Why Did Ro Khanna Lie About a "Violent" Detainment in Israel?

 

Rubio attempts to mend relations with Pope Leo in Vatican meeting after Trump’s criticisms

Synthesis at the White House

On Friday November 21, 2025 the New York City Mayor Elect Zohran Mamdani visited President Trump in the Oval Office. 

Previously President Trump had called Democratic Socialist Mamdani a Communist, and Mamdani had called President Trump a Fascist.

Despite their purported philosophical differences, during the press conference the two politicians looked like kindred spirits.

President Trump says he wants to enter heaven. As a Catholic priest, I take that seriously.

by James Martin, S.J.

August 20, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy share a light moment as they meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington Aug. 18, 2025, amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine. Credit: OSV News photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters


Dear President Trump,

As a Catholic priest, I take seriously your recently stated desire to get into heaven. “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible,” you told Fox News yesterday. “I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.”

Mr. President, you have been working to bring peace to Ukraine, where Pope Francis said, “Christ is crucified in refugees who flee from bombs with children in their arms.” I can understand how working toward peace would awaken within you the desire to continue to do good and also turn your thoughts to heaven.

I can also understand the feeling that you are “at the bottom of the totem pole,” which we all feel from time to time. Spiritual writers often call this “compunction,” a sense of our own sinfulness. We’re all sinful in one way or another. Jesuits often say that we are all “loved sinners.” Loved by God, but sinful. We shouldn’t lose sight of either word.

Moreover, the desire to enter heaven is part of the universal human longing for union with God. As is of course, the equally human desire to avoid the fires of hell, which, by the way, I believe in.

So even though our lives are quite different, we are, like our fellow human beings, in the same boat: wanting entrance into the reign of God.

A Social Conservative: Pope Francis Led Effort Against Liberation Theology and Same-Sex Marriage

 

During the military dictatorship in Argentina, the new pope openly criticized liberation theology’s combination of religious teachings and calls for social justice. His social conservative streak continued when he was elevated to cardinal in Argentina. In 2010, he called the Argentine government’s legalization of gay marriage “an attempt to destroy God’s plan” and opposed adoption by gay couples. We discuss Pope Francis’ social conservatism with Ernesto Semán, a historian at New York University and former reporter for two Argentine newspapers, and with Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky. [includes rush transcript]

BRICS: United By US-led Sanctions, How Russia, Iran Could Use Summit To ...

BRICS: United By US-led Sanctions, How Russia, Iran Could Use Summit To Their Advantage | Israel War

CRUX

Oct 22, 2024 #russia #brics2024 #putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host leaders of the BRICS grouping in Kazan on Oct 22 for the meeting of the bloc. Putin will be meeting his counterparts from several countries including China, Turkey, and Iran. The meeting is aimed at defying predictions that the war in Ukraine and an international arrest warrant would turn Putin into a pariah, as per observers. The alliance, which aims to ‘counterbalance the Western-led world order’, initially included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. However, the block has expanded rapidly with the inclusion of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia in recent years.

"Strive Not About Words"

"Strive Not About Words"


Ellen G. White


Ellen G. White


"Of these things put them in remembrance, charg­ing them before the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hear­ers." 1

The ministers of Christ are in constant danger. They are to put their brethren in mind of the things which they already know. "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the pres­ent truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance."2  Satan is constantly at work to divert the mind with earthly things, that the truth may lose its force upon the heart; and then there will be no progress, no advancement from light and knowledge, to greater light and knowledge.

Unless the followers of Christ are con­stantly stirred up to practice the truth, they will not be sanctified through it. Questions, speculations, and matters of no vital impor­tance will occupy the mind, and become the subject of conversation, and then there will be caviling and striving about words, and pre­senting of different opinions, concerning points that are not vital or essential.

Those who listened to the present truth in the days of Paul did as do the men of today. They would get up questions, presenting var­ious ideas and opinions of men, and bring the mind of the minister from the important work of preaching the main truths of the gospel, to settle their disputes. The laborer for God must be wise enough to see the design of the enemy, and to refuse to be misled and diverted. The conversion of the souls of his hearers must be the burden of his work, and he must keep out of controversy, and preach the word of God.

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will in­crease unto more ungodliness."3 The special, deceptive work of Satan has been to provoke controversies, that there might be strivings about words to no profit. He well knows that this will occupy the mind and the time. It raises the combativeness, and quenches the spirit of conviction, in the minds of many, drawing them into diversity of opinions, accu­sation, and prejudice, which closes the door to the truth. This was the effect in the days of Paul, and we see that it has been the same in our own time. It shakes the confidence of those already partially convinced, and it turns away others who are waiting for some excuse for rejecting the truth.

The less the preacher shall multiply words of his own, the more distinct and clear will be the living utterances of God. Let your words be few. Let God speak. Let the plain "Thus saith the Lord" settle all controversies. If we allow the mind to take its own course, there will be countless points of difference which may be debated by men who make Christ their hope, and who love the truth in sincerity, and yet who hold opposite opinions upon subjects that are not of real importance. These un­settled questions should not be brought to the front, and urged publicly, but should, if held by any, be done quietly and without contro­versy. 

Keep Minor Differences Concealed

Men of ability have devoted a lifetime of study and prayer to the searching of the Scrip­tures, and yet not one half of the Bible has been fully explored ; and all parts of it will never be fully comprehended until Christ shall open its wonderful mysteries in the future life. There is much to be unraveled, much that human minds can never harmonize. There are many themes that might seem of special importance to the minds of one class, that to another class would appear in an altogether different light. Satan will seek to create argu­ment upon different points that might better remain unmentioned.

A noble, devoted, spiritual worker will see in the great testing truths that constitute the solemn message to be given to the world, suf­ficient reason for keeping all minor differ­ences concealed, rather than to bring them forth to become subjects of contention. Let the mind dwell upon the great work of redemp­tion, the soon coming of Christ, and the com­mandments of God; and it will be found that there is enough food for thought in these sub­jects to take up the entire attention.

Review and Herald, Sept. 17, 1888.

1 2 Timothy 2:14
2 2 Peter 1:12-13

3 2 Timothy 2:15

In Deeply Divided Chicago, Most Agree: City Is Off Course

Slide Show | Chicago Divisions Follow Racial and Geographical Lines

Many blacks see Chicago as a hostile city that is not a good for children. Whites are also critical of the city, but more positive overall.

By MONICA DAVEY and GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO
MAY 6, 2016


CHICAGO — The people of Chicago are deeply riven by race, class and neighborhood, distrustful of the police, fearful of the growing rate of violent crime and united chiefly in their disapproval of the mayor’s performance and their conviction that the city is headed down the wrong track.

These are among findings of a newsurvey by The New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation, which polled residents of a city that has been upended in recent months by revelations of questionable actions by the police, threats of a teachers’ strike, a school funding crisis and an uptick in violence.

The poll finds broad discontent with the police and those charged with overseeing them, particularly among African-Americans. Residents expressed concerns about racial bias in shootings by officers and many show ambivalence about whether calling the police will ease situations or not make a difference.

Read more

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Pope: Trump ‘is not Christian’ if he wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border

By Jenna Johnson, Jose A. DelReal and J. Freedom du Lac

February 18 at 1:11 PM


Pope Francis said Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is "not Christian" because of his views on immigration Feb. 18. Pope Francis was speaking to reporters on his way back to Rome from Mexico. (Reuters)

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Hours after praying for Mexican migrants who died trying to reach the United States, Pope Francis singled out Donald Trump, telling reporters aboard the papal plane that anybody who wants to build border walls "is not Christian."

“A person who thinks only about building walls — wherever they may be — and not building bridges, is not Christian,” Francis said Thursday, according to a translation from the Associated Press. "This is not in the Gospel."

He added: "I'd just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way."

Trump, a Presbyterian, strongly rebuked the pope's comments.

"For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," the Republican presidential front-runner said in South Carolina, where he is campaigning. "I'm proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now with our current president."

[Trump: Churches should not lose tax-exempt status for political participation]

On his trip home from Mexico, Francis said that he does not believe Trump's promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the U.S-Mexico border reflects Christian values.

Those positions have been at the core of the real estate mogul's pitch to voters, who believe political leaders have not done enough to protect American interests at home and abroad.

[Some American Catholics really don't like Pope Francis]

Trump's critics have accused him of racism and disregarding the destitute economic conditions that many undocumented immigrants have fled.

Trump said Thursday that he was surprised to hear the pope's comments and said he believes political leaders in Mexico negatively influenced the Holy See. Mexican officials, he added, are "using the pope as a pawn."



After Pope Francis suggested Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is "not Christian," Trump told a rally in Kiawah Island, S.C. that the Mexican government manipulated the pope, calling the religious leader's statement "disgraceful." (Reuters)

"The pope only heard one side of the story," Trump said.

The billionaire also indicated that the pope would change his mind if the Vatican were attacked by Islamic State terrorists.

“If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President,” Trump said, reading from a statement. “ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.”

A senior Trump adviser took to Twitter on Thursday to note that a wall already exists around Vatican City.

Three years ago, on that same social media platform, Trump spoke favorably of Francis.

Trump's response to the pope came three days after he criticized rival Ted Cruz for how the senator from Texas invoked his Christian faith during the campaign. During an appearance before activists in South Carolina on Monday, Trump argued that he would be the better guardian of Christian values, before saying: "Christianity is being chopped away at. Chop, chop, chop."

Cruz has also supported building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying in December: "We will build a wall that works, and I'll get Donald Trump to pay for it."

Following Trump's rally here Thursday, one 65-year-old Catholic said the pope was "becoming too political."

"I'm against what he's doing," said Kathy Hogan, a retired economics teacher who lives in Kiawah Island. "I understand he's a very holy man, but I think he needs to stay out of politics."

DelReal reported from Columbia, S.C. du Lac is in Washington. Mark Berman and Ed O'Keefe contributed to this post, which has been updated.



Jenna Johnson is a political reporter who is covering the 2016 presidential campaign.

Jose A. DelReal covers national politics for The Washington Post.



J. Freedom du Lac is the editor of The Post's general assignment news desk. He was previously a Local enterprise reporter and, before that, the paper’s pop music critic.



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Catholic Charities will be ready for Syrians

“I feel for the Syrians. I went through what they are going through.”

November 12, 2015 - R.W. Dellinger

Lisbeth Svendsen, a volunteer from Norway, gets a hug from Nabil Minas as she hugs his wife and daughter on a beach near Molyvos, on the Greek island of Lesbos, Oct. 30. The Syrian refugees were on a boat that traveled to Lesbos from Turkey, provided by Turkish traffickers to whom the refugees paid huge sums. When Minas disembarked from the boat, he fell on his face and kissed the ground. A Christian, he crossed himself and covered his face with his hands, weeping with joy. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)

The Syrian Civil War can trace its roots back to the arrest and torture of a few teenage boys in March 2011. They had spray-painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall in the city of Dara.

Observers are still divided on the youths’ motives. Were they really inspired by Arab Spring protests sweeping out of Tunisia and across the Middle East, or simply teenagers rebelling against authority?

Whatever the reason, demonstrators took to the streets. And when the security forces of President Basher Assad fired on and killed several, others replaced them. Protests went nationwide, and the government used even more brutal force to crush them. But by July of 2011 there were hundreds of thousands demonstrators across the country.

When the opposition took up arms, forming rebel brigades, Syria broke into the civil war that has raged ever since. Some estimates surpass 300,000 casualties, mostly Syrian soldiers and rebel fighters.

The growing conflict and sectarian violence between Sunni and Shite Muslims has driven the largest refugee exodus since World War II. More than 4 million people have fled Syria to its neighboring nations — Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. From there many have headed to supposedly safe havens in Europe. Nations like Hungary and Austria, declaring they’ve been overwhelmed, have tried to shut down their borders, while others have opened their arms. Germany, in particular, said it will resettle 800,000 over the next year from the Middle East’s violence-wracked countries, calling it a “moral duty.”

Tepid U.S. response

The Obama administration’s response, on the other hand, has been called a “Band-Aid” for Syria. Since the civil war began almost five years ago, the United States has issued refugee visas to less than 1,500 Syrians.

In September, Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan, with the U.S. raising its figure for all refugees from 70,000 to 85,000 this fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. He said the overall figure will include at least 10,000 Syrians. The total will climb to 100,000 in 2017, including even more Syrians.

“In light of this global emergency situation, we urge the United States to lead a comprehensive global initiative in partnership with European and other states to improve access to protections for refugees,” stated the Human Rights First organization.

Together with 14 other Democrats, Senator Richard J. Durbin from Illinois wrote a letter praising President Obama for his pledge to take 10,000 Syrian refugees. The congressman urged the president to admit 65,000 more Syrian aliens. Senator Chris S. Murphy of Connecticut said doing so little was risky.

“Do we think we make this country more safe from terrorism by showing a cold-heartedness to this refugee crisis?” he asked. “I think the answer is no.” – who said this?

Pope Francis has also weighed in on the issue. During his Sept. 24 address to Congress, he told senators and house representatives they must respond to the refugee crisis in a “humane, just and fraternal” way.

Human rights organizations have pointed out that the U.S. granted asylum to 111,000 Vietnamese refugees in 1979 and another 207,000 the next year. And during the Mariel boatlift, around the same time, the U.S. gave sanctuary to more than 120,000 Cuban refugees.

After Sept. 11, 2001, refugee resettlement in the United States dropped to 27,131 in 2002. Since then, however, numbers have steadily risen to 69,987 last year, close to the 70,000 cap. 

Islamic terrorism

But there has been plenty of opposition to the new U.S. plan, too.

“Few Americans want their country to take in more Syrian refugees, even though many believe the United States should do more to help those fleeing the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war,” concluded the authors of a Reuters/Ipsos poll done in mid-September. Some 35 percent of the people queried in the online survey flatly said the 10,000 number for the coming fiscal year was too high.

Also in September, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Congressman Bob Goodlatte, House Judiciary Committee chairman, claimed that the terrorist group Islamic State made it “abundantly clear” that they will use the refugee crisis as a subterfuge to enter the U.S.

“Now the Obama Administration wants to bring in an additional 10,000 Syrians without a concrete and foolproof plan to ensure that terrorists won’t be able to enter the country,” stated the lawmakers. “The administration has essentially given the American people a ‘trust me.’ That isn’t good enough.”

Rep. Peter T. King, Republican from New York, didn’t mince his hard-nosed opinion: “Our enemy now is Islamic terrorism, and these people are coming from a country filled with Islamic terrorists. We don’t want another Boston Marathon bombing situation.”

And this was before a Russian aircraft with 224 on board was likely brought down over Egypt by an Islamic State bomb on Oct. 31.

‘We’ve done this before’

Sam Samadi, resettlement program manager for Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, has already started gearing up his agency to accept war-torn Syrian refugees. He knows with limited resources it’ll be hard. But he also knows how Catholic Charities has handled wave after wave of refugees in the past, including tens of thousands after Vietnam fell and boat people fled Cuba, plus smaller numbers from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Libya and Ukraine, among others.

“We have the experience,” he said. “We’ve done this before.”

Samadi should know. He’s worked at Catholic Charities here for 27 years, and before that with Catholic Charities in Maine. And all of that time the 62-year-old refugee from Iran has been helping other refugees resettle in the U.S. Just last week he spoke with an official from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the nation’s largest agency doing resettlement, about resettling more than the 250 families from all over the world Catholic Charities has been approved for this year.

When the official asked if Catholic Charities of Los Angeles would be ready for the Syrians, Samadi said “definitely.” But he also pointed out how rent, groceries, gas — in short, the cost of living — was higher in Southern California. So his agency would need financial help from the USCCB.

“I want to receive more families, but there’s a limitation to our help,” he pointed out. “We need more funding.”

“We are aware of the cost of living in L.A. compared to other parts of the country,” was the reply. “But at this time we cannot assure you of anything. But we’re working on it.”

Sponsors waiting

The USCCB administrator didn’t know how many Syrian refugees will be assigned to his agency. So it wasn’t clear how many will be sent to Los Angeles, a popular destination.

Samadi was also told none would be coming in January or February of 2016 as first thought. The arrival date had been pushed back to June or July.

The Catholic Charities resettlement manager admitted he was disappointed and feeling frustrated. Some 15 families had already called or emailed him wanting to sponsor a Syrian refugee family. But he now had to tell them when, where and how many were coming was up in the air.

“So my answer to all the individuals and parishes is just ‘wait’ until we know and then we’re going to call you,” he said. “I feel bad because the callers were all excited about being sponsors, but I have to tell them to wait.”

Then Samadi had another troubling thought. “Most think the families or individuals are Christian,” he said. “They think these people are Christian, which is wrong. They’re mostly Muslim, Sunni Muslims. So that could be a problem. But only one caller from Long Beach said, ‘No, we want a Christian family. That’s all we want.’”

The Catholic Charities worker hopes potential sponsors from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles won’t have this narrow mindset that associates being Muslim with terrorism. “The people who call me, I can go and meet with them,” he pointed out. “And the USCCB has already checked them [the refugees], too. But can I give them a 100 percent guarantee? Nobody can.”

Before our interview ended, he talked about his own flight after Shah Mohammed Reza of Iran was overthrown by the Islamic revolution in February of 1979. He was a young man, an Iranian Kurd, studying in India at the time. He knew his life would be in danger if he went home under the new regime of Ayatollah Khomeni. So he filed with the United Nations as a refugee and wound up in Portland, Maine, in 1985, where he found work with Catholic Charities.

“I feel for the Syrians,” he stressed. “I went through what they are going through, only I left differently.”

Samadi recalled how it was a long and difficult sojourn.

“I understand the need for security,” he said. “But we’re talking about a crisis that needs a crisis response. So, hopefully, people in the United States will open their hearts and arms to bring more refugees, Syrians and others, here.”

Source

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How Francis can save the Jesuits

by Jon Anderson

posted Thursday, 12 Nov 2015

Pope Francis celebrates Mass with 300 of his Jesuit confreres at the Church of the Gesu in Rome (CNS photo/Paul Haring)


The world’s largest male religious order is suffering an identity crisis and a decline in vocations. Can the first Jesuit pontiff lead it out of the doldrums?

The election of Pope Francis in 2013 gave the Catholic Church its first Jesuit pope and has sparked interest in the order that formed him. Yet this is not a boom time for the Society of Jesus. Like most other religious orders, it is experiencing declining numbers and a serious problem in attracting new vocations. It has also, since the 1960s, been dealing with an identity crisis that has weakened the intellectual self-confidence that the Jesuits used to be famous for.

The election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio SJ came as a surprise not least because Jesuits have historically served popes rather than become popes. In this sense, having a Jesuit pope is rather like having a civil servant as prime minister.

Francis himself has a complicated relationship with his order, dating back to his time as provincial superior in Argentina in the 1970s. Perhaps a sign of this was that he chose his papal name after St Francis of Assisi, and not after the Jesuit co-founder St Francis Xavier, as many at first assumed.

His election also came at a time of declining Jesuit influence. There are currently only three Jesuit cardinals, all of whom are aged over 80, so it is unlikely that we will see another Jesuit pope in the near future. In its traditional heartland of Spain, the Society long ago lost much of its former influence. In the longer term, since the Second Vatican Council it has been difficult to see a distinctively Jesuit position on the future of the Church: while the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan was a figurehead for liberal Catholics, figures such as Henri de Lubac provided serious intellectual heft for theological conservatives.

This situation is a long way from the one that prevailed when St Ignatius Loyola founded the order in 1534. The Society quickly gained a reputation for being fiercely disciplined and militant in its defence of Catholic orthodoxy. Ignatius had carried over his soldier’s background into his new religious life. Central to his method were an absolute loyalty to the papacy (though the Society’s relations with individual popes could be spiky), a reforming zeal that opposed the corruption then widespread in the Church, and a strong missionary approach in both Europe and the New World.

Within a century of its foundation, the Society had made an enormous impact, becoming in many ways the driving force of the Catholic Reformation. This was the time of extraordinary figures such as Francis Xavier; Matteo Ricci, who led the original mission to China; and the Hungarian primate Cardinal Péter Pázmány, who not only led the Catholic revival in his country but also established himself as a theologian, philosopher and creator of the modern Hungarian literary language.

This was also when the Society gained its reputation as a serious intellectual force. Ricci and Pázmány were certainly formidable scholars, and to take just one example, the modern science of linguistics would be very much impoverished without the Jesuit missionaries who studied the languages of Mexico and Brazil.

More recently, one associates the order with major thinkers such as de Lubac and Cardinal Avery Dulles. On the level of popular culture, it is no accident that when Jesuit-educated William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist, the two scholar-priest heroes of his novel should have been Jesuits.

As an order, the Jesuits have also been dogged by controversy since their early years. Their intellectual tradition has often been interpreted, and not always wrongly, as a tendency to deviousness and intrigue. The Society was banned as a subversive body in post-Reformation England, officially suppressed in Bismarck’s German Empire and persecuted by the Nazis. They were suppressed by the Spanish Republic and regarded with suspicion by General Franco’s regime due to their Basque roots.

Every anti-Catholic conspiracy theory seems to feature the Jesuits in a starring role. Ulster unionists used to worry about Jesuit influence in a future united Ireland, despite the fact that most Irish Jesuits went abroad to the missions. But today the idea of the Jesuits trying to take over the world is scarcely credible.

In common with many other parts of the Catholic Church, the order’s declining numbers mean that it is increasingly having to live off the credit – material and intellectual – built up by previous generations. To take one Jesuit institution, the University of Deusto in Bilbao is today perhaps better known for its engineering faculty than its theology faculty, and as a centre of Basque nationalism rather than Jesuit thought. Perhaps it is significant that, these days, conspiracy theories are more likely to revolve around Opus Dei than the Jesuits.

The Society has long been the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church, and remains so today. But there were more than 30,000 Jesuits worldwide in the 1960s, while currently there are barely 16,000. The Jesuits have retained a great deal of weight mainly because the other orders have also been in long-term, and often steeper, decline.

The one thing that above all else has prevented the Society’s membership collapsing is that it continues to generate vocations on a large scale in South Asia, and it undoubtedly does a huge amount of good work in India through its involvement in healthcare and education. But its presence in India is not necessarily without its problems.

Since Matteo Ricci’s mission to China in the 16th century, the Jesuits have pioneered the practice of “inculturation” in their mission work. Ricci himself gained a deep knowledge of Chinese culture, and was willing to make adaptations to the style and language of worship to make the Catholic message more comprehensible to the Chinese people, while remaining within the bounds of orthodoxy.

But as far back as the 1960s, the Holy See was expressing concerns that the Indian Jesuits had taken inculturation too far, and were integrating aspects of Hindu worship such as the Om mantra, or building churches modelled on Hindu mandirs, to the point where they were running the risk of becoming functionally Hindu and only nominally Christian. The same concerns have been raised on a regular basis ever since.

While many of the issues facing the Jesuits are common to the Church as a whole over the past 50 or so years, the Society has experienced some controversies in particularly sharp form. Key to this was the dynamic leadership of Fr Pedro Arrupe, superior general between 1965 and 1983, who had little patience for the distinctive traditions of the Society. At the 1975 General Congregation, a worldwide gathering of Jesuits, Fr Arrupe managed to refashion the Society’s identity so that it was dominated by social justice concerns.

Even at the time, the Arrupe doctrine had its detractors. It wasn’t so much that the critics objected to a focus on social justice – the preferential option for the poor was well established in Catholic social teaching – but that it seemed to have been articulated in political rather than religious terms. The danger was that, if what the Jesuits were saying was barely distinguishable from what secular humanists would say, this would undermine their identity as a Catholic order, rather than as a left-leaning social justice movement.

This, of course, dovetailed with the growing controversy over the liberation theology movement in Latin America, and it was no surprise that the Jesuits, given their intellectualism and their historic strength in the region, would be more affected than other orders.

This was a murky and violent period in South America, but it was more complicated than is often assumed. As Jesuit provincial in Argentina, Jorge Mario Bergoglio had opposed those in the order who had essentially gone over to Marxism. But in the 1980s he himself would clash with the Society’s leadership, as his populist pastoral style did not find favour with the then superior general Fr Peter Hans Kolvenbach.

In some ways, Pope Francis is a traditional Jesuit, notably in that he isn’t particularly interested in liturgical questions; but he is very unusual in preferring popular devotion to sociology.

The most solid evidence of the old Jesuit intellectual tradition is the worldwide network of educational institutions founded by the Society. In the United States, historically Jesuit universities such as Georgetown, Fordham and Marquette still have healthy enrolments and enjoy a good reputation as solid research institutions.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Britain, where Heythrop College is currently facing closure, having relied for many years on the Society to bail it out of its financial difficulties.

But Jesuit institutions have not been immune to the pressures facing other sectors of Catholic education, with a long-term question mark over how well they can maintain their Catholic identity. In particular, colleges run by the religious orders used to rely on having a substantial intake of students following a vocation. With a steadily declining number of vocations, the risk is that these colleges become virtually indistinguishable from secular institutions, with their Catholic heritage just becoming a piece of window dressing, as unimportant as the historically Protestant heritage of most Ivy League universities.

Much of this will depend on the activity of university theology departments, but in the absence of students training for the religious life, many theology departments have gone over to intellectual fashions that rely more on the secular zeitgeist than on Christian tradition. It is not clear whether some Jesuit institutions are providing much more than a veneer of Ignatian jargon.

Yet the outlook may not be entirely bleak. The order has sufficient resources that it will probably be a going concern for the foreseeable future. There is anecdotal evidence that, in the United States at least, the Francis papacy has sparked some interest in Jesuit vocations. (But given the very long formation period for Jesuits, even a modest rise in vocations now is not going to provide a quick fix for a rapidly ageing order.)

Ultimately, the question facing the Society of Jesus is the same as that for other Catholic institutions in decline: how can it assert its relevance in a secularising society without losing its Catholic identity?

The Jesuit intellectual tradition should be a fundamental resource, and Pope Francis has certainly given the order a new prominence. But whether the order can revive is really a matter of whether it can generate a coherent sense of mission.

Jon Anderson is a freelance writer

This article first appeared in the Catholic Herald magazine (13/11/15)

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Pope’s Focus on Poor Revives Scorned Theology

EUROPE

By JIM YARDLEY and SIMON ROMERO

MAY 23, 2015

Archbishop Óscar Romero, assassinated in 1980, was beatified on Saturday in San Salvador after many years of stalling by conservative Catholic officials. CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times


VATICAN CITY — Six months after becoming the first Latin American pontiff, Pope Francis invited an octogenarian priest from Peru for a private chat at his Vatican residence. Not listed on the pope’s schedule, news of the September 2013 meeting with the priest, Gustavo Gutiérrez, quickly leaked out — and was just as quickly interpreted as a defining shift in the Roman Catholic Church.

Father Gutiérrez is a founder of liberation theology, the Latin American movement embracing the poor and calling for social change, which conservatives once scorned as overtly Marxist and the Vatican treated with hostility.

Now, Father Gutiérrez is a respected Vatican visitor, and his writings have been praised in the official Vatican newspaper. Francis has brought other Latin American priests back into favor and often uses language about the poor that has echoes of liberation theology.

RELATED COVERAGE

Honor Comes Late to Óscar Romero, a Martyr for the PoorMAY 22, 2015

video

Killed in El Salvador: An American StoryNOV. 9, 2014

And then came Saturday, when throngs packed San Salvador for the beatification ceremony of the murdered Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero, leaving him one step from sainthood.

Salvadoran followers of Archbishop Romero, who focused on marginalized communities, visited Carmen Ayala Lopez, 80. CreditMeridith Kohut for The New York Times

The first pope from the developing world, Francis has placed the poor at the center of his papacy. In doing so, he is directly engaging with a theological movement that once sharply divided Catholics and was distrusted by his predecessors, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Even Francis, as a young Jesuit leader in Argentina, had qualms.

Now, Francis speaks of creating “a poor church for the poor” and is seeking to position Catholicism closer to the masses — a spiritual mission that comes as he is also trying to revive the church in Latin America, where it has steadily lost ground to evangelical congregations.

For years, Vatican critics of liberation theology and conservative Latin American bishops helped stall the canonization process for Archbishop Romero, even though many Catholics in the region regard him as a towering moral figure: an outspoken critic of social injustice and political repression who was assassinated during Mass in 1980. Francis broke the stalemate.

“It is very important,” Father Gutiérrez said. “Somebody who is assassinated for this commitment to his people will illuminate many things in Latin America.”

The beatification is the prelude to what is likely to be a defining period of Francis’ papacy, with trips to South America, Cuba and the United States; the release of a much-awaited encyclical on environmental degradationand the poor; and a meeting in Rome to determine whether and how the church will change its approach to issues like homosexuality, contraception and divorce.

By advancing the campaign for Archbishop Romero’s sainthood, Francis is sending a signal that the allegiance of his church is to the poor, who once saw some bishops as more aligned with discredited governments, many analysts say. Indeed, Archbishop Romero was regarded as a popular saintin El Salvador even as the Vatican blocked his canonization process.

“It is not liberation theology that is being rehabilitated,” said Michael E. Lee, an associate professor of theology at Fordham University who has written extensively about liberation theology. “It is the church that is being rehabilitated.”

Liberation theory includes a critique of the structural causes of poverty and a call for the church and the poor to organize for social change. Mr. Lee said it was a broad school of thought: Movements differed in different countries, with some more political in nature and others less so. The broader movement emerged after a major meeting of Latin American bishops in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968 and was rooted in the belief that the plight of the poor should be central to interpreting the Bible and to the Christian mission.

But with the Cold War in full force, some critics denounced liberation theology as Marxist, and a conservative backlash quickly followed. At the Vatican, John Paul II, the Polish pope who would later be credited for helping topple the Soviet Union, became suspicious of the political elements of the new Latin American movements.

“All that rhetoric made the Vatican very nervous,” said Ivan Petrella, an Argentine lawmaker and scholar of liberation theology. “If you were coming from behind the Iron Curtain, you could smell some communism in there.”

John Paul reacted by appointing conservative bishops in Latin America and by supporting conservative Catholic groups such as Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ, which opposed liberation theology. In the 1980s, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later to become Pope Benedict XVI, but then the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrine — issued two statements on liberation theology. The first was very critical, but the second was milder, leading some analysts to wonder if the Vatican was easing up.

From his 1973 appointment as head of the Jesuits in Argentina, Francis, then 36 and known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was viewed as deeply concerned with the poor. But religious figures who knew him then say Francis, like much of Argentina’s Catholic establishment, thought liberation theology was too political. Critics also blamed him for failing to prevent the kidnapping and torture of two priests sympathetic to liberation theology.

Some in the church hierarchy considered Francis divisive and autocratic in his 15 years leading the Jesuits. The church authorities sent him into what amounted to stretches of exile, first in Germany and then in Córdoba, Argentina, a period in which he later described having “a time of great interior crisis.”

He practiced spiritual exercises and changed his leadership style to involve greater dialogue. When he was named archbishop of Buenos Aires, his focus became those left behind by Argentina’s economic upheaval.

“With the end of the Cold War, he began to see that liberation theology was not synonymous with Marxism, as many conservatives had claimed,” said Paul Vallely, author of “Pope Francis: Untying the Knots.” Argentina’s financial crisis in the early years of the 21st century also shaped his views, as he “began to see that economic systems, not just individuals, could be sinful,” Mr. Vallely added.

Since becoming pope, Francis has expressed strong criticism of capitalism, acknowledging that globalization has lifted many people from poverty but saying it has also created great disparities and “condemned many others to hunger.” He has warned, “Without a solution to the problems of the poor, we cannot resolve the problems of the world.”

In Argentina, some critics are unconvinced that Francis’ outspokenness about the poor represents an embrace of liberation theology. “He never took the reins of liberation theology because it’s radical,” said Rubén Rufino Dri, who worked in the late 1960s and 1970s with a group of priests active in the slums of Buenos Aires.

To him, Francis’ decision to expedite Archbishop Romero’s beatification was a political one, part of what Mr. Rufino Dri views as a “superficial transformation” of the Catholic Church as it competes in Latin America with secularism as well as other branches of Christianity.

“It’s a populist maneuver by a great politician,” he said.

Others offered a more nuanced view. José María di Paola, 53, a priest who is close to Francis and once worked with him among the poor of Buenos Aires, said the beatification reflected a broader push by Francis to reduce the Vatican’s focus on Europe. “It’s part of a process to bring an end to the church’s Eurocentric interpretation of the world and have a more Latin American viewpoint,” he said.

Father di Paola added that while Francis had never proposed evangelizing under the banner of liberation theology during his time in Argentina, his commitment to the poor should not be questioned. “Francis’ passage through the slums of the capital influenced him later as a bishop and pope,” he said. “Experiencing the life values of the poor transformed his heart.”

As pope, Francis has expanded the roles of centrists sympathetic to liberation theology, such as Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, in contrast to the clout once wielded in Latin America by conservative cardinals like Alfonso López Trujillo of Colombia, who died in 2008.

“Trujillo represented the thinking that liberation theology was a Trojan horse in which communism would enter the church, something that is finally coming undone with Pope Francis,” said Leonardo Boff, 76, a prominent Brazilian theologian who has written on liberation theology.

Many analysts note that John Paul and Benedict never outright denounced liberation theology and slowly started to pivot in their views. In 2012, Benedict reopened Archbishop Romero’s beatification case. Cardinal Gerhard Müller, a staunch conservative who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrine, became a proponent of liberation theology after working in Peru, where he met Father Gutiérrez. The two men have since written books together.

“There was no rehabilitation because there was never a ‘dehabilitation,’ ” Father Gutiérrez said, contesting the idea that liberation theology was ever cast out of the church. “In past years, there was talk of condemnation, and people believed it. What there was was a critical dialogue, which had difficult moments but which really was clarified over time.”

Francis often urges believers to act on behalf of the poor, saying if they do, they will be transformed. For those who knew Archbishop Romero in El Salvador, this transformation was notable. Once considered a conservative, he began to change in the mid-1970s, when he was the bishop of a rural diocese where government soldiers had massacred peasants. Shortly after he became archbishop of San Salvador, he was horrified when a close friend, a Jesuit priest, was murdered, and he soon began to speak out against government terror and repression.

“He began to surprise people,” said Jon Sobrino, a prominent liberation theologian who became close to Archbishop Romero and credited his transformation to his embrace of the poor

“They made him be different, be more radical, like Jesus,” Father Sobrino said. “He drew near to them, and they approached him, asking for help in their suffering. That was what changed him.”

In 2007, Father Sobrino had his own clash with the Vatican when the doctrinal office disputed some of his writings. He refused to alter them and described the freeze on Archbishop Romero’s beatification as Vatican hostility.

“It has taken a new pope to change the situation,” he said.


Jim Yardley reported from Vatican City, and Simon Romero from Rio de Janeiro. Elisabeth Malkin and Gene Palumbo contributed reporting from San Salvador, and Jonathan Gilbert from Buenos Aires.

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'Smear campaign' pushed Knights out of St Patrick's parade

St. Patrick's Day Parade 2009. Credit: Adam Pieniazek via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).


Boston, Mass., Mar 16, 2015 / 01:58 pm (CNA).- The Massachusetts Knights of Columbus withdrew from the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Boston on Sunday, saying that their motives for participating in the parade - which this year included a gay activist group - have been misrepresented.

The Knights asked people to pray during the march in honor of St. Patrick, who was famous for bringing Christianity to pagan Ireland.

A statement released by the Knights said that they had intended to march in the parade “as a Catholic witness, to honor this great Catholic saint, and in gratitude for the contributions of Irish Americans to our country.”

The organization said that it had wanted to run a float with both pro-life signs and other posters encouraging participation in charitable activities.

However, a source close to the situation told CNA that the Knights were ambushed by a campaign that smeared their motives and created confusion.

C.J. Doyle, executive director of Boston’s “Catholic Action League,” alleged that the Knights were acting “treacherously” and that their actions were actually “helping (the activist group) spread their message.”

Doyle said that the Knights were colluding to give cover to the parade’s organizers and Boston’s mayor for the parade’s inclusion of a homosexual advocacy group. He pointed to the fact that the mayor’s hometown of Dorchester was also the town in which the Massachusetts leader of the Knights of Columbus resided.

But CNA’s source said that the allegations were false and that the Knights had not been contacted about the situation or asked for clarification.

“The fact is that Doyle and his group created a scandal,” the source said. “The Knights were marching in defense of the faith, and did not want to leave the parade because they wanted someone in the parade to continue to stand for Church teaching. They believed that pulling out of this parade would abandon it entirely to non-Catholic elements, and that this would not be helpful to the evangelization of the people of Boston.”

“But in the end, Doyle and his group generated so much misinformation and so many attacks that the good the Knights were trying to do was literally overwhelmed by his claims.”

Doyle had encouraged his followers to contact the Knights and complain, and according to one source, many did, with profanity-laced phone calls and social media posts.

“The lack of charity by these people who called themselves Catholics was stunning,” someone who knew several of the Knights receiving the calls told CNA. “And it didn't help that groups like MassResistance and the Michael Voris' Church Militant picked these allegations and ran them uncritically.”

In response, the Massachusetts Knights’ state council released a statement saying that “certain groups have chosen to misrepresent our reason for marching, insisting that we were participating in the parade to support another group or for political reasons. Such allegations are complete fabrications and have no basis in reality whatsoever.”

“Because the parade has become politicized and divisive, and because of the misrepresentation of our motive for participating, we will not be marching in this year’s parade. Instead we invite Catholics to join us in prayer to celebrate St. Patrick during the hours of the parade.”

The statement also said, “The Massachusetts State Council of the Knights of Columbus had planned to march in the 2015 parade … in the belief that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade would be an occasion for unity and celebration in the city of Boston. We deeply regret that some have decided to use this occasion to further the narrow objectives of certain special interests, which has subjected this occasion to undeserved division and controversy.”

One Catholic official in New England suggested that the effect of this campaign could be chilling for any Catholic group trying to evangelize in a public forum.

“What is now clear to Catholics in Boston is that if your strategy for spreading the faith differs from someone like Doyle’s, they will attack you personally, will unleash their angry and uncharitable followers, and won’t let the facts get in the way of their agenda.”

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Pope: 'Grave Sin' When Employers Underpay Workers, Avoid Taxes

Related Stories:

Newsmax Vatican Reporter: The 'Francis Effect' Has Limits

Pope Francis Clarifies His Vision for Church, Synod

Friday, 20 Feb 2015 09:04 PM

By Cathy Burke



Employers who hire workers off the books to avoid paying taxes, Social Security, and a fair wage are committing a "very grave sin," Pope Francis says.

In a homily Friday at the Saint Martha residence in the Vatican where he lives, the Argentine pontiff harshly castigated bosses who attend church but treat their workers poorly, the Gazzetta del Sud reports.

"You cannot make donations to the Church on the back of the injustice that you commit with your employees," the Pope said, the online news site reports.

"Using God to cover injustice is a very grave sin," he said, adding: "If you go to Mass on Sunday and take communion, you should ask: What is the relationship with your employees? Do you pay them off the books? Do you pay them a fair salary? Do you pay the pension contributions?"

Though the Pope has been praised by some for his remarks on homosexuality, abortion, and divorce that appears to signal a more tolerant tone in the Catholic Church, it's a position that has rattled conservatives.

But he has also come under fire from the gay community for criticizing theories that consider people's gender identities to exist along a spectrum, comparing transgender people to "Herods"who "destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation."



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How An Ecclesiastical Hierarchy Silences a Dissenting Movement Using Hegelian Dialectics

Pacing the Opposition

When an ecclesiastical hierarchy wants to silence a dissenting movement, dialectical praxis is often the weapon of choice. For one thing, many dissenters are simple-minded, honest-hearted people, who, when they run up against the dialectic, they are dumbfounded. For one thing, when the hierarchy starts to lay out its case, it will present the thesis, which is what the dissenter believes in heart and soul. The reaction of the dissenters is, “Wonderful!”

The Catatonic Paralysis Shock of Antithesis

Then the hierarchy’s argument shifts to the antithesis, the opposite position from the thesis, and the simple-minded, straight-thinking dissenter, whose mind is not trained in this kind of subtlety, throws up his hands and goes into a catatonic state: “I thought they were on our side, now look at this!” he says in disbelief and moral paralysis.

The Relief Offer of the Compromise Resolution of Synthesis

Then a synthesis of the thesis and antithesis is presented, and the poor, honest-hearted dissenter, seeing ultimate disaster if the antithesis is accepted, seeing utter rejection and scorn ahead if he resists, thankfully accepts the synthesis, a compromise, for he sees elements of what he had hoped for, though it has just as much of what he abhors.

The Switch That Numbs the Mind

The Inducement of the Catatonic State of Moral Paralysis

Dr. Gotcher, commenting on this phenomenon of catatonic paralysis writes: “Hegel’s dialectic was the cause fro two world wars and many wars between and since. One historian recently stated that, during this [20^th] century, all governments that used this process combined have been responsible for the killing of more than 250,000,000 of their own citizens…

The Switch That Freezes Responses

“Somewhere within the process there lies a switch that confuses men’s minds, numbs their feelings, and freezes their responses. Aware that something is gaining control over them and not able to explain or define what it is, they are unable to develop any response that will stop the process. This trigger shuts off man’s awareness of impending danger (past history or depth history; depth perception [note: look at the denial of the Jews during the Holocaust]) and freezes his ability to resist the process (indecision). The numbness one experiences comes from the fear of potential alienation and loss of respect because of the inability to explain the differences between what one says he believes (black and white) and what he does or desires to do (gray zone). This produces feelings that are not based on God’s Word, but that are instead based upon the fear of losing respect in the eyes of others. This kind of fear prevents one from making an immediate or effective response. [Note: This is the catatonic state induced by the dialectic.]  This fear is not from God, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7.

“No one who has boarded this train has found brakes on it. History has shown us that once this train gets rolling, there is no stopping to get off. Rescue can only come from someone outside, at much cost to all. We had to rescue Europe from this train twice, by wrecking it. If we get on board, who can rescue us? And at what cost?” –Dr Dean Gotcher, The Dialectic & Praxis: Diaprax and the End of the Ages. Tulsa: LAR, 1996, p. 10.

Each Dialectical Stage Builds on the Previous One

Then another meeting is scheduled for later, in which the same process occurs, the hopes are raised with the thesis, which is in reality the new synthesis, then dashed with the antithesis, the person goes into a catatonic state again, and while spiritually paralyzed, a solution is offered-namely the new synthesis. Thus each time these Fabian tactics wear down the dissenter a little bit more, until he finally gives up and goes along without resisting.

From Discipleship to Pantheism

Dialectical praxis is designed to take a person who believes in obeying God by faith, and, moving him through various psychological stages, re-educate his conscience, until he ends up as a practical pantheist, accepting every form of perversion there is, in the name of unity with the group.

If you could save your souls, your families, your home churches, you must understand the nature of what you are facing with dialectical praxis, for it is a blast right out of the bottomless pit (Revelation 11), a mind-bending technique that has crumpled nations, churches, and all before it—and you must become a skilled warrior in the Lord to resist it if you would win eternal life.

You Are Not Amenable to Any Man. You are Amenable to God.

Beware of putting church “unity” above a conscience bound to the Word, for this is a fruitful field for those utilizing dialectical praxis. Dialectical praxis subjugates conscience to the authority of the “group” instead of a conscience subject to God alone. “You are not amenable to any man. You are amenable to God.” GCW, GCB, 4-5-01. Never, never, never, allow your conscience to be stifled, mocked, or snuffed out by peer pressure, by pressure for “unity,” or by being attacked for being “unloving” because you hold to moral absolutes on conviction.

The Process of Dialectical Praxis

Here is Diaprax in a nutshell, revealed by Dr. Dean Gotcher, who read over 600 socio-psychology books, written by more than 250 authors, developed from the perspective of those who are trained in it. Night after night, the Lord woke him up with insight after insight at two or three o’clock in the morning. “The answers came from God’s Word,” Gotcher writes, “in fact, this work is nothing more than a confirmation of that Word. His Word clearly reveals the process being used today to remove our desire to trust and obey Him and His Word.” –Dean Gotcher, The Dialectic & Praxis: Diaprax and the End of the Ages, Acknowledgements. After this, we will examine critical elements of this diabolical process.

Diaprax in a Nutshell

(A look at the strategy of the other side to destroy conscience)

(Based on Dr. Dean Gotcher, “Diaprax”)

Thesis Interrogation: “Unfreezing” the person from the Thesis [faith in the authority of God]

Position: Identify person’s source for needs satisfaction. [Note: Pastors in training are taught to identify people’s “felt needs.”]

“What do you think about…? “How do you feel about…?”

Definition: Discover the source of one’s dissatisfaction-Higher Authority. [Note: This is tantamount to Satan’s words, “Yea, hath God said?…]

“Could you explain that further?” “What do you mean by…?”

Choice-Defend your position based on higher authority’s definitions and cause social disharmony (alienation-negative) or redefine your position to build social harmony (belongingness-positive.)

Realization: Maladjustment is when one defends their position with pre-set definitions which cause social disharmony. “How do you think you arrived at that view?” “Why do you think you feel that way?” “Have you considered the alternatives?” In other words, ‘Can’t you think for yourself?’

Antithesis Dialogue: ‘Moving’: (Environment-Group Dynamics)

Negation of Negation: Putting aside pre-set standards (‘Thou shalt not’) in a diverse group produces an environment of equality of opportunity where everyone can discover their full ‘group think,’ socialist potential.

“How might this be approached in another way?” “What are the alternatives to your position?” (What would happen if you refused to participate?)

Chaos: Learning to accept the Gray Zone of the super-ego for the sake of belonging. ‘Most agree…..Most disagree.’ Learning how to redefine your position in changing times for the sake of group acceptance and social harmony.

“What might be the result if…?” “What effect might that have on…?” “What are the consequences?”

Mediation: Evaluation is non-scientific in that it is controlled by the fear of the loss of group approval. One cannot evaluate through compromise based upon fear of social rejection. ‘Is’ has become clouded with ‘should.’“Which is best? Right? Most desirable? Most functional? Most practical?” “Why”

Synthesis Decision: ‘Refreezing’ (Life-long learning-Reinventing truth)

Determination: The individual is now a change agent, determined to help others into the process so he can justify his compromise while developing relationships with them. All who practice the dialectic are out to convert everyone they meet, neutralizing those who resist, and work to remove those who have any type of authority who threaten or attack the process.

Necessity: The group members no longer see themselves subject to any higher authority who attempts to resolve social issues with an ‘I know’ attitude. In fact the social crisis no longer is the issue to be solved but is instead to be used to bring the traditional thinking person into the group think process. Traditional thinking is now the social crisis which needs to be solved for it is not readily adaptable to social change and produces social maladjustment.

Causation: No longer is ‘First Cause’ a higher authority, such as God, parents, the Laws of Nature (true science), the Laws of the Land, but now society is the first cause. Therefore, one’s concern is ‘What will the group (society) think?’ When you meet a ‘Group Think’ individual and present him with Truth and facts, if he does not have the group there to put pressure on you (group dynamics) he will ‘glass over’ to protect himself from you, the truth, and the need to repent of his use of this process.

Dr. Dean Gotcher, Diaprax. Institute for Authority Research.

Dialectical Praxis at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil

Thesis: “Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it…lest ye die.” Genesis 3:3

Thesis Interrogation: “Yea hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Genesis 3:1.

Antithesis: “Ye shall not surely die.” Genesis 3:4. [Opposite of the Thesis]

Synthesis: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis [Supposed Higher Order Thinking Skills-Hots]

Negation of the Negation (Putting aside pre-set standards): “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise [Chaos], she took of the fruit [Moving] thereof, and did eat [Refreezing], and gave also unto her husband with her [Determination: She becomes “converted” change agent seeking to “evangelize” or “convert” others to her new position]: and he did eat [Necessity]…And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God [Causation].

The Science of How Diaprax Works

Thesis Interrogation: “Unfreezing” From the Thesis of “Pre-set” Convictions

The very first work of dialectical praxis is the effort to “unfreeze” you from your “pre-set” principles of conviction. To shake you up is the goal. To prepare the groundwork for this process the person must be “interrogated” regarding their inner thoughts, in order to help the “facilitator” in selecting questions that will most efficiently break down your confidence in your convictions.

An Example: Journaling and “Women’s” Groups

This is why, for instance, the Bible teachers in Structure academies are having their students do journaling. Journaling, promoted by the Jesuits, is a written confessional, giving the teacher tools to undermine conviction by discovering where the student’s gray areas are of doubt. This is why you see “women’s” or “men’s” church groups. The women or men get together and discuss their family and marital difficulties, thus giving church leaders the knowledge of their weak areas, or gray zones, and how to defeat them and “take them out” when a power struggle erupts in the church over new innovations. This happens in marriage counseling and any “conflict resolution” process.

“Unfreezing” By Destroying Confidence in Your Convictions

Those who hold to their “pre-set” convictions are declared to be “unloving,” “maladjusted.” They are denounced as being under a curse because of their “unloving” spirit. Your ideas (which have been formed by the Spirit of God in submission to the Word) are getting in the way of church unity. You are holding the church back from its mission of evangelization. You are standing up against church authority. You are going against the authority of God vested in the church. In the military it would be: “Your convictions regarding the Sabbath would break down all military discipline, and destroy the army.” They tried [unsuccessfully] to use that on many Sabbath keepers in World War II.

Choice

You are presented with the need to decide: Where did you get those ideas from? Will you hold on to convictions that are declared to be outdated, to a concept of the Church that you no longer see anywhere, to ideas that seem not to fit the new environment? Are you going to be the only person who does not go along with the new ideas on the church board, or in the social group, or in basic training? Are you really going to stand up against all the elders and pastors? Are you going to really oppose the entire Christian world, going against governments and church authority (Martin Luther)? Are you really going to resist the Mark of the Beast? Will you make a fool of yourself? Are you going to really stand things on end? What makes you so different?

Thus is the soul assaulted with dialectical praxis.

Antithesis Dialogue: The Negation of the Negation: Negating the “Thou Shalt Nots”

Then the process proceeds to the negation of the negation, getting you to negate “Thou shalt nots,” in an effort to resolve your distress at being different, and to get you to accept a new standard-acceptance by the group instead of conviction based on the Word which puts you at variance with the “group.” Group dynamics are carefully arranged to overwhelm you with an authority and power of your opposition, to attempt to make you look ridiculous because of your ideas, to make you think that you are the only holdout, as you see all around you people crumpling under that assault.

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