This is a full-page ad printed in Lafayette, LA’s Advertiser. When you look at this ad (click the picture to see a larger image), what do you think is being sold or promoted? Looks like hate, fear, and misinformation to me.
I’m going to take this apart in pieces, because it is too confusing as a whole.
First, the headline saying this is a “Letter to Louisiana and America” and asking, “Will Obama and the Democrats Shoot Catholics and Christians?” Here are my thoughts:
- My first impression is that this must be coming from the Republican party. I think this for two reasons. First, the president is not referred to by his honorific, which is something that has been consistently done by the Republican party since President Obama was elected and sworn in. I think they keep hoping if they don’t say it, it didn’t happen. Second, the Democrats are lumped into the scary headline. And to top these things off, in the body of the ad, the President’s name and the name of the Democratic party do not have initial capital letters, which shows even more lack of respect.
- My second impression is that this headline is about spreading hate and fear. Hate against the President and the Democratic Party. Fear that the President and the Democratic Party will do violence to people who are religious.
- Third, why are Catholics and Christians listed separately? Catholics are Christians.
Next is a photo of the execution of Father Francisco Vera. This took place in Mexico in 1927 as stated, but the history started sooner. The 1917 Mexican Constitution had reduced the power of the Catholic Church by changing all schools to secular schools, outlawing monastic vows and orders, denying the right to hold real estate to religious institutions, and all real estate held by those institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.) was declared national property. For several years, however, these rules were not rigorously enforced. In June 1926, President Calle signed a law which provided penalties for priests and individuals who violated the terms of the Constitution.
The outcome was horrible. Wearing clerical garb, criticizing the government, or performing religious ceremonies in public all became illegal. One priest was shot just because he was overheard agreeing to perform a wedding. Many priests were expelled from the country. The state of Chihuahua enacted a further law that permitted only one priest to serve the entire population of the state. People were dying without last rites, babies weren’t being baptized, and the weddings were civil, not blessed by a priest. In response, the people rebelled in what became known as the Cristero War (La Cristiada). Mexico’s priest population went from 4500 in 1926 to 334 in 1934. While many of the laws have been relaxed, the outdoor mass the Pope held there a couple of decades ago was still technically illegal.
The next paragraph mentions a movie about the Cristero War called For Greater Glory which appears to have been released yesterday (1 June). It asks for intercession from the martys before God, something I personally don’t believe in, though I know there are faiths that do. I don’t need an intermediary to talk to my Lord and Savior. The last sentence in the paragraph was the rallying cry of the Cristeros, “Viva Cristos Rey!”
Now there’s the puzzling line, “IChThUS Imprimis Christ First”. If the first word is supposed to be the Greek word iota-chi-theta-ypsilon-sigma, that means “fish.” “Imprimis” is Latin for “First” as in “Above All.” So they are mixing two languages to get “First Fish.” OK, I looked up the symbology of the word “ichthys,” which is an acronym for (Iēsous Christos, Theou Yios, Sōtēr), which translates into English as “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”. Augustine is the source for the acronym and he also notes that it has numerological significance since it has 27 letters (3 x 3 x 3) which indicated power. I still have no clue why the author of this broadsheet has mixed it with the Latin, “Imprimis.”
Oh, sweet Lord. It’s a movement. “IChThUS Imprimis” is a movement and may be a radical one at that. Here’s a couple of quotes I’ve picked up from various of their websites:
- The Judeo-Christian value system is the only viable one. “So we are we left with Judeo-Christian values and secular left values. The latter, as noted, hold sway among the world’s elites. But they are personally so unfulfilling and morally so confused that they cannot work…”—Dennis Prager
- Back in the 50’s Ohio had the Blue Laws. Nothing was open on Sunday accept emergency services. One drugstore was open for perscription [sic] medicine, and that rotated amoung [sic] the different stores. Sunday was a day of worship. We really need to get back to that and hang the liberal atheists.
The next bit, after dissing the President, as noted above, is pushing a documentary. I found some good reviews of it at Amazon.com. There are a lot of folks who have “drunk the koolaid,” Read a few of the 5-star reviews and you’ll see what I mean. But the 1-star review titled, “A critical review by a conservative Christian,” seemed to give a great description of the contents, which other reviews did not. Short story is that Communist agents are manipulating the government, teacher colleges, feminist movement, Civil Rights movement, and on and on. The “solution” is to “promote traditional morality and ultraconservative politics, in order to save America.” It’s a good read, even if you just read the first screen and the conclusions.
Next: “We must learn from it or we are doomed to repeat it. We must be triumphant over terror—Psalm 11:3.”
The first part is a paraphrase of the last sentence of a famous quote by George Santayana in his Reason in Common Sense. “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“We must be triumphant over terror,” I can’t find who quoted this. When I try to look it up, all I get is commentary on this ad. Also, it has nothing to do with the Psalm quote, if that was the intention.
Psalm 11:3. To quote the words of Inigo Montoya, ” I do not think it means what you think it means.” Psalm 11 is short. I will quote the entire Psalm from the NRSV.
To the choir leader. A psalm of David.
1 In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to me,
‘Flee like a bird to the mountains;
2 for look, the wicked bend the bow,
they have fitted their arrow to the string,
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart.
3 If the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?’
4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord’s throne is in heaven.
His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind.
5 The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,
and his soul hates the lover of violence.
6 On the wicked he will rain coals of fire and sulphur;
a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
Then there is a patriotic statement, another ad for the movie, contact information for “Save Our American Republic” SOAR Project, and Acadian Patriots.
Down at the very bottom there’s a blurb about Agenda 21 being un-American with a website. The website is for a conference to be held in Louisiana. One of the speakers is the author of the documentary mentioned earlier. From this ad, I would think that Agenda 21 is some kind of U.S. legislation, but it is not.
I went to the conference website, which very kindly had a link to the Agenda 21 website. Agenda 21 is a plan of action adopted by 178 governments at the United Nations held in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992. I haven’t read the entire document, but I read quite a bit of it. It seems to be a plan to help countries develop without negative impact on the environment. It includes provisions for notifying neighboring nations if there has been an environmental disaster that could affect them (think Chernobyl or a chemical spill that could pollute a shared water supply). It talks about richer nations helping to get poorer nations self sufficient. Basically, to me, it seems to be a good neighbor policy with emphasis on keeping the Earth livable.
So, I’m tired of researching. I’ll leave you to make conclusions about the individual pieces, but as a whole, I stand by my opinion that this is hate mongering and fear inducing. I don’t like it. I don’t approve of it. I think they should stop it. But I 100% support their right to print this garbage. I hope they support my right to ignore it.
Thanks to Ms Juanita Jean and the girls at The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc. for bringing this to my attention.