Friday, February 14, 2025

Vance Is Right About Christian Love


Bill Donohue


February 3, 2025


J.D. Vance makes a commonsensical comment about a Christian notion of love and immediately he is subjected to condemnation. Here is what he said that has “progressives” so upset.


“There’s this old school—and I think it’s a very Christian concept, by the way—that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”


He also said, “A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside their own borders. That is no way to run a society.”


As we shall see, Vance was right about what he said about Christian love. Regarding his quip about the far left hating America, it does not need to be defended—it is axiomatic. Indeed, it is one of their most defining characteristics.


Father James Martin was one of Vance’s more prominent critics. He said Vance’s comment about love “misses the point of Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan.” But it is Martin who has missed Vance’s point: he never mentioned Jesus or the Good Samaritan. As he made clear when asked about his critics, Vance defended himself by referencing ordo amoris, or ordered love.


Vance was not taking issue with the biblical injunction to “love thy neighbor as thy self.” This obligation is found in the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18), as well as in the New Testament (Mark 12: 28-34). He understands that our “neighbor” means everyone. He is simply offering a practical understanding of the locus of love: it should begin with our family, and then extend outwards.


The idea of “ordered love” is indeed a Christian conception of love. It was given to us by Saint Augustine. “Virtus est ordo amoris,” he wrote, which means virtue is the order of love, or love set in proper order. Vance is also right to say that this is an “old school” observation. In the First Letter to Timothy (5:8), it is written that “whoever does not provide for relatives and especially family members has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”


More: https://www.catholicleague.org/vance-is-right-about-christian-love/


The Pope’s disastrous letter on immigration

 “…what the Pope actually said is that someone who violates immigration law is not a criminal. That claim is not only illogical but hypocritical, since less than a month ago the Vatican—of which Pope Francis is the supreme legislator—raised the criminal penalties for anyone who enters the city-state illegally, allowing for four-year prison terms and fines of about $25,000.”


By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 12, 2025 

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In a letter ostensibly written to support the bishops of the US, Pope Francis has actually made life considerably more difficult for them. In his letter on the Trump administration’s immigration policies the Pontiff makes an argument that is poorly informed, easily rebutted, and likely to divide the American Catholic faithful. This is an argument that the American hierarchy cannot win. And, not coincidentally, the argument presented by the Pope differs notably from the most recent statements by more prudent American prelates.

Has any modern Pontiff ever written a statement so harshly critical of the policies of a sovereign nation? If so, it has escaped my notice. Mit Brennender Sorge unequivocally denounced Nazi racial ideology, but Pope Pius XI focused that encyclical on principles, not specific public policies. There is precedent for a papal letter cautioning the American hierarchy, of course, but in Testem Benevolentiae Pope Leo XIII too spoke in general terms—indeed, so general that the “Americanists” he set out to rebuke could and did reply that the Pope’s admonitions did not apply to them.

Not so with the letter from Pope Francis. There can be no doubt that he intended to criticize the Trump administration, and specifically its plans to deport illegal aliens. Nor can anyone who has followed the American political debate miss the Pope’s deliberate thrust at a specific Catholic political figure, Vice President J.D. Vance.

When they felt it necessary to intervene in political debates, previous Pontiffs were wise to limit themselves to the statement of moral principles. After all it is the province of the laity to apply those principles to the specific circumstances of life in the secular world, and the role of political leaders to make the prudential judgments that form public policies. The infallibility of the teaching magisterium does not extend to political debates. Indeed when prelates become partisan the results are usually injurious: to society, to the Church, or quite likely to both.

More: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/popes-disastrous-letter-on-immigration/

Thursday, February 13, 2025

Trump’s Early Decisions Expose Damage Caused by Vatican Complicity With Democrat-Run Globalism, Says Italian Scholar

February 3, 2025 Edward Pentin
President Donald Trump speaking with attendees at the 2024 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Dec. 22, 2024 (Gage Skidmore).

Just a fortnight into the Trump presidency and the damage wrought by the Pope and the Vatican allying too closely with Democrat-run globalism on a variety of moral issues is becoming clear, the head of an Italian Church think tank has said.

In a Jan. 29 commentary entitled “Trump and the Vatican: War in Progress,” Professor Stefano Fontana wrote that early policy decisions of the Trump administration have exposed the extent to which the Vatican’s close alignment with a progressive globalist agenda has caused “great damage” by weakening her voice on a number of serious moral issues.

Fontana is director of the Cardinal Van Thuan International Observatory on the Social Doctrine of the Church, a research organisation founded in 2003 that emphasises fidelity to the Church’s established social teaching. Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, a former Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, helped found the observatory and is a regular contributor.

Describing globalism as a “totalitarian” and “elitist post-democratic system,” Fontana said it has brought together a wide range of powerful institutions managed by the US Democratic Party and including big tech, media corporations, academia, “philanthropic” institutions, governments, international agencies and European Union leaders. Some of the key issues it promoted were unlimited immigration, gender ideology, and a radical green agenda.

The existence of this system, he said, has now been confirmed by the fact that many of its partners are changing direction on some policies in the wake of Trump’s return to power. At the same time, Fontana believes the new Trump administration has “opened the doors to a counter system.”

As for the Church’s role, he believes there are “many reasons” to argue that her leaders have “contributed to that totalitarian system,” and he pointed out “many convergences” such as the objectives of the Biden administration, the World Economic Forum, the European Commission and the WHO “just to name a few of the clique.”

Significantly, he wrote that the Catholic Church’s leaders have failed to free the Church from this “dominant ideological power” and “from the meshes of a system.” At the same time, he said they failed support those bishops who were willing to resist it by, for example, denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians such as Present Biden or Nancy Pelosi. 

More: https://edwardpentin.co.uk/trumps-early-decisions-expose-damage-caused-by-vatican-complicity-with-globalism-says-italian-scholar/

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Syria: “young Christians being threatened and tortured in the streets”

Bishop: “… several cases of young Christians being threatened and tortured in the streets in front of everyone, in order to instill fear and force them to renounce their faith and become Muslims"

ASIA/SYRIA - Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs: The new era is full of mysteries

Friday, 31 January 2025 

by Gianni Valente 

Homs (Agenzia Fides) - "A new era has begun for Syria. And it is a difficult time again," said Archbishop Jacques Mourad. The monk of the Deir Mar Musa community, spiritual son of Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, was held hostage for months by jihadists of the Islamic State in 2015. Perhaps this experience made his Christian vision even clearer. And today, as Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs, what he sees and hears about the new suffering in Syria does not correspond to the dominant narrative in the media, especially in the West, which reports on a "regime change", a successful and peaceful regime change with new Islamist leaders seeking international recognition after more than 50 years of the Assad clan ruling the country. 

The dominant media coverage, for example, fails to mention the widespread violence and fear that once again overshadows the days of a large part of the Syrian population. A violence that - as Jacques Mourad admits - "seems to be a trap that all those who come to power here fall into". 

In recent weeks - the Syrian Catholic Archbishop of Homs told Fides - people have disappeared, prisons are filling up "and we do not know who is still alive and who is dead". Those accused of having colluded with the collapsed regime are being tortured in public. And he also reports "several cases of young Christians being threatened and tortured in the streets in front of everyone, in order to instill fear and force them to renounce their faith and become Muslims". Crimes that are taking place far from Damascus. 

Things are not going well and Father Mourad feels that "nobody can do anything" to get out of this new period of fear and revenge. "I try to encourage people, to console them, to ask for patience and to look for solutions," said Archbishop Jacques Mourad. "During the Christmas period, I visited our 12 parishes and also went to the villages to encourage them, to keep hope together. There were beautiful meetings with different groups. But when the violence increases, our words and our calls for patience will no longer convince them."

More: https://www.fides.org/en/news/75981-ASIA_SYRIA_Syrian_Catholic_Archbishop_of_Homs_The_new_era_is_full_of_mysteries

Father Cusick’s Statement on Withdrawal of Spiritual Assistance for Homeless Souls Migrating to Heaven

A few years, the Holy Father wrote to the bishops of the United States giving them permission to starve thriving parishes and families by arbitrarily and illegally banning the immemorial Roman rite of Holy Mass in their church buildings. Some gleefully worked on behalf of this cruel and senseless edict of shame by, in some cases, kicking up to 90% of a parish population out of their spiritual home. Spiritual homelessness and starvation have as a result reached new heights, placing countless souls in eternal jeopardy.

We all turn to the Lord in prayer that families suffering from the sudden withdrawal of the traditional Latin Mass may find the strength to endure. With you, we pray that the U.S. bishops keep their prior commitments to help those in desperate spiritual need.

Please pray so that we may find the courage as a church to build a more humane system for migration of souls from the homelessness of earth to the eternal homeland of heaven, one that protects our families’ true spiritual good while safeguarding the dignity of all.


 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Chinese bishop, victim of Vatican-China deal, celebrates ordination anniversary under house arrest

Mindong: Bishop Guo celebrates the 40th anniversary of his first Mass behind a gate

In Fujian, the auxiliary bishop who quit in 2020 over joining government-controlled bodies, celebrated the anniversary of his priestly ordination under residential segregation. Videos sent to AsiaNews by local sources show him meeting the faithful and administering communion through the bars of a gate while the chapel at his residence is sealed.

 Ningde (AsiaNews) – In May 2020 Bishop Vincent Guo Xijing decided to “abandon all offices in the diocese and retire to a life in prayer”, unable to keep up with the times and style “of the Church in China”, specifically in the Diocese of Mindong.




Five years later, the former underground prelate is now confined to his home, behind a gate with a conspicuous chain that prevents him from receiving visits by the faithful.

In 2018, he had been nominated by the Holy See to serve as auxiliary bishop in accordance with the Provisional Agreement between the Vatican and Beijing on episcopal appointments, leaving the leadership of the local Church to the "official" bishop, Rt Rev Vincent Zhan Silu, who was welcomed back into communion with the pope.

Videos were sent to AsiaNews coinciding with a special day for the 67-year-old bishop, namely the 40th anniversary of his priestly ordination, celebrated last Saturday. In one such videos, Bishop Guo marks his special day behind a chained gate offering friends who visited him a slice of cake passed through the bars.

This was also the only way he could distribute communion after the authorities sealed the chapel at his residence to prevent the faithful in the underground community (historically very strong in northern Fujian) from participating in his celebrations.

In  the video, people can be seen bringing rosaries and religious objects to be blessed by the prelate, passed through the same gate.

Local sources told AsiaNews that Bishop Guo Xijing has been under tighter restrictions since Christmas, part of renewed pressures on local members of the clergy to join the official Church bodies imposed by the Communist Party on the Church in China, something that the prelate and other priests in northern Fujian have refused to do.

It should be added that all this took place in the weeks following Bishop Zhan Silu of Mindong’s participation in the Synod in the Vatican, in October.

Videos about Bishop Guo Xijing’s situation also come a few days after Bishop Cai Bingrui of Xiamen was moved, with Holy See approval, to the Diocese of Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian, historically of the one most important Catholic sees in China.

Bishop Zhan Silu led the ceremony in the same diocese where, as reported in the past, the unity between "official" and "underground" Church is far from being attained, which heavy gates imposed by the authorities certainly will not help to achieve.

Source: 

https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Mindong:-Bishop-Guo-celebrates-the-40th-anniversary-of-his-first-Mass-behind-a-gate-62379.html

Monday, February 10, 2025

Cardinal Müller on Trump: ‘Better a good Protestant than a bad Catholic’ in the White House

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller said many prelates privately support Donald Trump but fear speaking out, adding that Trump upholds ‘natural law values’ better than Catholic President Joe Biden.

Featured Image
Cardinal Gerhard MüllerGetty Images

Thu Jan 30, 2025 - 7:24 am EST

LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said that many bishops and cardinals favor President Donald Trump but are afraid to say it publicly.

In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the former head of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith said that he “personally prefer[s] Donald Trump to Joe Biden.”

When asked why that is, despite Trump being a Protestant and Biden a Catholic, he answered: “Better a good Protestant than a bad Catholic.”

He added that “many cardinals and bishops think like me, even if they are afraid to say so. And in the United States, the percentage is even higher.”

Müller also talked about Brian Burch, the founder of CatholicVote and newly appointedU.S. ambassador to the Holy See.

“I’ve been told that Burch is a good Catholic,” the German cardinal said. “And Trump will help the Church because he represents natural law values: the inviolability of life, the importance of marriage, religious freedom.”

“And he pursues the idea of a state that does not meddle in every area of life. Even on immigrants, one has to distinguish. If he sends criminals away, that’s good. If he expels them as foreigners, no,” Müller added.


More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-muller-on-trump-better-a-good-protestant-than-a-bad-catholic-in-the-white-house/


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