Thomas Gallatin asks: Is the Pope Catholic?

The following essay by Thomas Gallatin* appeared in The Patriot Post today, 12/11/23. Walt hopes the author won't mind our passing it along. 

Trust demands consistency, yet what has come out of the Vatican recently is anything but consistent. Indeed, much of the confusion is due to the pontiff himself, as Pope Francis has repeatedly made statements that appear to challenge long-held church doctrine.

The issues most concerning to many Catholics are those surrounding the ongoing sexual revolution that has effectively taken over the whole of western culture and is now proliferating throughout the Christian church, both Protestant and Catholic. 

Recently, five conservative cardinals from five continents sent five questions to Francis seeking clarification. These formal questions, known as “dubai,” [sic - should be "dubia". Walt] Latin for “doubts,” included a question on liberal priests, predominately in Germany, giving blessings to same-sex couples. 

According to church doctrine, marriage is only between one man and one woman, in accordance with God’s intended design for marriage. Anything that deviates from this God-given design is viewed as sinful, and in the case of homosexuality, disordered. Therefore, since the church does not bless sin, and since homosexual relationships are recognized by the church as sinful, how can priests issue blessings to inherently sinful unions?

Francis responded to the question by reiterating church doctrine. Marriage is an “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children,” he said. “For this reason, the Church avoids all kinds of rites or sacramentals that could contradict this conviction and imply that it is recognizing as a marriage something that is not.”

However, rather than leave it there, Francis proceeded to muddy the waters. Concern for pastoral charity requires a “defense of the objective truth,” but that “is not the only expression of that charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, encouragement,” he said. 

"For that reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern if there are forms of blessing, solicited by one or various persons, that don’t transmit a mistaken concept of marriage."

In other words, Francis will not rebuke priests who have been blessing same-sex unions, while at the same time claiming to uphold the church’s doctrine. The problem is that just two years ago, Francis was explicit on the issue, denying that same-sex unions were permissible. Now he’s says that “pastoral charity should permeate all our decisions and attitudes” and that “we cannot be judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.”

If anything, it appears that Francis is trying to have it both ways. He’s clearly gotten soft on the issue, and appears frustrated by the conservative faction of the church, that keeps pressing for clarity and consistency with long-established doctrine. In short, the conservatives want the church’s practice to match its orthodoxy.

And this is where the rub is. According to recent reporting, Francis criticized the U.S. church for developing “a very strong, organized, reactionary attitude,” which he called “backward.” “Doing this,” he warned, “you lose the true tradition and you turn to ideologies to have support. In other words, ideologies replace faith. The vision of the doctrine of the church as a monolith is wrong. When you go backward, you make something closed off, disconnected from the roots of the church."

So, in an apparent effort to reinforce his views, the Vatican is holding a “Synod on Synodality” this week. National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty contends, “The aim of the Synod, rather plainly, is for a large group of bishops [led by the Vatican's "lavender Mafia" - Walt] to debate each other about survey material they guided some small number of lay Catholics through in their home diocese, and whether this pile of papers gives sufficient cover for the pope to begin chucking certain moral and dogmatic teachings of the church overboard in favor of newer understandings.”

He adds that Francis is “basically … going to ask a bunch of bishops to write up a document showing that the church in general has come to a new understanding of itself.” There is a clear divide developing in the Catholic Church, with the current pontiff siding with the liberal faction. One wonders how the church will bridge this growing theological gap. And this is no shallow ditch, but a deep crevasse.

*Thomas Gallatin is a history teacher and a staff analyst at The Patriot Post.

When you lie down with dogs...

Seen today on the Patriot Post site. I'm guessing that these people are the same as those who, with their liberal, progressive, etc friends, support the notion of peaceful coexistence -- Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, all getting along together within the confines of one state. Whatever happened to that notion?

On that point, and just to be clear [since you weren't, in your first post on the latest round of the perpetual Mid-East battle. Ed.] I think the two-state solution would be fine, but it's been tried and never had a chance of working -- a noble experiment.

Further reading (highly recommended!) added at 1740: "Islam Downgraded To Religion Of Mostly Peace", Babylon Bee (of course), 10/10/23.

Music video: Something appropriate for our times

Back in the hippy-dippy `60s, I was a member of the folk-song army. Well, not a member, exactly. More like a camp follower. I loved the songs of protest and/or solidarity, and sang them lustily. Hey, I did a lot of things lustily back then. 

But I didn't subscribe to the political sentiment of such songs as "Whose Side Are You On?" or "We Shall Overcome". And you could write your own lyrics for songs of general protest like "We Shall Not Be Moved" and (my favourite) "Solidarity Forever".

There was one song, however that almost no-one could disagree with. It was written in 1949 and became a big hit for the Kingston Trio as early as 1955. "The Merry Little Minuet" pretty much encapsulated the state of the world in the early `60s, when I was at skule. And you know what? After six decades of "Give Peace A Chance", the world is just the same today... maybe even worse. 

Feel free to substitute your own lyrics. You could begin with "They're dropping bombs on Is-ra-el..." It's hard to rhyme "Muslims" or "Hamas", but "Jews", "Iran", "war" and "more" are easy. If you come up with something half-way brilliant, you could sing it at whichever demonstration -- anti-Israel or anti-Palestine -- you choose to attend. Or maybe not. It won't help.

True Facts: Brands that are no longer with us department

I must be getting old. [You are... very old. Ed.] I can remember when the main substance abused by Americans was alcohol. Booze. Happy juice [sic]. 

The majority of crimes against persons and property were committed by people who were under the influence. Hammered. Sozzled, Drunk as two hoops of shit. And in some parts of the Paranoid States of America, people of the pale complexion worried that they would be the victims of the dark people. You know who I mean. 

It was thought, then as now, that black people were more likely than white to get all juiced up and commit crimes of mindless violence.

Of course nothing like that happens nowadays. In the first quarter of the 21st century, the mind-altering substances which fuel scenes like this are more likely to be opioids than beer, wine and hard liquor.

A century and a quarter ago, people of the coloured persuasion who had 50 cents to spend were more likely to buy a pint of a brand that is no longer with us: Black Cock Vigor Gin.

It was made by (((Lee Levy))) a distiller in St. Louis in the first decade of the 20th century. At that time, most brewers were German -- e.g. Adophus Busch -- but most distillers were Jews, His wholesale price for a  pint of what was generically called "n1gger gin" was 27 cents. Do the math. 

There were a number of different ads for Mr Levy's best-selling product, including the one below, but the most successful one -- the one people remembered -- was the one at the right, "Black Cock Vigor Gin". Read it out load and look especially at that photo. And note the "awareness indicator" (as admen call it) -- the black rooster -- in both ads. See what kind of subtle message is being sent there.

Around the time this ad appeared, attention was drawn to it by an incident in Shreveport LA. A black man named Charles Coleman was charged with the rape and murder of a white 14-year-old named Margaret Lear. Mr Coleman's trial took four hours, and the jury presented a guilty verdict after three minutes of deliberation. He was hanged in the Shreveport jail a week late.

The terrible story made it into the pages of newspapers and magazines because Mr Coleman was drunk at the time. No one was sure exactly what Mr Coleman had been drinking, but Will Irwin, a writer for Collier's, took a guess and suggested it might have resembled the item that had been found in the pocket of a black man charged with rape in Birmingham AL -- a half-empty bottle of gin bearing a brand name, an ullustration, and the words "Bottled by Lee Levy & Co., St. Louis".

The brand name wasn't printed in Collier's because, Mr Irwin wrote, "If I should give its name here...this publication could not go through the mails. The illustration did not appear because, a US attorney said later, "said picture is wholly unfit to be further described in this instrument, and a further description thereof wouldl be an insult to this honorable court."

Today, mindful of the force of BLM and reverse discrimination, Democratic DAs and judges would probably have let him Mr Coleman off with a warning: "Don't drink no more dat niggler gin!"

These are facts -- True Facts. Source: Okrent, Daniel: Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Scribner, 2010.

Further reading: "Politically correct toothpaste makes your smile brighter" (the evolution of Darkie toothpaste), WWW 21/1/12.

Would you believe "queer ecology"?

"Allahu akbar!" in Israel; whose side are you on?

So, it begins. Or, as President Trump said, "Here we go again!" I'm sure you've heard the news, so won't refry it. From here, the Hamas attacks -- already being described as "sneak attacks" or "Pearl Harbor-style attacks" -- on Israel look like just the beginning of the latest phase of a decades-long conflict. 

This chances of a quick resolution of any war between Muslims and Jews -- for that's what we have here, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 00 are slim and none. While we wait, I'm watching to see how the (((controlled media))) are playing this. 

Without exception the lickspittle media are taking the side of Israel, and all progressive, correct-thinking people are expected to see things that way. If you don't, you're an anti-Semite, just like those people who hung this banner from a bridge over Toronto's Gardiner Expressway earlier today.

What's odd about this is that the propagandists doing all the pissing and moaning about the evil Muslims are the same ones who for years now have been castigating those of us who have problems with the Religion of Peace as "Islamophobes". They're the same ones who tell us that Ukrainians are right to defend their lands against the Russian occupiers. Shome dichotomy there, shurely?

In Israel or Palestine (whichever you prefer) Christians are "the meat in the sandwich". In Africa they say that when two elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled. So I'm not taking sides in this one. I  just hope that the US of A (and Canada -- the B team) isn't called on to break up the fight. We've seen that movie, and recently too. It didn't end well.

Meanwhile, Blackie McBlackface, Prime Minister of all Canuckistan, bleats [Tweets, shurely! Ed.] "Canada stands with Israel!" Really? Isn't he the one who just yesterday (it seems) was shaming Canucks for their Islamophobia?

Image scraped from Blazing Cat Fur,

VIDEO: New career in stand-up comedy? Trump's Brandon impression

 

Maybe he's been taking lessons from Bill Burr? Of course there are some people -- Karens, LibTards, Libs of TikTok -- who won't find this funny at all. How dare he??!!