Showing posts with label Apostolic Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apostolic Christianity. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council of Nicea.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council...

Thursday, May 20, 325. The opening of the Council of Nicea.

Well, at least probably.  

It seems fairly clear that the Council convened on this day, and that Emperor Constantine arrived to observe, not to participate, fourteen days later.  He had sought the council, however, given the Arian Heresy, which had an extremely widespread following in the Church. 

The president of the council seems to have been Hosius of Cordova, assisted by the pope’s legates, Victor and Vincentius.


The creed:

I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.


I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,

he suffered death and was buried,

and rose again on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.


I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.


I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Saturday, May 10, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Leo XIV

Lex Anteinternet: Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV

As I'd predicted, the new Pope, Pope Leo XIV, was a cardinal that wasn't in the pundit list.

A quote from an AP news article:
Vatican watchers said Prevost’s decision to name himself Leo was significant given the previous Leo’s legacy of social justice and reform, suggesting continuity with some of Francis’ chief concerns.

Not just the AP, I said this yesterday, and in spades.  In fact, as a Distributist, Pope Leo XIII is one of my absolute favorite recent Popes.  He was an ardent opponent of communism and capitalism.

Some headlines:

NEWLY ELECTED POPE FIRST FROM US

From the Star Tribune.

MAGA Melts Down Over New Pope's Anti-Trump, Pro-Immigrant Social Media

Rolling Stone

This will be interesting. There was, yesterday, a flood of negative comments about Pope Leo from the mostly non Catholic populist far right.  I suspect that a hidden anti Catholicism in that quarter will really start to surface.

Indeed, Pope Leo being an American poses a real challenge to the isolationist, nationalistic MAGA populist elements now in power, as well as the pretending to be isolationist, nationalistic and MAGA fellow travelers.  Some have already wondered if that's part of the reason that he was chosen as Pope, but that will not be known for years, if ever.  At any rate, right now, it's really interesting to note that the US is lead by a not very smart almost octogenarian who has shown aggressiveness and extreme nativism, while global Christianity will be lead by a highly educated catholic concerned for the poor, who as a Cardinal corrected J. D. Vance's odd comments about an order of mercy.  

This leads, I suppose to noting that Pope Leo is, at this point, nearly as Peruvian as he is American.  But as noted, the Catholic Church is catholic, i.e., universal.  It's concerns are for humanity, not a narrow section of the American public.  But Pope Leo might serve to remind Americans of what the United States has, in its better moments, stood for. 

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Conclave

Lex Anteinternet: Conclave:

Conclave

Conclave:  late Middle English (denoting a private room): via French from Latin conclave ‘lockable room’, from con- ‘with’ + clavis ‘key’.


May 7, 2025

Today is the start of the Conclave to choose the 267th Pope, the head of Apostolic Christianity.

Cont:

As a note, nobody has a clue who will be picked to be the next Pope, in spite of all the rampaging speculation and commentary.

Cont:

First vote, no Pope selected.

May 8, 2025

The vote this morning did not result in the election of a new Pope.

Cont: 

White smoke.  A new Pope has been chosen.

Cont:

Robert Cardinal Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo XIV.

Related threads:

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump insults Catholicism.

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump insults Catholicism.

Donald Trump insults Catholicism.

There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.

New York State Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

Trump, in something that's supposed to be a jest, posted a photograph of himself dressed as a Pope, no doubt generated by the onrushing curse of our age, AI.

I'm not going to post it.

This should serve as as warning to Trump supporting Catholics.  Trump, who received widespread Evangelical Christian support and who has housed an faith advisor office in the White House which is staffed by a rather peculiar Evangelical pastor, shows no signs at all as taking religion seriously, and never has, but he is comfortable with coopting it.  In spite of that, and this was inevitable, he doesn't mind mocking the oldest and original Christian religion.

That tells you what you need to know.

I've long held that a real Christian can't be comfortable with either of the two major US political parties or with their recent leaders.  Only the American Solidarity Party comes close to being a party Christians can really be comfortable with.  The presence of Catholic politicians at the forefront of either party does not change this.  Biden advanced the sea of blood objectives of the infanticide supporting Democratic Party.  J.D Vance has supported the IF policies of the bizarre Trump protatalist agenda and that's just a start.  The Church has rarely attempted to hold Catholic politicians directly to account for reasons known to itself.

Before the Trump regime concludes, this is going to get worse.  Trump will conclude that he doesn't need Catholics for anything, because he does not.  A religion which is catholic, ie., universal, by nature will not ultimately be comfortable with a political philosophy which aggressively nationalist and nativist.  This, indeed, has been the history of Catholicism in the US, with it only being after the election of John F. Kennedy that things changed.

Some will claim, of course, that this means nothing and its just Trump trying to be funny. That's politically disturbing enough, as Trump is already an embarrassment to the country.  But those who think this should ask if Trump would have dared to depict himself as, for example, an imam. . . not hardly.

Trump's insult is offered as its safe to offer it.  As has sometimes been noted, anti Catholicism is the "last acceptable prejudice".  Trump offered this insult as it fits in nicely with his contempt for Christianity in general, but more particular, for his contempt for the Church, something that fits in nicely with the most extreme of his Evangelical supporters.

Catholics need to review the meaning of The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus.  We're part of something larger, and once we surrender to something smaller, we need to be cautious.  We can expect to be mocked and held in contempt, and if we aren't, there may well be something wrong with our witness.

But we don't have to accept the situation, nor tolerate it, where we do not need to.

Monday, April 21, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Passing of Pope Francis.

Lex Anteinternet: Passing of Pope Francis.

Passing of Pope Francis.

Pope Francis died this morning at age 88.


A Conclave to choose the 267th successor to St. Peter must commence within fifteen to twenty days of today's date..

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Attacking actual Christian beliefs and practices. The White House Faith Office and Paula Michelle White-Cain. We warned you.

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Atta...

Donald Trump and wolves in sheep's clothing. Attacking actual Christian beliefs and practices. The White House Faith Office and Paula Michelle White-Cain. We warned you.

We warned on this site that Catholics who were supporting Donald Trump as the more Christian of supposedly two options were being short sighted, particularly as there were other options that any Catholic could square with.  Part of the reason that we warned of this is that we were convinced that the "Christianity" of Donald Trump was the fringe of Evangelicalism that doesn't square with Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal and Lutheran faiths. . . i.e. almost all of Christianity, at all.

We also warned that because of that, the entire set of events would turn on us.

Well, we were right.  We just didn't anticipate how right we'd be, and how fast it would occur.  

It started off with Trump's deportation efforts, which brought out the Catholic Bishops who really should have been out before.  Be that as it may, as soon as that occurred the Trump Interregnum hauled out Catholic convert, and adherent to a sort of Rod Dreher type of Catholicism (yes, Dreher is Orthodox) to attack the Bishops.  Vance had already morally compromised himself during the election by taking views that the Catholic Church condemns, so he was on the well trod, and ironically liberal, Catholic politician path of taking an off ramp to Hell in order to keep their political career alive.

"But for Wales?"

Anyhow, plenty of right wing Catholics who had a hefty glass of Trump Prune Juice already downed pulled up for another one and backed Vance's statements, just as plenty of English parliamentarians schismed when King Henry VIII was having dating troubles.  

Somewhat ironically, it was the church that King Henry caused to come about that next received the ire of Trump, that being the Episcopal Church when their bishop in D.C. had the guts to address Trump from the pulpit.  I don't know that Trump even noticed at the time, but plenty of Trump backers did, and Trump jointed in.  Her "liberal", or perhaps "progressive", or perhaps "woke" offense was noting the same things that Christ had in his addresses to the masses.

We all know what happened to Christ.

Well, I guess we don't all know, but more on that in a moment.

The Lutherans, being that body of Catholics originally whom German, and later Scandinavian, princes dragged out of the Catholic Church to follow Martin Luther, who originally only hoped for some reforms himself but then got carried away with himself, found themselves rejoined with Catholics in a way when Trump went after both groups for aiding immigrants without regard to their nationality.  Big branches of hit Lutheran faith have become almost more Catholic than the Catholics in some places and now have real difficulty in explaining what they believe that's different, norther than they know that they don't follow the Bishop of Rome.

Anyhow, what's going on here should be obvious.

Over half the Christians in the world are Catholic, the oldest and original branch of Christianity.  About 12%, supposedly, are Orthodox, but I'd guess that its higher than that, maybe 15% or even 20%.  The balance are Protestants.

Protestantism is dying worldwide and particularly in the west, but the "Evangelical" branch has rising enormously in the US and also around the world.  It's easy to believe in.  It doesn't ask you to confess your sins, it doesn't really grasp the concept of mortal sins, it rejects nearly everything the Church Fathers said except that Christ was divine.

It's perfectly comfortable with sexual sins, at least as the plumbing is correct.  And it really doesn't care too much if you "go to church" on Sunday, or at all for that matter.

And in the US, the real fringe of it, believes that the US is a divinely charged nation with a mission to become, basically, a new, and Evangelical Israel.

So this gives you a figure like Paula Michelle White-Cain.

Married three times, she's a proponent of the "prosperity gospel" which is the antithesis of real Christianity.  Christ promised his followers that they'd be persecuted, despised and even killed for following him.

The health and wealth people promise that believing their brand of Christianity will make you rich.

Not one of the original twelve Bishops of the Church, the Apostles, got rich.  Indeed, they were universally treated horribly.  We don't completely know all of their fates, but from tradition and what we do know, this is what occurred:

James (the Greater), the son of Zebedee, was martyred by King Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:1-3).

St. Peter was martyred around twenty years later in Rome, along with St. Paul.

St. James (the Lesser) was who martyred by stoning in Jerusalem in the A.D. 60s.

St. Thomas was martyred in India.

St. Bartholomew was martyred by beheading or being flayed alive.

St. Philip may have been martyred in Hierapolis, we're not sure on that one.

St. Matthew was martyred, although the manner of his death is disputed.

St. Simon (the Zealot)was martyred, with St. Jude (Thaddeus).

White, in contrast, is very much alive and apparently quite well off financially.  She's been married three times, which Apostolic Christianity would condemn, but which the American Civil Religion is okay with.  Her third husband is a member of the band Journey.

White is a practitioner of the yell reaffirming things at the congregation school of preaching.  Her followers aren't going to be hearing the "Four Things God Hates" sermon and be shifting in their seats.  Nor are they going to hear that when Christ said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needles, our Savior was not being metaphorical.  

Indeed, they're going to hear that God is going to make them rich.  If they listen to White-Cain, who is living a lifestyle that might make be presenting her with needles to pass through at the end of her life, and which at least facially has her living in adultery according to Apostolic faiths, they hearing that serial polygamist and apparently wealthy man Donald Trump is "Godly".

White has drawn the ire of Protestant Christian pastor rapper Shai Linne in a song called "Fal$e Teacher$", whose lyrics are as follows:

Let me begin, while there is still ink left in my pen

I am set to contend for Truth you can bet will offend

Deception within the church man, who's letting them in?

We talked about this years ago, let's address it again (Yeh)

And I ain't really trying to start beef

But some who claim to be part of His sheep got some sharp teeth (they're wolves)

You cast at me when you criticize them

But Jesus told us: Matthew 7:16, we can recognize them!

And God forbid that for the love of some fans

I keep quiet and watch them die with their blood on my hands!

So, there's nothing left for me to do except to speak to you

In the spirit of Jude 3 and 2nd Peter 2

And I know that some would label me a Pharisee

Because today the only heresy is saying that there's heresy:

"How dare they be specific and drop some clarity

On the popularity of the gospel of Prosperity"

Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated

The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme

Visualize Heretics Christianizing the American dream

It's foul and deceitful, they're lying to people

Teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!

Ungodly and wicked, ask yourself how can they not be convicted

Treating Jesus like a lottery ticket

And you're thinking they're not the dangerous type

Because some of their statements are right

That only proves that Satan comes as an angel of light

This teaching can't be believed without a cost

The lie is you can achieve a crown without a cross

And I hear it all the time when they speak on the block

Even unbelievers are shocked how they're fleecing the flock

It should be obvious then, yet I'll explain why it's in

Peep the Bible, it's in 1 Timothy 6:9-10

It talks about how the desire for riches

Has left many souls on fire and stitches, mired in ditches

Tell me, who would teach you to pursue as a goal

The very thing that the Bible said will ruin your soul, huh?

Yet they're encouraging the love of money

To make it worse, they've exported this garbage into other countries!

My heart breaks even now as I'm rhyming

You wanna know what all false teachers have in common? (what?)

It's called selfism the fastest growing religion

They just dress it up and call it "Christian"

Don't be deceived by this funny biz

If you come to Jesus for money, then He's not your God, money is!

Jesus is not a means to an end

The Gospel is He came to redeem us from sin

And that is the message forever I yell

If you're living your best life now you're headed for hell!

Pretty much nails it.

So, those of you who are actually Christian, this is going to get much worse.

Trump went to the National Prayer Breakfast.

I'm going to note off the top that I'm a sort of cynical person about events like the National Prayer Breakfast.  Frankly, I tend to be a bit uneasy by prayers at big events as it is, as this is a Protestant country and I'm, by nature, a very reserved and shy man.  Indeed, one of my resolutions this Lent is going to be to try to shed that in regards to public displays of religion.

That may be an odd way to start this off, but for example, almost every Catholic crosses themselves before prayer. . . unless you are here in the United States and at a the annual gathering of the Community Moose and Improvement Society in which case you might not, as you'll stand out.

You probably should.

Anyhow, the association of Donald Trump with religion in general is laughable.  He doesn't appear to have observed any notable tenant of real Christianity, in so far as I can tell, at all.  And yet here he is at the National Prayer Breakfast.  It's like having W C Fields address the Temperance Union. 

Anyhow, here's what he said.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP

AT THE NATIONAL PRAYER BREAKFAST

February 6, 2025

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Communications

______________________________________________________________

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  This is very beautiful, I must say.  This is a beautiful place.  And our country is starting to do very well again.  It’s happening fast — a little faster than people thought. 

Thank you especially to Senator Marshall for the beautiful introduction.  Appreciate it very much.  Thank you.  Great senator you are. 

I also want to thank a friend and a man of profound faith and tremendous patriotism who’s also become a great friend.  You become much friendlier when you have a majority of two or three or four.  Could even be five pretty soon.  (Laughter.)  But for a little while, it was one.  That’s Mike Johnson, speaker.  Thank you very much, Mike — very much.  (Applause.)

And thanks, as well to somebody who’s doing a fantastic job: Senator Thune.  Thank you very much, Senator.  (Applause.)  It’s not easy.  It’s not easy.  It’s really great. 

And Leader Scalise — Steve, wherever you may be.  I think you’re here someplace.  There he is.  A brave guy, too.  A brave guy.  I always say it. 

And Senator Chuck Schumer.  Chuck, thank you very much.  Thank you.

Senator Hassan, thank you very much.  Thank you.  Very nice to see you. 

Congressman Jeffries, thank you.

And many other very distinguished leaders in the room.  Great, great group of people.  If we could ever come together, it would be unbelievable.  It may not happen, but it should and maybe it will. 

From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation. 

We have to bring religion back.  We have to bring it back much stronger.  It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time.  We have to bring it back.

Thomas Jefferson himself once attended Sunday services held in the old House Chamber on the very ground where I stand today, so there could be nothing more beautiful than for us to gather in this majistic place — it is majestic — and reaffirm that America is and will always be “one nation under God.” 

At every stage of the American story, our country has drawn hope and courage and inspiration from our trust in the Almighty.  Deep in the soul of every patriot is the knowledge that God has a special plan and a glorious mission for America.  And that plan is going to happen.  It’s going to happen.  I hope it happens sooner rather than later.  It’s going to happen. 

And it’s His hand that guides us every single step of the way.  And all of you and the things we have to do is to see the defining role that faith and prayer have played in the life of our nation.  And you just have to look at this building, and you can look at each other.  You can really look at each other.  It’s defined almost everyone in this room.  I think faith has been very strong with the people in this room. 

Just steps away from here, in the Hall of Columns, is the statue of John Winthrop, who famously proclaimed that America would stand as “a city upon a hill, a light to all nations with the eyes of all people upon us.”

Today, almost 400 years after that famous sermon, we see that with the Lord’s help, the city stands taller and shines brighter than ever before — or at least it soon will. 

In that same hall, we also find the statue of the great Roger Williams, who founded the state of Rhode Island, named its capital city Providence, and built the First Baptist Church in America. 

It’s Williams that we have to thank for making religious liberty part of the bedrock of American life.  And today we must protect the fundamental freedom with absolute devotion.  We must stand strong, just like generations of Americans have done on the battlefields all around the world. 

Feet away from the magnificent rotunda, another statue watches over visitors to the Capitol.  George Washington, the founder of our country, often called for Americans to join together in prayer — very often.  And more than two centuries later, this morning, we heed President Washington’s wisdom and follow in his mighty footsteps.  He was a strong man and of great religious strength. 

The stories of legends like Washington, Winthrop, and Williams remind us that without faith in God, there would be no American story.  Every citizen should be proud of this exceptional heritage.  We have an unbelievable heritage, and we have to use that and make life better for everyone. 

That’s why, as we approach the 25th-times-10 anniversary — think of that, 250; 250 years we’ll be celebrating next year — of our country’s founding, I have signed an executive order to resume the process of creating a new national park full of statues of the greatest Americans who ever lived. 

We’re going to be honoring our heroes, honoring the greatest people from our country.  We’re not going to be tearing down.  We’re going to be building up. 

It will be called the National Garden of American Heroes.  Some of you will be on that soon-to-be hallowed ground — some of you.  Let’s see.  I can pick a few of you right now by looking — (laughter) — because there’s a couple of you right now, I can see.  Let’s see.  (Laughter.)  It’s the president’s sole opinion.  (Laughter.)  And I’ve given myself a 25-year period — (laughter) — and then somebody else.  By that time, it will be very, very built up.  (Laughter.)

No, it will be something very special, and I hope that Congress will fully fund this wonderfully unifying project at the first possible opportunity — it’s not going to be a lot of money; going to be very important, however — so that more of our people can be inspired by the faith and courage of patriots like those who we honor in these halls.  One of the incredible Americans whose memory my order will celebrate is also recognized with a statue in the Capitol, representing the great state of North Carolina, and that’s a man known — who everybody loved: Reverend Billy Graham. He was something.  My father used to take me to watch the “Crusades.”  He would take me to Yankee Stadium.  I remember it so well.  I remember it more than I remember any Yankee game, and I’ve seen a lot of Yankee games.  (Laughter.)  Can you believe it?  And Billy didn’t have a bat, so, you know, he’s pretty good.  It was amazing.  You’d have 60- or 70,000 people, and they loved him.  They loved him.    I saw him with Franklin.  I don’t know if Franklin is here.  I just don’t know, but I’ve gotten to know Franklin.  He’s done a great job with helping on tragedies, on problems like in North Carolina, California.  He’s always the first one there.  The work he does is — his father is very proud of him, I can tell you that.  But Billy Graham was very special.     One floor below us, Reverend Graham’s statue stands with an open Bible, the page turned to a letter from the apostle Paul, which reads, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up.”  Never give up.  Never ever give up.  You can’t.     How about me?  If I would have given up, I would not be here right now.  Who the hell knows where I’d be?  (Laughter.)  It might not be a good place.  If it was up to the Democrats, it would not be a good place at all.  (Laughter.)      Never ever give up.  There could be no better message for the leaders gathered here — and you are real leaders — that we must never give up, and we must never grow tired.  We must never grow weary, and we always must practice good.     As you know, last week, only a few miles from here, our nation witnessed a terrible tragedy when 67 people were killed in a horrible accident near Reagan Airport.  As one nation, we take solace in the knowledge that their journey that night did not end in the icy waters of the Potomac, but in the warm embrace of a very loving God.  None of us knows exactly when our time on Earth will be over.  You never know.   A truth I confronted a few short months ago when there was an incident that wasn’t — it was not fun.  It was not a good thing.  But God was watching me.  The chances of me being here — my sons are shooters.  They’re really good shooters, Don and Eric.  And they said the chances of missing from that range with that gun are — but Don equated it to a one-foot putt.  That’s pretty bad.  Two feet I can see missing.  (Laughter.)  But one foot you can’t miss.  It was the equivalent of a one-foot putt, is what he told me.    He said — in fact, he gained some religion.  He gained — he went up 25 percent.  (Laughter.)  And if you know him, that’s a lot.  (Laughter.)  But he said, “There had to be somebody that saved you, and I think I know who it is.”  And he looked up.  And I said, “Whoa, Don, that’s come — you’ve come a long way.”  (Laughter.)  He’s a good guy.     But they my two sons just really couldn’t believe it.  Had I not turned that right turn just at that time — and the audience — 55,000 people standing this way.  There were just a few people in the back on the bleachers.  There was nobody over there, except for my all-time favorite chart in history, a chart on immigration.  Immigration saved my life.  See?  So, we’re going to be good for immigration, okay? 

But had I not made that turn — boom — and quickly.  It was almost as though a deer bolted.  You know, they say the only way you miss when you’re a good shot is if it bolts?  I bolted.  I turned to the right to look at the chart, and I said, “Wow, what was that?  What was that?” So, you never know, but God did that.  I mean, it had to be.  The chances of turning, because there’s no reason to turn to the right.  You know, the chart is rarely brought down.  I brought it down maybe 20 percent and — 20 percent of the time.  And it’s never on my right.  It’s always on my left.  And it’s always at the end of the speech, never the beginning of the speech. 

And if I was a little more than that 90-degree angle, it would be no good.  And if I was a little less, it would be no good.  It had to be perfect.  The thing went “shhh” right along the edge.  It didn’t affect my hair.  Can you believe that?    (Laughter.)  It might’ve touched it.  Might have touched it, but not where it counts, not — (laughter) — not the skin part. But it changed something in me, I feel.  I feel even stronger.  I believed in God, but I feel much more strongly about it.  Something happened.  And so — (applause) — thank you.  Thank you. But that event, like the tragedy last week, should remind us all that we have to make the most out of every single day that we have.  Who would think that you’re in space and two things collide?  The odds of that happening are so small, even without proper control. 

We should have had the proper control.  We should have had better equipment.  We don’t.  We have obsolete equipment.  They were understaffed, for whatever reason.  I guess the helicopter was high, and we’ll find out exactly what happened.  But the odds, even if you had nothing — if you had nobody, the odds of that happening are extremely small. 

     It’s like, did you ever see — you go to a driving range in golf and you’re hitting balls, hundreds of balls, thousands of hours.  I never see a ball hit another ball.  Balls going up all over the place.  You never see them hit. 

 It was amazing that that could happen.  There was a lot of mistakes made, and it should have never happened.  But regardless of that, it’s amazing that it happened. 

 And I think that’s going to be used for good.  I think what is going to happen is we’re all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers, brand-new — not pieced together, obsolete, like it is — land-based — trying to hook up a land-based system to a satellite system. 

And the first thing that some experts told me when this happened is you can’t hook up land to satellites, and you can’t hook up satellites to land.  It doesn’t work.  And we spent billions and billions of dollars trying to renovate an old, broken system, instead of just saying, “Cut it loose, and let’s spend less money and build a great system.”  Done by two or three companies — very s- — good companies, specialists.  That’s all it is. They used 39 companies.  That means that 39 different hookups have to happen.  And I don’t know how many people of you are good in terms of all of the kind of things necessary for that — and it’s very complex stuff — but when you have 39 different companies working on hooking up different cities and different people — you need one company with one set of equipment. 

And there are some countries that have unbelievable air controller systems, and they would have — bells would have gone off when that helicopter literally even hit the same height, because it traveled a long distance before it hit.  It was just like — just wouldn’t stop — you follow the line.  But bells and whistles would have gone off.  They have them where it actually could virtually turn the thing around.  It would have just never happened if we had the right equipment. 

And one of the things that’s going to be — I’m going to be speaking to John and to Mike and to Chuck and to everybody.  We have to get together and just — as a single bill, just pass where we get the — the best control system.

When I land in my plane, privately, I use a system from another country, because my captain tells me — I’m landing in New York, and I’m using — I won’t tell you what country, but I use a system from another country, because the captain says, “This thing is so bad.  It’s so obsolete.”  And we can’t have that. 

So, we’re going to have the best system and it’s a lot of money, but it’s not that much money.  And it’ll happen fast, and it’ll be done by total professionals.  And when it’s done, you’re not going to have accidents.  It’s just not — they’re not — they’re virtually not possible to have. 

Each of us is blessed with a precious chance to help lead America to renew our pledges of faith and everything else and bring us to new heights and create a future of promise for our people and for ourselves. 

You know, we have the most important people in the country, in a true sense, here, because you’re the ones that are going to make the decision.  You’re the ones that are leading us into so many different things, whether it’s the right air control system or the right size military or what to do and what not to do — most important people.

And many of you are very religious.  I know so many of you are very religious.  And I just think that our country has been so badly hurt.  We’re very hurt by what COVID did to religion.  It really hurt it badly.  People couldn’t go to church for a long period of time.  Even going outside, they were given a hard time.  And I’m not blaming anybody for that, but — but it was very hard to gather. 

So, they start using computers, if that.  And when they come back, it’s just, you know, a whole new experience they have to get used to.  But it is starting to come back. 

We had a fantastic thing happen yesterday.  The Army had the best recruitment numbers that they’ve had in more than 15 years.  They think it could be 25 years, actually — they’re going to probably put that out — but more than 15 years just now.  (Applause.)

And we were worried about it.  We were talking about it numerous times that, you know, we don’t have people joining our military services.  We don’t have people joining our police force.  We have to cherish our police. 

It’s so dangerous.  You open a car and somebody starts shooting.  They have blackened windows.  You don’t even have any idea who’s in the car.  Oftentimes, they have the dark windows — which they’re not, in theory, supposed to have, but they have them.  The door opens and a gun is pointed at your face, and you can’t do a thing about it.  It’s just nothing you’re going to do about it.  Your friends will take them out, and it’s happened so many times, but you just — it’s so — such a dangerous thing.  We have to cherish these people. 

So, today, we join our hearts and prayers in recommitting to putting our country first.  We have to put our country first, making America stronger and greater and more exceptional than ever before.

And we have to make religion a much more important factor now.  We have to make it an important factor.  And if we do that, it’s going to be — our job is just going to be much easier.  It unifies people.  It brings people together.  Democrats are going to be able to have lunch again and dinner with Republicans. 

And I remember, just as — growing up, I’d see — you know, I revered senators and congressmen as something very special, but they were out to dinner all the time.  We had an old congressman, maybe some of — Sey Halpern from Queens, and he was a friend of my father.  But he’d have dinner with — he was a Democrat, but he would have dinner with Republicans, and he’d be at it.  It wouldn’t even make a difference.

Today, it’s like shocking.  And it shouldn’t be.  You have to get together.  We really have to get together. 

We all know what’s right and what’s wrong, and there’s going to be compromise on both sides, but we have to just do the right thing, and we have to get together.  

You did it with Marco Rubio.  He got everybody who was — 99 votes.  And the only vote was our VP, who — who maybe we should have been there just to make it a hundred, but I think I would have been angered if it was a hundred.  That might be a step too far, right?  (Laughter.)  But, no, it was great to see a vote. 

Pam Bondi had support from Democrats, and some of the others had some pretty good support.  So, you know, it’s doable.

We had a recent bill having to do with a very beautiful young lady who was killed from Georgia, and that bill was very bipartisan.  It was a very beautiful thing to watch, actually.  And so, I think we just have to — if possible, we have to unify.

There’s big division.  I mean, some people want an open border and some people want a closed border.  We want it closed, and they want it open.  Now, that’s a big difference.  How do you solve that problem?  It’s a big difference. 

Some people want men in women’s sports and some people don’t.  And I was with somebody yesterday who was so upset that the bill was signed, where men cannot participate in women’s sports.  And I said — he’s a very smart guy --went to a great school, was a great student.  And he actually feels, you know, that that should happen: Men should be able to play — meaning transition into women sports.

And you talk to him, and it’s just — you know, I don’t understand it. I think it — I don’t understand how the problem ever got started in the first place.  It just seems so simple.

But he’s a good person and just believes it.  He just believes it.  Not going to be easy to convince him otherwise. 

So, where is a middle ground?  It’s just hard to have a middle ground if there’s two ways.  I mean, you can either do it or you can’t. 

But I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  You know, a lot of people might be surprised to hear me say that, of all people, but I think a lot of good things are going to happen.  Because our country has got some big headaches, but we have tremendous spirit right now. 

The spirit is as high as it’s been.  It was up 49 points this morning — 49 points.  That’s the biggest increase in the history of whatever the poll was. 

So, the spirit is there.  That’s a big factor.  That’s probably the hardest thing to get back, to be honest.  The rest is easy.  The rest is easy. 

So, I want to just thank you all.  I want to congratulate a lot of the new members.  I see so many of you that ran great races.  David, that was a great race.  But so many that ran great races.  And on both sides, you ran some incredible races.  So, it’s good to be with you. 

And God bless everybody.  We want to come together.  And the happiest — the person, the element, the everything that’s going to be happy.  People of religion are going to be happy again. 

And I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief.  I really believe it.  I just don’t see how you can be.  (Applause.)

So, let’s bring religion back.  Let’s bring God back into our lives. 

Thank you all very much.  Thank you very much.  Great honor.  Thank you.  (Applause.)

Some Catholic traditionalist have been warning for years now that we (Catholics) are on the verge of being persecuted in ways we have not been for a couple of centuries.  A couple of centuries seems like a long time to most people, but it really isn't.  Anyhow, they warned, we are going to find ourselves being in the same position as Catholics in Protestant England were, or perhaps like Catholics in early Rome.

It all seemed rather extreme.

Well, prosecution is coming.  And not from secular "woke" America like they/we feared, but rather from the hardcore Protestant Evangelical right that never believed we were Christians anyway, because they're ignorant of history in general and the history of Christianity in particular.  

This time, somewhat ironically, we're going to be joined by those branches of Christianity from which we're barely separated.  Anglicans and Lutherans have mostly gotten over their beef with us, even if they have not reunited with us, and now they're going to share the hatred that we've received pretty much from day one.

But the branch of Christianity that is going to suffer the most, long term, are the Evangelicals.  No whopping set of absurdities can be maintained forever, and fairly soon the Protestant going to church once or twice per year and otherwise watch football while shacked up Christians are going to turn on them, when things turn bad on them.  Actual devout Evangelicals of other branches are going to get hit as well.  We're going to see a drop off in Evangelical community at a huge rate.

One of the answers to the mystery of evil is that God never permits an evil that he can't bring a good out of.  I can't see the future, nor can you, but we can often discern patterns and make predictions, many of which, indeed most of which, will be wrong (although I was right here).  One thing that seems clear is that the Reformation has been passing away in front of us.  It's too hard for people to accept it anymore if they know anything.  It made more sense, in the US, when a backwoods preacher lived in the backwoods with backwoods people.  A lot of Evangelical Protestantism is still that way in the US, localized either in communities or demographics.  But the knowledge isn't.  The bulwark of the Christian defense against false modern beliefs has been the Catholic Church, which is joined with the Orthodox and conservative Anglicans and Lutherans in that.  But it's also the bulwark against the American Civil Religion.  The European Protestant Reformation is already dead.  This may be the last stage of the end of the Reformation playing out in front of us.

But it won't be fun to watch at all or enjoyable to suffer in.

Having said that, Catholicism has always done well as an oppressed faith.  We might finally be waking up from the slumber that John F. Kennedy induced us into.

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, ar...

Blog Mirror: Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City


Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

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While we wish the new administration success in promoting the common good, the reports being circulated of planned mass deportations targeting the Chicago area are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply. We are proud of our legacy of immigration that continues in our day to renew the city we love. This is a moment to be honest about who we are. There is not a person in Chicago, save the Indigenous people, who has not benefited from this legacy.

The Catholic community stands with the people of Chicago in speaking out in defense of the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. Similarly, if the reports are true, it should be known that we would oppose any plan that includes a mass deportation of U.S. citizens born of undocumented parents.  

Government has the responsibility to secure our borders and keep us safe. We support the legitimate efforts of law enforcement to protect the safety and security of our communities—criminality cannot be countenanced, when committed by immigrants or longtime citizens. But we also are committed to defending the rights of all people, and protecting their human dignity. As such, we vigorously support local and state legislation to protect the rights of immigrants in Illinois. In keeping with the Sensitive Locations policy, in effect since 2011, we would also oppose all efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies to enter  places of worship for any enforcement activities. 

The choice is not simply between strict enforcement and open borders, as some commentators would have us believe. Speaking this year to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, for example, Pope Francis spoke of the need to balance migration governance with regard for human rights and dignity. “We are quick to forget that we are dealing with people with faces and names.” The Holy Father has also been clear that “no one should be repatriated to a country where they could face severe human rights violations or even death.” This is not idle speculation. Millions of migrants flee their homelands for safer shores precisely because it is a life or death issue for them and their children.

For members of faith communities, the threatened mass deportations also leave us with the searing question “What is God telling us in this moment?” People of faith are called to speak for the rights of others and to remind society of its obligation to care for those in need.  If the indiscriminate mass deportation being reported were to be carried out,  this would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities, and deny the legacy of what it means to be an American.

Sunday, July 28, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Mocking Christianity.

Lex Anteinternet: Mocking Christianity.

Mocking Christianity.

But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days.  People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious,callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good,traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.

For some of these slip into homes and make captives of women weighed down by sins, led by various desires, always trying to learn but never able to reach a knowledge of the truth.

Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so they also oppose the truth—people of depraved mind, unqualified in the faith.

But they will not make further progress, for their foolishness will be plain to all, as it was with those two.
2 Timothy, Chapter 3.

A very interesting Canadian agriculturalist whom I follow on Twitter (I don't care with Elon Musk calls it), who is also an Eastern Rite Catholic, noted that he, like me, didn't watch the Olympic opener (as will be noted, I watched the very start of it, grew bored, and wondered off).  So he, like me, was left with the media accounts, of which there are plenty, including video, of a group of drag queens mocking Da Vinci's The Last Supper.  He goes on to make the  point that the sex laden transvestite portrayal was likely calculated to offend, but that The Last Supper is not an icon, which is quite correct.

But, with some exception, the Latin Rite lacks icons.  While not the same, the great Medieval and Renaissance works of art in the West tended to be commissioned by the Church, so they have an association with it.  Put another way, in order to offend to the  degree as denigrating an icon, there'd be little other choice. 1  Again, it's not an icon, but part of a set of religious works of art commissioned by and associated with Christianity in the West.

It's hard to grasp why this would occur, but the outrage in the Catholic Church, and there is a lot of it, is justified.  So is the embarrassment in some French circles, particularly French conservative ones.  The French far right came with in a gnat's breath of taking over the French government two weeks ago and the ultimate makeup of the upcoming French government is still unknown.  Had this happened before the election, I have a strong feeling that the French far right would be forming a government now.

That provides a topic for another thread, which we will address, but we'll note here.  Part of the rise of National Conservatism and Christian Nationalism, and even just far right populism, is due to debauchery such as this.

The Olympics itself was quick to claim that the portrayal wasn't not of The Last Supper, which of course is an Italian, not a French, Renaissance work, noting on Twitter:

The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.

Hmm. . . Dionysus is a Greek mythological figure, not a French one. . . 

Dionysus was the Greek god of  is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.  His Roman equivalent was Bacchus.  While celebrated in Roman times, the Romans also restricted unofficial celebrations dedicated to Bacchus due to the excess he was associated with it.  

Whatever else Dionysus may stand for or have stood for, it certainly had nothing to do with being against violence between human beings.  He really had a lot more to do with booze, drunkenness, sex and insanity, and its interesting that the ancient Greeks linked all of them together.  Eirene or Irene was the divinity associated with peace, but she didn't engage in drunken excess.

Another Olympic official also reacted with a series of excuses that were fairly lame.  Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, said the display was about "inclusion".

When we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone, questions are raised. Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.

Whatever diversity means, it doesn't mean "being together".  At least to some significant degree, it means being apart, and in the modern era, when this is being self defined in a way contrary to nature, it literally means being a Dionysus until one's self.

Jolly noted:

In France, we have freedom of creation, artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshippers, we have a lot of rights in France, and this is what I wanted to convey.

Um, okay.

Le Filip, the winner of  Drag Race France season three, probably got it more accurate.

I thought it would be a five-minute drag event with queer representation. I was amazed.  It started with Lady Gaga, then we had drag queens, a huge rave, and a fire in the sky. It felt like a crowning all over again. I am proud to see my friends and queer people on the world stage.2 

Whatever a person thinks of it, Le Filip grasped it better than Jolly did, quite frankly.

For many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.o

St. Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 3.

A portion of France, particularly urban France, has waged war with the Church and Christianity since the failed French Revolution.  Like all the revolutions that were conducted by populist mobs, their god was their belly and they turned on the Church. The same is true of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Mexican Revolution. The Church stands for the proposition that there is something greater, much greater, than us, where as populism of the left and right, at the end of the day, doesn't.  Modern "progressivism", heir to the extreme left that arose in 1798 and 1917 has the same ethos, rejecting anything outside of ourselves and rising each person to an individual Bacchus no matter how much a person's own nature may be corrupted in one fashion or another, as individual natures are the only thing that matters.  The portrayal at the Olympic opener celebrated that ethos shamefully mocking Christianity in favor of a world outlook that goes no deeper than a person's gentiles.  Their glory, is their shame.

The storms that are raging around you will turn out to be for God’s glory, your own merit, and the good of many souls. 

St. Padre Pio.

I'll be frank that I quit watching the opening ceremonies of Olympic games some time ago.  I think the last one I actually watched was the Moscow Olympics, which is now quite some time back. They've ceased to make sense to me. The Olympics are ostensibly about sports, not about the glorification of the country where they're held, or drag queens.  Indeed, I've frankly lost interest in the Olympics themselves for some reason.

This really reinforces that view, particularly as to this particular Olympics.

I feel they should just be permanently placed in Greece, for the summer games.

Make no mistake: God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows, because the one who sows for his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows for the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit.

Galatians, Chapter 6.

I suspect most of the viewing audience will simply regard this attack on Catholicism as part of the show, shrug it off, and move on.  In doing so, they benefit from the liberal culture the Church created in the West and the fact that central to the Christian worldview is turning the other cheek.  In contrast, France has a very large Muslim population that nobody would dare attack in such a fashion, a cartoon depicting Mohammed for instance famously resulting in murder.  There will be no drag queens taking on an Islamic topic.  None.  Islam doesn't turn the other cheek.  Likewise, Hinduism, which of course would be completely foreign to France, can't be attacked in this fashion either without almost immediate retribution.3

Catholics aren't going to do that, nor will the rest of the Christian world.

Which doesn't mean that the offense should be ignored.

Footnotes:

1.  One religious image that has endured this is the tilmahtli associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Back when there was a print Playboy magazine, the company issued a Mexican edition with a Mexican woman featured on the cover replicating the image in a pornographic fashion, which brought a firestorm of criticism.

That, and this, give credence to those who claim a diabolical origin to these events.

2.  Are there no French singers to do an Olympic opening?  Why Stefani Germanotta as the opening act?  That alone is embarrassing for France.

Having said that, the Marseilles was beautifully sung by Axelle Saint-Cirel. They should have just stopped right there.

In case anyone wonders, my watching of the show was basically bookended by those two acts.  I grew tired of the masked boofador running over roofs and wondered off to take a shower and watch something else.

3.  One religion that has endured something like this is the LDS, Mormon, faith.  Target of the satiric comedic The Book Of Mormon, it's basically shrugged it off, probably figuring, correctly, that as a minority religion, it might actually benefit from being mocked, as it at least puts a spotlight on it.  I'd guess, however, that Mormons aren't keen on the portrayal, and while I've never seen it, and I'm not a Mormon, I'm not either.  As noted, nobody would put on a Broadway satiric "The Koran", nor should they.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?

Lex Anteinternet: Resurrection Sunday?

Resurrection Sunday?

Before this past weekend, I'd never heard Easter called Resurrection Sunday.  I heard it twice on the weekend shows, once from a conservative Republican in Congress, and once from a centerist Democrat in Congress.  The latter, an African American Congressman from South Carolina, said off hand "we're supposed to call it Resurrection Sunday now".

I don't like it.

Apparently, what this relatively newly coined word is, is part of a widely held angst that everything on the liturgical calendar might have some pagan origin.  This is silly.

The classic one is that Christmas falls on top of a Roman holiday, which is particularly odd given that the Roman holiday so noted first came into existence after the first Christian texts noting the celebration of Christ's Mass in December.  The deal with Easter, apparently, is a fear that it is tied to the northern European goddess Eostre, who was the goddess of fertility and the goddess of the dawn.  People like to say that this is "German", but in actuality it would be Norse, with the Anglo-Saxons having close connections with the Scandinavians even before they became illegal immigrants on Great Britain.  The Venerable Bede made that claim, and he lived from 672 to 735, so in relative terms he was sort of close, but not all that close, to when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes had first shown up.

Bede further claimed that British Christians, using the Saxon calendar, starting calling Easter by that name as it occured in Eosturmonath (April) or Eastermonað.  If so, it also helps explain Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny, although it wouldn't explain why a bunny would leave boiled eggs all over, or why Easter Eggs are so famously associated with the East, as in Ukraine and Russia, either.

That the egg custom is really old and seems to ahve been adopted from a Persian Nowruz tradition actually would serve to explain the eggs. . . The tradition was old by the time it showed up on Great Britain.

The Easter Bunny is more obscure.  Rabbits had no association with Eostre, however.  About all we really know about the Easter Bunny is that it was a German Lutheran custom, and originally it played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide, making the rabbit sort of scary.

Back on topic, and be all that as it may, some believe that the word Easter comes from an old Germanic, in this in context it would be Low German, probably Saxon, word for "east" which also, if fully extended to "Easter" grammatically meant to turn to the east. When the etymology is really examined, this is in fact the most likely explanation.  Some who have looked at it go further and claim that the word came from a Latin loan word (of which there are a surprising number in German), that being Auster, which sounds a lot like Easter, but actually had sort of a complicated meaning, the most simple being south, but the word apparently having other more complicated implications associated with the dawn.  However, some would say, including me, that instead Auster and East have the same Indo-European root word, that being  *h₂ews-, which means ‘dawn’, with the sun rising, of course, in the East. Those people claim the Germanic East is a variant of the root *h₂ews-ro-, whereas Auster is the Italic reflex, from *h₂ews-teros.  And it goes from there.

The latter sounds complicated, but this too is more common than we imagine.  Certain elemental Indo-European words have ended up in all the Indo-European languages, twisted and turned over the millennia, which all make sense if their roots are explained, but which don't seem to when you first hear them.  Indeed, there's the added odd widely observed phenomenon that certain words in other languages that depart widely from your native language, almost instantly make sense when you hear them, an example being Fenster, the German world for "window", which is fenestra in Latin and fenêtre in French.  Just my hypothesis on the latter, but it's like because of some deep Indo-European root that we otherwise understand.

Anyhow, for what it is worth, as Americans tend to believe that things are uniquely centered around us, the German word for Easter is Ostern.  I note this as I've seen repeated suggestions that only in English is the word "Easter" used.  This isn't true.  Ostern, which has the distinct "Ost", or "East" in it, is pretty close, suggesting that the directional origin of the name is correct.  I.e., in German Ostern derives from the Ost, the German word for East.

Likewise, the Dutch, who speak a closely related Germanic language, call the day Ooster.  The Dutch word for East is Oosten.  So here too, the Dutch word for Easter derives from the Dutch word for East.

Applying Occam's Razor, and keeping in mind that English is a Germanic language related to German and Dutch (Dutch more closely), leads us to the conclusion that the word "Easter" derives from the cardinal direction East, particularly when the cousin Germanic languages of German and Dutch are considered, which they usually are not.  Once that is done, and it is realized that at about the time the word Easter was first used all the northern German languages were much closer to each other than they are now, and they are still pretty close, logic pretty much dictates this result.

Most language groups do not, however, call Easter that.  The word seems to behave the way German words did and do, and has "East" as its major component, hence "East"er, "Ost"ern and Ooster.

The Scandinavian goddess explanation is considerably more complicated in every fashion.

Most non-Germanic language speakers, and some Germanic language speakers, don't use a word anything like this, of course.  

Latin and Greek, with together with Araamic, would have had the first word for the Holy Day, and they have always called Easter Pascha (Greek: Πάσχα). That is derived from Aramaic פסחא (Paskha), cognate to the Hebrew פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach), which is related to the Jewish Passover, all of which makes both linguistic, historic, and religious sense, although in the latter case one that causes some irony as we'll explain below.  Pascha actually shows up in English in at least Catholic circles, as the term Paschal is given frequent reference in relation to the Last Supper, but also beyond that in relation to Easter.

Of interest, the Swedish word for Easter is Påsk, the Norwegian Påske, the Danish Påske and the Icelandic Páskar.  If the word derived from a Scandinavian goddess, we'd expect the same pattern to hold in Scandinavia, which was the origin point of Eostre, although that would not obviously be true.  Instead, in all of Scandinavia, the word derives from Pascha.

The Frisian word for Easter is Peaske, which is particularly interesting as Frisian is extremely closely related to English and some people will claim, inaccurately, that it's mutually intelligible.  Peaske is obviously from Pascha, but it's almost morphed into Easter, which could cause some rational explanation if Easter is just a badly mispronounced Peaske. Wild morphing of words can occur, as for example the Irish Gaelic word for Easter derives from Pascha, but is Cháisc, which wouldn't be an obvious guess.

Given the German and Dutch examples, however, the Frisian word almost certainly doesn't suggest that Easter came from Pascha.

The use of Pascha makes sense, as every place in Western Europe was Christianized by the Latin Rite of the Church, which would have used a Latin term for the Holy Day.  The difference is, however, they weren't all Christianized at the same time.  The Anglo-Saxons encountered Christianity as soon as they hit the British shores in the 400s, probably around 449. At that time, most of the residents of the island were British or Roman Christians, and they would have sued the Latin term.  Conversion of the invaders is, however, generally dated to the 600s.

The Scandinavians were however much later.  Christianity appeared in Scandinavia in the 8th Century, but it really began to make major inroads in the 10th and 11th Centuries.  When the Church sent missionaries to the Saxons, it remained a much wilder place than it was to be later.  Scandinavia was very wild as well, in the 10th and 11th Centuries, but Scandinavian roaming was bringing into massive contact with the entire Eastern and Wester worlds in a way that sort of recalls the modern impact of the Internet.  They changed quickly, but they were, ironically, more globalist and modern than the Saxons had been a couple of centuries earlier. They also became quite devout, contrary to what Belloc might imagine, and were serious parts of the Catholic World until the betrayal of Gustav Vasa.

But here's the added thing. What if, in spite of the lack of evidence, the day's name in English recalls Eostre or Eosturmonath (Eastermonað"? So what?

Well, so what indeed.  It really doesn't matter.

Early Greek and Aramaic speaking Christians took their term for the day from Passover, or rather פֶּסַח‎ (Pesach).  So they were borrowing a Jewish holiday for the name right from the onset.  Nobody seems to find this shocking or complain about it.  As far as I know, Jews don't complain about it.  It simply makes sense.

And borrowing holidays that preexist and even simply using the dates is smart.  The date of Easter doesn't fit this description at all, but if the word does, borrowing it would have been convenient if a holiday existed that was celebrating rebirth.  Explaining concepts through the use of the familiar is a smart thing to do, and indeed in the US this has been done with a civil holiday, Cinco de Mayo, which Americans inaccurately believe is a Mexican holiday celebrating Mexican independence, and which have made the We Like Mexico holiday.

So, if Eostre had a day, or if the day in Saxon was named after the month named after her, it really doesn't matter.

Indeed, on that latter note, we've kept the Norse goddess Frig in Friday, the Norse God Thor, in Thursday, and the Norse God Woden in Wednesday., in English, and we don't freak out about it. Sunday originally honored the Sun, and we don't find Evangelical's refusing to use the word Sunday, as it's also the Christian Sabbath

So what of Resurrection Sunday?

I'm blaming Oliver Cromwell, fun sucker.

Great Britain's experience in the Reformation was nearly unique, in some ways.  Really radical Protestant movements, such as the Calvinists, took root in some places on the European continent, but by and large they waned, leaving isolated, for the most parts, pockets in areas in which they were otherwise a minority.  Looked at from a distance, the initial round of Protestant "reformers" didn't seek to reform all that much.  Luther continued to have a devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and Lutheran services today look pretty Catholic.  

In England, however, official religions whipped back and forth.  King Henry VIII didn't want a massive reform of theology, he wanted to instead control the Church, but things got rapidly out of hand.  After him, the Church of England struggled between being very Catholic in outlook and being a "reformed" church.  

Cromwell came up as a childhood beneficiary of the theft of Church property in the form of the dissolution and appropriation of the monasteries.  He evolved into being a radical sola scriptura Calvinist and saw the suppression of the Catholic and Anglican Churches come about.  Under his rule, religious holidays were made illegal under the theological error of sola scriptura.  After his death, the English Restoration brought a lot back, but it was never able to fully bring back in Calvinist who had adopted a rather narrow provincial English, or Scottish, view of their Christian faith, filtered through the language that they spoke.  They heavily influenced Christianity in the Americas, and their influence continues to carry on, which explains how they can adopt a view that ignores the other Germanic languages and which, in seeking to give a new term to Easter, ignores the fact that the logical choice would be the Aramaic word פסחא (Paskha) which would appear in the Bible as it would have applied to Passover, or the Greek word Πάσχα, Páscha, which means Easter and Passover.  So modern Evangelicals have inherited the Puritan narrow focus, ignored the other Germanic language words, and ignore the original Greek and Aramaic ones, in order to come up with a new one with no history of use whatsoever.

Let's just stick with Easter.