https://x.com/KrystianKratiuk/status/1922004992304574905?t=8xiCs7jPBog9Kr-sGUZM5A&s=19
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If one can believe that image as presented (and we are less and less sure about video images these days), it seems as if he turned his back to it…
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Yes. I saw some posts the other day that implied liberals were in a lather because Robert Prevost was on record, on video, calling out modern practices like homosexuality and abortion (yes, I know both have been around for millennia, but he meant their modern enshrinement as desirable practices) in 2012. So therefore as Pope Leo XIV, he will persecute LGBT people (or as Jay Dyer says, to avoid YouTube censoring, the “Skittles people”), or so they said.
This practice of assuming you know all of someone’s ideas on life from one tiny signifier (“he’s got a pink bouttoniere - remember those? - in his lapel, therefore he believes this” or “she was in a purple dress, that means she’s one of those awful Purpleists!”) really does need to wind down.
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Aggressive Identity Politics (aka wokeism), which is often accompanied by flagging of one sort or another – and not just the rainbow flag either – does concern and also irritate me (because people immersed in politically engineered cultures are trained to boldly force their ideologies on others through a carefully designed political system of which the intent seems to be to engineer social instability), and so I can appreciate why some churches want to try to preserve their own traditional culture.
Although, I have read many disturbing and chilling accounts of the Crusades and Inquisition, and how long those periods lasted, that, at least in my own mind, I wonder – how does one balance maintaining one’s own traditions with letting others practice theirs in a peaceable way? And how does one keep one’s kids from getting steered by political forces, so that there is social stability within one’s own family? (That is often a positive role that a church plays in one’s family life). Some people want to be in a church to escape the aggressive political ideologies that are being engineered throughout the world.
One of our very dear friends is gay, and she said that she won’t have anything to do with the rainbow flag – she thinks the beautiful rainbow, and everything it used to represent (sunshine, joy, laughter), was aggressively stolen away from children by a darkly politically engineered movement. And that also got me thinking about the Canadian flag, in the last few months, how that was wrenched away from all that it used to represent, in the Trump-bashing frenzy that’s been going on.
It sounds like you find the thing quite complicated too, more complex than simple “this” versus “that” thinking. I think the new pope has his work cut out for him, just like the American president has. I wouldn’t want to be in either of their shoes, I wouldn’t know what to do.
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Yes, I do find it all complicated. I have always disliked identity politics because it’s a tool created by powerful people at the top to distract people from asking more pointed questions about too much power in the hands of too few.
I also had a lesbian cousin who at one time attended a gay church. Late in her life, I asked her if she still went there - she said no, because that’s all they ever talked about, and she felt she was more than just a gay person - kind of along the line of “a spiritual person having a human experience.”
The Traditional Catholics I know do see themselves as a beleaguered minority, although I have read in the UK it’s now a growing movement among the young - probably because they want refuge from the empty material ideologies of society.
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I avoid churches and everything associated. The only thing that comes to mind is sacrilege of earth’s grid. It is been going on for so long, those places feel completely unsafe to me.
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Ha - that’s the irony - they’re supposed to treasure the Earth and see it as God’s creation, but they don’t. They either politicize it (“save the planet!”) or trash it. No real recognition of it as the ground they stand on, literally.
Interesting you mention that, Catsmeow, as our gay friend had a similar experience when her friends asked her to join a local annual Pride Parade (and she, too, did not last long in a local gay church, as she experienced what your cousin experienced – an over-emphasis on the gay question, rather than the spiritual aspect of what any church is expected to offer). She didn’t want to draw attention to an aspect of her life that she felt should be more private and personal. And I agree with her, as I think that bedroom stuff should be private and not pushed into other peoples’ faces (regardless of orientation). I find it suspicious how there has been so much hype associated with that movement – it has felt politically contrived and engineered and globally well funded – and what comes out of it: people divided and fighting over some kind of “Identity” that is being pushed, and then some commercial forces set up to sell “fixes”. If the pride thing wasn’t so politically charged with the flag waving, then I think most people would get along just fine, regardless of their sexual orientation, or, for that matter, of their race or religion or culture or whatever else makes a person unique.
Another friend, a Catholic priest, reminded us lately that the Catholic Church is not a democratic institution. He feels, very strongly, that some core traditions must be retained, or the entire essence of the church would collapse. We were at one of his church services recently (together with our gay friend) and noticed an increase in attendance, and he mentioned to us that his services have indeed been getting steady increasing attendance (even despite the aggressive church bashing going on in Canada, through nationwide church vandalisms and mainstream media operations). Which is like what you’re saying in the UK – a growing movement among the young. I think people are looking for a sanctuary for their kids where they can be free from the toxic sex stuff aggressively being pushed at them in schools, and most importantly, like you put it so well: “they want refuge from the empty material ideologies of society”. Our friend was sharing that in his Parish, a number of Catholic families have been homeschooling their kids so that their kids don’t get contaminated with all that stuff (and they can keep their kids free from masks and injections as well).
While I’m not yet affiliated with any church myself (as it’s important for me to find a community that holds Life, all Life, especially animals as being utterly and profoundly sacred, and treats them in a way that demonstrates that value – which, to me, is the antidote to the Transhumanism Agenda), I do think that churches and spiritual practices of all faiths have an important role to play in any community, to offer sanctity from some of the political and social engineering going on, even if they are not perfect in my eyes. That’s why I don’t like to knock peoples’ religions, whatever they may be, as they are important and do help a lot of people. (One of my “hobbies” for a long time, has been to read essays by people of different religions and spiritual faiths, who love animals, in the context of their different religious and spiritual teachings – and through this, I have developed some appreciation for different religious faiths.)
It sounds like you may not belong to a church either? Do you attend occasional services with friends/family? What makes the church question complicated for you? Do you feel “unsafe”, as @neru expressed it?
I like how Will Tuttle (animal advocate and musician), in his essay on the Pride question (where he tied his thoughts into the Animal question) summed up what I instinctively feel about flag waving (to which the new Pope seemed to have turned his back in the video clip shared at the beginning of this post):
Using the pretext of caring about gay people, the globalist plutocrats are now inundating us with messages promoting pride. What is pride, exactly? In terms of psychological and spiritual health, it is one of the most harmful poisons, and yet it is being celebrated as a virtue. A hallmark of sociopathic forces is the tactic of reversal, of turning things on their head in order to confuse and dominate others. The more we can be corrupted to abandon spiritual values such as humility, integrity, and self-reliance, the more easily we can be controlled.
Thank you for a thoughtful reply! My personal faith is wandering - I was raised liberal Protestant but have gone w my brother & his now widow to several Latin Masses, in my case for the beauty of the music, just as the chanted prayers in Orthodox churches are deeply beautiful and meaningful. I followed an older sister into an Indian guru group for 10 years (Muktananda) which later had scandals in leadership, and also received some Buddhist teaching - mostly Tibetan. I practiced meditation.
That sister married a Jewish man in the guru group whose family was wealthy (one of her goals in life was to marry a rich man). So I went occasionally to family Jewish holidays (Passover, weddings).
I don’t think I will ever become Catholic because I have had a somewhat difficult life, and I don’t need the full weight of their judgment of me as sinful because I divorced and remarried, and because I wasn’t in a lifelong marriage (nice work if you find it! but I didn’t), or childless, or any of their theological rules.
I too love animals and am pretty much an animist - I recommend a podcast by Josh Schrei on “animism is Normative Consciousness.” Since childhood I thought of animals as beloved or dangerous beings, not my inferiors, but my fellows in the Creation. I had many cats, loved my husband’s dogs, & the horses, pigs, chickens, etc on my uncle’s farm. And wildlife.
I’ve known wise spiritual people who were Hindu, I love many Shinto teachings, etc. etc. The Persian poet mystic Rumi spoke of One Table where we all sit. He was much wiser than me!
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Wow, Catsmeow, thank you for sharing all that. It sounds like you’re a real Spiritual Seeker/Explorer, and quite independent of any organization, and also open to gleaning wisdoms from different spiritual teachings – we can relate to that. We’ll look for the podcast you recommend (as my husband and myself are nuts about animals – and I especially love cats!).
Ah, the challenges of finding a Dreamboat in today’s modern empty materialist culture!!! We know many people who experience that kind of challenge, and the trouble is that nowadays, it is so very difficult to meet, let alone slowly get to know, anyone in a health-promoting setting, as it seems that most of the (what used to be public) space has been taken over by Empire Globalists, and they control how that space gets used. They don’t want their spaces to cultivate happy people, that is the vibe they give off to me.
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In defense of Christianity, I don’t think any religion has been under attack as Christianity has. It is literly blown to smithereens thru sectarianism. Many complain about its “dogma”, but which one? We all seem to have some version in our heads. I would argue most clerics themselves have no idea what Christianity is.
Do most read the bible and think about it? Or are most letting our heads be filled with others interpretations of what is in the bible? Does the old testament really obfuscate the war between God and the miriad of gods? The internet is rife with video’s telling us that that is so and popular books are filled with that too!
About every book Joseph P. Farrell has written is about the war between God and the gods themselves. I think it is hard to be a Christian today because one has to piece together for oneself what it is all about and if it resonates with your head, heart and gut. If it does then comes the hard part, how to translate it into practise.
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