Cigar Thoughts, Game 1: Seahawks emerge from the darkness of old to blind Colts with bright vision of the future

Russell Wilson dominates, defense gets timely stops in Seahawks’ 28-16 win over Colts

 

Guest Editorial On Masks, Mandates, and Jesus:

MASKS, NO MASKS, or JESUS? 

By Mike Ryan 

Masks to me are not saviors.  Vaccines are not going to save the world.  If they help, they will only help get us to the next plague.  As a Christian I really do not care about the cloth on your face.  I care about the pride and rebellion that keeps us from wearing something so small.  (I am not speaking about those with special medical conditions, as verified by competent medical professionals. You have a reason to refrain from wearing masks.)  

Many Christians refuse to wear masks for political reasons.  Personal rights and freedoms are more important than lives.  Christians refusing expert medical advice from the majority leaves many within wider society feeling there are more deaths than there should have been.  America, the most medically advanced nation, could have knocked out this virus by April of 2020 and showed the world how it is done.  But, we rebelled.  We argued over whether the virus was real instead of being part of a solution.  We pointed fingers at China instead of getting ahead of the pandemic.  We cared more about where the virus came from, whose fault it was, and whether it was a covert military strike, than we cared for our brothers and sisters dying around us.  

I watched as fellow Christians triviliazed deaths as age or pre-conditions.  Many denied it was actually Covid killing people.  There seems to be no sympathy or compassion for those hurt and dying.  Only screaming preachers, pundits, and politicians  declaring at the top of their lungs that we are sheep and masking is the beginning of communism.  

I DON'T care about your mask.  I care about your heart.  

Jesus said the love of many would grow COLD.  I am seeing this before my eyes.  It is the reason Donald Trump was a train that could not be stopped in 2016. We are filled with anger and frustration.  Ready to bash anything.  Give us a target.  Trump gave us targets daily.  

Now we need something new to be angry at.  We christians could choose to be angry at flesh, sin, satan, death, lost lives, lost souls dying without Christ. Instead we are angry that society asks us to wear cloth over our mouth to save lives.  

Why are we CHRISTians upset about saving lives? Paul circumcised Timothy JUST so they could minister to Jews about Christ. These early Christians loved people so much that they allowed a knife to be put to their manhood; yet we modern Chrisitans cry about a cloth mask with our favorite sports team on it?  

This is why we are hated now by the lost.  Our intolerance and anti-science stance makes us look like fools.  And hateful.  We will be declared 'dangerous' soon because we quite literally help cause death. We spread it willy nilly as its preachers and apostles, and we do not care.  

We could have been done with this pandemic months ago.  Because, as many of us claim...its just a little flu...right? We say 'God is in control'.  Yes He is.  He is the one giving us opportunity to love our neighbors.  An opportunity to preach the Gospel by our actions, to the sick and to the lonely. To show the world how to love each other and show the love of God.  

We could be God's helpers in the eyes of the world, willing to place ourselves in danger to help and love others.  We could be God's hands and feet.  Instead we are too caught up in our freedoms and rights to care about how non-believers see us right now. We fear communism--not God.  

We are losing our Christian witness and have for years.  Do you not understand? The world does NOT see us following Christ. The world sees us as hateful and intolerant--not of sin, but of everyone and everything.  

They do not hear us preaching Jesus to the lost and the hurting.  They hear us preaching "CONSPIRACY!"  "FREEDOM!"  "No-MASKS!"  "No Mandates!"  "Vaccines are the mark!"  "Science lies!"  "Government takeovers!"  "Run for your lives!"  "People are not really dying!"  "Your loved ones were going to die anyways!" "Sheep..You are all Sheep!" (And why should Christians be ashamed to be called sheep anyway? Isn't sheep the bilblical image Christ uses to describe His true followers?)  

Mandates.  There should not have to be mandates for a Christian.  We are to be servants of all for the sake of ministering the Gospel. Christ calls us to gladly walk two miles when the government only asks for one.  

But, that day is gone. Our witness is dying.  We have forgotten that Jesus commands us to act a certain way in front of non-believers.  Because if we act unrighteously, no one will hear a righteous message from us. 

Pope Francis is preparing a radical reform of the church's power structures

NBC News Reporter Triggers Leftists After Brutally on-Point Assessment About Afghanistan Legacy

Chief Justice Roberts's Long, Longer, and Longest Games

I have been saying something eerily similar about Chief Justice John Roberts for a long time. One point this article notes that I had not considered is reading the Chief Justice's concurrence on Citizens United as a template for how he would approach cases like Casey and possibly Roe as well. 

Points to Ponder:

No cigar-smoker ever committed suicide. [William Maginn]

Huge study supporting ivermectin as Covid treatment withdrawn over ethical concerns

As I am seeing some in social media tout Ivermectin for Covid, it is worth pointing out that the study often used to endorse Ivermectin has issues of ethics involved.

Court won’t block order requiring reinstatement of “remain in Mexico” policy

I have been telling folks that complain about SCOTUS procedurals that on merits cases when the rubber meets the road, cases like this will usually be at least 6-3. And when the eviction moratorium issue became a case based on merits rather than procedural, I figured when we got past procedurals and to merits it would go precisely this way. 

SCOTUS also refused to hear a Biden administration plea for reprieve on a district court's order requiring it to reinstate the Trump administration's "remain in Mexico" policy requiring asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while they wait for a hearing in U.S. immigration court. That one was also 6-3. I am not surprised there either. I was kinda amused that DHS vs Regents was cited to bolster the ruling since conservatives whined a lot on the Chief Justice John Roberts rationale there; namely, that the Trump administration had not properly explained its decision to end DACA. Well, the court just struck the Biden administration with the same sword ruling that the Biden administration was unlikely to prevail in court in demonstrating that its decision to end the "stay in Mexico" policy was not "arbitrary and capricious" rather than reasonable and reasonably explained. 

I wonder of those cheering the Chief Justice's application of the Administrative Procedures Act on the Trump administration's attempts to end DACA will be similarly euphoric on Biden's administration getting its wings clipped on its attempts to end the Trump era "stay in Mexico" policy. Or if those booing the DACA case and Chief Justice Roberts on DACA will similarly boo on this one. In neither case is that likely since the hyper partisans among us are rarely consistent and non-hypocritical. But I digress. 

Guess who may be the last hope for Roe v Wade

I do not see either Roberts nor Kavanaugh going against gutting Casey's undue burden criteria. Whether they would overturn Roe is another issue but Roe is a toothless symbol now. The power is in Casey and the lynchpin to Casey is undue burden. 

Chief Justice Roberts in a dissent from the 2020 term more or less laid out for the right the way to go about this and it is by going after the undue burden doctrine. Will the right finally get a clue and do this or will they continue to beclown themselves by wasting time and energy on Roe for a symbolic "gotcha" more likely to blow up in their face than not? 

Ignore Roe, focus on Casey, and aim at undermining undue burden or getting it clarified to where it is so strict it is functionally next to useless. That is the smart way to play chess on this. 

Vaccine Refusers Risk Compassion Fatigue

Points to Ponder:

Demoralized and overmastered people think
The quickest way to end a war is lose
Dictatorship ends starting with tyrannicide
You must destroy the cancer at its root. [Dave Mustaine]

Op-Ed: As a doctor in a COVID unit, I’m running out of compassion for the unvaccinated. Get the shot

Between the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the news surrounding Cardinal Burke's battle with covid, I have been delayed on responding to Traditionis Custodes. I am simply not in the mood at the moment. I will however eventually get to it even if I am not at the moment sure when.

Report: Seahawks, Jamal Adams agree to contract extension

Miscellaneous Musings:

(On the Fall of Kabul)

This is a combination of scattered points I made on social media over the past day...

--At least the ARVN held out for two years after we left Saigon, the Afghans did not even make it to Summerslam.

--Well we might as well burn the opium fields in Afghanistan and salt the earth afterward now since the old "if we destroy the fields the farmers will just align with the Taliban" argument is no longer valid.

--It is hard to find a silver lining to Kabul but I will try nonetheless. Here goes...

The disaster in Afghanistan and the Kabul 2021 repeat of Saigon 1975 will hopefully turn the public away from prolonged foreign military adventurism for at least a generation.

This might also mean that Bill Kristol and others of his outlook ultimately become depressed and commit seppuku but such would benefit the common good of society in general at this point.

--Haiti or Afghanistan? Suddenly Haiti has an "at least I am not them" situation.

Points to Ponder:

With respect also to spiritual sloth, beginners are apt to be irked by the things that are most spiritual, from which they flee because these things are incompatible with sensible pleasure. For, as they are so much accustomed to sweetness in spiritual things, they are wearied by things in which they find no sweetness. [St. John of the Cross: Excerpt from The Dark Night of the Soul on Spiritual Sloth, Book I (circa ante-1582)]

Letter from Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
(Part III of III)

Part II is viewable HERE
Part I is viewable HERE

3. Specifically, what do We ask of you?

A.—First and foremost, a declaration that will rectify matters for Ourself and also for the people of God who have a right to clarity and who can no longer bear without damage such equivocations.

This declaration will therefore have to affirm that you sincerely adhere to the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and to all its documents—sensu obvio—which were adopted by the Council fathers and approved and promulgated by Our authority. For such an adherence has always been the rule, in the Church, since the beginning, in the matter of ecumenical councils.

It must be clear that you equally accept the decisions that We have made since the Council in order to put it into effect, with the help of the departments of the Holy See; among other things, you must explicitly recognize the legitimacy of the reformed liturgy, notably of the Ordo Missae, and our right to require its adoption by the entirety of the Christian people.

You must also admit the binding character of the rules of canon law now in force which, for the greater part, still correspond with the content of the Code of Canon Law of Benedict XV, without excepting the part which deals with canonical penalties.

As far as concerns Our person, you will make a point of desisting from and retracting the grave accusations or insinuations which you have publicly leveled against Us, against the orthodoxy of Our faith and Our fidelity to Our charge as the successor of Peter, and against Our immediate collaborators.

With regard to the bishops, you must recognize their authority in their respective dioceses by abstaining from preaching in those dioceses and administering the sacraments there: the Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders, etc., when these bishops expressly object to your doing so.

Finally, you must undertake to abstain from all activities (such as conferences, publications, etc.) contrary to this declaration, and formally to reprove all those initiatives which may make use of your name in the face of this declaration.

It is a question here of the minimum to which every Catholic bishop must subscribe: this adherence can tolerate no compromise. As soon as you show Us that you accept its principle, We will propose the practical manner of presenting this declaration. This is the first condition in order that the suspension a divinis be lifted.

B.—It will then remain to solve the problem of your activity, of your works, and notably of your seminaries. You will appreciate, brother, that in view of the past and present irregularities and ambiguities affecting these works, We cannot go back on the juridical suppression of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X. This has inculcated a spirit of opposition to the Council and to its implementation such as the Vicar of Christ was endeavoring to promote.

Your declaration of November 21, 1974, bears witness to this spirit; and upon such a foundation, as Our commission of cardinals rightly judged, on May 6, 1975, one cannot build an institution or a priestly formation in conformity with the requirements of the Church of Christ. This in no way invalidates the good element in your seminaries, but one must also take into consideration the ecclesiological deficiencies of which We have spoken and the capacity of exercising a pastoral ministry in the Church of today. Faced with these unfortunately mixed realities, We shall take care not to destroy but to correct and to save as far as possible.

This is why, as supreme guarantor of the faith and of the formation of the clergy, We require you first of all to hand over to Us the responsibility of your work, and particularly for your seminaries. This is undoubtedly a heavy sacrifice for you, but it is also a test of your trust, of your obedience and it is a necessary condition in order that these seminaries, which have no canonical existence in the Church, may in the future take their place therein.

It is only after you have accepted the principle that We shall be able to provide in the best possible way for the good of all the persons involved, with the concern for promoting authentic priestly vocations and with respect for the doctrinal, disciplinary and pastoral requirements of the church. At that stage, We shall be in a position to listen with benevolence to your requests and your wishes and, together with Our departments, to take in conscience the right and opportune measures.

As for the illicitly ordained seminarians, the sanctions which they have incurred in conformity with Canon 985, 7 and 2374 can be lifted, if they give proof of a return to a better frame of mind, notably by accepting to subscribe to the declaration which We have asked of you. We count upon your sense of the Church in order to make this step easy for them.

As regards the foundations, houses of formation, “priories” and various other institutions set up on your initiative or with your encouragement, We likewise ask you to hand them over to the Holy See, which will study their position, in its various aspects, with the local episcopate. Their survival, organization and apostolate will be subordinated, as is normal throughout the Catholic Church, to an agreement which will have to be reached, in each case, with the local bishop—nihil sine Episcopo—and in a spirit which respects the declaration mentioned above.

All the points which figure in this letter and to which We have given mature consideration, in consultation with the heads of the departments concerned, have been adopted by Us only out of regard for the greater good of the church. You said to Us during our conversation of September 11: “I am ready for anything, for the good of the church.” The response now lies in your hands.

If you refuse—quod Deus avertat—to make the declaration which is asked of you, you will remain suspended a divinis. On the other hand, Our pardon and the lifting of the suspension will be assured you to the extent to which you sincerely and without ambiguity undertake to fulfill the conditions of this letter and to repair the scandal caused. The obedience and the trust of which you will give proof will also make it possible for Us to study serenely with you your personal problems.

May the Holy Spirit enlighten you and guide you towards the only solution that would enable you on the one hand to rediscover the peace of your momentarily misguided conscience but also to ensure the good of souls, to contribute to the unity of the Church which the Lord has entrusted to Our charge and to avoid the danger of a schism.

In the psychological state in which you find yourself, We realize that it is difficult for you to see clearly and very hard for you humbly to change your line of conduct: is it not therefore urgent, as in all such cases, for you to arrange a time and a place of recollection which will enable you to consider the matter with the necessary objectivity?

Fraternally, We put you on your guard against the pressures to which you could be exposed from those who wish to keep you in an untenable position, while We Ourself, all your brothers in the episcopate and the vast majority of the faithful await finally from you that ecclesial attitude which would be to your honor.

In order to root out the abuses which we all deplore and to guarantee a true spiritual renewal, as well as the courageous evangelization to which the Holy Spirit bids us, there is needed more than ever the help and commitment to the entire ecclesial community around the pope and the bishops. Now the revolt of one side finally reaches and risks accentuating the insubordination of what you have called the “subversion” of the other side; while, without your own insubordination, you would have been able, brother, as you expressed the wish in your last letter, to help Us, in fidelity and under Our authority, to work for the advancement of the Church.

Therefore, dear brother, do not delay any longer in considering before God, with the keenest religious attention, this solemn adjuration of the humble but legitimate successor of Peter. May you measure the gravity of the hour and take the only decision that befits a son of the Church. This is Our hope, this is Our prayer.

From the Vatican, October 11, 1976.

PAULUS PP. VI

Letter from Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre:
(Part II of III)

Part I is viewable HERE

Tradition is not a rigid and dead notion, a fact of a certain static sort which at a given moment of history blocks the life of this active organism which is the Church, that is, the mystical body of Christ. It is up to the pope and to councils to exercise judgment in order to discern in the traditions of the Church that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit—the deposit of faith—and that which, on the contrary, can and must be adapted to facilitate the prayer and the mission of the Church throughout a variety of times and places, in order better to translate the divine message into the language of today and better to communicate it, without an unwarranted surrender of principles.

Hence tradition is inseparable from the living magisterium of the Church, just as it is inseparable from sacred scripture. “Sacred tradition, sacred scripture and the magisterium of the church. . . . are so linked and joined together that one of these realities cannot exist without the others, and that all of them together, each in its own way, effectively contribute under the action of the Holy Spirit to the salvation of souls” (Constitution Dei Verbum, 10).

With the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, the popes and the ecumenical councils have acted in this common way. And it is precisely this that the Second Vatican Council did. Nothing that was decreed in this Council, or in the reforms that we enacted in order to put the Council into effect, is opposed to what the 2,000 year-old tradition of the Church considers as fundamental and immutable. We are the guarantor of this, not in virtue of Our personal qualities but in virtue of the charge which the Lord has conferred upon Us as legitimate successor of Peter, and in virtue of the special assistance that He has promised to Us as well as to Peter: “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail” (Lk 22:32). The universal episcopate is guarantor with us of this.

Again, you cannot appeal to the distinction between what is dogmatic and what is pastoral to accept certain texts of this Council and to refuse others. Indeed, not everything in the Council requires an assent of the same nature: only what is affirmed by definitive acts as an object of faith or as a truth related to faith requires an assent of faith. But the rest also forms part of the solemn magisterium of the Church to which each member of the faithful owes a confident acceptance and a sincere application.

You say moreover that you do not always see how to reconcile certain texts of the Council, or certain dispositions which We have enacted in order to put the Council into practice, with the wholesome tradition of the Church and in particular with the Council of Trent or the affirmations of Our predecessors. These are for example: the responsibility of the college of bishops united with the sovereign pontiff, the new Ordo Missae, ecumenism, religious freedom, the attitude of dialogue, evangelization in the modern world…

It is not the place, in this letter, to deal with each of these problems. The precise tenor of the documents, with the totality of its nuances and its context, the authorized explanations, the detailed and objective commentaries which have been made, are of such a nature to enable you to overcome these personal difficulties. Absolutely secure counselors, theologians and spiritual directors would be able to help you even more, with God’s enlightenment, and We are ready to facilitate this fraternal assistance for you.

But how can an interior personal difficulty—a spiritual drama which We respect—permit you to set yourself up publicly as a judge of what has been legitimately adopted, practically with unanimity, and knowingly to lead a portion of the faithful into your refusal? If justifications are useful in order to facilitate intellectual acceptance—and We hope that the troubled or reticent faithful will have the wisdom, honesty and humanity to accept those justifications that are widely placed at their disposal—they are not in themselves necessary for the assent of obedience that is due to the Ecumenical Council and to the decisions of the pope. It is the ecclesial sense that is at issue.

In effect you and those who are following you are endeavoring to come to a standstill at a given moment in the life of the Church. By the same token you refuse to accept the living Church, which is the Church that has always been: you break with the Church’s legitimate pastors and scorn the legitimate exercise of their charge. And so you claim not even to be affected by the orders of the pope, or by the suspension a divinis, as you lament “subversion” in the Church.

Is it not in this state of mind that you have ordained priests without dimissorial letters and against Our explicit command, thus creating a group of priests who are in an irregular situation in the Church and who are under grave ecclesiastical penalties? Moreover, you hold that the suspension that you have incurred applies only to the celebration of the sacraments according to the new rite, as if they were something improperly introduced into the Church, which you go so far as to call schismatic, and you think that you evade this sanction when you administer the sacraments according to the formulas of the past and against the established norms (cf. 1 Cor 14:40).

From the same erroneous conception springs your abuse of celebrating Mass called that of Saint Pius V. You know full well that this rite had itself been the result of successive changes, and that the Roman Canon remains the first of the eucharistic prayers authorized today.

The present reform derived its raison d’être and its guidelines from the Council and from the historical sources of the liturgy. It enables the laity to draw greater nourishment from the word of God. Their more active participation leaves intact the unique role of the priest acting in the person of Christ. We have sanctioned this reform by Our authority, requiring that it be adopted by all Catholics.

If, in general, We have not judged it good to permit any further delays or exceptions to this adoption, it is with a view to the spiritual good and the unity of the entire ecclesiastical community, because, for Catholics of the Roman Rite, the Ordo Missae is a privileged sign of their unity. It is also because, in your case, the old rite is in fact the expression of a warped ecclesiology, and a ground for dispute with the Council and its reforms under the pretext that in the old rite alone are preserved, without their meaning being obscured, the true sacrifice of the Mass and the ministerial priesthood.

We cannot accept this erroneous judgment, this unjustified accusation, nor can We tolerate that the Lord’s Eucharist, the sacrament of unity, should be the object of such divisions (cf. I Cor 11:18), and that it should even be used as an instrument and sign of rebellion.

Of course there is room in the church for a certain pluralism, but in licit matters and in obedience. This is not understood by those who refuse the sum total of the liturgical reform; nor indeed on the other hand by those who imperil the holiness of the real presence of the Lord and of his sacrifice. In the same way there can be no question of a priestly formation which ignores the Council.

We cannot therefore take your requests into consideration, because it is a question of acts which have already been committed in rebellion against the one true Church of God.  Be assured that this severity is not dictated by a refusal to make a concession on such and such a point of discipline or liturgy, but, given the meaning and the extent of your acts in the present context, to act thus would be on Our part to accept the introduction of a seriously erroneous concept of the church and of tradition. This is why, with the full consciousness of Our duties, We say to you, brother, that you are in error. And with the full ardor oimf Our fraternal love, as also with all the weight of Our authority as the successor of Peter, We invite you to retract, to correct yourself and to cease from inflicting wounds upon the Church of Christ.

To be continued...