Anyone Notice a First Letter Thing About Luther's Cities?

ויטנברג	Wittenberg
וורמס	Worms
וארטבורג	Wartburg

"War-Torn Angola"

In an obituary about Anthony Paul Duncan, who died 30 years ago, there is a mention of this country in this state:

Anthony had been part of a Frontline Fellowship mission team that had successfully delivered desperately needed medicines and Bibles into war-torn Angola

30 years ago? That was 1994. Way after Angola was liberated ... if that's the word ... from the Portuguese. 11 November 1975, right?

Whom was someone fighting now that the Portuguese were gone?

There was a time when I used to use Lumumba as a curse word. In Sweden, there are lots of people who use euphemisms for the Devil as curse words, and I considered a name like that of Patrice Lumumba was not far off.

The "war of independence" was 1961 to 1975. 14 years, right? Or 14 and a half.*

Now, how long did the next "War in Angola" last?

The Angolan Civil War (Portuguese: Guerra Civil Angolana) was a civil war in Angola, beginning in 1975 and continuing, with interludes, until 2002.

The English wiki doesn't tell us what the exact belligerents were, but the French does:

République populaire d'Angola (1975-1992) République d'Angola (1992-2002) Cuba Organisation du peuple du Sud-Ouest africain (SWAPO) Soutenus par Union soviétique Allemagne de l'Est République fédérative socialiste de Yougoslavie Corée du Nord Bulgarie Brésil Mexique

Union nationale pour l'indépendance totale de l'Angola (UNITA) Afrique du Sud Zaïre Front national de libération de l'Angola (FNLA) Front pour la Libération de l'enclave de Cabinda (FLEC) Mercenaires Soutenus par États-Unis France Chine

1 million dead
land mines that still kill ...

Not from the Portuguese army, in the war of independence the casualties were 25,000 on Lumumba's side, killed, and on Salazar's somewhat over 10,000, taking the killed and the disabled together.

And 30,000—50,000 civilians killed. Not 100,000 taken together, the Civil war was 10 times as lethal ... even if it wasn't even twice as long.

Maybe Salazar had a point?/HGL

* Seems that the fighting ceased in 1974 ...

See also:

ANTHONY DUNCAN DIED IN THE SERVICE OF CHRIST
https://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/news/anthony-duncan-died-in-the-service-of-christ

Guerre civile angolaise
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerre_civile_angolaise

How Do Fascist Régimes Fall?

Why not give an overview?

• 1920, the Italian Regency of Carnaro capitulated to Italy;
• 1938, the Austro-Fascist régime fell, agressed by Hitler in the Anschluss;
• 1939, the Sanacja régime (Poland) fell, agressed by Hitler in the outbreak of WW-II;
• 1942, the Free Zone of Vichy France was put under German military administration;
• 1943, the Mussolini era of the Kingdom of Italy ended, Mussolini being arrested by the King, in connection with the Allied Invasion;
• 1944, the Horthy era ends by National Socialist invasion;
• 1944, the Pétain era ends by Allied Invasion;
• 1945, the Salò Republic (also under Mussolini, liberated by the Germans and in a sense their puppet) ended, by Allied Invasion;
• 1974, four years after the death of Salazar, the Carnation Revolution ended the dictatorial forms of power, not the least because officers were tired of the war in Angola;
• 1975 to 1977, Francoism fell by La transición, Juan Carlos implementing a return to regional and multiparty liberties after Franco's death.

So, the main cause is, the states were small and open to foreign invasion, from Hitler or Allies or both. In the very first case, from pre-Fascist Italy.

The two surviving Fascist régimes after 1945, the leaders die, and after that:

• the successor is less popular, which turns to impopular due to war fatigue;
• the successor is not interested in continuing Fascism.

That a country falls prey to invasion, is hardly a question of its régime, but more of the ambitions of the invaders.

Is Peronism a Fascism? A certain Finchelstein, cited on the wiki of Peronism, denies it in these terms:

The core differences that Finchelstein noted between Peronism and fascism were: "While fascism mobilized the middle classes, Peronism rallied the working class. While fascism gave war, imperialism, and racism to Europe and the world, Peronism never provoked war." He also argued that "In contrast to fascism, which used democracy to destroy itself and establish a dictatorship, Peronism originated in a military dictatorship, but established a populist authoritarian democracy. Fascism sustained itself in the ideal of violence and war as sublime values of nationality and the leader’s persona. In military terms, it mobilized the masses but tended to demobilize them in social terms. Peronism inverted the terms of the fascist equation."

Look what Fascisms Finchelstein just reclassified as Peronism!

"While fascism mobilized the middle classes, Peronism rallied the working class."

José Antonio. ¡Presente!

"While fascism gave war, imperialism, and racism to Europe and the world, Peronism never provoked war."

Hoch Dollfuss!

"In contrast to fascism, which used democracy to destroy itself and establish a dictatorship,"

Is Finchelstein thinking of Nazism? Some, including me, would not classify it as a Fascism.

"Peronism originated in a military dictatorship, but established a populist authoritarian democracy."

Spain 1939 to 1977.

Ireland from the War of Independence to the long rule of Éamon de Valera with others.

Poland in the early days of Pilsudski.

"Fascism sustained itself in the ideal of violence and war as sublime values of nationality and the leader’s persona. In military terms, it mobilized the masses but tended to demobilize them in social terms"

Finchelstein again is confusing it with National Socialism.

"Peronism inverted the terms of the fascist equation."

Or better, some Fascisms, including Peronism, inverted the terms of the Nazi equation. Though admittedly, Gentile and at times Mussolini did express themselves in terms lending to this confusion of Fascism with Nazism.

Éamon would be somewhat like Juan insofar as it is hard to know when the régime ended, since it was not a dictatorship. Or if it has ended. However, overdoing immigration, apparently, to judge from the news, and legalising abortion and gay marriage, in recent years, that would count as the spirit of de Valera at least taking a huge nap.

I have not included the Argentine Junta, which I classify as Stalinism with Capitalism and some sense of Catholicism, just as at present Red China (which is lots worse) is allowing Capitalism. I have also not counted Pinochet, whom I like better than the Junta, since his economic policies were Capitalist with not much even trace of Corporatism. Mussolini would have been adverse to his view of workers. So would, obviously, Perón or de Valera.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Immaculate Conception of the BVM
9.XII.2024

To Be Clear, I Am NOT Recommending Protestantism

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: The Netherlands, a Few Years Later, Were Among the Reforming Episcopates at Vatican II · To Be Clear, I Am NOT Recommending Protestantism · New blog on the kid: At the Victory of Trump, Some Non-Christians Show Very Open Enmity for Christianity

Why was Henk Heithuis castrated?

Well, one reason is, some Catholic clergy, who were not denounced by their superiors, wanted their school kept under those clergy. They wanted to avoid "a scandal." By committing yet another atrocity.

So far, so good, some Catholic clergy are clearly to blame. Some of them then signed documents in Vatican II. Bekkers' politics of a secret archive seems to echo the politics or perhaps even precede the politics not perhaps so much by "John XXIII" in Crimen Sollicitationis as in its reception.

The text actually said sth about the secret trial possibly, if leading to a conviction, leading to public penalties for the priest. But first an investigation.

The result of the investigation could vary:

• if the accusation appeared to be unfounded, this was stated in the record and the documents containing the accusation were destroyed;
• if only vague evidence emerged, the case was filed away for use if fresh evidence appeared;
• if the evidence was strong but insufficient for arraigning the accused, he was given an admonition and the records were preserved with a view to any further developments;
• if the evidence was strong enough, the accused person was summoned and a canonical trial took place.

Quoting canon 2368 §1 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, then in force, Crimen sollicitationis, 61 indicated the penalties that could be imposed after conviction. These penalties, such as suspension a divinis, deprivation of an office or rank, and reduction to the lay state, were of public character, even if the trial itself had been conducted with all due secrecy. The same part of the document laid down that, in addition to those penalties, penances should be imposed on guilty priests, and those in danger of repeating their crime should be subjected to particular vigilance (64).

Well, it seems Bekkers was of a school of thought to which case after case appeared as "only vague evidence emerged" ...

We don't really know how much his predecessor knew, he could have stepped back after finding evidence that was damning in the Heithuis affair ...

So, is the castration that ruined his life the fault of the Catholic Church? Or rather its faulty representatives in the Netherlands?

Not only. The Catholic establishment took advantage of a system already in place, in a Netherlands where the Catholics certainly not did have a majority of their own. By 1860, the Protestants clearly dominated the Netherlands. By 1960, Catholics and Protestants were on par. Heithuis was castrated in 1955. The procedure was routine since some decades, presumably.

Castratie van mensen komt in de westerse samenleving bijna alleen nog voor wanneer er zeer dringende medische redenen zijn. Tot in de jaren 1960 werd in Nederland ook bij bepaalde homoseksuelen en pedoseksuelen in het kader van een TBS-behandeling castratie toegepast.

Terbeschikkingstelling, afgekort tbs (voor 1988: terbeschikkingstelling van de regering, afgekort tbr), is in het Nederlandse strafrecht een maatregel die de rechter kan opleggen aan een verdachte van een misdrijf, waar minimaal vier jaar gevangenisstraf op staat of van enkele specifiek genoemde delicten (bijvoorbeeld bedreiging en stalking). Voorwaarde is dat de rechter ervan overtuigd is dat de verdachte ten tijde van het delict lijdende was aan een gebrekkige ontwikkeling of ziekelijke stoornis van de geestvermogens.

The two article quotes would translate:

Castration of people in the Western society nearly only still occurs when there is an extreme medical urgency. Up to the 1960's, castration was also inflicted in the Netherlands on ascertained homosexuals and pedosexuals in the framwork of TBS treatment. (The article does not state which Dutch régime began this system. It's certainly posterior to 1860. And pretty certainly anterior to 1955.)

Terbeschikkenstelling, shortened TBS (before 1988 terbeschikkenstelling van de regering, shortened TBR), is in the Dutch penal law a measure that a judge can impose on a suspect of a crime, where minimally four years of prison is due to each single crime (for instance true threats or stalking) on the condition that he's convinced that the suspect at the time of the crime was suffering from insufficient mental development or pathologic trouble in the mental faculties.

So, arguably, the Catholic clergy involved certainly did not just take the legal system as it was and abuse it, but they were pro-active, acted as if Heithuis had been guilty of sodomy and sentenced by a judge to TBS. However, they could probably not have gotten away with the solution for a Catholic school's reputation, if such processes did not actually happen, on a regular basis. If sodomy had just been punishable, but not actually treated as "symptom of homosexuality" (back then seriously meant as a diagnosis), it would have been much harder for Heithuis' persecutors to simply hand him over to a medical doctor. Heithuis would have had due process. I think there may also have been a certain culture in which medical doctors could take "responsable" decisions pro-actively before a judge was involved. In other words, the Netherlands, where Protestants and Secularists together would have outnumbered the Catholics, were a medical dictatorship, like the Nordic countries or Nazi Germany. This culture existed independently of these Catholics abusing the system (in criminal ways, that the system legally speaking did not support).

There was another aspect to Catholic life in the Netherlands. There was a thing called pillarisation. Or in Dutch, verzuiling. Each major political and religious player, well, they took care of a section of society that supported the convictions, like in the Netherlands, Protestant, Catholic and Social Democrat. This was intact up to the World War, and while it began to losen up from 1946, it was still pretty much the rule in South Netherlands. Part of it was simply the right to chose your school according to your convictions, a good thing, but it went far beyond that. Each of the three pillars had a reputation to look after, and Catholics were not the most well seen of the three.

The man responsible for this was to some degree Abraham Kuyper (according to wikipedians), a Calvinist.

And psychiatry is so to speak a secularised Calvinism, not the least in the case of what Dutch calls TBS and Sweden "vårddom" ...

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Virgil of Salzburg
27.XI.2024

Salisburgi, in Norico, sancti Virgilii, Episcopi et Carinthiorum Apostoli, qui a Gregorio Nono, Pontifice Maximo, in Sanctorum numerum adscriptus est.

The Netherlands, a Few Years Later, Were Among the Reforming Episcopates at Vatican II

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: The Netherlands, a Few Years Later, Were Among the Reforming Episcopates at Vatican II · To Be Clear, I Am NOT Recommending Protestantism · New blog on the kid: At the Victory of Trump, Some Non-Christians Show Very Open Enmity for Christianity

You know The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber by Wiltgen?

According to the book, the Episcopates of Italy and South America lost. The Episcopates of the "Rhine alliance" won ... that being BeNeLux, France, Germany, Austria, I think too.

The Ne in BeNeLux stands for Netherlands.

Now, take a look at Henk Heithuis. This happened under a bishop who, in fact, was not at Vatican II as such.

Willem Pieter Adriaan Maria Mutsaerts (18 Mar 1943 Succeeded - 27 Jun 1960 Resigned)
Wilhelmus Marinus Bekkers (27 Jun 1960 Succeeded - 9 May 1966 Died)

The Dutch wiki on Bekkers mentions:

Bekkers stopte informatie over geestelijken die seksuele vergrijpen hadden begaan in een geheim archief.

Bekkers put informations on clergy who had committed sexual abuses into a secret archive. Footnote one of the article goes to:

Ook in Nederland hielden bisschoppen en kardinalen misbruik in stand. NRC, 14 september 2018

The article is reserved for subscribers to NRC, I'm not that, but the title means "In the Netherlands too, bishops and cardinals enabled abuses" ...

I would say, that was not totally untypical of the Rhine alliance at Vatican II. Not untypical at all.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Abbot Sylvester
26.XI.2024

Apud Fabrianum, in Piceno, beati Silvestri Abbatis, Institutoris Congregationis Monachorum Silvestrinorum.

Is there a place in the Apocalypse which mentions "every unclean and hateful bird"? I think so. Get out of the Rhine Alliance. Get out of Vatican II.

First Intermediate Period, During the Soujourn

The First Intermediate Period, described as a 'dark period' in ancient Egyptian history,[1] spanned approximately 125 years, c. 2181–2055 BC, after the end of the Old Kingdom.[2] It comprises the Seventh (although this is mostly considered spurious by Egyptologists), Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and part of the Eleventh Dynasties. The concept of a "First Intermediate Period" was coined in 1926 by Egyptologists Georg Steindorff and Henri Frankfort.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intermediate_Period_of_Egypt

What was it like? An archaeology channel made a whole video on the topic, not limited to, but including, Egypt.

The First Bronze Age Collapse and the Intermediate Bronze Age
Dig. | 4 Nov. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ7cMwKwCYA

When was it really?*

"2181" was just after 1633:

1633 av. J.-Chr.

93,3283 pcm, donc daté à 2203 av. J.-Chr.

"2055" was some time before 1610:

1610 av. J.-Chr.

95,2011 pcm, donc daté à 2020 av. J.-Chr.

If instead of 125 years, it was less than 23 years, that kind of explains why there is so little monumental, let alone other evidence from the period.

If (as the video suggests), Egypt was in some kind of Civil War, this means that the unification was ultimately bad for the Israelites, this verse could describe the victory of a faction which had not favoured them over one which had, or a reaction when a victorious faction which had done so tries to mollify the opposition.

In the mean time there arose a new king over Egypt, that knew not Joseph
[Exodus 1:8]

For comparison, I use a Biblical chronology in which Moses is born in 1590 BC. So, twenty years after the end of the First Intermediate Period./HGL

* See: Mes plus récentes tables de carbone 14

Galileo Understood the Then Standard View, But Misunderstood its Application to Joshua 10

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Was it Baronius and Did Galileo Recall His Words Accurately? · Galileo Understood the Then Standard View, But Misunderstood its Application to Joshua 10 · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Where exactly do we know from that the man who had said the famous quote "not how the heavens go, but how to go to Heaven" was Cardinal Baronius? Do we even know it?

Letter to Benedetto Castelli
Galileo Galilei | 1613, December 21
https://inters.org/Galilei-Benedetto-Castelli

On the view expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas and shared since Ptolemy, the angel of the Sun is moving the Sun East around Earth along the Zodiac each year. Meanwhile, God moves all of the heavens from East to West each day, from the Primum Mobile (that is, the sphere of the fixed stars) down to the Oceanic Currents around the Equator.

Here is what Galileo had to say in one of these arguments for Heliocentrism:

I first ask the opponent whether he knows with how many motions the sun moves. If he knows, he must answer that is moves with two motions, namely with the annual motion from west to east and with the diurnal motion in the opposite direction from east to west.

Then, secondly, I ask him whether these two motions, so different and almost contrary to each other, belong to the sun and are its own to an equal extent. The answer must be No, but that only one is specifically its own, namely the annual motion, whereas the other is not but belongs to the highest heaven, I mean the Prime Mobile; the latter carries along with it the sun as well as the other planets and the stellar sphere, forcing them to make a revolution around the earth in twenty-four hours, with a motion, as I said, almost contrary to their own natural motion.

Coming to the third question, I ask him with which of these two motions the sun produces night and day, that is, whether with its own motion or else with that of the Prime Mobile. The answer must be that night and day are effects of the motion of the Prime Mobile and that what depends on the sun's own motion is not night or day but the various seasons and the year itself.

Now, if the day derives not from the sun's motion but from that of the Prime Mobile, who does not see that to lengthen the day one must stop the Prime Mobile and not the sun? Indeed, is there anyone who understands these first elements of astronomy and does not know that, if God had stopped the sun's motion, He would have cut and shortened the day instead fo lengthening it? For, the sun's motion being contrary to the diurnal turning, the more the sun moves toward the east the more its progression toward the west is slowed down, whereas by its motion being diminished or annihilated the sun would set that much sooner; this phenomenon is observed in the moon, whose diurnal revolutions are slower than those of the sun inasmuch as is own motion is faster than that of the sun. It follows that it is absolutely impossible to stop the sun and lengthen the day in the system of Ptolemy and Aristotle, and therefore either the motions must not be arranged as Ptolemy says or we must modify the meaning of the words of the Scripture; we would have to claim that, when it says that God stopped the sun, it meant to say that He stopped the Prime Mobile, and that is said the contrary of what it would have said if speaking to educated men in order to adapt itself to the capacity of those who are barely able to understand the rising and setting of the sun.

The answer is, both movements stopped. God stopped His own moving of the Prime Mobile, which lengthened the day, which is noted in Joshua 10:14, here:

There was not before nor after so long a day, the Lord obeying the voice of a man, and fighting for Israel
[Josue (Joshua) 10:14]

But the Sun and Moon themselves also stopped:

The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation, in the light of thy arrows, they shall go in the brightness of thy glittering spear
[Habacuc (Habakkuk) 3:11]

Why? Because Joshua had spoken to them.

Imagine a man who was holy passed by a man sick in AIDS and in a cold. Imagine he stated "God cures your cold" and God then cured BOTH the AIDS and ALSO the cold. That would be befitting, since God would be giving authority to the words of the miracle worker, he would only go beyond them to fix a deeper problem as well.

This is about what happens when God in defending the authority of Joshua's words, decree that Sun and Moon stop, within orbits that normally run Eastward, but that are dragged Westward by the Prime Mobile. AND God on top of that stops Himself the Prime Mobile.

However, we cannot imagine God just curing the AIDS but leaving the cold as it was, since in that case He would not be giving authority to the words of the holy man.

For that reason, we cannot imagine that God stopped Earth from rotating instead of stopping the heavens from rotating around it. Which is how Fundamentalists who are Heliocentrics, not the ideal combination, now tend to take this passage.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Octave of All Saints
8.XI.2024

PS, I obviously agree with Cardinal Bellarmine in his letter to Fr. Foscarini. Something may be missing at [?]

Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in the heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. ... Now, suppose you say that Solomon speaks in accordance with appearances, since it seems to us that the sun moves (while the earth does so), just as to someone who moves away from the seashore on a ship it looks like the shore is moving, I shall answer that when someone moves away from the shore, although it appears to him that the shore is moving away from him, nevertheless he knows that it is an error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the shore; but in regard to the sun and the earth, no wise man has any need to correct the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and that the eye is not in error when it judges that the [?] it also is not in error when it judges that the stars move.