“To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments.
It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity.
To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.”
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (par. 120) (May 15, 2026)
The Papacy is still standing. The following monarchs who went after the pope had their dynasties eventually evaporate:
Henry IV of Fr. (1050–1106), Henry V (1086–1125), Lothair III (1075–1137), Conrad III (1093–1152), Frederick I Barbarossa (1122–1190), Henry II of England (1133–1189), Frederick II (1194–1250), Philip IV of France (1268–1314), Louis IV of Bavaria (1282–1347), Sigismund (1368–1437), Louis XII of France (1462–1515), Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516), Charles V (1500–1558), Francis I of France (1494–1547), Henry VIII (1491–1547), Philip II of Spain (1527–1598), Elizabeth I (1533–1603), Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632), Leopold I (1640–1705), Louis XIV (1638–1715), Joseph II (1741–1790), Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), Wilhelm II (1859–1941)..
Pope Leo XIV’s Vatican newspaper is the only publication in the Western world to run the photograph of 150 Iranian girls' graves — killed in President Trump's military strikes — on its front page.
It is astounding how much spittle-flecked rage you can generate simply by saying that a war should not be started without proper legal authorization and unless there is concrete and realistic plan for ensuring that you don’t make things worse for populations of innocent civilians
It is so satisfying that the central figure behind the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Thomas Pritzker, has resigned over his Epstein ties. Evil is what evil does. Demonic people behind demonic architecture.
It has become apparent that many Catholics are simply not familiar with their own tradition, and have also completely forgotten the Day of Judgment.
Just because something is not enforced here and now does not mean it is not a true law, grounded in divine and natural law, which will ultimately be enforced by the King of kings. Have they not read God’s consistent warnings to rulers who rule unjustly? Their day will come, no matter what nation they come from. Not one bit of injustice in this world will go unpunished, just as not one bit of true justice will go unrewarded.
To argue that something cannot be a law simply because it does not have an immediate temporal enforcement shows a flattening, a naturalizing, a de-supernaturalizing of belief in the apostate “west.” It shows an implicit rejection of the Kingship of Christ (though I am certain this is not intended), and forgetting that His enforcement is the least avoidable of all, even if from our perspective it may be delayed.
This is why the Day of Judgment is so important. Not all law has an immediate enforcement—but that does not mean it isn’t enforced at some point, or that it ceases to be a genuine law. “Ius gentium” is a beautiful jewel in the Christian inheritance. To deny it in favor of pure power is to spit on the Catholic inheritance.
It is clear many Christians have fallen for this siren song of modern power worship, rather than the truth of the Great Tradition, which tells us we must be willing to suffer—even on a cross, if necessary—rather than wield power divorced from authority. That includes temporal rulers. Pagans like Socrates knew this. How sad when Christians forget it. Power is important, yes. But when ripped from the eternal time horizon, the eschatological conclusion of all things, it becomes a false god unto itself.
All of my comments are about first principles, not the specifics of recent events. Far too many are wrong on first principles to make any discussion of specifics helpful. If you get first principles wrong, your prudential judgment about specifics will necessarily err (minus the “broken clock” exception).
I also recommend everyone follow Dr. @FeserEdward.
+ Bailing out the banks.
+ Droning civilians at weddings.
+ Turning Libya into hell.
+ Trying to nudge & manipulate citizens w/Cass Sunstein & Richard Thaler.
+ Making IYIs fashionable.
+Crypto Israeli goon.
+ Perfect empty suit, looks the part but devoid of substance.
“Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.” — St. Augustine
"It was an odd condition of twentieth-century life that most people born in it usually lived to see the destruction, in one way or another, of the places they had loved or called home." — James Howard Kunstler
As the Brazilian government complains of foreign interference and billionaire American pressure in their country, its leading leftist politicians spend days giddily welcoming and giving tours to @AlexanderSoros, and talking to him about how his wealth can advance their agenda:
A wonderful irony of history is that the bourgeois-liberal idea that economic expansion is the supreme social good (and so everybody has to enter the workforce etc) has produced a situation in which demographic collapse will ensure long term economic contraction.