Newly confirmed Supreme Leader of Iran ‘is wounded’; Oil prices skyrocket to over $100 per barrel; Popular blogger: Is Trump headed for an oil-crisis-fueled political death or is there more to the story?; Pope Leo again calls for peace; Trump launches Americas Counter Cartel Coalition; Trump doubles down – won’t sign other bills until the SAVE America Act is passed; US gets new papal nuncio; Mother Miriam on the Epstein files: ‘straight from Satan’; Catholics honor a late Middle Ages saint who encourages us to be faithful through the changing seasons of life; and more —
Iran Confirms New Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei ‘Is Wounded’
Well, that didn’t take long. Mojtaba Khamenei has risen to the appointment of Iran Supreme Leader, as the country’s national television news service confirmed Monday, however it has since emerged the man following his father into the post has been wounded in an unspecified incident at a time and place unknown.
AP reports television news anchors referred to the mid-level Shiite cleric as “janbaz,” or wounded by the enemy, in the “Ramadan war,” which is how media in Iranian regime refers to the current conflict.
It does not elaborate. However, Khamenei’s father and his wife were killed in the February 28 Israeli airstrike in Tehran that began the fight for freedom.
The younger Khamenei has yet to be seen since the conflict began.
He was announced as Iran’s new supreme leader overnight, as Breitbart News reported, an awkward moment as the Islamic Republic has long criticized hereditary rule and cast itself as a more just alternative.
Read more at Breitbart
As Operation Epic Fury rages, the Iranian regime’s longstanding plot to kill Trump was confirmed – by Miranda Devine
The reality of the Iran war was brought home on Friday in a Brooklyn courtroom when a jury convicted Asif Merchant for plotting with the Iranian government to assassinate President Trump and other American politicians.
After a week-long trial that was barely noticed as “Operation Epic Fury” dominated headlines, the Pakistani garment trader, 47, was found guilty of terrorism and murder for hire.
Prosecutors said Merchant was “a trained operative of the Iranian government’s global terrorist force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” who received training in “tradecraft, including countersurveillance” and repeatedly traveled to Iran to meet with his “IRGC handler.”
He was sent to the US in April 2024 to “sow mayhem and murder,” and tried to recruit “Mafia” members to steal documents, stage a protest and arrange the murder of politicians including Trump, then-President Joe Biden, and presidential candidate Nikki Haley. But “law enforcement foiled the plot,” according to the Justice Department.
Read more at the New York Post; read more at Just the News
Oil prices skyrocket
Read more @gatewaypundit
Popular blogger: Is Trump headed for an oil-crisis-fueled political death, caused by his own reckless warmongering in Iran? Or is there more to this story?
Read @jeffchilders98
Pope Leo on Iran at Angelus on Sunday
Watch @VaticanNews
Victor Davis Hanson: Iran Will Not Be a Humiliation Like Iraq
Watch at Victor Davis Hanson and The Daily Signal (IN: 19:26+)
Trump launches Americas Counter Cartel Coalition
Watch @WhiteHouse
They’re cancer’: Trump threatens cartels, Cuba at Latin American summit
At the inaugural “Shield of the Americas” summit in South Florida, United States President Donald Trump announced the creation of what he calls the Americas Counter-Cartel Coalition: a group of a dozen politically aligned countries committed to fighting drug trafficking.
But as he signed a declaration to cement that commitment, Trump signalled that it came with the expectation that cartels would not be confronted with law enforcement action, but instead military might.
“ The only way to defeat these enemies is by unleashing the power of our military. So we have to use our military. You have to use your military,” Trump told the audience of Latin American leaders.
“You have some great police, but they threaten your police. They scare your police. You’re going to use your military.”
Saturday’s summit was the latest step in a larger foreign policy pivot under Trump.
Read more at AlJazeera
Can I speak Spanish?’: Rubio asks Trump, Hegseth jokes ‘I only speak American’ in fun summit moment
Watch at The Economic Times
Trump doubles down – won’t sign other bills until the SAVE America Act is passed
See @ScottPresler
The Epstein Files Are Straight from Satan – Mother Miriam
While news of the Epstein files is not new, Mother Miriam dives into the depravity and degradation contained within them in this highlight. From demonic worship to cannibalism and child kidnappings, these instances are too horrible to be ignored. With the help of Sheryl Collmer’s article titled “The Epstein Cataclysm.” Mother explains why we cannot stand back and do nothing. We must disconnect from the mainstream media, return to strictly Catholic news sources, and be unafraid to confront evil. While we may be controlled by an evil we are blissfully unaware of, there is no reason it should continue.
Watch at Mother Miriam Highlights
The Epstein Cataclysm – essay by Sheryl Collmer
Something big is happening, an earthquake. More than an earthquake, it’s an asteroid slamming to earth. And we might be the dinosaurs, depending on what we do about it.
The Epstein Files: a short name referring to a huge phenomenon, and it’s so much bigger than one player. The disclosures mandated by the Epstein Files Transparency Act expose a fraction of the global network of evil: satanism, child abduction and sacrifice, and even more monstrous acts committed by very powerful people at the heads of nations and industries. It’s everywhere; it’s practically in the air we breathe.
There are still people who have no idea. Let’s go back. Do you remember in a 2020 Town Hall, when NBC moderator Savannah Guthrie (yes, that Savannah Guthrie) needled President Trump to deny the notion that the world was being directed by a pedophilic Luciferian cult which he was meant to defeat? That was part of the “QAnon” phenomenon, which we had all been trained to take as seriously as heffalumps or Cornish pixies.
After the latest Epstein document dump of 3.5 million pages on January 30, everything is back on the table.
Read more at Crisis Magazine
Mary Is Converting Muslims | Fr. Jason Charron
Watch at More Pints With Aquinas and Matt Fradd
Key aide of Pope Francis and Cdl Fernández leaves Vatican
In a notable move, Pope Leo XIV has sent one of Pope Francis’ and Cardinal Fernández’s key aides back to Argentina, raising some speculation about the position of Fernández himself.
Father Daniel Pellizzon, of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, is returning to Argentina to become parish priest of the church of San Cayetano de Belgrano near the center of the city of Buenos Aires itself.
News of the move, though not announced by any official channels of the Holy See, was shared by the parish church in late November. Announcements of Pellizzon’s welcome Mass as the new parish priest were made at the start of February, with the opening Mass being on March 1.
Read more at Per Mariam
Archbishop Caccia named nuncio to the US
Pope Leo XIV named the Italian Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia as the new apostolic nuncio to the U.S. Saturday.
The Pillar reported earlier this year that Caccia, a veteran Vatican diplomat, was the front-runner to succeed the French Cardinal Christophe Pierre, who turned 80 in January.
The Vatican announced March 7 that the pope had accepted Pierre’s resignation for age reasons and named the 68-year-old Caccia as his successor.
The appointment was keenly anticipated because Leo XIV is the first U.S.-born pope. The new nuncio will be expected to help shape relations between the Holy See and the U.S. government, as well as to advise on the appointment of bishops in the country. Caccia has served since 2019 as the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations in New York, a role that has given him a degree of familiarity with the U.S. Church.
Read more at The Pillar
Cardinal Zen Urges Society of St. Pius X to Trust Pope Leo
See @EdwardPentin
Pope meets with Bishops from Nigeria last Friday
Watch @frjamesa
A forgotten hero, martyr to Marxism
From Nicaragua to Nigeria, Belarus to China, the Catholic Church is once again facing repression in many parts of the globe. Among those whose witness speaks directly to that reality is Archbishop Antoni Baraniak (1904–1977), a forgotten dry martyr of Stalinism who refused to betray the primate of Poland despite suffering months of extremely painful and humiliating tortures.
See @cnalive
The Month of March is dedicated to St. Joseph
See @father_rmv
Today is the Feast Day of St. Frances of Rome
See @JP2Shrine; read more at Dynamic Catholic
