THE brutalist, post-modern Nativity scene erected in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome this year has created quite a stir. The outcry is the only good thing about it. At least, ugliness still causes pain. This is a scene of such grotesqueries that some are calling it an “anti-nativity.”

The most noticeable thing about this freakish display is that the figures don’t look human. They are monsters, robots, and depersonalized, vacant-eyed matryoshka dolls. It’s a fitting tribute then not to the sublime mysteries of Bethlehem, where human nature was elevated, but to the ugly, dehumanizing effects of totalitarianism, 2020-style.

Judge for yourself. Here’s a video of the unveiling of the scene and  photos, as well as a news round-up. Italian art historian Andrea Cionci wrote in an Italian daily (translation here):

“Forget the sweet face of the Madonna, the tender, luminous incarnation of the Child Jesus, the paternal sweetness of St. Joseph and the devout wonder of the shepherds. For the first time in the middle of Bernini’s colonnade, the Vatican has erected a brutally postmodern work dating back to the sixties.” It includes “a Muslim imam, a Jewish rabbi, an astronaut and even an executioner (as a symbol of protest against the death penalty) but only some of them have been exhibited.” (more…)

"O KING, whom our hearts desire, Lord Jesus Christ, come, we beseech thee, cleanse us as a furnace of fire from the dross of our sins, and make us like gold that is pure, and like silver that is without alloy. Inflame our hearts, by thy inspiration, that they seek thee unceasingly: so may our desires long with all ardour after thee,  and pant with all eagerness to be united with thee. Amen." -- The Mozarabic Breviary, Friday of the second week of Advent, Capitula  

"COMMUNISM is both a system of governance designed for micromanaging every aspect of society via massive centralization and police state, and a political scam designed to bamboozle plebs into killing who[m]ever their current elites are and putting the globalist kabbal in power." -- SP Fan Account  

"SUPPOSE that you are worried that you might have a rare disease. You decide to get tested, and suppose that the testing methods for this disease are correct 99 percent of the time. "Suppose this disease is actually quite rare, occurring randomly in the general population in only one of every 10,000 people. If your test results come back POSITIVE, what are your chances that you actually have the disease? LESS THAN 1% chance that you have the disease! "The basic reason we get such a surprising result is because the disease is so rare that the number of false positives greatly outnumbers the people who truly have the disease. "Say mass testing of the contagious virus was done to 1 million people. In that million, 100 will really have the disease, 99 will be correctly diagnosed as having it. 999,900 of the million will not have the disease, but of those about 9,999 will be false positives!" Read more about the mathematical theorem of Thomas Bayes @RobinMonotti.  

  MANY recent protests in Europe have not been covered in the American mainstream news. Here residents of Venice take off their masks and chant, "Libertà! Libertà! Libertà!" This is extremely naughty. They will be much healthier --- without their bacteria-collecting masks --  but that's beside the point.  

A WONDERFUL and unusual version of this carol by the men's choir Chor Leoni of Vancouver with accompaniment on the hammered dulcimer.  

ALAN writes:

This has been the worst year in American life that I have witnessed in my 71 years. I wish I had died rather than see a year like this. I was born among people who had enough sense to value their rights and their liberty. I will die among people who lack that sense and excel instead in taking orders and doing as they are told.

In contrast with what is out there today, here is a brief look back to better years and better people in my hometown of St. Louis. (more…)

  ON SUNDAY,  I attended a "freedom rally" near Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was a great opportunity to meet like-minded people in a city that continues to be under grueling restrictions. Here are speeches by Nico Rocco, of Freedom is Essential; Dr. Andrew Kauffman, and Rick Martin, of the Constitutional Law Group. (I'm in a red hat standing behind Rick Martin as he speaks.) According to Martin, "Either the government will be afraid of the people, or the people will be afraid of the government." The rally began with a reading of the Declaration of Independence and was just a few hundred feet from both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, and most speakers referred to America's famous war for freedom, but it was clear from the low turnout that Philadelphians today do not hold individual liberties in the same regard as the Founders. Throughout the city, all restaurants were closed to indoor business and many schools and office buildings are dark during the week. Most people are living in some degree of fear and a significant percentage have a puritanical, religious fervor for a hyper-sanitary code of behavior. Can you imagine Thomas Jefferson or any of the signers of the Declaration of Independence being confined to their homes because of an illness with an over 99 percent survival rate? Can you imagine them nagging their countrymen to wash their hands or to stand six feet apart? Can you…