A Rainbow Flag Over Rome

Fake Pope Francis is removing all criticism of sodomy from the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy:

Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a prominent figure among traditionalist American Catholics and critic of Pope Francis for making the church more welcoming to the LGBTQ community, was removed from his post as bishop of Tyler, the Vatican has said.

In a statement released on Saturday, the Vatican confirmed that the decision followed “an apostolic visitation ordered by the Pope last June in the Diocese of Tyler,” but did not specify the reason.

“The Holy Father has removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral governance of the diocese of Tyler, United States of America, and has appointed Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin as apostolic administrator of the same diocese, rendering it sede vacante.”

According to the statement, cited by the Vatican news, “as a result of visitation,” Bishop Strickland’s continuation in office was deemed “not feasible” and he was asked to resign on Thursday. Since the request was declined by the bishop, Pope Frances decided to remove him.

Now, I’m neither a theologian nor am I overwhelmingly concerned with the opinions of theologians. Nor do I take my own occasional contemplations on the subject terribly seriously; I am from the “glass darkly” school of theological thought. Though I do have my preferences, as I respect and admire Thomas Aquinas, have rather less regard for Augustine, enjoy both CS Lewis and Greg Boyd without taking either of them too seriously, and harbor naked contempt for Hal Lindsey, Joel Osteen, and John Piper.

The Kurgan makes his pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic perspective clear in a recently published article; to which I may or may not respond at some point in the next ten years depending upon my time and interest.

But, speaking of Roman Catholics, I do find myself wondering how the non-sedevacantists can bring themselves to defend this observably wicked man, whose actions are obviously reprehensible even in the eyes of heretics and pagans. And if the satanic rainbow flag is flying over Rome, in what sense have the gates of that particular church not fallen?

My chief criticism of all theology and all theologians is this: they tend to artificially narrow the art of the possible, by which I mean they usually assign divine significance to one of several possible interpretations of a phrase – often a phrase that has already been translated one or more times – and then deny all potential legitimacy to the other possible interpretations.

To my mind, balancing an entire theology upon an assumed metaphor is a precarious act indeed.

Evil observably exists. Mankind is observably fallen into evil. The world is observably ruled by an immortal being that hates Man, Jesus Christ, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Living Word, is literally and observably the only hope of Man.

And that is the full extent of the theology I am willing to assert and defend.

UPDATE: An American Catholic emails to defend Fake Pope Francis

I am a Catholic Christian who has followed Bishop Strickland’s movement within the Church. He has been an ardent defender of traditional morality, and Pope Francis has not. However, I cannot fault Pope Francis for removing him. The bishop went to Rome and gave a speech on October 31 in which he read a letter calling Pope Francis a usurper and suggesting that the Pope is the Antichrist. If you go to corporate headquarters to denounce the CEO, you’re going to get fired, especially when you’ve already been given several warnings. Pope Francis takes his role of maintaining unity of the Church seriously, and in my opinion, he tolerates too much heresy to maintain that unity. However, I cannot fault him for taking action against a bishop who basically declared himself to be in schism and dared the Pope to do something about it.

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The Descent of Marvel

Are they really even trying anymore? This is exceptionally bad dialogue, even by Hellmouth standards.

It goes without saying that this movie is going to bomb so hard, it will leave a crater that will make future archeologists suspect it caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. But the real question is: does this mark the nadir of Marvel?

And the answer is no. Because Disney hasn’t shuttered Marvel yet. But they will. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, they will.

Pity the poor Herald, who will watch this so we don’t have to.

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I Read, Therefore I Know

We’re finalizing the art for Books 2 and 3 of the Castalia History subscription, and there has been a lot of discussion for what, if any, subscriptions will be created once the Bindery comes online and the two volumes of Homer have been completed. What we’ve learned so far is that we will be able to offer subscriptions with much smaller print runs than before, which means that we can do more esoteric sets that we wouldn’t have previously contemplated.

But the History subscription is already on very sound footing, and the interiors for Book 4 are already being printed. So, we’re pleased to introduce the Castalia History logo in the form that will appear on the spines of all of the History subscription books in order to set them apart from the Library books as well as the future subscriptions. A more elaborate form will appear inside the books beginning with Book 4.

We would also welcome a discussion among subscribers concerning their opinions on what the next subscription or two should be. We’re presently in discussions with a major publisher that, if successful, will be offered as a separate subscription, and we’ve also kicked around a few ideas among the Castalia team.

  • The There Will Be War series (10 volumes)
  • Thomas Aquinas series (4-6 volumes)
  • Chinese Classics series (5 volumes)
  • Chick Lit Classics series (Austen, Bronte, etc.)
  • The Hardy Boys (3+ as copyright allows)
  • Arkhaven omnibus comic series

Please don’t opine without taking into account the availability of the works. Obviously, we will do a Tolkien series whenever we have the opportunity to do so. Anyhow, if you haven’t subscribed to Castalia History yet, you might want to wait until January to start your subscription with Book 4 so that you don’t start with the second book in a two-volume set. Unless, of course, you don’t mind paying five catchups to ensure you get both volumes of the Cambridge Medieval History.

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Aborted by the Market

The end of the age of free money has finally brought about the always-inevitable demise of the wicked e-thots of Jezebel:

Jezebel, a feminist US news site, was shut down by its owners on Thursday, with 23 people laid off and no plans for the outlet to resume publication. G/O Media, which owns Jezebel and other sites including Gizmodo and the Onion, announced the closure in a memo to staff, which was obtained by the Guardian.

“Unfortunately, our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebel’s,” Jim Spanfeller, the chief executive of G/O Media, wrote in the memo, which was sent to staff on Thursday morning. “And when that became clear, we undertook an expansive search for a new, perhaps better home that might ensure Jezebel a path forward. It became a personal mission of Lea Goldman, who worked tirelessly on the project, talking with over two dozen potential buyers. It is a testament to Jezebel’s heritage and bona fides that so many players engaged us. Still, despite every effort, we could not find Jez a new home.”

Translation: Jezebel was losing so much money on a monthly basis that not even its most ardent ideological admirers in the media believed they had a chance of making a go of it.

Remember this inability to find anyone to fund a well-known and supposedly influential operation when people are talking about success in Clown World. None of it is real, none of it is popular, and none of it is genuinely profitable. It’s all been propped up by free money. The business world covered by the media is a Potemkin one that is little more than a brightly-painted facade that conceals the fact that there is nothing substantial behind it.

Razorfist, as is his wont, empathized with the newly disemployed Jezebelles, and helpfully encouraged them to look at the situation in what they might see as positive light, which is to say, as being aborted from the marketplace.

Looks like you’ll have to propagandize the old-fashioned way: by inserting your insipid horseshit into a children’s movie, video game, or sitcom script while flagrantly denying you’re fucking doing it!

And here is an interesting statement by a member of the union: “A well-run company would have moved away from an advertising model, but instead they are shuttering the brand entirely because of their strategic and commercial ineptitude.”

Not that it was needed at this point, but the statement further confirms the wisdom of building platforms that religiously avoid reliance upon the advertising model and thereby being able to put the interests of the core subscribers first.

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Thursday Arktoons

CHUCK DIXON PRESENTS: ADVENTURE Episode 100: The Brigand

THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL Episode 16: Survivors of the Hellgate

FRANKENSTEIN – THE RETURN Episode 12: Terror Under Trance

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 313: I’m Lavender Decorations

THE GOLDEN AGE Episode 13: Warlock Neuroform

FAIRY DOOR Episode 54: The Hammer

STONETOSS Episode 240: School of Hard Knocks

BEN GARRISON Episode 121: Crowbar in the Clamshell

三更战 Episode 9: 无可挑剔

Congratulations to Chuck Dixon and the Chuck Dixon Presents production team! This marks the 100th episode of CHUCK DIXON PRESENTS: ADVENTURE. Arkhaven, like Castalia, is always very pleased to keep the old classics alive.

CHUCK DIXON PRESENTS: ADVENTURE

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Do They Want Right-Wing Death Squads?

Because left-wing murders are, historically, how a society gets right-wing death squads:

The former head of Spain’s People’s Party in the Catalonia region was shot in the face in Madrid on Thursday, police said. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, 78, was shot on Núñez de Balboa street in the wealthy Salamanca area of central Madrid at about 1.30pm, as he was returning home from a church service, according to witnesses.

A Civil Protection spokesperson said Vidal-Quadras retained consciousness and was rushed to the nearby Gregorio Marañón hospital, while police are now hunting for two people who fled the scene on a motorbike, with the shooter wearing a black helmet. Witnesses described the attacker as a ‘young, small man’ who was wearing jeans and a dark coat and was seemingly waiting for the politician to pass by.

The pair exchanged no words, with the shooter reportedly stepping up and blasting Vidal-Quadras from near point blank range before hopping onto the motorcycle piloted by an accomplice.

Vidal-Quadras was the head of the centre-right PP in Catalonia and was also the Vice-President of the European Parliament from 2009-2014, when he left the group to join newly created party Vox.

People have mostly forgotten that the original Brownshirts were formed in Germany from groups of WWI veterans in response to murderous rampages by Communist militants. For all that it is feared by the Left and Center alike, the violence of the Right has historically been predominantly defensive and reactive.

Even Franco’s Nationalist government only came to power in Spain in response to eight years of murderous Leftist violence, particularly the Red Terror of 1936-1939 that left over 50,000 Spaniards dead, including 6,832 members of the clergy.

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MAILVOX: In Defense of Doug Wilson

In response to a previous post on the anti-nationalist evangelical pastor, a reader submits what he believes to be a defense of the fraudulent Boomangelical:

Firstly, I acknowledge your critiques of Doug, and recognise that he has some enormous Boomer tendencies. 

But. 

He has a growing appeal to disaffected young evangelical men (of whom I belonged). He spearheaded an enormous push towards Classical Christian schooling, founded on Western Civilisation (including the Greco-Roman underpinnings). It’s a huge movement, that is reintroducing the youth to the Good, Beautiful, and True. They have cleaned up church liturgy, and recaptured theological maximalism, with many offshoot ministries pushing phrases like ‘Rebuilding the New Christendom.’ This is all important foundational work to waking up Christians. It has led to me creating a homeschool co-op teaching the Classical method, and we are exposing our children to the glorious things that the Christian West has to offer. 

Ministries like G3 ministries are on the warpath against ‘kinism’ which has significant sway over the Reformed Conservative movements. Guys like Doug want more mainstream appeal, so they have opted to go soft on the racial issue. They have ousted guys like Thomas Achord, which shows they mean business. 

But it is worth noting that there are more guys like Thomas Achord in these organisations who will eventually start speaking out. The time doesn’t seem to have come for that yet. 

I’m sure you’re aware that racism is perhaps one of the most unforgivable sins in the Evangelical church and will get a robust and powerful reaction from the Evangelical base (especially the Boomers). He is pushing young men in the right direction, and Christian Nationalism, as promoted by Stephen Wolfe, is gaining significant traction. 

I will first note that this is precisely the same defense that is regularly offered up on behalf of other gatekeepers like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, and also of books like the Harry Potter series. Don’t criticize the obvious errors and the demonstrable falsehoods when they are otherwise doing so much good? Don’t you understand that if they tell the truth instead of lying, they won’t be able to reach as many of those who need the truth? Isn’t it better that they read godless tales of evil being portrayed as good than not read at all?

And the answer is no. This is a false, pernicious, and fundamentally short-sighted perspective. It is less a defense than an attempt to negotiate a guilty plea in exchange for a lesser penalty.

Racism, as coined, properly defined, and practically applied today, is not and has never been a sin. The Churchians like Wilson are speaking with forked tongues when they a) define it falsely and in a way that no one actually applies it, and b) therefore falsely claim it to be a sin.

The reader claims Wilson spearheads “a huge movement, that is reintroducing the youth to the Good, Beautiful, and True”, but that is obviously false because nothing that is build on a foundation of lies and sand will stand. The fact that Wilson and company “want more mainstream appeal” and that they “mean business” is not an argument for them, it is evidence against them. By that standard, Joel Osteen and Russell Moore are role models for the modern Evangelical.

It’s great that people are being inspired to homeschool, regardless of whether the inspiration comes from a Churchian evangelical or a Buddhist hippy. But there is no truth in Doug Wilson or in any other so-called “Evangelical” who preaches the Gospel of Civil Rights instead of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who teaches from To Kill a Mockingbird and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings instead of the Bible.

Let me be perfectly clear: No one who advocates equality of any kind, and no one who is a civic nationalist of any variety, and no one who falsely asserts that which is not a sin is a sin, should ever be considered a genuine or reliable advocate of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, no matter what their other positive attributes might be.

Because liars cannot, and will not, defend the truth. They will always produce one reason or another for refusing to do so. And if you are foolish enough to trust or follow a liar, you will come to regret it, as all of you – and readers here should recall, the vast majority of you – who used to lionize Jordan Peterson and consider him to be a great intellectual champion should know.

PS: Stephen Wolfe’s Christian Nationalism is fake nationalism. It’s a religious form of civic nationalism that substitutes Christianity for US citizenship. He’s just another gatekeeper.

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