Tag: religion

Dictator Zelenskiy Continues To Goad Europe To War, Says He ‘Won’t Take NATO Membership Off The Table’, Says Ukrainians Don’t Want Elections

The fact is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is not a legitimate leader. He has overstayed his electoral mandate for a year. The parliament is not legitimate either.

Zelenskiy will not hold elections because he does not want to lose power, or should we say those who are controlling him do not want to lose power over the war against Russia, and the backroom deals that have been made for natural resources. Zelenskiy also does not want an investigation into the level of obscene grift of Western aid.

Saying Ukrainians do not want an election is a lie. He is extremely unpopular in-country. Much of this animosity towards the Ukrainian President comes from his attacks against Christianity and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

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Hypocrite Pope Francis, Living Behind a 39-Ft Wall, Sends Letter to U.S. Bishops Blasting Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — Yet Imposes Harsh Penalties of 1-4 Years in Jail and Fines Up to $25,700 for Illegal Entry into Vatican

Pope Francis, who resides in the Vatican, a city-state surrounded by a formidable 39-foot wall, has penned a letter to U.S. bishops, decrying what he describes as harsh immigration policies of President Donald Trump.

In his sanctimonious letter, Pope Francis calls on the bishops to defend the “infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person” amidst what he terms a “major crisis” with “mass deportations.”

Yet, the pontiff’s selective outrage is glaring when one considers his silence during the Biden administration’s push for radical abortion policies, which directly contradicted Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life.

Read the letter below:

Dear Brothers in the Episcopate,

I am writing today to address a few words to you in these delicate moments that you are living as Pastors of the People of God who walk together in the United States of America.

1. The journey from slavery to freedom that the People of Israel traveled, as narrated in the Book of Exodus, invites us to look at the reality of our time, so clearly marked by the phenomenon of migration, as a decisive moment in history to reaffirm not only our faith in a God who is always close, incarnate, migrant and refugee, but also the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person. [1]

2. These words with which I begin are not an artificial construct. Even a cursory examination of the Church’s social doctrine emphatically shows that Jesus Christ is the true Emmanuel (cf. Mt 1:23); he did not live apart from the difficult experience of being expelled from his own land because of an imminent risk to his life, and from the experience of having to take refuge in a society and a culture foreign to his own.

The Son of God, in becoming man, also chose to live the drama of immigration. I like to recall, among other things, the words with which Pope Pius XII began his Apostolic Constitution on the Care of Migrants, which is considered the “Magna Carta” of the Church’s thinking on migration:

“The family of Nazareth in exile, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, emigrants in Egypt and refugees there to escape the wrath of an ungodly king, are the model, the example and the consolation of emigrants and pilgrims of every age and country, of all refugees of every condition who, beset by persecution or necessity, are forced to leave their homeland, beloved family and dear friends for foreign lands.” [2]

3. Likewise, Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception.

In fact, when we speak of “infinite and transcendent dignity,” we wish to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society.

Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.

4. I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations. The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.

At the same time, one must recognize the right of a nation to defend itself and keep communities safe from those who have committed violent or serious crimes while in the country or prior to arrival.

That said, the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment, damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness.

5. This is not a minor issue: an authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized.

The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all — as I have affirmed on numerous occasions — welcomes, protects, promotes and integrates the most fragile, unprotected and vulnerable.

This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others. What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.

6. Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups.

In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation.

The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf. Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception. [3]

7. But worrying about personal, community or national identity, apart from these considerations, easily introduces an ideological criterion that distorts social life and imposes the will of the strongest as the criterion of truth.

8. I recognize your valuable efforts, dear brother bishops of the United States, as you work closely with migrants and refugees, proclaiming Jesus Christ and promoting fundamental human rights. God will richly reward all that you do for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important or less human!

9. I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters.

With charity and clarity we are all called to live in solidarity and fraternity, to build bridges that bring us ever closer together, to avoid walls of ignominy and to learn to give our lives as Jesus Christ gave his for the salvation of all.

10. Let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to protect individuals and families who live in fear or pain due to migration and/or deportation. May the “Virgen morena”, who knew how to reconcile peoples when they were at enmity, grant us all to meet again as brothers and sisters, within her embrace, and thus take a step forward in the construction of a society that is more fraternal, inclusive and respectful of the dignity of all.

Fraternally,
Francis

Border czar Tom Homan Tom Homan responded sharply to the Pope’s criticisms.

“I got harsh words for the Pope. Pope ought to fix the Catholic Church. I’m saying this as a lifelong Catholic. I was baptized Catholic. I was at first Communion as a Catholic, confirmation as a Catholic. He ought to fix the Catholic Church and concentrate on his work and leave border enforcement to us.”

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House Lawmakers Form First-Ever Official Congressional Jewish Caucus

Jewish lawmakers in the House of Representatives have formed the first-ever Congressional Jewish Caucus. 

According to a report by The Hill, Jewish politicians in the United States House of Representatives have founded the Congressional Jewish Caucus, which will serve as an official platform to address rising antisemitism and concerns facing the American Jewish community.

“In response to unprecedented rising antisemitism in the United States and the challenges the American Jewish community has faced in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, the need for this Caucus is understandable,” said Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a founding co-chair.

“I am confident this caucus will bring Jewish members together to strive to achieve unity, not unanimity, and will be a productive forum to discuss issues of import to the American Jewish community,” he added.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who initiated the program, emphasized the significance of education and cross-community linkages in resolving Jewish American concerns.

“With antisemitism reaching record levels in the United States, it is more important than ever before that Jewish members of Congress have a formal Caucus to represent the unique perspective of the Jewish American community,” she said.

Nadler will be co-chairing the caucus along with Representative Brad Schneider (D-Ill.). 

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A Critically Important Trial Has Just Begun, and No One Involved Will Speak About Motive

When the defendant entered the courtroom, he was dressed respectably in a blue button-down shirt and dark slacks. When his presence was announced, he stood up, said “Good morning,” and gave all present a cheery wave. And thus began one of the most important trials of our age, although everyone involved is doing everything possible to ignore all the reasons why it is so important.

Hadi Matar finally went on trial Tuesday for attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie back in Aug. 2022. There is little, if any, doubt about Matar’s guilt, even though he has pleaded not guilty, for he stabbed Rushdie multiple times in full view of a shocked crowd at the Chautauqua festival. Matar was supposed to have gone on trial in Jan. 2024, but Rushdie wrote a book about the attack, and Matar’s defense attorney, public defender Nathaniel Barone, received a delay in the trial so that he could review the book. It’s hard to fathom how what the victim thought about what happened might affect the guilt of his client, but nevertheless, Barone managed to delay the trial for over a year.

Now that it has begun, both Barone and his opposite number, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt, seem curiously intent on preventing any discussion of Matar’s motive. Matar tried to kill the man who, at the time of the stabbing had carried for 33 years the most famous bounty on his head since the days of the Wild West.

It was on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1989, that Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini called for Rushdie to be killed for supposedly blaspheming against Muhammad in his novel “The Satanic Verses.” By 2022, Iran’s bounty on Rushdie’s head was $3 million. Without Khomeini’s death fatwa on Rushdie, Matar wouldn’t have tried to kill him, and there would be no trial. Nevertheless, neither the prosecution nor the defense wants any talk of that as Matar is tried.

Matar himself was upfront about why he stabbed Rushdie. Back in Aug. 2022, he said: “I respect the ayatollah. I think he’s a great person. That’s as far as I will say about that.” Of Rushdie, Matar said: “I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person. I don’t like him. I don’t like him very much. He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.” Matar isn’t the most articulate person in the world, but what he said was clear enough to establish that he wanted Rushdie dead in accord with Khomeini’s fatwa.

Schmidt, however, insists all that is irrelevant, saying: “Here, I don’t believe we have to get into issues of Mr. Matar’s religious beliefs, his nationality, and his background to prove an attempted murder charge, which is what we’re doing. The allegation is that Mr. Matar stabbed Mr. Rushdie and stabbed Mr. Reese in an unprovoked attack. Therefore, I think we can prove that without getting into matters that give rise to prejudice of our jury pool.”

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Public Support for Religious Exemptions Nearly Doubled Over Past 6 Years

Public support for policies that allow parents of schoolchildren to opt out of vaccinating their kids for medical, religious and personal or philosophical reasons is growing, according to a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

The center conducted a nationally representative opinion panel from Jan. 3-5, 2025, of 1,077 U.S. adults, and compared the results to those from its own 2019 survey. The 2019 survey was also nationally representative and involved 2,344 U.S. adults in April and May of 2019.

The 2025 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 5.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. The 2019 survey had a sampling error margin of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

A report released Jan. 28 describing the differences between the 2019 and 2025 surveys revealed that roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults (63%) in 2025 “somewhat or strongly support” a law allowing parents in their state to choose not to vaccinate their children for medical reasons. In 2019, about a third (36%) supported such a policy.

In 2019, only 17% of U.S. adults said they would support parental choice not to vaccinate their children for personal or philosophical reasons. By 2025, that number had doubled, with 35% of U.S. adults saying they would support school vaccination opt-out options for personal or philosophical reasons.

Public support for religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements also doubled, from 20% in 2019 to 39% in 2025.

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New ICJ president a Christian Zionist influenced by End Times theology

Julia Sebutinde stood alone in rejecting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Now the court’s president, the Ugandan judge suggests her motives for protecting Israel can be found in the Old Testament. 

With new countries joining South Africa’s case accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and a ceasefire potentially enabling war crimes investigators to gather fresh evidence of Israeli atrocities, a leadership shakeup at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) threatens to undermine the campaign for legal accountability. 

The ICJ’s President Nawaf Salam resigned on January 14, 2025 to become Prime Minister of Lebanon, and was succeeded by Justice Julia Sebutinde of Uganda. Many observers were stunned when Sebutinde voted “no” on all resolutions introduced by South Africa in January 2024, placing herself in opposition to all ICJ judges, including her Israeli colleague, Aharon Barak. 

The Ugandan judge rejected the court’s call for the Israeli military to halt deliberate assaults on civilians, end its policy of forced displacement, and cancel its planned invasion of Rafah. In a previous advisory case on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Sebutinde insisted that Palestinians had not been subjected to any military occupation whatsoever. In fact, she concluded that Israel may have the right to maintain a permanent presence in the West Bank and the whole of Jerusalem on the basis of purely biblical claims.

Sebutinde’s opinion opened with a lengthy history of the Israel-Palestine conflict that blended well-worn Zionist propaganda with the Old Testament. In rejecting her colleagues’ ruling declaring Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal, she resorted to accounts of the Jewish presence in the biblical land of Israel, omitting any mention of UN resolutions or international law. 

“There is substantial evidence that Jewish people lived in the region of ancient Israel between 1000-586 BCE. This period corresponds to the era of the United Monarchy under Kings Saul, David, and Solomon, and the subsequent divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The evidence includes archaeological findings in the City of David…” Sebutinde insisted. “The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) offers detailed accounts of the history, culture, and governance of the Israelites during this period. While these texts are religious in nature, many scholars consider them valuable historical documents.”

Her opinion was so extreme, and so shot through with theological commentary, it prompted Uganda’s ambassador to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, to declare her “ruling at the International Court of Justice does not represent the Government of Uganda’s position on the situation in Palestine.”

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Iranian Regime Sentences Artist to Death for Advocating Freedom and Insulting Muhammad

The Iranian regime has issued a death sentence against pop singer Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known professionally as Tataloo, for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

This has sparked a wave of reactions both within and outside the country, highlighting the severity of Iran’s blasphemy laws.

Tataloo, whose fame has spread beyond Iran’s borders, has been a controversial figure in the underground music scene.

According to sources, the singer has been detained in Iran since his extradition from Turkey in December 2023.

He now faces a sentence that not only threatens his life but also underscores the tensions between artistic freedom and the strict interpretation of Islamic law in Iran.

Tataloo’s case is not an isolated incident.

The Islamic Republic is known for its harsh policies against expressions deemed offensive to religion. “The singer was sentenced to death for insulting the Prophet,” stated a report from Europa Press, emphasizing the gravity of the accusation and the penalty imposed.

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Britain’s Leftist Government Blocks Law Outlawing Cousin Marriages in Effort to Appease Muslim Voters

Britain’s left-wing government has blocked a law seeking to outlaw first-cousin marriages.

As pressure grows on Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his government’s refusal to fully investigate the grooming gangs scandal in which mainly Pakistani men were allowed to groom young white girls, the Labour Party is seeking to shore up ties with their Islamic voting base.

Conservative MP Richard Holden, who proposed the legislation, wrote on the X platform that Labour has blocked any further advancement of his 1st Cousin Marriages Bill, which would outlaw marriages between first cousins that are common within Muslim communities.

Holden explained:

The Government today blocked any further consideration of the prohibition of 1st Cousin Marriages Bill.

They could have let it progress to committee stage when all the details could be thrashed out but they blocked it Labour will block it progressing on the 25th too and whenever I try and bring it back.

It’s sad because it was a Labour MP, Ann Cryer, who raised this issue 20 years ago and was shouted down then.

People will get off on calling me names but I grew up in the Pennine mill towns and I don’t want to see the children of the kids I grew up amongst going through this for another generation.

Thank you to the brave people who’ve reached out to me who are part of the communities where this is prevalent and who hate to see certain elements of the establishment continue to enable terrible practices for – at best – fear of causing offence or thinking it’s better to sweep issues under the carpet – or worse, because when the chips are down they simply don’t care, see it as a way of harvesting votes from gatekeepers, or have some screwed up views regarding cultural relativism.

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The Secular State Reinvents the Inquisition

One of my favorite books is The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene.

Set in the 1930s when Mexico was still persecuting the Catholic Church (a persecution which the government of the United States consented to), the novel follows the life of a nameless “whiskey priest” who, despite being a drunk and a fornicator with an illegitimate daughter, continues to illegally minister to the people while other more reputable priests have abandoned their ministry out of fear of the punishment by the government.

The whiskey priest is lured to his doom by his sense of duty, as a request for a deathbed confession is communicated to him by a lying Judas-like figure. Despite his suspicions, the whiskey priest goes and is arrested. Sentenced to die, and denied confession by one of those priests who had abandoned ministry, we see into the whiskey priest’s thoughts for a final time in what I consider the most moving paragraph in all of literature:

What a fool he had been to think that he was strong enough to stay when others fled. What an impossible fellow I am, he thought, and how useless. I have done nothing for anybody. I might just as well have never lived. His parents were dead—soon he wouldn’t even be a memory—perhaps after all he was not at the moment afraid of damnation—even the fear of pain was in the background. He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him, at that moment, that it would have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now that at the end there was only one thing that counted—to be a saint.

The novel ends with another fugitive priest arriving, and a young boy who had previously been a skeptic greeting him enthusiastically, having been inspired by the martyrdom of the whiskey priest.

Years ago, this novel helped convince me that I could enter seminary despite the heavy realization of my own sinfulness. In 2020, those of us who were trying to get sacraments to people despite being forbidden by tyrants certainly could identify with the sense of duty demonstrated by the whiskey priest. I know of one priest who had to remove his cassock, put on jeans, and pretend to be a grandson in order to bring the sacraments to a woman in the nursing home.

The irony in all of this, however, is that some powerful men in the Church wanted the novel placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Thankfully this would not occur, and Greene’s account of the conflict includes a useful comparison to totalitarianism:

The Archbishop of Westminster read me a letter from the Holy Office condemning my novel because it was “paradoxical” and “dealt with extraordinary circumstances.” The price of liberty, even within a Church, is eternal vigilance, but I wonder whether any of the totalitarian states…would have treated me as gently when I refused to revise the book on the casuistical ground that the copyright was in the hands of my publishers. There was no public condemnation, and the affair was allowed to drop into that peaceful oblivion which the Church wisely reserves for unimportant issues.

I’d like to suggest that understanding the use (and abuse) of the religious impulse to limit what type of content an adherent consumes can help us to understand the wave of censorship which has taken hold in the West, especially with respect to what began in 2020.

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More than $5 billion spent on Catholic sexual abuse allegations, new report finds

Over two decades, Catholic dioceses, eparchies and men’s religious communities spent more than $5 billion on allegations of sexual abuse of minors, according to a new report released Wednesday (Jan. 15) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

Between 2004 and 2023, three-fourths of the $5.025 billion reported was paid to abuse victims. Seventeen percent went to pay attorneys’ fees, 6% was in support for alleged abusers and 2% went toward other costs. On average, only 16% of the costs related to the allegations was borne by insurance companies.

The CARA report combined 20 annual surveys sent to dioceses and eparchies within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (which excludes some parts of the U.S., such as Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa), as well as U.S. religious communities belonging to the Conference of Major Superiors of Men. The report does note that some alleged perpetrators were assigned outside the U.S. The USCCB commissioned the survey in 2004.

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