RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

Thin scholarship does in anyone
who sallies forth relying on it.

 

I blame Christian clergy and, especially, monastics for this state of affairs. They are the ones who should have the depth of knowledge and moral courage to have taught their countrymen what was coming and, now, what is happening. Politicians (lawyers) and professors cannot be expected to see such things coming or know how to handle them once arrived because they are too busy minding affairs of constituents, clients and students. Monastics, on the other hand, and to a lesser extent clergy, have time specifically to study deeply and pass along what they need to know to affairs-handlers who need to know it.

That has not happened for decades, not since before WW II. With very few exceptions (e.g., Bonhoeffer, Tillich, Butterick, Douglas, Teilhard, Popiełuszko, Benedict XVI) — and those far below the culture’s requirements — Christian clergy and especially monastics threw off their responsibilities in order to favor their appetites. They became maws instead of marvels. Roman Catholics the least so, but still really all of them, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox.

So if you want to blame someone or be angry and resentful at someone for this bleak mess, focus your wrath on Christian clergy and, especially, monastics. They are the ones who let you down. They are the ones who let George Soros and ibn Saud play merry hell with your life.

Update 1: Illustrating an exception to the foregoing, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke gives a wise and thorough description of the situation and its remedies.

Update 2: And Al Saud intends to keep it up.  See also here.

Update 3: An interesting comment string arose at Instapundit when Glenn Reynolds referenced Mark Cunningham on the subject of what The Fraud should say about Islam.  I commented as follows, making an important observation regarding the effect of religion on affairs:

Were I to take Cunningham’s essay as serious thought — and I think it is not — I would say his face is too close to the canvas, he has seen a couple of swirls of paint and yelled, “Eureka!” Were he serious, he would pull back to ponder the whole canvas or at least more of it than has caught his fancy. His enthusiasm would, shall we say, moderate.

Serious, productive thought cannot come from other than a monastic. Men and women bearing the daily burdens and cares of life, such as Cunningham, simply cannot and will not create intellectual and moral forms that benefit anyone lastingly. They are too busy, and justly so, one hopes. Such men and women can use such forms once they are created, but create them they can not and will not. Those stepped way back from the canvas — monastics — do that. The truth is the whole.

Update 4: Caliphists, one is sure, look forward to duking it out with females for world domination.

Update 5: The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad, and related: Qatar.

Update 6: Why ISIS Is Irrational: The Asharite/Mutazilite Conflict

Update 7: What To Do About George Soros

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA