Iran Activates
Its "Dead Hand" Doctrine
Iranian supreme authorities have ordered the country's military leadership to fully activate the decentralized "mosaic defense" doctrine amid a growing likelihood of a joint US-Israeli strike against the Islamic Republic.
According to reports, local commanders have received detailed lists of targets, covering US economic and political assets throughout the region, which could become targets in the event of a war.
The "dead hand" or "mosaic defense" doctrine is designed to allow Iran to continue fighting even if its central leadership is defeated.
The IRGC is organized into 31 largely autonomous provincial commands, each of which has its own weaponry, supplies, and decision-making authority, allowing military commanders to make decisions without waiting for approval from Tehran.
theAxisofTruth

Bishop Schneider celebrates in Rome

Leo XIV receiving a warm welcome this morning from Charismatic Catholics mostly from Kerala in southern India.

This is St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Morristown, Tennessee. Can someone explain what’s going on?

Chaos in Rome. Rioters storm the Colosseum, tourists caught in the middle flee in panic. The symbol of Italy under assault. Unbelievable.

JUST IN:
Netanyahu announces that after Gaza he will transfer the war on West Bank
“I and Katz have reviewed a plan for a large-scale military operation that hasn't occurred in the West Bank since 1967, and we are the ones who will determine its timing.
The army will enter the neighborhoods from which the attackers originated, evacuate the residents, inspect every house, and destroy the infrastructure of terrorism. We are prepared for a large-scale operation in the West Bank.”
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Denver’s newly appointed Archbishop Jim Golka was seen praying over Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
Other Catholic bishops visible in the photo included Edward Burns of Dallas, Scott Bullock of Rapid City, and Joseph Naumann of Kansas, a longtime supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement.

Jewish settlers’ attacks on Palestinians are not isolated incidents, and despite condemnations by Israeli officials, the violence continues, fueled by persistent impunity for perpetrators.
The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued a joint statement following the October 17 settler attack on the Christian village of Taybeh.
They insist the attack was not an isolated incident, but part of a wider pattern of settler violence against Palestinian villages across the West Bank, escalating during the olive harvest.
The Church leaders acknowledge that Israeli President Isaac Herzog condemned the violence and that Israeli police made arrests. However, they warn that settler attacks continue because perpetrators enjoy impunity, raising serious concerns about the effectiveness of Israeli law enforcement.
Finally, they condemn a recently published religious ruling permitting Jews to take Palestinians' olives, calling it "very worrying and dangerous, and absolutely unacceptable."
The …

Leo XIV-appointed Missio President doubles down: Women called to priesthood.
Pope Leo XIV appointed Irish Sister Mary Teresa Barron on October 8, as president of the Pontifical Mission Societies (Missio) and adjunct secretary of the Vatican's Dicastery for Evangelization.
On October 19, she told EWTNNews.com: “Who am I to say whether the door is open or closed to women priests?”
“Women today may hear the call to priesthood,” she said. “So for me, itʼs how do we within Church facilitate that discernment?”
Sister Barron wants the Church to accompany women who feel "called to the priesthood", “What do we do as a Church to accompany that discernment to see if, yes, this is what the Spirit is calling the entire Church to or not at this point?” she asked.
Barron cited the October 2024 Synod on Synodality's final document: “What comes from the Holy Spirit cannot be stopped.”
“So I think even though … there have been moments where we’ve been told we canʼt talk about this at all, itʼs over … it …

Saint Bernadette Soubirous about Our Lady of Lourdes ~ She is so beautiful that, once you have seen Her, you want to die to be able to see Her again.

EXCLUSIVE: James Martin has dined regularly with Napa billionaire for years - LifeSite
The Busch family ‘salon dinners’ treat James Martin as a co-host and table companion without public correction or any demand for retraction.
Tue Oct 20, 2026 - 12:19 pm EDTTue Oct 20, 2026 - 1:55 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — I had a strong conviction about a week ago that the center had shifted. That the old normal for Catholics was no longer the norm, or that John Q Catholic was now in a very different place from his co-religionists from where he was even only 20 years ago.
Only a few years ago it would have been unthinkable that one of the best-known, wealthiest, and most intellectual conservative Catholic groups in the U.S. would have Fr. James Martin, SJ, lead a Eucharistic procession through Manhattan. Martin, the best-known promoter of the LGBT heresy in the world; Martin, denounced by cardinals and bishops as a heretic; Martin, who hopes Catholic “married” “husbands” will one day be able to kiss at …

October 19: Cardinal Koovakad, the Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, was given a tour of the sacred spaces, housed in Europe’s first traditional Hindu stone temple, followed by a gathering in the main hall where members of the Neasden Temple community shared information and testimonies of their experiences of interreligious dialogue.

Netanyahu says Israel is not colonialist — 'We are the original owners'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the label of a colonialist enterprise, asserting absolute historical and divine ownership over the territories in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.
The ‘Greater Israel’ is a plan to expand Israel’s borders all the way to the limits vaguely described in ancient Jewish religious texts where God purportedly promised Jews the land stretching from the Nile River to Euphrates.
There is another distinction: traditional colonialism sought to extract resources and subjugate the local population. The project unfolding today is different: it aims at total erasure.
geopolitics_prime

Catholic Charities has taken in millions to build Somali presence in Minnesota - LifeSite
A report on federal funding for Somali resettlement in Minnesota raises concerns about welfare fraud, cultural integration, and the Catholic Church’s priorities in government-funded charity.
Fri Oct 16, 2026 - 5:41 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services has received at least $62 million in federal funds to resettle an estimated 29,000 Somalis in Minnesota since 1993, according to a New York Post investigation.
The agencies collected a reported $2,500 per refugee to cover initial food, housing, and social services. This primary placement infrastructure helped seed the networks that, combined with chain migration and secondary migration drawn by Minnesota’s welfare system, grew the state’s Somali population past 100,000 — the largest concentration in the United States.
But this story begins earlier when, after the Vietnam War, Minnesota built a resettlement apparatus …

Dropping MOAB on Iran would invite all-out retaliation across the Gulf – academic
Iran’s retaliation to the US dropping the "Mother of all bombs" (MOAB) on it would be aimed at any US-linked targets in the region, Prof. Mohammad Marandi, former adviser to the Iranian nuclear negotiations team, said on Judge Napolitano’s podcast.
“It goes beyond just oil and gas infrastructure, it means everything that is somehow linked to the United States, whether it’s data centers or banks or anything that is of any value,” he elaborated.
Marandi also pointed out that the US previously dropped a MOAB on Afghanistan, but it did not help them win the war there.
geopolitics_prime

Jesuit-run Georgetown University celebrates pro-LGBT 'OUTober' - LifeSite
Some of Georgetown's upcoming 'OUTober' celebrations include a Catholic 'Mass of Belonging,' a Jewish 'Pride Shabbat,' and 'Queer Space Pumpkin Decorating.'
Fri Oct 16, 2026 - 12:52 pm EDTFri Oct 16, 2026 - 2:30 pm EDT
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Georgetown University, the nation’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit university, is hosting several pro-LGBT events as part of its celebration of “LGBTQ+ History Month,” or “OUTober,” while trying to claim a Catholic identity.
In an October 1 announcement, the university touted the fact that it was the first “Catholic, Jesuit higher education institution” to create an “LGBTQ Resource Center,” and emphasized that it is proud to celebrate the “LGBTQIA+ community” throughout “OUTober,” which the Church commemorates as the month of the Most Holy Rosary.
Georgetown University did not respond to LifeSite’s request for comment by publication time.
Some of Georgetown’s upcoming …

>> Bishop Schneider: ‘We cannot continue with the Novus Ordo …
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Standing to Receive Communion, Part II:
The Anthropological Question
In my first article on this topic, I made the historical and liturgical case for standing, which is the normative posture for receiving Holy Communion in the United States. Several readers pressed back from various angles. Rather than rehearse those exchanges, I want to explore the deeper question that the first article opened but did not fully develop, and that sits underneath most of the objections I received.
That question is anthropological. It concerns not merely which posture is older or which gesture communicates reverence more immediately, but what the Church believes about the human person who approaches the altar, and what the Eucharist means for that person to receive.
The most serious objection to the first article’s argument runs roughly as follows. To privilege the practice of the first millennium over that of the second is antiquarianism, the error Pius XII warned against in Mediator Dei when he wrote …

China unilaterally chooses a bishop, and Leo XIV retroactively “appoints” him.
The Vatican press service announced today that Father Ignatius Ding Zuyao, 40, was consecrated Bishop of Haimen, in China's Jiangsu province. He is now the youngest bishop worldwide.
Leo XIV reportedly confirmed his appointment on 24 August 2026.
However, Ding was selected unilateral on 14 May 2026 by the Chinese selection process - 102 days before the alleged "appointment" by Leo XIV.
Ding was consecrated by Bishop Joseph Shen Bin of Shanghai. The latter is vice-president of the Chinese governmental ‘Patriotic Association’.
During Ding's consecration, the secretary-general of the Chinese Bishops' Conference read the approval document issued by that body.
During an episcopal consecration in the Church, the papal bull is read - not so today.
Furthermore, AsiaNews.it highlights a pattern in China's episcopal appointments. Ding is the youngest bishop in the world. Four of the five bishops appointed in China in …

"Suffering Hostilities with the Lord"
Today the liturgy celebrates the memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus (Avila). The Gospel reading is from St. Luke 11:47-54:
The Lord said: “Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets whom your fathers killed. Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building. Therefore, the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and Apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute’ in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood! Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter.” When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility …