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Doral, Florida - After visiting Florence and Milan, your columnist and wife headed back to visit Rome, the headquarters of the core institution of Western civilization for the last 2,000 years - - the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican City is a shining city surrounded by a 20-foot high concrete wall to keep out undocumented entrants. Your columnist was tempted to yell out: “Mr. Prevost, tear down this wall!” Thank God that President Trump bombed the Iranian nuclear missiles that could reach Rome.
In response to the war being waged by America and Israel against Iran, Pope Leo XIV recently proclaimed that, “[God] does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them…God does not bless any conflict.” He added that God will not listen to those whose “hands are full of blood.” He must not know about Presidents Washington and Lincoln, or maybe he considers them not to be his Presidents. He may have been born a United States citizen, but it appears that he is not an American. The first is a legal status, and the second is a cultural identity. In fact, he chose to emigrate away from America and pursue his ministry in Latin America, the home of Liberation Theology. There are plenty of poor people in the South Side of Chicago who could have benefited from his evangelical efforts.
Just War Against Jihad
Pope Leo should read up on Pope Pius V, a Dominican friar, who organized the Christian defense of Italy against Islamic Jihad in the XVIth century. This Pope assembled a fleet of warships from Venice, Genoa and other Italian states, with the support of the Spanish monarchy. Among the Spanish marines serving on a Genoese galley was Miguel Cervantes, later author of “Don Quixote.” This Christian fleet defeated the invading Turkish fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, saving Italy from Jihadist invasion, until today.
Pope Leo has played down the danger to the West from Islamic Jihad, and accused those warning of this danger that they are suffering from xenophobia. This month the Pope visited the North African homeland of Saint Augustine, which was conquered by Jihadists in the VIIth century, and where Christians have been persecuted and live in “dhimmi” status since the French withdrawal in the 1960s. He said nothing against their persecution and life as second-class non-Muslim subjects.
The Pope should also read up on the Martyrs of Otranto. This small city in the heel of the Italian peninsula was attacked in 1480 by a Turkish army of 18,000 Jihadists. The defenders held out valiantly, but finally the 6,000 citizens were overwhelmed and the city was captured. Capitano Francesco Zurlo was cut in half, probably by a cannonball, while leading the defense of his city for 15 days. After the Turks captured the city, they required the 800 prisoners of war to renounce their Christian faith and convert to Islam, or face beheading. All the prisoners chose death before apostasy. The Turks beheaded them and left the evidence of their war crimes on a hill adjoining the city. Aragonese troops retook the city the following year and gave them a Christian burial. Pope Benedict XVI decreed in 2007 that they were killed out of “hatred for their faith,” and designated them as martyrs of the church.
Chicago has a large population of descendants from Polish immigrants, and one of their national heroes is King Jan Sobieski. In 1683 he led his army to the relief of Vienna, a Christian capital city besieged by Jihadists from the Turkish Empire. His light cavalry led the counter-attack against the Turkish camp. The Turks fled in such disarray that they left behind not only a new beverage - - coffee - - but also thinly folded triangular pastries - - croissants!
Pope Leo claims to be a White Sox fan and attended a game during the 2005 World Series, but he does not truly reflect the sentiments of White Sox fans. Your columnist attended Opening Day of the 1980 season, when American embassy hostages were being held in Tehran, and the fans were chanting: “Bomb Iran!” Destroying the nuclear missile program of the Jihadist regime in Iran is clearly within the “just war” doctrine developed by Saints Augustine and Acquinas.
Chicago Democrat and Liberation Theology
The week before we visited Vatican City, Pope Leo met with David Axelrod, former President Obama’s Jewish Grand Vizier. All three men are Chicago Democrats, fans of the White Sox, and committed progressives, socialists and communists. The Sunday evening after this meeting, three progressive Cardinals appeared on CBS News’ program “60 Minutes” to attack President Trump’s leadership.
Cardinal Cupich of Chicago was one of those on “60 Minutes.” He had tried to give a lifetime achievement award to the retiring United States Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). Durbin, however, has been a lifetime champion for unrestricted abortion, and Cupich’s parishioners successfully rebelled against giving him such award. Progressives are attempting to force conservative American Catholics to choose between their church and their vote in advance of the midterm elections.
Pope Leo was born in Chicago and grew up in the southwestern suburbs. He earned a Master of Divinity in a Catholic seminary on the South Side, but he left America in order to minister in Peru, a fertile base for Liberation Theology in South America. Liberation Theology is the idea that Jesus has a preference for those materially poor. It represents a merger of Christianity and Socialism. It was introduced in 1968, right after the Second Vatican Council, by the Soviet KGB to Catholic clergy in Latin America. They lapped it up!
Before he was elected Pope, Leo led an active career as a progressive warrior on social media. His entries were erased after his election, but he strongly opposed President Trump and his MAGA policies. Nevertheless, he said nothing against the Obama-Biden 3.0 administration’s persecution of pro-lifers under federal law. He has said nothing against the slaughter of Christians in Africa and the Middle East. He has said nothing against the slaughter of unarmed Iranian civilians by their Jihadist regime.
Human Trafficking and Abuse
Both Pope Leo, and Pope Francis before him, have supported open borders for illegal aliens, without regard for the burden that they impose on the receiving population, or the importance of upholding respect for the rule of law. On July 4 this year, Pope Leo, also like Pope Francis before him, will spend the day in the small Italian island of Lampedusa on the Mediterranean. This island is where many boats of illegal aliens land to head into Europe.
Back in America, during 2024 around a quarter of the revenues of Catholic Charities were paid by the Obama-Biden 3.0 administration for trafficking illegal aliens. Around 60 years ago, Catholic Charities paid the air fare for your columnist’s family to fly from Miami to Chicago, where my father had found a job after we had immigrated lawfully from Cuba. Today Catholic Charities is mostly yet another human trafficking profiteer. They welcome illegal aliens not only for the money, but also because they need new parishioners to replace all the former parishioners who have fled their sodomite clergy.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York recently sold the ground lease for what was formerly the Helmsley Palace Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in order to raise nearly five-hundred million dollars. This sum was needed to satisfy court-ordered judgments for the benefit of sexually-abused parishioners who were victims of the church’s sodomite clergy. A recent survey showed that 70% of all Roman Catholic clergy in the United States and Canada admitted to homosexual sentiments. Even Pope Francis complained about all the faggotry (mariconeria) among the clergy.
Of course, mainstream Protestant denominations in America, such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, are no better for their participation as government contractors in the human trafficking of illegal aliens. They have also drifted away from Christian doctrine, and their pews have also emptied.
Minor League Denomination
Mary of Nazareth was a nice Jewish girl, with unsurpassed courage, but she was a mere mortal, not an object of worship. She had several children after Jesus, and saw her first-born son die on the cross. She set a great example for all of us, and should be remembered, but she is not divine, and should not be worshipped. Heaven already has a Queen; Jesus said that the church is his bride.
It seems that the Roman Catholic Church in Europe developed from Antiquity and through the Middle Ages mostly to serve illiterate peasants. The Church has barely adapted to the coming of Gutenberg and the challenge of Luther. Pope Francis not long ago complained that Protestant missionaries were making great inroads in Latin America because of their emphasis on reading the Bible. That book contains a lot of good one-liners.
The Roman Catholic Church today is better than the Communist Party or Islamic Jihad, but that is a low standard. It still barely reads the Bible, employs sodomite clergy, and has fallen for the communist siren song of Liberation Theology. It remains a mostly Christian denomination, but plays in the minor leagues. Following it is like following the South Bend Cubs instead of the Chicago Cubs - - it is a minor-league denomination.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer visited Rome for the first time shortly after he was ordained a Lutheran pastor in his early twenties. What most caught his attention was the global ethnic diversity of the Catholic pilgrims in Rome. Here was the capital city of a global community of believers, with its faith carried around the world by the colonists who followed Columbus, Vespucci and the other explorers. He was used to seeing churches attended only by northern European Germanics. That is the great achievement of the Church of Rome - - despite all its shortcomings, it has created a global community of believers.
Touring Rome
At the Contarelli Chapel in the church of the French congregation in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi, near Piazza Navona, hangs Caravaggio’s painting “The Calling of Saint Matthew.” This painting depicts Matthew Levi’s reaction upon being called by Jesus to follow His ministry. Matthew has the same “You talkin’ to me?” expression as character Travis Bickle, played by Robert DeNiro, in the movie “Taxi Driver.” Jesus must have wanted a Jewish tax lawyer, with great attention to detail and a knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, to be among those who recorded the story of His ministry. We should always serve our Redeemer, and stand ready to take on special assignments when called to do so.
We also toured the Vatican Museum, which demonstrates that the Popes are men of wealth and taste. The Sistine Chapel was overwhelming, and there were artifacts and paintings in the museum from all the world’s civilizations.
We attended a concert at the “Opera Lirica di Roma” in the Palazzo Poli, near the Trevi Fountain, where performances are staged on most evenings. These concerts are a medley of snippets from chamber music and opera arias. The food and wine, again, were delicious, and we found several restaurants frequented almost entirely by locals, not tourists. Italian labor laws must be more flexible than those in France, because Italian restaurants were not as under-staffed as the French by a lot.
The city of Rome, however, is a mess! There are hardly any straight or broad streets, and the sidewalks are cobble-stoned and bumpy. It is a city of relics, and a relic of a city. Many Roman ruins are full of weeds. It could use a Baron Haussmann, who created the boulevards in Paris, to do some urban renewal. The opulence of Vatican City stands in sharp contrast with the unkempt and graffiti-filled shabbiness of Rome.
As a friend has pointed out, today Rome is a city of takers, as opposed to producers. Its finances are dependent on tourists, government and the Church.
