This is a long commentary, replete with a lot of political history, on the Republican slugfest of four days ago. It has been revised in several places since its initial posting in the overnight hours this morning, including the correction of my egregious error of referring to South Carolina as the "Magnolia State," an "unforced error" that was caused by fatigue. South Carolina is, of course, the Palmetto State. Mississippi is the Magnolia State. My apologies.

The next commentary on this site will discuss the work of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and the political firestorm swirling around a possible replacement.

Jorge's trip to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, for his "cross border" liturgical service will not go without comment, and "Still Selling the Rope After All These Years" will be completed by the end of this week or the beginning of the next.

Thank you for your patience.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Update on the First Sunday of Lent and the Commemoration of Saint Valentine, February 14, 2016:

Much happened yesterday, Saturday after Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2016, and there is no time after Midnight on the First Sunday of Lent to do anything other than to note that commentaries on yesterday's events, which included the unexpected death of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America Antonin Gregory Scalia while vacationing in Texas, an incredible slugfest of a "debate" held in Charleston, South Carolina, that featured Donald J Trump's uncompromising criticism of George Walker Bush and the unconstitutional, immoral and unjust invasion and occupation of Iraq (a criticism that does not indemnify his use of vulgar language, it should be note, about which, most sadly, he is not in the least bit ashamed or apologetic), and Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to transform, using a bit more subtlety than usual, the meaning of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe into a ringing endorsement of his efforts to reach out to the "peripheries," will be posted as time permits. This means a further delay in the completion of "Still Selling the Rope After All These Years." The events that transpired yesterday, however, require a bit of attention, and I might record one of my ultra low-tech, completely sub-amateurish-quality video presentations to try to be a bit more time efficient prior to commentaries on each event.

Please pray for the soul of Justice Scalia. He tried to defend the original meaning of the Constitution as explained by the men who wrote its text. Alas, his efforts to do so were undermined by the simple fact that a document that admits of no higher authority than its own text will become as much of a plaything in the hands of legal positivists as is Sacred Scripture in the hands of Protestants and modernist Catholics. That is, why should a jurist have any "reverence" for the "original intent" of a constitution when men believe that they can deconstruct Sacred Scripture of its plain meaning? A nation not founded on a due recognition of the Social Reign of Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls will wind up having judicial cases based upon arguing over who gets to decide what is beyond the ability of humans to decide, which was, if you recall, the subject of a four part series in June and July of last year. Additionally, Justice Scalia hamstrung himself by claiming that he could not use the Natural Law as the basis of judicial decision-making as the Constitution made no reference thereto. He was very mistaken in this regard.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May his soul and all of the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

End of Update:

Description of "In Direct Defiance of the Catholic Faith":

Jorge met Kirill on Friday, February 12, 2016, the Feast of the Seven Founders of the Order of the Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in that wonderful oasis of freedom, Havana, Cuba.

I have a few things to say. Just a few.

Work resumes on part two of “Still Selling the Rope After All These Years,” although Jorge’s speeches in Mexico and tonight’s circus of the midget naturalists in Charleston, South Carolina, may require more immediate attention.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Well, I have decided to divide what is being called “Still Selling the Rope After All These Years” (a title drawn from what many believe to be an apocryphal quote attributed to the Bolshevik butcher named Vladimir Lenin, namely, that “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”) into two parts.

This first installment documents the betrayal of innocent human beings in Red China by the politicians, bankers, merchants, and industrialists of the United States of America, a betrayal in which the European Union, of course, has participated fully.

The second installment will explain how each of the past three conciliar “popes” have continued the “ostpolik” of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick’s appeasement of Communism in Eastern Europe and of the Union of Soviet Socalist Republics itself. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who really, really knows that is he is doing, Donald Trump, including on the issue of illegal immigration, is simply finishing Montini’s job of creating a One World Ecumenical Church that is completely subservient to Antichrist’s system of One World Governance.

Anyone who thinks that we are “voting” our way out of the chastisement that God is sending us at this time is badly mistaken.

Well, much is going on now, including Jorge’s stopover in Cuba to sign another One World Ecumenical Church accord with the leader of a heretical and schismatic church, namely, Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church in this instance, before he takes his roadshow to Mexico, where he will dishonor Our Lady by championing “liberation theology” and his false “mercy” for those who are unrepentant sinners. Expect the conciliar “pope” to tell “bishops” and seminarians to pay no attention to “complex doctrines” and to “welcome” all to what purports to be “Holy Communion” no matter how they are living.

Additionally, the reduced cast of the Circus of Midget Naturalists will be debating tomorrow evening in South Carolina. It’s much easier, although still very tiring, to comment on this sideshow than it is to deal with Senor Jorge!

In other words, part two of this article may take a bit longer to complete, but I will continue to work on it nevertheless.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.

The Seven Holy Founders of the Order of Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

Today is the one hundred fifty-ninth anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in the Grotto of Massabielle near Lourdes, France. Our Lady explained to the fourteen year-old Bernadette that we must do penance for our sins and for those of others.

Can we do any less in our day?

Indeed, the state of the Church Militant on earth and of the world-at-large has worsened as the sins of men have grown more numerous and more daring and as most baptized Catholics have been deprived of access to Sanctifying Grace by virtue of the invalid sacraments offered in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. God is not going to permit any country that kills the innocent preborn with legal impunity and kills souls in the name of the falsehoods of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" and "freedom of religion" and a general sense of legal and cultural licentiousness to know long term material prosperity. Then again, these merchants of death have been enabled by the conciliar revolutionaries, who believe that signs of "outward penance belong to a different era in the history of the Church." We must indeed take Our Lady's injunction, "Penance! Penance! Penance! Pray to God for sinners," most seriously as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permits. 

The next article for this site is nearing completion, and it is my hope video lectures I recorded on my cellular telephone on Thursday, February 9, 2017, the Feast of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Commemoration of Saint Apolonnia, later today.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Saint Bernardette Soubiros, pray for us.

Two new articles are in the process of being completed, including "Painting the Vatican Walls Red. It is my hope that this long-delayed article will be posted by tomorrow morning.

Today's posting is a revised and republished reflection on the beginning of our Lenten journey into the desert of prayer, penance, sacrifice, mortification, and almsgiving. Another republished article will follow in a few minutes of this posting.

A blessed Lent to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

There was a “debate” on Saturday evening, February 6, 2016, the Feast of Saint Titus and the Commemoration of Saint Dorothy, that required a bit of time, just enough time as to further delay my article about Jorge and Red China, which will be very comprehensive.

Well, even the current article is pretty thorough. It is also very pointed as I exhort Catholics once again to quit believing in the political equivalent of the tooth fairy. The common good cannot be pursued on the basis of lies and false premises by shallow men who grasp at issues without understanding root causes and without a clue as to First and Last Things.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John Matha, pray for us.

A very brief commentary today, most of which will be devoted to the completion of “Painting the Vatican Walls Red,” which is still a working title. Stay tuned.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Titus, pray for us.

Saint Dorothy, pray for us.

A brief commentary on Monday's dog and pony show in Iowa.

Work continues on "Painting the Vatican Walls Red." Thanks for your patience.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Blaise, pray for us.

Today is the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, always the humble handmaid of the Lord who humbled herself this day, the last day of Christmastide, which ends after Holy Mass this morning, by submitting to the rituals of the law although she was not in need of such a ritualistic purification because of her Perpetual Virginity. This is the day that Our Lady presented her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the same Temple where He would be found twelve years later answering questions of the rabbis, the same Temple whose curtain would be torn in two from top to bottom as He breathed His last on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us, thereby signifying the permanent end of the Old Covenant and the supersession of Judaism by Catholicism as the true religion.

The aged Simeon, who waited patiently every day in the Temple for the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to him, that he would not die before his eyes had seen and his arms had beheld the Messiah, sent the first Sword of Sorrow plunging through Our Lady's Sorrowful and and Immaculate Heart when he prophesied that the Child he beheld would be destined for the rise and for the fall of man, a sign to be opposed, a Sign of Contradiction.

We must never fear to be signs of contradiction in our own lives in imitation of the THE Sign of Contradiction, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as He hung on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us as he was mocked and reviled by the very people from whose stock He had taken His Sacred Humanity. We must be willing to suffer all manner of calumny and humiliation for the many times that we have preferred human respect to fidelity to Our Lord, for the many times we have refused to call upon Our Lady's maternal intercession, for the many times we have refused to "take sides," especially in our day by refusing to reject conciliarism and its ravenous wolves once and for all.

A brief commentary on last night's exercise in naturalism will follow shortly before work resumes later today on the rather long commentary that has the working title of "Painting the Vatican Walls Red."

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church and Protector of the Faithful, pray for us.