This is my commentary about the seizure of Nicolas Maduro, the Communist dictator of Venezuela, by American military forces carrying out orders given to them by President Donald John Trump on Saturday, January 3, 2026, the Octave of Saint John the Evangelist. 

There is nothing de fide in this commentary as this is a matter upon men of good will can disagree legitimately.

As a Catholic, though, I believe it is essential to try to apply the principles of Catholic teaching to the concrete circumstances world, which is why I have made an attempt to discuss the Venezuelan situation generally before making an effort to apply the principles of the Just War Theory to the ongoing American intervention.

However, the bottom line for Donald John Trump is always the bottom line financially, and the seizure of Nicolas Maduro and his wife is less about drug trafficking than it is about Venezuela's vast reserves of crude oil.

A blessed Feast of the Epiphany to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, pray for us.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was made manifest on Christmas Day to the handful of Jewish people, including the shepherds in the field who were sent to adore Him by the angels who had announced the following:

And there were in the same country shepherds watching, and keeping the night watches over their flock. And behold an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the brightness of God shone round about them; and they feared with a great fear. And the angel said to them: Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: For, this day, is born to you a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. And it came to pass, after the angels departed from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us. And they came with haste; and they found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. And seeing, they understood of the word that had been spoken to them concerning this child.And all that heard, wondered; and at those things that were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God, for all the things they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. (Luke 2: 6-20.)

Today's feast, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord, known colloquially in Ireland as "Little Christmas" and in many other places as Three Kings' Day, celebrates Our Lord's manifestation to the whole world through the Gentiles.

Indeed, the Offertory for today's Mass explains that all kings shall adore Christ King and that all nations shall serve Him:

"The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents: the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring gifts: and all kings of the earth shall adore Him: all nations shall serve Him."

The United States of America is no exception to this. We must pray for the day when the leaders of this country, founded on the falsehoods of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry that are so hateful to Our King, will adore Him as their King and the day when this nation will serve Him as it acknowledges His Social Kingship over it by submitting in all that pertains to the good of souls to the authority of the Catholic Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

We are suffering at the hands of statists today because the men of Modernity who believed that they had no obligation to offer public worship to Christ the King through His true Church set us on a course that can result only in the triumph of the civil state over the King of Kings Who was made manifest to Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar on this day.

We must make Him manifest in our own lives at at all times, never fearing to suffer in behalf of the truths of the Holy Faith or to suffer in the cause of justice when souls are placed into jeopardy needlessly even by some of our own true shepherds.

A new commentary will be published within fifteen minutes of this posting.

A blessed Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, pray for us.

Today, Sunday, January 4, 2026, is the Feast of the Holy Name, which is celebrated on the Sunday between the Feast of the Circumcision and the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and also the Octave of the Holy Innocents Commemorations. This reflection has been revised and expanded.

Finally, I have not been able to complete even a provisional commentary about the removal of the Communist dicatator Nicolas Madura and his wife by the armed forces of the United States of America acting upon the orders given to them by President Donald John Trump. 

Many Venezuelan refugees are quite understandably celebrating Maduro's removal, which has drawn praise from such unlikely personages as United States Representative Debbie "Russian Collusion! Russian Collusion! Russian Collusion!" Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) and French President Emanuel Macron while being decried by the "democratic socialist" Mayor of the City of New York, New York, Zohran "Feel the Warmth of Collectivism" Mamdani. 

There is just a little problem with all this, and that is it is not at all clear that the conditions contained within the Just War Theory were met (they probably were not) and it is very clear that the Constitution of the United States of America does not authorize such action absent a Congressional Declaration of War.

Technicalities?

No, not really, as if the leader of one country can decide to removal the leader of another country unilaterally no matter ther injustices the removed leader may have committted, what is to prevent the leader of some other country to seek the remove man who did the removing in the first place?

Realpolitik may get short-term earthy results, but the long-term results, both temporally and spiritually, are usually very catastrophic. 

It is, though, rather ironic that the man opposed to regime change has now engaged in such regime change and is threatening to do the same to the leaders of Colombia, Communist Cuba, and Iran. 

For our part, of course, we must remember that there is no other name by which we can be saved other than that of the Divine Redeemer Himself, the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Period.

I will have more for you by the Feast of the Epiphany at the latest.

A blessed Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus to you all!

Holy Name of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Although I will write a separate commentary about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts in the past few days to flatter President Donald John Trump into agreeing to additional military strikes upon targets within the Islamic Republic of Iran, this commentary deals with Netanyahu’s pitch before “Christian Zionists” among Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists to stay the course with Israel, whom he, Netanyahu, portrayed as one of the world’s great “defenders” of Christians and Christianity.

There is much familiar material in this commentary to longtime readers with good memories, but repetition is the mother of learning, and I am aware that there might be a few Protestants who may come across this commentary who have never seen the documentation provided herein.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

This is a brief reflection on the supernatural aspects of new calendar year, which begins approximtely four weeks after each new liturgical year.

The next original should be published by this time tomorrow, the Octave Day of the Feast of Saint Stephen the Protmartyr, January 2, 2026.

A blessed New Year of Our Lord 2026 to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

There is a great deal of news these days about the massive fraud involving Somalian “refugees” in Minnesota.

As readers of this website should by now after nearly twenty-two years online after eight years as printed journal beforehand (yes, Christ or Chaos is in its thirtieth year of work as a print and then online journal), I try to focus on root causes, and the proximate root cause of Modernity’s problems is its rejection of the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and of His Social Reign over men and their nation as exercised by His Holy Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Non-tax-deductible financial gifts are always welcome and, to be honest, they are always needed. As noted just below in my introduction to my republished reflection on Pope Saint Sylvester I, there have always been far more readers than donors over the past nearly twenty-years. Any amount helps. Please consider making a gift today. Thank you.

A blessed New Year of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to you all!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sylvester I, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sylvester I did not abide heresy. He did not enable in the slightest. He confronted it as he sought the conversion of all non-Catholics to the true Faith. His firm defense of the Holy Faith as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Vicar on earth must inspire us in our day to seek his intercession for the needs of the Church Militant on earth as she suffers in the catacombs as pretenders to the papal throne make their open accommodations to propositions that have been anathematized time and time again in the past by true popes and/or dogmatic councils.

The Church arose from the catacombs during the pontificate of Pope Saint Sylvester I. May his intercession for us now help to bring about a like arising from the catacombs in our own day as the falsehoods of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are wiped away once and for all.

Although so many Catholics in the world are without the Real Presence of Our Lord to adore, those who are so privileged in this time of apostasy and betrayal would be wise to end this year by spending time before Him in prayer as we pray our Rosaries in thanksgiving for the favors and graces received this year, in reparation for our sins and those of others this year, in petition for our spiritual and temporal needs and, of course, in adoration of the good God Who preserves our existence and Who wants us to show forth our love for Him by our fidelity to His teaching and our sorrow for our sins as members of His true Church.

The next original article will be published within ten minutes of this posting. 

Finally, it is always a good time for us to receive non-tax-deductible financial gifts. This past year, I believe, has been a productive one insofar as the articles that have appeared on this site. However, as has been the case since this site went live online on February 20, 2004, there are far more readers than there are donors. Any amount helps. Please consider making a gift today. Thank you.

A blessed New Year of Our Lord 2026 to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sylvester I, pray for us.

Admitting that the worldwide genocide of the preborn by chemical and surgical means is not going to end until there is a great chastisement and a true pope is restored to the Throne of Saint Peter, we must nevertheless do what we can by means of prayer, work, and genuine Catholic Action to defend the inviolability of innocent human life and to bear a public witness to the truth that Catholicism is the one only means to personal salvation and to a genuine social order founded on the splendor Truth Incarnate, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is the King of both men and nations.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

There was a time when there were real, honest-to-goodness Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury.

Let's see here, that would be from the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury in 597 A.D. to the time of Reginald Cardinal Pole in 1558, a period of nearly a millennium.

The fortieth legitimate Archbishop of Canterbury is the saint whose feast we celebrate today, Saint Thomas a Becket, who was indeed a martyr for the Church's liberties. Saint Thomas a Becket asserted the rights of Christ the King as the Archbishop of Canterbury, insisting that clerics accused of civil crimes be tried in ecclesiastical, not civil, courts. This led him to clash with his onetime friend, King Henry II of the House of Plantagenet. Prefiguring another English king named Henry (this one, number The Eighth, from the House of Tudor), Henry II could not abide his former friend's resistance to his, Henry's attempt to assert royal power over the Church, leading him to uttering the words that would inspire three of his barons to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, on this date in 1170, eight hundred forty-seven years ago now. The latter Henry, the one called "The Eighth," had Saint Thomas a Becket's relics destroyed as his martyrdom was a reminder to one and all that the Church has Divine Rights superior to those of the civil state.

King Henry II had to do public penance for uttering the words that resulted in the martyrdom of Saint Thomas a Becket. His son, King John I, having been slow to learn the lessons of his public penance, was forced by his barons and noblemen in the year 1215 to sign the Magna Carta to guarantee the rights of the Church under civil law in England. This was a victory for the liberties of the Catholic Church that had been won by the blood of this great champion of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Saint Thomas a Becket, whose intercession we seek this day and every day for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King in all nations, including the United States of America. Indeed, the situation we face in the United States of America today is the direct result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry.

Nations founded in the belief that men can pursue the common temporal good without subordinating themselves to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explications who believe that they can be "good" and "virtuous" on their own powers without belief in, access to or cooperation with Sanctifying Grace--are bound to degenerate over the course of time.

Statism is the only end result of the process of decay that must occur when nations reject the simple truth that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. And it is the statists of the present moment, enabled as they are at this time by Robert Francis Prevost/Leo XIV and his band of conciliar revolutionaries, who sacrifice the legitimate national sovereignty and national security of their own nations in order to demonstrate their "solidarity" with "bettering" the world on a "global" basis.

My next original article is progressing, but I cannot continue work on it at this time given the late hour at which I finished yesterday's original commentary. 

A blessed Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket on this Fifth Day within the Octave of Christmas to you all!

Our Lady, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Thomas a Becket, pray for us.