90-second book review: Jesus Wept is a To Do List for Pope Leo XIV

Seeing things with the eyes of Christ inspires the Church's pastoral care for the faithful who are living together, or are only married civilly, or are divorced and remarried. 

Pope Francis

Amoris Laetitia, October 1, 2015

Jesus Wept: Seven Popes And The Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church was released early this year before the death of Pope Francis. Authored by Philip Shenon, an award-winning investigative reporter, the book chronicles the papacies of the seven popes that preceded Pope Leo XIV, from Pius XII to Pope Francis. 

Shenon's book began by focusing on Vatican II and the primary issues facing the Catholic Church when the Council of Cardinals began its deliberations in 1962.  First, should Catholic priests and deacons be permitted to marry? Second, should the Church allow divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Communion? Third, should the ban on birth control be lifted?

A commission created by Pope Paul VI during the Vatican II proceedings recommended that the Church permit married couples to avail themselves of artificial birth control, but Pope Paul rejected its recommendations. In 1968, he issued Humanae Vitae, which proclaimed all contraceptives to be contrary to the Catholic faith.

Regarding the question of whether priests should be permitted to marry, the Church has not budged; priests must remain celibate. However, married men can be ordained as deacons, and married Episcopal priests who enter the Catholic Church through the Anglican Rite process can become Catholic priests. 

Nor has the Church retreated from the position that divorced Catholics who remarry are barred from the sacraments. Shenon wrote that Pope Francis made the annulment process easier (p. 504), but he's wrong about that. In many dioceses, divorced Catholics must go through a modern-day Inquisition when seeking an annulment, and the outcome is uncertain. In other dioceses, an annulment is merely a financial transaction; a marriage can be nullified simply by prayerfully writing a check.

Millions of Catholics and lapsed Catholics are looking to Pope Leo to reject the Church's heartless and clueless positions on these three burning issues:

• First, priests should be permitted to marry.

• Second, married Catholics should be able to avail themselves of contraceptives without being branded as sinners.

• Third, divorced Catholics who remarry should be able to receive Communion, as Pope Francis suggested in his Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia — a document that he did not have the courage to operationalize.

The Big Lebowski Riots of 2025: Revolt of the Weenies

 Leftists argue that the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles are "largely peaceful," while the Trump team insists that the demonstrations are riots--a breakdown of law and order.

After watching an hour or so of video of the LA shenanigans today, I'm on the fence. On the one hand, I saw plenty of recorded video of vandalism, looting, blocked highways, and burning cars. Call me old-fashioned, but that stuff looks like a riot.

On the other hand, I viewed footage of thousands of people aimlessly milling around, using their cell phones to record thousands of other people who were aimlessly milling around. 

What are they going to do with all those home movies? Show 'em to their grandkids? I have a vision of grumpy old codgers sitting around their TVs fifty years from now inflicting these videos on their grandkids. 

Who are these morose wanderers?

To my surprise, a good percentage of the demonstrators are older people with gray hair and sagging bellies. Are they retired, taking a day off from playing bingo at their neighborhood senior center? 

 In addition, many protesters are working-age Angelinos, people who should be toiling at jobs on a summer weekday. Are they unemployed? Did they take a sick day to wave anti-ICE signs around?

Finally, I saw a minority of protesters, mostly teenagers or young adults, loitering on the sidewalks and streets. These are the youthful bellyachers most likely to throw rocks and set cars on fire.

No doubt some of them will be committing mischief after nightfall.  Today, however, the young demonstrators appeared to be a crowd of loafers who were essentially harmless.

Regardless of age, a majority of the complainers strolling around downtown LA appeared to be lethargic, passive, and bored. I saw one frizzy-haired, thirtish woman try to get an angry chant going, but her efforts came to nothing. Too friggin' hot to get riled up.

An image flashed in my mind of the Big Lebowski--the dude bowling in his pajamas with fellow losers Walter and Donny. By and large, the LA riot is a revolt of the weenies. 

So, Governor Newsom, California's Weenie in Chief, may be right. We don't need the Marines to put down this sad affair. We simply need to remind this assemblage of malcontents to stay hydrated and use lots of sunscreen.

Hey, dude. Let's go bowling.

Mainly Peaceful? Mostly Peaceful? Largely Peaceful? Are Folks Rioting in the City of Angels?

 Anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles have gone on for almost a week.  As Matt Taibbi pointed out in a recent blog, the legacy media have characterized these demonstrations as "mostly peaceful." Still, commentators avoid using that exact phrase because a CNN reporter was mocked for using it while standing before a burning building during the Minneapolis riot in 2020.

President Trump thinks the ruckus in Los Angeles is a riot, and he called out the National Guard and the Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass claim they have the protests under control and that Trump is overreacting.

Nevertheless, Mayor Bass imposed a curfew on downtown LA yesterday, acknowledging incidents of vandalism and looting. Protesters have set vehicles on fire and pelted local police with rocks and broken pieces of concrete. The anti-ICI crowd has stopped traffic on the 101 freeway. And then there are those Molotov cocktails.

I'd call that a riot. 

Whether President Trump should intervene to stop the rioting is another matter. Calling out 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion is a serious business, and most folks would rather local authorities deal with the civil unrest if they are capable of doing so.

Federal Judge Charles Breyer will rule on Governor Newsom's request for an injunction against federal intervention within the next few days.

My position from Flyover Country is to support President Trump. Violence, arson, and looting got entirely out of hand during the George Floyd riots of 2020--especially in Minneapolis and Seattle. Who wants a repeat of that season of discontent?

Today, Governor Greg Abbott mobilized the Texas National Guard in anticipation of planned anti-ICE demonstrations in San Antonio. That makes sense as well.  

The last thing this nation needs is for urban rioting to spread to other cities. Governor Newsom contends that the military presence in LA foments more violence. I don't think that's true.

What's a little rioting among friends?

The Los Angeles Anti-ICE Riots: Do They Signal the Collapse of the American Project?

Protesters rioted over the weekend in Los Angeles, burning cars, blocking roadways, and attacking local police.

President Trump activated 2,000 National Guard troops to stop the rampage. Later, he dispatched an additional 2,000 soldiers along with 700 Marines assigned to guard government buildings.

Not surprisingly, the State of California sued the Trump administration, claiming the National Guard mobilization is unlawful. President Trump hinted that California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested, and Newsom publicly dared the Feds to do it.

How serious are these Los Angeles demonstrations? The legacy press has characterized them as “largely peaceful,” and some outlets pointedly avoid calling them riots. Governor Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass assure the public that state and local law enforcement agencies have the situation well in hand. They contend that the presence of federal troops has increased tensions in Los Angeles and added to the violence.

Other commentators see the riots from a darker perspective. David French, writing in the New York Times, decried President Trump's intervention as a sign that "America is no longer a stable country." Leighton Woodhouse, reporting for The Free Press, concluded his essay on the recent turmoil by observing that Los Angeles “felt like a bomb ready to explode.”

I’m unsure what to make of the anti-ICE protests. On the one hand, the recent demonstrations are just another episode in America’s long history of civil unrest: the Whiskey Rebellion in the late eighteenth century, the Philadelphia Bible riots of 1844, and the Bonus Army protests following World War I.

All these uprisings were quelled by the military. More recently, troops were called out to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock and to quell violence that erupted after the deaths of Martin Luther King and George Floyd.

The Nation survived all these disturbances. Indeed, we are about to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

Somehow, however, the LA riots seem different from past disturbances. The people burning cars and throwing rocks at the police are opposed to the very idea of national borders or an orderly immigration process. They don’t want anyone deported, not even foreign rapists and human traffickers.

The rioters also have allies in the legacy media and the Democratic Party. No mainstream commentator advocates violence, but many are rabidly opposed to President Trump’s efforts to secure our country’s southern border.

Perhaps the anti-ICE protests are the latest example of a national tradition of summertime urban riots that subside as the weather turns cooler in the autumn.

Or perhaps, the Los Angeles riot signals a general breakdown of allegiance to traditional American values, patriotism, and the notion that the territory within our borders deserves to be defended and cherished. In other words, the protesters shutting down the LA freeways are saying that they reject the American Project in the broadest sense.

We should know one way or the other within the coming months.

Marines in Los Angeles Image credit: Reuters

 

 

 

America's Irish Republican Army: The Symbiotic Relationship Beween the Democratic Party and Anti-Trump Terrorism

Americans, by and large, have little interest in history, and this is particularly true of the nation's educated elites, including those in Congress, the media, and academia.

This is unfortunate because we can learn from studying historical events. For example, there are clear parallels between the terrorism that Ireland experienced in the last half of the twentieth century and the rising tide of leftist terrorism that roils the United States today.

The Irish Republican Army was made up of various factions that committed acts of terror in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, including bombings, ambushes, and political assassinations. These groups acted independently, but all were committed to ending British rule in Northern Ireland. Likewise, various independent groups and some lone individuals are fomenting terrorism in the United States today, but all are intent on undermining American society.

Over the past few years, America has seen a rise in terrorism, mainly from the left. The George Floyd riots in 2020, violent anti-Israel protests at American universities, two attempted assassinations against Donald Trump,  and, most recently, violent attacks against law enforcement officers trying to deport criminal aliens--all this is terrorism.

Americans forget that the Irish Republican Army had a political ally: Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin purported to be completely independent from the IRA, but as a PBS Frontline report noted, "The relationship between Sinn Féin and the IRA, historically, has been symbiotic."

Indeed, PBS observed:

Sinn Féin was very much an auxiliary of the Irish Republican Army. They were there for propaganda purposes, they were there to raise the funds, [and] they were there to speak on behalf of the IRA . . . .

Moreover, PBS reported, Sinn Féin "wasn't in the business of electioneering, it was in the business of propagandizing." 

Today, the Democratic Party is a de facto auxiliary of domestic terrorism.  I'm not suggesting that Democratic senators are making Molotov cocktails in their legislative offices or that legacy journalists are buying gasoline for Antifa. Still, Democrats are using political influence, media propaganda, and lawfare to attack governmental efforts to combat terrorism in this country. 

From my Flyover Country perspective, the Democrats aren't even trying to regain the majority in Congress. Insane support for transgender athletes, wild-eyed references to Trump as a Nazi, and mindless opposition to deporting criminal aliens are not the tactics of a mainstream American political Party.

In short. The Democratic Party is the present-day equivalent of Sinn Féin. Just as Sinn Féin was dedicated to ending British rule in Northern Ireland, the Progressive Dems are intent on destroying our democracy--the very thing they accuse President Trump of doing.

Russia attacks Ukraine with 407 drones and 45 missiles, but only 3 Ukrainians are killed?

 A few days ago, Ukraine launched a major drone attack on Russia, destroying over 40 strategic bombers. Last night, Russia retaliated, hitting Ukrainian cities with 407 attack drones and 45 missiles, "one of the war's largest air attacks." According to the Ukrainian military, the Russians only killed three people. That's one fatality for every 150 projectiles.

The Ukrainian narrative is about as plausible as Jake Tapper's book on President Biden's dementia. After three years of warfare, does anyone believe Ukraine's reports that only a handful of Ukrainian civilians are getting killed from aerial bombardments?  

And what about the military casualty figures? Westerners estimate that 250,000  Russian soldiers have been killed during the three years of warfare, compared to only 60,000 Ukrainians. Can that be true?

The Western media, by and large, has been content to accept the Ukrainian spin on the war. The reality is that millions of Ukrainians have fled the country to escape the conflict, and incalculable damage has been done to Ukraine's infrastructure. Ukraine's reports on its military casualties are not credible; surely as many Ukrainian soldiers have been killed as Russians.

Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State during President Trump's first presidential term, visited Odessa late last month, reportedly stirring up trouble. While attending the "Black Sea Security Forum," he urged the West not to accede to Russia's claims on Crimea. To recognize Crimea as a part of Russia, he darkly warned, "would be a mistake of epic proportions."

That's nuts. If the U.S. keeps backing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in his delusional quest to throw Russia out of Crimea, we will eventually stumble into a nuclear war. 

Mr. Pompeo may be willing to risk sending America's young people to war to get Russia out of Crimea. I am not, and neither, I hope, are the American people.

Why aren't we angrier about the Boulder terrorist attack?

 Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, attacked a group of Jewish Americans in Boulder, Colorado, a few days ago. Using an improvised flamethrower and Molotov cocktails, he injured a dozen people, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Why aren't we angrier about this racist attack on American citizens?

Why aren't we outraged by a visa policy that allowed Solimon, his wife, and five children to enter the United States on a tourist visa, and to remain illegally after the visa expired? 

Why aren't we angrier about a self-indulgent political philosophy that inspired a majority of Colorado counties and 14 Colorado towns to declare themselves sanctuary jurisdictions to thwart ICE from deporting people who are in this country illegally?

Why aren't we enraged by a judge who stopped the State Department from deporting a terrorist's family members who had no legal right to be in this country? And why is a terrorist who burned Jewish Americans alive able to get an attorney to represent him when middle-class Americans can't afford legal representation?

In the months to come, a lot of lawyers will get paid so that this racist madman gets due process. Mohammed Solimon should be executed for his crimes, and it should have happened yesterday.

Colorado counties that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal migrants  

 

Soliman hated Jews, and the elderly Jews who were participating.