Trump and St King Henry

I’m a sucker for coincidences in dates. So on a whim I looked up the saint of the day on Trump’s assassination attempt, July 13th. Turns out it’s the patron saints of kings and leaders. St Henry is the only Holy Roman emperor who was ever canonized and he died 1,000 years to the day of the attempt. Maybe he interceded for Trump? From website on St Henry: 

“As German king and Holy Roman Emperor, Henry was a practical man of affairs. He was energetic in consolidating his rule. On all sides he had to deal with drawn-out disputes so as to protect his frontiers. This involved him in a number of battles, especially in the south in Italy; he also helped Pope Benedict VIII quell disturbances in Rome. Always his ultimate purpose was to establish a stable peace in Europe....Saint Henry is an ideal model for all those who govern or are entrusted with wealth or power."

It’s ironic that most of our leaders speak peacefully (i.e. no “mean tweets”) but are very keen on physical war, while the one leader who speaks roughly is keen on peace. 

I noticed a Fr David Nix wrote a couple weeks ago:

"I had Trump set as a major Mass intention for today even before I realized it was the feast of St. Henry, Holy Roman Emperor. There's some obvious differences but today's Gospel in honor of St. Henry is strangely reflective of the vigilance required by this weekend's events: "And if He shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye, that if the householder did know at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at what hour you think not, the Son of man will come."—Lk 12:38-40"

Trump and Obama Idol Worship?

Comparisons are made between the fawning of Trump people for their guy and Obama people for theirs. But we might recall that Obama came out of the gate smooth and “flawless”, a preternaturally cool guy who affected an airy above-it-all mien as if the petty debates of Republicans and Democrats were beneath him. He gave the 2004 Democratic Convention debate in those terms precisely and, if you think of it, that’s a common conception of divinity: that God is cool and above it all. 

Trump came in the opposite, as a street brawler. No one could compare him to God except perhaps Trump himself, but we are all in on that joke. It feels providential that he is so obviously flawed because with him no one can seriously mistake him as the messiah. It's sort of God's way of built-in idol protection. 

Our tendency to make idols of leaders goes back to the very beginning of the country. George Washington was seen in those terms such that some wanted to make him king.  A huge painting in the Capitol Rotunda is called “The Apotheosis of Washington” which depicts him “rising to the heavens in glory, flanked by female figures representing Liberty and Victory/Fame and surrounded by six groups of figures.”  


I think there is value in God making killers (literally!) like Moses and King David into key figures in his kingdom building. No matter how much the Jews revered Moses and David, they still retained the knowledge that both had feet of clay in some instances in their past.The apostles similarly showed themselves often enough to have feet of clay as well. That’s a salutary thing given that humans tend to worship anything even slightly above them.

Explaining Pope Francis

Provocative piece that presents a theory on how to explain  Pope Francis here. Excerpts: 

If one takes the Pope’s statements seriously, the conclusion is unavoidable that in his spiritual cosmos there is no longer that supernatural being-in-Christ for which the martyrs went to their deaths; for which the missionaries, starting with Paul, traveled the world under the harshest privations; for and by which the hermits turned their backs on the world and founded the contemplative religious life; that supernatural being-in-Christ that brought forth the sacramental priestly ministry as well as the liturgies and magnificent church architecture in which the supernatural context of life is communicated and celebrated. However, this also inevitably means that for Jorge Bergoglio, not only does the Church no longer exist as the mystical body of Christ, but fundamentally Christ himself no longer exists.

Eugenio Scalfari claimed after one of his interviews with Francis – nor was it denied by the Vatican—that the Pope did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. In the context of Jorge Bergoglio’s actually verifiable statements, I consider it highly plausible that Scalfari is reporting correctly here. How could Francis believe in the divinity of Jesus if it is precisely this theological predicate that decisively makes the theology of universal natural brotherhood beyond secondary religious traditions impossible?

It is an obvious fact that Pope Francis is an authoritarian man of power. However, my thesis is that his rule is exercised far less irrationally than is claimed in many descriptions of this pontificate. Pope Francis has a basic agenda, and it is the one I have described, which he is implementing in the Church with remarkable consistency. Francis is primarily neither a pragmatist nor a politician; in his own words, he is above all a “dreamer”. To put it less romantically: Jorge Bergoglio is primarily an ideologue.

From the perspective of the original Church, Francis should never elevate the natural fraternity category above the tradition of the Church, because in doing so he would only perpetuate a context that Paul calls—explicitly also with regard to questions of interpersonality—the “schemata tou kosmou toutou” (1 Cor 7:31). However, these forms of the old world are destined by God to become in Christ that supernatural context of brotherhood, that is, that new creation which the Catholic Church mediates in its sacramental acts and is already itself in intenso. Only She is the “promised land”. The work of a pope should be directed with all his strength precisely towards this dimension. While God himself is concerned with divinizing man in supernatural grace and bringing forth a new heaven and a new earth, the narrow-minded papal view focuses on the old world and degrades the new world—which has been the subject of Church tradition for two millennia—to a matter of secondary relevance. This is truly grotesque.

At the same time, the Church must draw the Pope’s attention to the fact that the deconstruction of Her mission, which the Pope places under the suspicious term of “proselytism,” fixates man on the old world, thus inhumanely depriving him of that supernatural sphere towards which he is precisely ordered in order to fulfil his humanity. Natural fraternity theology does not satisfy the aforementioned “appetitus innatus,” i.e. the actual hunger that is proper to man as man. This is why only the classical mission of the Church truly loves man.

How the Miami Redskins Lost Their Name

Miami always had the reputation as the most conservative college in Ohio. A symbolic test case (if relatively trivial) came in whether it could resist the ludicrous calls to change the school moniker. Honoring the Miami tribe was the original reason for the name, continued to be the reason while I was there, and was so after I left. Could the Left turn it into a slur? Yes. They are, of course, the language police. Behold the awesome power of the Left!

It took awhile though. It started with colleges and then moved to pro teams which makes sense given colleges are lib factories and they stand to lose less money than pro teams. 

It all started with North Dakota’s little Dickinson State University in 1972 dropped their mascot.

It continued with (where else?) the Ivy League when in 1974, Dartmouth College football team discontinued its old mascot the Indians — which dated back to the 1920s — and now go by the The Big Green.

The Eastern Michigan Hurons also changed its name to the Eagles in 1991 after the Michigan Department of Civil Rights released a report suggesting that all state schools discontinue racially-insensitive logos.

In 1992 Oxford’s mayor said that it’s not if Miami will change its mascot but when. One could probably see the effect of lawsuit in Michigan and the potential of biting Ohio teams. Lawyers rule the world.

In 1994, St. John’s University in New York City changed its team name from the Redmen to The Red Storm, sporting a new horse logo. Other college teams followed. 

In 1997 Miami caved. 

And of course George Floyd died in 2020 and that meant the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins had to change their names.

Russia From a 2008 Perspective

“I have long said that if you want to hate the United States, study the history of our foreign policy; but if you wish to love us, take a long road trip through our country.” --historian Charles Coulombe

I went to the library looking for a pre-Ukraine war book on post-soviet Russia to get outside our completely unreliable media. I seemed to have found it: a Western author without an ox to gore who became friends with a group of Russians and followed their stories from 1992 to 2008. The author is no Putin fan nor a fan of the Bush or Obama administrations. 

It's kind of heartbreaking to see how our pledge not to expand NATO turns out to be of a piece with our treaties with the American Indian tribes in the 1800s. 

And it's pretty instructive in seeing how long this issue has been percolating such that a book published in 2008 (!) already showed dire foreign policy issues that would surface in a major way thirteen years later.

Some excerpts from "Lost and Found in Russia: Lives in the Post-Soviet Landscape" by Susan Richards tell the story: 

Once hopes that the West would launch a great postcommunist Marshall Plan died, an anti-Western mood began to set in among Russia’s elites. The decision by the Western powers not to dismantle NATO fed this mood, and NATO’s air strikes against Serbia in 1999 stoked the flames. Russia’s new sense of isolation was increased between 1999 and 2004 by the choice of three former Soviet republics and four former satellites to join both NATO and the EU. Their admission directly contravened the agreement between Gorbachev and US Secretary of State James Baker in February 1990 not to 'expand the zone of NATO.'

Putin’s decision to support George W. Bush’s war on terror after the attacks on New York in September 2001 defied this new anti-Western mood. However, the overture was poorly reciprocated by the new Republican administration: US aid to Russia was cut back. America withdrew from its thirty-year-old Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia. Congress confirmed the old Cold War Jackson-Vanik amendment, which linked its trade relations with Russia to levels of Jewish emigration. The United States also failed to throw its weight behind Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization despite doing so with respect to China.                

Most ominously from the leadership’s point of view, when two former Soviet republics (Georgia in 2003, Ukraine at the end of 2004) turned their faces westward in “color revolutions,” the hand of the United States was deemed to have played a critical role. Fears of this happening in Russia would become a governing political factor from now on.

Years later, the West played its propaganda well, and the sight of Russian tanks entering Georgia raised old Cold War ghosts. While Europe dithered, caught between distaste and self-interest, America’s press exploded in Russophobia. All this served only to add a strong sense of grievance to the triumphalist mood back in Russia.

**

“You want to know what I think? They’re all wantonly irresponsible—Georgians, Russians, Americans. I’d rather be governed by nine-year-olds.”

Yes, they said, the only people who benefited by the war were the leaders, and yes, this was only the beginning, it was going to get worse

I was still a long way off finding an answer to my key riddle: how long were the Russian people going to endorse the idea that Putin’s “sovereign democracy” was in their national interest?

 **                   

Misha had become genuinely emotional on the subject of Russia’s war with Georgia. “You know how critical I can be of this country,” he burst out. “But on this one I’m right behind Medvedev and Putin. There’s a lot this country can learn from the West about how to run itself. I know that. But surely we’ve got the right to defend our own borders from attack! What’s Russia done to the West to deserve being provoked in that way? You tell me that. 

“As you know, my family’s from Ukraine. So all this is very close to my heart. Half Ukraine’s population is Russian, or almost. Our language, our culture, it’s practically the same. Whatever that puppet Yushchenko says, there’s no way we’d stand for Ukraine being taken into NATO. It’s rubbish! What’s more, if push comes to shove, the West’s got a lot more to lose from such a conflict than we do. Europe depends on Russian oil and gas! We may not be in great shape domestically. But we’ve got what it takes. We don’t need the West! It’s going to take us a generation or two to sort ourselves out, but we’re smart people—we’re on our way now!”

America’s days of unchallenged global supremacy were over, he said. A new, multipolar world would emerge sooner or later, one in which Russia was destined to play a major role.

**

I would like to have had more confidence that an incumbent President Obama would steer clear of stirring up trouble there. But the worse the US domestic economy became, the more attractive it might seem to keep pressing on with the crazy policy of expanding NATO right up to Russia’s borders, to include Ukraine and Georgia.