Bruce Atkinson, PhD www.virtueonline.org April 23, 2025     We beseech thee also so to rule the hearts of those who bear the authority of government in this and every land, that they may be led to wise decisions and right actions for the welfare and peace of the world. (From The Prayers of the People, Holy Eucharist Rite I)     This Anglican congregational prayer from the Book of Common Prayer liturgy begs the question:  how much does God actually rule the hearts and minds of our leaders?  We pray that He does so…  more and more.  However, the evidence indicates that God continues to allow human beings “a lot of rope to hang themselves,” that is, a lot of room for ignorance, foolishness and just plain evil, and this certainly includes those in positions of leadership.  Christians disagree on which leaders are more evil than others but we know that none of them are close to perfect.   In Romans 13, we are told that all leaders hold their positions through the providence of God.  While this is true, it does not mean that God approves either of their position or their functioning in it. We all exist and continue breathing by the providence of God , and even the existence of evil (and evil leaders) is by the “permissive will of God.”   However, we must emphasize that this does NOT mean that they will lead in the perfect or directive will of God.  God ‘allows’ the rise of tyrants and those like Hitler or Stalin who create horrible holocausts.  But that does not make them in any way good.  We still must oppose their evil ways.   I have yet to track down the origin of the following quote (I was told that the main points were from an article by the late Drew Griffin), but I must say that in this one case, I am in complete agreement:   “We who believe the Bible know that all authority comes from God [ Romans 13:1] and no person, from parents to presidents, teachers to tyrants rise to that position apart from God’s providence.   As Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian and politician, once said, ‘There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’’   So God’s providence and control is not in doubt.  The question we’re actually seeking to answer is this:   Does God’s providence equal His approval?   So if the answer is ‘Yes,’ to if God’s providence equals His approval, then God has not only chosen our national leaders (whomever they may be), He must also approve of them and require us to support them as well, regardless of how evil they may be.  The problem with this line of reasoning is that it quickly abandons reason and actually runs counter to the character of God.  In order to navigate this kind of question, we have to understand that God’s providence is absolute, but His approval is not. Otherwise, we would have to say that all the murderous tyrants [and those like Hitler] or even all the lousy forms of government which have existed were in God’s perfect will.  They were not.”     I propose that sometimes God chooses bad leaders to get our attention toward those things we as believers have disregarded to our detriment (both Archbishop Justin Welby and Pope Francis could have been part of this plan).   God did not create us to be robots under His divine control; for good and/or evil, He gave us some degree of free choice … with which we can do the opposite of His will if we so choose.  In leadership positions, wolves do exist in sheep’s clothing and can deceive (if briefly) even those who are faithful believers ( Matthew 7:15 , 24:24).   As a bit of an iconoclast, I struggle to some extent with Paul’s clear directive here in Romans 13, and must provide some biblical balance: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God .  Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.  Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good.  But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.  For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.”  (Romans 13:1-6, ESV)   To balance out what Romans 13 directs in supporting and obeying our civil leaders, let us examine more of what the Bible reveals about leadership authority.  King David was given his role of authority by God Himself, but David made very clear that it had severe limits:   Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them.   4 Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!  Whose hope is in the LORD their God.  (Psalm 146:2, 4)   It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes. (Psalm 118:8-9)   And Jesus causes us all to ponder:  "Render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21).    I like this quote from my online friend professor Gerald McDermott:    “True faith always must distinguish between what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar, and making that distinction always threatens Caesar.”   Surely this is a true statement… which suggests what?  It means that many of those in politics (including so-called 'evangelicals' who care more about politics than Jesus) want to conflate the two together to the point where we cannot easily tell the difference.  ‘Confuse and deceive’ is exactly the modus operandi of our enemy, the Father of Lies.  So what belongs to Caesar and what does not?    We must note that in the New Testament, there is zero emphasis and minimal commentary regarding civil government or politics.  This tells me that our “distinguishing what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar” must result in our paying very little attention to Caesar and certainly it means that we are not to expect the government or its leaders (including Trump) to solve our country’s problems— virtually all of which are due to the human predilection to sin.   As members of Christian churches, we are to pray for our civil authorities (all their doings belong to God even though they do not acknowledge it) but we are to waste little other time and energy focusing on what they are doing or how they are doing it.  Of course , they will be untrustworthy; God has said so.   As Christians, our focus is (or should be) first upon worshiping God, then upon on the Great Commission (Matthew 28), and finally on our own church's work in feeding the poor and healing the sick.    Unless we are clearly called by God to government service, in the main, Christians should ignore ‘Caesar’ except where government interferes in our lives such that we cannot avoid it.  Politics should take up very little of our attention. It is a matter of priorities.  According to both Jesus and Paul, we are to put first things first ; that is, we are to focus on heavenly (spiritual) things, not earthly things .  Jesus told us to seek first God’s Kingdom (Matt 6:33, cf. Col 3:1-4, 2 Cor 4:18) and to seek a closer relationship with Him (John 17:3, cf. Phil 3:7-11, Jer 29:13, Micah 6:8)—and then everything else would work out just fine… that is, according to God’s will.   I am one of those who thinks that church leaders need to be essentially apolitical, as the godly evangelist Billy Graham attempted to be.  Furthermore, Christians in politics need to be absolutely moral in their dealings with other people and to adhere to the scriptures as much as possible in their partisan preferences and platforms.   Bottom line:  As Peter famously said when the proper authorities told him to quit preaching about Jesus, “ We must obey God, not men!”  (Acts 5:27-29)   Bruce Atkinson is a practicing psychologist and Christian counselor in the Atlanta area. He earned an MA in theology and a PhD in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary.  He also has an MS in research psychology from Illinois State University and a BA from Beloit College, WI.  He is a USAF Veteran (medic) who served in Vietnam.  He is also a member of the Anglican Church in North America and is Moderator and contributor to www.virtueonline.org

Traditional Catholics and Orthodox Anglicans quietly bond but theological differences remain   COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org April 23, 2025   The death of Pope Francis has put the Roman Catholic Church in limbo.  The church is in transition. Which way will the church go now that its hero to many has gone?  The last two popes before Francis were traditionalists; Francis sought to take the church in a new direction, with many believing it was a disastrous move.   His views on homosexuality, salvation, other religions, women etc. provoked outrage from traditionalists, and rejoicing from the great unwashed. For some, the rock of Peter now looks stained with the blood of the faithful. Add his collusion with China, his betrayal of Chinese Catholics and his veneration of the baby Jesus lying on a swaddling keffiyeh — the symbol of Palestinian resistance and Jew-hatred, and the full picture reveals a different Pope.   Publicly his persona was one of kindness and empathy showing concern for women, the poor, the immigrant, the marginalized and downtrodden, washing the feet of prisoners, even befriending, Argentine Anglican Archbishop Gregory Venables on the train together when he was simply Archbishop Bergoglio. He befriended the sexually abused when efforts were made to conceal and cover up abuse in Chile. But he never once went back to Argentina during his papacy. Did he know and cover up priestly sexual abuse and did not want to face his accusers? When his friendship with the artist Fr. Ivan Rupnik came to light with the Jesuit priest’s sexual assault on multiple nuns, it devastated the pope. Rupnik was expelled from his order. Francis was forced to defrock former Cardinal McCarrick, finding him guilty of sex abuse; both serious stains on the pope’s hands.   But the way forward has been marked and there is no going back. Pope Francis loaded his incoming College of Cardinals with men who thought progressively like himself; while cardinals and archbishops like Vigano, Strickland, Burke, Chaput, Sarah et al were sidelined or excommunicated. Crossing the Big Man in White was met with retribution, none of it divine. One could argue that this was about power and politics and you might be right.   Francis understood his church to be a big tent which, to his mind, did not mean a theologically fractured church. His liberal Catholic theologians argued that the church is big enough to accommodate millions of Catholics from different countries, cultures, colors, with different points of view. As a result, no one position can speak for all Catholics.   So remarried Catholics, homosexuals (“who am I to judge”), the divorced, while unacceptable in one cultural context is acceptable in another. Doctrinal certitude was up for grades, regardless of what the Magisterium might adhere too. “Thus saith the Lord” was no longer on the table. As Western culture changed and evolved, the pope sought to evolve with it. Compassion replaced certitude; uncertainty and doubt replaced a fixed doctrinal mindset. The Tridentine Mass or Latin Mass had to go of course, replaced by the Vernacular Mass following the Second Vatican Council. Francis restricted the use of the ancient Latin Mass to promote unity among the Catholic Church. Did it? Today there is a resurgence of the Latin Mass led by young people. Go figure.   With this perspective, it is easy to write off a small group of traditionalist cardinals and theologians who speak only for a handful of disgruntled orthodox Catholics who represent a minority of faithful followers. The die has been cast.   ROME AND CANTERBURY   Herein lies a tale. Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury had a relationship characterized by mutual respect, dialogue, and a shared commitment to ecumenism and social justice. They met on multiple occasions, exchanged messages, and collaborated on issues of global importance.   Both leaders shared a commitment to social justice, peace, and promoting Christian values, particularly in areas like marriage. They issued joint declarations, such as the one on the environment, highlighting areas where their two churches can work together.   They collaborated on issues like poverty, climate change, and the plight of Christians in the world. On the thorny area of homosexuality, the churches both agreed and disagreed.   The Catholic Church’s official line from the Catechism is that "homosexual acts" (i.e., sexual acts between persons of the same sex) are "acts of grave depravity" that are "intrinsically disordered,” and “they are contrary to the natural law.”  But Francis met regularly with a Fr. James Martin, a Roman Catholic priest, author, and advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in the Church and they worked together for the full inclusion of homosexuals in the life of the church. “Who am I to judge” became a turning point for the church.  One headline ran that Pope Francis created a 'seismic shift' toward LGBTQ acceptance. LGBTQ Catholics and theologians said the late pontiff’s legacy teaches that change can happen when leaders are willing to listen.   Listening became the mantra of Western Anglicanism; its lead exponent was the late Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold who presided over the consecration of the first openly outed homosexual in the person of Gene Robinson. The Episcopal Church changed forever. Gay and lesbian priests gave way to pansexual bishops and ultimately to homosexual marriage enshrined in resolution B012; that in turn saw the expulsion of a godly bishop who refused to go along with the unbiblical definition of marriage.   The rest of Western Anglicanism including and especially the Church of England has all but embraced the behavior, parsing the language with blessing same-sex unions but not fully embracing homosexual marriage. Observers with half a brain know this is but a glitch on the road to full on gay marriage. Who is fooling whom.   In the area of homosexuality, Western Anglicans have triumphed; but pansexualists are not content in winning the culture wars here, they want to force Global South provinces into conformity with their sexual proclivities.   To date they are not winning. Both GAFCON and the GSFA are united in their rejection of homosexuality much to the annoyance of western archbishops, bishops, clergy and a vociferous laity who refuse to allow an alternative vision of sex within marriage or celibacy. God forbid.   They have held fast to Scripture, Lambeth Resolution 1:10; and The Jerusalem Declaration which acknowledges God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. There you have it.   We will only know where the church is going when a new pope is elected. Will a preponderance of cardinals, many of whom have homosexual proclivities, with some actively engaged in such behaviors, swing the church formally in a new direction? If so, will the church split?   The Catholic Church has always prided itself on not splitting; pointing the finger at the Heinz 57 varieties of protestant churches as a testament to their staying power.   But homosexuality could be a game changer. It has split every mainline church in America, and it is wreaking havoc in Rome with its Lavendar mafia, a hierarchy of sex, money, and exploitation conspiracies. Some have labeled it demonic. Recent popes have failed to root it out, and there is no evidence that a new pope would or could cast out the demon of sodomy.   As Biblical theologian and Christian historian Carl Trueman observed, time will tell whether the next pope will follow in Francis’s footstep and permit the continuation of liberal Protestant policies. It’s up to the (135) men who will be gathering in the Sistine Chapel in the coming weeks. As a Catholic friend once said about the last papal election, the Holy Spirit never errs. But the same cannot be said for the College of Cardinals.   Western Christianity is underwater with millions of Americans having fled their churches never more to return. All the mainline churches will be gone in a generation. Millions of Gen Zer’s have little interest in historic Christianity. The die has been cast.   Pope Benedict XVI predicted that the Catholic Church would become a smaller but more faithful institution in the future. “The future church will be more spiritual, poorer and less political, and will find energy for what is essential. It will be a church of the little ones.”   And those “little ones” will include both faithful Anglicans and independent evangelical churches with pastors and their small faithful congregations who have kept the faith in a broken and torn world.   END

Pontiff’s unprecedented declaration permitting priests to offer same-sex blessings shocked the world   By Jules Gomes THE STREAM April 22, 2025   Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the 266th successor of St. Peter and the head of 1.4 billion Catholics on March 13, 2013. His pontifical persona as Pope Francis, taken in honor of St. Francis of Assisi — the patron saint of ecology and animals — warmed the hearts of both Catholics and Protestant,s and even non-Christians.   But Francis’s honeymoon with faithful Catholics lasted just four months. While flying back from an apostolic visit to Brazil on July 29, 2013, a reporter asked him if there was a “gay lobby” in the Vatican.   Francis’s reply was shocking: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”   The newly crowned pope may have been referring to sexual orientation rather than sexual practice, but the five words followed by a question mark — “Who am I to judge?” — became the ominous trademark that would stamp his papacy.   No More Trust—Just Verification From that point on, conservative Catholics began suspiciously scrutinizing every word that came from the pope’s mouth. Francis had shattered forever the hermeneutic of trust and obedience that had accompanied papal pronouncements over the centuries.   Conservatives accused Francis of subverting theological concepts and freighting them with leftist ideology and heterodox theology.   Jesuit priest and journalist Thomas Reese inadvertently confirmed this when he praised Francis’s first major declaration, titled The Joy of the Gospel: “Look at the title of his latest apostolic exhortation (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013),” he wrote. “It’s ‘the joy of the Gospel,’ not the ‘the truth of the Gospel.’”   Reese’s words were prophetic. Conservative Catholics and non-Catholic Christians pulled up the drawbridge — one couldn’t trust this pope as a custodian of “truth.”   Meanwhile, progressives cheered. The revolution had arrived. Francis was serenading them with the song, “All You Need Is Love.”   In the words of Guido Vignelli, Francis would usher in the revolution with “six talismanic words” — pastoral, mercy, listening, discernment, accompaniment, and integration. Vignelli warned that the words were a lexicon of smoke and mirrors designed to subvert Catholicism.   Francis’s regular public overtures to homosexuals and transgendered individuals confirmed this. It culminated in handwritten endorsements of his fellow Jesuit, Fr. James Martin, and his pro-LGBTQ+ crusading.   In early 2021, Francis publicly affirmed a civilly married homosexual couple who had three children through a lesbian surrogate — both acts forbidden by the Church. But within months, the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog ruled out blessings for same-sex couples, stating: “God does not and cannot bless sin.”   Priests backed by prelates defied the ban and conducted seasons of mass same-sex blessings in Germany. But Francis said and did nothing, reserving his regular tongue-lashings for “rigid” traditionalists.   And then, in December 2023, Francis’s handpicked new doctrinal watchdog, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, issued Fiducia supplicans — a declaration that permitted priests to informally offer blessings to same-sex couples. African bishops waxed apoplectic. Even the Church of England gasped: Francis had permitted gay blessings while they were still debating the issue.   Highly Ambiguous   At the Synod on the Family in 2014 and 2015, Francis pressed the accelerator on his “pastoral” tinkering with sexual ethics by seeking to admit “adulterers” (divorced and remarried Catholics) to Holy Communion – defying the teachings of Jesus and the Church.   The “rigged” synod resulted in an inconclusive final document, followed by Francis’s even more controversial apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), which subverted the Church’s policy on withholding Holy Communion from “adulterous” couples.   The furor following Amoris Laetitia alerted conservatives to Francis’s choice of weapon: ambiguity. The “reformer” pope would use clarity only when expressing his distaste for traditional Catholicism and Donald Trump.   An infamous footnote, number 351, which permitted those living in “irregular situations” to receive the “sacraments,” became “the most contentious footnote in the recent history of the Church,” wrote Phil Lawler in Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis Is Misleading His Flock.   Francis refused to clarify what he meant by “irregular” (cohabitation? second marriage?) or “sacraments” (confession? Holy Communion?), telling journalists during an in-flight press conference that he could not recall it.   The pope, formerly known for his prolixity, never responded to four cardinals who wrote to him in September 2016 pleading for clarification. As a result, diocesan bishops announced radically different policies based on contradictory interpretations of Francis’s words.   The Doctrine of Climate Change   Meanwhile, Francis published his tree-hugging encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, calling for an “ecological conversion” and recruiting Jesus, Mary, and Francis of Assisi as eco-allies of Greta Thunberg. The encyclical was largely ghostwritten by atheist climate scientist Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.   Environmentalism — a topic on which the pope spoke with exceptional clarity — would become a leitmotif of his pontificate and the only area of eschatology into which he would venture boldly: The world was on the precipice of destruction because of man-made climate change.   Schellnhuber was invited to address the Amazon Synod in October 2019. That tumultuous event would slap an unforgettable icon on Francis’s face — the figurine of the Andean mother earth deity Pachamama. Eco-liberals venerated Pachamama’s wooden images in the presence of Pope Francis until a firebrand Austrian Catholic drove to Rome and dumped them in the River Tiber.   The pope’s paean to Pachamama intensified as the Wuhan virus catastrophe was unleashed on the world. In pleas bordering on pantheism, Francis warned the pandemic was caused by grumpy Gaia having a hissy fit.   “Nature is throwing a tantrum so that we will take care of her,” he pontificated. “God always forgives. We sometimes forgive. Nature never forgives.”   Francis even imitated Marcion and cancelled the words of the “vengeful” Old Testament God: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (Genesis 9:6), going so far as tochange Canon 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018, declaring the death penalty “inadmissible.”   He would seal this innovation with his magisterium authority by squirreling it into his 2024 declaration Dignitas Infinita. Three months before his death, he would beseech his friend and ideological ally, President Joe Biden, to commute the sentences of 40 criminals on federal death row — including criminals convicted of savagely massacring Jews, children, and women.   Editing Jesus   Even Jesus’s words in the New Testament needed an update. In 2020, Francis, a former chemistry teacher from Buenos Aires, took his scalpel to the Lord’s Prayer, rewriting the sixth petition — “lead us not into temptation” — as “do not abandon us to temptation.”   Francis clearly wasn’t going to “preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,” as the Apostle Paul admonished all believers. With unimaginable hubris, the “custodian of tradition,” Francis, jettisoned Jesus and signed a covenant with Islam for the sake of “human fraternity.”   Hijacking St. Francis yet again, Pope Francis penned the longest papal encyclical ever — a “veritable bacchanalia of verbosity” — devoting 43,000 words to migration, markets, media, interfaith dialogue, populism, nationalism, the redistribution of wealth, and the death penalty.   Fratelli tutti even quoted the Koran in seeking to inspire “the vision of a fraternal society,” but never once mentioned “salvation” or the uniqueness of Jesus and His salvific work on the Cross in its eight chapters.   In preaching a Christless fraternity, critics complained that Francis was reviving the hippie deity of Woodstock, who was, in the words of H. Richard Niebuhr, “a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”   Jettisoning Jesus was essential to Francis signing his Abu Dhabi covenant with Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb. Muslim converts to Christianity facing the death penalty for apostasy — a penalty al-Tayyeb endorses — denounced the dissimulations in the document.   Muslim persecution of Christians skyrocketed under Francis. When Turkey’s radical Muslim president occupied the world’s greatest Byzantine cathedral, turning it again into a mosque, the dhimmified Francis whispered a feeble, “I think of Hagia Sophia, and I am very saddened.”   Chinese Friends in High Places   Francis’s megaphone had already been deadened by his concordat with China, renewed in 2020 and 2024 despite an ever-swelling surge in the persecution of Christians and Uyghur Muslims by the CCP. On this, the pontiff lost even his liberal fans for acquiescing to communist oppression.   Nevertheless, the world was treated to a high-decibel lecture on taking the experimental mRNA vaccine as the pope set an example by taking the abortion-tainted jab and sided with draconian lockdowns.   As monarch of Vatican City, Francis became one of the first world leaders to force a vaccine passport on citizens, enforcing institutionalized coercion and discrimination, by which he managed to violate the Nuremberg Code, the Italian constitution, and a Council of Europe resolution simultaneously. Sycophant swiftly turned the Catholic Church into a COVID cult.   Francis, forever the arch-nemesis of proselytism, then became God’s salesman-in-chief for the COVID-19 vaccine, even producing a video for the Ad Council — an agency that promotes contraception, LGBTQ+ causes, and the Marxist-led Black Lives Matter movement.   “Being vaccinated with vaccines authorized by the competent authorities is an act of love,” he cooed in the promotional video. The medical tyranny triggered a revolt of conscientious objectors in the Swiss Guard, which was swiftly quashed by the Vatican.   Soon, the Pontifical Academy for Life would invite Rabbi Avraham Steinberg to preach his brand of vaccine extremism at the Vatican, even labeling intentionally unvaccinated people as “murderers.” The Vatican mint would issue a 20-euro silver coin celebrating the contested jab.   Bad Habits Long Established Meanwhile, philosopher José Quarracino (the nephew of Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, who appointed Fr. Bergoglio as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires) emerged like a bad dream from Francis’s past.   Quarracino described Bergoglio as “the buffoon of plutocrats” for creating the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican. “Bergoglio’s leadership style is that of a despot who allows neither contradiction nor independent judgment. He has always surrounded himself with mediocre, submissive, and servile personalities,” the philosopher quipped. He added that Francis had always had a bent toward “flirt[ing]with the liberal and progressive world, always insofar as it was to his advantage.”   But the most dizzying papal adventure was round the corner. In October 2021, Francis launched a Synod on Synodality geared at “listening” to the whole church. The expensive experiment involved laypeople at the grassroots — and even Protestants, lapsed Catholics, and atheists.   Altogether, the synod lasted until 2024 and opened a Pandora’s box of ideological agendas, with dissident Catholics demanding women’s ordination and a revision of Catholic teaching on LGBT issues.   But, despite his increasingly failing health, Francis remained in an “Around the World in 80 Days” mode, visiting over 60 countries from Brazil to Bulgaria and from Slovenia to South Sudan while preaching “human fraternity” in lieu of the Christian gospel.   Papal Antisemitism He became the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, promoting dialogue with Islam. He would travel to Sweden to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, praising the “courageous” Martin Luther and affirming that Luther “got it right” on justification.   On a visit to Kazakhstan, Francis did not mention Jesus even once in his seven-minute address to an interfaith assembly, even though the event he was there to commemorate was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.   While the U.S. Supreme Court turned Roe v. Wade on its head in 2022, igniting the dream of an abortion-free world, Francis welcomed pro-abortion Catholics like President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a wink and a nudge while publicly bashing bishops who dared to bar them from Holy Communion.   Toward the end of his life, the pope who claimed to have the Argentinian Jewish Rabbi Abraham Skorka as his bosom pal and even cowrote the book On Heaven and Earth with him made a series of anti-Israel statements, leading to a catastrophic breakdown in Jewish-Catholic relations.   The final straw was Francis venerating the baby Jesus lying on a swaddling keffiyeh — the symbol of Palestinian resistance and Jew-hatred. In January 2025, Rome’s chief rabbi, Dr. Riccardo Di Segni, accused Pope Francis of neglecting persecuted Christians in Islamic countries while directing his “selective indignation” against Israel.   Di Segni warned that the pope’s “omissions, distractions, [and] low-profile, generic citations” against Muslims who persecute Christians “clashes with the systematic and almost daily attention and words of disapproval and condemnation towards Israel.”   A month earlier, Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, was forced to rebuke Francis for committing a “genocide blood libel against the Jewish state” and reminded the pontiff of the Vatican’s silence during the Nazi Holocaust.   Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.

By David G. Duggan © Special to Virtueonline www.virtueonline.org April 22, 2025   I hold no brief for the Roman Catholic Church. For my money (much diminished after writing 4 checks to the taxing authorities last week), it is wrong on the three planes of intersection of the human with the divine: 1) theological (insofar as it advocates a “works-based salvation”–that you can earn your way into heaven); 2) historical (e.g., its continued benefit from the slave trade by its client states Spain and Portugal well into the 19th century); and 3) spiritual (its claim to “exclusive inerrancy” in doctrine and control of the “gates of heaven” excludes such latter-day saints as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Kingdom of heaven). And its vice-grip over Chicago politics for at least the last 70 years makes its cozy relationship with the kleptocrats who have ruined this city a national disgrace.   Still, its role in saving Western civilization (sparing Rome from destruction by Attila; preserving libraries and learning in medieval monasteries) deserves some commendation, even from a confirmed Protestant. So, with the recent death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, known to some as the Bishop of Rome, to others as Francis I, it is appropriate to examine his 12-year backside occupancy of the “chair of St. Peter.”   I’ll let the historians examine whether Bergoglio was a closeted homosexual and Jesuit conflicted over the role of the church in Argentina’s “dirty war” of the 1970s. Credible accusations have him violating young seminarians as the order’s “novice master,” and of being complicit in the abduction of two radical Jesuits in that decade. Those events are too far removed from the present to have any value in determining Bergoglio’s ultimate role in God’s Kingdom. Suffice it that much of his rule over the Catholic faithful can be viewed through the lens of a man trying to atone for his indiscretions. Using the Italian homophobic slur “frocciagine” (loosely “f@%%0+” or “fairy”) to say why he didn’t want to open up seminaries to those of that inclination because there were already enough of them perhaps masked his true sentiments expressed in unilaterally allowing the “blessing” of same-sex relationships. But hey, Italian was not Bergoglio’s native language so he may not have understood how that term was understood by most of those who heard it during a “private meeting” with his cardinals. And his outreach to the politically marginalized (refugees, LGBTs, the Muslims who have invaded Europe) carries the freight of one who realizes that he did not do enough when his own skin was on the line.   But what cannot be overlooked is that Bergoglio overlooked the ascending trendline of homosexual domination of the clergy. From fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin (sometimes referred to as “Brokeback Martin”), a made-for-tv-soundbite apologist for the “gay agenda” in the church, through Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, DC and former head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, to the defrocked and now deceased former DC Cardinal Theodore McCarrick who supposedly waited 18 years after baptizing an infant to engage with him when he entered the seminary (sort of like Jerry Lee Lewis who checked into the hospital to await the birth of his next wife), the RCC has lost any moral authority over the conduct of its faithful, let alone its priests. And Bergoglio did absolutely nothing to rectify the curia, that swamp of clerics and lay who have led the RCC into fiscal insolvency.   The Conclave will have a choice: continue down the reformist path begun by Bergoglio, or return to the orthodoxy which Ratzinger tried and failed to impose. Or maybe there’s a third path: return the church to its teaching role and avoid the political involvement, the culture wars, the feminist movement which have wrought so much destruction in the church. An unnamed disciple asked Jesus to teach them to pray. No vicar of Christ can ascribe to a higher calling than teaching the faithful to pray.   Jorge Mario Bergoglio, RIP. You will be judged by a standard higher than your own exalted station in life.   David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago. He is an occasional contributor to VOL.

By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org April 22, 2025   Sometimes people on my side of the fence get it wrong, fearfully wrong, and there is no excuse for it. None. In times past one might have excused it based on political considerations or just plain ignorance; but not anymore.   There is no basis or room whatsoever for holocaust deniers. In many places in Poland and Germany the camps remain open, a somber reminder of man’s inhumanity to man. The stench of death is still there.   I visited Auschwitz in the late 60s as a young man in my 20s. I was with a small band of young Polish believers who had not seen the horror of the camp. Most of them never made it through the whole presentation. I was (and remain) deeply fascinated by evil; some might say I have a morbid interest in the subject, but I am reminded that there is a great battle going on in the universe between good and evil; God and Satan, and we must all choose sides.   For Christians, St. Paul reminds us that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Who would deny that we are experiencing such today!   Holocaust denying you might think belongs to the Hillbilly folk from rural Georgia – Deliverance territory – but that is not true.   A former Queen’s chaplain recently endorsed a holocaust denier Catholic priest as a “great scripture scholar whose books are well worth reading.” Pick me off the floor.   Dr. Gavin Ashenden, is a scholar of some repute himself. He holds a law degree, undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology and a Ph.D. with a dissertation on the life of Charles Williams. No small achievement.   But in a Catholic podcast, the ex-Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, triggered fresh controversy after the celebrity convert to Catholicism signed a joint statement endorsing a notorious holocaust denier Catholic priest – Fr. James Mawdsley – who has loudly proclaimed the holocaust is “The biggest lie in history.” Mawdsley also claimed that the word “antisemitism” is “completely meaningless,” and denied that the Catholic Church “ever taught a hatred of people” before once again claiming that the Holocaust is a “lie.”  It didn’t happen, he says.   The statement, issued by the three co-hosts of the Catholic Unscripted podcast—Gavin Ashenden, Katherine Bennett, and Mark Lambert—praised the infamous pro-Nazi priest Fr. James Mawdsley as “a great scriptural scholar” whose “books are well worth reading.”   Catholics and Jews excoriated the podcast after Bennett platformed Mawdsley, a priest who was suspended by the traditional Latin Mass society, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, in order to discuss the post-Vatican II changes in the Good Friday liturgy.   Catholic Unscripted released the prerecorded podcast on YouTube just before the Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week. On the Wednesday of Holy Week, Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) flagged up the podcast’s Jew-hatred on X and Facebook.   The antisemitism campaign group reported that “several people from the Catholic community” had written to them “in disgust” regarding the priest’s well-publicized views on “the Jews” and the Holocaust. His views were not challenged on the podcast.   Thousands of Catholics and Jews from across the world slammed Mawdsley and Bennett for the podcast. The CAA messages were reposted on social media by prominent personalities, including Damien Thompson, associate editor of The Spectator and host of the Holy Smoke podcast. “This is an outrage and a gift to the enemies of traditional Catholicism,” Thompson wrote.   After almost a week of being called out for their Jew-hatred, Ashenden, Bennett, and Lambert issued a statement falsely claiming that Mawdsley was a “great scriptural scholar and his books are well worth reading.”   In their statement, the Catholic Unscripted team went on to exonerate Bennett for not challenging Mawdsley on his antisemitic claims, “knowing him to be fiercely well researched and more knowledgeable (sic) than her.”   However, an investigation into Mawdsley’s profile and writings reveals that the priest has neither the training nor the credentials of a biblical scholar. After his A-levels at school, he went to Bristol University to study mathematics and physics, but dropped out after three terms.   He was ordained in 2016 after completing his priestly formation at the St. Peter’s Seminary in Wigratzbad, Germany. The seminary does not offer licentiate degrees in biblical scholarship — a canonical requirement in the Roman Catholic Church for a priest or layperson to be recognized as a scripture scholar. He was also briefly married, divorced and got an annulment.   The priest has never published a single article in a peer-reviewed journal or published through an academic press. All his seven books are self-published by his own company New Old. The company does not seem to have published books by any other author.   Mawdsley is also not part of any academic guild of Catholic biblical scholars, such as the Catholic Biblical Federation (international) or the Catholic Biblical Association of Great Britain.   Further, Mawdsley’s misreading of the biblical texts to promote antisemitism is in direct violation of the exegetical and hermeneutical principles laid down in the Vatican’s "The Jewish People" and their "Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible."   That this “priest” should be given a pass by Ashenden is a tragedy of the highest order. Ashenden knows better. That Ashenden flipped to Rome is understandable bearing in mind the sorry state of the Church of England. But there are millions of global Anglicans who have not bowed the knee to Rome nor do they view people like Mawdsley as acceptable. Recently a populist Anglican priest, one Calvin Robinson, got tossed out of his Anglican jurisdiction, accused by his archbishop of antisemitism.   In short, antisemitism has no place in Christian life or teaching. Antisemitism must be exposed for what it is. Hateful words lead to escalation, to discrimination and dehumanization, culminating in genocide. Today the state of Israel faces charges of genocide.   We as Christians should repudiate this new antisemitism with every bone in our bodies. It is repeating the shameful errors of the German Christians who looked the other way in the 1930s when the Nazis made clear they intended to exterminate the Jews--just as Hamas and Iran intend.  For Christians to deny the Holocaust or not defend Jews and Israel when this pattern is being repeated, is unconscionable.    If we do not speak up, then who will speak for us when our time comes?   END

Who will next wear the shoes of the fisherman?   By Mary Ann Mueller VOL Special Correspondent www.virtueonline.org April 21, 2025   Sede Vacante: Pope Francis has died.   “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow, I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell prefaced Monday (April 21) morning from the Vatican. “At 7:35 this morning, The Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the Father’s house. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His church.”   Pope Francis’ death was not unexpected. He was in failing health since he came down with double pneumonia on Valentine's Day which landed him in the hospital for more than a month.   Even after he got out of the hospital, he never recovered his health, but he lasted until Easter when he was seen by the people taking what would be his final ride in his white Popemobile.   The Pope is dead. Such words were uttered Easter Monday morning by Cardinal Farrell, an American Catholic bishop who once was the IV Bishop of Dallas. Now as the Camerlengo of the Catholic Church he is the one who pronounced Pope Francis dead, defaced his papal ring to signify that Francis' reign is over, and announced the Pope’s death to the world. And, until a new pontiff is elected, the affairs of state for the Vatican City-State fall on his shoulders.   The Pope is dead. I've heard those words uttered six times. First in 1958 when Pope Pius XII died; in 1963 when Pope John XXIII died: twice in 1978 when Pope Paul died and quickly afterwards for Pope John Paul I, then again in 2005 when John Paul II died and again Easter Monday when Pope Francis died.   Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI died on New Year's Eve 2022, but he was not the sitting pope at the time. He abdicated his papal throne in 2013 to be followed by Francis.   On March 13, 2013 I was excited about Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s election as pope. He was seen as a humble, almost shy man from Buenos Aires, Argentina.   Around the same time Justin Welby was named the Archbishop of Canterbury, and many were excited about his elevation to the See of Canterbury. Both church leaders were enthroned days apart Francis on March 19 and Welby on March 21. They became friends.   But, alas, both Francis and Welby turned out to be disappointments with their reigns ending just months apart in 2025. Welby put down his crozier on January 6 which was his 69th birthday, and Francis died on April 21. And now both the See of Canterbury and the See of Rome are Sede Vacante. The question is: Who will fill these vacancies?   Both Francis and Welby brought turmoil to their branch of the universal church. Both tripped over the growing demands of LGBTQ ideology issues.   Now the Vatican enters into nine days of mourning. Then several days later, to allow for travel time for all the electing cardinals to arrive in Rome, the next conclave is supposed to start to elect a new pontiff – eventually a telltale puff of white smoke signifies that one of the gathered cardinals will trade in his red cassock for the white one.   Easter Monday the Italian media – La Repubblica and Il Messaggero – reported that Francis’ death is not attributable to lung issues reporting that the Pope apparently died of a stroke. However, the Vatican has stated that he succumbed to pneumonia.  Pray for repose of Pope Francis’ soul. Pray for the Roman Church. Pray for the conclave. Pray for the new pope, whomever he will be. Pray that the Holy Spirit gets His way and that “Thy Will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”   Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline.

By Dr. Jules Gomes THE STREAM Apr 21, 2025   The most controversial pontiff in living memory has just died at the age of 88.   Pope Francis – born in Argentina as Jorge Mario Bergoglio — passed away after a lengthy battle with thrombocytopenia blood disorder, a mild acute kidney injury, and renal insufficiency.   Like a Greek tragedy, Francis will be remembered as the pontiff who radiated a utopian vision of unifying the world under Friedrich Schiller’s rousing call of fratelli tutti (brothers all) — but left his own church fatally fractured.   Ironically, Francis hated President Donald Trump, but was himself a toweringly “Trumpian” personality — one people either loved or hated.   Millions of Catholics around the globe revered him as a prophet of mercy, an apostle of peace, and a spartan workaholic who rejected the pomp of the papal palace, choosing to live in the Santa Marta hostel instead.   They hailed his unflinching emphasis on social justice, equality, immigration, climate change, ecumenical outreach, interfaith dialogue, the decentralization of power, and his far-sighted chess maneuvers to include the marginalized, especially women, in the highest echelons of the church.   But his critics saw him as a Screwtape-like character in a white zucchetto — a Marxist wrecking ball scheming to dilute and eventually dissolve distinctive Catholic doctrine by turning the glittering wine of Catholicism into the tepid water of a bland Anglicanism.   DEEPLY POLARIZING   The pope’s cheerleaders portrayed him as the long-awaited messianic reformer who spoke truth to political power — and even in his final days, challenged their nemesis, Donald Trump, by egging the U.S. bishops to defy his efforts to deport illegal aliens.   For his detractors Francis was nothing short of Machiavellian — a manipulative micromanager, a megalomaniacal dictator, and a Neville Chamberlain redivivus who struck Faustian bargains with Islamic jihadists, globalist vaccine peddlers, pro-Palestinian antisemites, and Beijing’s communist nabobs while trading Catholicism for kitsch.   In the journalistic laundromat of dirty papal linen, Francis’s garments will be seen as indelibly stained by the favoritism he showed his friend Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik — a celebrity artist accused of sexually abusing more than two dozen nuns — as well as covering over the crimes of high-profile clerical sex abusers.   Papal historians will remember him for his grandest ecclesiastical experiment — the amorphous Synod on Synodality — hailed by progressives as unprecedented and damned by conservatives as a Trojan virus designed to subvert Catholic teaching.   STRANGE OMENS   Traditionalist Catholics will forever despise Francis for Traditionis Custodes — the pope’s guillotine on the Traditional Latin Mass, and his unrelenting diatribes against their “rigidity,” “backwardness” and toxic tendency to “safeguard the ashes” of the past.   Social media wags will persist in portraying him as a temperamental windsock: from slapping the hand of an Asian woman to flinging poisoned javelins at paleo-conservative priests frocked up in laced vestments, and zealous faithful engaged in evangelism.   Francis’s ascension to the throne of the fisherman was an anomaly. The waters of the Tiber parted to make way for him only because his predecessor threw in the pontifical towel.   The gods made their displeasure over this seemingly arbitrary act felt: Lightning struck St. Peter’s Basilica twice on February 11, 2013, the day Pope Benedict XVI resigned. A year later, a crow and seagull savagely attacked two doves Francis released from the iconic window of the Apostolic Palace.   OBJECTIVES   What was Bergoglio hoping to accomplish as the 266th Roman pontiff? His first greeting to the world was a homely Buona Sera; would he change Church substance along with style? “I hope you don’t regret this later,” he jokingly told cardinals at his inauguration dinner in March 2013.   The next day, he ditched the papal Mercedes with the license plate SCV1 for a standard-issue black saloon, dumped the ermine-trimmed mozzetta and gold pectoral cross, traded red shoes for black, and quit the apostolic palace for the Casa Santa Martha hostel.   For the media, it was love at first sight; the modern Francis was virtue-signaling the qualities of Francis of Assisi. It seemed like the pope’s honeymoon with the chattering classes would last forever, with the media devouring his daily soundbites that veered dangerously off script, especially during high-altitude press conferences on the papal plane.   Francis, ad libbing on how atheists would go to Heaven and the existence of a “gay lobby” in the Vatican, confirmed that his would be a papacy of improvisation — and, adventurous, perhaps even risky, innovation.   And then on July 29, 2013, during an press conference on the plane while flying back from Brazil, he uttered five little words that would become the signature of his papacy: “Who am I to judge?” he said when asked about gay priests in the Church.   CEMENTING HIS LIBERAL LEGACY   As his health continued to fail, Francis devoted his attention to creating the optimal conditions for his successor to seal his legacy. In a series of consistories, the pope nominated cardinal-electors who align with his agenda on LGBT rights, synodality, climate change, migrant issues, and social justice, most recently in October 2024.   I suspect that Francis’s greatest achievement (depending on where one sits on the question of papal supremacy) was to perform a Samson-like suicidal feat and bring the bloated concept of the papacy crashing down for the sake of ecumenical unity.   In June, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity released a 151-page document inelegantly titled “The Bishop of Rome: Primacy and Synodality in Ecumenical Dialogues and Responses to the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint.”   The dossier is a time bomb carefully calibrated to keep ticking until it detonates the theory and practice of papal supremacy in the Roman Catholic Church. It totally reverses the supremacist claims of Pope Pius IX, who at Vatican I declared that papal supremacy and universal jurisdiction are “supported by the clear witness of Holy Scripture.”   Pius IX’s claims were hotly contested by Archbishop Peter Kenrick of St. Louis, Missouri, who demonstrated that most of the church fathers did not believe that the “rock” of which Jesus spoke in Matthew 16:18 was the Apostle Peter. While Pius IX claimed “the primacy of Peter over the whole Church,” Francis admits that “the Pope is not, by himself, above the Church; but within it as one of the baptized.”   Progressives will regard Francis’s last will and testament as an act of supreme humility for the sake of Christian unity. Conservatives will view it as a betrayal of the doctrine that exclusively defines Catholic uniqueness and its claims to be the one, true Church.   Francis has succeeded in bequeathing to Catholics something they never had: a hermeneutic of suspicion that will, from this point forth, no longer accept papal pronouncements as authoritative or definitive. Even Martin Luther never have dreamt of achieving such a monumental feat.   In the post-Francis church, the question “Is the pope Catholic?” will no longer be the punchline to a joke.   Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org April 19, 2025   Someone asked me the other day just how long the whole issue of homosexuality will continue to consume the Anglican Communion. It’s a fair question and the short answer is, I don’t know. The long answer is, not forever and probably not for much longer.   We have been fighting this battle since (and before) Lambeth resolution 1:10 passed in 1998. The churches are weary of the whole discussion and the arguments with them. They are sick and tired of being asked or told that they must accept practicing homosexuals to all orders of ministry, or face being called homophobic and then tossed out of the church for not being inclusive.   The lines have been drawn. Those who favor pansexuality and the whole range of LGBTQ+ sexualities are on one side and those who oppose any change in Biblical marriage and Biblical sexual ethics and practice sit on the other side of the aisle. The aisle itself is like the crocodile-infested Nile River, cross it at your own risk.     Mainline churches which have embraced pansexuality are slowly withering and dying while those who stand on Scripture, history and reason are growing. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence that evangelical churches that demand something of their adherents are actually flourishing.   Because sexuality and identity are so closely linked, there is little to think anyone’s mind is going to be changed. Those committed to a progressive church mindset will fall on their sword to make and keep the changes the church has “progressed” too; and those who have never moved will likely never do so; though one or two, like the Hays father and son have done so. The same goes for the Campolo’s. But they are few and far between. The sides have been drawn up and we now await the outcome of history on how it will all turn out.   CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM   So, what will be the next big issue to fall on the Western church, (as in fact it is doing so even as I write.) I believe it is the growing confrontation between Christianity and Islam.   There are over two billion Muslims in the world today, making up roughly a quarter of the global population. The overwhelming majority, 87%-90%, are Sunni Muslims, while the remaining 10%-13% are Shia Muslims. These totals can be further broken down into minor heterodox sects, including Ismailis, Alawites, and Druze. They want a universal caliphate governed by Sharia Law and death to those who will not convert.   The West is facing an existential crisis. We are post-modern, post Christian, some say post truth, secular, materialistic, agnostic, atheist, greedy, lovers of money, angst-driven, with many hoping that a revived Christian nationalism will save us. While a handful of Christians are being cancelled, you have not, as the writer to the Hebrews says, “resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”   Meantime persecution haunts the Global South, with hundreds dying daily for their faith in countries like Nigeria and the South Sudan. A war in the Middle East has the potential to explode into a nuclear war if wiser heads don’t prevail.   But the Islamization of the West is the most troubling issue. England is fast succumbing to the siren call of Islam. The Church of England is a veritable joke (or lost cause) to most of the British public. The rest of Europe is fast becoming Islamic as refugees roll across the Mediterranean looking for a safe haven and a new life in what was once Christian Europe. The future looks bleak for European countries facing both Islam and a revived Russia at war with the Ukraine.   It is compounded with many thinking that Russia is more Christian than England and the Russian Orthodox Church chooses a ‘might is right’ mentality in the war on Ukraine, offering a robust Christianity now long gone in Western Europe. Islam also presents itself as a robust faith not made for feel-your-pain wimps, whiny self-reflection or narcissistic introversion.   In any eventuality, the central issue facing Christians will not be the joys of sodomy, but the uniqueness of Jesus. Is He truly the Son of God, savior of the world or something else?   We live in an age of growing religious pluralism, in which the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is being downplayed to meet the demands of political correctness and “the new tolerance.” We are now told that Jesus is not the way to God, but a way to God—one among many in the world. To suggest otherwise is to be ignorant, intolerant, insensitive, arrogant, fundamentalist, or just hopelessly out of touch with the enlightened consciousness of today’s world.   C.S. Lewis puts the kibosh on that: “The idea of a great moral teacher saying what Christ said is out of the question. In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man. We may note in passing that He was never regarded as a mere moral teacher. He did not produce that effect on any of the people who actually met Him. He produced mainly three effects—Hatred—Terror—Adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.”   So, it is Jesus or Mohammed. One is alive “at the right hand of the Father”, the other is still dead.   DANCING AROUND JESUS   What we are seeing playing out among Western intelligentsia is a fearful symmetry; watching a culture in decline, afraid of the consequences of lost faith while hopeful of a cultural Christianity to save it.   The label “cultural Christian” has become a new way to position oneself between theism and a rejection of the value of Western culture and civilization that has its foundation in Christianity.   Intellectual players like entrepreneur Elon Musk, philosopher Richard Dawkins and Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson all flirt with Christianity but are not prepared to make a commitment to Christ.  It’s like having a steak dinner at a restaurant and all you get is the juice; the steak has been eaten by the waiter.   We have become a nation of idolators; we worship everything but the one true God. Millions have dropped out of the church and Gen Zs are not even giving the church a first thought.   To say that we are reaping what we have sown is to state the obvious. Only a genuine revival can change the hearts and minds of people; and that is a work of the Spirit, not our own tortured wills.   END

By David G. Duggan © Special to Virtueonline www.virtueonline.org April 18, 2025   There’s very little in life that I hate more than paying taxes. Unless it is waiting in line at the post office to send in my tax return. Having written enough checks in the last 45 days to feed a family of four for a year, I wasn’t exactly pleased when the line at the local post office snaked out the door. Rather than find out how long it would take to get to the head of that line, I hopped back on my bike to pedal to another branch where I hoped the line was shorter.   A mile and a half away, I was sixth in line. Several patrons ahead of me was a man in a wheel chair. I was too far away to eavesdrop but when I approached the adjacent window I asked what brought him there. “I’m asking about medical supplies which haven’t been delivered.” And I think that I have problems.   “The poor you will always have with you,” replied Jesus when Judas rebuked Him for allowing Mary to anoint His feet with nard, rather than have that Himalayan-derived perfume sold to give the proceeds to the poor (John 12). Judas may have been a hypocrite, stealing from the disciples’ common purse, but even if he had been without sin, his concern for the poor squares with Jesus’. Should we dismiss Judas’ rebuke as mere deflection from his sin?   Some of the money which I just paid to the three governments controlling my life will go for medical supplies and care, to food and shelter, to job training and education. The poor, always with us, will wait in line for these gifts from those with more who have been anointed by God’s abundance.   They also serve who stand and wait, wrote John Milton on his blindness. No medical supplies awaited him. He depended solely on God’s grace shown on the cross, confirmed in the tomb, proved in the Resurrection. David Duggan is a retired attorney living in Chicago. He is an occasional contributor to VOL.

By John Zmirak THE STREAM April 17, 2025   Imagine if in the Gospel narrative of the Gadarene swine, at some point along their thunderous plummet toward the sea, one of the alpha boars halted. He sniffed the air, looked down at the waves, and gave a thoughtful grunt. Then other pigs around him halted too. They seemed to be listening to him. Would he lead them back up the slope, despite the demons urging them onward down to destruction?   Great Britain’s Supreme Court just halted on its haunches and gave a thoughtful grunt. The Daily Telegraph reports:   Transgender women are not legally women, Britain’s highest court has declared in a landmark ruling hailed as a victory by JK Rowling.   Supreme Court judges unanimously ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act referred to biological sex, not acquired gender.   Wednesday’s judgment was hailed as a victory for common sense by gender-critical campaigners and politicians, with JK Rowling saying it would protect “the rights of women and girls across the UK”.   Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, said the ruling meant that the “era of Keir Starmer telling us women can have penises has come to an end”.   It followed a years-long legal battle between campaign group For Women Scotland and the Scottish Government over the definition of a woman.   Lord [Patrick] Hodge told the court: “The unanimous decision of this court is that the definition of the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.”   In its 88-page ruling, the court added that the “concept of sex is binary” under the Equality Act 2010.   It was also in Great Britain that the Cass Report appeared, exposing the false claims that sexually confused teens benefit from puberty blockers and other grotesque, biology-denying interventions. That report largely stopped the chemical and surgical assault on teens’ sexuality in Britain, though it continues in the U.S. — with Colorado lawmakers recently voting to strip custody from parents who won’t “affirm” transgender delusions.   As we reported here, the Vatican just blew a hole in its previously solid opposition to sexual mutilations, allegedly to prevent “trans” people from committing suicide (a discredited claim, but don’t confuse liberal Catholics with the facts). Fake empathy trumps real doctrine, and throws into question the teaching authority of the Catholic Church for any serious believer.   Who can trust a Vatican doctrinal judgment ever again after this? We will simply have to judge every non-infallible Vatican pronouncement (which is 99.99999999999999% of them) purely on its merits. How does that leave us functionally distinguishable from Protestants? Unless, of course, we become good papal Stalinists and accept new teachings that reverse old teachings with the breezy obedience of workers at Orwell’s Ministry of Truth: “Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.” If you outsource your conscience entirely to whatever Aleister Crowley disciple a given pope appoints, then life gets a whole lot simpler.   Will This Win for Sanity Stick?   The UK ruling is a major defeat for the transgender doctrine of demons, which claims that we have up to 47 human “genders” and shift among them at will, like spirits possessing a body. (That is why I prefer to call the political movement that backs this teaching “LGBTQMYNAMEISLEGION.”)   Will this legal ruling, which peels Great Britain away from the juggernaut of support for sexual delusion, force the post-Christian cult of “inclusion” and suicidal empathy to pause and reflect? Will the Muslim voters who increasingly call the shots in Great Britain inform their pale, white puppets that enabling sexual fetishes isn’t sharia-friendly? More likely, such Muslims will continue their customary policy of letting the kuffar (filthy infidels) destroy themselves, confident that they will inherit and Islamicize the country once it passes the point of no return.   Why Reason Alone Can’t Prevail   It’s politically helpful to us in the short term that the Left has tied around its neck the anchor of transgender madness, which defies the obvious biological truths on which every human civilization has been built, which sustain every mammalian species, and extend even into the plant kingdom. If you want to find sexual polymorphism of the kind that the Democratic Party (and now many churches) believe exists in humans, you really have to drill down into the world of the Fungus. Anyone who insists he’s “genderfluid” is basically saying “I’m a mushroom.” It might seem funny to agree with him, but since he’s an image-bearer of God it’s actually sinful. That’s why you can’t use “preferred pronouns,” even if a government (such as Ireland’s) prosecutes you and seizes your bank account. Reason and science alone, in theory, should collapse any legal or intellectual support for the strange sexual fantasies of the transgenderists. But I fear this won’t happen. Ask yourself why it didn’t already happen. No new scientific discoveries launched the transgender revolution. Nobody looked in a microscope and found 45 extra, undiscovered genders. None of that stopped the psychiatric and medical professions from throwing their weight behind trans ideology as fervidly as they once embraced lobotomies, and cancelling dissenters no matter what their credentials might be.   Reason and evidence cease to matter to people when they threaten to impinge on sexual liberation. (See life beginning at conception, which every biologist knows and every pro-choicer disputes.)   I once wondered here why the people who want eugenic abortions for kids with Down syndrome don’t embrace euthanasia for trans patients, since the same arguments of saving money and avoiding suffering apply much more to the transgender than they do to the unborn:   Why does our society embrace transgender people as victims and heroes, as brave pioneers and fascinating transgressors — while ruthlessly hunting down and wiping out kids with Down syndrome?   It’s not as if people with Down syndrome made the same kind of demands as trans activists do. You don’t see Down syndrome advocates demanding that we abolish IQ tests, dismantle every barrier to Down syndrome acceptance, until people with Down syndrome were piloting airplanes and serving as cabinet members — and labeling those who opposed this as bigots and haters. Keeping a person with Down syndrome healthy is nowhere near as expensive as changing a person’s sex, and fooling his body for decades with artificial hormones.   Down syndrome advocates don’t insist we use special pronouns, reject fundamental truths of biology, or otherwise reengineer our education and society to accommodate them. They’d just like us to stop hunting them down and wiping them out.   And I offered the unsettling answer: While the average citizen might be equally unsettled by either a person with Down syndrome or one with gender dysphoria, there’s one critical difference between them. The former is simply a person who has been born with some physical and intellectual challenges. There’s nothing sexy or kinky about him, he’s simply somewhat disabled. … The transgender person, however, is a sexual transgressor. He’s doing outrageous and kinky things that violate the Natural Law (whatever his culpability). If we condemn or reject his sins, what would that mean for us? For our own sins, the ugly stuff in our past or our Internet history?   Our fallen will, and our attachment to sexual sin, blocks many of us from taking the verdict of reason seriously. We can manage that since we’ve accepted the Darwinian paradigm which claims that all life, including human, is a piece of cosmic happenstance with no trace of a Designer. We’ve trained ourselves to see the existence of the sexes not as some artifact of a loving Maker who has in mind a plan for how we ought to live. Instead, the sexes are just a clumsy, messy means of reproducing the species which happened to confer a greater fitness on some long-ago lower animal, so he survived. We’re no more bound to respect our sexual nature than we’re morally obliged to live as hunter-gatherers, merely because our ancestors did.   We can seek “progress,” “freedom,” and our “authentic” sexual identities — acquired via porn addiction, social contagion, or the groomers who work at the government school. And anyone who criticizes the new, fungal definition of human beings is a “hater” who opposes “diversity” and “inclusion.” So we use the force of the State to punish him, like some medieval heretic. Because what we’re following isn’t reason or science, but a dark new religion which demands blood sacrifice — preferably of children. John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.

By John Mac Ghlionn RELIGION UNPLUGGED April 14, 2025 (ANALYSIS) Churches burned to the ground. Pastors executed in public squares. Families forced to renounce their faith or face the sword. Across the world, Christianity is under attack . In Nicaragua, priests are arrested for speaking against the regime. Crosses are torn down, while Catholic-run charities are shut overnight. In China, underground churches are raided. Bibles are confiscated. Worshippers disappear into the prison system, never to be seen again. In India, Hindu nationalist mobs storm Christian villages, torching homes, beating pastors, forcing mass conversions at gunpoint. Then there’s Nigeria — the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian. In the past 20 years, at least 50,000 have been slaughtered. Not in a war. Not by an invading army. But by Islamist extremists and Fulani herdsmen, acting with near-total impunity.  Despite the persecution, despite the bloodshed, despite the silence of world leaders — Christianity is not dying. In fact, in some of the most hostile places on earth, it's thriving. One of those places may surprise many: Iran. The Land of Poets and Kings’ transformation into an Islamic theocracy was not inevitable. Before 1979, Iran was a rapidly modernizing nation under the rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. While his regime had its share of repression, particularly against political dissidents, it also championed Westernization, economic growth and women's rights. The streets of Tehran bore little resemblance to what they do today — women were not compelled to cover themselves, cultural life flourished with cinemas, nightclubs and a vibrant art scene. The Iranian Revolution, however, brought the sharpest of shifts. Led by Ayatollah Khomeini, the uprising against the shah was fueled by a mix of economic dissatisfaction, opposition to his authoritarian rule and a rising wave of religious fundamentalism. What followed was not just a change in leadership but a complete reordering of society. Sharia law became the foundation of the state, and the Islamic Republic swiftly moved to suppress secularism, silence dissent and impose rigid moral codes. Of course, Iran’s rigid brand of Islam is not reflective of the broader Muslim world. Rather, it emerged from a revolution that exploited both political discontent and religious zealotry, transforming one of the Middle East’s most modern societies into one of its most repressive Essentially, in the blink of an eye, Iran transformed from a playground into a prison. Apostasy — leaving Islam — became a crime punishable by death. Churches were outlawed, converts were hunted, and Farsi Bibles became contraband. Any challenge to the regime’s authority was swiftly and brutally crushed. Yet today, despite every effort, Christianity is exploding. Rather incredibly, Iran now has one of the fastest-growing Christian populations in the world. Not in grand cathedrals. Not in public squares. But underground, spreading quietly and carefully. Most Christian churches are outlawed. There are official church buildings for the traditional Armenian and Assyrian Christian minorities, and their clergy are allowed to wear robes. For the most part, however, it’s just ordinary Iranians — students, workers even former mullahs — who have seen the darkness of the Islamic Republic and want something else. Many have turned to Christianity after having visions and dreams of Christ. It happens so often that the regime has publicly warned against it, spooked by a phenomenon it cannot fully control. Others convert because they have tasted the cruelty of their rulers. They have lived under forty years of Islamic law. They have seen its corruption, its hypocrisy, its bloodshed. They are fed up. They want freedom. And the more the government cracks down, the more the underground church grows. This occurs amid increasing unrest throughout the country. The youth —many disillusioned, desperate and defiant — are rejecting not just the Islamic Republic, but Islam itself. Decades of oppression have created a backlash. The 2022 protests following the murder of Mahsa Amini were not just about hijabs; they were about an entire generation suffocating under a regime that has stolen their future. For years, young Iranians have watched their country decay under the weight of inept leadership and rigid religious rule. Opportunities are scarce, dissent is met with violence and even the smallest acts of personal freedom — listening to Western music, holding hands in public, questioning religious authority — are policed with excessive force. The ambitions of their parents' generation, who once hoped for a prosperous, modern Iran, have been reduced to survival under an unforgiving theocracy. Many young people see no future for themselves in the country they call home. Some turn to escape — risking their lives to flee the country. Others resist in the streets. But a growing number are turning to a faith that cannot be controlled by clerics or crushed by secret police. Although the Ayatollahs have responded with bullets, prison cells, and executions, sheer force can only do so much against an idea whose time has come. The regime is losing its grip. The Islamic Republic has long ruled through force and fear. Yet, as disillusionment spreads, hope — ironically enough — takes root. In this context, Christianity is not just a religion. It is an act of defiance. John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist. He covers psychology and social relations. His writing has appeared in places such as UnHerd, The US Sun and The Spectator World.

By  Ari Mordechai THE STREAM April 14, 2025 A high-profile Catholic podcast co-hosted by celebrity Catholic convert Dr. Gavin Ashenden is stirring controversy after Ashenden’s colleague, Katherine Bennett, platformed a disgraced holocaust denier Catholic priest. Fr. James Mawdsley, who has called the Holocaust “ the biggest lie in history ,” claimed that the genocide of the Jews “didn’t happen” on the  Catholic Unscripted  podcast, posted on  YouTube , days before the Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week. “I think that the Jews have basically infiltrated the church, destroyed her liturgy, her dogma, her morals, and unless we call that out and overcome that and be honest about the governance in our Catholic faith then things are only going to get worse,” Mawdsley claimed. Bennett, a Catholic journalist and former stand-up comedian, who was appointed mentor for evangelization in the archdiocese of Southwark by Archbishop John Wilson, did not challenge Mawdsley but responded by revealing that she too was now a member of a Latin Mass parish. “The Jews and the devil are laughing at us,” stressed Mawdsley. The traditionalist priest who featured on the white nationalist show  The Backlash  claimed that Catholics who have a “backward idea of obedience” have “been manipulated” to shout “crucify him” in the post-Vatican II passion liturgy on Palm Sunday and Good Friday. “It was a Jewish organization  Amici Israel  instigated by a Jewish woman and two poor priests who lost their way” who urged the Vatican to insert a genuflection during the Good Friday prayer for the Jews, Mawdsley told Bennett. The “Satanist” Jews, who went to Pope Pius XII in 1949, told the pope that inserting the genuflection during the said prayer was “more important than removing [the word] ‘perfidious’ in the prayer for the Jews,” the priest claimed, without citing any sources. While Pope Pius XII rejected their requests, the Jewish historian, Jules Isaac, who met Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII, was largely responsible for influencing the Vatican to alter the prayers, Mawdsley, who was suspended by the  Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter , insisted. The priest, who is known to spout similar conspiracy theories regarding the Jewish subversion of Catholic liturgy, further claimed that Jewish organizations like B’nai B’rith, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the World Jewish Congress run by Nahum Goldmann were also “working in the background.” According to Mawdsley, Goldmann had a “Talmudic element” whose goal was to “destroy everything” of the old order of society, including a social hierarchy, so “no tradition will be considered sacred anymore.” The Jews “were blaming the Church straight after World War I for Auschwitz,” Mawdsley falsely asserted, even though Auschwitz a concentration camps and extermination center run by the Nazis in occupied Poland only during World War II. “I won’t say too much on your channel on YouTube but that’s the biggest lie in history,” he continued. “And to make the church feel a responsibility that wasn’t hers: that the genocide of Jews occurred because of the gospels and because of the church fathers, this is the most phenomenal blasphemy.” “But the World War II lies are the biggest and the first lie of the devil against God,” the priest, who is notorious for his revisionist version of history, maintained, blaming “the Jews” for “going in to tell in ( sic ) the Vatican after filling the press with these stories that the church is responsible for the genocide of Jews which didn’t happen.” “And neither is the Church responsible. She’s done the opposite. She’s protected them for 2,000 years,” Mawdsley claimed, despite the Vatican. “And yet they accuse her of seeking their death. And the Church bows to this lie with her liturgy.” “The Holocaust is a lie. It didn’t happen,” Mawdsley earlier claimed on  The Backlash . “Many Jews suffered as they were being expelled from Europe by the Nazis, but there was no genocidal plan from Hitler or the Germans to annihilate the Jews. That’s all a lie. And that’s what they wielded then as a weapon against the Church.” In a podcast on the while nationalist Substack “White Rabbit,” Mawdsley has also  claimed  that “Adolf Hitler did not start World War II. It was the Jews.”   Stating that his goal is to “expose the demonic falsity of the Holocaust narrative,” Mawdsley  elaborates : Hitler did not set out to conquer Europe, while the Jews schemed then and now to rule the world. And crucially, the responsibility for the Jews who died in World War II, and that number is much closer to 1 million than to six million, is shared in very different ways by the Axis powers, the Allies and the Jews. I will offer evidence for all this not because I wish to promote National Socialism, but because I do wish to expose the Jewish lies which cause innumerable wars; lies still operative today to destroy nations and souls. Meanwhile, a day after Bennett’s interview with Mawdsley, Ashenden  posted  his own video on  Catholic Unscripted  explaining his perspective on antisemitism. While not condemning or rebuting the podcast with Mawdsley, Ashenden admitted that “antisemitism” was “toxic,” but he, Bennett and Mark Lambert, the third member of the Catholic Unscripted team, “have different views on a lot of things.” “And one of the great things about the way in which we work together is that we allow each other to express opinions. Some of which we passionately agree with and others which we don’t agree with,” he noted. “Sometimes you have to say that’s a line I can’t cross. And for me antisemitism has thrown up the issue of those lines,” he added. “And how we manage the Jewish question seems to have become a litmus test for whether or not people can get on whether they can talk together. Well I’m absolutely convinced that one of the things we need to do is to give each other space for exploring different views,” he said. “As my father once taught me it is not enough for people especially public figures to be neutral or not be antisemitic, one must be anti-antisemitic,” he said. In his discussion, Ashenden offered six different definitions of “who is a Jew,” giving “credit to Father Mawdsley.” The former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, said he “like[d] very much his [Mawdsley’s] work on the older and the younger son” [cf. parable of the Prodigal Son].” Ashenden, who converted to Catholicism, acknowledged he found Holocaust denial “utterly and completely distasteful,” but said he had changed his mind on some aspects of the Shoah. Ashenden explained: Now forced to look at it more carefully, I’ve discovered that some of the facts may be contested particularly the numbers of Jews killed in the death camps. I have to say I don’t really care about the numbers. They’re placed at six million. There is a school of thought that says the numbers have been inflated and they’ve been inflated by Jewish people in order to gain a greater sympathy. I don’t know if that’s true literally but I don’t buy it as a comment. The high-profile convert to Catholicism curiously stated that numbers did not matter in the case of the genocide of the Jews: You see I don’t think it matters whether six million Jews were gassed, killed, tortured, starved to death, or five! I don’t care if it wasn’t five and it was four. I don’t care if it wasn’t four and it was three. You can reduce that number right the way down. It makes no difference to me whatsoever in terms of the responsibility the Western civilization and particularly the Nazi party in Germany take for what happened. Thousands have watched both videos and the majority of comments from traditionalist Catholics have been in praise of Mawdsley. While a handful of comments have praised Ashenden, most commenters attacked him for capitulating to the Jews. It is not clear if Ashenden will seek to preserve his reputation by quitting the Catholic Unscripted team or will continue to associate with Bennett, who throughout the interview was affirming of Mawdsley’s views and never challenged him once. Lambert has not issued any disclaimer or dissociated himself from the podcast. While Mawdsley has written seven books in which he repeatedly discusses “the Jews,” all his books are all self-published by his own company  New Old . The company does not seem to have published books by any other author. Mawdsley was married to Elizabeth in January 2005. On their honeymoon in  Rome , the couple received a blessing from  Pope John Paul II . The marriage later broke down and Mawdsley subsequently obtained a declaration of nullity. In a landmark gesture in March 2000, Pope John Paul II visited  Yad Vashem , the national Holocaust museum in Israel, and apologized for centuries of Catholic antisemitism. “I assure the Jewish people the Catholic Church … is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place,” he said, adding that there were “no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust.” Ari Mordechai is a human rights and antisemitic campaigner who lives in Tel Aviv. He is married to Ofek. Two of the couple’s five children have served in the Israeli Defense Forces