The Radical Rainbow Abduction of the Catholic Church (Frontpage Magazine, Thom Nickels)

A recent online debate between Eastern Orthodox podcaster Jay Dyer and Catholic apologist Timothy Gordon focused on the roots of papal authority, as in: What did Jesus really mean when He said, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church?” Pundits gave the debate win to Gordon mostly because he put Dyer on the defensive. Other Catholic apologists praised Gordon’s performance, after which they bemoaned the state of Peter’s Church: its wrecked, Protestant-style liturgy; its globalist Francis 2.0 new pope (Leo), and its gradual descent into LGBTQ rainbow land.

Ironically, while none of the apostasy-like aberrations listed above are happening with any real force in the Orthodox Church, no mention was made during the Dyer-Gordon debate of the countless Catholics who have gone over to Orthodoxy because of the corruption of the Catholic Mass versus the ancient unchanging liturgy of the East. Indeed, why would any serious Orthodox Christian trade the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom for the bland Novus Ordo Mass, in which women in yoga pants distribute communion? In an interview with Art Bell before his death in 1999, author Malachi Martin stated that Christ had withdrawn His grace from the Roman Church because of the liturgical and theological abuses that arose from Vatican II.

Since Vatican II’s suppression of many Catholic traditions, apologists like Timothy Gordon spend 99% of their time bemoaning the dismantling of authentic Catholicism. They bemoan altar girls while nearly every Catholic parish in the U.S. utilizes them. They criticize communion-in-hand which has now become the Catholic norm. They decry newer and bolder forms of liturgical abuse, such as when priests and bishops defy Rome and concelebrate with Anglican priestesses. Such an event occurred on August 26 when a retired Mexican bishop concelebrated the Mass with an Anglican priestess at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Bishop Emeritus Raul Vera Lopez presided at the Mass with the Rev. Emilie Teresa Smith. The Anglican priestess wore a simple stole, but she was a full participant, even participating in the words of Consecration. The bishop defended his actions with the following statement: “Not only does she [Rev. Smith] work with the poor, she has a parish, has a theological background, she is a writer, she is ready to participate in a meeting of the United Nations and with God’s people around the defence of our Mother Earth.” This, in a nutshell, describes the Church of Leo XIV. Leo XIV allows bishops like Lopez to do what they want while simultaneously ignoring the pleas of Latin Mass communities all over the world for greater freedom in accessing the traditional Mass. A kind of mafia-like aura has surrounded the papacy since the close of Vatican II. At the top of the “mafia’s” list is the canonization of every pope since 1965. This is their way of legitimatizing and “sanctifying” Vatican II. While Pope John Paul I’s cause for sainthood is already gaining traction, how many months will it be before that most anti-Catholic of all modern popes, Francis, is declared a saint? Not long. Not only that, but after Pope Leo’s death he will also be declared a saint. The canonization process in the Roman Church has become a joke, but it is a joke with a purpose: to render null and void any serious reform of the reform. Paradoxically, many of these same Catholic podcasters — Timothy Gordon and Taylor Marshall, to name two — have switched to one of the Catholic Eastern rites in their personal lives in order to participate in a dignified liturgy while simultaneously defending papal authority, even as that authority reconfigures the mainstream Catholic Church into another variation of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In the meantime, Leo XIV is busy at work canonizing the legacy of his predecessor Francis with the appointment of liberal bishops, especially when it comes to LGBTQ issues. Leo’s recent official Vatican meeting with America magazine editor and Jesuit priest, James Martin, was nothing less than a confirmation of his approval of Martin’s ministry to rewrite the Catholic catechism. Martin came away from that meeting with an ecstatic smile on his face. That smile reminded me of news reports before the election of Prevost that Martin had put his early bets on Prevost as the perfect Francis 2.0 pope. What did Martin know about Prevost at that time? I have my theories. What they used to call the ‘gay sensibility’ in the old gay liberation movement might be a helpful reference here. Let me explain: what unites Catholic male clergy “suffering” from same sex attraction is an unspoken but tight fraternal bond, a kind of psychic radar. It matters little whether the SSA is realized in physical acts or presents as an asexual attraction (held in abeyance because of priestly vows). What matters is this: it is still operative. This “soul” fraternity reminds me of the secret hand signals of freemasons. The brotherhood of SSA is an insoluble bond that sadly often slips into the orbit of liberal-political advocacy for open borders, the ordination of women and praise for more James Martin-style priests and bishops. This was on full display in the Vatican on September 5 during an international meeting called “Listening to the Experiences of LGBTQ Catholics,” organized by Outreach, a U.S. organization founded by James Martin. The event included a prayer vigil inside Rome’s Church of the Gesu with LGBTQ Catholics and their families. The vigil ended with a procession of some 1300 people, led by someone holding a rainbow cross, that marched into Saint Peter’s Basilica. The event — which included men in shorts, many holding hands and even patting one another on the ass — was blessed by Pope Leo. Now, something like a rainbow-colored crucifix in an official Vatican procession would have sent pre-Vatican II popes — even John Paul II and certainly Benedict XVI — into paroxysms of disbelief leading to a heart attack or stroke.

Bob Prevost (Leo), is the Joe Biden of popes. He is a weak, milquetoast blank slate or puppet for the controlling radical forces that now steer the Vatican. He cherishes celebrity and the limelight; he autographs motorcycles and holds babies to thunderous applause while refusing to meet with the new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican (because he loathes Trump’s immigration policies), instead filtering that meeting off to an assistant, breaking a long-standing papal tradition. Before he met with Martin, he met with a heretical nun, Sister Lucia Karam, who publicly denies the perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary, supports abortion and gay marriage while making statements like, “The Church needs to bless any kind of love and not interfere in the desires of those who have abortions.” What kind of Catholic Church is this? Sister Karam even says it is inevitable that gay marriage will be regarded as a sacrament in the Church. Rather than correct Sister Karam — who wears a religious habit, unlike those flamboyant radical nuns on a bus — Prevost as Leo smiled his goofy welcoming smile that suggested acceptance of her heretical views. He let her go without a slap on the wrist, and then he embraced his fraternal soul brother, Jimmy, who has always claimed Prevost as his own.

How Wokeness Killed a Philly Art School (From Frontpage Magazine, Thom Nickels)

When the news hit in late May 2024 that Philadelphia’s esteemed University of the Arts would be closing its doors permanently on June 7, 2024, I wasn’t all that surprised. The University of the Arts (UArts) was created in 1987 after the merger of two century-old institutions, the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA)—established in 1876 as part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art– and the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts (PCPA). UArts has been dying a slow, agonizing death for at least ten years. The first hint of trouble surfaced in 2018, the peak year of the excesses of the #MeToo movement, when UArts photography Professor Harris Fogel—an award-winning international photographer who had been with the school for over 20 years—was accused of an unwanted kiss by a female professor from California when they both attended a Las Vegas photography conference. The California professor was somebody Fogel (pictured above) knew well, so when they met in a hotel lobby at the beginning of the conference, Fogel thought nothing of greeting his west coast friend with a kiss. That kiss—so Fogel later told Philadelphia Magazine— was a standard UArts form of greeting among professors and colleagues. The kiss was accepted by University of the Pacific, Professor Jennifer Little as a nothing burger, yet twenty months later Little wrote a letter to UArts administration claiming that Fogel had greeted her with an unwelcome and forced kiss in the lobby of the hotel. Ironically, the professor’s letter was followed one day later by another allegation against Fogel, this one from a female photography student who claimed that when Fogel went to hand her his business card at a photography conference in Houston, he offered her his hotel room key instead. Fogel later admitted that he was embarrassed about the mix-up—life was easier when hotel keys looked like hotel keys—and that the young Annie Leibovitz wannabe—Anne- Laurie Autin– laughed the mistake off as a joke. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but apparently when nothing happens in Vegas (or Houston) it’s your duty to make something up. When UArts received the California professor’s complaint almost two years after the fact, as well as the additional complaint from the student photographer who now saw the mistaken hotel room key exchange in a sinister light—it was later revalued that Little and Autin were in fact chums—the school initiated a Title IX investigation that determined that the kiss between Fogel and Little was not consensual at all but forced in the manner of a date rape prelude or a noir horror film. As a result of the investigation, on March 8, 2018 Professor Fogel was terminated by Dean Mark Campbell. In August of the same year, the University Board of Trustees upheld the termination. Fogel then sued UArts—Harris Fogel v. University of the Arts, et al—claiming that the university’s investigator failed to interview his exculpatory witnesses and did not investigate leads on possible collusion. Fogel charged that UArts violated his civil rights in terminating him based on “an erroneous outcome theory.” Fogel suspected collusion between Ms. Autin and Professor Little and stated that the “University failed to obtain the emails between the women to investigate his collusion defense.” The UArts Title IX Coordinator, Fogel said, failed to investigate all available evidence, including an unwillingness to objectively evaluate Professor Little’s credibility, and UArts failed to “provide adequate notice of the charges against him, including the date, time, and location of the incidents alleged.” Fogel said the Title IX Coordinator also failed to interview groups of women from the Las Vegas FotoFest conference to whom Professor Little reported the kiss. The coordinator also failed to consider Ms. Autin’s confession to a Houston conference representative that she thought it entirely possible that Fogel’s room key remark was a ‘joke’ and not intentionally malicious.

Fogel filed a lawsuit against UArts in federal court in Philadelphia—and won. According to a friend of mine who worked in UArts administration at the time, Fogel won a lot of money, so much money in fact that my friend asked me then to be very careful about writing about the settlement, which as far as she knew was not made public because it was such an embarrassment to the school. Apparently only those in UArts administration knew about the settlement and the amount. This friend, whom I’ll call RR, lived in my neighborhood so she was somebody I saw her frequently on local buses. As an avid 2016 Trump supporter– and someone who had issues with woke trends consuming colleges and universities–she always had an update about how UArts was changing. She talked about school policies regarding sexual harassment, the forced use of pronouns, racial identity hiring practices, and more. The school was becoming more “Stalinesque” than the University of Pennsylvania, and as a conservative she said she had to keep quiet about her political beliefs because the staff and students were not tolerant of divergent political views. The scandalous new policies at the school became an ongoing joke between us: “What when down this week?” I’d ask her. Nine out of ten times, RR had a depressing story. When UArts announced its closure, it blamed it on financial reasons. One official termed it, “an unexpected budget crunch,” despite the school’s endowment which is worth upwards of $61 million. Did the Fogel case play a part in the school’s closure because of financial reasons? Was it a case of “get woke, go broke”? 2019 was a big year for UArts because another story was making the rounds at that time. This was the attempted firing of noted UArts professor and author Camille Paglia who writes about contemporary culture, art and archaeology and who describes herself as “queer and trans” although she’s enough of a real intellectual and historian to know that transgenderism—when it is adopted and celebrated by a culture en masse—leads to the destruction of that culture or nation. Paglia pointed out this fact in a video that went viral and then promised to expand on her views on gender in a speech set to be delivered at the school, which aroused the ire of some students who began a fierce campaign to fire her. The “fire Camille Paglia” petition garnered over 1,300 signatures, at that time pretty much the population of the entire student body.

“Camille Paglia should be removed from UArts faculty and replaced by a queer person of color,” the petition stated. “If, due to tenure, it is absolutely illegal to remove her, then the University must at least offer alternate sections of the classes she teaches, instead taught by professors who respect transgender students and survivors of sexual assault.” Paglia registered her disapproval of women who waited months to report a sexual assault. She also let it be known that any female student who agrees to go to a man’s dorm room at 2 AM—especially after a night of drinking and heavy partying– pretty much knows what that “invite” is all about. It’s certainly not about playing chess or reading Susan Sontag. Unlike the persecution that Fogel experienced, Paglia had the support of President and CEO David Yager, so student protesters were relegated to catcalling and setting off fire alarms and generally behaving like spoiled liberal brats who believe they have a right to have a say in who the university should hire or fire. But they were not successful in their efforts to either fire Paglia or cancel her talk. The fact that a good portion of the student body ganged up on Paglia suggested to me that the education offered at UArts has been sub-par and riddled with woke bulletholes all along.

This fact does not exactly inspire an excess of sorrow over the school’s closing.

Amy Coney Barrett at the Constitution Center

Seven days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I headed over to the Constitution Center to hear Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a discussion with the Center’s CEO, Jeffrey Rosen. Justice Barrett was there to help celebrate Constitution Day and also to promote her new book, Listen to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution. From the superficial to substantive: I was curious regarding the kind of audience Justice Barrett would attract, since at previous NCC events most of the people I managed to meet were liberal, some of them even far left.

Upon entering the vast outdoor space in front of the building where security had installed a series of checkpoints, I could tell from the dress of the attendees that conservative types had the upper hand. Many men wore suits or sports jackets indicating a career in law. Left-leaning men in Philadelphia generally tend to wear baseball caps and inappropriate attire like jeans or shorts though some like to ape ‘conservative’ dress by donning a bow tie. There seemed to be less women at this NCC event--I attributed this to Justice Barrett’s vote on Roe-- though the women present, like the men, dressed up, a far cry from the shag carpet look of so many lefty Birkenstock ladies with their short hair, dangling earrings and Native American jewelry. (This uniform is a shout out for so-called reproductive rights.) Justice Barrett’s book was for sale in the Center’s bookstore; a long line of buyers snaked into the lobby. After the on-stage Q and A with NCC CEO Jeffrey Rosen there would be a book signing. The Times book review of Listen to the Law was typical of the Times when it comes to conservative issues. At one point, the reviewer—a woman with dark Gen Z bangs one can could easily imagine at a ‘No Kings’ really—wrote not only was the book a work of “studied blandness” but the work caused her to ask the question: “But what happens when one of the people who’s supposed to be playing by the rules insists that he’s king? When the Supreme Court decides he is immune from consequences, effectively saying he can do as he pleases?” Justice Barrett is a ‘Catholic type’ I recognize from the Irish side of my family. Her look has always reminded me of my younger sister Mary, who has five children including a boy with Down syndrome. Justice Barrett with her husband Jesse has 7 children, including one with Down syndrome.

On stage, she touched briefly on the difficulty of raising such a child as Mr. Rosen asked how she manages being the mother of 7 children and working as a Supreme Court Justice. Justice Barrett stressed her love of self-discipline and time management skills by providing one autobiographical tidbit: she gets up at 5 a.m. every morning. She presented as a likeable woman who wanted the audience to like her even more despite her occasional scripted responses formed in such a way so as to minimize controversy. Sitting in the audience about 12 rows from the stage, to me she appeared almost “actress-y,” slimmed and toned and dressed all in all- black with a hairstyle common among Hollywood women of a certain age. She enunciated and projected well, speaking neither too fast nor too slow, and she made interesting occasional eye contact with the audience. At one point I was certain she was looking directly at me. Mr. Rosen never brought up Roe or affirmative action (Justice Barrett voted with the majority to effectively end race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities) as direct questions, but waded slowly and artfully into the waters of controversy by brining up so-called Constitutional originalism, a theory codified and made popular by Chief Justice Scalia, who believed the Constitution should be “interpreted as it would have been understood by those who ratified it at the time.” Justice Barrett said she favors “original public meaning rather than original intent.” As a law clerk for Scalia, Barrett talked about his impeccable work ethnic, his profound intelligence and also his sense of humor, especially when they’d go to lunch together from time to time. Collegiality among her colleagues on the Court was important, she emphasized. Before each session the Justices shake hands and after conferences and verbal arguments they all have lunch together. The “do not dialogue” with the opposition tactic popular among the Left—from the killing of Charlie Kirk to blocking and unfollowing people on social media--- is recognized among the Justices as the death knell of communication and the ability to work together.

Justice Barrett’s appearance at the NCC, coming as it did so soon after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, made Mr. Rosen’s question about the current polarization in the country stand out as the most important question of the evening. But here Amy Coney Barrett skipped town. She kicked the perfect opportunity to dive head first into the issue she brought up by default earlier when she mentioned the collegiately of the justices who-- while they may disagree on the bench-- yet agree to shake hands, have lunch and be civil to one another despite their differences. Kirk, meanwhile, was shot dead because his views posed a threat to the left, but rather than dialogue with him, a leftist furry porn conservative-hater eliminated him. Rather than say something about Charlie Kirk, Justice Barrett that evening—she could have at least mentioned that she mourned his passing-- cited non contemporary examples of polarization (historical) while stating she had faith in the Constitution to sooth the hurt and violence of today’s political polarization. Talk about a Mary Poppins moment. It was a clear cut evasion of the question—Mr. Rosen saved this question until the end of the discussion and framed it delicately-- and it told me that here was a Supreme Court Justice who will never be a truly great Justice like Scalia precisely because the eyes of history demand visionary boldness. And that’s a shame because I really liked the woman in black with the Down syndrome child. But I wanted her to burst forth like Zarathustra. By evening’s end there was a feeling of disappointment in the air. Attendees stood up and made a robotic bee line to the coat check. There was no buzz. The next day a WHYY Facebook post highlighted Justice Barrett’s appearance at the NCC. Left-leaning women offered comments like, “Shame on Philly,” inferring that because Philly is blue and generally Left the NCC should never invite a conservative to speak. At this point I did my best to defend Justice Barrett online. Additionally, some of the WHYY comments segued into comments about Charlie Kirk’s (alleged?) killer, Tyler Robinson. I saw countless examples of the “violent” political polarization Justice Barrett refused to get specific on. These comments were made after all the facts were known about Tyler Robinson: how he grew up in a conservative, Mormon Republican household but went his own way ideologically as people in their early 20s are wont to do regardless of how they were brought up. In Robinson’s case, he got involved with a far left trans boyfriend into pornographic furry culture who held a special contempt for conservatives. This ideology festered in Robinson’s mind until at last he became another version of his boyfriend who was considered so dangerous his own family didn’t even want him in the house. The left, of course, invented another narrative—Tyler was MAGA and killed Kirk because he wasn’t conservative enough, as if that holds any weight. Has anyone ever met a MAGA conservative-hating trans-porno-addicted furry- loving anti-conservative conservative? Finally, there was the deadpan reaction to the assassination of Kirk among some of my Democrat and gay friends, who although they offered a “That’s tragic” when referring to his death, after that they closed down completely and had nothing else to say as if they wanted the topic to go away. But even that was better than what Justice Barrett did on stage when she smiling and being nice to NCC CEO Jeffrey Rosen. Thom Nickels

Culpable Mothers and the Trans Delusion (From Frontpage Magazine, Thom Nickels)

The 1965 Motown hit, First I Look at the Purse by the Contours, can be rewritten to frame the tragedy at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis with the title: First I Look at the Mother. Mary Grace Westman, who looks a lot like her son, Robert Westman, the deranged trans woman who killed 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski and wounded countless other children and three adults, was described by the legacy media as having worked at the school as an administrative assistant until her retirement in 2021. The mother — who has hired a criminal defense attorney and refuses to talk to police — was also described as a “devout Catholic” who opposed abortion and engaged in protests in front of Planned Parenthood. Yet this same mother and “devout Catholic” in 2019 petitioned the court to give Robert the legalized name “Robin.” She then encouraged friends and family to use “Robin’s” preferred pronouns. Here we have the heart of the problem: the gender ideology/pronoun movement has infected every strata of society, even infiltrating churches and changing traditional definitions of “devout.” How do you go from opposing abortion to approving and even celebrating your minor child’s wish to change his biological sex? It was mom, after all, who greased the engines to have her minor son legally identify as a female. She may have had reservations about his trans identity later on, but once the name change became legal, son Robert was well on his way to violent manifesto-land where he began to feel more and more confused and even regretted becoming trans, admitting in his “kill the children” manifesto that he should not have allowed himself to become brainwashed. Even a mentally ill killer could plainly see that he had been brainwashed. And who brainwashed him? The media, CNN, the Biden-Harris administration, the Human Rights Campaign, slogans like “Trans Rights are Human Rights,” and the false glamour attributed to men who think they can become women just by claiming they are. Add to this the fact that so many Democrats have stated publicly they cannot define what a woman is, and you have a culture resembling a southern California landslide. The Left normalizes mental illness and tries to make it look cool. In Minnesota, a so-called trans refuge state, a child can be taken away from a parent if that child — influenced by the “trans is cool” culture — announces to parents that he/she is transgender and wants treatment but the parents refuse. The state of Minnesota can also be blamed for this tragedy. As one social media commenter observed, “What do you expect when you have a lunatic kid raised in a die-hard, Democrat, progressive and liberal state? It was a disaster waiting to happen.”

Let’s also look at the complicit attitudes of clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, for not taking a stronger stand against gender ideology in the pulpit. Milquetoast clergy err on the side of caution, afraid to offend or alienate liberal members of their congregations, so they leave crucial issues like gender ideology untouched in homilies while concentrating on “benign” sins like gossip without ever mentioning serious sins that carry a heavy weight. These priests and ministers don’t mention big sins like bowing before the transgender cult’s catechism, which states children can be born into the wrong body. Clergy don’t mention these big sins because they have been normalized and politicized by Democrats. For a devout Catholic to think that helping to transition your minor child is a show of love and not a sin suggests that Catholicism is failing its believers. It’s also an indicator of how menacing and far-reaching gender ideology infiltration has become. I recently had a short conversation in my parish church with the mother of three sons. When the subject turned to politics, she announced that while she was neither right nor left, she didn’t want the government telling her — or women in general — what to do with their bodies, and she had no trouble with the use of pronouns. I backed up in disbelief. Did I hear what I had just heard? Ironically, just twenty minutes prior to our conversation and in the spot where we were standing, the air was filled with incense and chants to the Virgin Mary. Yet here was a supposedly “devout” woman defending abortion, the use of pronouns, and presumably trans surgeries. How does the smoke of worship become the smoke of feminism? If ordinary church-going women like this can become this confused about matters of faith and morals, what happens to a mentally ill 23-year-old who is told by the liberal media that Donald Trump is Hitler, a threat to democracy, and that the United States is on the threshold of fascism with concentration camps around the corner? In March of this year a number of Catholic clergy jumped on the “equality” bandwagon and released a letter with the Human Rights Campaign condemning violence against transgender people. While the condemnation of violence is always praiseworthy and the Christian thing to do, there was a larger, more obvious message in the script, since it was released and published on the Transgender Day of Visibility, a day set aside for the celebration of all things trans. In other words, the text condemning violence was hidden among the larger text that celebrated transgender identity and the freedom to be trans, whether one is an adult or a minor. Speaking at a press conference following the school attack, Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said those attacking transgender people had “lost their sense of common humanity.” This is the same mayor who scoffed at praying for the murdered and the wounded at Annunciation Catholic because, in his mind, prayers really don’t mean anything. And how could they mean anything, given that the absence of religious theology is primarily responsible for the creation of far-left woke culture. Far-left woke culture has become its own established faith. This is why Mayor Frey, as observed by Bruce Bawer at FrontpageMag.com several years ago, “Abased himself at a memorial service for George Floyd, sobbing hysterically for over a minute, his entire body trembling and heaving, as he knelt by the creep’s casket…” You might call Mr. Frey’s tears far-Left theater, but they definitely were not prayers. Posturing for political gain is a more apt description.

“I have heard about a whole lot of hate that’s being directed at our trans community,” Mr. Frey continued, not even two hours after the tragedy occurred. “Anybody who is using this … as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there, has lost their sense of common humanity.” Maybe it’s not hate the way you understand it, Mr. Frey. Maybe what is being villainized is a sickness that is being masked as something worthy of celebration. Meanwhile on Reddit, some trans activists were celebrating the attack with comments like, “More dead Christians, lol,” and, “The trans community will not die laying down without a fight.”

One trans activist on social media even stated that there shouldn’t have been any children in that school in the first place because “we all know what priests and the Catholic Church do to children.”

Thomas Merton, Thailand, December 10, 1968

Photo from Irish American News re the article 'Was Thomas Merton Murdered? Looking into His Strange Death' by Sabina Clarke. Merton died on December 10, 1968 from an 'accidential electrocution.' (AP)

Pearl S. Buck (Broad + Liberty, Thom Nickels)

In 1988, The Washington Post reported that the Swedish Academy shocked the American literary establishment by awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature to Pearl S. Buck. “The Nobel Committee had not only passed over such obvious candidates as Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson; it had given the world's highest accolade to a former missionary and a woman. As Robert Frost remarked, “If she can get it, anybody can.”

The Post also maintained that she never again wrote anything as good as the biographies of her parents and "The Good Earth." It was also suggested that Buck wrote too much for a "serious" artist, that meaning more than 100 works of fiction and nonfiction. The Post claimed that she “wrote primarily as a secular missionary, using her Nobel status to reach as wide a public as possible.” Buck had to keep writing, The Post stated, so that “she could pay the institutional bills for her retarded child, Carol, for her dozen adopted and foster children, for the often shaky publishing house of her second husband -- and especially for her pioneering charitable enterprises.” The words “mentally retarded” were not used when I revisited the Buck house a couple of years ago. The able tour guide simply said that Carol had the mentality of a four and half year old. (The term ‘mental retardation’ is used less frequently today. For some years it was replaced by the rather cumbersome, ‘developmentally disabled’ although that term is rarely used anymore either. )

Long before the women’s rights crusader, philanthropist, humanitarian and author moved to the 60-acre estate (or Green Hills Farm) in Bucks County she lived at 2019 Delancey Street in Center City. The Delancey Street house, despite its having been occupied by the author of over 70 books and the winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature for “The Good Earth,” is registered with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission as the Richard Cadwalader house. Built in 1860 for Cadwalader in the Federal style, the multiple dwelling row house was later recast in the Beaux Arts style in 1918 by the Philadelphia architectural firm of DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley. DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley (1911-1938), all University of Pennsylvania graduates, were famous for their colonial revival residences and English-influenced style buildings. The 9,000 square foot, 5-floor townhouse was purchased in 1964 as the home of Pearl Buck and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation. While the basement and first floor was renovated for use as Foundation space, the second floor was designed to house the dining room, a formal drawing room and a solarium or Sun Room, where Buck had large numbers of plants.

With the famous Rosenbach Museum and Library just a few doors away at 2010 Delancey Street, it’s no wonder that Pearl Buck saw this area as a special part of Center City. It may have been the beginning of the tumultuous sixties, but in those days Pearl Buck was referred to as “Miss Buck” and it is said that she dressed like a society matron, while in her Bucks County home she was far more informal. The octagonal-shaped dining room was lavishly decorated with a Ming screen with inlaid ivory figures. A long Chinese buffet table was also situated under a smoked glass mirror. Since the dining room also doubled as a place for dancing, the octagonal table could be rolled into a closet and the chandelier could be raised or lowered as needed. “Why did I choose Center City, you ask?” Pearl S. Buck once wrote. “Because there was a street, there was the house, there were the people. There, too, was the tradition of brotherly love…” Buck also wrote that no matter where she lived there were always elements of the Chinese. “Sooner or later into every room in any house I own the Chinese influence creeps.” At 2019 Delancey Street the 3rd floor library contained a baby grand piano, the famous “Good Earth Desk,” an ancient Chinese drum on a pedestal which acted as a coffee table, as well as leather bound editions of her books given her as gifts by her publisher. Much of the furniture was imported from the Buck house in China, namely the rose and tan Peking rugs, the blackwood chairs, and a daybed. The 3rd floor Master Bedroom had a small sitting room and a writing table. One walked through the 1st Floor entryway into a vestibule that exploded with red lacquered doors, stained glass and a large statue of the Chinese goddess of Mercy. Beyond the foyer, near the fireplace with its flanking Mandarin Chinese chairs, was an altar table flanked by two antique candelabra.

During the renovation of the townhouse in 1964-65, the first floor kitchen was moved to the basement and the former kitchen became the Foundation’s conference room. In the center of the conference room was a six foot round table made of walnut and yellow marble. Many of Buck’s Delancey Street townhouse treasures were moved to the Bucks County home when the townhouse was sold. . When Pearl S. Buck submitted ‘The Good Earth’ to one publisher in 1931 she was told that it could not be published because “the American public is not interested in anything on China.” ‘The Good Earth,’ though not the author’s first book, became a critical and popular success despite the conviction of the critic who thought the book would bore American readers. Buck wrote The Good Earth in three months after the birth of Carol, because she wanted to have enough money to support her. In 1932, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth; the Nobel Prize for Literature followed in 1938 for her genuine portrayals of Chinese life. The Nobel Prize announcement shocked writers like Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway because they felt that they were more deserving of the honor. The Good Earth went on to become the second all time best seller of the 20th Century, second to Gone With the Wind. The post-Nobel Buck also had to contend with choruses of critics pointing fingers: “Mrs. Buck is unrepresentative of American letters,” they said. “Her work in no way reflects the literary and ideological ferment of 20th Century.” The high handed insult stung, but Buck seemed to take it in stride. “Like the Chinese,” she said in her Nobel Prize address, “I have been taught to write for these people.” She meant “these people” as opposed to an intellectual elite. She was not, as some might have wished, an early Presbyterian version of the New York writer Susan Sontag. “’The Good Earth,’” said journalist Edgar Snow, “was the first book that made western countries conscious of the Far East.” Born Pearl Sydenstricker Buck in 1892 in West Virginia to Southern Presbyterian missionary parents, at 3 months old she was taken to China where she would spend the next 40 years, barring a sojourn in the United States when she went to a women’s college in Lynchburg, Virginia. She returned to China in 1914 after graduation and met John Lossing Buck. The two were married in 1917, and had a daughter, Carol. In 1925, she returned to the United States to obtain a master’s degree in English at Cornell University.

But it was the situation with Carol that plunged Pearl into a depression, and for a time she consulted specialists and doctors in the hopes that Carol could be helped. Buck wrote in her autobiography, For Spacious Skies, that she achieved a sense of peace when a specialist told her that her daughter’s condition would never change. “Listen to what I tell you! I tell you, Madame, the child can never be normal. Do not deceive yourself. You will wear out your life and beggar your family unless you give up hope and face the truth. She will never be well….She will never be able to speak properly. She will never be more than about four years old, at best. Prepare yourself….I tell you the truth for you own sake” After Pearl found an institution for Carol, she and John began adopting children in 1925. Their 18 year marriage was not a happy one although it was during this period that she began to amass the material she would use in The Good Earth. She had already published her first book, East Wind, West Wind in 1930 and was writing stories in Asia Magazine and Atlantic Monthly. Her marital unhappiness would end after the 1931 publication of The Good Earth when the book’s publisher, William Walsh of Paul Dry Books, and she became close friends. In 1934, she and Walsh would move to the U.S. and marry the following year. With Carol safely institutionalized in New Jersey, she was now free to adopt 6 more children with her new husband. Buck then bought a large old farmhouse in Bucks County and went on to write 70 books, including novels, collections of stories, poetry, and children’s literature. After The Good Earth, she wrote Sons, a tale of sons rising against their fathers as revolutionary winds swept through China. The book was viewed as a critical success; many, in fact, saw it as superior to The Good Earth. Several other novels in The Good Earth trilogy would follow. But after years of working and living in obscurity, Buck found her new found fame difficult to handle. As Peter J. Conn notes in his study on the author, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural Biography (1998): “Pearl had decidedly mixed feelings about her new found fame. She had spent too many years in the shadows to feel comfortable in the light. More to the point, she mistrusted her own talent. Although she pretended to be indifferent to hostile opinion, she was sensitive to condescension that she suffered at the hands of the serious quarterlies and advanced taste makers.” In a 1958 Mike Wallace television interview with the author, Wallace starts the questioning in true 1950s fashion by announcing, “The battle between the sexes is a major social problem.” “Yes,” Pearl Buck answered, “Most women make their home their graves.” Wallace was perplexed, even annoyed at the comment. “It’s difficult to understand how women make their home their graves,” Wallace said, to which Buck replied, “I think because they stop reading books that would enlarge their minds or their family’s minds.” “It’s also difficult to be an American,” Buck added, “We’re committed to loneliness.” “I don’t get it,” Wallace confessed. “Well, you know, the old countries have a tradition of family and church support, so there’s less choices there. Americans don’t have traditional support systems that Europeans have. They live in a country with no boundaries and no patterns.” When her autobiography, For Spacious Skies (1966), written in collaboration with Theodore F. Harris, was published, Buck appeared on the Merv Griffin Show and explained to the talk show host her feelings about Communism in China. Communism, she said, is “a curious impossible, impractical scheme of life; it’s not based on anything that’s sound psychologically….the Chinese are marvelous friends and frightful enemies.”

Pearl Buck died in Vermont in 1973 from lung cancer although she is buried on the grounds of her estate, now the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, an organization that the author founded in 1964. During my visit to the Bucks County estate, I was excited to find Andre Gide’s Journals in the massive Buck home library. I also spotted books by Morris L. West and Sloan Wilson. Thom Nickels

Gregory Tony, From Philly boy to Broward County Florida Sherriff (Broad + Liberty, Thom Nickels)

From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s Philadelphia saw a long succession of sensational murder cases and trials. Gary Heidick’s trial in 1988 ended with his execution by lethal injection in 1999. The Center City jogger murder in 1995 saw the shocking acquittal of suspects Richard Wise and Herbert Haak 3rd in 1997. Numerous other cases—the Lex Street massacre in 2000 and the Frankford slasher mystery (1985-1990)—turned the 1990s into a kind of Philadelphia Babylon. But there was another city murder at that time that seemed to slip beneath the cracks.

On May 3, 1993, 14 year old Gregory Tony, who lived at 2828 N. Hutchinson Street—ironically just 1.0 miles or a 6 minute walk from Gary Heidick’s house at 3520 N. Marshall Street—shot and killed a childhood friend, 18-year old Hector “Chino” Rodriquez with a .32 chrome-plated six shot Rossi revolver. The autopsy revealed that 6 bullet wounds had entered Rodriquez’s body: two in his chest, one in the upper left side of his back, two in the back of the head (execution style) as well as a slight grazing wound near the base of the neck. Tony was arrested on four counts: murder, possessing an instrument of crime, possession of an unlicensed firearm and carrying a firearm on a public street. Dan Christenten, the Florida Bulldog, reported that the arrest affidavits were signed by Philadelphia Homicide Detective Michael J. Gross and approved by then Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Arlene Frisk. Tony claimed he acted in self defense when he shot and killed Rodriquez on that fateful day. Eyewitnesses said a woman on crack happened to walk past them on Hutchinson Street and Rodriquez joked and said to Tony, “There goes your mom.” Other eyewitnesses stated that the person on crack passing in front of them was a man, with Rodriquez saying, “There go your uncles.” It doesn’t take a lifelong Philadelphian to know that among certain indigenous neighborhood types—rough and tough high school dropouts who tend to get in trouble with the police-- seemingly silly but insipid “insults” about somebody’s mom can lead to broken teeth, split skulls and sometimes even death. Two eyewitnesses told police that Tony, who was in the 8th grade at the time, wanted to fight Rodriquez but Rodrequez refused since he was over 5’11” tall and weighed 262 pounds, while Tony was a mere 5’9” and weighed 140. Tony claims that Rodrequez pulled a gun and threatened to shoot him, and in order to save his life he ran into his house and returned with his father’s gun and shot Rodrequez six times. “Hector, my brother and I were all in front of our house when we got into an argument,” Tony said in a statement. “At one point, he pulled his gun threatening us, saying he didn’t have any issues with shooting us there. I remember how scared I was when he chased me and my brother into our house, I ran to grab my father’s gun and fired it before Hector was able to shoot his gun.” The eyewitnesses who saw Tony shoot Rodrequez could not corroborate the latter’s self defense story.

Since juvenile offenses in Pennsylvania are considered acts of delinquency rather than a crime, the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Gregory Tony was by law veiled in absolute secrecy for the next 27 years. Nevertheless, with the release of the eyewitness accounts about how and why Tony shot Rodriguez six times, not to mention the news about the autopsy findings and the recovery of the five of the slugs from Rodriguez’s body, the evidence against Tony seemed airtight. Why Tony was found not guilty of killing Rodriguez remains a mystery. The lack of juvenile court records about the case makes the answer unknowable. The court file was ordered sealed by the judge, and no court records about it are public. Another factor is that the eyewitnesses never got a chance to testify at the trial because the Philly DA’s Office was supposed to contact the family when it came time to testify at Tony’s trial but that never happened. As a result, there were no eyewitnesses at the trial and Tony was not charged. Fast forward to 2025 with Gregory Tony comfortably enshrined as the Sheriff of Broward County, Florida, a position he was appointed to in 2019 by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Reporter Christenten maintains that Tony, a lifelong Democrat, not only misled DeSantis to secure the position but lied on his employment application to the City of Coral Springs Police Department by failing to report unpaid traffic citations, his checkered drug history (LSD) as well as his arrest for the murder of “Chino” in 1993.

Since his appointment by DeSantis, Tony, with his gym-buff body and piercing eyes, became known as “Teflon Tony.” Many of his critics like to say he began to exude an air of black privilege as he posed for photos with his model-looking wife on social media while boasting of his time spent at swingers’ clubs. Photographs appeared of Tony and his wife laughing it up in bed with other singles and couples. Earlier this year, the Florida Bulldog reported how Tony gave each member of his executive staff a posh gold ring with diamonds and emeralds. Tony claims the rings were not paid for with taxpayer money but would not say how he funded them. Back in 2020, the Broward Sheriff's Office Deputies Association Union President Jeff Bell formally wrote a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis, asking that he remove Sheriff Gregory Tony. West Palm CW34 reported that the letter came after a public protest was held calling for the sheriff's firing. "In the past month,” Bell wrote to DeSantis, ”there have been numerous revelations about the character and sworn statements made by Gregory Tony that not only would have prevented him from being appointed sheriff, but would have prevented him from ever being a law enforcement for any agency in the state of Florida.” Bell then went on to say how Sheriff Tony never reported to any law enforcement about his arrest for a homicide when he was 14. He also mentioned how Tony lied on several applications for law enforcement positions, made no mention of his past felony drug use of LSD, unpaid traffic tickets, his criminal record for writing bad checks, and his false claims of rank and certifications that he never held. Bell added that Tony also knowingly provided false information on Florida Department of Law Enforcement applications as recently as January 2020.

Bell concluded that, "Gregory Tony could not successfully submit an application for a law enforcement job in 2004 and still could not qualify to be hired as a police officer by today’s standards.” Tony, however, weathered calls for his resignation but continued to ruffle feathers. According to NBC 6 South Florida and the Sun Sentinel, in 2005, Tony “forgot” to mention the LSD when applying to Coral Springs PD. FDLE later said he lied multiple times on official documents about drug use, citations, and arrest history. Statute of limitations saved him from prosecution. Known for his short temper—he once publicly cursed at deputies when they questioned his leadership at a police officer’s funeral—after Trump’s election he announced he would not cooperate with ICE in its crackdown on illegal immigration, stating that his only concern was crime. In June 2025, Tony announced, “We're not knocking on doors. We're not snatching kids from daycare.” This Philly boy who made it good in south Florida despite his hidden homicide record became part of a breaking news story a couple of weeks ago. In front of television cameras he attacked Deerfield Beach City Manager Rodney Brimlow, accusing him of playing politics and blocking a new contract Tony wanted to sign with the city for police and fire services. Tony wasted no words: “You tell me if I should go absolutely nuclear on this and destroy him [Brimlow] because I have the power of this office to do a lot of damage to individuals, but I have safeguarded and protected my personal temperament. Even when I was on the chopping ax and people attacked me, I kept my professional decorum, and I led this agency the right way.” Brimlow took this as a threat on his life and filed a police report to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement alleging that Tony threatened him and he feared for his life, however the FDLE examined the evidence and concluded that no threat was ever made. Once again, Tony survived what could have ended his career. The former Philly boy has also been courting the radical Muslim community. In May of this year he hosted and posed for photos with several radical Muslim clerics after he led a tour of the Broward County National Security Training Center. Among the men on tour was Imam-Sheik Ibrahim Dremali, a Muslim Brotherhood operative, and Rasheed Mahamad, Director of the Islamic Center of South Florida. Dremali is a cleric who has called for the eradication of Israel’s Jews. In June 2025 he posted photos of bombed out apartment buildings in Israel with the statement: “This destruction is not in Gaza, but this bombing is in Tel Aviv. O Allah, increase the bombing and destruction and take the lives of those in it." Who knows what Tony’s future holds, but with his track record it is unlikely that future will not be without ugly controversy. One thing is certain: He would certainly feel at home in Mayor Parker’s Philadelphia. Immediately after her election Mayor Parker established a special department in City Hall for Islam and then codified Muslim Day as an annual celebration at City Hall. Why do Muslims get a special day in City Hall and not Lutherans or Baptists? Perhaps the answer lies in some form of quid pro quo formed during the mayoral campaign when a group, Muslims for Parker, was formed. Now, as they say, the mayor is giving back. End-Note: The growth of Islam in Philadelphia can be traced to the 1970s, when missionaries from the Nation of Islam filled City Hall courtyard handing out a newspaper called Muhammad Speaks. The newspaper was noted for its black nationalist views and its chronic condemnation of the white man and the white race. Every day black men in meticulously tailored suits, sunglasses and short military haircuts distributed these broadsides of hate. Apathetic liberal white Philadelphians looked the other way, never dreaming that within fifty years you would have news outlets like the Israel Resource Review calling Philadelphia City Hall, “Caliphate Hall.” Thom Nickels