Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Churches of the West: Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.
Churches of the West: Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.: Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 13th Edition. The choosing lane... : June 19, 2026 The mere fact that somebody is running against Bear,...
Become Peacemakers enters the 2026 Wyoming Election.
Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 13th Edition. The choosing lane...: June 19, 2026 The mere fact that somebody is running against Bear, one of the most notable of the WFC, is a good thing. Here's hoping t...
A really interesting development:
An interesting development in the statewide races:
At this point, what's particularly interesting is who has signed, and who has not.
The entity it self has some every notable names behind it. According to their website:
Justice Keith Kautz (Retired Wyoming Supreme Court, Evangelical Leader Southeast Wyoming)
Diana Enzi (Long time Wyoming activist and advocate for Christ from Gilette Wyoming)
Jim Neiman (Business, civic and Christian leader from Hullett, Wyoming)
Michael Evers (Business Leader and Episcopal Priest from Sheridan Wyoming)
Frank Moore (Business Leader and active in the Catholic community in Douglas, Wyoming)
Diemer True (Business, civic and Christian leader from Casper Wyoming)
The text of the pledge is:
The candidates who have signed the pledge, which you can do on their website, are, so far:
Jillian Balow
U.S. House of Representatives
Bo Biteman
U.S. House of Representatives
Kevin Christensen
U.S. House of Representatives
STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
Steve Harshman
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Evie Brennan
Senate District 31
Ogden Driskill
Senate District 2
Ronald McCleary
Senate District 5
Marcia Neumiller
Senate District 27
Lauren Schoenfeld
Senate District 5
Wendy Schuler
Senate District 15
Elizabeth Bingham
House District 17
Jessica Crowder
House District 43
Christopher Dresang
House District 35
Justin Fornstrom
House District 10
Martha Lawley
House District 27
Matthew Legler
House District 25
Roland Luehne
House District 28
Myca Sturtevant
House District 29
Macey Moore
Converse County Commissioner
Michael Evers
Sheridan County GOP Precinct Person- Precinct 2-5
My guess is that after the article, some who haven't signed, or who aren't aware of it, will sign or will feel compelled to sign.
Notably, in the House, the big money candidates, Gray, Freiss and Rasner have not signed. Gray's an entire political career has been based on being a lying asshole, so this puts him in a spot. When he gets up at night and stubs his toes he blames it on left wing radical communist Marxist socialist fascist monarchist podiatrist, so that would take a major part of his repertoire out of play and actually make him live part of his faith. Rasner has gone full comedic sideshow at this point, but it would take the extreme out of the candidate whose been the most extreme. It probably wouldn't impact Freiss who hasn't attacked his opponents, but who is, in a very nice way, relying upon "I'll bring jobs to Wyoming of a type that I've worked at myself because I believe you dumb twits want to exist in the imaginary 1950s".
It's also interesting that only one Senatorial candidate, Skovogard, has signed it.
The name of the organization comes, of course, from Matthew 5:9, " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
We have not seen much of that in politics. A lot of modern campaigning in the Trump era has been downright immoral, lead by the conduct of Trump himself, who belittles and insults people routinely. Of course, in spite of the fact some Christians have seen something in him, there's no evidence of any Christian beliefs in Trump at all. He doesn't attend church, he's a serial polygamist, he has a track record of cheating on his spouses, he's hung out with men who rape teenage girls, and his life has been characterized by a love of money. Indeed, money seems to be his primary focus and he doesn't seem to grasp that it isn't the primary focus of every living human being.
This, of course, is the Wyoming election, but here too conduct has been shocking. Signing this would take a big page out of some candidates campaign strategy guide.
Well, I hope this makes a difference. And I hope that failure to sign is taken as a reason not to vote for a person.
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Churches of the East: Magnifica Humanitas
Churches of the East: Magnifica Humanitas: Just out, it's notably already being hailed as a great work, and notably already criticized by the United States Secretary of the Interi...
Magnifica Humanitas
Just out, it's notably already being hailed as a great work, and notably already criticized by the United States Secretary of the Interior.
OF HIS HOLINESS
POPE LEO XIV
ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON
IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Churches of the West: What happened to St. Anthony's Alter Rail (and others) and where is it (and they) today?
Churches of the West: What happened to St. Anthony's Alter Rail (and oth...: I want the alter rail from St. Anthony's Church in Casper Wyoming put back in. I'm not part of any movement, or organization, or any...
Monday, April 13, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
Lex Anteinternet: The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and S...: April 13, 2026. The number of Catholics in the world: Over 1,422,000,000, with the number growing. The number of Catholics in the United St...
The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
April 13, 2026.
The number of Catholics in the world: Over 1,422,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Catholics in the United States: Between 50,000,000 and 70,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Orthodox in the world 260,000,000
The number of Orthodox Christians in the United States: 2,600,000.
The number of Protestants in the world: 600,000,000 to 1,000,000,000.
The number of Protestants in the United States 140,000,000 to 150,000,000, of which 10 to 15% are mainline protestants, and of which the largest denomination is the American Baptist Conference, which includes 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 members.
The Catholic Church, all rites (the Roman Rite is the largest by far) is the largest single church in the world and the largest single church in the United States, in spite of the United States being a protestant nation.
The second largest church in the world are the Orthodox, meaning that the Apostolic Churches, those which go all the way back to the Apostles, far exceed the number of Protestants.
While all churches have their problems, the Catholic church is growing everywhere. Protestant churches are dying.
And then we get this:
Trump posted those back to back yesterday. There's been all sorts of rumors circulating that the administration has been upset with the Church.
No doubt it isn't a fan of the Church. The Church has God as its King. Maga has Donald as its.
Throughout Trump's presidency, the first legitimate one and the illegitimate second one, I've warned that support of Trump would likely kill off far right Evangelism in the US. I've also warned that those far right Evangelicals who support Trumpwould turn on Catholicism, which they don't understand and often don't even think to be a Christian religion, when in fact it's the original Christian religion. And I've failed to grasp how any thinking Catholic could really support Trump with any depth.
But some have. I know plenty.
Some are just shallow political thinkers, others not, and all are conservative. I'm conservative, but I've never supported Trump.
These people are opposed to abortion (so am I), and were horrified by transgenderism (so am I). That frankly is just about it. Some buy in to the other hardcore aspects of the far right as well, being opposed to immigration, for instance, which actually requires a more nuanced thought process than they are giving it. And the Democrats made it impossible for Catholics to really support them, becoming the party of death and weirdness.
None of which meant that anyone had to support a dim, narcissistic, serial polygamist.
For those of you who supported Trump on social issues, there were and are other parties. And how much do we know about Trump and any of the positions he supposedly supports. He own track record on moral issues is poor at least in so far as his treatment of women is concerned. And we're talking about adult women. This administration outright opposition to releasing the Epstein files certainly raises questions about it being willing to support child rapists, and there's enough smoke around Trump to at least raise questions about how far in the shallow end of the pool he may have been willing to go, although nothing's been proven. His family's financial dealings this term certainly raise questions of a moral nature. His launching of an illegal war and threatening mass civilian deaths is criminal.
We could go on. He's a horrible, demented, man. Christians who are supporting him need to rethink it immediately.
Catholics supporting him have helped bring us to this.
From here on out there's no excuse for a free pass by members of the Apostolic Faiths. None. And that includes the two members in the administration, Marco Rubio and J. D. Vance. Supporting Trump is supporting this mockery of the Faith and of all Christianity.
But for the voters too. In the midterms there are already candidates who note they are "endorsed by Donald Trump". One Catholic candidate here in the state hardcore embraces Trump and another runs, on all of her signs, "Endorsed by Donald Trump".
That needs to end right now.
The 25th Amendment needs to be applied, now. Catholics cozying up to Trump need to stop, now.
Last edition:
Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Thirteenth Edition. The MAGA Cannibal.
Monday, April 6, 2026
Pope Leo's 2026 Easter Address.
Lex Anteinternet: King Donald's War, Part 3. The Bunker.: April 1, 2026 The British are hosting talks on opening the Straits of Hormuz. The intellectual toddler King Donny is threatening to take t...
Brothers and sisters,
Christ is risen! Happy Easter!
For centuries, the Church has joyfully sung of the event that is the origin and foundation of her faith: “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen / Christ indeed from death is risen / Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning” (Easter Sequence).
Easter is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred. It is a victory that came at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood. As the true immolated Lamb, he took upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18–19) and thus freed us all — and with us, all creation — from the dominion of evil.
But how was Jesus able to be victorious? What is the strength with which he defeated once and for all the ancient adversary, the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31)? What is the power with which he rose from the dead, not returning to his former life, but entering into eternal life and thus opening in his own flesh the passage from this world to the Father?
This strength, this power, is God himself for he is Love who creates and generates, Love who is faithful to the end and Love who forgives and redeems.
Christ, our “victorious King,” fought and won his battle through trusting abandonment to the Father’s will, to his plan of salvation (cf. Mt 26:42). Thus he walked the path of dialogue to the very end, not in words but in deeds: to find us who were lost, he became flesh; to free us who were slaves, he became a slave; to give life to us mortals, he allowed himself to be killed on the cross.
The power with which Christ rose is entirely nonviolent. It is like that of a grain of wheat which, having rotted in the earth, grows, breaks through the clods, sprouts, and becomes a golden ear of wheat. It is even more like that of a human heart which, wounded by an offense, rejects the instinct for revenge and, filled with compassion, prays for the one who has committed the offense.
Brothers and sisters, this is the true strength that brings peace to humanity, because it fosters respectful relationships at every level: among individuals, families, social groups, and nations. It does not seek private interests, but the common good; it does not seek to impose its own plan, but to help design and carry out a plan together with others.
Yes, Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of a new humanity; it is the entrance into the true promised land, where justice, freedom, and peace reign, where all recognize one another as brothers and sisters, children of the same Father who is Love, Life, and Light.
Brothers and sisters, through his resurrection, the Lord confronts us even more powerfully with the dramatic reality of our freedom. Before the empty tomb, we can be filled with hope and wonder, like the disciples, or with fear like the guards and the Pharisees, forced to resort to lies and subterfuge rather than acknowledge that the one who had been condemned is truly risen (cf. Mt 28:11–15)!
In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!
We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel. There is an ever-increasing “globalization of indifference,” to borrow an expression dear to Pope Francis, who one year ago from this loggia addressed his final words to the world, reminding us: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world!”
The cross of Christ always reminds us of the suffering and pain that surround death and the agony it entails. We are all afraid of death, and out of fear we turn away, preferring not to look. We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil! Saint Augustine teaches: “If you fear death, love the resurrection!”. Let us too love the resurrection, which reminds us that evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One.
He passed through death to give us life and peace: “I leave you peace; I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us! Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts! For this reason, I invite everyone to join me in a prayer vigil for peace that we will celebrate here in Saint Peter’s Basilica next Saturday, April 11.
On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil. To the Lord we entrust all hearts that suffer and await the true peace that only he can give. Let us entrust ourselves to him and open our hearts to him! He is the only one who makes all things new
Happy Easter!
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Do the right thing.
Lex Anteinternet: Do the right thing.: Today is, of course, Easter. I saw a comment from a blog I've sort of followed where the poster fairly frequently remarks that he'...
Do the right thing.
Today is, of course, Easter.
I saw a comment from a blog I've sort of followed where the poster fairly frequently remarks that he's a fallen away Catholic, although at the same time his world outlook is obviously Catholic. Today he chose to explain why he fell away.
What's struck me over the years is that an awful lot of people who take that path fall away as they're self centered. The post made that really clear. Supposedly he couldn't reconcile the message of the Church and the direction of society. That's not a reason to fall away, that's the very reason we need to be saved. Without Christ, we're just a bunch of self centered whiners out to destroy ourselves.
Religion is not magic, which some people seem to think it is. Christians discuss the problem of evil, but part of the reason that evil is in the world as we have free will and we like it. I saw a comment from a Monk once reflecting, and he meant it, that he asked the question "God, why do you law injustice in the world?" and actually got a reply, that being "Why do you?"
We know what's wrong and right and frequently just choose what's wrong. The big Mega Churches will be packed today with "Christians" who are on multiple divorces and remarriages, or just living in sin, even though we all know that's wrong. For that matter, Catholic churches will be packed today with those who only make it to Mass twice a year.
That's not to be lamented. It's a sign of hope. We know what's wrong. We're often just to lazy and accommodating to do what's right.
Today is a good day to start doing what's right, including comporting our actual conduct to God and the the nature God created.
Straying from this a bit, I'd note how overarching this really is. While I can't get into details very much, recently I've been dealing with a massive inter personal fight between two people I've known for a long time. Both are flat out wrong.
One of them is now upset with somebody that he once deeply loved as that person harshly criticized him. Frankly, the nature of the criticism was brutal. I've been criticized by the same person brutally myself, but I haven't lived a particularly sheltered life so I learned to just disregard it and the person eventually wondered on. This person, however, hero worshipped the person who turned on him.
Additionally, there's an element of financial stress going on in there somewhere and while the person in question regards themselves as a very devout Christian, it's really clear that their concept of Christianity involves a deep love of the Church and its sacraments, but not so much some of its lessons, including the one that holds love of money is the root of all sin.
It's a classic failing.
The other person is an archetypical Baby Boomer. For some reason a lot of Boomers just can't let go. Handed everything early on, they really became the "Me" generation of the 70s. This person really only has their work left, as his marriage fell apart and for the classic reasons, and, well, I won't go into it. At some point if you were the center of all of your major life choices, however, all you have left, is you, and that isn't much.
Our current President, and indeed our last, both epitomized that Boomer view in some ways. Trump has lived the Playboy lifestyle and his soul is imperiled. He's also endangering us all, and all because to him, it's all about him.
Christ came to save humanity, but we're supposed to participate in that. The road is fairly clear. We're to try to take the narrow one. Americans seemingly think that doesn't apply to them, and wonder why they're miserable.
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!
Do the right thing.
Monday, March 30, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?
Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?: A man who has conquered others, should conquer himself Pope Leo the Great to Atilla the Hun. He never did. He died following drinking too ...
Graham is the son of the late Billy Graham, the famous Evangelical pastor beloved by many American Protestants. I never grasped his popularity, and perhaps things like this are why. What Graham posts here, and what has been widely misunderstood by those shocked by the comments, is in fact absurd. Graham espouses the minority Protestant view that you can never lose your salvation. Believe in Christ as your savior once, and you are good to go thereafter no matter what.
Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?
A man who has conquered others, should conquer himself
Pope Leo the Great to Atilla the Hun. He never did. He died following drinking too much on his wedding night.
Some evangelical Christians excuse Trump's lack of Christian adherence by casting him as Cyrus the Vance, the Persian Emperor who was not Jewish, but who regarded himself as appointed by God and whom advanced the cause of the the Jews. In their minds, the non believer Trump is advancing the cause of (Protestant) Christianity.
More of his Christian loyalists, however, come from a certain Christian worldview that's very strong in the US, but only in the US, the comforting, but completely false, "once saved, always saved" view of Christianity.
It's expressed here in the misunderstood posting of one Franklin Graham.
This sort of view explains why so many people who attend mega churches live in such flagrant disregard for the basic tenants of Christianity, particularly the sexual tenants. And the belief, taken from and misinterpreted from one single line in the New Testament, is completely condemned by the whole of the Gospel. St. Paul, who specifically spoke of people losing their salvation after their conversions, would be appalled.
But for somebody as lazy intellectually as Trump, it's no doubt comforting, assuming he worried about the afterlife at all. He's lived a life of moral dissipation but, hey, he's okay.
The belief on Trump's part is no doubt not only comforting to him, but it probably emboldens him as well. Compared to Cyrus, backed up by the intellectually think "once saved" theology and pastors who repeatedly assure him he's on a Devine mission, and with people like Pete Hegseth in his cabinet, what could go wrong?
Well, everything, in fact. And indeed, everything is going wrong.
And therefore, we might legitimately raise this question. What if Trump's place in Salvation History is not that of Cyrus the Great, but rather Atilla the Hun?
It sounds absurd, but frankly its not less absurd that he being a Cyrus the Great, and certainly no less absurd than the claims he's a "Godly man" that some of his supporters make.
Attila the Hung, during his lifetime, was called the Flagellum Dei, the Scourge of God. The thought was that Rome having became so sinful was being served by being whipped by Atilla by license of God.
The modern US is certainly no less sinful that Rome was from 434 to 453, the reign of Atilla. The country still practices infanticide, something that only became legal anywhere in the US in 1970 (Hawaii). The country has the reputation of being deeply religious but the Playboy Culture that came in starting in 1953 has lead to rampant sexual immorality and indeed sexual confusion. The materialistic culture that started to come in during the 1950s has converted a class dominated culturally and economically by the middle class to one controlled by and for the extremely rich elite, the pinnacle of which was on display on Epstein Island. Closeted homosexuals in office pretend they hold family virtues. Office holders who maintain their deep love of family espouse divorce and contracept to avoid having one. Money is everything. We are willing to fight and die for oil rather than address the damage that it causes. We go so far as to excuse our lifestyles and occupations, no matter what they are, surely endorsed by God, effectively mocking him.
All along, we pretend we are a devout people.
Vice President Vance, who is a National Conservative, lectures the Europeans about their losing their culture while the American Civil Religion is such a washed out version of Christianity that it must shock the listeners. He has a point, to be sure, the West in general had engaged in massive moral decline with a life made easy after the recovery from World War Two. But it's hard the case that the United States can look ti itself as a champion of Western values.
Which leads back to this.
The Protestant Reformation brought in the modern world. It's dying before our eyes. The United States is a Protestant country, and the United States as a great power is over. It started to take blows when fallen away Methodist Hugh Hefner started to prostitute the image of young women in a particularly harmful way. As the culture became steeped in immorality, the mainline Protestant churches adopted it rather than offend. And off in the corners some Evangelical Churches took a more radical view, with those views now expressed in the MAGA movement.
Closely related, although not appreciated to be, a culture that fell into lust naturally fell into greed. No decent society, let alone a Christian one, would allow the wealthy the leeway they have in our society, nor would it seek to allow their unabated accumulation of wealth. Greed and lust are, in fact, the two primary attributes of American culture. The fact that we don't seem to realize that is because a third deadly sin has become manifestly American as well,. pride. To state that Trump is a prideful man, and that MAGA is prideful movement, is to state the blatantly obvious.
And while we are at it, we might note that envy has now uniquely entered the picture We evny what Denmark has in Greenland, and what Venezuela has it itself.
And look at Trump, and consider sloth. , ,
And finally, listen to Trump, on anything, and consider wrath.
These would be bad enough in one man, but when that man is elevated to the leader of a nation, that nation has endorsed it. We, as a nation, have adopted all seven of the deadly sins as our primary national virtues.
So why wouldn't we invite a scourging, if only by our own conduct.
Nobody knows whether Donald Trump is going to Hell after his death. That is not for us to know. Franklin Graham doesn't know. What we do know is that the Presbyterian raised Trump has lead a strongly immoral life in multiple ways even without examining the worst accusations against him, which in fact now deserve to be examined. But the same is true of many supposedly "devout" Christians. Indeed, the number of Christians attempting to be Christian, of all branches of the faith, is likely a tiny percentage of Christians in the U.S. overall.
What Trump is serving to do is to bring forward the hypocrisy of the American civil religion, the easy Christianity where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.
Sincere devout Protestant Christians have been deeply distressed by Trump. They should be. But there's another emotion in some quarters as well, a sort of principled schadenfreude. I.e., knowing that everything is collapsing and taking a sort of delight in it.
That may sound deeply odd, but perhaps it isn't as much as it might seem. The moral draft that's been going on has been going on for decades, and its been an obvious problem. The sort of worship of money that divests the middle class and which exalts economic activity above everything, including the happiness of average people and the environment, has been going on for decades as well. The profligate use of American armed force is not new. The hypocrisy of our ruling class, now at an all time high, has been developing for quite some time. Some times it takes a crisis for people to wake up. If they don't, they just perish and somebody less dense takes over.
Will Americans wake up?
I think they might, but when they wake up it's not going to be morning in America. That country has died. It was already ill, and had been very ill since the 2010s, but Trump came in like the batshit crazy anti vaxers that are part of his overall movement and administered a lethal does of ignorance and stupidity. The country they wake up to may, in fact, be more like an old one, hopefully. One less powerful on the international stage, and less willing to throw its weight around without the cooperation of others.
In other ways, it's going to be something entirely new. Far right Evangelical Protestantism will not survive Donald Trump. People like Franklin Graham and Paula White are going to be regarded as ignorant fools. The big box mega churches will be exposed for what they are, worship service centers think on the hard lessons of Christianity.
Faith won't die, and it hasn't anywhere. The Ancient Faith has started to revive in France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. The Apostolic Faiths in North America are growing as the young turn their back on the American Civil Religion and Americanism in general, seeking the real. The Protestant Reformation was already dying, but now that death will accelerate, even if the Protestant faiths, particular those of the early Reformation, will live on, particularly in their most conservative, and frankly Catholic, forms.
Holy Week started yesterday. We live in interesting times.
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.
Lex Anteinternet: Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.: Gun camera footage from a P-51 strafing Japanese civilian fishermen during World War Two, a gravely immoral act. We've conveniently for...
There's not going to be a draft, but the satiric suggestions that he serve are not wholly ingenuine. Right now, the US is getting into one war after another. Franklin Roosevelt's children served, so did TR's. Why not Trump's?
Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.
Gun camera footage from a P-51 strafing Japanese civilian fishermen during World War Two, a gravely immoral act. We've conveniently forgotten how much of this sort of thing happened during World War Two, but a lot did. Allied fighters routinely strafed German farmers during the war, and I have heard of one account of an Italian farmer being killed by being strafed. This isn't warfare, it's flat out murder.*
III. SAFEGUARDING PEACE
Avoiding war
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Section 2309, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
The American war against Iran is not a just war. It's not a legal one, either.
Iran is a world sponsor of terrorism that has sponsored terroristic acts for decades. Most of those acts of terror were against other sovereign states, not the US, but some can logically be argued to be directed at the us. That's almost certainly not what the war is about.
Much more likely, Trump is a pathetic doddering senile fool who has spent a life of utter pointlessness. His wealth is inherited and founded originally on a grandfather who engaged in providing prostitutes to Alaska miners, a gravely evil act. His father did nothing like that, but the family wealth was used to build more wealth, and Trump in his adult years, after not serving his country (a family tradition to some extent) went on to make and lose fortunes doing that.
Real estate development is, from an agrarian and distributism prospective like that I maintain, a fairly dubious occupation in and of itself. Not clearly immoral, but frankly I have real trouble with some of it. Be that as it may, I particularly have trouble with the sort of behavior that Trump exhibited in that questionable occupation. I wouldn't admire the Wharton graduate for that reason alone. But the way he has spent his wealth is abominable. He's a serial polygamist and its getting very difficult to say "there's no evidence" that he didn't sexually fish in the shallow end of the pond.
There's more credible evidence that he's a kiddy diddler, which I'm not affirmatively saying there is, than that he's a Christian. There's not one single outwardly Christian act that I can think of that he's committed. What he is, is a shallow opportunist, and he's used desperate Christians to advance his career.
Knowing that the grave is looming up on him, and with his mind slipping away from him at a rapid rate, Trump has spent much of his second, illegitimate, occupation of the White House trying to build monuments to himself. He wants a ball room as he's a rich product of the 60s and 70s when things like that mattered to somebody. They don't anymore, and it'll either never be built, or ripped down. He wants a triumphal arch, which is simply absurd.
And he wants to be remembered as a great hero, adding to the US landmass, or at least defeating a supposed major enemy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a scary man in his own right, but not a demented fool, saw that he could play the demented fool in the White House. Netanyahu, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, sees the Trump dotage as a time to "address all family business". Seeing a dolt he could play, like Putin has, he's coaxed Trump into a war for Israel's own purposes. This is, the way Netanyahu sees it, Israel's last best hope to destroy the radical Islamist regime in Tehran. Israel can't do it on its own, and no future US administration will support doing it. Israel is not held in that high of regard in much of the world for a variety of reasons, and never has been. Nobody else is going to play the willing muscled fool for Netanyahu. If Netanyahu is Corleone, Trump is Luca Brasi, a brutish dolt who is willing to act as an enforcer.
Trump entered this war thinking it would be a two or three day exercise. He'd bomb Iran and the Iranian people would give up. Or, maybe, Iranians theocrats would act like American property owners and cut him a deal. Well, say what you like about Shiite theocrats, but they're a lot less shallow than American businessmen. They hold to an existential, and unlike Trump it's not all about money and women.
Oh oh.
So they didn't give up and they aren't going to give up. They've fought back by striking economic targets and U.S. military installations around the Middle East (and now as far away as Diego Garcia). And they've closed the Straits of Hormuz.
By closing the Straits, they've also demonstrated that the US is, in fact, not as powerful as it pretends it is. We can't open them and we've been begging for help. Nobody else is willing to get into an endless war for Israel, and therefore that help isn't coming. In order to open them we will have to engage in a ground invasion.
Trump is trying desperately to avoid that, for a variety of reasons. One thing is that he's probably been told it will be a bloody mess. Body bags will be coming home to "Red" cities all around the country. People already don't support the war and they definitely will not when Johnny or Mary come home to be buried in Riverton Wyoming, or Billings Montana, having died for Bibi Netanyahu.
And then there's this:
There's not going to be a draft, but the satiric suggestions that he serve are not wholly ingenuine. Right now, the US is getting into one war after another. Franklin Roosevelt's children served, so did TR's. Why not Trump's?
Because Trumps don't serve the country, they take from it. That's why.
In his desperation to end the war, Trump is now threatening to bomb Iranian power facilities if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz. He broadcast this on social media, which is idiotic It also won't work. The Allied bombing campaigns against Germany did not work in World War Two. They didn't work, save for the Atomic bomb, against Japan, either. Nor did they work against North Vietnam. They won't work here. Instead, civilians will be killed and whatever support for a new regime replacing this one in Iran exists, will evaporate.
What Trump is doing is criminal. The US is killing people for. . . what?
The whole war is criminal from the first place, from a US prospective. We're using military force to kill people with no declaration of war. And now we propose to engage in a tit for tat campaign of economic retribution against them as we can't beat them. We haven't been able to articulate a single reason for the war, other than Iran cannot be allowed to have the same thing that Israel, the United States, France, Russia, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Indian, Pakistan, and South Africa have. . . an atomic bomb.
There is some logic to that, of course. An Iran with an atomic bomb would be scary, just like North Korea with an atomic bomb is scary. But given our ill thought out military adventure here, we are actually making this situation worse. North Korea, it might be noted, is improving missile capabilities, and why wouldn't they. If North Korea has not determined an absolute need to be able to hit the continental United States due to Donald Trump, it'd be amazing. And if Iran, which has its nuclear material yet, has not concluded that it has an absolute need to complete a nuclear project, that would be amazing.
But it's clear that Trump never thought this out. He went, we're told, with his gut, which is nearly always wrong.
So, here we are in this long winded thread.
And here's to the point. Supporting immorality, is immoral. Everyone engages in "remote cooperation with evil", which you can not do much about. Using illegal drugs is illegal, but paying the pizza guy when you know he's going to use some of that cash for illegal drugs isn't.
Here, we now have an interesting situation.
We are in an illegal war and doing immoral acts. The Republicans in Washington are mostly sitting around on their ass doing nothing about it. They're afraid. They're not paid nor elected to be afriad.
And all over the country the MAGA element of the GOP just lies down like the 13 year old girls at Epstein Island and gives into whatever Trump wants.
It's immoral.
For years and years Christians, particularly those of my faith, voted for Republicans in spite of reluctance because we opposed abortion and the Democratic Party supported it. Even as late as the last election I heard Catholics with severe doubts about Trump say they were voting for him for that reason.
Abortion is a grave moral evil. Engaging in an illegal war and targeting civilian targets is a grave moral evil.
I'm not saying vote for the Democrats without thinking, but I am saying that supporting this Administration and the Republican Party at this point is supporting moral evil. When John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman come around backing the war, they're backing a moral evil. When Chuck Gray declares his undying love for Trump and promises to be the most loyal of his political concubines, he's expressing a love of a moral evil.
Most Germans during the Nazi era did nothing. Most Republicans aren't going to either. In future years, they'll be looked at with utter disgust.
Christians believe that they'll have to account for their sins in the next world. I very much doubt that bothers Donald Trump as he's stupid and ignorant, which is sort of a defense, and I very much question if he has any belief in God at all. For that matter, while I have only the incidents to raise the question, I doubt the beliefs of many in Congress who claim they have one. For those of us who do believe, and frankly a person who doesn't has simply blinded themselves to reality, it's all too easy to believe that our self interest must be moral. Protestant churches have, for instance, by and large completely given up on being concerned about sexual morality for the most part.
God will not be mocked. Christians who declare Trump to be a "Godly Man" are willfully blinding themselves or outright lying. None of us are around here all that long. The "why did you support the murder of my children" question is coming up, and the "well, I supported Trump", or "well, the Iranians were baddies", or "well, the Iranians were Muslims" line is not likely to be a sufficient excuse for being complicit in murder.
Footnotes
*This may seem like a strange point to start in this thread, but wars routinely devolve, even when they fit the just war criteria, into flat out murder and the US has not been exempt from this. Arguably the cleanest war the US ever fought was World War One, with the Korean War being relatively clean. World War Two may be recalled as a uniformly just war, but the bombing campaigns against urban Japan and the use of nuclear weapons was outright not. And the tolerance of what is depicted above, which was very widespread, was not.
Sunday, February 8, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: The Making of the Christian Man By Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
Lex Anteinternet: The Making of the Christian Man By Charles J. Chap...: The Making of the Christian Man By Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
The Making of the Christian Man By Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
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