed are the clean [or pure] of heart.” This echoes Jesus’s command to love God “with your whole heart.” Being pure, unadulterated, all of one substance, means being of one mind, unclouded by doubts or qualifications or exceptions. This is directly counter to the modern condemnation of “religious extremism” and promotion of relativism and ambiguity over conviction.

God will spit out the lukewarm. Ambiguity is a vice, not a virtue.

“Blessed are the peacemakers.” As noted in a recent post, this does not mean pacifism. Pacifism, a refusal to fight, leads to and endorses war and strife. Think for a moment of your own inevitable experience in the grade 3 schoolyard. If a kid refuses to stand up for himself, does this discourage the bully? Does refusing to step in for the victim discourage the bully?

 It does not mean diplomacy either. Diplomacy sometimes averts war; sometimes it causes it. In either case, it involves a certain level of dishonesty, of compromise of principle. This cannot tally with our first reading, from Zephaniah: 

“They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies;
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue”

It means keeping the peace. Who keeps the peace? The umpire, the referee, the judge, the police. Peacekeeping means setting and honouring clear rules, clear boundaries. Not crossing borders. “Good fences make good neighbours.”

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” This goes against the common tendency to measure morality by “community standards”; to see conformity as morality. If you are righteous, you will be persecuted for it. If you get along with everybody, you are not a good person. And this is necessarily true. If being good brought you good in this world, everyone would be good simply out of self-interest. It is only when doing what is right goes against your self-interest that it is a righteous deed and a moral act.

This truth is echoed in Jesus’s admonition to keep to the narrow gate: “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

So you cannot get to heaven by going along to get along.

“Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.”

It follows that the good people of the earth will not be those widely celebrated as good. People famous for being good ought to be held in the greatest suspicion. To the contrary, being genuinely good will attract horrible false accusations from bad people. If someone is commonly portrayed as awful, or mad, without clear evidence, this is the best evidence that they are genuinely good and honourable people.

I will refrain from giving examples, because they will necessarily be controversial and demand justification. Ponder this for yourself.

Catherine O'Hara Dead

Catherine O’Hara has died. This is sad for her many fans. But I am offended by the media inevitably referring to this as her “tragic death.”

We all die. Death ends every life. If every death is tragic, every life ends in tragedy. Do we really believe that? Is our vision so narrow?

O’Hara lived to the age of 71: that is a full life, the Biblically alotted threescore and ten. Although we may have become accustomed to people living longer, it is enough. In historical or international terms, it is already an accomplishment to have lived that long. 

O’Hara bore and raised two children. That’s a good return on investment: given one life, she produced two more. That is already a great legacy.

She died, according to her agent, “after a brief illness.” It sounds as though she did not go through prolonged suffering. Given that we all need to go, that’s the best way to go. A good death.

And although she did do well, and became famous, Catherine O’Hara spent her life not just trying to make money and acquire things, but in the arts, using the gifts God gave her to the fullest to bring light into other lives. She let her light shine, as we are told to do by our Lord. She stayed salty; she did not lose her savor to the last. She died in harness, still acting, singing, and performing.

Given her talents, we can assume life was not easy for her. It is not easy for most of us; it is the vale of soul-making. Beauty in the arts comes only through pain. Why would she want to linger, if something infinitely better was waiting for her?

It is perverse, profane, and disrespectful to her memory to call this a tragedy.

On Forgiveness and Repentance

 

I recently attended another “Life in the Spirit” session put on by my local Catholic diocese. It was all about forgiveness: the need to forgive yourself and others. 

We have had no session on repentance. 

I fear this is to put the cart before the horse. You can’t have one without the other, and the import of the session and the course seems to be that you can.

Notice the progression in the New Testament: first John the Baptist, then Jesus. First repentance, then salvation. One must make the ways straight for the Lord.

“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”

In the session I attended, forgiveness was claimed to heal illness—not just your “mental health,” either. One story was of a woman who, once she forgave her neighbour, was cured of a goiter within a week. And it was of course claimed to improve your relationships.

This is selling it for other than religious reasons. This is selling it as psychology, as worldly wisdom. A Christian as Christian is supposed to do things because they are right, and out of love of God, not because they are good for our health or our finances. Why this approach?

I think they are doing this because the idea of forgiveness without repentance cannot be justified philosophically or theologically. It violates our sense of natural justice, which is to say of the Good. And God is perfect Good, Truth, and Beauty. So you cannot sell it as righteous, as the morally right thing.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness” – says Jesus in the Beatitudes. This hunger is incompatible with unconditional forgiveness.

The speaker of course had his Biblical references. But they were partial, and misleadingi.

Their killer claim was that Jesus forgave his own killers from the cross—as they were killing him. How’s that for unconditional forgiveness?

But they are ignoring the second half of that sentence: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” This condition implies that their actions are objectively unforgivable. They are excused by ignorance. This is the principle used to test for a mortal sin.

"Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent." - CCC

To be guilty of the sin, you must be aware of the significance of what you are doing. In the case of the crucifixion, the soldiers were just doing their job, and presumably did not know he was an innocent man, much less that he was God incarnate.

The second Biblical warrant cited for forgiveness without repentance was the parable of the unmerciful servant, Matthew 18:21-35. Forgiven a debt by his master, he will not forgive a debt owed to him. 

But they omit his repentance:

“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’”

Imagine the debtor had denied the debt. Doesn’t that make a difference?

Forgiveness, as such, is not the Christian message. Jesus is not forgiving of the Pharisees, scribes, or Sadducees. 

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

He is not forgiving of the moneychangers at the temple. John the Baptist is not forgiving of Herod Antipas; and Jesus fully endorses John the Baptist. 

To understand the injustice of this doctrine of forgiveness without repentance, imagine your government is exterminating Jews. Are you obliged to quietly forgive? How about if you are Jewish? That is a way to stay healthy and safe, but it is not the moral way.

Imagine your community is practicing slavery. Forgive and do nothing? 

Imagine Kitty Genovese is being raped and murdered in your stairwell. Forgive and do nothing?

No—beyond a right and duty of self-defense, you have a right to fight evil when you see it around you. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.” Consider the saintly models of St. Michael, St. George, or St. Joan of Arc. 

When nothing can be done, when the evil is beyond our power to end, the proper attitude is not forgiveness, but resignation. To turn the other cheek. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” We try to shame the perpetrator, let go and let God, and try to get on with our lives.

When the guilty party admits their guilt and tries to make good, then we must forgive.

“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Witness the sacrament of Reconciliation: to be forgiven by God himself, we must be sincerely sorry, resolve not to commit the same sin again, and must accept some penance. This is God’s way, and he models it to be our way.

And what is not repaid by penance in this life, must be made up in Purgatory.

It is not a mercy to forgive someone their sin who has not sincerely repented. For to do so is to encourage him in his sin, and lead him on the path to Hell. We owe him the duty of fraternal correction.

Vice is an addiction, like alcohol. The more often you do it, the easier it gets to override your conscience. And affirmation by others does not help. 

My own uncle was an alcoholic. His father, my grandfather, was exceptionally mild-mannered, and just put up with it. And, owning a company, he kept his errant son on the payroll so he would not be destitute. He was a model of forgiveness.

Then my grandfather died. My father inherited the company. He fired his older brother.

My uncle told me he is eternally grateful to my father for this. 

There he was, alone in his apartment, with the rent due in two weeks, and no way to pay it. In his desperation, he reached for a book his mother had given him, on St. Luke the Evangelist. He began to read. Through the strength of God, he sobered up, and has remained sober since.

It was cruel to have kept forgiving him for such a long time.

The real motivation for this false gospel is always brought up last. Because, after all, it is shameful. It is the supposed need to forgive “even yourself.”

This is paydirt. Jesus has already paid for all my sins. He loves me unconditionally. Why would I need to change? If anyone points out my sins—they are the bad ones. I can just keep punching my brother in the face, keep swindling him, and that’s all right. If he complains—shame on him. He is failing in his duty to forgive.

It reeks of Pharisaism. 

What's Happening in China?

 

Zhang Youxia

We are living through an interesting time. Things are happening almost too quickly to follow. And it’s a three-ring circus.

Something is clearly happening in China. Reports of large military movements; the usual internet censorship seems to have sprouted holes; emergency measures are clearly in place.

It seems likely that we are in the middle of a conflict splitting the CCP, which may become a civil war or the collapse of the regime. China is historically difficult to hold together, and always capable of collapsing into chaos.

In Iran, we are waiting for another shoe to fall. Latest reports I hear are of a mob storming the ayatollah’s residence. Trump said he had the back of the protesters. He said he would strike if the regime resorted to violence. Reports now are of 30,000 dead. It seems to me Trump must strike Iran now, and must strike decisively. His credibility is on the line.

Consider now the domino effect typical of revolutionary periods. Reports are there was a shortage of noodles in Chinese markets the day after Maduro was captured in Venezuela. One dines on noodles in celebration in China, like champagne or a birthday cake. 

Now imagine the effect on the other if either the Iranian or the Chinese regime falls. 

And there are other obvious dominos. Putin is in a terrible fix in Ukraine, losing more men than were lost by Russia in Afghanistan, a conflict that arguably caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. It seems improbable that he can stay in power much longer. And he has been dependant on Chinese and Iranian support. He has already lost Assad and Syria. 

Cuba was in dire straits economically before Trump’s coup in Venezuela, and heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil and cash. Now that is gone. Without Venezuelan, Russian, or Chinese support, they are there for the taking.

I can imagine the regimes in Iran, China, Russia, and Cuba all falling over the next year or so. Hard to see North Korea and Belarus holding on. It would be a different world; like the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Trump would look brilliant, the great hero. Parties in the democratic world who espouse Trumpish policies would accordingly get another big boost. Farage in the UK, LePen in France, Poilievre in Canada, Wilders in the Netherlands, AfD in Germany, and so on. Each would probably win the next election decisively, and introduce new policies accordingly. In the Middle East, radical Islam would be dead, and there would be a strong impulse to sign on to the Abraham accords. 

Meantime, Elon Musk is predicting a great burst of increased productivity due to AI, leading to an unprecedented increase in general wealth; and he is speaking of the near term.

We could be seeing the birth pangs of a golden age.