Radio War Nerd EP #524 — The American Pope, feat. Annibale

"English Catholics" just don't fuckin' sit right with me

Just watch The Godfather part 3, guys. The bank. The consortium. The banker’s suicide. Conspiracy theory Coppola is the best Coppola.

The child scandals destroyed the RC Church in the US. That and books like In God's Name by David Yallop just removed any semblance of ecclesiastical authority from the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of the punters propping up the RCC. Everyone saw that the church was only interested in protecting itself from crimes its employees had committed no matter what harm that caused. Yes, former Catholic here. And good riddance I say. You want real Christianity? Look at Greek, Russian and Eastern Orthodox. That's as close as you will get. Personally, I prefer the consolation of philosophy.

Tbh I always felt that the child abuse scandals were overblown sensationalism that glossed over huge financial scams like Bank Ambrosiano, CIA dark money going to anti soviet dissidents, mafia money laundering, P2 lodge connections etc. Pope JP2 just like Zbig Brzeziński took the resources of their countries to help Poland regain independence no matter the costs.

Just clicked that the Bene Gesserit were Jesuit

Please do more episodes on this!!!

As a product of Jesuit education (US grades 3-14), and a lapsed Catholic, I ate up this episode with a fork and knife. Fascinating to hear Annibale speak of the dictatorship of Francis and touch briefly on the financial scandals of recent decades before speaking on the political grounding of the current Pope. I found myself feeling oddly optimistic about the future of the Church. Or if it has none, at least I can hector all the politically conservative US Catholics in my family for the foreseeable future. Long live all the Leo’s 🦁 (and Løven)!

The Catholic church has been deeply corrupt since the 1500s (remember what so annoyed Luther?) and I am afraid that neither Francis nor Leo are going to be able to fundamentally change that. I doubt very much that the Catholic church has seen the end of its endless sex abuse cases and settlements. Finally, although Leo may be taking a "strong" stance on Gaza, it will make little difference either in the short or the long term. Netanyahu is going to let in just enough food so that it qualifies as a fig leaf, not one calorie more. The starvation will continue, but at a slightly slower pace. The Gaza Strip has already been effectively leveled and rendered uninhabitable. Nothing Leo says is going to even ameliorate conditions there, let alone provide anything resembling justice to the Palestinians. Gaza's future much more resembles Trump's condo-city-by-the sea than a place for Palestinians. Catholicism's relevance in geo-political terms is slim to none. And please, never, ever, ever refer to J. D. Vance as Catholic. If he had to betray Christ 27 times (yes, 3x cubed!) to become President, he would do so without hesitation.

An interesting, if overlong episode.

There are several churches in Gaza. Pope Francis was calling Holy Family which is Catholic and still standing, though it has been attacked by Israel since 10/7, as has St. Porphyrius, the Orthodox church. As I understand it Pope Leo only registered as a Republican in 2023 and voted in a couple primaries. Correct me if I'm wrong but the record i saw indicates that he doesn't vote much at all. Hopefully conservative Catholics will be more likely to listen to him based on that identification though. I'm a little worried that there seem to be a lot of fake sermons on Youtube attributed to him and fake quotes of him circulating, reciting babybrain rightwing nonsense. Maybe why some of his first statements have been against AI.

Christ, this one was interesting. I really started to understand the Church's place in the world and how it interacts with and differentiates itself from other sources of power for the first time. It's less of a bunch of sleazy rentier pedophiles to me now.

Marcinkus is easily the funniest figure in the modern history of the Church

Yooooo Loven did it!!!! What a courageous dude

In regards to the cat, if it happens again an arborist company may be able to help, they have the equipment and experience to climb some very sketchy trees, usually they are all ropes and climbing spikes so unstable ground shouldn't matter.

ALL GLORY TO LØVEN HE HAS RETURNED

So glad you’re enjoying my land. John highly recommended checking out Bacalar, some pirate stories in that area.

Magnificent work! 👏

So how many divisions does this new Pope have?

Glad the cat is safe… check for burns on the paws,, our cat had friction burns from sliding down the bark,, pretty sever burns to… might explain the limping.

Wasn't James Jesus Angleton a devout Catholic?

For me, the most interesting point raised in this discussion was what choosing a U.S. Pope means. It never occurred to me that they'd refrained from picking an American Pope because the U.S. is too strong, or that the choice of Leo might be a recognition that the U.S.'s position in the world is weakening.

I was going over Blackfriars on Thursday, where I always spare a thought for Roberto, Paul and the boys, having devoured In God's Name as a teenager. Actually I'm quite lucky to live in a place where the assassination sites have really nice views from the river, and for me going over Waterloo Bridge is a nice mixture of Ray Davies and Georgi Markov.

Let’s a goooo

really great episode

Habemus Hannibale!