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Letter 12, 2025, Tue, Jan 28: Motu Proprio, Part 3

“Father and Son”

First, I wish to announce that we will be launching a new weekly podcast entitled “Father and Son” in three days, on this coming Friday, January 31, which you will be able to view live on YouTube at 11 am Eastern time in the United States, and at 5 pm in Rome and most of Europe.

I will be doing this podcast with my son, Christopher, age 35, and we will be discussing the Christian faith, the present predicament of modern man, the Catholic Church, prophecy, and geo-strategy, as well as our own relationship as father and son, along with many other topics.

Christopher was born in Rome, Italy, in 1989, and in addition to English, speaks fluent Italian.

He was baptized in the valley below Assisi, Italy, in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which is constructed above the Portiuncula, the ruined chapel of Our Lady of the Angels which ...

was re-built by St. Francis of Assisi in about the year 1208. This is where St. Francis lived for the rest of his life, until his death on this spot on the night of October 3, in the year 1226, at the age of 45.

As a baby, during an evening Rosary in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Christopher was held and blessed by Pope St. John Paul II.

As a toddler, while chasing pigeons in St. Peter’s Square, he was greeted by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI.

(Some people say, jokingly, that Christopher himself is a “second-class relic,” because he was held in the arms of a canonized saint, St. Pope John Paul II.)

Besides English and Italian, Christopher is fluent in Spanish, German and also Russian. He also speaks some Korean and Chinese, because he taught English in both South Korea and China.

The Heartland Theory

“Whoever rules the world island will rule the world.” —Sir Halford John Mackinder

“Whoever rules the Eastern Europe will rule the Heartland, whoever rules the Heartland will rule the World Island, and whoever rules the World Island will rule the world!”

This thesis became known, as “The Heartland Theory,” defined by Sir Halford John Mackinder, a famous English geographer, academic and politician.

The Heartland is a vast area of ​​central Asia located between the Carpathians in the west, the Hindukush mountain range in the south and the Altai Mountains in the east. In the north it is surrounded by the Baltic Sea.

Mackinder is considered one of the founders of geopolitics and geo-strategy, who wrote a paper in the 1904 entitled “The Geographical Pivot of History,” where he presented this theory and became famous for it. (link)

This theory will become a point of departure for our discussion, because Christopher is currently living at the very heart of the “world island.”

He is currently a full-time senior lecturer in linguistics at a university in Almaty, Kazakhstan (link), a city located at the precise “heart” of the “world island” — the combined continents of Europe and Asia — with the borders of China and Afghanistan just a few miles away.

Here is a link to our Urbi et Orbi Communications channel on Youtube; if you go here, you can click on the button that says “join” and you will become a member for free, and receive a little note each time we are about to begin a podcast, so that you can join us live if you wish.

Christopher tells me he feels a bit like American Catholic writer Walker Percy‘s “castaway on a desert island.”

Percy’s castaway (link):

“…Does not feel at home because he is not.

“In a world perfectly fashioned to suit every human and material need, he nevertheless feels quite lost: ‘He knows that something is dreadfully wrong… he suffers acutely, yet he does not know why. What is wrong? Does he not have all the goods of life?’

“He is, in a word, a castaway, a stranger to himself who, notwithstanding every possible creature comfort, indeed, spending a lifetime of striving to be at home on the island, is as homeless now as he was the first day he found himself cast up on the beach.’

“His home, if there is one, must lie somewhere across the sea…”

Christopher tells me he feels a bit like this “castaway on a desert island” described by Percy (whom I met and knew), except that he is now a “castaway on the world island,” and he appreciates that we may have the chance, each week, to see each other on YouTube, and together address some of the great issues of our time, and get to know each other better. —RM

Motu Proprio: Why the Latin Mass? Why Now? Part 3
Second, I want to again introduce this serial presentation of a lecture I gave almost 18 years ago, in the summer of 2007.

On August 17, 2007, I gave a talk at a church in California, St. Cecilia Church in Tustin, near Los Angeles, on the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to issue on July 7, 2007, his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, granting wider use of the old liturgy throughout the world.

The motu proprio had been published just 5 weeks before.

So, at that time, in August 2007, it was entirely in keeping with the wishes of Rome, and of the Pope, to receive and to accept and to praise and to embrace that document.

Pope Benedict had encouraged me to try to explain his intent in the pages of my magazine, Inside the Vatican, and in any talks I gave.

So I felt “authorized” to try to give my interpretation of what he had done, and why, when I gave my first and only talk on the subject, in August 2007.

Continue reading here:

https://insidethevatican.com/news/newsflash/letter-12-2025-tue-jan-28-motu-proprio-part-3/

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I'm excited to join Dr. Robert Moynihan and his team at Inside the Vatican and Urbi et Orbi Communications! And I look forward to meeting and engaging with all of you here on Locals!

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Dr. Moynihan is attending a press conference with the American Cardinals at 4pm Rome time. Dr. Moynihan will be live from Rome with special guests from 6pm Rome time/12 noon Eastern. Join us live for a 2 hour discussion on Pope Leo XIV

Live stream with Archbishop Cordileone

Unfortunately, this live stream has to be postponed. We will see you all for the next live stream in a couple of weeks. Have a blessed Easter.

Father Abernethy presents a Lectio Divina on the first book believed to have been printed in the New World! "The Ladder of Divine Ascent" by 6th-century monk John Climacus silhouettes the stages of spiritual life using the metaphor of a 30-rung ladder to Heaven.

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Pope Francis Cries Out: “Immediate Ceasefire on All Fronts!”
As the Gaza war bleeds into Lebanon, the Church labors to stop further escalation

By Christopher Hart-Moynihan

“No one wants war but no one can stop it.” 

That was how the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, characterized the situation in the Holy Land recently, after nearly a year of war, in an interview with Vatican News, the official Vatican news agency. What started with a series of terrorist attacks carried out against Israel on October 7, 2023, has after 10 months spiraled into a conflict that is on the brink of expanding — some would say, has expanded — to the entire Middle East. 

The international community has largely stood by while the terrible bloodshed that broke out on October 7 has continued and grown worse. Many observers have warned that the conditions are now in place for several possible “worst-case scenarios” to play out, which would embroil the world’s major powers in a new “World War” for the 21st century. These concerns were accentuated by several recent targeted bombing attacks outside of Israel, in Lebanon and in Iran, for which Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate. As of this writing, a definitive retaliation has not yet occurred. 

Of course, as many analysts have observed, the roots of Israel’s current war with Hamas and the increasingly intensifying dispute with Hezbollah and Iran date back decades, making the current iteration of the conflict exponentially more difficult to resolve. Nonetheless, in recent weeks, various voices in the Vatican have continued to work through diplomatic channels in attempts to prevent the conflict from escalating further. 

The task of Cardinal Pizzaballa is made even more difficult by the fact that Christians on all sides of the conflict have experienced, and continue to experience, suffering and loss. In the first week of August, Israel’s northern neighbor Lebanon, which is both the seat of Hezbollah’s operations as well as the home of several sizable Christian communities — including Orthodox, and Maronite, Syriac and Melkite Catholics — saw panicked crowds pack into Beirut’s Rafic Hariri international airport as people desperately tried to leave the country before the outbreak of further hostilities. 

The panic in Lebanon was brought on by the targeted killings of a Hezbollah leader in Beirut and a Hamas leader in Tehran. Airstrikes by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah commander, on July 30 in Beirut (upper left), and Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’ political arm (here), in Tehran on July 31. In response, Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, stated, “After the assassination of Haniyeh, Iran finds itself obliged to respond. After the assassination of Fuad [Shukr], Hezbollah finds itself obliged to respond.” 

As of this writing, nearing the middle of August, a military response by Iran and/or Hezbollah, of the type that would definitively usher in a wider war, has not yet occurred. However, multiple signs seem to indicate that such a response is imminent. In recent days, Russian military officials have visited Iran and the United States Navy has begun to position warships off the coast of Israel and in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, to the south of Iran. An escalated conflict could quickly entangle the two superpowers, who are already fighting a shadow war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department issued an updated travel advisory for Lebanon on July 31, advising all Americans, “Do Not Travel to Lebanon due to rising tensions between Hizballah [Hezbollah] and Israel. If you are in Lebanon, be prepared to shelter in place should the situation deteriorate.” 

The trust between Pope Francis and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa dates back to the beginning of the pontificate. Here, Pizzaballa whispers into the Pope’s ear on May 26, 2014, more than 10 years ago, when Pope Francis visited Israel to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic 1964 encounter in Jerusalem between Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Greek Orthodox Patriarch, Athenagoras (Photo Grzegorz Galazka)

At his August 7 General Audience, Pope Francis once again called for de-escalation. “I pray that the sincere search for peace will extinguish strife, love will overcome hatred, and revenge will be disarmed by forgiveness,” Francis said, reiterating his long-standing appeal for an end to the violence. He added, “I reiterate my appeal to all parties involved to ensure that the conflict does not spread and to immediately cease fire on all fronts, starting from Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely serious and unsustainable.” 

In his interview with Vatican News at the end of June, Pizzaballa alluded to the increasing risk of a wider war, stating, “The internal debate exists in Israel and also in Lebanon: no one wants war but it seems that no one can stop it, and this is the problem. Of course, if the northern front were to open, it would certainly be a tragedy, especially for Lebanon, which risks becoming another Gaza, at least in the southern part. I am not an expert in military matters, but the landscape remains very tense, always on the verge of further escalation.” Discussing the impact of the war specifically on the Christian community, he added, “Christians are not a separate people, they live what everyone else lives. We know the situation in Gaza, unfortunately, but it is also very problematic in the West Bank, especially from an economic point of view. There is a situation of paralysis, work is scarce or non-existent, and this makes the prospects of emigration increasingly attractive, unfortunately especially for Christians.” 

Amidst the chaos and uncertainty, one thing is abundantly clear: this war, thus far, is a human tragedy on a massive scale. While the eyes of the world shift towards Iran and Lebanon, ten months of Israeli efforts to eliminate Hamas have led to at least 39,965 dead and 92,294 wounded, according to U.N. estimates as of August 13. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, and more than 200 were taken captive. In addition, there now exists “a full-blown famine” in the north of Gaza (according to Cindy McCain, director of the World Food Programme), while Hamas continues to be operational. In the months since the October 7 attacks, millions more have been left without water, electricity, and food. 

During a lecture he gave to the College of Europe in Natolin (located near Warsaw, Poland) in mid-May, Pizzaballa made several interesting observations about the nature of the conflict, and how it affects his leadership and actions as Patriarch. “The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem… has jurisdiction over Israel and Palestine, the two conflicting parties. I have Catholics who are Israelis, Catholics who are Palestinians. Some Palestinian Catholics are under the bombs and others are serving in the Army, bombing. And this brings tensions also within our church community.” 

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