The author shows how the commitment of Christians to their cause changed the way the Roman world looked upon itself. Shows Constantine, warts and all
I use the word hagiographic advisedly. Constantine is literally a Christian saint, at least in the Orthodox Church. He’s the emperor who rejected the old religion and embraced Christianity. His mother, Helena, is a saint to Catholics and Orthodox alike; she’s the pioneering archaeologist who went to Jerusalem and miraculously unearthed the True Cross.
Piety is the problem, I think. Constantine was viewed through a rose-colored religious lens by Slaughter, Waugh, and Sayers. None of them could see him as just another Roman emperor behaving as Roman emperors did, dealing out death and destruction on every side, a power-hungry beast who was mad, bad, and dangerous to know—especially if you were his nearest and dearest.
In Christianizing the Roman Empire, the great historian Ramsay MacMullen wrote, “The empire had never had on the throne a man given to such bloodthirsty violence as Constantine.” - Constantine: Saint or Serial Killer? BY STEVEN SAYLOR [https://www.criminalelement.com/constantine-saint-or-serial-killer/]
Dear President Trump, Vice President Pence, Speaker Ryan, and Leader McCarthy, On Nov 8 th of last year, 81% of Evangelicals voted to put President Donald Trump into the White House and Republicans in control of the House and Senate. They are now watching closely, wondering if Republicans in Washington will keep their campaign promises. One of the most important campaign promises was the protection of unborn life. We, the undersigned, have united to protect human lives with HR 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act, which is co-sponsored by two-thirds of the Republicans in Congress-more than any other pro-life bill. It also has more public support than any other pro-life bill. Simply put, the Heartbeat Bill ensures that "if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected." To deny the child's beating heart is to deny science. To ignore it is heartless. According to the father of the pro-life movement, the late Dr. John Willke, the Heartbeat Bill will protect 95% of the babies who would otherwise be aborted. Simply recognizing this universal indicator of life-a heartbeat-is the most effective way to "Make America Safe Again." While we support pro-life bills that protect preborn children, the Pain Capable Bill (HR 36) would only protect babies after five months-that's only 1.3% of the babies facing abortion, according to CDC statistics. As Dr. Willke stated, "When I founded the pro-life movement, it wasn't to regulate how abortions would be done, it was to bring the abortion killing to an END. We have waited too long and that wait has cost us too much. " After 44 years, an "incremental approach" has left us with a body count of nearly 60 million. We are a far cry from success when nearly a million abortions are still being committed each year. But in order to achieve a different result, we must do something different. The Heartbeat Bill is different. According to a 2017 George Barna poll, 69% of Americans support the Heartbeat Bill-most of them strongly. The bill has support from the vast majority of Republicans (86%) and Independents (61%). Even 55% of Democrats believe "If a doctor is able to detect a heartbeat of an unborn baby, that baby should be legally protected." The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals declared that the heartbeat is a more "consistent and certain" indicator of life than "viability," the arbitrary standard the U.S. Supreme Court currently uses to allow legal protection of children in the womb. While respect all pro-life efforts, after four decades, it's time to achieve the goal for which we have marched, prayed, and voted. With a Republican House, Senate, White House, and new Supreme Court being ushered in, we can do more than protect 1.3% of the babies, we can protect every child whose beating heart can be heard. We urgently and respectfully request that you lead your legislative agenda this fall with HR 490, the Heartbeat Bill, supported by two-thirds of the Republican members of Congress, seven out of ten Americans, and millions of pro-life voters who will be greatly encouraged by its passage prior to the midterm elections. Sincerely, |
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
Founder & President, Family Talk American Family Association & AFA Radio
Don Wildmon, Founder...
... Troy Newman
President, Operation Rescue
Co-Founder, Center for Medical Progress...
... Dr. Scott Lively
President,
Defend the Family International... [https://myemail.constantcontact.com/V-P--Pence--Loves--the-Heartbeat-Bill-.html?soid=1101796939293&aid=0-ns3o7AJu4]
Does anyone really believe that the light-in-the-loafers Lincoln Project perverts would willingly let “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis get within a hundred miles of the presidency? No, the dump Trump to crown Ron is a bait-and switch con game trolling for suckers. - Dr. Scott Lively |
I'm reposting the pro-life and pro-family warrior Dr. Scott Livey's piece because with him I think Donald Trump despite his many "warts" (which The Catholic Monitor calls out) is like the very warted Constantine. He is probably likewise an instrument of God in our very troubles times in America.
November 11, 2022
Constitutional lawyer Scott Lively explained how Donald Trump and not Ron DeSantis "brought America back from the precipice of Marxist hell in 2016, and only Donald Trump can finish that job. He is absolutely perfect for the task God has assigned to him, warts and all, and America owes him a massive debt":
The all-too predictable RINO campaign to defeat Donald Trump’s bid for the White House in 2024, before it has even been formally announced, has begun. Interestingly, it features as its leading argument that Ron DeSantis would make a better president and wouldn’t have all the “divisive” and distracting baggage that Trump has. We’re expected to believe that the RINOs actually want DeSantis as president, when all they really want is a Trump/DeSantis primary-season bloodbath so the White House will stay Blue and they can keep their lucrative posts as willingly-controlled “opposition” and preserve the corrupt cozy collegiality of the Purple Uniparty.
Does anyone really doubt that Mitch McConnell deliberately sabotaged the MAGA takeover of the US Senate to preserve his own place and power? Does anyone really believe that the light-in-the-loafers Lincoln Project perverts would willingly let “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis get within a hundred miles of the presidency? No, the dump Trump to crown Ron is a bait-and switch con game trolling for suckers. Donald Trump is not going away and the only thing that will come from the effort to dump him is an expansion of the list of people we know can’t be trusted to defend the constitution and Truth itself: some because they never stood on principle in the first place and others because they are otherwise good people who nevertheless allowed themselves to be duped into the role of useful idiots even AFTER having their eyes opened to election fraud, the plandemic and other serious crimes of the elites.
Every virtue-loving American, but especially the latter group being lured into the RINO trap, should remember one essential fact: Donald Trump doesn’t need to win another election to legally and morally deserve a second term in the White House. HE ALREADY EARNED IT IN 2020!! The Usurper-in-Chief occupying the Oval Office is a filthy traitor whose every pronouncement is a pack of lies, and whose very presence behind the presidential podium is an act of contempt for the citizens of this country and our constitution.
America owes Donald Trump a second term in the same way that a government run impound yard owes a new car to a victim whose own car was stolen while under government protection. Our election system has a legal and moral duty to conduct free and fair elections and to ensure the rightful winner is seated after an honest, objective and transparent review of the votes cast by legally qualified citizens only. That process was hijacked and grossly abused by a vast network of conspirators of both parties, united by a visceral hatred of Trump so intense that it justified in their warped minds the greatest political crime in world history: a literal regime-change coup in the most powerful nation on earth and a cover-up of that crime which continues to this very day using every possible weapon and tactic in their considerable arsenal. Not even the United States Supreme Court could stand against that conspiracy, as all the many highly meritorious lawsuits were derailed on cynical procedural pretexts – even the ones that reached the Supremes.
And yet, by the sheer persistence of one of the most remarkable men ever born on this earth, that conspiracy – intended as an American version of the Reichstag fire – has been exposed, explained and partially extinguished in the build-up to the 2022 midterms.
Every honest, educated citizen in America knows that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and by the time he is finally inaugurated in January of 2025, the entire world will know that as well – with all the evidence laid out clearly on the table for all to see, along with a list of those awaiting prosecution to the fullest extent of the law – some of them deserving the death penalty for treason. The MAGA movement in the House of Representatives and throughout the citizenry will pursue that mission with a passion for truth, justice and the American way that would put Superman to shame.
Donald Trump doesn’t have to earn his second term a second time, but he will. Only an act of God telling him not to run, or assassination by the elites, will stop that from happening.
The best thing that Ron DeSantis could do to ensure his own future presidency is to stand down in the 2024 race and instead make himself Donald’s Trump’s wing-man, showing himself to be the obvious and deserving “heir to the chair” through loyalty and the proactive exportation of Florida policy victories to other conservative states. DeSantis should work the states, while Trump works the feds. DeSantis should state clearly that 2024 belongs to Trump by right and that he will do all in his power to ensure he isn’t cheated again by the Uniparty.
Our debt to Donald Trump is far greater than just the seat he already earned. We owe him our eternal gratitude for keeping the Clinton crime family out of the White House. Hillary would have done infinitely more harm to America than the feckless boob Biden has been able to do as Obama’s handicapped avatar. I said back in 2017 that our debt to Trump for that one gift alone would have justified him spending his entire presidency vacationing on the golf-course.
But Trump rolled up his sleeves and began shoveling the Augean stables like Hercules, winning many fabulous prizes he presented to us as gifts. The Yuuge list of policy accomplishments is a gift that keeps on giving despite Biden’s best efforts. Trump’s exposure of the deep state and all its minions to public scrutiny is a priceless gift, as is his continuing willingness to do bare-knuckle battle with them on our behalf. His healthy governance by example instead of just by theory was deeply inspirational to the entire conservative movement, top-to-bottom. We would never have received the gift of Ron DeSantis, or Glenn Youngkin, or Kari Lake without Trump first busting up the frozen wasteland of patronage politics like an Arctic icebreaker. We never would have seen the grassroots erupt like a wildfire in a meadow in school-boards across America if not for Trump. We never would have seen the weasel Roberts lose his swing-voter kingship at SCOTUS without Trump.
This list could go on and on. I’m not going to offer the standard platitude about Trump being a flawed man like the rest of us, because he’s NOT like the rest of us. Only Donald Trump could have brought America back from the precipice of Marxist hell in 2016, and only Donald Trump can finish that job. He is absolutely perfect for the task God has assigned to him, warts and all, and America owes him a massive debt. Admitting that and fully backing his campaign (should he choose to climb back on that bronco and not hand the reins to Ron early) is the very least we can do. [Scott Lively's Mission Dispatch, November 11, 2022, Observations and Action on Current Events, History and Theology... Subscribe HERE. Contact/Comment HERE. ]
Pray an Our Father now for reparation for the sins committed because of Francis’s Amoris Laetitia.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
Francis Notes:
– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church as well as the Triumph of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
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