Being king is not the thing

 Condition, circumstance is not the thing;

Bliss is the same in subject or in king. 

 

-- Alexander Pope 

Sometimes the news is just too much for me

 How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold

The end of all thy offspring end so sad.

 

-- John Milton 

 

 

Good riddance, phony demon UFO, Good riddance, infernal Pentagon!

 

 I felt him strike, and now I see him fly:

Curs'd demon! O for ever broken lie

Those fatal shafts, by which I inward bleed!

 

-- Matthew Prior 

 

 

Poor Rod Dreher: Evidence is emerging that government efforts to propagate UFO mythology date back all the way to the 1950s

The Pentagon Disinformation That Fueled America’s UFO Mythology: U.S. military fabricated evidence of alien technology and allowed rumors to fester to cover up real secret-weapons programs

... At times, as with the deception around Area 51, military officers spread false documents to create a smokescreen for real secret-weapons programs. In other cases, officials allowed UFO myths to take root in the interest of national security—for instance, to prevent the Soviet Union from detecting vulnerabilities in the systems protecting nuclear installations. Stories tended to take on a life of their own, such as the three-decade journey of a purported piece of space metal that turned out to be nothing of the sort. And one long-running practice was more like a fraternity hazing ritual that spun wildly out of control. ...

The many in America who have been gulled by the disinformation should take heart. Hundreds upon hundreds of military men have been taken in by the stories too, and some of them believe them to this day.

It will die out soon enough, like the Shakers

 

The Assisted Suicide Movement is Gaining Momentum

Mariya Manzhos, Deseret 

 

"I joined a suicide cult but we just couldn't grow our membership for some reason." 😏

The celibate Shakers are down to just three members.

NT Wright shreds his credibility singing about evolution in Genesis to the tune of Yesterday with the already incredible former NIH Director Francis Collins

 Here.

Probably the most cringe-worthy thing you'll see today in a world absolutely teeming with cringe-worthy.

New Testament scholar NT Wrong laughably believes in the unfolding Kingdom of God through the church, so it is entirely consistent for him to believe humans evolved from the cosmic kiss of heaven and earth 14 billion years ago. 

Genesis means DNA, double helix in the Milky Way, dontchaknow.

Francis Collins, with Anthony Fauci, suppressed from the very beginning of the pandemic the belief by some of their own trusted scientists that COVID-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, a charge doggedly demonstrated with evidence over the years by none other than Richard H. Ebright, Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers.

 

 

The folly of strong drink

 

 The giant, gorg'd with flesh, and wine, and blood,

Lay stretch'd at length, and snoring in his den,

Belching raw gobbets from his maw, o'ercharg'd 

With purple wine and cruddled gore confus'd.

 

-- Joseph Addison

 

Thrice I brought and gave it him, and thrice he drained it in his folly. . . . and reeling fell upon his back, and lay there with his thick neck bent aslant, and sleep, that conquers all, laid hold on him. And from his gullet came forth wine and bits of human flesh, and he vomited in his drunken sleep.

 

-- Homer, Odyssey 9.360, 370

 

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. 

-- Proverbs 20:1

 

Infant woe awaits us all

 There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,

The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall.

 

-- Alexander Pope

The dog must learn it, when he is a whelp, or else it will not be . . .

 

 . . . for it is hard to make an old dog to stoop [submit]. 

-- Anthony Fitzherbert, The Book of Husbandry (1523/1534), paragraph 41:

 

 

 

Beware of sadness

 

 Such a wantwit sadness makes of me,

That I have much ado to know myself.

 

-- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 1

They need to think bigger at Big Think lol

 

 Why historians can only give Jesus a one-sentence biography

 ... In the ancient world, gods, heroes, and even Caesars were resurrected with fair regularity. ...

Right, right, that's why the Athenians laughed out loud at the idea.

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked . . ..

-- Acts 17:32 

 

A certain diseased beggar named Lazarus was laid at the rich man's gate, but never once was he fed from his sumptuous table

 Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.

 

-- Jonathan Swift

What in the world is the heart of Islam coming to?

 First we have MBS shaking hands publicly with the openly homosexual US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and now we get this headline:

Saudi Arabia to lift booze ban at 600 tourist locations ...
 

... Spirits and hard liquor above 20% ABV will remain banned, with no sign of shops, takeaways or home brewing being permitted. ...

O believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idols, and drawing lots for decisions are all evil of Satan’s handiwork. So shun them so you may be successful.

 

-- Qur'an, Sura 5:90 

And ˹remember˺ when Lot scolded ˹the men of˺ his people, ˹saying,˺ “Do you commit a shameful deed that no man has ever done before?

 

You lust after men instead of women! You are certainly transgressors.”

 

But his people’s only response was to say, “Expel them from your land! They are a people who wish to remain chaste!”

 

-- Qur'an, Sura 7:80-82

 

 

Look thou be true

 

 Look thou be true: do not give dalliance

Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw

To th' fire i' th' blood.

 

-- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1

Today shalt thou be with me in paradise, not tomorrow, nor on the third day, but truly, today

 

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμήν λέγω σοι σήμερον μετ᾽ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ.

 

-- Luke 23:43 

σήμερον is obviously in emphatic position. The promise to the penitent thief is that there will be no lingering death, and the conviction of Jesus is firm belief in immediate immortality for both himself and this thief, not in future resurrection.

She dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun

 

 She her airie buildeth in the cedar's top,

And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, Scene 3 (the reading is Samuel Johnson's)

Time is an ocean

 

 

 I consider time as an immense ocean, into which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up, many very much shattered and damaged, some quite disjointed and broken into pieces.

 

-- Joseph Addison

Pope Leo graduated in 1973 from Saint Augustine Seminary High School in Allegan County, Michigan, which closed in 1977

 

... The estate was built by inventor Dorr Felt in 1925 and bought by the Augustinian order in 1949 for use as a school, with the goal of educating between 50 and 60 students at a time who were interested in becoming priests. The mansion included the dorm and chapel and a garage was converted to host classes and include a library. By 1965, the Felt Estate said, the school was serving 180 students and had a waiting list of 400. But interest later waned and enrollment was below 70 by the mid-1970s. The school closed in 1977. The state bought the land and Laketown Township bought it for $1 in 1996. The mansion is now a venue and museum. ...

More.

The new pope's a wiener in Chicago

I am not ecumenical when it comes to hot dogs.

The Chicago style is without doubt the very best, the top dog, yes, the pontifex maximus of salsicce, as long as it comes from Vienna or Frankfurt.

 

 

Leo XIV, the first pope born in America, in the city of Chicago, had an extensive career in Peru for the Augustinians from 1985

He had been created cardinal by Pope Francis only recently, in 2023.

He's also a tweeter.

 

The tyrant is the real slave, possessed of desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and of more wants than any one

But he does know how to stay in the news.

Posted at 10:29 PM Friday night.

Promoted by the irredeemable Rod Dreher Saturday morning.

Trending #1 at CNBC Saturday night.

If Trump had any real power, US Treasury Bills wouldn't be yielding more as he posted this than they have in nine weeks.

 

 

Pope Francis is gone, but not forgotten

 

Pope Francis' last laugh: Latin Mass for me, but not for thee

 

 ... While Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, began the liturgy, the crowd stayed silent. Most of the mass was in Latin and punctuated with hymns and Gregorian chants. A light breeze ruffled an open gospel placed on the coffin. ...

More.

J. D. Vance succeeds where others have failed, finally makes Easter a religious holiday again

 

I kinda gave up Rod Dreher for Lent, he gave up milk in his latte

Nothing screams serious like giving up milk.

 

Angel of Death visits Pope on Easter Sunday, Francis dead Easter Monday

 

Once a man is dead there is no resurrection

 But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man, once he is dead, there is no resurrection.

-- Aeschylus, Eumenides, 647f.

... ἅπαξ θανόντος, οὔτις ἔστ ἀνάστασις.

 

Jesus wasn't killed for blasphemy but for challenging Jewish complicity with Roman economic tyranny

 

I'm glad to see this argument gaining wider circulation, even if it appears in an essay which more broadly is mistaken to think that Jesus imagined that terrestrial injustice could be overcome by anyone or anything short of the coming of God's celestial kingdom to earth. Not even the resurrection has done that.

The argument was first made by St. Luke.

And the whole multitude of them arose, and led him unto Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ a King.  

-- Luke 23:1f.

Palm Sunday Was a Protest, Not a Procession

 ... The next day, Jesus walked into the Temple, the heart of Jerusalem’s religious and economic life, and flipped the tables in the marketplace, which he described as “a den of robbers.” The Temple wasn’t just a house of prayer. It was a financial engine, operated by complicit leaders under the constraints and demands of the occupying empire. Jesus shuts it down. This is what gets him killed.

Jesus wasn’t killed for preaching love, or healing the sick, or discussing theology routinely debated in the Temple’s courtyards, or blasphemy (the punishment for which was stoning). Rome didn’t crucify philosophers or miracle workers. Rome crucified insurrectionists. The sign nailed above his head — “King of the Jews” — was a political indictment and public warning. ...

Ordinarily you would want a saint who can intercede to get you out of an economic collapse, not get you into one lol

Actors are rarely known for their intelligence. And as we are all very painfully aware, Donald Trump is an actor, too.

 

Oh, the pervert is dead . . .

 

Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Defrocked Over Sex Abuse, Dies at 94

NYTimes

 

"... Three of the four bishops, it said, found that Mr. McCarrick had shared a bed with seminarians and young adult men, but said they were not sure there had been sexual contact. ..."

 

 

Oh, McCarrick is dead, and his boyfriend don't know it

His boyfriend is dead, and McCarrick don't know it

They both are dead in the very same bed

And neither one knows that the other is dead.    

-- Johnny

 

 

Actor Val Kilmer, a follower of Christian Science, has died of pneumonia at 65

Reported here:

... His daughter Mercedes told The New York Times the cause was pneumonia. He was 65. He had been battling throat cancer for several years. ...

A lifelong Christian Scientist, Kilmer was unwilling to confirm his cancer diagnosis when it was revealed by Michael Douglas in 2016. He combined his fascination with Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy with his love of Mark Twain in a screenplay that featured the two figures. He toured the country with his one-man show “Citizen Twain” for several years, which incorporated film and live readings of the humorist’s work. ... 

My body is a Catholic Church . . .

 . . . full of wine, bread, and guilt.

 

No presence of human blood discovered on consecrated host

 

 Indianapolis Archdiocese probes parish’s alleged Eucharistic miracle

... a “young woman” ... described seeing “drops of blood” on two consecrated hosts. The hosts had apparently fallen on the floor Feb. 21 and were placed in water and kept in the tabernacle to dissolve. A day later, what the woman saw instead, she claimed, “looked like a very very thin piece of skin with blood on it.”

A CUP founder confirmed in an email to OSV News that the same woman, who wished to remain anonymous, took the photos of the apparently blood-stained hosts that were posted on social media. ...

No Eucharistic miracle in Indianapolis, archdiocese confirms after lab tests

... “A biochemical analysis of a host from St. Anthony Catholic Church in Morris, Ind., that was displaying red discoloration revealed the presence of a common bacteria found on all humans,” the statement said. “No presence of human blood was discovered.”

The March 24 statement confirmed that the host had “fallen out of a Mass kit used at the parish, and when it was discovered, red spots were present. ...

Catholics believe that upon their consecration at Mass, bread and wine become Jesus Christ — body, blood, soul and divinity — while still retaining the appearances of bread and wine. ...

 

 

OMG Trump-Vance supporter Rod Dreher is worried that Mexico is re-paganizing

 

A friend is the gift of God

 

 People, young and raw, and soft natured, think it an easy thing to gain love, and reckon their own friendship a sure price of any man's; but when experience shall have shewn them the hardness of most hearts, the hollowness of others, and the baseness and ingratitude of almost all, they will then find that a friend is the gift of God, and that he only who made hearts can unite them.

 

-- Robert South

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour, you know, like Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour.  

-- 1 Peter 5:8

And after the shot, Satan entered into him

And after the sop Satan entered into him. ...

-- John 13:27

Trump betrays Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe

 Thou hast slain

The flower of Europe for his chivalry,

And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him.

 

-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 3, Act 2, Scene 1

Evidently both J. D. Vance and his pope are so embarrassed by a nature miracle in Mark's Gospel that they feel they have to misrepresent it

 

Or is it just USA Today?

Who knows.

I highlight the obvious misrepresentations.

Can anyone read anymore?

Here:

Vance quoted at length from a Francis homily in March 2020 about a passage from the book of Mark about Jesus being in a boat with his disciples. A storm caught the group off guard by an unexpected and turbulent storm, which left them disoriented and in need of comfort.

Jesus slept for the only time mentioned in the gospels. When he awakens after the storm has passed, the disciples ask why he wasn’t concerned if they perished.

“Indeed, once they call on Him, He saves his disciples from their discouragement,” Vance quoted Francis as saying. “The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers our faults and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities.”

“We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity,” Vance added.

 

What absolute tosh. 

Do these people ever look up anything?

The storm hadn't passed. It was raging. They were going to die. He was sleeping. They wake him. He commands the storm to stop. It stops. They are amazed. He was upset at their faithlessness.

They were saved from being killed by an actual storm, not from some stupid, introspective-conscience-of-the-west-like existential angst imported into the text from our cowardly, post-Christian, 21st century dull humanitarian consensus which cannot say what a woman is and can't even bring itself to call things what they actually are, such as that a man posing as a woman is a man posing as a woman.

Are we surprised that the same people who deliberately misrepresent their foundational book misrepresent also who is the dictator destroying Ukraine and who started the war?

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?  

-- Mark 4:37ff. 

Trump imagines a rebuilt Gaza, complete with a hotel, a golden idol of himself to worship, copies of which you can buy and take home with you, and of course drag queen entertainment on the beach, among other amenities