For the record

 

Cough, cough, cough...

Trump officially pardons ex-Honduran president of drug trafficking conviction

The drama of the Franciscans

 

"A Drama of Reform" is an American book published in 2005. The editor of the volume is named Benedict Groeschel, and the volume is also attributed to the Franciscans of the Renewal. The photographer´s name is Grazyna Marczuk. Perhaps true to form, I got the book cheaply from a second-hand store. Yes, it´s about Franciscans! Or rather one of many branches of the Franciscans, the so-called Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and its female counterpart Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. These religious orders have full papal recognition and are an integrated part of the Roman Catholic Church. 

The Franciscans of the Renewal are a relatively small organization, formed by former Capuchin monks. They look like a cross between Capuchins and regular Franciscans, wearing the grey habits of the latter while spouting the huge beards of the former! The group was formed in the United States by conservative Catholics dissatisfied by the modernist drift of the Church. They are de facto opposed to the reform processes associated with Vatican II, although as good members of the Church, they never openly proclaim this. Rather, "A Drama of Reform" emphasizes the Renewal´s close contacts with the Catholic hierarchy. John Paul II, American cardinal O`Connor and Mother Theresa are all said to have supported the project. 

Judging by the book (which is relatively uninteresting to a heathen sinner like myself), the Renewal Franciscans spend most of their time praying, working and doing charitable work. They also function as "street missionaries" for the Catholic Church. At least when the book was written, New York was their main base of operation. Much of the charity and social work shown in the book takes place in South Bronx, one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City (I´ve actually been there). The Renewal also has a missionary outreach in Honduras, and there too, they combine religious preaching with attempts at aiding the poor. Some photos in the book show the bearded monks sing, perform music or even play soccer. The sisters make food, although it seems the brothers might do the dishes! 

On a more sinister note, the friars target abortion clinics in New York City, very visibly protesting these "abortuaries" (the neologism is based on "mortuary"). Several monks have been arrested by the police and even served jail time, presumably for breaking Bill Clinton´s Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, although the book doesn´t specify. It´s also interesting to note that most members of the Franciscans of the Renewal seem to be White, while the people they are aiding are often Black or Hispanic. Make of that what you will. 

The spiritual life of the Renewal Franciscans include public processions with cross-bearers during Easter, pilgrimages, retreats in Upstate New York, and a peculiar ritual called "the transitus", commemorating the death of St Francis, with one of the brothers starring as the dying St Francis! The group seem to have a special devotion to the Marian apparation at Guadalupe, but the book says very little about this. It´s not clear to me whether the Renewal´s semi-cult of John Paul II is just another expression of this Pope´s strong popularity among Catholics, or goes beyond this (the book was published before John Paul was declared a saint). 

With that, I end this little review. 

The COVID Consensus

I can´t stop linking to this rather obvious Communist front group...

Note the irony that Max Blumenthal (who seems to be pro-Chinese) is also anti-lockdown, while the dogmato-sectoid-Trotskyite World Socialist Web Site (linked to elsewhere) is anti-Chinese...except on lockdowns, where it recommends that all the world follows China´s so-called Zero COVID policy! 

OK, I admit I was a left-watcher in my sadly misspent youth. 

That being said, Blumenthal´s and Stavroula Pabst´s article *is* a good criticism of the lockdowns and the pro-lockdown "left". The lockdowns have hit the working class and the Global South particularly hard, while being used to "lockdown" democratic debate in the Western nations. Critics have been branded "Nazis" or "fascists". Blumenthal hints at the left´s middle class social composition as the explanation for their (indeed bizarre) support for what amounts to a bourgeois-imperialist (by their own definitions) global emergency. Note also that this supposedly "woke" left supports measures that increase domestic violence against women, mental health problems among youth and young adults, and more IMF control over "BIPOC" nations in the Third World. 

A quote from the essay:

>>>For many among the urban laptop class, including a large swath of the hyper-online Western left which still clamors for national school closures and demands lockdowns in the face of a handful of new cases (while crudely painting critics of official Covid policy as Nazis), quarantine orders merely enforced an already sedentary lifestyle that revolves around Zoom meetings, ordered food and Amazon deliveries. The restrictions further eliminated tedious commutes to work while providing those able to work remotely with the satisfying sense that staying home was a bold act of social solidarity.  

>>>Under this spectacular arrangement, which assumed individual behavior could slow down or contribute to the spread of a virus, isolation was framed as a moral choice that led many of those willingly confined to their homes to fear or vilify a working class that frequently provided them with vital services. And while non-pharmaceutical interventions have generally proven futile against COVID-19, the stentorian demands to socially distance and attendant shaming of those who fail to obey has done little more than generate hostility between friends, families, and communities.

>>>“Lockdowns are a luxury of the rich,” Bhattacharya said, “and affect a certain class of people at the expense of others. A lockdown doesn’t mean all of society stops and we all sit in cages alone while we wait for the fires to go away. The poor and working class, many of them vulnerable and older, are asked to risk themselves, while another class of people stays at home protected.”

>>>This was particularly true in the Global South, where class divisions are clearly drawn and most people live dangerously close to the poverty line.

I said this before: I expected the "new 1914" of the left to be something dramatic, say a "military bloc" with the US army as they bomb the hell out of rogue Trump supporters marching on some state capital. I couldn´t imagine in my wildest fantasy that it would be uncritical support for misguided lockdowns (and even more misguided vaccine mandates?) during a flu pandemic...

The dialectic works in mysterious ways.  

Flattening the curve or flattening the global poor?