Something I didn’t know. And you neither.

The policy of prosecuting immigrants for crossing the border illegally has been in place for multiple administrations.

The Obama administration prosecuted half a million illegal immigrants and similarly separated families in the process. So did the Bush administration.

Personal accounts from immigration lawyers tell a tale of Obama being equally concerned about unaccompanied minors traveling to the border and wanting to create a deterrent.

Why didn’t we know? because IT WAS NOT REPORTED!!

(Except down low in some other story or reduced to a 118 — old newspaper lingo for one or two paragraphs, part of the widespread Protect-Obama Project.)

via The Daily Caller

As the pope heads for the uber-ecumenical World Council of Churches meeting at Geneva, ecumenism seems a losing cause.

Thursday’s WCC event will unfold against a background of diminished expectations. Ecumenical enthusiasm, which peaked in the 1960s, has succumbed to realism about the theological barriers separating Christian denominations.

Indeed.

At the same time, the culture wars and the growth of newer Christian churches have made the ecumenical movement’s oft-stated goal of “full, visible unity” an even more distant prospect.

What happened?

Ecumenical enthusiasm, which peaked in the 1960s . . .  succumbed to realism about the theological barriers separating Christian denominations.

Oh those theological barriers.

A bishop exhorts:

“The reason why we engage in ecumenical relations is the fact that we Christians in the world are not living up to what Jesus wanted,” specifically his mandate at the Last Supper that “all of them may be one,” said Bishop Brian Farrell of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

There was a “heyday,” yes, but . . .

“There was great enthusiasm and perhaps even the illusion that unity would be achievable within a reasonable time,” the bishop said. “With the passage of time, and with the engagement in the theological discussions, we realize that the differences, the difficulties, the divergences are not easy to overcome.”

Chalk up another loss for wishful thinking.

The cause was hardly helped by an intimate of Francis, “a close adviser” and fellow Jesuit,  Father Antonio Spadaro, who last year . . .

. . .  co-wrote an article, in a journal vetted by the Vatican’s Secretariat of State [and surely OK’d by the pope], which argued that conservative American Catholics who join with “Evangelical fundamentalist” Protestants to oppose abortion and same-sex marriage are engaged in an “ecumenism of hate,” also marked by materialism and hostility to Muslims.

It’s a charge ( manifesto, really) dismissed as “absurd,” by Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who noted that “Evangelical leaders work closely with U.S. Catholic bishops on a range of issues, including the rights of refugees and other migrants, predatory lending and international religious freedom.”

They get along better than the Jesuit judged from his Vatican roost. Note that the Baptist man did not eschew the fundamentalist designation, which in some Christian quarters is held in esteem.

via : WSJ

I’ll be darned!

(Smaller type here: This is post-Kim Jong-un meeting, pre-border separation of children from parents. Stay tuned.)

via AOL News

Good, even if it did take a house to fall on Francis, who used a hammer to kill the fly on baby’s nose.

That is, calling for offers to resign by all the Chilean bishops. Or it looks that way from afar. Alternatively, they all were suspect and in any case, they all survive at Francis’s will in the matter.

Besides 61-year-old Barros, the pope also agreed to the departures of Cristian Caro Cordero, bishop of Puerto Montt, and Gonzalo Duarte Garcia de Cortazar, bishop of Valparaiso, who had both reached the normal retirement age of 75. [And therefore would have made the offer regardless of the situation.]

Barros has been at the centre of the growing scandal ever since Pope Francis appointed him bishop of Osorno in 2015 over the objections of the local faithful, his own sex abuse prevention advisers and some of Chile’s other bishops.

They questioned Barros’ suitability to lead given he had been a top lieutenant of Chilean paedophile priest Fernando Karadima and had been accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse. [boldface added]

The scandal is the latest to rock the Roman Catholic Church, and Argentine-born Francis said it must not happen again on his watch.

We may piously hope so, even while wondering what demon waits to be exorcised within the Holy Father, that which inspires his stubbornness, now reversed, in such a matter. As the gossipy lady said about another’s gauche apparel, what was [he] thinking?

via Chile News | Al Jazeera

As Antonio said so well,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Or pronounce grandly on what’s faithful and what isn’t.

As for Mrs. Pelosi, see:  The Daily Caller

Some pungent observations on the canonical penalties matter.

via Restore-DC-Catholicism: 

I’d go farther with this, excommunicating Trump supporters and while you’re at it the entire U.S. Congress, which has never abolished the Border Patrol and has allowed the immigration service to fulfill its duties.

Whatever happened to condign penalties?

via  Religion News Service

Eleven good ideas, including:

Don’t commit suicide. This is the most common gun-related death, being about 63% of all firearm deaths in the US.

Do not join a gang. Violence is the accepted norm among gang members, resulting in many becoming victims of gun violence.

Stay away from Gun Free Zones. One study showed that 98% of all mass shootings happen in these places. Gun Free Zone signs tell violent people this is a spot where the picking will be easy. As for everywhere else, these predators may be deterred since they have to wonder if there’s already a good guy with a gun on the property.

And a final (unnumbered) word to the wise:

Thankfully, the odds of anyone in the U.S. dying from gun violence each year is exceedingly low. Implementing the suggestions here will reduce those odds even further.

The other eight good ideas are here:  Foundation for Economic Education

From nowhere comes a very interesting candidate.

Mike Kennedy’s “just a plain old guy” who “comes from dirt.”

Mike Kennedy is not really plain or old. He’s a physician, and a lawyer, and a three-term state legislator, a husband and father of eight children. He’s a practicing member of the Mormon LDS Church and an Eagle Scout. And he’s 20 years younger than his opponent.

Well maybe not nowhere, but voters can and mostly will vet the “plain old guy” shtick.

via Meet the ‘plain old guy’ who could end Mitt Romney’s political career