or, “how to be a person of faith in a world of unbelief”

The Catholic Church just chose a new pope. It’s supposedly a very big deal because he’s the FIRST American pope. It’s also a supposedly big deal because he’s an Augustinian, which should mean he lives a life of study and service.

It’s actually NOT a big deal for a number of reasons.

The first reason is that he is not only exactly like Bergoglio, who just died, but he’s worse! He’s more woke, more liberal, has absolutely no interest in prosecuting the pedophiles in the priesthood, and he is a pro-Union liberal from Chicago. (I know, I know, he shows up as a “registered Republican” but don’t believe it for a minute. The man is a card-carrying Marxist.)

I don’t know what it is about the Catholics wanting to destroy the West, but they are hell bent on doing it. Catholic Charities has been funneling tens of thousands of illegals through the Darien Gap for the last 4 years. The only reason they have slowed down is because President Trump cut off their USAID dollars. The Lutherans have been doing the same. Then both groups get more money here in the US, when they “house and feed” these criminals. Again, only slowing down because the dollars have slowed.

Why? Oh, it’s “Christian charity,” isn’t it! Not really. Not when you are putting millions of Americans’ lives at risk. Not when you are allowing the trafficking of women and children for the sex trade. Not when the majority of these people are muslims and will NEVER assimilate, much less become “Catholics” or “Lutherans.”

Nope. It’s just pure unadulterated hate for America and what it used to stand for. And hate for President Trump. And hate for white people, which, ironically, most of these people are.

Now, I will explain something very simple which I didn’t see until Wendall Malone pointed it out on Substack. This “new” “pope” will usher in a potential civil war in many western countries, but especially in the US. How? By pitting newly re-devout Catholics against their conservative friends and family. The people who only see the pope as “the first American pope,” and don’t realize he is a Trojan Horse of disruption and unrest – those people will be fooled into thinking that their support of Trump and our Constitution was misled, unthought-out, anti-God. They will see this supposed “traditionalist” as the “hope for a new church.” He came out onto the balcony wearing Benedict’s vestments, after all. But, he also told everyone with ears to hear, that he thought Francis was a wonderful pope.

There are also two red flags immediately. One, he’s hardly “an American pope.” He’s lived in Peru most of his adult life and is a naturalized citizen there.

Two: he has been identified by victims of priestly pedos as being totally against prosecution of same. Twice. In Peru, a very public case against a priest by two women was summarily dismissed by this “pope.” In Chicago, he allowed a convicted pedophile priest to live in his Augustinian friary, less than a block away from an elementary school, and refused to hear any arguments against it. (link here)

Christian charity? No, kids. Willful, purposeful protection of criminals.

In the last 50 years, the Catholic Church in America has been shrinking, noticeably. Much of the shrinkage has to do with the disgust of every day people with the way the church has dealt with pedophile priests.

Giant Catholic churches in major northern cities sit empty. Churches that were once the hub of the community are closed. When I was growing up in northern New England, the Catholic communities revolved around these churches and their daily involvement with their parishoners. I knew families whose aunts and grandmothers went to mass daily. Daily. Even the mafia was given a pass — because they were loyal to the church and tithed.

Now those churches are closed. A few remain. The landmarks in places like Boston and New York. There were convents and monestaries scattered about. Gone. I used to see nuns and priests on buses and trains. Now, you have to realize that the plain woman in the skirt and white blouse with the manly haircut is probably a nun, but you can’t be sure.

My upbringing was Lutheran. Martin Luther came out of the Augustine friars. Ironically, the pope who he objected to was also named Leo. Leo X was the last in a line of popes called by Dante Alighiari “the popes from hell,” because they were so corrupt. In fact, Leo X was part of the infamous Medici family, and wasn’t even a priest.

My first marriage was to a Catholic and I had to study the religion and agree to bring my children up as Catholic. The priest who I met weekly for lessons was a caricature of priests at the time: a somewhat sloppy person, who joked a lot, was self-depricating for laughs, and was a rather serious alcoholic. I adored him. I wasn’t much of a person of faith at the time, and he just reaffirmed my idea that all religion was a joke. He didn’t try to teach me anything, really, but he answered any question I asked him, and we had some far-ranging philosophical discussions. (I’d like to talk with him now, after decades of studying the greats like Spinoza, Hegel, Heideggar, Russell, and even Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I bet he’d have some profane views on this latest iteration of “Il Papa.”)

Fast forward 55 years and I am a person of faith. I’ve had my own C.S. Lewis-like epiphanies, and I know how important it is for formerly Christian countries like ours to regain a footing on values and trust in God.

All religions are NOT alike. Jesus is the only answer. And equivocating in order to gain followers, a la Joel Osteen as one example, and “Pope” Francis as another, is not how we gain heaven. My little historic Methodist church had to “buy its way out” of the United Methodist church, because the United Methodists believe having drag queen Sunday School is a good idea, among other equally horrifying concepts. Jesus was not gay. He was not trans. He would not have accepted such things just to get people in the door. In fact, Jesus forcefully discouraged anyone who wasn’t willing to give up all their worldy ideas and possessions to follow him. He’d have been the last to say, “oh, you want to dress as the other sex and have a relationship outside marriage with someone who thinks they’re a llama? Sure, come on in.” Nope.

So, now we stand in a pivot point in history, where the new President of the United States is standing up for Christians around the world, praying in the Oval Office, and being prayed over by people of faith; and the new Bishop of Rome, the new Pope stands for pedophile priests, open borders and against our President. What a world.

In 1960 many Americans were afraid to vote for John F. Kennedy because they thought that he would “answer to the Pope.” I’m not sure this pope even answers to God. But he will. We all will. Whether we believe in Him or not.