Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Mic'D Up...

Everything you need to know.

This interview was originally recorded on Oct. 18, 2023.

David Gordon and magisterial scholar and podcaster Michael Lofton discuss the Synod on Synodality and Pope Francis.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Environmental alarmism rules the day in Rome.

While a lot of attention has been focused on Pope Francis and his pro-globalist climate alarmism, it might be good to step back and look at the Vatican's history in this area.

Back in 2007, under Pope Benedict, not Pope Francis, the Vatican signed a deal to offset its carbon emissions output by planting a forest in Hungary. They went worldwide because the Vatican, which besides being the physical center of the Church, is also the world's smallest country and was signing up to be the world's first so-called carbon-neutral nation.

Much ballyhoo surrounded the photo op when the developer of the company to plant the forest presented the certificate of award to curial Cdl. Paul Poupard on July 5, 2007. The Vatican was about to make history and was advancing the nonsense of climate alarmism.

...

And so it goes all over the Green New Deal world of the socialists in D.C. who have diverted hundreds and hundreds of billions and billions in U.S. tax money into an industry that is collapsing, an industry not propped up because of science but ideology.

As reality begins to set in, the chairman of Toyota began to politely rub it in the faces of automotive competitors a short while ago. This was when he said publicly about their massive losses that "people are finally seeing reality," which is Japanese for "I told you so." The green economy is phony because the science behind it is phony.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

It didn't start with Pope Francis.

While a lot of attention has been focused on Pope Francis and his pro-globalist climate alarmism, it might be good to step back and look at the Vatican's history in this area.

Back in 2007, under Pope Benedict, not Pope Francis, the Vatican signed a deal to offset its carbon emissions output by planting a forest in Hungary. They went worldwide because the Vatican, which besides being the physical center of the Church, is also the world's smallest country and was signing up to be the world's first so-called carbon-neutral nation.

Much ballyhoo surrounded the photo op when the developer of the company to plant the forest presented the certificate of award to curial Cdl. Paul Poupard on July 5, 2007. The Vatican was about to make history and was advancing the nonsense of climate alarmism.

...

As reality begins to set in, the chairman of Toyota began to politely rub it in the faces of automotive competitors a short while ago. This was when he said publicly about their massive losses that "people are finally seeing reality," which is Japanese for "I told you so." The green economy is phony because the science behind it is phony.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Climate Change, the Vatican and the Communist party.

Like a taste of some international intrigue and how the phony science engendering environmental alarmism is at the heart of it? OK, then sit back and follow the bouncing ball. We're going to bring together some seemingly unrelated points in this Vortex.

But the big picture is that China is a communist nation and wants control of the planet. Let's start there. Easy enough. Its major opposition, of course, is the United States, which must be weakened and neutralized. Again, easy enough. So let's look at how it is going about this, and for that, we will turn our attention first to Europe.

In order for China to gain entry to the halls of power in European capitals, it needs "access." This is where Italy comes in. For the past decade or so, China has poured thousands of Chinese nationals into the Italian nation, predominantly in a multitude of industries in northern Italy. That little tidbit came out at the beginning of the pandemic as people were asking why Italy was hit so hard by the virus.

China's two-pronged plan — global domination by influencing European politics and weakening America — is detailed quite extensively in a recent book entitled Red Contagion: How Italy Has Become China's Trojan Horse in the West. The author is Francesco Galietti, a highly respected and much sought-after business consultant who founded Policy Sonar, an outfit that tracks, among other things, massive movements of money around the globe through multiple hedge funds.

In his book, he details how China targeted Italy as the "soft underbelly" path into European politics, specifically because of the heavy involvement of the Vatican in Italian politics. For the Chinese, it would be the Vatican that would prove to be the access point to Italy — and from there, the rest of Europe.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Alarmism appears to be in the forecast.

Most of us are used to finding out the weather from either our phones or the local non-gender-specific "weatherperson" on TV or radio. Bet you didn't know, however, that one of the major efforts going on at the Vatican these days under the Pope Francis pontificate is meteorology. Yup. Meteorology.

Is Pope Francis the global worldwide weatherman? That's what it boils down to in his latest offering, a pronouncement essentially that the world is about to end due to not just the environment but man's destruction of it. And, of course, by "man," he seems to be thinking of Americans, with no mention of the Chinese — the biggest polluters in world history!

It feels like Pope Francis has a bone to pick with America in general, specifically with political conservatives and orthodox Catholics (of which there is a somewhat sizable overlap). From the outside looking in, an orthodox Catholic who is also an America First patriot is treated like a problem.

Of course, all this environmental alarmism is yet another Marxist strategy to empower the government and destroy the little guy by undermining the economy by obliterating energy independence.

Remember two-buck gas? It wasn't that long ago. Owing to Marxists, meaning Democratic control in D.C., the "little guy" is now paying almost a hundred dollars more per month in after-tax income for the exact same amount of gas. Likewise, across the entire economy, airlines, buses, trucking — everything that touches gas — prices have exploded and pretty much stayed there. It's the new Biden "normal."

Airlines fly fewer planes, resulting in fewer overall seats, jam-packed flights, a ridiculously impossible turnaround schedule for crews. And even then, the cost per ticket has increased. Prices at grocery stores have jumped because of the fuel cost for trucks getting food from farm to store shelves. And on and on.

Things cost less when the commies didn't have power because, well, bottom line, they didn't have power.

And yet, they are relentless in shoving their policy of decreasing our energy independence, environmental alarmism, Green New Deal, "save the earth" crap down our throats like it's the truth. And over there on the sidelines are perhaps their biggest cheerleaders — the U.S. bishops' conference.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

The letter to the Ephesians may tell the full story.

Just a reminder that Church Militant brings you the best, most insightful coverage of Pope Francis' synod underway in Rome this whole month.

Our Rome correspondent, Jules Gomes, breaks down the happenings each day in our popular program Rome Dispatch, hosted by Brad Eli. Click on the provided link to keep up on everything.

Now, St. Paul and communism may be separated in history by almost 2,000 years — but truthfully, not really.

Catholics are in the midst of an identity crisis brought on since the end of Western civilization, which, for the record, is over. What has moved into the power vacuum is the greatest tyrannical government known to man: communism, trafficking these days under the pseudonym of "globalism." Call it whatever you want; it's all atheistic tyranny designed to crush belief and the soul.

Keenly aware of the influence and power of government, St. Paul spells this out in his letter to the Ephesians: In each successive generation, Christ's followers must win the world for Him. Paul lays out his plan for doing just that in his letter to the Catholics at Ephesus, but very few Catholics today actually know this.

We've had it so good for so long that the need to be constantly vigilant and aggressive no longer sufficiently exists in our mindset and worldview. Evil never rests; why on earth would Catholics think that we can?

Do you want to get a handle on what Paul was talking about? In fact, you need to get a handle on it! For this reason, Church Militant is offering our first-ever masterclass on the Bible, specifically, St. Paul's letters to the Ephesians, where the great apostle is crystal clear about all this.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

St. Paul and Chris Plance offer the faithful a solution.

Just a reminder that Church Militant has the best, most insightful coverage of Pope Francis' synod underway in Rome this month.

Our Rome correspondent, Jules Gomes, breaks down the happenings each day in our popular program Rome Dispatch, hosted by Brad Eli. Click on the provided link below each day to keep up on everything.

Now, most Catholics have zero idea that St. Paul was a social warrior, clamoring for Catholics to not sit on their keisters and get busy with changing the world. It wasn't about just getting to Heaven individually for Paul; it was about initiating the kingdom of Heaven here on earth — right here, right now.

Catholics, as a whole, are among the most complacent, sit-back-and-let-the-world-happen types that you will ever meet. Maybe a hundred years or so ago, that could pass, but with the communist agenda seizing massive control around the globe, there needs to be a wildly new approach. And Paul lays it out in his letter to the Ephesians.

The problem is so few Catholics even crack open the Bible that they have no idea that Paul is sounding the alarm about getting in the fight in this world. Spiritual warfare happens in the temporal world. What makes it spiritual is the effects are everlasting. But the dirty work happens right here on earth, right now.

For this reason, Church Militant is offering our first-ever masterclass on the Bible — specifically, St. Paul's letters to the Ephesians where the great apostle is crystal clear about all this. It's available to you live, starting on Oct. 22 and running for the following six consecutive Sundays at 4 p.m. ET. Classes will be on Zoom, but will be downloadable for those of you who can't be present during live sessions. One ticket covers your whole household, so homeschooling families, bring your kids for a college-level biblical theology education.

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Do not follow rogue and disobedient clerics.

Is Jorge Bergoglio actually the pope? No, of course not, we're told. He's a "heretic." He's a "false prophet." He's even the "anti-Christ." Take your pick — but whatever of those he is, he is absolutely "not the pope."

Those are the mad ramblings of various Catholics, laity and clergy alike, who have succumbed to the temporary applause of Catholics looking for a quick answer to a centuries-old problem. And that's just the public dynamic.

There are quite a few other Catholic internet figures who run websites and "news" organizations who do believe all that — privately — and use their public influence to promote those ideas through their platforms, but don't have the courage to come right out and say it because they are afraid it will impact business. They make the bombs and let others throw them. Cowards.

Frankly, in some ways, they're even worse than the public big mouths, because they can do even more damage than the bomb throwers, which is the point of their sneakiness.

But for the moment, let's talk about the bomb throwers and their position that Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope. This "he is not the pope" argument is specious because of all the other much bigger problems that arise.

If he isn't, then who is? If there isn't a pope right now, then we are all sedevacantists, which opens up a whole other can of worms. Remember, there are "Catholic" nut jobs who say Benedict was not the pope, nor John Paul, nor Paul VI. So why not say that with Francis?

If he isn't now, was he ever? Or did he just stop being pope sometime after the conclave? Even the self-anointed defenders of the faith crowd can't agree on that.

If the conclave was invalid, why haven't any cardinals (Burke, Müller) who were in the conclave said it was invalid? Are they stupid and were duped, or weak, or cowards, or complicit — or are they actually cleverly disguised front men for Freemasonry posing as conservatives just to arrive at this point in time and help usher in the anti-church with its false prophet anti-pope?

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary. If you also seek the truth, then please consider joining Church Militant today by supporting our work. Sign up for a Church Militant Premium account or simply make a donation. Feel free to contact Church Militant with your questions, comments, or concerns, at anytime. And now, let's begin with today's Vortex...

Not exactly a good one.

It seems the Vatican is annoyed at criticism on social media aimed at it, the hierarchy and Pope Francis. So a few days ago Rome dropped a "polite" document advising Catholics not to be divisive on social media, but rather behave "not so much as 'individual influencers,' but as 'weavers of communion': pooling our talents and skills, sharing knowledge and contributions."

Well, that's all well and good and certainly has some merit objectively, but (and this is a big — really big — "but") when you have people within the Church who are "influencers" in their own right and they are dividing the faithful and depriving them of actual Church teaching and making it up as they go along, what are faithful Catholics supposed to say in response?

Does the Vatican want us talking about how lovely the parish bake sale was after the 10 a.m. Mass and that the Smiths are very excited about helping plant the parish vegetable garden?

Give me a break.

This is war — spiritual war — and the only difference now (and which is likely eliciting the document from the Vatican) is that the true believers are pushing back against modernism and all its evils. Shut up and build community? Seriously?

Please consider Church Militant Evening News for daily hard-hitting news and analysis through an authentic Catholic lens, covering the latest developments in the Church, across the nation and around the world.