Who knew I that am surrounded by witches?

Trump has fired the secretary of the navy John Phelan. Phelan’s only qualification for the job seemed to be that he was a rich crony of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein but his replacement Hung Cao, who previously lost two races for Congress in Virginia, while having military experience, is also seriously weird.

Cao’s record, however, is not without controversy. During his 2024 candidacy, for example, USA Today reported that the Republican, a decorated Navy veteran, “made repeated references to becoming disabled after he was ‘blown up’ in combat,” although his military record did not support those claims.
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Complicating matters, shortly after launching his Senate campaign, Cao also expressed concerns about, of all things, witchcraft.

During one 2023 interview, Cao said witches had “taken over” a California city, and he wanted to prevent similar problems in the commonwealth.

“We can’t let it turn like this,” he said during an interview with a Christian pastor. “There’s a place in Monterey, California, called Lovers Point. The original name was Lovers of Christ Point, but now it’s become — they took out the ‘Christ,’ it’s Lovers Point, and it’s really — Monterey is a very dark place now, a lot of witchcraft and the Wiccan community has really taken over. We can’t let that happen to Virginia.”

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Vance gets smacked down by Catholic bishops

Whatever one’s views are about the Catholic Church, there is no question that it takes its doctrines seriously, devoting enormous amounts of time to research and develop its theology, even if the final product sometimes has the aim of justifying its often horrendous history of violence and abuse and misogyny.

The question of when it is justifiable to use force and violence is one that transcends religion and is problematic for everyone. This is one of those areas that the church has studied quite deeply and it has arrived at the so-called ‘just war theory’, of under what circumstances going to war is defensible. The originator of this theory was St. Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, and it was developed further by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. Pope Leo is a member of the Augustinian order, the first person from that order to become a pope and is currently visiting the site of Hippo, where Augustine was bishop for 34 years in order to pay homage to founder of his order.
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Well, that didn’t take long

When I posted about pope Leo criticizing warmongering leaders, I added that that it was only a matter of time before Trump attacked him, calling him a ‘low IQ person’ and the like. Trump’s repeated use of this description that he clearly sees as an insult, and his boasting of passing easy cognitive tests, is a sign of how insecure he is about his own intelligence, since no one who thinks of themselves as having even ordinary intelligence ever talks about it.

But the retaliation came quicker and even harsher than I expected.

Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against Leo on Sunday night, saying he didn’t think the U.S.-born global leader of the Catholic Church is “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person,” while also suggesting the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
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“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote in his post, adding, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
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The president wrote, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.” That was a reference to the Trump administration having ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do,” Trump added, referencing his 2024 election victory.

He then went on to suggest that the entire conclave that elects the pope was engaged in a conspiracy against him.
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Pope Leo seems to have had it with Trump

Although he did not mention any leaders by name, it is pretty clear who was the main intended recipient of his message and that he is fed up with the bogus and self-serving religiosity of Trump and Hegseth.

Pope Leo XIV stepped into the international political arena at evening prayers in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Saturday, saying prayer for peace is “a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”

The first US-born pope said: “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”

Addressing world leaders who decide to go to war, Leo said: “To them we cry out: stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation – not at the table where rearmament is planned and deadly actions are decided.”

“Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! True strength is shown in serving life,” he added.

While the pope did not explicitly mention the US-Israeli war with Iran, or name any single country or president, his words will be read as his strongest condemnation yet of a conflict the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has cast as a sacred struggle. The pope’s remarks came during face-to-face negotiations between US and Iranian delegations in Pakistan to shore up a fragile truce and put a permanent end to hostilities.

Meanwhile, the archbishop of Washington, a close ally of the pope, has condemned what he called an “immoral war” and called on Catholics to take action to stop it.

As citizens and believers in this democracy that we cherish so deeply, we must advocate for peace with our representatives and leaders.

It is not enough to say we have prayed. We must also act. For it is very possible that the negotiations will fail because of recalcitrance on both sides, and the president will move to re-enter this immoral war.

At that critical juncture, as disciples of Jesus Christ called to be peacemakers in the world, we must answer vocally and in unison: ‘No. Not in our name. Not at this moment. Not with our country.’

We can start the countdown to Trump issuing an angry social media post accusing the pope of being low IQ and sufferer of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Mark Twain’s War Prayer should be read by everyone

At a Christian worship service last week, defense secretary Pete Hegseth gave the following prayer.

“Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.”

Pope Leo XV issued what seemed like an apparent rebuke.

During a Palm Sunday mass in St Peter’s Square, the pope said the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US was “atrocious” and that Jesus could not be used to justify war.

“This is our God: Jesus, king of peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” he told tens of thousands of worshippers. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”

Quoting a Bible passage, Leo added: “‘Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood.’”

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Evidence versus logic in changing core beliefs

One of the basic things that are emphasized in the training of scientists is the importance of evidence in arriving at conclusions. And while that is definitely true within the world of science, I am more and more convinced that when it comes to changing people’s minds about core beliefs (even within science), the effectiveness of evidence is overrated. This is because whatever evidence that is presented that one thinks challenges someone’s deep conviction, they can almost always come up with an alternative explanation that takes that evidence into account without changing the belief itself. This is because given a finite set of data, there are an infinite number of theories that can explain that data. All that increasing the data set does is bring into play a new infinite set of explanations that can accommodate the cherished belief. (I discuss this in some detail in my book The Great Paradox of Science and will not repeat that detailed argument here.)

So what does make people change their minds? When it comes to scientific theories, evidence does play a role but only partially. What happens is that there comes a time when people find maintaining their original belief requires too much work and intellectual contortions and they abandon it in favor of a new belief that makes more sense to them. And I believe that logic and reason are the factors that ultimately trigger such a change.
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There is no reasoning with such people

One of the things that really makes me furious is when adults make decisions that endanger the lives of their children. Adults who decide to not take vaccines or other precautions that might save their lives are still behaving irresponsibly because they are posing a risk to others by being possible transmitters and lowering the heard immunity for a disease, but at least they are also risking their own lives for their beliefs, however misguided they may be.

But what is unconscionable is when they risk the health and lives of the children in their care, such as this family.
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A lapsed atheist’s journey back to faith

Christopher Beha has a long essay titled Losing Faith in Atheism wherein he describes his personal journey from Catholicism to atheism and then back again. As one who had a journey from religious belief to non-belief but have never had any reason to go back, I am always curious about what makes others revert and so I read his essay with interest.

The first part describes how he lost his faith and he describes reading the well-known books by the so-called New Atheists that I am sure many readers would be familiar with, such as The End of Faith by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett, and God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. But he says he could not find anywhere in them an answer to the question “How am I to live?”.

To ask “How am I to live?” is to inquire as to not just what is right but what is good. It is to ask not just “What should I do?” but “How should I be?” The most generous interpretation of the New Atheist view on this question is that people ought to have the freedom to decide for themselves. On that, I agreed completely, but that left me right where I’d started, still in need of an answer.

He says that he started reading the modern philosophers, searching for answers. He says that there were two schools of thought that purported to provide answers: scientific materialism and romantic idealism.
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Film review: Bad Shabbos (2025)

In these days of relentlessly depressing news, a good comedy comes as a welcome relief and this is such a film.

It is about an observant Jewish family in New York who host a Sabbath dinner to meet the Midwestern Catholic parents of their son’s fiancée, when something happens that leads to the evening going completely awry.

The humor depends on some extent on the practices of observant Jews on the Sabbath, especially the many restrictions on what you can do, but I thought that it was not offensive. But then, I am not Jewish and hence not the best judge.

Here’s the trailer.

Living in an alternate reality

Joseph Ladapo is the surgeon general for the state of Florida and is a vaccine skeptic who recently announced plans to abolish all mandates that requires parents to vaccinate their children against preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis, comparing such mandates to slavery. He also opposes gender-affirming care and counseling for transgender and nonbinary minors. He is a good example of how an education obtained at elite institutions (he obtained his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest and his MD and PhD from Harvard) does not mean that one cannot hold unscientific views. He has been publicly rebuked by the CDC and FDA for spreading scientific misinformation.

But extreme as his views are, they are nowhere close to those of his wife Brianna who is described as an “intuitive spiritual healer, movement therapist, and teacher”.
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