|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”
Sign up to attend Michael’s talk in Los Angeles on Thursday, November 20: HERE.
While walking past Philadelphia’s Immigration and Naturalization Services building a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a sizeable group of prayer warriors on the sidewalk with signs reading, “We are all brothers and sisters.”
A closer look revealed many of the people appeared to be Catholic religious, mainly women or ‘nuns on the bus’ types in secular clothing.
“Figures,” I thought. “You’d never see a nun in a traditional or even a modified habit taking part in something like this.”
These secular dress sisters were mainly older-hippie-boomer types: white hair, long skirts and pantsuits predominated. Overall, they seemed composed and respectful. I found it ironic that in some sense they still retained a stereotypical nun-like composure.
The men among them were few, although I did spot an ashen faced Methodist minister in a rainbow stole. Watching these people, it occurred to me that a seismic shift had occurred in the Catholic social justice sphere. Catholic pro-life protestors at Planned Parenthood clinics throughout the years had almost zero secular or mainline Protestant support. Yet at this ICE facility-in the age of Trump hatred-legacy or woke Christianity was out in spades.
Newsflash: Catholic opposition to abortion has been demoted in favor of a new cause: advocating for the “rights” of illegal aliens to do whatever they want in a country they entered illegally. These might include the right to a driver’s license and even voting privileges, depending on the latest social gospel dictates coming out of Rome.
Vigils like the one in Philadelphia are taking place in multiple cities across the nation since Pope Leo’s exhortation to Catholic faithful to fight against Donald Trump’s war on the deportation of migrants.
On October 8, 2025, Pope Leo XIV told US bishops that they should address how immigrants are being treated by Donald Trump’s hard-line policies. The pope’s remarks came after a contingent of bishops visited the Vatican with letters from illegal aliens in Catholic communities detailing the hardships they were suffering because of threatened (or real) deportations.
The letters were stacked in a small neat pile and tied with twine, so the little package resembled a found object on Robinson Crusoe’s mythical island. Talk about a photo- op spectacular!
One of the bishops at the presentation ceremony, Bishop Mark J. Slitz, said he saw the pope’s “eyes watering up a bit” when he was presented with the letters.
It was, as they say, a Hallmark Card moment, equal perhaps to most of the banal quotes from Pope Leo himself published almost daily on social media. These generic sayings about “God,” “life,” and “love” are almost always syrupy two or three liners that could have been lifted out of a popular Art Linkletter book from the 1960s.
Not long after the presentation of illegal alien letters, social justice Catholics-the same Catholics who want to rewrite the catechism to reflect the new mores of the secular world-instituted prayer vigils throughout the country. Obedient to Leo’s directive – “You stand with me. And I stand with you” – they took up a woke-shaped cross and began appearing at ICE centers across the country.
At the Philadelphia vigil, there were 90 liberal activists including Buddhists, Mennonites, Unitarians, Methodists and Jews. They stood alongside the (secular dressed) boomer Sisters of St. Joseph. A Protestant minister set up an altar composed of a plastic folding table and miniature Doric column theater props. The makeshift sidewalk altar became a toilet for ecumenical offerings to gods and goddesses: Tibetan prayer flags, apples, tangerine and somewhere in the mix a miniature carving of Christ with arms outstretched.
The poor Christ image was lost among the other images, reminiscent of Pope Francis’ admonition that all religions lead to God.
The protestors cited a January directive by President Trump to eliminate houses of worship as “off-limits” places for ICE arrests. Yet the move by the president was a necessary one mainly because of the leftward tilt of so many Christian denominations.
As mainstream Christianity sinks into the pothole of woke-ism, it loses the attributes and blessings that made it ‘Christian’ in the first place.
Furthermore, the venerable ‘sacred space’ or church in which runaway criminals used to hide-depicted in old Hollywood movies as shelters for innocent men accused falsely-has been replaced by criminals intentionally breaking the law and then expecting the church to bless their transgressions without ever mentioning that that they may have committed a sin.
(Note: As Christianity sheds more and more of its traditional teachings, it needn’t worry about being conquered by Islam, for if present trends continue, it will have destroyed itself long before that happens.)
The US anti-ICE deportation initiative responsible for the Philadelphia vigil, was spearheaded by the Jesuits West province, the Maryknoll Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Pax Christi USA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services and several orders of women religious (those tired boomer ladies who eschew traditional or modified habits).
“We defend the sacred, not ICE, not Trump,” New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia co-director Peter Pedemonti told that crowd of 90 gathered before the plastic folding table altar filled with pagan food gifts.
Ironically, after the slew of nationwide Catholic prayer vigils there appeared on X multiple “Catholic” posts about how Pope Leo should excommunicate all of the Catholic Supreme Court justices. Calls for their excommunication were based on Supreme Court decisions on abortion, and its willingness to take another look at its landmark case ruling on June 26, 2015 (Obergefell v. Hodges) legalizing same sex marriage.
The number of these posts was disturbing and indicated a new form of Catholicism rising within the United States: Social justice/non-theological Catholicism where abortion and all the old traditional Catholic taboos don’t matter.
Meanwhile, the so called shepherds of the Church, the bishops, seem to be joining forces with these social justice Catholics who are calling for a total re-making of the Church.
As Timothy Flanders on One Peter 5 remarked:
I am willing to hazard that there are many orthodox bishops out there. But it seems to me that most of those orthodox bishops are cowardly. They think of themselves as ‘vicars of the Roman Pontiff’ (a concept that Vatican II condemned in Lumen Gentium 27), and they are afraid to excommunicate and issue the anathema, as did the saintly bishops of old.
But the saintly bishops of old are slowly being snuffed out and replaced by rainbow stoles and the Sisters of St. Joseph.
“Upending Peter’s Chair”
If professing believer’s would only realize, by reading the Bible, that Peter did not leave any chair for any man to sit in, and definitely not in Rome. Over a year after the resurrection, Peter was still keeping himself separate from Gentiles (Acts. Ch. 10).
Peter was a minister of the Circumcision (Galatians 2:7). That’s the “little flock,” the nation taken from with the nation of Israel.
When Peter is resurrected, his “chair” is going to be in Jerusalem. He, along with the other eleven, is going to be judging his particular JEWISH tribe.
Matthew 19:28 “…Jesus said unto them…ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Under the Law, Gods spokesman was Moses. In this dispensation of grace, Gods spokesman is not Peter.
The central and fundamental moral code of Christianity (and of Judaism and Islam) is self-sacrifice for others in other words ALTRUISM.
In other words, the highest and most noble virtue that a Christian can practice is sacrificing himself for others. To the degree that he sacrifices himself for others, to that degree he is virtuous.
The ultimate sacrifice of all, of course, is to give everything up for others, and die on a cross for others, as Jesus did. Christian altruism and self-sacrifice are recipe for death and destruction.
It’s time to question the ethics of Jesus and kick them to the curb.
“Christ, in terms of the Christian philosophy, is the human ideal. He personifies that which men should strive to emulate. Yet, according to the Christian mythology, he died on the cross not for his own sins but for the sins of the nonideal people. In other words, a man of perfect virtue was sacrificed for men who are vicious and who are expected or supposed to accept that sacrifice. If I were a Christian, nothing could make me more indignant than that: the notion of sacrificing the ideal to the nonideal, or virtue to vice. And it is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used.” – Ayn Rand
OK T. You go right head and “question the ethics of Jesus and kick them to the curb”
Us Christians will be here waiting for the questioning process that never comes to fruition..
Still waiting
Still waiting
Still waiting
Still waiting
Still waiting
Oops did your connection time out? Too bad so sad.
Sucks to be you T.
Nice life you have carved out for yourself.
How are these words of Jesus not a recipe for death, disaster, and self-destruction. In this modern day and age it is simply horrendous that any even semi-rational person can take these words of Jesus seriously.
Is it any wonder that the idea of social justice comes from Christianity? —
“38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[h] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[i] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. – Matthew 5 43-48
Where’s Intrepid today?
I’m here as always. Kilt Lifters for all who recognize that THX is completely F.O.S.
And it’s the same Bible quotations as always. — snore–
Hey T. They haven’t worked yet.
But it’s late in the day and I don’t have the patience to wallow in THX’s B.S. He takes himself so seriously.
I see you found your moth eaten cut and paste index card. You don’t mind if I take a nap do you.
Let us not ignore how much money church institutions were taking from the US government to help illegal immigrants. As one Catholic nun justified this corruption, ” a cup of water for a fellow traveler “.
The slowness of change in the institutional church is one of its strengths. It has become slowly more corrupt in all denominations. That slow change is hopefully beginning to go the other way. The church held out for a long time while society hurled itself into decadence, and now society is beginning to reject the liberal post-war consensus. It will take time, but the institutional churches will also change slowly again.
Still, I wish this article were not true – but it is true.
seems to me like an alliance made in heaven – communists + islam + catholics
As a former Catholic, raised to never question one’s believes, at some point not long ago I finally allowed my critical thinking to be employed. Challenge everything else but dare not challenge the church. Start with the basics. Why would Peter venture to Rome to establish Christ’s Church? On its face makes no sense. Christ was a Jew as was the Apostles. The Romans condemned him to death and carried out the execution. We are told to believe that Peter travelled to Rome to establish Christ’s Church. Unbelievable?
Peter did NOT go to rome to establish Jesus’ Church. HE had already established it. Now it only needed spreading. Peter did do a lot toward that end.
No, he went to rome to plant the seeds o the Church Jesus had already established in THAT city, Just as he had done so well in quite a numbe o other cities.
Jesus plainly declared “upon this rock (the believing o men in Him) i will build MY chuch.. not Peter’s or anyone else’s.
Very entertaining and incisive commentary as usual– and Thom Nickels captures well the Woke and misguided direction the Catholic Church is embracing — severing any identifiable connection to its past
Christianity is NOT “shedding its orthodoxy”. It IS, however, shedding those who decline to adhere to right teaching which comes out o God’s Word and nowhere else. And this purging is a good and healthy thing.
Beware of Radical Islamists and their plans
It was the Apostle Paul who established the foundations of Christianity in Rome and not Peter when he arrived there in 60 A.D. after having been sent there by Roman Governor Felix of Caesarea to stand trial before the emperor on blasphemy accusations by the Jerusalem Sanhedrin. Paul was allowed freedom of movement under house arrest while awaiting trial and actively proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all the Roman Jewish Synagogues, and to all the people there. He was eventually freed and allowed to leave Rome for subsequent missionary journeys but was again arrested and imprisoned a second time in a Mamertine dungeon near the Roman Forum. He suffered a martyr’s death when he was executed at a spot on the Ostian Way outside Rome in 68 A.D.