Just Some Stuff…

Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated. President Biden, and his sidekick, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have spoken frequently and loudly about the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Their purpose was always to shame those who haven’t gotten the mRNA COVID shots or, almost as bad, neglected to be boosted. In the spirit of full disclosure, Dear Diane and I both got the two Moderna shots and the 1st booster…but that’s it. We’ve decided to get no more COVID shots until we know more about the effects of these still experimental drugs. 

I actually believe I contracted COVID back in early 2020, before I had been vaccinated. I felt so bad I went to the doctor on a weekend and was treated by a very nice and seemingly competent PA. I had all the symptoms of COVID, but since no test was yet available, she assumed I had a bad case of some random virus. She gave me meds and told me to rest, drink liquids, and come back if it got worse. After a week or so, I recovered and forgot about it. But many months later I spoke to several others who had suffered from COVID and our symptoms, although they varied in intensity, were identical. Despite my age, I am in good health, so I think I just slid through my case more easily than many. 

Anyway, yesterday the CDC released its latest data on COVID deaths and — surprise, surprise! — “a majority of Americans dying from the coronavirus received at least the primary series of the vaccine.” This, of course, alters the narrative that it is only the unvaccinated who will die from COVID. My unscientific guess is that those who are dying today are folks with serious comorbidity issues and compromised immune systems. Perhaps the president should change his mantra since it apparently doesn’t reflect the “science,” which is always a moving target.

Dumbing Down the Legal Profession. The American Bar Association has decided that those hoping to enter law school should no longer be required to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), and apparently Harvard and Yale have decided to go along with this. Interestingly, the LSAT is designed to measure prospective law students’ ability to reason, solve problems, comprehend what they read, along with other intellectual traits that lawyers believe they should possess. I certainly won’t argue with the need for these traits. If I ever need a lawyer, I want him to be rational and smart. But one can only assume that by failing to test for these traits and abilities, some aspiring lawyers will lack them. I suppose, then, we can conclude that, on average, the lawyer of tomorrow will be less rational, less capable, and not nearly as smart as today’s lawyer, assuming such an outcome is even possible.

Okay, okay…my apologies to all my lawyer friends for that last remark. Perhaps I was thinking only of those lawyers who gravitate to government and subsequently do everything they can to siphon political power from the people, who are sovereign.

Abortion, Religion, and Politics. Shortly before the recent mid-term elections, during one of those “after Mass” conversations with a parishioner, I was told that “the Church really shouldn’t get involved in politics. After all,” he added, “our country was founded on the concept of separation of church and state.” I assumed he was telling me this because of his tacit acceptance, and the Church’s adamant condemnation, of abortion. As it turned out, my assumption was correct. Of course, his supporting statement was false. Our nation was not “founded on the concept of separation of church and state.” In fact, that specific concept was voiced by only one man, Thomas Jefferson, in a rather obscure letter written to a Baptist Association in Danbury, Connecticut in 1802. The Constitution does not demand separation. Here’s the actual text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Note that the first freedom, that which the founders believed to be most important, is the freedom of religion. The Constitution prohibited Congress from establishing a state religion of the sort found at the time in many European countries, especially England where the ruling monarch was, and remains today, the head of the established church. But it said nothing about banning religious faith from influencing political thought or action. Indeed, for true believers of any faith, religious values have a major influence on every aspect of their lives. This understanding no doubt drove the founders to add the second clause in which the government may not prohibit citizens from freely exercising their religious faith. Both religious freedom clauses are further supported by the subsequent clause that guarantees the freedom of speech. 

Because our bishops — and, yes, even priests, deacons, religious, and the faithful — are citizens, they may scream to high heaven about the gross injustice of the government’s support for the willful slaughter of the unborn. Abortion is by no means solely a religious issue. It is also moral and political, as we all saw in the last election. Politics, religion, and morality cannot and should not be separated. Religious values have always had an impact on politics. We need only consider the Ten Commandments and their place in many of the world’s legal systems. 

When I said all this to our parishioner, he just shrugged and mumbled something about disagreeing. But he apparently decided not to argue the issues with me and walked away. At first, I was pleased because his silence told me I had “won” the argument. But then I realized I had done little to change his opinion. In truth I had focused more on myself and my ability to argue effectively than on his need for conversion. We must learn to listen to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit speak through us:

“…do not be anxious how or what you are to answer or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say" [Lk 12:11-12].

I’ll have to talk with this parishioner again.

Breaking with the Left. I often must remind myself of the reality of the passage of time. For example, anyone younger than 35 really has little memory of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European puppet states. After all, by the early 1990s much of the world had been transformed. For decades all of these nations had been ruled by the iron fist of communism, an ideology that maintained power only through the application of terrorism against its own people.

The exploited and the poor, those who suffered under earlier tyrannies, had liked the sound of socialism. It seemed to provide a solution to their problems, to offer a better life, to promise a leveling that would eliminate the vast disparity among the classes. Yes, indeed, socialism, and even its more violent and oppressive manifestation in communism, sounded so very good to the uninformed. Often enough, war and revolution created the catalytic environment needed to bring about radical societal change and a total shift in the balance of power. The Soviet Union was born out of the chaos of World War One and its subsequent discord, while Communist China arose in the aftermath of World War Two. 

But once the left assumes power and the people actually experience the reality of totalitarianism, they realize their lives are controlled by a corps of elites who wield absolute power. Even after they come to understand the truth about socialism, it becomes very difficult to turn back the clock. Only when an oppressed people decide that their freedom and that of their children is more important than life itself do they rise up, cast off their chains, and overthrow the tyrants. Perhaps the people of China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and too many other nations will someday make that decision.

Now for something a bit lighter, a wonderful fish story. 

A Goldfish Story. When I was growing up, like a lot of kids, I had a few goldfish. I managed to keep them alive, at least for a while, and I suppose the biggest ones might have grown to four or five inches long. The size of the tank seemed to be the limiting factor, so they never got much bigger. I just assumed that goldfish were by nature small fish. But the other day I was hooked by a story about a man who caught a rather large goldfish in a French lake. How large was it? A whopping 67 pounds. Here’s a photo of the UK fisherman, Andy Hackett, with his catch, a goldfish appropriately named “Carrot” by the locals. And don’t worry, after photographing his record catch, Hackett released Carrot so the remarkable fish could gain a few more pounds and continue to set new world records.

 

Future Gulags

In a recent post I offered a brief description of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic examination of the ruthless and brutal persecution of the Russian people perpetrated by the communist authorities after the revolution of 1917 -- The Gulag Archipelago (hereafter abbreviated as GA). Millions were killed, imprisoned, or exiled during the decades that followed and Solzhenitsyn, as one of the survivors, had the passion and the spirit to conduct the difficult research in complete and necessary secrecy, and the courage to tell the story.

I also included just a sampling of some of the recent comments made by those on our political left, comments that are reminiscent of the attitudes that drove the thinking of the communists who so fervently slaughtered and imprisoned so many Russians. How sad that those on the left seem to despise the protections of religion, speech, and press, among others, provided by our nation's Constitution.

In truth, there's little difference between the totalitarians of either left or right. They both believe the state should control all aspects of people's lives -- they are, after all, totalitarians -- but there are some differences in practice, particularly related to the way they view and handle a society's means of production. Communists despise the idea of private property and corporate ownership and believe the state should own pretty much everything. Of course, once government bureaucrats take over an industry, thus eliminating all competition and any incentive to succeed, the industry descends into gross inefficiency and chaos. Fascists are actually a bit (but only a bit) smarter since they realize total government control would likely destroy any industry. They, therefore, allow private companies to run their businesses efficiently but demand subservience. Adolph Hitler, for example, didn't have to nationalize Krupp, I. G. Farben, Siemens, Daimler-Benz, and so many others. All he had to do was threaten them and they willingly did his bidding. Armed troops outside the front door of a business or a home can be an effective motivator.

We're starting to see signs of this among our hi-tech giants who do the bidding of the liberal establishment by "canceling" those who disagree with the prevailing ideology. The threat? Be good or the first thing we'll do is repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and allow anyone to sue you for what someone else says about them on one of your platforms. Oh, yes, we can also apply a host of anti-trust legislation and break your big company up into a slew of smaller, more easily controlled firms. There’s so much we can do to you.

Are the "leftists" who have infected Congress, government agencies, academia, big business, and the media really on the political left, or are they more closely aligned with the far right? It actually makes little difference since both extremes have similar ends -- control of others through the expansion and application of power -- and use similar means to achieve them. Solzhenitsyn makes this point often enough when, for example, he compares the ruthless application of power by both Hitler and Stalin, and their minions.

In writing the truth about what his country and its people endured, Solzhenitsyn offers us many prophetic insights. I certainly don't intend to relate them all, but hope only to show that the disturbing things we are experiencing and hearing now are nothing new. We must be wary, or this "one nation, under God" could easily lead to the end visualized by James Burnham in his 1964 book, Suicide of the West.

Let me conclude this post with a comment by Solzhenitsyn in which he describes the legal means put in place and implemented by the Soviet communist government, a new form of justice necessary if they hoped to carry out their brutal persecution:

"And so an entirely new form was adopted: extrajudicial reprisal, and this thankless job was self-sacrificingly assumed by the Cheka, the Sentinel of the Revolution, which was the only punitive organ in human history that combined in one set of hands investigation, arrest, interrogation, prosecution, trial, and execution of the verdict" GA...p. 28.

It was called “reprisal” because it’s primary purpose was to rid the society of real and potential political opponents of the Bolsheviks. It was a form of political cleansing driven as much by revenge as by necessity. Sound familiar? And when I hear of the secrecy and obvious extra-legal actions of federal law enforcement and its involvement with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court, I can’t help but think that perhaps we’ve taken a first step toward the “extrajudicial” approach taken by those communist revolutionaries. 

In my next post I hope to show how that which began in Russia a century ago merely foreshadowed some of what we are witnessing today.

The Real Reason

This will not be a particularly long post because what I have to say can be said fairly briefly...unless, of course, I manage to ramble on.

I have known many people who call themselves socialists, but I've never been able to get any of them to admit that communism is not a good thing. In other words, they believe what all true socialists believe: socialism is just a step along the path to full-fledged communism. 

 

We must understand that socialists and communists are all Marxists. This single fact is a key that explains much of what we are experiencing as the China virus wreaks havoc in this country and around the world. It explains why New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, an avowed Marxist, wants to use the virus as a means to destroy small businesses. Marxists, you see, despise those small business owners, the budding capitalists who represent the middle class, what they like to call the bourgeoisie, because the middle class are avid free-marketers. Indeed, the middle class could not exist for long without a free market.

 

Marxist power brokers want everyone to be counted among the proletariat, everyone, that is, except themselves, the Marxist elite. Without a thriving middle class, the proletariat, the workers, must then turn to the state for everything. They must also be conditioned to do whatever the state tells them, even though these orders violate their God-given freedoms. "It's for your own good. We know best!"

 

The non-ideological governors, mayors, city councilors, and others -- those who seek only to feather their own nests and gain power -- unwittingly fill the role of Lenin's useful idiots. Because they are motivated solely by power and money, they gladly follow the policies of their advisors -- the "experts" who will lead them to the power they crave. Of course, once the public cedes power to the politicians, the Marxist experts usually act quickly and remove the puppets from office. After all, once in power the ideologues can disarm the citizenry, leaving themselves with far more than mere political power.

 

It's just a series of variations on the same story, repeated whenever socialism was tried and inevitably found wanting. Socialism does indeed lead to societal equality, except for the Marxist elite, for it brings everyone else down to a common material and spiritual poverty. It's truly remarkable that a system with an unbroken record of failure can still attract so many.

So You Wanna Be A Socialist?

A few years ago, while speaking with a young person who was entering her senior year at a large state university, I suggested that the average high-school graduate from say, 1920 to 1960, was far better educated than the average college graduate today. She responded by saying that, in effect, I was insane: "That's crazy! You really can't believe that..." And so I asked this person a few seemingly simple questions, the kind that a high-school graduate should be able to answer. I began with a series of questions on US history, very basic questions, nothing complex:

• In what year was the Declaration of Independence written? Who was its primary author? From what nation did its signers seek independence? Who was the leader of that nation? What war resulted?
• Who were the first three presidents of the United States?
• The War of 1812 was between the United States and what other nation? 
• During what years did our nation engage in the Civil War? Who was president during those years? Name two leading generals, one from each side?
• In what war did the United States engage in 1898? 
• When did the first World War take place? Name at least two nations on each side. Did the United States take part? Who was our president during this war?
• Name two nations that were among the enemies of the United States during World War Two. What event led to our active involvement in this conflict? 

By this time it became apparent that our soon-to-be college graduate -- a psychology major -- was at an embarrassing loss because her only correct answer was the naming of Abraham Lincoln as president during the Civil War. Interestingly, she could not tell me when the Civil War took place. Her guess? "Around 1900." I won't continue the embarrassment by repeating some of her other answers. I suspect she knew even less about world history.

As her historical ignorance became apparent she objected that my questions all demanded knowledge of meaningless facts, "You know, dates, names, stuff like that...Not really important things like concepts or ideas."

I responded by saying that she was right about the importance of ideas and concepts. But I also suggested that to understand those concepts and ideas we must be able to place them in their proper context, the context of time and place, and to connect them to the people who originated and embraced them. After all, that's what history is. If we are unable to do this, to understand the sources and the results of ideas, how can we evaluate their efficacy? Quite simply, if we don't understand history we will quite likely continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Of course, George Santayana, a man as complex as the times in which he lived, stated this famously when he wrote: 

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 

This encounter, admittedly with a single representative of her generation and, I suppose, anecdotal in the extreme, came to mind when I read that 7 in 10 millennials would vote for a socialist. To anyone who understands the nature of socialism, this might seem unbelievable. But not to me. I can think of only two reasons to be a socialist: a desire for power or invincible ignorance.

For the ideologue, socialism becomes a means to achieve power over others, over many others. And to ignorant snowflakes, who rely more on emotion than intellect, socialism sure sounds good, especially if its history can be ignored. That is, of course, the problem. When we examine the history of socialism we find it inevitably leads to massive corruption, slavery, and death. Socialism always rejects freedom.

During the past 100 years our world has come face to face with socialism in its two forms: the national socialism of Hitler's Germany and the international socialism of communism as manifested by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and a host of others. Although often considered opposites, at the extremes of right and left, there's really little difference between the two.

Jesus actually warned us of these evils and provided a key to recognizing them when, in His "Sermon on the Mount," he said:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them" [Mt 7:15-16].

And the fruits of Nazis and communists are remarkably similar: the murder of tens of millions of innocents and the enslavement of hundreds of millions more. Socialism in all its forms places the good of the state -- perhaps, more accurately, the good of those who wield the power of the state -- above all else. Those pesky values we hold dear -- freedom, truth, faith, justice, family, civilization, etc. -- become expendable, sacrificial victims offered to the false gods of socialism.

Socialism is hostile to life and faith. It simply cannot accept Almighty God, the Word, as the supreme good and will always make individual life subservient to the state. Just consider the leftists running for president today. All appear to be farther to the left than President Obama, and none are pro-life.

Our God clearly places the decision before us:

"See, I have set before you life and good, death and evil...Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, obeying His voice, and holding fast to Him" [Dt 30:15,19-20].

How to educate a millennial, and whatever a member of the next generation is called? I haven't a clue. They certainly won't receive a proper education at a public high school or by attending one of our colleges or universities. Most of these institutions abandoned education decades ago in favor of indoctrination and job or professional training. I'd suggest  encouraging your favorite millennial to read books such as Anthony Esolen's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization, but in these days of 140-character tweets, reading a book might be asking too much.

Maybe we're simply doomed as a civilization, and some future generation will have to pick up the pieces and begin anew, assuming our merciful God, the Lord of History, doesn't end it all before then.

We certainly live in interesting times. All we can do is preach the Word, follow and live the Way, pray for civilizational healing, and keep the Faith.

Just A Few Thoughts

This afternoon I took a break from my work on the mini-course I'm teaching, and glanced through the local, national, and world news. A few of the things I encountered got my juices flowing. For example:

A New Socialism? What about that young woman from New York (I've forgotten her name) who calls herself a socialist and it intent on changing the face of the Democrat Party? Interestingly she seems to be achieving some degree of success, at least according to much of the media. And yet, isn't a socialist, by definition, an ignoramus? After all, socialism has been tried many, many times throughout the world and it has always failed. In fact, the only thing socialism achieves is universal poverty. In that sense I suppose one could claim that socialism is the perfect path to true egalitarianism, the kind that doesn't lift but  lowers everyone to the same impoverished level. Oh, wait! There's always one exempted group: the elite, the ones the Soviets called the nomenklatura. These are the folks who, because they're so much smarter than the rest of us, give themselves special privileges. The elites, you see, can't be bothered with all those mundane things that complicate the lives of the hoi polloi. Running every aspect of a society is hard work; and run it they do, right into the ground. 

Socialists are just polite versions of Communists and National Socialists (i.e., Nazis) in disguise. There's really little difference because socialism in any of its forms cannot stand on its own. Eventually the people who allowed the socialists to gain power realize the mistake they've made. But socialists cannot give up power so they quickly evolve into authoritarians and then totalitarians. This is why so-called "democratic socialism" is a myth. Just try to get rid of it once it's in place. If this new variety of Democrat actually takes power, heaven help us. 

Abuse in the Church. All this abuse business within the Church is taking its toll, but our bishops seem to be unaware of its impact on the faithful. I hear about it almost every day from parishioners and others who share their concerns with me. Many are outraged by the requirements placed on them, especially since the problem seems to be largely the result of actions by priests and bishops. The faithful are fingerprinted and investigated; they are forced to take part in vapid and insulting workshops or on-line programs; they are repeatedly reminded not to do things they've never even thought of doing. It's as if the Church leadership is placing the guilt on the faithful, instead of where it belongs, on those who actually did these reprehensible things and those who tolerated them.

As one parishioner remarked this morning, "How come I have to go through all this garbage [his word], when the bishops exempted themselves from background investigations and fingerprinting and all the rest of it?" A good question from a faithful man who is frustrated by what he sees in the Church he loves.

And God forbid if someone is falsely accused of abuse -- something I suspect has happened many times. Even without proof, he or she will be removed from ministry and you can imagine how that will effect reputation and life.

I was once asked to give a talk to a group of seminarians , and in the course of my comments I told them, "The holiest people you will ever encounter are not seated in the sanctuary; they are in the pews of your parish church. They will look to you for direction and example, but if you don't provide it, they will turn to God. They will find Him in the Sacraments, in Sacred Scripture, and in Sacred Tradition. And it is they who will keep the Church holy."

I truly believe the Church of the future will be much smaller but much holier -- a mere remnant of today's overly bureaucratic organization. In 1969, the then Father Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, said the following during a broadcast over German radio:

“Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.

“The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain — to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death."

Immigration Root Causes. And while I'm on the subject of our bishops, might I ask why we rarely hear anything from them about the root cause of the immigration problem in the US and elsewhere? Specifically, why do people flee one nation for another? The root cause is not the fault of the destination country, whose societal structures are so attractive to others. No, the root cause is the widespread persecution and corruption that promote general poverty, keep people uneducated, and limit opportunity in the countries of origin. And yet, when it comes to immigration, you would think our nation were the bad guy. I think it's time for the US bishops and the bishops in these other nations to focus on these root causes and not the symptoms. Just a thought.

The Diplomacy of St. John Paul

I just received the latest issue of First Things, one of the few journals I could not do without. If you don't subscribe to First Things I urge you to do so. You won't regret it unless you dislike being challenged...end of commercial.

Opening this latest issue I turned first to the lead article, Lessons in Statecraft, by George Weigel. Weigel, probably best known as the historian-biographer of the papacy of St. John Paul II, offers the reader a glimpse of the pope-saint as diplomat and statesman. Although this great pope was first and foremost a man of faith, he was also, out of necessity, a world leader who, as Weigel suggests, used a "different toolkit" from that of the typical politician and diplomat. The times, typified by the ongoing cold war waged between East and West, demanded the active presence of a witness who could stand on the global stage and call for the defense of religious freedom. And more than anything else, St. John Paul II was a true witness who, as if responding to Joe Stalin's famous question -- "The Pope? How many divisions has he got?" -- simply says, "The Church doesn't need armies. She has Jesus Christ."

In his article Weigel offers seven "lessons" distilled from the statecraft of this remarkable pope. I'll list them here, along with just a brief comment or two, but I hope you will take the time to read Weigel's entire article. One can only hope that our current generation of politicians and diplomats, who have made such a mess of the world, will also read it and perhaps take a few of these lessons to heart.

Lesson 1: Culture drives history. John Paul rejected the prevailing ideologies that fallaciously assume history is driven by politics, or power, or materialism, or economics, or any other "ism". History, he believed, is driven by culture. As Weigel says, "...at the center of culture is cult, or religion: what people believe, cherish, and worship; what people are willing to stake their lives, and their children's lives, on." I first encountered this lesson many years ago in the writings of Christopher Dawson, one of the last century's greatest historians. If you haven't read Dawson, do so. Perhaps the best overview of his thought can be found in Dynamics of World History.

Lesson 2: Ideas count, for good and for ill. Few of today's politicians seem to understand this truth. Too many see movements like Jihadism and dismiss its stated beliefs, the ideas that brought it to life, as irrelevant and attribute its existence to more convenient and politically correct causes. Pope John Paul took ideas seriously because he realized how powerful they were.

Lesson 3: Don't psychologize the adversary. Trying to change the behavior of ideologues through psychological means -- "If we're nice to them they'll forget about making that bomb" -- will always be perceived as weakness by the adversary who will inevitably take advantage of what is offered. An ideologue is, in effect, a slave to his ideology and will use all available means to advance it.

Lesson 4: Speak loudly and be supple in deploying whatever sticks, large or small, you have at hand. Pope John Paul, probably as a result of his years spent under both Nazi and Communist rule, understood the power of the bully pulpit and used it to perfection. He also knew when to approach a situation as a "quiet persuader" to achieve the ends he sought.

Lesson 5: Listen to the martyrs. For almost two decades the persecuted Christians behind the Iron Curtain were largely ignored in the hope that such appeasement would lessen future persecution. It didn't. Pope John Paul, who had witnessed martyrdom firsthand, realized this and didn't hesitate to publicly acknowledge "the witness of [the Church's] sons and daughters who had taken the risk of freedom and paid the price for it."

Lesson 6: Think long-term and do not sacrifice core principles to what seems immediate advantage. Pope John Paul understood well the Church's core values and would do nothing to jeopardize them. The Church, for example, cannot be true to its primary mission of evangelization if it enters into agreements with political powers that place severe limitations on its ability to carry out this mission. Or, as Weigel states when describing the pope's refusal to agree to a political accommodation proposed by Poland's communist government, "In John Paul II's ecclesiology, the Church could not be a partisan political actor because that role contradicted the Eucharistic character of the Church."

Lesson 7: Media "reality" isn't necessarily reality. Pope John Paul II knew that the secular media, even those so-called "experts" on Church affairs, really don't have a clue when it comes to the Catholic Church. Almost universally they tend to view and report on the Church through lenses colored by their political and cultural biases. In other words, they are almost always wrong. Because they are largely irreligious, most media types consider religion to be irrelevant and fail to recognize the importance of religious issues to the majority of humanity. 

I hope my brief description of these lessons will lead you to read George Weigel's article and also encourage you to subscribe to First Things. 

Worldwide Persecution of Christians

Open Doors has published its latest World Watch List of the fifty countries with the worst records of Christian persecution. As you might expect North Korea's brutal communist regime once again tops the list, as it has for the past dozen years. And although it is joined on the list by a few other communist states (Vietnam, Laos, and China), the vast majority of nations on the list are Islamic nations. In some countries -- for example in the African nations of Kenya, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and Tanzania -- the large Christian population is persecuted not so much by the government as by Islamist terrorist groups. India is also listed because of the deadly persecution of its Christian population by Hindu fundamentalists. Christians in Myanmar, a nation still ruled by a communist government, suffer persecution by both the government and Buddhist extremists. Buddhists are also largely responsible for the persecution of Christians in Sri Lanka and Bhutan. Colombia, because of the ongoing conflict with the FARC rebels, is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere among the top-fifty.

It is particularly disturbing to note that Iraq and Afghanistan, the two nations for which we have spent so much treasure and spilled so much American blood are listed among the top five.

I've included the list of 50 nations below. Islamic states and those with a majority Muslim population are listed in boldface type. These represent 35 or the 50 nations listed. I suggest visiting the site. The world map provided there is especially telling.

1. North Korea
2. Somalia
3. Syria
4. Iraq
5. Afghanistan
6. Saudi Arabia
7. Maldives
8. Pakistan
9. Iran
10. Yemen
11. Sudan
12. Eritrea
13. Libya
14. Nigeria
15. Uzbekistan
16. Central African Republic
17. Ethiopia
18. Vietnam
19. Qatar
20. Turkmenistan
21. Laos
22. Egypt
23. Myanmar (Burma)
24. Brunei
25. Colombia
26. Jordan
27. Oman
28. India
29. Sri Lanka
30. Tunisia
31. Bhutan
32. Algeria
33. Mali
34. Palestinian Territories
35. United Arab Emirates
36. Mauritania
37. China
38. Kuwait
39. Kazakhstan
40. Malaysia
41. Bahrain
42. Comoros
43. Kenya
44. Morocco
45. Tajikistan
46. Djibouti
47. Indonesia
48. Bangladesh
49. Tanzania
50. Niger

The Legacy of Tiananmen Square

23 years ago, on June 4, 1989, China's communist government conducted a deadly crackdown on the freedom demonstrators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. One of the more interesting results of the horrendous events of that day is the number of those dissidents that have since converted to Christianity. According to Professor Fenggang Yang of Purdue University, a scholar who followed those events closely, the dissidents recognized the moral bankruptcy of communism and saw in Christianity the only real alternative that offered the kind of life and social institutions they sought. Such conversions have been particularly common among the intellectual dissidents. To read more click here: Tiananmen and Christian Conversion.

Another interesting tidbit. Do you remember the iconic photograph of the unidentified young dissident standing courageously in front of the Chinese Army tank? He looked so innocently brave standing there holding what appears to be a couple of shopping bags. Some say he died later in the crackdown that took so many lives, but nobody knows for certain. From the below video it's apparent he didn't die at the scene since he seems to have been hustled off to safety by others.

Just the other day, on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protest, I came across a wide angle photo of the famous scene. I've included the more familiar photo first, followed by the less known wide angle photo. The latter is truly amazing, showing this one, small, seemingly insignificant but determined young man facing down not just a few tanks (in itself a very scary thing), but what appears to be a whole division of Chinese Army tanks. He stands there, before those tanks and the entire world, while the communist authorities blink, displaying their barbarism and their true weakness for all to see -- a remarkable photo.

In totalitarian China one may still not discuss openly the events at Tiananmen Square on that June day. Perhaps some day we'll know the real and complete story of what happened.

Pray for the conversion of China.

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