Stephan: I thought, and maybe you did to, that the seemingly endless reports about the pedophilia problem in the Roman Catholic Church had been handled, and they had taken the needed measures to clean their house. But no, that is not the case. In Italy, Spain, France, and several Latin American countries a whole new wave of accounts concerning the sexual molestation of children has surfaced. There is clearly a systemic problem in that church, having to do with the structure of their priesthood and their celibacy practice, that the Roman curia simply has been unwilling to face effectively, in spite of having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties. There are literally thousands of new cases surfacing worldwide. What amazes me is how relatively low key Roman Catholic congregants around the world have been about this.
Pope Francis during his weekly general audience. ‘The only way for an inquiry to happen would be if Francis orders it,’ says journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi. Credit: Vatican Media/ANSA/Zuma Press/Rex/Shutterstock
Pressure is mounting on the Catholic church in Italy to face a reckoning on child sexual abuse amid unofficial estimates that the country could have the highest number of victims of paedophile priests in the world.
Damning investigations into the scale of sexual abuse and cover-up allegations have dealt a severe blow to the church’s reputation in the US, Ireland, Chile, France and, more recently, Germany. But in Italy the issue has been mostly buried.
A group of religious and lay associations have now come together to push for an independent inquiry and to urge the Italian state to enact tougher laws to bring paedophile priests to justice and come up with a plan to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. The group is using the hashtag #ItalyChurchToo and will outline its objectives during an online event on 15 February.
Stephan: If you are a regular churchgoer and it is one of the shrinking number of congregations practicing traditional Christianity you may not even be aware of what is happening to your religion in the United States. Let me say it straight out. Evangelical and charismatic Christianity in America is no longer about Christianity as that term has been understood for centuries. Oh, it speaks all the right words, quotes Jesus constantly, but actually, in substance, it has almost nothing to do with Jesus' actual teachings. Based on the record we have of his words and actions it is clear Jesus would have nothing to do with what passes for Christianity in the U.S. today. It has become a cult of White supremacy christofascism with an increasing inclination to violence.
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty
On Thursday night in Castle Rock, Colorado, a group called “FEC United” (FEC stands for faith, education, and commerce) held a “town hall” meeting that featured a potpourri of GOP candidates and election conspiracy theorists. Most notably, the event included John Eastman, the Claremont scholar who authored the notorious legal memos that purported to justify the decertification and reversal of the 2020 election results.
During the meeting, a man named Shawn Smith accused Colorado secretary of state Jena Griswold of election misconduct. “You know, if you’re involved in election fraud, then you deserve to hang,” he said. “Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.”
“I was accused of endorsing violence,” he went on. “I’m not endorsing violence, I’m saying once you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned.” As soon as he said, “you deserve to hang,” an audience member shouted “Yeah!” and applause filled the room. You can watch the moment here.
The moment, almost entirely ignored by the national media, is worth noting on its own terms, but perhaps the most […]
Stephan: Here is further evidence of how this transformation of Christianity is being carried out with deliberate planning; it is not emerging spontaneously, but is prompted and nurtured. The evangelical community particularly is being manipulated into being what Lenin would call "useful idiots" at the behest of the far right anti-democratic authoritarian forces in American.
Screengrab.
According to longtime political columnist David French, the next insurrection is likely being planned at a church that has been inviting Christian nationalists to visit and make their case.
In his column for the Dispatch titled, “The Seeds of Political Violence Are Being Sown in Church,” French — who has often written about his Christian beliefs — warned that so-called “Christian road-shows” are hitting the churches and are having a frightening influence on parishioners.
“If you think it’s remotely unusual that a truly extremist event (which included more than one person who’d called for hanging his political opponents) was held at a church, then you’re not familiar with far-right road shows that are stoking extremism in church after church at event after event,” French wrote before asking, “It is always difficult to know when and how to cover extremism. Does highlighting a fringe provide an artificial sense of their danger and strength, in much the same way that ‘nutpicking’ works in online spaces to exaggerate the extremism of your opponents? Or does […]
Stephan: When you can rent Congress members as needed, and infuence elections as you like, naturally you don't want anything to restrain your wealth or power. And that is exactly where we are in the United States today. Not surprisingly, as proof of what I have just said, we have the worst wealth inequality in the developed world.
Jeff Bezos waves to the modern day peasants
With one political party entirely committed to expanding inequality, and the other divided on the issue, overwhelming public support and commonsense ethical commitments don’t carry much weight.
That’s how oligarchies consolidate. The wealthy horde power and wealth, then that power and wealth gives them the ability to shape institutions to further increase their power and wealth.
Yellen has had some successes in restraining wealthy and corporate power. She negotiated an international agreement with 136 countries to implement a global corporate minimum tax of 15 percent.
At some point, corruption stops being a bug in democracy and starts becoming a feature of oligarchy.
Has the US passed that threshold?
Based on the sweeping and effective resistance to commonsense solutions to reign in wealthy tax scofflaws, the answer is not encouraging.
Since the 1970s, the United States has become steadily and inexorably more economically unequal. According to Pew, upper income families have brought in a larger and larger share of total income.
Has the US passed that threshold?
Based on the sweeping and effective resistance to commonsense solutions […]
Stephan: I want my readers to be clear, when I express my growing concern about politically motivated civil violence, I feel this way because of facts like this.
there is a sizeable segment of the Republican Party that is arming itself with even more weapons than it already had. "I could outfit a squad," I read on a MAGAt world site. They anticipate violence, and are quite open to it, including a number of members of Congress. The latest to come forward is Thomas Massie. He even spells out what he thinks is the threshold for violence. Remember, there are more guns than people in the United States.
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky
A U.S. Congressman is calling on Americans to own “sufficient” weaponry to overthrow the government, suggesting they should do so “if 30 to 40 percent agree” the nation is living under “tyranny.”
“If 30 to 40 percent could agree that this was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off they need to have sufficient power without asking for extra permission – it should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change,” U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in a video (below) posted by Right Wing Watch.
Pool’s videos get “millions” of views each day, according to The Daily Beast, which adds he “has racked up more than a billion views and millions in earnings while dangerously whitewashing the far […]
