Andre van Heerden

Leadership Coach and Author, ex-teacher, soldier, adman, into history, philosophy, & classic literature.

[Lila Rose @LilaGraceRose]

This is one of the most impactful speeches delivered by the Pope.

He just received a 7-minute standing ovation for affirming the dignity of human life, from the moment of conception to natural death, in front of the Spanish Parliament

"The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization."

"Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?"

Watch.

[Fox News @FoxNews]

A newly released 200-page report is putting Minnesota’s top Democrats under intense scrutiny.

The report alleges Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison were aware of major fraud concerns tied to programs like Feeding Our Future as far back as 2020, but failed to act on warning signs and, in some cases, retaliated against whistleblowers.

It also claims state officials worried that aggressively pursuing fraud investigations could trigger accusations of racism, @ChadPergram reports

Stop scrolling for updates and turn on live alerts. Get FOX One and get the facts.

https://t.co/sGGmtAeG3L

[Glenn Beck @glennbeck]

It has been almost A WEEK since California’s primary “ended." The votes are still rolling in and guess what? They're heavily favoring the Democrats! Who could have seen that coming?

And California officials actually had the gall to ask us to be patient because this is "normal" for their elections. No, California, NOTHING about how you handle your elections is NORMAL.

You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to smell the rot here. At the least, this is the appearance of corruption. And when it comes to our elections, appearance is EVERYTHING.

Voting is built on trust: Trust that the dead aren’t suddenly voting. Trust that a van with thousands of ballots doesn’t show up overnight and swing the election one way. Trust that non-citizens aren’t casting votes that are being counted.

Trump was right to demand transparency. But BOTH sides should be just as furious.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The magnitude & brazen nature of the government payment fraud is staggering

[Dr. Abby Johnson @AbbyJohnson]

I used to believe in birth control as a means to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, but I changed my mind. Here’s why.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae and was mocked for it. He saw exactly where we were headed.

He predicted that widespread contraception would open the door to more infidelity, a lowering of moral standards, and men viewing women as something to use instead of someone to honor and protect. This is what happens when we separate sex from commitment and from the possibility of life.⁠
⁠​
Contraception didn’t reduce abortion; it helped build the mindset that made abortion inevitable and provided another opportunity to profit off women’s bodies.

When society is told that it is possible have sex without consequences, the baby is viewed as a failure.

A child is not a failure. We shouldn’t be surprised that a child results from a procreative act. 

We fail ourselves by dividing sex from the goodness God created it for.⁠​ We fail our children by viewing them as accidents.

[dejanira @dejanirasilveir]

🚨💥SE PRENDIÓ BERLIN 🔥ALEMANIA 🇩🇪 HA DESPERTADO 🔥

¡Miles de patriotas alemanes han tomado las calles en una de las protestas más grandes, "1 Millón de personas"! 🔥

Exigen un cambio de gobierno, que ha destruido Alemania a través de la migración masiva y la financiación de guerras extranjeras.

No lo verás en los medios de comunicación COMPARTE por todas partes 🔥

[Gad Saad @GadSaad]

Thoughts?

[Historic Hub @HistoricHub]

One of the most breathtaking train rides in the world.
The Bernina Express travels from Chur, Switzerland to Tirano, Italy on the Rhaetian Railway. It crosses 196 bridges and 55 tunnels, climbs over the Bernina Pass, and then descends into Italy

[Today in History @TodayinHistory]

George Orwell’s 1984 was published today in 1949.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

[ThinkingWest @thinkingwest]

In 1942, C.S. Lewis predicted a future dystopia where:

-Education is leveled to a mediocre state to avoid hurt feelings
-The middle class is hollowed out, removing the primary champions of private excellence
-"Avoiding trauma" becomes the excuse to stop pushing students to their full potential

The obsession with perfect equality ends up destroying human greatness — and it’s fueled by state education, where schools become more like nurseries than academic institutions.

Seems like Lewis’s dystopia is already here.

[Dr. Maalouf ‏ @realMaalouf]

This is how Lebanon went from being a prosperous Christian nation to being ruled by Muslims. Pay close attention!

“As Christians, we opened our doors to Muslims, and welcomed them into our country. We wanted to be inclusive and even made them part of the government.

But due to having several wives and many children, Muslims became the majority. Once they were the majority, they thought they could do whatever they wanted, and began massacring the Christians who welcomed them.”

[Fox News @FoxNews]

More than a million people packed the streets of Madrid to catch a glimpse of Pope Leo XIV.

Aerial footage shows massive crowds lining the Spanish capital as the pope rode through the city in the popemobile before celebrating Mass in Cibeles Square.

Before the service, Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida presented him with the city's gold medal at City Hall.

[Rae ❤️‍🔥 @FiatLuxGenesis]

Your ancestors who built the West were not evil nor privileged.

They built civilization from the ashes. The philosophy of ancient Greece, the law and statesmanship of the Roman Empire, and the love of Christ.

For hundreds of years while barbarians swarmed Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, a remnant of Christians held onto mere rocky shores & islands off the coasts of Ireland. The craftsman in bands of men wandering the European landscape kept some semblance of a portable culture.

They were far from privileged. They persevered. They converted the barbarians or defeated them.

All civilization is born in war.
Your ancestors fought to survive because they fought for something that most people today cannot understand: Honor, duty, God.

We live in the shadow of their greatness.

The birth of Christendom. A flourishing of a beautiful culture: art, architecture, music born in this civilization.

No, they were not evil.

They worked. They earned. They built.

Evil is seen today in those who believe they have the right to destroy this civilization built by the sweat and glory of greater men.

Real privilege is sitting on an iPhone, attending a university, and calling for the destruction of a civilization that you didn't do anything to build.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who create and build.
And those who destroy what greater men built.

Tolerance of destruction is not a virtue. Cowardice is a vice.

Stop tolerating your replacement and destruction. It is your right to defend what your ancestors built. They were not evil. They were not privileged.

They were determined and courageous and were able to hew a life from the wilderness.

It is right and just to defend, fight, and restore what was built on the foundations of Christ.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Once voting is this fraudulent, they can get whatever outcome they want, making a sham of democracy

[Papa León XIV @Pontifex_es]

Toda sociedad auténticamente justa se edifica sobre el reconocimiento de la dignidad inviolable de la persona humana. Tal dignidad precede a toda concesión del Estado y no puede quedar subordinada a consensos sociales mudables: pertenece a todo ser humano por el hecho mismo de existir, y por eso debe orientar todo ordenamiento jurídico positivo. Cuando esta convicción permanece viva, el derecho se convierte en amparo de todos y en garantía frente a la imposición de intereses y agendas particulares. #ViajeApostolico
https://t.co/uVvDEJmsuk

[Mark W. @DurhamWASP]

“They… arrive to a red carpet of legal privileges, eagerly unrolled by publicly funded lawyers, and to a welcome trough of welfare benefits that few indigenous citizens can claim…”

Sir Roger Scruton

[La Sagrada Família @sagradafamilia]

El pròxim dia 10 de juny a l'interior de la Basílica se celebrarà la missa solemne amb motiu del centenari de la mort d’Antoni Gaudí, oficialitzada pel Papa Lleó XIV i concelebrada pels Cardenals i per Bisbes i Preveres, acompanyats de músics i corals de tot Catalunya que ompliran l’interior amb el seu cant. La seva presència oferirà a l’acte una dimensió única i excepcional i el situarà com un dels moments més destacats de la història recent de la Sagrada Família.

[Papa León XIV @Pontifex_es]

El corazón humano no se colma acumulando experiencias, posibilidades o seguridades temporales; se colma cuando descubre una llamada, cuando comprende que la vida llega a plenitud sólo si es donada. Seguir a Cristo no empobrece la existencia, sino que la expande. #ViajeApostolico

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The reason ID is banned in California (and New York) elections is to enable large-scale fraud.

When you combine no ID and mail-in voting, fraud is de facto legalized.

[Paulina Guzik @Guzik_Paulina]

In what will certainly become one of the most fundamental speeches of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV told the Spanish Parliament, before receiving a 7-minute standing ovation: "The defense of human life is neither a partisan issue nor a confessional interest: it is a goal of civilization."

"If life ceases to be recognized as a fundamental value, what future can our societies have?" he said, speaking to a gathering of politicians, many supporting abortion and euthanasia.

"Can a community that casts into the shadows the unborn child, the elderly, the sick, those who suffer in silence, or those who depend entirely on the care of others be called fully just?"

"Every human life must be recognized and safeguarded from conception to its natural end, in every circumstance of its existence. When this certainty is obscured, the most vulnerable are the first victims, and the law loses its deepest meaning: to serve and protect every person."

"For this reason, the moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile," he said, repeating what John Paul II emphasized decades ago.

Starting his speech he commented that Church's is the "message offered in the spirit of service to the human person."

"When the Church addresses anything concerning public life, she does so while respecting the proper mission of institutions and the legitimate responsibility of those who have received the mandate to legislate," Pope Leo said, emphasizing "the Church offers a reflection born of the desire to serve the common good."

He hailed Spain as country that "has known how to view the human being as more than just a cog in the social, economic or political order. It has recognized the human being as a creature open to truth, endowed with freedom, and driven by a thirst for eternity that no temporal reality can quench -- in a word, as someone whose dignity takes precedence over all utility and to whose service legislative action is subject."

He said it was Catholic orders that "helped to shape a legal and moral consciousness capable of remembering that authority always entails responsibility and that every human being must be recognized as a subject of rights and duties."

"That aspiration continues to resonate today: that dignity, justice and the common good should be the measure of social relations, both at the national and international levels."

Referring multiple times to his "Magnifica Humanitas" encyclical, he said: "When the common good ceases to be a shared horizon, public action runs the risk of fragmenting into partial interests, incapable of safeguarding what belongs to all."

"In this context, the family — the primary human reality and the natural foundation of the community — takes on particular importance," Pope Leo said.

"The family will always be the first school of humanity, where one learns, before anywhere else, the basic grammar of living together: welcoming life, caring for others, forgiving, serving and belonging."

"Human life can never be treated as a commodity," the pope said.

"A law does not attain its true greatness merely by having been formally enacted; it attains it when, in addition to being valid in form, it can stand before the dignity of the person and pass that test without shame."

"I invite you, then, to lift your gaze to the world around you, not to turn away from reality, but to remember that every decision by public authorities affects real people, especially those who have less power to make their voices heard."

"The expanse of one’s vision consists precisely in looking more deeply at what is at stake in every public decision. This is why, alongside technical solutions and legal reforms, a moral renewal is also needed."

Video: Vatican Media
(fragment of speech follows)