Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa: Moral Failures in the Catholic Church

After Pope Francis was elect in 2013, I discussed his selection with a friend.  I did not like what I found out about Francis.  I thought he would be more of a leftist than a Catholic.  Ten years later, my worries have been confirmed.  Some examples:  Although he says that he is pro-life and the killing of the innocent unborn is equivalent to hiring an assassin, he does not practice what he preaches.   He considers traditional Catholics as enemies of the Church.  He has even prohibited the Church from celebrating the Latin Mass.  He has fired faithful bishops such as Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, as well as faithful priests such as the leader of Priests for Life, Father Frank Pavone.  He has made a deal with the Devil, China, whereby he has consented to have the atheist communist tyrants that run China select Catholic bishops.  Now, hold on here:  This would be the equivalent of giving Adolf Hitler permission to name German bishops during his reign of terror.   How would that go?  Additionally, the Chinese communists are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and anti-religion, period.  They are an atheist regime; they are enemies of faith in God.  They have demonstrated this by arresting Catholics and bishops, namely the saintly faithful Catholic, 91-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong.  Another faithful Catholic jailed by the Chinese tyrants is Jimmy Lai of Hong Kong.  The Chinese regularly demolish catholic and Christian churches.  The pope is in bed with these tyrants.  Francis has chosen to visit such tyrants as Fidel Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia.  He regularly bashes capitalism while leaning more to the bankrupt system of socialism.  He seems to be a follower of Liberation Theology (a Marxist interpretation of the Bible) which had its start in South America in the 1960s.  The President of his native country of Argentina, Javier Milei, accused Francis of promoting communism.

 

There have been many bad popes of the past.   My friend will say, “this too shall pass.” Perhaps, but damage will be done.  Most of you have heard of the church’s failures with the pedophile scandals of the past 100 years and the cover-up by the church.  No one has been able or willing to fix this.  Francis has been eerily silent on this.  When American bishops tried to do something about it a few years ago, he ordered them to stand down.  Francis has failed to denounce Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.  Instead, he has called on Ukraine to “negotiate” the end of war.  What?  A country that has been invaded and had its citizens murdered and its country destroyed should be the one to negotiate?  What he really means Ukraine should surrender.  Francis has seen evil and failed to call it out.  The leader of the Russian Orthodox church, Kirill of Moscow, who supports the Ukraine invasion instead is appeased by the pope.  This is a moral failure on the pope’s part and an embarrassment to people of good will.

 

Pope Paul V was the pope during Galileo’s time.  This brilliant middle-ages scientist was persecuted by the church and forced to recant scientific valid positions which were confirmed later.  In 1633 Galileo was arrested and jailed until his death in 1642 for his valid Copernican scientific principle of heliocentrism that states that the earth revolves around the sun.  

 

Pope Clement VIII was pope who persecuted the Italian scientist Giordano Bruno.  Bruno was burned alive at the stake in Rome in 1600 by order of the pope after a religious trial for promoting valid scientific discoveries about the cosmos such as heliocentrism and the infinite universe, as well as religious positions held by Bruno, contrary to church teaching such as the trinity, Mary and others.  The jury that tried him included many of the top cardinals of the day.  Bruno’s famous last words were: “Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.” 

 

Pope Pius IX in the mid 19^th century was not only pope but the king and tyrant of the Papal States which included about forty percent of today’s Italy.  He ruled these states with an iron fist, persecuting anyone who dared to challenge him.  In 1850 the people of the Papal States had had enough:  they wanted self-rule not the rule of priests and the church; not having the church invade their homes to make sure they were following Catholic practices.  Led by the brilliant military commander of his day, Giuseppe Garibaldi, they revolted and declared independence from the pope and established a Roman Republic. Pius IX was forced into exile and fled to the small town of Gaeta near Naples which was under the rule of the Kingdom of the two Sicilies.  There he asked for help from France which agreed to send a French Army of 30,000 trained troops to win back his kingdom.  The French leveled a good part of Rome and killed more than 2,000 Romans in the process. 

 

After dealing a heavy blow to the French invaders, the rebels, outnumbered and outgunned were defeated in a month. The French Army occupied Rome for the next 20 years, when they had to return to France to fight the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.  While in Rome, French authorities begged the pope not to persecute ex-rebels.  Pius IX refused.  He had some ex-rebels executed by firing squad in public, such as in the large Piazza del Popolo in the middle of Rome.  The French even sent the pope two new guillotines as a gift.  With the approval of Pius IX, the French military authorities plastered bills all over Rome stating that anyone found with a weapon would be summarily executed without trial.

 

For more on Pope Pius IX, I have a longer post on this blog called Pius IX, King, Pope and Tyrant.  Click hereto read it. 

The Folly of US Involvement in the Vietnam War: Quagmire and Betrayal

 Wayne Harmon enlisted in the Marines right out of Dominquez High School in Compton, California in 1966. He became one of the 60,000 American servicemen killed in action in Vietnam.  Just 21 years-old, one of two children and the only son.  He was also my neighbor.  Wayne was a member of Company H, 2^nd Battalion, 9^thMarines.  The Virtual Wall (VirtualWall.org) of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has this summary of the fierce battle that he took part in which resulted in his death on 15 May 1967: 

“In the spring of 1967, NVA forces based in and supplied from the DMZ were conducting major operations from Khe Sanh in the west to the coast. On 24 April a major battle bagan at Khe Sanh, NVA forces repeatedly cut Highway 9 between Cam Lo and Khe Sanh, and initiated major mortar, rocket, and artillery attacks against Marine installations at Gio Linh, Camp Carroll, and Dong Ha. At 0300 on 08 May the NVA staged a major effort against the Marine observation post on Hill 158 at Con Thien, two miles south of the DMZ's southern border, with simultaneous diversionary attacks against Camp Carroll, Gio Linh, and Dong Ha. Although the elements of 1st Bn, 4th Marines, held out at Con Thien, they lost 44 men killed and 110 wounded. On 10 May a Marine A-4E (BuNo 151997) was hit by surface-to-air missiles fired from just north of the DMZ; the pilot, Major Robert L. Snyder, was killed in the incident.”

 

The Virtual Wall summary just described here lists all the Marine units involved and the casualties by unit.   In my reading, I counted no less than 238 Marines KIA and 1,549 wounded.  This was a serious and vicious battle.  The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) amassed a large force, and a fierce battle began with high powered weapons.  This, in a way, was a foreshadowing of what was to come in February of 1968 with the NVA’s Tet Offensive, an equally brutal battle.  The American historian, Mark Bowden, in his book, Huè 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam describes this historic battle in detail.    Both battles were won by US forces, but the price was huge in men killed and wounded, a Pyrrhic victory.  US forces won all battles with the enemy, but this was not enough, for the enemy was never defeated.  They lost all engagements, but their strategy was to endure and wear out the Americans; indeed, they did eventually.  Time was on their side.  Eventually Americans and politicians became weary; first they pulled out all US forces and then reneged on our promises from the Paris Peace Accords to resupply South Vietnamese forces.  The end came quickly in 1975.  This was something JFK’s Whiz Kids advisers did not foresee nor were they capable of understanding.  We paid a heavy price:  60,000 killed in action and another 300,000 wounded; not to mention all the money spent on the war.  It is estimated that the United States spent nearly one trillion dollars in 1960s money on the Vietnam war: the equivalent of eight trillion dollars in today’s money.   A lot of falsehoods have endured about the Vietnam war.  Here is a terrific five-minute video by Bruce Herschensohn explaining what really happened:  Click here to view it.

 

How did we get involved in this war?  Why?  These are questions that are still asked.  A new book written by Charles Trueheart, the son of the Assistant US Ambassador to Vietnam in 1961, Bill Trueheart, called  “Diplomats at War:  Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam War” is revealing.   Trueheart was a 10-year-old when he accompanied his father to Saigon in 1961.  This book gives a personal view of everyday happenings, the characters involved and the sheer madness of what the US administration of President Kennedy was up to.  If you dislike politicians, you will absolutely despise these guys.  They were green bureaucrats, uninformed, arrogant, full of themselves and mindless, with my apology to people with disabilities.  The blind leading the blind.  I would call them The Not Ready for Prime-time Players.  JFK was no different.  Led by Averell Harriman, Bobby Kennedy, Dean Rusk and the former Ford Motor Company executive, Robert McNamara, JFK’s Secretary of Defense.  None had any experience in Southeast Asia, its culture or its people, nor any knowledge of world affairs for what they were about to, unknowingly, design.  McNamara’s background was in economics and management. He resigned in 1967 and admitted his failures.  Click here for a related story. It was too late to reverse the course of the war.  McNamara’s son, Craig McNamara, wrote a book about his father’s role in Vietnam called “Because Our Fathers Lied: A memoir of Truth.”   McNamara was a disaster as a defense secretary.  Check out this article on the damage he did to the Strategic Air Command.  Click here.

 

Of all the characters in this sad and tragic story, one person stands out:  Averell Harriman.  The ex-Governor of New York, Harriman was arrogant, self-deluded, abrasive and a generally nasty person.  JFK idealized him.  Harriman was also very wrong on everything he was involved with.  Harriman badly wanted to be Secretary of State.  Instead, JFK appointed him as Assistant Secretary of State for Far East Affairs. He probably did not know where the far east was unless he looked at a map. Trueheart tells the story of a cabinet meeting with the Ambassador of South Vietnam, Fritz Nolting.  While Nolting was speaking, Harriman yells at him and tells him “Shut up, nobody wants to hear from you,” in front of the President and other cabinet members.  JFK rebuked Harriman and said “I want to hear what he has to say.  In a 1976 interview with Harriman’s biographer, Rudy Abramson, Nolting says this: “Nobody, in my opinion is as directly responsible for that disaster as Averell Harriman.” That disaster is referring to is Vietnam (p298).

 

Another excellent book on this subject dealing with the early years prior to, and the early stages of the war, is “The Lost Mandate of Heaven, The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem President of Vietnam.” By Geoffrey Shaw.  I have another blog post based on this book:  Click here to read it.   This book deals with the same mistakes described here.  Shaw describes in detail the role that the media played and how they were so influential on US politicians and public opinion about the war.  David Halberstam, the influential New York Times reporter and Walter Cronkite, the stately professorial looking CBS News Anchorman had a lot of influence on the rest of the media as well as public opinion.  Halberstam was a green 27-year-old journalist with an eye on shaping the narrative about Vietnam; a narrative that the NY Times promoted.  Most of it was negative. As it turned out, they were right. Trueheart tells the story of French journalist François Sully who was once asked by the US Ambassador why he always looked at the hole in the donut in his reporting about happenings in Vietnam?  Sully responded:  Because, Mr. Ambassador, there is a hole in the donut.

 

There is no doubt that the Kennedy Administration, his advisors and functionaries colored the reality on the ground, and in some ways disguised the truth, i.e., lied.  I recall that the administration promoted the body count; the number of enemy killed, as a way of showing the progress of the war.  Journalists were, in some cases, expelled for unfavorable reporting of the reality on the ground, such as François Sully, the French reporter and the NY Times reporter who preceded David Halberstam. 

 

The Spanish/American philosopher George Santayana coined the phrase: “Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.”  The Vietnam war was one excellent example of this famous saying.  We learned nothing from history.  We thought we were better than the others; we were arrogant, self-delusional and outright stupid when it came to what the US did in Vietnam prior to the explosion of all-out war.   I am a US Army Vietnam Veteran.  I was in Vietnam in 1968-69, the hottest year of the war and a time when we had 550,000 troops there: the highest number in the war.

 

As soon as the French pulled out of Vietnam after their defeat in the famous battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the United States, basically became the new colonial overlords and started what they could not finish, except they were too arrogant and self-deluded to know it; thinking that they could do it better than the French.  This they did not apologize for.  They decided what they believed was needed to be done and then it was the US Ambassador’s job to get Diem to agree to it and do it.  Do what we say or else was their attitude.  Diem and his brother Nhu were murdered November 3, 1963, in a coup with the support of JFK, the CIA and the Kennedy administration.  Without US support the Vietnamese generals would have never done a coup, this is crystal clear.

 

 Another of the craziest idea the Americans came up with was the Strategic Hamlet Program by which people would be relocated from their villages, their homes torched, and new people would be put there to defend against the Viet Cong.  The Vietnamese were incredulous; they knew this would not work, and, in fact, it never worked.  But “father knows best;” just do what we say, after all, we’re Americans and we know better. 

 

 I was a huge JFK fan as a youth.  The more I learn about his failures, however, the more I believe he was incompetent and way out of his league.  In 1963 JFK worried more about being re-elected in 1964 than doing the right thing in Vietnam. He sensed that Vietnam was going to end badly for the US and considered ending the US involvement, but he wanted to wait until he was re-elected in 1964 to do it. The murder of Diem and his brother opened Pandora’s Box and South Vietnam spiraled out of control.  It was the American war now.  Every replacement for Diem was an utter failure. From 1963 to 1975 there were 12 different leaders of South Vietnam: all total failures.  Within a month of the coup, the ruling junta was itself overthrown. The North Vietnamese were shrewd; they knew how to measure US resolve; they knew that time was on their side; it was. They always pushed the right button on public opinion.  One example was the Buddhist monk’s self-immolation during the Diem regime in 1963. They figured this would galvanize public opinion against the war: It did.

 

Trueheart tells the story about how Saigon was being inundated with American politicians.  In December 1962 the senior US Foreign Service Officer, U. Alexis Johnson wired Washington warning them of the many Congressional delegations arriving in Saigon; they called them “codels,” exasperating the local officials.  When the administration’s leading hawks, like General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Walt Rostow, JFK’s deputy national security advisor went to Vietnam to assess the situation in 1961, they advised JFK that he needed about 8,000 US combat troops there to support the South Vietnamese forces.  When Kennedy heard this, he had to figure out how he could pull this off since the 1954 Geneva Agreement after the French withdrawal was that no more than about 600 US troops could be stationed in Vietnam.  This was never taken seriously by the US.  The troops were sent, and the American casualties started.  During the Kennedy Administration the number of US KIA was 120; it increased exponentially year after year.  

 

In less than three years of the Kennedy Administration two spectacular failures occurred:  The Bay of Pigs in Cuba and the start of the Vietnam War.

 

Concluding Thoughts

 

What were they thinking?  We had just finished World War II and Korea.  The French were defeated by 1954.  The colonial period was at an end.  Why get involved in another war that could not possibly be won?  Where were the clear-thinking men?   Could they not relate with the failure of the French?  We make the same mistakes, over and over.  Some examples:  Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.  When will they learn?

 

 

Was Christopher Columbus a Hero or a Villain?

 Being ungrateful and not being able to apologize when wrong are two deadly relationship characteristics of any person.  Anyone with these two characteristics would be gone as a friend in my book.  Christopher Columbus has been disparaged and insulted from the very beginning with the Spanish authorities for whom he brought fame and fortune.  Indeed, he was treated like a criminal, arrested and jailed in Spain.  At his funeral, no Spanish official attended.  He died without honor, or thanks.   Jesus made this statement about being a prophet; “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”(Mark:6).  

 

For many in the United States, Columbus is now persona non grata; his holiday of October 12 has been cancelled.  After the George Floyd riots, thug rioters destroyed numerous statues.  Abraham Lincoln is number one with 193 taken down, George Washington is second with 171 and Christopher Columbus is third.   Much of this is done by people who are totally ignorant and ungrateful of what these great men did or accomplished.  There are cities and countries named after Columbus, as in Ohio and Georgia but if you asked some of these rioters for whom were these cities and countries named for, they probably could not answer it.  During the Iraq war, General David Petraeus, who defeated the insurgency and saved many of our troop’s lives, was reviled by the Democrats who opposed George Bush.  They called him General “betray us.” These are not serious people.  They are not grateful nor able to apologize; they are the worst of any citizens.

 

We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.  In the United States, we stand on the shoulders of the most brilliant men who have ever lived:  The founders of our country; people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and others such as Abraham Lincoln.  We owe a debt of gratitude to these men, yet in the recent past, clueless people have tried to erase these men, simply for the fact that they once owned slaves, or do not meet the today’s “woke” standard.  If any of these people had any knowledge of history, they would have known that owning slaves in those days was like owning a car today.  It was a custom of the day.  You cannot measure a society of the past with today’s measure; it must be done in context.  As Jesus said to the those who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery: “let him/her who is without sin, throw the first stone.”  No one did.

 

Today history is not taught in schools, or at least it is done poorly or not at all.  Children are taught to be “woke” instead and use “the right pronoun.”  How would you like it if the doctor who is to perform brain surgery on you, never learned how to do it, but was taught “wokeism” instead?  This is what happens when we fail to teach history, we have spoiled rotten people who destroy statues.  Mao Zedong erased thousands of years of great Chinese history so he could remake China in the image of communism.  All those who came before him were deleted.

 

If you send someone to do a random street interview on any street or university campus and ask questions about our forefathers, I will guess that very few would answer correctly.  Who was Christopher Columbus?  An explorer or someone who oppressed indigenous people.  Well, look at any society and see if they committed some sins?  What was their final product?  Did the United States oppress any people?  Perhaps, but with whom can you compare what the United States stands for today?  Cuba, North Korea, Russia?  These tyrannical countries oppress people to this day.  Have you tried visiting Russia or North Korea?  Chances are you would end up as a hostage, like the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovic and Paul Whelan, the ex-Marine currently in Russian jails. Which country has a clean record on sins?  Let the one who is without sin throw out the first stone.  Why are people from all over the world crashing our borders to get in?  Is it because the United States is an oppressor or because this is where you will find freedom and prosperity?  Why is no one storming North Korea or Cuba?  They have free health care there.

 

In the late 1980s a very fine documentary was done and broadcast on public television, called “The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus.  Broadcast on PBS by WGBH Boston and nationwide in the early 1990s.  The Original was seven hours long.  A two-hour summary is still available on Amazon for less than $5.  This is what should be shown in schools.  Click here for the link.  Somehow, I don’t think many woke teachers would do this. Some may.  I’ll cross my fingers.

NIMBY Syndrome in History: Deja vù All Over Again

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a podcast called “12 Byzantine Rulers: A History of the Byzantine Empire” by Lars Brownworth who also wrote the book “Lost to the West.”  I was impressed with the podcast and followed it up with the book.  A big take-away for the story of the extinction of the Byzantine Empire was the lack of assistance from the Christian world of the west, meaning Western Europe. They had no interest in helping the Byzantines repel the marauding Ottoman Turks as they ate away at their territory piece by piece until only the city of Constantinople was left in the early part of the 15^th century. 

 

The Turks, under Sultan Mehmed II amassed a huge army, estimated to be around 80,000 troops and besieged Constantinople in May of 1453 and destroyed it.  The Byzantines had only 5,000 troops to defend the city.  The last emperor of the Byzantines, Constantine XI, and his officials, made a last-ditch effort to beg their fellow Christians in Europe for help but were turned down.  Giovanni Giustiniani, a Genoese nobleman and military commander was one of the few to respond.  The Venetians sent a few ships, but they were of little help.  A handful of other Europeans volunteered but too small a number to be effective.  Giustiniani gathered 700 mercenaries and made it to Constantinople, but they were totally overwhelmed by the superior Ottoman forces, both in number and in weapons.  The Ottomans had just acquired a cannon capable of breaking the famous impregnable city walls of Constantinople. Giustiniani died the month after the fall of Constantinople, at the age of 35, probably due to wounds he received during the battle. 

 

Upon breaching the city walls, the Turks went on a killing spree.  Marauding Ottoman soldiers swept the city killing all they encountered.  Those not killed were enslaved. Why did their fellow Europeans fail to help them?  The Ottoman Turks had been on a conquest for hundreds of years.  I asked Lars Brownworth, in an e-mail, the same question.  There is no easy answer.  

 

The Catholic-Orthodox schism of 1054 AD did a lot of damage, not only in religious matters but in the tense relations between the Greek Orthodox east and the Roman west.  As in a feuding family, they despised each other.  This, perhaps, was a major reason for the Byzantines getting no help from their brother Christians.  A second reason could be attributed to the notion of “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome; meaning if the danger is not in my back yard, I don’t care.  This is a common malady today.  Many liberals and conservatives in the United States do not want to help Ukraine against the invading Russians for the same reason.  The Europeans were very wrong about NIMBY for they, themselves, became the next target of the Ottomans.  Within a 70-year span after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans were at the gates of Europe.  In 1529 the first Siege of Vienna happened but was repelled.  By 1571 the battle of Lepanto took place between the Ottomans and a coalition of Europeans, Spanish, Italians, Austrians and others.  The Ottomans lost the huge naval battle at Lepanto, most of their navy and about 25,000 killed.  This marked the largest naval battle since the Greeks and Persians at Salamis in 480 BC.

 

The Ottomans were not yet finished.  They again tried to conquer Europe with the second siege of Vienna in 1683; they were repelled with the help of a European coalition and the fierce counterattack by an army which arrived just in time, led by the king of Poland, King Sobieski, a brilliant military commander.  Finally, the Europeans realized that cooperating was the way to go. With a NIMBY attitude Europe would have been Muslim today.

 

In a fine history book by Victor Davis Hanson called “The Father of us All, War and History,” regarding the Christian League that fought at Lepanto, Hanson says that France and England refused to cooperate in fighting the Ottomans: “both had long ago cut their own deals with the Ottomans.  Indeed, during the winter of 1542 the French had even allowed the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa the use of their harbor at Toulon to refit as he conducted raids along the Italian coast.” (Chapter 7).   Call it what you want but this was treachery at its worst by brother Christians and fellow Europeans.

 

History is a great teacher, but few ever learn.  Same mistakes are committed over and over, whether its World War I or the appeasement of Hitler in World War II.  Hitler did not learn from Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812; the United States learned nothing from the French debacle in Vietnam or the problems encountered in Korea in the early 1950s.  This same mistake is repeated today.  When will they ever learn? to take a que from the 1950s song by the Kingston Trio, “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?”

 

In today’s Europe, we have leaders like Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, who refused to help Ukraine against the evil Russian regime of the dictator Vladimir Putin.  Now, the first question I would ask Mr. Orban would be:  Sir, your country was viciously oppressed by the Soviet Union for over 70 years.  Remember what the Russians did to Hungary in 1956 when they brought tanks to Budapest to crush you?  Perhaps you never heard of it.  Here is a link for you to look up.  Are you suffering from the Stockholm syndrome?  Similarly, we have some right-wing politicians such as Matteo Salvini in Italy who openly admires Vladimir Putin.  Am I missing something?  NIMBY roars its ugly head again. 

Thermopylae

It’s been said by some that most people are basically good.  I agree with talk show host Dennis Prager and don’t believe that is the case.  Man is a warlike being; history has shown that.  Just one example from my lifetime:  I was born during World War II.  Since then, we’ve had Korea, Vietnam, the Israel wars of 1967 and 1973, the Argentina-British war in the Falklands, the Gulf War of the 1990s, the Yugoslavia civil war, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.  Since 2022 we have a new war in Europe with Russia and Ukraine, the current Israel-Hamas war, and on and on. There has hardly ever been a long period of peace. These are just some examples, there are many other wars around the globe, especially in Africa, such as in Sudan and Nigeria.

Thermopylae

Ancient history is a story of endless wars.  Nothing has changed.  There have been consequential wars in antiquity that are discussed to this day.  I’m speaking of the Greek period, and specifically, the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and Thermopylae, the famous Last Stand of the 300 in 480 BC between the Greeks and Persian Empire.  Famous Roman Empire battles such as the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, Marathon and Thermopylae are studied in modern military academies to this day.  At Cannae the Roman Army was annihilated by Carthage and their brilliant military commander, Hannibal.  Over 50,000 Romans lost their lives in one day. The most devastating loss of life in Roman history. A killing field like no other. The Greeks were the best fighters of their day.  Soldiers were trained to fight their entire life.  It was the Greek custom that a boy would be taken at the age of seven to live with other boys in a military camp where they were put through some of the toughest physical and mental tests.  The best of the best were the Spartans. Here is a short two-minute video explaining what happened in Thermopylae.

 

The Spartans trained full time for combat.  Most men were soldiers for most of their lives.  To make up for the loss of such large number of men, the Spartans enslaved their neighbors, the Helots.  The enslaved Helots provided the manual labor needed for Spartan society.  The Spartans lived in constant fear of a Helot rebellion.

 

Persian Empire

The phrase, united we stand, divided we fall, is very appropriate in the ancient Greek world.  The many Greek city-states were all independent and fought constant wars with each other.  On top of all the Greek fratricide, their biggest collective threat was from the enormous and powerful Persian Empire; an empire that spanned from Persia to India to the gates of Europe.  It was no secret that the Persians wanted to expand even further to Europe.  Greece was their target.  In 490 BC the Persians, under king Darius the Great, suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon; twenty-six miles outside of Athens.  Darius sought revenge for the Marathon loss and planned a second invasion but died four years later in 486 BC.  His son Xerxes took up the challenge and sent an army of 80,000 to 100,000 to conquer all of Greece.  Greeks were divided, some favored the Persians, and indeed many Greeks fought their fellow Greeks on the side of Persia.  But Greece, in general, wanted to form a coalition to resist the Persians.  The Spartans were asked to lead the resistance.

 

The Greeks knew that the best route for the Persians was through the narrow passage at Thermopylae.They also knew that they were seriously overpowered by the Persians and stood little chance of stopping them. The best they could do was to slow them down at the narrow pass of Thermopylae.  This is where 300 of the best fighters stood against the enormous Persian onslaught.  The Spartans, led by their charismatic and brilliant commander, king Leonidas, were spectacular in their stance but knew that it was only a matter of time before they would be overwhelmed and killed.  They welcomed the challenge.  This ferocious last stand was so inspiring to the Greeks that even though the Persians were able to reach and sack Athens, a year later, in a counter offensive,  the Greeks were victorious at the battles of Plataea and naval battle of  Salamis. The Battle of Thermopylae not only inspired Greece but has been an inspiration to the rest of the world for 2,500 years. 

In the ancient Greek world, war was meant to be a way of life.  Human dignity was considered little.  The society was taught that death in battle was the ultimate sacrifice for the state and should be promoted. Women were prized for their ability to produce future fighters.  Men who fell in battle were considered heroes.  Men who survived a defeated battle were scorned.  That is what wars were like and still are.  Take, for example, the Russian war with Ukraine.  The Russians want Ukraine as theirs; they care little for the human cost.  This mentality is mainly due to tyrants and the monarchy form of government where all you need to start a war is the order of one man, such as Putin of Russia, Kim Jung Un of North Korea, or any ruling monarch, such as Henry VIII of England for instance who had his closest advisors, even his wives killed at will.  George Patton, the brilliant American general of World War II was quoted as saying: don’t cry for a fallen soldier but be glad such a man lived.  In World War II and the invasion of France on D-Day, men were dropped off ships in some cases in 8 feet of water with their full battle gear and charged open ocean cliffs with German machine guns blazing; over 3,500 were killed that day.  War is hell.

 

History has shown that no matter how mighty an empire is, it will eventually collapse or is conquered.  The little Greek city-states not only resisted Persian conquest but eventually conquered it in 336 BC, 144 years later in the name of Alexander the Great and Greek unity.  This should be a lesson to us, but few will notice it.  United we stand; divided we fall.  No empire has ever been reborn after collapsing.  In the last 100 years we’ve seen seven empires fall:  German Empire, Ottoman Empire, the Japanese Empire, the British Empire, the Austria-Hungary Empire, the French Empire and the Soviet Union.

This piece was inspired from the reading of Paul Cartledge's book cited below.  Cartledge is a history professor at the University of Cambridge in England and an expert in Greek history.  In my reading of history, especially ancient and Roman history, the British excel at every level.  

 

An addendum on the Persian Empire:   Founded by King Cyrus the Great around 550 BC.  They subsequently  conquered the Babylonian Empire after the Babylonians had conquered and taken hostage the Jews of Israel, leading to the 70 years of what became the Biblical Babylonian Captivity.  It was King Cyrus who released the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild their cities.  Only about ten percent returned to Israel.  King Cyrus is mentioned in no less than 30 times in the Bible. The first time 150 years before his birth, in Isaiah 44 and 45.  The Jewish return to Israel started in 539 BC.  They immediately started the reconstruction of the temple but met strong opposition from the local populace.  In 538 BC construction was halted and did not resume until 520 BC.  The new temple was completed and dedicated in 515 BC.  In 70 AD the Romans destroyed the second temple after a Jewish revolt that started in 66 AD and was not crushed until 71AD.

 

Recommended reading:

 

The End of Everything, Victor Davis Hanson, Basic Books, 2024

A War Like no Other, Victor Davis Hanson, Random House, 2006

Thermopylae, Paul Cartledge, The Overlook Press, 2006

 

 

 

Kings, Emperors and Madmen

The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire) continued after the fall of Rome for another thousand years; like the Western Roman Empire it had the emperor form of government.  It was ruled by emperors to the end in 1453 when the Muslim Turks conquered the last piece of land left:  the city of Constantinople, modern day Istanbul.  The emperor form of government must be one of the worst types of government ever established.  The emperor was all powerful; he was the law, the judge and the executioner.  He could kill you at will or maim you at his discretion.  The citizens had no say in who ruled them.  Many emperors got the job by murdering their predecessor; so a common thug with some personal power and supporters or a military strongman could assassinate the emperor and the next day be proclaimed the new emperor.  Many military strongmen could march on Constantinople and usurp the throne, either by murdering the existing emperor or by popular acclaim by the people.  Many emperors lived in fear of such usurpers and would occasionally either order the death of his potential usurpers or have them blinded; a common Byzantine practice.  In the 13th century when emperor Theodore II died he left the throne to his seven-year old son John IV.  As was the custom a regent was assigned to rule for the child, Michael Palaiologos, a protege of John III, emperor of the city of Nicaea was selected.  After serving as temporary emperor for about five years, he felt secure enough that he usurped the throne by having the rightful heir, 11 year-old John IV, blinded so he could eliminate any opposition.

Emperors have been brutal, tyrannical, and madmen.  Justinian (527-565), for example, had 30,000 people who had rioted against him, murdered in his Hippodrome, in Constantinople. He ordered his best military commander of the empire, Belasarius to block the exits and then systematically execute all inside.  Although Justinian had some success in his reign, many Byzantine emperors were terrible and disastrous administrators.  The empire was vast and difficult to control.  Borders were always in flux; whomever conquered the area annexed it to his.  Arabs, Slavs, Turks, Persians, Russians, and Muslims kept eating away at Byzantine territory.  Wars were a constant.  Many emperors paid protection money to their enemies to bribe them not to invade, draining their government coffers in the process, making it unable to pay their soldiers in many cases.

The Roman Republic on the other hand had a well-functioning type of government up until the time of Caesar, 44 BC.  Most of the Roman territory had already been won during the Republic (see adjoining map).   Prior to Caesar and the emperors Rome had a representative form of government with two Consuls elected by the people.  The emperors, with few exceptions, were a disaster.   The first Roman emperor was Caesar Augustus in 31BC.  As with the Byzantines, many rose to be emperor by assassinating their predecessor. Rome, as with the Byzantines, had some of the worst emperors such as Caligula and Nero.  Imagine, if you will, that our form of government was like that today. Total lawlessness. Disaster and total chaos can’t be too far down the line. For a free online college course see Hillsdale College’s course on the Roman Republic, called “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Republic.”  The adjoining map is from this course. An excellent course.

After the rise of Christianity with Emperor Constantine in 325 AD, the emperor also controlled the church. Emperors would be crowned by bishops. Emperors could call church councils.   The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (now the town of Iznik, Turkey) was called by Emperor Constantine.  Here is where the separation of church and state is paramount.  When the two are mixed bad things will happen; religion and politics can’t be separated.  In the Byzantine empire, church leaders were at the mercy of the emperors and had to bend to his wishes.  Any church leader not pleasing the emperor was replaced.  The emperor ruled the church like his empire.

Up to the 18^th century, in England, the King was the law, judge and jury.  He could have anyone who displeased him killed at his command, as Henry VIII did.  Henry VIII took control of the church and governed both at his will.  To this day, the King or Queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church.  Anyone not a member of the Anglican Church has been marginalized and discriminated against since the time of Henry.  Nowhere in Europe will you find discrimination against Catholics as in England.  Today you cannot be a British Prime Minister if you’re Catholic for instance.  Members of the royal family cannot be Catholic.  Catholic Ireland was severely oppressed by the British for hundreds of years until independence came in early 20^th Century. 

The American founding fathers were the most brilliant and savvy men of all time.  They learned from history and designed a government that would be representative and not tyrannical.  Our form of government is a Republic, not a democracy.  Here is a terrific five-minute video description of a Republic by Professor Robert George of Princeton University.  Spanish philosopher George Santayana stated it well “those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” Our founding fathers did learn.  Not many others have.

Kings and emperors are selected not by their citizens but by an accident of birth or by usurpers in some cases.  You could be totally insane, as I’m sure Henry VIII was, and be king and tyrant.  You are the law, the court, and the executioner.  You could send thousands of your citizens to their death by starting a war, just because you feel like it.  One person with all the power and millions of citizens toally powerless.  Today, the British monarch has been defanged but other tyrants such as Kim Jung Un of North Korea or Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jing Ping of China have total control; their people have no say.  In China for instance 1.5 billion people are powerless; one man has all the power.   Any of these could start a war killing hundreds of thousands for any reason or no reason. Kim, like Henry VIII is probably mentally insane or deranged; drunk with power, and eager to use it.

The Byzantine Empire, lasted another thousand years by sheer luck but finally succumbed to bad, corrupt government and bad leaders.  It took a long time to end but the seeds of destruction were there with all the tyrants and incompetent emperors.  Santayana was right. 

Recommended reading: 

1.        “Lost to the West” by Lars Brownworth, Crown Publishers, 2009

Lars Brownworth has a terrific podcast on this book called 12 Byzantine Rulers: The History of Byzantine Empire.  Click here for the link.

2.         “The Lost World of Byzantium” by Jonathan Harris, Yale University Press, 2015

 

What is “Separation of Church and State” and is it in the Constitution?

At a church group gathering discussing the Ten Commandments, part of today’s (3/3/24) Sunday readings, I made the comment that in today’s culture you are not allowed to have the Ten Commandments displayed in a public facility.  Immediately one person responded that that is because of the “separation of church and state.”  This is a typical response; many Americans have adopted this misleading impression that the United States Constitution has a separation of church and state:   The United States Constitution does not have such separation.  You will not find it in the Constitution.  This refers to a misunderstanding of what is called The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution.  Here is what it states:  

 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

What qualifies as “church” and what does not?   The misunderstanding has been appropriated by many, including, the Supreme Court, in the 1947 case of Everson v Ewing Township, legal professionals such as Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known law school dean at Cal Berkeley.    The misunderstanding refers to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Church in 1802 in which he gave a sort of clarification of the Establishment Clause.   Professor Robert P. George, a Constitutional law expert and professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University explains it this way: 

 “The separation of church and state” is a phrase that appears nowhere in the Constitution. We have heard of those words because they were written by Thomas Jefferson to a Danbury Baptist Church community in explaining our Constitution’s stance toward religion. He drew the metaphor of a “wall” of separation between church and state.  The truth in what Jefferson is saying is pretty straightforward. When understood correctly, it means that the institutions of the state and the institutions of the church are separate. Under our Constitution, no political figure holds office by virtue of an ecclesiastical appointment, and no ecclesiastical figure holds office in virtue of a political appointment.”

Click here to read Professor George’s entire opinion.  For another terrific explanation of the “the separation of church and state”  Click here for a five-minute video by former Chapman University Law School Dean, John Eastman.

When people make this type of argument, what they are doing is claiming that something is religion when it is not.  What is religion?  Is the First Amendment religion? Was Jefferson’s letter religion? I don’t know of anyone who has made such an argument.  Different people will define it as they wish.  By calling something religion, as in the claim of the “separation of church and state,” they are putting it in a category where it can be easily dismissed without evidence, that is, arbitrarily asserted.  But what can be arbitrarily asserted can be arbitrarily denied.  This falls under the Principle of Reason; Non-contradiction, complete explanation, objective evidence.  To argue that something falls under “religion” or "church" without objective evidence, is an egregious attempt to prove your point by creating a straw man. 

Are the Ten Commandments religion?  How do you define religion?  Is the prohibition against killing or stealing or adultery, or not bearing false witness religion?  And, if so, who would argue that they are wrong or not acceptable?  The Ten Commandments are a manual for right living and a well-ordered society. They can easily fall under natural law; that is, a law written on each person’s heart.  In fact, government is dependent on a such ordered society.  For example, everyone would agree that stealing is wrong.  If you had to prove it, steal someone’s property, and see if they disagree.   Would you have less crime or more crime if a society followed the Ten Commandments?

The United States Constitution is neutral on religion.  It simply states that you cannot have a state religion nor favor one religion against another.  It does not prohibit having a Bible study at a public institution such as a school, as long as it is not required or done by employees of the school.  If you read the article linked above by Professor George, religious activities are allowed if they are balanced and not favor one or the other and if you allow one, you must allow the other.