CatCandyHearts

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Keith went to church yesterday. Inside the church, during the service.

The churchyard he has done many times, on his usual east-to-west grid, a standing Sunday booking the Reverend makes and Steve objects to on principle. Yesterday he did the churchyard, and then, with the east section tidy and the morning still young, he found the south porch propped open for the early service and went in.

The ten o'clock was, by the time Keith arrived in the nave, approximately at the second hymn.

Accounts vary on the exact moment the congregation noticed. Most agree it was during "All Things Bright and Beautiful," which several present later judged poorly timed. By the third verse there was an Anglo-Nubian goat standing in the centre aisle, assessing the building with the calm professional eye of a surveyor who has been called in about damp.

He did not panic. A church is, to Keith, simply a large stone field with excellent acoustics and an unusual quantity of flowers. He worked it methodically. He sampled the arrangement on the south windowsill, found it acceptable, and moved on. He considered the green altar frontal at length and, to the visible relief of the churchwardens, declined it. He ate precisely one rose, thorns and all, from a pedestal near the font, the way a man tries a single olive at a party to confirm a suspicion about the host.

The Reverend, to his enormous credit, did not stop the service. When the hymn reached "all creatures great and small," he gave the smallest nod toward the goat in the aisle, and the congregation, being rural and unsurprised by very much, sang on. Mrs Pelham, eighty-one, in the second pew, reached out and scratched Keith behind the ears as he passed. Keith permitted it. Keith permits very little. Mrs Pelham has dined out on it all weekend.

Steve was in the fourth pew. Steve and Keith made eye contact. Nothing was said, because nothing is ever said, but a great deal was understood. Steve did not sing the rest of the hymn.

Keith left during the notices, which is when most of the congregation would have left if they could, and was found by Dave in the lane outside, eating cow parsley, with the unhurried air of an animal who has done a thorough job and is ready for his lift.

Dave's log, Sunday: "He got into the church. I do not want to discuss how. The Reverend says he is welcome any time, which I am fairly sure was a joke. I have written it in the Ecclesiastical column regardless, in case it was not."

The flowers are tidy.

The roses are down one.

The Reverend has Dave's number, and now, apparently, an open invitation.

Keith is thinking about Harvest.

[Tim Burchett @timburchett]

National media you missed this.

[Michael Mattox - The Mad Ox @TheRealMadOx]

Your Holiness, that sounds noble, until we remember history. The Catholic Church has spent over a century condemning socialism as incompatible with human dignity, private property, and the Gospel. Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum called the socialist seizure of goods 'utterly rejected' and contrary to natural rights. Pius XI declared no one can be 'a good Catholic and a true socialist.' Yet here we are with vague calls for redistribution that echo every failed leftist experiment: envy dressed as justice, zero-sum thinking that shrinks the pie instead of growing it.

Extreme poverty hasn't been 'solved' by moral exhortations from pulpits or politicians, it's been crushed by free markets, property rights, innovation, and trade. Since 1990, capitalism lifted over a billion people out of destitution worldwide. Billions more escaped through the very systems you and your predecessor love to call an 'economy that kills' or a 'dictatorship.' Meanwhile, every socialist paradise, from the Soviet Union to Venezuela to Mao's China, delivered mass graves, bread lines, and gulags while the ruling elite lived in actual bubbles of luxury.

The irony is blinding. The Vatican sits on billions in art, real estate, gold, and investments, priceless treasures hoarded while lecturing the world on sharing. If 'equitable distribution' is so urgent and 'solvable,' why not lead by example? Sell the Sistine Chapel frescoes, auction the papal jewels, liquidate the papal investments, and wire the proceeds to the poor. Practice what you preach instead of demanding others (especially productive taxpayers and entrepreneurs) fund your vision through coercive state power.

Christianity calls for personal charity, voluntary sacrifice, hard work, and subsidiarity, not class warfare, centralized planning, or the state as savior. 'Those who don't work shouldn't eat' (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The preferential option for the poor is real, but it doesn't mean turning the Church into a mouthpiece for failed 20th-century ideologies that have killed more people than any other in history.

Focus on saving souls, not engineering outcomes. The road to hell is paved with 'equitable' intentions, and the Vatican has no divine right to pave it for the rest of us.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

Your Holiness, as a cradle Catholic and devout follower of the Church, respectfully, can you please tell me:

1. How does your post comport with the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Just War?

2. Would you have condemned the Centurion? (Luke 7:1-10).

3. Was the USA wrong for liberating Nazi concentration camps in World War II?

I know you have millions of followers and likely will never even see this, but if you somehow do read what I wrote, please know that there are literally millions of American Roman Catholics (and American Christians from other denominations) who are deeply puzzled by your comments and would appreciate an explanation.

[CatCandyHearts @CatCandyHearts]

@dbongino I support President Donald J. Trump.

[CatCandyHearts @CatCandyHearts]

@aaronburnett @elonmusk This is an appalling future…

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

We had a good thing, Britain.

A really good thing.

You taught us this game. Mahan studied you. We just wrote bigger checks.

The deal was simple. We spend the trillions. Fight the hard wars. We even let you sit out Vietnam. And you? You hold the chokepoints you already own. You run Lloyd’s. Ships in the narrows, insurance on the hulls.

That’s all you had to do and we would back your interests with the strongest military and financial markets in the world.

That was the deal.

Now look at you.

You gave up Aden. Fine. You kept Diego Garcia so we could reach it with bombers. Now you’re giving that away too. To a Chinese client state.

You built Israel to guard Suez. Now your Foreign Secretary threatens to arrest their PM.

You built a base nearby to back it up. Iran hit your base in Cyprus. You didn’t have one warship in the Mediterranean. Spain got there first. Spain.

You gave up Hong Kong but backed Taiwan. Now you’re letting China build the largest embassy in Europe on top of London’s fiber-optic cables. We gave you Five Eyes. You gave Beijing a SIGINT platform in the heart of the City.

Gibraltar. Three hundred years. Actual sieges. Now the Spanish run your border checks.

You lost South Africa but kept the Falklands so we can overfly the Magellan Strait. Argentina could probably take that with rowboats today.

Your king kept ownership of the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand navies to fill the gaps. Those navies are now a laughing stock.

Your warships and bombers patrolled the GIUK gap. Now you don’t have enough but you also don’t want us buying Greenland. Fine. You do it. With what?

We gave London the @IMOHQ to regulate shipping, you backed the EU agenda to carbon tax every ship to build woke UN slush fund.

Iran closed Hormuz. In the ‘80s, 540 ships got hit. Lloyd’s never blinked. Because your navy was there. Now Lloyd’s cancels. Because it isn’t.

You scrapped your only amphibious ships. Sold them. To Brazil. You have more admirals than warships.

You built two light carriers but they keep springing leaks and you don’t have enough escort ships to support them.

The English Channel. Stopped Napoleon. Stopped Hitler. Now you can’t stop rubber dinghies.

You had one job.

Have the warships, diplomatic backbone and insurance to support shipping through the straits.

That’s it. That’s all we asked.

And you blew it. Chokepoint by chokepoint. Called it progress.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Now hundreds of ships are stuck in the Persian Gulf and the world is blaming us.

But that’s ok. All those solar panels you bought from China will keep you warm in that dreary weather I guess.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 BREAKING: President Trump is now saying “TRUCKLOADS” of evidence will be coming out proving the 2020 election was rigged

“We have all the ammunition, all the stuff, and you'll see it come out. It's coming out in truckloads.” https://t.co/eXJg57TXnp

Trump’s DOJ is also now suing FULTON COUNTY, GA over 2020 records.

“California more than any other place is so rigged. It's such a rigged election — If the vote in California was legitimate, which it's not, they have 38 million ballots. Everything is mail-in voting.”

If there’s NOTHING TO HIDE, it should ALL be released.

[Robert Davi @RobertJohnDavi]

For Charlie Kirk ! And all who love Freedom , America and a Moral Civilized Country and World - In GOD'S Hands now

[James Woods @RealJamesWoods]

Hey, all. I usually don’t ask anything of my friends on X, even my website is free. But if you could post this link to your X followers, it could make a big difference. Thank you in advance! https://t.co/4l4qMr6BXl

[CatCandyHearts @CatCandyHearts]

@DBrodyReports 🙏

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

This is insanely hardcore

[CatCandyHearts @CatCandyHearts]

@LibTearCreator1 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[Thomas Hern @ThomasMHern]

Former NH Governor Chris Sununu just completely destroyed Anderson Cooper in a back and forth about Elon Musk and DOGE.

Cooper responded by angrily telling Sununu to not be a "d*ck" on live tv.

Children are watching CNN right now and the face of their network just lost it. WOW.

[CatCandyHearts @CatCandyHearts]

@WatchSalemNews @hughhewitt @PlutoTV @SamsungTVPlus There are other host’s shows on your App which has been my access to your show for several years. Hopefully, you will be back on the App exclusively tomorrow. You might have Dwayne make sure this is the case ;)

[Daily Caller @DailyCaller]

The oldest members of the United States House of Representatives currently 👇

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

LGBTQ Community In DC Flocks To Hot New Gay Nightclub https://t.co/4gORjSFs1T

[Dan Crenshaw @DanCrenshawTX]

America: right now there is a private effort to get a plane of US citizens and allies out of Afghanistan. They need @SecBlinken to help get clearance to land in a nearby country.

Biden’s State Department is refusing to actively assist.

Their response: “just tell them to ask.”