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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28890 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 6, 2026

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It turns out Greenland/Denmark and Canada aren't the only friendly countries that the US has been threatening, the Vatican's ambassador to the US (according to The Free Press and Letters from Leo a Catholic focused blog) was given both explicit and coded threats of military force against the Holy See.

In January, behind closed doors at the Pentagon, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture.

“America,” Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

As tempers rose, one U.S. official reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.

JD Vance, a Catholic himself, has done a pretty rare thing for the Trump admin and said they're gonna get to the bottom of it first, instead of immediately dismissing it as fake news.. This doesn't confirm it as real, but that it wasn't immediately denied and dismissed like the typical M.O. is quite interesting.

This could help explain why Pope Leo has felt so emboldened to speak up against Trump's war efforts in Iran, cause the administration officials have been warmongering against them behind the scenes. The chance that the admin actually pulls the trigger and attacks the Vatican is obviously low, but that they keep threatening many of our allies both publically and privately seems quite concerning to me. It also opens up a new thing to consider, how many other allies are they threatening behind closed doors too?

This is incredibly based. A USG-sanctioned breakaway hierarchy might be our only shot at getting real Catholicism back. Once we've conceded that "Eternal Rome" means something different from, "the guy currently running The Vatican," then there is absolutely no reason that "Eternal Rome" can't be located in Dillwyn Virginia.

In historical reality, the threat of government-backed antipopes was the last line of defense against Rome's temporal power. The Avignon Papacy was a direct reaction to the papal bull Unam Sanctam, which is still on the books, and which declares the papacy as strictly superior to temporal rulers. Technically, the pope could order JD Vance to end the war, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.

Spoken like a true heretic schismatic.

When was the last time that an antipope acquired any real momentum? Nowadays, independent Catholics are just filed alongside the Protestants.

Ironically, he's overlooking the PNCC(an actually American breakaway hierarchy that's been around for 150ish years) to talk about French fundamentalists.

then there is absolutely no reason that "Eternal Rome" can't be located in Dillwyn Virginia.

Aside from basic decency and taste, perhaps.

A USG-sanctioned breakaway hierarchy might be our only shot at getting real Catholicism back.

Schisms have happened before and might happen again. However, I doubt that most of the Catholics, American or otherwise share your frustration with the Vatican.

The closest thing to what you propose might be the Anglican Church. But the British Royals made much more reliable partners than the USG. For one thing, they are not customarily replaced every four years or so by one of the opposite side of the culture wars. For another, they did not have a constitutional obligation not to interfere with religion.

While you are right that Rome is probably not essential to Catholicism -- if it were hit by a meteor, I doubt that Catholics would just declare their religion over and accept damnation -- it does make an excellent Schelling point. It is also part of their brand: there are a zillion Churches which were inspired by Jesus, but only one can credibly claim to be the church Peter founded in Rome (though five more claime to be the one he founded in Antioch).

Catholics are generally the ones who do not schism every Tuesday. This joke would just not work for them. Generally, there are Catholics who hate Vatican II but still remain in the RCC, and there are a few fringe groups who hated it enough to quit the Church and make their own, with blackjack and hookers. But the sedevacantists and conclavists are a tiny minority. There are 1.3 billon Catholics and generously a few hundred thousand sedevacantists if WP is to be believed. Sometimes a few of them have a conclave and elect this or that guy as a pope, and I don't think that simply having the blessing of Trump would convince even the other renegades to accept that claim.

What's WP? Because that's a very high estimate for sedevacantists.

Wikipedia.

The number of sedevacantists is unknown and difficult to measure; estimates range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

And yes, I was going for their high estimate (hundreds of thousands) to make my point that there are many orders of magnitude more Catholics than that without getting accused of cherry-picking the numbers to fit my argument.

For all know, they might also be less than 10k in total.

While you are right that Rome is probably not essential to Catholicism -- if it were hit by a meteor, I doubt that Catholics would just declare their religion over and accept damnation -- it does make an excellent Schelling point.

1907 novel, Lord of the World, where Rome is wiped out by the secular World Government (at the bidding of the Antichrist, though he's not known as such):

It was known at about fifteen-and-a-half o’clock that at least seventy volors had left for Rome, and half-an-hour later that Berlin had reinforced them by sixty more. At midnight, fortunately at a time when the police had succeeded in shepherding the crowds into some kind of order, the news was flashed on to cloud and placard alike that the grim work was done, and that Rome had ceased to exist. The early morning papers added a few details, pointing out, of course, the coincidence of the fall with the close of the year, relating how, by an astonishing chance, practically all the heads of the hierarchy throughout the world had been assembled in the Vatican which had been the first object of attack, and how these, in desperation, it was supposed, had refused to leave the City when the news came by wireless telegraphy that the punitive force was on its way. There was not a building left in Rome; the entire place, Leonine City, Trastevere, suburbs—everything was gone; for the volors, poised at an immense height, had parcelled out the City beneath them with extreme care, before beginning to drop the explosives; and five minutes after the first roar from beneath and the first burst of smoke and flying fragments, the thing was finished. The volors had then dispersed in every direction, pursuing the motor and rail-tracks along which the population had attempted to escape so soon as the news was known; and it was supposed that not less than thirty thousand belated fugitives had been annihilated by this foresight. It was true, remarked the Studio, that many treasures of incalculable value had been destroyed, but this was a cheap price to pay for the final and complete extermination of the Catholic pest. “There comes a point,” it remarked, “when destruction is the only cure for a vermin-infested house,” and it proceeded to observe that now that the Pope with the entire College of Cardinals, all the ex-Royalties of Europe, all the most frantic religionists from the inhabited world who had taken up their abode in the “Holy City” were gone at a stroke, a recrudescence of the superstition was scarcely to be feared elsewhere. Yet care must even now be taken against any relenting. Catholics (if any were left bold enough to attempt it) must no longer be allowed to take any kind of part in the life of any civilised country. So far as messages had come in from other countries, there was but one chorus of approval at what had been done.

And you are right that it is not the end:

There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an iron box, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup—Something. Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofs of a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile or two away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; and behind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon. And far away to the south lay Jerusalem....

It was to this tiny strip of holy land that the Pope had come—the land where a Faith had sprouted two thousand years ago, and where, unless God spoke in fire from heaven, it would presently be cut down as a cumberer of the ground. It was here on this material earth that One had walked Whom all men had thought to have been He Who would redeem Israel—in this village that He had fetched water and made boxes and chairs, on that long lake that His Feet had walked, on that high hill that He had flamed in glory, on that smooth, low mountain to the north that He had declared that the meek were blessed and should inherit the earth, that peacemakers were the children of God, that they who hungered and thirsted should be satisfied.

And now it was come to this. Christianity had smouldered away from Europe like a sunset on darkening peaks; Eternal Rome was a heap of ruins; in East and West alike a man had been set upon the throne of God, had been acclaimed as divine. The world had leaped forward; social science was supreme; men had learned consistency; they had learned, too, the social lessons of Christianity apart from a Divine Teacher, or, rather, they said, in spite of Him. There were left, perhaps, three millions, perhaps five, at the utmost ten millions—it was impossible to know—throughout the entire inhabited globe who still worshipped Jesus Christ as God. And the Vicar of Christ sat in a whitewashed room in Nazareth, dressed as simply as His master, waiting for the end.

He had done what He could. There had been a week five months ago when it had been doubtful whether anything at all could be done. There were left three Cardinals alive, Himself, Steinmann, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem; the rest lay mangled somewhere in the ruins of Rome. There was no precedent to follow; so the two Europeans had made their way out to the East, and to the one town in it where quiet still reigned. With the disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the last remnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacit consent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty in Palestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, had sufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holy places had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots of antiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yet marked, and, although Mass could no longer be said there, it was understood that private oratories were not forbidden.

It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the Holy City; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description in public; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised world was unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrival the old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely under the strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had been elected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a few minutes by the dying man’s bedside. The two old men had insisted. The German had even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy, marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was recorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the year, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazareth with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.

The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these, nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had accepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the world who constituted the Sacred College—two Englishmen, of whom Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these were entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject only to the Holy Father Himself.

As regarded the Pope’s own life very little need be said. It resembled, He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the Great, without His worldly importance or pomp. Theoretically, the Christian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairs were administered by local authorities. It was impossible for a hundred reasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange of communications. An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a private telegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another in Damascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from that centre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiastical authorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to be done. The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with incredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards the reorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries. Bishops were being consecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them all told, and of priests an unknown number. The Order of Christ Crucified was doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundred martyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplished mostly at the hands of the mobs.

It all depends what is meant by "real" Catholicism. Right now, the comments on here seem to be agitating for the flag in the sanctuary type church.

If you want "the main concerns of the Real Catholic Church ™" to be "national politics of the USA", sure, go ahead. But that ain't the Universal Church.

Sure but it also seems the established Church telos isn’t Christ but some vaguely fashionable leftist social project.

A USG-sanctioned breakaway hierarchy might be our only shot at getting real Catholicism back.

Saint Liebowitz, pray for us.

Technically, the pope could order JD Vance to end the war, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.

You do not seem to understand either how Catholicism works or how the United States government does. The Pope does not have the ability to just order random Catholics to do whatever he wants for the very obvious reason that 1. religions schism all the time so people would just schism over that and 2. Vance if he really wanted to bomb Iran would just metaphorically say fuck off like he does about plenty of other topics already, and papal infallibility is extremely limited. But even if he did, it would be meaningless as the VP position does not hold power in that way.

You talk of wanting "real Catholicism" back and yet don't even understand what you are criticizing to begin with. As the other comment pointed out, you also don't even know where SSPX headquarters even are, the thing you're apparently supporting. Your understanding of Catholicism seems to be that of a tourist attracted to the vibes rather than genuine knowledge.

This is a pretty weak response. The Pope can't threaten to excommunicate Vance because Vance has the option to leave on his own? The whole point of the threat is that Catholics believe they will be damned to eternal hellfire if they leave the church, willingly or otherwise. You can't 'just schism' if you're a believing Catholic. Now, the threat perhaps doesn't hold weight with some Catholics because they don't actually believe in their religion (Biden being one example) but Vance doesn't seem to fit that description.

The threat of the Pope excommunicating a leader is a real and legitimate one. The stronger argument against it is simply that it hasn't been used in modern history.

This is a pretty weak response. The Pope can't threaten to excommunicate Vance because Vance has the option to leave on his own?

But he wouldn't do that, and also we can tell from the lives of the 1.5 billion Catholics in the world that very few seem to actually view their religion as "follow the pope's every orders or burn in hell" consider how often they do ignore the Pope.

You can't 'just schism' if you're a believing Catholic.

Yet that is what the comment is advocating for, to join a schism. If you're going off the basis that schisms are ok and good and would be supported by Vance, then there's little reason to worry he would obey the Pope if Leo tried to boss him around. Vance himself of course also already ignores many Catholic teachings so it is not as if it would be surprising for him to ignore this one.

Realistically here, Vance is more likely to push for an end to war due to his pro Russia views and connections than Pope Leo's influence.

Once we've conceded that "Eternal Rome" means something different from, "the guy currently running The Vatican," then there is absolutely no reason that "Eternal Rome" can't be located in Dillwyn Virginia.

As if the SSPX has a history of playing ball with secular governments wanting political cover for whatever mindless anti-Catholic thing(the SSPX still believes in just war theory because it is Catholic doctrine) the secular government wants to do. Or as if the current(or any forseeable future) US government actually wants to give the kinds of concessions the SSPX would demand in return for being state-sanctioned(and end to the Iran war being one of them). Indeed, their willingness to suffer legal consequences for doing politically incorrect shit is probably part of why the Vatican is relatively conciliatory towards their loose-canon antics; it's simply useful to have a ready supply of priests willing to receive converts in Islamic theocracies and hold funerals for Nazi war criminals so the official hierarchy can keep its hands clean.

Their headquarters is also not located in Virginia(it is, literally, located in Rome- and their motherhouse is in Switzerland). They are a Francophone(and France is still a plurality of membership) fundamentalist organization which expects to outlast everyone who disagrees with them and so sees no need to compromise for temporal advantage.

Technically, the pope could order JD Vance to end the war, under penalty of excommunication and eternal damnation.

No he can't. JD Vance does not have the ability to end the war. The pope can yell all he wants, sure, but there's no possibility of a vice president personally ending the war. That's not how the government works.

… which incidentally is exactly why people were worried about JFK becoming the first Catholic president back in the day: would he refuse orders from Rome if his immortal soul were on the line?

This argument was already dumb propaganda back when it first emerged - historically, no one is more on bad terms with a Pope and tassels with him more predictably than a Catholic Monarch. The Pope is not Jesus Christ and papal infallibility is an extremely narrow domain with few actual applications. The entire institution of Gallicanism in France should be enough to prove that a Catholic head of State has enormous leeway in dealing with Papal authority.

I always found this ridiculous. If you trip over a European history book and land face first on a random page your eyes will fall on a paragraph about a Catholic monarch with the title "Defender of the Faith" whose imperial regalia is festooned with crosses who rules a Catholic confessional state flagrantly ignoring direct papal orders and doing whatever he finds politically, socially, or sexually expedient. The pope is not nearly the boogeyman-puppetmaster he's made out to be. But I expect most educated people know that and are making these accusations in bad faith.

Every Catholic monarch of a Catholic state is Catholic by definition. If you’re the next Crown Prince of Liechtenstein, a devoutly (and officially) Catholic country ruled by a Catholic monarch, you can’t really abandon Catholicism, which both your people believe in and which forms the spiritual justification for your rule. If you’re an atheist you can break the rules but you have to keep your beliefs to yourself.

A religious Catholic by choice in a non-Catholic land is already signalling much more devotion to Rome and to the Pope than someone who doesn’t really have a choice. They are more likely to actually believe. The threat of eternal damnation carries more weight.

The history of Catholic political influence post-1970 suggests there is exactly one very weakly enforced red line for Catholic monarchs, and that's abortion. The princes of Liechtenstein otherwise do whatever they want(as do the princes of Monaco, the government of Andorra, etc). While there's a few Catholic organizations that formally require their members to do more than that in order to remain members in good standing(the Knights of Columbus can technically expel a member for missing mass, even if in practice nobody's taking attendance), Catholic monarchs don't have to be members of them- this isn't mormonism which regularly checks the practices of members. The six minima for religious practice are firmly on the honor system and you can't get excommunicated for just not doing them.

If you’re the next Crown Prince of Liechtenstein, a devoutly (and officially) Catholic country ruled by a Catholic monarch, you can’t really abandon Catholicism

Like how the rulers of devoutly catholic England, Sweden, Denmark, etc, couldn't? Rulers have abandoned the faith of their subjects since the time of the second oldest religion.

You’re making my point. The leaders of those countries are still nominally members of the state church (or indeed head of it).

Now imagine, say, the president of Germany announces he’s converting to the Anglican Church. That’s interesting. That’s unusual. That suggests a much more genuine belief than King Charles formally being an Anglican.

That's interesting. I'm not an expert in the topic, but my reading it seems to me that there is a rich history of political leaders ignoring the Catholic hierarchy's orders. Maybe political leaders, historically, even ignored its orders more often than they followed them, though I really don't know.

Catholics are not allowed to ignore the pope. A Catholic potus has an obligation to obey the pope or they are not Catholic. I’ve always said Jews have the same issue with Israel and their tribe.
The pre-eminent Catholic school in Americas motto is literal God-Country-Notre Dame.

That being said Catholic and Jews have already conquered this country and the Wasp are dead so the old evangelicals have already made their choice to back the Catholics.

Catholics are not allowed to ignore the pope. A Catholic potus has an obligation to obey the pope or they are not Catholic.

Billions of Catholics ignore the pope's directives every day. You may feel this is some sort of contradiction of the religion, but you are grossly, vastly outvoted.

Insert Ex Cathedra explanation here

You are correct it needs to be taken only when he’s speaking “infallible”. When he’s speaking like on Iran then it’s just under advisement. My point stands though at “certain” times a Catholic POTUS obligation would be to what Rome says over domestic popular opinion. On his Iran speaking it would need to be taken under advisement and their own moral judgement.

My opinion is military target strikes are mostly fine. Targeting the electric grid probably not ok.

Protestantism always struck me as a dead end theologically. Sola Scriptura ultimately leads to complete doctrinal anarchy. Scripture according to ‘whose’ interpretation? Mine? Yours? Church tradition? It’s a complete misnomer to reject Sacred Tradition because it provides the historical framework of interpretation for reading the Bible.

Do you think that all texts lead to anarchy? The text has an objective meaning aside from the interpretation thereof: the correct stance would be scripture according to the sense genuinely latent in the text.

You may object: but we may disagree on what that sense is. Okay, true. There are disagreements within every religion. Sufficiently bad errors may warrant ecclesiastical or civil (were we to live in a state that still took an interest in such things) censure.

All that said, I'm fine with some degree of looking at tradition and so on.

I'd be happy to go into more discussion on this, but just as a first point, Protestants don't reject Sacred Tradition, they simply give it a lower status than Scripture itself. This is how the Bible tells us to treat Scripture. 2 Tim 3:16 - Scripture is God-breathed, i.e. it has a unique ontological status. Or Proverbs 30:5-6 - "Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar." Likewise we are given the positive example of the Bereans, who "searched Scripture to see if these things were so" in Acts 17:11 - in other words, they judged the teachings of men by testing them against the Scriptures. This should be an obvious principle.

Those who hold Sacred Tradition to be on the same level of authority as Scripture are the ones with a burden of proof. And it's quite a tough burden to reach when you actually look at the historical context of Church teachings, with such fun items as multiple co-existing Popes writing against each other, or dueling 'ecumenical' councils that came to opposite conclusions (see e.g. the Council of Hieria vs Nicea 2). Catholics also had to invent the concept of 'Development of Doctrine' to cover the fact that their Sacred Tradition has clearly and significantly changed over time.

Protestants don't reject Sacred Tradition, they simply give it a lower status than Scripture itself.

Depends on the Protestant. I grew up in a non-denominational Protestant church which absolutely would've rejected the idea of tradition having any sort of authority (which is the bit that makes it sacred). Their belief was that only the Bible had any authority over the Church.

Those who hold Sacred Tradition to be on the same level of authority as Scripture are the ones with a burden of proof.

That is, in fairness, not the Catholic teaching. Sacred Tradition is held to be authoritative, but with less authority than the divinely-inspired Scripture (so if there were ever to be a conflict between the two, Scripture wins).

That is, in fairness, not the Catholic teaching. Sacred Tradition is held to be authoritative, but with less authority than the divinely-inspired Scripture (so if there were ever to be a conflict between the two, Scripture wins).

I think you'll find this is not the case. Catholics hold Sacred Tradition and Scripture to be equal authorities, as they are both divinely inspired. What you have described is quite literally Sola Scriptura. If Catholics believed this there would be no disagreement over this issue.

I grew up in a non-denominational Protestant church which absolutely would've rejected the idea of tradition having any sort of authority (which is the bit that makes it sacred).

The confusion here is what constitutes tradition and authority. If that church's pastor told an adherent, say, 'you can't live with your fiancée before marriage or you will have to leave this church' - that would be authoritative over the adherent, based on that pastor's interpretation of scripture, which is what 'tradition' means. But it would not be as authoritative as Scripture. If someone could demonstrate from Scripture that this tradition/teaching were false, the paster would presumably need to recant it. That's what the Reformation was all about, identifying traditions that contradicted Scripture and trying to fix them.

In other words, the paster would disagree over which traditions are authoritative, and how much authority they hold. He would agree that any traditions of men should be held up to the standard of Scripture, and if Scripture contradicts the tradition then it must be discarded. But things as simple as holding a service with worship music and Bible teaching are not in Scripture - they are traditions that do not contradict Scripture.

If on the other hand you mean that your church rejected 'Sacred Tradition' in the sense of 'the specific traditions of the Roman Catholic Church' then, uh, no duh.

Mine? Yours?

From what I've seen, the answer is 'yes'. And if the differences are too great, you just split the church. That's how you end up with small villages with three churches. And some of the really devout people don't go to church at all. They know it all themselves anyway.

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