Re: Leo XIV is a Yank.

Oh, come on, you know as well as I do that no post of mine would be complete without a jab at you yanks. Think how disappointed you'd be if one of my posts omitted it. The US has numerous sects of Christianity, but my assertion concerned the relationship of Christian America to the teachings of Christ. Can it seriously be maintained that the economics or politics of the US (which is supported by the majority of Christians) is consistent with Christ's teachings in the Gospels? Where in the Gospels does Jesus say that we need to kick out foreigners and migrants? Where does he say that the rich need to have tax cuts to enable them to accumulate more wealth at the expense of the poor? Where does he support genocide? What he does say is “go and sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven” and “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” and “So the last shall be first, and the first last”. How many rich Yank Christians do you know who seriously subscribe to these propositions? No, authentic Christianity might, of course, survive among migrants, blacks, Latinos, a few poor whites; it might survive among a few harmless intellectuals, such a David Bentley Hart (who is, of course, a socialist). I should have thought that the following was pretty transparently clear: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”; but Yanks have neatly sidestepped the necessity for choice by identifying the two. Yank society actually enables Elon Musk to own more money than the bottom 46 per cent of the world's population combined (about 3.8 billion people), according to Oxfam, and he and his pals are using this wealth to destroy civilisation in Europe and to send people to Mars so that he and his fellow rich psychopaths have a Planet B to go to when they've finished burning this one. Maybe this is “Judeo-Christianity”, a curious historical fraud that actually stands for little more than the supremacy of some races over others, and the right of the former to rob and exterminate the latter. In any case, I cannot see any connection to the Gospel of Christ. What is Christianity without the teaching of Christ? The revolting notion of substitutory sacrifice, the craving for "eternal life" which is demanded by human egoism and narcissism - as though I am so important in the scheme of things that the cosmos cannot get along quite well without the continuation of my specific personality! But anyway, putting all this aside, my actual point was that Etenne consistently blames "religion", but the real problem is politics and the way it distorts religion for its own ends. And, en passant, may I remark that the "separation of church and state" in the US is obviously purely formal. Yank politicians are constantly referring to God. In Britain, we have the converse: we have an established church, but any religious references by politicians beyond the most tenuous would be considered embarrassing and rather bad form. The appropriation of religion is not exclusive to Christianity or the US, of course. There is an extremist wing in all religions. But religion is an incredibly variegated and multifaceted phenomenon. It is Hindutva nationalism and violence in India and it is Father Damien treating lepors in Molokai. To blame “religion” for the world's problems fails to correctly identify the source of our problems as a species. If I seem very anti-yank it is because America is no friend or “ally” of Europe. It is threatening sovereign European territory in Greenland. It is engaging in economic warfare against European countries. Rich and powerful Yanks are inciting riots and pogroms on our streets, in a clear attempt to replace the rule of law with a police state. America seeks to encourage nationalism in order to fragment Europe and make it more amenable to US domination. Since America wants European nations hostile to the EU, we should do the precise opposite. Not only should Britain rejoin the EU, but we should push for a single European state strong enough to stand up to American pressure. We should forge alliances with China, and with Russia as well to make a single Eurosiberian bloc (though I am realist enough to realise that this will have to wait until after Putin drops dead). But in any case, the US has revealed itself to be the sworn enemy of Europe and the sooner we stop sending over idiot monarchs to suck up to your Congress about the 'Special Relationship', the better.