What is truth? Orwellian language rant

The Pope just blasted those who "midunderstand" his blessing of irregular sexual relationships, and cites the parable of the wedding feast.

saying that 

“the Lord blesses everyone, everyone, everyone, those who come. Every person.”

true, but he didn't approve of everyone's behavior...I sort of remember something about millstones and brood of vipers, and the cheating merchants got a bit of a lashing,

 but never mind. presumably Francis is one of those Catholics who never reads the bible, as the protestants are always telling us...

And then Francis goes on to defend his position by distorting a famous parable taught by Jesus:

The Pope argued that the Church’s “cordial dimension” comes from the Gospel parable of the missing wedding guests:...This is what the Lord says, not what I say. The problem is when we make selections: this one yes, this one no… Let Him do it.

silly me. The missing wedding guests were missing because they were busy doing their thing and refused to come. This refers to those who reject religion as a waste of time or nothing to do with their lives. Since these good people don't want to serve God, the poor and travelers and street people were invited to come in and eat the free food.

but not everyone was left in: Some who refused to dress properly (the garments were provided for them) were thrown out. In other words, they wanted the freebies but wanted to do their own thing.   they wanted the food but didn't want to show respect for the king...

The special wedding garments were provided by the king himself. A feast filled with appropriately dressed guests would be an honor to the king. A person inappropriately dressed would bring dishonor upon the king and cause a shame to the happy occasion.

the entire episode of the Pope and his minion pushing blessings of unmarried couples (this includes divorced and polygamous couples, not just those who are gay or who have open marriages) is about distorting language to confuse people, in order to push the agenda of sexual liberation on them. 

'

Why not do as pre Vatican II Catholics always did: tell them about God's mercy, encourage them to follow God's rules, but if they cannot to go to church and pray for God's mercy without receiving the Eucharist, which even Paul notes can not be taken if one is living in sin.

This is just one more step by the same modernist clergy and theologians who destroyed Vatican II's ideas with ideas that led to many Catholics leaving the church. 

And nowadays, we see this type busy destroying not just Catholicism but a lot of good churches by pushing an agenda that goes against not just the Bible but the ideas of the good pagans (Confucius anyone?) on how to live a life of goodness and duty instead of a life of manipulative narcissism.

and so Francis, instead of answering his critics in clear language, is again calling them names and manipulating language to confuse matters and not correcting the pornographer who wrote the decree or criticizing the PC who openly bless gay relationships and tell the press gay marriage is the next step. 

First throw out thou shalt not commit adultery, then throw out Thou shalt not steal (Vatican bank scandals) and don't forget thou shalt not kill (praise communism and let communist countries like China take over the church because communists talk nice and are so idealistic, and just ignore the 100 million deaths from communism).

There is a reason that the word Jesuitical is used to describe such manipulation,

in the meanwhile, Maureen Mullarchey notes this is just one more way language is being distorted to push an agenda:

Self-justified worthies gerrymander realities without apology. They confer high awards on finesse in dissembling. Language obfuscates; clarity is penalized. Two contemporary parallels come to mind, one ecclesial, the other secular.

During the COVID-19 panic, the CDC gave the word vaccine a makeover. It tweaked language in order to sell the public on an inadequately tested gene therapy being used as if it were a vaccine in the traditional sense that Edward Jenner might recognize. The definition of vaccination was renovated—”repurposed” chirped one medical expert—to accommodate an update in technology.

True. Of course, some of the vaccines were vaccines: I took the AZ vaccine, which uses old fashioned adenovirus technology. Ironically, it causes the blood clots, something that seems to be related to the spike protein of all vaccines and the disease itself.

She then goes on to say:

As with vaccine, the noun blessing has been repurposed. Updated to reflect change in Vatican weather, it has been divided. One half, reserved for sacramental marriage between a man and woman, is the sole existing liturgical act. The other half—an informal subdivision but nonetheless hallowed—can be openly granted to same-sex couples.

Fiducia supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings formalizes the bifurcation. It opens our clouded eyes to previously unseen distinctions within the concept of blessings. To facilitate this taffy-pull, FS separates the term couple from its established role as a signal of a sexual relationship.

but of course this is not the end of the church's support of evil: She also cites the defense of Hamas by certain bishops. Like the praise of communism, it is praise for the propaganda that sees them as liberators and defenders of the poor, while overlooking their atrocities, lies and propaganda. 

Crowning the indecency of Pizzaballa’s suggestive parade was a mendacious, historically ignorant manger scene. Constructed in Manger Square, it was a politicized propaganda piece that usurped traditional, theologically-infused depictions of the newborn Jesus. Note what substituted for an infant in swaddling clothes: the corpse of an infant covered face to toe with a winding cloth and ready for burial. Razor wire around the scene concretizes the meme that Gaza is “an open-air prison.” The Star of Bethlehem appears as a rocket crater through a roof—a Gazan roof in this context. The blackened assemblage is hardly a non-partisan plea for peace. It is more sly than that. It conveys a parallel between the Holy Family and the Palestinians. Israel’s genocidal bombing kills babies, you see. Hint, hint: Jews are murdering Christ again.

A more up-to-date and politically honest manger scene would show a Hamas weapons cache under the crèche.

yes. That part is always ignored by the Hamas lovers who prefer the illusion to the facts. 

Mullarkey then notes that there is a common thread in this:

Francis’ hostility to the West—and the orthodoxy that nourished it?—is palpable. There is no way around the fact that both cardinals were chosen to reflect Pope Francis’ ultimate aims.

and not just the west of course. Hatred of Christianity and hatred of truth.

oh, it's not truth: Francis echoes Pilate in saying What is Truth?  He insists it is merely ideology.

and then, voila, he morphs into his usual "look squirrel" mode says: look at the poor.

But of course, the war against the sacrament of marriage will weaken the family and make it harder for the poor to exist.

And his rants against capitalism ignores that it is capitalism, with all it's faults, that lifted the majority of the world out of dire poverty over the last 50 years.

I would like to add to her rant: don't forget how he makes nice with China (some report he sold the church there for oodles of money something that is believable since McCarrick was involved in the deal).

And the result? he is ignoring the persecution of believers in that country that is busy rewriting church dogmas and the Bible so that people worship the state, not God. (add Thou shalt have no other gods before me to the list of cancelled commandments).

And not just for Catholic of course.

The CCP sees itself as possessing absolute authority over religion in China. For example, in 2018, the Vatican compromised with the CCP on the prerogative to appoint Roman Catholic clergy in China. Multiple sources have warned that the CCP aims to select the next Dalai Lama—the supreme leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

Thus, the CCP forcing the church to be subservient to the state infringes the Western conception of religious liberty, which is founded on the Christian understanding of the church and the state as distinct institutions ordained by God.

so the Pope will condemn this? Well, not so far:

Relations with China An important question that Francis has to decide on by October 2024 relates to the Sino-Vatican provisional agreement that was signed in Beijing on Sept 22, 2018, regarding the nomination of bishops in mainland China. The Holy See and China renewed this agreement in 2020 and 2022. This year, the two sides will have to decide whether to renew the agreement for another two years, to make it permanent or to introduce changes to it.

Sigh.

So much damage in so little time.

And although some bishops are trying to draw the line here, none of them has the courage to say: this guy is destroying the church. Kick him out.

sigh.

Looking forward to bishops - especially those online - engaging with this latest...development. "Principal teacher of his diocese" and all that.
Here's the thing - if you don't want the Big Bad Laity to dominate the discourse on these matters...speak up. Do your jobs.

— Amy Welborn (@amywelborn2) December 18, 2023

.........................

Update

On review, I am a bit aghast that I seem to be rigid and have no mercy.

But one only has to see how the sociopaths, greedy, hateful, and narcissists manipulate the idea of mercy to get away with destroying those rigid rules that keep their behavior under a bit of control.

.......................more here:

Family night movie: Why families count

 My granddaughter came home so we could celebrate her birthday. She now has graduated and has a teaching job in Manila: They don't pay well but after a year's experience she will be able to get a job overseas with better pay. 

Sigh. A typical Philippine story: Few jobs and poor pay for the jobs that are here. So people migrate overseas. 

I have the big screen TV in my room (it was bought for Lolo before he died.) Traditionally the family meets in the room to watch TV after supper, usually an old movie.

So last night, we watched the old black comedy Raising Arizona, which she hadn't seen before. The backstory of the film is about the wish for a family.

and the film ends with this line:

And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.” – H.I. McDunnough

And of course, what he is referring to is that Utah was founded as a refuge for the LDS, i.e. the Mormons, a misunderstood sect, but one whose practices emphasize family. They encourage family meetings, the idea that children are a blessing, and community: the symbol is the beehive, of cooperation.

In theory it is a good way of life, and like pre Vatican II Catholicism, the rules encourage responsibility, caring for others, and family stability. In a world of drag queen story hours and the moral chaos of the mainstream Protestant churches (and in many areas this includes Catholic churches) one can see the attraction of someone making rules to live by, even if one can't always follow the rules.

Since the age of drugs, the sexual revolution and rebellion since the 1960s, the family is seen by the culture as a prison to escape from. Freedom they cry, but Non Servium is the phrase I believe would be a more accurate description. That is what Satan said when he found the Creator was planning to become a human being for awhile to teach them how to live... something that disgusted Lucifer because humans were ickky: they had bodies, they gave birth, they raised kids, they worked for a living, and they died. Not like the angels who were so superior and who should be ruling these humans as their slaves, not teaching them by example which requires getting your hands dirty. 

So instead of helping, he rebelled, and he taught Adam and Eve to rebel:Rules are meaningless, indeed rules are evil because they stop you from doing what you want to do. In rebellion lies your freedom he argued:Do your own thing and become like god. 

so what happens when you destroy rules?

From a recent book podcast,,,,

In Live to See the Day, Nikhil Goyal offers a searing portrait of three Puerto Rican children struggling to survive in Philadelphia’s impoverished Kensington neighborhood. Drawing on nearly a decade of reportage, he follows the youths’ personal—but not unique—journeys through violence, homelessness, incarceration, and substance abuse as they strive to defy their designated fate in the modern U.S.' socioeconomic system.

their answer of course is to throw more money at the problem: which in some ways will help but in the long run it will make it worse because it enables those who don't want to follow the rules. 

One could argue that the problem is a mindset that sees self over family, and a corporate mindset that sees profit (send jobs overseas) over the need to support their workers.

so what is the result? Compare his picture to the lower middle class neighborhood of the 1950s Kensington. There was some violence, and a lot of alcoholism, but not the widespread drug use in the street. Homelessness was rare, because usually a family or friends were around to help: to quote Robert Frost:

 ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.

But you know, behind all the headlines that emphasize the chaos of the cities, families are still there: like Gallileo saying "but it moves", I can only say: But it still exists: 40 million caregivers can't be wrong.

In the Philippines, the problem is different: it is that the families are torn apart because to get a decent job, you need to work in the city, or overseas.  

and in the Philippines, the family is even more vital: because it is the family who does the care for the children, the elderly, the handicapped. True, people go overseas to work, but it is not to get rich, but often to send money home so the extended family can pay school fees, have a decent house, and have enough to eat. And this is true not just in the Philippines but in many third world countries.

Well, anyway, that is what I have against this Pope. He is talking to the margin he claims. Fine. But he is not offering them advice on how to live their lives, but seems more to be wanting to push the idea that getting rid of chastity because it is out of date and oppressive needs to be done: ignoring the reason why all societies have rules here to protect the family. 

yet as Catholic culture article points out:

chastity cannot be reduced to a collection of rules and regulations. Chastity is the holy and habitual self-control of sexual impulses.

and the dirty little secret is that without self control of sexual impulses the family will not exist. And the ripple effect results in a Kensington with homeless drugged out zombies on the streets and robbery and assaults accepted as normal.

accepting the weak and helping them without condemnation and saying go and sin no more is not the same as saying no problemo bro go and do your own thing.

Alas according to Francis, if you object to the synod telling you that loving reptiles and praying for demons and blessing sin is required, well, then you are rigid (i.e. bad). 

Well, fine. 

But holding fake meetings full of those who have an agenda to make the church of what's happening now a reality is evil.

and what is more evil is that there is no talk about ordinary folk and the problems we face. Nor is there support for ordinary folks who try to keep the rules: indeed, the dirty little secret is that the younger generation doesn't even know that there are rules at all.

Sigh.

so where do kids come in?

 Many years ago, in the chaos of the 1960s rejection of normality, I read the praise of the modern way to see the world, The Aquarian conspiracy that saw people channeling their own thing and then networking to make utopia. Ebook here.

a lot of what she wrote about has since then come true, but maybe those inside this revolution are too close to it to see what I saw as a problem: It is about self actualization. But there is no place in it for children, babies, caring for the sick and elderly  because sacrificing your own wants for the family or spouse, etc, is not part of the Aquarian ideals...Indeed, there was no place in their utopia for the weak or inferior.

What stood in the way in the USA were the churches. 

Hence the infiltration of Vatican II, and now the struggle of the Catholics against an anti pope who talks a lot about nice charitable stuff that I agree with, but if you look closer, appoints minions whose goal is the opposite... His agenda spouts charity work, but it is tone deaf to Jesus. I mean, he tells people to follow the green religion and help the poor but ignores that this means the poor are outliers, sort of pets for the strong to dabble with so they feel virtuous, and alas too often destroy when they put their green agenda in front of stuff like growing cheap food because that requires fossil fuel. And there is nothing in it about serving God in the humble everyday tasks of life.

Oh well, I have ranted about this before.

The second thing that has to be destroyed to promote a utopian societyis the family.

Judism, and it's daughters Christianity and Islam, have always defended the strong family, and to do so insisted on limiting sex outside of the family and puts crimps into women who seek to do their own thing free of family ties.

the limitation of both men and women's outside goals is part and parcel of a stable family life: nor is this just a western idea: Confucius, confronted with chaos and societal breakdown wrote strict rules to follow to reestablish the family.

well, anyway, the Trojan horse to destroy the family is gay marriage. Too often, we only read the theological objections that seem to be out of touch with out touchy feely generation: Love is love isn't it, and so let them marry. 

Except apparently no one has looked at the deep roots behind that agenda.

Real Clear Investigations has an expose on gay theology in the major theology schools that apparently has gone on for thirty years without a lot of publicity.

read it and weep.

and two podcasts from First Things magazine discuss these changes.

firstthings · Queer Theology

firstthings · The Sexual Revolution

r=

Tolorating the third sex is not the same as pushing the gay agenda: we manage to do this here in the Philippines, where baclas and tomboys and third sex are accepted as part of our extended family: not approval of their behavior or letting the radical agenda to destroy the family (despite the US State Dept pressure to do so by pushing laws on gay rights, abortion and divorce) but acceptance as part of our family.

But one only has to read the dissadents who the present anti Pope is letting run things behind his nice rhetoric to see their agenda is to change church dogma to push this PC agenda.

We need inclusion they cry. (i.e. everyone except Catholics believing what the church taught until Francis took over are welcome). 

One sees this in his latest stunt, aka the synod on synodality, which is being touted as including lay people and women, but if you look closely, most of these outsiders have an identical agenda. so the meeting is not about an honest discussion, but  will merely be a way to rubber stamp the already chosen agenda of the so called reformers.

LINK

 Steven Mosher interviews Dr. Thomas Ward, president of the John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family, who warns that the upcoming Synod on Synodality could lead to a 'radical paradigm shift on Catholic morality on life and the family.'...

Dr. Ward himself, along with a number of other outspokenly pro-life members of the PAV, was asked to leave the Academy by the incoming Archbishop Paglia, who has since taken the Academy in, it is fair to say, a very different direction than JPII intended.

read the whole interview: An excerpt: 

Steven Mosher:  Dr. Ward, as the President of the JPII Academy for Human Life and Family, how do you and other members of the Academy view the upcoming Synod on Synodality, which will be held in Rome from October 4 to 29?

Dr. Thomas Ward:  I and many other members of our Academy are deeply concerned that the Synod on Synodality will be used to affect a radical paradigm shift on Catholic morality on life and the family.

Steven Mosher: That’s a bold claim that will shock many. Can you substantiate it?

Dr. Ward: Yes, I can. Let me quote the words of senior churchmen who are openly working for this radical paradigm shift in Catholic morality, starting with Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, whom Pope Francis appointed to head the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV). In the words of Archbishop Paglia, the role of PAV is to accept the invitation contained in paragraph 3 of his Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium (the Apostolic Constitution on Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties) for a radical paradigm shift in theological reflection. … to render a service to the Magisterium by opening up a space for dialogue that makes research possible and encourages it.

 

Steven Mosher: So that striking phrase, “radical paradigm shift,” comes from Francis himself.

Dr. Ward: A paradigm is a conceptual framework. Paradigm shifts in science arise when the dominant paradigm is thrown into crisis by new information. The result is that the previous paradigm is replaced by a new conceptual framework or system of beliefs. But bear in mind that in this case the “paradigm” in question is our system of Catholic beliefs.

 sigh

Individual vs the family

 All the shouting on the latest SC kerfuffle on abortion ignores the real issues that have implications on law, government, and society.

both the abortion ruling and the EPA ruling that notes the bureaucracy overstopped it's mandate by expanding it's rules and power beyond what the law actually said, is about stopping rule by fiat, mainly by courts and bureaucrats which make it almost impossible to have popular input on the issue, let alone a public discussion of nuances.

Ann Althouse has a discussion of the EPA rollback from a legal point of view, discussing the problem of law by experts who know what is good for you and despise the hoi polloi:  quoting the Federalist papers and discovering that Woodrow Wilson was a bigot. Duh. 

and the rollback of the court's fiat in RoeVWade did overstop the court's authority,as even Judge Ginsburg noted. 

the dirty little secret is that, in view of an expected population crisis, many elites saw not just birth control, but abortion as a much needed policy to prevent a Malthusian crisis... and like Malthus they saw the problem not as too many babies but too many babies of poor people.

Indeed, the eugenics idea is strong in the planned parenthood movement from it's beginning: it is pushed with the idea that they would save women from dying from childbirth or illegal abortion and stop child abuse of unwanted kids. But Margaret Sanger and others also lived at a time when the Eugenics movement was strong, and there was a push to stop the unwashed ignorant folks from having babies (and in those days, this meant not just Blacks, but Jews, Italians, and Irish immigrants living in the slums).

we still see this today, at a time when the US and European governments and powerful NGOs push poor nations to legalize the sexual ethics of the west: sex education that encourages birth control for single high school girls, forcing hospitals to push birth control on women, and even do legal abortion over the religious objections of their employees (big issue here in the Philippines).

There is a subtle line between encouraging family planning (even Catholic law allows this) and pushing it on people (Indira Gandhi lost one election because of forced sterilization, and thousand in Peru were sterilized against their will).

So is limiting the number of children you have a way to help the poor get out of poverty, or about stopping the poor from overbreeding useless eaters?

Alas, both.

 The overpopulation myth of the west inspired China to implement their one child policy, and even the Iranian mullahs decided to push family planning to slow the growth of their population as a way to improve the economy.  China did this through monitoring women and forcing abortion, and the mullahs did this by pointing out that the prophet would approve of something that encouraged closeness of the spouses and the health of the wife and children who are harmed by excessive childbearing.

Reality check: What stops women from bearing eight kids is the knowledge that she will end up with eight kids to raise. (in the past, the childhood mortality was high, so you needed a lot of kids to insure a few would live to support you in your old age). 

With modern medicine, you can have two or three kids and stop, knowing they will probably all live. And with modern education and the modern economy, it's more expensive to raise kids (school fees etc.). Voila, even without coercion the number of children being born has dropped dramatically, so much that many countries are facing a population drop in the near future.

that is what Gates meant by saying that vaccines would lower the population: the paranoid say vaccines kill, but actually the vaccines, a clean water supply, basic medicine, etc. result in more children living, so parents decide they don't need to have eight kids to make sure two or three of them will live to adulthood.

But when I worked in Africa, every village had a "pill lady" to push birth control pills, but until we got grants to dig well, these same villages had to carry water from polluted streams, and until we got money for village health workers who could give out WHO rehydration fluid and simple medicines, the children often died of dehydration from simple diarrhea...

I'm not criticizing the pill ladies per se (they allowed us as a Catholic hospital to stay true to natural law). But it wasn't enough for the eugenics/population control types: which is why the same NGOs and western government pressuring poor countries to mandate abortion and also to allow gay rights in an area where male rape was used to terrorize the losing side in tribal wars and  where pedophilia of boys and girls by the powerful (both locals and colonial settlers) has a long history.

you can't just isolate women and say it's about control of her body: because the sexual revolution was more about normalizing promiscuity, something that mainly benefitted the alpha male ( ugly women and women over 40 are not the winners of the sexual revolution).

But the negative social effect of RvW and the Casey decision was the philosophy behind it: the idea of radical freedom that was blind to the reality that people do not live in isolation, but in families. 

Thousands of years of human experience on what makes a society livable is why every culture had rules about sex and marriage. True, they have different ideas, but essentially they protect women who are vulnerable and can get pregnant, and try to protect the child who is ever more vulnerable than the woman...

this often limited women in many ways, but what was the alternative? 

But modern medicine gave us an alternative, because it eliminated STDs and unwanted children and social welfare allowed women to get rid of putting up with those annoying men.

But no one outside of Catholic philosophers asked the vital questions: Cui Bono? Who benefits? And what happens when these rules are destroyed?

Roe and Casey decision essentially ignore this social ecology: they posit a reality that that it isolates the pregnant woman as a lone individual, ignroring the reality of relationships with lover and family. 

And only Catholic blogs seem to notice that this was being pushed at the same time that introduced no fault divorce, the sexual revolution that pushed women to be promiscuous, and a third wave feminism (that saw women as the same as men as someone who finds meaning only in her job, unlike earlier feminism that proposed women might want a job and want to be married.).

and only now are we seeing secular pushback as we see how the destruction of the idea of marriage and family has poisoned our children.

There is no way that abortion will be completely stopped: One hundred years ago illicit abortions did happen... my mother relates how, when a woman miscarried, my waspish grandmother would remark: I see she got rid of another one. And taking herbs to bring on a late period is not considered the same as taking a life in most societies. Psychologically there is a difference between a heavy period when you might or might not be pregnant, and dismembering a child that is part way out of the womb and who would live with proper care.

Sadly, society is not stronger if the baby is seen as the enemy and the woman seen as an isolated individual whose only goal in life is to mimic men and become workaholics and make money. 

So who cares for them when they are old? hint: The Canne Film festival just oohed and ahhed over a Japanese film where the elderly are killed off at age 75, justifying this because too many die alone and isolated in that country: here, ethicists like Callahan and Emmanuel posit doing this passively, by withholding care from the elderly.

and a dirty little secret about China and the covid epidemic is that, unlike here in the Philippines where we elders got the vaccine first, China did not make it a priority to vaccinate their elderly. (one reason they are having a big surge in covid right now)

Sigh.

How the Pope plans to remake the church into a church of woke

All the shennanigans about the synod on the family  and the plans for various areas to hold synodality meetings with the (prechosen) faithful, supposedly to get grass roots input into the Catholic church, is of course just manipulation:

a call for much greater roles of women at all levels in the future of Church; attention to sexuality, relationships and LGBTQI+ concerns; references to topics such as education and catechesis, youth, family and co-responsible leadership, lay ministry, culture and the impact of Covid-19; as well as to faith formation, clergy and liturgy". 

Yup.Sounds familiar doesn't it?

In other words, in many, if not most areas, the agenda has already been decided by the big shots, and one truly doubts they will allow nay sayers to get their two cents in.

reminds me of the encounter groups of the 1960s, 

where we were encouraged to bare our soul to others in the group in order to promote group solidarity. 

Once this had been done, our defenses would be down so it was easly for the leaders to manipulate us to go along with the newfangled ideas we would usually oppose, such as when those running the groups explained why abortion was okay and ridiculing anyone who didn't join in the sexual revolution.

So when I see the so called Pope pull the same shennanigans, I am a bit suspicious. 

One suspects that he will use the liberal bishops in Germany to push his agenda of reform. 

Will it succeed? Who knows. 

The Filipino bishops are deep into ecology so will probably go along with it, but will the strong lay groups here (CFC, alliance of the two hearts, and the various charismatic groups) manage to influence them here?

and one wonders how their agenda will play with the  African bishops. Will they hold the line on these trendier than thou ideas, as the African bishops are doing in the Anglican church?

 Anyone following this psychodrama knows that Pope Francis a disaster for the church: but hey, don't criticize the pope because that makes you a heretic or worse, a right wing ultra maga type. (I guess St Catherine of Sienna and St Athanasius are now in that category). 

the dirty little secret is that Pope Francis says both A and Anti A, and often while he is saying good stuff he is sneaking around arranging the exact opposite to be done by his minions who are doing the dirty work.

The plans are now out in the open, and Italian journalist Sandro Magister, has the details of the attempt to impose a not-so-secret plan over opposition.

the first step was to let divorced folks who have remarried outside the church receive communion. This would essentially make the sacrament a mere feel good event, ignoring the Catholic belief that the sacrament is the body and blood of Christ and Paul's warning to take the sacrament with reverence (1 Cor 11: 28-34) because it is something very holy.

Ah, but the bishops opposed this when he held a meeting, so no more meetings with his bishops.

then the Vatican held a synod on the family which also had a prewritten document ready to release that was supposed to relate what was agreed upon. 

someone noticed the scam and so the document was rewritten but someone didn't notice the two small footnotes, and voila, the modernist minions were happy to ask Francis if they should allow people living in sin or not members of the church to receive the sacrament, and in a private letter he said sure, why not...

We see the same type of shennanigans in the present meeting on Family in Rome, which is all about holiness in family life (but at the same time sowing confusion by welcoming the gay community  in a way that ignores the physical and spiritual dangers of the gay lifestyl, which is an insult to gays who live a life fighting temptations who are trying to live a life of holiness.)

So now we have Synodality plans not written in theological language but in the language of sociology which implies if you don't make your life into serving the church you don't count.... Nope, no Jesus here, folks, just move along. 

FatherZ has a link to the actual document in pdf form. and fisks one very greeny paragraph: Pray for reptiles.

I promise you I am not making this up. A reader clued me in. On page document page 29 (PDF page 31). Discernment, then, is also an opening of the heart in love and mercy to all things. As St Isaac of Nineveh (St Isaac the Syrian) expresses it: What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. ... And in like manner, such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

yup. Pray for everyone. I do, actually, but let me kill the snakes first, please... But notice the quote is about you and your merciful heart, not about Jesus.

Similarly, the trendy tree is missing something:

 the tree of life is a symbol of the church, but it is also the symbol of sin in the garden of eden. So traditionally, the tree of life becomes the tree of the cross, where sin was destroyed.

But notice something about this tree? nothing about Jesus who is the center of being a Christian.

There are oodles of prophecies out there that the Pope and bishops will destroy the church, but in the end the layfolk and a few honest bishops will save it, but maybe only after a major persecution. Similar to how St Athanasius rescued the church against the more popular idea that hey, Jesus was just a superman, not God.

Pope Francis and his minions haven't quite lapsed into that heresy (yet) but the gradual destruction of the idea of the holiness of God is being pushed out of the church in favor of a life of being a SJW, and the helpful MSM is happy about this. Indeed, if you just read the MSM you would think the Vatican had it all in control, that might not be true: 

Vatican expert and reporter Sandro Magister a couple months ago reported that someone was passing a memo around to the bishops that objected to this. 

after pointing out the silence of Pope Francis in stopping heretical bishops, they get to the real problem of his attempt to remake the church into a secular institution:

2. The Christo-centricity of teaching is being weakened; Christ is being moved from the centre. Sometimes Rome even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant. 

which leads us into the Pachimama debacle: 

 (A) Pachamama is idolatrous; perhaps it was not intended as such initially.

There were multiple claims about what was going on with this idol: none of which were actually clarified. But given the fact that

the irony is that pachimama and Amazon tribes were being used to push another agenda (married priests) at a time when the Amazon tribes are conveting to protestantism en masse. And I'm sure the pious Baptists in Brazil are happy that the Pope has just affirmed their claim the church worships pagan idols.  

Ironically, it wasn't a bishop but an ordinary layman who took the idol off it's altar and threw it into the Tiber. LOL.

The memo also asks why the Vatican is pushing back on groups of praying folks: both the cloistered orders who pray quite a lot, and the lay folks belonging to various charismatic groups who pray loudly and with enthusiasm and who are important here in the third world.

then the memo laments how some are trying to destroy moral rules that date back 3200 years to instruct people on right and wrong: 

the memo points out how Pope Francis essentially destroyed the intellectuals who were defendingthe "gospel of life" which was clarified by John Paul II against what he called the culture of death, where abortion and euthansia of the old and handicapped would be pushed as compassionate but actually was becoming a policy to save money and free people from responsibility of caring for them.

 (C) The Christo-centric legacy of St. John Paul II in faith and morals is under systematic attack. Many of the staff of the Roman Institute for the Family have been dismissed; most students have left. The Academy for Life is gravely damaged, e.g., some members recently supported assisted suicide. The Pontifical Academies have members and visiting speakers who support abortion.

which explains the lack of enthusiasm of the Pope and alas too many bishops when the Supreme court rolled back a decision on RoeVWade that even Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticized for it's power grab, i.e. using the court to pass a law instead of normal folks.

By the way: the MSM is not reporting what the Supreme court actually said (essentially saying the people, through their elected officials, should make the law) nor is the MSM putting it into the context of other recent court rulings that are stopping the abuse of unelected bureaucrats, who essentially are rewriting the laws passed by Congress to the point of distorting the original purpose of these laws, or by courts who make it a point not to obey the law but to make the law, something which is not in their job description.\

But of course the church is not a democracy: yet the Pope is not a dictator who can disoby the rule of law either.

and when he does things that go against the bible and the traditions of the church, more people leave the church, some to just stay home, others to churches that still acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.

Until Pope Francis stops his deceptions and intrigues and lies, the church will continue to hemorrhage members, because we prefer to hear sermons on Jesus and holiness and how to serve God in the duties of our daily life, not a sermon on how we need to protect the environment like I had to listen to last Sunday: 

and this was at the 5:30 am mass, full of tricycle drivers and palenke workers who attend early so they can go to work. Many people here have problems on how to make ends meet after a two year shut down of the economy, and they came to church to worship God and to meet him to get spiritual strength to make it through another week of hard work. They needed a sermon to assure them God loves them, and they got an eco sermon that had nothing to do with the struggles of their daily lives.

Economics or superheroes?

 my grandson was into Japanese superheroes, and here we have an entire TV station that shows these cartoons.

Alas, they are long and hard for me to get into them, and a lot of them are like the recent hit movie, Demon Slayer, where the plot is killing monsters.

Ah, but what do you think of a manga called How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom?

The plot? a small country needs to pay it's debt to a smaller country, but is given the option to use their magic power to summon a hero to destroy their common enemy. Since they don't have the money, they do the ritual... but they do it incorrectly and summon a student accountant by mistake.

who instead of deciding which magic sword will help him in the battle has a meeting

he then spends a lot of time looking at the books (finding a lot of corruption), 

Next step?

selling unneeded treasures owned by the king. Putting policies intact that will mean enough food will be planted to feed the people. Making the forests productive by thinning the trees and selling lumber. Asking a local gourmet to popularize new foods for people to eat. 

Oh yes, and of course this is a manga, so romance and fighting of course.

With my limited attention span, I probably won't get around to watching the entire manga (on line here to read).

But I find it interesting that it mixes magic with the very real problems of the world... 

the real skills needed in a country are not superhero skills but those of economics. 

Which is why Goldman Sachs has the ten thousand women initiative to teach and help local entrepeneurs like Joy, who I mentioned in a previous blogpost. 

Because give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to fish (and get him a loan to buy his own boat) and he feeds his family for decades.

Which is why I, a person who has worked as a missionary and in poor areas in what would be called charity work, am so angry when the Pope goes around saying live simply and help the poor.  

Saying things like that imply he only wants to preach to the upper middle class in rich countries.

Here, maybe better advice would be to invest your money in an industry that gives jobs to the unemployed instead of building chapels to celebrate the environment.

Maybe, even, you should teach the ten commandments to all those corrupt Catholic politicians. 

Here in the Philippines, corruption and nepotism are limiting the economic growth... so one tenth of the population work overseas, either as temporary OFW or as immigrants.

In other words, the Philippine economy is held up by wages sent back to families by their OFW, but a smarter country would keep them and find a way for them to use their skills to make the country rich.

Well, the Philippines has improved a lot in recent years thanks to Duterte whacking a lot of drug dealers. When he took over, there was danger of the Philippines becoming a narco state, something often ignored by the "human rights" NGOs.

We are like an old Jeepney: falling apart, slow but we get there.

Finally, I'd like to add that the press seems full of breathless (and admiring stories) about the Taliban's successes.

But I wonder: how will they run the place?

I saw Mozambique fall into mass starvation when the communists threw out all those with an education as colonialist exploiters. But then the place collapsed. 

I saw Zimbabwe go downhill and Mugabe persecuting not just the white farmers but the educated class who were terrorized by his green bomber gangs, so many fled to England or South Africa to be safe and to support their families, while Mugabe and his minions lived high off the hog during a major famine.

I left Liberia shortly before the coup that overthrew President Tolbert took place, and Sargent Doe took over. 

Someone from the American embassy tried to advise Sargent Doe about the problems of running the country, and explained what would happen if these things weren't taken care of: "Country Go Kaput"

So unless another country wants to go in and take the place over and run things, Afghanistan could very well go "kaput", meaning hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing into Pakistan, Iran and other nearby countries, along with their criminal elements and heroin trade connections.

So who is running things in Afghanistan?

Russia?  (in the north)

The Turks? (running the airport)

The Chinese? (planning to take over their mineral resources, but since they probably won't hire locals to run the mines, this will mainly help the corrupt politicians).

Remember, there have been a drought in that area, and a lot of hunger in the remote villages this year could mean mass starvation and more refugees.

so the Taliban government can take all their weapons and shout in front of the cameras, but will they use their trucks and jeeps to take food to their villages? 

and in the capital: Who will keep the water running, clean up the garbage, keep the electricity on, keep the gas stations supplied, and of course stop the looters and criminals who will quickly start attacking normal people?

Will they end up selling the weapons for money? If so, that money, just like aid money, will probably go into the pockets of the corrupt leaders, not pay the salaries of experts to actually run these vital industries.

Then there is covid. Who will take care of the sick?

Who will get in supplies, especially when covid or more common disease like Dengue, dysentary, measles etc hit?

As I had mentioned in a previous post, two of the Filipinos who came back from Afghanistan were with Doctors without Borders, meaning they are leaving too... And of course the usual suspects (Christian churches who help out in disasters) will be forbidden.

So yes, I think Biden made a mistake in not withdrawing properly (strategic withdrawal is a skill that many civilians don't know about).

But the dirty little secret is that Americans have done a bit of building up the infrastructure, including educating people to run things, but without a culture that allows the growth of civil society, things will go to hell.

and outsiders, even those with the best intention, can't do that.

--------------------

update:

StrategyPage has an article on when extremists took over part of Iraq and tried to make it into a 7th century utopia.

Getting electricity, water and sanitation networks operating was a priority but crippled by lack of supplies (especially fuel) and spare parts as well as people qualified to repair, maintain or operate these utilities.

using foreigners was not done because it was't Islamic, so they tried to get modern Moslem workers from other countries. 

Few qualified foreign Moslems arrived and the result was intermittent water supplies, unreliable sanitation systems and lots of people using portable generators for power or just living in the dark like their 7th century ancestors....

and who took care of the sick?

the collapse of the medical care system has left most people with few useful options if they got sick or injured. ISIL considers such misfortunes “the will of God '' and complainers are regarded as heretics.

all of this while the leaders stole everything in site and laundered it with the help of Turkish and other international banks, of course.

Look for a similar thing to happen in Afghanistan. 

The heretic pope?

two years ago, four high ranking Cardinals asked Pope Francis to clarify confusion in his document on marriage, where a footnote was inserted that implied adultery was okay and that those living in this sin could receive the Eucharist, as if the holy sacrament was a "feel good" thing, not about humbly receiving the body and blood of Jesus. This is not just Catholic tradition: even Paul said receiving the sacrament "unworthily" was a no-no.

The controversy was called the "Dubia" question and to this day, and the blunt questions of the Cardinals has yet to be answered by Pope Francis, while his minions go around ridiculing those who dare to bring it up.

A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict released an essay about "sexual abuse": which he blames on the weakening of the idea of holiness in the church and the moral collapse of recent times.

Benedict originally sent it to be discussed when Pope Francis met with the bishops about the pederasty crisis, but of course it was ignored. 

So Benedict released the essay for publication in a "minor" church journal, and it was picked up by the Catholic branch of the Catholic blogosphere on the internet and was discussed by many lay people worried about the church.

The latest discussion of Benedict's essay is in the CatholicThing: the author noticed that Pope Benedict answered the "dubia" questions. And her analysis suggests that Benedict is saying that Pope Francis is indeed going against 2000 years of church dogma and morals to please the situational ethics of the modern PC world:

Whatever the reason, the world watched, read, and missed the answers to the dubia proposed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his April essay, “The Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse.”

In offering a three-part response to the crisis in the Church, he indirectly answers the five dubia that Cardinals Brandmüller, Caffarra, Meisner, and Burke presented years ago to Pope Francis. The pope emeritus fulfilled a duty that Pope Francis has not, namely, to maintain the bishops and all the faithful in the unity of the Church’s constant teaching on faith and morals.

What did the pope emeritus say? He gives the Church and the world an unequivocal No, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Five questions, five answers.

Why worry about dogmatic trivia?

Here is just one snip that gives an example:

Dubium Three: After “Amoris Laetitia” (n. 301) is it still possible to affirm that a person who habitually lives in contradiction to a commandment of God’s law, as for instance the one that prohibits adultery (cf. Mt 19:3-9), finds him or herself in an objective situation of grave habitual sin (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Declaration, June 24, 2000)?

Benedict’s response: Yes. “A society without God – a society that does not know Him and treats Him as non-existent – is a society that loses its measure. . . .Western society is a society in which God is absent in the public sphere and has nothing left to offer it. And that is why it is a society in which the measure of humanity is increasingly lost. At individual points it becomes suddenly apparent that what is evil and destroys man has become a matter of course.”

read the whole thing because it has a lot to do with the collapse of civilized society in the modern world.


John Paul II went "over the heads" of the lazy bishops to strengthen the church, but now things have become much worse as Francis seems bent on destroying anyone who opposes his fancy church of sexual liberation, ecology, and niceness.

and I won't even go into the scandal of his cover up of bishops who are (fill in blanks here...  Yup. pass another "code of conduct" but don't fire them or punish them.

The problem is basic ethics: but the basic problem is is philosophy more than theology: it has to do with the question if there is truly a right and wrong, or is it relative, and left to the conscience of the individual. 

This problem is blamed on the 1960s but goes a lot further back.

Gresham college had a lecture series that discusses the reason modern atheists and others rebelled against the church as an evil restricting institution and that rejects traditional morality because it limits their "freedom".... Full series here.

so is there hope out there?

One is reminded of the conclusion of Cahill's "how the Irish saved civilization" that notes often the civilization is often saved by the least likely folks who often are at the margin and ignored by the self important.

The Gresham lecture on Christ vs Hitler notes this too: 

To many people it is incongruous, even embarrassing, that the twentieth century’s bestselling work of fiction is an excessively long, apologetically archaic and sometimes self-indulgent fairy-tale written by a philologist who was a very traditional Catholic, and whose most devoted readers were and remain teenage boys. But even if you share the now-receding literary disdain for J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, there is no gainsaying its cultural importance.

Tolkien himself had no patience for allegory as a literary form, and vigorously denied that he had written one, but if his War of the Ring does not mirror the Second World War which was raging as he wrote the book, it certainly refracts it.

Tolkien was an early and staunch opponent of Nazism in general and Nazi racial ideology in particular, in part because he felt the Nazi appropriation of his beloved Nordic mythology as a personal affront.

But while he never doubted the righteousness of the Allies’ cause, he was also a veteran of the Battle of the Somme, and knew that this war was, like any war, ‘an ultimately evil job’: so he told his son in 1944. And he used his own developing myth to explain what he meant: not only that there were ‘a great many Orcs on our side’, but that ‘we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring’. Such a war might end in victory, but a victory whose effect would be ‘to breed new Saurons’.

Whatever we make of that as a political judgement, as a cultural prophecy it has proved uncannily prescient. Western culture has been breeding new Saurons ever since. 

so who is filling the gap identifying the new Saurons and encouraging opposition to them when the Popes and bishops won't take a stand?

As I have noted, in the Catholic wing of the Catholic church there are internet podcasts and blogs that fill in the gaps, from EWTN to  Father Ripperger to Father Z to Bishop Barron.

Yet they do not reach the unchurched population. 

but there are others there doing this: the most famous is an obscure psychology teacher from Canada who sort of stumbled into the frey.

Internet types like Jordan Peterson are busy trying to clarify things by fighting the nihilism in youth who watch him stealthily because he is not politically correct.

Like Benedict, and like the Gresham lectures, he is so nuanced that you have to listen/read it twice and ponder these things.

Here is his latest, which I am listening to as I write.

at 1:25:00 he discusses how a woman who wants a family is being ridiculed by modern "feminists" because having children destroys the environment. 

Sad.

No news and bad news

Dilbert a couple days ago noted there was no "new" news, and in politics, he's right.

The political hysteria in the USA is now a broken record.
So Muller said no collusion and now the big question if the FBI did "Watergate 2", i.e. using federal government to spy on the opposition party for political reasons. So now the call is to drop the subject, even though this has "yuge" political ramifications about "big brother" being able to get you convicted for anything by snooping on you and finding a crime.

The response of the Democrats, however, is not to call for an investigation of illegal snooping, but to double down and ask for Trumpieboy's complicated tax records: which looks like another way to try to find a crime.

Isn't there an amendment in the Bill of Rights about the right to privacy? (it's the 4th one).

Senator Markey introduced a bill about social media privacy, and he's a Democrat, but it's a bit late.

it won't do us much good if a political justice department weaponize the IRS against groups representing the party out of power but no one holds the employees who did this to account.

and of course, that won't stop Chinese hackers from using the information of our personnel files that they hacked a couple years back. and I suspect they have a data base on those who interest them by simply checking out their Facebook information.

However it hasn't stopped the anti Trumpieboy hysteria, with a Boston Globe columnist encouraging waiters to contaminate the food of anyone who worked for the present US administration, and subtle calls for assassination continue.

the latest hate wave against Trumpieboy tweets is because he dared to remind a beautiful Muslim congresslady that it wasn't "someone who did something" but that it was terrorists deliberately killing Americans under the guise of a rabid form of their religion.

Shouldn't she be doing the opposite? Stressing the good Muslims fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with the help of the US?

During World War I, Germans like my grandfather, were under suspicion because the family would sang German songs, so were investigated by the cops. (this was not an over reach by the cops: the only successful modern biowarfare incident happened during that war so embedded agents were a worry: LINK ). But it didn't mean he ridiculed the war effort: Indeed, his oldest son joined the military.

During World War II, the Japanese Americans fought for their adopted country.

So one would expect that the Muslim Congressladies would be defending America and their own communities against the crazies who hide behind religion, but no: instead they hate Israel and America and are acting to take over the party to push this agenda.

And it gets worse:

When a Navy Seal who was wounded and now is in Congress criticized her remark, he was ridiculed because he wears an eyepatch (he lost the eye from an explosive device).

And when Trumpie boy pointed out a lot of innocent people died from a terrorist attack, and that it was wrong to minimize that problem, he was also criticized by the Democrats and the MSM, in almost identical terms, i.e. that criticizing a person is inciting violence.

and I thought that Journolist coordination was a thing of the past. /s

The reason the Democrats won back Congress in the last election is because they ran moderates: From the Clinton/BlueDog wing of the party, many of whom are veterans. Yet we don't hear of them, for some reason.

Unless they are given a voice in the party, Trumpie boy will win, and bring a lot of new Congress folk with him.

so who will oppose him? The geriatric set or the metrosexual candidates, or the women who slept their way into power?

Biden would be a good choice, and Biden's son fought for the USA in Iraq, but hey, the PC in the party are trying to destroy him by pushing the fact that he is touchy feely and sympathetic, something that was considered "good" until a few years ago.

and the "Bernie boys" are in the media, but one of these days someone will notice that a lot of ordinary folks are not Bernie boys either, and that Bernie is... old....(and rich).

another Democratic problem no one in the MSM wants to talk about:

the "abortion until full term birth" is not really a popular item for ordinary folks, and could backfire, except of course the MSM and the wimpy churches won't make an issue about it, or note that most of the Democrats in Congress voted against a bill that mandated giving medical care to the babies who survived. Sigh.

This resembles how the radicals tried to take over the party in the past, and ended up losing elections.

I'm too lazy to post links, but never mind.

the tax reform meant we paid fewer taxes, but since this meant less estimated money was taken from the paycheck, the NYTimes is echoing the Democratic meme that people are paying more taxes.

Isn't politics wonderful?

By the way, I go my refund already: Thank you Turbotax. I used to file with Lolo's accountant, but since I started Social Security and after Lolo got too sick and his son took over his money (our finances were separate), I started filing on my own, using the on line program.

===============

In the meanwhile, China is busy manipulating genes, first in making superkids, and now there are reports about putting human genes into monkeys to make them smarter.

ethics? Anyone? Anyone?

this has huge implications.

Putting a gene or two into an animal is not a problem, but if a preponderance of genes are put into the animal, or the ones that control the growth of the brain are manipulated, it brings up dystopian sci fi scenerios like HGWells Island of Dr Moreau or Cordwainer Smith's "underpeople", who are used as slaves by the "real" humans. One of the themes of the "underpeople" series is their quest for full human rights.

Indeed, when the Brits were threatening to do this a couple years ago, the Catholic bishops said that if this happens, the offspring should be considered human and cared for, not discarded as animals.

Finally, there are reports that the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is burning down: initial reports say it was due to an accident by those repairing the roof.

The entire structure is destroyed, but some of the art and relics inside were rescued. This is a major disaster for not just the Catholic world but for the world because of it's place in history.

if one is superstitious, this is a bad omen for France.

Spare parts

when I worked with the mentally disabled, one of our mothers commented that she disliked physicians "who looked at my beloved autistic son and only saw a potential organ donor".

well, this idea is now being pushed in mainstream medical transplant journals, under the guise that euthanasia was chosen by the patient or family, so it's okay to take out their heart for transplant it to help someone else as a way to euthanaize them.

The ethical problem? similar to using the organs of those given the death penalty:  it will encourage people to figure these people are better off dead and helping someone else, so more felons will be given the death penalty. Or in this case, encouraged to kill themselves so their loved ones won't have to care for them, and hey, some rich dude will get their organs and live.

Ah, but what if God wants them to suffer? place evil god meme here. (wiser men than me have debated the problem of pain and there is no easy answer).

Nah, our theraputic god wants us to be rich and happy. Suffering is taboo. As for pain relief: well some druggies want to take smuggled in Chinese fentanyl and have died of overdoses, so forget that oxycontin that allowed you to live pain free: no narcs for you. So either live in pain or sign here to donate your organs.

Excuse my sarcasm.

There have been cases where the mentally disabled were used for organ donations after doctors told their family they were brain dead. In at least one case, the guy was not brain dead so the doc had to help him along, but never mind. This was California and he was a minority and what do they know?

in this case, the doctors told the family he would never recover, so they said it was okay to take their son's organs... but he was not brain dead, and to make him dead, the doctor overdosed him.

expect to see more propaganda pushing the glamour of Euthanasia for the useless old or handicapped. Why? Because they cost money to care for, and of course, it is economically better if their caregivers were freed up to work and expand the economy than to stay home and care for them. (see earlier rant about pushing women into the workforce).

So the idea to declare people non persons and use them for organ donors, or to persuade the handicapped to permit euthanasia by organ donation, once ideas so anathema to ordinary folks that they were hidden using euphemisms in bioethics journals, now is being proposed in more mainstream transplantation journals.
LINK

as more and more rumors of such cases hit the rumor mill, the result will be fewer willing to donate organs.

How bad is it? Well, 20+ years ago, bioethicist Arthur Caplan wrote a letter to JAMA telling the story that when he got his drivers license, the lady warned him not to check the box for organ donors, "or they will let you die".
From Snopes:

Myth: If emergency room doctors know you’re an organ donor, they won’t work as hard to save you.
Fact: If you are sick or injured and admitted to the hospital, the number one priority is to save your life. Organ donation can only be considered after brain death has been declared by a physician. Many states have adopted legislation allowing individuals to legally designate their wish to be a donor should brain death occur, although in many states Organ Procurement Organizations also require consent from the donor’s family.

the "slight of hand" in this fact check ignores that the Emergency room docs will try to save you so you can be sent to ICU to die, and then when you are declared brain dead they can ask for your organs. (in western Pennsylvania, they kept you alive to send you to Pittsburgh where they did transplants. The ambulance drivers called such trips "organ runs"...)

 Except now families of those with poor prognosis are being encouraged to donate their loved ones organs, under the impression they are brain dead when they are not. This confusion only will make people more suspicious and not willing to donate their organs.

Voila: New laws on the books mandating organ donation without consent is being done in some countries.

there already is a lot of suspicion about end of life care in minority communities, and the Jathi McMath case didn't help (she lived for five years after being declared "brain dead", meaning she was misdiagnosed). In that case, as a Doctor, I have to note: she must have been misdiagnosed, since with full brain death her organs would have shut down. And of course, the fact that the hospital would have been liable to a huge malpractice suit for her brain injury has nothing to do with their rush to declare her dead. (/s)/

the wish of minority communities to full treatment, because they are suspicious of racial prejudice being behind the withdrawal of treatment, (not just the Tuskegee study confirms this bias: also see Oklahoma meningocoel case where years later a black doctor reviewed the article and found out that most of the "non treatment" cases were minority kids whose parents didn't quite understand that treatment would save the kids lives.  Duh.... the doctors justified this by saying "Cuts in government funding for indigent medical care and special education diminished the quality of life for poorer children with disabilities, they argued, thereby justifying the non treatment and deaths of some infants." ).

the wish for full care is now being lamented in as "denial of end of life care" for minorities. as in this UKGuardian article. Bullcrappie. They just don't trust you.

In the UK, the Liverpool protocol for pain relief quickly morphed into a way to kill the elderly who were not terminal, and as euthanizing people gets more popular, expect more cases of medical personnel just doing it on their own.

Sigh.