#Curia reform

[softschofield]

THE APOCALYPSE SLUMBERS.

IT'S ABOUT TO WAKE UP.

FALL FROM GRACE ✦ DISCORD

✦ Branching off from a wildly popular roleplay site founded in 2008 — Warrior Cat Clans 2 — Fall From Grace takes place in a dark, twisting world torn apart by raptures and ancient curses. Tyranny, fear, mania, devotion, queenship, war — the land is pockmarked with it. There are four groups, each with their own distinct territories and cultures that are still being crafted: OakClan, upon razed fields, fanatically religious and violently holy; RowanClan, at the foot of torturous mountains, steeped in bloody, stone circle paganism and led by a High Mother and Father; WillowClan, among icy sea mists, of drowned cities and myth; and the Yew Eaters, a shadowy group more wraiths and fearful, whispered kit tales than reality… Or are they?

✦ Brand new jcink site! Est. January 2025.

✦ 16+ and rich themes.

✦ Adult-run.

✦ Friendly and enthusiastic staff ♡

✦ Violence permitted.

✦ LGBTQIA+ positive.

✦ Overarching plot.

✦ Seeking high ranks and users willing to create new group cultures. Freedom with regards to custom ranks and concepts.

✦Pre-established family trees and characters with complex dynamics and histories spanning years and generations.

Come join in and craft your dynasty, sanctuary or empire.

˚　　　　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　　 . ✦　　　 　˚　　　　 . ★⋆.

　　　.   　　˚　✭　 　　*　　 　　✦　　　.　　.　　　✦　˚ 　　　　 ˚　.˚　　　　　✭　.　　. 　 ˚　.　　　　 　　 　　　　 ✦

[aarkady]

regarding aldo bellini's "kingmaker", cardinal sabbadin: politics, cynicism, the franciscan habit

we don't really know much about cardinal sabbadin except for a couple details. but I find this bit that got cut from the script very interesting:

"you have wasted this report". straight-up honesty, even if Lawrence protected himself and the institution by blacking out the names of the corrupt cardinals, is not the ideal course of action for sabbadin.

in both film and book, he is the archbishop of milan, and "the closest thing aldo bellini has to a campaign manager". this already establishes him as a reformist (the current of thought within the college of cardinals that was defined by a vatican journalist as, roughly, a belief that the reforms of Vatican II were rolled back too soon, so there should be a push away from tradition; it's important to note that this concerns working within the catholic church, not out in the world with laypeople or holding dialogue with other denominations/religions)

what I see in this reaction is a kind of "anything goes" mentality regarding a victory over tedesco (and, ultimately, what is a struggle for control over the vatican)--even if it entails resorting to dirty play.

in the book, sabbadin is described as having "a reputation for cynicism" and also with the following paragraph:

(sorry for the non cropped screenshot ;_;)

he is politics-savvy, perhaps so much that he cannot truly fathom a church that functions outside of the system that is known and tried and tested for him. in the book, he is also very quick to shut down Aldo's suggestion of exploring "a greater role for women as higher-ranking officials of the roman curia". liberal or not, I think cardinal sabbadin is a figure of the status quo.

although the above scene didn't make it to the film, to me it suggests that the franciscan habit is some sort of visual paradox in the way of tedesco's vape; a declaration of pure poverty, of "the poor church for poor people", wielded by someone whose primary motivation is to gain power (independently on whether we agree with his broadly liberal views or not) in the name of progressing to something better.

anyway he is kinda cunty and I like him a lot

[canisalbus]

a few quick questions on Machete, what breed is he? I love the angles of his snout and the proportions remind me of a borzoi though I don't think he is one. Also, does he have a set age for when he's a cardinal? I picture him to be around mid-30s or so. Wonderful art! love your stuff and find you an inspiration :)

He's a fictional breed called Podenco Siciliano, which is closely related to modern day Ibizan Hound (pictured below) and other Mediterranean rabbit-hunting podencos. I usually just default to calling him a sighthound since he's somewhat of a provincial mongrel and not meant to be purebred anyway.

As for the age, mid-30s sounds about right. I think the current timeline goes something like this:

0 - Born to a lower-middle class family in Sicily, father is a tradesman, has three older brothers. Generally considered a runt, is weak and sick all the time, parents suspicious of his unusual colors.

3 - Gets left at a monastery and raised by monks as a foundling. Nervous and meek kid, but the monks think he's endearing and do their best to support him. Is taught to read and write, which is a massive advantage at that day and age, and learns rudimentary Latin through exposure.

9 - Apprenticed to a Neapolitan priest, moves to southern part of mainland Italy (or Kingdom of Naples as it was called, it was ruled by Spain actually). Does chores and runs errands in exchange for education and experience.

15 - The priest gets elevated to a bishop and decides to sponsor Machete's further studies at an acclaimed university in Venice (in Northern Italy). There he studies theology, medicine, arts, law, philosophy and gets fluent in Latin and adequate in Greek. Befriends Vasco but their relationship is short-lived.

21 - Ordained a priest. Leads a parish somewhere in Papal States (Central Italy). Is generally well liked but doubts his career choice from time to time.

26 - Becomes a part of the Papal Court in Vatican, mostly because of the recommendations of his former mentor and professors, good reputation, excellent track record and sheer luck. Still a priest but assists bishops, cardinals and the pope himself directly. Moves to Rome. Becomes pope's unofficial confidant due to his obedient and hardworking nature and because of his lack of prestigious family connections that would render him a threat. Slowly starts to gain wealth.

30 - Created a cardinal (which is the second highest position in the church after the pope, and it's at the sole discretion of the pope who becomes one). Is also a bishop as a technicality. Handles administrative jobs, tons of paperwork, at some point he's in charge of a lot of the political correspondence and diplomatic missions. Still the old pope's trusted advisor but disliked by the majority of the cardinals, who see him as an outsider, sycophant and a potential disruptor of the status quo.

34 - Meets Vasco again. Vasco has become a succesful politician in Florence, he's married with three children.

38 - The pope dies and Machete's status falters. He starts to work with the Roman inquisition more. Oversees trials, torture, excommunications and executions of heretics, witches and most of all, protestants (since we're reaching Counter Reformation times and the Vatican is Very Worried about the spread of Luther's ideas). Isn't having a good time at all but keeps up the appearances. Gets infamous. The beginning of the true villain era.

40 - Grows increasingly more disillusioned with life and his ideals, as well as the corruption of the Curia. Burned out, paranoid and desperate. Uses scare tactics, extortion and legal trickery to expose and undermine his enemies, but gains them faster than he can keep up. Employs spies, thugs and assassins. Feared and loathed.

43 - Gets assassinated and dies in disgrace.

[is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not]

Excerpts from Faith Among the Stars: A History of the New Avalon Catholic Church

By Father Benedict Lucien, Archivist of the Curia, New Avalon Catholic College of Theology Published in the Year of Our Lord 3098

The New Avalon Catholic Church (NACC) was not born of careful reform, nor of theological dispute, but of necessity. Separated from Terra by war and distance, the faithful of the Federated Suns found themselves without a shepherd, abandoned not by malice but by the sheer devastation of the Inner Sphere’s greatest conflict. Though its founding was born of crisis, the NACC has since become one of the most influential religious institutions in the Federated Suns, an independent faith molded by war, exile, and the unshakable belief that no matter how far humanity has traveled among the stars, the light of God will always follow.

Now, nearly three hundred and fifty years since its foundation, the Church stands not merely as a remnant of old Terra’s Catholicism but as a distinct, evolving force, shaped by the unique realities of the Inner Sphere.

Even in this era of unprecedented peace, the Church remains firm in its purpose: to guide the lost, to shield the faithful, and to wield its strength in the service of justice.

Origins: The Schism of the Star League Era

The New Avalon Catholic Church was founded in one of the darkest chapters of human history—the fall of the Terran Hegemony. When Stefan Amaris launched his coup in 2766, Terra was severed from the rest of the Star League, and with it, the central authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In response, after Amaris began a campaign of terror in 2770, Pope Clement XXVII issued emergency directives to senior clergy across the Star League member states, granting them extraordinary authority to maintain the faith in his absence - an absence that would be rendered permanent within the week.

Among the clergy who received the message was Cardinal Kinsey de Medici, the highest-ranking prelate in the Federated Suns. Misunderstanding the garbled transmission he received, and faced with the collapse of interstellar communication and the seeming destruction of the Vatican itself, de Medici saw no path forward except self-reliance. By 2774, he declared that the Church in the Federated Suns would no longer be bound by Rome and proclaimed himself Pope Thomas X, establishing New Avalon as the new seat of Catholic authority in the region.

By the time interstellar communication was restored five years later, in 2779, and news arrived that John Paul V had been elected as Pope in Rome, the divide had already solidified. Thomas X and his successors refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Terran papacy, arguing that the Vatican had lost touch with the needs of its people. Thus, the schism between Rome and New Avalon became permanent. House Davion, recognizing the influence of the Church, gave its quiet support, ensuring that the NACC would become deeply ingrained in the cultural and spiritual fabric of the Federate Suns.

Reform and Inclusion: A Church That Evolves

While the New Avalon Catholic Church preserved many of the theological principles of its Roman predecessor, it quickly distinguished itself through its willingness to adapt. Unlike the Vatican, which often resisted social and technological change, the NACC embraced the belief that faith must evolve to meet the needs of its people.

The first major departure from Roman Catholic tradition came in 2815, when the NACC formally abolished clerical celibacy, arguing that priests and bishops could better guide the faithful if they understood the challenges of family life firsthand. Less than two decades later, in 2827, the ordination of women was formally recognized, with the first female bishops taking office by the end of the decade.

By the time of Pope Juliana III’s election in 2897, she was not the first woman to hold the papacy—she was the third. However, she was unique in another way: she was the first openly transgender Supreme Pontiff. To this day, Juliana III is remembered for her wisdom, diplomacy, and unwavering commitment to social justice, guiding the Church through the political upheavals of the early 30th century and ensuring that it remained independent of House Davion’s direct influence. Juliana III’s reign solidified many of the progressive stances that define the Church today. By the end of the second decade of the 30th century, the NACC had fully embraced gender equality, same-sex marriage, and personal conscience in matters of family planning and reproductive rights. The Church continued to hold the sanctity of life as a core principle, but it prioritized compassion, education, and social support over rigid legalism.

In keeping with its willingness to reform in matters of social doctrine, the New Avalon Catholic Church has maintained a accepting stance on technological advancements concerning the human body. Unlike some religious movements that viewed such modifications as unnatural or an affront to divine design, the NACC framed its position through the lens of stewardship, arguing that just as medicine and surgery were gifts that allowed humanity to heal, so too were the innovations that could replace a lost limb, correct failing organs, or even enhance cognitive faculties when necessary. The same principle was applied to biotechnology, including the widespread use of cloned body parts and cultivated organ replacements, which the Church ruled were ethically indistinguishable from traditional transplants. Even during the Word of Blake Jihad, when cybernetic enhancements became associated with the fanatical Manei Domini, the Church never wavered in its support for responsible augmentation, refusing to allow the corruption of one sect to taint an entire field of scientific advancement. Today, the NACC remains one of the more technologically progressive religious institutions in the Inner Sphere, fully embracing the ethical application of cybernetics and bioengineering in the service of human dignity.

Alongside its acceptance of medical advancements, the NACC has also long pursued a mission of reconciliation and interfaith outreach, recognizing that faith among the stars could never be bound to a single tradition. For centuries, the Church has maintained cordial, if distant, relations with its Roman Catholic counterpart on Terra, though true reunification remains unlikely. Of greater significance, however, have been the Church’s efforts to welcome converts from outside traditional Catholic communities. The greatest test of their inclusivity came with the arrival of the Clans in 3050. While the Clans themselves had few formal religious institutions save the The Way espoused by the ever-distant Clan Cloud Cobra, some of their warriors—particularly those who had been captured, exiled, or defected—began to seek a new sense of spiritual belonging after being severed from their former caste-based society. This presented an unprecedented theological challenge, as Clan culture held no belief in an afterlife, no organized system of worship, and little respect for the concept of faith as an institution. Many among the faithful viewed Clan eugenics and warrior caste ideology as fundamentally irreconcilable with Catholic teaching. The Church’s initial attempts at evangelization were met with indifference at best, open scorn at worst, but over time, some Clan-born individuals found solace in the principles of sacrifice, duty, and redemption that the NACC espoused. While these converts remained a minority, their presence forced the Church to engage in deep theological reflection on what it meant to offer salvation to those who had never sought it. The first Clan-born individual to seek entry into the church, the now Abbess Anya Bekker, formerly of Clan Ghost Bear, was met with fierce resistance from within. The debate reached the highest levels of the Church, culminating in Pope Pius XXI’s historic ruling in 3072:

"Faith is not a matter of blood or birth, but of the choices we make and the burdens we take upon ourselves. If an individual of the Clans renounces the cruelty of their past and chooses the path of righteousness, who are we to deny them?"

With those words, the gates of the Church were opened to Clan-born converts, provided they rejected the ideals of genetic supremacy and the rigid hierarchy of the caste system. By the 3080s, the NACC had fully embraced the idea that faith is not simply inherited, but chosen, and that those willing to walk the path of righteousness—regardless of their origins—could find a home within the Church’s embrace. Today, many former Clansfolk are part of the Church, and many former warriors serve as full-fledged Knights Defensor, proving that faith, like honor, is something that must be chosen rather than inherited.

The Knights Defensor: The Sword and Shield of the Faithful

For much of its early history, the New Avalon Catholic Church had no formal military order. Though some individual bishops maintained private security forces on particularly volatile worlds, there was no centralized institution akin to the Teutonic Knights or Swiss Guard of old.

That changed in 3084, when Pope Beneficent XV established the Knights Defensor, a holy order dedicated to protecting the faithful and upholding the Church’s moral authority.

The Knights quickly became more than just a military arm of the Church. They took on a broader role as warriors, peacekeepers, and champions of the oppressed, often operating beyond the borders of the Federated Suns. Though many House Lords viewed them as aligned with the Davion state, the reality was far more complex—the Knights answered only to the Supreme Pontiff, and on more than one occasion, they had openly challenged corrupt or unjust rulers, even within the Federated Suns itself.

Faith in the Era of the Republic

As the 31st century gave way to the 32nd, the New Avalon Catholic Church remained a pillar of stability within the Federated Suns. Though closely tied to House Davion, it has never been a mere extension of state power, and more than once, it has stood in opposition to rulers who strayed too far into tyranny.

Now, in this new age of the Republic of the Sphere, the Church faces new challenges. Will it align with this new order, lending its moral authority to a cause that claims to unify humanity? Or will it remain independent, as it has since its founding? Regardless of the answer, one truth remains certain: The New Avalon Catholic Church is no longer a relic of ancient Terra. It is a faith born in exile, tempered by war, and shaped by the stars. And wherever humanity’s future leads, it will be there to guide them.

[reasoningdaily]

The Kingdom of Kongo and Palo Mayombe: Reflections on an African-American Religion

Abstract

Historical scholarship on Afro-Cuban religions has long recognized that one of its salient characteristics is the union of African (Yoruba) gods with Catholic Saints. But in so doing, it has usually considered the Cuban Catholic church as the source of the saints and the syncretism to be the result of the worshippers hiding worship of the gods behind the saints. This article argues that the source of the saints was more likely to be from Catholics from the Kingdom of Kongo which had been Catholic for 300 years and had made its own form of Christianity in the interim.

Acknowledgements

Research funding for this project was supplied by Boston University Faculty Research Fund and the Hutchins Center of Harvard University. Earlier versions were presented at the Hutchins Center, and the keynote address at ‘Kongo Across the Waters’ in Gainesville, FL. Thanks to Linda Heywood, Matthew Childs, Manuel Barcia, Jane Landers, Carmen Barcia, Jorge Felipe Gonzalez, Thiago Sapede, Marial Iglesias Utset, Aisha Fisher, Dell Hamilton, Grete Viddal and Kyrah Daniels for readings, comments, questions and source material.

[1] Robert Farris Thompson, Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1983), pp. 17–8; see also Face of the Gods: Art and Altars of Africa and African America (New York: Prestel, 1993). For Cuba in particular, see David H. Brown, Santería Enthroned: Art, Ritual and Innovation in an Afro-Cuban Religion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 34 (with ample references to earlier visions).

[2] Georges Balandier, Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo (New York: Allen and Unwin, 1968 [French Version, Paris, 1965]) and James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

[3] Ann Hilton, The Kingdom of Kongo (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), for the role of the Capuchins in discovering problems with Kongo's Christianity. John Thornton, ‘The Kingdom of Kongo and the Counter-Reformation’, Social Sciences and Missions 26 (2013): 40–58 contextualizes their role and their problems with Kongo's Christianity.

[4] Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa, 1450–1950 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); this position is often implicit in the many histories written by clerical historians such as Jean Cuvelier, Louis Jadin, François Bontinck, Teobaldo Filesi, Carlo Toso and Graziano Saccardo, whose work has presented modern editions of the classical work of the Capuchin missionaries, commentaries and at times regional histories, such as Saccardo, Congo e Angola con la storia del missionari Capuccini, Vol. 3 (Venice: Curia Provinciale dei Cappuccini, 1982–1983). For both a position of dependence on missionaries and a recognition of local education, Louis Jadin, ‘Les survivances chrétiennes au Congo au XIXe siècle’, Études d'histoire africaine 1 (1970): 137–85.

[5] It is not mentioned at all in his seminal work, Thompson, Flash of the Spirit in the nearly 100-page section dealing with Kongo and its influence in Vodou, nor in Face of the Gods.

[6] Erwan Dianteill, ‘Kongo à Cuba: Transformations d'une religion africaine', Archives de Sciences Sociales de Religion 117 (2002): 59–80.

[7] Todd Ochoa, Society of the Dead: Quita Manaquita and Palo Praise in Cuba (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), pp. 8–10. Wyatt MacGaffey's work, especially Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986) is a favorite.

[8] Thiago Sapede, Muana Congo, Muana Nzambi a Mpungu: Poder e Catolicismo no reino do Congo pós-restauração (1769–1795) (São Paulo: Alameda, 2014) is the first book length study of Christianity in the later period of Kongo's history.

[9] John Thornton, ‘Afro-Christian Syncretism in the Kingdom of Kongo', Journal of African History 54 (2013): 53–77.

[10] Thornton, ‘Afro-Christian Syncretism'.

[11] Sapede, Muana Congo, pp. 248–57.

[12] Thornton, ‘Afro-Christian Syncretism', for the details of the struggle, but a perspective that sees the Capuchin mission as central to Kongo Christianity, see Saccardo, Congo e Angola.

[13] John Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: D Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684–1706 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

[14] Rafael Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem ao Congo’, Academia das Cienças de Lisboa, MS Vermelho 396, pp. 32–4, 183–5 (transcription by Arlindo Carreira, 2007 at http://www.arlindo-correia.com/161007.html) which marks the pagination of the original MS.

[15] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem ao Congo', pp. 110–4.

[16] Raimondo da Dicomano, ‘Informazione' (1798), pp. 1–2. The text exists in both the Italian original and a Portuguese translation made at the same time. For an edition of both, see the transcription of Arlindo Carreira, 2010 (http://www.arlindo-correia.com/121208.html).

[17] ‘Il Stato in cui si trova il Regno di Congo', September 22, 1820, in Teobaldo Filesi, ‘L'epilogo della ‘Missio Antiqua’ dei cappuccini nel regno de Congo (1800–1835)’, Euntes Docete 23 (1970), pp. 433–4.

[18] Among the first was Domingos Pereira da Silva Sardinha in 1854, who, according to King Henrique II of Kongo, had performed his duties of administering the sacraments with ‘all the necessary prudence', Henrique II to Vicar General of Angola, December 14, 1855, Boletim Oficial de Angola, 540 (1856).

[19] Biblioteca d'Ajuda, Lisbon, Códice 54/XIII/32 n° 9, Francisco de Salles Gusmão to the King, October 27, 1856.

[20] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem ao Congo’, pp. 110–4.

[21] da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', pp. 1–7 (of manuscript).

[22] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 39, 69, 276.

[23] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagen', p. 217 (thanks to Thiago Sapede for this reference).

[24] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem’, pp. 32–4, 1835.

[25] For a thorough study of these religious artefacts and their meaning, see Cécile Fromont, The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

[26] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', p. 78.

[27] APF Congo 5, fols. 298–298v (Rosario dal Parco) ‘Informazione 1760' A French translation is found in Louis Jadin, ‘Aperçu de la situation du Congo, et rite d’élection des rois en 1775, d'après le P. Cherubino da Savona, missionaire de 1759 à 1774', Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome 35 (1963): 347–419 (marking foliation of original MS).

[28] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 180–4.

[29] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', p. 53.

[30] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 63–4; see also 87 for another noble as Captain of Church; 136 crowds at Mapinda.

[31] da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', pp. 1–7.

[32] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', p. 196.

[33] Bernard Clist et alia, ‘The Elusive Archeology of Kongo Urbanism, the Case of Kindoki, Mbanza Nsundi (Lower Congo, DRC)’, African Archaeological Review 32 (2014) 369–412 and Charlotte Verhaeghe, ‘Funeraire rituelen en het Kongo Konigrijk: De betekenis van de schelp- en glaskralen en de begraafplaats van Kindoki, Mbanza Nsundi, Neder-Kongo' (MA thesis, University of Ghent, 2014), pp. 44–50.

[34] ‘Il Stato in cui si trova il Regno di Congo', September 22, 1820, in Filesi, ‘Epilogo’, pp. 433–4.

[35] ‘O Congo em 1845: Roteiro da viagem ao Reino de Congo por Major A. J. Castro … ’, Boletim de Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa II series, 2 (1880), pp. 53–67. The orthographic irregularity reflects the actual pronunciation of these terms in the São Salvador region (the Sansala dialect).

[36] Alfredo de Sarmento, Os sertões d'Africa (Apontamentos do viagem) (Lisbon: Artur da Silva, 1880), p. 49 and Adolf Bastian, Ein Besuch in San Salvador: Der Hauptstadt des Königreichs Congo (Bremen: Heinrich Strack, 1859), pp. 61–2.

[37] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 102–3 and da Firenze, ‘Relazione', pp. 420–1.

[38] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', p. 137.

[39] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 180–4.

[40] da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', pp. 1–7.

[41] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 32–4; da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', pp. 1–7; Zanobio Maria da Firenze, ‘Relazione della Stato in cui si trovassi autalmente il Regno di Congo … 1814’, July 10, 1816, in Filesi, ‘Epilogo’, pp. 420–1.

[42] Archivio ‘De Propaganda Fide' (Rome) Acta 1758, ff 213–9, no. 16, Relazione di Rosario dal Parco, July 31, 1758. These large numbers were not simply priests catching up on people who had not been baptized for a long time, as personnel staffing and statistics are found from 1752 onward; but the priests did not cover the whole country every year, so many priests would baptize babies all under age two or three.

[43] Castello de Vide, ‘Viagem', pp. 63–4; see also 87 for another noble as Captain of Church; 136 crowds at Mapinda.

[44] da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', pp. 1–7.

[45] da Firenze, ‘Relazione', pp. 420–1.

[46] ‘Il Stato in cui si trova il Regno di Congo', September 22, 1820, in Filesi, ‘Epilogo’, pp. 433–4.

[47] Francisco das Necessidades, Report, March 15, 1845, in Arquivo do Archibispado de Angola, Correspondência de Congo, 1845–1892, cited in François Bontinck, ‘Notes complimentaire sur Dom Nicolau Agua Rosada e Sardonia’, African Historical Studies 2 (1969): 105, n. 6. Unfortunately, no researchers have been allowed to work in this section of the archive for many years and so the actual text is not available.

[48] Report of November 13, 1856 in António Brásio, ‘Monumenta Missionalia Africana’, Portugal em Africa 50 (1952), pp. 114–7.

[49] Biblioteca d'Ajuda, Lisbon 54/XIII/32 n° 9, Francisco de Salles Gusmão to the King, de Outubro de 27, 1856.

[50] Da Cruz, entry of October 8 and 25 on the problems of baptizing people.

[51] da Dicomano, ‘Informazione', is the first to describe this process; for more detail see Bastian, Besuch.

[52] David Eltis, An Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

[53] For a recent discussion of names and nomenclature, see Jésus Guanche, Africanía y etnicidad en Cuba (los componentes étnicos africanos y sus múltiples demoninaciones (Havana: Editoria de Ciencias Sociales, 2008). As we shall see, a number of other subdivisions also derived from the kingdom like the Musolongos, Batas and others.

[54] John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), for Cuba in particular, Matt Childs, ‘Recreating African Identities in Cuba', in The Black Urban Atlantic in the Era of the Slave Trade, eds. Jorge Cañizares-Esquerra, Matt Childs, and James Sidbury (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 85–100.

[55] Robert Jameson, Letters from Havana in the Year 1820 … (London: John Miller, 1821), pp. 20–2 (from letter II).

[56] Fernando Ortiz, Hampa Afro-Cubana. Los Negros Brujos (Havana: Liberia de F. Fé, 1906), pp. 81–5; and further developed in ‘Los Cabildos Afrocubanos', in Ensayos Etnograficos, eds. Miguel Barnet and Angel Fernández (Havana: Editoriales Sociales, 1984 [originally published 1921]), pp. 12–34; for a more recent statement based on more research, Matt Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 209–45 and María del Carmen Barcia Zequeira, Andrés Rodríguez Reyes, and Milagros Niebla Delgado, Del cabildo de “nación” a la casa de santo (Havana: Fundación Fernando Ortiz, 2012).

[57] For example, the now famous community of Pindar del Rio, see Natalia Bolívar Arostegui, Ta Makuende Yaya y las Reglas de Palo Monte: Mayombe, brillumba, kimbisa, shamalongo (Havana: Ediciones UNION, 1998).

[58] Childs, Aponte Rebellion, pp. 209–12; Jane Landers, ‘Catholic Conspirators: Religious Rebels in Nineteenth Century Cuba', Slavery and Abolition 36 (2015): 495–520.

[59] Brown, Santería Enthroned, pp. 62–112; María del Carmen Barcia, Los ilustres apellidos: Negros en la Habana colonial (Havana: Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad, 2008), pp. 45–151; Barcia, Rodríguez Reyes, and Niebla Delgado, Del Cabildo which carefully demolishes the earlier theses of Fernando Ortiz and others that the cabildos grew out of the brotherhoods.

[60] This group must have split or been replaced by another, for a property dispute in the Congos Loangos relates to their foundation in 1776, Archivo Nacional de Cuba (ANC) Escribanía Valerio-Ramirez (VR) legajo 698, no. 10.205.

[61] Barcia, Iustres Apellidos, pp. 45–151.

[62] Barcia, Ilustres Apellidos.

[63] del Carmen Barcia Zequeira, Rodríguez Reyes, and Niebla Delgado, Del cabildo, pp. 12–9.

[64] Fernando Ortiz, ‘Los Cabildos Afrocubanos', in Ensayos Etnograficos, eds. Miguel Barnet and Angel Fernández (Havana: Ediciones Ciencas Sociales, 1984 [originally published 1921]), p. 13, citing documents in El Curioso Americano, 1899, p. 73.

[65] Proclama que en un cabildo de negros congos de la ciudad de La Habana, prononció por su Presidente Rey Siliman Mofundi Siliman … (Havana: np, 1808); for the claim of superiority, drawn from an ambiguous statement that he was ‘more black that you others’, see Brown, Santería Enthroned, pp. 25–7 and 311, footnotes 4 and 6. For political context, see Ada Ferrer, Freedom's Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 247–9.

[66] Fredrika Bremer, Hemmen i den Nya Världen, 2nd ed., Vol. 3 (Stockholm: Tidens forläg, 1854), p. 142 (English translation as The Homes of the New World: Impressions of America, Vol. 2 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853), p. 322) Her host's name is given in the original and obscured in the translation as ‘C—'.

[67] Bremer, Hemmen, Vol. 3, pp. 146–8 (Homes Vol. 2, pp. 325–8).

[68] Henri Dumont, Antropologia y patologia comparadas de los Negros escalvos, 1876, trans. Israel Castellanos (Havana: Molina, 1922), p. 38.

[69] Bremer, Hemmen, Vol. 3, pp. 172–4 (Homes Vol. 2, pp. 348–9).

[70] Bremer, Hemmen, Vol. 3, p. 213 (Homes Vol. 2, p. 383).

[71] Esteban Pichardo, Diccionario provincial de voces Cubanas (Matanzas: Imprenta de la Real Marina, 1836), p. 72. Musundi may refer to Kongo's northern province of Nsundi, though the match is not exact since the nasal ‘n' is not incorporated into it, musundi might also mean ‘excellent', as the Virgin Mary was called ‘Musundi Madia' in the Kongo catechism meaning exactly this.

[72] It is possible that Bremer attended the dance of another Cabildo of Congos Reales, who were in the process of declaring their insolvency in 1851, ANC Escrabanía Joaquin Trujillo (JT) leg 84, no. 12, 1851; for a 1867 dispute, see the property case involving them in ANC VR leg. 393, no. 5875; other mentions of cabildos of this name including the group from 1865–1871 in Carmen Barcia, Ilustres apellidos, p. 408. For the 1880s mentions, see Archivio Historico de la Provincia de Matanzas (henceforward AHPM), Religiones Africanas, leg 1, no. 30, July 7, 1882; no. 65, January 9, 1898 and no. 31, July 31, 1886.

[73] Fondo Fernando Ortiz, Institute de Linguistica y Literatura, Havana, 5.

[74] ANC Escibanía d'Daumas (ED) leg 917, no. 6. (foliation uncertain, very deteriorated document).

[75] António de Oliveira de Cadornega, História das guerras angolanas (1680–81 ), eds. Matias de Delgado and da Cunha, Vol. 3 (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1940–1942, reprinted 1972), p. 3, 193. In July 2011, I drove through all three dialect zones, confirmed some of the differences by hearing them spoken and by speaking with people about these differences. My thanks to Father Gabriele Bortolami, OFMCap for driving, interacting with people, impromptu language updates and occasional lessons in the etiquette of dialect use in northern Angola.

[76] Cherubino da Savona, ‘Breve ragguaglio del Congo … ’, fols. 41v–44v, published with original foliation marked in Carlo Toso, ed., ‘Relazioni inedite di P. Cherubino Cassinis da Savona sul ‘Regno del Congo e sue Missioni’, L'Italia Francescana 45 (1974): 135–214. The foliation of the original is also marked in the French translation, found in Jadin, ‘Aperçu de la situation au Congo … '

[77] ANC ED, leg 494, no. 1, fols 96–97. This text was included in papers dealing with another dispute in 1827–1828 and in 1832–1836.

[78] ANC ED, leg 548, no. 11, fol. 9–9v; José Pacheco, January 21, 1806; ANC ED, leg. 660, no. 8, fols. 1–4; Pedro José Santa Cruz (a request for its own capataz) 1806; for the later dispute ANC ED leg 494, no. 1.

[79] ANC ED, leg 660, no. 8, fol. 4.

[80] ANC JT, leg. 84, no. 13 passim, 1851.

[81] AHPM, Religiones Africanas, leg 1, no. 30, July 7, 1882.

[82] AHPM, Religiones Africanas, leg 1, no. 65, January 9, 1898.

[83] AHPM, Religiones Africanas, leg 1, no. 31, July 31, 1886.

[84] Brown, Santería Enthroned, pp. 55–61 and Barcia Zequeira, Rodríguez Reyes, and Delgado, Cabildo de nación.

[85] Childs, Aponte Rebellion, p. 112 and ‘Identity', p. 91.

[86] Consider the temporal range of inquisition cases cited in Tania Chappi, Demonios en La Habana: Episodios de la Inquisición en Cuba (Havana: Oficinia del Hisoriador de la Ciudad, 2001). For an example of the sort of persecution the Inquisition could do, and the sort of information that can be obtained from their records, see James Sweet's study of slave religious life in Brazil, Recreating Africa.

[87] Jameson, Letters, pp. 20–2.

[88] See the transcript of his interview published in Henry Lovejoy, ‘Old Oyo Influences on the Transformation of Lucumí Identity in Colonial Cuba' (PhD diss., UCLA, 2012), pp. 230–46.

[89] Aisha Finch, Rethinking Slave Rebellion in Cuba: La Escalera and the Insurgencies of 1841–44 (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 2015), pp. 199–220. Finch attributes most of the activities in these cases to the non-Christian part of Kongo religion, or an early form of Palo Mayombe; see also Miguel Sabater, ‘La conspiración de La Escalera: Otra vuelta de la tuerca', Boletín del Archivo Nacional 12 (2000): 23–33 (with quotations from trial records).

[90] Bremer, Hemmen, Vol. 3, p. 213 (Homes Vol. 2, p. 383).

[91] Bremer, Hemmen, Vol. 3, pp. 211–3 (Homes Vol. 2, pp. 379–83).

[92] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 26, citing late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources.

[93] Abiel Abbott, Letters Written in the Interior of Cuba …  (Boston, MA: Bowles and Dearborn, 1829), pp. 15–7.

[94] Cabrera did not employ any orthography of contemporary Kikongo in her day, but it is not at all difficult to recognize her ear for that language, which she did not speak, and most quotations she provided are readily intelligible.

[95] Institute de Linguistica y Literatura, Havana, Fondo Fernando Ortiz, 5. This list, written in a different hand than Ortiz’, one that was shakier with large letters, on fragile aged paper (perhaps school paper) was, I believe, compiled by a literate person who was a native speaker of the language, based on his use of Kikongo grammatical forms (use of verb conjugations and class concords in particular).

[96] Armin Schwegler, ‘On the (Sensational) Survival of Kikongo in Twentieth Century Cuba', Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 15 (2000): 159–65; Jesús Fuentes Guerra, La Regla de Palo Monte: Un acercamiento a la Bantuidad Cubana (Havana: Iberoamericana Vervuert, 2012) (neither Schwegler nor Fuentes Guerra had access to Puyo's vocabulary in Ortiz’ documentation, the contention of its identity with Kikongo is my own). It seems likely that both Cabrera's and Ortiz’ vocabularies were collected probably from old native speakers, who entered Cuba at the end of the slave trade.

[97] For example, the class marker ki in the southern dialect is –ci in the north; use of ‘l' versus ‘d' would be another difference. The northern dialect is well attested in dictionaries of the French mission to Loango and Kakongo in the 1770s, compared with seventeenth- and nineteenth-century dictionaries of the southern dialects. I have also heard these differences myself in Angola.

[98] Fernando Ortiz, Hampa Afro-Cubana. Los Negros Esclavos (Havana: Bimestre Habana, 1916), pp. 25, 32 (clearly, testimony from the same informant).

[99] Ortiz, Negros Esclavos, p. 34. The term ‘Totila', clearly derived from the Kikongo ntotela meaning ‘king'. The word is first attested in the Kikongo dictionary of 1648, as meaning ‘King'. In 1901, King Pedro VI of Kongo, writing in Kikongo, styled himself ‘Ntinu Ntotela NeKongo' Archives of the Baptist Missionary Society (Regents’ Park College, Oxford) A 124 (both ntinu and ntotela can be glossed as ‘king').

[100] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 15.

[101] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 109. Cabrera, for her part, then told him of Nzinga a Nkuwu's baptism in 1491, presumably from one of the historical accounts she had read.

[102] On the assertions of Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita, see Thornton, Kongolese Saint Anthony; on the representation of Christ as an Kongolese, Fromont, Art of Conversion.

[103] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 93.

[104] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 58.

[105] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 59.

[106] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 14.

[107] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 19.

[108] The problem was apparent to Lydia Cabrera in her study of Palo, El Regla de Congo: Palo Monte Mayombe (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1979), pp. 120–30, as one can see from the defensive tone of her informants, probably speaking with her post-1960 experience (this is not seen as a problem in her earlier publication, El Monte (Havana, 1954)).

[109] Cabrera, Vocabulario, p. 123.

[110] Cabrera, Monte, pp. 119–23 passim (here, often used in the context of witchcraft); Reglas de Congo, pp. 24–5. In W. Holman Bentley, Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language (London: Kegan Paul, 1887), p. 361, which relates to the Kinsansala dialect (the most likely associated with Christianity) in the 1880s, mvumbi meant simply the corpse of a dead person; in the 1648 dictionary ‘spirits' was rendered as ‘mioio mia mvumbi' (or souls of corpses).

[111] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 24. In Kikongo, mvumbi means a corpse, the lifeless remains of a dead person, and the name of an ancestor would usually have been nkulu, though this usage would still make sense in Kikongo.

[112] See John Thornton, ‘Central African Names and African American Naming Patterns', William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 50 (1993): 727–42.

[113] The denunciation of the first tooth ceremony is only attested in the general complaints of the Capuchins in the 1650s, written by Serafino da Cortona.

[114] ‘Kisi malongo' appears to be ‘nkisi malongo'. A more likely way to say ‘the teaching of nkisi' would be ‘malongo ma nkisi', so the word order puzzles me. However, word order in Kikongo is flexible and should the speaker wish to emphasize the teaching spiritual part, it might be feasible to use this order.

[115] Cabrera, Reglas de Congo, p. 24. My translation of the phrase ‘nganga la musi' assumes that the speaker has only partial command of Kikongo grammar and would be ‘nganga a mu nsi' The same informant used the term kisi malongo, and perhaps as a Cuban-born person was not secure in the language.

[116] Cabrera, Regla de Congo, p. 23.

[117] Institute de Linguistica y Literatura, Havana, Fondo Fernando Ortiz, 5.

[noxilune]

Petition for Public Interest Litigation (PIL): A Tool for Social Justice

In a democracy, the judiciary serves as the guardian of constitutional rights. However, legal recourse often remains inaccessible to marginalized communities due to financial constraints or lack of awareness. This is where Public Interest Litigation (PIL) becomes a crucial instrument of justice. A PIL petition allows any citizen or organization to approach the court for the enforcement of rights affecting the public at large, without requiring direct personal involvement.

Public Interest Litigation (PIL) is a legal mechanism that enables individuals, NGOs, and activists to seek judicial intervention in cases involving:

Violation of fundamental rights

Environmental protection

Corruption and misuse of public funds

Neglect of marginalized communities

Public health and safety concerns

PILs have been instrumental in landmark judgments related to environmental conservation, women's rights, prison reforms, and access to healthcare in India.

Unlike traditional litigation, where only the aggrieved party can file a case, a PIL can be filed by:

Who Can File a PIL?

Any citizen acting in the public interest

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Social activists

Legal representatives on behalf of the affected community

How to File a PIL?

1. Identify the Issue

Filing a PIL involves the following steps:

Ensure that the matter affects a significant section of society and involves the violation of fundamental or legal rights. Issues that serve only personal or political interests may not be entertained by the court.

2. Research and Gather Evidence

A well-drafted PIL should be backed by credible data, reports, and legal references. This strengthens the case and demonstrates the issue’s seriousness.

3. Choose the Appropriate Court

PILs can be filed in:

The Supreme Court (Article 32 of the Constitution) for matters of national importance.

The High Court (Article 226 of the Constitution) for matters affecting a specific state or region.

4. Draft the PIL Petition

A PIL petition must include:

Title and case details

Brief background of the issue

Details of the violation or negligence

Legal grounds for filing the PIL

Previous efforts (if any) to resolve the issue outside court

Reliefs sought from the court

5. File the PIL and Pay Court Fees

Submit the petition to the court registry, along with the prescribed fee (which is usually nominal for PILs).

6. Court Proceedings and Hearing

Once accepted, the court may:

Issue notices to the government or concerned authorities.

Appoint amicus curiae (friend of the court) to assist in the case.

Conduct hearings and issue directions for immediate action if required.

PILs have led to historic legal reforms in India. Some notable examples include:

Significance of PILs in India

Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997): Led to the formation of sexual harassment guidelines at workplaces.

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (1986): Strengthened environmental laws, including the Ganga River cleanup.

Hussainara Khatoon v. State of Bihar (1979): Highlighted the plight of undertrial prisoners and secured their release.

While PILs are a powerful tool, their misuse has raised concerns. Some frivolous PILs are filed for personal, political, or publicity-driven motives, leading to unnecessary legal burden. Courts now scrutinize petitions carefully to prevent PIL misuse.

Challenges and Misuse of PILs

Conclusion

A well-drafted and genuine PIL can bring about significant social change, ensuring justice for the voiceless. By raising awareness and using this legal instrument responsibly, citizens can contribute to a more accountable and just society.

If you witness any violation of rights that affects public welfare, consider filing a Petition for PIL—your initiative could transform lives and uphold justice.

[biryukzlodei-artblog]

"Мегалополис" translation by me

Turned out that right after the new "Gladiator" by Ridley Scott, I almost immediately watched "Megalopolis" by Coppola. It was an interesting experience, considering that both of these films are about the Roman Empire and the modern day USA. In the West the film was publicly torn apart and buried in criticism, but grandpa Coppola doesn’t care because he made this movie on his own money and other people's opinions did not matter to him. He wanted to make this film how he saw it, and he made it. The result is a rather strange authorial statement by Coppola, who, through the main characters, conveys his views on the modern political-economic and socio-cultural reality.

In fact, this is an expensive art house, where the modern USA is equated with the Roman Republic during its decline on the eve of the period of civil wars and the transformation of Rome into a military empire. From there all Crassus, Cicero, Catiline and others with a ton of verbal, architectural and plot references to the times of the crisis of the Republic of the first century BC. Since the USA doesn’t hide the desire to inherit the fate of Rome, Coppola prophesies to the USA the fate of the late Roman Republic, which was mired in corruption, decadence, lawlessness, greed and injustice.

The juxtaposition of Cicero's down-to-earth approach and Catiline's dreams (who has recently become popular to be presented as a progressive character while I prefer Mommsen's description of him) of some kind of lofty reforms of society is expressed in a fairly direct conflict with references to the famous speech "When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience?", but the potential inherent in this pulling of the past onto the present is objectively not fully utilized.

After a series of misadventures, as well as Interstellar-style speeches about the "power of love", Cicero changed his mind and embraced new ideas, although his transition didn’t seem natural. What is ironic is that during the civil war in Rome, both Cicero and Catiline were killed, and the “better world for our children” was crushed under the heavy iron boot of military dictatorship with all the well-known advantages and disadvantages of the peak Roman Empire. While watching this, I found myself thinking about what the film might be look like if the long history of the collapse of the Roman Republic in modern times was reproduced in the form of an entertaining film*. The topic is very interesting, but after the end of the "Rome" series, it was practically out of the attention of filmmakers.

(* — “The Hunger games” was about it, but people in Russia tend to underestimate this movie because of the obvious childish teenage focus of the script with a weak description of political processes.)

I got the impression that Coppola sees the dead end of neoliberal capitalism, and in a creative manner expose its vices by comparing beauty contests with the sale of women into slavery, staged wrestling with gladiator fights, buying a place in line with buying votes in the Curia, street punks from Ostia in Rome with Trumpists in red caps etc. The allusions to the destruction of the very foundations of society in the form of tired and crumbling statues of law and justice are very beautiful. Perhaps these were the most memorable shots. But what is Coppola's answer, if put down all fantastic assumptions and poorly drawn cities of the future? A set of idealistic banality like "the power of love", "everyone should determine the future", "everyone's voice should be heard" etc. Just good wishes that "someday it will happen and then..." without any clear ways how to achieve this.

(tsk, I couldn't help myself.)

And these people used to laugh at statements about the bright future of the Socialists. "We won’t live to see this future, but our children will live in spherical cities of justice from Catiline one day!"

Therefore, after watching the movie, it’s pretty obvious what exactly Coppola doesn’t like in the modern world and what he wants to see in the future, but you won’t find recipes for how to achieve this in this film. That’s why "Megalopolis" is a manifesto about the director's personal utopia, which he contrasts with the rotting "new Rome", which awaits the inevitable "black swan" (in the movie it’s an old Soviet satellite with a nuclear (!) reactor), which will interrupt this "Belshazzar's feast". And here is a direct similarity with "Gladiator 2", where behind the final speeches about "Rome for all" and "The Dream of Rome" with various good wishes, Ridley Scott is pulling modern neoliberal ideology onto the military slave empire of the early 3rd century also found nothing to offer in the face of the crisis of the military monarchy in Rome and the tendencies that would lead to new civil wars and more crises in the Roman Empire. The more American creators compare the United States to Rome, the more the impression grows that fears about the future of the United States are growing in their minds. And they have no answer how to met the coming end with dignity. Sergey Pereslegin once called such a future "new dark ages", also making a historical allusion to the Dark Ages that replaced the destroyed world of late antiquity and the Western Roman Empire.

The film itself is very uneven as a movie. Some scenes are done well, and some are just smearing platitudes and frankly stretch the timekeeping. It felt like the movie had the potential to become something more, but it turned out that way because that's how the director saw it. However, I wasn’t much disappointed. The director tries to raise important topics of the crisis of late capitalist society "to think about it", there are generally good references to the history of Rome (do you think about the Roman Empire at least once at day too?), good camera work and pleasant visuals (Coppola never fell below a certain level and even in his old age his signature as a director is still visible).

The film will obviously fail at the box office, but even in such a crooked form it still aroused more interest than 90% of modern soulless commercial creations. Which of course doesn’t mean that Coppola managed to give an answer to the questions that worry him (and not only him) but at least he tried. Aventure failed, but thanks for trying.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (August 21)

Pope Pius X, born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the first Pope elected in the 20th century.

He came to the papal office in 1903 and died 11 years later in 1914, just as World War I was beginning.

He was born on 2 June 1835 at Riese, near Venice, and was one of eight children. His family was poor.

He felt a calling to be a priest at a young age and was ordained in 1858.

After 26 years, he was named bishop of Mantua, Italy. In 1893, he became patriarch of Venice.

As Pope, he issued decrees making the age of First Holy Communion earlier (at the age of 7) and advocated frequent and even daily reception of the Eucharist.

He promoted the reading of the Bible among laypeople, reformed the liturgy, promoted clear and simple homilies, and brought back Gregorian chant.

He revised the Breviary and reorganized the curia.

He also initiated the preparation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first comprehensive and systemic work of its kind.

In 1913, Pope Pius X suffered a heart attack and subsequently lived in the shadow of poor health.

In 1914, the pope fell ill on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (15 August 1914).

It was an illness from which he would not recover. It was reported that he suffered from fever and lung complications.

He died on 20 August 1914 of natural causes, reportedly aggravated by worries over the beginning of World War I.

Pope Pius XII beatified him on 3 June 1951 and canonized on 29 May 1954.

Pope Pius X is the patron saint of First Communicants and pilgrims.

The Society of Saint Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic fraternity formed decades after his death, is named after him.

[head-post]

EU presses Hungary, Slovakia hoping to steer them on anti-Russian course

The European Commission (EC) formulated serious shortcomings for Hungary in a report on the rule of law. Hungary has made some progress in implementing the European Commission’s recommendations in last year’s rule of law report, but serious shortcomings still remain. The EC has therefore ruled that Budapest cannot access the remaining frozen EU funds.

Blocked funds for Hungary

The EC made a series of recommendations ranging from making the judiciary more transparent to cracking down on corruption and reforming lobbying and campaign finance practices last year. The report recognises the ongoing judicial reforms, which were one of the preconditions for the release of the tranche of frozen funds.

The National Judicial Council, composed of judges elected by their peers, can exercise its powers to effectively check the powers of the President of the National Judicial Office, and the transparency of case allocation has further improved at the level of the Curia, Hungary’s supreme court.

However, the situation has not improved in the lower courts. Political pressure on the prosecutor’s office remains a concern, creating a risk of unwarranted interference in individual cases. Judges constantly face pressure on freedom of expression, and smear campaigns against them in the media continue.

With regard to Hungary’s efforts to fight corruption, the EC notes that Hungary has adopted a new anti-corruption strategy for 2024-2025 and legislation is planned to combat lobbying and the “revolving doors” phenomenon, which entails switching positions between the public and private sectors.

The new Integrity Authority reports that it faces obstacles in effectively carrying out its oversight tasks, and the Anti-Corruption Working Group has yet to produce tangible results, the report said.

Political party and campaign finance shortfalls remain unresolved, and the government has adopted new rules restricting foreign funding of political activities.

At the end of 2022, the EU blocked the allocation of €6.3bn from the Cohesion Fund to Budapest over concerns about rule of law problems, corruption and lack of judicial reforms. The refusal to release the funds is part of the EU’s Conditionality Regulation, which aims to protect the Union’s budget from risks associated with rule of law violations. In addition, around €2.5bn of cohesion funds are blocked due to the treatment of refugees, discrimination against LGBT people and violations of academic freedom.

Hungary is to receive €10.4bn from the RFP, including €6.5bn in grants and €3.9bn in loans. These funds can only be provided if Budapest fulfils all 27 superstages. In December 2023, Ecofin approved the amended country’s RRF plan, clearing the way for the transfer of €0.9bn in pre-financing to REPowerEU, which is not conditional.

Pressure on Slovakia via Ukraine

Slovak President Peter Pellegrini and members of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico’s left-right cabinet have threatened Ukraine with “retaliatory measures” for halting Russian oil imports through the Druzhba pipeline.

Ukraine’s tightening of sanctions against Russian oil giant Lukoil has cut Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia, and Hungary’s top diplomat Peter Szijjártó said earlier this week that ‘the oil security of Hungary and Slovakia is at risk.’ Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are exempt from EU sanctions on Russian oil because they rely heavily on it. Pellegrini said at a press conference with Defence Minister Robert Kalinak in Bratislava on July 24:

“I firmly believe that order will be imposed as soon as possible on the Ukrainian side, because Slovakia as a sovereign country will eventually have to resort to retaliatory measures, and that will not benefit Ukraine, its citizens or any of us in this region.”

Pellegrini’s statement came a day after Szijjártó said Hungary would block the disbursement of funds from the European Peace Fund (EPF) for Ukraine until Kyiv allows Russian Lukoil’s oil transit through Druzhba.

Slovakia was one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters before Fico’s cabinet cancelled state military aid to Ukraine. Some experts believe Kyiv made such a move to influence Slovakia and Hungary, which refuse to adhere to the EU’s anti-Russian policy.

Fico openly co-operates with Hungarian right-wing politician Viktor Orbán, despite the fact that they are at opposite ends of the left-right divide in the political spectrum.

Hungary’s disqualification from hosting a key meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers is the latest sign that Brussels is ready to take Viktor Orbán’s defiance of EU norms seriously.

Hungary’s opposition to much of the EU agenda has rarely been subtle. It is sharp. Orbán’s government has been in constant conflict with Brussels on issues ranging from judicial independence and media freedom to anti-LGBT+ laws and corruption. Most recently, Hungary has become a thorn in the side of the EU over its support for Ukraine, constantly blocking resolutions and even funding for Kyiv.

Symbolic signal

The EU took the unprecedented step this week of stripping Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers because of its stance on the war in Ukraine. The meetings were originally due to take place in Budapest, but will now be held in Brussels.

The move follows Orbán’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month. While Orbán called the trip a “peace mission,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described it as “nothing less than a mission of appeasement.” Outgoing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell said Orbán’s actions must have “consequences” and that “we must send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal.”

Borell also took the opportunity to condemn Hungary’s continued veto of EU military aid to Ukraine, which currently touches €6.6 billion in reimbursements. In response, Hungary called the move “utterly childish.”

Hungary’s economy is feeling the effects of its estrangement from the EU, and its poor performance in recent years has perhaps hit conservative Hungarians – Orbán’s mainstay – hardest.

Energy subsidies, which give Hungarians some of the cheapest gas and electricity in Europe, support the majority of the population, but the Hungarian forint has depreciated significantly in recent years, affecting the cost of imports and contributing to inflationary pressures.

Oil row

Kyiv imposed sanctions blocking the transit to central Europe of crude oil sold by Moscow’s largest private oil company, Lukoil, raising fears of supply shortages in Budapest last month. Hungary gets 70 per cent of its oil imports from Moscow and half that amount from Lukoil. Hungary now wants the EU to intervene on its behalf. The country’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó told a meeting of EU envoys in Brussels on Monday:

“Ukraine’s decision fundamentally threatens the security of supply to Hungary. This is an unacceptable step by Ukraine, a country that wants to become a member of the European Union, and by its decision alone jeopardises oil supplies.”

Slovakia also said it could suffer from Ukraine’s partial ban on Russian oil exports through the country. Moscow accounted for 88 per cent of Slovakia’s oil imports in 2023.

Meanwhile, the European Commission is threatening Slovakia with repercussions over a bill that would give foreign agent status to any NGO that receives more than €5,000 a year from abroad. European Commissioner Vera Jourova said:

“If the Slovak government, follow Hungary’s example regarding the NGO law, we will immediately launch an infringement procedure.”

The Slovak parliament is considering a law that would give the status of a “foreign-supported organisation” to any NGO that receives more than €5,000 a year from abroad. In addition, the authors of the bill from the Slovak National Party (part of the ruling coalition) proposed to introduce mandatory publication of information about the sponsors of non-profit organisations.

The European Commission rejected a request from Hungary and Slovakia to resume oil supplies from Russia via Ukraine, Financial Times reported.

At a meeting of EU trade representatives on July 24, Budapest and Bratislava demanded that EU countries take retaliatory measures against Ukraine within the framework of the association agreement with the EU. The publication writes that the sides did not come to an agreement. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said that Brussels would need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation.

According to three diplomats interviewed by the FT, 11 states supported the EC’s position on the issue and no country sided with Budapest and Bratislava. The FT specifies that the share of Russian oil in Slovakia’s only refinery is 35-40 per cent. Products from this oil are exported to the Czech Republic and Ukraine.

Read more HERE

[herbertcuriapromotions]

HUMAN RIGHTS PROMOTIONS - UPDATES MAY 26.  2024

UPPORT PBBM BAGONG PILIPINAS ON FARMERS WELFARE AND LAND REFORM

VISIT OUR WEBSITE:

A.. http://humanrightspromotions.blogspot.com/

B.  https://humanrightspromotion.wixsite.com/home

C.  https://www.youtube.com/user/humanrightspromotion

D.  http://humanrightspromotions.webs.com/

E.  https://web.facebook.com/HUMANRIGHTSPROMOTIONS

HERBERT CURIA WEBSITE:  http://herbertcuria.wixsite.com/herbertcuria

[latest-breaking-news-video]

Watch Labor reform: the UIA will seem as amicus curiae in protection of the labor chapter of the DNU - Argentina News Headlines

[mariacallous]

Two surveillance bills are barreling their way through the US House of Representatives this week. Both claim to achieve roughly the same goal: Enact sweeping reforms and save a dying surveillance program beleaguered by “persistent and widespread” abuse.

Under this program, Section 702, the US government collects hundreds of millions of phone calls, emails, and text messages each year. An inestimable chunk belongs to American citizens, permanent residents, and others in the United States neither suspected nor accused of any crime.

While both bills would extend the program’s life, only one of them can credibly lay claim to the title of reform. Legislation introduced last week by Representative Andy Biggs in the House Judiciary Committee would require the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to obtain warrants before accessing the communications of Americans collected under Section 702. The second bill, introduced by the House Intelligence Committee, contains no equivalent protection.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act (PLEWSA, unfortunately) secures a glaring loophole in US law that helps police and intelligence agencies buy their way around the Fourth Amendment by paying US companies for information that they’d otherwise demand a warrant to disclose. The House Intelligence Committee’s bill—the FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act, or FRRA—does nothing to address this privacy threat.

What the FRRA does appear to do, despite its name, is explode the number of companies the US government may compel to cooperate with wiretaps under Section 702. That was the assessment on Friday of Marc Zwillinger, amicus curiae to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR). “These changes would vastly widen the scope of businesses, entities, and their affiliates who are eligible to be compelled to assist 702 surveillance,” Zwillinger wrote in an article with Steve Lane, a former Justice Department (DOJ) attorney.

Section 702 currently allows the government to compel a class of companies called “electronic communications providers” to collect communications. If the FRRA becomes law, according to Zwillinger, that category would be greatly expanded to include a slew of new businesses, including “data centers, colocation providers, business landlords, and shared workspaces,” as well as, he says, “hotels where guests connect to the internet.”

Congressional sources tell WIRED that officials at the DOJ, Department of Defense, and National Security Agency have been placing urgent calls directly to House lawmakers to oppose the PLEWSA and advance the FRRA—an effort, the sources say, being coordinated by White House advisers. Privately, some Democrats have been urged to help kill the “Jim Jordan bill,” an aide said, explaining the apparent jab is meant to frame an entirely bipartisan bill as an extreme Republican measure. (Jordan, the aide noted, is not the bill’s author and did not introduce it.) Regardless, a major chunk of the PLEWSA was cannibalized from privacy legislation with a record of broad bipartisan support, and particularly in the Senate, where top Democrat Chuck Schumer has previously lent his name to a bill banning police and intelligence agencies from buying people’s personal data.

The PLEWSA likewise exited the House Judiciary Committee last week with broad bipartisan support from both Jordan, the Republican chair, and Jerrold Nadler, its ranking Democrat.

Section 702 surveillance begins with monitoring the communications of foreigners believed to be located outside of the United States. Under these conditions, the US government can ignore most constitutional protections, wiretapping nearly any individual it deems likely to possess—or likely to possess in the future—information of intelligence value.

Correspondence between foreign targets and their lawyers, doctors, religious leaders, wives, husbands, and children are all open for collection, a fact that would not change if every one of them were a US citizen. Whatever calls, emails, or texts are intercepted as a result of targeting a foreigner under 702 are legally permissible, or “incidental,” in spy agency parlance.

Once that information is legally in the government’s possession, the use of it is subject to a different set of legal doctrines, many of which ignore the novel circumstances under which it was initially seized. A federal appeals court in 2021 described the “two-step” process by which communications may be seized under 702 and only years later dug up for an entirely different reason. The process on the whole is constitutional, it said, so long as each step “independently complies with the Fourth Amendment.” Under this logic, the FBI has been permitted to treat the private communications of Americans—secretly obtained during foreign surveillance—as roughly the equivalent of information it stumbles across in plain view.

How often Americans are targeted by Section 702 surveillance is a question that the government says it genuinely can’t answer. It does, however, disapprove of using the word “target” to describe Americans whose calls and texts are intercepted by US spies.

Congressional sources opposed to the FRRA, the House Intelligence Committee’s bill, say it reflects a deference toward executive power that has become customary among House and Senate intelligence staff. In arguing that constant experience has never shown secret agencies to be predisposed to self-restraint, a senior aide pointed to the case of an intelligence analyst caught abusing 702 data for “online dating” purposes last year. It had recently been confirmed, they said, that the analyst had not been fired. “The Intelligence Committee’s ‘FISA Reform and Reauthorization Act’ may have the word ‘reform’ in its name, but the bill’s text proves otherwise,” says Representative Zoe Lofgren. “Congress must not green-light another major surveillance reauthorization without enacting surveillance reform measures that curb abuses and protect Americans’ civil liberties."

Talking points obtained by WIRED that were being circulated over the weekend by critics of the PLEWSA bill’s deeper reforms allude to the “grave damage” it poses to national security. Supporters of the FRRA bill have dubiously credited the 702 with halting “another 9/11.” But the PLEWSA bill strikes an appreciable balance between privacy and security for a surveillance authority aimed at foiling tier-one threats. It contains clear caveats to help the government advance investigations of cybercrime and exigencies for most immediate, violent threats.

Sources say both the PLEWSA and the FRRA could receive a floor vote as early as Tuesday under rarely prescribed Queen-of-the-Hill rules—meaning, in short, that the bill with the greatest number of supporters might ultimately carry the day.

[parrhesiac]

There's a bit of quite recent history that conservative Catholics would like you not to remember.

It's that the whole bit from Vatican I, roughly, to Vatican II was not in any way historically normal.

Let's remember first that Vatican I was the tricentennial of the Council of Trent, which was the Roman Catholic reaction to the Reformation. And while the counter-reformation did kick off a flourishing of widely varied and reinvigorated forms of Catholic piety, in response to the Reformation creating such a flourishing outside of its auspices, the administrative institutional response of the curia was ... not that.

And when it comes to the 1860-70s, as opposed to the 1560s-70s, we're looking at the start of the Vatican as what it is today: not in any way a politically relevant powerhouse, merely an anachronistic relic of religious rather than real societal and political importance. We're looking at a Roman Catholicism left behind by literally every feature of the shape of the world—and feeling some kind of way about that.

This is the period in which Germany and Italy came to exist. This is the period in which democracy and socialism as forces of serious and dominant weight began to feed back into Europe and reshape it. This is the period when science, once something the church did and sponsored in its various academic institutions, could not be restricted from saying things with which church leaders as political nobility disagreed.

This is consequently the period in which antimodernism became the overriding, controlling dogma of Roman Catholicism, used to weed its own patch of anyone who might subversively be in any way favorable to the shape the world had long since begun to take.

This is the period in which the often genuinely progressive theologies of the later Medieval period, now that their creators were solidly dead, became the foundation of neoscholasticism as the reactionary codification system for antimodernism, and the ranks of Thomistic theology were likewise thinned by culling anyone willing to be creative and Modern in any even vaguely sympathetic way with the legacy of Aquinas, much less the Patristics.

The 1860s to the 1960s. Pascendi Dominici gregis, the Syllabus errorum, papal infallibility, the creation of new forms of counterintuitive and even counterfactual Marian piety, and the persecution of anyone who dissented or differed in any way by the Holy Office, formerly known as the Inquisition. Ended by the rebellion of the church as a body against the violence of its head, in the Second Vatican Council, but living on as the form into which a century of Catholicism had been forced violently. American Catholicism never stopped being that. And it is the underlying basis for everyone who hates Pope Francis.

This is the foundation of all of that Catholic culture, which is not truly in any way ancient, but only a way of selectively reading history for what best suits an out-of-power-and-angry-about-it political minority that is also a global missionary-colonial force.

And its perfect echo can be seen in the revanchist politics of American Evangelicalism. Antimodern and out of power in ways that can only be "made right" by violently seizing control of everything, and destroying all that will not conform.

the current state of political discourse in the Catholic sphere is such offensive slop from every angle

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF POPE SAINT PIUS V The Pope of the Holy Rosary Feast Day: April 30

"Utinam dirigantur viæ meæ ad custodiendas justificationes tuas (O that my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications.)" -Papal motto of Pius V based on Psalms 119:5

The pope who is the initiator of the feast of the Holy Rosary, was born Antonio Ghislieri, on January 17, 1504 in Bosco in the Duchy of Milan. At the age of 14, he entered the Dominican order and taking the name Michele, passing from the monastery of Voghera to that of Vigevano, and thence to Bologna. Ordained a priest at Genoa in 1528, he was sent by his order to Pavia, where he lectured for sixteen years. At Parma he advanced thirty propositions in support of the papal chair and against the Protestant Reformation.

Elected as pope on January 8, 1566, through the influential backing of Charles Borromeo, he was crowned ten days later, on his 62nd birthday by the protodeacon.

This zealous Dominican pope vigorously implemented the reform of the Church. Following the decrees of the Council of Trent, he instructed the bishops to reside in their diocese, and parish priests to teach catechism to the youth. After removing corruption and nepotism from the Roman Curia, he cleansed the Papal States from brigands and prostitutes. His disciplinary penalties were so severe, that he was accused of transforming Rome into a monastery. It was during his pontificate, that the new breviary, missal and catechism, were published.

His papal bull, Regnans in Excelsis (Reigning on High), is issued on February 1570, and that bull results in the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I.

The Pope's greatest success was the Battle of Lepanto, fought off the coast of Greece on October 7, 1571, and it was the first major defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The victory was attributed to the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose aid was invoked through praying the rosary. In commemoration of that event, he instituted the feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary on October 7, and inserted the titled Mary, Help of Christians in the Litany of the Blessed Mother.

Pius V died on May 1, 1572 at the age of 68, and is succeeded by Ugo Boncompagni, who will later on to become Pope Gregory XIII. He is beatified by Pope Clement X in 1672 and canonized by Pope Clement XI in 1712.

[arts-dance]

Jean-Léon Gérôme - The Death of Caesar

English: Julius Caesar was assassinated in Rome on the Ides of March (March 15), 44 BC. Characteristically, Gérôme has depicted not the incident itself, but its immediate aftermath. The illusion of reality that Gérôme imparted to his paintings with his smooth, polished technique led one critic to comment, "If photography had existed in Caesar's day, one could believe that the picture was painted from a photograph taken on the spot at the very moment of the catastrophe."

Italiano: Giulio Cesare è stato assassinato a Roma alle Idi di Marzo (15 Marzo 15), 44 a.C. Gérôme dipinse non il fatto in se, ma i momenti immediatamente seguenti. L'illusione di realtà che Gérôme infonde ai suoi dipinti con la propria tecnica morbida e pulita portò alcuni critici a commentare, "Se la fotografia fosse esistita al tempo di Cesare, si potrebbe credere che il quadro fosse dipinto in base alla foto presa sul luogo nel momento della catastrofe."

Depicted people

Julius Caesar 

Marcus Junius Brutus

Depicted place Theatre of Pompey

Date between 1859 and 1867

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jean-L%C3%A9on_G%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_-The_Death_of_Caesar-_Walters_37884.jpg

Artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) Title The Death of Caesar

The Death of CaesarA vivid portrait of one of history’s most momentous conspiracies.

History Today | Published in History Today Volume 69 Issue 7 July 2019

A huddle of conspirators walks away from the lifeless, bloodied body of Julius Caesar, having stabbed the great Roman general and statesman 23 times on the Ides, or 15th, of March, 44 BC.

Caesar had recently been declared dictator perpetuo by a Senate fearful of its rumoured abolition in a series of reforms by Caesar, who had a substantial following among Rome’s Plebeians. Senators, of whom Cassius and Brutus were most prominent, had formed themselves into a grouping, the Liberatores, in an attempt to restore the Republic.

Caesar had recently announced his impending departure on a military campaign to subdue the Parthian Empire. If action was to be taken by the conspirators, now was the moment.

The setting for Caesar’s assassination was to be the Theatre of Pompey, where Brutus had organised a series of gladiatorial contests, to which he had invited the dictator. Caesar had been warned of various plots on his life, but Brutus persuaded him that the Senate would be disappointed if he did not attend. His ally Mark Antony, similarly suspicious, tried to intervene, but he was detained outside the theatre by the plotter Servilius Casca.

On his arrival, Caesar was presented with a petition by Lucius Tillius Cimber for the return of his exiled brother. When Caesar refused, Cimber manhandled Caesar, pulling down his toga. As Caesar cried ‘this is violence’, Casca thrust a dagger at his neck – and then the mob struck. Blinded by the torrent of blood that poured from his wounds, Caesar fell on the steps of the Curia.

His last words have been subject to centuries of speculation. He did not say the Shakespearean ‘Et tu, Brute’, but he may have uttered, as the Roman chronicler Suetonius claimed, ‘You too, child’.

The conspirators headed for the Capitol but were met by a bewildered, fearful crowd, who began a destructive fire. Civil war followed and the conspirators, led by Cassius and Brutus, were defeated at the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia in 42 BC by forces under the command of Mark Antony and Caesar’s nominated successor, Gaius Octavius, who became the Emperor Augustus Caesar. Augustus declared his predecessor a god – Divus Iulius – the same year.

The Death of Caesar, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, was painted for the Exposition Universelle of 1867, held in Paris. It hangs in Baltimore’s Walters Art Gallery.   

+

[noreligionisgood]

“What we didn’t know was that my father had been married before meeting my mother. His first marriage lasted about two years, and because the church refused to recognize the divorce and end of that union, my parents could not receive the sacrament of matrimony.

During my father’s immersion into Catholicism, it was pointed out that without the sacrament of matrimony performed by a priest, my parents were technically living in sin. Mortal sin. Every Catholic schoolchild knew the consequences: Mortal sin without absolution meant eternal damnation! And what of the legitimacy of the children?

My father tried repeatedly to have his first marriage annulled. The church declined. Grounds for Catholic annulment were much more strict before reforms introduced in the U.S. in 1968. To the best of my knowledge, my father’s first marriage did not meet the church’s requirements of that era.

But it did offer a different solution. Mom and Dad, with the bishop’s permission, and after taking a solemn vow, could leave the marital bed and replace it with chaste cohabitation.

According to an official document that still bears the embossed seals and signatures of various church officials and Catholic entities, they could “continue to cohabit in the manner of brother and sister.” I have the letter, dated March 5, 1962, from a diocesan marriage tribunal, a “curia matrimonialis,” in which both my parents swear to adhere to this arrangement — or face losing access to the sacraments and the blessing of the church. Mom was 34; Dad was 47.

Secrecy was paramount. “No one is to know of the brother-sister relationship except the Advocate Father O’Brien, the Pastor, the Tribunal, and the confessors of the parties,” the tribunal’s letter said. It mentioned avoiding “notoriety” and “scandal.” Of course, even in the 1960s, one would think that not having sex with your spouse would fall on the low end of the scandal spectrum.

All this may seem like an artifact of the past, but a 2010 article in the publication Catholic Exchange explained that in addition to conventional marriage, there still exists “the type of marriage Joseph and Mary had and is sometimes referred to as a Josephite marriage.” Married celibates, according to the article, give up sex “because they hope to live a life that points the way to what will come in the next life, to something better and higher.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the Catholic Church continues to structure these arrangements for couples who request such a union.

“It is extremely rare that people today request a Josephite marriage,” said Christopher West, the president of the Theology of the Body Institute, which promotes a healthy understanding of sex within the teachings of the Catholic Church. “I do know of a couple who a few years ago discerned that they were called to live a Josephite marriage. Their motivation was carefully evaluated by their local diocese.”

I told this story when I delivered the eulogy at my mother’s funeral mass at Shrine of the True Cross in May 2019. I’m sure it was news to most of her many friends in the church that day. The current pastor didn’t know about her complicated marital history, and I was a little nervous about how he’d respond.

But after I sat down, he took the pulpit. “I can’t explain or excuse the things the church asked of people more than 50 years ago,” the priest said. “But it’s clear how important it was to Betty and Bill that their marriage be blessed by the church. Without judging what they went through, we can admire and appreciate their resolve and their sacrifice to enter the sanctity of marriage.””

Why do people think god cares so much about what people do with their genitals!? Even the pastor thought this was crazy!