PUTIN ON THE POPE

We're a long way from Anthony Quinn's performance of Pope Kiril the first in the 1960s film Shoes of the Fisherman. Back in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, certain things were a given: American youth were - for the most part, hippies and Woodstock and Marcuse notwithstanding - still convinced that socialism of any form was a bad idea (and so were unwinnable undeclared wars in Vietnam), "they" - the Soviets and the Communist Chinese - were still the "bad guys" and we were the "good guys," and the churches, and in particular, the Roman Catholic Church, were still recognizably Christian and, in Rome's case, Catholic, though the veneer was beginning to rub mighty thin after the Second Vatican Council's liturgical "reforms," which ended up being far beyond those of Martin Luther or Archbishop Cranmer. I'll take a 15th century Lutheran missa brevis to the modern Vatican Two "quickie" any day. But turn the clock ahead a few decades from the 1960s and what do we have?

A pope lecturing us on the need to obey the UN, that unrestricted immigration is good, and holding synods in the Amazon that look suspiciously more amazonian than Roman Catholic, is a new thing. Indeed, as Francis I continues to lecture everyone about this or that political agenda, many people including many Roman Catholics both hierarchical, clerical, and lay are wondering if the current Pope is even Catholic at all.

Well, now you can add Russian President Vladimir Putin to that list, according to this article shared by V.T.:

If this article is to be believed, apparently Mr. Putin minced no words:

“Pope Francis is using his platform to push a dangerous far-left political ideology on vulnerable people around the world, people who trust him because of his position,” Putin said.

He dreams of a world government and a global communist system of repression.

“As we have seen before in communist states, this system is not compatible with Christianity.”

“If you look at what he (the Pope) says it’s clear that he is not a man of God. At least not the Christian God. Not the God of the Bible,” Putin said at the Naval Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Kronstadt.

“He dreams of a world government and a global communist system of repression.

“As we have seen before in communist states, this system is not compatible with Christianity.”

The article also mentions a few more of the Pope's recent pronunciamenti:

The pope has become increasingly brazen this year in pushing the globalist agenda and far-left talking points upon the masses. Earlier this year he called for a global central bank and financial authority, and more recently he said “Americans need to be ruled by a world government as soon as possible for their own good.”

(Gee, you mean by an institution with universal globalist governing claims like the papacy?)

Pope Francis’s idea that Americans would be better off under a world government doesn’t stop there. The radical leftist pontiff also went on record stating that Europe should become one country under one government.

(Gee, do you mean by an institution already claiming to be, and having the infrastructure of, a global government, like the papacy?)

He is also on record calling for a China-style one child policy for Western nations, as well as telling a congregation in Rome that having a personal relationship with Jesus is “dangerous and harmful.”

My how the worm has turned. When I was a boy, the heroism of Joszef Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary for standing up to the Soviets was something drummed into my head by my Roman Catholic paternal grandparents. He was unabashedly and unapologetically Christian and Roman Catholic. The Soviet leadership was unapologetically and unabashedly brutalitarian and atheistic. And now, the roles have reversed, for it's increasingly dubious to many in the West whether Francis I is Christian at all, much less Catholic, and the leader of Russia, a former member of the KGB, and practicing Orthodox Catholic Christian, is wondering the same thing, and going on record to boot.

It would be wrong, however, to assume that Mr. Putin's remarks were utterly devoid of any political context. For one thing, as I've pointed out many times, the Russian government of the post-Yeltsin era seems to be doing everything it can to speak for, and to, the disenfranchised "deplorables" of the West. I've argued that the Russian government, embarked on its own quest to become the first post-post-modern state has led the charge against the dogmas of globalism and tried to position itself as a spokesman for the traditions and virtues of European culture either being eclipsed, or deliberately "murdered" by its ruling class. Nor has this been a "general critique," for if one listens to the speeches of Mr. Putin and other Russian leaders, these are often directed, point by point, at specific dogmas of globalism.

But there's a more specific political-ecclesiastical context for Mr. Putin's remarks, and that is the recently emerging schism between the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople. Constantinople, at the "urging" both of the Vatican and the US State Department, recently granted "autocephaly" to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. "Autocephaly" is a term of Orthodox canonical practice that means (literally) "Self-Headedness", i.e., the right of a national church's hierarchy to govern itself freely apart from the jurisdiction of a foreign patriarchate. To draw an analogy that might be more familiar to Westerners, the Orthodox Church is like the Anglican Communion in this respect: all Anglican Churches around the world, from Australia, Canada, the United States, and so on, are independently governing entities, but remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England, and have more or less a common liturgical practice and ethos. This has changed in recent years, for as the Anglican Communion has become increasingly torn away from its traditional doctrines and liturgical moorings, inclusive of the ordination of women, homosexuals, the advocacy of "gender inclusive" language and abandonment of the liturgical English of the Book of Common Prayer, some Anglican groups have recognized these things as a betrayal of fundamental Anglican principles of doctrine and worship, and have broken communion with any bodies claiming the name Anglican, but engaged in these practices. In other words, it's the content and actual practice and not merely the name that makes one an Anglican, and this is a mentality very similar to that of Orthodoxy. In effect, both conceptually and in terms of practice and doctrine, these groups are the genuine (though few) traditional Anglicans today for they recognize the mainstream institutions have been co-opted and hollowed out and are Anglican in name only.

The situation is similar, now, in Orthodoxy with the recent "grant" of autocephaly by Constantinople to the Ukrainian Church. In the past century, Constantinople has articulated a series of claims and privileges that - to the traditional Orthodox mind - can only be viewed as neo-Papal in nature, and hence, not Orthodox in any sense. This is not surprising, given the Vatican's quiet financial support of the patriarchate, and its current occupant's having studied in Rome itself. The traditional view that the Patriarchate of Constantinople was "first among equals" has turned into its own self-promoted neo-papal view of itself as "king of non-equals," and this has been predictably resisted by most of the rest of the Church, including the Patriarchate of Moscow, which has by far and away the most Orthodox Catholic Christians under its jurisdiction.

In short, you're looking at another brewing schism, and much of it is being concocted in the West, by the West, and for the West, and I would argue, is yet another manifestation of the West's almost subliminal and visceral hatred of Orthodoxy. Why the hatred? That would be a long and involved tome beyond the scope of the present blog, but it can perhaps best be summarized by pointing out that it is an unreconstructed Catholicism with no need for infallible popes nor for high minded reformers. Like all ecclesiastical institutions, it has had its share of black moments and blackguards to be sure, but nothing like on the scale as obtained under the Papal tyranny of the Middle Ages, and that led ultimately to the Protestant revolt. And in spite of the best efforts of organized atheism to kill it, literally to "murder and martyr it by individual murder and martyr to the thousands if not millions," it survived the Western import of Bolshevism to Russia, and with it, Russia survived.

Thus, hidden behind Mr. Putin's remarks regarding the papacy is really an implied question: what's your interest in The Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Church? And is it really to make the Ukrainian church self-governing, or is that self-governing status to serve an ultimately more secular and anti-Orthodox agenda?

This one, folks, is thus a story that is not going to go away any time soon.

And as for Pope Francis, Mr. Putin isn't the only one raising questions about the Pope's actual faith (if any). Some in his own close entourage are doing the same:

Scalfari: Pope Denied Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Christ

When confronted with a swamp in the form of co-opted institutions, there are but two courses of action, try to drain it and reclaim the institution, or make a clean break with it. It remains to be seen what will happen here in the case of Rome, and Constantinople.

See you on the flip side...

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

28 Comments

  1. Richard on November 15, 2019 at 12:43 am

    Organized religion and politics? Fine. They can pay taxes, too.



  2. Pierre on November 14, 2019 at 8:05 pm

    / forum chat mode
    Dunno about the mandela (mandala) effect but I had a good Butterfly Effect this morning. With burning rainforests not far away and no meaningful rain in sight for months, I am desperately gathering water to put in tubs perchance the electricity is cut off (fortunately they only do that here in Australia if they have to). Barely a trickle, stopped last night. Long story short , the last thing I could think of, to drop the inlet pipe (from a trickle of a spring) from the end of the barrel’s inlet instead of the middle of the pipe from the spring. Two butterflies flew out. Reconnected the pipe, trickle continued. no hurricanes to report on this side of the world … so far.



  3. Pierre on November 14, 2019 at 4:06 pm

    banished from Christiandom “for all enternity” I meant to add.



  4. Pierre on November 14, 2019 at 4:05 pm

    Is the pope a Jesuit?
    Are the Jesuits not Jewish , and a military organisation.
    Were the jesuits not banished from Christiandom by an infallile Pope? and then given safe harbor by the Czarina who reluctantly let them go back when the next infallible Pope forgave them.



  5. Loxie Lou Davie on November 14, 2019 at 9:20 am

    As the daughter of a Baptist minister & with 75 years of experience within the “Christian System” I have come to some mind-blowing conclusions!!! 😉

    One is that Local Churches, of whatever denomination, provide a good social activity & connectedness. I’m sure the same applies to Mosques….just a different sort of Belief System!

    Seeing the “mess” within the Christian Community over the years led me to investigate a more correct assessment of where our Christian Belief System came from. I won’t go into detail about what I discovered, suffice it to say that Jesus, Himself purportedly said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you”!!

    So…..if the more careful approach is to go “within”, I must conclude we need not have the structure of a Belief System imposed upon us from the outside!! We need no mechanism of mass control to “keep us in line”!! 😉

    Think about it!! One cannot honestly say what the True Reality is because not one of us KNOWS for sure what that True Reality IS!!! For all we know, we could just be “players” in Somebody Else’s big Video Game!!! 😉

    So, in the end, it really does not matter what one “believes” since each of us constructs our own little Reality Bubble & we have no clue what True Reality IS!!!

    I find it more comforting to see myself as an Eternal, Spiritual, Sovereign Being having an experience in this “meat suit” for a short period. Makes a whole lot more sense to me in sorting through a lifetime of experiences!!



  6. anakephalaiosis on November 13, 2019 at 3:36 am

    Conversation with intelligent plant life is amusing, when maintaining fluidity between categories. Poets do that.

    Green Man is in early British churches. Druidry is not decided on debate, but on insights into life, and its forms.

    Christ’s parables are plant view. Christ knew Green Man, because he was British. To hear the grass grow, is to feel it.

    Pope is a virus causing flu.



  7. Waterbug on November 13, 2019 at 3:15 am

    If President Putin truly made these comments August 7, 2017, he is very knowledgeable what he is talking about and spoke the truth. It was reported years ago by several Roman Catholic clergy that Jorge Bergoglio was not officially ordained a Catholic Priest.

    Quote: President Putin has slammed Pope Francis for “pushing a political ideology instead of running a church”, and warned that the leader of the Catholic Church “is not a man of God.”

    This International Notice was sent out November 12, 2019: http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/11/international-notice-to-pope-and.html

    The Pope’s Municipal Government in Washington, DC has offered a new scam. http://www.paulstramer.net/2019/11/bottom-line-regarding-opt-in-bill-of.html



  8. Margaret on November 12, 2019 at 10:00 pm

    Is the Pope Jewish?



  9. Username1 on November 12, 2019 at 8:30 pm

    Dr. Farrell, if you aren’t aware of this already, Dr. Werner Von Braun’s name has inexplicably changed to Dr. Wernher Von Braun, as per the Mandela effect.



    • Joseph P. Farrell on November 13, 2019 at 5:24 am

      I’ve stated publicly many times that I do not regard spelling changes as manifestations of the Mandela effect.



  10. marcos toledo on November 12, 2019 at 7:35 pm

    Does 1054AD ring a bell that schism doomed the Crusades and have been a sword of Damocles over the head of Europe ever since. The ever fruits of that schism have only spread Worldwide over the centuries. Throw in hated of the Roman Republic-Empire into this deadly brew and history is dead chaos is the result.



  11. goshawks on November 12, 2019 at 5:18 pm

    (This is the unfortunate part of the internet. Joseph’s observations and those of our commentators do not fit-in with sound-bite responses. Talk of this nature used to be over weeks, months, or years of careful scholarship and spiritual questing. On the other hand, most of us would never have ‘met’ without the same internet…)

    Right now, my go-to man around the religious differences between East and West is The Saker . He has studied and experienced both sides, and can explicate the doctrinal differences usually glossed-over between the two ‘sides’. And, the history that has made them so. I will confess that my eyes glaze-over at a certain point, so doctrinal matters mean less to me than having spiritual experiences. Getting back as close to the source as possible, so to speak…

    On the purely earth-side, I must admit that each and every ‘institution’ is subject to being compromised. Two thousand years is a looong time to insert operatives for control and to ‘yield’ to money and power. My semi-solution is both inner and outer: Study-up on many opposing viewpoints, realizing that each may have been compromised over the ages. Shake, stir, and try to sift-out what is uncompromised. Also, go-within and attempt to get as close to what was ‘touched’ by founder-figures as is possible. Apply all that you have learned to your actions in the here-and-now. And, try to be kind…



  12. DownunderET on November 12, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    The fulfillment is the deception.



  13. DownunderET on November 12, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    The fulfillment is the deception.



  14. Dr Dreamwalker on November 12, 2019 at 12:58 pm

    Edgar Cayce once said that Russia would be the savior of the world. I’m not a fan of Mr. Putin but who knows? Certainly the Vatican will not be the savior of the world, and neither will Pope Francis.



  15. Robert Barricklow on November 12, 2019 at 11:23 am

    Putin knows where/what the money buys. The banksters’ Rape of Russia is still trying to gain its footholds there.
    The Church, thru the Western takeover of the Ukraine.
    This is a banksters’ dream of world dictatorship thru socialist collectivism.



    • zendogbreath on November 12, 2019 at 11:41 pm

      This makes it sound like Putin is his own man and not the Central Banksters’ boy. Are you telling me Putin et al do not answer to BIS?



  16. OrigensChild on November 12, 2019 at 10:12 am

    Over the past few weeks I’ve listened to quite a few Catholic youtube conference appearances related to the Fatima Center with much interest. I’m not Catholic–but I am deeply interested in their views of their own pope. When you have a large number of bishops, priests and intellectuals publicly stating Putin’s own opinions about the present officer in Peter’s seat in Rome, one has to wonder how long the faithful Christians within that Church will remain faithful to the church to which they are attached. (My spellings should provide clues to those who understand.) I smell a schism brewing in Catholicism (again) if this path continues.

    While the globalists attempt to construct the “church with a large tent” the Church will not abide the change. The Methodist Church threatened to pull out of the Methodist church over their political and social policies related to their Discipline recently–and the Methodist church (denomination) caved (again) for financial reasons. (There remains a great number of Christians within this denomination who are not globalists nor syncretists–and do not accept a watered down version of Christianity based on social justice.) Even the Baptists are splintering (even more) over social justice issues becoming intertwined within the gospel itself. The Church within the church (in all of its forms) is becoming uneasy there. At this point I am thankful I did not pursue a seminarian path–my faith might have been shipwrecked like so many. There’s nothing Christian about the majority of the universities here in the West–but those with curriculums within Islam are staunchly fundamentalist. That should give us all room for serious pause.

    The thing that encourages me about the Orthodox community, and Putin himself, is the strong interest to return to a more traditional Christian tradition. Things have definitely changed in the last 50 years. I never dreamed I would see the day that the leader of the Russian Federation would be embracing Christian dogmatics more strongly than most religious movements throughout the West in as little as 30 years. Oh my, look at how things have changed! Things are so bleak here in the West, if I decided to pursue a seminarian degree this late in my life I would be strongly tempted to look toward Russia. It might be the last place to get a genuine education in Christian doctines and Church history left.



    • anakephalaiosis on November 12, 2019 at 1:18 pm

      A rich man attempted to enter through a needle eye, with dogmatics in one pocket and politics in the other, yet he had a hard time pushing the camel through.

      With Jesuits as founding fathers, the Americans are papal cattle, even though they think they are free. The slave necklaces are invisible.

      Both Putin and Trump subscribe to Christianity, while being inside a topological metaphor of smoke and mirrors. They need a new option, like Kylie the Kangaroo jumping out of the cake.

      https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/qav7519hrnzumpp/kylie-the-kangaroo.jpg



    • OrigensChild on November 12, 2019 at 2:52 pm

      If by Trump you mean: “A rich man attempted to enter through a needle eye, with dogmatics in one pocket and politics in the other, yet he had a hard time pushing the camel through.” Agreed.

      Quote: “With Jesuits as founding fathers, the Americans are papal cattle, even though they think they are free. The slave necklaces are invisible.” As one well versed in Christian teaching and theology, I see the world very differently. I follow Christ as my model as best I can, and in doing so, I am free. I see where the globalists are headed. Why are the Nazis in both East and West so interested in Islam? Why do they despise Christianity? St. John of Damascus understood our present situation far better than our own politicians–and he believed himself to be free! Like Jay Smith of today, Islamic scholars of his time knew him–and, today, Islamic scholars fear them both. St. John of Damascus was devastating enough, but when applying historical and textual critical methods to Islam the consequences are devastating. Comparatively speaking Christianity is standing pretty well–especially the Orthodox version of it.

      Quote: “Both Putin and Trump subscribe to Christianity, while being inside a topological metaphor of smoke and mirrors.” Agreed. In one way you are making my argument. Neither are actually members of any Christian clerical organization. Both are definitely flawed practitioners of their faith–the western example more so than the eastern. Tools of someone they might be–but they understand the problem with Francis well and Putin is talking about it.

      I’ll leave the kangaroo sitting where it belongs–in a US court system based on civil law rather than Constitutional Law. If the Constitution were taken seriously here DC would be much more civilized and less autocratic.



      • zendogbreath on November 12, 2019 at 11:39 pm

        Has this all anything to do with how Greece was hit first and worst with austerity? Greece has long been a staunch stronghold of Orthodoxy, right?



        • Barbara on November 13, 2019 at 11:03 pm

          And guess who recently visited Greece and its head of Orthodox Christian Church, Archbishop Hieronymos, Prince Charles himself. I think nice check from prince of Albion with many zeros after one would have helped nicely with these austerity measures. Not too mentioned that some of those zeroes could have been spilled over the Aegean Sea to help Patriarch of Constantinople make a more comfortable decision about Ukrainian autocephaly.
          https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/britains-prince-charles-meets-head-of-orthodox-greek-church/



  17. basta on November 12, 2019 at 9:53 am

    Of course he’s a globolshevik. And he was voted in as pope, so the Church is as well. Putin doesn’t mince words and has invested great resources into re-establishing the Orthodox Church as the keel of Russian society, so he’s stringing garlic along Russia’s borders to make sure that the vampires stay out.



  18. anakephalaiosis on November 12, 2019 at 6:52 am

    Inducing agrarian calendar into deified principle is sustainable, because sowing and harvesting becomes daily bread.

    Solar year is agrarian, and calendar is kingdom of heaven. When Christ went to heaven, he went to Druidic Britain by ship.

    Fall, death and resurrection are agrarian principles. That is the way of the corn, unfolding the fodder. The pope is a virus.

    Runes are medicine.



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