Letter to Pope Francis

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The following was written by Mark Scibilia-Carver

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Dear Pope Francis,

Greetings from Trumansburg, New York and Mary, Mother of Mercy Parish.

Many U.S. Catholics agree with your assessment that we are already in the midst of World War III, given the open, covert and proxy wars that are ongoing.  The U.S. is the world’s greatest arms merchant and has bombed, invaded and occupied Muslim countries for at least the last 25 years.  This  “jubilee of mercilessness” is motivated by the greed and arrogance of the wealthy who covet the world’s resources.  These wars have resulted in the deaths of millions of poor souls, to mention one of the costs.  There is no doubt that thousands of women have been killed, along with their children, including the unborn.

No one should be surprised that a group like ISIS has arisen to resist this “crusade” of the west but it is the U.S. with its military that is, by far, the world’s greatest terrorist.

Please note that this February 15 marks 87 years since the death of Benjamin Joseph Salmon, a Catholic of Denver, Colorado.  Ben Salmon refused to fight and kill his “brothers” in WWI years before Gandhi, Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, Dorothy Day or Martin Luther King.  For his conscientious objection to a war in which millions of baptized Christians killed each other, he was first sentenced to death and later to 25 years in prison.  After 2 ½ years in prison he wrote a 235 page treatise based on his Catholic faith and his reading of Christian scripture and concluded that there was “no such animal as a just war”.  This treatise and much more can be seen at www.bensalmon.org.

February 19 is the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time.   The Gospel is Matthew 5: 38-48, from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands that we love our enemies.  The same command is pronounced twice in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain.  Both sermons end with Jesus insisting that his disciples put these commands into action.

The U.S. has seen the rise of a peculiar “Christian” fascism in support of our imperial wars.  This is a time that seems right to place the light and truth of Jesus’ nonviolence on a lamp stand and not under a bushel basket.  Pope Benedict was right, “it is no longer licit to even speak of a just war.”  Pope St. John Paul II was right, “violence is a lie”.  You were right, “to be a true follower today, it is necessary to embrace Jesus’ nonviolence”  Now we need more than words.  We need an authoritative teaching of the gospel truth.  The teaching must be so clear that our Catholic youth, who are constantly targeted for military recruitment, cannot mistake it.

As you already know the nonviolent truth about Jesus, please consider February 19 as the day to give an ex cathedra teaching to end the “just war” era of Catholicism!  With Jesus and the Gospel there is no justified killing, no “just war.”

In solidarity with the suffering such a witness will entail,

Mark Scibilia-Carver

Russians and Us

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John F. Kennedy’s Commencement Address, June, 6, 2013:

“Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament–and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude–as individuals and as a Nation–for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward–by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home…

Let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims–such as the allegation that “American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars . . . that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union . . . [and that] the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries . . . [and] to achieve world domination . . . by means of aggressive wars.”

Truly, as it was written long ago: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements–to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning–a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.”

Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception

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saint_anne_et_marie_enfant

St. Anne and Mary as a young girl.

William Ross Wallace (1819-1881)

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE IS
THE HAND THAT RULES THE WORLD.

BLESSINGS on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace.
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy’s the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mothers first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission,
Here upon our natal sod;
Keep—oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God!
All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled,
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry,
And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky—
Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

CatholicCostofWar.Org

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Thanks to Mark Scibilia-Carver for putting up the site thecatholiccostofwar.org and for sending us the link.

“These pages are dedicated to the U.S. Catholic victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both soldiers and civilians, who have been killed in these unjust wars and to the memory of Ben and Elizabeth Salmon, Catholic resisters of WWI. It also serves as an indictment of the Catholic Bishops of the U.S. whose response to these wars has been characterized by cowardice, moral laxity and relativism, to the point that they are guilty of material cooperation with the objective evil of unjust war.

Surprisingly, the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS) does not keep a record of those killed while under its care.”

He writes: “Under the ‘Defund AMS’ tab is a version of the letter I got published in NCR just before the first collection.”

We will add this as a permanent link on the Resources page.

Modern Money Mechanics

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Thanks to Tom Ness for his thoughtful email on the relationship between money and war, and for these links he has provided for those who are interested in learning more.

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For anyone who wishes to explore “modern money mechanics” (as the Federal Reserve has called it) there has never been a better time in history to do so, with a wealth of information in books and documentaries readily available, much of it free online. A person can make a significant advance in their knowledge of this subject in as little as 45 minutes. I will put links below to some good sources:

“Money as Debt” a 47 minute documentary, an animated primer on money mechanics https://youtu.be/jqvKjsIxT_8

“The Hidden Secrets of Money” a seven-part series by Mike Maloney, approximately 25 minutes per segment. Episode 1: https://youtu.be/DyV0OfU3-FU

“The Money Masters” Bill Still’s 3 1/2 hour documentary masterpiece explaining the history of money:  https://youtu.be/UrJGlXEs8nI

“The Secret of Oz” Another Bill Still documentary which goes over much of the same history as Money Masters, but does it in under two hours: https://youtu.be/U71-KsDArFM

“The Crash Course” Chris Martenson’s 26-segment tutorial on money mechanics, plus how this relates to energy and environment. Segments are from 3 minutes to 25 minutes, 4 hours and 36 minutes total: https://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse

All of these are accessible to persons of any educational level, although occasionally the truth of money mechanics is so bizarre and counter-intuitive as to repel even the most intelligent mind.

Thank you,

Tom Ness

The Global Failure of the Priesthood Class

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I received an email from one Tom Ness recently after publishing my essay “A Sheep Among Wolves” on Desmond Doss, Hacksaw Ridge, and the Catholic Church. It was titled “Desmond Doss and the Global Failure of the Priesthood Class.” It was so good I wanted to share it on the blog. I do so here with permission. The email from Tom seems particularly apt given that CAM started as a protest against the first collection for the Archdiocese of Military Services.

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Ellen — Your review of “Hacksaw Ridge” is one of those essays which my wife and I read out loud, slowly, with lengthy discussion as we go. It brought up a subject that I have considered at length in the past, so many of my thoughts on this have been brewing for a long time.

In one way Desmond Doss was almost certainly the equal of his rifle-carrying comrades: completely ignorant of the banking-financial-industrial complex machinations which had ultimately put him in the middle of the bloody horror of WWII and Hacksaw Ridge. No one ever explained to any of these men how war is stupendously profitable to a very small group of bankers, financiers, and industrialists, and so knowing from whence their greatest profits flow, carefully arrange on the international stage for wars to happen. Technology is shared, investments go to certain industries, propaganda narratives of enmity and national/racial entitlement are constructed in nations being groomed as enemies in war. And most of all, interconnected debt-based fiat currency systems operated through central banks are installed in every country to facilitate and manage the debt on which the wars will be fueled. Desmond Doss and his comrades are mere collateral damage in the accumulation of interest-bearing debt.

Why is this the concern of the global priesthood class (by that I mean professional religious workers of all denominations around the world) when religion is supposed to stick to questions of the spirit? Because the first step in deciding the question of violence versus nonviolence is to explore where the violence comes from. Many people who explore this have said it’s no coincidence that the only act of violence for which Jesus is remembered was his attack on the money changers. The scale and sophistication of the “money changers” in the modern world of war finance might briefly stagger a returned Jesus, but I believe He would quickly recover and begin teaching what needs to be taught: How money works and who controls it.

Globally, no political, media, or academic organization has the attention of more humans than the priesthood class and their lay workers. Nothing would stop the horror of war faster than the priesthood class learning how wars are deviously foisted on trusting populations by those who profit from war, and then teaching their religious adherents in all faiths to recognize when they are being so manipulated and exploited. Religions hold the power to stop war forever.

I read a lot of history, which inevitably leads to being immersed in great horrors like Hacksaw Ridge. My mantra when exposed to this Folly of Man has become, “Stay home, Grow food, Make love.” The natural desires of all good men and women are to live in peace and security while raising a happy family. A capable defense of that peace and security is important for all nations. In the past the profit and motivation for aggressive war was looting and rape, shared (unequally) by all ranks in the enterprise from king to pike men. In today’s wars, looting and rape are (nominally) forbidden, so soldiers only get the horror while the few at the top get the profit. Soldiers, from childhood on, have been whipped into a patriotic fervor to put their lives on the line and kill the enemy, using manufactured fear of the other and/or national/racial entitlement instead of promises of treasure and sex slaves. In effect, soldiers have been cut out of the bargain to be left holding a bag of blood and guts while the bankers and industrialists reap 100% of the profit.

This why I believe it is the duty and obligation of all religious workers to seek knowledge about modern money mechanics, who is behind it, and who profits from war, and then teach that knowledge to everyone in their flock. Saying “no” to violence is good, but knowing why is better.

Tom Ness

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Thank you to Tom for such a well-written, thoughtful email. I will add another post with recommended links from Tom for anyone interested in learning more about “modern money mechanics.”